Miss South Africa sparks racial debate with “Glove Drama”

Miss South Africa Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters came under fire on Wednesday when she posted pictures on her Instagram account of herself wearing latex gloves while at a soup drive for underprivileged children.

Nel-Peters was volunteering at a children’s home in Soweto where she is shown wearing medical gloves while handing out soup and bread and while socializing with some of the children who were there to receive food.

Things got out of hand when the beauty queen’s followers started questioning why she was wearing gloves, with one user writing: “Watsup with the gloves actually?”

Responding to the comments, Demi posted a video explaining why she was wearing gloves.

“I just want to clear something up. All the volunteers on site wore gloves today because we honestly thought that it’s the right thing to do while working with food, and while handing out food to young kids. That was our only intention with wearing the gloves, was purely to be as hygienic as possible,” she said in the clip.

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She added that her intentions were completely misunderstood. “To me the moral of the story today was that 300 kids got a proper, warm lunch, and they got that with or without gloves. I’m a bit saddened that my intentions were taken up completely wrong and I really apologize if I offended anybody it definitely was not my intention. I’m sorry about that I really hope that you can see my heart.”

A press release addressing the issue was made public on Thursday. Saying that they would like to put things “into context”, Sun International wrote: “All volunteers, including Demi-Leigh, wore disposable sanitary gloves while working with the food and handing it out.”

Read: Racism remains South Africa’s enduring problem

“While Demi was handing out food she was asked to pose for photos so still had the gloves on. She did not wear disposable gloves throughout the entire visit. She was also involved in handing out blankets to Carol Dyantyi, program director at Ikageng (the community center in Soweto where Demi spent the day handing out soup) added: “It was such a successful day and I am sorry that the focus is now on the gloves rather than the positive impact it had. The story behind one of the pictures is fantastic. An eight-year-old deaf girl wanted to teach Demi-Leigh how to say ‘thank you’ in sign language while Demi was still involved in food preparation. Demi was only too happy to pose for a picture. For us who were there, it was such a moving moment.” those who attended,” the statement says.

The picture sparked a nationwide debate about whether the gloves were for hygiene purposes or if wearing gloves was “racially motivated which in turn started a trend dubbed the #MissSAChallenge. The challenge has people posting pictures of them taking drastic hygienic measures using the hashtag #MissSAChallenge.

Unfortunately after igniting the trend with her “glove drama”, and much to everyone’s surprise Miss SA added to the onslaught after she joined the #MissSAChallenge, in a move many viewed as “cheeky” and “cocky”.

After a barrage of criticism Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters says she is saddened by the negative reaction on social media of photos where she is posing with black children while wearing gloves. Nel-Peters says it is uncalled for that an innocent situation has been turned into a racial issue. “All the volunteers were asked, we were about 10 to 12 volunteers, and we were all asked to please wear gloves while serving and preparing the food. I put on the gloves as asked. Anybody who has been to an outreach like that will know they come and ask for a photo. The one little girl is too small to carry and her soup and bread so I walked with her and you put the soup down for her. You break her little bread for her and kind of feed her, then there’s another one who wants to take a picture. This one wants to give you a hug, there’s no time to take gloves off, put them back on. That’s also not hygienic. Where would I have put those gloves down?”

Read: South Africa: Helen Zille suspended over colonialism tweets

Controversial Reign

When she was newly crowned as Miss South Africa, the relevance of the pageant was widely discussed with some saying the competition is overall a waste of time. South Africans took to social media during the live broadcast of the event with differing opinions where those who criticized the pageant also questioned whether the winner was representative of the country.

Miss South Africa History and Racial Issues

Whether the pageant queen’s actions were racially based or not her intentions in a country with South Africa’s history are of little consequence. The appearance of racism is just as bad as the presence of it. In a role such as hers where she represents the entire country and is a type of cultural ambassador one cannot afford to be blasé about racial allegations. Being that her reign is already tainted by the pageants lack of more “ethnic” representation over the years, she was bound to face issues of race in some form.

Examining the pageants past is a good way to understand the sensitivities involved. The crowning of the pageants first black queen Jacqui Mofokeng crowned in 1993 found the country largely unprepared. ‘Rigged’ readers cried. ‘Window-dressing’ ‘Blackwashing’. A Johannesburg radio station received wall-to-wall calls for the first 48 hours after Jacqui’s crowning. ‘She’s got a big bum’ ‘She’s got ugly teeth’ ‘She had a baby at 15’ And a blunt: ‘I don’t like black people.’

Jacqui that year said in a suite reserved for her all year round at Johannesburg’s Carlton Hotel “Being Miss South Africa does not only mean being a beauty queen – I hate the term. It means being a representative – I don’t like the word ambassador – of your people.” She added: “I know that it’s (the competition) mainly followed by white people, so I understand what happened. The reason for the outcry was that I was black and many didn’t believe I could carry out the job so well, being a black girl. Plus you have a lot of ignorance about black people.”

White South Africans who in the past generally held view that blacks are genetically inferior have modified this view, if not entirely eradicated it, since Jacqui burst on the scene.

In fact many say that in a country where the main political battles are being fought inside people’s minds – ‘shedding albatrosses’ building on the unique attention that Miss South Africa receives in a country hungry for showbiz celebrities, has played a central role in the all-important task of bridging the apartheid chasm.

This is the main reason it is important for reigning queens to be mindful of racial issues both in its appearance or actual presence so as not to be retrogressive to the progress that’s been made to close the racial divide.