After last week's fairly quiet week on the internet, this week seems to be right back up there with issues or race and transformation taking centre stage, with a sweet injection of Christmas in between. Here are the blog posts, links and stories that have been catching my attention this week - which one was yours? MOST EXCITING My friend Dalene Reyburn finally launched her book, 'Dragons and Dirt: The Truth about changing the world [...]
My name is Michael and I'm married to Deborah. We both grew up in the Cape Town southern suburbs where people are generally wealthy and generally white. We don't really remember anything before 1994 and so we've basically grown up in the "New South Africa". This year we've been living in rural Mpumalanga while Deborah does her community service as a dietitian. Although we've been involved in projects and work in Mfuleni, Heideveld, Nyanga, and [...]
[Possibly as good a time as any to remind readers that while i don't necessarily agree with all the points made in every post that is published on my blog, i do believe that the conversation and engagement with pieces like this is absolutely invaluable and i think it is so helpful to know and understand why people around us are thinking what they are. If you agree or disagree with anything in this [...]
I think it is important that I give an examples of how 'baseline' thinking can help us navigate difficult waters. 1.) The issue of employment equity is a difficult one. My take on it is that from my experience both young white and black people fundamentally want to feel like they are being treated fairly and of course that is a most reasonable thing, but I do want to latch on to the idea of [...]
i won't lie, writing about Race in South Africa can feel a little daunting. Especially when you have been out of the country for three years - one of the things i didn't want to do was come charging in with all the answers and so i chose instead to use my little platform to create a space and invite some people to share their thoughts. There have been a whole bunch of conversations about [...]
My good friend, Linda Martindale introduced me to a friend of hers, Nkosivumile Gola at the TRC Re-Enactment meetings we both went to a week or so ago in Stellenbosch. When i heard that Nkosi had a blog i immediately asked him if he would consider writing a piece for mine. Not to give him an easy ride, i posed this topic to him - the fact that for white people who do want to [...]
A short while ago i introduced this panel to you made up of friends of mine from South Africa who are from a variety of different race groups/backgrounds and then invited you to ask any race-related questions you might have. The opinions of the members of the panel are in no way expected to represent the thoughts, feelings and ideas of a whole race group or culture, nor are they anticipated to be complete expositions [...]
i don't have an iPhone slash any phone right now and so don't have the ability to Instagram [which is something i'm not too sad about cos much like predictive text and apparently mac computers until you get them you think they are silly] but there were a couple of snapshots from the last day at CCDA conference that i would like to share, each of which could probably be worked into their own blog [...]
so i have been going to gym, with my good friend from across the street, Coe aka Cobra [aka creator of the most powerful beast in the world - the Snuck - it's a snake, but it looks like a duck so you think it's all cute and innocent and go to stroke it, but watch out, it's a SNAKE!!!] [disclaimer: Coe has not actually created any Snucks as of yet so back of PETA, [...]