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**gortusbig** · 03-19-2012, 01:34 AM

Just saw this powerful movie and wanted to discuss race in South Africa after watching it. For those who have not seen it nor are familiar with the story, here's what it's about:

Skin is a British-South African 2008 biographical film directed by Anthony Fabian, about Sandra Laing, a South African woman born to white parents who was classified as "Coloured" during the apartheid era. The year is 1965, and 10 year-old Sandra has distinctly African-looking features. Her parents, Abraham and Sannie, are white Afrikaaners, unaware of their black ancestry. They are shopkeepers in a remote area of the Eastern Transvaal and, despite Sandra's mixed-race appearance, have lovingly brought her up as their white little girl. Sandra is sent to a boarding school in the neighbouring town of Piet Retief, where her (white) brother Leon is also studying, but parents and teachers complain that she does not belong. She is examined by State officials, reclassified as coloured, and expelled from the school. Sandra's parents are shocked, but Abraham fights through the courts to have the classification reversed. The story becomes an international scandal and media pressure forces the law to change, so that Sandra becomes officially white again.
By the time she is 17, Sandra realises she is never going to be accepted by the white community. She falls in love with Petrus, a black man and the local vegetable seller, and begins an illicit love affair. Abraham threatens to shoot Petrus and disown Sandra. Sannie is torn between her husband's rage and her daughter's predicament. Sandra elopes with Petrus to Swaziland. Abraham alerts the police, and has them arrested and put in prison. Sandra is told by the local magistrate to go home, but she refuses.
Now Sandra must live her life as a black woman in South Africa for the first time, with no running water, no sanitation and little income. She and Petrus have two children, and although she feels more at home in this community, she desperately misses her parents and yearns for a reunion. After many more years of hardship and struggle, the chances of that reunion ever happening seem remote. So her parents were oblivious to any Black ancestry and in this time and age the field of genetics was not so advanced were to they could test themselves. I was unaware that there was also 'racial passing' in South Africa. One of or both of Sandra Laing's parents had to have some Black African ancestry for their daughter to come out 'coloured' in the South African perspective. Her father fought for her to be recognized as legally white, since him and his wife were both "white". Later in her life she fought to get reclassified as coloured as she had her identity formed. Life in South Africa taught her she could not pass as white and she then embraced a colured identity, which her parents really disliked.

How many stories do we have like this in South Africa? I'm sure many more Afrikaaners had Black ancestry and produced 'coloured' children.

03-19-2012, 01:34 AM	#1
gortusbig Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 476 Senior Member	South African biographical film Skin and Race in South Africa Just saw this powerful movie and wanted to discuss race in South Africa after watching it. For those who have not seen it nor are familiar with the story, here's what it's about: Skin is a British-South African 2008 biographical film directed by Anthony Fabian, about Sandra Laing, a South African woman born to white parents who was classified as "Coloured" during the apartheid era. The year is 1965, and 10 year-old Sandra has distinctly African-looking features. Her parents, Abraham and Sannie, are white Afrikaaners, unaware of their black ancestry. They are shopkeepers in a remote area of the Eastern Transvaal and, despite Sandra's mixed-race appearance, have lovingly brought her up as their white little girl. Sandra is sent to a boarding school in the neighbouring town of Piet Retief, where her (white) brother Leon is also studying, but parents and teachers complain that she does not belong. She is examined by State officials, reclassified as coloured, and expelled from the school. Sandra's parents are shocked, but Abraham fights through the courts to have the classification reversed. The story becomes an international scandal and media pressure forces the law to change, so that Sandra becomes officially white again. By the time she is 17, Sandra realises she is never going to be accepted by the white community. She falls in love with Petrus, a black man and the local vegetable seller, and begins an illicit love affair. Abraham threatens to shoot Petrus and disown Sandra. Sannie is torn between her husband's rage and her daughter's predicament. Sandra elopes with Petrus to Swaziland. Abraham alerts the police, and has them arrested and put in prison. Sandra is told by the local magistrate to go home, but she refuses. Now Sandra must live her life as a black woman in South Africa for the first time, with no running water, no sanitation and little income. She and Petrus have two children, and although she feels more at home in this community, she desperately misses her parents and yearns for a reunion. After many more years of hardship and struggle, the chances of that reunion ever happening seem remote. So her parents were oblivious to any Black ancestry and in this time and age the field of genetics was not so advanced were to they could test themselves. I was unaware that there was also 'racial passing' in South Africa. One of or both of Sandra Laing's parents had to have some Black African ancestry for their daughter to come out 'coloured' in the South African perspective. Her father fought for her to be recognized as legally white, since him and his wife were both "white". Later in her life she fought to get reclassified as coloured as she had her identity formed. Life in South Africa taught her she could not pass as white and she then embraced a colured identity, which her parents really disliked. How many stories do we have like this in South Africa? I'm sure many more Afrikaaners had Black ancestry and produced 'coloured' children.
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