Lerato Sengadi on peaceful protest often getting black people nowhere

In the wake of American George Floyd's death at the hands of police, publicist Lerato Sengadi believes that standing in solidarity, irrespective of race, will help us overcome hard-hitting issues as a country and the world at large.

As people all over the world share their outrage at the killing of George, with many mobilising protests in their respective countries, Lerato warned about protests being somewhat “exhausting and often fruitless exercises”.

With a picture that was taken in the apartheid era, Lerato shared how often nothing emerges from “peaceful” protests, as things tend to go “back to normal” after the pressing issue becomes old.  

The publicist highlighted that people return to normal until the next act of brutality is exposed.

Taking to Instagram, Lerato captioned the picture and wrote, “This is SA. Our home. Home of my ancestors. Pic: Apartheid era to current ... ain’t sh*t changed.

“And we still protest peacefully till this day but where has it gotten us? Things cool off, people return to normal until the next act of brutality [that’s caught on tape] occurs. Then we do it all over again. It’s an exhausting and often fruitless exercise. 'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results,' as said by Einstein.” 

While many South Africans have expressed their views about police brutality in the US on social media, Lerato advised that the same fighting spirit should be used for issues faced in SA as well.  

“So what are we really gonna do? We stand in solidarity with our American kin, their pain and anger is very familiar to us but what are we doing for ourselves and the sh*t we are facing here as black women, as black creatives, as black corporate SA, as black suppliers, etc?

“As black people, sizo yenzani? I don’t have the answers but the magic is in the collective [irrespective of race].