The appearance of diversity means close to nothing if the voices at the mic, those making the decisions and the hands at the money bag continue to be white. i have just seen another Conference line-up for a national denominational conference in South Africa in 2020 where out of five speakers, one of them is black and i believe he is the only one from South Africa. In a country where white people make [...]
The Move One Million Facebook group has organised a nationwide march today, on the 5th of September 2020. Why is the 2020 significant, you may ask? Well, South Africa and the world happens to be in the throes of a global pandemic that to date has killed more than eight hundred thousand people [including fourteen thousand in South Africa]. That alone should be cause for concern. But tuning in to watch a maskless Move [...]
"But what can I do?" asked the white person. Who had just about gotten to the point of realisation that things were not white right in the world with regards to race and that something needed to be done. Which is where a lot of white people tend to stall out. "Yes, i get that there's a problem, but tell me what can I do?" as if with any other problem they faced they [...]
To move forward in South Africa, and, let's be honest, the world, we have to learn to own it. Making a mistake is not the end of the world. Getting it wrong sucks but it doesn't have to be the end. Messing up horribly or completely putting your foot in it in the very worst of ways can also be recovered from. BUT you absolutely have to own it! This means humility, honesty, vulnerability, [...]
It feels important to talk about the last time i got it wrong. And to be honest, this is very likely not even the last time, but it is a recent time that i am most aware of. Panel of Whiteness A couple of weeks ago, 2 August to be exact, so almost 3 weeks, i was invited to speak on a panel for the Global Business Round Table on a topic related to [...]
There are some times in life when a clever-sounding statement can be deeply interrogated simply by asking the question, "But for who?" Statement: Make America Great Again! Assumption: America was great before. Question: But for who? Was it great for black people during slavery? Was it great for African-Americans during the Jim Crow laws and lynchings? Was it great for refugees under the present and recent governments when they were locked up in cages [...]
How do we get men to engage with posts about and for men? To be honest, i have no helpful idea. The worst part is that i had two ideas that possibly might have worked: [1] Have the cover pic for this blog post be a curvaceous semi-clad woman with the impression that there might be more pics in the post. [2] Use the word 'boobs' somewhere in the title. Objectify women to draw [...]
This morning i found myself facing Blogger's Block. i mean is that even a thing? i know 'Writer's Block' is a thing and so surely it must be. Anyways, i decided to turn to the Twitterer and share my dilemma and ask for topics to write on and a few really good ones came in. So i thought i would dedicate this week's bloggering to picking topics that others have chosen for me and [...]
It is hard to be a South African sometimes. As a white South African, i sit with the heavy injustices of colonialism and apartheid in my rear view mirror all the time. As a black, coloured or indian South African, they live in the consequences of colonialism and apartheid as well as a worldwide uplifting of whiteness to the detriment of everything else. As a male, we sit with a horrific pandemic of violence [...]
i speak a lot about #NotOnOurWatch and thought it deserved a post. Interrupting Racism As a white person, i hold to a daily #NotOnOurWatch commitment when it comes to racism. This is a commitment i make every morning when i get up to interrupt racism wherever i see it. There are a few things that come to mind: Every Day - not simply when i feel like it, which is not a lot of [...]
