Happy 2022

Dearest friends of Diversity is beautiful, it is time again to wish you all the best for the coming year... have a wonderful, interesting (but perhaps a bit less interesting than the past two years), sparkling, sunny, bright, friendly, pandemic-free, joyful, fabulous, fun, warm, relaxing, adventerous, and marvellous year. Buon anno!

photograph via

Desmond Tutu (1931-2021)

"Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity."

Desmond Tutu

photograph (by Jane Bown, 1993) of the wonderful Desmond Tutu who shall always be missed via

F***ing Nerve (Lamont Humphrey, 2000)

When I'm born I'm black 

When I grow up I'm even more black 

When I'm in the sun I'm still black 

When I'm cold, guess what: I'm black 

And when I die I'm f*cking black too 

But you: When you are born you're pink 

When you grow up you are white 

When you're sick, man look at yourself, you're green 

When you go in the sun you turn red 

When you are cold you turn blue 

And when you die you look purple 

And you got the f*ing nerv to call me colored (...)

(lyrics via)

::: Tongue Forest ft. Lamont Humphrey on YouTube: LISTEN/WATCH

- - - -
photograph by John Vachon (1938) via

The Ageless John Forsythe and the "Old" Ladies

"Well, I think this shows how ageism in Hollywood is. I was in my forties when I got that role, and Linda was in her thirties. John was 62. Do you think any of the press ever mentioned that he was 62? It was always "the older women, Linda and Joan, you know, in their thirties and their fourties". Never mentioned it. And I would bring this up in interviews because I don't like ageist people. And Mr Forsythe didn't like it. And he would say, "Why do you have to mention my age?" I say, "because our is mentioned, Linda's and ours is mentioned all the time and we want equality, you know. They are mentioning ours and we are mentioning yours." Joan Collins

photograph via

The Afrozensus

Every year, the Afrozensus is carried out, a survey among people of African origin living in Germany. The findings show that they have very diverse backgrounds since they come from 144 countries. At the same time, they do share some experiences, such as other people touching their hair without consent, an experience 90% of black people living in Germany make or have made. 80% get sexualised comments regarding their look or skin colour on dating apps, More than 56% have been asked whether they sell drugs and more than 56% say they have been stopped by the police without any obvious reason. Exotisised, sexualised, criminalised... but also homogenised and deindividualised. 

More than 90% say that people do not believe them when they talk about their encounters with racism. And when they express criticism they are accused of being angry (86%). Most of the people taking part in the survey (74.9%) call themselves "black" (via)

- - - - - -
photograph by Neil Libbert via

On Photographing the Far Right

In 1977, Chris Steele-Perkins photographed the "Battle of Lewisham", i.e. members of the far right National Front planning to march to London's city centre, the 4.000 counter-protestors and many police officers.

Steele-Perkins kept photographing the far right supporters in the following decades... shaved heads, White Power t-shirts and Nazi salutes. However, they only tell part of the story, as he points out:

"The far right is depicted in photographs as the burly boys because it's easy to do it that way. Skinheads shouting perhaps looks more intimindating than people with long hair shouting."

“The real problem is the people who don’t talk – the political classes behind it are really to blame. The others are just foot soldiers, some of whom are not too bright and just want to get into a rumble. […] This is where photography and representation have a problem, The message is maybe not carried in the picture in same way [if it doesn’t show a skinhead].” 

Chris Steel-Perkins

photographs by Chris Steele-Perkins via

... an absurd parody of our former life.

"There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning – devotion to individuals, to groups or to causes, social, political, intellectual or creative work."

Simone de Beauvoir

photograph by David Godlis via

Quoting Damon Albarn III

“I was brought up an internationalist and my dad’s dad was a conscientious objector. Both my parents were very much part of the sixties in their mindsets. I didn’t feel any sort of nationalism. I didn’t really understand what it was. I remember when I first went to comprehensive school, Scotland had been in the World Cup in ’78. I bought a Scotland top and went into school, and I got the s*** kicked out of me. I soon learnt about nationalism after that one.” That’s a true story. I didn’t know you weren’t allowed to support other teams. Literally, because it had never been part of my upbringing.”
Damon Albarn

YouTube Selection

::: Hollow Ponds: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Polaris: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Out of Time: LISTEN/WATCH
::: The Universal (Matera, 2019): LISTEN/WATCH
::: Everyday Robots: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Royal Morning Blue: LISTEN/WATCH
::: On Melancholy Hill: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Lonely Press Play: LISTEN/WATCH
::: Hostiles: LISTEN/WATCH

- - - - -
photograph via

The Grandmother Stereotype and the Fog of Irrelevance

A grandmother is seen as a one-dimensional being since becoming one "subsumes everything else in your life under a fog of irrelevance". When Hillary Clinton, for instance, became a grandmother she was asked when she would "please go quietly into the night" (via). This attitude is there despite the fact that grandparents represent a bigger chunk of the population than ever before and despite many of them being in the labour force. Let's face it: "The idea of Grandma baking the occasional batch of cookies doesn't match today's realities." (via).

There's nothing new about grandmother stereotypes. Remember Little Red Riding Hood? A wolf swallows up sickly granny in her cap and nightgown and climbs into her bed to wait for the dutiful child to appear so he can gobble her up too, along with her basket of goodies. In the more benign resolutions of the tale, a friendly woodcutter cuts open the wolf, and grandmother and child emerge unscathed. Presumably granny then retires to her rocking chair and is transformed into another common stereotype – the plump, kindly old woman in her dotage, sitting with her knitting in an isolated corner of the room. Sandra Martin

----
photograph by David Godlis via

Elfriede Jelinek says...

"Eroding solidarity paradoxically makes a society more susceptible to the construction of substitute collectives and fascisms of all kinds."

Elfriede Jelinek

photograph by Leonard Freed (The March on Washington, 1963) via