Good news is not newsworthy
It seems as if the print media is mainly interested in reporting sensational news stories Since 1994, there have been many stories about racism, especially at former Model C-schools.
Former Afrikaans schools like Vryburg High have received much media attention that only the ignorant are unaware of their recent history involving incidents of racism. I don’t have a problem with the media’s extensive coverage of these stories, because we need to know of those schools that are still not prepared to integrate into modern South Africa and accept that there will never be racial equality in this country. The days of Hertzog, Smuts, Malan and Verwoerd are over.
Nevertheless, our media often turns a blind eye to the fact that there schools, not just one but a few, where integration has happened swiftly.
I am a public relations assistant at the National School of the Arts in Johannesburg, which is a former all-white school. I haven’t been working at the school for that long but I could see in my first month that this was a school, very different from Vryburg.
Learners accept there are racial, ethnic and cultural differences. According to the deputy principal, there have been no reports of racism since she has been at the school.
I can’t say for sure that every learner at the NSA has accepted our new-born democracy, but I have witnessed their interaction with one another and it fills me with hope that this will eventually occur at all former Model C schools.
I urge the media to write about schools such as ours in order to put pressure on those schools that resist change.
– MN Mkhize, Madadeni
– The Teacher/M&G Media, Johannesburg, August 2001.