Colour and Culture in South Africa

Sheila Patterson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136243059
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Sociologia

This is Volume VI of twenty-one in a series on Race, Class and Social Structure. Originally published in 1953 and using language of the time, this is a study of the status of the Cape coloured people within the social structure of the Union of South Africa.

PART ONE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE

THE APPROACH

If any body shall reprove me, and shall make it apparent unto me, that in any either opinion or action of mine I doe erre, I will most gladly retract. For it is the truth that I seeke after, by which I am sure that never any man was hurt; and as sure, that he is hurt that continueth in any error, or ignorance whatsoever.—MARCUS AURELIUS.

GUNNAR Myrdal, in the preface to An American Dilemma, gives his general terms of reference in the following passage:

‘The study, thus conceived, should aim at determining the social, political, educational and economic status of the Negro in the United States, as well as defining opinions held by different groups of Negroes and whites as to his “right status”. It must, further, be concerned with both recent changes and current trends with respect to the Negro’s position in American society. Attention must also be given to the total American picture with particular emphasis on relations between the two races. Finally it must consider what changes are being or can be induced by education, legislation, inter-racial efforts, concerted action by Negro groups, etc.’¹

The execution of such a work required the co-operation of a large number of specialists in various branches of the social sciences over a considerable period of time. Any single-handed attempt to follow similar terms of reference, even in the smaller South African context, must therefore seem unduly ambitious. In the absence, however, of any large body of sociological literature on, or indeed of a general sociological survey of, the Cape Coloured People, it seemed advisable to make as wide a study as possible of this group within the framework of the larger society, even at the risk of superficiality.

After a brief historical sketch of the origins and formation of the Coloured People, the study does in fact follow the general pattern outlined by Myrdal,² except that the final practical stipulation has not been followed out in comparable detail. The Negro problem presents itself to many American sociologists as one of applied science, i.e., how to bring the Southern ‘caste-system’ into line with the egalitarian, open-class system advocated by the ‘American ideal’, a system which is practised in the North and backed by the federal authorities.

In South Africa, there is no such internal disparity amongst various sections of the white community, all of whom, unlike Americans, live in close contact with coloured groups.³ There is a similar democratic ideal, but it is, in practice, reserved ‘for Europeans only’.

The vast majority of white South Africans, whether private citizens or public servants, would agree without demur that the major function of their social structure is to preserve ‘white’ or ‘European’ supremacy. There is therefore no question of bringing the social structure of one part of the country into line with a more liberal ideal structure, as constitutionally laid down.⁴ In addition, the Cape Coloured problem is now only a part of the overall colour problem in South Africa, and suggested solutions, even if welcome, would have to take into account the whole picture, which presents many radically different features.

In this chapter we shall define more closely the groups with which this study is concerned, and the type of structural relationships which exist within or between them. In the first place, the larger society, that of the Union of South Africa, is not coextensive with a ‘community’. Following MacIver, we take a ‘society’ to be ‘the system of social relationships in and through which we live’, and a ‘community’ to be a group of individuals living ‘together in such a way that they share, not this or that particular interest but the basic conditions of a common life’.⁵ While it is true that South Africa has a single political and economic structure, and its citizens constitute a unified group politically and legally in relation to the outside world, internal social relationships are not ‘shared’ in a reciprocal manner. Instead some relationships are imposed by one constituent group upon other groups, while other relationships are withheld.⁶ In fact, this dominant group actively opposes the extension of a wider community or ‘we’ sentiment to the subordinate groups,⁷ and seeks to perpetuate its own exclusiveness and domination by every possible means.

Although the larger society could not exist, as at present constituted, without the presence and participation of the subordinate groups, its forms, nevertheless, have been and still are largely dictated by the interests and attitudes of the dominant group. In describing and analysing the status of one particular subordinate group, we are therefore concerned more with the relations between the latter and the dominant group than with its relations with other subordinate groups, except in so far as these are a product of the former relationship.

This is particularly true in the case of a ‘marginal’ group such as the Cape Coloured, whose status within the general structure varies according to the attitudes of the dominant group. Stonequist⁸ ranked the Cape Coloured People as ‘racially marginal.’ The greater part of this group is not, however, the product of hybridisation between the two major existing ethnic groups in South Africa, the Europeans and the Bantu.⁹ It is, on the contrary, the product of past miscegenation between Europeans and Non-European groups which have largely ceased to exist as such, in an area of the Union in which the Bantu only arrived a century ago.¹⁰

The Cape Coloured People are intermediate between white and Bantu in the pigmentation scale, but they are not racially marginal.¹¹ Nor are they culturally marginal, since they have no roots in, and few contacts with, Bantu tribal life.¹² The alien cultures to which their non-white ancestors belonged have died out, with the exception of the Moslem sub-culture preserved in the Cape Peninsula. As Professor Marais writes:

‘… the Coloured do not appear to differ from us to-day in anything except their poverty … A Coloured community as distinct from the European does not exist in any realistic interpretation of the term.’¹³

The Cape Coloured group is therefore neither racially nor culturally marginal in the strict sense.¹⁴ It is, however, socially marginal, in that the status ascribed to it by the dominant group, or various sections of the dominant group, has, at least since the Act of Union between the four provinces in 1909, hovered between those of the sharply dichotomised white in-group and black out-group. In Part II of this study we shall show how the Coloured group has been and is classed with the European group in some respects, and with other Non-European groups in others, and try to trace some trends in this apparently haphazard process.

In brief, we are studying what has ceased to be a culture-conflict situation, but remains in essence a ‘race’ or, more specifically, a colour-conflict situation. In view of the number of ‘white’ genes within the Coloured group, and of ‘coloured’ genes within the white group, one might have expected the conflict to resolve itself by gradual stages. Any such prospect was, however, checked by the arrival upon the scene of a new and formidable group, the Bantu, alien to the European both biologically and culturally. The attitudes evoked in the European group by this contact resulted in a re-stressing of colour distinctions, thereby adversely and permanently affecting the status of the Cape Coloured group.

We have spoken of groups within South African society. These groups are classified on a basis of ethnic, or putatively ethnic, divisions. They are customarily, and perhaps somewhat loosely, referred to as ‘communities’—the ‘European (or white) community’, the ‘Coloured community’, the ‘Indian community’, and even the ‘Bantu community’. Historically, there is little justification for the term, although the different formal status accorded to each group within the social structure has undoubtedly succeeded in evoking some kind of ‘we-sentiment’ within each division vis-à-vis the others. The extent to which this has occurred amongst the various smaller communities within the Coloured group will be discussed in Chapter VIII.

From time to lime we shall also have occasion to note the imperfect coincidence of attitudes towards other ethnic groups amongst various communities or sub-groups within the European group, as for instance the English-speaking, Afrikaans-speaking and Jewish communities, or various rural and urban groups. These sub-groups are given only for the sake of illustration; other possible classifications could be based on occupation, provincial or religious affiliation, or social class.

It may be that in these variations within the wider European group lurk the seeds of some future settlement of the race-situation. At present, however, it must be admitted that colour-situations evoke the maximum community response of which the European group is apparently capable, and there are few European individuals who would dare to go against their own group on such occasions.¹⁵

Before attempting to describe and analyse the status of a group within a larger society, we must give our definition of status, whether of groups or individuals, and describe the principal types and determinants of status-hierarchy which arise in more complex societies.

Status is understood to be the position of an individual or a group, relative to other individuals or groups, within a larger social grouping or society.¹⁶ This relationship is evaluated both by the larger grouping and the individual or group concerned. In its widest social context, status is a relative, subjective and fluctuating concept. It both acts upon and is acted upon by the more restricted forms of status, economic, religious, legal and so on. The latter forms have both a subjective and a formal aspect, which do not always coincide.

In the case of individuals within a group status would necessarily involve some form of ranking. In the case of groups within a larger group, status involves social stratification, which may range from an open-class system to a caste-hierarchy, according to the bases on which status-evaluation rests in the given society. These bases or determinants may be acquirable or unacquirable. In the latter category comes the determinant of birth, either linked with distinctive physical traits such as skin-colour or not; in either case, ‘passing’ and the practice of adoption break the rigid rule without affecting the principle. In the category of acquirable status-determinants come wealth, occupation, religious or cultural affiliation, education, and so on. All determinants operate either singly, or more often in various combinations. The bases on which status rests in a particular society are derived from the system of values evolved by that society as a result of its functional needs and the specific historical processes through which it has passed. The type of status-hierarchy which arises, and the type of group on which it is based, depend upon the relative emphasis which a particular society lays upon these status-determinants.

Where the main stress is placed above all on birth, individual inequality and hereditary specialisation, a rigid hierarchy of castes on the Indian model may result. Wealth and appearance are said to have no significance except in so far as they may advance the individual member within his own caste.¹⁷ Birth and property taken in conjunction may produce a somewhat less rigid social hierarchy, such as the patrician-knight-plebe stratification of the Roman Republic, or the later stages of the English feudal estates. In both, adequate wealth was required to support the claim of birth as a status-determinant. On the other hand, the acquisition of sufficient property might cause the absence of suitable birth to be overlooked. In either case, a small degree of social mobility existed.

Since the rise of the bourgeoisie, and the passing-over of estates into classes, the trend in Western societies has been towards an increased inter-class mobility, and a closer approximation to an open-class system, with its emphasis least of all on birth, and most of all on the fundamental, or at least potential, equality of the individual.

In such societies there must always be individual striving, uncertainty and tension. Professor Cox has contrasted this situation¹⁸ with the static and peaceful order of a rigid caste-system, in which each individual is said to know and accept his place, whilst the rivalry for position is not between individuals but between castes in the hierarchy, a rivalry which does not undermine, but strengthens the hierarchy. He contrasts it too with another type of status-hierarchy, based not on culture or occupation, but on colour, a qualification quite as immutable as that of birth within a given caste. In this situation, however, skin-colour by itself will not be permanently regarded as a sufficient status-determinant by the inferior groups at least, and the resulting conflicts will weaken and ultimately destroy the hierarchy.

There has recently been a trend amongst American sociologists to interpret colour-status hierarchies in terms of castes, and classes wi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Part I—Introduction
• Part II—Patterns of Differentiation and Discrimination
• Part III—The Present Situation
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Appendices A—Y
• Index