Gauteng’s ‘Coloured’ community feels unsafe: who they are and why they’re discouraged

By Rashid Seedat

The “Coloured” community in Gauteng, South Africa’s economic heartland, continues to face barriers to full economic and social inclusion.

Despite progress in post-apartheid South Africa, this historically oppressed community continues to experience significant socio-economic challenges.

The term “Coloured” is initially placed in quotation marks to acknowledge its contested nature.

Historically, the formation of Coloured identity in South Africa emerged from a complex colonial encounter involving Dutch and British settlers, slaves from south and east Asia and east Africa, and the indigenous Khoi and San peoples.

This produced a distinct, mixed group that did not neatly fit into colonial racial categories. During apartheid, Coloured people were legally defined by the 1950 Population Registration Act as those who were neither white nor Black African.

Today, it remains an official racial classification in South Africa. It is also used in everyday discourse. But it is not a universally accepted label.

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