A motherless pariah searching for identity and relevance

Abstract

I was 41 years old when I met my mother for the first time in the small farming town of Olifantshoek. I was a mixed-race child, born out of wedlock as a consequence of a liaison between a Black mother and a “so-called Coloured” father in Apartheid South Africa, at a time when such a liaison was deemed a criminal offence. This research report takes the form of a personal account of enforced separation, racial bias and interracial segregation that divided communities of colour, particularly the “so-called Coloured” community, which included my own family. It narrates how my “African” mother’s perceived unsuitability to raise a child due to her Blackness, willfully deprived me of a bond with my biological mother, my extended maternal family and, in essence left me a motherless pariah, still searching for the knowledge of my true identity and relevance in the land of my birth. The essay seeks also to use my personal story to explore the race and identity issues that face the so-called “Coloured” community. It includes an examination of issues in the history of the colonised inhabitants of the Cape, apartheid-era rules and restrictions around interracial mixing, and debates within the “Coloured” community. The piece concludes that my existence as a South African is not determined and defined by colour, ethnicity or race classification, but rather by the acceptance of who I am as an individual and as a human being. It argues that the term “Coloured” is unhelpful and that new ways should be found to facilitate the ownership of positive identity.