On Tuesday afternoon, my parents were involved in a head-on collision with a driver who appears to have swerved into their lane. Tragically, both of them died, my mum on the scene, and my dad a short while later at the hospital.
I was looking at my baby photos and I realised - six months ago, I was pregnant for the first time, and my parents were here and so very excited.
Since then, I have lost my baby and both my parents. I am not a mother. I am not a daughter. And it’s all just so fucking painful.
A 2-year-old child has been raped while in isolation at a hospital in Pretoria and I am crying in my car at work because how many more women’s and children’s bodies have to serve as nightmarish crime scenes before something will fucking change?!
On Tuesday afternoon, my parents were involved in a head-on collision with a driver who appears to have swerved into their lane. Tragically, both of them died, my mum on the scene, and my dad a short while later at the hospital.
A small request from one South African citizen to the next: please don’t go to the shops tomorrow, Tuesday or Wednesday. Many people are getting their grants this week & haven't yet had opportunity to buy food - we need to keep them safe & ensure they‘ve access to what they need.
To the white people offended by
#adamcatzavelos
, are you willing to show the same outrage when it's your brother, your best friend, your co-worker who shares racist sentiments? Will you sit politely in silene or call the racist fucker out? Enough is enough. Silence is violence!
| ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄ ̄|
Cancelling Hofmeyr is not
cancelling Afrikaans culture,
it’s cancelling racism -
THEY AREN’T THE
SAME THING!!
|___________|
(\__/) ||
(•ㅅ•) ||
/ づ
I think what's unfortunate about FW De Klerk's passing is that he not only never stood trial for his actions & the actions he authorised, but he also demonstrated several times over that he hadn't learned anything in the time that has passed since he served the apartheid regime.
Many have said it before, and I’ll say it again, an alarming number of white South Africans want to be seen to be oppressed SO badly. And it’s actually revolting.
A whirlwind Monday morning saw our baby girl brought into the world a little earlier than planned, but completely perfect in every way 🥰 ❤️ we couldn’t be more thankful that she’s here, healthy, and happy!
World, meet Charlotte. Charlotte, meet world!
There is simply no way that any of what has been said so far in the International Court of Justice and the case against Israel can be viewed as anything other than damning and blatant evidence of genocide. Every act mentioned is indefensible, unjustifiable, and inhumane.
They can't find South Africa on a map (with labels), but Americans will invoke Mandela as, and when, they see fit - without a hint of historical knowledge or awareness. Ugh.
The same white people claiming that a national lockdown enforced by the presence of SANDF harks back to the Apartheid state in its infringement upon their human and civil rights were fighting just weeks ago against the classification of Apartheid as a crime against humanity.
I promise you that an apartheid beneficiary with white right leanings is NOT someone we should consider as having a well-informed opinion on things. He needs to keep South Africa out of his dirty mouth 😤
India has finally ruled that sex with a child bride is ALWAYS rape and I’m equal parts torn by feeling that YES, this is a massive win for the rights of girl children, but also seriously, HOW is this still up for debate and contestation in 2019?!
I am going to be gone for a while. Thank you, Twitter friends, for making a space where we can all share grief. And for so often showing me kindness when I do.
Until we meet again, hug your loved ones. Be kind. And stay safe. Rx
Dear white people, this is not what white privilege means. Crack a book before you crack your mouth hole. A societal privilege does not cease to exist simply because you lack the mental faculties to understand it or opt to live in denial. Do better or tsek.
My first job was mowing lawns for other people in Orange Grove. Then shop assistant in Louis Botha then worked while studying at RAU. MY first formal job was at the Jhb abattoir. Don't come with this white privilege thing with me. I seem to have missed that bus...
South African Twitter, as many of you know, my parents were killed in a car accident on the 27th of December 2022. They were in Wilderness driving along the N2.
I can’t comprehend what my fellow white people believed should happen after benefiting from centuries of racial privilege, while the majority were violently oppressed?
World Medical Association warns doctors not to enforce
@iaaforg
rules “The basic ethical code of medical practice is never do harm & it is doing harm to a perfectly normal body... by administering drugs... in order to make them eligible for women’s sport.”
@helenzille
@HlomlaDandala
@Jehosoph4t
@twatterbaas
Helen, there is no such thing as black privilege & it’s disgusting you’d make use of such a phrase to defend your own ignorant racism. The only other people I’ve seen use it are white supremacists - s’pose that shoe now fits you? I said it yesterday, but it bears repeating: TSEK.
To say that our hearts are broken is to greatly undermine the depth, the weight, and the expanse of our grief. There are no words, and I’m not sure there ever will be.
We just added the following request to our wedding invites:
"Out of concern for the wellbeing of our guests and suppliers, in order to attend this celebration with us, we kindly request that you please be fully vaccinated."
And that's that really.
My parents were truly the most incredible human beings, and I am immeasurably fortunate to have called them my mum and dad. To try to contemplate life without them is both torture and tragedy.
This William Nicol name change has revealed how little white South Africans are willing to relinquish their ties to white supremacy and how lacking in critical thinking they can be regarding their historical understanding and current-day commitment to democracy. Embarrassing.
What puzzles me is how some South Africans behave as if the interventions our Government has put in place to protect us during the pandemic are somehow worse than anywhere else.
Let's review, shall we?
“South Africa's post-apartheid Constitution was the first in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation, and South Africa was the fifth country in the world and the first in Africa to legalise same-sex marriage.”
🌈 nation all day, babies!
I don’t even watch Miss South Africa or tend to give it much thought, but if there’s a way to vote for the woman who wins, I’ll commit to doing it to try and ensure Chidimma wins. The xenophobia has been off the scale. Shameful.
“Grief is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” - Jamie Anderson
Today, a year ago, we had been mourning the loss of our baby girl for nine weeks.
Today, we are 19 weeks pregnant with another baby girl.
The symmetry of loss and life over the course of a year. And forever, I will be the mum of two ❤️ even if I can only hold one of you.
[JUST IN] The DA has removed Ghaleb Cachalia from its Shadow Cabinet over his tweet which said “I will not be silenced. Israel is committing Genocide. Full BLOODY stop.”
In a letter signed by DA leader, John Steenhuisen, he said Cachalia’s tweet is not inline with the party. TCG
For a group of people who claim there is a “white genocide” going on in South Africa (when there isn’t), a lot of folks on here are in a rather alarming state of denial about the literal genocide targeting the Palestinians.
Yesterday, I walked out of this door for the last time. The door to a home that held happy memories of meals and moments shared with my parents when they were alive. The door to a home where I spent much of the past year mourning, grief-stricken, wishing for what was.
I don’t care what anyone says: renewing your car’s license disc and actually placing the renewed license disc in your car are two entirely different projects - often with a week (or three?) between them.
“Everyone’s afraid that their daughters might be hurt. No one seems to be scared that their sons might be the ones to do it.” - Clementine Ford, ‘Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy and the Toxic Bonds of Mateship’
I don’t know how to even begin to navigate this. We are all in shock, and the spaces of feeling are overwhelming and devastating. The words people have sent us about them affirm what exceptionally special humans they were. We were so blessed.
Men, you don’t get to sit back and expect applause because you haven’t raped or assaulted someone in your life time - that should be the norm! And until things change, you don’t get to absolve yourself of any responsibility in addressing the problem. The MALE VIOLENCE problem.
We have a MALE violence problem and I’m not going to sit here and try to fucking convince men about it anymore. Just like systemic racism, the rot runs deeper than the individual - and it has to fucking stop!!
I am quietly reading a book with a cup of tea in hand as my baby sleeps soundly beside me, and I can’t quite believe how lucky I am to be right here, right now.
My husband still hasn’t come to bed. LOTS to process. Last I checked, he was jumping around the lounge trying to squash a mosquito that he’d named Owen Farrell.
I’m leaving him be 😂
@free_dagny
Violence in South Africa is a massive problem. To term it ‘racially motivated’ just because white lives are the only ones you feel shouldn’t be lost does not make it so. I’m also not minimising anything. Thanks for playing!
Can someone please balance me real quick... weren’t
@Our_DA
accusing Cyril of “appropriating” their plan for a staged end to lockdown just a week or two ago? And now they’re speaking out against what they claimed was *their* idea? Huh? 🙃
Today is three months since you were both cruelly taken away from us. At first, I thought seeing your bodies, or planning your funeral, or saying a eulogy, would be the hard parts. But it’s the living without you that destroys me. Every single day. And it just gets harder 💔
At a memorial for my dad at Olivedale Clinic a woman mentioned that one thing my dad always had for people was time. He made time. He gave time. And this is something I dearly hope to emulate in my own life, in honour of his legacy ❤️ he was an exceptional human being.
I read somewhere yesterday that we shouldn’t refer to Gaza as an open air prison, because that implies some sort of criminal activity has caused Palestinians to be there. Rather, for accuracy, it must be called what it is: a concentration camp.
Women:
#MenAreTrash
Men: Not all men, whore. I’m going to hunt you down & rape you. This is why you’re single, fugly bitch. Go back to the kitchen. I’m not sorry men have abused & raped & harassed you all your life now reply to my DM I sent you a dick pic even though you’re fat
I have learned all that I know about history in classrooms, through reading, my own research and conversations... NOT through statues. Relics that pay homage to colonial and apatheid-era figures MUST fall. And so too must
@Our_DA
, if this is what they stand for.
We know it’s not ALL men. But until you can give us a foolproof method to determine which men, we will continue to be wary of all men. Hope that helps.
One of the hardest things about moving into my parent’s home temporarily (though mostly it’s a source of peace and great comfort for me), is finding half finished things - a mug in a sink, a scribbled note to finish the tiling, a few strands of hair in a brush, books half read.
In which we’re reminded (yet again) of how outrageous men find the idea of a woman being and doing as she chooses, in a body that is not solely in service of his every whim, his every desire 🙄 misogyny is so revolting, honestly.
Removing your jersey and exposing your body just because you scored a goal doesn’t make sense at all as a woman.
Asisat Oshoala really need to fix up🤦♂️
So, I realise that I never posted a bookshelf update (mostly because I only finished unpacking them yesterday). It’s been organised by colour (shame me at will) and alphabetically therein. I’m also delighted to report that more shelving may be required and soon... 😉
#Shelfie
Tonight,
@PresidencyZA
showed that he is a human being, like you and me; that he is frightened and cautious, yet hopeful. And his brief struggle with the final prop was the endearing cherry on top! ❤️
I am beyond grateful for him and his leadership 🇿🇦
@DeptfordWife1
From South Africa with love 😉 maybe top of your appropriation tour with a visit to your local museum. And then give the countries their things back. TIA.
Sleep when the baby sleeps?
You mean, “lie there and stare in life-affirming awe at the embodiment of your heart in human form while worrying she’s not breathing and panicking that every squeak means something is wrong?” … when the baby sleeps.
Did I accomplish all of my goals for the year? Nope. But did I manage to take care of my mental and emotional wellbeing? Also no. Okay, but did I at least maintain a proper exercise and sleep schedule? You’re not going to believe this, but…