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 […]
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, General
Enough about penises – let’s talk about c*nt.
While the world is only just coming to terms with saying the word vagina out loud, cunt remains a term that takes people’s breath away as they cringe at the sheer power it contains. Pushed underground, banished from conventional language, cunt has long since been appropriated by patriarchs and misogynists and used as an utterance […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The eight ways of being white
As the recipient of much anger from the white liberal echelon to the intolerant right, I was relieved to be sent this link by a Facebook friend and anti-racism activist from Canada. The writer of this blog has extrapolated the essential messages from Professor Barnor Hesse’s course “Unsettling Whiteness”. This is ground-breaking work around whiteness […]
Posted inEquality, Media
Black penis, white penis – a cock-and-bull story
Let’s just get it out there for once and for all. Do black men have bigger penises than white men and is this what all the fuss over the past 350 years has been about? Or is the legend of the oversized black cock nothing more than a construct concocted by white men in order […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Does media anaesthetise us to the suffering of the poor?
Last week saw the memorial of the Marikana Massacre unfold on national television, namely on eNCA, which rolled out an entire day dedicated to the miners that died in the massacre. On the surface this appeared to be a noble cause that could be celebrated as the mainstream finally seeing things from the working-class perspective. […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality, News/Politics
Marikana: When neoliberalism negates human rights
It is one year to the day that the Marikana massacre unfolded on the Wonderkop koppie and was witnessed on national television. The trauma of this spectacle still hangs heavy in the air for many who are unable to make any sense of this heinous occurrence, because there is no making sense of it. There […]
Posted inEquality, Lifestyle, Media
Beauty and the beast: How the beauty industry ‘others’ women
Picture credit: Cozy Wallet In the wake of the many global revolutionary rumblings over the past few years I have been pondering the prospect of a mass women’s revolt against the male-owned beauty industry that mostly diminishes women to mere objects and creates untold conflict in our psyches. This industry, along with the […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Trayvon Martin: Fear wears a black man’s face
I wrote this article last year in March in response to the killing of Trayvon Martin. I am republishing it now as a tribute to his parents who not only have to mourn their teenage son, but also deal with the anger outrage and hurt that their son’s killer has been acquitted. Justice for Trayvon […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The trouble with liberals
The word liberal traces its history back to the Latin liber, which means “free”. Author and founding member of the Liberal Party in South Africa, Alan Paton, described this body of thought as such: “By liberalism I don’t mean the creed of any party or any century. I mean a generosity of spirit, a tolerance […]
Posted inGeneral
It’s my hair…I bought it – part 1
Khanyi has reached a crossroad and does not know what to do with her hair. She decides to write about her dilemma and creates a character, Bongi, who takes us on a journey through various elements of the hair story. A documentary that explores attitudes of black women towards their hair as well as explores […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Marikana and the hypocrisy of corporate social responsibility
When the mass strike action hit the Rustenberg Platinum belt in August 2012 mainstream South African public was quick to write off the striking miners as an unruly bunch who were ungrateful for their employment and unworthy of the social development that the mining companies were investing into their communities. Indeed this is exactly how […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Deconstructing ‘sugar daddies’
Mpho, who lives in Alex, tells me how “sugar daddies” hit the townships on weekends in their smart cars. They cruise the streets looking for young flesh. One thing the sugar daddies rely on is the teenage hunger for bling-bling. They know that teenagers crave to feel they are part of the world of glamour […]