In this column Ana Deumert looks at a recent judgement by the Constitutional Court (South Africa) on language and racism.
The Help (Movie director: Tate Taylor. Book author: Kathryn Stockett)
Review
Julia van der Staak
23/05/2018
7 minutes to read
The movie 'The Help', first released in 2011, is based on the well known and like-named novel, by Kathryn Stockett. The story is a good portrayal of multiculturalism and inequality within the American society of the 1960s.
Among global far-right white supremacists South-Africa emerges as a place where white people are believed to be persecuted. Ana Deumert questions this myth.
With growing sense of negativity and 'othering' of Islam in political sphere, in this article I take the story of a Dutch Muslim convert to explore religious and social factors attributed to his change.
Across Europe, there is an ongoing trend for individual nation states to use their national language to determine what it means to be integrated into the society.
Ana Deumert does not believe that the success of the AfD can be explained as a strutural break. On the contrary, it reflects something which has always been there: white supremacy, racism and, its repressed cousin, colonial amnesia.
'When politicians publicly divide citizens and stigmatize certain groups, this has long-lasting influence on children and adolescents, who embody the knowledge about the stereotypes in their everyday life', says Janus Spindler Møller.
The character of Black Pete is meant to be inoffensive, according to most Dutch citizens, yet others still find the black-faced character highy offensive. It is time to change the looks of Black Pete once and for all.
