Black

Black as an adjective

Black (as in “Black theatre”, “Black South Africans” and so on): A contentious matter. By and large this publication utilizes the American usage which has been followed in South Africa from the middle of the 1970’s, namely to use “black” in this context to refer to anyone (or any activity perpetrated by someone who would have been classified as) “non-white” or “non-European” in former years. This implies that the term is a blanket term for used to be referred to as Africans (Zulus, Xhosas, Sotho etc.), as well as the so-called “coloureds” and the Indians and other Asian peoples in the country. This usage has been challenged in a variety of ways and actually derives from an overriding aim of the various anti-apartheid solidarity movements, most notably the Black People’s Convention and the Black Consciousness Movement which it espoused. There are schools of thought however which prefer to reserve “black” for people of pure African descent alone, while others (e.g. Steadman in Hauptfleisch and Steadman, 1984) define “black theatre” in terms of a point of view rather than skin pigmentation.

Other terms: Kaffir, Bantu, Non European , Non White

See also

Apartheid classifications and terminology

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