How important is offline activism? i spend a lot of time on Social Media dealing with issues of race and poverty and injustice. The hope is to share and engage and challenge and invite people to explore different areas where their lives could be better. Most of this relates to areas where i am trying to listen and learn and engage and wrestle at the same time. i might know or have discovered some [...]
i started this as a thread on the Twitterer but thought it might be good to stick it here as well. If you're a white person reading this, i want to encourage you to answer a couple of questions honestly. Then, when you get to the end, read the instruction and work through them one more time. White friends: i'm not sure enough of us get how different our lived experiences are simply because [...]
Imagine a better country! No, that is not a passive dream-about-it suggestion. It's an imperative. As in, while we are spending three weeks largely stuck in our homes, here is an opportunity for all of us to imagine a better country. Starting with you, government! My wife was saying this the other day - imagine if every business, school, government department used these twenty-one days to seriously brainstorm solutions for the country - Eskom, [...]
What do i mean by a 'Racism Spectrum'? This morning i chatted to four grade 6s about Racism. Don't get me wrong, that's not a regular hobby of mine - "Hey kids, gather round and listen to how awful your ancestors were..." - in fact, this was an amazing opportunity gifted to me by a friend of mine who teaches at their school. Grade sixes were doing a project and four of them chose [...]
A lot of people seem to confuse the words 'Critique' and 'Criticism' and i thought it would be helpful to try to set the record straight. Certainly in light of the rise of #ImStaying with all of its positive vibes but hesitation to dive into deep conversations. Where any kind of questioning of this brings censoring, ridicule or ejection from the group. Anyone who has tried to ask meaningful questions about some of the [...]
Blessed are the rich... for they shall be spared sermons! Rene August [preaching at St Johns Anglican church yesterday] didn't quite say those words, but she might as well have. And they feel largely true. One thing Rene did say was this: 'The church has so many programs to help alleviate poverty. The church has no programs to help people alleviate greed.' [which i think was a quote of Bishop Zac Niringiye] Two other [...]
Is there a safe space to make mistakes? Yesterday i wrote a post in which i shared this inspiring piece of writing with the phrase 'Fiercely Kind' which cautioned us against letting our anger turn to meanness. And spent another one of THOSE DAYS on the internet experiencing in a variety of places people not doing so well at that. Ah, ye olde Internet Fight... Where can i go? It is true that [...]
Last night tbV [the beautiful Val] and i went for a walk in Rondvlei in Grassy Park. It is a beautiful space of nature - where apparently hippos roam altho i am yet to see that to believe it - hidden in the middle of the suburbs where you can go and walk for free and enjoy a beautiful sunset. Val is on a 2km per day vibe [as a minimum, which is [...]
Would you drink from a glass if you knew there was a 10% chance you would be drinking poison? The absurdity of a #NotAllMen or #NotAllWhitePeople response to a generalised statement (something usually becomes a generalisation because of how it is generally true) can be compared to me standing you in front of a table containing 100 glasses of liquid and saying, "Don't drink from the glasses because they are filled with poison!" and someone who knows that [...]
It's been a frustrating few hours arguing with people on Facebook around this statement i shared on Facebook: What if i am wrong? A number of people came on and defended the rich and tried to misdirect away from the problem and called me a lot of things, telling me how my line of thinking was responsible for more deaths than Hitler managed and so on. And it's super frustrating because a [...]
