Product Code Database
Sandra Laing (born 26 November 1955) is a South African woman who was classified as coloureds by authorities during the apartheid era, due to her skin colour and hair texture, although she was officially listed as the child of at least three generations of ancestors who had been regarded as white. At the age of 10, she was expelled from her all-white school, and the authorities' decisions based on her appearance disrupted her family and adult life.
Laing was the subject of the 2008 biographical dramatic film Skin, directed by Anthony Fabian, which won numerous awards. Skin movie official website Skin film review, Mail & Guardian, 21 January 2010. In addition, she is the subject of the documentaries In Search of Sandra Laing (1977), directed by Antony Thomas for the BBC, which was banned by the apartheid government of the time, "Black Afrikaner" story to become film, BBC News, 29 May 2003. Sandra Laing: A Spiritual Journey (2000), and Skin Deep: The Story of Sandra Laing (2009).
When Laing was 10 years old and at an all-white boarding school, the school authorities expelled her because of complaints from the parents of other students, based on her appearance: primarily her skin colour and the texture of her hair. They believed she was "Coloured", a term for mixed-race people. She was expelled and escorted home by two police officers.
Sandra's parents fought several legal battles to have her classified as white, based on her documented ancestry through them. Her father underwent a blood-typing test for paternity in the 1960s, as DNA tests were not yet available. The results were compatible with his being her biological father. Although such tests are extremely imprecise due to the small amount of blood types that most people can have, and the tests could not prove that he was her father, at least they did not disprove it.
Although she and her husband had two children, who were classified as "Coloured", she was threatened with losing them unless she also was classified as "Coloured", as a white parent could not raise Coloured children. At the age of 26, she arranged for the change in race classification officially, although her father had refused permission earlier. Except for secret trips to see her mother when her father was out of the house, Laing was estranged from her family and struggled to survive economically. When her parents moved away from Piet Retief, the clandestine visits were no longer possible. Laing lost contact with her family completely.
Laing and her husband separated due to the pressures they were under, and she put their children into government care for a period. Years later she married again, to Johannes Motloung, a Sotho-speaking man. They had three children together and she was able to reclaim her first two; all are now grown and with families of their own. Trying to reconcile with her family in the 1980s, Laing learned that her father had died and her mother Sannie refused to see her.
In 2000 the Johannesburg Times tracked down Laing to learn about her years since the end of apartheid. The newspaper helped Laing find her mother, who was in a nursing home by that time. Sandra and Sannie reconciled and shared time together before Sannie's death in 2001.
The publicity helped Laing, her husband and family gain new housing; they now live in Leachville, new estates east of Johannesburg. In 2009, it was reported that Laing's brothers still refused to see her. She has said in interviews with The Guardian and Little White Lies that she continued to hope they would some day have a change of heart.
|
|
