For some reason this stuff seems to be on my mind. The other day i wrote a poem called 'Whiteness' which you can read over here. And i have a piece that i wrote when i was helping out with an exam the other day while waiting for my learner to write her paper. Which i haven't looked at again, but similar theme. And then i was working on this piece. i would love to [...]
A few weeks ago i got to help out at a camp with The LifeMatters Foundation, on this occasion with grade seven pupils from three different schools in the Cape Flats. They are doing some incredible things in schools and so i asked them to share a little bit of who they are: Who we are We are The LifeMatters Foundation, a proudly South African Non-Profit Organisation promoting holistic development in children through literacy, numeracy, life skills workshops, counselling and [...]
I am whiteness I will not condescend to your infuriating attempts to single me out as the single biggest cause of all your problems I am whiteness You had better believe that everything I have is due to hard work and persistence After all, the silver spoon in my mouth that I was born with had ugly flecks of bronze all over its handle Who in their right mind would be satisfied with that? [...]
i know a lot of people in Cape Town who are involved in some exciting educational non-profit organisations doing a range of inspirational things with the young people in our province, particularly those in less resourced schools. One such group is Outliers and i asked them to share a little bit about what they are about: In South Africa, only 50% of children who originally enroll in school make it to matric. In addition, an [...]
We play a lot of different games on @AFrikkinHashtag and i love the creative and meaningful ones, but sometimes i just really enjoy it when we can get a little bit silly and finding names in book titles allowed us to do just that: [The Story So Far: Every Wednesday at 12 noon South African time [6am EDT] an inspired and growing number of brilliant, creative and absolutely fun people from all around the world [...]
Last night i went to support my friend Megan Furniss, by watching a group of high school learners perform an improv show following some training she had done with them. It was aptly titled, 'Oy's Line Is It Anyway?' and ended up being quite delightful. Let me be honest. Heading off to go and watch school kids perform improv is not something that in itself excites one. Not this one, anyway. However, their first game [...]
"Where did you two meet?" "That's easy. He [me] is an activist and I [Napoleon] am an activist. We were introduced by another activist [Nigel Branken]." That was part of an exchange that happened yesterday as i got to hang out with my friend Napoleon Webster who i hadn't seen since he was released from spending over 200 days in prison for a crime he did not commit. But let's backpedal a bit... The Marikana [...]
i have just finished reading 'The Housemaid's Daughter' by Barbara Mutch which i pretty much sped through [thanks to some exam invigilating giving me free paid-for reading time] and having just finished 'Half of a Yellow Sun' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie it was a very different read. But it really did suck me in through the strong relationships it depicted in particular. It basically tells the story of the friendship between an Irish woman, Cathleen [...]
With Elon Musk shooting cars into space, we know that the time for living in space can't be too far off. So we decided to get ahead of the pack with this game... [The Story So Far: Every Wednesday at 12 noon South African time [6am EDT] an inspired and growing number of brilliant, creative and absolutely fun people from all around the world take part in what is called a Hashtag game. @AFrikkinHashtag [say it [...]
Can i just start by saying that i absolutely LOVE the [majority of the] community who wrestle with me with aspects of race and privilege and poverty and more on social media. It is probably a wonder that more of you haven't given up on me, but when you stick around and when you push back and when we seriously engage with the topics at hand [and those hiding behind the hand] we learn so [...]
