(Pic: Sandra Laing in the remote rural land where she stayed)Uniquely South African documentary on DSTV’s history channel
January 24, 2010, saw the premiere of Skin Deep, a documentary chronicling the moving story of Sandra Laing on the History Channel on DSTV.
Sandra Laing is a phenomenon. Born in 1955 to two white Afrikaner parents in apartheid-era South Africa, she herself looked of mixed race. When she was ten, following a four-year-long campaign against her by her 'white' school, she was officially reclassified 'coloured' and forcibly expelled. Thus began a tormented descent down through the strata of racially divided South Africa. Tragedy, loneliness, isolation, poverty, violence, and social ostracism became her lot.
This programme tells the true, remarkable, and harrowing story of what happened to her. It's a tale of mythic proportions, which raises huge issues of the insanity of racism, requires the science of genetics, and questions the whole notion of racial identity. It's also a very human story of the destruction of innocence, deep-rooted courage, and the resilience of the spirit.
Sandra's story came to public attention because after her expulsion from school, her father fought a high-profile battle - which finally succeeded - to have her reclassified back to white. But Sandra then did something so rebellious that her father turned his back on her: she eloped with a black man 20 years her senior. Her father refused all further contact, and she never saw him again.
Sandra was then forced to live the life of a rural black person for which she was totally unequipped. Later, she abandoned the man and fled to a black urban township where she was destined to spend years struggling to carve out an existence on the very margins of society. By her mid-20s she had had three children and when she fell ill and there was no-one to take care of them, the authorities took them away and put them out to foster-care.
Eventually, however, she got a steady job, found a stable relationship, sorted her life out, and built her own loving, extended mixed-race family. Today she has become a national symbol as the iconic victim of the cruelty and madness of racism.
Hers is a genuine triumph; an epic tale of survival against all odds.
Channels Director, Richard Melman said, “Sandra’s story is a powerful and dramatic illustration of the personal impact of apartheid; we knew this would be a story that would resonate with our audiences across Africa and we are extremely proud that HISTORY is able to share it”
Watch out for Skin Deep on HISTORY, channel 254 on DStv
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