#YouthMonth: What do all these #movements want?

My original article here.

12 June 2020

"More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness." - Charlie Chaplin

If 2020 was an old-school video game, it would be the level where they make you fight all the boss characters you’ve defeated before all at once and you have to remember the right button sequences to defeat each of them. While you’re doing that they throw in Covid-19, the new ultra-powerful boss. All of our chickens are coming home to roost this year, it seems, and we have to deal with them somehow.

One of the things that the outbreak of Covid-19 has made clear is that all of us are in the same boat, whether we like it or not. What happens in China affects all of us. What happens in the US affects all of us. What happens in South Africa affects all of us. The murder of George Floyd by police officers in the US started a wave of protests against police brutality towards black people and the huge issue that is racism in general. This has also made us look at our own cases of police brutality right here at home, especially with the murder of Colins Khosa by members of the SANDF.

Charles Siboto

Stop and listen

I’ve been reading the stories around the #BlackLivesMatter protests and looking at how people I know respond to them, whether in anger that we still have to protest against systemic racism, that we still #CantBreathe or with hey, #AllLivesMatter or what about #FarmMurders and #WhiteGenocide? I spent the week just monitoring my social media accounts and watching people I know grapple with the issue of racism in various ways. Some of the responses I agree with and some not but my goal was to watch, listen and try and understand where everyone is coming from.

My takeaway is that we all need to stop and honestly listen to the experiences of others, just listen and resist the temptation to say: “Yes, but . . .” As I said before, whether we like it or not we are in the same boat and even if something like racism doesn’t affect you directly it does indirectly.

This #YouthMonth I want to look back at where we came from, back to the Soweto uprising of 1976. I want to remember how far we have come and to look forward to how far we have to go yet.

The Soweto uprising of 1976

What did the thousands of students want on 16 June 1976 when they took to the streets of Soweto in protest? They were protesting the Bantu Education Act that mandated that all school subjects be taught in Afrikaans. What those students wanted was to be taught in a language they understand, equality and equal opportunity for all youth. The Apartheid government clearly didn’t like how those students were protesting and opened fire on them. When former President Nelson Mandela was fighting for the freedom of black people he was considered a terrorist and eventually imprisoned. Bantu Stephen Biko was murdered for his anti-Apartheid activism. In the US, Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated for his views even though he advocated for non-violent resistance against that racist system.

What I am getting at is that all these people and movements want the same things and have been killed trying to get those things whether they did it peacefully or violently. Whatever system is in charge always responds with violence and that is what should appal us! That the Apartheid government killed people, that the miners in #Marikana were killed under the rule of this government, that Colins Khosa was killed by members of the SANDF.

New documentary tackling racial inequality to launch on Youth Day

Tuesday, 16 June, sees the online launch of Good Hope, a new feature-length documentary from award-winning filmmaker Anthony Fabian...

11 JUN 2020

Equality and equal opportunity

What black people and other people of colour want are equality and equal opportunity. What women want are equality and equal opportunity. What the LGBTQ+ community wants are equality and equal opportunity. That is all. None of these groups wants to take anything away from anyone and that can’t be so difficult to understand! #BlackLivesMatter has never been about black lives being superior, just that they, too, matter. Just matter, that is all. That isn’t difficult to understand.

#MeToo and #MenAreTrash has never been about trying to destroy men but women holding men who sexually assault women accountable. Again, not such a highbrow concept. Take a step back and just think about this, every single woman you know has experienced some form of sexual harassment, every single woman. Unless they live in some secret pocket of the country I know nothing about, every single PoC you have encountered has experienced some form of racism. Every member of the LGBTQ+ community has been harassed for simply being who they are in some way. That is absolutely wild!

#YouthMonth: Preaching inclusivity - Q&A with Toya Delazy

Multi-award-winning Afro-techno princess Latoya Nontokozo Buthelezi, aka Toya Delazy, chats to us this #YouthMonth about inclusivity, tolerance and her advice for aspiring young musicians..

BY RUTH COOPER 8 JUN 2020

If you are a straight, white male does your life not matter? Do your views not matter? Are you not suffering? Do white people not experience racial prejudice? Do men not experience sexism? As a straight, white male your life and views matter but the social contract we all live under tends to honour its responsibilities to you. You can and, in fact, you definitely do still experience hardships like any human being, though. You can be a victim of crime, you can lose your job, you can be poor and just generally have a difficult life.

White people can suffer from prejudice, sure, but not from systemic racism. Men can suffer from prejudice and be sexually harassed by women but can also not suffer from the sort of systemic sexism that affects their careers or the sort of harassment that makes them fear to be around women in general. Straight, cisgender people suffer but not for their sexual orientation or not fitting into specific gender boxes.

Start with kindness

What can you do then? The best thing to do is simply to listen to PoC, to women and the LGBTQ+ community when they express their frustrations. Taking that time to say things like #AllLivesMatter or #NotAllMen does nothing to help anyone because we know these things. When your friend has been in an accident and is bleeding out on the street they know that it sucks that you got robbed last week but they definitely still would rather go to the hospital first.

Educate yourself on social issues as much as you can. Own whatever privilege you have and use it to fight for those who don’t have the same. Talking about things like race and sexism is uncomfortable but we have to do it if we ever hope to find solutions. Just start where you are and start with kindness. Kindness goes a long way and we need it since we have a long way to go before we reach our goal of equality and equal opportunity. 

12 ways to support your local community during Covid-19

In just a few short weeks, the coronavirus pandemic has turned our world upside down and as the crisis deepens, so do the challenges with a growing number of people facing unemployment, mounting debt and numerous other issues precipitated by the disruption of the virus...

BY YAEL GEFFEN 1 JUN 2020

One of the things many people are concerned about with the Covid-19 lockdown is the impact on the economy. As a society, we have a long history of squandering our human resources by not allowing people to fully participate in the economy based on race, gender and sexual orientation. Well, unless people were being forced to participate in the economy for the bare minimum wage.

What I am getting at is the fighting for equality and equal opportunity for everyone is good for everyone in the end because if the social contract works for everyone there is no reason to breach it. That means crime rates drop and no one is marching and looting in the streets, because there is no need to. Being actively anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-homophobic makes the world better for white men, men and straight people too!

This #YouthMonth, let us look back at how far we have come and brace ourselves for how far we have to go until we are all free because this is #NotYetUhuru when every few months we have to remind people that #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo. Be actively anti-racist, anti-sexist and anti-homophobic in your everyday life. Small deeds go a long way as JRR Tolkien pointed out: “I have found that it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”

Sea Star Summer by Sally Partridge, Book Review

Sea Star Summer is the sort of YA novel you pick up and read in one sitting and when you’re done you feel a bit sad that the adventure is over. It feels like coming to the end of a really good December school holiday and having to come to terms with going back to normal life. Sally Partridge’s writing in this book is, for the lack of a better word, delicious. She manages to tackle surprisingly heavy and sensitive issues in a graceful manner that allows the reader to grapple with them without feeling weighed down. Sea Star Summer is a light touch where her last YA novel, Mine was a heavy hammer. The story is told through the eyes of Noami, an awkward, red-haired and bookish 16-year-old girl who goes to Jeffreys Bay for the December holidays with her parents. She’s looking forward to having a chilled holiday reading her books on the beach and avoiding people. Things, of course, don’t go as planned as she not only meets and befriends the carefree and imaginative Elize on the beach but also finds herself being romantically pursued by the handsome surfer, Daniel and Elize’s brooding brother, Marius. From here a whirlwind coming-of-age love story filled with literary references ensues.

Back home in Cape Town Naomi is the kid at school who never gets invited to parties because the other kids see her bookishness and intelligence as snobby and stuck up. Boys don’t ask her on dates because she’s the sort of girl who corrects them when they’re wrong and would tell them if they confuse the Greek god Poseidon with his Roman counterpart, Neptune. Her mom is always telling her that people don’t like it when you correct them. So when she arrives in Jeffreys Bay and both Daniel and Marius are interested in her she doesn’t know how to deal with the situation, especially when she comes to realise that she actually has feelings for Elize. Daniel is the typical handsome jerk that treats girls poorly and is used to getting away with it and Marius seems to be a nice guy but he is also problematic in his pursuit of a girl who clearly isn’t interested in him. Elize, on the other hand, listens to Naomi and really wants to get to know her.

Naomi reads Jane Eyre to Elize on their beach dates and a quote from that book captures the theme that lies at Sea Star Summer’s heart, women and their perceived place in society.

“Women are supposed to be very calm generally; but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.” 

Everyone wants Naomi to behave in a certain way in the novel. Her parents want her to be ‘normal’ and to make friends and meet a nice boy. The two boys she meets aren’t actually that nice, though. The relationship she has with Elize is healthy and not as toxic as what she would have with Daniel or even Marius but that’s the one her parents disapprove of. Daniel wants her tone down her intelligence and be impressed with how cool he is and Marius wants to be the saviour type. Only Elize wants her to be just her. Sally Partridge managed to pack in feminism, toxic masculinity and homophobia in Sea Star Summer without it feeling like some sort of lecture on those issues but just the story of a young girl finding herself.

Unpacking Trauma

“We was born to mothers who couldn't deal with us
Left by fathers who wouldn't build with us”

“Sometimes, I was held down by the gravity of my pen
Sometimes I was held down by the gravity of my sin
Sometimes, like Santiago, at crucial points of my novel, my only logical option was to transform into the wind”

Trauma runs deep in my generation, right down to our bones. It hit me for the very first time lying in bed recently how much I’ve achieved despite my numerous failures or, rather, a perception of numerous failures. I spend so much time with middle-class to outright wealthy people that I measure my levels of success by their standards. This is something that has been exacerbated by my move to Germany and spending time with Europeans. Many of these people are painfully average and have none of the tenacity many people from my type of background possess and yet they succeed because they come from a place of security. This is no fault of theirs and I don’t blame them in any way. I am also not taking away from the individual challenges that even privileged people face. What I am looking to do for myself and people in the same situation as me, is examine and unpack my own trauma and, perhaps, get some closure.

Our childhoods form us and continue to haunt us as adults. One thing that sticks out for me when I look back into my childhood is that I am a liar, through and through. Just a terrific liar. Much like Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye. I mostly lie about my wellbeing. If you ask me, I’m always okay. I don’t know how to tell people that I am, in fact, not okay, that I am falling apart. Lying about my wellbeing has been my go-to brand of protective mechanism. What’s really captured my fascination lately, though, is how I’ve lied to myself over the years. I’ve wanted to be like all my middle-class friends so long that I have downplayed my journey to where I am now. I’ve allowed myself to be crippled by depression because I can never measure up to some standard that was never even for me. All I’ve ever wanted was to be good enough. I’m that fish trying to climb trees alongside squirrels.

My thoughts have been time travelling back to the parts of my childhood that have always been too traumatic to deal with. I’m the child of domestic workers raised in backrooms. I’m the product of leaky roofs and sleeping on i-sponge on the floor. I grew up with the green bar of Sunlight and taking baths in a waskom. I would never go to bed on an empty belly because my grandmother made sure we at least had a loaf brown and tea to break our fast and pap and cabbage to quiet the stomach rumblings before bed. I was raised by a grandmother who made less than R2000.00 a month. I was raised by a single mother who worked piece jobs, tying together small pieces of income to make ends meet.

Growing up, I was told that I’m smart and that positive reinforcement played a huge role in how I saw myself, it gave me the confidence to compete in school. I did well, but not a well as I know I could. My academic journey from primary school to high school was pretty much a gradual and somewhat graceful arc of good marks. I made it to university where, rather than a graceful arc, my academic performance became a herky-jerky line from one crisis to another. I look back at my time in university and it’s a time a remember fondly but also one where I feel I suffered failures that follow me to this day. I should’ve done better and I beat myself up quite a lot for that time. With my external circumstances, I did the best that I could, though. I need to recognise that when I had the mental breakdowns I did in university I had no support. No one in my family could guide me through that territory because I was the first person in my family to traverse that territory. I needed mentorship but tried to carry all of that weight on my shoulders. My mountain was higher than that of many of my peers but I didn’t know because I kept looking at them scale their mountains and feeling like I was not as good as they are. For people like me sometimes just showing up at a place is the victory, but showing up isn’t enough, you still have to complete the task at hand.

My measuring stick has been way off and I have never taken the time to sit back and celebrate any of my victories. I’m sitting here, right now, living in another country and I feel down when, looking back, every part of my life is a resounding success. It’s like Neil Gaiman said of his tremendous success with his comic book series, The Sandman, that he never heeded Stephen King’s advice to enjoy his success. Instead of enjoying his success, he spent the time worrying about it. I remembered this when the children’s book I co-wrote was published and enjoyed every moment of people coming out to support the book. But I still forget to do this with other parts of my life. It’s good to pause and look back at how far one has come. Sure, I’ve not achieved as much success as I would’ve liked and many of my peers are doing much better than I am but I haven’t done as bad as my anxiety would have me believe either. And in this age of Instagram where we only see the best foot that people put forward, you also can’t just assume that people are doing better than you because we hide our struggles. All each of us can do is be sensitive to what others are going through and to continue to learn to know and improve ourselves.

The main reason I’m trying to delve into my childhood trauma is that I want to write a novel and I am scared to death of the task at hand. The world is on lockdown because of the Coronavirus outbreak so I have time to focus on the task but panic and fear of failure are holding me back. What if I write a book and it’s not good enough? So, I’m sitting here trying to write through those childhood mental blocks. Looking back to move forward, as it were.

#BizTrends2020: 2020 at the movies

My original article here.

09 Jan 2020

Here's what to look forward to on the big screen in 2020

Welcome to 2020 at the movies, let's see what this new decade has in store for us.

Reboots and long-awaited sequels

As ol’ King Solomon once said, there’s no new thing under the sun. This year’s reboots kick off with the horror feature, The Grudge – which will be released in theatres on 17 January. This is a reboot of three existing films released between 2004 and 2009, and those movies are based on the Japanese franchise!

Will Smith and a chubbier Martin Lawrence are back for one last ride as Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett in Bad Boys for Life. This is one we’ve been waiting for since 2003’s Bad Boys II. Belgian directors Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi have taken over the reins from Michael Bay but it looks like we can still expect a whole lot of explosions, car chases and gunfights. Bad Boys for Life hits our screens on 24 January.



Move over Eddie Murphy (and, I guess, Kyla Pratt from the straight-to-DVD versions), it’s Robert Downey Jr’s turn to take a crack at the eccentric Dr John Dolittle character in Dolittle also being released on 10 January. The man who can talk to animals is accompanied by a wealth of talent voicing all of his friends, including Rami Malek, Octavia Spencer, Kumail Nanjiani, John Cena, Emma Thompson, Antonio Banderas, Michael Sheen, Jim Broadbent, Marion Cotillard, Frances de la Tour, Carmen Ejogo, Ralph Fiennes, Selena Gomez, Tom Holland and Craig Robinson. The film is directed by Stephen Gaghan (Syriana, 2005).

HG Wells’s The Invisible Man gets a remake starring Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale), Aldis Hodge (Clemency) and Oliver Jackson-Cohen (The Haunting of Hill House). The film, written and directed by Leigh Whannell, comes out on 13 March. 27 March sees Disney continue with its live-action/hauntingly real CGI adaptations in the form of Mulan, directed by Niki Caro and starring Yifei Liu, Donnie Yen and Jet Li.




Daniel Craig is back in his fifth film as James Bond in No Time to Die on 3 April, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. The movie picks up after Bond has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica and co-stars Rami Malek, as the Bond villain, Léa Seydoux and Lashana Lynch. Apparently, people have been waiting for a sequel to 1986’s Top Gun and their prayers have been answered! Tom Cruise is back as the legendary fighter pilot, Maverick in Top Gun: Maverick on 3 July.

Hollywood is taking another stab at Ghostbusters this year after the 2016 version didn’t go down so well. They are linking this one right back to the originals and tapping into that glorious ‘80s nostalgia that’s keeping Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard employed. 10 July gives us Ghostbusters: Afterlife with the original feature’s director’s son, Jason Reitman, in the director’s chair. The movie starts good ol’ Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd, Mckenna Grace, Carrie Coon and Bokeem Woodbine.



We’ve had Kingsman: The Secret Service and Kingsman: The Golden Circle and now we go back in time with the prequel to discover the origins of the very first independent intelligence agency, The King’s Man, on 14 February. The King's Man stars Harris Dickinson, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton and Djimon Hounsou. Matthew Vaughn is back as director.

The comic book stuff

DC kicks off things with Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn on 7 February. Remember Suicide Squad? I guess this movie picks from there. Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn’s broken up with the Joker and is looking to start a new life. I don’t even know. At some point, Harley Quinn joins superheroes Black Canary, Huntress and Renee Montoya to save a young girl from an evil crime lord, Black Mask. Birds of Prey stars Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ella Jay Basco, Ali Wong and Ewan McGregor. The film is directed by Cathy Yan (Dead Pigs, 2018).



3 April gives us director Josh Boone’s horror-influenced X-Men movie New Mutants, hopefully. The movie was supposed to be released in 2018 but was delayed. It stars Game of Throne's Maisie Williams and Anya Taylor-Joy. Marvel Studios opens their Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Black Widow on 1 May. The film is directed by Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome, 2017) and stars Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, alongside David Harbour, Florence Pugh, O-T Fagbenle and Rachel Weisz. Set after the events of Captain America: Civil War (2016), the film sees Romanoff on the run and forced to confront her past.

2017’s Wonder Woman was a huge hit and we’re super excited about the sequel, Wonder Woman 1984. The sequel hits screens on 5 June, it’s set in the ‘80s (like so many films and series these days) and sees the return of Steve Trevor somehow. The movie is the ninth instalment in the DC Extended Universe and is directed and co-written by Patty Jenkins. It stars Gal Gadot as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, alongside Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen.

More highlights

Other films to look forward to in 2020 are The Turning, based on Henry James’s novel – which is the story of a nanny hired to take care of two creepy kids in a creepy house in Maine. The film stars Mackenzie Davis, Finn Wolfhard (this kid again), Brooklynn Prince and Joely Richardson. Sonic the Hedgehog is a thing that’s happening. In this live-action adventure comedy, Sonic and his new best friend Tom (James Marsden) team up to defend the planet from the evil genius Dr Robotnik (Jim Carrey) and his plans for world domination.



A film I’m looking forward to – because I loved the books as a kid – is Artemis Fowl, which is about a 12-year-old Artemis who is a millionaire, a genius and a criminal mastermind. But Artemis doesn’t know what he's taken on when he kidnaps a fairy, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon Unit to harness her magic to save his family. Disney Pixar is also releasing an interesting project with Soul, a journey from the streets of New York City to the cosmic realms to discover the answers to life’s most important questions. Soul stars Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey and is directed by Inside Out's Pete Docter.

I wish you 2020 vision at the movies this year.