Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
class edition 2014latest news & developments
Some of my best friends are white and – they still don’t have a clue

Some of my best friends are white and – they still don’t have a clue

I so wish I could find some way to show my white friends the world I live in, where I wake up daily to fight my way out of ”earning” my place.

Some of my very best friends are white …

… and they still don’t have a clue, writes Zama Ndlovu, who sees herself as black middle class but is still struggling to prove her worth.

Lower income brackets spend a large proportion of their income on food.

Class edition: Inequality by numbers

Who earns how much and what exactly do we spend it on?

Politics, economics and transformation get lost in translation

It can be hard to keep abreast of all the key catchphrases. Here’s an attempt at understanding the latest South African political lexicon.

From India to Klerksdorp: When he was young Rafik Patel had a fantasy of flying but instead has landed up running a spaza shop in Kanana.

Living on the margins of the South African dream

In a dusty township in the North West, Lisa Steyn meets up with immigrants who have set up spazas that support families back home.

How America’s next generation was outclassed

Growing inequality has left the capitalist dream on its last gasp. And the sooner we all stop fantasising about the American Dream, the better.

“These days there is a lot of poverty in the world

Told you so: Quotes on wealth, poverty, inequality and class

What the great and the good have had to say about class throughout history.

Wealth division in SA and around the world

French economist Thomas Piketty sees the source of the 2008 financial crash in the unsustainable levels of inequality that characterises capitalism.

Class theory finally decolonised

Fanon creates a triad with Marx and Lenin, to help the EFF reclaim class from its racist foundations.

The road is notorius for serious accidents. A bus accident in 2010 also claimed 20 lives.

Buckets, pits and poverty: How the other half defecates

Life with pit latrines and the bucket system was meant to be a hallmark of the most rural of existences. But Tiisetso Makube found it in his backyard.

Tebogo Dolamo: ‘In 90% of my engagements I’m the only black guy in the room.’

What it’s like to be young, black and in the middle

Oupa Nkosi interviewed – and photographed – some of those whose salaries are supposedly taking them closer to the good life.

Former defence minister Mosioua Lekota.

Class, race and the new native

South Africa today suffers a confusion between the rule of the people, the rule of law and the rule of property.

Writer Bongani Madondo in the remains of the family home in Pretoria where he grew up.

Class edition: Once we were ‘The Madondos’ – the special ones

Writer Bongani Madondo relates how books have eased the psychic pain of his class-conscious family.

Clifton: Where the world’s rich and famous roam and ‘bungalows’ sell for between R17-million and R65-million.

Clifton: Of baba ganoush and bungalows

Life among the one-percenters of the Cape Town suburb of Clifton is a beach, not a bitch.

A deep downturn is unlikely, analysts say. But, if it does happen, another recession will be even more difficult to recover from.

Alexandra, Sandton and bridging the economic divide

The historically divided suburbs of Alexandra and Sandton will soon have a bridge to link them. This time utilitarianism might win out over symbolism.