According to cable movie channel Showtime, having dark skin is a “genetic abnormality.” The network in promoting the movie Skin to audiences visiting their Website described the movie in the following terms-
“Thanks to a genetic abnormality, a dark-skinned woman born to white parents in 1950s South Africa must content with prejudice, a racist political system, and even a lack of acceptance from her own father.”
The movie tells the true story of Sandra Laing, a black South African woman born to Afrikaaner parents (at least one of which was probably passing as white) during the racist, apartheid regime. Ms. Laing’s story demonstrates that outward appearance does not always conclusively proves one’s race – but for CBS-owned Showtime to regard the presence of African ancestry in a “European” family as a genetic abnormality is as preposterous as it is an insult to millions of African-descended people worldwide.
The film was promoted at festivals and on television stations in Africa, Australia, Italy and elsewhere, but Showtime is the only place featuring the film that has described Ms. Laing’s dark skin as a “genetic abnormality.”
Learn more about Sandra Laing’s background here.
More probable than two white people creating a Black person is Mrs. Laing had an affair with a Black man.
All but one of the Laing’s children had African characteristics. Mr. Laing eventually admitted that he “probably” had African blood in his family tree. He was essentially ‘passing.’
I doubt they meant anything insulting by using that term.. and it IS technically correct, isn’t it? Genetically it is abnormal (as in “not the norm”) for ethnic characteristics from generations past to express themselves as dominant. Statistically it would be not be at all common, if you had a grandparent, or great grandparent who was of opposite skin color from other members of the family, for their skin color to express it’self several generations later. It does happen of course, but it is rare. I had a boyfriend when I was younger who was from Barbados. His family was all very dark skinned, and so was he, but he had the palest green eyes and his hair turned somewhat golden when he spent a lot of time in the sun. His brothers and sisters all had the, more typical, dark eyes that people of African descent normally have and very black hair. The reason he was different was because one of his great grandparents was white – Irish if I remember correctly. The point of the movie was about how horrific it is to judge and categorize people based on something as superficial as their race or ethnicity. We are all part of the HUMAN race and the only thing we should be judged on is our character, compassion and kindness towards each other.
Sue, you are incorrect. Black people’s eyes come in different colors. My mother has blue eyes. It doesn’t make her any different from the rest of us. Its just her freaking eye color. Many people from the Caribbean have different color eyes since many enslaved Africans who were first sent to the Caribbean were raped daily by white men. And skin color is NOT a genetic abnormality. But white people cannot birth black children unless they have African blood in them already. Well then, I see what they say about blondes just may be true.
Sue, it may be strange for “ethnic characteristics from generations past to express themselves as dominant” but that doesn’t render the characteristic in question a genetic abnormality. If two parents with big noses have 3 kids, we don’t refer to the one with a small, straight nose as genetically abnormal. We say they are “lucky”. Referring to anything as genetically abnormal is tantamount to singling it out as undesirable. The idea that “blackness” should be considered either abnormal or undesirable, in AFRICA , regardless of the skin colour of the parents, is ridiculous. The film could have focused on reactions to “blackness” without rendering the “blackness” in question some kind of misfortune for somebody who could otherwise have been born white.
I saw this movie and “genetic abnormality” is the only suitable word to describe how a phenotypical black woman was conceived by two phenotypical white parents. I do not know about the real parents, but only who and how they were portrayed in the film. I don’t know why one would take offense to what ostensibly is the most accurate depiction of Sandra, her skin, and its parallel with the skin color bore by her normative population of peers.
2 parents: white…child born to them has Black skin and features? Hmmmm and it’s in South Africa where the majority population is black…? Ok…We had the same “problem” in our South. Black Slave parents with lightskinned baby …in fact the whold plantation was full of lightskinned babies…and they mysteriously called the Slave master or driver “Pappy”….guess it’s one of life’s mysteries