Mind Your Colour

The 'Coloured' Stereotype in South African Literature

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Appendix III
Race classification and definitions in South Africa: what ‘coloured’ is or is not in South Africa

This appendix is largely based on the definitions as laid out in the very useful and instructive booklet by Arthur Suzman entitled Race Classification and Definition in the Legislation of the Union of South Africa 1910-1960 (Johannesburg, 1960).

The Constitution (Grondwet) of the South African Republic of 1858, Article 9

1	‘Het volk will geene gelijkstelling van gekleurden met blanke ingezetenen toestaan, noch in de Kerk noch in Staat’. (The people would tolerate no equality between coloured and white inhabitants either in Church or State). Suzman comments that the term ‘coloured’ as used here is not defined and includes all people of colour.
2	The Precious and Base Metal Act, No. 35, sec. 3. of 1908. Here ‘coloured’ means ‘any African or Asiatic native or any other person who is manifestly a coloured person’.
3	Section 8 of Law 8 of 1893 in the Orange River Colony. Here a ‘coloured’ is defined as ‘a man or woman...of any native tribe in South Africa and also all coloured persons and all who in accordance with the law or custom, are called coloured persons or are treated as such, of whatever race or nationality they may be’.
4	The Native Urban Areas Act, No, 21 of 1923, sec. 29. ‘Any person of mixed European and native descent and shall include any person belonging to the class called Cape Malays’.
5	The Pensions Act No. 22 of 1928 (see amendments of this Act, No. 34 of 1931 and 1934). In the Act of 1928 the definition of a ‘coloured’ is as follows. A ‘coloured’ is neither: a. a Turk or a member of a race or tribe in Asia nor

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	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.
6	The Asiatic (Transvaal Land and Trading) Act No. 29 of 1939 sec. 7. ‘Coloured’ here is defined as ‘Any person other than a European or Asiatic’.
7	The Coloured Persons Settlement Act No. 7 of 1946. ‘Coloured’ here is defined as ‘Any person other than a European, an Asiatic as defined by section 11 of the Asiatics (Land and Trading) Amendment Act (Transvaal), 1919, or a native as defined by section 35 of the Native Administrative Act, 1927’.
8	The Disability Grants Act No. 36 of 1946, sec. 1. Here ‘coloured’ is defined as ‘Any person other than a white person, a native, a Turk, or a member of a race or tribe whose national or ethnic home is Asia and includes a member of the race or class commonly called Cape Malays, or of the race or class commonly called Griquas’.
9	The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, No. 55 of 1949. Here, the legislators were obviously more cautious and resorted to the rather general definitions of European and non-European with appearance playing a prominent part. One suspects that such caution was exercised more to protect the European who looked non-European rather than vice versa. Marriages between European and non-Europeans were considered to be not valid under this act provided that such a marriage was deemed valid if: I ‘it has been solemnized in good faith by a marriage officer and neither of the parties concerned has knowingly made any false statement to the marriage officer relating to the question whether such party is a European or a non-European and II any party to such a marriage professing to be a European or a non-European, as the case may be, is in appearance obviously what he professes to be, or is able to show, in the case of a party professing to be a European, that he habitually consorts with Europeans as a European or, in the case of a party professing to be non-European, that he habitually consorts with non-Europeans as a non-European.’
10	The various Immorality Acts. In the Immorality Act, No. 5 of 1927 which forbade sex across the colour line, the basic terminology resorted to was ‘European and Native’. (The first term was left undefined and ‘native’ was understood to be ‘any member of any aboriginal race or tribe in Africa’). In the Immorality Amendment Act No. 21 of 1950, the term

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	‘Native’ was replaced by the term ‘non-European’, which was defined as: ‘a person who in appearance obviously is or who by general acceptance and repute is a non-European’. The term ‘European’ meant: ‘a person who in appearance obviously is or who by general acceptance and repute is European’.
11	The Population Registration Act of 1950. Here ‘coloured’ means: ‘a person who is not a white person or a native’.
12	The Industrial Conciliation Act, 1956. The definition of ‘coloured’ is the same as in 11.
13	The Nursing Act of 1957. The definition of ‘Coloured’ is the same as in 11 and 12.
14	The Group Areas Act No. 77 of 1957 which is a consolidation of the Group Areas Act of 1950 (the numerous amendments) interprets the ‘Coloured Group’ as being neither White nor ‘Native’.
15	Proclamation 46 of 1959 was declared invalid by the High Court because of its vagueness, as if the other definitions were so crystal clear. Here the basis for the division of the ‘coloured’ into seven different categories (see 16) was laid.
16	Proclamation 123 of 1967 divided ‘coloured’ people into the following categories, namely: (1) Cape Coloured; (2) Malay; (3) Griqua; (4) Chinese; (5) Indian; (6) ‘other’ Asiatic; (7) ‘other’ Coloured.

Postscript: In order to grasp fully the horror of these laws the following examples as described in Venter (1974) are cited:

a. Here it concerns a young man who was obviously white but reclassified as ‘coloured’. This interfered with his marriage plans to an Afrikaner girl. The letter he received from the Race Classification Board read as follows:¹

Sir, I have to advise you that this office has at its disposal certain information contradictory to your statement on your census forms: viz. that you are a White person. After careful consideration of the available information I am inclined to the view that your race description as reflected on the census form should be amended to read ‘Coloured’ instead of ‘White’.

The young man in question was eventually re-classified as white but the damage was done and he is now considering emigration (or has already left the country).

Another case in which a man was declared Indian in Cape Town cost the taxpayer, according to Venter,² R5000. The man was later declared Cape Malay by the Appeal Board (of the Race

1 A. Venter, Coloured, a Profile of Two Million South Africans (Cape Town, 1974), 120.

2 Ibid., 127.

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Classification Board) and by the Supreme Court. He is still without a ‘race’ card and therefore does not exist officially, such being possible only after due classification.

A famous case was that involving Sandra Laing, who at the age of eleven, was declared ‘coloured’, and therefore forced to leave her ‘White parents’ and family, to live in a ‘coloured’ area. She then went to live with an African, and was later again re-classified as white, although by general acceptance and repute, she was by now non-white.

In some instances, people have committed suicide. The white Boxing Champion of the Cape, Ronnie van der Walt, who suddenly found himself re-classified as ‘coloured’, and therefore stripped of his privileges and titles (apart from becoming a criminal because he lived in a white area), simply chose exile and anonymity in England.

b. Apparently the division of people into European and non-European was dropped, because American visitors unwittingly used the non-European entrances, which they naïvely thought were erected for people who did not geographically come from Europe.