Anne Holloway

Anne Holloway has been a high school English teacher in Durban for the past nine years. Before that, she was a faculty officer at the University of Natal (now UKZN).

In her chapter, Our mothers don’t mind, so why should you?, Anne—a white South African married to a black Eritrean Biniam Misgun—reflects upon being stared at with her partner. She does not know whether they are being stared at because they are a mixed couple or because people are not quite sure how to classify her partner who does not look locally black. Elderly white women look at her as if she is ‘degrading’ herself; young black women save their disgust for Biniam (perhaps because he is seen as rejecting them). Hostility may not only be due to their inter-raciality, but by a perception of Biniam as a black ‘outsider’. Indeed, when Biniam became the target of ‘racial’ violence, he was with Anne in a popular shopping centre. Anne's piece offers a sensitive portrayal of Durban's 'racial' fault/lines.

Reference:
Holloway, Anne. 'Our mothers don’t mind, so why should you?', in Rob Pattman and Sultan Khan (Eds.), Undressing Durban (Durban: Madiba Press, 2007), pp. 108-111.