Who was considered White in South Africa?

[k5125]

Were mediterraneans (spanish, italians, portuguese, greeks, turks) white?

Were Arabs white? Were Iranians white? What about Sephardic Jews? Egyptians?

[alexandrian]

k5125 said:

Were mediterraneans (spanish, italians, portuguese, greeks, turks) white?

Were Arabs white? Were Iranians white? What about Sephardic Jews? Egyptians?

South Africa's Racial Classification:

1. Whites (Euros, including Meds fit here)
2. Asians (I think this is where most Arabs/Middle Easterners/North Africans belonged)
3. Colored (people of mixed race, I believe)
4. Negro


That's how I think it went down. I know there were four categories and I think thats how various nationalities were ordered out. I've often wondered the same question myself.

[k5125]

Alexandrian said:

South Africa's Racial Classification:

1. Whites (Euros, including Meds fit here)
2. Asians (I think this is where most Arabs/Middle Easterners/North Africans belonged)
3. Colored (people of mixed race, I believe)
4. Negro


That's how I think it went down. I know there were four categories and I think thats how various nationalities were ordered out. I've often wondered the same question myself.

North Africans as Asians? That seems a little strange.

I could see listing middle easterners as asian. Egyptian would be stretchin it. Moroccan though just wouldn't cut it.

Then again, the people who ran the apartheid system were a bunch of loons

[alexandrian]

k5125 said:

North Africans as Asians? That seems a little strange.

I could see listing middle easterners as asian. Egyptian would be stretchin it. Moroccan though just wouldn't cut it.

Then again, the people who ran the apartheid system were a bunch of loons

Asian primarily referred to the Indian/Pakistanis in South Africa, not East Asians, except Malay populations. Most Middle Easterners/North Africans have more in common with Indians and Pakistanis than any of the other groups listed above. Maybe Lebanese could have been grouped with Whites, but i think that the few Egyptians, Maghrebians, and Gulf Arabs were probably associated more with Asians.

[k5125]

Alexandrian said:

Asian primarily referred to the Indian/Pakistanis in South Africa, not East Asians, except Malay populations. Most Middle Easterners/North Africans have more in common with Indians and Pakistanis than any of the other groups listed above. Maybe Lebanese could have been grouped with Whites, but i think that the few Egyptians, Maghrebians, and Gulf Arabs were probably associated more with Asians.

Interesting. I am trying to find out as much as I can about the race mixing prohibition in South Africa.

Did they base being Asian on color, national origin, or both? I would agree with you that definately most north africans have more physically in common with southwest asians. But what about the exceptions?

Shlomo Benizri or Joseph Azran for instance. I would have a hard time picturing these guys being listed as Asian. They look like they would fit the white category instead, despite having definate armenoid facial charactersitics. But their skin color is far to pale in contrast with most other north africans.

What do you think, would they be white or asian?

And you said Asian didn't include Koreans, Japanese, etc? Were these people then allowed to mix with whites?

[alexandrian]

k5125 said:

Interesting. I am trying to find out as much as I can about the race mixing prohibition in South Africa.

Did they base being Asian on color, national origin, or both? I would agree with you that definately most north africans have more physically in common with southwest asians. But what about the exceptions?

Shlomo Benizri or Joseph Azran for instance. I would have a hard time picturing these guys being listed as Asian. They look like they would fit the white category instead, despite having definate armenoid facial charactersitics. But their skin color is far to pale in contrast with most other north africans.

What do you think, would they be white or asian?

And you said Asian didn't include Koreans, Japanese, etc? Were these people then allowed to mix with whites?

I'm no expert on South Africa, but seriously, I doubt there were very many MIddle Easterners, North Africans, or Northeast Asians to worry about there. East Asians obviously were marked as Asian, and I'm sure that North Africans/Middle Easterners who could pass off as white were considered white, while others more than likely were associated with Asians. Speaking of South Africa race issues, there's an issue coming out recently where a white boss and his black employee threw another black employee into a lion feeding reserve where he was eaten to death. It's yet unclear as to whether he was alive or dead when he was thrown in, but tragic and horrifying regardless of the details.

[k5125]

Alexandrian said:

I'm no expert on South Africa, but seriously, I doubt there were very many MIddle Easterners, North Africans, or Northeast Asians to worry about there. East Asians obviously were marked as Asian, and I'm sure that North Africans/Middle Easterners who could pass off as white were considered white, while others more than likely were associated with Asians. Speaking of South Africa race issues, there's an issue coming out recently where a white boss and his black employee threw another black employee into a lion feeding reserve where he was eaten to death. It's yet unclear as to whether he was alive or dead when he was thrown in, but tragic and horrifying regardless of the details.

That is tragic. What a horrible place to live for black people. And its their own land too.

[Italian Stallion]

k5125 said:

That is tragic. What a horrible place to live for black people. And its their own land too.

I was reading about the lion incident. Apparently the White farmer and TWO of his BLACK employees fed the ex-employee to the lions. Its bizarre that the media is portraying this as a white on black crime when 2 of the 3 people involved in the murder were black?!
Apparently, being a white farmer is pretty dangerous too. 1500 white farmers have been murdered in the past decade.
Final note... I have a twice removed Italian cousin living in Durban... apparently from what I understand under the Apartheid regime, Italians were considered White and around 100,000 immigrated to SA.

[tokenguy]

Just to show how ridiculously constructed race can be in a society Indians and Chinese were consdiered Asian under aparthied whereas the Taiwanese and Japanese were considered "white." But considering that the "white" Afrikaners who were responsible for the whole system of aparthied conveniently forgot to tell the world of their own non-white ancestry (which modern day genetics has brought out to light) its no suprise that a Japanese person could be considered white.

[k5125]

tokenguy said:

Just to show how ridiculously constructed race can be in a society Indians and Chinese were consdiered Asian under aparthied whereas the Taiwanese and Japanese were considered "white." But considering that the "white" Afrikaners who were responsible for the whole system of aparthied conveniently forgot to tell the world of their own non-white ancestry (which modern day genetics has brought out to light) its no suprise that a Japanese person could be considered white.

Wow. Now that is very interesting. Thanks for the info. I never knew that.

[MC anunnaki]

Italian said:

I was reading about the lion incident. Apparently the White farmer and TWO of his BLACK employees fed the ex-employee to the lions. Its bizarre that the media is portraying this as a white on black crime when 2 of the 3 people involved in the murder were black?!
Apparently, being a white farmer is pretty dangerous too. 1500 white farmers have been murdered in the past decade.

It strikes me sometimes that people always think it might be a race issue when trouble arises between people of different races. No one stops to think that hey, we can dislike people on the basis of other things than race. If I dislike a black guy, I'm probably doing it because I consider him stupid and have been wronged by him, not because he's black. I don't see the reason for pointing out the races of the men involved in that ghastly murder, unless the newspapers deliberately want it to look like some form of hate crime even though they have no evidence for it.

[quartermetis]

The funny thing is that aparthied was based on appearences and how you local society saw you. There we immediate families that were forcably separated and catagorized differently. So if you had a coloured family where two siblings looked European and two siblings look mixed they would be forced to live in different worlds during aparthied.

[Igu]

k5125 said:

Were mediterraneans (spanish, italians, portuguese, greeks, turks) white?

Were Arabs white? Were Iranians white? What about Sephardic Jews? Egyptians?

Fitrst migrants:
Afrikaners and english: european.
portuguese: portuguese
egyptians: egyptians.

Later migration and new classification:
Jews:White.
Iranian non muslim (there were no muslims there): white.
Libanese:White.
mediterranean europeans (greeks, portuguese, italians) :white.

Don't forget that a coloured who was white looking was considered White.

[alexandrian]

Were there egyptians in South AFrica? They had their own category?

[Soomaal]

My great grandfather went to south Africa during the gold rush, he was Somali and considered colored, I am guessing colored meant black.