Badvertising and the Soweto Uprising
The worst crime of a new ad “celebrating” the martyrs of 1976 is the message does not accord with the realities of young black South Africans.
17 Articles by:
T.O. Molefe
T.O.Molefe is an editor and writer from South Africa.
The limits of debunking only the pseudoscience of race
What a very white book launch in a very black neighborhood in downtown Johannesburg reveals.
Lessons for black South Africa in black America
Many middle-class black South Africans hold poor and working-class blacks in disregard if not disdain, and believe poor blacks hold themselves back.
Another lazy South Africa ad
A common thread that runs through many bad commercials, is that the people who thought them up were incredibly lazy and uncreative.
Jeremy Clarkson’s long history of escaping accountability
Cancel Jeremy Clarkson, cancel Top Gear and cancel British jingoism.
Seven Things To Tell Young Black South Africans
Being Black in South Africa today must be a baffling, sometimes humiliating experience.
Bloomberg’s welfare addiction
Bloomberg Africa evokes Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen” stereotype for poor South Africans.
The day South African news media ate crow
How South Africa’s media report on the doings within the official parliamentary opposition, the Democratic Alliance.
My New York Times column about Cape Town
The author wrote a column about racial and class inequalities in the city where he lived. The usual backlash by those in power followed.
South Africa is a Continent
Jacob Zuma says out loud what most South Africans believe about themselves: South Africa isn’t in Africa. It’s somewhere else. Somewhere better.
“Exceptional kaffirs”
The grumblings of dissatisfaction and anger among black readers over stories about deserving blacks in South Africa.
Blackface Fish
Fresh as the sea and funny, or tired, racist bull?
The infamous Cape Town hospitality
Will Barack Obama get a frosty reception when he visits South Africa this weekend?
The unfounded fears of a Zulu hegemony
The hysteria around developing isiZulu and the country’s other indigenous languages for use in higher education.
People in glass houses
South Africa’s news media’s much vaunted editorial independence.
The media’s culture of confirmation bias
When it comes to South Africa, US media publishes articles that may have been written already before an event even happened.