Some people have called for “a dialogue on race relations”. So let’s get on with it then. I want to list here, and discuss, five unhelpful responses to racism that pop up all too frequently when there’s an item in the news cycle – thank you Cape Town – that make us awkward about racism. […]
It’s not cool to talk about a “global war on terrorism” (GWOT) largely because former US president George Bush gave the expression a bad name. His successor, Barack Obama, explicitly dropped the expression, stating that: “We must define our effort not as a boundless ‘Global War on Terror’, but rather as a series of persistent, […]
It has been an interesting few months in terms of race relations in South Africa, with social media storms over remarks made by KZN estate agent Penny Sparrow, mobile gym owner Justin van Vuuren, economist Chris Hart and eNCA anchor Andrew Barnes, among others. Sparrow and Van Vuuren made seriously derogatory comments about black people, […]
The Anti-Racism Network of SA hopes to find a response to a hardening of racist attitudes, but it must be grounded and open, writes Luke Spiropoulos. This weekend, the Ahmed Kathrada and Nelson Mandela foundations hosted the first of what will become a series of historic workshops and conferences of the Anti-Racism Network of South […]
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. […]
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 […]
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, […]