Conclusion

The coloured youth of today, therefore, have different views with regard to their identity and their cultural beliefs and attitudes. They do not conform to the same type of culture of what they did before except for the fact that they still form part of monoculture which, as mentioned earlier, is observed in all cultures, races, religions and ethnicities across the world.

The coloured race of South Africa is one of the most complicated yet interesting factors of the country with regard to historical context, culture and racial identity. While some coloureds are proud of the fact that they are distinguished from all the other races by a term given to their skin colour under the apartheid system, there are others who prefer the concept of being regarded as black. This results in conflict with the coloured community and the concept of their racial identity, culture and heritage.

Erasmus does not wish to employ certain terminology in order to validate a racial identity of a certain group of people or an individual. She does not believe that a racial identity formulates a cultural identity and therefore contradicts the concept of the Afrikaaps documentary to a certain extent. Erasmus and Afrikaaps both verify the fact that there is a certain cultural identity to coloured people in Cape Town, and South Africa, regardless of whether they have positive or negative connotations.

Haupt’s argument of the coloured race defining itself as ‘black’ on a cultural level is also played into Afrikaaps with regard to the historical element of the production and the documentary because of the roots of ‘coloured’ people in Khoi-San and other ‘black’ racial groups that were later re-classified, such as Griquas. It is, therefore, evident to state that coloured people do not exist as a separate racial group but rather as entity that forms part of a greater nation.

Bosch’s and Hammett’s concept of coloured youth follow the American hip-hop subculture and popular culture is evident but it rather forms part of a coloured youth’s identity and does not validate their identity. This results in the fact that there does not seem to be a pure unified form of coloured identity amongst coloured youth today apart from the fact that they are all individual in the way they express themselves.

The concept formulated by Bosch and Hammett in their arguments is a result of their music tastes, the trends in which they follow and what they consider as their influential factors. The hip-hop subculture of Cape Town does not seem to play a strong prominent role as what it did during the apartheid years and just after South Africa became a democracy in 1994. It still exists, however, but as the interviews concluded, it has just become a form of entertainment rather than an uplifting factor within communities.

The coloured youth of today are, therefore, not formulated under a certain construction by their racial or cultural heritage but rather formulate their own concept of identity in order to validate themselves as people. This means that, as mentioned above, there is no set culture as to what it is to be a coloured person but rather that each person is validated according to their own means. This creates a sense of diversity and extinguishes the concept of exclusion. It also, therefore, creates a sense of unity and equality among human beings as people are able to be whatever they want to be, regardless of racial heritage and cultural identity.