When I met Nick, my future husband, the only thing that mattered to me was what we felt. I didn’t consider race or culture until a time came when I was inevitably faced with it. I come from a Coloured Christian home. He comes from an Indian Hindu home. I visited Durban before – and every time I […]
Slindile was adopted at the age of three by a white couple, Heidi and Neik Wit. Slindile has never experienced any discrimination from her family based on her skin colour, but her family is an example of a rose surrounded by thorns. The country always preaches about unity, a rainbow nation and how they wish white and […]
Between 1960 and 1983, about 3.5 million black South Africans (black Africans, Indians, Coloureds) were forcibly removed from their homes and had to resettle in other areas, thus beginning the implementation of the Group Areas Act to enforce residential segregation. The act was aimed at segregating all South Africans according to their race and […]
In the USA, Arab-Americans have been classified as white for the past 70 years. With recent contestation arising around this classification, it must be asked: in a multinational context, what are the tensions around being considered white, despite being a person of colour? Aaisha Dadi Patel chatted to 34-year-old Mina Demian, a Swedish writer of Egyptian descent, living in Westdene, […]
It’s 2016 and racists, sexists and misogynists are getting schooled as soon as they expose themselves. As they should be. But is the social policing we’re witnessing spreading hate, or pushing people towards worthy dialogue? Crucially, what happens next? Aaisha Dadi Patel and Dana da Silva weigh it up. Calling out “problematic” people on social media is now […]
Racism is no monkey business, but after the racism debacles of January 2016, we could all do with some comic relief. And we tried to find it! We approached a bunch of comedians to talk about race, Mandela’s vision and whether our country could ever move past the race debate. Their answers were not so funny. Goolam Hassen reports. […]