‘Why I exposed judge’s toxic utterances’

Gillian Schutte‚ the woman who exposed Judge Mabel Jansen’s alleged racist utterances‚ said she made her comments public “to expose the thinking of a person who is directly in charge of passing judgment on people whom she perceives as monsters and victims – dehumanised”.

Jansen has come under fire for saying that rape is part of black men’s culture. She made the comments in a private conversation with Schutte‚ a filmmaker‚ who then made the comments public.

In her Facebook page‚ Schutte explained why she decided to expose Jansen and what steps she had taken when the judge made the utterances.

She said she reported the matter to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).

“…I lobbied around it a few times and repeatedly shared it with various legal experts‚ including advocates‚ as well as on public platforms‚” Schutte said.

Her reason for for exposing Jansen are:

- “To ask how a HIGH COURT JUDGE gets away with espousing these views in public. (This is an inboxed version of what she actually said in public on a FB discussion which I copied and pasted as a record)”;

- “To ponder how deeply the rot of this ‘surface racism’ impacts on the institutional and systemic war against blackness in a post liberation South Africa”;

- “To illustrate how these colonial tropes are still employed by the white master narrative — and easily drawn upon to undermine black movements and individuals who pose a threat to the status quo…to the detriment of women who are victims of rape. (Think Ron Irwin’s proclamation that RMF students raped one of their own)”;

- “To expose the thinking of a person who is directly in charge of passing judgement on people whom she perceives as monsters and victims – dehumanised”; and

- “To ask how Qwabe’s utterances could possibly have created more public outrage than these toxic‚ destructive and frankly‚ illegal utterances?”

JSC spokesman advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza said they will be making an announcement on what steps they will take against Jansen