Dark Continent: Townships and Sexuality

Monday, May 04, 2009

Townships and Sexuality

Dateline April 21, 2009
Yesterday, we got to go into Gugulethu Township again. This time we went to learn about lesbian life in the township. We had a connection through our friend Zanele to a very courageous woman, Ndumie Funda of Luleki'Sizwe, whose fiance was raped and consequently infected with the virus. She died of AIDS a couple of years ago.

Ndumie has taken as her raison d'être supporting lesbians in the townships who have been raped or beaten because of their sexuality.. There have been a spate of murders of lesbians--particularly butch-looking lesbians--and there was very little outcry. We know that South Africa has a wonderful constitution that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientations and a same-sex civil marriage law. But things are still not safe.

I'm reminded of the Combahee River Collective that organized when several black women were killed in Boston with little outcry. That organization led to some of the best black feminist activism and theory.

Ndumie in fron of her cabin in Gugulethu township

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Academic Biography

Professor White's first book, Sierra Leone’s Settler Women Traders: Women on the Afro-European Frontier, was winner of the Letitia Brown Memorial Publication Price in 1987. Her book with Iris Berger, Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: Restoring Women to History, has become a standard reference text and has been translated into Japanese. Her most recent book is Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability. She has been named a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in Sierra Leone and a Mellon Scholar and has received a Kidder-Peabody Grant for research in The Gambia. Her appointments have included chair of the Five College Black Studies Executive Committee and member of the Graduate Faculty of the University of Massachusetts. She has a B.A. from Wheaton College, an M.A. in African history, and a Ph.D. in history from Boston University.

Along with her teaching and scholarly career, she has had a distinguished career in academic administration. At NYU, she was appointed Vice Provost in 2005. She advised the Provost on faculty appointments, tenure, and promotion. She worked closely with the Faculty Senators Council to enhance work-life conditions for faculty. She also spearheaded the university’s efforts to diversify the faculty and has responsibility for the Office of Academic Appointments, the Center for Teaching Excellence, and the Faculty Resource Network, a faculty development consortium of 52 institutions of higher education.

From 1998 to 2005, Professor White was dean of NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she greatly increased the school’s visibility and reputation. From 2001-05, she was chair of NYU’s Deans Council. Prior to coming to NYU, she was a professor of history and Black studies at Hampshire College, where she also served as Dean of the School of Social Science and Dean of Faculty. While completing her Ph.D. at Boston University, she was an instructor at the University of Sierra Leone and a research assistant at the Afro-American Studies Center at Boston University.