What a shock some of you reading this will get when you discover that my dad, yes, my biological father, is coloured. “But you look so white!” many have noted. Well done. It is true – I am a mixed baby, although I got the paler skin of our mother while my brother has many a time been compared to a Mexican. We’ve heard some interesting guesses of our ethnicity over the years: Portuguese, Brazilian, [...]
[Tuesday May 13th] I am taking a break from a Share conference I am attending as part of Common Change... I really wish I could capture the heart and essence of the opening remarks and the morning's sessions, but I imagine I will fail dismally. But I will try out something together anyway because I really believe this is something we all need to be thinking about, reading up on, talking about and getting [...]
What makes a person? What makes me, me? For me I’ve struggled with identity for my entire Life – one of the biggest struggles I’ve had over my identity is the one over ‘race’ (now many would consider it strange for a white guy to struggle with identity over race and don’t get me wrong – I’ve never thought I am not white) the reasons being that I was brought up (My mom assisted [...]
This feels like an important part of the conversation to spend some time on and i would love to hear your response to this. You may have seen the article by Princeton student, Tal Fortgang, titled 'Checking my Privilege: Character as the Basis of Privilege' that has been doing the rounds this week in which Tal [as an 18 year old, good to remember and hold in context] begins by explaining what his problem with [...]
i just watched this TED talk by a woman called Mellody Hobson on the introduction of a topic she called 'Colour Braveness' While the focus of the clip is very much from a 'The American Dream' point of view, and so doesn't necessarily have the end point i would focus on [become a CEO of a company!] there are some interesting and helpful points she raises and so it is well worth a viewing... Some [...]
One of the most insidious forms of racism or paternalism is to take the voice of another away from them. I do not intend to speak for black people in this post and so rob them of their own dignity and humanity. You see, I am white and so I can only ever speak as a white male. While I can resist speaking for another I can choose to speak with another so adding strength [...]
yesterday as we drove to park our car before work, tbV and i saw some traffic cops putting a white piece of paper on a parked car... immediately we jumped to the conclusion that it was a parking ticket and went to that place you go to when you see a cop sticking a ticket on a car [even when it's not yours] - Urgh, shtupidt cop! or some rendition of that... as we drove [...]
i came across that proverb this morning and it blew me away. i remember hanging out with my uncle John Fee [my mom's british brother] a few years ago when they came to visit us in South Africa and we had met up a bunch of times in life, although i was generally of the seen-and-not-heard age and so we didn't engage in much meaningful conversation... and then this day he was in the lounge [...]
As a nation we are celebrating 20 years of democracy and while there is still a lot that has to be done in this country of ours that bears the horrible scars of Apartheid, I am still proud that we are here. It means something because at least we are not where we used to be. There are still many conversations that still need to be had, of course and the sooner we get talking, [...]
Every day we wake up we have a world of opportunity ahead of us [within our particular context, although if you are reading this on a computer, tablet or phone then your choice options are pretty huge compared to most] - there are a whole bunch of things that are set that we cannot affect, but there are also a whole bunch of choices and changes that we can definitely make. Each morning when I [...]