I organised the meeting between Jessica dos Santos and Tshidi Thamane to help reconcile them and South Africa. The easy thing would have been simply to condemn their statements and move on, like everyone else was doing. But to overcome racism, we must do more than condemn, we must bring people together.

These two young women were raised after apartheid so I thought their racist statements were especially concerning.

Like Dos Santos and Thamane, we all need to talk more and learn from each other to be truly reconciled. Talking is only the first step. To achieve lasting reconciliation, we need redress through the empowerment of the poor black majority.

But how can we solve complex issues like the empowerment of the poor if we are not able to amicably resolve a spat in a store?

Talking might not solve all the problems, but it gets the ball rolling. We need more conversations like the one between Dos Santos and Thamane, no matter what the cynics think.