But rather than skin color, an entree into South Africa's colored community hinges mostly on an apartheid-inspired notion of race. The enslaved people were taken from the Indonesian archipelago, Zanzibar, Madagascar and Mozambique and included people from the indigenous Xhosa and Zulu cultures, said Kay Jaffer, who has taught South African literature and theater, cultural and media studies and writing at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town. During apartheid, colored people were oppressed, but blacks had it worse. That is a myth that should be broken, Jaffer said. Coloreds are part of the ruling party, the African National Congress.
Coloreds have overlapping identities because of religion, culture, class and politics.
But no matter their identity, most coloreds still see themselves separate from black South Africans. Jaffer said black Americans, regardless of their complexion, would be well received. America is this icon of what is hip, so that adds a certain cachet. But black America isn't hip enough to have completely discarded hang-ups about complexion. Those people who were free had to distance themselves from those people who were enslaved to protect what they had.