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 [...]
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 [...]
"How can i be a good ally?" Well one of the ways is to definitely do some work. Read, research, listen, watch, don't expect people [especially black people] to spoonfeed you all the answers. But i did come across this which was created for Americaland but has some strongly helpful overlaps for our present situation and context. This is from a list put together by an activism camp called 'Localise This' and it's a list [...]
Wow! What an hour and a half. Just listened to this entertaining conversation on black and white racism in America by Michael Gungor and Science Mike who are in conversation with Propaganda and William Matthews on so many different aspects of race which, while focused specifically on Americaland, have so much to teach us and help open our eyes. It is a lot of fun as well as they banter well so if you have [...]
Yesterday, i wrote a piece about how important the resurrection of Jesus Christ is to my beliefs and the way i live my life. But at St Johns yesterday, Benjamin the Priest read this passage from edgy theologian Pete Rollins talking about why he denies the Resurrection... And i have to say, i wholeheartedly agree... At one point in the proceedings someone asked if my theoretical position led me to denying the Resurrection of Christ. [...]
Recently it was my pleasure to connect with Jana and Ampie Niehaus from Durban who recently felt like a certain geographical move was on the cards for them. i engaged with Jana on a series of ten back and forth emails in which we tried to keep it to about 100 words a comment. It was really great to get a bit of an understanding of why they are making the move and what the [...]
This is a follow up to the post i wrote a few days ago looking at petrol attendants in South Africa. Before i actually wrote the previous post [or while i was writing it, really] i stuck this survey question as a status on Facebook: Monday Survey: How much [if anything] do you tip your petrol attendant in South Africa when throwing in some petrol? Which i would highly recommend you to cut and paste on [...]
