Durban/Cape Town - A crowd-funding web page opened to raise money to pay Penny Sparrow’s fine had, as of Monday morning, raised $125 (about R1 900).
Sparrow, who caused a racial storm when she compared black people to monkeys on a Facebook post, was ordered to pay R150 000 to the Oliver and Adelaide Tambo Foundation at an Equality Court hearing in Scottburgh on Friday.
The Daily News’ sister paper, The Independent on Saturday( TIOS), reported that Sparrow was not in court because of ill health. Instead, her daughter, Charmaine Cowrie, stood before magistrate Irfaan Khallil, seeking a postponement.
Cowrie also told the court her mother did not have legal representation because no one would represent her.
The complaint was lodged by the ANC, which called for a R200 000 fine for the racist comments.
Khallil found Sparrow guilty of hate speech, and ordered she pay R150 000 to the foundation within 60 days. However, the foundation’s chief executive, Mavuso Msimang, told TIOS they did not want her “racist money”.
“We won’t really accept any money from a racist, if she still is one. The top prize would be if she had confessed and if everyone was really satisfied she had shown contrition. But I don’t think she is actually sorry for her racism and really undertaking to stop being a racist,” he said.
Two pages have been opened on YouCaring, a “compassionate crowd-funding” website.
The “Help Penny Sparrow” page by a Helgard Muller had been shared on social media 130 times. It raised two donations, totalling $125, toward its $10 000 (R152 300) goal to pay the retired estate agent and pensioner’s fine.
The donations were made in the early hours of this morning, by a Francois Joubert ($25) and Len Hanson ($100).
Muller, who appears to be US based, posted on his Facebook account on Saturday, a picture of the old South African flag with the caption: “I love my heritage”.
The “Lets HELP Penny Sparrow pay her fine!” page started by a Nathalie Moolman aims to raise $9 200 (R140 100) and had yet to receive any donations, but had garnered 23 social media shares – which could each raise $37 (R563). It also does not have any supporters registered on the page.
Moolman said she started the initative to help Sparrow escape prison for the comments she made.
“Truth be told, a fair amount of South Africans are racists, but they just keep it to themselves, they don’t post it on social media platforms, like Penny did.
“South Africa only got democracy in 1994, it has been a mere 22 years. So the scars caused by apartheid to blacks and whites are fairly fresh. America got its democracy more than 50 years ago, but racism there is still a rife.”
She said what Sparrow did could never be justified, but said the court issuing her with a fine was teaching the public to never “write such things on social media platforms”.
“You never put up race, sex and religious comments on these platforms. Those topics can offend people, can also create hate among the human race,” Moolman said
Comments on both pages, labelled the fundraising initiative as “disgusting”, “despicable” and “racist”.
In response to these, AmandlaAwethu.mobi – a social justice campaign website – has received 38 of 100 signatures for a petition to get crowdfunding organisations to ban pages dedicated to raising funds for Sparrow.
“We, the undersigned, ask that you close down any crowd-funding campaigns started by fellow racists in an attempt to raise money for her. By allowing such a campaign, you will effectively be endorsing racism,” reads the petition.
Campaigner, Nqaba Mpofu, yesterday told the Daily News they had started this because they did not want Sparrow – as well as others – to get away with racism. He believed a fine with no criminal record was already a slap on the wrist.