By Melissa Nefdt Recently there has been a story in the news of what initially appeared to be yet another case of blackface at a traditionally white institution. “Blackface at Stellenbosch University”, headlines said, above a picture of two young women clearly sporting paint all over their faces, necks and arms, smiling broadly into the […]
Stellenbosch University
Posted inEquality
When institutional integrity trumps student rights
We have seen many frightening, exhilarating and liberating things over the last few months in South Africa. Student protests have swept the country and grabbed international attention for pushing back against an unjust and exploitative economic model. Since the announcement that there will be a 0% hike in student fees in 2016, some campuses have […]
Posted inEquality, Lifestyle, News/Politics
‘Don’t you want to be white?’
By Lorato Palesa Modongo “Coming to a new country always forces you to confront things about yourself that you never considered before.” — Staceyann Chin, poet. I am from Botswana. Literally next door. I came to South Africa in 2013 to take up postgraduate studies at Stellenbosch University. I had three reasons. Firstly, psychology is […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
#IAmStellenbosch and the quiet violence of the ‘colour blind’
Hanging in an office at my old school is a yellowed newspaper article titled “School for the colour blind!” featuring photographs of children of different races laughing and playing cricket together. It was 1981 — three years after the small, independent school started admitting learners of all races despite apartheid norms — and to the […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
#Luister: Black skin a burden in Stellenbosch
How does it feel to be a problem? — WEB Du Bois Stellenbosch University’s exclusionary language policy has once again made it into the news. It’s an open secret that the university has been hostile towards students who question the policy and more importantly, the town is hostile to black people who live in the […]
Posted inGeneral
I am an apartheid beneficiary. I am not proud of it
Background: Last Sunday I published a letter in the Afrikaans Sunday paper Rapport addressing one Dr Marie Heese. Heese had written a scathing attack of my colleague Prof Pierre de Vos’s views on the so-called T-option language policy at Stellenbosch University. De Vos’s commentary was sparked by a motion by a doctoral candidate in law […]