National Arts and Culture Awards nominees announced as Minister McKenzie faces backlash over social media posts

The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC) has announced nominees for the National Arts and Culture Awards (NACA) as DSAC minster Gayton McKenzie gets roasted for his previous social media posts.

Now in their second year, the NACA are a celebration of South Africa’s creative trailblazers. They were previously known as the Creative Sector Awards, which were launched by McKenzie’s predecessor, Zizi Kodwa.

The awards, in 19 categories, recognise visual arts, literature, film and dance.

Some of the nominees include fashion designer Mzukisi Mbane, who is nominated in the Outstanding Fashion/Textile Designer category, and film director Norman Maake for his film Inkabi.

The awards ceremony will be held at Sun City later in August and will be televised on SABC 1.

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Gayton’s previous outbursts

Following Open Chats podcast’s distasteful comments about coloured people, McKenzie reprimanded the hosts and threatened to take legal action.

However, his description of Open Chats podcast hosts as racist has led to throngs of South Africans on social media calling out the minister for allegedly being racist himself.

ActionSA has lodged a complaint with the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) against McKenzie, accusing him of racism.

“ActionSA has reported Minister Gayton McKenzie to the South African Human Rights Commission for racist remarks in which he repeatedly used hateful slurs from the apartheid era, along with other offensive references that served to degrade and dehumanise black South Africans,” said the party’s spokesperson, Matthew George.

“Racism and the dehumanising of any person, regardless of their race, has no place in South Africa.”

McKenzie’s own party, the Patriotic Alliance, has denied that their leader is racist.

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K-word troubles

However, McKenzie’s social media posts from about a decade ago made the rounds on social media throughout the weekend-with many calling for him to be axed as minister.

Broadcaster Sizwe Dhlomo went as far as calling the minister a ‘piece of sh*t’ who shouldn’t be in the office of the DSAC.

 Poet and social activist Ntsiki Mazwai also joined calls for McKenzie to be removed from office.

During all the hype on social media, podcaster Dan Corder found himself in a bit of a spot of bother when his comments on the situation left some uncomfortable.

Corder joked that he wrote a poem ridiculing McKenzie for his unbridled spewing of the k-word on his social media. However, many social media users saw this as his desire to actually say the racist term.

Explaining himself on social media, Corder wrote, “K is for ‘posting the K word’ is what I’m referencing. That’s the only way this format makes sense: ‘McKenzie caught posting the k word’”

“‘McKenzie caught k word’ doesn’t make any sense,” he wrote on Twitter.

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