Are we responsible for the sins and legacy of the past? This seems to be a stumbling point for younger people today, who didn't live through apartheid and so "Why should we be held responsible for it?" i saw this illustration on Facebook today and think it helps address legacy so very well: How do we make sense of the past as it relates to our present A lot of the race conversations [...]
The internet can be a confusing and scary place to try and figure out race vibes [or parenting/immigration/religion/sexuality and so on...] - if you're brave then check out 'Ozzy Man reviews Arguing on the Internet' because it is harsh but funny and sadly not too far from the truth. Trying to figure out race vibes offline can also be counterproductive if the people around you are more echo chamber than collaborative sounding board, which [...]
i am convinced that relationships are the key to South Africa's transformation. We can read and learn and unlearn and try to understand and engage and educate ourselves - which are all helpful and important things to do - but unless we are building real, authentic, two-way friendship with people we are not going to be moving forwards. Sometimes the reading, learning, unlearning, understanding, engaging and educating are vital for us so that we won't [...]
i see you looking down your nose at the styles that comfort me and the beats that hold me close all the while wondering, but do you see ME? i watch your grip tighten painted manicured nails digging desperately into the folded fabric of your bag as you quickly cross over to the other side of the mall and wonder if you care that I went to bed hungry again last night my tattoos, [...]
i have just started reading - and almost finished - Austin Channing Brown's 'I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a world made for whiteness'. i highly recommend it. While 'White Fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism' by Robin DiAngelo was super helpful hearing ideas, challenges and analogies from a white woman, so 'I'm Still Here' has been profoundly challenging and helpful, hearing the story from the perspective of [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Sho. So this birthday snuck up on me. Christmas vibes into New Year's vibes into Cricket Test into friends-visiting-from-USA-and-Kruger-roadtripping vibes into arriving back in Cape Town last night with enough time to go to bed and wake up to my 45th birthday. 'Age is just a number' i like to say, but my number is certainly getting bigger. In the good old days [not too long ago] i used to stretch my birthday for a [...]
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 [...]
What are you doing Friday night? Going to a workshop that interrogates whiteness. Wait, what? And I am paying for it. Those words might seem like they come out of an SNL sketch if South Africa had an SNL type show. But we don't. And it was the brave decision of eight white people to respond to an invitation that my friend and colleague Megan Furniss put out on Facebook: I am Megan Furniss, a [...]
