The Essay: Thinking Black

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The Essay: Thinking Black: Sandra Laing

Andrew Biswell

Sandra Laing

Thinking Black

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Thinking Black, Sandra Laing

Writer Colin Grant explores the history and consequences of racial passing.

Interweaving autobiography with the story of Sandra Laing, writer Colin Grant explores the history and consequences of racial passing.

The tragic story of Sandra Laing - born in apartheid South Africa to white parents but with an appearance that suggested she was not white - forms the backdrop of writer Colin Grant’s exploration of racial passing: pretending to be part of a racial group other than your own. 

Laing’s story involved being racially reclassified by the South African state four times and includes her having to pass as a coloured woman, which to the best of her knowledge, she was not. Colin considers what it means to ‘pass’ and the associated absurdity of an imposed taxonomy of race. 

Colin examines other examples of passing in history and asks whether it should always be seen as a betrayal when someone pretends to be white when in fact they aren’t. What are the consequences for the individual - and for the race they try to deny?

This personal essay is one of five in the series ‘Thinking Black’ in which Colin Grant tells the fascinating stories of individuals who have each experienced or challenged the boundaries of race. He interweaves these lives with his own experiences and in so doing explores the nuances of some of the complex issues underlying the current debate around race and identity.

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The stories of five individuals who have each attempted to challenge the boundary of race.

Writer Colin Grant explores the fascinating stories of five individuals who have each attempted, in one way or another, to transcend or challenge the boundary of race.

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