Paper short abstract:

This paper offers both theoretical discussion and ethnography on black experience of race in post-apartheid South Africa.

Paper long abstract:

The research upon which this paper is based seeks to understand how the black middle class in a South African city understand, define and experience race after apartheid. The work reflects on experiences of aversive racism in particular and hopes to show how blacks negotiate these experiences while attempting to achieve social mobility. The research thus far suggests that once employed, black South Africans continue to experience racial discrimination and find it difficult to advance regardless of affirmative action policies and practices. The paper asks whether this is because aversive racism is not acknowledged or fully understood in South Africa since most people are used to interrogations of blatant forms of social racism.