There are currently more than 65-million refugees and displaced persons in the world. It is one of the biggest human rights crises of our time, and deserves as much media attention as possible. But what refugees don’t need is to have their plight reduced to a fashion statement. “Refugee chic.” On Friday, there was a […]
Louise Ferreira
Louise is a freelance journalist and writer living in Johannesburg. She is particularly interested in topics surrounding social justice and gender rights. She's on Twitter as @frrlou.
Posted inNews/Politics
Don’t trust people who say they’re not racist
There just aren’t any racists nowadays. I know, I was shocked too. It would seem to me that if you take to Facebook to call black people k*****s or monkeys, or believe that raping children is part of black culture, you are as racist as they come. But this accusation is categorically denied. White people […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Men will never stop hurting us
As a child, I thought that grownups weren’t afraid of anything. They killed spiders. They didn’t believe in monsters and ghosts. They weren’t scared of dogs or the dark or the deep end of the swimming pool. Of all the disappointing discoveries of adulthood, the realisation that grownups are in fact very frightened very often […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Some spaces exclude white people, and that’s a good thing
The Sunday morning after Mumford & Sons’ first Pretoria show, I woke up to a newsfeed and timeline going berserk — but about Beyoncé rather than banjos. I’m not part of the Beyhive, but I watched the Formation video out of curiosity. It’s incredible. What struck me most, though, was the fact that I felt […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
On whiteness and white guilt
There is a refrain that is often heard around the braai or the water cooler, and it goes like this: “Why should I have to apologise for apartheid? I wasn’t a part of it/was only a child/wasn’t yet born.” There is another one that I’ve been seeing more often lately, on Facebook and in thinkpieces, […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Stop invoking Mandela’s legacy to advocate respectability
Recently, I saw a Facebook post about an event where the keynote speech was titled “What would Mandela do?” The speech, unsurprisingly, criticised the recent student protests. For the love of intellectual discourse, can we please retire this phrase? Don’t misunderstand me. I have nothing but respect and admiration — and gratitude — for Nelson […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, Media, News/Politics
Anger, ‘outrage’ and the internet
Quite often, when I log on to Twitter, I’ll see comments like the following: “What are we angry about today? Did I miss today’s Twitter outrage? I don’t know what we’re supposed to be angry about this week, but I’m outraged just in case.” It happens especially after incidents like Bic’s sexist Women’s Day ad […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
We can no longer deny that #RhodesMustFall
A good seven or eight years ago, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Cape Town, students arrived on campus one morning to find that the statue of Cecil John Rhodes had been defaced with red spray paint. The message read, “Fuck your dream of empire”. I don’t really recall what my reaction […]
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
Please stop telling me how not to get raped
On Tuesday, the South African Police Service sent a series of tweets detailing safety tips to avoid rape. In an extraordinarily ill-considered turn of phrase, they tweeted that SAPS Northwest “are concerned about escalating contact crimes due to victims who roam the streets late at night”. Just let that sink in for a minute. “Due […]
Posted inGender violence, News/Politics
When the system betrays our children
This was supposed to be a weary and fairly snide thinkpiece lamenting the ridiculousness of having a Women’s Day, a Women’s Month, that is completely associated with pink and flowers and whatever other qualities are deemed appropriately womanly. (Apparently, this includes wearing a doek.) Instead, I was reminded once again that I live in a […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The artefacts of the dead
The picture was on Twitter. What caught my eye wasn’t the small coffin or the drawn faces of the parents or the crucifix of yellow roses arranged on the gleaming wooden lid. It was the two toy sports cars, still in their boxes, placed carefully on top of the flowers to accompany the body of […]