Josie Duffy Tells About the History That Tells the Story of White Men Who Raped

It’s nearly three years since Josie Duffy published the article ‘The Men who Left Were White’ on the now defunct site Gawker.com. Duffy’s article comes back to me because I have been thinking about fatherhood. It’s over 9 years since I began to seriously exercise my brain – and my heart even more – about this thing called fatherhood. Up … Continue reading →

A Little Boy Wants to Write His Own Story

Here is a short video about a boy, Capri Hall (7). It’s one of the videos on Intergenerational Stories of Black Masculinity from the Museum of the African Diaspora. This one is made by Angelica Ekeke. I urge you to watch it if you are raising or some day will get to raise a little boy in world that tells boys like … Continue reading →

Money, Men, Women, Some Kind of Love

“Many rich black parents of the North make the mistake of associating their hard-earned economic freedom, with their children’s supposedly unquestioned entitlement to it. This misconception becomes dangerous when these elite black individuals raise their children – particularly their male children – with traditional ideas of manhood coupled with the constant spoon-feeding of money. This … Continue reading →

The Question is Not, Is Rachel Dolezal Really White? Why Her Apparent Refusal to be White Can Use More Discussion in South Africa

A few years ago I started to do work on the absurdities of racial classification. That’s why the case of Rachel Dolezal, and how some of my friends, commentators around the world and others in South Africa have responded to it, intrigues me so much. Actually, this aspect of my work began in the late 1990s with what … Continue reading →

‘Governor’ Maimane, his White ‘Sexual Object’, and Some Kind of New Hope for Young Masculinities

Forget about the politics, although that is reason we have come to know of him. Forget about the politics of race too, even though our society is the paradigm for the world on how race can be brutally politicised. And forget, for now the ‘white sexual object’, psychoanalytically speaking. Listening to ‘governor’ (or “ruler”, which … Continue reading →

Black Gay Men’s Story about Doing their Daughters’ is really about Parenting, Masculinity, and Race

  Last year I posted on social media about the couple Kaleb and Kordale Lewis who caused a storm because of a picture they put on the web. It was an image of them doing their daughters’ hair for school. The image went viral. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of comments followed. Here they are in a … Continue reading →

We need a united front of antiracist, feminist, decolonial, anticapitalist, queer, black scholars

I have been asked by several people to respond to the newspaper article by University of Cape Town’s Professor Xolela Mangcu, published in the past Sunday’s City Press. I have hesitated because, well, I think the two people used to illustrate what are otherwise good points can do a far better job than I. There is also what … Continue reading →

Telling the Untold Stories of Black Fatherhood with Sensitivity

It never ends. Thinking about manhood. Finding a way to think about black manhood. Trying to understand how a man understand being a black father. If you believe that all men are then same, then there is nothing to understand: all men are dogs. But if you think every man and every woman has a story to tell it … Continue reading →

A South African National Union of Black Academics

“Like Steve Biko said in 1968, I think we need a national union of black academics, particularly at white liberal universities.” Xolela Mangcu, Black academics must unite, City Press, 14 Oct 2014. I don’t know about the emphasis on white liberal universities. The struggle over universities is not only at liberal universities. It occurs at … Continue reading →

Once More, Black Men Do Not Come In One Model

A few days ago I received a message that has prompted me to repost this blog: Black Males Feel Pain and Joy. I feel I have always written on the fact that black men do not come in one model. But perhaps I have wrongly assumed that saying it a few times will make others understand … Continue reading →