“Resign Please, Gayton”: Gayton McKenzie Faces the Music For Past Racist Tweets
Minister of Sports, Arts & Culture and Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie has attempted to extinguish the fires of his past social media activity after historical tweets were dug up by the public, exposing his digital footprint mucked with racial slurs aimed at Black South Africans and other questionable things. From rants which included the forbidden K-word to tweets in which McKenzie others Black people, the Minister has spoken out to defend his stance, albeit to very mixed-cum-negative public reception.
The Minister’s debacle ensued after Open Chat Podcast show hosts made inflammatory remarks concerning Coloured people, which Gayton not felt offended by but went as far as threatening to take legal actions against the podcasters. What started out as seeming righteous indignation quickly turned into a fix for McKenzie who was hoisted by his petard, as scores of people on the socials began backtracking to uncover a trail of racist posts made by the Minister dating back as far as 2011.
In response, after a relatively lull weekend, Gayton addressed the circulating controversial screenshots by lumping Black people and Coloureds together, citing that both groups “fought for the same struggle”. He also added that he was born by a black woman and that the mother of his children was also Black.
In his thread, he owned up to the tweets that have been circulating, calling them “insensitive, stupid and hurtful, and said that he was being a “troll and stupid.” With that, he also surrendered himself to the processes of undergoing investigation.
The public, however, have been largely unsatisfied with Gayton and the latest discoveries, with many calling for his head to roll and for him to be sacked as Minister.
Operation Dudula released a media statement on their X account, captioned: “We demand an immediate removal of Gayton McKenzie as a Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture Gayton McKenzie.
EFF member Naledi Chirwa called out McKenzie and accused him of hypocrisy in his handling of the matter, comparing procedures between him and that of Kenny Kunene. She said, “You’re definitely racist because when it was Kenny Kunene, you had him resign first and investigated after. You were extremely happy when those Open Chats kids lost a tv gig for racism against coloreds. But now the principle must change because it’s YOU? Resign please, Gayton.”
@Zinhlenyan said, “These tweets of Gayton McKenzie and Kenny Kunene are disgusting because they were grown men with very ripe minds even thought it was years ago. Nothing can convince me they’ve changed one bit, they’re just doing a great job of hiding those parts of themselves.”
Amid mounting calls for McKenzie to resign, no such announcement has been made and the President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa has not yet commented on the issue.
This is a developing story.