Cape Town - The ANC Western Cape has slammed Helen Zille for speaking out about a race row at a Clifton restaurant, and wants the premier recalled.
Zille has been called out on Twitter for posing a question about racial profiling at The Bungalow restaurant on Wednesday.
Scott Maqethuka cried racism this week, after receiving his bill which identified him and a friend as “2 Blacks”.
The bill also had the table number, waiter’s name, number of patrons, date and time on it.
Zille tweeted: “Why is it ok to racially classify people for jobs, but not to identify people at a table by their race?”
The tweet, posted at around 8am, was subsequently deleted, but trended with more than 2000 responses to which Zille responded: “Let us not trivialise the fight against racism by assuming that it is everywhere in every situation.”
The Bungalow management denied racism at the establishment, while the waiter in question, Zimbabwean Mike Dzange, has been suspended.
Zille tweeted: “So do the social justice warriors feel good when a black working class person loses a job to satisfy middle class outrage? #JustAsking.”
ANC Western Cape spokesman Yonela Diko said Zille should be recalled as premier “before she does more damage”.
“Her response [to racism] has been twofold. First she has always tried to deny that black people experience racism in the Western Cape and when that seems too desperate, she has then tried to explain that a particular incident is, in fact, not racist,” says Diko.
“Helen Zille is a chief racist who does not value what this country is about.
“With a string of grave misjudgements, from the Sinovuyo Mafevuka – Franziska Blöchliger saga, to calling for funding to be stopped for black children who were protesting, it would serve the DA well to recall her before she does irreparable damage to an already racialised party.”
The DA did not respond to queries.