Durban - A non-profit organisation that advocates for the diabetes community has distanced itself from comments made by a Benoni woman who blamed her outburst against black people on her low sugar levels.
Sweet Life Diabetes Community’s Bridget McNulty said, on behalf of people living with diabetes in South Africa, they wholeheartedly opposed the racist rant.
Last week, Belinda Magor reportedly sent a voice note in a WhatsApp group calling for black women’s uteruses to be removed.
In the clip, Magor says: “Estella/Stella, I agree with you wholeheartedly. What I say is ban the black man. They rape, they steal, they kill, worse than any pit bull could, and they get away with it. Ban those that are making the laws, ban Ekurhuleni, ban the black man.
“Get all the black women and cut out their uteruses and their ovaries that they cannot procreate because they will all turn out the same because they all the same. I’m very passionate about this. Ban them, kill them, shoot them. Get rid of them because they are the problem. Not pit bulls, not animals. Animals are beautiful, and they, er, deserve, er, warm bed, er, food, love and attention and everything else. God created those animals. Who created the black man, do you think God? I don’t think so,” she said.
Speaking to TimesLive, Magor blamed her response on her diabetes.
“When your sugar is out of whack, which happens quite often, you don’t think clearly. You can’t focus. There’s like a cloud over your mind. Unfortunately, I don’t get that quite often. I’m on insulin. If my sugar is out of whack, that is why I don’t do an office job, I cannot do it,” she went on to say.
McNulty said it is partly true that a person’s thinking is affected when their sugar levels are high to low.
“Sometimes you say things in a less eloquent way or muddle a word or two. But blood sugar fluctuations do not in any way make you a racist. You are still entirely aware of what you’re saying,” she said.
“What high or low blood sugar may do is remove some of your social filter, making it more likely for you to say what you actually feel. This is perhaps what happened in Ms Magor’s case. Maybe if her blood sugar had been stable, she would have kept these appalling thoughts where they belong: buried deep and never spoken aloud. Preferably never even thought,” McNulty added.
She explained that Magor’s explanation was not an excuse.
“Blood sugar fluctuations are common for those with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes on insulin, as they are trying to perform the action of a pancreas, which is complex and difficult. But these fluctuations are simply part of life with diabetes, not an excuse for any kind of poor behaviour,” she said.
She added that people with diabetes are able to do office work or fly a plane or parent a child and operate heavy machinery.
“There are millions of South Africans with diabetes who manage to go through life every day as fully functioning members of society, without saying disgusting, racist things. Diabetes did not make her do it,” she said.
Magor has since been arrested and charged with crimen injuria. She is due back in court next year.
IOL