To shout fire is an act of alarm demanding that everything we are doing at this moment is dropped and postponed because there is a real emergency that overrides all other considerations. The fire threatening us all is the failure of our African masculinity to answer so many of the questions that are being asked […]
News/Politics
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
‘Side-guys’ and ‘side-chicks’ in the time of Aids
I just read a very troubling article by Mail & Guardian columnist Khaya Dlanga titled “Why do side-chicks happen?” In this article Dlanga claims to investigate in the South African context the reasons why (American-focused) research suggests that multiple lovers have come to “become even more popular in the modern age”. He cites a study […]
Posted inNews/Politics
How we stopped thinking like Africans
Not so very long ago, as recent as 1977, the exponents of Black Consciousness (BC) taught us that there were two nations in South Africa: one European, oppressive and privileged; the other African, oppressed and dispossessed. The minority Europeans were aware that they were outnumbered by the natives. So, they went out of their way […]
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
When Uncle Mac gets spun
Oh, the president’s wit. The president’s wit. What is it, about the president’s wit? Let me just try get a few things out the way: Is there something about his lack of delivery that gets us all riled up instead of laughing? Is it timing? Is it that he does not know his audience well […]
Posted inNews/Politics
President Zuma, not in our name!
It is a very sad day in the life of Africans when those who are tasked with the responsibility of championing unity undermine it. This morning was saddening for the delegation of South Africa that is attending the Land and Agrarian Reform Conference taking place in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana, a delegation that […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Working class hero
If one takes a good look at John Lennon’s song Working Class Hero it must dawn on you sooner or later that, just like the song Imagine, it is powerfully revolutionary. In addition to targeting the family, school, college or university (Althusser’s apparatuses where ideology is inculcated in subjects), and the class structure of society, […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The People vs Red October
By Sipho Singiswa Many will wonder at how almost less than six months before its 20th anniversary celebrations present-day South Africa is still plagued by racist, white supremacist hate speech spewed forth by the likes of Dan Roodt, Sunette Bridges and Steve Hofmeyr. These views get peddled and masqueraded as “freedom of speech” yet the […]
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 inNews/Politics
Mangcu’s attack on Zuma petty
I am disturbed by Xolela Mangcu’s column in which he commands president Jacob Zuma to write a book within six months. He argues that it is Zuma’s responsibility to carry on this tradition of ANC leaders, all of whom have written a book, a journal or made literary contributions to knowledge production. This argument must […]
Posted inNews/Politics
SAAF: From fighting force to flying farce
South Africa is to deploy three Rooivalk (Afrikaans for kestrel) to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in support of the United Nations Intervention Brigade. Three helicopters. That might not sound a big deal, but it’s a rare bit of good news for an air force nosediving towards catastrophe. Dating to the 1980s and the […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The games people play at City Press
The shenanigans of alleged racism at City Press teach us clearly that the media is untransformed in this country. Instead the media professionals from the disadvantaged background now devote their time and energy to fighting over who is a black African and who is not? This battle for power, control and domination among the so-called […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Black consumers fuel white privilege
By Ntombenhle Khathwane While I laud Gillian Schutte for calling out white privilege and racism on radio and on her blogs — I assume in an attempt to rid our society of such thinking so as to create a more equitable society — the most she can do as a white person is call it […]