Featured Identity Race Uncategorized

The reality of racism

DA members find proceedings amusing during question time for President Jacob Zuma. A number of whites, including senior DA leaders, refuse to face up to racist realities, argues the writer. Picture: Jeffrey Abrahams

Part A: Oh my word, guys, isn’t South Africa, like, just the most awesome place to live in now that apartheid is over? So many bad things don’t happen any more. It’s totally cool. Racism, for example, doesn’t exist anymore. Ja, sure, we like have cultural differences and stuff, and poverty and unemployment are bad. […]

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Featured Identity Race

Let’s talk about sex education: race and shame in South Africa

Let's talk about sex education: race and shame in South Africa

Sarah Emily Duff, University of the Witwatersrand There are many ways for young people to learn about sex. In talks between parents and children, in the sharing of information between peers, in initiation schools and in ceremonies preceding marriage, young people have learned about sex and sexual reproduction. They also learn about how societies define […]

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Identity

Why culture, not race, determines tastes in music

Music is culturally - and not racially - ingrained. Reuters/Andrew Winning

Winfried Lüdemann, Stellenbosch University One frequently hears questions such as: Why do different races generally listen to specific genres of music? Why do music genres have a huge racial divide? In societies obsessed with and manipulated by the notion of race, these questions are understandable. But it is also understandable that, for many forward-thinking people, […]

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Race

How science has been abused through the ages to promote racism

How science has been abused through the ages to promote racism

Tim Crowe, University of Cape Town Race in human taxonomy – the science of classifying organisms – has a long, disgraceful history. Individuals have used race to divide and denigrate certain people while promoting their claims of superiority. Some of these individuals were, and are, respected in their time and their fields. They include philosopher […]

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Race

It’s time to take the curriculum back from dead white men

A pyrotechnician lights a flaming depiction of William Shakespeare during a firework display at the Royal Shakespeare Company marking the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth in Stratford-upon-Avon, southern England April 23, 2014. Known as the Bard and regarded as England's greatest playwright, Shakespeare, whose 450th birthday is celebrated on Wednesday, let his imagination roam as widely as his characters.    REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett (BRITAIN - Tags: SOCIETY) - RTR3MDLX

Sarah Pett, University of York Dead white men rule the roost at South African and British universities. They preside over open spaces and lecture halls. They clog up reading lists and dominate the syllabus, particularly in subjects like philosophy and English literature. In eight years of university teaching in the United Kingdom and South Africa, […]

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Race

Racism defies logic – so don’t go searching for any

Adam Goodes

Many commentators have found it difficult to define the actions of spectators in the Adam Goodes booing affair; are these actions racist or not? This confusion is understandable because racism is best described as irrational – and irrational events often defy definition. Many have tried to use logic to support racist thinking. In the 19th […]

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