This past week i was contacted by a Facebook friend who told me he had been following me since my Truth mag days [an amazing magazine i used to write for]. Which was a long, long time ago in a galaxy much like ours. Him and his wife have been out of the country for three years [dejavu] and have returned and are living in Cape Town and trying to educate themselves around topics of [...]
About a week ago i was hanging out with a group of friends discussing some quite incredible stories of generosity that we had all been involved in this past year. Each person in the group was connected to a person in the story of generosity although the majority of the group didn't know the people involved. The stories ranged from educational assistance to helping start up a township business to paying for a vehicle to [...]
Words i heard last night. Not the kind of thing that feels great coming from someone who has a history of giving you a hard time or trolling you on social media, but something you learn to get over quickly and pull out the thick skin for. "Your very presence is violent." But what if it comes from one of your best friends? And what if you suspect they might be right? [Disclaimer: Now i imagine [...]
i have so-called white skin. i don't hate my skin colour. i hate that it has been elevated above the skin colours of so many other people. i hate that some people see themselves as 'better than' simply based on the accident of their skin colour. When i talk about defeating whiteness that is what i mean. It is not at all about hating the skin i, or people who look like me, have or [...]
i wonder if there might be something South Africa could learn from the story of Zacchaeus in the Bible. As a much-hated tax collector known for robbing and cheating the people he has an encounter with Jesus and it changes his life so significantly that he makes amends with his money and gives back to those he wronged. But in some cases we see that he gives back four times as much to those he [...]
...for they will have to wear their own hand-made crap. Or something. This whole appropriation thing is quite confusing to me and feels a little dangerous with the chief danger being hypocrisy. It feels like a speck plank thing. If you are going to accuse someone else of appropriating your culture then you better be well sure that all the stuff you have was made by "your people" whatever that means. When i was a [...]
Last week on the hockey field, a masters player [meaning over 35 years old although this guy was easily 50] called me a Fucking Imbecile after an incident between us. Later, after i had had a drink with my team and was walking to my car he came up to me and said something along the lines of, "I apologise for losing my temper!" i kinda half shrugged it off with a "Sure, buddy, whatever" [...]
Who are your 'my people'? i was watching a typical exchange about some race issue on the book of face-offs yesterday when something struck me... The man commenting - who happened to be an afrikaner - said something about "my people" - and the light bulb went on and started pulsating to a disco beat. There is a very real problem for me when your "my people" all look the same or speak the same language [...]
After asking for a selection of recommended books to read about or by South Africans, my sister-in-law asked me if i could do the same thing for children. Which i did. And wow, did you all respond... i'm not sure all of these fit into the South African/African ask but a lot of them do and this just seems to be a list of super amazing books for young ones: Megan Furniss: Good Night Stories [...]
Looking for great South African [and African] books to read? My friend Shelley Finch tagged me in this status on Facebook the other day: Friends, I am crowdsourcing a book list. Kind of a "recommended reading for every South African". Fiction and non-fiction. Books that will help people educate themselves on our country's history and the BIG issues we are talking about i.e. racism, corruption, land redistribution, etc. Books that are accessible to every South [...]
