Black Looks

• Really, now, why is Africa poor?

  Posted: March 31, 2008, 3:21 am by Rethabile

  Nice excuses do you have more concocted for the next 100 years or so? I mean its been over 50 years and using the same excuse does not attract pity anymore. I mean take the case of India for example, their population alone is greater than that of the African continent, colonized for more than [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Really, now, why is Africa poor?", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/03/really_now_why_is_africa_poor.html" });

• Quick Links

  Posted: March 30, 2008, 5:47 pm by Sokari

  The UN decides Water is NOT a basic right. The Harper government can declare victory after a United Nations meeting rejected calls for water to be recognized as a basic human right. Instead, a special resolution proposed by Germany and Spain at the UN human rights council was stripped of references that recognized access to water [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Quick Links", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/03/quick_links-8.html" });

• Quick Links Photos

  Posted: March 30, 2008, 3:07 pm by Sokari

  Queuing to vote via Bearded Man Kids against war Nigeria’s most beautiful - can you guess the winner? Padlocked fences via The Road to the Horizon Extra Tags: Zimbabwe Burundi Nigeria SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Quick Links Photos", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/03/quick_links_photos.html" });

• 29th March = Z day

  Posted: March 29, 2008, 12:35 pm by Sokari

  I’m thinking of Zimbabwe this morning and probably like most people hoping today will end the reign of Mad Bob Some last words by Sokwanele Tales are flying. I just had a call from a very connected friend who claims that the police have now all voted…. overwhelmingly against mad bob. Then there are the more than [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "29th March = Z day", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/03/29th_march_z_day.html" });

• WOZA: “The effects of fighting repression WITH LOVE”.

  Posted: March 28, 2008, 9:25 am by Sokari

  Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) report on the political violence experienced by their members on Wednesday 19 March 2008 in Harare. Another woman testified that she had been abducted from her home in Bulawayo with her 18-month-old grandchild at 4am by Law and Order officers. They threatened to kill her by throwing her and [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "WOZA: \"The effects of fighting repression WITH LOVE\".", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/03/woza_the_effects_of_fighting_repression_with_love.html" });

• A different type of sex

  Posted: March 27, 2008, 9:14 pm by Sokari

  An ex Albanian sex worker and drug dealer living in Greece, defends her choices - injured husband, no papers, no insurance and a family to support. She goes on to give her take on who is selling what in the “business of sex” and NGOs that work with governments to maintain structures of domination [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "A different type of sex", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/03/a_different_type_of_sex.html" });

• Failing asylum seekers

  Posted: March 27, 2008, 2:36 pm by Sokari

  Thousands of Zimbabweans are to face forced removal back to Zimbabwe after the elections. So far 500 failed asylum seekers have received letters asking them to leave voluntarily or face deportation but the eventual numbers could be as many as 7000. In 2005 the courts ruled in favour of Zimbabwean asylum seekers on the [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Failing asylum seekers ", url: "http://www.blacklooks.org/2008/03/failing_asylum_seekers_.html" });

• things that are [not] our way of life

  Posted: March 25, 2008, 12:21 am by Sokari

  Sexworkers from across East Africa have been prevented from attending a workshop in Entebbe, Uganda organised by the OSI and Ugandan women’s organisation, Akina Mama wa Africa. The “ethics” minister didn’t like the idea of the women coming together to “devise ways of spreading their vice”. Sounds like he should get together [...]

• Mapping Zimbabwe

  Posted: March 25, 2008, 4:15 pm by Sokari

  I had to rewrite this post as weird things were happening with the formatting. Zimbabwe goes to the elections on Saturday 29th March and there doesn’t seem to be much optimism about the ultimate outcome. According to Sokwanele talk of rigging is dominating the election discussion All election talk in Zimbabwe revolves around rigging: a [...]

• Remember Sharpeville!

  Posted: March 21, 2008, 6:55 pm by Rethabile

  21 March 1960 La 21 Hlakubele 1960, batho ba batšo ba 69 ba bolailoe ka lithunya, ba 180 ba ntšoa likotsi If when this township was placed under siege You were present, you would have seen Life lamented, people wailing, the quick Holding their heads in the sky to speak Incantations to disconsolate gods, The dead still, stacked against the guards, Body upon body, [...]

• Fem Watch: Episode II

  Posted: March 19, 2008, 1:48 pm by Sokari

  This is so cool! Produced by the “FEMChannel1 Tags: Sex Workers Britain International Women’s Day Andrea Smith Margaret B Jones Share This:

• lifes too short and death is even longer so give thanks and praises ENJOY!

  Posted: March 19, 2008, 2:27 am by Sokari

  thanks ababa, Tags: Nina Simone An older Nina, the voice deeper, hoarser - the words slightly different the body language heavier but the beauty remains Share This:

• Quick Links

  Posted: March 18, 2008, 7:00 am by Sokari

  ***Queerty interviews “Botswanan trans-lesbian Prisca Mogapi” who describes coming out to his family. I never dreamed of telling anyone close to me, but the media disclosed me as they crashed the party that I threw with my partner. The article was titled, “Homosexual party in Mmopane,” as well as my and my partner’s names in bold [...]

• Billie Holi-DAY

  Posted: March 17, 2008, 9:44 am by Sokari

  A group of us including Marian of Marian’s Blog have re-named the March 17th Irish holiday “Billie Holi-DAY” to celebrate the forgotten Black people with Irish ancestry wherever they may be. Most people do not know but jazz vocalist Billie Holiday, writer Alex Haley, Muhammed Ali and many other Black people [...]

• englands not so green and pleasant land

  Posted: March 16, 2008, 11:51 am by Sokari

  The White Season is publicised as a programme examining why the English white working class feel “increasingly marginalised” but what we end up with is a free for all season for racists attempting to justify their irrational hatred for all people of colour and dislike of anyone foreign. From the dying Bradford working [...]

• Protesting with poetry

  Posted: March 16, 2008, 7:05 am by Rethabile

  Facebook | Message: Satire Poems - Prompt Writing SPEED WRITING Call for Satire: deadline March 15th! Let your talent speak for many. We urge you to write a satirical poem—poke fun at the leader of your choice to flaunt your freedom of speech and your own government’s respect for that human right! [...]

• £15,000 for 8 months at yarl’s wood

  Posted: March 14, 2008, 11:56 am by Sokari

  A Cameroonian woman has been awarded £15,000 in compensation for unlawful detention for 8 months at Yarl’s Wood detention center. The woman arrived in Britain and claimed asylum on the basis of being raped and tortured by the police in Cameroon. She was denied the correct procedure for torture victims and [...]

• Give us back Lovinsky Pierre Antoine!

  Posted: March 13, 2008, 7:00 pm by Sokari

  Please take time out to sign the online petition for the safe return of Lovinsky Pierre Antoine. The day I arrived in Haiti - 13th August was the day after Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine disappeared. His car was found abandoned on the road side and he has not been seen since. Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine is a member of [...]

• winter soldiers

  Posted: March 13, 2008, 6:32 pm by Sokari

  On the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war, Iraqi Veterans Against War (IVAW) US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan will be gathering in Washington today for 4 days of testimony on their experiences and feelings. The testimonies will be streamed on the internet and broadcast on satellite TV. The veterans are not against [...]

• a million lies but still we singing

  Posted: March 9, 2008, 12:42 am by Sokari

  Tags: Jean “Binta” Breeze Grenada Share This:

• Sex workers excluded at IWD march London

  Posted: March 9, 2008, 10:23 pm by Sokari

  The “Million women rise” march organised as part of the IWD event in London and supposed to be a day of solidarity between women and women’s group from across Britain ended with one group of women being silenced. The march started in Hyde Park and ended in a rally in Trafalgar Square. Whilst [...]

• Removing the mask - faces of African lesbians

  Posted: March 8, 2008, 7:30 am by Sokari

  Faces and Phases is a 2007 exhibition by South African photo activist Zanele Mutholi. Zanele describes the face as expressing the person but for her the face is her own face to face meeting with women in her community of lesbians in the Guateng townships of “Alexandria, Soweto, Vosloorus, Katlehong, Kagiso”. The [...]

• Rescue Kenya

  Posted: March 7, 2008, 12:58 pm by Sokari

  Rescue Kenya: Post Election Hubis a blog dedicated to collating initiatives, reports and resources on post election Kenya…. To provide an information & coordination portal for ALL those concerned with solving Kenyan post election issues. To promote a RESULTS oriented approach to the crisis with the aim of moving Kenya & Kenyans forward from the post [...]

• “E” for Excellent

  Posted: March 6, 2008, 9:56 pm by Sokari

  Thanks to Rethabile who edits Poéfrika [A weblog of creative Africa-inspired writing] for rating my blog with the Big “E” for excellent adding………….. Black Looks teaches me that it’s OK to fight for one’s rights and dignity, that more than being OK, it’s in fact an obligation. “Silence isn’t an option,” Black Looks says. I spent about [...]

• Raising Yousuf amongst the bombs - a Palestinian women’s story

  Posted: March 4, 2008, 7:50 pm by Sokari

  The Gaza Genocide via La Chola We celebrated Yousuf’s fourth birthday today. We ate cake. And we counted the bodies. We sang happy birthday. And my mother sobbed. We watched the fighter jets roar voraciously on our television screen, pounding street after street; then heard a train screech outside, and shuddered. Yousuf tore open his [...]

• Happy birthday, Miriam Makeba!

  Posted: March 4, 2008, 9:47 am by Rethabile

  Miriam Zenzi Makeba was born in Johannesburg in 1932. Her mother was a Swazi sangoma and her father, who died when she was six, was a Xhosa. Her professional career began in the 1950s with the Manhattan Brothers, before she formed her own group, The Skylarks, singing a blend of jazz and traditional melodies of [...]

• Comment Moderation

  Posted: March 3, 2008, 10:57 am by Sokari

  After nearly 4 years of blogging and a host of abusive comments mostly from anonymous people, I finally chosen to enable comment moderation. Devious Diva has come up with a code of conduct for commenting which I am adopting with some slight variation as follows: ONE: Friends and allies of this blog are always welcome. [...]

• The spirit of Nyerere

  Posted: March 2, 2008, 4:04 pm by Sokari

  I had the privilege of meeting Rosemary Nyerere on Friday night as part of the Haiti Solidarity Day. Crossroads Women’s Center held a reception for Rosemary who is a beautiful gentle woman with a great inner strength and wisdom. She was on her way with Selma James (widow of CLR James and a [...]

Blah blah blah

Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes