Dominant Narratives of Whiteness in Identity Construction of Mixed-Race Young Adults in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

Despite the relative freedoms gained after the transition to democracy in 1994 in South Africa, dominant narratives of Whiteness stemming from settler-colonial and apartheid legacies of White supremacy remain pervasive within all structures of post-apartheid society, including the identity construction and racialisation of first-generation mixed-race people. This research explored how dominant narratives of Whiteness influence the construction of identity among mixed-race youth in post-apartheid South Africa. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 participants who have one White parent and one parent of colour and were considered ‘born frees’, as they were born during or after the transition to democracy. Guided by critical race theory, through thematic analysis, three main themes emerged: defying Rainbowism, rejecting Whiteness, and policing identity. Ultimately, this research critically investigates how mixed-race people have constructed their identities while navigating pervasive power structures of White supremacy that continue to shape the rigid racial categorisations in post-apartheid South Africa.

Full text

Citation: Metcalfe, Jody. 2022.
Dominant Narratives of Whiteness in
Identity Construction of Mixed-Race
Young Adults in Post-Apartheid
South Africa. Social Sciences 11: 205.
https://doi.org/10.3390/
socsci11050205
Academic Editors: David L. Brunsma
and Jennifer Sims
Received: 14 October 2021
Accepted: 5 May 2022
Published: 8 May 2022
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social sciences
Article
Dominant Narratives of Whiteness in Identity Construction of
Mixed-Race Young Adults in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Jody Metcalfe
Department of English Studies and Anglophone Literatures, Faculty of Languages and Literatures,
University of Bayreuth, 95477 Bayreuth, Germany; jodezm@gmail.com
Abstract:
Despite the relative freedoms gained after the transition to democracy in 1994 in South
Africa, dominant narratives of Whiteness stemming from settler-colonial and apartheid legacies of
White supremacy remain pervasive within all structures of post-apartheid society, including the
identity construction and racialisation of first-generation mixed-race people. This research explored
how dominant narratives of Whiteness influence the construction of identity among mixed-race
youth in post-apartheid South Africa. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with
10 participants who have one White parent and one parent of colour and were considered ‘born
frees’, as they were born during or after the transition to democracy. Guided by critical race theory,
through thematic analysis, three main themes emerged: defying Rainbowism, rejecting Whiteness,
and policing identity. Ultimately, this research critically investigates how mixed-race people have
constructed their identities while navigating pervasive power structures of White supremacy that
continue to shape the rigid racial categorisations in post-apartheid South Africa.
Keywords:
mixed-race; Whiteness; identity; racism; critical race theory; post-apartheid South Africa
1. Introduction
To grow up mixed-race in post-apartheid South Africa should symbolise the transcen-
dence of racial segregation encapsulated in the Rainbow Nation ideology, proposed as a
strategy for national healing at the end of apartheid in 1994. However, rigid constructions
of identity and racial categorisations continue to organise society into rigid lines of archaic
apartheid categories that seek to divide and conquer. The legacies of this oppression
concerning race, class, and culture remain inextricably rooted in the South African experi-
ence. These stem from the systematic entrenchment of White supremacy through settler
colonialism and apartheid.
Research in South Africa on mixed-race identity is currently focused on the experiences
of those in interracial relationships and the effects of stigma and attitudes towards mixed
families. Research by Childs (2015), Dalmage (2018), and Steyn et al. (2018) focus primarily
on the experience of the interracial couple and their attitudes towards the identity construc-
tion of their mixed-race children. There are few examples of published work on mixed-race
identity construction from their perspective. The research presented in this paper seeks
to add to this limited field by investigating the identity construction of first-generation
mixed-race South Africans and the influence of White supremacy in this process.
First-generation here refers to people who have parents of different races. This dis-
tinction is necessary to make because of the existence of the apartheid racial category of
‘Coloured’, a generalised group of people with a racially mixed heritage that includes
slaves from Southeast Asia, indigenous groups such as those who make up the Khoe or San
people, those who do not fall into the apartheid categorisations of White, Indian, Asian,
or Black, and those whose mixed heritage stems from the violent nature of colonialism
and apartheid or from ‘illegal
´
interracial relationships under apartheid. Coloured identity
can be considered a cultural and creolised identity stemming from hundreds of years of
Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci11050205 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/socsci

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 2 of 23
heritage. Thus, a first-generation mixed-race person in post-apartheid South Africa, with
one Black parent and one White, would not be considered Coloured because they have
not inherited that cultural identity and historical legacy of that culture. These complexities
are central to how first-generation mixed-race people navigate personal and public spaces
within the context where they exist, outside of essentialised racial categorisations that aim
to stagnate and limit their identities.
2. Background
Post-apartheid South Africa today remains a deeply racialised society. This legacy
stems from centuries of Dutch and British colonialism, compounded by the apartheid
regime. Centuries of people of colour’s oppression by dominant White minority rule and
dominant narratives of Whiteness have become entrenched in its social fabric. Although
South Africa is not isolated in feeling the continued effects of colonial legacies (Steyn 2005;
Mhlauli et al. 2015;Reddy 2015), dominant narratives of Whiteness continue to polarise
post-apartheid society. To understand this racial legacy, it is essential to know where
it began.
2.1. Apartheid, Colonialism, and the Legacy of Oppression
Colonialism in South Africa ‘officially’ began with the Dutch in 1652, leading to years
of exploitation of the indigenous population. In addition, the arrival of British settlers in
1820 spurred a war for the ‘right’ to control South Africa, considered an important trade
port at the time, between the two colonisers at the expense of the indigenous population
(Mhlauli et al. 2015, p. 204). In addition, Mhlauli et al. (2015) argue that, due to the
expansion of the ‘science’ of race, White settlers believed they were superior to the African
‘native’, thus contributing to vast expansion through the exploitation of Black bodies on the
continent. Through these types of White settler colonialism, the concurrent theme of racial
discrimination and White superiority remains a legacy.
This colonial legacy paved the way for policies and laws to formalise and regulate
racial classifications and the forced separation of racial groups, extending into the apartheid
regime, which enforced many racist and segregationist laws and further entrenched White
supremacist structures. Only the most pertinent to this research will be mentioned here.
Laws such as the Prohibition of Mixed-Marriages Act of 1949 (PMMA), the Population
Registration Act of 1950 (PRA), and the Immorality Act of 1950 (IA), created at the inception
of the apartheid regime in 1948, were explicitly used to separate people along racialised
lines and to ensure the continuity of White supremacy. From the ‘top’ of the racial hierarchy
to the ‘bottom’, the classifications are as follows: White (European), Asian, Indian, Coloured,
and Black (Bantu/African).
The PRA was explicitly designed to ensure racialised racial classifications through
registration to designated races. Posel (2001) argues that the purpose of the PRA was
to ensure racial purity through a more rigid and ‘orderly’ system of racial classification
of racially ambiguous people—such as fair-skinned Coloured people. Both Posel (2001)
and Reddy (2001) argue that, due to this classification’s rigidity, there was no room for
ambiguity, thereby giving each classification distinct racialised descriptions and markers.
The apartheid regime doled out privilege and resources based on their socially constructed
racial hierarchy, thus entrenching the racial and socio-economic inequality visible in post-
apartheid society. Other acts aimed at the racial and social engineering of oppression
were the PMMA and the IA. The IA was an amended version of a 1927 colonial act that
prohibited and criminalised engagement in inter-racial sex. The IA and the PMMA intended
to prevent the ‘immoral’ act of inter-racial relations to preserve ‘racial purity’, specifically
in the ‘protection’ of White purity; the policing of which extended into constant harassment
and surveillance by police (Jacobson et al. 2004). In many cases, interracial couples faced
rejection from families, friends, and communities, and others were forced into exile.
The legacies of sexualised racism remain critical to understanding attitudes about
interracial relationships and the children produced in these relationships in post-apartheid

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 3 of 23
South Africa today (Moodley and Adam 2000). They argue that the conservative nature
of sexual politics in post-apartheid reflects a social hangover of years of indoctrination of
conservative governance regarding interracial relationships as well as marriage regulation.
Outdated assumptions that mixed-race children will be confused due to the perceived
cultural conflict between parents are often used as modern arguments layered over racist
and purist thinking (Moodley and Adam 2000).
2.2. Post-Apartheid South Africa and Other Utopian Dreams
In post-apartheid South Africa, the narrative of the ‘Rainbow Nation’ and the ‘born
frees’ became nation-building tools and, to a certain extent, remains a key driving force
behind strategies of reconciliation and transformation in post-apartheid South Africa. At
the turn of democracy in 1994, South Africa needed to take steps to ensure the healing and
transformation of a society reeling from centuries of oppression against more than 80 per
cent of its population. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) began in 1996 and
would act as a space for South Africans from all levels of society to provide testimony of
their oppression or acts of oppression during the apartheid era. Despite its limitations,
Gqola (2001) argues that the TRC sought to foster a new sense of national identity to create
a shared ‘South Africanness’ or the Rainbow Nation.
Gqola (2001, p. 98) argues that ‘Rainbowism’ became an ‘authorising narrative which
assisted in the denial of difference’. Here, Gqola (2001) argues that the narrative of the
Rainbow Nation has become synonymous with South Africa and that, in its attempt to
acknowledge difference, although superficially, it stifles conversation around interrogating
racialised, gendered, and class-based power dynamics, especially in a system still regulated
by White supremacy. Moreover, while this doctrine seems to have fostered a keen sense
of national unity, Gqola (2001) argues that it has silenced engagement and discussion of
racialised atrocities, in some cases to the point of denial of past injustices.
Beneath the debate about non-racialism in post-apartheid South Africa lies the danger
of colourblindness, which fails to consider the deep entrenchment of institutional and struc-
tural racism and White supremacy. Baines (1998), Moodley and Adam (2000),
Gqola (2001)
,
Reddy (2001), Ansell (2004), and Mbembe (2008) all argue that, despite attempts at non-
racialism through the ideology of the Rainbow Nation, racial identities have remained
resilient in their continued existence and the importance placed on them. Thus, as Moodley
and Adam (2000) argue, this guise of ‘Rainbowism’ has created a romanticised mirage of
racial transformation in a country that remains utterly unequal, and racism remains alive
and well.
Research on mixed-race identity within post-apartheid society is primarily focused
on interracial relationships (Childs 2015;Dalmage 2018;Steyn et al. 2018). These authors
highlight the legacy of apartheid laws that prohibited interracial relationships and their
effect on how people perceive interracial relationships and how people in interracial
relationships navigate their relationships. Steyn et al. (2018) note how interracial couples
experience the policing of their relationship by others and the racial stereotypes projected
on them as individuals. This is further exacerbated in relationships with one White person,
where the partner of colour will find themselves in situations where they are the only
person of colour, and stereotypes are projected onto them by White people in that space.
The theme of policing is further supported by Dalmage (2018), who argues that interracial
couples are often subject to ‘border patrollers’ who attempt to control and regulate spaces
through policing stereotypical racial categorisations and the gatekeeping movement across
these racial borders, showing the pervasiveness of racist apartheid thinking.
While Childs (2015) asked participants how they perceived interracial relationships
whether they were in one or not, they noted that, across the board, participants seemed
to support the idea that, in post-apartheid South Africa, interracial dating was accepted.
However, despite their claims, participants spoke of pressures to date people of the same
race and the potential isolation, ridicule, and alienation one could receive for being in an
interracial relationship, especially with a White partner (Childs 2015). From these examples,

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 4 of 23
it is clear that there has been a focus on interracial families, but not on the perspectives
and lived experiences of the children of interracial couples, nor has the role of entrenched
structures of White supremacy on these children, as children or as adults, been considered.
3. Literature Review
This literature review aims to situate the impact of dominant narratives of Whiteness
on the identity construction of first-generation mixed-race people within the South African
context. The dominant narratives of Whiteness focused on throughout this paper stem
from the legacies and entrenchment of White supremacy through colonialism, racialised
science, and apartheid policies and laws. In addition, these narratives are prevalent in
the construction of non-racialist ideologies such as the Rainbow Nation that continue to
uphold White privilege while simultaneously invisibilising and minimising its harmful
legacies. Finally, these dominant narratives of Whiteness are sustained through structural
racism steeped in out-dated, racialised thinking and rigid racial classifications that remain
policed and regulated in post-apartheid society.
3.1. Narratives of Whiteness
Steyn (2001, p. 21) argues that ‘master narratives of Whiteness’, fostered through
European colonialism, ‘both signified and legitimised domination, serving to oppress other
articulations [that were not aligned to European narratives]’. Within the colonial ideology,
the ‘civilisation of the native savage’ became central to justification. Steyn (2001) shows not
only was erasing and rewriting the history of ‘natives’ essential to colonial undertakings
but was also considered a ‘moral duty’. Through this, the power to define the self and the
other was limited to White people to attain and wield.
On colonial discourse and elements of class, Steyn (2001) argues that, while there
were working class White people, they still benefitted from the advantages of Whiteness,
although not in the same way. In addition, both Steyn (2001) and Conway (2017) argue
that many of these benefits predicated on being a White male, which extends to the present
day. Steyn (2001) argues that these ideologies have formed together to create and sustain
master narratives of Whiteness through the deformation of symbolic practices to entrench
domination and dependence, ensuring that processes of constructing meaning were based
on dominant beliefs accepted without criticism.
The manufacturing of Whiteness and White identities during the apartheid era was
done in conjunction with creating pockets of privilege, entrenched within the political
economy of the time, that White people continue to benefit from today (Baines 1998;
Moodley and Adam 2000;Dolby 2001;Mbembe 2008). This is especially the case in creating
differential racialisation and categories of the ‘other’ in opposition to Whiteness. For
example, using the term ‘non-White’ means to ‘other’ those who do not fit within those
categories, thereby instilling a power dynamic of Whiteness as superior. Ballard (2004)
argues that racial classifications were created to ‘other’ different races, where White, as
an identity, is equated to White supremacism that ensures that Whiteness was attached
to a positive image that reflected ‘good’ qualities. Therefore, Steyn (2005, p. 121) argues
that Whiteness is ‘the shared social space in which the psychological, cultural, political
and economic dimensions of this privileged positionality are normalised and rendered
unremarkable’.
Steyn (2001, p. 25; 2005) argues that White South Africans never entirely had comfort-
able assurance that they would remain superior in all aspects of life; thus, there was ‘the fear
of being overrun, the fear of domination, the fear of losing the purity that was supposed
to guarantee their superiority, [and] the fear of cultural genocide, through intermingling’.
Whiteness in South Africa was thus created within a destructive cycle of fear, anxiety, and
control, resulting in harsh repression to abate these fears.
In post-apartheid South Africa, Mbembe (2008) argues that the current form of White
supremacy takes on a different form. It previously focused on the entrenchment of Black
‘inferiority’; now, it manifests in the denial that past racial injustice can be addressed, thereby

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 5 of 23
preserving and protecting racial differences to ensure that meaningful racial redress does
not occur (Mbembe 2008, pp. 10–11). In this way, White supremacy in post-apartheid South
Africa is maintained by both the supporters of apartheid and the White liberal.
3.2. White Liberalism
While it is true that some White South Africans fought against the apartheid regime
and were part of anti-apartheid organisations, many authors, ranging from Steve
Biko (1978)
to Conway (2017), have discussed the limitations of this participation as Whiteness remains
dominant in post-apartheid South Africa. In a collection of his writing during apartheid, I
Write What I Like,Biko (1978, p. 21) defines White liberals as ‘people who claim that they
too feel oppression just as acutely as the Blacks and therefore should be jointly involved in
the Black man’s struggle for a place under the sun. In short, these are people who say that
they have Black souls wrapped up in White skin’. Here, Biko discusses how White liberals
who were active within various anti-apartheid organisations attempted to retain power
through dictating strategy, supposedly on ‘behalf’ of Black people.
In another chapter, Biko (1978) argues that one cannot identify with an oppressed
group in its entirety while enjoying the privileges of the continued oppression of that group,
meaning that Whiteness is still privileged by the system, and this privilege is not something
that a White person can escape. In the same vein, Biko (1978) warns that, for proper
integration of society, the White liberal must educate other White people so that the process
will run smoothly when the time comes to make changes in South Africa. Furthermore,
Bradshaw (2014) supports Biko’s (1978) argument that there can be no integration if it
means the assimilation of one group to another, of which White people working towards
anti-racism have been guilty.
By highlighting Biko’s (1978) arguments, it is evident that the post-apartheid White
liberal remains the same. Conway (2017) and Bradshaw (2014) argue that White liberalism
in the present day denies complicity, however partial, in the apartheid regime, creates
false knowledge about both past and present, and aims to discredit any critique of their
racial privilege. Similarly, Steyn and Foster (2008) argue that ‘White Talk’ in South Africa
facilitates the privilege of holding a dominant racial identity and the displacement of a
diasporic person. White Talk, as argued by Steyn (2005), is used to deal with emotional
dissonance and as a strategy to preserve privilege through the maintenance of the status quo;
this is done by preserving inherited privilege and their centred positionality throughout
history where they are placed in the dominant position to the ‘other’.
Modiri (2012) notes a continuation of racial prejudice within post-apartheid South
Africa, but because it manifests structurally, it often falls under the radar in areas such as
poverty, crime, sports, language, and the renaming of public roads and spaces. Moreover,
in Mbembe’s (2008) discussion of denialism of White racism, he argues that many White
people retreat into a comfortability of non-culpability for past injustices through ignoring
their enormous socioeconomic privilege. Thus, through this denial, the White liberal claims
that White racism is no longer responsible for the impoverishment of Black people and
that, through ‘uncritical acceptance’, they are autonomously self-made and self-reliant
(Modiri 2012, p. 238).
Modiri (2012, p. 238) argues that White liberals rely overly on the ‘constitutional
promise of formal legal equality’. As a result, many White people believe that no further
action is required, as the law will ensure that equality will be created. Added to this,
Modiri (2012, p. 254)
discusses ‘White backlash politics’, that is, the ‘legal strategies, rhetor-
ical discourses and discursive habits, political mobilisation, conscious and unconscious
practices and mindset by which Whites seek to preserve their interests and privilege sta-
tus and justify disproportionate disadvantage suffered by Blacks’. Here, Modiri (2012)
argues that the White backlash politics in South Africa today manifest in the belief of
reverse-racism and call for colourblindness and merit. Moreover, Modiri (2012) argues that
these backlash politics rely on the principle of non-racialism—espoused by the ideology
of the Rainbow Nation and heavily grounded within White supremacy stemming from

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 6 of 23
settler colonialism—that seeks to, in new ways, maintain the enslavement, impoverishment,
marginalisation, and invisibilisation of the majority of Black people.
Cornel Verwey and Quayle (2012), in their research on Whiteness, racism, and Afrikaner
identity in post-apartheid South Africa, argue that there has been a downplaying of racism
amongst White people, particularly Afrikaner White people, in a bid to distance themselves
from the legacy of Afrikaans nationalism that was used as a means of indoctrination during
apartheid. Verwey and Quayle (2012, p. 565) argue that many participants hide their
racism and allude to ‘racist comments’ or ‘jokes’ and reserve these comments for in-group
conversations or what they call ‘braai place
1
politics’. For example, ‘look, don’t tell a K*
2
that he is a K*
. . .
he’s a human being man’. Here, Verwey and Quayle (2012, p. 565) argue
that this comment is deeply cryptic as the participant chose to use the K-word twice, rather
than replacing it with ‘Black man’, suggesting that considering a Black man as a human
being is reserved for public talk, and the use of the K-word as a descriptor remains within
the private bubble of ‘comfortable’ racism.
Like discussions by Mbembe (2008), Modiri (2012), Steyn (2005), Bradshaw (2014), and
Conway (2017), in Gqola’s (2001, p. 101) exploration of Whiteness in post-apartheid South
Africa, she cites Adrienne Rich’s term ’White solipsism’, which describes the propensity
to ‘think, imagine, and speak as if Whiteness described the world’. She goes on to argue
that White solipsism is not the belief in racial superiority; rather, it is the limited view
that experiences of people who are not White are not significant, as they do not speak to
their reality, except for sporadic moments of guilt benefiting from a system that oppresses
people of colour (Gqola 2001). White solipsism then exists within the discourse around
White liberals and White Talk in present-day South Africa. This supports Mbembe’s (2008)
argument that White supremacy operates in a way that denies the atrocities committed
during the past so that White people can continue to benefit from and not engage with the
privileges they received as a result.
Arguments and contestation surrounding the White liberal and their role past and
present are central to showing how Whiteness, in its construction of purity and protection of
privilege, remains an influencing factor in the identity construction of people of colour. This
is because the ‘other’ is constructed through the structural racism premised on upholding
White supremacy. This is emulated through regulations of racial classifications, and racial
identities created in this system were policed and controlled by the population themselves,
not only the apartheid state. This is evident in post-apartheid South Africa and has been
sustained through a societal policy of a country still intoxicated by fixed racial boxes
and stereotyping.
3.3. Coloured Identity
For Coloured, Indian, and Asian people, according to apartheid law, they occupied
a space ‘between’ Whiteness and Blackness, meaning that, by apartheid standards, they
were considered ‘more than’ Black Africans, but ‘less than’ White people. Reddy (2001)
argues that the broad range of categorisations of Coloured, meaning neither Black nor
White, exposes the loopholes in the racial classification system. The apartheid government
sought to sub-divide within the category of Coloured through the Population Registration
Act of 1950. These categories were ‘Cape Coloured, Cape Malay, Griqua, Indian, Chinese,
“other Asiatic”, and “other Coloured”’ (Reddy 2001, p. 75). For a brief period, Chinese
people were considered ‘honorary’ Whites. The category of Coloured had been used within
settler colonialism and was reified through the apartheid regime (Scully 1995;Reddy 2001).
Reddy (2001)
argues that narratives behind racial classification were based on fixed rigid
beliefs of ‘pure races’—ascribed to White, Black, and some Asiatic, whereas Coloured
people were recognised as ‘mixed blood’.
Zimitri Erasmus (2001, p. 13) argues that ‘growing up Coloured meant knowing
that I was not only not White; not only not Black, but better than Black’. In addition, she
argues that occupying the identity of being Coloured means a constant negotiation of
choosing between Whiteness and Blackness and, through this negotiation, denying part of

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 7 of 23
yourself (Erasmus 2001). Erasmus (2001) argues that Coloured identity is based on cultural
creativity and the creolisation of identity that has been shaped by a history of segregation
and shame, rather than based on ‘race mixture’, which diminishes the history of Coloured
people in South Africa. Similarly, Mohamed Adhikari (2009, p. 13) argues that ‘Coloured
identity cannot be taken as a given but as a product of human agency dependent on a
complex interplay of historical, social, cultural, political, and other contingencies’. Both
Adhikari (2009)
and Erasmus (2001,2017) argue that, in post-apartheid South Africa, racial
debates have consisted of Black–White reductionism, thereby reducing Coloured people to
faceless, agency-less bystanders to history. However, it is essential to note that Coloured
people did experience a false sense of privilege within the apartheid racial hierarchy where
they received better services than Black people and were often brought into corroboration
with the apartheid regime, part of the apartheid government’s plan to ensure the continued
marginalisation of Black people while maintaining their policy of separate development
(Ruiters 2009;Adhikari 2009;Erasmus 2001,2017;Gqola 2010;Pirtle 2021).
Apartheid sought to establish legal and formal racial segregation to create races in
relation to a ‘uniform’ identity. Coloured people have formulated a shared cultural identity
from generations of this forced segregation that supersedes formal apartheid rule. This
history provides Coloured people in specific locations with a shared historical legacy where
their multiracial history has been forced into one racial category. For first-generation mixed-
race people, they exist between two racial categories, and if the racial categorisation of
one of their parents is not Coloured, they do not have access to the historical, cultural,
and racialised legacy of Coloured identity. In this way, first-generation mixed-race people
considered in this study straddle the line of Whiteness and the ‘other’ and, at the same
time, challenge colonial and apartheid narratives of racial categorisations.
Ruiters (2009, p. 109) argues that ‘all identities are constructed relationally, meaning
that people act in response to the political and social realities when they define and redefine
who they are’. In post-apartheid South Africa, constructions of racial identity remain a
process of reclaiming and renaming to find new meanings. Constructions of identity are
influenced by the political and socio-economic climate, compounded by decolonial thinking
challenging White supremacy at an institutional and societal level.
3.4. White Supremacy in Post-Apartheid South Africa
Within post-apartheid South Africa, subliminal or overt racism continues to shape its
social and political landscape through the maintenance of apartheid era White supremacy,
where White elites continue to gain from the legacy of White minority rule. Modiri (2012,
p. 247) argues that White supremacy within this context ‘denotes a system in which Whites
maintain overwhelming control and power not just in a material sense but in a symbolic
sense as well’. In contemporary South Africa, discussions around Whiteness focus on its
continued privilege, afforded by legacies of prolonged White minority rule (Dolby 2001;
Mbembe 2008;Conway 2017;Verwey and Quayle 2012). As a result, Whiteness is often
invisibilised (Dolby 2001;Steyn 2005;Mbembe 2008;Modiri 2012). Whiteness is not silenced
or marginalised; rather, it is an omnipresent racial identity that privileges those who benefit
from it and oppresses those who do not. What must be noted is that, while racial identity
in South Africa has changed and shifted with changing social contexts, White supremacist
structures remain entrenched in these changes.
Pirtle (2021) applies a critical race approach to understanding the influence of the state
in re-making racial identity, with a specific focus on Coloured Identity in post-apartheid
South Africa. She argues that the post-apartheid state has attempted to use non-racial and
progressive language in their redress policies to redefine apartheid era racial categories.
However, she found that this push for nonracialism was not effective in establishing
racial equality, especially with remaking and re-defining the racial category of Coloured
(
Pirtle 2021, p. 155
). Using the example of the inclusion of Coloured under the category
of Black in policies of economic redress, Pirtle (2021) argues that this shows the apartheid
state’s role in the de- and re-formation process of identity, despite the role of individuals

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 8 of 23
in continuing to cultivate Coloured identity for themselves. Thus, Pirtle (2021) summates
that this de- and re-forming process, the state’s racial project of ‘allowing a supposedly
inclusive grouping to silence specific concerns about racial distinctions’, changes the way
that racial categories are considered in post-apartheid South Africa (Pirtle 2021, p. 156).
What Modiri’s (2012) and Pirtle’s (2021) arguments show is that there is a basis for
interrogating racial categorisations and racialised structures in the post-apartheid context
and that, despite emphasis on non-racialised legal and political policies, as
Pirtle (2021)
suggests, these interrogations can lead to a discussion about how racial categories can be
undone and shifted through an analysis of the racial middle, referring to those who do
not fit within mainstream racial categorisation, such as first-generation mixed-race people.
I argue that first-generation mixed-race people not only disrupt dominant narratives of
race, but that they also transcend the social context to construct their own racial iden-
tity that exists outside of existing racialised norms, despite the pervasiveness of White
supremacist structures.
3.5. The Present Study
This paper interrogates how dominant narratives of Whiteness, stemming from settler-
colonial and apartheid legacies of White supremacy, remain pervasive within all structures
of South African society, including the identity construction and racialisation of mixed-race
people, despite the relative freedoms gained in post-apartheid South Africa. It unpacks
how first-generation mixed-race people engage in an identity that does not fit general
categories of racial identity and how they are often forced to choose one racial identity, thus
never being allowed to exist in the grey area between two rigid racial identities. I argue that
first-generation mixed-race people not only disrupt dominant narratives of race, but they
also transcend the social context to construct their own racial identity that exists outside of
existing racialised norms, despite the pervasiveness of White supremacist structures. In
this way, they inhibit both Whiteness and the ‘other’.
Finally, this paper aims to show the complexities of racial categorisations and how
mixed-race people in post-apartheid South Africa defy and challenge colonial legacies
of Whiteness and White supremacy by considering their perceptions of the Rainbow
Nation ideology, how they challenge White supremacy, and how they and others police
their identity. The main question is then: How have dominant narratives of Whiteness
influenced the identity construction of first-generation mixed-race people in post-apartheid
South Africa?
4. Methodology and Methods
Semi-structured, in-depth, and open-ended interviews were used to conduct my
research in this study. As questions were semi-structured and open-ended, the questions
served as a guide, and participants were free to interpret questions as applicable to their
experiences. Earl Babbie and Johann Mouton (Babbie and Mouton 2001, p. 289) argue
that open interviews are ‘essentially a conversation in which the interviewer establishes a
general direction for the conversation and pursues specific topics raised by the respondent’.
This method would give space for a conversation-like interview that flowed with a sharing
of lived experiences, rather than a rigid, interrogation-like interview, limiting participants’
responses and their comfort to share personal reflections. Participants were asked the same
six open-ended questions crafted by the researcher. In addition, participants were given
an interview information sheet and the interview questions before the interview, with
sufficient time to consider and the option to resign from the process at any time, as stated
on the consent form they signed. The study received ethical clearance from the Department
of Political Science at the University of Cape Town on 17 March 2017. Original recordings
and transcripts are stored safely, some of which cannot be shared due to anonymity clauses.
Sampling was based on a mix of purposive and snowball sampling. Participants were
selected based on having one White parent and one parent of colour. Participants who were
purposively sampled, totaling eight participants, were personally known by the researcher

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 9 of 23
through friend groups and physical location. The two participants that were snowball
sampled were suggested by purposively sampled participants. In total, 10 participants
were interviewed. The length of the interviews ranged between 1.5 and 2 h, so a large
amount of data was recorded and interpreted.
Amongst participants there is a common thread of one parent who is White and
another who is a person of colour, highlighting how dominant narratives of Whiteness
might or might not influence their lives at a personal level. Five participants identified
as female, while the other five identified as male. All participants were involved in some
form of higher education at the time or were recent graduates. In the sample, there are
two sets of siblings. Although participants did not have the same exact lived experiences,
common themes emerged across all interviews. While I acknowledge the sample size and
proximity of the sample to each other could be considered a limitation, I was satisfied
with the information received from this limited sample, while accepting that future studies
would benefit from a larger sample size.
All interviews were recorded with the participant’s permission and stored securely.
The age group of those born from 1990 to 1995 are considered to constitute the ‘born
free’ era, as they were born during or after the transition to democracy in 1994. The 10
participants were between the ages of 20 and 25 when interviews took place, in 2017. Eight
interviews were conducted in person, while two were conducted on Skype. All participants
have been given pseudonyms to protect their identity. Table 1provides the biographical
information of the participants.
Table 1. Participant biographical information.
Participant Name Racial Identity Location (City Raised in) Age
Aadilah White Mother, Indian Father Johannesburg 20
Ellie
White Mother, Coloured Father
Cape Town 21
Olebogeng White Mother, Black Father Johannesburg 22
Zwelethu White Mother, Black Father Johannesburg 21
Nadira White Mother Indian Father Johannesburg 23
Naharai Indian Mother, White Father Cape Town 25
Pramit White Mother Indian Father Johannesburg 20
Sem Indian Mother, White Father Johannesburg 22
Zandile White Mother, Black Father Johannesburg 22
Lesedi White Mother, Black Father Johannesburg 20
4.1. Researcher Positionality
In positioning myself, this topic stems from identifying as a mixed-race person with
a Coloured mother and White father, wrestling with the struggles of understanding the
effects of racialisation and the pressures of White supremacy on my own construction of
identity. While I live and experience the cultural and historical legacies of Coloured identity,
I am acutely aware of the privileges that my proximity to Whiteness affords me. I was
born during the transition to democracy and considered to be ‘born free’. I understand that
having a personal stake in this research as a mixed-race person contributes to discussions
within the interview process, in that participants might have been more willing to share
their experiences with me because of my own identity. The mixed-race community that
does work on mixed-race identity is small in the South African context, no participant
was engaged in this work outside of social discussions. Mixed-race people often do not
openly discuss their mixed-racedness with non-mixed-race people. As a result, many
potential participants chose not to participate in the study, as they were not ready to share
their experiences in such a platform. Thus, due to the limited amount of research on first-
generation mixed-race people by first-generation mixed-race people in the post-apartheid
context, I felt that this research topic provided an important contribution not only to the
field but to others struggling with their identity.

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 10 of 23
4.2. Data Analysis
I conducted a thematic analysis of the interviews guided by critical race theory (CRT),
a prominent theory used in discussions on race and racial identity. CRT focuses on un-
derstanding experiences of racism and racialisation within White supremacist structures
and how these lived realities affect the intersections of the identities of people of colour
(Delgado and Stefancic 2012). While based in a US context, CRT can be applied within all
countries that experience dominant White rule and entrenched White supremacy.
In the South African context, Modiri (2012) argues that CRT is necessary to understand
the presence of race within post-apartheid law, mainly because of the use of legislature by
the apartheid government to enforce racial segregation and its lasting legacies. While his
focus remains on the transformation of law, Modiri (2012, p. 233) locates CRT within the
post-apartheid social sphere, arguing that CRT ‘allows us to examine racial issues more
critical and directly in the context of their socio-economic and political implications’. In
addition, Modiri (2012) argues that, due to South Africa’s violent and racist past, a CRT
research lens can provide both a historical and analytical framework for engaging with
issues of race in post-apartheid society.
Using CRT as a lens, after transcribing the interviews, I grouped together and identified
common themes across the transcripts using qualitative coding techniques from the raw
data (the transcript). Working from a large range of themes (eleven), I focused on the
three themes, emerging through the thematic analysis, that addressed the role of dominant
narratives of Whiteness in the way participants constructed their identities. Those three
themes form the title for each section of the Results section: defying Rainbowism, rejecting
Whiteness, and policing identity.
5. Results and Discussion
5.1. Defying Rainbowism
The Rainbow Nation ideology, or as Gqola (2001) calls it, ‘Rainbowism’, is often critiqued
as being a narrative that has assisted in maintaining and encouraging colourblindness in
addressing the various forms of apartheid-era injustice. Rainbowism has encouraged and
romanticised racial transformation in post-apartheid South Africa (
Moodley and Adam 2000
).
Under the ideal of the Rainbow Nation, which the ‘born frees’ would come to represent, racial
categories and race labelling have not ceased into the colourblind façade of the Rainbow
Nation. All participants, who have been labelled ‘born free’, expressed that they felt the
Rainbow Nation was not a practical nationalist ideology to solve socio-economic and political
issues that the majority of South Africans face, namely, poor Black South Africans. Below,
Pramit situates the Rainbow Nation ideology within a critique of how it supports structures of
Whiteness that seek to gloss over the historical violence of White supremacy under the guise
of reconciliation.
What is being done by certain groups in society, most liberals, mostly Whites, we are
being told that we are born free, and we live in a Rainbow Nation
. . .
now whose interest
does that protect? If you manufacture this idea and this proposition that we are born free
and we live in a Rainbow Nation, what you are doing is you’re being ahistorical
. . .
it
restricts you if you buy into resolving certain injustices of the past (Pramit).
The Rainbow Nation narrative is considered divisive to addressing meaningful change
and an overhaul of the racist legacies of apartheid (Moodley and Adam 2000;
Gqola 2001
).
Woven through Pramit’s sentiments is an assessment of Whiteness, mainly White liberals in
South Africa. As Steyn (2001) noted, the use of White Talk to sustain a form of victimhood
and distance from the responsibility of the past within post-apartheid South Africa, White
South Africans become ahistorical in their thinking of the past, a process facilitated through
the Rainbow Nation ideology. Thus, consequently undermining the experiences of historical
and intergenerational trauma of the oppressed in South Africa, especially their experience
of racism under a White supremacist system, a legacy of trauma of which first-generation
mixed-race people find themselves in the middle. The symbolism of a rainbow, in itself,

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 11 of 23
projects unrealistic expectations for healing and forgiveness while not providing tangible
means to do so. Olebogeng struggles with using the rainbow as a symbol, as he tries to
relate and visualise himself in the national ideology.
The idea of the Rainbow Nation itself, it’s a symbol of segregation because the colours are
clearly defined in a rainbow, so when you say something is a Rainbow Nation, and that’s
what I’ve started to see growing up is that there are still these defined lines, whereas I
don’t see myself in that way, and I’d like to think that I don’t see people in that way, that
they are part of the Rainbow, which is why, it is kind of like my identity is aligned with
that Rainbow or it’s a mix of the Rainbow itself (Olebogeng).
Olebogeng’s point reflects how first-generation mixed-race people struggle to find a
place within this supposed all-inclusive Rainbowism ideology, while maintaining the de-
fined lines between colours, a metaphor for the continued rigidity of racial categorisations.
The Rainbow Nation narrative is common among liberals in South Africa, particularly those
who have enjoyed the benefits of the ‘pot of gold’ that apartheid provided to White South
Africans. Perceptions of equality can be noted in Gqola’s (2001) discussion about White
solipsism, the belief that one’s life experiences as a White person are universal to people of
other races. Through this, acknowledging the past’s structural conditions and atrocities
are denied because it is not your lived reality. White solipsism and the Rainbow Nation
ideology fail to understand that the racialisation of South African society is premised
on race-, gender-, and class-based structural legacies that regulate and enforce the rigid
categorisations of race that the Rainbow Nation itself was meant to challenge.
Someone being mixed race is sort of breaking the way that people categorise human beings.
I don’t know, it’s fairly comforting that mixed-race people are basically the closest thing
to just being people (Zwelethu).
In this way, Zwelethu speaks to the underlying principles of the non-racialism that
was prevalent in the struggle for liberation from apartheid while acknowledging how
mixed-race people redefine, challenge, and define their racial identity. By advocating
for existing, without enforcing racial categorisations, Zwelethu highlights the general
responses of all other participants when their ethnicity, race, and culture are questioned.
While their responses differed, they either felt offended or annoyed and often cultivated
witty standardised responses; all participants simply wanted to exist without the pressure
of constantly explaining their existence. First-generation mixed-race people in South
Africa are often forced by others to choose one racial identity. Based on pigmentation and
cultural experiences, many could not identify as White and are often considered Coloured.
While Erasmus (2001) arguments are relevant to the participants’ experiences in this study,
particularly the feelings of insecurity of being ‘neither Black nor White’, many participants
that do not have a Coloured parent discounted that they could identify as Coloured.
I go by mixed-race, and I think there’s an important distinction in that because I think
that race is not just a skin tone thing. I think race is also very cultural. So, even though I
might present as Coloured, I don’t think I could ever call myself Coloured, because I don’t
have that cultural background (Zandile).
Zandile’s comments speak to the intricate intersection of race and culture in South
African society that is steeped within the multiple experiences of oppression faced by
all people of colour in South Africa. All participants expressed the pressure of feeling
that they had to ‘choose’ one racial identity, which is both limiting and exclusionary for
first-generation mixed-race people. Many people of colour in South Africa wear their skin
colour and witness the reactions that come with it every day; therefore, they do not have the
privilege to ‘choose’. This is also the case for mixed-race people, particularly those who are
not racially ambiguous. Even if participants were to choose or move between racial boxes,
they often find their ‘choice’ to be shaped by their current environment or is met with
criticism because they do not fit into the stereotypical expectations of that particular box,

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 12 of 23
upheld by a system still heavily reliant on maintaining these boxes. However, mixed-race
people’s experiences of privilege and oppression cannot be homogenised.
Sometimes I feel like, as mixed-race children, that can sometimes be mistaken for under-
standing, making like we’re the same, you need to understand your privilege as well. I
still have that oppression of a Black person, and as much as I understand my position and
I am privileged in a lot of ways, at the same time, there are things that maybe some people
will never understand or never be able to understand
. . .
Everyone, as a mixed-race child,
is an individual, and I feel that sometimes is forgotten (Lesedi).
Here, Lesedi speaks to how lived experiences of those from particular racial back-
grounds are essential when considered how people engage with their racial identities.
Through her comments, Lesedi considers how colourblind approaches to understanding
individual experiences of race and racism in post-apartheid South Africa can lose sight of
these lived realities. The Rainbow Nation ideology has often been criticised for this lack
of foresight and homogenisation of ‘the South African experience’. These shortcomings
are further expressed in Pramit’s comments about the complexities of having a mixed-
race identity.
You can’t tell me to choose my race. It will be different, relative to where I am and who I’m
with. And to expect me to choose a race as some people suggest mixed-race people should
do is completely insensitive to my experiences
. . .
identity is fluid, and it’s ridiculous to
expect people to choose (Pramit).
Pramit’s comments highlight how first-generation mixed-race people straddle the
grey area between racial categorisations, a reality that Rainbowism has failed to solve. The
project of Rainbowism, in its colourblind approach, does not overhaul White supremacist
structures rather, it provides Rainbow-tinted glasses to those who continue to benefit from
this system. Rainbowism seeps into the construction of public and social spaces and can
also be seen in the schooling system.
There was this auditorium in my high school, where there were two front entrances and
one back entrance, and there was a whole apartheid education week. So, they had one door
labelled for Black and one door labelled for White to show just how severe the segregation
was
. . .
So, we’d pick what door we were meant to go in, and I just stood outside and I
walked around the back of the auditorium, and I walked through the door at the back, and
the teachers asked me, why did you do that, and I said because it’s the only door without a
sign (Zwelethu).
In his schooling experience, Zwelethu shows how he challenged constructions of race
in the post-apartheid South African landscape, which, across all spheres, remains heavily
influenced and shaped by apartheid’s legacy of racial segregation. It also speaks to how
apartheid history is taught, which does not consider the nuanced experiences of mixed-race
people, who existed despite the laws placed on controlling their existence. Racial categories
were regulated through various apartheid laws based on various tests and ‘scientific’ or
‘physical’ attributes steeped in racist thinking. While some may ‘pass’ for a particular
racial category based on their physical attributes related to specific racial categories, they
understand that they never truly can claim to be a member of one specific racial category,
despite the expectation of needing to ‘choose’ a side.
Once I started interacting with children from different backgrounds, that’s when I started
to become more aware that I wasn’t the same as other people. And with people trying to
label me specifically, there was always that person who tells me what I am, and I used
to have some intense arguments with people because they didn’t want to believe that I
was what I said I was. Because I think people still have quite a narrow view of race and
identity, it’s very binary (Zandile).
Here, it is evident that the regulation of these racial identities is replicated among the
peers of first-generation mixed-race youth in their social spaces, meaning that the so-called
born-free generation continues the regulation of racial ‘classifiers’ and race categories.

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 13 of 23
Participants argued that the Rainbow Nation ideology did not create tangible racial equity,
nor did it address how constructions of racial categorisations leave no room for those who
do not fit within its box, namely, mixed-race people. Additionally, participants critiqued
the Rainbow Nation for its failure to overhaul or challenge White supremacist structures
that continue to minimise its harmful legacy. This was evident in how racialised structures
of Whiteness continued to be reproduced within their educational institutions and social
spaces and in how they accessed public space in post-apartheid South Africa.
5.2. Rejecting Whiteness
In South Africa, dominant narratives of Whiteness continue to regulate institutional
culture, whether it be within schools, universities, business, and industry. As Moodley and
Adam (2000) noted, the legacies of racial classification, particularly espoused through the
maintenance of apartheid, created racial categories, have created small groups of Black
elites that give the appearance of a transformed society. The participant sample, all of
whom are middle class and went to ‘good’ schools—historically White schools that have
more resources due to apartheid legacies—were able to navigate multi-cultural spaces well
and access these more easily. Although participants were raised in different cities that have
their own specific racialised segregation and historical legacies, the White institutional
culture prevalent in historically White schools was standardised and replicated in White
educational intuitions across the country, thereby entrenching a specific version of South
African Whiteness that maintains the dominant narratives of Whiteness. Some mixed-race
people can achieve this based on class, those who have a White parent benefit from the
legacies of Whiteness that might include generational wealth, a historical legacy of higher
education, or ownership of land. The access to White privilege is steeped in the way they
access the institutional culture of historically White spaces, albeit conditionally.
I think growing up as mixed-race, you very much learn how to chameleon and take on
different identities in different spaces. For me now, it doesn’t feel taxing, it doesn’t feel like
I’m being fake. I’m just a different me, so I wouldn’t say that its difficult; but I definitely
interact with my Johannesburg family [White family] different to how I interact with my
mother, different to how I interact with other friends (Sem).
All participants noted that, because of their experience of dealing with Whiteness
and engaging within White spaces from a young age, they could easily fit within a White
institutional culture at the schools they attended. While it could be argued that being able
to assimilate into White spaces could be the experience of many people of colour who
attend historically White schools, for first-generation mixed-race people, having a White
parent exposes them to Whiteness in a highly intimate personal way. However, exposure
to multiracial schooling or spaces from a young age does not mean that one is guaranteed
to fit in, particularly as the institutional culture remains steeped in Whiteness.
Because the social system in our high school was structured in a way that Whiteness
was praised and worshipped, I found myself being more proud of my White half, and I
look back on it now and it cuts me so deep that I felt that. It’s scary as well that’s how
I felt
. . .
[in] high school, I thought this Whiteness thing is dope
. . .
I can use that to
my benefit here to fit in. But again, I would be reminded by the White kids that I’m not
White (Pramit).
The negotiation of racial boxes and categories remains a strategy in how participants
have constructed their identities. Pramit’s thoughts speak to the complexities of being able
to claim Whiteness. Amongst many White people in post-apartheid South Africa, there is a
belief that since apartheid has legally ended, racism no longer exists. However, to exhibit
traits of Whiteness within a White institutional culture is to take on various ‘traits’ that are
considered synonymous with White people in South Africa. This could be through lan-
guage, accent, dialect, or achieving success within a field largely and historically dominated
by White people. Whiteness or to be White in South Africa is something particular.

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 14 of 23
Someone said to me recently, she was quite impressed that I still had a tan from the
holidays, I had to tell her that I am actually Brown. Which is interesting because they
clearly thought I was White the whole time or something, right? That’s weird. I don’t
know, maybe it was because it was her [a student Nadira tutored] grandmother, she’s
old. Maybe she was like, this person speaks well, good at Maths, can’t be anything but
White (Nadira).
While under the guise of non-racialism and the movement of people of colour to a
‘formerly White only space’ might be considered a step further to racial equality, these
spaces are not transforming to decentralise and deconstruct White spaces or the White
supremacist structure that creates it. Instead, they continue to expect assimilation into these
spaces. For mixed-race people with direct access to systems of Whiteness through their
parent, the ability to be a racial chameleon still forces them to exist and assimilate within
the status quo of White spaces. In this way, their access to these spaces is conditional.
Whiteness in itself is like something that’s defined against by what it’s not. So everything
that its mixed with becomes not White, not completely White, even if it’s a tiny bit. So,
it’s like an elitist kind of weird thing is defined by what it’s not (Olebogeng).
Whiteness often equates White with
´
good
´
qualities and positive imagery, thus
rendering any person who does not fit within this category an ‘other’ (Ballard 2004).
However, Whiteness in South Africa is ‘the shared social space in which the psychological,
cultural, political and economic dimensions of this privileged positionality are normalised,
and rendered unremarkable’ (Steyn 2005, p. 121). Participants engaged with Whiteness
in South Africa as something specific to this context. Out of the 10 participants, three had
a White parent who was not South African but had lived in South Africa for a significant
amount of time. These participants noted that, while they understand the privilege that
White people had and continue to have in South Africa, they still consider their parents
as outsiders.
With White people also
. . .
you’re still an ‘other’
. . .
I guess growing up, sometimes
you try to be White in some ways, or engage with White [people]
. . .
I guess you slowly
realise that you’ll never be part of that community. Like with my mom, she’s not South
African, so that helps, so that we can even criticise Whiteness [in South Africa] together
and she openly criticises those ideas which is very consoling and comforting (Olebogeng).
Here, Olebogeng distinguishes how he has personally experienced White South
African people and how he engages with his Canadian mother’s Whiteness in the context
of South African White supremacy. Similarly, Naharai, whose father is a White American,
makes an interesting distinction between Whiteness in South Africa and his father.
Everything I take from him are his experiences in life, that’s why it has to do with me not
seeing him as White. Well maybe it’s different because I don’t see him as a White South
African, maybe because he is Italian [Italian-American]. I don’t see his Whiteness being
the same as the evil Whiteness in South Africa, and when it comes to White privilege
when you talk about it (Naharai).
Naharai, like the siblings Olebogeng and Lesedi, had to separate himself from the
system of Whiteness and its legacies in South Africa from their parent who is not South
African. This is evident in Naharai’s use of the word ‘evil’ to describe his perception of
Whiteness’ current and historical legacy in South Africa. The ‘dangers’ of White liberalism
in South Africa continue to use transformation as a front to denounce the racial and privilege
denialism that it underpins. Separating a White parent out of the context of Whiteness
in South Africa denies racial privilege, a feature of White liberalism in South Africa and
does not excuse them from the global context of Whiteness that forms international White
normative structures that influence South Africa as well. However, through their existence,
mixed-race people can never fully claim or exist comfortably within those spaces, as their
White parents might, because Whiteness is perceived as ‘purity’, and mixed-race people
disrupt this premise through their existence.

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 15 of 23
Being White is like a paint jar
. . .
I cannot explain it. Society views it as perfect, and
it becomes tarnished by mixing in other paint, and you can never go back once you’ve
mixed it (Ellie).
Ellie’s comments speak to the reality of having access to Whiteness through a White
parent while simultaneously never being accepted by those same structures. Participants
expressed their need to feel comfortable in their belonging to family structures and a sense
of acceptance and belonging within their own identities. Through participants’ comments,
it is evident that there is no sameness or uniform identity for first-generation mixed-race
people. However, acceptance into broader society is weighed differently for many people.
Those who seek to be part of a uniform identity seek to reject the part of them not desired
for acceptance into a particular community.
My transport to work has fizzled out now, so he [his White father] offered to drop me [off]
at work and to pick me up, and I was like hell no. I don’t want you to come pick me up,
they’ve just accepted me as Coloured and then this White man comes. It’s so stupid. I
should have just been like, ‘yes, sure, I need the lift’. But no, I was like, I’d rather jump
on the bus for an hour and twenty minutes, go to work and figure a way home (Naharai).
The struggle for belonging within particular groups or communities in society affects
how mixed-race people engage with their families in the home environment. Naharai had
struggled for acceptance in the Coloured community in which he was raised, so acceptance
amongst the predominantly Coloured group that he works with is essential for him to
achieve social success. However, as is evident, the rejection of a parent for the sake of fitting
in can be painful. Intersectional dynamics of race and gender are essential to understanding
how participants relate to their racial identity and their parents based on these intersections.
The intersectional ways that we experience spaces are often a premise for discussions that I
have with my own White father; it starts with this: ‘We will never enter a space the same
way, you are a White man, and I am a woman of colour, we exist on different sides of the
spectrum’. Similarly, Pramit relates.
I’ve never hated my mom, I’ve always loved her and appreciated her. I just don’t see her
as being part of my identity in a big way because she’s White, and that’s scary, and that’s
something I need to speak to her about and come to terms with
. . .
she’s a huge part of
shaping who I am, but at the same time, by virtue of her race, it makes it difficult for me
to identify with her as strongly (Pramit).
Pramit does not identify with a common history with his mother, despite their shared
ancestry. Bernhard Makhosezwe Magubane (2007) notes that the way South African history
has been written ignores the racialised acts of genocide of the majority of the population by
the Dutch and British states. He argues that ‘each generation seems to think that history
began only yesterday and what happened the day before is “ancient history” and has
no relevance on today’s problems’ (Magubane 2007, p. 253). From Magubane’s (2007)
arguments, we see how history in post-apartheid South Africa has been constructed to
some extent in an ahistorical way that does not consider the lineages of structural racism
and racialisation, a sentiment present in Pramit’s comments about his relationship with
his mother. How then does a first-generation mixed-race person begin to reconcile their
shared ancestry with a parent whose common history was to wipe out their other parent’s
ancestry and common history?
I think that the fact that my mom is White
. . .
I don’t know if it’s been constructive, I
think that there are some things that White people just don’t get
. . .
having to come to
that realisation by myself was just like a ‘sh*t!’ moment, like a ‘wake up!’ moment
. . .
I
almost wish that I had been raised by my dad, I think that life
. . .
would have been less of
a shock. And I think that there are some things that inherently people of colour come to
know that White people have to be told about
. . .
I think that there is just this sense of
collectiveness and community that comes with not being White (Zandile).

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 16 of 23
While Zandile recognises Whiteness as a broader structure within society, she un-
derstands that, amongst people of colour, there is always some form of oppression and
inferiority to Whiteness. What Zandile suggests here is that Whiteness is an attitude and an
ideology, and not something that she can access, based on her skin colour. As
Ballard (2004)
argues, Whiteness aimed to create and entrench positive imagery, which one could only
achieve if one were White. For first-generation mixed-race people, they would never be
considered to uphold all positive images of Whiteness that it seeks to convey, as only being
‘half White’ is already a disruption of the ‘purity’ that is privileged within Whiteness. By
their association with Whiteness, they are afforded the comforts of a ‘White’ lifestyle, which
means access to resources, land, better education, and generational wealth in some cases,
a legacy inherited from apartheid and centuries of White supremacy. However, they will
always be ‘othered’.
For first-generation mixed-race people, the negotiation between belonging and accep-
tance and the ability to exercise agency in their identity is a narrow line. In South Africa,
rigid racial categorisations are still relevant to identity constructions, evident in the partici-
pants’ struggles with the shame of compromising their relationships under the pressure
of the performativity of Whiteness. It is evident that, while participants’ experience of
Whiteness has shaped their identity construction, participants were still committed to a
self-reflection of their participation in and simultaneous oppression by White supremacist
structures in their social, personal, and institutional spaces.
5.3. Policing Identity
The heavy regulation of institutional Whiteness through race classification and seg-
regation laws ensures that the oppressed people of colour are forced to understand the
complexities of White supremacy as a system of oppression (Posel 2001;Reddy 2001;
Ratele 2009
;Bradshaw 2014). Various tests were administered to determine which racial
category they fit into for racially ambiguous people, regardless of their own declarations. As
Ratele (2009) argues, the state would focus on both external—if the person ‘looked’ White—
and internal criteria—if the person’ behaved’ as a ‘White’ person should. ‘Trademark’ signs
of Whiteness premised a person’s classification as White (Posel 2001;
Steyn 2001
). These
trademarks exist today, and although they are increasingly challenged in movements to
decolonise racialised structures, they remain present in the questioning of racial identity
that first-generation mixed-race people or racially ambiguous Coloured people face. The
questioning of race is an act done by all South Africans and stems from the legacies of
colonial and apartheid racial regulation.
You have to reveal yourself more than other people do because now you’re telling people
what race, what culture your parents are, just to explain what race you are. But with you
[referring to himself], now you have to explain, oh which parent is it that’s White, so oh
you’re mixed Black and Coloured, and then no, I’m mixed with White and, you see? So,
it’s like you have to reveal yourself more. That’s why mixed-race is useful (Olebogeng).
The revealing of self speaks to the exhaustion around having to feel that you have
to explain your racial identity constantly. In this way, Olebogeng finds the terminology
of ‘mixed-race’ to be a useful description of his identity. What is important to note is that
instances where you feel that you have to reveal yourself are not only with respect to White
people; participants felt these mainly were with respect to other people of colour. Apartheid
has entrenched within South African society racial markers attached to stereotypes of racial
categorisations systematically organised into individual race boxes that people continue
to use.
I also have this coping mechanism to fit in. So now I’m in a position at work where I only
work with Coloured people
. . .
last week, we just talked, and they want to know about
me, and then you get nervous, [he thinks to himself] don’t ask too much now. Because I
already know, it started off like, is that really your name, and I’m like ‘ja’
3
, but it’s not
my full name, and they’re like, ‘oh, what is that’ and I’m like ‘its Indian’, and then they

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 17 of 23
ask, ‘are you Indian’ and I say, ‘my mom is Indian’, and usually if I’m lucky it will stop
there. But then, if it’s, ‘what’s your dad?’, and then it’s over (Naharai).
Whiteness’ ‘purity’ and preservation were heavily regulated through segregation. As
Erasmus (2001) and Gqola (2010) attested, in the Coloured community, there are cases of
people who ‘chose’ to be White, meaning that they were racially ambiguous enough to fit
into the classification parameters for White. This complex history is reflected in the history
of many South African families, including my own, where the system of classification tore
families apart. Within post-apartheid South Africa, most participants played down their
‘White half’ of themselves, depending on the context and demographic of people around.
This is evident in Naharai’s experience of fear he has of being ‘outed’ for having a White
parent. Moreover, this speaks to Olebogeng’s point on how mixed-race people have to
reveal much more of themselves.
As Zandile noted previously, race is inextricably linked to culture, and the regulation
of all racial categories speaks to the rigid racial boxes apartheid sought to create. Even
within the Coloured community, as Erasmus (2001) noted, there is a regulation of colourism
within Coloured culture, which privileges lighter-skinned, English speaking, middle-class
Coloured people over darker-skinned, Afrikaan-speaking, poor Coloured people. The
same can be said for Black and Indian communities in South Africa as well. Here, class
regulation, pigmentation, and language work as intersections of identity that either oppress
or offer privilege under a racist system where the White and rich are privileged over
the Black and poor. Based on the apartheid mentality, to be Black is to be at the bottom
of the chain, as something not to aspire toward, and thus challenged through the Black
Consciousness Movement. However, through the policing of identity by the apartheid
state and its entrenchment of White supremacy, people of colour regulate themselves
within these same categories and standards. For mixed-race people who identify as people
of colour, their acceptance into those communities is based on condition, a conditional
understanding that they are both people of colour and, in certain instances, is White.
I don’t see myself as Black, I wouldn’t say. But also because of the way I have been treated
by the Black community as not Black. So that’s also painful but it makes you feel like you
are in between, which is nice at times
. . .
for example, one of my coaches, when I was
walking in Alex
4
, he was like, ‘no, put on your hat, If they see your hair it won’t be good,
they will see you’re umlungu’
5
. So Black people see me as White sometimes, and White
people see me as Black and Coloured people, once they hear me open my mouth, they don’t
know what to think (Olebogeng).
All participants in this study noted that they police their own identity in different
ways, based on the questioning about their identities that they receive or their insecurities
on how they are viewed in society because of their contravention of racial classifications.
The trickledown effect of racist legislation has created a space where people police their
own racial identity. What is not considered within the arguments of Mbembe (2008),
Ratele (2009)
, and Modiri (2012), amongst others, which focus on a more general view of
policing by people of colour, is the consideration for people who occupy a racial identity
of both White and ‘Other’. As previously stated, many participants feel that they need
to reject it and prove that they are of colour ‘enough’ to be taken seriously because of
their association with Whiteness, a form of self-policing based on their experiences of
questioning around their identity.
I think for a while in my life
. . .
I’ve felt like I’ve had to prove my Blackness
. . .
in first
year [of university], going out a lot, having to introduce myself a lot, people being shocked.
‘Lesedi? Why is your name Lesedi?’ I always had to prove I’m Black. And then I thought,
hang on a second, what does it mean to be Black, what does it mean to be Tswana, what
does it mean to be a woman in South Africa? And that’s when I found out that okay,
being Black is how I want to make it for myself, and just how there are Black people who
don’t speak their native language, but that doesn’t make them any less Black (Lesedi).

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 18 of 23
Lesedi’s comments speak to the complexities of occupying two racial identities, or feel-
ing that you do, and having to pick one. Like that of her brother, Olebogeng, her comments
show how they have received conditional acceptance within the Black community and at
times feel that that acceptance can be taken from them. This is a precarious position to be
in, particularly in a society based on fixed racial categories. While the gendered experience
of these siblings may be different, they police their identity within similar ways to ‘prove’
their Blackness. Beyond these experiences, language, accent, and dialogue play a role in
how participants construct and perform their identity. Due to the physical segregation of
racial groups in apartheid, specific accents and dialects can be linked to specific races based
on their geographic location. For example, a Coloured person that grew up in Cape Town
might speak differently to a White person that grew up in the same city.
The multiple intersections of language, class, race, and gender are regulated through
all levels of South African society by all members, mainly through institutional Whiteness.
While participants spoke to their experience within that space, they also spoke of their
complicity in supporting that culture. For people of colour, transcending racial spaces, there
is an element of self-policing that must be done to be accepted within these spaces. For
some, it might be changing their accent; for others, it might be playing down their Blackness
to fit within limits for ‘safe’ expression of Blackness within historically White spaces.
There is a part of me that’s disgusted, but say there is a White person, you almost feel
the need to prove that you are what they think is enough to make you a person, like I am
enough of a person because I can do x, y, and z things and as much as I want to prove
that I don’t need to have those things for you to value me, and for you to respect me. I
still feel like I need to because you are going to think worse of me (Ellie).
For Ellie, as a mixed person who has grown up around Whiteness and participated
within White institutional culture, she still feels she must regulate her identity to be consid-
ered ‘Whiter’ to be taken seriously. This goes back to racist constructions of intelligence
as a ‘White’ trait. Although Ellie has more access to White spaces due to her mixed-race
identity, she still polices her identity further to fit in, as she is aware of her ambiguity and
conditional acceptance into those spaces. For most participants, policing their identity
comes at a cost. It involves compromise, shame, and sacrifice, which are everyday realities
when building their identity in the precarious grey area between rigid racial identities. Ellie
further reflects on how policing of herself in those spaces shaped her attitudes towards
her father.
I know, 100% growing up, that I was ashamed to have a Coloured dad, quite a lot of the
time. And with a guilty conscious obviously, and it’s horrible but that’s, what is that?
Why should I feel like that? Who was telling me that? It has to be because there was the
White dad, White mommy, White children, and they were in the perfect house, and White
teachers and the White principles and everything was just White (Ellie).
The legacies of Whiteness have sustained and entrenched core values and beliefs
within post-apartheid South African society. For first-generation mixed-race people, navi-
gating the grey areas between having a White parent and a parent of colour is primarily
influenced by these same legacies, which create variant power dynamics within their iden-
tities. As Ellie noted above, the influences of dominant narratives of Whiteness existed
to how ‘ideal’ and ‘perfect’ families were created in these narratives. Through legislation
against inter-racial relationships and marriages, ideologies of ‘purity’ around race emerged,
notably the sanctity and purity of the ‘White race’, and the White Afrikaner home. For
Ellie, the legacies of the
´
perfect
´
family narrative, that of the nuclear family with a White
mother, White father, and two White children, affected how she viewed her own family.
She viewed her family as non-normative within her environment of a White-dominated
school, which was her primary social setting at the time. As a result of her need to fit
in, she downplayed her ‘Coloured side’ to the point of being ashamed that it was part of
her identity.

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 19 of 23
The struggle of feeling ashamed of a parent for the colour of their skin is a challenging
experience and raises the notion of what societal conditions inform these feelings of shame.
Ellie places this down to normative dominant Whiteness narratives, which emphasise the
‘perfect’ White nuclear family, something Ellie could never attain. These narratives of the
‘ideal’ family structured as White are not only prevalent within intergenerational legacies of
apartheid racist ideology, but advertisements that appear on television continue to present
racially monolithic and heteronormative families.
Feelings of shame are different to negotiate, particularly when it pertains to your
parent. The literature review highlighted the shame and stigma the apartheid government
attached to inter-racial relationships and sex. However, the shame that participants dis-
cussed is a shame of their proximity to a particular race. The structural and historical
legacies within South Africa have entrenched a racial hierarchy from which White people
have benefitted and continue to benefit. This has constructed a distinction between those
who benefited from apartheid and those who did not. Some participants who operate
within more White normative spaces might feel ashamed of having a parent of colour
because of the pressures to ’perform’ Whiteness in those spaces, while others might want
to hide their link to Whiteness because of its legacy, based on the environment that they
find themselves in.
Growing up in a Coloured area, you don’t want to say that you’re White or that my dad
is White
. . .
in high school, there are examples where my dad would pick me up from
basketball or hockey, and I would walk away from him or walk so much behind him. I’d
feel so bad like I feel bad now, but at that stage, that’s what I did (Naharai).
Naharai distances himself from Whiteness based on the environment where he seeks
acceptance—in this case, within the majority Coloured community around him, which he
is racially not part of. The same was the case for Ellie, who also grew up in Cape Town but
in a majority White community, as her environment required her to ‘perform’ Whiteness,
she rejected her ‘Coloured side’. As is evident in both participants experiences, there is a
need to reject one side of your identity to ‘fit in’. Therefore, while this becomes a choice
that participants themselves have made, society’s expectation of individuals to ‘choose’ one
race and fit within that box remains integral to the shame participants have for a particular
parent’s race. While some mixed-race people do not find acceptance within these spaces
and at some point ‘deal with it’ themselves, others seek acceptance within their families.
The shame that society makes them feel often becomes internalised, to the extent that they
feel shame within themselves for feeling ashamed of their parents.
I wonder if I’m going to disappoint him [his Black father] by not being able to speak
[Tswana], that was one of my biggest, even now, it hurts me, and I think it hurts him a lot,
and I think even though we don’t talk about it, and he’s hard to talk to about a lot of things
that [are sensitive]
. . .
growing up, I’m not his Black son
. . .
I feel like if I could speak to
him in Setswana, the conversation that we could have could be different (Olebogeng).
The complexity of negotiating a racial identity that does not fit within mainstream
racial categorisations is a challenge for mixed-race children and their parents. Confronting
legacies of racial oppression at a structural level might be easier, as, in some ways, it
might be less personal than confronting racial contradictions and legacies within one’s
own home. What makes the White population in South Africa different from other settler
colonies is that they laid an unchallenged claim to a South African indigenous identity and
culture. Through this, they adopted policies that distanced themselves from the ‘natives’,
thereby influencing how identity politics was formed within the South African context
(
Reddy 2015
). Traces of this are evident in how White supremacy currently manifests in
South African society, which has created knowledge about what it means to be considered
a particular racial category. These knowledges are primarily shaped by how White domina-
tion controlled the construction of these narratives. Moreover, these narratives control the
way that first-generation mixed-race people engage within their families.

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 20 of 23
When I started really interrogating what it means to be Black, I also think I then had to
think about what it means to be White
. . .
I do have to make the separation inside myself
[from Whiteness], but even in that, I know that even though they are my family, I know
that some of them aren’t exempt from it [calling out their racism]. In fact, none of them
are, I can’t think of them differently, just because they are my family, it’s kind of become a
thing of like, you have to prove to me that you are different (Zandile).
For first-generation mixed-race people, negotiating the grey areas of racial identity
is challenging, especially within a country where racial categorisations remain inflexible.
While the post-apartheid state might be outwardly moving towards an understanding
of what a post-apartheid state might look like, it is crucial to understand that there is
much underlying work. Challenging, decolonising, and confronting entrenched legacies of
apartheid and settler colonialism that create the ‘master narratives’ of Whiteness remain
essential tasks. However, the fact that first-generation mixed-race people exist does not
mean that racism is undone. Post-apartheid South Africa remains deeply entrenched in
institutional and structural racism. The transcendence of this thinking, as Lesedi predicts,
will not happen soon.
You know how some people say that a musician is before their time? Sometimes I think
I’m like that, I’m before my time (Lesedi).
6. Conclusions
If the premise of the Rainbow Nation were true, first-generation mixed-race people
would be the poster children of the South African nation. They would represent the coming
together of segregated people and indicate that the human spirit prevailed despite apartheid
and colonial segregation policies. However, the reality of post-apartheid South Africa is that
the ‘born frees’ have not overcome all of the social ills entrenched by these legacies, as they
remain rooted in this racialised society. Racial categorisations remain an integral part of
how people are perceived at face value and in identity construction, despite the best efforts
of the Rainbow Nation ideology. These racial categories are regulated throughout society
and manifest in diverse ways within various contexts. However, it remains regulated
within specific cultural contexts, geographic locations, classes, languages, and old and
new stereotypes. Within the South African context, the settler-colonial population laid an
unchallenged claim to an indigenous identity that distanced themselves from the actual
‘native’ population and created a legacy of White supremacy that is invested and sustained
upon the political, socio-economic and cultural exclusion of people of colour in the country’
(Reddy 2015).
These structural and historical legacies of Whiteness provide a different context for
first-generation mixed-race people to exist in countries such as the United States, Great
Britain, and Canada, where there is a considerable amount of literature on mixed-race
people. Although similarly in South Africa, due to the prevailing nature of White supremacy
in all of the aforementioned societies, mixed-race people navigate the inflexible confines of
racial categorisations. Race and experiences of racism manifest differently in each context.
Settler colonial and apartheid constructions of race regulate systems of White supremacy
that in turn sustain particular and constructed racial boxes. These ‘racial boxes’ seem to
be crafted so that they only have room for old and new stereotypes to enter. For first-
generation mixed-race people who do not fit within any box precisely, attachment to a
racial box is both elusive and conditional.
The conditional nature of acceptance is based on how well you can fit in within a
particular racial category. Some participants in this study felt forced to choose one racial
category and, through that, rejected the other. However, unanimously, participants did not
identify as White. Participants acknowledged that Whiteness in South Africa has come
to mean something particular. Through its links to a history of oppression, from settler
colonialism to apartheid, it is noted as a race that benefited from the oppression of people
of colour through slavery, cheap labour, forced migration, and the removal of people from
their land. Participants argued that, although one of their parents is White, by virtue of

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 21 of 23
their skin colour or accent, or mainly because they have a parent of colour, they are never
accepted as White, as they do not fit the characteristics required to enter the White box.
For all participants who self-identify as people of colour, reconciling the ‘White side’ of
their family is difficult, mainly because they acknowledge their family’s role within the
apartheid era, whether through a beneficiary role or more directly.
The institutional make-up of South Africa, due to its history of White domination,
continues to prioritise the ‘positive imagery’ associated with Whiteness, as noted by
Ballard (2004
). Within schools, English language proficiency and the ‘quality’ of one’s
accent has become a marker of a successful trait to obtain. The regulation of ‘White traits’,
whether through physical markers or how languages are spoken, influence how mixed-
race people have constructed their identity. Thus, showing that dominant narratives of
Whiteness continue to dictate ‘acceptable’ identity attributes.
As evident in participants’ comments, the post-apartheid generation now polices the
regulation of racial categories and the normative standards set through Whiteness. The
intergenerational nature of reinforcing and policing identity within these parameters shows
how entrenched these dominant narratives are: not only within a public setting but within
the psyche of the participants’ peers. First-generation mixed-race people themselves do the
policing of identity differently depending on the spaces within which they interact. While
some might exploit their relationship to Whiteness for performativity reasons, others shun
this relationship because of the violent legacy of Whiteness.
For first-generation mixed-race people, their entry into the two communities of their
family is conditional. Acceptance into each family might not necessarily be filled with
contestation about an inter-racial relationship on either side. Acceptance within their
family might not translate to acceptance within the broader race groups. While they were
accepted within their White family, many participants noted that they never felt they could
be White or be accepted as White more broadly. While some participants are more racially
ambiguous than others, meaning they seem to be able to transcend racial categories as
their physical appearance does not denote any specific racial category, they still feel more
comfortable being perceived as a person of colour because they disrupt the parameters of
acceptance within Whiteness, namely, ‘purity’.
Within their family structures and in their relationships with their parents, most
participants struggled to relate to their White parent, as it relates to informing their racial
identity. At their core level, participants acknowledged that they receive and learn values
from both of their parents, as in any family structure; however, participants highlighted the
need to separate having a White parent from Whiteness as a system of domination. Thus,
raising emotions related to feeling guilty that they had felt ashamed of certain parents
because of their race. Feelings of shame were not only limited to broader society and the
legacies of banning inter-racial relationships, but also the internalisation of these feelings of
shame, which some participants feel is a shameful act in itself. Participants noted that these
internalised contradictions within themselves stem from confronting the past’s structural
and historical legacies, which confronts their acceptance as people of colour because they
benefit directly from those legacies. At the same time, they understand what it means to be
a person of colour within a society dominated by entrenched White supremacy that might
form a part of their identity but can never truly represent them.
Despite these struggles, first-generation mixed-race people are transforming the silenc-
ing and internalising of shame into ways to exercise their agency and define themselves. In
this way, they create space for themselves within post-apartheid South Africa, even if they
exist in the grey areas between racial categorisations. They exercise their agency through
discussing the challenges and strengths that they can gain from their life experiences and
using that as a tool to unpack and decolonise the dominant normative narratives of White-
ness that continue to influence their identity. Through self-reflection, they regain their
agency to exist and defy rigid racial categorisations that continue to police their identity
politics within post-apartheid South Africa.

Soc. Sci. 2022,11, 205 22 of 23
While research that engages with race, identity, and Whiteness is not new in South
Africa, this study can be built upon. I acknowledge the limitations of both the sampling
technique and, as a result, the sample composition. Namely, the inclusion of two sets of
siblings in this sample, leading to similar experiences of participants in the sample. The
inclusion of an intersectional analysis would have been beneficial to unpack the experiences
of the male–female siblings in the sample; however, this was not within the scope of this
particular paper.
A larger sample size and the inclusion of those born in the 2000s would ensure a
richer data set and new perspectives on the lives of mixed-race people in South Africa.
Future researchers could consider a more in-depth analysis of the social locations, such as
gender, sexuality, and physical location, which were not primarily focused upon in this
study. In addition, in possible future research, there is space to decentre Whiteness from
this study and focus on mixed-race people who do not have a White parent, thus enriching
understanding of the many identities in post-apartheid South Africa.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement:
This research received ethical clearance by the Head of the
Department of Political Science at the University of Cape Town on 17 March 2017.
Informed Consent Statement:
Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in this study.
Data Availability Statement: Data is not publicly available to protect anonymity of participants.
Acknowledgments:
I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editors, for their comments,
suggestions, and feedback. Most importantly, I’d like to extend my deep gratitude to my participants
for allowing me to share their stories.
Conflicts of Interest: The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.
Notes
1Barbeque area. Typically ‘braai’ is an Afrikaans word for barbequeing, it is used in all languages spoken in South Africa.
2
This is the equivilant of the N* word in the US context in South Africa, used to demoralise and duhaminse Black people and
stems from racism. Verwey and Quayle (2012, p. 565) use the full word, I have chosen not to.
3Translates to ‘yes’ in Afrikaans.
4Alex or Alexandra, a predominantly Black township in Johannesburg, South Africa.
5Used to refer to White people in Nguni Languages.
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