By Zweli Martin Dlamini

While writing for one of the newspapers in South Africa I once clashed with my white editor.

The editor forced me to drop an investigative story about a powerful white man in South Africa despite the availability of overwhelming documentary evidence linking the individual to serious allegations of fraud and corruption.

The ‘white’ editor told me to pursue another story that involves Mswati, a member of the royal family, or any politician or businessman in eSwatini.

I was so angry that I felt sick and had to take a day off from work.

Subsequently, the evidence linking the white alleged corrupt man disappeared in the newsroom, and I was forced to urgently produce another story.

Perhaps,let me state that I refused and subsequently asked for a meeting with the editor to express my disappointment in the matter in which my documents substantiating the story about the white man disappeared.

Now, when I saw United States (US) comedians mocking Mswati,I remembered what I went through while writing for one of the most reputable media organizations in South Africa: racism still exists and it might take years to be completely eradicated.

Even though the US comedians were black,the manner in which they were mocking the King suggests that they were suffering from a racist hangover.

I am one of those people who always analyze things objectively and cannot be blinded by the atrocities committed by Mswati and end up laughing, even when the mocking is indirectly pointing at me as a black African citizen.

Immediately after hearing the comedian referring to the King as "a black man”, I thought maybe they would say something similar and mock even the white British royals, but that didn’t happen.

Personally, as a journalist who once experienced ‘racism’, within the newsroom,I am quick to identify sentiments with racist tendencies or ‘hangovers'.

I am a known critic of Mswati, but I am very sensitive and will always condemn sentiments that undermine the dignity of black people; it doesn’t matter whether those sentiments are directed to the King or ordinary citizens.

In conclusion,my former white editor in South Africa respects me even today, we communicate because I told him the truth after forcing me to drop a story about a white man and ordering me to pursue that story idea about King Mswati,members of the royal family, or any politician in eSwatini.

I told him that, as a journalist,I don’t want to be controlled or told who to expose. I can write a positive story about Mswati if I feel it’s in the public interest.

Well, I told the editor that I would never expose his name because he apologized, but at least I learned a lesson that some members of the white community still hate us as black people, and this must be condemned.