Most people wear either black or white. Only some people wear grey. Grey is often considered a dull colour. It's the same with opinions: most have a micro or a macro focus. Few opinions are in between (ie, gray/grey). Why is grey (eg, colour, opinion) considered as dull? Why don't we like grey? People consider their skin colour as either black or white. However,...
The title of a recent Dutch interview with international classical baritone singer Ernst Daniël Smid caught my immediate attention: If I can no longer sing, then who am I ? A familiar question for me. Nowadays, I state that I'm a thinker and a writer. Before, I was working in Finance (eg, CFO, CPA). In between, I felt lost due to a severe burnout and depression (my...
Bright title: Skin Lightening: Africa's Multibillion Dollar Post-Colonial Hangover Bright subtitle: "One thing we cannot deny is that skin lightening has impacted Africans' individual and collective beauty standards; lighter skin is often perceived as a marker of superior beauty and economic status." Date of publishing: 7 May 2019 "Growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, my...
I really thought that I finally understood all of these discrimination terms: ableism (disabilities), ageism (age), anti-semitism (anti-Judaism), classism (social class), heterosexism (same sex), racism (skin colour), and sexism (gender). My first confusion was about anti-semitism, which word is (very) misleading. See my 2016 blog: The origin of antisemitism....
The African Holocaust Society defines slavery of the mind as follows: “Mental slavery is a state of mind where discerning between liberation and enslavement is twisted. Where one becomes trapped by misinformation about self and the world. So someone can claim to be conscious, they can read all the books they can recycle the popular rhetoric but still be unable to...
Last week, I read the words white privilege again in a Dutch newspaper. Being white myself, it’s hard to have a non-biased opinion on this topic. The 1st time ever that I felt my whiteness was in Atlanta, Georgia, back in 1996. I felt less white in Kenya than in southern USA. I do recognise the concept of white privilege, although I think I've been in...
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