Socially Savant

It all started with a tweet from a lady I respect and admire @KirtyBisset (Nov.16) that read, “Shout out to the fragile men.” I then replied to her saying that her tweet speaks to me my heart and that I wanted to write a blog about this very thing and she encouraged m e to go on and do it. I’ve been wanting to speak about the silencing, disrespect and abuse of men and how this has been ignored for far too long. My final wakeup call was when I realised that gender violence doesn’t really have a preference to which gender it will choose, it just violates. I have been reading up on this for years and my interest comes from a multitude of seen and heard stories amongst people I know. I know men who have been assaulted by women whom they had trusted and loved. I have watched women in my family abuse men physically or verbally. I have seen this reaction come out of anger and I have seen it come from pure malicious intent of trying to provoke a man just to see how far they can go. My...

All my life I’ve been a magnet to great human beings. I have the ability to gather the right energies and personalities into my life. I have been able to overly exert myself as well at times. However when a high school friend and I reunited over a year ago her husband was so welcoming. From that day onwards I caught a glimpse of the type of white person South Africa needs right now.  Music is universal but the genres not so much. The genres are like the border gates limiting our expansion into one another. I didn’t use music as a metaphor for nothing. Let me tell you what happened to me.  Come December 31 st  2017 and we are knee deep in the fatigue of ushering in New Year ’s Eve. A few drinks down the line and the difference in musical tastes showcased an exchange of words from a guy that had been “alright” with black people being at his friend’s party. He was annoyed that we had requested songs that were hits in a genre that was unfamiliar to him. As we ushe...

I began this blog in my mind a very long time ago. For me it’s been a real thing. Its lived with me every Sunday. Some Sundays it looks different. It looks decent , it behaves and smiles back at me. But most times I return home and for days I get gripped by how and when it got to me and how did I allow it to get here? Well the best place for Racism to thrive had to be the church. It is in the church where systematic thinking thrived because it became ok through the bible verses to validate Racism and Pastors where not willing to talk about it because money in the church is very important. We would like to think that was left in the 80's but I'm afraid not. I’m about to drag the church and I’m about to drag Pastors and I’m going to use my experiences and I am going to take the brunt for my truth. If you read to the end then congratulations from firstly me and/or secondly the church because I don’t write this with your emotions in mind. Now that I have placed the disclai...

The token of privilege and what it means says that you are given an advantage. An opportunity someone else was dying to have. I understood the words; ‘you are so privileged’ and noting that I was not deserving, throughout my life. I grew up in a beautiful, wealthy suburb called Westville in Durban. I still live there in fact but I live alone and my mom still lives there with my younger sister. A few things have turned for us in the recent years, which I will share in another blog. When I was born mom was a domestic worker. She was a single parent and up till this day I have come to understand mom’s life to be that of single parenting. So she had me and the couple she worked for at the time took it upon themselves to help her raise me the best way possible. This meant I was sent to great schools money could offer. I went for swimming lessons as a toddler and I enjoyed the best experiences when it came to life. I was different compared to family members like my cousins and I...

We never needed more women in industries in fact we never needed to be recognised by others. We what we need is more women to support each other and be happy for each other at any point in time. That saying; ‘not everyone is going to be happy for you’ is commonly said in female circles and not male circles, go figure. Having had a conversation with a friend this morning I felt compelled to write this because it is important we see where we are getting it wrong. We are getting it wrong when we are holding grudges and being jealous towards those who are doing better than us. Holding bitterness and not being strong enough to stand in the sun with a friend and say I will stand with you for your “glory” while I wait for mine. So speaking frankly in this post I would be correct in saying that we don’t do that. We don’t want to stand with another sister while she shines for how many times she shines. I would like to say that many of the lessons we learn we learn from the female f...

Dear black child, you wake up to too much every single day. Do not lose heart. It won’t be like this forever. We are here to reclaim our dignity one ad at a time. Kind regards a fellow black child. This is a short letter to all black people and the future black child. We won’t always have the most disturbing and antagonising adverts, brought on by agencies and creative directors who feel they can do whatever they please in their positions power. Whilst it’s said that Dove has made a distasteful advert apparently it’s not the first time. Six years prior to this advert they had another racist and disgusting advert. Meaning that six years ago we might not have been as “woke” as we are now, since we don’t remember dragging them on Social Media. But I would much rather think we were not as vocal as we are today. We were still in our passive slumber and not willing to unpack racism as we are now. Now we see people writing books and realising albums depicting the very essen...

I would like to formally introduce myself as I will not do it on this platform ever again. Instead I will be enhancing my life. I am a young, bold, enthusiastic woman who enjoys nothing more than to meet other people. I also love to blog, writing is my passion I gauge from previous experiences in life and I share what I can, what I deem plausible for others to know. People watching on social networks and occasionally at coffee shops, is exactly the things that keep me inspired. I value family values and loyalty. I am running my own race. I know that my calling is much greater than I have imagined in my head, and trusting in God I know I will reach my destiny. I pray you are blessed in my sharing. I was raised in the backrooms of the servant courters (essentially 2 rooms) in a very luscious suburb called Westville in Durban South Africa. I was raised by the village being in the form of a church. A church that had people from all walks of life. My influences are therefore, E...