I expected criticism of my documentary, but the racist trolling and support for an apartheid stronghold was truly awful
The morning after my most recent documentary, Whites Only: Ade’s Extremist Adventure, aired on Channel 4, I got a stream of concerned phone calls and WhatsApp messages from friends, family members and work colleagues, asking if I was OK. At first I was confused. It wasn’t until they started talking about social media that I understood why they were all so worried. I’d pretty much removed myself from X (formerly Twitter) a few months ago: it was just becoming a place of polarised conversations that made the platform toxic and close to unusable.
I knew there would be an extreme reaction to the documentary as sadly, the topic of race, especially in connection with South Africa, will probably always be provocative in our lifetime. In my documentary, I visit an all-white town called Orania in the central Karoo region of South Africa. The film is a pilot for a potential series where I would meet a whole range of extreme groups across the globe, including those attracting Black and Asian people. I wanted to understand why these people held such extreme views, what the consequences were, and what lessons could be learned. I also knew many of our viewers had never heard of Orania, so just seeing the town and its inhabitants for them would be a new experience.
