Task : The Genetics of Race
In the film SKIN we are made witnesses to a number of official hearings prompted by Abraham Laing’s appeals against the decision to declare Sandra ‘coloured’. Although the authorities following that decision appeared not to want to pursue it to its logical conclusion under Apartheid: taking Sandra away from her mother and father who by law should not have been able to share their home with a child of a different colour classification – that threat still existed. We hear a police-officer warn Abraham about this possibility at one point in the film when they first bring Sandra home from school. So his desire to restore her white status was not just motivated by shame – it was an effort to keep the family together.
