6

The Case of Race Classification and

Reclassification under Apartheid

Sir de Villiers C raaff aske<l where the ~udden rlangcr to the white group was
that had caused the minister to dec ide to close off the hum an stud -book he
had tr ied to create . He was endea voring to classify the uncla ssifiable.
(H orrell 1968, 27)

T he stub born surviv al of ra cial categories att ests to the enduring power of th e
ol<l race parad igm, as wd l as the fact tha t new insigh ts ;1n ci met hodologies
ta ke time to be fully incorp orated an d interna lized.
(Dubow 1995, 106)

A5 informatio n scientists, the theor etical an d practical issues of racial and

eth nic group categorization. namin g, and mea ning can be viewed as empirical
data about pro ble ms associated with th e orga 11i:rnLio11
of knowledge , rep re-
sentation, classification , a nd standa rds setting.
(Robbin 1998, 3)

Intr oduction: The Texture of Classification

Th e last chap ter examined the d etailed interac tion s among peop le,
in stitu tions, and cate gor ies about tuber culosis. Each has a trajecto ry,
an d the tr~jectorie s may pull or torque each oth er over time if they
move in different directions or ar. differen t races. T he th reads that tie
catego ry to d isease, to science , to bur eau cracy, and thu s to perso n,
often become twisted and tangled in the lon g p rocess of the d isease.
Th e texture of classification here is comp osed of thick iiliatio ns, en-
compass ing mu ch of a p erson·s life, imp osed from outsi d e, and filled
with u ncerta inty and <;ont.radictio n.
Th is chapter exa min es anot her similar ly torqued group or filiations
between people and classificat ion s, th at which tied racial categor ies to
perso ns un de r apar the id in South Africa. H ere, race classification and
re classificatio n p rov ided th e bur ea ucrati c u nde rp inn in gs for a vicious
196 Ch(llpler 6

racism. Here too the attempt to create a normalized, systemic boo k-

keeping system was embedded in a larger program of human de stru c-
tion . There are enduring lessons to be drawn about mor al
accountabilit y in the face of mod ern bur eau cracy. The ethical concern s
are clearly basic questions of social justice and equit y; at the same time ,
their very extremit y can teach us about the quieter , less visible aspects
of the politics of classification. We walk here a line similar to th at of
Hannah Arendt in her Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report an the Banality
of Evil (196 3). The quiet bureau crat "just following ord ers" is in a way
more chilling than the expected monster drippin g grue . Eichm ann
explained what he was doing in routine , almo st clerical term s; this was
fully emb edded in the systematic genocid e of the Holocau st.
One of this book 's central argumems i~ tha t classification systems are
often sites of political and social strug gles, but tha t the se sites are
difficult to appr oach. Politically and socially cha rged age nd as ar e oti:en
tirst prese nted as pur ely techni cal and they are difficult even to see.
As layers of classification system become enfolded into a working
infr astructu re, the origin al political inte rvention becomes more and
more firmly entre nched . In man y cases, this leads to a naturalization
of the political category, thr ough a process of converge nce. It becomes
ta ken for gra nted. (We are using the word natura lization adv isedly
here, since it is only thr ough our infr astructu res that we can describe
and manipulate natur e.) We e mph asize here the stub born refu sal of
"race" to fit the desired classification system subo rned by its pro -
apar theid de signers. Thu s, we further develop the concept of tor qu e
to describe th e intera ction of classification systems a nd biogra ph y.

Background

From the earl y days of Dutch settlement of South Africa, the de j ure
separation and inequality of people coexisted with interra cial relati on-
ship s. In the mid-nineteenth century charter of the Union , it was
simpl y stated that "equality between White and colour ed per son s
would not be tolerated " (Suzman I 960). Variou s laws were en acted
that reinfor ced this slarn.:e. When the Nation alists came to power in
1948, howeve1~a much more detailed a nd restr ictive policy, aparth eid,
was pu t into place. In 1950 two key pieces ofl egislation, the Popul ation
Registration Act and the Group Areas Act were pa ssed. T he se requi red
that people be stri ctly classified by racial gro up , and that those clas-
sification s determin e where they could live and work . O ther areas
 The Case uf Race Classifiwtionand Redassificatiununder Apartheid 197

controlled de jur e by apartheid laws included political righ ts, voting ,

freedom of movement and settlement , pro per ty rights , right to choose
the nature of one's work, educat ion, criminal law, social rights includ-
ing the right to drink alcohol, use of publi c services including trans-
port , social secur ity, taxation, and immigration (Corn ell 1960, United
Nations 1968). The brutal cruelty, of which these laws were the scaf-
foldin g, continued for more than four decade s. Millions of people were
dislocated, jailed , murdered , and exiled.
Th e rac ial dassificali on that was so structu red in th e 1950s soug ht
to divide people in to four basic gro up s: Europea ns, Asiatics, pe rsons
of mixed race 0 1· coloureds. and "natives" or "pun :-blooded indi vidual s
of the Bantu ra ce" (Corne ll 1960). Th e Ran tu c:la ssification was subdi-
vided into eight main groups , with Xhos a and Zulu the most nu me r-
ous. 'l'he colour ed da ssificaLion was also compl exly subdivided ,
partially by ethni c cri te ria. Th e te rribl y frau ght (and anth ropologica lly
inaccur ate) word Bantu was chose n in pr efere nce to African (or black
African), partly to und erscor e Nationalist des ires to be re cognized as
"really African. "28
State authorities, touching every aspe ct of work, leisure , and educa-
tion obsessively enforced aparthe id . In a bitter volume detailing his
visit to Sout h Africa, Kahn notes:
Apartheid can be inconvenient, and e\'en dangerou s. Ambulan ces are segre-
gated. A so-called Europe an injur ed in an automobi le accident may not be
picked up by a non-European ambulance (nor may a non-European by a
Euro pean one) , a11d ifa white man has the misfortu ne to bleed to dea th before
an appropriate mer cy vehicle mater ializes, he <,;ancomfort himself i1i extremis
by reflecting that he will most assure dly be burie d in an all-white centur y.
(No nwhite Sout h African doctors may not perfo rm autopsies on white South
African corpses .) (Kahn, 1966, 32)

"Separate development" was the euphemism u sed by th e ationalist

part y to justif y the apartheid system. It argued from a loose eugenic
basis that each race must develop separatel y alon g its natural pathway,
and that race mingling was unnatural. Thi s ideolog y was pr esented in
state-sanctione d media as a common-sense p olicy (Cdl 1982 ).
Despite that fact that it was required by law, it often took month s or
years for blacks to acquire p assbook s, durin g which tim e th ey were in
dan ger of j ail or being d eported to one of th e black home land s
(Math aba ne 1986). Horre ll re counts a story about the ea rly years of
apar the id, and a group of black p eop le waiting for hou rs outside the
registration office. "The Nati ve Affairs Depa rt ment official tried co
198 Ch1,pter 6

Table 6.1
Charges and c.onviction under the immorality act.during the year ending Jun e
1967
Men Women

Charged Convicted Charged Convicted

Whites 67 1 349 18 11
Coloured 20 5 264 126
Asians II 4 20 13
Africans 8 5 338 180
Source: Adapted from Horrell 1969: 36.

pacify them . He to ld them to comt ntxt Monda y, n ext Wednesday.

But no , they said . They had waited yesterday , and now losing their
pay for today, and the rent ·would soon be due , and if the y were not
classified they wou ld be arrested- 'Hulle sal ons op tel. My vriend was
gister opgetal,' they said. The ·word came from every quarter of the
yard ,-'optel, opte l'" 29 (Horrell 1958, 59).
Any form of in terracial sexuality was strictly forbidd en by a series of
immoralit y laws, some of which predated aparthe id . Ormond states
that "Between J950 and the end of 1980 more than 11,500 peop le
were convicted of imerracia l sex; anything from a kiss on up " (1986,
33). Th ese sexua l bo rders were vigorously patrolled by po lice. Or-
mond conr..inues, "Special f'orce Order 025N69 deta iled use of bino cu-
lars, tape recorde rs, cameras , and two-way radios to trap offenders. It
also spelled out that bedsheets should be felt for warmth and exam ined
for stains. Police were also reported co h ave exami ned the pr ivate parts
of coup les and taken people to district surgeons for examin atio n"
(O rmond 1986, 33). The South African Institute of Race Relations
(Horrell 1968) shows a typical year for ch arges and conviction s under
the Immorality Act in 1966-67 . The racialized gender biases speak for
them selves (see table 6.1 ).
For black South Africans, the system of segregatio n included a legal
requirement to carry a pass book, a compilation of do cum ents att esting
to birth, education, em ployment history, marriage , and other life
events (see figure 6. l). The books were ove1· fifty page s long. No black
was allowed to be in a white area for more than sevent y-two hours
without special permission, including government authorizat ion for a
work contract (such as that for a live-in servant). The con sequen ces of
 The Case of Race c:lassification
and RPruL.~.ufirnlion
unrln AJ}(Jrflwid / 99

INOt X.- 1/'IOtl'S.

A,. Lah\lw:-61.1Jftu.F..Qlu;tand lnftu,
C'ontn>I
and RcJiilration.
A
Arbttdsbum. ViULrOOm·en lmuoo,r
bet\«r ca Rcpura»e
(fru 0111<1.i• ~ ..,I)')
(All«n~ l ,,, aJllp<d,k•aebnuk)
nanic.addrns and 1i1n•tu.rc
& l:.rnplCl)ff•.t.
Wcrlcpet te OaJrn.,dru en 1',~,c
Lt hlllC I
B
c. Ua,o,t1U '
U~f~~t \&KOt\l).)
1cbr,·1k,
(AlloenUti:vu 1n,r1chl,..c:
0. &nut A•th0nt1ec., --,.,.,
~n~~O"Acthakbdl,unJ
11'0,oftlaal ..,. only )
(Alle<nht \1t amptc!>ar:i.c.t>Hi \ t
l,.. /\ddltlol\ll pan..:u1.1n: (111.. luJ,1
tooccn,ocu10 10-p«t ot 1.\l.1tt---.,f\lH
l•w 11Adcu,tom. c\,(".)
8)'kvrr,c4dt. c ,,11 ,er
1111du11
iunnit>at to v. 11ndli:li1k. Nature.I~ ft

\:"tr;':m!:~t::1
cl\Jlot .n1r,1cf1t
•
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Fig ure 6./

J\ passbook rcq11il'ld of' hlar k So111h i\fr irnm ovt·r 1h1· .ig-1·nf' sii-l<'l'll. 1111dt-r
0

apa rth eid rcg-inw.

tlt t·
Source ; The I loover l11s1i1111io11 pamphk·1 rnlll'nion, S1a11 lorcl ll11iw1si1y.
"T hl' Fight for Freedom in Soul Ii Africa and What II ~ka11s li>r \VorhTs in
1he 11i1 cd St,Hcs," proclurcd by Red Sun l'rl '"" p11hlirn1io11s, 11.

tr a nsg ressio n we re seve re, as Fra nkel 1101cs. " Th e in es lirn a blc 1111n1bcr
of" ' illega ls' in the urban ar eas live a lift· o l' h arass m e nt llrnl 1s
Ka fkaes qu e in its p roport io n s, ye t even I ho se for1 unate e n ou~ h lO
qu a lify fo1~ urban sta tu s are faced w ich a h ars h a nd in sec ur e da ily
ex iste nce wh ere I h e loss of"a do c um em, some ted rn ica l violat io n ol' 1he
m ass of adm ini strati ve d ec rees, or some arb itrary (a nd ofien vindicti ve)
strok e of th e b u reaucratic pen , ca n mean co nd e n1m 11io1110 pe rp e tual
displa ce m e nt " ( 1979, 205). A Fou caklian sys tem of"conl ro l of"all p eop le
e xce pt wh ites e nsu e d (a lthou g h by law th e res tr ictio ns applied lo
w hi tes e n tering pr oscr ibed a reas , th is was ra1~ely e n forced a nd whit es
d id n ot ca rry pas s book s) (Blac k Sas h 1971, Ma tha ba ne 1986). Blac ks
200 ChC11pter
6

were the major targets of scrutiny, and the p ass book system allowed
for comprehensive surveillance of th eir actions. "Th e whole system has
been exte nded and ratio nalised oYer the years by widenin g the cate-
gor ies of officials who can formally d emand th e production of passes,
and by linking this up with soph isticated computer tech no logy cen tre d
on the reference book bur eau of the Department of Plur al Relations
in Pret or ia" (Frank el 1979, 207).
These data were entered into a centralized database that was cross-
re ferenced across 1.he different domains. Kahn notes:
Every African over sixteen must have on his person what is called a reference
book, a bulky document measuring five-by-thr ee and a half inches and con-
tain ing ninety-fiv e pages. As a rule , it is only Africans who ar e stopped by the
police and asked to produce their passes . "The African mu st be a collector of
documems fr om the day of his birth to the day of his death ," says a pub lication
issued by the Black Sash.3° His passbook mu st rnntain particular s about every
job he has had . every tax he has paid, an d every x-ray he has taken. H e would
be well advised, th e Black Sash has sugg ested , not to let him self get too far
awa y from hi s birth certificate, baptismal certifi cate , school cer tificates, em-
plo yment referenc es, housing perm its, hospital and clinic cards , p rison di s-
charge papers , re nt receipts, and , th e org anization has add ed sarcast ically,
death and bur ial cert ificates. (1966, 91)

H orrell ( 1960) relates a story of an illiterate man "D.L." of atal ,

who was arrested for having removed pages from his pa ssbook. He
was fined £10 or two months in jail (a huge sum for a black man at
that tim e); unab le to pay the fine, he went to jai l. After bein g relea sed ,
he could no longer find work , as he now had a pri son record. A
sympath et ic literate frien d investigated the case and found tha t th e
printers of the passbook had by accident elim inated pages 33 to 48
and instead had produced two sets of pages 49 to 64. D.L. had to
appea l the convict.ion up to the Sup reme Court level, again a costly
and time-consumin g business, where it was finally sec aside.
In add ition to the pass book system regulating th e Jives of black
South Africans, th e state attempted to enfor ce man y other forms of
segregatio n . Ch ristoph er Hop e, in his novel A Separate Developm ent,
writes of petty aparth eid such as the seg regation of bu ses and benches:
One lived, of course, sur ro unded by such sign s and notices. Most of them ,
howeve ,; serve d some clear purpo se, the point of which ever yone recogn ized
as being essen tial for their survival: WHITES ONLY on park benches;
BANTU MEN HERE on nonwhit e lavatories ; or I NDIAN BE CH ; or DE-
FEN SE FORCE PROPE RT Y: PHOTOGRAPHS FO RBIDDEN ; or SECOND -
CLASS TAXI; or TH IS PLAYGROUND IS RESERVED FOR C H I LDRE N
 The Cnse of Race Classijica.
tion and Reclass-iji:caticrn.undn Apartheid 201

O F THE WH ITE CROUP. And , of cour se, peop le were fore ver being pr ose-
cut ed for disobeying one o r ot her of these i11sLrucLio ns. (H ope 1980, 20)

For apar th eid to function at this level of detai l, p eop le had to be

unam biguou sly categori zable by race . Despite the legal requirement
for certa inty in race identifi cation, howe ver, this task was not to pro ve
so easy. Man y peop le did not conform to th e typologie s constru cted
u nd er the law: especially people whose app earance differed from th eir
assign ed category, or who lived with th ose of an oth er ra ce, spoke a
differe nt lang uage from the assigned group , or had some othe r his-
torical dev iation from th e pur e type. New laws an d amend ments were
consta ntly being debated and pas sed (see, for examp le, R ana Daily M ail
1966). By 1985, the corpus of ra cial law in Sout h Africa exceede d 3,000
p ages (Lelyveld 1985, 82).
Both the scientific th eories about ra ce and the street sen se of term s
were confu sed . Prototypical and Aristotelian sen ses of categor izat io n
were used simultaneousl y, as with the examp le of the JCD sh own in
ch apter ;3. Th e original official sorting by race after th e I 950 Pop ula-
tion Registra tion Act derived from the categories ch ecked on the 195 1
rens us ret urn s. An identit y numb er was given to cac:h ind ividua l at
th at time (H orr ell 1958, 19). The cen sus di rect or was in charge of
decid ing everyone's ra cial classification , on the basis of the census data ,
and , where necessary, oth er recor d s of vital statistics. H orr ell n otes,
"But thi s classificat ion is by no mean s forma l. Section Five()) of the
Pop ulation Registrati on Acl pr ovides that if al any time it app ears to
th e Director that the classificatio n of a person is incorr ect, after giving
notice Lo th e person conce rn ed , specilYing in which respect th e clas-
sification is incorrec t, and affordi ng h im or her an op por tunit y of
being hea rd, he may alte r the classification in th e register " ( 1958, 4).
So in the case of aparthe id, we see the scie ntistic belief in race differ-
ence on the everyd ay level and an e laborate forma l legal app aratu s
en forcing sep arat ion . At. the same time, a much less formal, mor e
pr ototypical approa ch uses a n amalgam o f app eara nce and accep -
tance-a nd the on -the-spot visua l jud gments of everyone fro m police
and tram dri vers to ju dges - to perform th e sort ing pro cess on the
street.
T he con flation o f Aristotelian and protot ypical catego ries for race
classificat ion h as deep historical roots in South Africa and elsewhere.
Th e concept of racial types took firm ho ld in the nin eteen th centur y
across a ra nge of n atu ra l and social science s, and it was embra ced by
th e archi tects of ap ar th eid . At th e same time, the pur e types existed
202 r:Jwpter 6

nowhe r e , a n d r ac ism e xisted eve r ywh ere. D ub o w wr ite s ab o u t th e

scie nti fic h istory o f So uth Afric an r ac ial th eor ies:

The typ ological met hod is at the hear t of ph ysical a nthropol ogy. It was based
on em piricist pr inciples of classification taxonomy originaJl y de veloped in the
natur al sciences. Th e conception of race as "type "en couraged a belief in the
existence of ideal categories and str essed diver sity and differen ce over simi-
lari ty and convergen ce. This was overlaid by binary-based notions of supe -
riority and inferi or ity, progr ess and degeneration . One of the man y problems
associate d with the typological method was its fissiparous charac ter. T he search
for p ur e racial typ es could not easily be reconciled with the evid en t fact that ,
in prac tice, only hybrids exi~ted . New fossil discoveries led to a proliferation
of variant rac ial type s and ever more theories were de veloped to exp lain their
affinities. (Du bow 1995, 114- 115)

Su ch d ifficulti es ar e a lway s pr e se nt. w h e n tryi n g to p lace peo p le in

rac ial ca tego ri es (see L6p ez 1996, R obb in 1998 , H ardi ng J993). As
Donna H a raway says of r ac ia l taxo n omy in th e U nit ed Sta tes:

In these taxonomie s, which a re, ati.cr all, liule machines for classifying an d
separa ting ca tegories, the ent ity that. always elud ed the classifier was simpl e:
race itself. T he pu re T ype, which anim ated dr eams, sciences, and te rro rs, kept
slipping th ro ugh , and endle ssly mu ltiplying, all the typological taxono mies.
Th e rational d assifying activity masked a wrenchin g and de nied history. As
rac ial anxieties ran riot through the sober pr ose of catego rical bioscience, the
taxonomies cou ld neither pinp oint nor co ntain their terri ble d iscursive p rod -
uct. ( 199 7, 234)

AJth ough a vagu e co n ce pti o n of e uge nics and o ther form s o f scie nti fic
ra cism are wov e n th ro u g h o u t th e d eb a tes ab o ut apa r th e id , thi s lack of
a scie n tific d efini tio n o f r ace appe ar s re p eated ly. D r. M. Sh apiro , at a
m eeti n g of th e Medico -le gal Socie ty in Jo h ann e sb ur g in 1952, wr yly
n o ted th at:

Where for pur poses ofleg al classification , the question arises whe th er a person
is Whit e, Colo ur ed , Negroid or Asiatic, the policema n an d the tram conductor ,
uncnc:u mbered by biological lore, can make an a ssessm ent with great er con-
viction, and cert ainly with fowcr reservation s, than ca n the::geneticist or an-
thr op ologist. Ind eed , the law being trad itionally intolerant of u ncer taint y in
matt ers of definition , the evidence of the scientist on the subject of rac.e c.a n
only prove an emba rr assment to the Cour ts if not to himself. (qu oted in
Suzman 196 0, 353)

I n a leg al ar ticle re viewing rac e classifica ti on in I 96 0 , Suz m an co n -

clu d es , "As th e p r ese nt stud y h as r evea led , the abse n ce of u n ifo rm ity
o f d e fin itio n flows p rimar ily fr o m th e ab se n ce o f a n y unifo r m o r
 The Caseof RacP.(,lassifica.tion
anri Reclassificati.o-n
uruler Apartheid 203

scien tific basis of race classification . Any attempt at race classification

and therefore of race definition can at best be onl y an app roxi mation ,
for no scientific system of race classification has as yet been devised by
man. In the final analysis the legislature is attempti n g to define the
indefinab le" (Suz man l 960, 367). Landi s (1961 ) similarly notes that
the definition of the law was inherently ambiguous; she argues this was
intentional, and th at the arnbiguit y shifted the burden of proof to the
indiv idual. Tn a case where a person could not be proved to be either
Eur opean or non-Eur opean, th e burden of proof wou ld fall o n dis-
proving the non -European side.
Th e lack or scient ific definition had no bearing on the brutal conse-
qu ences of the classification, despit e the fissiparou s-b ranching and
dividing - nature of the scient ific problem.

Conflicting Categories in South Africa

Different aspects of apartheid law could classify a per son differently.

Where a woman lived, for example, often depended on her hu sband 's
classificati.on, although movement from Ban ru ro whit e was not possi-
ble this way. So she might be of Indian national ori gin classified as
Asian, married to a man classified as coloured , and live in a colo ured
zone but only be able to work or go to schoo l in an Asian zone. Thi s
could be impo ssible or very ardu ous due to dist.ance and the segre-
gated tra nsportation infrastructure:
Under the Population Registration Act, the children of mixed unions are, it
appears , generally being classified according lo the "lower "of the two layers
involved-that is, the group carrying fewer privileges.... But under the
Group Areas Act, the children of Coloured and African parents, or Asian and
African parents , would whik they were minors presumably be classified ac-
cording to the racia l group ot' the father in order that they might live with
him and his wife in his g-roup area. The child of an Indi an father and an
African mother might, thus, be brought up in an Indian environment, but,
on reaching the age of sixteen and receiving his identity card might be forced
to leave his parents and change his mode of living and his associates to those
of the African group. (Horrell 1958, 12- 13)
Again, the racia lized gender structure is promin en t here , wher e pa-
tri linearity and patriarcha l definitions of the couple 's race are fol-
lowed. Odd ly, at times the multiple , contradicto ry m eth ods of
classifying could be used subversive ly to work in favor of th e individual
who lived between the categories. H orr ell recounts, "A th ird case is
204 Chapter 6

de scrib ed to show the absu rd ities chat may arise. Mr. T is in ap pear-
ance obviously Coloured, and his sons and daughter are nea r-White :
his sons, in fact, served as Europeans in the army . Both of them now
live as Colou red men and were so classified. But Mr.T trades in an
African location and wants to continu e doing so. It is said that he asked
the official to classify him a.san African: certa inly chis was done" (I 958,
53).
In one infamou s examp le a jazz musician , Vic Wilkinson of Cape
Town, was born to a colou red ma n and a white woman, and or iginally
he was classified as white. After aparth eid he was reclassified as col-
oured and then twice mor e reclassified as he married women of dif-
ferent races and moved to different neighborh oods. ( ote tha t the
remarriages took place outside of South Africa for legal reasons.)
Finally, uuLli he an<l his Asian wife Farin a were reclassified as coloured ,
allowing them and the ir children to live together . ALthe age of fifty,
Vic received a new birt h certi ficate and cro ssed the race line s for the
fifth time (see figure 6.2, Sunday Times 1984).
Th e barriers to movement to a less privileged class were of cou rse
more permeable that th ose to passing "up .'' Th e language origi nall y
used to encode the classifications was itself inconsistent as well. Officials
entering vital statistics in the pr eapartheid era frequentl y used the
ter m "mixed." ln many cases, this caused later con fosion. "It was
men tioned ea rlier that some White pe ople, on sendin g for the first
time for the ir birt h certificate find tha t the ir racial group has been
entered as "mixed ," hu t that, on furth er investigation, th is may be
found to imp ly nothing more than that one parem was, for examp le,
an immigrant from Sweden, while the other was an Afrikaans-spea king
White woman " (Horrell 1958, 73). Again , we see her e the conflation
of proto typical ("mixed") catego ries with the attempted Aristotelian
definition (the prec ise , exclusive catego ries aspir ed Loby atio nalists).
In chi exa mp le, th e forma l-informal mixtur e itself produ ces orga niza-
tional conditi ons that favored both stru ctura l and face-to-face ad hoc
discrim ination, the one reinfor cing the other. Star (1989a) describes a
similar case with scientific an oma lies, where a nomalies arising in one
sector of researc h may be answere d by nonanomalous research drawn
from another, thu s obscuring the original difficulty. In this case, as with
the conflatio n of prototypica l and Aristote lian catego ries, biases be-
come deep ly embed ded in both pr actice and infrastruc tur e. T he
conflation gives a ter rible po wer of owne rship of both the formal and
the informal to those in power. T he use of both simulta neously is
 111e(;asf' of R ace Cl.assificatimi and Neclassijic
ati1m uruln A/)(Jrlhl'id 205

Figure 6.2
Vic Wilkinson and his fami ly of'Cape Town , showi n!{ the n:rt ilicatt· o l hi~ fifih
racia l dassi Iicat ion.
Sour ce: J ohannesburg S11m/1iy'J'ime.1, 11/ 4/84, 21. Terry Shcan /S1111r/ay 'J'i1111
,,,
J ohann esb ur g, court esy ofTi mcs Media, Inc.
206 Chapter 6

precisel y at the heart of the banal ity of the evil of ·which Arendt wrote.
It d iffers from the mind less adhesion to formal rule s found in H eller's
Catch -22 (1961). T he demora lization that it may produce is more like
the J apane se-Ameri can Men of CompanyK of which Shibu ta ni (1978 )
writes so eloquently about a thorough cultur al d emorali zation p ro-
duced by unbearabl e role strain.

The South Afr ican Coloured Popula tion and Reclassificati.on

Approx imate ly 1 million South Africans fell into the coloured category
at the time of the Pop ulati on Registration and Group Areas Acts. It
was among this gro up that the majority of borderline cases appeared
most often in the form of a person labeled coloured and desiring to
be labeled white (or European). Within the interna l logic of apa r theid,
an apparatus had to be constructed to adjudi cate these cases. The
Registration Act had a prov iso that if the person objected to a clas-
sification, he or she ha d thirty days in which to appeal . Several local
administration boards were set up to hear borderline cases and recon-
:;ider da :,sific:ation:,. Their de<:isiorn;c.:ouldbe appea led up to the level
of the Sup reme Court, a costly and tim e-consuming business. Th e
average waiting t.ime for an appeal was fourtc<.:n month s (many were
longer) , during which time the person existed in limbo. For examp le,
if someo ne wanted to be classified wh ite, bul was d assified c.:oloured,
she or he cou ld not go to a white school. If the y enr olled at a coloured
scho ol, chis cou ld later become lega l evidence chat they were coloured .
Severa l took correspondence cours es as a solut ion, as apar thei d ap-
parent ly did not work long-distance (interesting ly, without a face-to-
face component it was not enforced).
Th e havoc wrea ked in th e lives of tho se in between was conside rab le .
A broadside issued by the South African Institute of Race Relation s
stated:
While th e Population Registration Act of 1950 did not affect the circumstances
of the vast majority of the South African populati on, it created the utmost
confusion as to the destiny of the small minorit y of people whose app eara n ce,
associations, and descent d o not happ en to coincide. T he Sout h African
Institute of Race Relations pleads with all the power at its comm and that thi s
small number of persons should be allowed to remain in the racial category
in which th ey feel most at ease. (1969)

But this was not to be allowed by the >Jationalist government . "As from
1 August 1966 it became compulsory for all citizens of th e Repub lic
 The Case of Rate Classification ,md R.cda,.sificati<
m muler Apartlwid 207

Table 6.2
Numbers of objections to racial classifications und er the popul ation registra -
tion act, 1968

Of the total , numb er made as the

Tota l numb er of resu lt of representation s by the
reclassifications person concerne d

White to Coloured 9
Colour ed to White 91 91
Coloured w Bantu 29 3
Bantu to Coloured 136 136

Sourte: Horrell 1969: 42.

over the age of sixtee n years to be able to pr oduce identity card s, on

which the racial grou p of th e hold er is. Until then, large num bers of
peop le on the racial borderline had apparentl y not submitt ed them-
selves for classification " (Horre ll 1968, 23).
T here were several factors involved in weaving the textur e of cate-
gories in the lives of those in th e borderland s of apartheid . Often th ere
were long bureaucratic de lays in assigning a racial classification to
those who app ear ed ambiguous. The Associated Pr ess cites a case in
wh ich two pres chool ch ildr en were held in detentio n for thre e years
wh ile they awa ited a government de cision about their ra ce (6 Apr il
1984).
Ap pr oximat e ly I 00,000 p eo ple app lied for reclassification (Brookes
1968, Horre ll 1958). Few were approved. Bamford notes that "Th e
boa rd wou ld seem to have bee n overstr ict against the subjec t- the
cou rt. has uph eld its decisio n in on ly one of the ten reporLt:<l c.:asc::s
invo lving t he merits of redassifi<:at.ion" ( 1967 , 39). A lypical year is
shown in table 6.2.
By May 1956 officia ls had dealt with 18,169 cases "in which objection
had be en raised to the classification claimed by the person concerne d .
Of these 1182 had been classified as \Vhite , 9,642 as Colo ured , and
7,645 as Bantu " (Brookes 1968, 23).
Some yea rs later, the figures had risen sligh tly bu t th e basic d irection
of the cha ng es remained the same. In 1981- 82, 997 peopl e changed
races ; in 1983, 690. In I 984 , 795 peo ple were reclassified . Of these ,
518 went from colour ed to white; two white s became Chine se and one
became In dian; 89 b lack African s became coloured , and 5 coloured
peop le beca me African (Ormond 1986). A man from Dur ba n won his
208 Chapter 6

reclassification appeal against his de signation as coloured when a

judge declared that he was a "white of th e Mediter ranean type " (Hor -
rell 1968, 22).
The reclassification process was fraught in myriad ways and was
completely internally inconsistent. At first the Race Reclassification
Board ruled out descent (or "blood " as it was commo nly called) as the
determining factor. Instead , it used a mixed crite ria of "appea ran ce
and gene ral acceptance and repute." Thi s was in explicit contra st with
th e American one-drop ru le (Davis 1991 ). presumab ly for th e re ason
th at nearly all white South Africans h ad some traceable black African
ancestr y.31 Bamford , in an article in the South African La w Journal,
attempts to darify the juridi cal meanings of "appeara nce" and "gen -
eral accepta nce" (1967). He notes, "Appeara nce is a matter of visual
observation and assessment , to be undertaken by the tr ibunal. Thi s
observat ion and assessment sho uld be made at the start of reclassifica-
tion proceedings. If th e subjec:t is obvious ly white in appea ranc:c the
presu mp tion in section 19( 1) will operate; if he is obviou sly not wh ite,
no furt h er en quir y is necessary since he cann ot be reclassified as wh ite;
an d if he is neit her obviously white nor nonwhite, the tribu nal must
proceed to decide on general acc:eptan ce" (41). There was no clear
onus of p roof abo ut the meaning of genera l accepta nce as whi te; in
amb iguo u s cases the Race Reclassification Board would decide after
cond uctin g h earings and administering a range of tests of race. Like
child custo d y hearings in Ameri can courts, such painful (and often
sha meful) tests were not stable or guaranteed of permanence:
The concept of general acceptanc e does not preclude a person's movement
from one classification to another by virtue of chan ging associatio n . T he
acceptance need not be absolute or without exception, so that the fact that a
sul~ject.ma intains conta ct with relatives or remains friendl y with a Coloured
family is not in iL~elffa1.al. In stu;h cases: '[The tribunal must] decide whether
the nonwhite history and associations were so overshadowe d by the acceptan ce
as white as to cons titut e genera l acceptance of the [subject] as white .' (Bamford
1967, 41)

Acceptan ce is an ambiguous, highly subjective p rototypical concept

sitting unea sily in the midd le of the attempt for Ar istotelian certainty.
Th e New York Times reports the story of one J oh ann es Botha, a mail
carr ier living in Durban in 1960. Botha returne d home to find h is wite
in tears following a visit from two investigato rs from the group areas
board whose mandate was to seek out those living illegally outside of
 The Case of Rau Clri~sifia1ti1m
and Rec:lasiijzwtion muier ApartJ1eid 209

th eir category. The sleuths had "pounded on the door an d then

pushed pas t her and seated themselves in the living room with out
invitation . They had demanded identity cards, birth certificates, and
a marriage license and had asked whether her hu sband was white.
Mrs. Bot ha told them to wait for her husband 's retu rn , but they
per sisted in the inter rogation" (Bigart 1960, 14).
Th e men questioned neighbors and the couple 's four -year old son ,
focusing on a visitor to the house on the two pr evious Sun da ys. A
coloured man had been seen on their door step . Both a, a scra p-me tal
dealer, was interested in purchasing a used car from him. Neigh bors
had con cluded that he was a relative, and thu s tha t the Botha s were
passing for white and hiding their "coloured blood. " The network of
suspicion , 1,p ying, and the search for purity implied here: affected every
aspect of South African life for those in all racial cate gorie s.
The actu al redas:sifica1.ion hearings were u sually done in camera.
The procedure was kept highly secret by those at the Popu lation
Registra rjo n O1Iice. " No observer is in au y circ um stances allowed to
attend. Lega l represe ntat ion is permitted; but as an inquir y by the
Boar d is not analog o us to a law suit., the ordinar y ru les of court do not
ap ply. Th e officials may ask a ny qu estio n the y wish" (Horrell 1958, 3 1).
Like the tuberculosis pat ient s discussed in the pre vious chap ter,
people's biograp hical traj ector ies were severely disru pted by the re-
classification process. Many lived for years in limbo; it could ta ke
months or years for th e appea l to be h eard and the pe rson to be
reclassified. It was, as one of Roth 's respond ents in the pre vious chap-
ter declared the case to be with waiting and ne gotiati ng for a tubercu-
losis classification: "an ungrad ed classroom." A time out of tim e:
Even if appeals succeed, the people concerned have ofte n suffered much
anxi ety and hardship before their cases are settled. In 196 l a family in Cape
Tow n was classified Coloured. Th e eldest daught er had to postpone her
marriage to a white man, while the second daught er had to leave a white
school. For eight years ~he studied by correspondence: her pare nts did not
want to prejudice their case by send ing her to a Colour ed school. · 111t: son's
job was threa tened. They all agreed to commit suicide if they could not get
the classification altered. On read ing their stor y in a new spap er, someone in
J ohannesburg made th e m an anonymous loan of R500 to cover th e expense
of an appea l, and this proved successful. (Horrell I 969 , 27)

Once heard, the process was an open degradati on cere mon y (Goffman
1959). Th e process stripp ed people of identity, of uniqu en ess, and
2 IO Chapter6

publicly humiliated th em. "These officials qu estion the peop le at the

head of the qu e ues and fill in form s - there is no pri vacy as those
behind can h ear the questions and answe rs. On average, the in vesti-
galion of one case app ears to t.a kc about twelve minutes" (I Torrell
I 958, 66).

Technologies of Classifying

H ow impract icable it is to tr y to classify hum an bei ngs, for all time, into definite
categor ies, and how mu ch suffe ring has resulted from the dfor L~made::to d o
this.
(Horrell 1958, 77)

Ap art from the ca tegor ies themselve s, th e tech n o logy associ at e d with
the reclassification process was crude. Combs were sometim es u sed to
test how curl y a person's h air was. HorrelJ (1968) no tes that barbe rs
were sometim es called as witnesses to testify about the texture of the
person's hair. One source mentioned expert testimon y from th e Sou th
African Tri cholog ical Institute (pres um ably an organization for the
scienti fic stud y of hair). Affidavits were taken fro m emp loyer s, clergy,
neigh bors, and oth ers to estab lish gener al accepta n ce or rep u te. " The
official may summo n any living relative, includi n g gra ndparen ts, and
qu estion them in a similar way" (Horr ell 1958 , 32). Comp lexion , eyes,
hair; features , and bone structure were examined by boa rd officials,
and the y could summon any re lative and examine the m in this way as
well (see figure 6.3 ). Ho rre ll (1958) not es, "le is rep orte d Lhal some
were even asked 'Do you cat porrid ge? Do you sleep on th e floor or
in a bed ?' Some Colour ed p eop le said that the y had bee n to ld to turn
sideways so chat th e officials could stud y th eir pr ofiles" (62 ). Folk
theo ries abo ut race abounded ; di fferences in cheekbon es, even lh e
notion that. blacks have softer ea rlobes than whites, were take n seri-
ously. A newspap er account notes th at some colou red peop le had
re ported Lhat "the officials finger ed the lobes of thei r ears- the th eory
is th at Natives h ave soft lobes" (Sunday Times 1955). Th e same article
re port ed that a colour ed man was stopp ed by the police in th e stree t
and asked to which soccer club he be longed. H e named a colour ed
team, and then was told, "on ly nat ives play socce r, not coloureds. "
Th e "p encil test" was recou nted by man y who had un dergo n e the
reclassification orde al. Sowd en gives us the following passage , quotin g
at first from an old black woman descr ibing apart heid to h im :
 Tiu, Case of Race Clitssifiwtirmmul H.rrltL5sifiratirm
wula A/m,rlf1Pid 2 11

.
•.

.7

I
• I

Fig u re 6.3
;\ sca le for co 111parin g the co lor of' ~ki11, or1t· o l' I h e tcd1 nologit·s 11.',t'dlor r a<e
discriminalion.
Source: Bru wc r, J . J C:robbclaa r and 11. , ·;111 Z} I. I !l:18. /fo 11, .'it11d11•., (t/1//nn1 -
lifllNL syllolm.,) for Sir/. VI , Voor rrc kkerp er~. ,loh ann c~hur g.
212 Chapter 6

"If you're black and pretend you're Coloured, the police has the pencil test."
"The pencil test?"
"Oh, yes, sir. They sticks a pencil in your hair and you has to bend down , and
if your hair holds th e pen cil, that shows it's too woolly, too th ick. You can't be
Coloured with woolly hair like that. You got to st.ay black, you see." (Sowden
1968, 184)

Beca use of the ambiguous nature of both th e notion of ge neral ap-

pearance and of general acceptance, th e bur d en of eviden ce fell on
the per son desiring to be reclassified. At the same time , the Population
Board fostered the system of informers where someone trying to pass
(typically as white or coloured) cou ld be turn ed in to the classification
boa rd for reexamination. Horr ell note s the case of Mr. A, who was
turned in to the Population Registration Office by an informer and
called before the m t.o pr ove his whiteness. Qu estio ners asked if he
knew of any coloured blood in hi s family and n oted th eir hair , eyes,
and skin color.
Mr. A said , "It was a terrible shock to me, and more so to my sons.
Th e whole futur e of my family now rests on a decision from Pretoria. "
Th e worst part , he added, was that the very act of trying to pr ove
him self European su ggested that th ere might be some suspicion in the
matter" (H orr ell 1958, 34).

Passing

Th ey are both White and not White at the same time. The y are in a White
school and there they "must" be White: the law is witness to that. Yet "every-
body" know s that they are not White, not reall y. They arc something in
bet ween. Bu t the law, which is an ass, knows no in-betweeness . It dichotomize s
inflexibly, imp osing a clumsy disjunction upon the sub tly var iegate d flux of
reality.
( Watson 1970, 114)

In the early preapartheid days, it was easier to change rac e category

than it became later. Kahn notes that "between 1911 and 1921 ...
some fifty thousand individuals disappeared from the colored popu -
lation rolls" ( 1966, 51). Many families living in the cate gor ical border-
land s went to great lengths to establish themselv es as white , keeping
photos (somet imes fabricated) of white ancestors (Bornnstein 1988,
55).
Unde r apartheid, mere ly associating with someo ne of th e wrong
group could become evidence of member ship and thu s of race. Horre ll
 The Case of Ra ce Classifiwtion and Reclassificati.on
under Apartheid 213

writes of the collusion among members of coloured families being torn

ap art at the same time they collaborate d co h elp some members pa ss
for whit e:

There are in South Africa many thousands of people who cann ot be classified
according to a rigid system of rac ial identific ation ... The lighte st coloured
members of l.hese ["borderline "] families often "passed " as whites and went to
live in separate hoJnes. Their darker relalives have been referred to as " Ven-
stcr- Kyk(:rs" L"window loo kers") because, in ordc:r not to embarrass those who
had "passed," they mad e a practice o f looking swdio u sly int o shop windows
in or der to avoid greeti ngs should they happe n to meet on the stree ts. (1958,
4)

Someone's racia l classification cou ld be challenged at any time. This

was particularly important to the apartheid gove rnmen t in th e case of
people trying to pass for whit e, and a cruc ial location for the operation
of th e system o f info rmers. Doman notes:

Soon after the introduction of the legislation man y peop le asked for reclas-
sification, with the result that there are toda y man y families split down the
middle. T he offaprin g of the 'across-the-line ' marr iages are not always as white
as their parents , and many families have emigrated rath er than risk exposure.
T oday, there is no rnnr.ened effort to unearth the skeleton in th e family
cu pboar d . Colour ed mothers avoid embarrassing the ir "White" daughters and
do not see them even thou gh tl1ey live in the same rown. Yet the legislation
also lend s itself LO spice-aggrieve d people can get their own back on enemies
or people they dislike by expos ing a "mixed " marria ge, or informi ng the police
abo ut a coupl e having an immoral (in term s of law) relationsh ip. (1975, 15 1)

In an ext raordinary study of a school in th e suburbs of Ca pe T own,

Grah am Watson ( 1970) wrot e of the comp lex ne gotiatio n s, subt erfug e,
and balancing acts performed by parents , stude n ts, scho ol principals ,
and th e local Race Classification Board in managing "pa ss whites. "
Cape Town is the area in South Africa with the largest p opulati on of
coloured people. Over the years, thou sand s cho se to pass for white (or
tried to). To do so, they changed the ir primar y lan gua ge from Afri-
kaans (used at the time by most coloured people in Cape To wn) to
F.nglish. Th ey changed their social affiliation s, as noted by H orr ell
above. Some passed for white during wor king ho ur s, and return ed to
live with their w lour ed families in the eve ning .
In Passing for White: A Study of Radal Assimilation in a South African
School, Watso n dr ew a vivid picture of Colande r H igh School based on
his ethnographic participat io n. The high school was one of man y
buffer schoo ls, which meant that "the y admitted as pupils children
214 Chapter 6

descr ibed in the local School Board mi nutes as 'sligh tly coloured' but
colloqu ially known as 'border line cases"' (Watson 1970 , 57). These
schools p reda ted ap ar th eid , an d the prac tice of accepti n g ligh t-
skin ned colou red childr en int o th e m was well-established before 1948.
Many bord erlin e stud ents were admi tte d to Coland er Hi gh thr ough
a process full of ad hoc decision s an d negotiations spa n nin g years. T his
was facilitated in th e first instan ce by the contradic tor y and arm s-
lengt h relationship s among tho se p ar ts of the govern ment ch arged
with class ifyin g p eo pl e . To att e nd a sch oo l, a p upil rece ived a classifica -
tion fro m the Schoo l Board. Before apart h eid , the Educatio n Or di -
na nce of 1921 state d th at pare nt s m ust p rove European he ritage for
the child to be d efined as white. Prior to 1963, th e Supe rinte nde nt-
Genera l of Schools was not hound by the decision of th e Director of
Census and Statistics (who managed the Populat ion Registration Act).
T hu s, it was possible for a child wh ose p arent,; bot h carr ied white
ide ntification card s, but who was dark -skinned, to be rejected by a
white school. Similarly, th e St1per inten d en t-Gene ral, via the sch ool
pri ncipals, cou ld act to let a child into the nomina lly white school.
Principals who were in dou bt abo u t the ral :e oft.he pup il cou ld request
an interview with both of the pare n ts and with the school committee.
Somet imes the par ents and even grandparents were asked to p roduce
birth and marr iage certificates. The heari ngs, like tho se of th e Race
Classification Roard, were he ld in camera. Watson notes that th ere was
ofte n disagree ment among memb ers of the School Committee abou t
the classification dec isions . Of th e many cases hear d by the com mittee
of Coland er Hig h School, twenty were rej ected. Of these, seven were
rejected beca use one or both parents failed to app ear; the rest were
refuse d primar ily on grounds of appea rance (Watson 1970, 43).
The n um ber of appea ls from these de cisions were small, as the
prin cipa ls and commi ttee members ·were loath to confrom par ems
directly. Watson notes that parents were not told o f the real reas on for
the child 's reject ion from the sch ool, and often the blow was softened
by simp ly saying, "we're full." He cont inues:
Moreover, the parents of rejectees, whether they have bee n su mmoned before
the Comm ittee or no t, are not in formed of the real reason for th eir rejection -
Lhey are norma lly told simply that the sch ool is full. Not even the Sch ool
Boar d-to whom the Principal has been instr ucted to disdose lhe reason for
each refusal - is told unequivoca lly that a child h as been refused on the
gro und s of colour: in corresponden ce add ressed to th e Board the Principa l
covers himse lf by claiming that 'In the first instan ce, inabilicy co accommod ate
is th e reason for refusal.' In answer to verbal queries from the Board the
 The Case of Race Classifiwtionand Rerh1.ssificmion
under .t1pa,theid 215

Prin cipal is reticent. 'He led me to the brink, ' he said, recount.ing his response
to such a query, 'but I wouldn't say it. I told him we were full up with thirt y
or forty in each classroom and we weren 't prepared to take an yone until we
got an in<:n :asc of staff. Mind you, h(: must have taken one look at th e boy
and seen there was less milk than cotfoe a nd known perfec tly well that wasn't
my reason, but he couldn 't say so.' (1970, 44-45)

Appeals to the board about the committee's dec isions, howeve1~were

often successful. Thus, there was a d elicate invisible negotia tion be-
tween parents and school principals-school comm ittees . If no real
reason was given for reject ion, there would have been no grou nd s for
appeal to the Board. The principals were charged with keepin g up
appeara nces as a white school, or they would risk far more ser iou s
sanc tions from the Population Board, as well as comp lain ts from whit e
pare nts . .t..s one says, "I can accept that child ... but wh at d o I do
when I have a school funcrjon and the rest of the family comes along ?"
(1970, 4 7). Presumably, he speaks here to the racism of the local white
families. In add ition, "For the Principa l, however , the ch ild represents
a sinister threat to the v\Thitestatus of his school, to his ability to att ract
teachers an d pupils of sufficient number and satisfactory qu ality, and ,
ull.imalely, to his own personal prestige " ( 1970, 48-49). Multip le con-
vergent systems are operating here. One school psychologist held the
belief that the schoo l ratings were lowered by coloured childr en as they
performed more poorly on IQ tests. Such was the worry about this
sort of status difficulty that principals oft.en n :jected those d arker
skinn ed children who carried formal white identification card s. Th e
scho ols also neede d to kee p their number s up, howeve r~ and some
more liberal prin cipals sometimes wanted lO help the app licants. Ove r-
all, thi s juggling represents anoth er exa mpl e, as seen with the lCD, of
distributing the residual categorie s, the "others." For those who do not
quite fit the given categories, distribute them around the bu tler
schoo ls, rat her than having them all attend schoo l at one place and
thus threa ten the white status of the scho ol.
As me ntioned, some officials willingly collaborated in the passing
pr ocess. "It takes two (or more) to compl ete the proc ess of passing for
Whit e" (Watson 1970, 55). Watson writes of a zone of ambigu ity in
face-to-face d ecisions. "Is it incumbent upon me, in the circumstance s,
to decide whether or not this person is White? If I d ecide tha t he is
White, will others go along with my estimation ? And wha t's in it for
me ?" (Watson 1970, 55-56). If the zone of ambig uit y re mains intact ,
often the amount of trouble incurred by refusing someone the claimed
white stat u s is too much. At other time s, officials find work-arounds
2 16 Chapter 6

with which they can sidestep any confrontation. At on e hospita l, for

examp le, a patient came in who was unconscious and looked neither
European nor coloured, but was somewhere in between. The hospital
authorities wavered on whether to put her in a European or a col-
oured ward , and finally put her alone in a side ward-i n a living
architecture of a residua l category.
Watson (1970 , 59) hypothesizes that those who succe ssfully pass as
white interact "segmenta lly with members of the superordinate group ,
thus allowing the superordinate-group members leeway in which in-
num erab le ad hoc decisions cumulativ ely favorable to the aspira n t can
be made. " The person wishing to pass for white manages a kind of
shell-game sequence: first obtain employment in a white s-onl y occu -
pation that is not too fussy about identity cards (such as be ing a tram
director). The next step is to move to a mixed neighborhood , and
quietly join local white associations. Work ing with the fact th at even
racist whites may find it di fficult to confrom a person face-to-face as
passing, pass-whites are able to manage many face-to-face in teracti ons
suc h as attending white churches. Over time , this establis he s a track
record that can be used as leverage for reclassification based on general
acceptance and repute. With possession of a white id entit y card , the
person h as the nominal protection of the law.
The more rigid the system of racial segregation and inequ ity, the
more important passing bci::amc to those living in the categor ical
bord e rland s. At. the same tim e, with the rise of the black consciousness
movement in Sout h Africa in the 1970s, a new id eology of black un ity
across black African, Asian and coloured lines became powerfu l th ere.
In an 1975 art icle, Unter halter (1975 , 61) notes that most coloured
people that she surveyed had disapprov ed of passing. Thi s disappr oval
was based primarily on the need to remain loyal to the Coloured
group. Thi s contrast ed ·with studies d one twenty years ea rlier, where
the h armfu l effect of passing as white on families was the prima ry
reaso n ( Watson 1970, 61). N egat.ive attitu d es toward black Africans
who tr y to pass for coloured rema ined un chang ed.
Given the d ispar ities in power and priv ilege, it is not surpri sing that
so man y colou red people want ed to pass as white. Becau se passing is
a parti ally secret, intera ctive process, and beca use it does require ad
hoc mixtures of prototyp ical classifying and confrontations with Aris-
tote lian categor ies of law, it is a cru cible for the issues discussed
thro ughout th is book. Another kind of implosi on (Har away 1997)
occurs where people try to be reclassified, or who fall in other ways
between the categor ical imperati ves of apartheid.
 The Case of Race C/,assifica
tion and Rec/,ass
ificmi.onunder Apartheid 217

Reclassification and Borderlands

In one family, one twin was classified as coloured and the other as African.
(Horrell 1958, 70)

The groun d zero of race categories appeared in th e case of an infant

of indeterminate appearance who was aban d oned on the steps of a
hosp ital in Johannesburg. Because of the requirement of general ac-
cepta nce and repute as det er mining one's race classification , it was
ludi cro us to try to use those criteria to decide the race of Lize Venter,
named after the nurse who found her. A.n art icle in the R and Daily
Mail (7/10/83, IO) in 1983 announced, "Lize? A flat n ose and wavy hair
could decide her fate." It noted that "the law makes no provi sion for
abando ned , newborn babies." Lize, more than an y oth er person , rep-
resented the momenr. when the gaps created by the enforced mingli ng
of prototype and Aristotelian category are laid bare , and th e absurdi-
ties of apartheid law made dear.
The case of David ·wong displays a more stratc::gic exposure of the
laws' interna l co m rad iCLions. \Vong was born in China of Chi nese
par en ts, and lived in a white neighborhood of Durb an (a city with a
large ethn ically Asian popu lation). His neighb ors, taking advantage of
the genera l acceptance d ause of the Population Registra tion Act, swore
a ser ies of affidav its stating th at he was White. Thi s was no doubt as
well an ant iapartheid gesture, read over all. Wong received a white
registration card on the basis of th e affidavits. Brought to the attent ion
of th e press and government, it prompted an out rag ed re action by
M.P. deKlerk, who thundered:

It now appears, howevet~ that there are certain White persons in this country
who, again for reasons of their own, are p repared by mean s of affidavit to
assist a person who admits that he is a full-blooded Chinese by de scent, that
he looks like a Chinese and who in appearance is obviously a Chinese, to be
accep ted as a White person by declaring an oath that he is accepted as a White
person. This happened in spite of rhe indisputable fact tha t th al wai; not the
op inion of tht : com munity, and I challenge an y honorable:: member on the
other side to take this Chinese , David Wong, out of the environment in
Durb an where he is living and to placing in any other en vironmenl in Cape
Town or Pretoria or Johann esburg and to get the verdi ct of public opinion as
to whether he is a white person. (DeKlerk 1962, 10)

An amendment to the Population Registration Act was thereb y passed,

wh ere anyone who claimed to be of a certain racial de scent wou ld be
so categor ized b)' the Board. The nested absurd ities of the sea rch for
218 (;hapter 6

purity here are apparent, yet the search for purit y remai n ed stron g in
th e popu lar white racist opinion through the 1980s.

Language and Race as Conflicting Categories

Th ere are thousands of ironic and tragic cases where classification and
reclassification separated families, disrupted biograph ies, and dam-
aged individuals beyond repair. The rigid boxe s of ra ce di sregard ed ,
among ot her things, important linguistic difference s, espec ially amo ng
African tribal languages. Presented here are a few of the more extreme
borde rlin e cases. Collectively, they provide a powerful ethica l argu-
ment against simple-minded, pure-type categories and for the positiv e
value of ambiguity and complexity ·when applying racial categories to
human beings.
T he filiations of appearance and linguistic group become tangled in
the case of "Dott ie," a girl born to black African parent s in the Rand-
fonte in area. She "happened to be lighter -skinne d than are mo st
Africans and to have long , wavy, copper-colored hair. Because of this
she was rejected by principals of African schools and cannot atte nd a
Coloured school because she can speak only Sotho " (Horrell I 968, 21).
A similarly cruel situation appeared in the case of the Griqua group ,
which has a distinctive physical appearance, with "yellowish skin , high
cheekbones , hair growing in little curly dusters " (Horrell 1958, 53-54).
Many of thi s group married other native African triba l grou ps. Th ey
were classed by the Population Registration Act as African. Thi s mea nt
tha t they wou ld be ruled on education by the Ban tu Education Act
and th us edu cated in on e of the indigen o us African languages. Th is
was "compl ete ly foreign to most of th e Griqu as who speak Afrikaans "
(Horrell 1958, 53- 54).
Layers or invisibility were being enacted here by pr oa parcheid
forces. T he idea of a separate development required tha t black peop le
fit into mythi c categor ies of pur e tribal groups. T h e basis on which
these gro up s were established and repor ted on ly partly respected
actual tribal affiliations and not at all the conditi ons of peop le's lives.
The h ypoth etical types were ad orned with man y natura l featur es such
as language and customs. In turn, eac h hyp er-prototy pical tribal
gro up must have its own language , its O\vn land , and its own unique
customs. There was no room for peopl e or circum stan ces that d id not
fit this image .
Again there is resonance with the ways in which Americans ha ve
enacte d race in d ifferent regions. There are thousa nd s of Native
 The Case of Raa Cla.,s~ficationand Reclass~calion wuler Apartheid 2 19

American tribes, and most of them hav e been displaced from th eir
indigenous lands. Unknown numbers have intermarried outside of
and across tribal lines. Yet the registration system of the U.S. Bur eau
of Indian Affairs for counting who is really a m embe r of a recogni zed
tribe (and thus deserving of government ben efits) is as contorted as
Lribal counling under apartheid. Munson (1997 ), for example , write s
of the laws in the state of f\ ew Mcxim th at seek to pr otec t Native
Americ an anisans from non-Inclian imitarors claim ing to be "ge nuin e
rnd.ian art." The laws hav e th e ironi c effecL that a legiti ma tely reg is-
tered member of a tribe from another state could come to the area,
h ave no pri or knowledge of loca l tradition , bm legally sell "genuine "
Ind ian artifa cts. At th e same time, a loca l from an unr ecogn ized tribe,
hav ing lived in New Mexico all his or her life, wou ld not be able t0 do
so. In an imposed, purified system of categories, both und er ap arth eid
and elsewhere, there are many ironies and much indi vidua l suffering.

Sudden Changes

Another ironic twist of the categorical land scape leading to acute

torques occurred when race classification was sud d enl y, unexpectedly
shifted. For example, Ronnie van der ·walt was a famous boxer in
South Africa. At the age of twenty-nin e, he was suddenl y reclassified
from white to colour ed on th e eve of a big match . One p resumes from
the Newsweekarticle reporting the case that someone had informed the
race classification board , and it timed its inspection to be maximally
embar rassing-an o~ject lesson for others. Th e local ra ce classification
board 's decision "was based on an inspection of Ron nie , Rachel and
I.heir two children." " One man t.here," Ronnie re calls, "walked around
us pee ring al us from every angle like you do when you bu y an anim al.
H e said noth in g, just looked . . Int erior Minister P.M.K. Lero ux
insisted thal th e ruling on Ronni e would stand. 'H e h as never been a
White person,' sniffed Le Roux. Th e n, with logic rem iniscent of the
Mad Hatter the minist e r added 'And I do not believe he will ever
become one''' (Newsweek2/2 7/6 7, 42).
Van d er Wale's biography and care er were sud d enly bisected by the
revision of his race classification . Other cases were repo rted that illus-
tr ated the precarious nature of race purit y. Two white ch ildren , J ane-
Anne Pepler and J ohann a d e Bruin , h ad severe malfun ction s of the
adrena l glands, which caused thei r skin to turn brown. J a ne-Ann e had
an operation to remove the glands at the age of fifteen ; in a short
period of time her skin and hair went from fair to dark brown. Her
220 Chapter 6

mother reported that: "only close friends and family who knew her
before the operation know she is white" (Newsweek7/3/70, 31). In a
statement rich with an unconscious, ironic pragmatism, her mother
said, "Some of her school friends have ostracized her completel y- just
as thoug h she were a real nonwhite " (Newsweek7/3/70, 30). She noted
that "All this is particularly embarrassing for us because we are a purel y
Afrikaner family and strong Nationalists. We believe in white suprem-
acy" (Newswee k 7/3/70, 31).
Johan na was an infant when she contracted Add ison's disease. "No
white schoo l would accept her when she reached school-going age.
Her father told a reporter that he intended applying to the Education
Department for a tutor to teach her at home until she had passed
standard V, after which she would be able to take correspondence
co urse s." (Horre ll 1969, 26) Her mother "lives in co n stant fear that ,
because of the past difficulties, 'someone' will come and take her
daughter away from her" (Wannenburgh 1969). In both cases, the
children arc stuck with the rigidity of the Aristote lian definition of
race- both were born with parents with white ident ity cards and were
thus white- tempered with the prntotypical face-to-face judgmen ts of
skin color, which would render them coloured.
Perhap s the most famous case of sudden identit y chang e was that of
Sandra Laing , who was brought up by white parents and was evicted
at the age of ten from her white school for being coloured . T he Un ited
Nations reported that when she was expelled by schoo l officials under
the Popu lation Registration Act, it became illegal for Sandra to attend
her Piet Retief boarding school, which was all-white (United Nations
Office of Public Information 1969, 4). Thi s reclassification denied her
access to all other white institution s. The only way Sandra could
continue living with her family was by being registered as a serva nt .
Scientists explained Sandra's appearance as resulting from a "dor-
mant 'throwback' gene." It was posited that among the six color -
determining genes, this throwback was respon sible for Sandra 's
coloring (Ebony 1968, 85). Sandra 's parents rejected the idea that this
made her coloured, however. Sandra's father stated that she had been
brought up "naturally" as a white child (Ebony 1968, 90). The y at-
tempted to tutor her at home, while appea ling her case up to the level
of the Supreme Court. After two years, she was reclassified again as
wh ite, and was legally permitted entry back into white schools. Ebony
cont inu es, "Out of the fire and back into the frying pan. That 's what
it all amounted to, because it had been Sandra 's appearance, not her
 ThP Cnseof Race Cf.assifical.ion
and Rer.la.wiflcation11,nder
Apartheid 221

The Case of Sandra Laing

"Ten-yea r-old Sandra I .aing slipped unnotic ed into the school cloak-
room. She made sure she wa~ alone , 1.hen picked up a can of white
scouring powde r and hastily spr inkled her face, arms and hands. Re-
membering the teasing she had j ust endured in the schoolyard d uri ng
recess, she began scrubbing vigo rous ly, trying to wash off the nalUral
brown color of her skin ." (Ebony 1968, 85)

legal classification,that had aroused th e bigotry of white pare nts two

years befo re. And they still didn't want the ir child ren in schoo l with a
dark ch ild. No matter ·what the statute books ruled , Sandra was still a
kaffi132 to th em" (1968, 88). 33 T h e inform al categories of racism an d
the form al classification system meet once again , thi s tim e tearing
Sandra Laing 's biography apart. Sandr a's parents , clinging to the
formal d efiniti on of her race, refuse d to tell her exactly what was going
on or why she was so treated. For two years sh e "acted out fan tasy
rather tha n face the bit ter truth. Until recentl y, sh e d u tifully got up in
time for school every morn ing since her dismissal in March of 1966,
dressed h erself in her school un iform, then sat arou nd th e house and
wailed , trying not to believe what. was happ en ing lo her " (F.b<myJune
1968 , 86).
f n 1983 th e Rand Daily Mail re.pon ed Lhal Sand ra had beco me
complet ely alienated from her family and communit y. She "eventua lly
lived with a black man and , iro nically, app lied to be recla ssified so she
could live lega lly with her love r•· (see figure 6.4. Rand Daily Mail
7/ 23/83, 10).
Ch ristopher Hope's novel, A SefJarateDevelopment, cenLers on a d ark-
skinn ed boy who grew up white and who sud den ly, up on reachi ng
adolesce nce, becomes defined as colou red. A bus condu ctor th rows
him off a white bus , calling him a "white kaffi,:" Th e boy says bitte rly:
Th e thing is th at this entire country has always based itself on two proposi -
tions, to wit: that the peop le in South Africa are divided into separate groups
accord ing to their racial charact eristics and that all group s are at war with
each other. Before you're clear aboul. your groups, you mu st be sure you 're
dear about your individua ls. A~ they t.cac:h I.ht'.kids tn d1a nl : 'An impure grou p
is a powerless gro up! ' ... Preserve the bl<Jodlines. That was the rallying cry
for generations. May your skin-tone s match the great colou r chart in the sky.
Anyone who bro ke the blood lines, who wasn't on the cha rt , was a dang er to
the regu lar order of thing s. You fought such renegades , mman ts, throw-bac ks
222 Chapter n

Figure 6.4
A pho10 of Sa ndra Laing i11 1!191 at 1hc agl· of' 1hi11)-~ix. Sitt· to1Hl11dt·san
inlet view wi1It I he New }'01/r Ti111l'1 hy :,;1yi11g , "m> Jill- i, m•c1."

and freaks wi1h 1hc power of ddmi1ion . Wht ·n in clo11h1.<k·fint·. On<c dd111t·d.
lhc enemy tcHilcl be das,ilicd, 1q~i" t·1eel a11cl<.rnhigm·cl 10 mH· ol 1ltt• 01111i.11.
M:p,1n11e raci,11groups 11hie h gi1e.· lhi, u1t11111}ih uni qm •I) rit h tt·\l111c. ' Wh11e
kaffir' : the words ha ve a ring 10 lhem. I tamt : 10 lw g1,11dul 101 1hc111 . l p
unlil 1hen I hadn 't any propt·r idea wha1 I wa., . What 1ht: co nd1u1or gaw mt.·
wa, an idcmil} , Ever ~ince, I've bt.·cn an icl< : nlil) in ,t·,nth ol ., g1m 1p. ( 1!180 ,
28)

T hose who live i11 lh e bordcrlancb, as Sandy S1onc ar~ucs abou1

ge nd e r ord er in her "T he Empir e '1rik es Back: A Transsexual
Manife sLo," illumin aLe a larger arc hilCcltu-e or <;ocia l order ( 1991 ).
Tnin ssex uals , rhosc who cro ss over fro111mal e IO lc malc or vice-ve rsa ,
become in her metap ho r a blank pi ece of pap e r up o n 1d1id1 may be
wriuen anyone's fanLasy of whal a pcrlec1 wo111e11(01 · 111a11 ) should be.
Stone her se lf, a male -Lo-female I ra nssex ual , was iniLially refused su r-
gery for refu sing to wear make up and hi gh hee ls a nd behave " like a
woma n ." Emil y Ign ac io , writing about Filip ino/ a identit y in dia~pora,
note s a similar str ugg le both with and against ste re ot ypes of a "rea l
Filipino" ( 1998). \IVhe rever ethni c idemity ex ists, suc h struggl es for
and aga in sL pu riLy ex ist. SouLh Africa's lacionalists tried to classif) in
a co mpletel y Aristotel ian fashion to mak e ra cial borde rlands and am -
 The Case of Race Clci~sifiw,tion ,md Redassifica.tion under Afmrtheid 223

biguity imposs ible. In so doing, the tex ture of the filiations they cre-
ate d were knotted , twisted, and often torn: anothe r night mar ish tex -
tu re (Star 1991b).
Ear lier, th e ter m torque was us ed to de scribe the twistin g that occurs
when a for mal classification system is mism atched with an individual's
biogra phi cal traj ectory, membership s, or location. Thi s cha p ter has
probed more dee ply into how this unfold s-t he prot otyp ical an d Ar-
istot elian are conflated, leavin g room for eithe r to be invoked in any
given scena rio (especially hy thm i> in power ). The Sou th African case
re p resents an extreme example. For those caug h t in its rac ial reclas-
sification system , it constituted an obje ct lesson in the p rob lemati cs of
classifying individu als int o life-determi nin g box es, outs ide of the ir
control, tightl y coupled with their every move ment an d in an ecology
of increas ingl y den sely classified activities. Each borde rland case be-
came a pr ~jection screen for the stereotyp ical fanta sies of th ose en forc-
ing the borders themselves. T he stories of Sandra L ain g, Dottie, and
Ronnie van der Walt are ones that help illumina te wh at can happen
when such a classificat ion system is enforced and po liced .
In some ways the South African stance is a mirr or image of the
curre nt Amer ican dilemma. In the mid- l 990s, a gro u p of Amer ican s
held a march on Washington. wilh the goa l of having th e t.h e op tion
of choos ing multipl e rac ial catego 1·ies added to the U.S. census. 34 This
would rep lace th e vague and to some insulting "oth er" category. T hey
arg u ed on hot.h scient ific and moral groun d s tha t mu ltirac ial was t he
app rop riate d esignat.ion , one whic h would no t force indi vidua ls co
choose between parts of themse lves. Yet man y civil right s groups
vigo rous ly op posed chem. Robb in ( 1998) recount s th e strugg le ove r
the de cision taken by the Office orManageme nt an d Budget. (0 MB)
in 1997 Lo allow peop le to choose more than one racial catego ry on
the U.S. Ce nsu s and in ot her federa l governmen t forms. T hi s decis io n
was know n by th e in nocuous name of Stat istical Dire ctive 15. Argu-
ments over the nature of rac ia l classificat ion in the U.S. ce nsus go back
over ma ny d ecades but with the ad vent of affirmative action an d other
similar measu res in the late 1960s and ea r ly l 970s, race classification
became even more conse qu entia l and co ntested . Robbi n id entifies
three majo r issues involved in arg uing for or agai nst chang ing the
catego ri es: th e contro versy about whether or not to name (and how to
nam e) rac ial and ethnic gro up s in governmen t da ta; th e exclu sion of
minority popu latio ns from the decisio n-m akin g process with in the U.S.
Census Bur ea u ; and the difficult quest ions o f data quality and
224 Chapter 6

me asu rem ent. For exampl e, where geog ra phi cal location an d race
have been confounded, as with th e Hi spani c-American gro u ps, pe op le
have in th e p ast o ften simply opted to identify themselves as "oth er."
Th e size of thi s residual category , and th e poten tial samplin g err ors it
repre sent s, remains an unsolved difficult y in collectin g H isp ani c-
American census data ( l 998, 43-46).
In th e con troversy surrounding the 0MB de cision , man y African-
American leader s (among others) argu ed th at if everyone went by th e
scient ific classification and coded themsel ves as belonging to multipl e
races, valuable dem ographic informa tion and re sources cou ld be lost
for man y African Americans (Frisby 1995-9 6). Regard less of th e scien-
tific o r geneLic basis for the category , th ey said , racism again st p eople
with an y black African ancestry was re al, and th e cate gory was neces-
sary to obtain re5ources and ju stice. Thi s stance, som etimes called
strateg ic essent ialism by critical race th eorists, lives precisely at th e
p rag matic jun ction bet.wee n th at ·which is p erceived as real, an d the
con seque nces of that perce ptio n. Ot h er leaders app roved of the cate -
gory choice cha n ge, see ing ic as pOLentially libera tin g. Kee n d ebate
about the natur e of these categor ies wnt inued for mo nth s, includi ng
issues such as whet her the indi genous people of H awaii shou ld be
grou ped with Nat ive America ns and how to categorize peop le of more
tha n one nat iona l and ethni c heritage. In October 1997, 0M B de cid ed
to allow peop le to identi fy th emse lves as of more than one race, that
is, to check more th an one box. Th ey cou ld not, however, ide n tify
themse lves as multi racial. Th e e normo us exp ense a nd in ert ia of th e
decision is striking . It is estimated that it will cost million s of d ollars.
It is no t often th at indi vidual categor ies are champi oned as social
movements; even more rarel y does an entire schema come u nder
scrut iny.

Conclusion

Th e South African case relate s dir ectly to all que stions of informatio n
systems de sign wher e categories are attached to peo p le. It is an ex-
treme case, but at the same time , a valuabl e one for th inkin g abo ut
th e eth ics and politi cs of inform ation system s. Not all system s attemp t
to classify peo ple as globally, or as consequ en tially, as did apart heid;
yet many syste ms classify user:; by age, location , or expert ise. Many are
used to build up subcle (and not-so-s ub tle) pro files of indiv id uals based
on th eir filiat io ns to a myriad o f categor ies. In th e p rocess of makin g
 The <.:aseof Raa Classi:fiw,li1mnnd R,iclas~ificntionunder Af1artheid 225

people and categories converge, there can be tremendous torque of

indi vidua l biograph ies. The advantaged are those whose place in a set
of classification systems is a powerful one and for whom powerfu l sets
of classifications of knowledge appear natural. Fo1· these people the
infrastructures that together support. and construc:L their identities
op erale parti cularly smooth ly (though never fully so). For olhers , the
fitting p rocess o f being able co use lh e infra sLructur es takes a terr ible
toll. To "act naturally, " they have to reclassify and be reclassified
soc iall y.