Some Stuff About Things

To the men who raped my sister and left her body in rags next to the highway To the uncle who molested my best friend and still came to family holidays To the ex-lover who assaulted me one drunken night and defended himself by stating where he had previously been allowed to touch To the man who sodomized an 8-year-old boy and left his broken body next to the footpath for the other children to find on their way to school To  all South African sex offenders  and those not even on this list We fight so that one day protecting your identity will be less important than protecting your victims.

"Graduation" is another poem by Koleka Putuma from her anthology Collective Amnesia . This poem deals with growing up and "graduating" from life as a black, queer womxn. Putuma describes this "graduation" leaving your parents' nest. It is a statement, something that WILL happen at one point or another. Because this is framed as a factual statement, the rest can also be interpreted as stated facts. These facts of "graduating" includes realizing that traditions from the speaker's childhood do not fit her own, personal narrative, the speaker is expected to support her family financially, but it is not always possible as she is trying to build her own life. This act of contributing financially will earn her the title of "adult" in the family. But this title is false. The speaker "slips into old roles". She hides things she does not want them to see or know, perhaps her sexuality as they may not be accepting of it. Wh...

how does the sea remember me. every time. - Nayyirah Waheed The sea... The word conjures up images of relaxation and cleansing. Nayyirah Waheed's poem seems little more than the perfect Instagram photo caption. But after reading and analysing "Water" by Koleka Putuma your viewpoint of those words might change. Waheed's poem can thus be read in conversation with that of Putuma's and considering they are both womxn of colour the themes and what the poems speak to, overlap. In her poem "Water" Putuma relates what the sea means to her as a queer womxn of colour. The speaker in the poem starts by telling how fun it was to go to the sea when she was a child "to giggle, to splash in our black tights/ and Shoprite plastic bags wrapped around our new weaves". The speaker continues to tell how black people are often mocked for the way they wipe the water from their face when they exit the water. This is indicative of the young child in the f...

I must revel in this loneliness for I have forgotten who I           singularly am - to become me

The Mediums of Instruction at SU It would be naive to think I could talk about the injustices of linguistic  privilege without touching on the language crisis at the University of Stellenbosch. I'm not going to elaborate on what, where, when cause that could take me 3 days to explain. If you have not been following the news lately or if you don't follow South African news, a simple Google search will provide you with everything you need to know about this saga. It might be smart to do so now as this blog will be tackling issues directly related to it. What are the Issues? As you are now aware of, the university has shifted between a policy accrediting Afrikaans and English as equal languages of tuition, to primarily English and back to Afrikaans and English at the start of this term. The new (old) language policy of Afrikaans and English gives rise to a number of problems. None of these problems stem from profound philosophical insights, but are genuine pr...

The Mother Tongue Mind Many children in South-Africa and across the globe  are unable to speak or to even understand their mother tongue. This is because of all the hype that exists around English. A lot of parents believe it would be wiser to send their child to an only English school, hoping that it would help them further in life. Many schools also do not offer schooling in the child's mother tongue, either because they do not have the resources or the child's home language is not widely spoken in that area and is being oppressed by another, bigger language. But few know the great loss children suffer if not taught in their mother tongue as long as possible.  Wait, what? The hard fact is that these kids are losing their chance of performing well at school. They are thrown into a system of language turmoil without as much as a straw to grasp on. In the most cases, their entire school career is a fight to keep their head above water. A study was cond...

The marvels of multilingualism Aaah, good old English, considered as the lingua franca of the whole globe. Because of this reason, home language speakers of English enjoy linguistic privilege. Read more about this in my previous blog  http://19841647.blogspot.co.za/?zx=44838a9a22b5e696 .  But times a-changing, speaking only one language, even if it is English, is no longer sufficient. Not only does multilingualism give you the edge in our globalized world, but it benefits you in more ways than you can think of. Wait, what? Yes, if you speak two or more languages, you basically have superpowers. Besides being able to talk two or more languages, speakers have a few linguistic superpowers . Speaking a second language benefits your first language  immensely, including proficiency, vocabulary, reading and communicative improvements. Being bi- or multilingual also helps you to learn a language quicker and easier in the future.  You also have quite a ...