Black South African presenter beaten by white assailants after they called him ‘monkey’

A Black South African television and radio presenter was physically assaulted by a group of white people who called him “monkey” after stopping to help them after their car had overturned.

Samora Mangesi tweeted on Wednesday about the alleged assault which happened last Friday in Johannesburg and explained how he and his two female friends were called “monkeys” and he was beaten unconscious after they asked why they were being insulted.

“On Friday night I was the victim of a racially motivated attack. After stopping to check on a group of young white people whose car had overturned, they called my friends & I Monkeys. When we engaged them on why we were being called such, they beat me up until I was unconscious,” the SABC presenter said in a series of tweets that showed his bruised and swollen face while at the hospital.

“I had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Even whilst I was being put in the ambulance, one of these guys tried to run my friend over with his bakkie and the paramedics had to intervene.

“I sustained injuries on my face, cuts inside my mouth and bruising along the left side of my body from when they kicked me on the ground after one of them had hit me on the back of the head. According to EMS I was out for about 5 min and only regained consciousness in the ambi [sic],” he tweeted.

He said it took him a couple of days to report the incident to the police as it is not the first time it has happened to a black man around the area.

“I am okay now. Most of the swelling has gone down and seemingly apart from a scar on my chin, a cut on the inside of my cheeck [sic], swelling on my lips and a graze on my left temple, I’m alright,” he added.

His attack has sparked a conversation on racial violence in South Africa where the shadows of apartheid still lingers on.

Last week, there was jubilation after a court on Wednesday sentenced two white farm workers to 18 and 23 years in prison for pushing a teenage boy out of a moving van after accusing him of stealing sunflowers.

The two were found to have killed Matlhomola Mosweu on April 20, 2017, after claiming they caught him taking a plant from their employer’s farm in Coligny, a remote northwestern farming community.

Earlier this year, school authorities at Laerskool Schweizer-Reneke in South Africa faced severe backlash after a photo circulated of black students seated separately from their white classmates in a group picture that was taken by their teacher on their first day of school.

The picture went viral on social media and solicited a lot of condemnation from people accusing the school authorities of racism.