i was chatting to a black grade six girl yesterday afternoon as we struggled through some Afrikaans homework together about Vasco de Gama. Before we got started with the homework, i asked her what her name is. She said it for me, followed by the words, "It's very hard." She then added her nickname and the english name her sister gave her. i said her name back to her with a question mark intonation at the [...]
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
In Part I titled 'Ways in which white people are better than black people [part I]' i drew up a list of all the ways i think white people are better than black people. Or rather i left a big chunk of empty space. Because we are not better. We are different. Although you wouldn't think so if you read many of the comments in my blog or generally online. There is a fairly significant portion [...]
THE END [For Part II, which is a little wordier, click here]
i wrote a brief piece about Entitlement the other day [check it out by clicking here if you haven't yet] and then i had coffee with my friend Megan. Who told me what i already knew that the first post was just touching the tip of the iceberg and needed to go a lot deeper, but then gave me some excellent examples. i do also feel that for those of you that have been engaging [...]
Entitlement is a huge problem in South Africa. i would suggest it is more a problem in the white communities because Apartheid was specifically created with that in mind - the elevation of whiteness and superiority. While white people need to wrestle with their entitlement in different areas, a lot of people of colour are still wrestling with the insecurity and inferiority complexes that systems of stamping them into the mud helped put in place. [...]
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 [...]
"The church needs to stop talking about sex and start talking about money." [paraphrase, Alan Story] 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 [...]
