Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research & Innovation, Professor José Frantz

She rushes to her lab session after stopping for a quick cup of coffee between lectures. She is on the Dean’s Merit list for the umpteenth time and is already being courted by the University for Honours next year. She is undoubtedly one of South Africa’s brightest prospects in the public health sector.

I was just like this student, one of many I mentor, with bright dreams despite facing deep trauma from navigating my way through a country of segregation, where we fought for equal rights. I was part of a black majority that fought vocally against apartheid and stayed on at my university to not only become a full professor but to become a Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research and Innovation.

Now, after almost three decades, I am at a crossroads, and I wonder if the path is as clear cut for this student as it should be, considering that I and many other coloured women of my generation paved the way for the coloured girl child. We kicked down doors for my mentee to walk through.

Yet I find myself living in the in-between - a space where you are never fully seen. You are not black enough to be prioritised in employment equity statistics, and not white enough to access the unspoken privileges that still linger in post-apartheid South Africa.

You are counted as “black” for the sake of national demographic targets. Yet, when it comes to meaningful opportunities - especially in top leadership roles - you are suddenly just coloured, and therefore not African enough.

It’s a painful paradox.

I am the same person who stood in protest lines in the 1980s demanding equal education. The same person who gave birth to a child in 1995 and called him “born free,” believing - naively perhaps - that he would grow up in a country where the burden of colour would no longer define his destiny. I dared to hope that by the time he was an adult, merit would matter more than melanin. Yet, here I am in 2025, still sidelined. Still told - subtly, systemically - that my skin is not the right shade for transformation.

As a woman of colour, the weight doubles because gender adds another layer to my invisibility. I walk into boardrooms and see the unspoken rules written across faces and policy documents alike: If you are not the "right kind" of black, or the "right kind" of woman, your presence is either tokenised or ignored. The intersection of race and gender does not amplify my voice - it often silences it further.

So what about transformation?

Real transformation is not the same as ticking boxes on an employment equity form. A numerical tool cannot liberate the soul of a nation. Transformation is meant to heal, to restore dignity, to normalise what was once distorted. 

But what we call “transformation” in 2025 is too often just a reshuffling of power - not a reimagining of society. Employment equity was never meant to be the final destination. It was supposed to be a bridge; a tool on the road toward justice. But when it becomes the goal in itself, it turns into a new kind of gatekeeping. One that still excludes. One that still tells people like me that we are either too much or not enough.

Our oppressors once used laws to define our place in society. Today, the very tools meant to liberate us can end up replicating the same dynamics of exclusion, because the power to define still rests in the hands of others. If transformation doesn’t move beyond racial categorisation, if it doesn’t get into the heart of institutional culture, of mindsets, of histories acknowledged and reconciled, then we’re not transforming - we’re just shifting the axis of control. 

Transformation should not mean choosing which group gets to belong. It should broaden our understanding of who already does. This exclusion is not just institutional. It is deeply personal.

It tells me that my sacrifices were not enough. That my history is invisible. That my contributions are discounted not because they are lacking, but because they are uncomfortable to confront. My voice - the same one that fought for justice - is now silenced by the very policies and practices I once hoped would set us free. So I ask myself: How do I change the narrative? How do I fight for true equity - one that acknowledges all the complexities of race in South Africa? How do I create open doors for my children - right here, in the land I love - without telling them their future lies elsewhere?

My lament is not about erasing the Black African experience. It is about broadening our understanding of what it means to be historically marginalised. It is about acknowledging the unique pain, resilience and identity of the coloured community. It is about refusing to be erased from a story we helped shape.

So, when will the narrative of the coloured child change? When will we stop being the afterthought in national transformation? When will the fullness of our history, identity and right to belong be recognised - not just in numbers but in policy, in practice, and in power? 

Until then, we will keep pushing. We will keep telling our stories. Because silence has never saved us - and it won’t start now. 

As for the student I mentor, the world is at her feet. But she can only realise her true worth if it comes with the recognition she rightly deserves as a rare talent rather than another racial bean to count.

*Professor Frantz is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation at the University of the Western Cape.