Black Cop Calls Black Boss Racist
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Superintendent goes to Equality Court alleging her commander told her to ‘pray God makes you white’.
Ntombenhle Kheswa joined the police 16 years ago because she wanted to serve the poor and fight crime.
But the most stressful part of her job was not dodging bullets, she says—it was surviving a torrent of verbal and psychological abuse from her boss.
Now the single mother has taken Senior Superintendent Phumzo Gela—previously in charge of the Flying Squad in the Western Cape—to the Equality Court for allegedly making her life hell.
The court battle, which begins on Wednesday, is likely to open a can of worms about the emergency 10111 police call centre in Cape Town, manned by about 200 people.
Kheswa and Gela have each drawn up damaging affidavits that paint a picture of heated police management meetings, rampant absenteeism, emergency calls going unanswered—and staff likening the man in charge of operations to Hitler.
Kheswa, former head of the call centre, claims Gela embarrassed and degraded her during management meetings.
Denying her claims, he said she was incompetent.
Matters reached boiling point last year when the stand-off was reported to the office of the National Police Commissioner—and Kheswa threatened to kill Gela.
“Senior Superintendent Gela accused me of not doing enough to address absenteeism of staff at the call centre during a morning management meeting, but I was dealing with it effectively,” her affidavit said.
“Then he said: ‘Why is it that when a white officer was commanding radio control, clericals did not book off sick but now they do?
“‘You black officers are not doing any job at this unit. Only white officers are doing a good job. You must go to church and pray that God makes you white.’
“I felt devastated, embarrassed and degraded by my commander’s statement. I became hysterical and walked out of the meeting,” said Kheswa.
They had fallen out after she recommended that two call-centre staff be fired.
She said that Gela had refused to do so at a management meeting, saying: “It does not mean if you are an officer and have pips (rank) on your shoulders you can axe people in this unit.”
She asked Gela to stay after the meeting to discuss the issue. But he refused, allegedly saying a junior could not invite him, a senior, to a meeting.
Kheswa requested counselling and eventually Provincial Police Commissioner Mzwandile Petros was called in to resolve the conflict. Petros, Kheswa claims, told Gela to stop making racist statements.
A few months later, she said, Gela again insulted her and a colleague.
She said Gela had said “we were dead” and if he was promoted he would never recommend them to replace him. He would rather get a clerk, a nurse or a teacher to run the unit.
“I was devastated by my commander’s statement since I was working very hard,” her affidavit read.
She also said that Gela had instructed police officers not to give her a lift in state vehicles even if she was on official duty.
“He kept on asking me why I was not driving the vehicle (allocated to her) and I told him that I was not ready to drive because I was still traumatised. I had nearly knocked down a pedestrian in Durban. He told me that he would demote me and send me back to Durban because I had failed to disclose it to the promotion panel.”
She was booked off sick last year, admitted to hospital for 21 days and treated for major depression. She said she was taking the matter to the Equality Court because other avenues had failed.
Gela has categorically denied Kheswa’s allegations.
In his affidavit, he said the claims of Kheswa—who likened him to Hitler in a formal complaint—were “spurious, raised solely to mask her inability to cope with her job”.
He said he had asked Kheswa to explain the “unacceptably high rate of unanswered calls (at the emergency call centre)”. She had been unable to explain it adequately, he said.
He said he had tried to help her by allowing her to use a police car at weekends, for four months, to drive on quiet roads and regain her confidence. But her driving did not improve. That was when he pulled the plug on allowing police officers to drive her around, he said.
He denied making racist remarks. He said he had told Kheswa to consult a previous head of the call centre, a white woman, to find out how she had curbed absenteeism.
He insisted he had not said white officers were doing a better job than black officers or that anyone should pray that “God makes them white”.
“I must add that I am a black South African and would not make any racist (remark) in the context stated by Kheswa.”
Kheswa is being represented by the Women’s Legal Centre .
She said: “I want him to be punished for what he did to me.
“He must not be promoted again. He is racist and has no respect for anyone except himself. He has no management skills.”
(Posted on April 29, 2008)
Comments
“‘You black officers are not doing any job at this unit. Only white officers are doing a good job. You must go to church and pray that God makes you white.’
Black comics frequently joke, to appreciative black audiences, about what would happen if only black people were in charge: for example, that you would never get your pizza delivered. Another expression I hear black people use is “colored folks’ time,” meaning they get to it when they get to it, if they get to it at all.
What Superintendent Gela said to this lady with tender feelings is on a par with remarks black people make about themselves all the time. She’s right that black people are often as “racist” about themselves as white people, very often more so.
Posted by Zorba_the_Geek at 7:37 PM on April 29
“Then he said: ‘Why is it that when a white officer was commanding radio control, clericals did not book off sick but now they do?
“‘You black officers are not doing any job at this unit. Only white officers are doing a good job. You must go to church and pray that God makes you white.’
“I felt devastated, embarrassed and degraded by my commander’s statement. I became hysterical and walked out of the meeting,” said Kheswa.(FROM ARTICLE ABOVE)
Whitey is so racist that he has black men doing his dirty work for him now. First White men had sex with black female slaves, now we are “embarrasing” black women. When will the White man apologize for this and for slavery?
Posted by Howard in Las Vegas at 7:53 PM on April 29
In africa….first comes the name calling …then comes the slaughter…get ready.
Posted by lydia at 7:58 PM on April 29
Phumzo Gela sounds like a guy who expects people to work. Kheswa sounds like a woman who likes to make excuses. My money’s on Kheswa that she will win.
Posted by jewamongyou at 10:53 PM on April 29
Look at the Sean Bell trial that just ended in New York City.
Two black defendants and one latino.
Blacks still called it a racist killing.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 10:57 PM on April 29
In a country, south Africa, which is following the same route as Zimbabwe, and where the Chief of Police for the whole country is facing charges of corruption and defeating the ends of justice, there is something rotten from the top down.
As soon as visitors, including diplomatic staff representing foreign countries or returning wealthy citizens touch down at the international airports, they are targets. Customs are stopping the completion while still flying in of the customs declaration forms as it is reported that these are being used to scan passengers who are carrying the best valuables and cash. These are then followed from the airports to hotels and homes where they are robbed by armed gangs.
Fiendishly clever these new South Africans. The new official police report statistics now confirm that an average of 87 people a day are unlawfully killed (murdered, etc) in South Africa, and I have seen the statement that more black people have suffered such fates due to crime since 1989 when Mandela was released than in all the days of Apartheid. 87 a day is much higher than many countries, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and SA is not supposed to be at war! And if it is a government approved statistic, it is still probably low.
Posted by Brian Deller at 11:37 PM on April 29
I took a motorcycle tour of South Africa last November. As we were filling out the customs forms I asked the stewardess what they meant by “currency” - only cash or does it include travelers checks?
I have to give her credit - she was black and pulled me aside later to say “Put what ever you want on it but know that once you cross that desk people on the other side of the counter know what you have”. She was indicating that I should declare as little as possible and I should play dumb on the travelers checks (as I indicated it can be viewed as currency or not) if stopped by customs.
By the way, one of our stops was a German style hotel. The owner and his wife were murdered a few days before we got there. It was supposedly too late to change plans but the tour operator didn’t tell us. We got there for the wake and figured it out later.
Posted by Mark in LA at 12:17 AM on April 30
“Then he said: ‘Why is it that when a white officer was commanding radio control, clericals did not book off sick but now they do?
The answer is contained within the question itself. It’s a five-letter word starting with W.
Reminds me of an old joke that I almost never get the opportunity to tell:
Q: Why do they make aspirins white?
A: So they’ll WORK.
Posted by A Paler Shade of White at 10:47 AM on April 30
“Denying her claims, he said she was incompetent.”
This is the one charge that could be proven against any of them and it would stick, if those in judgement were not black.
“Matters reached boiling point last year when the stand-off was reported to the office of the National Police Commissioner—and Kheswa threatened to kill Gela.”
Oh, is that all? You mean issuing the normal threats typical of black run departments should be cause for concern? Are machetes standard issue? If so, they might want to hang on to hers until she finishes her appointments with her shrink. You know, the one she goes to because she became hysterical and flipped out because the big Kahuna said whites do a better job.
““I was devastated by my commander’s statement since I was working very hard,” her affidavit read.”
Yes, she was devastated to receive any criticism of her incompetence, since her arrogance has elevated her to a godlike status in her own mind. Here in the US such black female egomaniacs refer to themselves as Queen Latifa and the like.
And the males take on monikers like, “The Duke of Earl.”
Posted by Ranger at 4:29 PM on April 30
A Paler Shade of White wrote:
Q: Why do they make aspirins white?
A: So they’ll WORK.
Never heard that one before, but I love it!
I have a similar saying, based on my immense enjoyment of Mad magazine as a teenager. The magazine’s gap-toothed mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, has a personal motto: “What — me worry?” If Neuman were black, his motto would be “What — me work?”
Posted by Strider at 9:27 PM on April 30
sbuffalonative-
Look at the Sean Bell trial that just ended in New York City.
Two black defendants and one latino.
You know, I’d completely forgotten that. I remember hearing it right around the time the shootings happened, but in all of the coverage since the verdict came down all you’ve heard from the media, including talk radio, has been how the NYPD gunned down an unarmed black man, and Al Sharpton’s making a fuss.
That the dead guy was black is always stressed, but not a word about the race of the shooters. Just let the public assume it was the work of white racist cops. And it worked, too. Even I pictured white cops in my mind. I was on their side (and still am), but I assumed they were white.
Posted by BW Sam at 1:31 PM on May 1