Apartheid meant that socialising with somebody with a darker skin tone could turn your skin darker...
"There are in South Africa many thousands of people who cannot be classified according to a rigid system of racial identification. . . The lightest-coloured members of these ["border-line"] families often "passed "as whites and went to live in separate homes. Their darker relatives have been referred to as "Venster-Kykers" ["window lookers"] because, in order not to embarrass those who had "passed," they made a practice of looking studiously into shop windows in order to avoid greetings should they happen to meet on the streets." (Horrell, 1958:4, cited in Bowker & Star, 1999)![]() Age |
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Thursday, 11 August 2022
Venster Kykers
Wednesday, 3 August 2022
Awkward Puppets: Car Talk
"So, where do you wanna eat?"
"Umm..."
"Let me guess, let me guess.
Taco Bell.
Sorry."
"Where do you wanna eat?
Starbucks?"
"So, what is it like mowing my lawn all day?"
"I don't know. What is it like eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all day?"
::: Awkward Puppets, Car Talk: WATCH
image via
Monday, 1 August 2022
Asking Nichelle Nichols about the Phenomenon of Very Excitable Fandom

Saturday, 30 July 2022
Awkward Puppets: Racist Workout
"Hey Siri, play a workout video on YouTube."
"Playing hispanic music on YouTube."
"No, I said workout video."
"Googling how to make guacamole."
"I said workout video."
"Searching nearby Mexican food."
::: Awkward Puppets, Racist Workout: WATCH
The YouTube series "Awkward Puppets" was created by Rudolfo Mancuso in 2015. Diego is the main character (and played by Mancuso), Benita is his non-beloved wife, Sarah a racist feminist, Sam is Diego's friend, Twon a police officer, and there are the twins Carl & Carl (via).
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image via
Friday, 29 July 2022
Ukraine (2020): Elderly Lives Frozen by Conflict. By Paula Bronstein.
Monday, 25 July 2022
Time Banks and the Caring Currency
Fureai Kippu is the (inflation-free since credits are units of time) caring currency in Japan, obtained by those who take care of the elderly, spent by them when they are in need of care. Part of the inspiration came from Teruko Mizushima who launched the Volunteer Labour Bank in 1973. The premise of her programme: A "woman's autonomy fluctuates during ther lifetime." When childbearing and childrearing, she needs to borrow time from others while in later motherhood, she might have additional time. Mizushima proposed a system of depositing and withdrawing these resources (Sugiyama Lebra, 1984).
Time banking is a concept based on reciprocity that ensures providing and receiving services in a community. It creates social interaction and (re)connection to communities and by doing so helps maintain physical and mental health, makes sure that vulnerable and isolated elderly people can be reached, provides active life in retirement, reduces costs of the health care system. Regions or cities for instance in Japan, China, Taiwan, Switzerland, and the United States have already introduced it.
Retired persons volunteering provide a few hours of service to help the elderly which ranges from accompanying them to hospital, dog-walking to bringing meals. All services are equally valued (Valor & Papaoikonomou, 2016). By volunteering, people earn and bank in the hours of credit which can later - when old - be used to purchase services from others. In other words, time is banked and used when needed (Ng & Fong, 2019). This approach means contributing to the "Big Society" with an ageing population (Harashi, 2012), contributing to the well-being and empowerment of the community. Time banks are social innovation (Valor & Papaoikonomou, 2016) and might change the image of older persons (Sultana & Locoro, 2016).
In Hong Kong, time banks are changing society from a recipient to a participant one. In 2017, a welfare counciel launched a three-year-banking project in one of the districts aiming to promote elderly to support each other and to improve relationships with neighbours (Ng & Fong, 2019). It developed globally in the 1980s and in the UK in the late 1990s (Gregory, 2014). In the past years, more and more time banks emerged in Spain (Valor & Papaoikonomou, 2016).
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- Gregory, L. (2014). Resilience or Resistance) Time Banking in the Age of Austerity. Political Science Journal of Contemporary European Studies, link
- Harashi, M. (2012). Japan's Fureai Kippu Time-banking in Elderly Care: Origins, Development, Challenges and Impact. Political Science, link
- Ng, T., Yim, N. & Fong, B. (2019). Time banking for elderly in Hong Kong : current practice and challenges. CAHMR Working Paper Series 2(1).
- Sugiyama Lebra, T. (1984). Japanese Women. Constraint and Fulfillment. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
- Sultana, T. & Locoro, A (2016). No More Throw-away 'Elderly' People: Building a New Image of Ageing via a Time Accounting System. In Markus Garschall, Theo Hamm, Dominik Hornung, Claudia Müller, Katja Neureiter, Marén Schorch, Lex van Velsen (Eds.), International Reports on Socio-Informatics (IRSI), Proceedings of the COOP 2016 - Symposium on challenges and experiences in designing for an ageing society. (Vol. 13, Iss. 3, pp. 35-42), link
- Valor, C. & Papaoikonomou, E. (2016). Time Banking in Spain. Exploring their Structure, Management and Users' Profile. Revista Internacional de Sociologia RIS, 74(1), link
- photograph by Dorothea Lange via
Monday, 18 July 2022
Single Fathers: A Growing and Neglected Population
The number of single-parent families is rising and most of them are headed by single mothers. Nevertheless, single fathers represent a sizeable proportion and are both a growing population and largely understudied since research on single parenthood mostly focuses on single mothers, their greater risk of mortality, poorer self-rated (mental) health and lower socio-economic status. "What do we know about these fathers, and their health and wellbeing? Alarmingly, the answer is: not very much."

We need to take single fatherhood much more seriously as a public health issue. Understanding the way families have evolved and are likely to evolve is crucial to meet their needs and for policy planning. Families do not exist in a vacuum. They depend on the social and economic environments around them. Issues of isolation (real or perceived) and grief may be as important for health as traditional risk factors. We need to ensure that there is better community and social support for single fathers. Social and life circumstances of single parents are crucial to getting the fuller picture of their health. (via)
Friday, 15 July 2022
The City Without Jews
"The City Without Jews" (1924) is a satire about "a terrible possibility that became horribly real" some years after being published, a film about anti-Semitism foreshadowing nazism and one of the "most prophetic, provocative films of the 20th century". The book was written by Hugo Bettauer (1872-1925), a Jewish Austrian labelled an "Asphaltliterat", a term Joseph Goebbels used during the book burning in 1933 to refer to literature that was considered to be too urban and not patriotic enough. In 1925, the Nazi Otto Rothstock (1904-1990) shot Bettauer five times. Bettauer died sixteen days later as a result of the shooting and Rothstock, who defended the assassination as a patriotic attempt to protect so-called German culture from the menace of "degeneration", spent a few months in prison and less than two years in a psychiatric clinic before being released. In 1977, Rothstock boasted in an interview of being responsible for Bettauer's "extinction".
Hans Karl Breslauer (1888-1965) directed the film and changed some parts of the book. For instance, Vienna became Utopia aiming to avoid problems with censorship.
The movie is about a city resembling Vienna in which failing economy leads to rising anti-Semitism and the Jewish population being scapegoated. Finally, a law based on fear, prejudice and populist rhetoric is passed expelling all Jews from the city. Only a decade later, the Third Reich turned this fiction into haunting fact and atrociously killed millions of children, men and women (via and via and via).
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photograph of Hans Moser via
Tuesday, 12 July 2022
Bird Names for Birds
"Bird Names for Birds" is an initiative launched in 2020 to change names of birds named after people "because birds don't need eponymous or honorific common names". The initiative knows that it "will not end racism" but sees itself as "one step" to raise awareness. Some examples...
“We are induced yet to offer a few remarks on the bearing of the doctrine of the Unity of the Human Race on the domestic institutions and vital interest of the South…those who have supported the doctrine of Unity, have sometimes been stigmatized as Abolitionists and enemies of the South…[t]he following are our views: That all the races of men, including the negro, are of one species and of one origin. That the negro is a striking and now permanent variety, like the numerous permanent varieties in domesticated animals. That varieties having become permanent, possess an organization that prevents them from returning to the original species, although other varieties may spring up among them. Thus the many breeds of domesticated animals that have arisen, some only within a few years, would never return to the form of the wild species, without an intermixture. That the negro will remain as he is, unless his form is changed by an amalgamation, which latter is revolting to us. That his intellect, although underrated, is greatly inferior to that of the Caucasian, and that he is, therefore, as far as our experience goes, incapable of self-government. That he is thrown to our protection. That our defense of slavery is contained within the Holy Scriptures. That the Scriptures teach the rights and duties of masters to rule their servants with justice and kindness, and enjoin the obedience of servants.” (literally via)
Wednesday, 6 July 2022
Nine Years. Nine.
Nine years and still so much to write about. Nine years and so happy that you are there, still interested in diversity and its beauty. Nine years, 9.992 followers, 13.558.835 views, 1.330 blog postings... Thank you so much for following, commenting, sharing your thoughts, for just dropping by. And, nine hugs from a distance. Andand, it is written on the sunny sky with nine clouds seen from this very pool with more than nine ladies that there shall be at least another nine years "Diversity is beautiful". Thank you again.
