White is the colour of almost all Springbok rugby players, as well as most of the South Africans who fill stadiums to watch them play.
White is the surname of a coach who makes some who are paid handsomely to pretend to represent our interests in Parliament see red. But that’s not all.
White is what the South African cricket team will wear when they begin a Test series against New Zealand in Johannesburg next week.
While the unbearable whiteness of being a Springbok troubles some South Africans, the pigmentally challenged New Zealanders might lose what little colour they have left in their faces at the thought of this imminent challenge.
The Kiwis know they will face a team that has remembered it has balls, backbone and a bloody good sense of what is needed to win.
Graeme Smith and his men are fresh from Pakistan, where they played one of the game’s most dangerous teams in one of the world’s most politically volatile countries.
South Africa has endured some desperate spirals of form and fortune in recent seasons, but this was not one of those times.
Instead, they won one Test and drew the other and emerged victorious in three of the five one-day internationals.
That made them only the third non-Asian team to achieve the ”double” in Pakistan. And that by a side that not long ago watched the wheels wobble over the horizon in the World Cup and the World Twenty20.
South Africa’s 14-run win in the deciding one-dayer in Lahore beggared belief. With six wickets in hand and 60 balls left in the match, Pakistan needed to score 36 runs to claim the series.
At that point, whatever the Urdu equivalent is for ”it’s a doddle” surely spread through the crowd at Gadaffi Stadium like that vicious rumour about Mangosuthu Buthelezi and leopard-print pantyhose.
But Makhaya Ntini and Albie Morkel took wickets nervelessly with the help of JP Duminy, Mark Boucher and AB de Villiers, who held catches that ranged from nicely judged to gobsmackingly spectacular.
Verily, Pakistan lost six wickets for 20 runs in the space of 36 breathtaking balls to crash to a devastating defeat.
South Africa’s conquering heroes returned to OR Tambo International Airport on Tuesday night to a significantly smaller gathering of supporters than the mass of mad humanity that greeted the Springboks a week earlier.
The Boks, of course, recently attended a tournament in France where they won seven games against opposition that veered between mediocre and respectable.
For this they were awarded a trophy that they paraded to adoring crowds from open-topped buses. Even Soweto got a look-in, albeit as an afterthought. But then, not many whites live there.
At the time of writing, no such public glory was planned for the cricket team. Such, of course, is life and sport: not all achievements are received as they deserve to be.
”We felt like we did something really special because we all realise how tough it is to win on the sub-continent,” Smith said. ”It was a fantastic feat by this team.”
But Smith knows that even if South Africa wipe the floor with New Zealand in the Tests, as well as in the one-dayers and the Twenty20 match between the sides, he will not be asked to wave silverware from the top of a bus.
Coach Mickey Arthur, moreover, will be secure in the knowledge that such outrageous success will not cost him his job, as that clutch of wins in France has done for his rugby counterpart.
Besides, Shane Bond is healthy, so the floor is likely to remain unwiped. Few teams are as transformed as New Zealand by their express bowler’s presence.
Without him their attack is as threatening as a packet of wine gums is intoxicating. With him they possess an arsenal that bristles with penetrative pace, stoic seam and sizzling spin.
Bond’s absence, usually because of injuries, has forced the New Zealanders to rely on their plucky, flinty, but ultimately limited batting department to win matches. By contrast, his inclusion is probably worth a hundred runs or more to the Kiwi cause.
South Africa have blunted Bond’s assault in the 12 one-day internationals they have played against him. Sixteen wickets at 31,87 does not make for ominous reading, especially as his career average is 19,32.
But one-day cricket hides batsmen behind a bulletproof facade while forcing bowlers to perform inside a cage of ridiculous regulations.
There will be nowhere to hide for South Africa at the Wanderers next week, when they will face Bond for the first time in a Test match.
Despite that purple patch in Pakistan, they might yet emerge shaken, not stirred.