Mxolisi Sibam
“Too black to be white. Too white to be black. Apartheid not only caused division but also attempted to destroy, obliterate and distort all our sense of self.” But some spirits resisted being broken. This is the tale of my apartheid hero and father, Mxolisi Sibam.
In addition to being a black South African, Mxolisi experienced the dehumanising effects of apartheid as a young man whose fair skin served as both a shield and a weapon. He carried the wounds of a system that was created to kill the Black psyche as much as the Black body; it was a system that was intended to make Black people lose sight of their potential, humanity and value.
His fair skin did not protect him from racism. There was no such thing as “white passing,” despite the assumption that being lighter-skinned might have provided some advantage. The state saw more than just skin; it also saw community, bureaucracy, speech, association and ancestry. The Population Registration Act of 1950 governed racial
classification and was enforced through intrusive, degrading procedures like community interviews and the pencil test. Regardless of your appearance, if the state determined that you were black, you would be treated as such, forcibly removed from white neighbourhoods, denied access to high-quality education and humiliated by the pass laws.
Being light-skinned did not open doors for Mxolisi; rather, it closed them on both sides. He encountered mistrust, animosity and even hatred from the Black community. “I expected white people to be cruel because it was the law for them to do so. The cruelty I endured from my own people because of the colour of my skin was what hurt me the most.”
Mxolisi’s remarks expose the most personal injury apartheid caused: the division not only between races but also within communities. White cruelty had become a legal certainty under apartheid, approved by the government and upheld by laws and courts. But the silent brutality of being shunned by one’s own people left a much deeper wound.
His academic prowess was disregarded by teachers. People who couldn’t accept him but looked like him made fun of him, called him derogatory names and a “traitor”. His perceived closeness to Whiteness, which he never asked for, never benefited from and never comprehended, was viewed by them as a betrayal of his Blackness rather than a blessing. The logic of a white supremacist state seemed to have been absorbed by the very people fighting for recognition.
He was also not accepted by White society. Not because of his skin tone, but rather because of his last name, his accent and his address, they could tell right away that he did not belong.
He was in an agonising state of limbo, a psychological exile. Erasure, not privilege, was the result of this racial ambiguity. His identity was questioned, his accomplishments disregarded and his belonging denied. He was a ghost moving through both worlds.
The Group Areas Act (1950), which compelled Black families to live in subpar, overcrowded townships far from cities and economic opportunities, was the direct cause of the creation of Mdantsane. This Act unleashed waves of forced removals and was repeatedly redrafted and re-enforced until it was repealed in 1991. Police raids were frequent. Black people carried passbooks after the 1952 pass rules limited their freedom of movement and required careful verification, punishing any violation with an arrest or worse. Mxolisi entered the world on a quiet farm in Patensie, but it was on Mdantsane’s streets that he grew up and came to understand life.
Despite having a rich cultural heritage, the township was a place of frequent raids, harsh law enforcement and ongoing terror. Apartheid-era home life was no haven for Mxolisi. With six or seven people sharing a room, and the continual fear of being watched and uprooted, sleep was difficult. The purpose of the system was to dehumanise Black families.
Mxolisi, however, saw that apartheid was more than just a system of segregation. Stasis was the issue. It favoured keeping Black people economically, emotionally and intellectually underdeveloped. As much as it was lawful, it was psychological warfare. Mxolisi retaliated by turning to education.
Mxolisi excelled academically, a high achiever. But greatness was penalised rather than celebrated. He was frequently disregarded by his teachers. His headmistress disapproved of his skin tone and refused to acknowledge his academic accomplishments. He was not recognised even though he performed better than his classmates. He was mistreated and ostracised. He was too black to be white and too white to be black. As a result, he was a child of paradoxes in a nation that was fixated with classifications. But something within him resisted breaking. His mother told him he was unique and that he would be rewarded by God. He never gave up. He turned to sports.
Sport was the only thing that made Mxolisi feel complete in a society that was based on inflexible classifications. The football pitch was one of the few places where these distinctions were blurred and identity was determined by aptitude, drive and presence rather than skin colour. Mxolisi was able to be himself on the grass and dust of a township pitch. Neither “too White” nor “too Black.” Not a suspect, not a statistic, only Mxolisi. Football gave him a sense of belonging that the apartheid system had denied him. What shade of brown you were didn’t matter to the ball. Your background was not judged by the goalposts. Mxolisi possessed the skill, strength and spirit that the team needed.
Sport evolved beyond a hobby. It turned into a matter of survival. He gained self-assurance, discipline and an identity. He felt noticed for something other than his birth circumstances. He felt powerful when he played, not like a victim of oppression. He felt complete.
Sport, for Mxolisi, was a way to transcend. It opened doors for him, introduced him to new people and ultimately served as his ticket to a wider world. He received a scholarship to Rhodes University because of his skill on the football field, which was almost unattainable for Black students because of the Bantu Education Act and the extension of the University Education Act, which strictly limited Black students’ access to white universities. That scholarship was a breach in the well-defended wall of apartheid, not merely a prize for athletic ability.
When asked what sports taught him, he says he learnt grace. It served as a reminder to him that the human body, when in control and in motion, could be a symbol of resistance, a declaration that no system could adequately describe his value. Football allowed Mxolisi to integrate his Black identity in a nation that was determined to break it up. It was more than a game. It served as his haven, his salvation, and his only source of tranquillity for a long time.
Decades later, Mxolisi still talked about sport with awe. It reminded him of who he was beyond apartheid. Sport insisted that he belonged in a world that told him he didn’t. And he found dignity in that insistence.
He acquired his matric and went on to enrol at Rhodes University, starting his studies part-time at the East London campus, which was a smaller extension of the main institution in what was then called Grahamstown. At the time, this campus offered Black students an almost unprecedented opportunity to pursue higher education. Mxolisi balanced studying for his degree and serving his articles of clerkship at PwC. His daily commute from Mdantsane township to the East London campus was long.
In his final year of undergraduate studies, he moved to the main Grahamstown campus, a White academic setting that was not designed to accept him. Here, Mxolisi had to contend with a different kind of violence. One that was committed through silence, exclusion and structural sabotage rather than with whips or weapons. The apartheid government’s strategy to impose physical separation was the widespread relocation of Black South Africans to homelands or townships like Mdantsane. These townships were devoid of dependable public transportation, infrastructure and basic amenities. Mxolisi and other Black students had to rely on overworked, unofficial taxi networks that were often unsafe or late.
He would be locked out of class if he arrived even a minute over the hour by his information systems lecturer. She knew Black students were travelling great distances, but instead of making allowances for their reality, she used it as a weapon against them. She was notorious among Black students for being blatantly racist and for failing to correctly evaluate their work; sometimes she did not mark their assignments, which prevented them from moving further in the course. Mxolisi and his classmates felt unwanted visitors and intruders, not students at a university that prided itself on academic brilliance.
He had to adjust to a language, English, which he was never encouraged to learn, in a setting never intended for him. Nevertheless, he fought forward and became one of the few Black students in his cohort to get a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting and a Post Graduate Diploma in Accounting.
But improbable hands sustained Mxolisi in a world that frequently attempted to shatter him. These mentors showed up like miracles at the right moment, providing him with dignity, kindness and guidance in a system that was set up to deny him all three. One was John Bennett, a white co-worker who offered him human decency, something he viewed as radical in apartheid South Africa, in addition to transport home after work. This small gesture of solidarity was revolutionary in a period when racial hierarchies controlled every element of life, including who could talk to whom, where they could sit, and who could move freely. This small gesture of support had a profound effect. Mxolisi saw something for the first time at John and Ingrid Bennett’s wedding: the Black domestic worker was seated next to the bride and groom, not hidden away in the background or kitchen. Everything Mxolisi had been taught about race, value and location was upended by that image.
He also learnt useful skills that would influence his life. Another mentor, John Richards, encouraged him to drive because he believed in Mxolisi’s abilities. A pivotal figure in his growth, Larry Watson, taught him resilience lessons that he would carry with him for the rest of his life. Larry once told him, “Don’t cry, deal with it. Knowledge and power know no race.” That fact turned into a mantra.
John Bennet and Larry Watson did not stop their acts of generosity with Mxolisi; they extended far beyond him. They mentored a colleague, a black man who had begun his career as a messenger at the PwC offices in East London. He, too, rose beyond the limits apartheid had set for him, ultimately graduating with a Bachelor’s degree from Unisa.
The final guiding hand came from Bruce van der Waag, who was not only a pillar of support but also a dedicated teacher, offering Mxolisi additional lessons in accounting and auditing. Such an investment was uncommon and invaluable during a period when the education system created to prevent Black scholars from entering professional sectors. Beyond merely academic training, Bruce’s mentoring was confirmation that Mxolisi’s goals were legitimate, his potential was valuable, and his presence in the accounting field was both required and deserving.
Together, these mentors reminded him that intelligence, work ethic and character could surpass apartheid’s design in a system that continuously diminished the value of Black people. These were acts of defiance against the racist apparatus, not merely acts of kindness. These men supported him despite having no political motive to do so and no compensation for defying expectations. He discovered from their deeds that, in certain cases, surviving depends not only on one’s own will but also on that of a few brave people who decide to recognise your humanity when the world is determined to keep you invisible.
But improbable hands sustained Mxolisi in a world that frequently attempted to shatter him. These mentors showed up like miracles at the right moment, providing him with dignity, kindness and guidance in a system that was set up to deny him all three. One was
There were costs associated with surviving apartheid. Despite overcoming incredible obstacles like economic hardship, racial isolation and educational exclusion, Mxolisi carried burdens that continue to reverberate. Although political freedom was brought about by the official end of apartheid, the psychological damage and the loss of identity, land and security were not repaired. The ache of never having a home base to fall back on and the sense of rootlessness that comes from growing up in a system that denied Black families any chance to accumulate wealth over generations are just two of the long-lasting effects that Mxolisi discusses with painful honesty.
His people were deprived of land, denied the right to own real estate in cities and compelled to live in impoverished townships on the periphery of opportunity as a result of apartheid’s laws.
A more subdued burden persisted, the shame that apartheid had ingrained in him regarding his physical appearance, despite his efforts to establish a life for himself and his children. He still struggles occasionally with the complex reality of his fair skin.
He admits, “I feel like a traitor. I don’t feel Black enough.”
Internal conflicts, identity fragmentation and emotional exiles that persist long after the laws have changed are the hidden costs of apartheid. Yes, Mxolisi lived, but at the cost of having to live with the memory of being rejected by both Black and White people.
But, by surviving, he also defied the logic of the system that aimed to eradicate him. Being self-made, intelligent and articulate, his existence turned into a silent but powerful act of resistance.
The tale of Mxolisi Sibam is not solely one of survival; it’s a transformational one. A life of defiance, against rejection, against apartheid, against self-doubt. A man who refused to be invisible and lived in the middle. He is a living example of love, intelligence, resilience, faith and strength.
He’s my dad, and he is my hero.
Umtha Sibam is an LLB student focused on human rights, politics and law and is inspired by her father’s intellect and values.