‘Kill All White People’ T-shirt from Clifton beach protest turns out to be misunderstood

In the wake of many on Facebook freaking out about a screenshot from the Clifton beach protest on Friday night, it turns out that the “offending” shirt was actually poking fun at the traditional “kill all white people” message.

According to a Twitter user who contacted The Citizen, the full message on the T-shirt apparently reads, according to his photo: “Kill All White People Supremacy”.

Since the word ‘people’ has been struck through and replaced with ‘supremacy’, it would therefore be more consistent with the reasons its wearer said he was at the beach: to oppose racism.

https://twitter.com/yagurastation/status/1079417512842969089?s=12

On Saturday, many on social media were in a flat spin when a screenshot from TV news emerged suggesting the T-shirt was calling for the killing of all white people.

After the SABC interviewed a protester on Clifton’s Fourth Beach on Friday night, screenshots emerged of him and the phrase emblazoned on his T-shirt ostensibly calling for the killings.

On Facebook, critics claimed he had undermined the cause of the protesters, who were expressing anger that a private security company illegally ordered a group of largely black people to leave the beach after 8pm last Sunday, which was perceived by many as the protection of so-called white privilege and a return to apartheid-era laws.