i am busy reading a book called 'The Man who Founded the ANC' by Bongani Ngqulunga. It is the biography of a man called Pixley ka Isaka Seme [Pixley, son of Isaka Seme] who i never knew before last week. i had also never heard of Bongani Ngqulunga, although apparently he currently serves as the chief of staff and spokesperson of the President of the Republic of South Africa. And when i thought of [...]
We need more Diversity! If you are a white person living in the Western Cape then it can become fairly easy to believe that white people make up the majority of people in the province and be extension, the country. The reality, though, is that we make up closer to 16% of the province and less then 8% of the country. So there has to be a certain degree of intentionality [or maybe lack [...]
On the evening of the election, tbV [the beautiful Val] and i hosted our own party. #ISeeWhatIDidThere We invited around ten of our friends for food and drinks and cake and conversation and just hung out - no agenda beyond celebrating friendship and being in a trusted space with people we love. And it was a diverse group of people. And it was good. Then last night we gatecrashed [kinda] another dinner with some [...]
Doing the right thing means investing in recycling A great example of a win-win partnership and a pro-active response where the producer altered their product in order to make its packaging recyclable. When you buy your milk, do you really look at the bottle? Have you ever thought about the planning that goes into the shape of the bottle, its colour or what it is made of? A visit to the production team at Fair [...]
My dream is that i will one day live in a nation where people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Sound familiar? i am busy reading 'The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.' and so that has been influencing me quite a bit. But that really is my heart. And to that end i don't want white people to feel guilty or unincluded or [...]
This past week has been tough. Sitting with a R40 000 bill over our heads [alongside the more manageable R12000 to fix our car] for driving into a BMW is not to be found on the list of 'Ten Ways to De-Stress your life'. But, we are surrounded by people who know and love us and there is no way conceivable to us that tbV [the beautiful Val] and i are going to find ourselves [...]
Birthdays are cool, once you get past that number ticking up vibe. For me birthdays are always about the people - how can i get to spend as much time with as many people who i really love as is humanly possible. Which is why i used to always drag mine out to a week - have as many different occasions for different friends from different spaces to congregate. But they are also about [...]
Would you drink from a glass if you knew there was a 10% chance you would be drinking poison? The absurdity of a #NotAllMen or #NotAllWhitePeople response to a generalised statement (something usually becomes a generalisation because of how it is generally true) can be compared to me standing you in front of a table containing 100 glasses of liquid and saying, "Don't drink from the glasses because they are filled with poison!" and someone who knows that [...]
When the Laerskool Schweizer-Reneke incident of segregated children in the classroom broke, people quickly seemed to rush to pick sides, with a lot of white people doing soem rather impressive gymnastics to try and defend the white teacher. This is such a helpful comment from my friend Nobuntu Webster which expresses better than i did what i was trying to say earlier: = = = = = = = = = "What you all may not realise [...]
How do you change a country? Firstly, it has to begin in the mirror. What am i doing to make a difference? How am i spending my time, money, skills and energy and using my things to help make my small space one that builds and grows and inspires and assists? The key though is asking the question. Or questions. Big furore happens over Woolworths using some lady's design for their baby-carrying bags. Within [...]
