Introduction Racial contact plays such a fundamental role in the contemporary South African society. In post-apartheid, many people and organisations try to eliminate any racism and reconcile with one another as a racially diverse nation. However, not everybody is willing to move on from the past and there are wounds that are not yet healed. A race is defined as a group that is treated differently in society based on certain biological characteristics (Andersen & Taylor, 2008:234). Andersen & Taylor (2008) argue that race is socially constructed and racial categories (Black, White, Coloured, Indian, etc.) are derived from “how groups have been treated historically and socially” (Andersen & Taylor, 2008: 234). I conducted a focus group to identify …show more content…
Racial stereotypes are stereotypes based on race and are used to describe the ‘typical’ member of a particular race (Andersen & Taylor, 2008:238). I asked the group whether or not they treat people outside of their races different from the way they treat people of their own race and also if they have noticed such behaviour on campus. Some of them responded by saying that their treatment towards other people depends on who they are and not what race they are. The Black female (19) and the Coloured male (20) implied that they do not know how to interact with White people specifically because they are “too different” from them and they do not share the same interests, therefore they avoid associating themselves with White people. The White male participant(21) responded by saying : “…from our backgrounds, we are all aware of the different races and we have all heard what people say about Blacks, Whites, Coloureds and so on, and I think it is up to us to ignore these stereotypes” . The other participants agreed and expressed how they are sometimes treated negatively by people of other races because of the stereotypes that they have been associated with (Andersen & Taylor,