“We were taught how to think about ourselves – as less than – and we accepted it”. Reflections on racial injustice in South Africa

This autoethnography examines how internalised racism shaped my self-perception growing up under apartheid-era South Africa. Drawing on personal memories during the turbulence of Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment and release, I explore how apartheid’s racial logics extended beyond formal segregation to produce internalised hierarchies within communities of colour. Through narrative and critical reflection, this paper interrogates how apartheid-era laws, such as the Group Areas Act and Separate Amenities Act, stratified people of colour into hierarchies of privilege based on complexion, while everyday interactions reinforced these biases long after apartheid’s dismantling. It exposes the psychological toll of internalised colourism, showing how racialised individuals were conditioned to devalue themselves and others based. By positioning autoethnography as a method of resistance, the paper contributes to scholarship on internalised racism, advocating for epistemic and psychological decolonisation and a rejection of colonial constructs of colour in the pursuit of self-acceptance, solidarity, and racial justice.