By Afua Hirsch We’ve come a long way since the golliwog, right? These days there are black dolls in every toy shop. Tesco might be known for selling black dolls for the wrong reason – pricing black versions £1 cheaper than almost identical white dolls – but the fact that they sell black dolls is […]
race
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle, News/Politics
Murray’s painting mirrors Zuma’s life
I had already started writing my angry views about my president unzipped and exposed. When I started, I wrote it as a man, a black man, Saartjie Baartman’s brother, as someone raised by my grandmother with a moral stick. And I had joined in solidarity with those who are angry about the way President Jacob […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Zuma’s privates and the black male sexual potency myth
Tom Sharpe’s comic novel Indecent Exposure mercilessly lampooning white racism in South Africa was predictably banned under the apartheid government. I managed to get my copy during a visit to Sun City, where such contraband was legally obtainable (since it fell within the boundaries of the ‘independent’ homeland of Bophuthatswana). In one scene, a distraught […]
Posted inGeneral
Zille: Three tweets to the wind
By Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh After the DA leader’s first Twitter-related faux pas, describing voters as “supporting the ANC because they were given KFC”, I winced, bit my lip, and continued with my day. After her second slur, depicting Simphiwe Dana as a “professional black” for apparently trading on her race in criticising the Western Cape government’s […]
Posted inGeneral
Whiteness, shame and “this strange place”
“The liberals must realise that they themselves are oppressed if they are true liberals and therefore they must fight for their own freedom and not that of the nebulous “they” with whom they can hardly claim identification.” – Steve Biko So much has been written on whiteness recently that it hardly seems worth adding to […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Mantashe, Mulder and other Africans
‘Race’* is an overused concept in South African discourses that frequently hides more than it reveals. Therefore, it remains imperative to scrutinise the particular historical context in which ‘race’ is wielded. When we discern how ‘race’ is applied to maintain or expand power, we can resist attempted reactivations of the apartheid template and disrupt ‘whiteness’ […]
Posted inGeneral
Let’s talk: White fears and black aspirations
South Africa has always had a history of bad race relations, but after 1994 we all held high hopes of improved race relations and tolerance. How wrong we were. The issue is simply that South Africans are selfish. All race groups are! We simply refuse to step into one another’s shoes and try to understand […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Trayvon Martin: It’s about race and a lousy law
Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African-American teenager, was shot dead in Florida a month ago because of how he looked. Before being killed by a Hispanic self-appointed crime watch volunteer, Martin was described as “suspicious”. George Zimmerman was suspicious due to Martin’s skin colour, his wearing of a hoodie with the hood up (it was raining), […]
Posted inGeneral
Embracing irrelevance is a bitter thing
In this week’s edition, the Mail & Guardian published comments made by former Democratic Alliance parliamentarian Raenette Taljaard on her growing isolation and ultimate separation from the DA in her book Up in Arms: Pursuing Accountability for the Arms Deal in Parliament. Reflecting on her last speech as a DA parliamentarian, delivered on November 9 […]
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Debating universities’ admissions policies
By Khethelo Xulu Reading what other young people in the country think about the future and the direction the country is taking is thought-provoking. As a young citizen of the country, I usually follow and participate in such debates. The most recent debate I have engaged in centers on universities’ admissions policies. An article about […]
Posted inGeneral
A man who is not a man
By Fundile Majola There was a mixture of excitement and anxiety in the Port Elizabeth air on that sunny Monday morning of November 24. I was ready for my last matric examination paper, Geography. I was also ready to be made and declared a man – the initiation process was to start that evening. I […]
Posted inGeneral
Enough about race, let’s talk about class
If truth be told, black people are not interested in the confessions of white people who suffer with guilt from the sins of colonialism and apartheid. In the 21st century where both colonialism and apartheid have – depending on how you look at things – been defeated, we don’t want to know of people who […]