Racist slur in a private chat is still hate speech, court says
South Africa's appeal court has ruled that using the k-word is unlawful whoever hears it. A businessman must apologise and pay R500,000.
Bloemfontein — Using South Africa's most notorious racial slur is hate speech even in a private conversation between two white people, the Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled, Daily Maverick reports.
In a unanimous judgment on 7 October, the court dismissed an appeal by a businessman, Willem Hendrik Ackerman, against a finding by the Equality Court.
The case
Ackerman was a client of an investment firm, Caleo Capital, from 2008 to 2022. The court found that over nearly four years he used the slur in conversations with one of its partners, Garth Wellman, and in a WhatsApp message.
In that message, sent after a robbery at his home in 2019, he wrote that he would kill every Black person who crossed his path, using the slur. The court said the statement expressed "homicidal contempt" that went well beyond the robbers.
Wellman and the firm's owner, Emmanuel Amaning, complained to the Equality Court in 2023.
The defence that failed
Ackerman argued that the exchanges were private and protected by his rights to privacy and free expression, and that words said to a white man could not be hate speech against Black people.
Judge Nambitha Dambuza rejected each point. "The hateful, racially discriminatory and derogatory character attaches to the k-word and the target group regardless of who is present in the room," the court said.
Who hears the word, it held, "has no bearing" on whether it is hate speech. It also found that the conversations with a business adviser were outside Ackerman's intimate personal sphere.
The penalty
The Equality Court's orders now take effect. Ackerman must apologise publicly to Amaning and Wellman, pay R500,000 to the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, complete 50 hours of racial sensitisation training and pay legal costs.
This report is based on reporting by Daily Maverick.
