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About
Welcome to In The Grey blog and podcast. The blog and podcast were born out of frustration and desperation. I was frustrated by 21st century social and political discourse that is fuelled by extreme polarisation and sensationalism. And I grew desperate for honest discourse that is rooted in reality, curiosity, and an unwavering desire to comprehend and account for the complexities and nuances of the natural and social world we inhabit.
Savania China, Author/Podcast Host
Society has and continues to become more polarised. Everything is considered, assessed, and addressed through the lens of politics. One is either right wing or left wing. And one’s opinions, thoughts, beliefs, and preferences must therefore align to one’s politics. That way of thinking and being robs us of the opportunity to experience life in its full complexity and meaning. Not everything has to fit into a dichotomy of right or wrong, left or right, black or white. I believe the truth and the path to true understanding often lies in the middle, in the grey.
The articles and podcasts cover a wide range of mostly topical issues that affect society today – politics, science, relationships, sustainability, diversity and inclusion etc. But of course, I must make a rather pointless disclaimer. As black man, I see and experience life from the perspective of a black man. My blackness is not and cannot be separate from my essence, my experience, my opinions, views, assumptions, and beliefs. And as hard as I try to think and write and speak objectively, I can never think, write, speak, and act outside that intersubjective reality of race, a reality created and sustained by a society that desperately seeks to keep men like me boxed and wingless.
The blog and podcast are my way of breaking out of the box, clipping on my wings and setting off into the sky. Whether I fly or not is neither here nor there. The point is the breaking out of the axiomatic box and having a go at flying.
I hope you’ll enjoy diving with me into the grey, into the logical middle, to see if we can find common ground on the key issues and subjects that plague society and hold humanity back from reaching its full potential.
About Me
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I am passionate about two things - storytelling and social justice. Writing is how I attempt to tell stories. In my writing, I explore and play with facts and opinions and fictions. I explore and deploy, as a tool for honing my message, all kinds of fictions: the fiction we are told, the fiction we tell ourselves, the fiction we label ‘reality’, and the fiction we label ‘fiction’.
It is precisely in this world of fictions that, like all writers, I compose. Words are my instruments of choice. I use them to create notes, melodies, chords, and basslines – each carefully crafted to entice specific emotional human response: fear, exhilaration, love, sadness.
I believe that, as a writer, I am a composer of the soundtrack of our lives. And that is a responsibility I take seriously.
Also, as a writer, especially a writer of nonfiction, I am, as James Baldwin aptly put it, a disturber of the peace. But to publish or be published as an author, one must succumb to the tyranny of the collective mob that comprise editors, critics, and the general reader. Thus, the blog is my way of evading the tyranny, a way of allowing myself to think and write and speak and debate with no scruples and no censorship. And perhaps in so doing I can disturb the peace a little, rock the boat a little to rouse us from our collective slumber. Only then can we hope to steer this ship we call life towards a better destination. And it is precisely for that reason I also work with individuals and organisations to help them create and reach for that better world, a truly diverse, fair, inclusive, and sustainable world.
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