i hear that so often in conversations of race. But what am i meant to do? It sounds like an honest question and a healthy cry for help. But as a matter of fact i am starting to realise that it is incredibly lazy. You are asking me to give you the answers [which is at least one step up from the oppressors asking the oppressed for answers] so that you don't have to do [...]
In the year 2000 the Baha Men released one of the catchiest songs ever. With the chorus posing that existential question: Who let the dogs out? Who? Who? Who? Who? And we never received the answer. 16 years later and i was still feeling a little short-changed by that whole thing, so i decided to turn to the Twittererverse for some answers. And you brought it! Joining forces with my old Twitterer 'Nemesis' and friend [...]
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 [...]
South Africans, i love you. All of you. i sat in a room this morning with a handful of people, some linked to the university who represented a collective called Disrupting Whiteness and some from the non-profit organisation called The Warehouse, and a handful of others. It felt like a room full of incredible people with huge potential for significant change in the future of our country and inspired a lot of hope. But i [...]
Who do you know? Graeme Codrington shared an article on my Facebook page today with this statement at the top of it: For my South African friends, we're having an interesting time at the moment, as we talk again about race relations. It's hard, and sometimes hurting, but I love that we're having this conversation. It's better than not having it! That really struck me. He went on to list about 20 names of different [...]
Most days i wake up and am excited to try and do my little bit to hopefully help make things better in South Africa. i write blogs, i engage with people in conversation online and offline, i use the platforms i have to create spaces for other voices to speak boldly about important and significant things. tbV and i try to use our time and money and energy and work to help make things better [...]
Hi Linde, thank you so much for agreeing to try this with me. It started with you writing a blog post titled 'For Blacks Only' - https://brettfish.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/for-blacks-only-guest-post-by-linde-ndaba/#comments - although you did tell me that it was also a great post for white people to read and i fully agree with that. Then my friend Megan [who i know is totally genuine in her response and is someone really looking to be a genuine ally to people of [...]
Greetings and Welcome to Brettfish.co.za - this has been a LONG time coming and huge thanks to my friends, Mandy Papenfus and Simon Streep, for helping me get to this point. The hope of a cleaner, crisper, fresher look for my blog as well as a space to add videos and book sales and other fun things when i get the chance. 2016 feels like it is going to be a significant year, specifically in [...]
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 [...]
'Books are a very important part of my life. Books are my wealth and pay my bills. Books have a magic that keeps me going through hard times.' [Philani Dladla, The Pavement Bookworm, opening line] Meet Philani Dladla. You may have seen glimpses of his story that went viral a while back as a young man on a street corner selling book reviews to people. But yesterday morning i got to meet him. i was [...]
