I am very excited to introduce this Panel of Race Experts... and by 'Race Experts' i mean friends of mine who happen to be from a variety of different race group backgrounds and are not claiming to be experts or to speak on behalf of their particular race in any way, shape or form. I have invited them to be on this panel because they are people who i respect and who are passionate about [...]
One of the most insidious forms of racism or paternalism is to take the voice of another away from them. I do not intend to speak for black people in this post and so rob them of their own dignity and humanity. You see, I am white and so I can only ever speak as a white male. While I can resist speaking for another I can choose to speak with another so adding strength [...]
Hi brett. I saw you put up a request for inter- racial relationship stories: here's a bit of mine: in 150 days i'm marrying my best friend and the love of my life. He is coloured and i'm white and we are the best for each other. When I look at him I don't see my culture or his - I see two people working out life with a different approach and mentality... this goes [...]
As we have started talking about different aspects of Race on my blog, one area that quickly came to mind was that of mixed race/culture relationships. Hard to believe that this was illegal when i was growing up. And that it was normal for it to be so. And even when it wasn't, it took a bit of a while for it to become more of a regular [less stared at] thing and so i imagine [...]
i came across that proverb this morning and it blew me away. i remember hanging out with my uncle John Fee [my mom's british brother] a few years ago when they came to visit us in South Africa and we had met up a bunch of times in life, although i was generally of the seen-and-not-heard age and so we didn't engage in much meaningful conversation... and then this day he was in the lounge [...]
The country where I was born. The ethnic composition of my parents. My gender. What do these things have in common? None of them are sufficient to describe who I am. As human beings, made in God’s image and likeness, we consist of body, soul and spirit. Being a Trinidadian born female whose parents have Indian, Portuguese, Chinese, Spanish and Caucasian ancestors are all factors which impact my body, but not my soul and spirit, [...]
This is perhaps too long, but I've just been given a platform to vent out years and years worth of frustrations and I'm jumping in head first. But before I begin, let me say that I have way too many white friends to think that white people as a whole are racist, and I don't know if all of what I'm about to say applies to my friends cos I think (or hope) my friends [...]
Nothing can prepare you for that moment when your perfect world is shattered into 1000’s of little pieces. When you receive that phone call to say that a part of your heart ‘”didn’t make it”… My sister, first team swimmer had drowned in a freak accident, walking around our pool, having a seizure, falling in and waking up in the arms of Jesus. Lauren and I were more than just sisters, we were the [...]
When I started thinking about having children and even long before.. I would never have guessed that the word abortion would ever be part of my vocabulary. I am definitely pro-life, and have been an active advocate against abortions, even doing speeches and presentations on the matter. I always thought that it was a black and white issue, and I am sure that for most people it still might be… I kind of wish that [...]
The death of a baby or child is forever life changing in every way that you can imagine, or maybe you can not imagine. I must have heard this a million times, “I can not image how you handle this; I would not be able to handle it.” Who wants to imagine the death of their baby or child, No one I know and neither did I. But I found myself in that very real [...]