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What does it mean to be Coloured today?” In this 77 Street Debate, young South Africans in Newclare challenge old labels, push back against stereotypes and redefine identity.
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00:02this week on the 77% Street debate we looked at the apartheid government we
00:08said it's a white government now when it's a black government we are excluded
00:11by black people in this country what we had in 1994 created the zebra nation
00:16this is the rainbow that you see the only rainbow and this rainbow is ignored
00:23sideline marginal line so where do we stand as colored people we are lost in
00:28this land we lost who is colored and what does it mean to be one this is the
00:41street debate my name is Fatou Elika Mouloshi and today we are coming to you
00:44from nuclear Johannesburg South Africa and if you do not know the term colored
00:49identity was created by apartheid's architect but it has transformed from a
00:55vibrant culture on the streets of South Africa into something that a community
00:59is proud of in shared language music and food but when Johannesburg superstar
01:05Tyler boldly claimed the colored identity on the global stage she left
01:09international audiences extremely baffled exposing a deep tension so today we are
01:15asking our current communities in South Africa still defined by apartheid
01:19legacy or are they creating a new identity on their own terms I am going to go
01:25right into here and I'm starting with Robin who is a law student a 30 year law
01:30student also a poet tell me when someone says they are colored what is the
01:35weight of that expression being colored in today South Africa I wouldn't describe it
01:41as a racial classification it's more about your identity to me being a colored is
01:48getting my history and but not letting it define me that's powerful let me come to
01:55the youngings here Jonathan what does being colored mean to you for me I think
02:00color is very diverse it's very diverse culture you know I feel like it we've
02:06adapted and come from a lot of different races we take some things from what white people do we take
02:13some things from black people like what Jonathan said we take from everything and for me being a
02:20part of the colored community it's a real it's a really opulent experience you know Jordan I just
02:26want to hear your perspective is this an identity you are proud of a 100% I am proud to
02:33be colored
02:33there's good moments and there's bad moments but there's mostly bad moments
02:37because especially when you're going to the schools and stuff like that it's
02:41majority black and I'm okay with that and that's totally fine but you don't
02:45need to discriminate me just because I'm not as black especially in the sports
02:49field and the soccer field because I play soccer only a certain percentage of
02:53colored people can be in the team most players must be black and then it was
02:57really like maybe 70% black and then maybe 10% colored 10% white and in the
03:01rest and that's unfair it's about being a lot of different things and I just want
03:08to ask Larry now here of course you're an activist you articulate a lot about the
03:13community their struggles and if you say that this was a terminology that was
03:18imposed to erase the people of the land what exactly do you mean it's a
03:23term that was legally it was created for a legal purpose with a legal intention to erase a
03:29particular group of people that had a specific and particular right in the
03:34country and who were those people and how do they live more than 80% to 90% of the
03:40people that are classified as colored people are actually the descendants of the
03:43coin the Bushman people who through the apartheid governments and very much so
03:48this black democratic government now has been deliberate about erasing the
03:54rights of the people for me it's a people that have survived it's a targeted
03:58group of people by both black and white people's groups interesting let me just
04:05come to Terry and here who is an author and you're also a very specifically
04:10writing in the area of identity construction what exactly are they trying to
04:14express to add to what Larry saying it was also descendants of slaves this the
04:20descendants of the Malay there is also people who were previously classified as
04:26black or white who then got reclassified and became kind of people and what I
04:31liked about what everybody else was saying was that colored as a term has moved
04:35from racial classification to culture what the people that you see here today us as the
04:42colored community has done is we've adapted we've grown we've brought with us
04:47language we've brought with us culture we have food and and oftentimes what
04:53really gets me is that when we speak about colored identity a lot of people
04:56want to focus on the negative things about being colored but not really with any
05:02other identity it's interesting how this thing about food music how it can bring a
05:09people together and create a community so strong that people can identify with I
05:15want to hear your opinion on that what do you think about this how impressive can
05:19that be language it creates memories you know the stories that our people tell it's
05:25so important you know our young colored girls and boys that grow up you know they can see
05:32our people they they went through so much they and so they are resilient they they have pride in their
05:42culture and of course something very interesting happened because when Tyler went on to the interview
05:47to say that she is colored a lot of people were so confused what do you mean by being colored
05:54something someone that looks like you can be colored I mean what kind of conversation did that trigger
05:59in the community but also in South Africa in general let me start with you Terian I think
06:05when Tyler identified as colored something very remarkable happened usually on heritage
06:10day you have a lot of different people fighting and saying oh color people don't
06:14have no culture color people don't exist and then Tyler comes and she says I'm
06:17colored and she gets attacked by the African-American community and black
06:22people and colored people and white South Africans were all like she's colored she is
06:26colored she's not anything else she's kind of she has a colored accent colored hair she and that
06:30was like a unifying moment for us to South Africans but what Tyler said there when people
06:35were trying to be a little bit more critical about the conversation Larry is that for her it's not an
06:40or she is black and she's colored and black does that apply to most people in the colored community
06:48well from a personal perspective first and foremost I think a lot of people are trying to confine us to
06:54race now non-racialism is a fundamental part of this democracy meaning that race isn't the thing
07:00anymore race was something that was imposed on people I don't subject myself to race we are African
07:07people all of us right but we are different different African people I cannot be forcefully
07:12assimilated into a classification of black just to fit in to what the status quo is you understand
07:18and I'm saying so do I is there a difference between black and and colored absolutely according
07:24to the white men there's a difference between that but when it comes to me identifying according to race
07:29I don't subscribe to race I understand where it comes from but we also then have to realize and
07:34understand what the intentions were what what what was race designed to achieve and how do we then break
07:40away from these things all right I mean but um I understand what you're saying but Terry and I'm black
07:47in itself is more of a political identity than it is about color is this something that's also subjective
07:53so I think as we've moved on from from race and from the discourse around race like you said it
07:59has
07:59moved more to ethnicity right and if you look at ethnicity from a nationalist framework it's about a
08:06shared language it's about a shared history it's about shared markers shared traditions and if you
08:12look at the colored community we have those things shared language we speak English we speak Afrikaans
08:17shared history we have slavery we have apartheid it comes together shared food we have pickled fish
08:23we have all the we have we have we have a shared food so those are the things that then
08:30um create an
08:31ethnicity and it's not something that anybody can just give you it grows it moves it's redefined
08:36what I see as colored is from a millennial perspective what the youngins see as colored is different
08:42what older people see as what colored is but we have become a community which is now an ethnic expression
08:48we'll come back to that and let me just uh come quickly to here Natalie of course I would like
08:53to
08:54I'd like to get your perspective on all of this um it's a lot that's happening so if you're going
09:00to
09:00explain to us what being colored during apartheid wars and what being colored now is after apartheid
09:06how would you explain this to be well for me right now I feel as a reverse apartheid for us
09:12right now
09:13because we weren't good enough for for the white men right now we're not good enough for the black men
09:18so we have to teach our children to embrace being colored embrace who you are as a as a human
09:24being as a
09:25south african of this country we our people are marginalized we have to fight for everything we
09:32want in this country and we as colored people are tired of it our children are educated they're not
09:37getting jobs if you look at the condition of our communities they're in a state monies are not coming
09:43are not being poured into our colored communities there's no opportunities for our children why is it
09:48that we as colored people have to fight for everything that we want in this country and we're tired of
09:54it
09:54there's a okay yeah oh i'm not ignoring no no i appreciate what you're saying it's just a matter
10:03of timing okay we say it in brief we can just go back to that so that we don't cover
10:08the rest just
10:09just in a minute please talking about the rainbow nation south africa is not a rainbow nation okay what
10:16we had in 1994 created the zebra nation this is the rainbow that you see the only rainbow and this
10:22rainbow
10:23is ignored is ignored sideline marginal line we have no job our people don't get jobs no houses no
10:30nothing no opportunities in business okay only those who sell us out they are accommodated this is the
10:37rainbow nation okay i mean robin yes you wanted to say something and let's just put that into where we
10:42are right now the things that have happened in the past how are they still shaping uh the way people
10:48get
10:48opportunities access to resources in your community um i first want to mention the stereotype um issue
10:55so most colored communities are known for the gangsterism and gun violence etc but that is not a colored
11:03community issue it's a socio-economic problem um and i i do feel like um you guys speak about
11:09opportunities etc but where do you you get opportunities when you don't have accessibility for it
11:16all right all right she said it is not really a colored community problem this is a socio-economic
11:21issue are these issues peculiar to the colored community if that's the case where does that emanate
11:27from look if you want to talk about where this this alcohol issue comes in our community it was
11:34institutionalized it's like how many other socio-economic issues were institutionalized
11:38against our our people the so-called colored people right like i'm using the calendar code as an
11:44example right in 1809 as far as i mean it's nearly 200 years or more than 200 years back but
11:49it's how
11:50they were paid you had to go and work and your compensation for your work was alcohol was that
11:56specifically for the colored people it was specifically for the people specifically for the people and
12:01deliberately for them i mean harry you were a former gangster yourself they've mentioned uh the issue
12:07of gangsterism in the community take us through the thinking behind the idea or the lifestyle of an
12:15aspiring gangster okay so by me being a gangster when i was growing up the cops used to give us
12:23the guns
12:23i used to sit in the 10 triple one the cops i sat in the 10 triple one car they
12:28used to give me the
12:29guns they used to give me drugs they used to give me everything diamond rings the works the police gave
12:34it to
12:34us so if you look at it nicely because we call it this is the way to destroy us give
12:40us drugs give us
12:41guns and stuff so i ended up in prison and when i was in prison i took studies on i
12:46did bible studies i
12:47did everything and i asked god if i'm walking the right path the next morning when i came out of
12:52the
12:52out of my cell there was a white dove sitting on the floor the other inmate ran to me gave
12:57it put it in
12:58my hand and i came out of prison i started a npo because my skin is too white i can't
13:04get no funding i
13:05spend almost almost a million rand of my money into the communities so where do we stand as colored
13:11people we are lost in this land we lost hope yeah i think one of one of the things if
13:20i have to give a
13:21you know something positive about our community you understand all of these stories that you hear
13:27today this is a story of survival and i mentioned it earlier we've survived all of these we still here
13:33no matter whether the black government the white all the different administrations that took control of
13:38this land we've survived all of it all the human rights fundamental human rights violations we feel
13:43betrayed for the role that we played we sacrificed our lives for this country to find out you know to
13:49find out
13:50that we are not uh black enough now we weren't white enough all these different conversations that
13:56people have about us it's to understand you know when when when a colored person hears the so-called
14:02colored person hears us he must understand listen we played a role to get here we've survived all onslaughts
14:07and we we are still standing sometimes as colored people we also need to watch to not lean too much
14:12into
14:12anti-black territory because this is this is something that our community has been criticized for a lot
14:19and i'm saying this knowing that we have struggles that are uniquely based in the colored community
14:26right we have a lot of things that affect us only but is it's being colored separate from being black
14:33can both coexist or this is not a go a territory that what can one can go into i think
14:39both should
14:40coexist i think there shouldn't be anti-colored sentiment from one community and there shouldn't be anti-black
14:46sentiment from another community because then we're not doing any sort of nation building right and
14:52even with the e act there is the aic that which all falls under one umbrella and this is where
14:57i agree
14:57with you putting a ic which is african indian colored all under one umbrella it creates ways of skewing
15:05things this way or that way um and it should there should be a cognizance around it but i don't
15:11think
15:11we should be saying the black government or the white government or creating an anti-black sentiment
15:16i don't think that's what do you have to say to that you see well there's these things that are
15:22i
15:22can i can i can commend in what she's saying but the truth is when we looked at the apartheid
15:27government
15:27we said it's a white government now when it's a black government and because we were meant to perceive
15:32this as a democratic state that is for everyone we know through the lived experience on the ground
15:38in a community like this that we are excluded by black people in this country is it safe to say
15:43that is it safe to say that these current ideologies to reinforce you know the apartheid era so i'm not
15:50anti-black but i'm speaking truth to power because if we cannot have an honest conversation to say that
15:57we are the ones that are being excluded in this country because everybody's speaking for themselves
16:02white people comes and speaks about white interest black people speaks about black interest indians speak
16:07indian people speak about indian interest why is it when it comes to us we must speak for everybody
16:13so my issue is you know not that we are against everybody it's being real with ourselves first and
16:19foremost that unless we take up the mantle to deal with our own issues and cement our place in this
16:26country as a people's group nobody's gonna do it for us okay you wanted to say something the problem is
16:31that um my children don't i don't really bring them into our communities why the reason for that is i
16:39brought my child to help me with with because we do a lot of feeding in our colored communities
16:43and on a particular day because our colored children sometimes look alike my they must took my child for
16:50somebody else and because he has gangs in our areas and um they wanted to shoot my son so my
16:57husband
16:57does not allow me to even bring my sons into our colored communities okay and basically i just wanted
17:02to go back on what the lady said over there today we were at the at moffett view police station
17:06as we
17:07were walking in there we asked for assistance so we didn't go in there asking about color that man said
17:13to myself and comment what do you colored people want here so they're already we have been marginalized
17:19just because of how we look walking in asking a black man for assistance okay i'm not gonna shy away
17:24from
17:25it all right yeah i'm gonna come back i'm gonna come to you i just want to come to him
17:29first i'm
17:30jonathan just speak a little bit more to what your mom said as a young person in the colored community
17:34how do you live through this experience on a daily basis how do i live through it i mean you
17:40can look
17:41around there's no development or anything really going on and you can go through this whole community
17:46so i feel like if you really open your eyes and you tell yourself the truth i mean you can
17:52see it already
17:53i mean we just came in here just to help out and to feed to give clothes uh because i
17:59feel like
18:00us as coloreds where we face very a lot of socio-economic problems and challenges like poverty and
18:07everything and yeah so me as a colored uh yeah i feel like there needs to be uh there really
18:15need to be
18:15put money put into our communities and investments i mean jonathan as a young person who is aware of the
18:23of your people when you think about the life you want for your community today what do you envision
18:29i envision just more sports centers just something that can help bring the youngsters when they're ready
18:38at a small age that there's something that they can look up to i mean most of them earlier before
18:44we even
18:45started recording and that there was youngsters playing soccer here so just something that that can give
18:51them hope i would just like uh more money to put in here not only for colors but for everyone
18:58but just
18:58something that can show that after school there's there's something to go to what about you um i just
19:05want to say like um if you look around here i think nobody else tried to fight the college community
19:10the college community just want to be heard i mean my auntie over here they they go out there they
19:15fight for
19:15to give us hope i mean look at how he feels i think everybody else is going to be heard
19:20they want to
19:20try to speak how they feel they're not trying to fight and that one makes me want to come to
19:25you natalie
19:26because you walk very much closely with the community you are also working with even the
19:31politicians at the level of the wards why is it so difficult to bring the development here what is
19:37skipping them what's happening at that level for me i feel if 100 000 is given for for for for
19:44for
19:44say a community like this they they don't just steal 100 000 they even steal 110 000 where they even
19:51get
19:51the 10 000 we don't know nothing comes to our community i've got adeline here this woman feeds
19:57two to three hundred children every day we all come together as as mothers because our children are not
20:04eating we're asking for opportunities to come here nothing is coming here adeline if people cannot even
20:10afford basic things like food how much more can they do for their community at a broader level i don't
20:19think they're interested in doing anything they will we fight those people day and night and they don't
20:25care because here's most of the children here i like they're playing there most of them they never even
20:32had breakfast this morning but if people can't see that we go to social development and they don't
20:39care we tell them there's children that needs to be removed because they get locked up the whole day
20:45because the mothers is on drugs as we were standing here there was a three-year-old i called
20:50her she didn't have one shoes it is ice cold today um terry do you think this it's safe to
20:58say that
20:58it's a forgotten community like what is happening at that level do you think people are taking time
21:04to understand the problems of the colored communities or they're just going by the stereotypes like you
21:10say i think a lot more can be done when it comes to develop the colored community especially colored
21:16communities in doburg i think there are systemic issues um that's happening i'm from a community called
21:24aldorado park and you'll hear stories every weekend of young men dying in aldos young men in western
21:30that are dying you know and i think that there needs to be education around what colored people are
21:37going through i think there needs to be resources there needs to be access there just a lot more needs
21:43to happen to particularly issues faced by the colored community what about each other what do you have to
21:49say i'm just i just want to add to what terry said um i feel like the colored voice is
21:54really lost
21:55in the national conversation and it's lost in the government it's lost you know i feel like if we have
22:03the colored voice we have the representation we can avoid relying on stereotypes so much to define what
22:12and who the colored community is robin what would a colored voice mean to you um it would definitely mean
22:18more representation um you know not just not just focusing on our history but but realizing that
22:25our history is is it's currently it's what shape us right and our communities we don't just need
22:32more food security etc we need we need funding we need mentorship sessions we need leadership and you know
22:41as is um um this gentleman said that he struggled with mpo funding and that's the reality of so
22:48many people i mean so many people want to make a difference but then it comes reality of a lack
22:53of
22:53funding let me just come to um the young people is that is there something that you would want to
22:59change about your community now what would that be because i believe this is not the kind of identity
23:05you want for your community when you grow up for your kids what kind of community do you want i
23:11think
23:11i would love a community where our mindsets change because there's a lot of colored people that get
23:17out of the community and then become very successful but what do they do they come back to the community
23:23and they drink they smoke and they instill the bad influences back into the community and the people
23:29in the community see that and they're like oh okay now it's fine i can do it because this guy
23:34is successful
23:35he's rich he has the money but he's doing what i'm doing so it's fine we need to have a
23:39mindset of
23:40when we when we make it when we make it big when we when we are financially stable and we
23:45can provide for
23:46ourselves and our families when you come to our communities and show them what to do show them the proper
23:51way of
23:52doing it not the fancy party inside of life but the life of this is how and this is why
23:58i got from a to b
23:59okay do you see south africa going ahead or beyond the race lines i don't at the moment i don't
24:08see it
24:08i i i think that for a very long time unfortunately that there will still be those colored white black
24:16line and maybe maybe not for my generation that'll be uh it'll it'll still be the case but i'm hoping
24:22that for the next generation that won't be the case larry i just want us to close uh this and
24:28for that i
24:28want us to summarize very quickly are we saying now that the people should self-identify as part of
24:34a community as opposed to those identities that has been imposed by the state or external institution
24:40i think every i think every person of this country has a right to self-identify now if we look
24:49at the
24:49colored concept that we are we call ourselves colored and we share this pride in it is because we share
24:55the
24:56same pain and we share the same dream of coming out of this you know socioeconomic conditions that
25:04was imposed on us the stigma that is imposing us as gangsters alcoholics drug addicts and so on but
25:10these issues are found everywhere in every community so the story that i came with here today
25:14is to say look we are not just all these things that we are classed as as gangsters and you
25:20know
25:20uh murderers in whatever the case may be we have a story of hope very well thank you so much
25:25larry i'll
25:26cut it right there because there's a lot that we can unpack and we can go on and on because
25:31the people
25:32are so passionate about the topic but at the end of the day the idea of being colored is clearly
25:37moving
25:37away from the restrictive label it was in the past but becoming more of a dynamic you know self-determined
25:44culture that the young generation is clearly embracing in its all african-ness thank you so much for
25:50watching see you another time bye
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