A term for a person of mixed European (white) and African (black) ancestry) used in South Africa during the apartheid.
Coloured Quotes in Kaffir Boy
The Kaffir Boy quotes below are all either spoken by Coloured or refer to Coloured. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 34
Quotes
The government generally treated Coloureds slightly better by giving them better jobs, better housing and better education than blacks. As a result most of the Coloureds were ashamed of their black blood, and often their prejudice against blacks was fiercer than the white man’s. But a new generation of young Coloureds, which saw itself as more black than white, was emerging, and it embraced the entire range of black aspirations.
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Explanation and Analysis:
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Coloured Term Timeline in Kaffir Boy
The timeline below shows where the term Coloured appears in Kaffir Boy. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...Alexandra is a shantytown that occupies one square mile and houses over 100,000 black people, Coloured people (those with mixed black and white heritage), and Indians. Nearby, white people enjoy one...
(full context)
Chapter 34
...work becomes scarce, Mathabane spends more time practicing tennis against the wall. One day, a Coloured man named Scaramouche notices him and starts critiquing his form and offering tips. Since Coloured...
(full context)
Chapter 44
...boxes of government rations, exclaiming that someone rammed a bus through the wall of a Coloured school, where the government was storing food. The boys tell Mathabane that they set fire...
(full context)