Sydelle Willow Smith

Un/Settled

Being a white South African is a perplexing identity to occupy. I was born in 1987 and grew up just as apartheid came to an end. Ever since starting primary school, I have been told that I am a child of the “rainbow nation”, that the advent of democracy means that racial differences would cease to exist. Yet it’s clear that our relationships in this country remain largely mediated – affected, limited, constrained, corroded, delineated – by race. And there’s certainly no ignoring that the history