A storm has erupted on social media over comments made by Trevor Noah in his book, Born a Crime.
The book was published in 2016 and in it, he writes:
Most coloured people don’t speak African languages. They speak Afrikaans. Their religions, their institutions, all of the things that have shaped their culture, came from Afrikaners.
The history of coloured people is, in this respect, worse than the history of black people in South Africa. For all that black people have suffered, they know who they are. Coloured people don’t.
The book went on to become a Bestseller and is currently being turned into a Hollywood movie.
However, unlike readers in the United States, Coloureds in South Africa are not impressed and have called on the book to be boycotted.
Many have pointed out that his comments are the kind of gross generalisations that are indicative of racist sentiments.
An overwhelming majority of Coloureds found his comments to be ignorant and suggested that he should apologise.
It was also pointed out that his opinion suggests that he has not done any research on the topic and only highlights his own identity crisis.
It was further elaborated on that if he did do research, he would know that Afrikaans was developed by the Khoisan and Malay slaves who were forced to speak Dutch by the colonisers.
He would have also known that the 2011 census shows that less than 2% of those living in the historically Coloured suburb of Wentworth in Durban, speaks Afrikaans as a first language.
Research has, for example, found that Western Cape Coloured people are predominantly of indigenous Khoisan origin, with their roots tracing back to Khoisan women.
Research has also shown that in slave society’s, as were the case with Khoisan women and European coloniser men, a person’s historical and cultural identity is generally traced along maternal lines.
This means that a person’s identity is generally that of the mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, etc.
The reason for this is that, even if a Khoisan gave birth to a child with a European father, the child will not receive the benefits of the father.
Instead, they will be treated the same as the mother and will be considered to be of the same culture as the mother, essentially meaning that the child is Khoisan.
Of course, not all Coloureds can trace their roots back to Khoisan origin, as is the case with Kwazulu Natal, where a substantial amount of Coloureds have direct Zulu ancestry.
Despite his ignorance on the complex issue of Coloured identity it is prudent to note that the movie version of his book will be directed by Liesl Tommy, who was born in the Coloured community of Factreton in Cape Town.
Liesl has also completed directing ‘Respect’, which is a biographical drama on the life of Aretha Franklin, which is set to be released in October of this year.