Mzansi Celebs

‘I’ve had rifles pointed at me, seven months pregnant wondering how threatening I looked’ – Tumi Morake

As police brutality continues to hog international headlines this week, comedian Tumi Morake has reflected on having rifles pointed at her when she was seven months pregnant.

There have been widespread protests in America against racism and police brutality towards black people. This has led to many South Africans sharing their tragic stories of suffering at the hands of law enforcement officials.

Tumi added her voice to the debate around the violence and reflected on having rifles pointed at her when she was in Cape Town with her hubby Mpho Osei Tutu.

Tumi opened about her ordeal after songstress Simphiwe Dana shared her views on Twitter about the psychological effects on a person who’s experienced police brutality.

The comedian also revealed how even after having rifles pointed at her, she and her hubby never got an apology. However, she felt grateful that her experience with the police didn’t result in them being hurt.

Tumi Morake

“Yup. I’ve had rifles pointed at me, seven months pregnant wondering how threatening I looked. Hubby in his shorts and golf shirt in Cape Town. I see these reports and wonder if I should be grateful we weren’t hurt or pissed off we didn’t escalate the matter. No apology.”

Tumi also opened up about how the killing of George Floyd in America had triggered flashbacks to her own racist experience.

In 2017, the then radio host was labelled a racist and allegedly received death threats after she weighed in on a radio show discussion about Steve Hofmeyr by comparing apartheid to a bully taking a child’s bicycle, and then the child being made to share the bicycle.

Taking to Twitter, Tumi wrote expressed the trauma that she has to relive when racial injustice makes headlines.

“The truth is I am triggered. I know what it’s like to speak up and go through a relentless lynching by the Right and its minions. Race things erupt and I have heart palpitations, type and delete because it was traumatic. But my voice stubbornly clings to my throat

“At first I think it is trying to stay down then I realise it is trying to claw its way out. The figurative ’I can’t breath’, coincidentally also the title of a poem I wrote after the bicycle saga.”

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