Dean Mcpherson: The poster boy for whiteness

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Thursday.

Like about 9 360 000 of my fellow South Africans, I’ve finally had my second shot of Covid-19 vaccine. 

It feels good to know that I’ve done the right thing — improved my own chances of surviving this pandemic — and those of other people, without too much drama. The worst side effect the second time around was some minor muscular pain that was gone by the next morning.

The truth is, the ivermectin I took in the early days of the pandemic — back before vaccines were available and when it was the only option — had a far more dramatic and unpleasant effect on my body than either jab did.

Inoculated, and ready to roll.

Granted, there’s still the need to wear a mask in public; do the hand hygiene thing and keep the rest of humanity at a couple of arms’ length to avoid contracting the virus, but it’s reassuring to know that there’s a better chance of staying alive should it happen.

There’s still the small matter of the anti-vaxx brigade to deal with before I — or the rest of us — can do any real celebrating

I don’t know how we are going to convince those among us who are still resisting vaccination to do the sensible thing and get the jab after almost two years of living under Covid-19.

Perhaps the anti-vaxxers enjoy life like this: dig the lockdowns, masks and curfews; enjoy existing, as opposed to living; want it to continue, forever?

At least the anti-vaxxers’ research division was closed down for a while on Tuesday night with the collapse of FaceBook, WhatsApp and Instagram.

More of the same could help.

Free football tickets for the vaccinated and zero stadium access for outgoing Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng and the rest of the 666 Battalion is another positive move to encourage people to get vaccinated, a step in the right direction.

Hopefully, the churches will follow suit, together with the pubs and the hair salons — prayers, happy hour or a discounted hair-do for the vaccinated, depending on one’s preference.

Perhaps the best way to handle the anti-vaxx brigade is to vaccinate them without their knowledge.

Surreptitiously. 

Stick it in the ivermectin, and that’s half the battle won. Add the vaccine to Savannah — and the holy water — and we’ll be Covid free by Christmas.

Liberated.

There’s a vaccine for Covid-19, but none for stupidity.

Arrogance.

Lack of humanity.

I wish there were.

Dean Macpherson, the Democratic Alliance KwaZulu-Natal provincial chairperson and its latest poster boy for white arrogance, would be at the head of the queue.

Treble shot — with booster.

Was it just stupidity — and a total lack of empathy for the families of more than 300 people who died in the July riots — that drove Macpherson to erect campaign posters proclaiming that “The ANC called you Racists” and “The DA calls you Heroes” in Phoenix, the area where more than 30 of those people were killed?

Was it the usual inability of the DA to read the room when it comes to the aspirations of anybody except white men with money — and Helen Zille — or was it something even more distasteful: a conscious move by the party to use the death of 300 human beings to try to lure back the right-wingers it lost to the Freedom Front Plus in 2019 and in subsequent by-elections?

Heroes.

I interviewed Macpherson on Tuesday about the posters.

It was pretty vile. 

Lots of gaslighting, arrogance, deflection.

Whiteness.

The ANC, wadda wadda wadda.

No pause to listen, to consider that this might just be offensive to people living in an area that was a battleground three months ago; whose family members were killed. No consideration of the effects — even for his own colleagues fighting the election elsewhere in the country — of his actions. 

No empathy.

No humanity.

Heroes.

I wonder which hero actually came up with the posters?  

Was it Macpherson alone who hit send, or was it a collective effort? Was anybody in the DA from Phoenix — or Bhambhayi — consulted, or don’t they — like the families of those who died in Phoenix and elsewhere — matter?

My money is on a team of white men — none of them from anywhere remotely near Phoenix — high-fiving each other around Dean’s computer, congratulating each other on their cleverness, Juluka’s Impi on autoplay, Captain and Cokes flowing, totally oblivious of the magnitude of their own ignorance and stupidity.

Heroes.