“South Africans here in New Zealand have a reputation for being aggressive — especially the Afrikaners,” groaned Mark, a fellow English-speaking South African, over a beer. “Why Afrikaners?” I asked. He shrugged his shoulders. “They arrive here with a huge chip on their shoulder, walk into our workshop demanding a WOF for their car and […]
race
Posted inGeneral
Centre for Blackness
Exactly 100 years after Africans were dispossessed of their land and stripped of their identity and heritage, the ANC government has subsidised the opening of the new headquarters for blackness. This comes in the form of a legacy project worth more than R120 million to promote, protect and preserve the legacy of Black Consciousness visionary leader […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Being a straight white male silently cushions Armstrong’s plunge
“Armstrong ‘still a hero’ ” read the Independent on Saturday headline. Lance Armstrong’s scandalous admission of guilt has got fans scratching their heads wondering how to feel about this anti-hero. The tour-de-farce of lies and denial has climaxed in a tacky American-style made-for-daytime-TV confessionary. Oprah tweeted; the world waited; and now it’s confirmed — cycling’s […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Don’t throw Malema into the dustbin of history
I have listened to political analysts, academics, businessmen and women and ordinary people trying to convince me that Julius Malema is the biggest problem this country has ever been confronted with post-democracy. I have heard arguments about how he is a “populist”, an “opportunist”, a “demagogue” and “a danger to the future of the country”. […]
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We need to get over apartheid
This past week I have been confronted once more with the debate as to whether we should ‘’talk’’ about apartheid and by extension race relations. First I tuned into Eusebius McKaiser’s talk show on 702 where a gentleman called in to ask whether ‘’we can stop talking about race every day’’ and McKaiser responded by […]
Posted inNews/Politics
If whiteness can’t be unlearned then black oppression is permanent
Many arguments have risen out of Gillian Schutte’s “Dear White People” perhaps the most progressive provided by Jackie Shandu in “Black people, fight your own battles”. Shandu argues that because Schutte’s letter is addressed to white people, it ought to be dismantled and dissected primarily by the white community who it seeks to engage in […]
Posted inNews/Politics
After Kevin Bacon, the class struggle
As an analysis of our society race is still, to borrow a phrase from the mafia, the “boss of all bosses”. It’s a prefix, a subtext and for not an insignificant number — a totem pole. But there’s another heavy hitter — a rival explanation — that maintains that class increasingly matters. Most do not […]
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Dancing to the tune of whiteness?
By Sipho Singiswa Almost 19 years after the 1994 election, institutionalised racism against indigenous African people has remained intact and largely unchallenged. The majority of Africans still live in poverty with very little access to land, housing, basic quality education, clean water and decent primary healthcare. All this is in violation of the much-praised South […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Black people, fight your own battles
By Jackie Shandu Was Steve Biko over-optimistic when he said ”blacks are tired of standing on the sidelines and witnessing a game in which they should be participating”? It seems to me black South Africans do not want to be involved in the struggle for their own liberation. How else does one interpret the frenzy […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Reflections on an epistle to white people
By Sekoetlane Jacob Phamodi Yesterday morning, on my breakfast online media trawl, I ran into Gillian Schutte’s latest epistle to white South Africa. “Dear white people,” it opens, “[I] implore you to wake up and smell Africa with a fresh white nose.” Intrigued by what Schutte might have say to whites following a year of […]
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Black and white: New labels to make South Africans happy
Hell it’s been “black” this and “white” that for the past couple of weeks here on Thought Leader with Gillian Schutte, myself and others jumping on the bandwagon. In fact between Gillian and I have lowered the level of debate to something you’d read on that other much less intelligent riff-raff blog hosted by a […]
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Unpacking the discourse of domination
Over this past year I have written a series of essays that attempt to deconstruct the “discourse of domination” and have provided the links to these articles in this piece. These essays were written in response to a series of racialised events that happened in South Africa in 2012 — occurrences, which I posit, are […]