Dookoom Rises Up
A Cape Town hip hop group causes a huge stir with its music video "Larney Jou Poes" (roughly translated: Boss, your cunt.) depicting an uprising by farmworkers.
South Africa
South Africans lack table manners and posture.
The country’s first School of Etiquette situated in one of Johannesburg’s rich northern suburbs is more evidence of how much its public culture has slid to the right.
How do we talk about the memory of Apartheid
The fact that the choices for black people under Apartheid were either martyrdom or compromise was part of the injustice of that system.
What’s the matter with . . . Stellenbosch University
Legacies of colonialism and apartheid are etched into social dynamics of the town in the way its inhabitants occupy public space. The same goes for the university.
The Fingo Revolution
How an an annual, independently-run series of events founded in 2011 in the Eastern Cape have propelled the genre in that South African province.
Make Ignorance History
That old excuse of ‘We didn’t know’ (previously also heard as ‘Ons het nie geweet nie’ and ‘Wir haben es nicht gewuszt’) may be factually accurate, but it is never an ethical defense.
The Naked Woman on Mandela Square
Her nudity wakes us up, either in protest or solidarity to the fact that everything is not okay in South Africa.
The Redemption Trope in South African Cinema
The politics of three prominent South African films: the classics 'Come Back Africa,' late-1980s 'Mapantsula' and Oscar winner 'Tsotsi.'
The promise of revelation
James Matthews has the distinction of being one of the first Black Consciousness poets and publishers in South Africa. He is the subject of a documentary by director Shelley Barry.
The winners and losers of the platinum strike in South Africa
Will the trade union that organized the strike will unify and rally workers outside of the ruling alliance.
White Schools in postapartheid South Africa
"Former" white schools propose color blindness to tackle racism against its new black students, invariably leading to alienation and discomfort on the part of the latter.
It’s time to drop the “world music” label
The progressive rock of The Brother Moves On is a great case study for why the category of "world music" is at best dated, and at worst problematic.
Umlilo is young, black and queer in South Africa
The artist Umlilo documents their metamorphosis from a tortured outsider to a fully realized divine being.
Oscar Pistorius’ anxiety spectacle
Biased media reporting won’t advance popular and professional understandings on how psychiatric conditions interact social and economic sources of stress.
The small businessman who took on the bread cartel
The struggle over the price of bread in South Africa is the struggle for adequate nourishment, and securing the right of the poor to flourish.
Relegating good intentions to the dustbin
The last third or so of Director Phil Harrison’s film about Irish multinationals in South Africa suffers from needless flattening.
Buckingham Palace
District Six was the start of a really vibrant, none racial South African and that’s why it had to die.