In South Africa we have people who pump our petrol for us. i generally try to tip the petrol attendant to thank them for doing a good job. But what is a good tip? Years ago it used to feel like a R2 coin or a R5 coin was good. Returning from Americaland 18 months ago and continuing to top R2 to R5 suddenly became something tbV and i started to question. As a consumer [...]
My name is brett "Fish" anderson and i am ashamed it took me so long to get here. A BIT OF MY JOURNEY i didn't grow up in a particulary racist family, in fact if anything, my parents taught us to view all people as equal and deserving of love and respect. i was very fortunate during my time at college to be engaged in race conversations through the lens of the Student Christian Association [...]
"When I came back from overseas, the road I had grown up on had been changed to Robert Sobukwe drive. That is all I knew of him." One of the comments after the Robert Sobukwe documentary 60 to 80 of us watched together last night in a cafe called Jou Ma Se Kombuis situated on the edge of Manenberg. i was not oblivious to the fact that the majority of people in the room [although [...]
For anyone who doesn't know, last year i self-published a book called 'i, church'. On the back cover of the book there is a bit of a summation and part of it reads like this: To those of you who believe church is the worst thing ever: You're right! To those of you who believe church is the best thing ever: You're right! i call this book, 'i, church' because more than a building or [...]
Welcome to the last week of our seven writer, four Tandem Post blog series. This week's tricky title was audience-sourced and provided by Tim Van de Venter. = = = = = = = = = = JUST ONE OF THOSE PARADOXICAL OBSERVATIONS "I'm the Doctor." "Doctor... who?" "If you like. And tell me good sir, who might you be?" "The name's Watson. But you can call me John. I'm a medical doctor, formerly in [...]
Hello Community, Well last time we solved the mystery of #WhoReallyLetTheDogsOutAndWhy and it was a LOT of fun and better than we'd had for a while. How do you follow up such a fun game? You explode the internet - well not quite, but #IWouldLikeToBeBetterAt did trend for a solid nine hours and spent a bunch of that time at number 1 so well done everyone who played. And a reminder that playing Hashtag Games on [...]
i am hope-filled for South Africa. i am not so naive to not suspect how much of a knife point this country feels on at the moment and to know that at any moment things could suddenly go horribly wrong. We have a LONG way to go still and time feels short. But being in contact and engagement with an incredible growing amount of people who get it or are working towards getting it, really [...]
A week ago i shared a piece from Sarah Bessey's new book 'Out of Sorts' on Justice and Shalom and so i want to share the second part of that with you. This is from Chapter 11 which is titled ‘Beautiful Facade’ and subtitled ‘On Justice and Shalom’: = = = = = = = = = = When I start getting mad at the facade, I peek behind it and guess who I find? The [...]
i hear that so often in conversations of race. But what am i meant to do? It sounds like an honest question and a healthy cry for help. But as a matter of fact i am starting to realise that it is incredibly lazy. You are asking me to give you the answers [which is at least one step up from the oppressors asking the oppressed for answers] so that you don't have to do [...]
In the year 2000 the Baha Men released one of the catchiest songs ever. With the chorus posing that existential question: Who let the dogs out? Who? Who? Who? Who? And we never received the answer. 16 years later and i was still feeling a little short-changed by that whole thing, so i decided to turn to the Twittererverse for some answers. And you brought it! Joining forces with my old Twitterer 'Nemesis' and friend [...]
