BERYL Crosher-Segers was raised in a black-and-white world.

Hospitals and corporate buildings had separate entrances for black and white people, as did train carriages and stations. Certain benches were “white only” — if you were black, you were made to stand. You couldn’t buy a house in certain suburbs without skin of a certain shade.

For decades, this was the life experienced by millions in South Africa — a nation divided by a system of institutionalised racial segregation under the brutal reign of the National Party from 1948 to 1994.

And while she’s proudly called Australia home for over three decades, Beryl fears we’re heading down a similarly problematic path.

A LIFE UNDER APARTHEID

Beryl has painful first-hand experience in institutionalised racism.

As a girl of mixed race, she was classified as “coloured”, and missed out on many of the opportunities offered to her white peers.

In her new memoir, A Darker Shade Of Pale, she describes a world where white and black people were separated — at the detriment of the latter — in almost every aspect of life.

Instead, she was taught that, to be successful, she should strive to be as close to white-presenting as possible.

“You must make sure that your hair is straight. White people judge your class by your hair,” she was told while applying for a job.

The book follows Beryl’s journey from an upbringing under apartheid in South Africa, to seeking freedom in Australia, where she eventually worked for the NSW Government.

When Beryl was a child, tens of thousands of non-white families were forcibly removed from certain suburbs. Their houses were bulldozed and their towns destroyed.

As a teenager, she had to undergo a special medical examination in order to become a teacher — a requirement of the government’s education authority at the Department of Coloured Affairs.

During the exam, she was sexually assaulted by an older doctor. She never told anyone — partly out of shame, and partly from fear that authorities wouldn’t care.

She regularly witnessed herself and her family being looked down upon — by members of the public, by hospital staff, and by authority figures — for the colour of their skin.

Australia — at least, when she first moved here in 1982 — was a stark contrast.

“I came from an era of apartheid to a free society,” she told news.com.au. “There were no signs on benches here, no segregated carriages, no separate building entrances. We could buy a house anywhere we wanted.”

She described being in Darling Harbour on Australia Day as an almost foreign feeling, because people had the Australian flag painted on their faces and sang the national anthem.

“In my country, we didn’t fly the flag. My father strictly forbade us from singing the anthem or having a flag. Non-white schools chose to stop displaying the flag or to sing the anthem. I felt robbed. I had no allegiance.

“Here in Sydney, people were singing with their hand on their heart, and I sang it with them. For the first time I was hit by this sense of identity.”

But having seen life through a different lens, she also has concerns over how Australia approaches race and multiculturalism.

‘AUSTRALIA ISN’T WHAT IT WAS’

Beryl sees a clear link between Australia’s approach to migrants today, and the segregated world she grew up in.

“Australia was very welcome and opening back in the 1980s, but that same feeling just isn’t there anymore,” she told news.com.au. “We’ve seen this playing out over and over again — all the hysteria around people of different backgrounds. In the 1990s there was all this hype about Asian gangs. Then it was Pacific Islander gangs, and Lebanese groups, and now it’s African gangs.

“I think social media plays a big part here — it gives a voice to intolerant people who didn’t otherwise have a platform.”

It’s not just the racist rhetoric in the media that worries her. It’s comments from members of Australia’s own government — some which have struck especially close to home.

Earlier in the year, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton sparked controversy when he suggested persecuted white farmers from South Africa should be fast-tracked into the country.

His remarks were widely condemned as racist and discriminatory, even sparking outrage from the South African Government.

Despite witnessing — and experiencing — first-hand racial persecution for decades in South Africa, Beryl agrees with Mr Dutton’s critics.

“Crime is still a huge issue in South Africa — it’s rife,” she said. “But Peter Dutton failed to address that it happens to everyone there. I can’t understand why he would single out white families like that. Would he have done the same for black people who were murdered in my town? A boy I went to school with was shot. He was black. Would he have been given a place here?

“If they’re going to offer humanitarian places for people in Australia, they should be looking across the board. Not just white farmers, and not just black farmers. There are people everywhere in dire conditions.”

An estimated 500,000 white South Africans have left the country over the past three decades, with more than 200,000 settling in Australia.

Beryl believes South Africa still has a long way to go — but thanks to a generation shift it’s getting there.

“The situation there is changing. Younger people are more positive and forward-thinking. They have opportunities that we missed, and that’s a really positive thing.”