Chinese of South Africa to be classified as black

[kikiandlala]

I'm not at all familiar with the history of Apartheid era South Africa,
but the article is pretty interesting if a bit sparse.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7461099.stm

[jook]

Does this also mean that Charlize Theron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlize_Theron) and Dave Matthews (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Matthews) are technically African-Americans?

[King4aDay]

I'm not at all familiar with the history of Apartheid era South Africa,
but the article is pretty interesting if a bit sparse.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7461099.stm

Well now... welcome to the family. :)

[TheMac]

I'm not at all familiar with the history of Apartheid era South Africa,
but the article is pretty interesting if a bit sparse.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7461099.stm

This is so dumb.

[Tyger Durden]

This will be great study in Labeling Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labeling_theory) for Sociologists to see if there is any noticeable change in behaviour, norms, customs and attitudes among the Chinese "Blacks".

To be fair, it should be conducted over a couple of generations, but some (objective) results may manifest within the next several years.

[TeaAndSpongeCake]

South Africa really needs to sort itself out... -_-


Come on Mr.Mandela!

[Scowl]

This really isn't as ridiculous as some of you guys think.

Obviously, Chinese aren't black, but this labeling is purely for economic reasons. Specifically, to determine who can benefit from certain government programs. People aren't going to start calling Chinese people black.

Of course it's problematic and it just sounds ridiculous, but like I said, it doesn't appear that they are actually trying to classify or define races. They're just figuring out who gets to benefit from government economic programs. The way they do things probably is a direct result of the apartheid era.

What's interesting is that, during the apartheid era, the Chinese who had been there for some time were classified as "black" or maybe "coloured." One of those two, although I don't think there is a huge difference between the categories. They had some really fucked up racial-caste system where you were basically screwed if you didn't have white status. However, more recent immigrants from Japan and Taiwan were given "honorary white" status due to diplomatic ties between those countries.

So you have two parts of the Chinese South African population - one that has always been privilieged and one that never has.

Also, I wonder about the economic status of Chinese South Africans. If overseas Chinese communities throughout the rest of the world are any indication, then they shouldn't be doing too bad, at least financially. But I don't know.