Posted inGeneral

Youth culture’s double negative

Last week, a youth culture archive named Staticphlow went live two days before Youth Day. I joined heads with some scholars, activists and hip-hop DJs and MCs to finally do something about our complaints that youth culture is both exploited and neglected. You might say that youth culture suffers from a sort of double negative. […]

Posted inNews/Politics

Crush Occupy Rondebosch Common

It’s been a glorious summer in Cape Town. The heatwave had one and all at swimming pools and beaches all over the Cape. Long Street was packed with clubbers and tourists from all over the world. Drinks flowed freely: Hennessy, Bacardi, Hunters, Carling, you name it. Sadly, it was spoiled by talk of our beloved […]

Posted inNews/Politics

DA, the new UDF…

Helen Zille’s letter to City Press editor Ferial Haffajee on News24 raises interesting new possibilities for the DA. Zille writes, “The DA is the new UDF.” The letter is a response to a News24 column (“How the ANC lost the coloured and Indian vote”) by Haffajee, a former Mail & Guardian editor. In her piece, […]

Posted inNews/Politics

For Andries Tatane

Paper rights with blood splatters over them. The new Rorschach test. What do you see? I see black empowerment. I see Strange Fruit falling from the tree of Ubuntu. I see blue is the new black. What did I do to be so black and blue? I see Tumi singing “My black president does me […]

Posted inNews/Politics

Max, the TRIBE has spoken

I must admit that I am enlightened by the insights of so many racial identity experts who make their views known in the variety of media available to South Africans of all shades and persuasions. It seems that every time I read a newspaper or log on to a social media site, I can read […]