In January this year, numerous protestors were killed by the police in service-delivery protests, four of them simply for rising up to demand a most basic right — water. This is a contravention of human rights on many levels and while it sent shock waves through poor black working-class and marginalised communities, the broader middle […]
Gillian Schutte
Feminist, filmmaker, writer, poet, activist and author, Gillian Schutte has a degree in African politics, an MA in Creative Writing and a Film Director's qualification from the Binger Institute, Netherlands. Winner of the Award of Excellence for her documentary entry to the Society for Visual Anthropology Festival in Washington, 2005, and author of the novel After Just Now -- Schutte fearlessly and creatively tackles issues of race, identity, sexuality and social justice in her multimedia work. She is founding member of Media for Justice co-owner of handHeld Films. and co producer of the online Reality TV series
The Schutte Singiswas'.
Posted inEquality, Media, News/Politics
Let’s talk about the protests. Where is the empathy and outrage?
“The country is burning”. “Burning frustration”. “Hot-headed in South Africa”. These are the headlines that abound about the many protests that are currently erupting around South Africa. On television we witness mobs of black people apparently running amok, building barricades and burning tyres. We hear of the disenfranchised masses dancing, picking up rocks and supposedly […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
An activist’s manifesto for 2014: Ten social justice issues to champion
The fanfare at the beginning of a new year is usually celebratory and full of hope. This celebration is a way for people to wipe the slate clean and begin anew. But last year, 2013, was a particularly tumultuous year in South Africa when we were besieged by problems. In reality, these problems have been […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
We need to talk about racism (TEDx Talk)
So here I am, on the TEDx stage, to deliver the message that makes me probably the most hated person in South Africa — as far as white many people are concerned. Certainly I have been called all sorts of horrible things including self-loathing, masochistic, a black-wannabe, a bitch, witch, man-hating dyke, mad women who […]
Posted inNews/Politics
What the fake signing man really told us
Gibberish or not, what the fake signing man so pithily exposed about our society, is that white privilege and commonsense racism continue to permeate and dominate the South African public conversation. This was evident in the many educated and colloquial responses to this debacle which, rather than focusing on the grave disservice done to the […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Nine things white people can do to help transform South Africa
In tribute to Mandela’s vision for a world that is rid of racism, I have created this list of nine things white people can do to assist in the transformation of South Africa. “No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Golden Boy
I have often been asked how I got into writing about the inequalities and racialised problematics of our society. When I reflect back on it I realise that my son was probably one of my biggest teachers. From the moment he moved into the realm of language he made the most astounding social observations from […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Dear Eusebius, if you ever go to Buckingham Palace make sure to go without me
Eusebius McKaiser writes in this week’s Sunday Times column that he finds me intellectually fascinating and then goes on to describe, in nit-picking terms, how he interprets my work. He asks if I do not get tired of tweeting and tweeting (me?) antiracist rhetoric as well as writing plentiful angry essays about my fellow “blind […]
Posted inGeneral
A blonde walked into the room
A blonde walked into the room. Tokyo’s loins stirred like a shifting crocodile on the banks of the Limpopo … or perhaps a mole on the first day of spring … or possibly an idea about to be birthed. The point is they stirred and this took him by surprise. He had not felt stirred […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Non-racism in a racist South Africa – the opiate of the chattering class
In Racism without Racists, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva writes: “Nowadays, except for members of white supremacist organisations, few whites (in the United States) will claim to be racist. Most whites will claim that they don’t see colour — just people; that although the ugly face of discrimination is still with us, it is no longer the central […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Seeing red: This is what hate speech looks like
What is the Red October movement hoping to achieve through its hate-based hodgepodge discourse that is a bizarre combination of radical left communist speak and backward racist doctrine, peppered with obtuse analysis and expedient misinterpretation of social statistics. No really — what do they see at the end of this tunnel vision? Do they think […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
A comprehensive guide to white privilege in South Africa
After spending two hours on Aubrey Masango’s Radio 702 show Talk@9 this week, fielding questions and accusations around my views on racism and attempting to explain white privilege to white callers, I decided to write an extensive guide to recognising white privilege, borrowing from this anonymous Thought Catalog document, which extrapolates from Richard Dyer’s work […]