The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Gillian is an award winning independent filmmaker, writer and social justice activist. She is a founding member of Media for Justice and co-producer at Handheld Films.
Gillian Schutte -
Over the past eighteen months there have been enough “Kaffir” slips of the tongue, from different echelons of White society, to prove that racism is alive and well and living on the tips of the tongues of most White South Africans. In many cases all it takes is a bit too much wine, a bump in the Spar or a little bit of fame and Eros from the rightwing, to let it slip. And the recent hanging of ‘The Spear’ in the Goodman Art Gallery is not really much different. ...
Gillian Schutte -
The horrified astonishment at the recent cake-eating debacle has shaken up the world and brought the issue of racism to the fore once again this year.
The social media world went into shock this week, as they beheld the Swedish Minister of Culture perform a clitoridectomy on the sculpted vulva of a human sized cake, which took the shape of an African woman undergoing forced genital mutilation. She then fed it to the black-faced artist who screamed in agony as she sliced through the baked...
Gillian Schutte -
The black man has become the signifier for a host of unconscious fears that lurk within the white psyche
My 12-year-old son has a taste for hoodies, rap and hip hop clothing. He carries a blackberry in his pocket which he reaches for every so often to text one of his friends. He has a friendly face and temperament but has also learnt at a young age to stand up for his own rights and speak out against the injustices of the world. Someone once suggested to me that his face is so sweet no one...
Gillian Schutte -
In 2008 hundreds of South African women donned their miniskirts and protested at the taxi rank where a young girl was brutally accosted by taxi drivers and hawkers for wearing a short denim skirt. The men who accosted her allegedly stuck their fingers into her vagina and called her a "slut."
Women were outraged. The angry protestors wore mini skirts and T Shirts saying, “Pissed-Off Women.” They stormed the ranks and told the perpetrators in no...
