Black Africans continue to face racial prejudice in Australia By Mandisi Majavu A 51-year-old white Australian woman, Michelle Veronica Jacobsen, who subjected a black African family to a nasty racist attack and threatened them with a crowbar, has been charged with assault, going armed in public as to cause fear, …
Read More »Cecil John Rhodes Statue: Confronting Colonial Discourse
By MANDISI MAJUVA who asks if Black South Africans are expected to talk about colonialism in a manner that doesn’t cause discomfort to Whites It has taken the University of Cape Town (UCT) 15 years to seriously consider the views of its black students concerning the statue of Cecil John Rhodes. …
Read More »How Race Determines Chance of Success at Online Dating
By MANDISI MAJAVU Sexual Attraction and Online Dating Last month Christian Rudder, co-founder of OkCupid, an online dating website, released statistical data collected over a five-year period about how people who subscribe to the website “weigh race in deciding attraction.” The data doesn’t reveal any new insights into the issue, …
Read More »Serena Williams: Playing Tennis While Black
By MANDISI MAJAVU Early this month, Serena Williams wrote an article for TIME magazine announcing that she has decided to end her 14-year boycott of the Indian Wells tennis tournament. The last time she played at the tournament in 2001, she was subjected to racial abuse. She recounts the whole incident in chapter …
Read More »The Human Cost of Xenophobia
The human cost of intolerance towards African immigrants and refugees is too high By MANDISI MAJAVU Three months after the South African government announced that it was planning to introduce a controversial stringent application process for refugees seeking asylum in the country, foreign-owned shops are being looted in Soweto and …
Read More »White Privilege and Oscar Pistorius
They Don’t Teach It In Law School By MANDISI MAJAVU Notwithstanding the violent and aggressive behaviour he exhibited in his personal life, the product of a historically heavily subsidised racial group in South Africa, the life of Oscar Pistorius demonstrates how white privilege protected his masculinity from being constructed as uncivil, …
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