When Will It All Stop?

Rugby star Siya Kolisi and wife Rachel have been the target of a vicious frenzy of race hate by online bullies.

- Lara Atson

FOR a while they were un­ aware of the storm raging online about their relation­ ship. Things got especially unpleasant when one Face­ book user, supposedly from the Free State, posted a photo of them on their wed­ding day alongside the comment, “I pray this does not happen in my family. Hon­est to God, I would not know what to do.”

And all this because Stormers rugby player Siya Kolisi is black and his wife, Rachel, is white.

The Free Stater’s posts unleashed a frenzy of hate. This relationship was just “f***ing wrong”, one user commented. Others shared emoticons of vomiting faces.

When users stepped in to voice their support for the Kolisis the Facebook profile suddenly disappeared.

But the couple, who married in a fairy­ tale wedding recently (YOU, 25 August 2016) knew all about the venom by then – and it’s not the first time they’ve been at the receiving end of online racism.

Some of the unpleasant messages have even been aimed at their two­year­ old son, Nicholas, who has been called a half­ caste by cyber bullies.

But it’s Rachel (26) who gets most of the abuse. Recently a woman sent her a private message on Facebook telling her that her cousin had been raped by eight black men. “Do you know what your hus­band and his friends talk about when they’re with each other?” she wrote. “They talk about raping you.”

“When is it going to stop?” Siya (25) says over the line from Nigeria, where he’s doing marketing work for Stormers sponsor DHL. He and Rachel try to ignore the vitriol directed at them but some­ times it gets too much.