ABSTRACT

The ‘Cape coloured’ has been the greatest dupe of white stereotyped portrayals than any other group in South Africa. In an attempt to find a way out of the problems, the government even decided to appoint a special commission under an Afrikaner Professor of sociology. The stereotypes as found in South African literature and culture seem to complicate, at least for white South Africa, a truthful appraisal of the ‘coloured’ situation. The African and the white man can, after all, both fall back on a tribal myth, the ‘coloureds’ are asked to forge one which is all South African. The African continent has, in the process of demythologization, seen the emergence of two significant myths in modern times. In the French Antillean and West African colonies, it was assimilation of the French language, culture and civilization, which partly determined one’s supposed acceptance, as distinct from the South African criterion of skin colour.