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8:15
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Black Looks
From Gender DynamiX
This Friday Daisy Dube will be remembered. Daisy was shot and killed in Yeoville in 2008 because of her gender identity. She and three drag queens out for the night stopped and asked three men in a car to stop calling them “isitabane.” (A isiZulu slur used for LGBT people). Her cold blooded [...]
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12:44
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Black Looks
I feel so proud and over joyed to be writing this post today. In spite of the struggle against transphobia and homophobia two exciting ground breaking pieces of work are happening in Africa which celebrate Transgender lives on the continent. The first is the launch of Trans: Transgender Life Stories from South [...]
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8:03
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Black Looks
Kayode Ogundamisi posted this note on Facebook commenting on the Lagos State Government’s “Rambo” raid on private nightclubs. The club dancers were dehumanised and photographed in the nude by security forces with the photos being sent to the press. Kayode’s comment speaks to the whole issue of hypocrisy, citizens rights and policing morality [...]
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19:41
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Black Looks
“ Allah is not obliged – to be fair about all things he does here on earth” is the mantra that weaves itself through this remarkable novel by Ahmadou Kourouma. This was my first reading of Kourouma which I started at 11am and finished around 6.30pm. In those seven hours [...]
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13:47
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Black Looks
The 8th edition of the Bamako Encounters – African Photography Biennial is a month long celebration of African photography. This year, inspired by the theme “Borders”, 10 Nigerians made the journey from Lagos to Bamako by road in a Volkswagen mini bus driving through 6 West African countries: Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, [...]
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10:25
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Black Looks
The following Statement from the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, The Coalition’s first press release entitled ‘Anti-Homosexuality or Anti-Human Rights Bill?’, will be published in today’s (24 October 2009) editions of Uganda Dailies The New Vision; The Independent , The Monitor – and a local vernacular daily Bukedde Newspaper. It [...]
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8:26
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Black Looks
In 1996 at the age of 24, South African lesbian film maker, Shelly Barry was shot through the spine and was paralysed from the chest down. In this courageous and powerful essay she tells of her journey to reclaim and once again love her body. She writes about society’s perceptions of [...]
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9:37
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Black Looks
Last Saturday I listened to a reading of Harare North by Brian Chikwava [winner of the 2004 Caine Prize] and was hooked after the first sentence. This is bad timing, I have too much to do to be reading novels but I cant help myself and keep snatching 10 minutes here and [...]
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10:04
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Black Looks
George Osodi is a photographer and activist who has been documenting life in the Niger Delta for the past 8 years. With so many western photographers, researchers, writers and film makers documenting the Niger Delta, George’s work [he is from Delta State] work is especially important. Far away from the politics [...]
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9:53
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Black Looks
UPDATE
US Evangelists are involved in the Homophobia Bill – as per this report
Sadly, this witch-hunt has the blood stained fingerprints of leading American evangelicals. The Fellowship, (aka The Family) one of America’s most powerful and secretive fundamentalist organization’s, converted Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni (pictured top) to its anti-gay brand of Christianity, which is the [...]
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4:09
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Black Looks
Powerful performance by Kenyan poet and activist Shailja Patel calling for an end to the US war against the people of Afghanistan and Iraq.
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6:51
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Black Looks
A new Private Members Bill – Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 – has been tabled in the Uganda Parliament which would allow for the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality”. The Bill also carries a sentence of life imprisonment for being or committing the offense of homosexuality, 7 years for attempted [...]
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5:55
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Black Looks
There is much silence around gendered violence in Nigeria particularly in the Niger Delta region. Whilst the Nigerian government, military and militants act out various layers of theatre around amnesty, bunkering and continued militarisation, women continue to face daily violence. No one knows the numbers of women and girls raped and sexually assaulted [...]
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13:02
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Black Looks
Congratulations to Abahlali baseMjondolo Movement (AbM) for their perseverance and belief in their rights and non-violence. After being subjected to “political violence and shameless slander” over the last two weeks, there is reason to celebrate. The Constitutional Court (CC) of South Africa have today declared the provincial KwaZulu-Natal Elimination and Prevention [...]
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9:12
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Black Looks
Most of us probably havent even heard of cassiterite – the mineral used in electronics especially laptops. There was a time when laptops used to be hugely expensive. Now you can pick up one for a couple of hundred pounds. I dont know whether there is a relationship between the cheap price of laptops and [...]
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5:48
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Black Looks
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Black Looks
Two months ago the Hunger Coalition was formed to protest against the SABC broadcaster’s decision to cut local content and by doing so marginalise South African languages, art and cultures. Last Tuesday actor Sello Maake ka-Ncube joined the hunger strike [replacing Zamambo Tshabalala, a 24 year old industry novice who completed [...]
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Black Looks
Graca Machel said “These are exciting times to be a woman, of any age – mothers, grandmothers, daughters. But we must be reminded that every leader is a product of a collective, a community and a generation. Now the question is, what footprint will you leave for future generations?”
The Women of Networth Conference is [...]
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11:27
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Black Looks
I was at an arts festival in Gratz Austria over the past weekend. The part of the event I attended was called “Real Energy World” and the theme was the Niger Delta. The whole of the first day passed without a single mention of women. Thank god for the final event of [...]
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6:00
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Black Looks
UPDATE: It’s good to speak – following complaints changes have been made!
Feminism in London conference was not open to transgendered women, read the Bird of Paradox blog to get a better understanding of the implications and problems with this.
However, today, a statement has been released and an amendment to the FIL front page to make [...]
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9:26
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Black Looks
By Mahaliyah part of the Brave New Voices series of spoken word poetry.
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6:20
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Black Looks
Following the mob attacks on Kennedy Rd settlement, S’bu and his family and other members of KRDC are now refugees as Kennedy Rd is now being run by the local ANC.
The movement is still under attack in Kennedy Road and the police are still failing to protect us. The settlement is now [...]
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10:52
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Black Looks
Amnesty International have released a report on the sexual violence being carried out against refugee women in Chad. The violence is taking place in the Eastern region where Chad borders with Sudan. Out of the 250,000 refugees most are women and children who are living in 12 different camps.
The nightmare therefore continues [...]
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4:35
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Black Looks
In the early hours of Saturday morning mobs attacked the Kennedy Rd settlement. Now thousands are running from the settlement, the President and Vice President are in hiding, the office is being emptied for fear it will be bulldozed. This is pure intimidation in what appears to be attempts by the local [...]
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4:26
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Black Looks
Mzonke Poni of Abahlali baseMjondolo Western Cape is scheduled to go on trial today for a charge of “PUBLIC VIOLENCE”. In this essay, Poni eloquently discusses the notion of “public violence” asking what is it? who counts as the public? and most importantly what counts as violence – direct action and peaceful protest [...]
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4:10
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Black Looks
On Saturday the Kennedy Road settlement was attacked by a group of 40 heavily armed men. They destroyed 15 homes belonging to members of the Kennedy Road Development Committee [KRDC] including that of S’bu Zikode. Some people were killed including two of the attackers. The police were called [...]
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5:11
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Black Looks
Concerned African Scholars have a special bulletin on Sexual and Gender Based Violence in Africa. Lest we demonise Africa as a sight of exceptional rates of sexual and gender based violence, the editor Dan Moshenberg, makes the point that it happens in the UK, USA, Europe and everywhere else…..
There is no geographical border to [...]
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6:15
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Black Looks
Short film by Chinedum Iregbu - Dele Giwa, Nigerian founding editor of Newswatch magazine who was killed by a parcel bomb in 1986. Writing during the regime of General Babanigda, Dele Giwa’s killers have never been found but speculation has always remained that somehow the government or their agents were involved.
Four young journalists [...]
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4:00
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Black Looks
The Keffiyeh, the traditional head dress made and worn in Palestine, where over the years it became a symbol of Palestinian self-determination and struggle during the 1930’s against British occupation up to the present. Now the Keffiyeh has been appropriated by Westerners who may or may [...]
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7:54
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Black Looks
Part Two here
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Black Looks
Themba Mvubu, 24, from Kwathema, was found guilty of murder, robbery and being an accessory to the rape. He continued to show no remorse and left the court muttering “I’m not sorry”. Possibly after a few years in jail he might at some point reconsider this statement. In summing up the case the [...]
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Black Looks
Photo documentary of Nigerian God miracles – Christian and Muslim – in Kaduna State. Published by Frontline World
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4:00
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Black Looks
They thought the battle had ended but a new one was just beginning.
ET Mensah – Ghana the land of freedom
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Black Looks
As I read the shocking news that Caster Semenya was subjected to gender tests even before she left South Africa for the Atheltics World Cup, I wonder if she was even told what the tests were for? The lies, the lack of respect and abuse must have left her traumatised, hurt and [...]
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Black Looks
Fire and Ink – 8th – 11th October, Austin Texas
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Black Looks
Having grown up on highlife, a musical genre that originated in Ghana in the 1900s before eventually spreading to Sierra Leone, Nigeria and other West African countries by 1920, Aniekan was familiar with legends such as Ibo highlife innovator Sonny Okosun and Victor Olaiya, a Yoruba singer and trumpeter. But hip hop captured the then-17-year-old [...]
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6:50
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Black Looks
Via Diary of Space Given
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6:32
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Black Looks
Being: Zanele Muholi – photographer
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9:00
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Black Looks
Trans activist, Victor Mukasa on being a lesbian and a trans man…
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8:42
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Black Looks
Christina Engela discusses the new direction of Jacob Zuma’s South Africa and the ANC’s relationship with right wing church leaders..and a plan to “”assist government” in “cleaning up society”.
Separate but equal”, they are calling this insult in the USA – and if a civil union is truly so great and so equal in their view, [...]
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11:41
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Black Looks
Emerging gay chat sites in Ghana are being used to trap MSM by luring them into isolated spaces with promises of sex. The men are then either blackmailed or assaulted by the “fake gays”.
This always starts with visits to the internet in search of love on dating websites, without suspecting that the alluring profiles [...]
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7:36
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Black Looks
A punchy, in your face, unapologetic and exciting novel titled, I Aint Yo Bitch by Jabulile Ngwenya, is set to keep a few tongues wagging, a must read but definitely not for the faint hearted.
Published by Paper Bag Publishing, I Aint Yo Bitch was launched at the Wits Writing Centre, on 20 August 2009.
Ngwenya said [...]
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6:43
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Black Looks
Warning this has spoilers.
I have yet to watch District 9 and have read probably too many reviews to view it objectively. This is one of the better ones I have read.
You have to admit: As a premise for a movie it is pretty unpromising. An alien spaceship comes to rest over Johannesburg. Instead [...]
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5:11
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Black Looks
Call for Applications – Deadline 20th September 09
From 27 October to 4 November 2009, SPARCK will host the first WiAiA: an international workshop dedicated to innovative writing and publishing about contemporary creation in the African world.
WiAiA stands for Word into Art into Africa. It is one of several SPARCK projects. SPARCK – Space for Pan-African [...]
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7:12
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Black Looks
After almost 4 years and 23 delays, the 7 men who gang raped Buyisiwe in October 2005 have finally been found guilty and sentenced to between 17 and 20 years. Four years is a long time to wait for justice to be served. So how is this 4 year wait for [...]
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4:29
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Black Looks
Poto Mitan is showing at the “I Will Tell” film festival this week in London at the Prince Charles Theatre.
Sharing powerful, compelling lives of five courageous Haitian women activists, “Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy” aims to inspire, educate, and challenge solidarity, global justice, and women’s activists. Each woman’s life [...]
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9:14
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Black Looks
“What dont you see when you look at me”, is a brave intervention by visual activist Zanele Muholi. In this video installation she uses her own body [being] to examine the Western gaze and mapping of the Black female body within a ‘white’ space. In photographing and projecting her own body as [...]
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Black Looks
returning the gaze by maganthrie pillay
i return the gaze of you looking @ me
through your specific lens
in some exotic or neurotic sense
exhausted frustrated of your take on me
i look at me
through my black eyes, wide op…en
i look and listen to the heartbeat
to what you miss and dismiss
or dismiss i capture
me and mine
full screen, full frame
with [...]
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3:56
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Black Looks
Hosted by – The Royal Africa Society and the SSRC, African Argument Online is a welcome new addition to Africa’s online media. The “Arguments” seem to be weighted towards Kenya but no doubt they will expand their coverage in due time. I’m presently writing on state sponsored violence so [...]
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3:55
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Black Looks
pre-paid meters – war against the poor