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general silliness

Dear Statistics South Africa: I am an African (A rant about categorization)

Dear Statistics South Africa,

I was reading the University of Johannesburg’s Style Guide this afternoon and I learned that your organization uses the following classification for population groups:

  • African
  • Coloured
  • Indian
  • white.

I find these categories to be highly inappropriate because I am a white African. I was born and bred in South Africa, my ancestors have lived here for over a hundred years. This distinction creates an unnecessary tension, if you would like a classification based on racial tendencies perhaps a tribal division would be more appropriate.

I sympathize with the challenges that your organization faces, we are a diverse country which must make putting us into boxes quite difficult. Perhaps, you should rather simply have an option for nationality, with the options:

  • South African,
  • Other African country,
  • Other (please specify).

Yours faithfully,

Patricia Cornelius
South African

Jan 11, 2013 by Trisha Cornelius

Filed Under: Miscellany Tagged With: general silliness, personal identity, politics, South Africa, vents

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I’m Trisha. This is my personal blog and all opinions are my own. I don’t set out to offend people about trivial things, but if you disagree with basic universal human rights we are probably going to butt heads.
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