Skin

Saw Skin. The new movie about the life of Sandra Laing, the South African girl/lady who had a, so called, mixed-race appearance, although having 2 white Afrikaner parents. A true story. An amazing tale of genetics.

But ofcourse in mad apartheid philosophy such a genetic twist was unthinkable and thus unmanageable. In the very dark and narrowmindedness of white supremacy thinking (and before DNA testing existed) this was a confusing event. And obviously also within a (forcefully) racially divided society such a genetic twist brings about intollerance, confusion, hatred, division, guilt and doubts.

It's a sad story (but Sandra is still alive today) but also a stiff middle finger to absurd racial 'purity' theories. There is that moment in the movie when a genetics professor from WITS tells a court that very likely many Afrikaners have somewhere in their genetic line some black compenent, he is laughed at by the whites as a circus freak. If they would only know.... Welcome to reality.

To quote a New York musician: "Remember one thing. We all bleed red".