If ever the media is to speed up the socio-cultural transformation of South African society, this will not be brought about by the perpetuation of race-based thinking. We now have popular magazine Drum launching the “Darling Awards” to “celebrate black excellence”. The much vaunted event is planned for November 7 at Birchwood Estate in Boksburg. […]
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Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle, News/Politics
The braai or shisa nyama is not heritage
By Unéné Gregory We brand our beautiful country as a rainbow nation, one with people of various backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities. We are a country unlike any other and one of the days to acknowledge our diversity and actively learn about one another is Heritage Day. Formerly celebrated only in KwaZulu-Natal as King Shaka day our […]
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 inEquality, News/Politics
I must confess, I miss Thabo Mbeki
Today I found myself nostalgic for a man I had little appreciation for while he was still the president of our country. I found myself missing former president Thabo Mbeki. I was sitting at a table in Dime Todo lo que Sientes in Mexico City with a group of young idealists who, like me, have […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence
Can we talk ourselves out of sexism?
An ATM Bomber is a girl who spends all her boyfriend’s money. A Please Call Me is a schoolgirl. A Khanyi Mbau is a gold digger. So are Abomaskebengu. Skeres, slahloms and s’chipane are loose women. A yellowbone is a light-skinned woman. Pakistan is a woman with a big bum. A sidechick is a mistress […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Where is Somalia’s Marshall Plan?
On the bright side, the Nairobi Westgate mall tragedy must bring Kenyans together again and perhaps even go some distance to heal the wounds from their recent internal conflict. Conflict, in general, including the very thing that has just happened to the Kenyans at the hands of al-Shabab, has been a prolific source of underdevelopment […]
Posted inEquality
Simphiwe Dana is nobody’s darling
“Part of what makes Simphiwe Dana so compelling for me, part of why I had to write this book, is that she is almost impossible to govern,” writes Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola in her latest book, A renegade called Simphiwe. This book is a “creative-intellectual portrait” of the public (and private) life of the musician. […]
Posted inHealth, News/Politics, Tech
The dashed dreams of medical quackery
White South Africans harbour numerous carefully nurtured prejudices about their fellow citizens and delusions about themselves. One is that blacks are uneducated and backward, eschewing reason for superstition. Whites, in contrast, are masters of reason, hacking a scientific path through thickets of ignorance. Such assumptions are particularly glaring in health matters. Although the term “witchdoctor” […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Neoliberalism: ‘Stop thinking because this is it’
“What is neoliberalism?” The young American student looks at me with faux innocence of the wide-eyed sort. She’s not sure what it is. “Can you explain?” Sniggers precede and succeed the question. With that little question-and-snigger, neoliberal hegemony re-iterates its reach across the Atlantic Ocean to South Africa, by way of that island that formerly […]
Posted inEquality, Tech
Another feminist review of GTA V
My grubby little paws got their hands on Grand Theft Auto V yesterday and I cannot wait until Friday when I can start playing the hell out of it. Having it sitting at home without being able to play it because of late work nights is akin to a new form of torture. To tide […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, News/Politics
Peeking under the line
By Aragorn Eloff Earlier this week I received a Facebook invite for an event that, noble as it seems, left me feeling more than a little uncomfortable. Here’s the invitation for “Live Under the Line“, an initiative by the religious organisation Common Good Foundation: “Did you know that there are currently 13 million South Africans […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The Arab first lady’s burden
The woman, yet again, has become a political football in Middle-Eastern politics. One wishes the area experts would make up their minds: just yesterday we were being told the Muslim wife was a voiceless, pitiable creature walking five steps behind her husband … Now she’s an assistant secretary of state — directing and manipulating her […]