by Charlene Smith

I am so appalled by some white trash know-nothing comments about Winnie Madikizela Mandela, that I need to weigh in. If Madiba could forgive and honor her, and then not punish white South Africans for what we put her and others like her through, how DARE you judge her?

Winnie Mandela, when I first met her in 1976, was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, tall, imperious, with a gorgeous deep voice and a low sexy laugh. I interviewed her after she had to stop work for a cobbler, because security police harassment was so intense, business to the store fell off.

It had been this way for thirteen years, ever since the jailing of her husband, Nelson Mandela in 1963. Now that she has died the clichés about her life are rolling in thick and fast. How eager we are to forget, and in refusing to remember we perpetuate the harm she experienced in life. Continue reading Winnie Madikizela Mandela: The real truth in many ways hides nothing but tells it all →