I’ve been struggling with the Kanye of it all. I love his work. I’ve loved his work since before he was on the mic. A lot of my favorite hip hop songs were produced and masterminded by Kanye. His music has got me through some hard times. He’s incredibly talented and that shines through, even… Read More On Kanye
A few weeks into the ‘new normal’, disaster struck: my husband and I had conference calls scheduled at the same time, and no child care. I found myself in our garden, playing as quietly as possible with my kids, and listening in to my meeting on my earphones. I wasn’t alone. Many of my colleagues… Read More Work/Life
Those who know me or my writing know that I battle with mental illness. As I politely but firmly see 2017 out the door, I am thinking about that battle. This year was a long and difficult one for many reasons, and it has left me bruised in new places, and broken open ancient scars.… Read More On brokenness
Marikana was an echo of where we have come from but Life Esidimeni is a sign of where we’re going. That should scare us all, but not enough of us are paying attention because disabled people were the victims.
When I was in my first year of university, I went, as instructed, to one of my lecturers’ offices to pick up my graded final essay. It was study week and the campus was quiet. I needed the paper to study for the upcoming exam, and had gone to campus specifically to fetch it. The… Read More The Risky Business of Sexual Violence
A few months ago, I found myself between a philosophical rock and hard place. The cause of my malaise? A stupid Father’s Day-themed diaper ad. The premise of the advert is pretty silly (and you’re welcome to view the offending ad in all its glory above), but the message it carries is that dads are… Read More Of Myths and Men: masculinity and the politics of the personal
*For Chester. May your lights never dim. Your first step – really, your most important step, the step you will return to again and again – is to name the darkness. You see, it operates best in secret, this darkness. It keeps you shrouded and cloaked in its shadows, making sure you feel completely isolated… Read More How to Outrun the Darkness*
*With thanks and apologies to Young Jeezy I had my first panic attack when I was 20. Up till that point, I’d never considered therapy, and had shrugged off the persistent lethargy and darkness that episodically enveloped me. I was an undergraduate psychology major, so I was especially cautious about throwing around labels like ‘anxiety’… Read More My Therapist is Black*
Last year, when the country’s university campuses were in the thick of the 2017 wave of #FeesMustFall protests, I attended a reflection workshop hosted by the programme for which I was teaching at the time. Reader, it was not my finest hour. I was ostensibly meant to be co-facilitating the session, but ended up participating, vociferously,… Read More Lessons in allyship
About a year ago, a video on womanhood was doing the rounds on social media. It features a series of older women talking about what they feel younger women should and could do differently in today’s fast-paced world. The video was produced by a spa called Sanctuary, as part of their campaign to convince women… Read More All I Want for Mother’s Day
Rumbi Writes 
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