Brash, controversial and unafraid to speak his mind, South Africa's Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie has been swift to call out racism in others but he himself has now been branded a racist - a charge he refutes.
He is often seen as the lightning rod for the frustrations of the country's coloured community, as people of mixed heritage are referred to in South Africa's population census.
But old comments McKenzie made on social media, using a profoundly offensive term referring to black people, have created a political storm.
He has until the end of Wednesday to respond to the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC), which wants the minister to delete the offensive posts and issue a public apology, among other demands.
"Coloured" was the classification given to people of mixed heritage under apartheid. This system created a legally enforced racial hierarchy that saw white people at the top and black people at the bottom, with Indians and coloured people in between.
