pain and Hope

Interrupting Whiteness: Intro

What does it mean to Interrupt Whiteness? Well, in a world where Whiteness has been raised as a more-than better-than higher-than standard of beauty/worth/intelligence/rightness and so much more, this is clearly something we need to figure out, if we in fact do believe that all races are created equal - not the same, but equal. Colourblindness is not a healthy option because on the one hand it refuses to acknowledge that many people have been [...]

But pity the mutants…

The other day my Facebook friend Innocentia shared this X-Men related tweet with me; And i thought it was great because it really brought a strong point home. So i shared it on Facebook. My friend Craig jumped on and asked me if i thought black people would appreciate being compared to mutants. i told him since a black person had shared the picture with me in the first place that i thought it was okay. [...]

If I were white… [guest post by Thandi Nkomo]

A guest post by my new friend, Thandi, that is worth taking a good listen to and sharing with your people... and i join her in the hope that her children will NEVER wish that they were white... IF I WERE WHITE, I’D HAVE BEEN ABLE TO BREATHE There my parents were, struggling in Apartheid South Africa on a small wage, doing the type of work only ‘they’ were created for-according to the architects of [...]

umlungu

i was chatting to a black grade six girl yesterday afternoon as we struggled through some Afrikaans homework together about Vasco de Gama. It was all going pretty well until she turned to me and asked me, "Do you like being umlungu [white person]?" "Why do you ask?" i inquired. "Well you know, all the umlungus have the nice cars and lots of money." My heart dropped. i decided to deflect the question a little. [...]

The Queen, My Dad and Sarafina – guest post by Thandi Nkomo

My new friend, Thandi, shared this story on Facebook and i asked her if she would flesh it out as a guest post for me as it moved me [and so many others] so deeply: THE QUEEN, MY DAD AND SARAFINA This is going to seem disjointed, but bear with me. It will come together at the end. We still talk about the Holocaust. Britain still has memorial services for those slain in World War [...]

The Better Black – guest post by Thandi Nkomo

i online-met Thandi via my friend Alexa and she agreed to share some words on the concept of 'The Better Black' which is a heart-breaking idea for me and i hope that by sharing it, we will all be able to take one step closer. i also hope it hits many of you hard in the face, because we need to really start 'getting' these stories more... Thank you Thandi for sharing some of your [...]

Economic Justice 101: part II

Continuing from yesterday's part I on Economic Justice: God and our Money The story so far: On Tuesday nite i attended an evening with some friends, largely from Christ Church Kenilworth, looking at Economic Justice. One of the statements the speaker Alan Storey made, was relating to how little Jesus spoke about sex and how obsessed the church often is with focusing on that, while how often Jesus [and the Bible] spoke about Economics and [...]

By |2016-05-06T10:12:10+02:00May 6th, 2016|challenging thorts, change the world, inspire-ations, pain and Hope, South Africa, things to wrestle with|Comments Off on Economic Justice 101: part II

I’m not racist, but…

...is possibly one of the most untruthful sentences we can utter. In fact the word "but" following the phrase "I'm not racist" is pretty much always a strong indicator that the very next thing said is going to reek of racism. This post is in response to the status that Matthew Theunissen posted on Facebook the other day in response to the announcement by Fikile Mbalula's ban on South African sports associations hosting major international events. [...]

A moving post

Just to clarify, that is NOT us. Or if it is us, then what's going on behind the boxes is quite likely to NOT be mirroring what you see on the outside. If you were to look REALLY carefully, perhaps you would see tiny little drops of salty liquid dripping down from under the boxes. Yes, ladies and gentlemen [and blog trolls!] we move home in three days... A MOVING MARRIAGE Which technically will be [...]

By |2016-03-22T07:42:42+02:00March 22nd, 2016|activities, love and chocolate, pain and Hope|0 Comments

All deaths matter: In memory of Sinoxolo and Franziska

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 [...]

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