I have been gay for as long as memory serves me. I vividly remember spending the bulk of my formative years vacillating between denial and self-hate; from a young age I somehow knew that acting on my romantic feelings would come at the unbelievably high cost of shaming my family, my friends, and my culture. It […]
hate crime
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Je suis Orlando, then je suis KwaThema
If indeed we are one with the victims of the Orlando shooting, then surely we ought to be one with the victims of various violations and victimisation in our own communities. Or not? Since Sunday I have tried to get a sense of what this attack was about. Was it about a terrorist act, or […]
Posted inGeneral
Polarised debate on Charleston hate crime, gun control leads nowhere
By now the story has reverberated around the world, that on the evening of June 17 a 21-year-old white man, Dylann Storm Roof, entered Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church (the oldest black church in the South) in Charleston, South Carolina, and, about an hour later, shot and killed nine of the 12 worshipers gathered there […]
Posted inGender violence
A deep dip in everyday racism/sexism/classism/etc
Cape Town swimming coach Tim Osrin was arrested last week when he allegedly beat up a middle-aged domestic worker, Cynthia Joni, in the middle of the day without the two ever having said anything to one another. Osrin was driving his car along a road, saw Joni, and stopped his car to beat her up. […]