Today a group of us head out to Khayelitsha to join in the vigil to remember the life of a young woman, Sinoxolo Mafevuka, who was found murdered there last week. The same week when another young woman, Franziska Blöchliger, was found murdered in the Tokai forest. Both murders are complete tragedies. The temptation is to add a 'but' or an 'and' and depending on what your context, background and connection is, try to make one seem [...]
This is a follow up to the post i wrote a few days ago looking at petrol attendants in South Africa. Before i actually wrote the previous post [or while i was writing it, really] i stuck this survey question as a status on Facebook: Monday Survey: How much [if anything] do you tip your petrol attendant in South Africa when throwing in some petrol? Which i would highly recommend you to cut and paste on [...]
My name is brett "Fish" anderson and i am ashamed it took me so long to get here. A BIT OF MY JOURNEY i didn't grow up in a particulary racist family, in fact if anything, my parents taught us to view all people as equal and deserving of love and respect. i was very fortunate during my time at college to be engaged in race conversations through the lens of the Student Christian Association [...]
Colour blindness, or colour vision deficiency, is the inability or decreased ability to see colour, or perceive colour differences, under normal lighting conditions. Colour blindness affects a significant percentage of the population. There is no actual blindness but there is a deficiency of colour vision. [WikiThePedia] In a practical sense, what this often means is that people who are colour blind struggle to see the difference between red and green. At a traffic light, red means [...]
Hi Linde, thank you so much for agreeing to try this with me. It started with you writing a blog post titled 'For Blacks Only' - https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/for-blacks-only-guest-post-by-linde-ndaba/#comments - although you did tell me that it was also a great post for white people to read and i fully agree with that. Then my friend Megan [who i know is totally genuine in her response and is someone really looking to be a genuine ally to people of [...]
i can’t remember any time recently when i wanted to kill the pastor of the church i was in [Ben the Priest is kinda cool!]. In fact it’s probably more likely that there were people thinking those kinds of thoughts about me during some of my more challenging or hectic messages back in the day. But this morning at St John’s we were looking at Luke 4 which is an interesting passage and one that [...]
My friend Jacqui Tooke continues the 'How to Be a Better Ally' to people of colour series with this guest piece, looking at Positive Influence: Let’s get vocal… If you are like me, then your heart has been crushed by all the racist attitudes, thoughts and opinions that have been expressed in our country recently. I’m grateful for voices like Brett Fish Anderson and others who have boldly declared their commitment to changing the atmosphere [...]
On Point “I didn’t do it,” she said, as she pointed at someone else’s parent’s parents. “I didn’t do it, “he said, “and I have NEVER used that word.” “We didn’t do it,” they loudly declared, as they counted out the coins to pay the lady who was busy raising their children. “I didn’t do it,” she said as she gestured towards her black boyfriend who she had decided to name ‘Justice’ because [...]
It has been a heart-breaking day… i’ve known Sindile for close to a year and a half now i think. Known as in i’ve never met him in real life [yet – hopefully remedy that in the next ten days!] but he has guest posted on my blog a number of times and he has this way of blogging within his Facebook status which inspires and challenge and calls to action and pauses and so [...]
i crawled into bed sometime after 2 this morning… Exhausted, challenged, frustrated, reflective, inspired, hopeful. It had been a long, packed day. The night before had seen 11 of us sharing a meal and then sitting outside in our tiny courtyard, wrestling with the idea of what it means to Live Simply. […]
