become straight enough, your skin
might become light enough, your
accent might become polished
enough—and you’d be reclassified
as white. All you had to do was
denounce your people, denounce
your history, and leave your darker-
skinned friends and family behind.
The legal definition of a white
person under apartheid was “one
who in appearance is obviously a
white person who is generally not
accepted as a coloured person; or is
generally accepted as a white
person and is not in appearance
obviously a white person.” It was
completely arbitrary, in other