CRYING LMFAOOOO
must be on my blog
Kanye was sick of her before any of us. I should’ve listened to him
LMFAO he made her relevant.
and his comeback was LEGENDARY yall
AHHAHAHAHA
#kanyeshrug
N.Y.C., Harlem
Neighbourhood ballet class, 1968
Photo by Eve Arnold as part of the Black is Beautiful series
President Barack Obama pardons the 2012 Thanksgiving Turkey, Cobbler, next to his daughters Sasha and Malia (R) and National Turkey Federation chairman Steve Willardsen in The Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, November 21, 2012. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
Happy Thanksgiving yall!
This is it. My last night in Cape Town. It feels so surreal, I can’t even wrap my brain around the fact that this time tomorrow i will be en route to America.
Cape Town —> Johannesburg —> New York City —> Baltimore
This is my last post from Cape Town, with love.
Thoughts Before I Leave Cape Town
I simply cannot believe how quickly time has flown by! It seems like just yesterday that I was boarding a plane to Cape Town, and now I have less than a week before I am back in the States. Here are just a few of my reflections before I leave Cape Town.
1. Birds are my worst enemy.
I never realized how terrible birds were until I came to Cape Town, and specifically UCT. They are everywhere, in the buildings, sitting outside of my flat trying to get in, flying at my sandwich, the list goes on and on. I am now particularly sensitive to birds and whenever I see one I am bound to scream or run at it. I hope this wears off quickly when I am in the states.
2. WashU is a blessing, UCT is a curse.
While this may seem dramatic, I assure you that it is not. I never realized how much I loved WashU until I came here. Here is a subset of the issues at UCT.
A. The university does not care about its students.
I never realized how many resources I had at WashU…until I came to UCT. But the fact of the matter is that the administration and university at large, from the president to the professors, does not care about its students. Professors are not accesible, grades are ridiculously unfair, and student health and success is really just a nonissue. For example, each and every semester several students commit suicide over the stress of exams. Last semester a student jumped from the sixth floor of my dorm because of the exam stress. However, the administration is not proactive at all in helping its students. Only after a student committed suicide in the beginning of the exam period did posters and emails go up saying that there is help, and that you are not alone. It should not take a student dying AGAIN for those resources to become available.
B. The university is not accesible.
UCT is really not accesible to its students. I live in Liesbeeck, a dorm that is pretty far away from campus. If I miss the Jammie, chances are I will not go to class. However, the Jammie schedules are erratic at best, and apparently last semester there was a Jammie strike! Even its technology resources are not accesible. Last weekend, no one had internet the entire weekend because the internet was just down and no one bothered to fix it. Mind you, this was in the middle of the EXAM PERIOD so of course everyone needed their internet!
C. The university is not a university.
While this may seem like another bold statement, I think it sums up the atmosphere of UCT. There is no community at the university, and no one bothers to foster any community. This is a result of the large commuter population, the large international student population, and the age gaps in students. Most students here commute, so they come, take class, and leave. It is not easy to get involved on campus, and student groups play a minimal role at best. The biggest thing on campus is the SRC, which only works on an administrative level and does not provide events or gatherings for students. There’s also a large international student community, and students generally stay with their own nation. Societies centered around nationality such as ZimSoc, EasSoc, etc, do not seem to be helping with integrating the student body. Finally, there are a large amount of students here who cannot start university until they have saved money to do so. Unlike in the US, not all students come to college directly after high school, and this also severely disjoints the student body. Not only are there natural dividers among the student population, but the university also does nothing to foster cohesion.
This is not to say that everything about UCT is bad and that WashU is the best place on earth. UCT does provide readers for students instead of making them buy all of their books, which I definitely wish we would adopt in the US! However, most students at UCT are so passive about it here, and realize that a lot of things that happen are ridiculous. However, unlike us study abroad students who can go home at the end of this semester, they are stuck here for 3 years, and really have no better options for an education. Mostly, UCT just makes me thankful for the choices and opportunities that I had in my college selection process in the US, and even more blessed that I chose WashU and WashU chose me.
3. South Africa has its work cut out for it.
This past week the new rands came out, which have Nelson Mandela on every single bill. I commented to my friend, “American presidents think they are such hot ish, but Mandela is on every single bill here!” They quickly pointed out that South Africa has not had such success with its leaders as we have had in the US. Of course there was the AIDS denier and all around failure Thabo Mbeki, and now rapist, never formally educated Jacob Zuma who used $28 million of taxpayer dollars to upgrade his homestead. While President Zuma uses $28 million to upgrade his homestead, millions of South Africans still live under oppression and poverty similar to the apartheid era, schools are shutting down across the country, there is no reliable or comprehensive public transportation system, the population is dying of AIDS, and the list goes on and on. Freedom was the first step, but what comes after formal freedom and formal equality? Even though South Africans are all formally equal, it is clear that equal opportunity is still a dream for the majority, and freedom is just a word that sounds nice in speeches and looks good graffitied across abandoned buildings. Real freedom and equality is still a long way off, and South Africa needs a real leader to bring it to the masses.
4. Apartheid is still very, very real.
Even though the formal structures of apartheid have been dismantled, apartheid is still very real and permeates every arena of South African life. V & A Waterfront, the Mount Nelson Hotel, and the Old Biscuit Mill are still designated white spaces. Mini buses and Mowbray are designated black and coloured spaces. If anyone steps outside of their boundaries, they will not be removed, but they will be oogled and glared at to an uncomfortable amount. I experienced this myself as a person of color stepping into spaces that I should not have been in. However, once I opened my mouth and was deemed to be a tourist with American dollars, I was accepted with open arms. I can feel people staring at me through apartheid lenses, trying to place me in apartheid categories, and when they can’t it is still seen as dangerous. When I say that I am black, even that is dangerous, because I do not fit into what they have been taught to identify as “American black” (read: ghetto fabulous, gum smacking, long acrylic nails, weave to the floor, only eats fried chicken and grease. Their words, not mine). I am not sure what it will take for the lenses of apartheid to be removed. Prejudice is learned, and how can it not be learned here when blacks and coloureds still live in decrepit townships and whites drive around in beemers and live in pristine gated communities? True equality and the true end of apartheid go hand in hand, and I am not sure how long it will take South Africa to get there, or even if South Africa can ever get there. The blood of the struggle is still fresh on the ground here, from the Khoi-San murdered centuries ago, to the Africans forced to toil in Cecil Rhodes’ mines; it seeps from H.F. Verwoerd’s body onto the floor of Parliament, from the innocent slaughtered in Sharpeville, from Steve Biko’s bludgeoned corpse. The blood of the struggle is as fresh as the new Mandela rands, and instead of walking past it trying to not acknowledge it, South Africa must wipe it up before it can move forward.
My time here has been beautiful and torturous, inspiring and devastating. I am so happy to have been here, yet so ready to be home. Life often exists in binaries: black and white, good and evil, happy and sad. However, it is the tensions within those binaries that make life so wonderful and worthwhile, and that lead to the lessons that allow us to change and grow.
Unbelievable.
“For the United States, the best is yet to come.” -Barack Obama
(AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Yes. Obama 2012.
Why you must VOTE
Back in the day, VOTE OR DIE wasn’t just a cute celebrity promotion
It was a reality…
VOTE, it’s just that simple. Check here to see if you’re registered. Check here to register
TUMBLE THE VOTE!
Tomorrow is The Big Day - and while all our blogging and live GIFing has undoubtedly prepared you to exercise your civic duty with glee, here are a few more Tumblrs we recommend consulting in these last remaining hours to equip, inform, entertain and inspire you:
Our Time - Pledge to vote today & prep for tomorrow by looking up your polling place. Watch their newest video from Errol Morris to find out how to respond to your friends who say they’re not voting.
TheBallot.org - It’s easy to lose sight of the fact that there’s a lot more at stake in this election than who fills the office of the President. Hit up TheBallot to familiarize yourself with your local ticket, customize your ballot, and share with friends to help inform their vote.
#GOVOTE - Over 100 artists have contributed new, original designs to the movement to Get Out The Vote on Nov 6. Collect them all!
CNN’s Change the List - Can this new experimental project from CNN succeed in moving Hawaii up the ranks from the lowest voter turnout in America? Stay tuned…
Current TV- Welcome Current to Tumblr this election season by following their election day live-tumbling tomorrow.
Dispatch - A new app from Columbia, Stanford, and Tumblr will be beta-tested on Election Day in NYC - sign up to be part of the testing team, or just tune in tomorrow for live photographic coverage of New Yorkers’ post-Sandy experience at the polls.
We’re excited to have our final, all-star team of guest editors Ari Melber & ShortFormBlog continuing their work right here through Election Day (or until we have a President-elect, whichever comes first). And you can always track the Election 2012 tag for much more election-related content from across the Tumblrverse.
Finally, to celebrate Election Day on Tumblr we’re mashing up GPOY with GOTV and asking you to post photos of yourself voting/at your polling place/with your ballot ready to mail in/wearing your “I Voted” sticker and tag it #GPOTV. If you’ve already voted early, start posting now!
To all of you eligible voters in the USA - get out there tomorrow and make us proud!
