Sometimes well-meaning people can say and do stupid things. Other times they can do perfectly fine and decent things, but ones that are just completely not appreciated and which might have the opposite effect of what they intended, especially in this particular moment. […]
The last two days have been a blur of action and comment and conversation and reporting and trying to figure out exactly what is what and who is who in the whole South African #FeesMustFall movement. It is complicated and tricky and confusing and yet SO SO IMPORTANT and so it is up to each one of us to do the best we can in terms of figuring out our understanding and our involvement. Here [...]
This is a complex one. We don’t presently have a maid/domestic worker but have spoken about the possibility of employing someone in that role. And this is not a witch hunt to try and make anyone feel bad [unless you need to be feeling bad and then don’t feel bad but just change how you’re living!]. A number of months ago i was chatting to a domestic worker at a friend’s house and just hearing [...]
This week has been a little fighty fighty on the Facebook and i'm not sure why. i strongly suspect it is linked to the Rugby World Cup that has been happening as touching on that 'holy grail' in a country so passionate about the sport definitely touches a nerve. As does most conversation about race. So in the midst of three days of more 'taking people on' than i am typically used to, i had someone [...]
Let's face it, most of us are going to be late occasionally. But it's when you make it a consistent habit that it becomes annoying and it is another character trait that can really affect a friendship. Especially if you do it enough that you become known as 'that guy/that girl'. [And it might be important to throw in a cultural disclaimer here cos this is definitely a very western time-focused mindset to have and [...]
Sometimes as i am typing a comment on Facebook i pause for a moment to think of all the people going, "Oh man, there he goes again." i imagine for a lot of people i am THAT GUY. i found out years ago at church that there was a certain lady, who, anytime i opened my mouth at a meeting, switched off immediately because she knew i was going to rant about a certain thing. [...]
tbV and i were watching 'The Big Fat Anniversary Quiz of the Year' last night as we had some internet to use up before the end of the month [and it all got eaten by the Invisible Internet-Data-Eating Monster] when suddenly Russel Brand and Noel Fielding [in top form in terms of doing fairly little resembling traditional quiz participation] had this moment where they caught a fly, who they named Chris, and then released it. They claimed [...]
i woke up this morning to the Twitterer hashtag #IfIDieInCustody sparked by yet another police vs person of colour incident in Americaland. i have already blogged about it here, but the semi-poet in me kept screaming words and phrases and so eventually i sat down and came up with three different flavoured micropoems, for three different groups of people: = = = = = = = white america to those of you who have made [...]
This morning i went to a prayer meeting i used to regularly attend when we lived in Oakland a year ago. This other couple arrived just behind us and so i turned around and greeted them, shook his hand and as i went to greet her i assume i must have put out my hand, and so she put out her hand and i wasn't even properly looking and so it must have been my extremely [...]