White on Black in South Africa: A Study of English-Language Inscriptions of Skin Colour

The English-speaking whites of South Africa participate in the larger culture of the English-speaking world while rejecting its unspoken consensual positions on many basic issues. This study analyses texts of different kinds produced by the group to examine the way these deviant English-speakers see themselves, and particularly how this self-image is influenced by the presence of the blacks who constitute a crucial part of their perceptual field. Economically powerful but politically marginal fo…