Zoe Wicomb, South Africa-born but living in Glasgow for the last 11 years, is a writer of rare brilliance. On the cover of her latest book, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and double Booker winner JM Coetzee compete to eulogise her work. She’s formidably intelligent: ‘A mind like a steel trap’, says the head of the Scottish Arts Council’s literature department, ‘one of the brightest people you could meet.’ She is, according to the pupils she has taught creative writing to at Strathclyde University, where Wicomb holds a professorship, a peerless and inspiring teacher.

Yet the chances are that you won’t have ever heard of her, because this is the first British newspaper interview she has ever given. For the 30 years she’s lived in Britain, that’s the way she liked it, and to be honest, it probably still is.

Zoe’s third book Living In The Light, is one of the most convincing novels I’ve read all year. If she’s going for the title of Scotland’s greatest unknown novelist, it’s hers on a plate.

Zoe Wicomb was born in Namaqueland, a hot, arid region on the southern fringes of the Namib desert, in 1948. The good life of white South Africa was a long way from this sparsely populated scrubland, and the nearest whites lived 20 miles away, in the town which also had the nearest shop. (Not that, as coloureds, the Wicombs were allowed to enter it, only being served from a hatch round the side). Her Afrikaans-speaking parents wanted the best for their children, something more than working in the nearby gypsum mine or as a domestic servant, which were the only local jobs going. Speaking English – as no-one did for 200 miles around – wasn’t an automatic free pass to a better life, but it was a better bet than anything else.

Secondary school meant Cape Town, where she moved to live with her aunt. A school for coloureds, followed by a university for coloureds, where she learnt about such great non-coloureds as Chaucer, Johnson, Shakespeare and Hardy. And where, for the first time, Zoe caught sight of her first “play-whites”. ‘There was a family living across the road from us, and one day they just disappeared. Our neighbours said, ‘They’ve left. They’ve turned white’. This happened all the time’

‘It’s an odd phenomenon, the play-whites,’ says Zoe. ‘We don’t even know how many of them there are. There’s no discourse, nothing in the library, because officially they don’t exist. Yet the truth of the matter, because of their history, is that many Afrikaners are mixed race. Even Verwoerd [the founder of apartheid] had a wife who looked African.’

Because skin colour is so variable even within the same family, legal definitions of whiteness were absurdly tortuous. ‘A white person,’ the government decided in 1950, ‘is someone who in appearance obviously is or is generally accepted as a white person, but does not include a person who, although in appearance obviously a white person, is generally accepted as a coloured person.’ Mrs Verwoerd presumably counted as white not because she looked it but because enough people could agree that she actually was.

‘The weird thing,’ says Zoe, ‘was that there was this legislation for racial purity at the same time as the whites were tacitly boosting their own numbers by allowing some people to cross over.’

Read full article here…

What the hell is heaven?

Payment is due when service is rendered.

Profits are a by product of having services rendered.

‘Work is love made visible’ – Khalil Gibran

Everything is light.

The inherent nature of divinity is love and light.

Spirit requires matter to express itself, and matter needs spirit to give it motion and meaning.

Your wealth and fulfilment in life are expressions of your heart, mind and soul.

The most fulfilled people are people who are inspired.

In fact, the word Gold comes from the Hebrew Aour, which means light.

Few are going to join with you and financially invest in you until you invest in yourself.

What you believe and what you say to yourself manifest in your life.

When people believe the incomplete teaching that money isn’t spiritual, it’s no wonder they don’t have any significant degree of monetary wealth.

You receive in exact proportion to the value you give.

Life is designed to make sure you express your unique talents and find fulfilment.

When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

What you do influences what you have, but what you say has a big influence on what you’ll allow yourself to do.

Ask a different question and you’ll receive a very different answer to the same apparent situation.

You’re not on this earth just to get by or survive. You’re here to realize your grandest dreams.

When you’re willing to share your talents, inspirations, and gifts with the world, the desired gifts you receive in return will be even more abundant.

The more you’re willing to receive, the more you’ll be willing to give.

‘If man knew he himself was God and Heaven and Hell, no illusion would have a hold on him, nothing could limit his consciousness’ Daniel Odier, Tantric Master

What you believe and say to yourself manifests into reality. You create your own destiny with your thoughts every day.

Master your financial thoughts and you’ll master your financial destiny.

Questions?

• What do you consider spiritual? (One word answers only)
• Write down every single way that having great financial wealth will help you attain even more of the qualities mentioned above.
• Go through each of them in turn and write down how a non mastery or a lack of wealth limits your ability to express those same inspired qualities.

I embrace spirit and matter equally!

>> Dr. John F. DeMartini <<

How do you categorise someone who is not 100% white nor 100% black, without offending that person?

This is the debate that I walked into the other day, when a woman pointed at me and told her son: ‘That is a half caste.’

Why she did that I will never know, but it left me feeling hurt that the phrase is still being used.

Why so hurt? The answer is in the meaning of the words. If you research the definition of half caste, it says ‘a person of mixed racial descent.’

Fair enough, but read the synonyms and it tells you: amalgam, bastard, combination, composite, compound, cross, crossbreed, half-blood, half-breed, mongrel … to name just a few.

Caste was first used in India in the sixteenth century to describe the Hindu system of hierarchy. The term half-caste indicates how pure you are racially and echoes the days of colonial slavery when words such as mulatto, quadroon and octoroon were commonplace in sales ledgers and even in post-emancipation days in the old United States census.

John Agard, from Guyana makes some brilliant points in his poem ‘Half caste‘:

Read full article here…

>> Donah Sibanda <<

April 2003

Just five years ago, you would have been hard-pressed to find a college course that addressed mixed race issues. But ever since 7 million people self-identified as multiracial in the 2000 census by choosing two or more races, the interest in mixed race studies has exploded. At least sixteen universities across the country—from New Haven, CT to Santa Barbara, CA—offer classes that explore the social implications of being mixed in America. A mixed race movement is clearly taking form: politically, socially, and now, educationally.

“We start at the personal level, and then move to the social and historical issues of race,” says Professor Robert Allen, who teaches a class called People of Mixed Racial Descent at the University of California, Berkeley. The students’ first assignment is to write a 2-3 page autobiographical essay describing how they became aware of their racial and ethnic identity, what they learned, and how it has defined them.

The class, one of the first of its kind, was established in 1981 by Native American professor Terry Wilson. It began as a response to the growth of the mixed race population, especially in California’s Bay Area, as well as student interest on campus. Historically, the West has always been very multiracial because of high immigration levels and an early end to laws against interracial marriage. Forty percent of the 6.8 million U.S. residents who checked off more than one box for race live in the West, so it’s no wonder many mixed race studies courses originate in states like California.

Allen’s class has over a hundred students. About half are multiracial (of “all imaginable, possible combinations,”) others are involved in interracial relationships, and some are neither.

Allen uses a variety of literature, texts, readings, films, and speakers to teach the subject matter. An anthology edited by Teresa Williams-Leon and Berkeley Graduate student Cynthia Nakashima “The Sum of Our Parts” and Dr. Maria Root’s “The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders As the New Frontier” serve almost as “textbooks” in the class, although, many fictitious novels telling stories of mixed people around the world are also included in the course’s critical analysis of race.

Another approach to mixed race studies is finding where one fits in the bigger picture. Prof. Steven Ropp teaches Biracial and Multiracial Identity in the U.S. at California State University, Northridge. He stresses the importance of “being a part of all the communities we belong to, by having a presence, communicating, staying active.”

The class he currently teaches began about six years ago under the tutelage of Teresa Williams-Leon, professor and co-editor of “The Sum of Our Parts: Mixed Heritage Asian Americans.” This year is the first year Ropp has taught the class. His vision is to create a general multiracial studies class, in hopes that it will draw more students than a class catered to a specific ethnic group.

Read original article here…

>> Erica Schlaikjer <<

And my resolution for the day of tomorrow is that we realize that ‘We are the world’, today. All of a sudden the sweet words ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world’ of an earthly guru, Ghandi, chimes through my being. And after the wind settles, Wayne Dyer resonates ‘Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change’. Still caught up in my day dream, Booker T Washington rise up from dead and leaves me with a morsel of thought ‘I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.’ And just like I am awoken by a silly little love song from the eighties ‘We are the world’

We are the world

There comes a time when we hear a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
and its time to lend a hand to life
There greatest gift of all

We cant go on pretending day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We are all a part of Gods great big family
And the truth, you know,
Love is all we need

We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So lets start giving
Theres a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
its true we’ll make a better day
Just you and me

Send them your heart so they’ll know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us by turning stones to bread
So we all must lend a helping hand

We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So lets start giving
Theres a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
its true we’ll make a better day
Just you and me

When you’re down and out, there seems no hope at all
But if you just believe theres no way we can fall
Let us realize that a change can only come
When we stand together as one

We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So lets start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
its true we’ll make a better day
Just you and me

]]> http://www.beyondidentity.co.za/2010/01/we-are-the-world/feed/ 1 http://www.beyondidentity.co.za/2009/12/the-bushmen/ http://www.beyondidentity.co.za/2009/12/the-bushmen/#comments Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:00:32 +0000 Internet Source http://beyondidentity.co.za/?p=122 The origins of the Bushmen, also called the San, go so far back that they are lost in the mists of time. There have been a great many theories put forward about the beginnings of these mysterious little men whose remarkable way of life has gone on virtually unchanged for since the Stone Age. These small, light-skinned people called Bushmen by Europeans know themselves as the ‘Khwai’ or ‘men’. They were dispersed over an area stretching from Walvis Bay to the Zambezi valley and then southward past Lake Ngami and Botswana to the southeastern coast near Port Elizabeth. Having at different times in the past run foul of Hottentots, Bantu, Dutch and British in the Cape, they are now mostly concentrated in the Kalahari, and number between 30 000 and 55 000 people.

Bushmen live in clans and loosely connected family groups consisting of 120 or more, but never in anything like a tribal entity. Each clan has a right of use over some land and they are careful not to trespass on their neighbour’s property. The hallmark of their social attitudes is their utter belief in co-operation – within the family, between clans, and within nature itself. Their customs are geared to exclude anything that causes personal antagonism. There is, therefore, no ownership of property. Even the spoils of a hunt are divided according to customary allocation. The Bushmen believe that if he misuses his environment, he will be punished by the Supreme Being. So he never takes from the soil or from the herds of game more than he needs to stay alive. In his long history there is no evidence that he has ever needlessly exploited nature – and some experts have actually described the San as the world’s greatest conservationists.

Read full article here…

Species are remarkably hard to define, but most people just go along with the idea that species are marked by reproductive isolation. If organisms interbreed naturally and have fertile offspring, they belong to the same species. Clearly, then, all human beings belong to the same species (as evidenced by the very existence of coloureds). No problem there. (This definition of species is tied into the recognition that gene flow and the lack thereof is the core of biodiversity, incidentally.) Now sub-species are usually defined somewhat as follows: naturally occurring and geographically distinct variants of a species.

Now once upon a time, this might have been useful. After all, the San were different to the Bantu people, who were different to the Europeans, who differed from the Chinese. Sure, there was some blurring along the borders, but mostly you could tell where people were from just by lookngi at them. But over the last five centuries or so, the world’s been getting smaller, and now we live in a “global village”, where the term “black” applies to people who live in Africa, in Europe, in America, and whose ancestors came from a myriad of places (though ultimately, we all stem from Africa) – all over the place, really.
So does it make sense to speak of the white race? Or the black race? Or, heaven forefend, the coloured race (coloureds, being mixtures, mess any attempt to speak of human sub-species up totally)?

>> Internet Source <<

A little apology:

For the life of me I can not remember where I extracted the above from. Please forgive me. If you do know, please inform me urgently so that I can link and give proper credit to the source and author.

]]> http://www.beyondidentity.co.za/2009/12/what-is-a-coloured/feed/ 0 http://www.beyondidentity.co.za/2009/12/bikos-message-of-consciousness-goes-beyond-race/ http://www.beyondidentity.co.za/2009/12/bikos-message-of-consciousness-goes-beyond-race/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 06:00:51 +0000 Internet Source http://beyondidentity.co.za/?p=127

In 10 days time, it will be the 30th anniversary of Steve Biko’s death. What is remarkable when one reads his writings and trial testimony is the lucidity of his thoughts. He uttered these thoughts with such courage and fearlessness it is no wonder the apartheid government felt intense twinges of fear when dealing with him. This month I shall examine Biko’s insights and their relevance to the different spheres of our society today. Biko’s unfolding world-view brought forth incisive thinking on the concept of black consciousness, which he defined as follows: “The philosophy of black consciousness … expresses group pride and determination by blacks to rise and attain the envisaged self.” This assumes that people know what the envisaged self is, which is not necessarily the case. The problem we seem to have today is one of self-definition as a people.

In this country everything is seen through the tinted glasses of race. Ultimately we must transcend race, but to do that we have to see where we are and proceed from that base. Attaining our envisaged selves starts with examining who we are then envisioning who we want to be. The fruit of such self-examination is a realisation by black people that “by seeking to run away from themselves and emulating the white man, they are insulting the intelligence of whoever created them black”. The key in Biko’s message ignited the spark in many black people because he diagnosed their condition very aptly and provided guidance on how to achieve full consciousness. His message is chilling even today because it goes beyond race. His remedy is encapsulated in his dream of an integrated society. Biko defined integration as “the free participation by all members of a society, catering for the full expression of the self in a freely changing society as determined by the will of the people”.

He was dead set against the type of integration where there is “a breakthrough into white society by blacks, an assimilation and acceptance of blacks into a set of norms and code of behaviour set by whites”. If you change the references to white and black in the last statement, you have a message that is universally applicable and relevant in the workplace today. People want to see their uniqueness, values and norms embraced in whatever environment they are in. Furthermore, Biko was “against the superior-inferior white-black stratification that makes the white the perpetual teacher and the black a perpetual student (and a poor one)”. We still see this happening with some of the skills development programmes of companies where black people are in perpetual training without graduating to put those skills into practice.  A balance has to be struck between training and providing opportunities to apply those skills in a meaningful manner that contributes to the bottom line. The ultimate aim of Biko’s philosophy is a non-racial society.

Read full article here…

>> Vuyo Jack <<

Because of what was said and not said, done and not done I almost lost something that was very dear to me. After several months of almost pleading, cajoling and a considerable amount of self restraint on my part, my precious, my pet project was returned to me.  One would think that I was relieved and pleased. Alas, to my ultimate surprise I wanted almost nothing to do with my website, it felt tainted. I even thought of abandoning this South Africa multi-media mixed race documentary endeavour completely. As time wilted by, slowly but surely the interest, the fascination, the philosophy, the love and the passion for the documentary and people started permeating my being again. Thus here we are, the inertia, the transition has come full circle.

Let’s just say, I am not willing to trade the pain, the aggravation nor the personal disappointment for anything or anyone in the world. The amount of self reflection, self knowledge and sense of who I am, and the verve to be best I could possibly be that I have grasped is absolutely beyond priceless, beyond ego, beyond identity. Any adverse situation affords you the opportunity to learn the most. An eye for an eye mentality leads to blind and scarred people. No war has ever led to peace. There is no victory in war. And sticks and stones, may break my bones, but  ‘I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate, him’- Booker T Washington. Amen. Aum.

]]> http://www.beyondidentity.co.za/2009/12/smiling-my-silence/feed/ 2 http://www.beyondidentity.co.za/2009/12/the-black-woman-with-white-parents/ http://www.beyondidentity.co.za/2009/12/the-black-woman-with-white-parents/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:00:01 +0000 Internet Source http://beyondidentity.co.za/the-black-woman-with-white-parents/

Sandra Laing was born black, but to white parents. It would have been strange anywhere – but in apartheid South Africa it was disastrous. Long before science learned to meddle with genes, there was Sandra Laing.

She entered the world in 1955, a beautiful baby by all accounts, who could be expected to grow up in a close-knit family amid mines of gold and forests of pine. At the first sight of Sandra no one, not the nurse, her mother, father or neighbours would admit the obvious. Nature had played a trick. Abraham and Sannie Laing were white, their parents, grandparents and great grandparents were white, yet their daughter was dark. By a biological quirk, the pigment of an unknown black ancestor had lain dormant for generations and manifested in Sandra. Genetic throwbacks were not unheard of but if there was ever a wrong place and wrong time for this phenomenon, it was apartheid South Africa.

Her life is an extraordinary tale of a search for identity in a system built on race and prejudice, where home, school, job and sex life was demarcated by skin colour. Born to a conservative Afrikaner family, Sandra’s fate was to not be what she was supposed to be.

It has a happy ending, of sorts, and one which is scheduled to hit bookshops and cinemas now that Hollywood has caught wind of the story. The first biography is due out this year and a British production company has signed a deal with Miramax to make the film. Sandra Laing is about to become famous. Sitting in the back garden of her new house in Leachville, a maze of recently built estates fringing farmland east of Johannesburg, the bulky woman with the crew cut does not much resemble the svelte, toffee-coloured youngster who was photographed hugging a tall, white woman three decades ago. The psychological toll of her traumas has been immense, say friends, and Sandra, 47, is taciturn, the eye contact fleeting, the voice low. “I’m much happier with black people. I am, I was, very shy with white people. Even today I still think white people don’t like black people because of the way they treated me.” A mild way of putting things from someone who was expelled from school, mocked, abused, persecuted and told she was inferior, something less than fully human, because she lacked the pinkness expected of an Afrikaner descended from Dutch settlers. The nose and lips could be European but the skin is evidence of a liaison between a settler and native, perhaps as early as the 18th century.

“Sometimes I wonder how things might have been, what life might have been like, if I was born white. Mostly I try just to forget the past.” She speaks slowly, concentrating on each question, but it is clear she would rather play with the grandson resting on her knee, throw a ball to the dog, re-arrange shelves in the grocery shop, do anything other than an interview. Earlier she did smile, when 10 children with violins trooped into her shop, a converted front room of her house, and gave a concert to celebrate the new home and business which, it is hoped, will harbour a normal, stable life. Wellwishers and dignitaries of all colours made speeches to honour what they called a survivor, a symbol of triumph over despair. A performance by Zulu dancers drove the dog wild and Sandra even joined in the laughter.

Read full article here…