Under Apartheid South Africa’s Chinese community were variously classified as ‘Asiatic,’ ‘coloured,’ as well as ‘the Chinese Group.’ Some Chinese South Africans even successfully applied to be ‘reclassified’ as ‘white.’ In late June this year Chinese in South Africa won a class-action lawsuit to become officially become black. But the real material issue is affirmative action. I know it all sounds confusing. The reverberations of that decision is still being felt, including among Johannesburg’s Chinese community. Full story from Time magazine. [BTW, Japanese were 'honorary whites' under Apartheid. I'll explain another time].
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