'We need to do right by the coloured community': Given Mkhari

Given Mkhari, Founder and Executive Chairman of MSG Afrika Group wants the coloured community to get the recognition it deserves. 

Speaking on the Chairman's Conversation on PowerFM  with Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, Given Mkhari spoke passionately about the need to empower the coloured community.

Political analyst Tessa Dooms, who holds a Master of Arts in Sociology was recently announced as the host of a show at PowerFM.

Dooms, who also advocates for the coloured community in South Africa, co-wrote a book that delves into the history of the coloured people and challenges the notion that coloured people do not have a distinct heritage or culture titled “Coloured: How classification became culture”.

The addition of Dooms to the station can be perceived as an effort to diversify its audience and attract the coloured demographic, according to Given Mkhari, chairman of PowerFM.

“There is a very important community in this country called the coloured community that we have done so much injustice to and we must own up,” he said.

Mkhari touched on how the coloured community fought against apartheid alongside other races who faced discrimination during that era.

“The coloured community stood up, in my view, more than most against apartheid in practical terms. They didn't write press releases, they didn't sing songs, they got on the road. And these were young people particularly under the ban of the UDF (United Democratic Front).

“I hope that PowerFM and the society, as much as we want white people to acknowledge what they have done to us, we also have messed up our own people. And we need to do right by the coloured community, I feel very strong about that,” Mkhari said.

Coloured people are a mix of European, African and Asian ancestry, and the term “coloured” stems from the apartheid government to describe people who are mixed race.

In South Africa, coloured is identified as a race, just like we have black and white people. And in 1994, at the end of the apartheid coloured people were granted full citizenship and political rights.

According to Dooms book with co-author, Lynsey Ebony Chutel, challenges the narrative that coloured people do not have a clear heritage or culture.

In 2023, IOL wrote an article which gave a glimpse of what the book is about and explained that coloured people should reclaim their identity.

In the article they gave a brief explanation about how most people, especially the coloured community, who used to identify as black, were forced to give up their mother tongue and most had to change their surnames e.g Ndlovu to Oliphant or Nkosi to King as a strategy to improve the family’s life chances.

However, not everywhere in the world is the term coloured considered a race. In the US, they regard the term coloured as offensive and discriminative since that was how they were referred as during the segregation era.

In 2024, Tyla received backlash from the US netizens after she called herself a coloured. And that became a trending topic for while, even though many South Africans tried to explain that in South Africa, coloured is a race and it is not regarded or seen as an offense.

IOL