This is a follow on from yesterday's All Lives Smatter post so if you haven't read that yet, start over there... Some key thoughts from part I: # It would have taken an absolute miracle for someone to grow up in apartheid South Africa and be completely not affected or indoctrinated by racism in some shape or form, hence my resonance with other white people who refer to themselves as Recovering Racist - not because [...]
This has been on my mind for a while and feels like a very delicate subject to broach, although a necessary one. For the last two to five years i have been on a personal journey of understanding the causes and effects of apartheid a lot more, as well as the negative consequences that continue to effect a lot of people. Let me put this up front: i have a long way to go... but [...]
Let's talk about race, baby. Let's talk about you and me... Wait, what, more? Yes, but offline. i was reminded by tbV that i had mentioned this idea a while ago when life was still in crazy transition before we found this place to rent. Years ago i hosted a set of gatherings at Seattle coffee shop at Canal Walk that were called "Not a Meeting" cos of my hatred of meetings [well meetings for [...]
All lives matter? True. i thought we had gotten to a point where we didn't need to have this conversation again. But after explaining it on two or three different conversations threads this week i figured i would give it another go - some people are still catching on to this one. And i get it - it is quite subtle and nuanced and until you get it, you don't get it... so we need [...]
Have you heard about the #NotOnOurWatch movement of interrupting racism? i have really enjoyed having some back and forth conversations with my friend Trevor [whose work you can see on his Swart Donkey blog] and this one we had in the last few weeks, that has now been converted to a blog post, was one of my favourite... just in terms of getting a conversation started and hopefully there is some food for thought in [...]
My friend Jess shared this with me a while back and in all the sickness and busyness and awayness it kinda got lost for a bit, but i found it again and there is some super helpful stuff in here: When Beyonce’ dropped her single, Formation, off her new album Lemonade, I sat in a coffee shop and cried while watching it on repeat. Not just because I know I’ll never have such good dance moves, [...]
What does it mean to Interrupt Whiteness? Well, in a world where Whiteness has been raised as a more-than better-than higher-than standard of beauty/worth/intelligence/rightness and so much more, this is clearly something we need to figure out, if we in fact do believe that all races are created equal - not the same, but equal. Colourblindness is not a healthy option because on the one hand it refuses to acknowledge that many people have been [...]
So i'm sitting a this coffee shop called Post in Joburg watching these two okes go at it. In the left corner, EFF member Napoleon Webster, who is notorious for having heckled Jacob Zuma at a meeting, for having heckled Cyril Ramaphosa at a meeting, for having heckled... well, you get the picture. He describes himself at one point in the 24 hours we got to hang together as a "rabble rouser" and i'm pretty [...]
Yesterday it felt like the internet had a good day! We woke up to be informed that someone had started a crowdfunder on YouCare to raise money to pay the fine that Penny Sparrow received earlier this year. For being racist. The fundraiser didn't even try sugarcoat what she'd done or suggest she'd been wronged. It was merely to raise money to pay for the fine for her racism... But what a great day it [...]
A man was sitting opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his friends to him, the man said, "This poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their [...]
