Tessa Dooms and Lynsey Ebony Chutel: Coloured: How Classification Became Culture

Coloured as an ethnicity and racial demographic is intertwined with the creation of today’s South Africa. Yet often coloured communities are disdained as people with no clear heritage or culture – as not "black enough" or "white enough". 

Coloured by Tessa Dooms and Lynsey Ebony Chutel, challenges this notion and presents a different angle to that narrative. It delves into the history of coloured people as descendants of indigenous Africans and a people whose identity was shaped by colonisation, slavery and apartheid. 

Coloured as an ethnicity was again in the spotlight following Tyla’s brilliant rise to fame on both side of the Atlantic this year.  In South Africa, there has been a problematic discourse that disparages the Coloured identity as inherently lacking, in culture, heritage and ultimately place in our democracy. 

Tessa Dooms and Lynsey Ebony Chutel, challenge this prevailing idea  and bring forth a different way to view this incredibly varied and rich community.  In a powerful exposition, Tessa and Lynsey delve into the history of people shaped by colonisation, slavery and apartheid. 

Spurred by the death of  Nathaniel Julies, a young Coloured boy following a shooting by the police.  #ColouredLivesMatter began to circulate on social media in response to this violence. 

Tessa and Lynsey sought to address the cultural alienation that young Coloured people continue to experience in South Africa by looking deeply into the history of Coloured history, ancestry and political placement in South Africa.  In working through the conundrum of Coloured identity, it becomes clear that it cannot be distilled in racial classification.  

We sat down with Tessa and Lynsey to discuss the complexities of Coloured identity beyond the tropes and stereotypes.  We spoke about the work of understanding the realities of Coloured identities, experiences and setting. 

Written as a mirror to both reader and subject matter, this book is a love letter to Coloured people.