I'm Not Black, I'm Coloured

Quotes & Reviews

BERMUDA SUN NEWSPAPER
April 2010
... an engaging, informative and emotional examination of the legacy of Apartheid in the South Africa from the viewpoint of the Cape Coloured, the majority population, in Cape Town.

MINNEAPOLIS ST. PAUL INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
APRIL 2011
http://www.mspfilmfest.org/2011/content/im-not-black-im-coloured

MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO
APRIL 2011
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/state-of-the-arts/archive/2011/04/pumping-up-the-minnesota-in-mspiff.shtml

FILM EXPLORES CAPE COLOURED'S STRUGGLE WITH IDENTITY, SOCIAL INJUSTICE
APRIL 2011 (ABC NEWSPAPER)
http://abcnewspapers.com/2011/05/12/film-explores-cape-coloured%E2%80%99s-struggle-with-identity-social-injustice/

LESLEY ANN BRANDT - ACTRESS / DIRECTOR - (Spartacus 'Blood and Sand')
04/23/10
Lesley shares her South African heritage with her fans.
http://lesleyannbrandt.ausxip.com/2010/04/lab-blog---a-lady-of-many-colours-25-april-2010.html

A FOUR STAR RATING FROM 'EYE ON FILM' - LONDON ENGLAND
April 2010
http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/reviews.php?id=8870
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LYNDALL JOHNSON - FOUNDER ASLAN INSTITUTE
February 2009
...the movie is brilliant. As a South African I was deeply touched at the accurate and very moving way in which you presented the intergenerational suffering and identity crisis of The Cape Coloureds. The historical background was concise and accurate and so well done and provided such a good context for the present suffering. My daughter and I both wept at the end - those scenes of people finding their genetic roots was beautiful - what a wonderful gift. And it was fun to meet Dr. Michael Adams and speak Afrikaans and feel my bond to him as a SOUTH AFRICAN. We all long for the day when we can all call ourselves South Africans, like Americans call themselves Americans instead of feeling in our psyches the difference more than the common unity of our humanity.

Blessings on you Kiersten for this wonderful consciousness raising gift to the world.

CHRIS NAVAVIE GREENLAND - Retired High Court Judge - Zimbabwe
May 25, 2011
...

the importance of what you have done cannot be over emphasized. People simply lose their dignity when they are not accepted for who and what they are. The artificial classification of people by governments subverts their humanity and always... leads to injustice. Social justice rests on the proposition that people are free ... including the freedom to accept, love and revere their own kind. The "social construct" of all non-whites being classified as "Black' had its place in history. it was, after all a product of rejection by the dominant White group. That time has long passed. White folk have abandoned this rejection and voted a Coloured man to the most powerful position in the world ... seeing and accepting him for what he is ... and exceptional human being ... free to become President.

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011 (Christ Navavie Greenland)
In May, 2011 a film was screened titled “I'm Not Black, I'm Coloured”, Identity Crisis at the Cape of Good Hope” by Mondé World Films depicting the plight of Coloured folk in the new South Africa, on account of an inherently racist Affirmative Action transformational model.

Mondé World Films was quickly vindicated when it was revealed that a chief government spokesman had insisted there was an “oversupply” of Coloureds in the Western Cape and suggested they “spread in the rest of the country”. He said their “over-concentration” in the province “is not working for them”. The comments were made in April during a debate about affirmative action that appeared on KykNet’s Robinson Regstreeks show. "

Chris Navavie Greenland

Be sure to read Mr. Greenlands recent book - 'The Other: Without Fear, Favour or Prejudice
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-other---without-fear-favour-or-prejudice/17794093

OBERLIN COLLEGE - EVE SANDBERG Ph.D. POLITICS DEPARTMENT
12/07/2010
I’m Not Black, I’m Coloured: Identity Crisis at the Cape of Good Hope is an insightful look at the history of the Coloured community in South Africa. The film delivers on many levels and those with no prior information about South Africa as well as those with much background, benefit from this smartly constructed documentary. Kiersten Dunbar Chace sheds light on the struggles for full citizen status that South Africa’s Coloured community waged under apartheid, as well as the disappointments that community has experienced under ANC governments. By juxtaposing interviews with those in the Coloured community with historical footage, Dunbar Chace has created a thoughtful and important film about a people still struggling for equal rights and equal access.

GREG TAYLOR - CULTURAL COMPETENCE FACILITATOR - ARLINGTON, VA
MAY 21, 2011
I really like the comprehensive history lesson at the beginning of the film. It gives Americans a great overview of how South Africa got to this point. There are so many parallels to historical events in the states. You'd be surprised how many teachers we see that have either forgotten or blocked from their minds America's history in that regard. Many chalk up the achievement gap to some phantom "cultural differences" without ever acknowledging the role of100's of years of institutionalized racism.

SOPHIE TALBOT - London U.K.
10/31/2011
Having been brought up in the Home Counties of the UK during the 60s and 70s RSA, its history and my culture was always an exotic mystery. It’s been difficult to come to terms with some of the secrecy with which my mother’s family seemed to need to surround our family history - why did my grandfather have such a strong reaction against my brother growing an afro, my Aunty Clarie’s nickname ‘plum-bum, the story of the pale cousin with blue eyes that would force her mother to walk the opposite side of the street because she was dark and had brown eyes. My mum (Cape Coloured) and dad (white european) taught us about black power, we adored 70s black music, my older brother became a fan of Steve Biko. I’m proud to call myself black here in the UK, in a western political context.

Having seen Kiersten’s incredible film, for the first time I can begin to stop being guilty about calling myself coloured as well despite the risk I still take of being misinterpreted. I cried throughout this film. Partly very selfishly and partly because my mum adored South Africa but died in 1985 never having seen her country become democratic, something she longed for (she left as a teenager in 1949 and never saw RSA again). “I’m not Black I’m Coloured” is essential viewing all over the world. A tale of how we as people had imposed upon us boundaries that never should exist, but that do. And because they do we need to find a way to be proud of who we are, and others need to find a way of not dismissing us or simplifying the politics involved. Thankyou so much for changing my world view.

Sophie Talbot (daughter of Sybil Stevens originally from Wynberg)

Sybil Stevens

G.REGINALD DANIEL - Professor, Dept. of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara,

“I’m Not Black, I’m Coloured” is a marvelously nuanced examination of the complexities that underpin the formation of Coloured identity in South Africa, particularly the often challenging and contradictory forces involved with forging identities in the pursuit of racial equality. That said, some important historical details were missing, particularly the active engagement on the part of Cape Coloureds in forming a separate Coloured identity in the early part of the 20th century as a means of circumventing, if not completely, forestalling the racial proscriptions that were gradually making their way toward apartheid. This was particularly the case with the African Peoples Organization (APO), which was very proactive in this regard. Moreover, the DNA testing at the end of the documentary left me with some unanswered questions. Yet these “caveats” provide an excellent starting point for further discussion.

Indeed, this is an invaluable teaching tool for courses on race and ethnic relations. It is also a superb addition to the growing number of resources available for understanding the struggle for identity, agency, and self-determination on the part of multiracial individuals in our increasingly interconnected globalized society. BULLS EYE!

G. Reginald Daniel, Professor, Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara, author of More Than Black?: Multiracial Identity and the New Racial Order (2002), Converging Paths?: Race and Multiraciality in Brazil and the United States (2006), and Machado de Assis: Multiracial Identity and the Brazilian Novelist (2012).

KAYLENE LEVACK - C.E.O. Joshua Heritage Practitioners South Africa
November 2010
I'm Not black - I'm Coloured is pioneering. It's an important catalyst for dialogue amongst the Coloured people of South Africa which also deepens the viewers sense of the impact of our slave history, our imposed identity and our struggle which is founded within the cruel and oppressive Apartheid state and inherited by a democratic South Africa. Until today we still face age old social and economic injustices as Coloured people within South Africa, and perhaps the universal reach of this film will assist us within our plight to find our voice, our true citizenship, and our freedom. Thank you Kiersten for a thought provoking journey, a film produced with integrity - and above all a generous gift to our people and the world.

TANIA WILLIAMS - MINNEAPOLIS, MN
April 2011
As an African American I was skeptical about this film thus attended the screening at the Minneapolis Int'l Film Festival a few nights ago. I want to say thank you for opening my eyes to a South Africa I never knew about. The way you laid out the structure of Apartheid was very helpful and the ending... what can I say... it was moving. Please tell the cast and crew I said 'thank you' for sharing their stories otherwise we would have never known.

PROFESSOR MARTIN KLAMMER - LUTHER COLLEGE - Africana Studies
March 2009
"This film (I'm Not Black, I'm Coloured: Identity Crisis at the Cape of Good Hope) fills a critical gap in our understanding of people known as Cape Coloureds -- both their history and their present reality as they struggle to define their social identity and place in the new South Africa. As someone who teaches South African history and culture and frequently takes students to South Africa, I especially appreciate filmmaker Kiersten Chace's focus on letting people tell their stories in their own voices. The film has become an invaluable teaching tool for me and I highly recommend it to teachers and others who want to understand this important but often overlooked group of people in and around Cape Town."

TOMMY WOON - MACALESTER COLLEGE - DEAN OF MULTI CULTURAL LIFE
March 2009
"I'm not Black, I'm Coloured" reveals the complicated ways people of mixed heritage in South Africa were used, are marginalized, and can be trapped in an endless cycle of invisibility and exclusion through internal ambiguity about identity and external indifference about their welfare. This film also shows the importance of learning one's DNA and how it can free individuals from the psychological and multi-generational shackles that miscegenation through colonization produced in those who are not valued by Black or White South Africa. This film reminds us that no one is free until everyone is free when those who were dominant and subordinate free themselves from apartheid without recognizing the rights of people who sprang from common ancestors.

CHARLES ASH - PUBLISHER / FOUNDER - BRUIN-OU.COM
June 2009
I'd like to extend a sincere thanks from myself as founder of Bruin-ou.com, for the amazing initiative and commitment you've shown to the Coloured community of South Africa by investing time, effort, energy and resources into your documentary. Your compassion for the community is commendable and deeply appreciated.

REHANA ROZANNA DESAI ROACH - CAPE TOWN SOUTH AFRICA
July 2009
Having lived in exile for many years I was surprised when many coloured I met were unaware of their heritage. I have also been made aware by "black Africans" that I am not black enough! fortunately my father kept us well informed of our heritage. I know that my mother's side is African Dutch and Polish. and on my father's side African Dutch and Asian. So because I have an Asian surname I am not African. But I really am my ancestral mother was L1 the oldest Africans in the Western Cape 150.000 years and I am sure many cape coloured will be the same. And Now that i live in Cape Town again I am aware of how marginalised they feel. Unfortunately this happens in lots of countries where Black and white have mixed. I know blacks were marginalised during apartheid but so were coloured people. And it was blacks coloured and whites who fought for the end to Apartheid. Yes coloured people need to be represented more in the media both TV and radio. If we hadn't had apartheid think how many more South Africans would be coloured! no more them and us.

DANIEL PIERCE BERGIN - TPT/PBS MINNESOTA - SENIOR PRODUCER
March 2009
Central to cinema is giving voice to the voiceless. Your film does that to such a degree that you can see the pleasure, pain, and visceral need to ‘tell’ on the faces of your characters. The telling was that important to them. And the safe space and healthy process you offered seemed greatly appreciated by this community.

As you originally conceived, the story offers a never before seen account of the Coloured peoples of Southern Africa. But it also holds up a fascinating mirror for the rest of the world – including biracial African Americans like myself.

Your voice (literally and figuratively) is also key in this telling. Smart and sensitive, your storytelling structure and style makes the piece work on several levels.

JULIE CRUZ - MULTICULTURAL SERVICES - ST. CLOUD STATE UNIVERSITY
February 2009
Because of our close relationship with Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa, St. Cloud State University’s Multicultural Student Services office was very happy to sponsor a screening of I’m Not Black, I’m Coloured: Identity Crisis at the Cape of Good Hope for the university and community in February 2009. The film was well done covering both historical and contemporary issues facing the Coloured people of South Africa, in particular, those from Cape Town. We were extremely fortunate in that filmmaker Kiersten Chace as well as the subject of the film, Dr. Adams, were both able to attend and facilitate a spirited discussion following the film. Both Ms. Chace and Dr. Adams (from Cape Town South Africa) fielded questions following the film from both faculty and students and covered many areas. As facilitators of the discussion, they handled even the most sensitive questions with professionalism and open-mindedness.

Working with Ms. Chace to schedule and bring the film to SCSU was a very easy process. She worked with us to find a date and time that met our needs. We received from her publicity information which allowed us to promote the event to the campus audience. The entire process of arranging, promoting and hosting the event was simple, due to the professionalism of Ms. Chace. We were able to provide a space for Ms. Chace to promote the book upon which the film was based, adding to the context of the film for the audience.

By including a historical component the film informs the audience of the bearing of the past upon the present, helping to explain the present-day challenges faced by this particular group of South Africans. We highly recommend this film for college audiences interested in a global understanding of other parts of the world.

EDDIE JACOBS - CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
March 2009
Eddie Jacobs - Cape Town, South Africa.... The racial make up in South Africa is so complex and for many years, not talked about issues. It never used to bother me but on my first travel to the US people asked me whether I am Zulu or Xhosa and we had to respond we are black South Africans. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but if one looks a little closer you will find that black in south Africa is what the government of the day determines as "black". Some of us that grew up in the black consciousness movement learned and were made to believe that black is beautiful and everyone not white is black. Not so.... the blackness a South African has nothing to do with pigmentation or language. It has to do with who has the power in government. Even in the first elections when all of us cried and we became one and we sang bind us together Lord.... our first black president uttered those terms we have learned to hate... To all South African, blacks, whites and Indians...etc.

The struggle for the liberation of coloured people in SA is far from over. We first have to free ourselves from the thought that we are always in the middle and to let others decide on our behalf. We have numerous visits of USA tourist and as soon as they land on the motherland they insist to see the "real African' We have decided to stand up for our people and for our course........ Its cool to be coloured and anyone that did not grow up in Cape Town will not understand the reality of being a coloured and not black. Thank you Kiersten for your contribution.

HILTON A - CAPE TOWN / KANSAS
October 2009
I have watched the Film 5 times and have enjoyed it every time I watched. ps.. Good job.

MOHANNAD GHAWANMEH - DUNWOODY INSTITUTE
Art & Sciences Department
July 2009
I'm not Black, I'm Coloured, a stirring and thought provoking film by Kiersten Chace, examines the historical and present day experience of South Africa's Cape Coloured. The documentary film succeeds in engendering
in its audience an ambivalence about the socioeconomic and civic standing of the Coloureds of Cape Town not dissimilar to that at times conveyed by interviewed members of the very marginalized population. However such
ambivalence settles, the film's American audiences will never think of the term coloured in quite the same way.

LAURA S - MINNEAPOLIS
February 2009
...it really went above and beyond my expectations. I loved it and it even brought some tears to my eyes at the end. I had no idea about the Coloured people in S. Africa....thank you for teaching me!!!

ROBYN ALEXANDER - CAPE TOWN / WASHINGTON DC
May 2009
I just watched the film (for a second time)... first time, I watched it alone, and then again this morning with my boyfriend (who is Black American). I already knew quite a bit about our community through conversations with my folks in Australia, but your film put many things in context.

The historical overview was very interesting - I learned more here than I ever did attending primary school in SA... as you might know, our history lesson comprised of Jan Van Riebeck, Vasco da Gama and the Bushmen (it was funny, I caught myself reciting the arrival dates of the first fleets before you mentioned it in the film).

My Dad's mom grew up in District Six and was relocated to Bonteheuwel (which we also laughingly call 'Beverly Hills'). She died last year, and along with her, any chance of finding out anything about her parents - she refused to talk about it.

My mom's mom passed in 1988, she too would not tell us anything about our ancestors, other than, they were British (sound familiar)! I remember seeing a picture of my mum with an elderly black lady when I was just a child... I was to find out years later, that this was my great-grandmother. My grandma had me believe she was the maid... We think this great-grandmother was from Mozambique... but we have not been able to substantiate it.

For years since leaving South Africa, I have always searched for my identity - and this was probably my most compelling reason to move to the US (from Australia) - to be apart of a culture and feel as though I belong to something.

Your film really helped me understand that I actually AM apart of something, not just some mixture of black and white.

I too have noticed that the Cape Flats has not changed much at all since the end of apartheid. What is most frustrating is that I do want to help, but really don't know how to?

Anyway, THANK YOU for doing this - it was a wonderful documentary and you certainly have started to show the world our wonderful culture and our struggle for our identity and place in South Africa.

MAREN MCMARTIN - MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
I will say that I was aware of the Coloured issues in South Africa on a minimal scale. I felt like your film did a lot to expose how much is going on in the Coloured community, which seems to have been misunderstood quite a bit in South Africa and ignored everywhere else. I want to say, that like many in the crowd, I was amazed with what you put together. I walked away knowing so much more and thinking about and looking to uncover the stories of people with similar issues to the Coloured people of South Africa. AMAZING JOB!

On a personal note, I found it incredibly inspiring that you were able to complete this, let alone while maintaining a job. You are an inspiration. I work with an organization called History Day, which is quite a bit like a science fair, but for history. Grades 6-12. I know of many students that are working on projects about Nelson Mandela and now I have a whole new dimension to discuss with them. So, THANK YOU SO MUCH! I was so inspired.

I wish you all the best and thank you and everyone you have worked with to accomplish this. Please let your subjects know that I am appreciative of their openness too! Way to go!

SELWYN IVOR HOLT - Johannesburg, South Africa
May 17, 2011
Just watched the doc, thank you for letting the world know about Coloureds, not to sure how feel about the DNA testing to determine how mixed or native they were, but I guess it was their choice. Anyway it was a good documentary and I'm glad to see that its getting international attention.

QUINTON - CAPE TOWN / MINNEAPOLIS
March 2009
Being a Coloured man from Cape Town South Africa, I am deeply moved by your accurate and true documentary. I was very frustrated when a group of Americans came to South Africa a few years ago and walked through the coloured neighborhoods and said: "This isn't Africa!" I could not believe my ears when I heard this.

And YOU, Kiersten, have made this (film) possible. Of course the people involved too.

NORA M - LONDON, ENGLAND
February 2009
I enjoyed the film so much, I can't begin to tell you. I have been to South Africa a couple of times, and whilst there became very aware of the Black/White issues and learned an awful lot - but your film opened my eyes to a whole new area.

DONNA JOHNSON - VIDEO PRODUCER - MINNEAPOLIS
February 2009
...following the premiere, the resounding, standing ovation and sharing of stories was testament that this documentary not only stirred the soul, but suddenly became a voice of awareness for a people who have not been heard until now. The first question was from a lady who introduced herself as a "Coloured from South Africa." She was astounded that her history was so accurately depicted by a woman in Minnesota. Thank you Kiersten Chace for making this Documentary.