Wednesday, February 07, 2007

The Times, They Are A Changing.

'Racist driver forced us off the bus'
Karyn Maughan
February 07 2007 at 07:49AM

Eight pupils from two prestigious Johannesburg schools claim they were dumped on a busy main road and forced to walk 1km to school because they are white.

The pupils, from Parktown Girls and Parktown Boys high schools, claim they were forced off the bus in the middle of Westcliff Drive by an irate driver, who - after ordering the black pupils to stay on the bus - told the white pupils they "would never ride on this bus again".

"He said to us: 'The black people are ruling this country and I am going to show you how it's done'," Grade 11 pupil Chesney Rose told The Star on Tuesday. "Then he made us get off the bus. I was scared, so I didn't argue with him."

Describing the altercation, Rose said the driver had picked her up from her stop in Mondeor, southern Johannesburg, more than an hour late. He appeared not to know the route that he was supposed to drive and did not respond well when some of the pupils - who were late for their Tuesday tests - attempted to give him directions.

"He called us 'pieces of sh**' and 'white trash' and said ugly things about my mother," Rose said.

When a group of pupils told him that he was going the wrong way, Rose's friend and fellow passenger Jessica Lahoud said he "started ranting like a madman".

"He made us get out of the bus in the middle of a main road … it was scary," she said, adding that five Parktown Girls pupils and three from Parktown Boys then walked to their schools together.

They arrived at school just before 10am.

According to Parktown Girls deputy headmaster Greg Bauer, the driver ordered a black pupil, who had tried to get off with her fellow pupils, to "stay put".

"I understand that she (the black pupil) was quite upset about the whole thing," Bauer said, adding that he had personally requested that Metrobus send another driver to transport the pupils to school Tuesday morning.

Metrobus spokesperson Charles Hlebela on Tuesday told The Star that the company was aware of the alleged incident and was in the process of tracking down the driver concerned.

"We will be taking the necessary corrective action to ensure that this kind of thing never happens again," he said.

1 Comments:

Blogger Alexandra said...

this is so funny snug.

7:46 AM  

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