By Jane Flanagan in Cape Town | Daily Mail |
A South African estate agent who railed against black beach-goers as ‘monkeys’ on social media is in hiding and under threat of prosecution after her remarks caused national outrage.
Penny Sparrow was today trending on Twitter after posting offensive remarks on her Facebook page in which she claimed allowing black South Africans to public beaches ‘is inviting huge dirt and troubles and discomfort’ to others.
Mrs Sparrow felt prompted to make her insulting observations after seeing pictures of her local Durban beaches packed with people and strewn with litter over the New Year.
The mother of two told her online friends she was ‘amongst the revellers and all I saw were black on black skins what a shame’, adding that although she knew ‘some wonderful and thoughtful black people’, ‘this lot of monkeys just don’t want to even try.’
The opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, announced it had laid a criminal charge against Mrs Sparrow, who is reportedly a party member.
After she realised that her post – which attracted only 15 ‘likes’ – had caused grave offence and reached a far wider audience, Mrs Sparrow posted an apology to those who had taken her remarks ‘personally’.
‘I did not mean it to be a personal insult to anyone,’ she added, before insisting that she was ‘not racial’ and regularly carried out acts of charity ‘for underprivileged people of all races’.
However, the apology, along with an appearance on Metro FM made matters worse still. She told DJ Phat Joe that she could not believe he was black because he ‘speaks so well’ and claimed her remarks would ‘blow over’ by the end of the week.
Although Mrs Sparrow identified Jawitz Properties – one of the country’s leading estate agents – as her employer on her Facebook profile, the boss of the company denied she was still on the payroll.
Herschel Jawitz said Mrs Sparrow had worked for the company until November at a franchised branch and he was now considering taking ‘criminal or civil action’ against the former agent.
Mr Jawitz dismissed her remarks as ‘an outrage’, ‘a shocking incident’ and demanded she remove all links to his brand, ‘a proudly South African company.’
The country’s beaches experience their busiest days of the year over Christmas and New Year’s public holidays.
For most of the year, the well-maintained sands remain largely the preserve of white South Africans for a variety of reasons relating to transport costs and their distance from areas occupied by non-whites.
A string of tweets from mostly black South Africans have since included pictures of packed and rubbish-strewn British beaches.
The incident has laid bare the deep racial divisions that persist in South Africa more than two decades after the end of apartheid.
After her two botched attempts at an apology, Mrs Sparrow deleted her inflammatory remarks and opted for a lower profile, but only after her mobile phone number had been posted online and plans were underway by anti-racist campaigners to gather outside her house.
The furore prompted other racist comments to be similarly shared and their authors named and shamed online.
The country’s beaches experience their busiest days of the year over Christmas and New Year’s public holidays.
For most of the year, the well-maintained sands remain largely the preserve of white South Africans for a variety of reasons relating to transport costs and their distance from areas occupied by non-whites.
A string of tweets from mostly black South Africans have since included pictures of packed and rubbish-strewn British beaches.
The incident has laid bare the deep racial divisions that persist in South Africa more than two decades after the end of apartheid.
After her two botched attempts at an apology, Mrs Sparrow deleted her inflammatory remarks and opted for a lower profile, but only after her mobile phone number had been posted online and plans were underway by anti-racist campaigners to gather outside her house.
The furore prompted other racist comments to be similarly shared and their authors named and shamed online. Daily Mail (UK)
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