Steven Swinford assumed he was British until a website’s DNA test revealed 43 far-flung relatives. My family had always presumed that we were solidly British. My mother, our resident genealogist, has painstakingly traced five generations on her side back to Leeds and West Yorkshire, while my father’s clan hails from Bethnal Green in east London. [...]
Category Archives: Naissance
A change for the best!
In my first article “Rise my coloured brother, rise” I introduced my opinion about the need for change that needs to take root within the coloured community. However whilst I gave acknowledgement to the need for change – the question of “what to change or a change to what” I did not answer. Many a [...]
Rise my coloured brother, rise!
The debate about being a coloured in South Africa has been debated to wits end, by whites, blacks, Indians, coloureds and hell, even when I hear those Chinese speaking I swear they are also talking about coloureds. I don’t know about you but I do like it when people talk about me, only thing is, [...]
The coloured ‘white’ woman from China
For coloured South Africans, identity is something of a misnomer, and this couldn’t be more true for my family. My genealogy has always been of interest to me, particularly because people assume I am white. Over the past few years, my eldest brother and I have been trying to trace our ancestry. We have made [...]
The Illogic of American Racial Categories
In most people’s minds … race is a fundamental organizing principle of human affairs. Everyone has a race, and only one. The races are biologically and characterologically separate one from another, and they are at least potentially in conflict with one another. Race has something to do with blood (today we might say genes), and [...]
Beyond Racial Identity
No matter where you are in the world, at some point or the other you will be accosted with an idea, a thought, a concept or a word that designate a distinction between people either based on race, color, creed, religion or belief. More often than not this serves as signpost of brewing and growing [...]
Also posted in Genesis, History, Identity, Inspiration Tagged Biracial, Colored, Hapa, Identity, Mixed, Mulatto, multicultural, Multiracial 2 Comments
The Evolution of Coloured South Africa
In Africa the indigenous people divided into tribes and developed naturally with varying and different cultural, political, religious, social norms, customs and languages or dialects. Inter-tribal marriages took place and the women would be obliged to take residence in the husband’s culture, clan or tribe. A bastard race slowly and silently shattered, littered across the [...]
Also posted in Genesis, Identity Tagged bastar, Bushie, Gam, Group Areas Act, History, hot-not, segregation 7 Comments
The Way Forward for People of Colour.
Transcending the shackles, chains and burdens of separation mentality, repressive racial thought prevalent in South Africa and the world, the concept of beyond identity fosters values of uniformity between people that finds discourse and dissent against any form of exclusion. An ethos never to racially exclude and discriminate on the grounds of ethnicity, nationality, language, [...]