Racial discrimination in post-Apartheid South Africa? The stories of Coloured people in Johannesburg, South Africa

Abstract

Dominant theoretical conversations on experiences of racial discrimination are focused on how Black and other non-White people perceive and experience racial discrimination in White majority racial systems; however, research is scant on experiences of racial discrimination of racial minorities in Black majority social systems. This paper addresses this lacuna by exploring perceived experiences of racial discrimination of Coloured people in Johannesburg, South Africa, a racial minority in a Black majority country. Fourteen in-depth individual interviews were conducted with participants. Analysis of the interviews resulted in many interviewees claiming race-based discrimination in housing, employment, service delivery, political representation and education. A few participants, however, claimed that Black South Africans are also experiencing socioeconomic problems like Coloured South Africans. Racial discrimination theory and social exclusion theory are used as perspectives for the study. Based on the findings, I argue that the perceived experiences of racial discrimination of most of the participants of the study can be explained by three interrelated structural forces, namely legacies of historical racial exclusions, the neoliberal macro-economic order and government neglect.