THE HEADY years after apartheid gave rise to what advertisers and the press called “black diamonds”. Portrayals of newly rich black South Africans were often crass, highlighting their flashy cars and fancy homes that had been out of reach in the era of white rule.
Many of the gaudiest examples involved people close to the ruling African National Congress (ANC). In 2010 Kenny Kunene, a businessman and convicted fraudster who later starred in “So What: Big Money, Big Dreams”, a TV show, was criticised for spending 700,000 rand (then worth $47,000) on a party where he ate sushi off scantily clad women. His response: “It cost more than that.”
Such tales were entertaining, but they were not the norm. More representative of the milieu of middle-class black South Africans is the Reeds, a suburb in Centurion, near Pretoria, full of Toyotas and modest homes roofed with terracotta tiles.
Under apartheid
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