My First Motherless Mother's Day Being a Mother I want to be angry. I usually reserve this day [Mother's Day] as my right to be secretly bitter and jealous. You all go on and on about how great your mother is all day long while historically I would hide in my room with the covers over my head, counting down the hours until it was safe to emerge. I am allowed to do this once [...]
This feels like an important part of the conversation to spend some time on and i would love to hear your response to this. You may have seen the article by Princeton student, Tal Fortgang, titled 'Checking my Privilege: Character as the Basis of Privilege' that has been doing the rounds this week in which Tal [as an 18 year old, good to remember and hold in context] begins by explaining what his problem with [...]
[Disclaimer: while in Americaland, the term "coloured" is a strongly negative term, in South Africa there is a unique group of people who have come from a heritage of different cultures but now have developed their own distinct culture. They are neither black nor white, nor are they mixed race, and they would call themselves 'coloured'.] We’re no different than any other couple. Well, we are. Roxanne is from South Africa and colo(u)red and Greg [...]
i just watched this TED talk by a woman called Mellody Hobson on the introduction of a topic she called 'Colour Braveness' While the focus of the clip is very much from a 'The American Dream' point of view, and so doesn't necessarily have the end point i would focus on [become a CEO of a company!] there are some interesting and helpful points she raises and so it is well worth a viewing... Some [...]
American-African meets African-American. We met at university; both of us were on student leadership for our respective halls. Sherrell’s from Durham, NC. James is from Cape Town, South Africa (Well, mostly). Naturally, there are a lot of cultural differences we’ve discovered along the way. For starters, we have different likes and dislikes, some of them diametrically opposite each other, ranging from the superficial, like our tastes in music and to how we like to [...]
One of the most insidious forms of racism or paternalism is to take the voice of another away from them. I do not intend to speak for black people in this post and so rob them of their own dignity and humanity. You see, I am white and so I can only ever speak as a white male. While I can resist speaking for another I can choose to speak with another so adding strength [...]
Things that I wish I could say to my single friends…. When I saw Brett request this I thought “pick me pick me”! Then I started thinking about how to write this with honesty & candour but in a way which honours my husband, marriage and my friends. I am so aware that I am still VERY new at this – Charles and I only got married 6 months ago (on the 9th November to be [...]
Hi brett. I saw you put up a request for inter- racial relationship stories: here's a bit of mine: in 150 days i'm marrying my best friend and the love of my life. He is coloured and i'm white and we are the best for each other. When I look at him I don't see my culture or his - I see two people working out life with a different approach and mentality... this goes [...]
As we have started talking about different aspects of Race on my blog, one area that quickly came to mind was that of mixed race/culture relationships. Hard to believe that this was illegal when i was growing up. And that it was normal for it to be so. And even when it wasn't, it took a bit of a while for it to become more of a regular [less stared at] thing and so i imagine [...]
i came across that proverb this morning and it blew me away. i remember hanging out with my uncle John Fee [my mom's british brother] a few years ago when they came to visit us in South Africa and we had met up a bunch of times in life, although i was generally of the seen-and-not-heard age and so we didn't engage in much meaningful conversation... and then this day he was in the lounge [...]