Over the weekend I had the pleasure of watching Skin starring the wonderful Sophie Okonedo. The mixed race British actress portrays Sandra Laing, a Coloured South African woman born to “white[1]” Afrikaner parents in the late 1950’s. Coloured is a term used in South Africa to describe any person of mixed race. Sandra Laing ‘s father famously and successfully fought the Nationalist (that’s code for racist) government of South Africa to have his daughter classified as white like he and his wife the only problem was Sandra didn’t remotely look white. Her head was covered with tightly coiled kinky hair and her skin was a beautiful café au lait and while the government and her immediate family recognized her as white no one else did. Her parents in an effort “help” her fit in bought skin lighteners and hair straighteners, none of which were effective in the long term. She had few white friends and the white boys her age didn’t want to date her. At 14/15 she ran away with a black South African man, was thrown in jail for 3 months for breaking the country’s strict laws against miscegenation, was released and subsequently had two children by this black man. She was disowned by her family.
Upon watching the film for the first time I felt anger towards Sandra’s parents for ignoring the obvious, Sandra wasn’t white! No amount of fighting, racial classification or skin lightener was going to change that fact. Their blindness and ignorance doomed Sandra to the miserable childhood and adolescence she ultimately led because they refused to be realistic about the appearance of their child.
Then I watched the film again and thought though I hated her parents’ politics, they were staunch members of the Nationalist party who were the authors and enforcers of Apartheid, they ultimately wanted the best life for Sandra. If Sandra were declared Coloured she could be taken from them to be raised by strangers, she would not be able to attend the best schools, vote, live in certain areas, or hold certain jobs. Hell, she wouldn’t even be allowed to sit in public places or drink from public fountains set aside for whites. With that in mind I started thinking, maybe her father was on to something.
It’s Monday night and I am still thinking… how would I feel if a child I’d born looked nothing like me racially? I am chocolate brown, as chocolate as they come, with a head covered with the same tightly coiled kinky hair as Sandra’s. If my child were born with straight blonde hair, light skin and blue eyes I don’t know what I’d do. I know I’d love him or her but I can’t say I wouldn’t slightly resent their appearance. My people fought (and are still fighting) very hard to accept dark skin as beautiful. Hell, I fought very hard to accept my own dark skin as beautiful and now I am downright conceited about it! If my children were “white looking” how alien would that feel to me? Everywhere we’d go there’d be questions, looks and stares. I’d have to impart a sense of pride in African/African American culture and history to children who do not wear their Africanity on the outside as I do. Do I continuously drill into their heads that despite their appearance they are black and would this give them some sort of inferiority complex about their skin color? Would they wish they looked blacker? How would this govern their interactions with other blacks and/or whites?
I know some of you reading this are probably thinking I am over analyzing the issue, and perhaps I am, but if I don’t decide how to deal with this issue society will. I have a multitude of friends of various backgrounds and some of them are in interracial relationships. A friend from college is white and married to an Asian man and their children look Asian. How does she feel about that? What does it say on the kids’ birth certificate? I have African American friends married to white spouses and their children either look mixed race or black. How does that make their white spouses feel? Then I have a friend back home whose two sons from her previous marriage to a white man look… Native American or Latino at best but not mixed race and certainly not black. You should see the stares she gets because these boys look nothing like her. When asked what do the boys say they are? I also have friends who are biracial and multiracial or just look like they’re mixed when they aren’t. People can’t rest until they find out what they are and will go to various lengths to find out.
Call it xenophobia but I want my children’s appearance to reflect my racial background regardless of my spouse’s race. Some of us like to act like that race doesn’t matter, and really it shouldn’t, but it does. It is a political statement as much as it is a statement about one’s ancestry. It helps to shape one’s frame of reference in this world by both positive and negative experiences and it can unite or separate people. Lastly, if you don’t choose someone else will always choose for you… whether it’s right or wrong. So how do we transcend this thing called race and just see people? Is it even possible? Is it wise? Does skin color or ancestry dictate race? How do or did you choose? What say you dear friends of many races in various interracial, multi-ethnic relationships? I am really curious to find out what you think…
[1] Genetic tests were done on Sandra Laing’s parents and both of them were discovered to have African ancestry though neither of them claimed to know of any such ancestors. Interestingly, Sandra’s youngest brother, like her, also looked more Coloured than white.
Upon watching the film for the first time I felt anger towards Sandra’s parents for ignoring the obvious, Sandra wasn’t white! No amount of fighting, racial classification or skin lightener was going to change that fact. Their blindness and ignorance doomed Sandra to the miserable childhood and adolescence she ultimately led because they refused to be realistic about the appearance of their child.
Then I watched the film again and thought though I hated her parents’ politics, they were staunch members of the Nationalist party who were the authors and enforcers of Apartheid, they ultimately wanted the best life for Sandra. If Sandra were declared Coloured she could be taken from them to be raised by strangers, she would not be able to attend the best schools, vote, live in certain areas, or hold certain jobs. Hell, she wouldn’t even be allowed to sit in public places or drink from public fountains set aside for whites. With that in mind I started thinking, maybe her father was on to something.
It’s Monday night and I am still thinking… how would I feel if a child I’d born looked nothing like me racially? I am chocolate brown, as chocolate as they come, with a head covered with the same tightly coiled kinky hair as Sandra’s. If my child were born with straight blonde hair, light skin and blue eyes I don’t know what I’d do. I know I’d love him or her but I can’t say I wouldn’t slightly resent their appearance. My people fought (and are still fighting) very hard to accept dark skin as beautiful. Hell, I fought very hard to accept my own dark skin as beautiful and now I am downright conceited about it! If my children were “white looking” how alien would that feel to me? Everywhere we’d go there’d be questions, looks and stares. I’d have to impart a sense of pride in African/African American culture and history to children who do not wear their Africanity on the outside as I do. Do I continuously drill into their heads that despite their appearance they are black and would this give them some sort of inferiority complex about their skin color? Would they wish they looked blacker? How would this govern their interactions with other blacks and/or whites?
I know some of you reading this are probably thinking I am over analyzing the issue, and perhaps I am, but if I don’t decide how to deal with this issue society will. I have a multitude of friends of various backgrounds and some of them are in interracial relationships. A friend from college is white and married to an Asian man and their children look Asian. How does she feel about that? What does it say on the kids’ birth certificate? I have African American friends married to white spouses and their children either look mixed race or black. How does that make their white spouses feel? Then I have a friend back home whose two sons from her previous marriage to a white man look… Native American or Latino at best but not mixed race and certainly not black. You should see the stares she gets because these boys look nothing like her. When asked what do the boys say they are? I also have friends who are biracial and multiracial or just look like they’re mixed when they aren’t. People can’t rest until they find out what they are and will go to various lengths to find out.
Call it xenophobia but I want my children’s appearance to reflect my racial background regardless of my spouse’s race. Some of us like to act like that race doesn’t matter, and really it shouldn’t, but it does. It is a political statement as much as it is a statement about one’s ancestry. It helps to shape one’s frame of reference in this world by both positive and negative experiences and it can unite or separate people. Lastly, if you don’t choose someone else will always choose for you… whether it’s right or wrong. So how do we transcend this thing called race and just see people? Is it even possible? Is it wise? Does skin color or ancestry dictate race? How do or did you choose? What say you dear friends of many races in various interracial, multi-ethnic relationships? I am really curious to find out what you think…
[1] Genetic tests were done on Sandra Laing’s parents and both of them were discovered to have African ancestry though neither of them claimed to know of any such ancestors. Interestingly, Sandra’s youngest brother, like her, also looked more Coloured than white.
