It begins with a cartoon posted on Facebook: And before long someone jumping on with a "But Zuma orchestrated the Red Wedding, is responsible for ongoing Adam Sandler movies and killed all the unicorns!" To which I responded with: Racism 101: There is a scenario in which we can comfortably say that Jacob Zuma has not been a great leader in many respects AND also see that there is something in ourselves which needs to [...]
Colour blindness, or colour vision deficiency, is the inability or decreased ability to see colour, or perceive colour differences, under normal lighting conditions. Colour blindness affects a significant percentage of the population. There is no actual blindness but there is a deficiency of colour vision. [WikiThePedia] In a practical sense, what this often means is that people who are colour blind struggle to see the difference between red and green. At a traffic light, red means [...]
My name is Linde Ndaba and I’m addicted. My addiction might not have me shacking relentlessly from withdrawal symptoms, as drug dependence often does or leave me broke and destitute, but it may arguably be just as problematic. As a black person raised in a white suburb (Pinelands) in South Africa, my neighbourhood friends rarely made the effort to know my world. In fact I can count the occasions where they correctly pronounced my name [...]
Since i have started speaking and writing more about issues of Race in South Africa i have had a fair amount of [mostly black] people telling me from time to time how brave i am. i don’t believe that is true. […]
This week i was hanging out with my friend Susan and she told me a story that happened recently about standing up to racism. […]
Yesterday i wrote a post titled, 'Before you favourite, RT, forward...' which started with Back to the Future memes [not serious at all] and ended with alleged swimming lesson racism [very serious]. The focus being on people on various social media platforms sharing stories that arrive as 'Breaking News' or are sensational or emotionally-charged, before they have bothered to check whether they are authentic or not. i want to take it a little bit further today, [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
racist it's not so much that you think you're better than 'those people' that causes my blood to boil as much as it is that you use the words 'those people' [For more attempts at Micropoetry, click here]
i have decided to resume the series on 'How to be One bit Less Racist' with this piece by my friend, Andy Vaughn. The interruption and focus on some of the bigger questions i though was completely important and necessary, but i also still see these seemingly tinier aspects as crucial to us starting to retrain our minds and thoughts and become less racist in the day to day interactions we have with people, while keeping in [...]
