Year Six is upon us!

G21 AFRICA:

Kwerekwere in Cape Town

Kwerekwere: Derogatory term meaning African from outside South Africa. Used mainly around Johannesburg, but more recently around South Africa by Black people.

Kwerekweres are said to be very dark, over-ambitious. We are supposed to be very good at two things: selling things on street-corners and black magic (muti).

Our main crime is stealing jobs and women.

Binyawanga Wainaina

I had been in South Africa for a year before I first encountered bigotry. I was sitting in a mini-bus taxi, on my way to Kwamakuta, one of the large Townships just far away enough from Port Elizabeth to keep property prices stable, and near enough to provide a pool of cheap labour for the large car-manufacturers.

A large woman with improbably clear skin stared at me for most of the way. After a while, irresistably driven, she asked, "Are you MaGhana?"

I said, " No. I'm from Kenya."

She smiled and said, " Yuuu! You are handsome! You maghana men are so handsome-yuuu-but your women are ugly! They are Black! Black! Black! and they have big muscles!"

Minibus taxis are not big vehicles. If you say something to someone, you speak to 15 people. A debate erupted in Xhosa, about the ugliness of 'Amaghana'

RADIOACTIVE:

The Enemy Within

OAKTOWN, CALI - We've all heard it before, ya'll:

• "Who died and made you King?"
• "You ain't the Boss of me!"
• "What? So now you BETTER than us, right?"

The cheerin' is begrudged when something good happens for ya', but brothers be coming outtah the woodwork with big old grins and mock-camaraderie when somethin' screws up. It's bad enough that you have to deal with the on-going ration from the White folks, but it's worse to have to live knowing that your own people are envious and hate it when something good happens to you. And all of ya'll know exactly what I'm talkin' about here....More


MY GLASS HOUSE:

Begin Year Six

I shouldn't even be having this third cup of coffee, not this late in the day. But I remember reading somewhere some "expert" saying that even more people in America would be depressed if it weren't for coffee. Then, the other night, I heard that Carlo Gambino, of the notorious New York crime organization, drank a dozen cups of coffee a day. I wouldn't recommend your doing that, though; Carlo Gambino died of a heart attack.

Coffee, you see, is one of my only pleasures these days. Everything else is just dark clouds and frayed nerves. Seems like this is becoming a cycle. Every year around this time, I wonder if I'll do the magazine another year or not. (I always keep doing it, of course.) Last year at this time, I wasn't only wondering about the magazine, as you know, I was also wondering about my life. Somehow, I decided to keep going on, with lots of encouragement from close friends and family. My "reason" is this little corner of the Web. I don't have any other, actually... More


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THE SEX COLUMN:

A Marriage Manual

One is the biggest differences between women and men is how they approach the subject of marriage. Women tell each other everything there is to know about marriage way in advance of the ceremony. It starts with their mothers and just works its way through the network; girlfriends, co-workers, aunts, cousins, grandma --- they all kick in with the advice. "Look at that raggedy car he's driving. And you expect him to buy new shoes for you? Well, if you're fool enough to marry a man like that, you're gonnah need 'em, 'cause you'll be putting in a lot of foot-miles."

For us men, it's a totally different situation. And you know why, Losers? My grand-daddy told me after my second marriage: "Oh yeah, we all knew she was crazy and was gonnah take you for all you had! But you know what?!? We got damned tired of hearing about all the tail you was snaggin' and the good time you was havin' out on the streets while the rest of us had to suffer through the naggin' and bullshit.

"We got damned tired! Don't you know misery loves company, boy? So we figured we'd such smile and say, 'Yeah, Charlie, she's the one. Go make her an honest woman' just to shut your ass up!"... More

DAY ONE:

Lady Hervey and Celebs

I can just about understand Coca Cola wishing to retain the services of J.K. Rowling to promote it; after all, she writes well and her books are popular. I can understand, too, Pepsi securing the services of Britney Spears who, I am told, sings quite well and who is, I know, very popular. What I cannot understand is a widespread obsession with 'celebrities' that do nothing at all.

The latest example here is a certain Lady Victoria Hervey who, from what I can tell (I don't read tabloid newspapers or gossip magazines) has simultaneously exhibited a small quantity of breast and buttock and inveighed against the poor for receiving tax payers' money. As I am ill equipped to furnish an adequate description of her flesh and am so contemptuous of her attempt at social analysis, I will confine myself to trying to reach some general conclusions about what the cult of celebrity tells us about ourselves.... More

COMING MONDAY

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