a racism by any other name…

two days ago my bossman Darin told me about this story where a dad had picked up his young kid in the laundromat and stuffed him in a washing machine and closed the door [presumably as a joke or to teach him a lesson] but once the door locked the washing machine jumped into life and they couldn’t stop it or get him out until someone who worked at the place ran up and unplugged it and eventually managed to save the child. The child was apparently mostly fine [except maybe for the trauma suffered by your dad almost killing you in a washing machine]…

then yesterday i was at the gym, running on the treadmill in front of a wall of tvs and the incident came on two different channels which were showing news. sure enough the dad stuffed the kid into the machine and it suddenly starts and both parents frenetically try to stop the machine and the guy comes and stops it. it happened just as i had been told, except one thing really took me by surprise.

i decided to test out my theory on two people as we walked to the office yesterday and so i mentioned that i had seen the story on the tv and asked what colour the parents were. without hesitation they both answered “white” which is exactly what i had imagined. only thing is i had been wrong. what surprised me about the video was that it looked like a so-called african-american family [athough definitely a family of colour] and what surprised me was that in my head only a white family would be stupid enough to do something like that.

does that make me racist? it definitely would if it had gone the other way… but that made me think along with a lot of this Brett Murray ‘The Spear’ painting stuff that has been going on in South Africa and this amazing article which called a lot of it for what it was.

Four lines from that article carry the heart of where this whole racism-calling thing has gotten a little bit out of control:

I’m not shouting at you because you’re black, I’m shouting because you’re a maniac on the roads who is a danger to society.

I’m not complaining to your manager because you’re black. I’m complaining because you’re an incompetent moron who is incapable of doing her job properly.

I’m not firing you because you’re black. I’m firing you because you’re a thief.

I’m not confronting you because your black, I’m shouting at you because you’re a messy pig who expects other people to clean up your mess.

Each of those incidents [maniac on road, incompetent at job, thief, litterer] if they had occurred with someone of the same race calling out someone of the same race it would have been an incident of whatever is in brackets [parenthesis to the americanese] but because it was a white person calling a black person that [and i'm guessing vice versa] it suddenly becomes a race thing.

there is a lot more to say on this issue but hopefully this incident has at least got people thinking about it. are stereotypes racism or do they exist, much like cliches, because they are true a lot of the time? and while it is unfair to generalise with a stereotype or cliche and judge everyone as that thing, it is maybe not necessarily racist to be aware of or mention them.

i don’t think it was a big deal that i assumed the washing machine dad was white. i think it just was what it was. we could progress a lot further in this world, life, country if we started looking a lot more at what is as opposed to what could be suggested/read into/taken as…

your thoughts?

[late add: found out today that it was a babysitter and her boyfriend and not the kids parents who put the baby into the machine - story is here]

Dangerous Blocks you can least expect…

so after struggling with writer’s or more correctly videographer’s block for the last little while in terms of creating silly videos that are good for my sanity in terms of the mindlessnessity of them, i finally decided to pull a headlock on the block itself and use that as my inspiration… this is what emerged… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lh4gIoAFd0&feature=share

to celebrate a 40 million something goal is human, to forgive is divine…

i imagine this is a much bigger post or discussion than what will fit in here but let’s get it started…

a soccer player [who was worth something like 40 million something - does it really matter when you hit 40 million whether the next word is pounds, euros or dollars?] scores a goal.

a hundred facebook statuses [stati?] read something along the lines of ‘amazing goal – so worth the money spent’

i get angry. [i know, not allowed, how absolutely elizabethan of me]

i post something about how no football player [or goal] is ever worth that amount of money. especially when hundreds of thousands [millions? does it matter once you've gone past hundreds?] of people are literally starving to death around the world

angry mob [but since we're online they can't exactly storm my castle with flaming torches, especially because of the high-tech moat system i have employed]

so discussion happens. well kinda. words are written and people [a lot of them strong christian types] strongly defend the soccer player, the club, the industry, the system.

but there is a huge disconnect. because arguments will be made [with the understood eyebrow raising condescension implied as to 'how can you even think such a thing you stupid, you.] and perhaps scripture, or scriptural ideas will be referenced and argumentative questions will be thrown [what are you saying? he should give the money back? how much of it? how much is too much?] all in defense of how much the person is worth his wages blah blah blah

what probably won’t happen is Jesus will not be quoted or referenced, because it is very hard to believe that Jesus would support the idea of a soccer player being worth millions of currency while people [specifically 'least of these' type people - Jesus' favourite type it seems] are left to starve to death or barely survive in miserable circumstances and conditions.

and what also won’t happen is the people defending overpaid soccer [and you can interchange soccer for music or entertainment or business or even church leader/speaker type - the soccer one is just a more blatant example but it is the same across the board for me] player guy won’t ever make a statement that it is okay for the poor person to suffer, starve or die. the position they take leads to that natural conclusion but they won’t ever state “i am okay with the idea that for the soccer player to get 40 million something, hundreds of people will go hungry” because i don’t believe that is a defendable argument – so play the emotion, challenge the lack of viable solution, ask the argumentative question, quote some out-of-context biblical scriptural idea, but refuse to be drawn on the fact [in my opinion] that the system is horribly wrong and broken. and disgustingly so.

the “are you suggesting?” questions are difficult because i don’t know that i have a solution – i do feel that if the player got 20 somethings instead of 40 somethings then possible the people who watch the games would be able to pay half of what they pay and so there would be a lot more money around for them to be reaching out to some of their ‘least of these’ people… but finding a solution is not my initial intention, because i believe it has to start with the acknowledgement that there is a problem. [and yes the problem is the heart of man and so on, but the one we are faced with is a problem of economic disparity that can not be denied] once we acknowledge there is a problem, that the system is broken, that it is ludicrous and shameful and wrong that the soccer player/actor/singer/politician/pastor/writer gets 40 million of something while the majority of people have to live on under 2 of something a day, then hopefully we can start working together on solutions.

at the very least, let’s stop celebrating the wrongness.

i kissed hating [the church] goodbye…

that is the title of my yet-to-be-published book. i have a title. and i have a book. and i think i am ready to start exploring ideas of how to go forward with getting it published. i have spent the last few days proof-reading someone else’s book and it made me realise [along with a friend of mine who started reading my book and gave me some positive feedback, thankx Liam!] that i pushed through with getting the book finished before coming over to the simple way for a reason…

i don’t suspect i will find a publisher to publish the book [have had one look at it and while he said he liked the content it is not the kind of book they will pick up - but the style for me is part of the heart of the book - chatty, conversational, informal and hopefully still passionate, challenging, contemplative] and so that really leaves self-publishing or e-publishing which both take some time, effort and money i imagine.

don’t have much of any of those but for now it’s just a case of feeling ready to do something and starting to pray about it and hoping that some type of direction for it comes along…

the day i took on city hall…

and by ‘took on’ i mean ‘visited and got to speak’ – have written a two parter blog about today’s public response to mayor nutter’s ban on public feeding on my other blog and here are the links…

http://thesimpleweigh.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/i-had-a-dream-part-i

http://thesimpleweigh.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/i-had-a-dream-part-ii-blooper-reel

and now ‘got stalked by’ http://thesimpleweigh.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/i-had-a-dream-part-iii-aka-stalker-in-the-gym/

and quoted… http://thesimpleweigh.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/i-had-a-dream-part-iv-aka-pressing-on/

Losing weight, while needing to find some. [a message to the wronged]

so i have been going to gym, with my good friend from across the street, Coe aka Cobra [aka creator of the most powerful beast in the world - the Snuck - it's a snake, but it looks like a duck so you think it's all cute and innocent and go to stroke it, but watch out, it's a SNAKE!!!] [disclaimer: Coe has not actually created any Snucks as of yet so back of PETA, he has just visualised them, put down the placard and step slowly away from it] for close to two months now and we’ve been pretty good at going three to four times a week [which, with our crazy schedule is quite impressive and means on most days a 5am wake-up call, especially when i haven't!]

and i don’t have access to a scale so i’m not sure how much good it has done – we go to Planet Fitness which is a No Judgement gym and so part of that is not having a scale [or wearing jeans while you work out apparently?] for some reason. i know Coe has lost weight cos he told me and i still feel as fat as when i started [not Fat Albert fat, but just more forward in the stomach department than i would optimally like to be] altho in a totally unrelated story none of my long pants fit without falling down all the time [my conspiracy theory is that my stomach stretched them out so that they are bigger than me as opposed to i lost any weight] so basically what i am trying to say is i should find a scale. but something is clearly happening and apparently the stomach holds on to fat the longest.

in other news, i am trying to gain weight, no wait, needing to gain weight… three different situations in my life at the moment call for me to be ‘the bigger man’ – two that directly relate to me and one that is within the community we live and move in and relates to friends of mine… and it strongly looks like if i don’t step up in any of those situations and say something, that no-one else will and they will simply be buried in the sand until such time as they get dragged out when the next thing happens…

to add to that, this is i feel the story of my life, a situation happening where someone has to intervene and a number of other people potentially being able to, but the reality of if i don’t do it, it really is unlikely to happen…

and kinda like going to the gym, i kinda know what i have/need to do, but i don’t really want to. and kinda like the gym it’s because i’m tired and it’s a mission and there will be some degree of feeling bad before any feeling good comes out of it. and kinda like the gym i feel like there is a certain cost i need to pay to go there…

but then an email sent in love from a friend kicks me in the butt and strongly-but-in-love reminds me that i have to go there… and then i read this passage which would be a lot more fun if it said “there remember that you’ve been a plonk and need to go sort it out,” but it doesn’t, instead it says:

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” [Matthew 5.23-24]

‘Your brother or sister has something against you’ can definitely be because you were a plonk. but it can also be that they were a plonk. either way, before you continue worshiping Me, says the Lord, go and sort out your crap.

‘If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.’ [Romans 12.18]

Words we like to ignore. Because it is far easier to walk away and give up on one friendship or relationship when we have so many others that require less work, effort, doscomfort, cost.

But, as with gym, this is meant to be a No Judgement zone.

and as with gym, you have made a commitment to something and if you don’t live that out, then you have wasted a lot of something.

and as with my scaleless gym it might take me a while to figure out exactly what difference is being made, and maybe none that i can see now [maybe none ever] but by doing the right thing and continuing to be the person to stand up and approach and seek peace and right relationship, i can be confident that some difference is happening.

as i read once and strongly believe, “Offence isn’t given, it’s taken.” and so if i am feeling offended or wronged or hard done by, by those around me, then i really need to start my journey at the mirror and then probably proceed to my knees or face, before standing up and being the bigger person and doing the right thing.

all of this has been well modelled by a man who did no harm to anyone and yet was betrayed and denied and spat upon and beaten and hung on a tree by the very people He came to Love and Teach and Heal and Raise from the dead and yet His response was not holding on to the offence caused and letting that become His identity, but rather the quite revolutionary opposite extreme:

‘Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”‘ [Luke 23.34a]

i guess if we say we’re following Jesus, then we should really… follow Jesus. yes?

[with special thankx to Gnomus Brooks, Saint Mandy, Rob and others for being the piercing light through the darkness i found myself in]

Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect: The story continues…

once upon a time i developed a bad pseudo afrikaans accent and an idea for a show that would warn people about the inherent dangers lurking behind innocent-seeming things [like paper, ice-cream and screaming "Lego" when someone who is dangling you over a cliff asks what you will give them if they pull you up to safety] and a few people started really enjoying these videos and some people even started sharing them with their friends via the various social networks… there are now 9 of these official videos [and 2 or 3 non official ones that i recorded for english classes, youth groups or new friends because they had a special request - should start charging for these and making T-shirts!] and so in reverse order, here are the Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect videos from the latest one which was:

Episode 10 of DTYCLE speaks about the dangers of procrastination which lurk closeby, especially when you are meant to be doing somethi…

A slightly somewhat longer episode of DTYCLE looking at a few of the aspects related to ART as a Dangerous Thing You Can Least Expect

An episode of Sometimedly Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect covering things that sometimes can be safe and other times can be dangerful.

this two parter episode, which is one for the english classrooms i’m sure, on the Clitchy or as they say in France, the Cliche’

and ‘The Clitchy: part Deux’ or ‘Revenge of the Clitchy’ – first time we have attempted a part too.

episode six, another request, and this time on the unseen hazards linked to Wool

episode five, which has for some reason, known only to South African English teachers, actually been used as an educational tool in a number of schools [mostly in Pretoria] and specifically their English classes was on the topic of Punctuation

episode four saw the first request which was ironically ‘Requests’ seen as to be quite full of danger

episode three was all about sarcasm, or more correctly sar-chasm!

episode two warns about the dangers of Ice-cream

and finally, the one that started it all – episode one – Paper

this thing grows by people liking and commenting on You Tube and liking and sharing on Facebook and tweeting and retweeting on Twitter [and Flickering on Flicka? not sure i'm even sure what that one is] and so thank you to everyone who has done one or more of those or is about to right now…

who would win a fight between matt redman [never once did we walk alone] and john ellis [formerly of tree63]?

i’ve been blogging for a little over two years now and i enjoy having a space to write my thorts or share my actions or be seriously silly or intriguingly insightful and a whole host of other stuff in between…

and in that time it is the stuff i’ve written on relationships that has been the most widely read… so from ‘How to Love Your Woman Better’ to keys to ‘having a good marriage [ideas submitted by friends i know who are married well]‘ to the ‘i kissed dating series’. Then, recently, the first of the Taboo Topics series i have started [trying to look at issues that a lot of people have but rarely discuss] was really successful and hopefully assisting a lot of people who have struggled with losing a baby. A few brave people sharing their stories in the hope that it will bring encouragement, inspiration and hope to others going through the same thing.

so those are the blog topics that have really got a lot of attention… but there have been two other topics/themes/people that have popped up in my “TOP SEARCHES” spot on my blog, and, would you know it, as i go to find out what it is called, it proves my point… so before i announce the point, let me share with you today’s top searches which led people to my blog:

brett fish anderson, john ellis christian, brent fishes blog, never once did we walk alone, john ellis tree63

ha ha, when i go to check yesterday’s to see if they match up, someone reached my page by asking the question, “why did matt redman leave soul survivor?” i fear that will be a question that is never truly answered to my satisfaction…

and so that is the answer – from week to week to week, the two things that keep popping up in searches for my blog are ‘John Ellis’ who i blogged about possibly two years ago [and more specifically, 'is John Ellis a christian?'], here and also here… and matt redman and more specifically the words to his song ‘never once did we walk alone’ which i posted a while back over here…

i am not really sure why those two topics have been the ones that continue to lure people to my writing [which feels like it happened so long ago - why is no-one searching for 'somewhat funny bad afrikaans accent instructional warning-of-potential-danger you tube videos' because surely that is something people are struggling to sleep at night for?] but i thort it would be interesting to pose the question in the subject line, because i already know the answer.

i have met both matt redman [interviewed him on CCFM radio many years ago, connected with him briefly at Soul Survivor Holland and was an attendee at a Matt Redman/Chris Tomlin/Louis Giglio panel discussion held for a bunch of worship and church leaders a couple of years ago at Jubilee church in Cape Town] and john ellis [mc'd for the band when they were still called Tree and i was a dj at CCFM, emailed a few times and had coffee with him in KZN two years ago, hung out with him when he gigged in Stellenbosch and mc'd a gig where he performed as himself at Arisefest in KZN in 2010].

and so when you take the question, ‘who would win a fight between matt redman [never once did we walk alone] and john ellis [formerly of tree63]?’ the answer is definitively that john would win. no doubt. because matt redman would not fight!

the first time i met matt i was a precocious know-it-all radio dj for a christian radio station and yet, as much as i asked him if he was a vegetable which one would he be? and other lame questions like that, all he wanted to do was talk about Jesus.

the second time i was around him he was one of two co-worship leaders at the Holland version of Soul Survivor [2001 i think] and i remember the one time the other worship leader antonie fountaine was leading a few thousand young people in worship and matt moved over to the side of the stage and sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the stage, playing his guitar and just really being out of the way of it all. just screamed ‘humility’ at me and any time i have been near or around me i have never seen anything to suggest otherwise.

and then there is john ellis, who has a song called “come out fighting” which i enjoy, as i do most of his first solo album. and having spent a bit of time with him and watched him do one or two gigs is quite a fitting description of the kind of head space he is in at the moment [or was, a year ago]. i really enjoyed my one on one coffee date i had with john two years ago – we have a similar sense of humour and have been inspired by some of the same books. he has an incredible gift in terms of writing and playing and singing, there is no doubt about that, and when he uses that for Jesus he is a force for the kingdom of heaven, that the gates of hell will not stand against…

but then we had an unfortunate incident at the gig i was mc’ing that he played at, and it’s not important to go into details, but the bottom line was that we went from being friends and him buying me a coffee before he went on stage and then cutting all contact off with me a few days later when he reacted to my blogged response of the incident. more than a year later and i have tried on a number of occasions to make contact and see if we can discuss what happened or move on, and i even emailed him during the writing of this blog [which is now into its third day] to let him know i was writing something and offering to send it to him before i posted it in case he wanted to approve/comment and am still to hear from him…

i don’t know if this is the right space or way but i have tried a lot of ways to connect with him and at the moment anyone who does a search for john ellis and ends up on my blog, gets the early stuff i wrote which was about giving him a chance and the benefit of the doubt and having a conversation with him… i figure there are a few people who read this who know john and so maybe you can pass on the message… some stuff happened, a long time ago now, and it’s beyond time to make up and talk it out if necessary or just move on… how about it john?

someone once said [and it has been repeated by a lot of someones since then] “Preach the gospel always. When necessary use words.” and for me, that statement has always felt more like an excuse from those who don’t want to say the name ‘Jesus’ than an encouragement to live out what you believe. because the reality is that it has to be both… if you only ever speak the good news and it is not lived out, then it will have no meaning, relevance or authenticity to those hearing it… and if you only ever live the gospel but never speak the name Jesus as the author and reason behind why we do what we do, then there is going to be a lot of good done, but no or little opportunity for life-transforming life change.

so the phrase i am working on looks something like this – “Preach the gospel in what you say and how you live. When necessary, refrain from words.”

Up to your cross I crawl
Now I am standing ten feet tall
Jesus my savior look what you’ve done for me

Free at last I’m free
I owe you my life completely
Yahweh Yahweh look what you’ve done for me

protesting the protesters…

so i posted about the protest action we were involved in with regards to the outdoors sharing of food with homeless people on my ‘the simple weigh’ blog but i know a lot of people susbscribe to this one so thort i would stick the links here as well.

click here for part I dealing with what i was pertaining to.

click here for part II which deals with the picnic which was my beautiful wife Valerie’s greatly creative idea.

and then here if you want the part where everything went nutball shaped as we got inside for the meeting…

and here is a blog from a new friend of ours perspective – a man who drove over an hour to be part of the protest despite himself and personal fear and trepidation…

Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect: The story so far…

so by now you have probably been inundated with links to the ‘Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect’ video series i have been working on in my free time and i thort it would be a good idea to link them all together in case there was a particular one you had missed or wanted to pass on… these are not likely to change the world or go viral any time soon, but as long as they keep making people smile, laugh and occasionally shoot liquidy substances through their nostrils, i will probably keep making them…

the one that started it all – episode one – Paper

episode two warns about the dangers of Ice-cream

episode three was all about sarcasm, or more correctly sar-chasm!

episode four saw the first request which was ironically ‘Requests’ seen as quite full of danger

episode five, which has been shown in at least three different schools [mostly in Pretoria] and specifically their English classes was on the topic of Punctuation

episode six, another request, and this time on the unseen hazards linked to Wool

and finally [so far] another two for the English classrooms perhaps, this episode on the Clitchy or as they say in France, the Cliche’

and ‘The Clitchy: part Deux’ or ‘Revenge of the Clitchy’ – first time we have attemped a part too.

An episode of Sometimedly Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect covering things that sometimes can be safe and other times can be dangerful.

have appreciated all the laughs and likes and especially all the shares, links and retweets as that is how this thing will grow – so thank you and hope you have enjoyed them – what will be next?… [dun dun dun]