This is a comment that ‘Jul’ posted on one of my blog posts the other day and deserved to be a blog post of its own [hope that’s okay, Jul?]: For over 21 years, black South Africans have largely forgiven the majority of the white population who repeatedly voted in a racist government that dehumanised and denied them their most basic human rights. […]
That is the refrain i hear quite a lot from many white people when it comes to issues of reconciliation and marches and freedom and South Africa: Can we just please stop saying it’s about race? So i thought let’s give that a try. And the way i want to do that is by telling a few stories. Now try and not get distracted by the kind of message you think i want to [...]
So today was The Day of Reconciliation in South Africa and as long as you stayed off the comments sections of anyone posting anything about any of the marches it felt a little bit just like that. This was my Facebook status at the beginning of the day: […]
Continuing my series looking at how white people can be more effective allies to their friends of colour as we seek reconciliation and restitution and try to see South Africa head more towards where it should be... The title of this post might seem like a bit of a contradiction having just written one called Move to the Back, but it's not. Last night i was lamenting to my wife, tbV, that life as an [...]
We caught a glimpse of this in the #IAmStellenbosch campaign where a group of well-meaning students drew up some posters highlighting something about them that made them unique or different to the stereotype that their skin colour or background might typically suggest. It received a huge backlash from the media and people of all races across the country for a number of reasons. Possibly the biggest one was that once again we saw a race problem [...]
When i was looking for an image to reflect the idea of becoming an Ally i found this poster and really liked it. Because the question that i am wrestling with at the moment is just that: How to Be a Better Ally, specifically when it comes to matters of Race. And possibly one of the biggest pieces of this puzzle is that the answer should not have to come from people of colour. [...]
In a moment of brave-ity two night's ago i decided to ask the South African internet a question. I was reading a book that pointed back to the idea of South Africa being renamed Azania and i didn't think that was the worst idea. After all 'South Africa' is just a direction, right. What do you think? Who would be okay with a name change and why? i also posted an article by Xolela Mangcu [...]
Growing up in Cape Town in a largely coloured area, the perceptions about white and black people were always negative. So naturally I took that on as the norm (as that was my context). I was only in high school when I was first exposed to white folks. All my teachers were white and they knew everything and seem to have everything. I basically unconsciously just ended up assimilating into that thinking that white must [...]
This is a hard but necessary passage to share from Steve Biko's 'I Write What I Like' which you should totally get hold of and read in its entirety. Hard, because it is true. Not true that the black man is inferior, but that the idea of the black man being inferior has been so deeply entrenched in so many of us, that it is an extremely hard and horrible thing to admit to when [...]
i received two sets of comments after the last post in this series and felt that both were worth sharing. The first was from Sabrina and was really helpful in reminding me that racism can be localised. One strong example we came against when we were in the States is that the term 'coloured' there when referring to a person of colour, is very strongly racist, whereas in South Africa, for the most part, it [...]