Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification in the Western world, the term "black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations. It is most commonly used for people of sub-Saharan African ancestry, Indigenous Australians and Melanesians, though it has been applied in many contexts to other groups, and is no indicator of any close ancestral relationship whatsoever. Indigenous African societies do not use the term black as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures.
Cape Coloureds are a South African ethnic classification consisting primarily of persons of mixed race African, Asian and European descent.
Mulatto is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Italian, Spanish and Portuguese it is not, and can even be a source of pride. A mulatta is a female mulatto.
Coloureds refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. South Africa's Coloured people are regarded as having some of the most diverse genetic backgrounds. Because of the vast combination of genetics, different families and individuals within a family may have a variety of different physical features.
In South Africa, Asian usually refers to people of South Asian ancestry, more commonly called Indians. They are largely descended from people who migrated to South Africa in the late 19th and early 20th century from British ruled South Asia.
The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, Act No. 55 of 1949, was an apartheid-era law in South Africa that prohibited marriages between "whites" and "non-whites". It was among the first pieces of apartheid legislation to be passed following the National Party's rise to power in 1948. Subsequent legislation, especially the Population Registration and Immorality Acts of 1950, facilitated its implementation by requiring all individuals living in South Africa to register as a member of one of four officially defined racial groups and prohibiting extramarital sexual relationships between those classified as "white" on the one hand and those classified as "non-White" on the other. It did not criminalize sexual relationships between those classified as "non-Europeans".
Colored is a racial descriptor historically used in the United States during the Jim Crow Era to refer to an African American. In many places, it may be considered a slur, though it has taken on a special meaning in Southern Africa referring to a person of mixed Black and White heritage.
The one-drop rule was a legal principle of racial classification that was prominent in the 20th-century United States. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of black ancestry is considered black. It is an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status, regardless of proportion of ancestry in different groups.
The Population Registration Act of 1950 required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics as part of the system of apartheid.
Apartheid was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was characterised by an authoritarian political culture based on baasskap, which ensured that South Africa was dominated politically, socially, and economically by the nation's minority white population. In this minoritarian system, there was social stratification, where white citizens had the highest status, followed by Indians and Coloureds, then Black Africans. The economic legacy and social effects of apartheid continue to the present day, particularly inequality.
The Apartheid Museum is a museum in Johannesburg, South Africa, illustrating apartheid and the 20th-century history of South Africa. The museum, part of the Gold Reef City complex, was opened in November 2001.
Negrophobia is characterized by a fear, hatred or extreme aversion to Black people and Cape Coloureds or Coloureds, and Black culture worldwide. Caused amongst other factors by racism and traumatic events and circumstances, symptoms of this phobia include but are not limited to the attribution of negative characteristics to Black and Coloured people, the fear or the strong dislike of Black and Coloured men and the objectification of Black and Coloured women.
The system of racial segregation and oppression in South Africa known as apartheid was implemented and enforced by many acts and other laws. This legislation served to institutionalize racial discrimination and the dominance by white people over people of other races. While the bulk of this legislation was enacted after the election of the National Party government in 1948, it was preceded by discriminatory legislation enacted under earlier British and Afrikaner governments. Apartheid is distinguished from segregation in other countries by the systematic way in which it was formalized in law.
Brown is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a light to moderate brown complexion.
Sandra Laing is a South African woman who was classified as Coloured by authorities during the apartheid era, due to her skin colour and hair texture, although she was officially listed as the child of at least three generations of ancestors who had been regarded as white. At the age of 10, she was expelled from her all-white school, and the authorities' decisions based on her appearance disrupted her family and adult life.
Nelson Mandela's electoral victory in the first democratic 1994 general election signified the end of apartheid in South Africa, a system of widespread racially-based segregation to enforce almost complete separation of different races in South Africa. Under the apartheid system, South Africans were classified into four different races: White, Black, Coloured, and Indian/Asian, with about 80% of the South African population classified as Black, 9% as White, 9% as Coloured, and 2% as Indian/Asian. Under apartheid, Whites held almost all political power in South Africa, with other races almost completely marginalised from the political process.
Skin is a 2008 biographical drama film directed by Anthony Fabian. It is based on the book When She Was White: The True Story of a Family Divided by Race by Judith Stone, and the life of Sandra Laing, a South African woman born to white parents, who was classified as "Coloured" during the apartheid era, presumably due to a genetic case of atavism.
Racism in South Africa can be traced back to the earliest historical accounts of interactions between African, Asian, and European peoples along the coast of Southern Africa. It has existed throughout several centuries of the history of South Africa, dating back to the Dutch colonization of Southern Africa, which started in 1652. Before universal suffrage was achieved in 1994, White South Africans, especially Afrikaners during the period of Apartheid, enjoyed various legally or socially sanctioned privileges and rights that were denied to the indigenous African peoples. Examples of systematic racism over the course of South Africa's history include forced removals, racial inequality and segregation, uneven resource distribution, and disenfranchisement. Racial controversies and politics remain major phenomena in the country.
Coloured people in Namibia are people with both European and African, especially Khoisan and Bantu ancestry, as well as Indian, Malay, and Malagasy ancestry especially along the coast and areas bordering South Africa. Coloureds have immigrated to Namibia, been born in Namibia or returned to the country. These distinctively different periods of arrivals, from diverse backgrounds and origins have led to a diverse Coloured population. This diversity was even further exploited by South African officials who referred to three distinct groups amongst the coloureds, namely: "Baster", "Cape Coloureds" and "Namibian Coloureds".
The Middle Children is a collection of fourteen short stories written by South African writer Rayda Jacobs, based mostly on her experience living through apartheid and published in Canada in 1994. Through these short stories the reader learns about apartheid, exile, and living as a black person who can pass as white, as well as the struggles that come with it, through the main character's eyes.
