Kaffir (racial term) Kaffir (/ˈkæfər/) is an exonym and an ethnic slur – the use of it in reference to black people being particularly common in South Africa. In Arabic, the word kāfir ("unbeliever") was originally applied to pagans who were neither Muslims nor People of the Book before becoming predominantly focused on pagan zanj (black African) who were increasingly used as slaves. During the Age of Exploration in early modern Europe, variants of the Latin term cafer (pl. cafri) were adopted in reference to non-Muslim Bantu peoples even when they were monotheistic. It was eventually used, particularly in Afrikaans (Afrikaans: kaffer), for any black person during the Apartheid era and, closely associated with South African racism, it became a pejorative by the mid-20th century and is now considered extremely offensive hate speech. Punishing continuing use of the term was one of the concerns of the Promotion of Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act enacted by the South African parliament in the year 2000 and it is now euphemistically addressed as the K-word in South African English.
