Sandra Laing

Sandra Laing (born 1955) is a South African woman notable for appearing as and being classified as "Coloured" by authorities during the apartheid era, due to her skin colour and hair texture, although she was the child of at least three generations of white ancestors. At the age of 10, she was expelled from her all-white school, and the authorities' decisions based on her anomalous appearance disrupted her family and adult life.

Laing is the subject of the 2008 biographical dramatic film Skin, directed by Anthony Fabian, which has won numerous awards. In addition, she is the subject of the documentaries In Search of Sandra Laing (1977), directed by Anthony Thomas for the BBC, which was banned by the apartheid government of the time,Sandra Laing: A Spiritual Journey (2000), and Skin Deep: The Story of Sandra Laing (2009).

Sandra Laing was born in 1955 to Sannie and Abraham Laing, Afrikaners in Piet Retief, a small conservative town in South Africa during the apartheid era, when laws governed officially established social castes of racial classification. The girl had darker skin than others in her family, which seemed to become more obvious as she grew older. Her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all white, but Sandra displayed the physiognomy of African ancestors of earlier generations, perhaps from the 18th century or more recent. Her family treated her as white, the same as their sons Adriaan and Leon, and together they all attended the Dutch Reformed Church.

When Sandra was 10 years old and at an all-white boarding school, the school authorities expelled her because of complaints from the parents of other students, based on her appearance: primarily her skin colour and the texture of her hair. They believed she was "coloured", a term for mixed-race people. She was expelled and escorted home by two police officers.

Sandra's parents fought several legal battles to have her classified as white, based on her documented ancestry through them. Her father underwent a blood-typing test for paternity in the 1960s, as DNA tests were not yet available. The results were compatible with his being her biological father, though such tests are extremely imprecise due to the small number of blood types that most people have.

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