Chester Williams broke the colour bar for the Springboks as part of the 1995 Rugby World Cup-winning team.
It’s fitting that as we mark Heritage Month, we celebrate the start of the Rugby World Cup with hope of another Bok victory and take a deep dive into the singular South African race classification “coloured”.
Both have roots in tainted history.
Springbok rugby has become a beloved national team after long being despised as an apartheid symbol, open only to big white Afrikaans men who ensured the doors were closed to players of colour and often to English-speaking whites.
Former president Nelson Mandela withstood angry public and political demands that the Springbok be trashed, preferring to make it a symbol of reconciliation.
He is but one of the influential names and characters that have nurtured that ideal and the Springboks have earned love, respect and some fear around the world.
Three World Cup wins, some charismatic coaches and captains ‒ none more so than Siya Kolisi, with his own rags-to-riches story ‒ have contributed immeasurably to their standing.
Breaking the colour bar during the 1995 World Cup, played on home turf, was Chester Williams. The messy classification of “coloured” came in handy at the time: he was not “too black” for Springbok management and fans, and his cap was a nod to people of colour that change was coming.
Williams earned his spot in rugby fame with his own skills and power and proved that the sky would not fall if a black player made the team.
But coloured people still have a long road ahead to claim the right to choose who they are. The classification “coloured” only exists in the shadow of apartheid. People of mixed-race heritage are still fighting the classification that did not take their varied cultures into account: merely their colour.
Authors Tessa Dooms and Lynsey Ebony Chutel have produced a compelling challenge to the current way people ‒ mixed-race, or other races ‒ perceive what coloured means.
As all South Africans are embracing the Boks, we should welcome Dooms’ and Chutel’s help in learning to understand and support those who are still grappling with an identity forced on them by a hateful system.
The Independent on Saturday