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1. the way there » Blog Archive » Chinese classified as blacks and other procrastination on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:02 am

   […] Racalicious:  Chinese is the new black […]

2. Feminist Law Professors » Blog Archive » “In South Africa, Chinese is the New Black” on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:49 am

   […] post title, that! Read what it is about here, at Racialicious. It discusses this WSJ article, which begins with these paragraphs: A high court in South Africa […]

3. Minority Report / Stereohyped on 25 Jun 2008 at 11:09 am

   […] • In South Africa, the Chinese are now black. [Racialicious] […]

4. Racialicious comment: In SA, Racism has prevailed. « The David Robert Lewis Blog on 08 Jul 2008 at 6:01 am

   […] SEE http://www.racialicious.com/2008/06/25/in-south-africa-chinese-is-the-new-black/ […]

Comments

1. cacy forgenie wrote:

   Apartheid isn’t even on the radar. &: Doesn’t black=slavery? Cuz thats the thinking pattern I’m seeing. I think a good example of this thinking is documented in the comments about the new Resident Evil game being set in Africa.

   Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 9:12 am ¶

2. DEAF FEMINIST PUNK!! wrote:

   Wow. It saddens me that many (white) American teenagers had never heard of Nelson Mandela. I know this for a fact because I was ranting one time downtown about apartheid and Nelson Mandela, and a bunch of kids asked me what “apartheid” meant and why was Nelson Mandela famous.

   I thought they were trying to be humorous, but they were actually quite serious.

   Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 9:21 am ¶

3. Latoya Peterson wrote:

   @Deaf Feminist Punk -

   Actually, I said that I would expect the under 18s not to know. The audience for the Wall Street Journal is adult professionals, who were (1) alive when all this was going down and (2) should have some sort of grasp of current affairs.

   While the comments look like ignorant teenagers wrote them (and no offense to the teens that post on this site - you all add to the conversation here beautifully) those were comments by *adults.*

   You should go check them out for yourself, if you feel like a laugh.

   Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 9:26 am ¶

4. Latoya Peterson wrote:

   Clarify:

   I would expect under 18s not to know because education here is limited and America-centric. We only learned the broadest ideas about the world and world history and we didn’t even touch modern events in my school system until 11th grade. Modern World history was required and we covered from 1000 AD - current day. In two semesters. Needless to say, anything that happened after 1960 was a footnote.

   Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 9:28 am ¶

5. ceecee wrote:

   “African tribes still till this day have slavery. Infact the stronger tribes take people from the weaker tribes and make them slaves.”

   Where do people pull this stuff from?

   Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 10:40 am ¶

6. cacy forgenie wrote:

   While the WSJ has a great summary about the lives of the Chinese in SA, I thought that the other papers, mostly UK based, were more in depth in their reporting. This was a battle that raged for 8 years in the courts, this fight for reclassification and I am glad they got it.

   Damn.

   Race is a helluva a drug.

   Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 10:41 am ¶

7. ms. four wrote:

   Well, there IS still slavery in modern day Africa, notably in Sudan, though in general its the northern (Arab) Sudanese who have enslaved some southern (African/black) Sudanese. But I don’t think that’s what the WSJ commenter meant.

   Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 11:07 am ¶

8. sylvie wrote:

   what i found interesting about the WSJ article on this topic was that taiwanese, korean, and japanese residents in SA were considered “honorary white.” i wonder how they made the distinction between those asians and the chinese?

   Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 11:43 am ¶

9. Sudani wrote:

   @ms.four,

   Classifying the northern Sudanese as “Arab” and the south Sudanese as “African/black” is simplistic, inaccurate, offensive and demonstrative of an obvious Western-centric perspective. The funny thing when Westerners discuss racial and ethnic issues in the Horn of Africa is how inconsistent they are in the usage of foreign classifications. For example, I applaud those who point to the Nubian influence in Ancient Egypt as clearly proving the “Africanness” of ancient Egypt. Yet, for some reason, though many of us in the North are descended of those same black Nubians who made Egypt African, we in Sudan are classified as Arab. Don’t get me wrong, the ethnic and religious supremacy (as exemplified by Khartoum’s actions in Darfur and south Sudan, respectively) is despicable and has to be fought by any means necessary - starting by fighting our terrible rulers. But please do not insult me and say that we are not black or African (our skin color is undeniable, and our pride in our culture, country, and continent unshakable). For the few Sudanese that say they are not black, believe me, they realize it quick when they go to Saudi or Dubai.

   Peace in Sudan and the Horn of Africa

   Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 11:45 am ¶

10. Le wrote:

    My (Chinese) coworker forwarded me this article. We both thought it was pretty funny. But I was wondering: what about non-Chinese Asians in South Africa? Does this apply to them as well?

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 12:12 pm ¶

11. F wrote:

    I wonder what the reaction of the other Asian, particularly Indian, community in SA is. I know from my family there was always a lot of resentment towards Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese etc immigrants in SA because they were classified several categories ‘whiter’ than Indians and Blacks, alongside Arabs and Persians.

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 12:44 pm ¶

12. F wrote:

    And also I should add that they were seen as participating insufficiently in the anti-Apartheid movement, unlike Blacks, Coloureds and Indians (e.g. the Indian Youth Congress), so I’d be surprised if this isn’t causing more resentment. There is resentment between those 3 groups as it is.

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 12:50 pm ¶

13. MJN wrote:

    Le: There’s been some misunderstanding of what this reclassification means. It’s just clarifying that SAfricans of Chinese descent fall into the “black” - non-white - classification and therefore qualify for BEE benefits extended to Coloureds, those of Indian descent, etc.

    http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_2342606,00.html

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 12:57 pm ¶

14. Logan wrote:

    You know, unlike the US declaring that all Hispanic-Americans are white in the 2000 census, this actually makes a little sense. Not much, but a little. Still don’t get how other asian ethnicities aren’t included though.

    And on the uninformed not knowing of apartheid…. it’s the internet. People think they’re smart. It’s probably better just to sigh and move on.

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 1:57 pm ¶

15. dnA wrote:

    Well, they’re not really black, any more than Indians in SA are black, although it makes for a cute headline. Colored people are at least culturally distinct from black people in SA. In fact a lot of African Americans wouldn’t be classified as “black” in South Africa, they’d be classified as colored. Here everyone’s just black.

    So I think part of the problem is that South Africa actually has an understanding of race that is different from the American understanding, and there’s a lot lost in the translation.

    But yeah chances are some of the commenters at the WSJ think apartheid is A-OK much like Ronald Reagan did.

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 2:27 pm ¶

16. Bobby wrote:

    I wonder if the “honorary whiteness” is related to the model minority myth.

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 3:05 pm ¶

17. Ron wrote:

    Race unfortunately is a political ideology. The funny thing about it is that many chinese are actually descendants of south african blacks and vice versa.

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 3:44 pm ¶

18. tokunbo wrote:

    it’s a really touchy issue. during apartheid, both japanese and taiwanese [as well as black americans, btw] were “honorary whites” meaning the apartheid laws did not apply to them. chinese, on the other hand, were “coloured”, and outside of the cape province [which is now the northern, western, and eastern cape provinces], they were subject to the same pass laws as all other non-white populations. in the cape they could live among white people but the whites had to approve of it. they were also subject to the same discrimination with regard to education and jobs outside of the cape province. [the cape province was a coloured preference area, which merely meant that the shit manual labor was to be given to coloureds first before blacks].

    sound complicated? it is. now the national party in blackface anc, for no other reason but to try to win the western cape at the ballot box, which it hasn’t yet done in the 14 years of multiparty rule, has called coloureds “black” for bee purposes. now “coloured” is a loaded term. it includes the cape malays, most san [ie bushmen], and most people who are a combination of malay, san, black, and white or any combination thereto. however, the first time around they specifically excluded chinese [as opposed to japanese and taiwanese who, as you recall, were honorary whites during apartheid] from this nomenclature. the chinese-south africans rightly called foul, and just now this was found in their favor.

    it’s really, really complex and defies easy explanation.

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 4:40 pm ¶

19. Black Canseco wrote:

    It’s funny… SA is still white run, despite being upwards of 70-80% black african. The courts, government, etc are still under the rules of White Afrikaaners.

    So to hear such an absurd ruling is, well, par for the course almost.

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 4:58 pm ¶

20. Slush wrote:

    The reason narrow racial specification is so important in South Africa is because Apartheid drew those distinctions. So now in order to create a level playing field the idea is to reverse the racial/ethnic privileges in the exact opposite hierarchical order as they used to be.

    This makes some logical sense in an abstract way, and otherwise makes kind of a neverending hopeless mess, doesn’t it? It really brings home the awareness that once a system of racial privilege is established it is extraordinarily difficult to get rid of.

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 6:27 pm ¶

21. Barbara wrote:

    I was in junior high/high school in the 80s, where I learned about apartheid thanks to MTV videos. I guess all that time in front of the tube wasn’t wasted.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKCJWjqjQww

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 6:52 pm ¶

22. Slush wrote:

    @Black Canseco

    I don’t know, I think South Africa’s race relations are actually much better than the US. They have much more progressive laws and a lot of optimism about healing from the past without forgetting it. It’s only been 15 years since the end of Apartheid and the power structures have changed a lot. It’s certainly true the courts in particular are still dominated by old white men, but the “pipeline” is way more promising. White lawyers and judges tend to be older ones who have just been doing that their whole lives and so continue until they retire, while ones recently entering the courts and government are black.

    I don’t mean to paint it like there’s no problems there - there are plenty and there’s still plenty of all kinds of racism and baggage. But in particular the whole project of affirmative action and racial healing starts going better when the formerly oppressed are now the dominant majority, rather than a minority having to battle for every piece of equality.

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 7:31 pm ¶

23. Van wrote:

    Bobby-I wonder if the “honorary whiteness” is related to the model minority myth.

    I don’t think it has anything to do the model minority myth. The model minority explanation(as applied to Asians) is an American thing.
    But it has everything to do with increasing the count of white citizens of SA. The architects of Apartheid SA were acutely aware of and anxious about their numerical disadvantage in the population-and rightly so. Those who were enthusiastically supporting Hitler’s Germany are the same people who reluctantly accepted the counting of Jews as Whites. Political considerations also went into those arbitrary decisions. Taiwan was one of the few countries which maintained full diplomatic contact with SA while the mainland China was always critical of SA on the international stage. It would be ludicrous to maintain a serious distinction( let alone a racial one) between Chinese in Taiwan and citizens of People Republic of China. Nevertheless, they did it in South Africa.

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 7:49 pm ¶

24. michael wrote:

    Race belations in SA are better than here in the U.S? I find that to be a ridiculous statement, with no basis in reality. As far as this idiotic (and offensive) decision to turn chinese people black…..wtf?? How about just including them in the list of minorities in need of affirmative action??

    A ruling like this proves that much of the change in SA is purely cosmetic.

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 7:54 pm ¶

25. jstele wrote:

    The reason Asians were included has nothing to do with the model minority myth, but rather the desire for the South African government to get Asian investment. They knew that treating Asian investors as 2nd class citizens would obviously discourage them from investing, so they created that category of “honorary white”.

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 7:59 pm ¶

26. Cranky_Old_Batt wrote:

    Well dang, can I be reclassified as white for employment and other economic benefits?
    please?

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 8:24 pm ¶

27. ms. four wrote:

    Sudani, as I wrote that, I thought someone might object… perhaps I should have said “Arabic-speaking” to refer to northerners. I think your reaction was a bit strong, but eh, okay.

    Yes, I am western, but interact daily with Sudanese, primarily southern Sudanese, and I happen to have a couple of East Africans in my immediate family… so while I may have a lot to learn, I perhaps know more than you have suggested.

    What I don’t know is this: are you saying that northern Sudanese consider themselves African? Certainly many (most?) Egyptians think of “Africa” as a place south of where they live. Is Sudan different?

    Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 9:48 pm ¶

28. tokunbo wrote:

    um, canseco —

    the anc have made the education system even worse than it was under the nats.

    education is the key to wealth gap correction, not legislation, yet the goverment are making such a hash of it that several of my [black] neighbors have sent their kids to boarding schools to botswana, ghana, zambia and even zimbabwe to get them OUT of south african schools. i won’t say “wealth redistribution” because redistrubution is not the answer. affirmative action/black economic empowerment as practiced by the people running the country is a sham and doomed to failure for most people.

    you may already know this [but given your statements, i’m sure you don’t], one of the airlines here just folded because its BEE partner failed to secure funding. the economic cynics out there say that if the airline had not been forced to search for BEE partners, it would still be running today. but once you have a certain amount of employees, you don’t have a choice.

    because of that last sentence, a lot of entrepreneurs are purposely keeping their companies below a certain threshold of employees because the way the government wants BEE to be enacted is really untenable. this is what happens when you have a bunch of people running the country who, as the current president’s own brother puts it, have never even run as much as a corner store. in short, while they may have political sense, they have no economic sense, and the completely bifurcated economy shows this.

    by the way, the english have collectively always had much, much more, money-wise, than the afrikaners and especially the boers [there IS a difference between the two, btw]. that was the whole point of the economic side of apartheid: to be an affirmative-action program for afrikaans-speaking white males. the methodology was a bit befok, but that’s what it was.

    [yes, i live in south africa. no, i’m not south african; i’m glad for this as it means i’m not 5ft tall, 5ft wide with a bad drinking problem. but i lived here for a bit under the nats, and as i had a canadian passport at the time, i could see all sides of everything whenever i wanted.]

    Posted 26 Jun 2008 at 1:31 am ¶

29. jayspark wrote:

    Being black is no longer a race here in SA…
    its a means to the end (economic wealth )

    (ironically black people are still the poorest here)

    Posted 26 Jun 2008 at 6:37 am ¶

30. Kandee wrote:

    This is a perfect example of ‘black as a concept’. The unwanted of a society is deemed black and the wanted deemed white.

    Posted 26 Jun 2008 at 8:10 am ¶

31. Tina wrote:

    Stephen Colbert put it perfectly. This news serves as a perfect example of the fact that race is in fact a social construction with no bearing on actual biological differences at all!

    As for the WSJ commenters, I find it completely interesting that in all their snobbish glory they are perfectly fine with imposing US history on South Africa’s current situation and are also comfortable presenting completely unsubstantiated points of “fact”.

    There is absolutely no comparison between the racial system of slavery in the US and the economic and war-based slavery that may or may not still take place among some ethnic groups (read: NOT TRIBES) in Africa.

    Posted 26 Jun 2008 at 9:16 am ¶

32. Thealogian wrote:

    “African tribes still till this day have slavery. Infact the stronger tribes take people from the weaker tribes and make them slaves.”

    Where do people pull this stuff from?

    The same place that woman on the viral video about Obama “having Arab Tendencies and wanting to kill babies born alive” came from –Fox News, the intertubes, and their own desire to construct lies to tell themselves and others to justify not just disagreeing with a politicians position on issues, but to truly HATE Obama.

    I remember learning about Apartheid on “A Different World”–I was a kid living in the progressive San Francisco Bay Area, I have liberal and engaged parents, but “A Different World” helped me to understand the situation in South Africa.

    Its funny how thoughtful pop-culture really can make a difference in how one understands the world.

    Of course, obscuring the significance of Apartheid by the WSJ readers/commenters is part of the greater tactic to dismiss the concept that racism is now, not some unsavory past reality. The more it becomes history, or talked about in the public domain only as history, the narrative becomes about reparations, not social justice.

    peace

    Posted 26 Jun 2008 at 10:08 am ¶

33. evilbunnytoo wrote:

    Logan, re post #14

    “You know, unlike the US declaring that all Hispanic-Americans are white in the 2000 census, this actually makes a little sense. Not much, but a little. Still don’t get how other asian ethnicities aren’t included though.”

    Just an FYI - classifying hispanics as “other whites” is much older and goes back to court decisions regarding whether or not Mexicans living in the southwest after the U.S. acquired the that territory from Mexico were citizens (as guaranteed by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo). See post 30 here for more info http://www.racialicious.com/2008/06/13/new-study-shows-that-latino-teens-are-pregnant-suicidal-junkies/#comments

    Posted 26 Jun 2008 at 10:42 am ¶

34. Cultofpop wrote:

    Tukunbo is right on with his/her comments on the racial classification system in South Africa. I lived there for a time and became close with many fourth generation South African-born Chinese (who were my age) and could not believe the stories I heard from them about their lives and those of their parents and grandparents in SA- with some being classed as honorary white, others as coloured. Being read as “Chinese” by most South Africans too meant that I experienced just how differently constructed race is there than in the US- it was painful, but necessary, given I had bought into the model minority myth as much as anyone prior to going. Goes again to show you just how much of a construct race really is.

    Posted 26 Jun 2008 at 2:06 pm ¶

35. msday wrote:

    Nope, you have to blame this on poor education standards in America. Many times when I look at the comments on race issues, I always notice these angry white people who bring up slavery but fail to mention apartheid or Jim crow. They also seem to think that Africa is a tiny little monoracial, monoethnic and monolithic country where the people are blue black and run around with no clothing. Then again, check out the comments sometimes made about Italians when Italy is in the news. Once again, judging from the comments many Americans think Italy is a third world country. How arrogant? So I am saying this because there are many Americans who are ignorant about the world and arrogant which is dangerous. The bad part about it is that they are selectively exposing their minds to racist opinions on the internet and passing it off as knowledge because they are not being educated in school. Following a syllabus detailing what one neeeds to no in order to pass a state mandated exam is not teaching students to think. It also doesn’t inspire the students curiosity. So you have this test machine student graduating from high school. If they go to college, would this person be compelled to take and African studies course or a study of Europe. Would this person have enough courage to integrate the “black” table in the cafeteria or if the person were black, would they have enough courage to refuse to sit at the “black” table.
    I feel this is another reason why Europeans and Africans think Americans are stupid. If you don’t believe it go to youtube and type in Americans are dumb and watch one of those videos. Afterwards look at the comments and think about it. America’s primary educational system is in a shambles.

    Posted 27 Jun 2008 at 3:13 am ¶

36. msday wrote:

    Please excuse my post for the typo’s. I didn’t preview it prior to posting. Now, I know better.

    Posted 27 Jun 2008 at 3:16 am ¶

37. van wrote:

    @Thealogian
    A word of advice. Never quote “A different World” as a credible source of information- or any TV program for that matter. That is exactly the problem I have with a lot of Americans- knowledge from TV……

    Posted 28 Jun 2008 at 6:49 pm ¶

38. RCHOUDH wrote:

    Hello,

    Just a quick question to F (for quote #11) or to anyone else who knows the answer to this but I was wondering what Arabs and Persians were classified as being under the Apartheid system? Thank you.

    Posted 29 Jun 2008 at 12:48 am ¶

39. Kesha wrote:

    I have to go with the African and European view of America most times…we are a country full of shamefully miseducated people. It’s true.

    Posted 29 Jun 2008 at 6:16 am ¶

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