Advancing Black solidarity in South Africa while Coloured and Black: reflections during-COVID-19

Abstract

ABSTRACT COVID-19 has presented South Africans with an unprecedented period through which race, gender, violence, socio-economic circumstances and identity politics have been visiblized. This paper uses autoethnography to explore some of the experiences I have had because of my legal classification as a Coloured woman in post-Apartheid South Africa specifically during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. My selective narratives focus on how COVID-19 has amplified hostility and divisive politics, using negative stereotypes and perceptions. I interpret my selected narratives through Black Consciousness to illustrate how my legal identity as a Coloured woman has been saturated with colonial and Apartheid knowledge. By drawing attention to the fictitious legal classification of Coloured through a Black Consciousness lens, I advance the need to re-humanize myself as both a Coloured and Black woman. More importantly, I emphasize the need to use the COVID-19 pandemic as a space for forging Black solidarity and dismantling divisive politics among Black people.