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On this day in 1976, the Soweto Uprising began in South Africa after the government mandated that Afrikaans be taught in school, leading to demonstrations by more than 20,000 black schoolchildren, hundreds of whom were killed by police.

The Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974 mandated all black schools to use Afrikaans and English in equal amounts as languages of instruction. Afrikaans was strongly associated with apartheid (prominent anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu called it "the language of the oppressor"), and this decree was widely resented.

At first, resistance to the measure was scattered - on April 30th, the students of Orlando West Junior School went on strike, and other schools began to follow suit. Students eventually formed an Action Committee, later known as the Soweto Students' Representative Council, which organized a mass meeting on June 13th to develop a cohesive strategy of protest.

On the morning on June 16th, 10,000-20,000 students walked out of their schools to a mass rally, carrying signs reading "Down with Afrikaans", "Viva Azania", and "If we must do Afrikaans, Vorster must do Zulu".

The protest turned violent after students killed a trained dog that the police had sicced on them, causing the police to open fire. Among the first students to be murdered were the 15-year-old Hastings Ndlovu and the 12-year-old Hector Pieterson (shown, photo by Sam Nzima).

Social reformer Dr. Melville Edelstein was beaten to death by the mob, a sign around his neck proclaiming, "Beware Afrikaans is the most dangerous drug for our future". 23 people died on the first day in Soweto, and hundreds more were killed in the following weeks.

Emergency clinics were swamped with injured and bloody children. Police requested for the hospital to provide a list of all victims with bullet wounds, however the doctors refused, recording bullet wounds as abscesses.

The violence led to widespread riots and sympathy protests throughout South Africa, including white students from the University of the Witwatersrand. In remembrance of these events, June 16th is now a public holiday in South Africa known as Youth Day.

1976 Soweto Uprising: Youth rebellion and the burning desire for freedom

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[-] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 6 points 3 weeks ago

(Rim) World is a raid

I am recruit man

Wound em all 1984

751,886,316,904,210,000 friends who don't know it yet

[-] DragonBallZinn@hexbear.net 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Summer’s going to be over before I know it and I’ll be back to being unemployed and being accused of laziness because porky is a picky guy, and why the fuck would he hire a loser like me when he has thousands of experienced professionals to choose from?

I’m not lazy, I’m just incompetent. Not my fault everyone is just better than me, I try but someone beats me every time…and even if I was the only one, porky would just not hire me because why would he hire a loser like me?

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[-] CrispyFern@hexbear.net 6 points 3 weeks ago

Live footage of us moving to a new megathread:

β€¦α˜›βΜ€α•α·β€¦α˜›βΜ€α•α·β€¦α˜›βΜ€α•α·β€¦α˜›βΜ€α•α·β€¦α˜›βΜ€α•α·β€¦α˜›βΜ€α•α·β€¦α˜›βΜ€α•α·

[-] Goblinmancer@hexbear.net 6 points 3 weeks ago

Da inquisition is prob the second best drgaon age game in terms of story but THE SINGLE PLAYER MMO experience is so bullshit da2 and veilguard is somehow more fun.

[-] DoomBloomDialectic@hexbear.net 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

@GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net the worldbuilding ideas would be for a setting ive worked on on and off for years (industrialized fantasy with weird fiction and communist themes) so doing actual serious work on it would involve wading through/decoding my scattered, nerodivergent-ass google docs sadly. just the thought of it gives me anxiety!! but the ideas i was having were for big picture creation myth and cosmology and metaphysics shit, which does lend itself more to vaguery & brain vomit so maybe i should give it a whirl anyway thinkin-lenin

it's funny, you and i are kind of the opposite - the type of details you stress over w/ worldbuilding is the kind of shit i really struggle with. whenever i think about realistic logistics around climate, geography, etc on a micro level, my brain derobes itself of its burdensome, chafing wrinkles and my eyes lose their spark and i become clueless

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[-] CrispyFern@hexbear.net 5 points 3 weeks ago

Sometimes I think I could learn a thing or two from the polish people, but other times I feel they could learn a thing or two from me.

[-] wombat@hexbear.net 5 points 3 weeks ago

it is june 16 and stalin saved the world from fascism

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[-] KuroXppi@hexbear.net 5 points 3 weeks ago

Nobody wants to woke anymore smh

[-] LanyrdSkynrd@hexbear.net 5 points 3 weeks ago

Started reading "Inherent Vice" by Pychon. Great book so far. Excellent characters, fun plot, and it's really funny.

[-] GalaxyBrain@hexbear.net 5 points 3 weeks ago

Gonna finally be a homemade bread guy. I make it at work constantly and its not hard or anything and I eat a decent amount of bread and buy the good shit. My focaccia sourdough is nuts, I can make a any flatbread really fucking good given the right oven. I wanna do a fine rye and have some ideas. I have access to a fantastic foccacia poolish that we use at work and can mature a bread fast af

[-] supafuzz@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

wearing my watch commemorating the heroic Chinese volunteer brigades of the Korean War today, hoping it will work as a sort of magic talisman to make China remember how to treat allies

[-] BigBoyKarlLiebknecht@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

I've been gradually rebuilding a PowerMac G5 to run some super old film scanning software, and I finally got it up and running tonight. Desktop computing has not really improved in 2 decades - I've suspected as much, but it's really something to behold how nothing has really evolved since then (when you compare 1985 -> 2005). Admittedly, the modern internet is unusable on it, but there is no real loss there. Applications of that era (2005) are so smooth and fast. Really, aside from JS bloat, all we have new now is fancier graphics and LLMs. Google fucking worked back then too! yells-at-cloud

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[-] homhom9000@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

Please. When can I quit. I spent 2 weeks emailing for an update to an offshore team. I lucked out and they were online so I asked for an update directly. They said they were messaging the original reporter(my manager on maternity leave) but didn't get a response. They couldn't bother to respond to the frequent emails then? This is such a bullshit job

[-] AernaLingus@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

VTuber postingLooks like Niji privated Twisty's accounts, so I assume the termination announcement is incoming packwatch I got bad vibes from her from the beginning. There's nothing inherently wrong with cringe comedy, but she really harshed the vibes in a lot of collabs. More importantly, she said some very sus stuff even in the few hours total that I watched of her right after debut that reeked of channer, which was completely borne out by the recent leak. Feel awful for her genmates...they drew a bad enough hand as it was with the timing of their debuts, and they really stood beside her during all of her difficulties.

Unrelated, but apparently the would-be shooter at the Nashville No Kings protest was a fan of Kirsche and Pippa surprised-pika-messed-up Kirsche is just VTuber Asmongold, but as far as Pippa goes, who could have possibly predicted that using Nazi dogwhistles on stream might attract an unsavory audience?

(if for some reason you're still reading this and you have no idea who I'm talking about, I'm sorry for exposing you to even more dumb streamer shit. I mean, even if you do, I'm still sorry! Streamer news is basically a guaranteed cognitohazard. I just needed to vent a bit.)

In more uplifting news, Hololive Justice 3D debut at the beginning of August yippeeeeeee! I am not ready for Autofister in 3D. Also looking forward to Niji Hopcon at Anime Impulse next month...hoping for more Enna peak.

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[-] SevenSkalls@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

Every time I go on /r/worldnews I regret it.

[-] CrispyFern@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

Science has proved that if humans had webbed feet they could swim up waterfalls minecraft style

[-] Blockocheese@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

For some reason I'm exhausted and I have so much stuff I need to do sleepi

[-] RION@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

be me

looking to meet with the CEO after my boss left the organization on friday, giving us a development team of one person (me)

CEO left to go to France for a week??

Incredible. Not like I could use a little insight into when and how they're going to replace my boss so I actually have guidance

[-] Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

can you promote yourself in their absence?

[-] RION@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

I don't really wanna :/ I can take on more responsibility but she got saddled with way too much shit

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[-] WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

Early in the megathread to say that I'm down 12kg and it's pretty ferret

Puts me under 100kg for the first time in a while. It makes fighting heavyweights in BJJ harder, but I suppose that's what I was going for in the first place. I think my endgame is 90kg.

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[-] Carl@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago

KREIA IF YOU ORDER DIET COKE: A pointless act of self-flagellation. A 'diet' Coke? Treats are not meant to be healthy. They are meant to be treats. Would you sing a lyricless song? Would you eat a Jogan fruitcake baked without any fruit? You are lying to yourself. You have no self-control. You think you can trick your impulses into making you feel whole.

KREIA IF YOU ORDER COKE ZERO: Always the new-fangled thing. Are you too good for Diet Coke? Too proud for the simplest traditions? What difference does it make. Does it taste more like the real thing? You should have ordered that, then. Do you enjoy the fact that it goes flat faster, perhaps? Have you grown so cruel that you wish to see the life drain out of even the smallest confection? Order the Diet Coke next time, unless you have truly given up on knowing who you were.

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this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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