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When She Was White: The True Story of a Family Divided by Race

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In 1965, Sandra Laing was pulled out of her boarding school classroom in South Africa and sent home to her parents. Her misdeed? She was of obvious mixed-blood in a white only school. Thus began years of litigation and anguish that would find Sandra reclassified from white to coloured and back to white again. Writer Judith Stone was assigned to bring this unusual story, When She was White, to life in print. She spent over five years with Sandra, beginning in 2001, interviewing, shadowing her and getting to the heart of Sandra's horrific nightmare and the insanity of a country that spawned it.

When Sandra was born to Sannie and Abraham Laing in 1955, they noticed that she was a darker hue, thick lips and that her curly hair became more so over the years. Still, she was their child and despite the whispers that Sannie had been with a black man, Sandra was raised as a white child. Was her appearance a result of infidelity, a "throwback" genetic quirk or was their black blood flowing through the bloodlines? Nevertheless, the government reclassified Sandra from being white to an identity of coloured.

Sandra had no idea why she was expelled from school, believing for a long time, it was because she hit other children when they teased and harassed her on a daily basis because she looked coloured or black. Abraham Laing began litigation to have his daughter reinstated as White and reinstated in school. It was a long battle that eventually went to the Supreme Court but in 1966, Sandra was reclassified as White again. Her reclassification angered many Afrikaners who felt their blood was being corrupted. It took another year to find a school that would take her; finally she was placed in a Convent school where she was finally happy.

Sandra always felt comfortable among the blacks because her family lived in Swaziland, a black rural township where they had two stores. When she was fifteen she ran off with a married black man, disgracing her family and lived among the native Africans, most times in poverty. Sandra's memories were so painful that she forgot much of her childhood and young adulthood but with the author's guidance she was able to recapture much of that fractured memory little by little, oftentimes breaking down in tears. She never doubted her parents loved her; she was especially close to her mother but the damage was done as far as her father was concerned. It was a slap in the face to have fought the legal battles to declare his daughter as white, only for her to go live among blacks.

To understand what a travesty this was is to get a grasp on the apartheid system that was only abolished in the early 1990s in South Africa. Consider segregation in the southern United States that ended in 1964 and multiply by it by tenfold in South Africa. It was that much more oppressive, insidious, demeaning, cruel and inhumane. The Afrikaners were vested in their strict segregation policies and stringent about keeping the races apart thus keeping their white blood pure. The Apartheid system, according to them, was designed to keeps one's culture. There were three classifications (and everyone was registered at birth by law), white or Afrikaners, descendants of the European Dutch British and Germans that conquered the country; Coloured, which included mixed black and white, Asians and Indian (later received their own classification) and other subcategories; and Native or Bantu, black. The Afrikaners not only took their land and denied them basic human rights but did not want to designate them as Africans, claiming the country name as their own. They kept the back man down, isolated, ignorant, poor and subservient. The South Africans fervently believed the U.S. made a regrettable mistake by eradicating segregation.

Piecing Sandra's story was a laborious task for not only Stone, but Sandra was also trying to sustain a living while being scrutinized by the media. There were documentaries, newspaper and magazine articles, and even talk of movie rights to her life. Along the way Sandra had herself reclassified as coloured, bore several children and had a hard time maintaining relationships. Estranged from her family, later attempts at reconciliation were aborted, sometimes by the poor choices she made.

This was a difficult, emotional read; at times I was wiping tears away, vacillating between wanting to close the book and hurry and finish it. I thought I knew about apartheid but this book raised my awareness to another level giving me an education to just how irrational and psychotic the South African government and its people were. This is not for the faint at heart; beware, read with caution.

Reviewed by Dera R. Williams
APOOO BookClub

Sandra Laing was born in the wrong place at the wrong time. South Africa was in the midst of apartheid, and the little girl didn't fit in to the country's strict classifications of white, black and Coloured. Instead she baffled family and neighbors in Eastern Transvaal by sprouting kinky hair that shaped her dark complexion, much to the dismay of her ethnically Dutch, Afrikaner parents. Judith Stone writes the history of this troubled girl, from her first encounters with racism all the way to her middle-aged life in the present day.

Sandra's parents tried to turn a blind eye to their daughter's physical differences, but the white boarding school she attended would do no such thing. Parents and faculty were outraged that an obviously non-white student was being admitted to their school and mingling with their fair-skinned children. Apartheid was about separation and segregation, and Sandra was getting in the way of their long-established system. Her mother was accused of sleeping with a black man, and her father had to constantly defend his paternity. Admitting to some "color-mixing" in their ancestry was not acceptable in such a polarized climate, even though this had gone on unspoken in South Africa for decades.

When Sandra was finally escorted off the grounds of her school, she had no idea what she did wrong. Her father was launching his own private campaign to keep her white; Sandra didn't see things in color yet, and her mom and dad were determined to keep it that way. But she did see that her parents treated her differently from her brothers, and she did notice the disgustful looks of those who had been in charge of her care. She knew that something about her was just not right. At the hands of government officials, Sandra's official race changed from white to Coloured to white again. She realized that she must take her fate into her own hands, creating an identity for herself that no one would be able to take away from her.

WHEN SHE WAS WHITE isn't a traditional biography. It chronicles not only the life of the protagonist but also the struggle of those who tried to bring her life into the public eye. In this way, the book is both a story and a study in psychoanalysis, in sociology and in consumer culture. Sandra was a willing but confused eyewitness to her own history, and half the struggle of chronicling it has been in getting the story straight. Sandra doesn't see herself as a hero or a representation of the ills of apartheid. All she sees is the pain that she feels she caused her family, and her only wish is for their forgiveness --- not recognizing that they are the ones who have a lot to be forgiven for.

This book does much to present the contradictions of apartheid to those outside of South Africa. It also paints a strong picture of the landscape and individuals who made the country what it was. The expanse of the Transvaal countryside sharply contrasts with the polarized societies who lived there, and it is as if it were a beautiful cake on top of a precarious tower that was threatening to come crashing down at any second. Sandra represented some of the flaws of that cake, and she was therefore shunned by those who wanted to keep things as they were.

WHEN SHE WAS WHITE is the print edition of the movie "Skin," which is scheduled to appear in 2008. It is a story in its own right, though, and shouldn't be left on the shelf in anticipation of the film. Judith Stone speaks of both the cruelty and the perceived justification of apartheid, and no one is presented as a simple-minded individual. Bigotry runs deep in South Africa's history, but the focus of this book is in healing the wounds from the past and embracing this new, free country, where government-regulated racial caste systems no longer exist.

--- Reviewed by Shannon Luders-Manuel

Firstly I have to admit that I haven't finished reading the book, I will edit my review when done. But I was curious about what other have said about it, so I paged to this review page.

I bought this book because I vaguely remember the story of Sandra Laing from newspapers etc. as a kid growing up in South Africa. She is quite a bit older than me, I was rather young when the incident happened, and I cannot remember much about all the controversy.

I mainly bought this book because I am quite interested in the genealogy of Afrikaner families. I have spent several years now documenting my own heritage. Frankly, I am surprised that the case of Sandra Laing stands out so much, as we Afrikaners are a creole nation who speaks a pidgin language - and I say this with pride. After 356 years in Africa, I don't believe that any of us are "pure whites" whatever that means. I guess it is not a well known fact (even amongst Afrikaners) that Afrikaners have on the average 6 to 12% of non-European blood (depending on which researcher's works you read). However, the majority of that proportion is Asian blood (particularly East Indian). In my own case I have verified this through DNA testing and genealogy - only because I was curious - my self-guestimate is 1/16th. I am sure the situation in the USA is not dissimilar.

It is well known that people were formally classified as belonging to a race after 1948 (though I submit that Apartheid existed long before that). Physical appearance played some role. This was one of the stupidest acts of the then National Party. My family looked European, and we happened to have been classified as white. Though I know that we are not - completely.

So why in the case of Sandra Laing was her appearance more African than many others? I don't know enough about biology to answer that question, as much as I don't know why my son's eyes are blue when neither my eyes nor my wife's eyes are blue. However, the way this family (and others) were treated due to physical appearance was certainly one of the many tragedies of the era.

Flipping through the book, what really irritated my immensely, was the atrocious spelling of Afrikaans phrases in the book. They don't even resemble any language I am familiar with. Was the editor out to lunch? Could the author not spell-check her phrases in her word-processing program? My version of MS Word (purchased in Canada) can spell-check Afrikaans, why can't hers? Such poor attention to detail really diminishes the professional image and academic merits of the book.

Another thing that irks me quite a bit are blanket racist statements by people like the first reviewer from that Bookclub - based on well-meant, but utter, ignorance (did she get her "facts" from the book?). While I agree with her summary and 'apartheid was bad' sentiments, she made too many factual and historical errors in her "review" for me to address here.

In short. Afrikaners blood was never pure to start with - well-known fact - whatever they say or said. Afrikaners merely look less coloured than the coloureds. There were not 3 classifications (she goes on to mention 4) but many more initially. Afrikaners have much (about 20%) French blood as well, but never conquered the country. They may have conquered parts of it, but it was the British Empire that conquered the whole country (almost the whole continent!) for the "Queen" (for the mineral wealth, more to the point). While Afrikaners had a big role to play in institutionalising apartheid (unfortunately), they hardly invented it. They merely took over that role from the British in 1948. Williams talks about the American south - I believe that Afrikaner leaders actually studied laws in the American South before institutionalising apartheid in South Africa. There were several study tours by many to the American south (rather than to nazi-Germany as some believe). Etc, etc.

Many Afrikaners were (and still are) racist, some Afrikaners supported the system, just like some Americans/Germans etc supported their systems. But the Afrikaner National Party could never stay in power without the English vote. Fact. So please don't blame the entire Afrikaner nation for the acts of some - even if the majority.

Anyway, while a few historical and grammatical errors are clearly in need of being corrected, I am glad that someone wrote down the story and sad circumstances of Sandra Laing. This is a story that needed to be told again, so many years later, in context. It is worth reflecting on it and remembering it. Sadly, the country is not out of the woods. Today (2008), the future still don't look rosy, never mind that Afrikaner power left the scene 14 years ago after 46 years of running things. But I guess the problems are new and different today.

An extraordinary story, extraordinarily written. Judith Stone does an masterful, sensitive job with her latest book about a South African girl with brown skin and dark, curly hair born to white Afrikaner parents. Young Sandra's physical appearance confounds predispositions of what constitutes race in the South African apartheid government. Is she "White", a "Coloured" or is she "Black"? These racial categories are at the core of Stone's narrative of Sandra's difficult yet ultimately affirming life, in which she blends insights into the history of Social Darwinism and eugenics, the psychological effects of childhood trauma, and the history of South African Dutch colonization resulting in the horror of apartheid. Stone keeps the tone even throughout, sensitive to Sandra's messy life, made all the more difficult by her repressed yearning for love and acceptance. The reader is immediately taken by Sandra's complex movitations that ultimately result in a mixture of success and failure. At times this reads like a timeline narrative, a mystery, a psychological profile, and a background reading on the apartheid politics and pseudoscience of race. Judith Stone keeps it all in balance for the reader, making this a fascinating book on so very many levels. Great stuff!

I want to commend Judith Stone for the phenomenal work she has done in discussing a number of difficult subjects: Sandra Laing herself, the history of South Africa, and the nature of memory, family, and the examined life. Clearly, Sandra's lack (repression) of memory, and her inability to articulate her feelings, left Stone with an enormous challenge. She works through this brilliantly by marshaling the journalistic reports from the time and later, interviewing people who know Sandra, and sensitively explaining and exploring Apartheid's tortured history. Stone uses her knowledge of studies of PTSD, false-memory syndrome, and other relevant fields in psychology to examine Sandra's individual and South Africa's collective forgetfulness/refusal to admit reality. All in all, Stone has done a stunningly professional and sensitive job in illuminating one person's life, the cruel and terrible absurdities of Apartheid South Africa, and, more broadly still, what it means to live in a world where an ideological rigidity based on lies and hypocrisy sucks the life out of everyone--oppressor or oppressed.

From the first page I was riveted -- could not put it down and look forward to reading it again - I loved it. It made me laugh and cry; it entertained and educated me. What a fascinating story about a recent and, in some ways, still ongoing situation, told with sensitivity and humor.

Ever since I read an article on the BBC years ago, I'd been fascinated by the story of Sandra Laing. When I came across this book, I snapped it up and I am glad I did. Stone goes to great lengths not to just tell the story of Sandra as she would have told it herself (Sandra, for various reasons being an unreliable narrator), but instead uses the people who have been involved in Sandra's story throughout her life to give a full accounting. This work is not just about the inherent issues of being the wrong color in apartheid South Africa. It's about the views of parents, regardless that they only fought for their child; its about the struggle a woman had with her own feelings and the consequences of her actions. I saw some reviews that did not like this book because it was not positive or uplifting; the it was never intended to be. It is a fascinating story of one woman's life. She doesn't make the right choices and she needs help at many turns. But that's the humanity of this study and what makes it great. The movie based on this tale, "Skin" tries to bring a more uplifting angle by glossing over the many turns of Sandra's life. Arguably, it is a bit more positive, but it lacks the raw humanity of this work. I really appreciated the efforts and research that went into this book. This is someone's life on display, bared open for all to see. If you enjoy reading about South Africa, what really defines that place and people during apartheid, this book is worth it. It may not be a Hollywood happy ending, but there is joy and sadness just like in real life - because this is real life.

This is an excellent book, that speaks to the immense stregth of man/womankind. It is a book about family,friendship, romance and the indominable spirit of humankind. Often humorous, the characters in the book become part of your family - making you question what it really means to be black, white, brown...The characters make you understand that we really are made up of colors in a rainbow...that there is only a matter of a single gene that makes us different. The whole concept of race is simply not a biological construct, but rather one that is over empahsized (even today) as a socio-political construct...an illusion that purports to spread the idea of racial supremacy. The idea posited is simply a way of encouraging one color of people to dominate...think more highly of themselves, merely because of color. What a surprise and a biological reality that an "all white" couple (is there really such a thing?)could give birth to a "black" child. I so enjoyed reading the book, comparing and contrasting South Africa to America, that I passed it along to my mother, who also loved it. The author has done an excellent job of grasping the anguish and feelings of inner conflict (and loss) that must be experienced by Judith Stone, even today. Thank you for helping her share her story with the world.

This book has haunted me since I read it. The shifting social classifications of Sandra Laing from one race to another determined her fate in apartheid South Africa, dividing her family, shaping her self-image, and thrusting her into the unwanted media spotlight. Absurd? Yes. Painful? Absolutely. But Sandra's journey is also a search for love and self-acceptance that is at times uplifting--but never in a simplistic or tidy way.

This book is an excellent read. I didn't want it to end. I found it interesting how the media followed this family from the beginning right up to the present. A documentary exists, also, which compells you to search for it and allows you to put faces to the names you read about. Excellent. This book led me to read other books with similar contents.