This excerpt illustrates how the speaker contests her signification as black on the basis of her 'colouredness', which she understands as her way of being socialized. Becoming a black South African in Australia means that the label 'coloured' is out of context. She comes to 'discover' that she is viewed as a black South African 'by international standards'; that is, she is constructed as a black 'other' based on skin colour and the associated meanings of race in Australia. In this context the meaning of blackness has shifted over time, but it has continually been framed in terms of Anglo-Saxon linguistic and cultural privilege and dominance.