So here I am, on the TEDx stage, to deliver the message that makes me probably the most hated person in South Africa — as far as white many people are concerned. Certainly I have been called all sorts of horrible things including self-loathing, masochistic, a black-wannabe, a bitch, witch, man-hating dyke, mad women who […]
race
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Coconut-ism and death of African culture
About a week ago I read an uncomfortable piece about the unwillingness of black people to share their cultures. The author insinuates that black South Africans remain willingly enclaved in a cocoon of apartheid pain. My objections were immediate and loud. This post is an afterthought and a result of some reflection. Culture in South […]
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 inEquality, News/Politics
Black women, on the up and up?
I follow US politics half-heartedly but since the first Obama presidency, US political life has become central in many ways even for people who are not interested in politics. Michelle Obama, together with her husband, became the face of a changing American society — at least that was the promise of the “rise and rise” […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle, News/Politics
Whiteness is thicker than blood
Mike van Graan’s Rainbow Scars describes the fortunes and destinies of blacks who are raised by whites and those condemned to live in the townships. Much as the play explores relations between a white mother and an adopted black daughter, the most interesting undercurrent is the theme of black identity and whether skin colour is […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Golden Boy
I have often been asked how I got into writing about the inequalities and racialised problematics of our society. When I reflect back on it I realise that my son was probably one of my biggest teachers. From the moment he moved into the realm of language he made the most astounding social observations from […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Dear Eusebius, if you ever go to Buckingham Palace make sure to go without me
Eusebius McKaiser writes in this week’s Sunday Times column that he finds me intellectually fascinating and then goes on to describe, in nit-picking terms, how he interprets my work. He asks if I do not get tired of tweeting and tweeting (me?) antiracist rhetoric as well as writing plentiful angry essays about my fellow “blind […]
Posted inNews/Politics
How we stopped thinking like Africans
Not so very long ago, as recent as 1977, the exponents of Black Consciousness (BC) taught us that there were two nations in South Africa: one European, oppressive and privileged; the other African, oppressed and dispossessed. The minority Europeans were aware that they were outnumbered by the natives. So, they went out of their way […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The People vs Red October
By Sipho Singiswa Many will wonder at how almost less than six months before its 20th anniversary celebrations present-day South Africa is still plagued by racist, white supremacist hate speech spewed forth by the likes of Dan Roodt, Sunette Bridges and Steve Hofmeyr. These views get peddled and masqueraded as “freedom of speech” yet the […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Non-racism in a racist South Africa – the opiate of the chattering class
In Racism without Racists, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva writes: “Nowadays, except for members of white supremacist organisations, few whites (in the United States) will claim to be racist. Most whites will claim that they don’t see colour — just people; that although the ugly face of discrimination is still with us, it is no longer the central […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The games people play at City Press
The shenanigans of alleged racism at City Press teach us clearly that the media is untransformed in this country. Instead the media professionals from the disadvantaged background now devote their time and energy to fighting over who is a black African and who is not? This battle for power, control and domination among the so-called […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Seeing red: This is what hate speech looks like
What is the Red October movement hoping to achieve through its hate-based hodgepodge discourse that is a bizarre combination of radical left communist speak and backward racist doctrine, peppered with obtuse analysis and expedient misinterpretation of social statistics. No really — what do they see at the end of this tunnel vision? Do they think […]