Multichoice closes doors to ‘racist’ customer
The #RacismStopsWithMe campaign is a call to all Independent Media's stakeholders " readers, commercial partners, advertisers, investors, staff, and society in general " to work together to confront the reality of racism in our society once and for all. The #RacismStopsWithMe campaign is a call to all Independent Media's stakeholders " readers, commercial partners, advertisers, investors, staff, and society in general " to work together to confront the reality of racism in our society once and for all.
MULTICHOICE has banned a customer from entering any of its shops in the country after she referred to black staff in the Goodwood branch as “monkeys”.
Mark Rayner, chief operating officer for MultiChoice South Africa, confirmed the customer made “racist remarks” at a store in the N1 City Walk-in Centre in Goodwood on Thursday last week and now may not interact “in any way” with the company.
The young woman who took the brunt of the remarks and who asked not to be named, lodged a complaint yesterday with the SA Human Rights Commission.
The staff member, who has worked as a customer services agent for the group, which owns DStv, for the past 18 months, said the trouble started when she was approached by a white woman, in her forties. She described her as “already irritated or annoyed”.
The woman allegedly said: “What’s going on, you guys are taking forever? Is there perhaps a white person I can speak to?”
The woman’s phone then rang, at which point she allegedly told the person calling her:
“Yes, it’s all blacks here, they are all monkeys hanging on a tree.”
The staff member said the woman repeated the word “monkeys” several times in what was clearly a case of racism towards her and her colleagues.
In an incident earlier this year, KwaZulu-Natal estate agent Penny Sparrow found herself at the centre of a race row that gripped the country after a racist Facebook post likening black people to monkeys.
In an apparent reaction to litter left behind on beaches in that province after New Year’s Day celebrations, Sparrow referred to black beachgoers as “monkeys”, sparking a mass reaction across social media and in political quarters.
After the Goodwood incident, Multichoice’s Rayner said the company “strongly condemns any form of racism and takes incidents of this nature very seriously”.
Once they were made aware of the incident, “senior management immediately stepped in, gave the employee counselling and time off, and initiated an extensive investigation”.
The staff member, employed via an employment agency, confirmed she was offered counselling but said she had declined it. She said she also understood the woman’s DStv service would be suspended as a result of the incident.
Rayner said, however, the woman in question was not an account holder, but was in the shop as a representative of the account holder.
“We communicated the incident to the account holder and expressed our deep concern. He immediately and unreservedly apologised and will address this with the person who represented him.”
While MultiChoice had in the past disconnected the services of racist customers, the account holder was not directly involved in this case.