Conrad Koch weighs in on DA’s JP Smith ‘joking’ about Abongile Nzelenzele’s name

10 September 2021 - 09:22

By Unathi Nkanjeni

Conrad Koch, the voice of controversial puppet Chester Missing, has weighed in on the DA’s JP Smith “joking” about Abongile Nzelenzele’s name.

This week Smith came under fire on social media after he tried to crack a “joke” about Cape Talk radio host Nzelenzele’s name, saying they were “too many vowels too awkwardly placed” in it.

He said Nzelenzele needed a “short, compact one like me, Smith”.

Smith told TimesLIVE there was no ill intent behind the joke. He said he was aware of the video snippet making the rounds on social media and the “humorous” comments around it.

Weighing in on the matter, Koch said the “joke” was not funny.

He claimed making certain names normal and others abnormal is “a normative for English speakers, it's a product of colonialism and says who is welcomed in a place”.

“You have never met anyone called Karen who goes ‘my name is Karen but you can call me Sinqobile because Sinqobile is easier to say’,” said Koch.

He claimed the root of Smith mocking Nzelenzele’s name was apartheid denial.

“If we took apartheid’s impact on black South Africans seriously, we’d be far less likely to see it as ‘funny’, or even thinkable,” he said

Watch the video below: