‘They’d Ask Me To Speak English,’ Jo-Anne Reyneke On Being Called White Growing Up! Jo-Anne Reyneke has a black mother and a white father and growing up the star says she was bullied for it.
Despite growing up with her mother, in a black family, the actress says she was often teased by other kids in the hood and asked to speak English as she looked ‘white’.
“Because I grew up in a township there was a whole lot of people calling me white and asking me to speak English, I had to have a good sense of humour about it. You either cry or you laugh,” Jo-Anne revealed.
Jo-Anne says she identifies herself as a black woman because of her upbringing.
“I grew up with my mother, so I consider myself black. I met my dad when he passed away but I never got to know anything white about me.”