No hope for the human race

The Metro Music Awards were held on March 1, and what happened during, and after, the band Big Nuz's performance broke my heart to smithereens. 

One of the band members Sibusiso Khomo, popularly known as R. Mashesha has been in the media spotlight for a while now because of his ill health. On Saturday there was evidence of weight loss on his part, and twitterverse descended on him like a tonne of bricks. Speculation is rife that he is HIV positive and twitter was abuzz! Mean comments were irresponsibly thrown around, comments that will surely break his heart when he gets to read or hear about them. Jokes about his health were cracked left, right and centre, with some people asking: "Are we sure they're splitting the money equally?", insinuating that Khomo's weight loss was caused by starvation owing to getting a raw deal from his fellow band members. Some wrote "010 - that's Big Nuz with R Mashesha in the middle", others called him the toothpick from Big Nuz. When did someone's poor health evolve to entertainment? I can't wrap my head around that. 

No-one has Khomo's medical records to prove he indeed has HIV, and even if he does, does it make it OK to find that hilarious? Where does the indecency to laugh like a pack of hyenas at someone's suffering come from? If he had cancer or some other illness, people would have been compassionate. I would have thought at this point in time we would be educated enough not to stigmatise those with HIV. Billboards about stopping the stigma are peppered everywhere, there are countless drama series covering that too, lots of money has been spent towards that cause. But evidently no-one is listening. 

Some of the people who said mean things are probably people who respected R Mashesha before he got ill , now they've reduced to the butt of every sick HIV joke. Does one lose respect for being ill or having HIV? Such attitude counteracts all the efforts that have been made to ensure people get to know their HIV status. Who wants to get tested and risk having salt rubbed into their wounds should they be found to be HIV positive? 

I'm not even a Big Nuz fan but I'm thinking of anybody else who is in Khomo's shoes and has too endure dirty looks and being kicked while they are down. 

In this day and age of technological advancement, it is unwise to act so thoughtlessly on public platforms. It will come back to haunt you one day because once it's out there, it's out there like an unstoppable inferno. Prospective employers might dig all that up and not want to offer a job to an imbecile that just throws insults around. Once you make such comments, you've made your cyber footprint.

One day the grandchildren of the grandchildren of those insensitive people will be able to read the cruel things their ancestors tweeted about. Instead of remembering them with respect , all they will do is shake their heads in disbelief and disgust and say, "What a moron grandpa/ grandma was!" 

And all I can say now is what a shame, what a crying shame!