Dear South Africa, Actually, dear white South Africans. My peeps. I love you but we can't have another year like 2017. Seriously. I've taken the liberty of writing a few New Year's Resolutions for us. I reckon we can do it. Learn an African language. Pay your domestic worker a living wage and stop calling her "Irene". Her name is Thobeka. Only read novels written by African authors. Get on Black Twitter. Look at black [...]
The last book i read was the incredible Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie which i shared some thoughts about over here, but there were a couple more passages that really stood out to me when i read the book and so here they are. This first extract is another blog post by the main character, Ifemelu: What Academics Mean by White Privilege, or Yes It Sucks to Be Poor and White but Try Being Poor [...]
Dear South Africa, Increase empathy. Kind regards, Terence P.S. Sorry, I’ve just realised that you may not know what I mean. Here’s the deal - it really shouldn’t need an explanation or a justification. I shouldn’t have to show you why we need to be open to the idea that other people are complete and complex human beings who don’t deserve to be undermined, insulted, embarrassed, made to feel unsafe or treated as a sub-category [...]
Dear South Africa... Charles Dickens starts A Tale of Two Cities with this: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had [...]
Dear South Africa, I would have liked to have more of an upbeat and hopeful letter to you but the reality, the real reality, is that we’re a country of deep division and intense trauma. We are a people who do not know each other, once the babalas of the rainbow nation faded away we were left to face the decisions that were made the night before. We had to look into each other’s faces [...]
Every year i try to have a word or phrase to focus on and give me some direction and purpose for the year ahead. Last year's word was Interdependence, the idea of things and people being connected to move forward well rather than independence which focuses on going it alone and trying to get ahead. At the start of 2018 my wife tbV [the beautiful Val] and i went to a restuarant in Muizenberg overlooking [...]
i really loved Americanah - let's just get that out the way - best novel i have read in a long, long time. Also it was written by a black African woman and so ticks a whole lot of the boxes of the majority of books i am trying to read these days - different gender, different colour, different country... tick, tick, tick. Before i got started with the book, i came into contact with [...]
Liewe Afrikanermense in Suid-Afrika, Ek het nou onlangs terug gedink aan ons laerskoolklas wat elke Vrydag na tweede pouse vir twee periodes (met ander woorde ’n volle uur lank) sangklas gehad het. Gegewe die spesifieke uitdagings hieraan verbonde, kan ‘n mens dus nie ons musiekonderwyseres kwalik neem dat sy dikwels gekies het om ons na stories op langspeelplate te laat luister in plaas daarvan om ons aan die sing te probeer kry nie… Die enigste [...]
So the Protea cricket team took on the Indians at Newlands in Cape Town this week - first of three tests. And we won convincingly, so that was fun. DRESSUP FOR NEWLANDS It has become a tradition for tbV and me with my friend MJ and whoever else might be with us [looking at you, American former housemates!] to pick a theme and go to the cricket dressed appropriately. So last time was Star Wars: [...]
Dear South Africa, LOVE BLACK PEOPLE It only dawned on me recently, how we need this. Desperately need this. I cannot speak for all Black people, I cannot even speak for the majority of Black people, but I can speak for Black people like me. Love us. It has been alleged that the idea was ‘stolen’ from someone else, so I will not state where I saw it, but the premise was that people from [...]
