Megan\'s Head - Part 3

Is It The End of the World as We Know It?

On November 17, 2019

I live in part clenched hope and part terrible despair. I don’t remember trying this hard to understand politics, with the absolute knowledge that what happens behind the scenes is unfathomably complicated, all about money, and that there is a total disconnect between the idea and the reality. Never before has it been this obvious that the man in the street is both clueless and helpless, and that we are noise makers, making tiny farts in the howling, globally warmed gale of end of days capitalism run amok.

Israel is the new, modern day Apartheid state, at full tilt, currently bombing the shit out of Gaza. How has the world allowed this? How does it continue to allow it? Then this segues into British politics. In the UK, Brexit is kind of on the back burner while whether Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-Semite seems to be the big question. This is what a whole campaign is being run on Jeremy the anti-Semite. Back in Trumpland, that orange bully tweets intimidatory threats live while a witness testifies at his impeachment.

There are protests in Chile, Hong Kong, Venezuela. Lebanon, Iran, Bolivia. Refugees protest in Cape Town and Pretoria.

Is it like TS Eliot’s Hollowmen? Will it end with a whimper? Or are we lighting sparks on fuses?

Everything is Perspective

By megan

On November 16, 2019

In complaints dept, deeply personal, political, race

From the point of view of Peter (Zimbabwean, celebrating his 42nd birthday), the Uber driver who drove me yesterday, who has never flown on an airplane, he is worried that he will feel the effects of the SAA strike.

From the point of view of Phakamile Hlubi-Majola, union spokesperson, frustrated by Bruce Whitfield’s laughter and inability to understand why the ‘sacrifice of 900 odd jobs was about people and not things, SAA always knew it was coming. Instead of changing their procurement procedures to save money, as early as suggested by the unions in 2014, they are now failing their workers.

From the point of view of white people speaking and leaving voice notes on talk radio, the majority of whom seem to have flown a bit, they take the strike personally, as if SAA was the only option, and they are personally put out and inconvenienced. There is no understanding that they are the most tiny percentage of a tiny percentage of people in the country and the world who have access to flying.

From the point of view of millions of South Africans, their transport concerns are more basic and local and I don’t think any of them have given a single thought to SAA, other than the money government has totally wasted on it. It is another black hole that things disappear into. There are more people in this country that have never been inside a privately owned car than there are people who have, or will ever fly.

These are just a few points of view.

Reviewing my situation

By megan

On November 16, 2019

In Cape Town, deeply personal, me on stage, show reviews, theatre stuff, writing

Cue Fagan earworm for the rest of the day.

A particularly complicated space I have managed to carve out for myself is that of reviewer in the field in which I try to have a career (word used because there isn’t a proper one to describe the all over dabbleness of what it is I actually do). It is between a huge rock of irony and a hard place of communal despair (universal and timeless when it comes to theatre that isn’t in New York City and On Broadway) that I put myself. Because I write about other people’s theatre work to get people into the theatre. And I am honest (even though it comes at a terrible price) because I want people to be able to trust me, and get to know me by my likes and dislikes.

But it is a dance, and I suck at the choreography of innuendo, and politic, and getting comps, and being part of the system, and being outside of the system, and having to rely on the same when I put on my own work, and then seeing something that is brilliant that isn’t getting audiences, and then feeling like I can’t get my own work into the spaces because I am more valuable as an external voice, and then seeing something terrible and having my heart fill my mouth and make me wordless, and then straying from the pack and doing something different that nobody sees, and appreciating the effort and hating the result of something, or seeing through the hype, or believing my own hype, and around the mulberry bush I go, mostly at 430am in the morning.

So, I am going to say it here, and test it out on myself. It’s good to be writing from meganshead again.

Money

By megan

On November 15, 2019

In Cape Town, deeply personal, inspiration, political, random things

One hundred percent of my anxiety is about money. Probably, if I compare myself to other people, with jobs, I handle my anxiety better, because I haven’t submitted myself to an endless job, ever.

Still. That is what I worry about. And I don’t get it. I don’t get this world that needs us to do so much stuff for money to live. And I don’t get the inequality of it; I don’t get how a human body that does backbreaking manual labour, fetching things out of the ground, is less valuable money wise than the actions of the man who sends them down there. I don’t understand.

I drove past roadworks the day before yesterday and looked at the ragged team standing in a gash in the earth, splitting open the platinum real estate of Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront. These men, sweating in the sun, knew what they were doing in that gash. It involved a huge pipe and other cables and big machinery. There was a (lighter skinned) foreman watching them over his giant belly. He was the one who had a hardhat on. For his more valuable head. My radio was playing an advert for ‘affordable’ retirement homes that would never accommodate me, or these people.

I get hysterical when I hear about how really rich people do not want to pay more tax, and I cannot understand it, and then I get a traffic fine that is exactly how much I have earned while my car was parked illegally and nothing makes sense at all. Money, and how we perceive it, and how we use it, and how we are attached to it and how we bring it to our lives; sometimes in mythological and spiritual ways, doesn’t feel right. And truthfully, I don’t love that this is what it takes to be in the world, to measure our success, to rate our progress.

Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility and South Africa

By megan

On November 14, 2019

In Cape Town, inspiration, political, race

It was a rewarding and intense three hours at UWC, with primary speaker, American Dr. Robin DiAngelo, and a panel of speakers. It was Robin’s final talk; she has been around the country, unpacking structural racism, (the title of her book) and why it is so hard for whites to talk about racism. I have read her book, her articles and watched her videos, so her position isn’t new to me. What was refreshing and insightful was to see her in the flesh, feel the scrutiny of her gaze, and hear her words land on a real live audience. It was also a special gift to be in a space that was not predominantly white. This meant that we could hear, maybe for the first time for some, how we are perceived as white people, instead of listening to white people whitesplaining racism. (Yes, I know that Robin DiAngelo is white. That is why Edwin Cleophas brought her to South Africa. So white people would listen.)

A lot of stuff went down. And it was mostly very strong. The rest of the panel; Dr. Nyx Mclean, Hein Gerwel, Tumi Jonas Mpofu and moderator Asanda Ngoasheng were animated, passionate and interesting, and I hope they were ‘no holds barred’. I think they were. The discussion was robust, and it was revealing – many white, liberal women in the room were particularly challenged and confronted.

My personal important takeaways from today were. 1. Humility – nothing stands more in the way of understanding and learning than to arrogantly assume the conversation is not about you. Yes, it is in fact about you, and me. We are the whiteness and we are the fragility. And the notion that it isn’t about you/me is what solidifies this notion of the individual as opposed to the system, the structure, the inevitability and certainty of everything that comes with being born white.

2. How you feel is absolutely not how you are perceived. It is helpful, no, vital to understand how you are seen before you allow your feelings, your position, your centering of yourself to steer the conversation.

3. This one is a reaffirmation of something I know, but was grateful to be reminded of with such force. Black people cannot and should not have to do the work for you. Finnish and klaar. Or as Robin DiAngelo put it; google the shit.

I heartily wish more white people were prepared to go there. I am disappointed at how few are able and willing to. So, jump on, in. Lean in, get messy, get uncomfortable and start the process of finally acknowledging how easy it is to be the centre of the universe.

Pumpkin Finds Her Queen

By megan

On November 14, 2019

In Cape Town, inspiration, writing

Off we pootled yesterday evening into the traffic of town to Youngblood in Bree St for the launch of one of my favourite actors in CT, Bianca Flanders’, children’s book, Pumpkin Finds Her Queen. And what a lovely, magical, affirming and divine thing it was.

Pumpkin Finds Her Queen is all about learning to love your unique, and especially curly haired self. And there was so much beautiful, curly, whirly, swirly, bouncy, frizzy, crazy, big and bushy hair in one room last night.

It was a beautiful party, to introduce this little piece of deliciousness into the world. A little, gentle rhyming story, with crazy and fantastic illustrations by Zinelda McDonald and every little person will love and cherish the gorgeous Pumpkin and her curly crown.

PS. Dean Balie’s music accompaniment to the live reading was an extra bonus treat.

Here’s me looking like a psycho stalker fan and the fabulous author.

Megan's Head

A place where Megan gets off her head.

Page 3 of 266

Is It The End of the World as We Know It?

Everything is Perspective

Reviewing my situation

Money

Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility and South Africa

Pumpkin Finds Her Queen

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