Wednesday 1 November 2006

Don't call them "so-called"

The death of P W Botha has led the BBC, true to form, to claim that he made his name as a Minister by clearing District Six, home of the "so-called coloureds" (you can pretty much hear the small c as they say it). There is absolutely nothing either small c or "so-called" about the Coloureds, "of mixed European and non-European descent and speaking English or Afrikaans as the mother-tongue". That mixed means really mixed, and mixed a very long time ago: a distinct people with a distinct culture (and, please note, including half of all native speakers of Afrikaans). As they themseleves would tell the BBC or anyone else, they are "Coloured with a capital C".

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