Whites' secret fear - other whites

But now a ground-breaking study has shown that white people's brains light up with early-warning activity far more in response to angry white body language than to angry black body language.

Maastricht University researcher Beatrice de Gelder, who is also an affiliate of the University of Cape Town, said: "Up until now, people have exclusively used faces to investigate how people from different races perceive each other."

The trend was to conclude that "white people react more with fear to black faces than to other white faces".

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The new study, which used photographs as stimuli and brain scans to assess responses, provided "the first clear evidence" that race has a great influence over how we read body language.

"Many characteristics of a person can already be seen from a distance when we do not yet clearly see the face of the other person," said De Gelder.

She said studies into body language were "essential" when looking at automatic racial reactions.

Researchers also showed their white subjects pictures of black people signalling happiness with their body language - and found that "black joy" had a stronger positive impact on them than "white joy".

Consciously or not, people "read" cues from other people's faces and bodies - and race plays a big part in this.

The crude face of racialisation is the likes of Penny Sparrow making derogatory remarks about black people on beaches, or Riaan Lucas expressing happiness at the death of rugby icon Joost van der Westhuizen, because he was white.

But the spectrum is broad and includes the subtle act of "checking people out" when you walk past them.

Linton Chitepo, a Zimbabwean living in a predominantly white pocket of Wynberg, Cape Town, said: "I have had one or two times where the police stopped me. That might be a foreign national thing.

"But what happens the most is the way people respond in silence. They kind of scan me with their eyes, as if they are trying to work out my role in this area."

block_quotes_start To this day, I am strongly against racial profiling. But danger is danger and body language is body language block_quotes_end

Chitepo said this was amusing, up to a point. "It also gets tiring. Once someone actually followed me with their car to see if I was going to enter a house or not. When they saw I had the key to the house, they drove off."

Julia de Lange*, who lives in the US after growing up in South Africa, was attacked by a man when she was in her early 20s.

"The crazy thing is that I read the guy's body language before he attacked me. Every part of my body sent a signal to my brain that I wasn't safe.

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"But then I second-guessed myself. I told myself I was being a racist and I mustn't run away. So, I ignored my gut instinct.

"To this day, I am strongly against racial profiling. But danger is danger and body language is body language. You have to strip away the racial stuff you've grown up with and just go on a primal response to any situation."

Despite the extreme and subtle racialisation of everyday life, the Institute of Race Relations released a survey this week which found that most South Africans report that they do not experience blatant racism in their day-to-day interactions.

"We simply asked, 'If you do notice racism in your daily life, in what ways do you notice it?' The answers are striking, for 72% of respondents said they experienced no such racism at all. The proportions of blacks (71%) and whites (74%) who gave this answer were roughly the same," said the report.

IRR media head Mienke Mari Steytler said: "Despite the damaging vitriol so often found on social media, race relations in South Africa remain sound."

* Not her real name