Until Malala Yousafzai’s story became well-known, I doubt many people considered what it means to be young and female and seeking an education in a conflict-ridden society that has a bias against the education of girls. Recently I read about a teacher from Afghanistan, Nahida, and I realised that in another part of the world […]
Equality
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Long delays in processing asylum claims disgraceful
By Thandeka Duma Weeks spent in queues turned into months and months turned into years for a Burundian mother of four who applied for asylum in South Africa back in 2008. Her asylum application was rejected by the refugee status determination officer (RSDO) and she appealed this decision to the Refugee Appeal Board (RAB) in […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Transforming our (white) academic spaces
The ongoing saga at North West University (which I wrote about, here) is not the by-product of fun student traditions; it is as a result of the appropriation of a political salute (sieg heil) by students in residence greetings — despite the fact that this salute is problematic because of its link to Nazism. These […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
The thinking Christian’s gay dilemma
It is no surprise, if media reports are to be believed, that the driving force behind Uganda’s new hate legislation against its LGBTI citizens is backed by US-based fundamentalist evangelical Christian organisations. It’s frankly embarrassing, as an albeit liberal Christian, to be associated even in general description with this kind of behaviour. What would Jesus […]
Posted inEquality, General
The language of inclusion and exclusion
One of my colleagues recently took down the sign “English-speaking zone” from her classroom wall. She had put it up at the beginning of the year as a way of dealing with the “language problem” in our school. She is a monolingual English speaker who teaches students who speak isiXhosa (and Afrikaans occasionally) and she […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Museveni’s gay cult
By Steven Hussey Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s motives for criminalising homosexuality are hopelessly uninformed, unscientific and proof of gross ignorance when it comes to sexual orientation. He said, “No study has shown you can be homosexual by nature. That man can choose to love a man … is a matter of choice. After listening to […]
Posted inEquality, Media, News/Politics
Hitler in Potchefstroom
We need to talk about the young people at North West University (NWU). The university residences at NWU that made their first years pledge allegiance with Nazi salutes and a sieg heil have either perplexed people (with many wondering why this was even taking place – fascist symbolism hasn’t ever caught on in South Africa) […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality
Death by sokkie musiek at corporate functions
Yet another award ceremony, yet another corporate weekend away. So, what shall be my mask this time? The history of power in corporate SA still looms large in the boardrooms of present-day South Africa. The black face needs to be masked by fluency in an institutional culture which, it is assumed, is ahistorical. That is, […]
Posted inEquality
Men in women’s studies
A male student who sued his women’s studies professor for failing him for never attending class was the subject of what I thought (as a women’s studies professor) was an extraordinary report a few weeks ago. The story revealed that, as the only man in a room full of women, Wongene Daniel Kim felt unable […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Racism perpetuated by reconciliation at UFS
Every time you read of yet another racist incident at the University of the Free State (UFS), you cannot avoid colliding with the despondency people feel as they become resigned to yet another Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the way. Every time you want to get angry, be outraged at racism, you are very quickly […]
Posted inEquality
For Sunduza, Thulo and other black women who choose life
Written with Gcobani Qambela “It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights — if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.” In the novel The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison writes about the […]
Posted inEquality
Welcome to Club Racist
Now don’t all come clamouring at the door, wanting to know where you can sign up and get your free Klan hoods and Jessica Leandra*-themed bikinis. If you’re white and Afrikaans, you already ARE in the racist club. Let me explain, the racist club is that unspoken society that exists within the white community where […]