It was unfortunate that the excellent Mad Men was not awarded outstanding drama series at last night’s Emmy Awards. An opportunity missed to give the series, which aired its last episode in May this year after seven seasons, a fine sending off, much like Breaking Bad had last year. Mad Men’s depiction of American life […]
race
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
#Luister: Black skin a burden in Stellenbosch
How does it feel to be a problem? — WEB Du Bois Stellenbosch University’s exclusionary language policy has once again made it into the news. It’s an open secret that the university has been hostile towards students who question the policy and more importantly, the town is hostile to black people who live in the […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
My name is Tim, I’m a racist and I’m running for president
A non-practising one. Probably best to make that clear right up front. “You cannot teach a racist to change,” says Rusty Bedsprings on an online forum, “you can only show him that his bigotry holds no power”. Wrong. You can and it does, big time. This is the whole point: Racism has South Africa by […]
Posted inEquality, General
Language, belonging and the decolonial moment at South African universities
In recent months the spotlight has, yet again, been shone on universities in South Africa. This time, the focus was on the fact that leading institutions (all of whom were previously designated as for “whites only”) remains largely untransformed. This time around, though, the focus was not only on numbers (even though that remains an […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics, Sport
This black life matters
Michael Brown was killed a year ago. They used to say, “It’s been a long, hot summer” but it’s been another long, hot, horror-filled year in the US; every single day another Michael Brown. This is someone I know. In high school, Kadeem was a force in the middle of the field. He owned his […]
Posted inEquality, Media
Race is too much of a sloppy concept to assist us in answering the coloured question
The “coloured question” revived itself, again. This time, not by politicians hoping to gain sympathy votes from the coloured majority in the Western and Northern Cape provinces. Jamie Petersen, a 22-year-old Cape Town resident, writing about her experiences of “being coloured in a black and white South Africa” sparked this latest wave of the debate. […]
Posted inEquality
Can we be inspired by role models across the race barrier?
The idea that one benefits mainly from having a role model within the same race group is not new. I have encountered this viewpoint in the workplace many times and it is a largely accepted position. When I matriculated in 1999, it was very early days into our new democracy, with plenty of optimism about […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
#RachelDolezal, I cannot escape being black
We live in a world where we are told we can be whatever we want — a doctor, lawyer, astronaut. And black? Recently the Washington branch president of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People was “outed” as being white after posing as black for more than a decade. Black twitter was on […]
Posted inEquality
Black child you are on your own
The world doesn’t expect much from you as a child growing up in the townships of South Africa today. The private sector is looking to you to become their waiters, cashiers and shop assistants. The government is looking at you to clean the streets, lay bricks on construction sites and if you are vocal enough, […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Rhodes: Views from a black associate professor at UCT
By Caroline Ncube Amid the calls for radical transformation at the University of Cape Town (UCT), there are many voices seeking to be heard. That must be heard. I am compelled to speak too. I am a black African, non-South African, female associate professor at UCT. As a foreign national I make no bones about […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
I too, am Africa
To debate colonial statues or white privilege in South Africa will not help us to transform society, unless it helps us build the much needed coalitions to do so. Frequent racist incidents and the racial rhetoric in public debates show that our coalitions of trust are floundering. It is not the raw frankness of our […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
10 useless responses to #RhodesMustFall
By Ntokozo Qwabe As the Rhodes Must Fall movement at the University of Cape Town (UCT) approaches its third week, I thought it necessary to put down the 10 most useless responses people have made to it thus far, and jot down useful counter-responses to them. These counter-responses are collated and developed from real responses […]