Mind Your Colour

The 'Coloured' Stereotype in South African Literature

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Introduction
Not a race of slaves¹

The point of departure in this study is the stereotyped image of the ‘Cape coloured’ (person of mixed origin),² as found in South African literature. Several studies have been carried out in an attempt to deal with the ‘coloureds’. Most well known of these studies are those by Marais (1957), D.P. Botha (1960), MacMillan (1927), Patterson (1953) and Cilliers (1963). Some South African scholars have also attempted to abstract the picture of the ‘coloured’ as found in Afrikaans literature. Most notable of these was the study by F.E.J. Malherbe (1958). This stereotyping has further complicated the special role ascribed to ‘coloureds’ within the South African context. If one observes carefully, then the picture of the Khoi as it unfolds in travel literature in the seventeenth century already contains some of the stereotypes of the ‘coloureds’. It is no mere accident that certain attributes are ascribed to what is known, in the mouths of white users, as ‘Hottentot’,³ and that these are then, later on, neatly transplanted onto ‘Cape coloured’.

1 ‘Not a race of slaves’. The phrase is culled from Mercia MacDermott's portrait of Vasil Levsky. The original quote reads: ‘For what does it profit the tyrant, if after five hundred years of captivity and humiliation, a land brings forth not a race of slaves, but men like Vasil Levski’. M. MacDermott, The Apostle of Freedom (London, 1967), 390.

2 ‘Coloured’ is placed in inverted commas to express the author's rejection of this racist term.

3 ‘Hottentot’ is similarly placed in inverted commas for the very same reason. Sometimes its use is unavoidable. See further, note 2, Chapter 1.

Early stereotypes

The picture which emerges of the original inhabitants of South Africa (i.e., the Khoi and the San)⁴ is an unpretty, and a comically distorted one. The inhabitants are enshrined in the following pattern. They are lazy, they love to drink, they swear and fight at the slightest provocation and are generally immoral. These characteristics are clearly visible in the literature of the early Afrikaans language movement. It is precisely in these early portrayals that one already senses something of the ambivalent Afrikaner attitudes towards the latter-day ‘Cape Coloured’. In English literature of the early 1920s, the dominant theme, as

4 Khoi and San are the terms generally preferred for the autochthonous people of South Africa. See further, note 2, Chapter 1.

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represented in the works of Sarah Gertrude Millin, was that of ‘colour being a disease’,⁵ or in the words of Cedrick Dover (1937), ‘smelling strangeness’.⁶ Small wonder that the first literary products of ‘coloureds’ themselves aped the whites in this respect. Thus, Petersen and Small failed at times to escape the Afrikaans and Afrikaner tradition, whereby the ‘coloured’ was looked upon with ambiguity and paternal affection and regarded as a sort of ‘brown Afrikaner’.

5 S.G. Millin, Adam's Rest (London, 1922), 40.

6 C. Dover, Half-Caste (London, 1937), 13.

Playing white, ambiguity and colour consciousness

If one looks at the history of the ‘coloured’ in South Africa, then it is hardly surprising that the above-mentioned factors all play a role among this group. Because of the various racial policies of successive South African governments, the colour of one's skin determined one's status in society. Thus, where possible, some ‘coloureds’ initially tried to seek their salvation with the whites rather than with their fellow oppressed. Many tried to be ‘play whites’.⁷ Secondly, in view of especially the rural ‘coloureds’ involvement with Afrikaansdom, if not Afrikanerdom, there developed between the Afrikaner and a large section of the ‘coloureds’ a relationship of ambiguity, and a feeling of almost near-kinship. Since colour was the sole criterion at times, ‘coloureds’ too started evaluating themselves in terms of pigmentation. Thus, gradations of lightness (whiteness) and brownness were noticeable to ‘coloureds’, which would normally not be so apparent to the non-coloured.

This study is an attempt to expose the horrible stereotyping ‘coloureds’ have traditionally been subject to, and to show the growth of a greater political consciousness and a rejection of white stereotypes among the ‘coloureds’. Many youngsters from the Cape started sympathizing with the African National Congress (ANC). Some even left the country to undergo guerrilla training abroad. A handful died as guerrillas. Finally and ultimately, this new-found political consciousness among ‘coloureds’ led to a certain amount of black consciousness among the youth in Cape Town and its environment. Whereas in 1960, with Sharpeville, the ‘coloureds’, for various reasons, stayed outside the political campaigns of the Pan African Congress (PAC) and the ANC, the reverse obtained in 1976. The youth rose against the system of apartheid, thereby pledging full support to their compatriots in Soweto. In a sense, then, the stereotyping of the ‘coloured’ as found in the literature and the culture of South Africa is also a good mirror

7 Since colour plays such an important role in South Africa, some ‘coloureds’ often try to cross the colour line and pass themselves off as whites. They are generally referred to as ‘play-whites’ or people who are ‘trying for white’. There is a term known as ‘venstertjies kyk’ (lit. looking in the windows, pretending to window shop). This happens when coloured friends or relatives see other ‘coloureds’ approaching who are ‘play-whites’. They pretend to do window-shopping in order not to embarrass the person(s) or relative(s) in question.

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of the treatment, or mal-treatment, of this group called ‘coloured’, from 1652 onwards until the publication of the Erika Theron report in 1976.

Statutory definitions (or what ‘coloured’ is not)

The legal attempts to define what ‘coloured’ is, within the South African context, have further complicated the picture. More often one only abstracts a picture of what ‘coloured’ is not, inside South Africa. Unconsciously, the practice of playing white, the cultivation of one's own artificial racial barriers and the harbouring of ambiguous attitudes towards Afrikaans and Afrikaansdom, found further sustenance in these legal definitions. Instead of providing clarity, the law brought confusion.

Generally, the statutory terms used to define the various ‘racial’ groups in South Africa are: ‘Europeans’ (i.e., whites); ‘natives’ and ‘Bantu’ (i.e., Africans); ‘Cape coloured’ (i.e., persons of mixed ancestry) and ‘Asiatics’ (i.e., various groups of Asian descent). ‘Natives’, ‘coloureds’ and ‘Asiatics’ are again lumped together and called ‘non-Europeans’ or ‘non-whites’. Suzman (1960) comments that the term ‘native’ was largely confined to statutory use in the period before the formation of the Union of South Africa (1910). It later came to be replaced by other terms because of its opprobrious connotation, although these substitutes were no less obnoxious. The term ‘African’, Suzman observes, never found statutory recognition, although he advances no reasons for this. Quite clearly, it must be sought in the Afrikaner fear that, if the word ‘African’ is translated into Afrikaans as ‘Afrikaan’ (as happens in Dutch), then it would lead to confusion with the term ‘Afrikaner’, which they had appropriated for themselves. Thus, comically, the term ‘Bantu’ came to be used by the whites, and since it means nothing else but people, the Afrikaans term ‘Bantoevolk’ constitutes the greatest linguistic and tautological nonsense.

According to section 1 of the Population Registration Act of 1950, all South Africans must be classified as members of a particular group. Broadly speaking, then, one would have the following table:

A	Whites (non-black)	B	Non-whites (blacks)
Whites are subdivided into		Non-whites are subdivided into
1	Afrikaans-speaking	1	Coloureds
2	English-speaking	2	Asiatics
3	immigrants, e.g., Italians, Greeks et al. These tend to identify with the second category	3	Bantu

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With equal justification, one could have a taxonomy based on the division of black and non-black.

The non-white or black groups are again further subdivided. ‘Coloureds’ are, for example, grouped into seven categories, in the following order. (Here, in terms of the Population Registration Act of 1950, Asiatics are regarded as ‘coloureds’.) (1) ‘Cape coloured’, (2) Malay, (3) Griqua, (4) Chinese, (5) Indian, (6) ‘other’ Asiatic, (7) ‘other’ coloured. ‘Bantu’ are subdivided into eight units, i.e. North-Sotho, South-Sotho, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu.

Rightly does the Erika Theron Report on the ‘coloureds’ point out that very often one's classification as a ‘coloured’ may, in border-line cases, be dependent on the definitions of what is white or ‘Bantu’. The Theron Commission was specially instituted by the South African government to investigate every facet of ‘coloured’ life, and possibly, during the process of investigations, to provide useful suggestions which would complement the government blue-print. That this was not so easy will be apparent at a later stage.

Before the Act of Union in 1910, these terms were rather loosely used. According to that existing tradition, an attempt was made in the Pensions Act No. 22 of 1928 to define the ‘coloureds’ as a statutory group within the South African setting. The Act reads as follows:

A Coloured is someone who is neither;

a.	a Turk or a member of a race or tribe in Asia nor
b.	a member of an aboriginal race or tribe in Africa nor
c.	a Hottentot, Bushman or Koranna nor
d.	a person residing in a native location ...nor
e.	an American negro.

This act was amended by Act No. 34 of 1931, and once more by the Pensions Act of 1934. The Population Registration Act No. 30 of 1950, which made it compulsory for people to be registered as a member of either the white, ‘coloured’ or ‘native’ groups in terms of section 5(1), makes fascinating if bizarre reading. A ‘white person’ is defined as meaning ‘a person who in appearance obviously is, or who is generally accepted as a white person, but does not include a person who, although in appearance obviously a white person, is generally accepted as a coloured person’.⁸

‘Section 19 (1) provides that a person who in appearance is a white person shall for the purposes of the Act be presumed to be a white person until the contrary is proved’.⁸

8 A. Suzman, Race Classification and Definition in the Legislation of South Africa (Johannesburg, 1960), 354.

8 A. Suzman, Race Classification and Definition in the Legislation of South Africa (Johannesburg, 1960), 354.

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A ‘native’ in South African terminology is ‘any member of an aboriginal race or tribe of Africa’.⁹

‘Coloureds’ are simply referred to as persons who are neither ‘natives’ nor whites. The basic criteria of appearance, descent and general acceptance are very flimsy indeed. Proclamation 46 of 1959 was declared invalid by the High Court of Justice in South Africa, precisely because it was so vaguely phrased. The various groups of ‘coloureds’ are defined and described in Proclamation 123 of 1967. Here, descent and the classification of the biological father are factors of importance.

In probably one of the greatest legal and linguistic tautologies, the ‘coloureds’ are defined in the following manner under this Proclamation of 1967:

The Cape Coloured Group shall consist of persons who in fact are, or who, except in the case of persons who, in fact, are members of race or class or tribe referred to in paragraph ...are generally accepted as members of the race or class known as the Cape Coloured.

The various definitions gave rise to such practices as ‘trying for white’, ‘playing white’ and ‘passing for white’. D.P. Botha, an eminent Afrikaner theologian, makes the following very illuminating observations:¹⁰

The great mass reveals such a motley character that the government is forced to divide the coloured community into various sub-groups for its purposes, of which the Cape Coloured group is the largest. From the racial point of view, the Coloured as a group defies all classification.... Colour can also not be applied as a criterion. The Coloureds cannot simply be labelled as ‘brown people’, since their colour ranges from white to black. The inefficiency of such a criterion is further emphasized by the fact that many whites are darker than a great many Coloureds and yet are not denied their place in white society because of this.

The Reverend Allan Hendrickse probably speaks for all those classified as ‘coloureds’ when he states:¹¹

The term Coloured is not of our own thinking, and if we look at the circumstances of the South African situation then you must ask why. We have no peculiar colour, we have no peculiar language and if other people see these peculiarities they see them not because they see them but because they want other people to see

9 Ibid., 348.

10 M.G. Whisson & H.W. van der Merwe, Coloured Citizenship in South Africa (Cape Town, 1972), 77.

11 Al Venter, Coloured: A Profile of Two Million South Africans (Cape Town, 1974), 4-5.

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them ....I do not want to be labelled Coloured ...all I want to be known as is South African.

‘Coloureds’ have been variously called ‘Eurafricans’, ‘Cape coloureds’ and ‘bruinmense’ (i.e., brown people). This question of nomenclature is important within the South African way of life, for it will also largely determine one's ascribed role. In his survey on the ‘coloureds’ in Johannesburg, Edelstein came to the following conclusions, which can be regarded as fairly symptomatic of ‘coloured’ attitudes.¹²

Name preferences of ‘Coloureds’	Yes	Percentage
Black	9	2
South African	265	53
Coloured	122	24
Afrikaner	1	0
Brown Afrikaner	1	0
Malay	28	6
Coloured South African	48	10
Cape coloured	19	4
‘Bruinmens’	4	1
Griqua	1	0
Coloured Afrikaner	2	0
Other	0	0

The fact that this survey was conducted in Johannesburg, where the term ‘coloured’ probably has a higher ‘status’ value amidst the overwhelming majority of Africans, may explain the rather high percentage which preferred the term ‘coloured’. The Theron Commission concluded that the ‘coloureds’ preferred to be South Africans. The Commission, in typical white South African fashion, advocated that the various categories of ‘coloured’ be scrapped to make way for one category only, namely ‘coloured’. It did not advocate the abolition of this racist term.

The term ‘coloured, as used in the statutes and by whites in general, is largely a racist one, which is supposed to cover a more or less homogeneous group. Nothing can be further from the truth. The ‘coloureds’ may then be Western in language (i.e. English and/or Afrikaans-speaking), but they are fast becoming black (and homogeneous in purpose at least), because of increasing political oppression.

The justification given by the Afrikaner poet, N.P. van Wyk Louw, in a foreword to Botha's book (1960) on the ‘coloureds’, will find ready acceptance amongst most Afrikaners. Van Wyk Louw writes:¹³

I find the word ‘Kleurling’ [i.e. ‘coloured’] (with or without a capital letter) a nasty word, with a plantation or colonial after-taste

12 M. Edelstein, What Do the Coloureds Think? (Johannesburg, 1974), 77.

13 N.P. van Wyk Louw, the poet, in a foreword to D.P. Botha's book, Die opkoms van ons derde stand (Cape Town, 1960).

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- and perhaps not even good Afrikaans, an imported word; I prefer the word ‘bruinmens’ which I have learnt from the mouths of the brown people themselves when I was a child. And brown as a colour is certainly not ugly. Else why would we try to get it by roasting in the sun?

Van Wyk Louw is of course guilty of hypocrisy here, for while rejecting the one term as being racist, he has no qualms about substituting an equally obnoxious one.

Policy statements

This ambiguous attitude towards the ‘coloureds’ is also found in the policy statements of successive political leaders in South Africa. The ‘coloureds’, in the Cape at least, retained some political rights when the Union of South Africa was formed. In the North, the general attitude was reflected in the constitutions of the Free State Grondwet (1854) and the South African Republic (1858). The Free State Grondwet bluntly stated that, ‘civic rights’ and ‘burgherdom’¹⁴ were reserved for those who were white. The South African Republic said that, ‘the people desire to permit no equality between Coloured people and white inhabitants, in Church or State’.¹⁵

The early statements of Hertzog and Malan make very interesting reading, especially in view of the role both these men played in the rise of Afrikaner nationalism. Between 1910 and 1940 the general line by all governments was that the ‘coloureds’ constituted at least a part of the nation. Prime Minister Hertzog (1924-9) spelt out his ‘coloured’ policy quite clearly in his Smithfield speech in November 1925. To him, the ‘coloured’ belonged to ‘a section of the community closely allied to the white population...fundamentally different from the natives. He owes his origin to us and knows no other civilization than that of the European...even speaks the language of the European as his mothertongue.... Cape Coloured people must be treated on an equality with Europeans - economically, industrially and politically’.¹⁶

Thus, while there was a move to control the influx of Africans into urban areas, ‘coloureds’ were specifically told that they were, to some degree, a part of the nation. Moreover, in Hertzog's speech one comes across a sentiment which will recur in Afrikaner attitudes from this point onwards - the ‘coloureds’ are of us, speak our language, have our culture, are Western by any standards, but different only in that they are darker. We shall see how this statement is later on literally re-echoed in the Theron Commission Report (1976) on the ‘coloureds’.

14 L. Thompson, The Cape Coloured Franchise (Johannesburg, 1949), 9.

15 Ibid., 10.

16 Ibid., 21.

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Hertzog made several attempts to extend the franchise to ‘coloureds’, namely in 1926 and 1929. He even thought of giving the vote to ‘coloureds’ in the Northern provinces. His Minister of the Interior, Dr D.F. Malan, the man who was to become the first ‘apartheid’ Prime Minister in 1948, was to follow his leader's views very closely at this stage. At a Malay conference in 1925, he was reported to have said that, ‘the present government shall see to it that there will be no colour barrier for the Malays or the Coloureds.’¹⁷ In 1928, Malan even opposed a private member's bill seeking the extension of the vote to white women, on the grounds that, ‘the political rights of the white man shall be given to the Coloured people....Personally, I should like to give the vote to the Coloured women.’¹⁸ However, in his speech at Porterville (1938), he was to sound a completely different note, advocating the abolition of the ‘native’ franchise and separate representation for the ‘coloureds’. Indeed by 1934, as founder of the Puritanical National Party, he stood for ‘the logical application of the segregation principle in regard to all Non-Europeans’ and for the introduction of ‘separate residential areas, separate trade unions, and as far as practical also, separate places of work for Europeans and non-Europeans’.¹⁹

It may well be that Malan decided to sacrifice the ‘coloured’ on the altar of Afrikaner nationalism. Politically at least, the ‘coloured’ was brought more into the orbit of separate development from 1948 onwards. Yet, ironically, despite the vain attempts to create, for the ‘coloureds’, a separate identity, successive national governments in South Africa still continued their policies of ambiguity in respect of the ‘coloured’.

Seen also against the backdrop of historical and political events inside the country, the Separate Representation of Voters Act of 1951, which paved the way for the removal of the ‘coloureds’ from the common roll, was hardly surprising. The ‘coloured’ had operated largely within the institutionalized structures of South Africa between 1854 and 1948. ‘Tolerance and restraint’, one is given to understand, are the twin pillars of what came to be known as Cape Liberalism. Yet, these twin concepts are more a recognition by the white man that the ‘coloured’ was behaving himself in playing out his historically ascribed role in society.

17 Die Burger, 18 June 1925.

18 L. Thomson, The Cape Coloured Franchise (Johannesburg, 1949), 25.

19 Ibid., 28.

Afrikaner blueprint for the ‘coloureds’

The South African government is noted for appointing commissions to investigate sociological aspects of various groups in the country, and

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then to sweep their recommendations under the carpet. This happened with the Tomlinson Report in 1955, which dealt with the position of the African in South Africa. The same fate awaited the lengthy Erika Theron Report on the ‘coloureds’ in 1976. It is however prudent to recall that the volumes dedicated to the Poor White Problem, and especially some of the recommendations (Wilcocks, 1932), did not suffer a similar fate, and were readily taken up by the authorities. But then the poor white was enshrined in the imagery of the ‘soap box’ and concentration camp of the Anglo-Boer war: an emotional debt which had to be repaid. Resuscitation of the poor white was essential to Afrikaner nationalism; containment of the ‘blacks and the browns’, fundamental for the survival of the Afrikaner.

Not surprisingly, the government had no difficulty in finding several ‘coloureds’ who were prepared to serve on the Theron Commission. They too, had duped themselves into believing that they were working out the ‘coloured’ destiny at last, in conjunction with their Afrikaner brothers. The Commission came to some disturbing conclusions, at least for white South Africa. It established that 43 per cent of the children born to ‘coloured’ women were illegitimate, and that one fifth of the ‘coloureds’ were either jobless or only working part-time. It turned out that 75 per cent of ‘coloured’ farm workers were living below the subsistence level.

The Theron Commission came to the conclusion that there was no such thing as a peculiarly ‘coloured’ culture, although this was challenged by some other members. ‘In practice, provision must be made for the fact that a large percentage of the Coloureds do indeed form an integral part of the Afrikaans or English-speaking cultural communities through language, religion and general orientation.’²⁰ This conclusion, in 1976, does not differ significantly from that of Hertzog in his Smithfield speech mentioned earlier on. The Commission continues, ‘among the Coloured communities there is essentially no other culture than that of the Afrikaans-or-English-speaking Whites.’²¹ The Commission, therefore advocates that, ‘one should stop viewing the Coloured population as a community which is culturally different and which can be culturally distinguished from the White population.’²²

Some members on the Commission argued, however, that there was such a thing as a ‘coloured’ community and ‘coloured’ culture. Nevertheless, all these views are indications of Afrikaner attitudes towards the ‘coloureds’.

Not surprisingly, the Commission advocated the following general measures: ‘coloureds’ must have a direct say in the decision-making

20 E. Theron, Verslag van die kommissie van Ondersoek na Aangeleenthede rakende die Kleurlingbevolkingsgroep (Pretoria, 1976), 525.

21 Ibid., 505.

22 Ibid., 506.

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policy of the country; one single term should be adopted to describe the ‘coloured’ people; the Immorality Act and the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages should be scrapped from the statute book; ‘coloureds’ should not be restricted from buying agricultural land. The major recommendations of the Theron Commission differ in no way from the pleas of Hertzog in the 1920s, the initial statements of Malan and the sentiments expressed by D.P. Botha in his book, Die opkoms van ons derde stand (1960). It is wholly consonant with the ambiguous attitudes of Afrikanerdom towards the ‘coloureds’. They (i.e. the ‘coloureds’) may then be darker, but they deserve to be within the laager of at least, Afrikaansdom, if not Afrikanerdom.

Now, the interesting part of the Theron Commission was that the final report was a tacit admission by Afrikanerdom that it did not know how to fit the ‘coloureds’ into its concept of the nation. As such, the report is also a reflection of the fluctuating attitudes towards the ‘coloureds’ within Afrikanerdom. A thorough scrutiny of the report reveals some conflicting, albeit minority opinions, among the members of the Commission. These deviating ideas also reflect accurately the uncertainty of the Afrikaner towards the ‘coloured’. In fact, at times, one is forcibly reminded of the late Dr Verwoerd's speech in parliament on the 13 April 1962 when he spoke as follows:²³

One must distinguish between citizenship of a country and...what the components of a homogeneous nation are. There is no doubt that the Coloureds are citizens of this country. There is just as little doubt that they are not part of this homogeneous entity that can be described as ‘the nation’.

The Theron Commission advocated the removal of pin-pricks and not the institution of democracy. And, in this respect, it also reflected the dilemma of the Afrikaner. Total abolition of racial laws would, in Afrikaner eyes, mean total abdication of political power. And the aim of Afrikanerdom is to keep South Africa ‘White and safe for all Whites’.

The initial reaction by the government was, understandably, negative. ‘Coloureds’ who were asked for comment made it quite clear that it was, ‘the whites who carry a degree of expectation from the report...’²⁴ It was, however, the TLSA Journal, in an editorial entitled Theronausea, which expressed the popular mood even before the report was tabled:²⁵

At the time of writing (31 May 1976), we do not know and do not care whether the Report of the Erika Theron Commission on a

23 M. Horrell, Action, Reaction and Counter-action (Johannesburg, 1971), 125.

24 Star, 17 July 1976.

25 The Educational Journal (Cape Town, June 1976), 47:8-12.

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section of the non-citizen majority officially designated as ‘The Coloured People’ is to be published this year, next year or ever. Or whether it appears with or without an umbilical White Paper around its throat, strangling it at birth, as happened to the Tomlinson Report in 1955. It has no relevance either as bait or hook. The Prime Minister, who appointed the Commission, has in effect repudiated its Report in advance (because he no longer needs it) and made it plain that he appointed it not to tell him what to do but merely to tell him how to apply party policy more effectively.