When I was recently asked to perform a few of my songs at the private birthday party of an old fan from the Voëlvry era, I agreed. “I don’t like performing at private parties, but at least these people won’t be a bunch of potbellied Afrikaans right-wingers,” I said to my wife. “This guy says […]
race relations
Posted inEquality, General
Now is a good time for South African whites to show courage
I can sum up my feelings over the last 20 years of democracy in South Africa as being a progression of emotions, from concern (pre 1994) to euphoria (elections) to “this is not so bad” to “quite comfortable thank you” (Mandela days) back to concern, (Zuma) then to anger (Nkandla et al), followed by frustration […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Whiteness is like herpes
You know now that you have it but prefer not to talk about it. Every now and then it surfaces like a rash, provoking discomfort, not in you, but in others. You have lived with it for so long that for most of your life you didn’t even notice it. In fact, you were surprised […]
Posted inEquality, General
Luister, you can keep your Oxford scholarship
By Mark John Burke Three years ago, I sat around a dinner table as one of 10 national finalists for five very prestigious scholarships to Oxford. Across from me sat a professor who insisted: “We need to do away with Afrikaans completely. It is the language of the oppressor. We need to start with universities.” […]
Posted inEquality, General
On being mis-recognised: Julian Hewitt and the angry black woman
People think I’m an angry black woman. People who know me well, know that this is a misrecognition of me. I’m a nice person. I hate foot-in-mouth interactions: that awkward moment when someone says something they shouldn’t have said, and someone else has to salvage the situation or we all walk away. I save face. […]
Posted inEquality, General
Times are changing…
It was at a girl’s varsity residence room the morning after we had sex that I read, for the first time, Steve Biko’s I write what I like. I was lying next to her, naked, and she had a handful of books on a bedside table. I read the first few essays, which left me […]
Posted inEquality
What does a ‘non-racial’ SA look like?
The University of California Humanities Research Institute’s Seminar in Experimental Critical Theory in conjunction with the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research’s (Wiser) Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism kicked off yesterday at the University of the Witwatersrand. The theme is “Archives of the Non-Racial“. It began with a conversation between Ahmed Kathrada and […]
Posted inEquality, Media
Lines of privilege
“I can, if I wish, arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.” These are the words that played over and over in my mind while I was at the Franschhoek Literary Festival (FLF) this past weekend. Two friends and I attended two sessions on the festival’s final […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Khaya Dlanga…white South Africans are trying
By Jordan Griffiths In a recent article Khaya Dlanga looked at race relations in our country 20 years on and presented the argument that in his view black people have made more of an effort towards the process of integration. He cited how black South Africans move to white suburbs, learn English and Afrikaans and […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The intimate and unbearable shackles of racism
You know this scene all too well: you’re in a supermarket and the person in front of you whispers a racist epithet under their breath. Apparently black shop clerks are to blame for shopping rush hours. Or you stumble into a serious debate where accusations of racism are used as a distraction to shut down […]
Posted inGeneral
The Malema conundrum
Julius Malema is such a polarising figure. We loathe and love him in equal measure. He shakes us in our comfort zones by confronting the compromises of our leaders. He makes us discuss, yet again, what the liberation struggle was about. Did political power for the black government mean an end to apartheid and the […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Where is the black conservative in South Africa?
By Melo Magolego The deafening umbrage surrounding the DA’s use of Mandela in DA posters makes me curious. What has made people so flustered about the appropriation of the Mandela brand by the DA? I find reasons focusing on the veracity and accuracy of the claims about the track record of Helen Suzman wholly uninteresting. […]