While I\u2019m gone, white mother, kill the fattened oxen<\/em><\/h5>\nAnd feed your dear ones well, prime meat and curds<\/em><\/h5>\nOverspilling so the dogs too lap the juice,<\/em><\/h5>\nAnd still enough is left to throw a surplus<\/em><\/h5>\nTo your close kin across the seas.<\/em><\/h5>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/h5>\nAnd you, black mother, hold on firm\u2014<\/em><\/h5>\nThere is a mystery in things to come<\/em><\/h5>\nAnd a fierce look lights behind your eyes.<\/em><\/h5>\nAs the world-ball turns around and round<\/em><\/h5>\nThe fleeing partridge finds the forbidden grain.<\/em><\/h5>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 — N.M. Khaketla[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/547f9d69b67d533b8e5d6f214899fa1b-300x291.jpg\")
<\/a>Despair. Anger. A tight pit in my stomach from the injustice of \u201cthe system.\u201d Justification of evil. And finally, remnants of hope. So many emotions\u2014mostly negative\u2014fill the reading of Mark Mathabane\u2019s Kaffir Boy<\/em>. Watching the young Johannes develop an awareness of his family\u2019s fourth-class life, I was filled with pity and deep anger. Walking with him as he developed an awareness of the systemic separation of races, the tiers of class based on color, was painful. Listening to the justifications for separateness\u2014based on religion, based on supposed physical traits (\u201cthey have smaller brains\u201d[2]<\/a>) \u2013 I felt like we were back in the Jim Crow era of America. [Side note:\u00a0This crown on the left is patterned after British crowns. The elephant standing on the lion represents the idea of African independence from Europe. I saw this crown at the Indianapolis Museum of Art this weekend; though Ghanian, I thought it fitting for the subject at hand.]<\/p>\nWhile obviously simplistic due to word limits, there are three points that stood out to me in\u00a0this text.<\/p>\n
Stereotypes and prejudice exist in all of us<\/strong>. As a young boy, Mathabane grew to hate white people because of the apartheid system which kept him and all black South Africans living in poor conditions, receiving little or poor education and few opportunities, and imprisoned by bureaucracy. (Likewise, the young Smith boy, Clyde, grew up being taught in school to think of blacks as \u201cretarded\u201d and sub-human.[3]<\/a>) Yet exceptions to the stereotype\u2014names, faces, stories and actions\u2014transformed Mathabane\u2019s perspective of white people. The majority of white South Africans condoned apartheid, but as Mathabane met and befriended whites such as the Smiths, Wilfrid Horn, and Agnes and Bremer Hofmeyer, he discovered that not all white people accepted apartheid. Mathabane described his meeting with the Hofmeyers, their story of murder and forgiveness<\/p>\nreinforced my belief that among white South Africans there was that small minority that really believed in love, freedom and human dignity for all. So why should they be lumped into the same foul den as the racists, and made the object of hate and vengeance? Why couldn\u2019t the struggle in South Africa be not one of black against white, but one that pitted those who believed in freedom, justice and equality against those who didn\u2019t? \u00a0[4]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nGetting to know someone different from ourselves begins to crumble those barriers we place between us and others.<\/p>\n
Mathabane was a survivor<\/strong> because others believed in him, and he made good choices about the![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/combat-1300596__180.png\")
<\/a> voices he listened to. Not everyone can do that. Throughout his childhood, Mathabane heard the loving, hopeful voice of his mother, pushing him out of the nest, sacrificing deeply for him, disciplining and encouraging him. He heard the voice of his father, who suffered loss of identity, tradition, and respect; his father who responded angrily to Mathabane\u2019s independence. He heard the voices of his grandmother, the tsotsis<\/em> gangs, and his teachers. All pulling him in different directions. Yet early on he makes the conscious decision to listen to his mother, and gravitates toward voices that affirm support of the direction she sends him (ahhhh, if only our kids would listen to us mothers!). During the process of applying for tennis scholarships, Mathabane was told by a mentor, Geoffrey Montsisi, \u201cYou\u2019re an unusual type\u2026 you believe in yourself. That\u2019s what we blacks as a nation need. Faith in ourselves. We believe too much of what the white man tells us about ourselves and the results of that have been disastrous: whites are running our country.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\nInstitutionalized and culturally embedded fear of others<\/strong>, when used by those in power, become paralyzingly difficult to overcome. Through interaction with white tennis players, Mathabane was able to allay some of their fears about black people. When asked about how whites can live with blacks, \u201cwhen you hate us so much,\u201d Mathabane replied that \u201cas long as meaningful contact between the races was forbidden by law, the stereotypes each race had of the other would persist\u2026. Apartheid thrived on the enmity and fear between black and white.\u201d[6]<\/a> Apartheid laws structured parallel universes among different colors of people, so that \u201cmore than 90 percent of white South Africans go through a lifetime without seeing firsthand the inhuman conditions under which blacks have to survive.\u201d[7]<\/a> Apartheid was abolished in the early 1990s, and yet its \u201chideous legacy\u201d continues. In his 2001 preface to the book, Mathabane writes, \u201cThey majority of blacks [in South Africa] are still poor. They still lead lives of quiet desperation. Many still live in overcrowded and squalid ghettos.\u201d[8]<\/a> The reality, which we have seen here in America as well, is that civil rights laws can be passed, apartheid abolished, and yet the dreadful consequences of institutionalized sin linger on for generations. Laws are much easier to change than minds. And systems much harder to deconstruct than legislation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
[1]<\/a> The Penguin Book of South African Verse<\/em>, ed. Jack Cope and Uys Krige (London: Penguin, 1968), 261. Caroline Khaketla was a Sotho poet and teacher, wife of a Lesotho stateman and mother to Lesotho finance minster, ‘Mamphono Khaketla.<\/p>\n[2]<\/a> Mark Mathabane, Kaffir Boy<\/em> (New York: New Millennium, 1986), 192.<\/p>\n[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n[4]<\/a> Ibid, 310.<\/p>\n[5]<\/a> Ibid., 342-343.<\/p>\n
Overspilling so the dogs too lap the juice,<\/em><\/h5>\nAnd still enough is left to throw a surplus<\/em><\/h5>\nTo your close kin across the seas.<\/em><\/h5>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/h5>\nAnd you, black mother, hold on firm\u2014<\/em><\/h5>\nThere is a mystery in things to come<\/em><\/h5>\nAnd a fierce look lights behind your eyes.<\/em><\/h5>\nAs the world-ball turns around and round<\/em><\/h5>\nThe fleeing partridge finds the forbidden grain.<\/em><\/h5>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 — N.M. Khaketla[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>Despair. Anger. A tight pit in my stomach from the injustice of \u201cthe system.\u201d Justification of evil. And finally, remnants of hope. So many emotions\u2014mostly negative\u2014fill the reading of Mark Mathabane\u2019s Kaffir Boy<\/em>. Watching the young Johannes develop an awareness of his family\u2019s fourth-class life, I was filled with pity and deep anger. Walking with him as he developed an awareness of the systemic separation of races, the tiers of class based on color, was painful. Listening to the justifications for separateness\u2014based on religion, based on supposed physical traits (\u201cthey have smaller brains\u201d[2]<\/a>) \u2013 I felt like we were back in the Jim Crow era of America. [Side note:\u00a0This crown on the left is patterned after British crowns. The elephant standing on the lion represents the idea of African independence from Europe. I saw this crown at the Indianapolis Museum of Art this weekend; though Ghanian, I thought it fitting for the subject at hand.]<\/p>\nWhile obviously simplistic due to word limits, there are three points that stood out to me in\u00a0this text.<\/p>\n
Stereotypes and prejudice exist in all of us<\/strong>. As a young boy, Mathabane grew to hate white people because of the apartheid system which kept him and all black South Africans living in poor conditions, receiving little or poor education and few opportunities, and imprisoned by bureaucracy. (Likewise, the young Smith boy, Clyde, grew up being taught in school to think of blacks as \u201cretarded\u201d and sub-human.[3]<\/a>) Yet exceptions to the stereotype\u2014names, faces, stories and actions\u2014transformed Mathabane\u2019s perspective of white people. The majority of white South Africans condoned apartheid, but as Mathabane met and befriended whites such as the Smiths, Wilfrid Horn, and Agnes and Bremer Hofmeyer, he discovered that not all white people accepted apartheid. Mathabane described his meeting with the Hofmeyers, their story of murder and forgiveness<\/p>\nreinforced my belief that among white South Africans there was that small minority that really believed in love, freedom and human dignity for all. So why should they be lumped into the same foul den as the racists, and made the object of hate and vengeance? Why couldn\u2019t the struggle in South Africa be not one of black against white, but one that pitted those who believed in freedom, justice and equality against those who didn\u2019t? \u00a0[4]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nGetting to know someone different from ourselves begins to crumble those barriers we place between us and others.<\/p>\n
Mathabane was a survivor<\/strong> because others believed in him, and he made good choices about the<\/a> voices he listened to. Not everyone can do that. Throughout his childhood, Mathabane heard the loving, hopeful voice of his mother, pushing him out of the nest, sacrificing deeply for him, disciplining and encouraging him. He heard the voice of his father, who suffered loss of identity, tradition, and respect; his father who responded angrily to Mathabane\u2019s independence. He heard the voices of his grandmother, the tsotsis<\/em> gangs, and his teachers. All pulling him in different directions. Yet early on he makes the conscious decision to listen to his mother, and gravitates toward voices that affirm support of the direction she sends him (ahhhh, if only our kids would listen to us mothers!). During the process of applying for tennis scholarships, Mathabane was told by a mentor, Geoffrey Montsisi, \u201cYou\u2019re an unusual type\u2026 you believe in yourself. That\u2019s what we blacks as a nation need. Faith in ourselves. We believe too much of what the white man tells us about ourselves and the results of that have been disastrous: whites are running our country.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\nInstitutionalized and culturally embedded fear of others<\/strong>, when used by those in power, become paralyzingly difficult to overcome. Through interaction with white tennis players, Mathabane was able to allay some of their fears about black people. When asked about how whites can live with blacks, \u201cwhen you hate us so much,\u201d Mathabane replied that \u201cas long as meaningful contact between the races was forbidden by law, the stereotypes each race had of the other would persist\u2026. Apartheid thrived on the enmity and fear between black and white.\u201d[6]<\/a> Apartheid laws structured parallel universes among different colors of people, so that \u201cmore than 90 percent of white South Africans go through a lifetime without seeing firsthand the inhuman conditions under which blacks have to survive.\u201d[7]<\/a> Apartheid was abolished in the early 1990s, and yet its \u201chideous legacy\u201d continues. In his 2001 preface to the book, Mathabane writes, \u201cThey majority of blacks [in South Africa] are still poor. They still lead lives of quiet desperation. Many still live in overcrowded and squalid ghettos.\u201d[8]<\/a> The reality, which we have seen here in America as well, is that civil rights laws can be passed, apartheid abolished, and yet the dreadful consequences of institutionalized sin linger on for generations. Laws are much easier to change than minds. And systems much harder to deconstruct than legislation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
[1]<\/a> The Penguin Book of South African Verse<\/em>, ed. Jack Cope and Uys Krige (London: Penguin, 1968), 261. Caroline Khaketla was a Sotho poet and teacher, wife of a Lesotho stateman and mother to Lesotho finance minster, ‘Mamphono Khaketla.<\/p>\n[2]<\/a> Mark Mathabane, Kaffir Boy<\/em> (New York: New Millennium, 1986), 192.<\/p>\n[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n[4]<\/a> Ibid, 310.<\/p>\n[5]<\/a> Ibid., 342-343.<\/p>\n
To your close kin across the seas.<\/em><\/h5>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/h5>\nAnd you, black mother, hold on firm\u2014<\/em><\/h5>\nThere is a mystery in things to come<\/em><\/h5>\nAnd a fierce look lights behind your eyes.<\/em><\/h5>\nAs the world-ball turns around and round<\/em><\/h5>\nThe fleeing partridge finds the forbidden grain.<\/em><\/h5>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 — N.M. Khaketla[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>Despair. Anger. A tight pit in my stomach from the injustice of \u201cthe system.\u201d Justification of evil. And finally, remnants of hope. So many emotions\u2014mostly negative\u2014fill the reading of Mark Mathabane\u2019s Kaffir Boy<\/em>. Watching the young Johannes develop an awareness of his family\u2019s fourth-class life, I was filled with pity and deep anger. Walking with him as he developed an awareness of the systemic separation of races, the tiers of class based on color, was painful. Listening to the justifications for separateness\u2014based on religion, based on supposed physical traits (\u201cthey have smaller brains\u201d[2]<\/a>) \u2013 I felt like we were back in the Jim Crow era of America. [Side note:\u00a0This crown on the left is patterned after British crowns. The elephant standing on the lion represents the idea of African independence from Europe. I saw this crown at the Indianapolis Museum of Art this weekend; though Ghanian, I thought it fitting for the subject at hand.]<\/p>\nWhile obviously simplistic due to word limits, there are three points that stood out to me in\u00a0this text.<\/p>\n
Stereotypes and prejudice exist in all of us<\/strong>. As a young boy, Mathabane grew to hate white people because of the apartheid system which kept him and all black South Africans living in poor conditions, receiving little or poor education and few opportunities, and imprisoned by bureaucracy. (Likewise, the young Smith boy, Clyde, grew up being taught in school to think of blacks as \u201cretarded\u201d and sub-human.[3]<\/a>) Yet exceptions to the stereotype\u2014names, faces, stories and actions\u2014transformed Mathabane\u2019s perspective of white people. The majority of white South Africans condoned apartheid, but as Mathabane met and befriended whites such as the Smiths, Wilfrid Horn, and Agnes and Bremer Hofmeyer, he discovered that not all white people accepted apartheid. Mathabane described his meeting with the Hofmeyers, their story of murder and forgiveness<\/p>\nreinforced my belief that among white South Africans there was that small minority that really believed in love, freedom and human dignity for all. So why should they be lumped into the same foul den as the racists, and made the object of hate and vengeance? Why couldn\u2019t the struggle in South Africa be not one of black against white, but one that pitted those who believed in freedom, justice and equality against those who didn\u2019t? \u00a0[4]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nGetting to know someone different from ourselves begins to crumble those barriers we place between us and others.<\/p>\n
Mathabane was a survivor<\/strong> because others believed in him, and he made good choices about the<\/a> voices he listened to. Not everyone can do that. Throughout his childhood, Mathabane heard the loving, hopeful voice of his mother, pushing him out of the nest, sacrificing deeply for him, disciplining and encouraging him. He heard the voice of his father, who suffered loss of identity, tradition, and respect; his father who responded angrily to Mathabane\u2019s independence. He heard the voices of his grandmother, the tsotsis<\/em> gangs, and his teachers. All pulling him in different directions. Yet early on he makes the conscious decision to listen to his mother, and gravitates toward voices that affirm support of the direction she sends him (ahhhh, if only our kids would listen to us mothers!). During the process of applying for tennis scholarships, Mathabane was told by a mentor, Geoffrey Montsisi, \u201cYou\u2019re an unusual type\u2026 you believe in yourself. That\u2019s what we blacks as a nation need. Faith in ourselves. We believe too much of what the white man tells us about ourselves and the results of that have been disastrous: whites are running our country.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\nInstitutionalized and culturally embedded fear of others<\/strong>, when used by those in power, become paralyzingly difficult to overcome. Through interaction with white tennis players, Mathabane was able to allay some of their fears about black people. When asked about how whites can live with blacks, \u201cwhen you hate us so much,\u201d Mathabane replied that \u201cas long as meaningful contact between the races was forbidden by law, the stereotypes each race had of the other would persist\u2026. Apartheid thrived on the enmity and fear between black and white.\u201d[6]<\/a> Apartheid laws structured parallel universes among different colors of people, so that \u201cmore than 90 percent of white South Africans go through a lifetime without seeing firsthand the inhuman conditions under which blacks have to survive.\u201d[7]<\/a> Apartheid was abolished in the early 1990s, and yet its \u201chideous legacy\u201d continues. In his 2001 preface to the book, Mathabane writes, \u201cThey majority of blacks [in South Africa] are still poor. They still lead lives of quiet desperation. Many still live in overcrowded and squalid ghettos.\u201d[8]<\/a> The reality, which we have seen here in America as well, is that civil rights laws can be passed, apartheid abolished, and yet the dreadful consequences of institutionalized sin linger on for generations. Laws are much easier to change than minds. And systems much harder to deconstruct than legislation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
[1]<\/a> The Penguin Book of South African Verse<\/em>, ed. Jack Cope and Uys Krige (London: Penguin, 1968), 261. Caroline Khaketla was a Sotho poet and teacher, wife of a Lesotho stateman and mother to Lesotho finance minster, ‘Mamphono Khaketla.<\/p>\n[2]<\/a> Mark Mathabane, Kaffir Boy<\/em> (New York: New Millennium, 1986), 192.<\/p>\n[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n[4]<\/a> Ibid, 310.<\/p>\n[5]<\/a> Ibid., 342-343.<\/p>\n
And you, black mother, hold on firm\u2014<\/em><\/h5>\nThere is a mystery in things to come<\/em><\/h5>\nAnd a fierce look lights behind your eyes.<\/em><\/h5>\nAs the world-ball turns around and round<\/em><\/h5>\nThe fleeing partridge finds the forbidden grain.<\/em><\/h5>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 — N.M. Khaketla[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>Despair. Anger. A tight pit in my stomach from the injustice of \u201cthe system.\u201d Justification of evil. And finally, remnants of hope. So many emotions\u2014mostly negative\u2014fill the reading of Mark Mathabane\u2019s Kaffir Boy<\/em>. Watching the young Johannes develop an awareness of his family\u2019s fourth-class life, I was filled with pity and deep anger. Walking with him as he developed an awareness of the systemic separation of races, the tiers of class based on color, was painful. Listening to the justifications for separateness\u2014based on religion, based on supposed physical traits (\u201cthey have smaller brains\u201d[2]<\/a>) \u2013 I felt like we were back in the Jim Crow era of America. [Side note:\u00a0This crown on the left is patterned after British crowns. The elephant standing on the lion represents the idea of African independence from Europe. I saw this crown at the Indianapolis Museum of Art this weekend; though Ghanian, I thought it fitting for the subject at hand.]<\/p>\nWhile obviously simplistic due to word limits, there are three points that stood out to me in\u00a0this text.<\/p>\n
Stereotypes and prejudice exist in all of us<\/strong>. As a young boy, Mathabane grew to hate white people because of the apartheid system which kept him and all black South Africans living in poor conditions, receiving little or poor education and few opportunities, and imprisoned by bureaucracy. (Likewise, the young Smith boy, Clyde, grew up being taught in school to think of blacks as \u201cretarded\u201d and sub-human.[3]<\/a>) Yet exceptions to the stereotype\u2014names, faces, stories and actions\u2014transformed Mathabane\u2019s perspective of white people. The majority of white South Africans condoned apartheid, but as Mathabane met and befriended whites such as the Smiths, Wilfrid Horn, and Agnes and Bremer Hofmeyer, he discovered that not all white people accepted apartheid. Mathabane described his meeting with the Hofmeyers, their story of murder and forgiveness<\/p>\nreinforced my belief that among white South Africans there was that small minority that really believed in love, freedom and human dignity for all. So why should they be lumped into the same foul den as the racists, and made the object of hate and vengeance? Why couldn\u2019t the struggle in South Africa be not one of black against white, but one that pitted those who believed in freedom, justice and equality against those who didn\u2019t? \u00a0[4]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nGetting to know someone different from ourselves begins to crumble those barriers we place between us and others.<\/p>\n
Mathabane was a survivor<\/strong> because others believed in him, and he made good choices about the<\/a> voices he listened to. Not everyone can do that. Throughout his childhood, Mathabane heard the loving, hopeful voice of his mother, pushing him out of the nest, sacrificing deeply for him, disciplining and encouraging him. He heard the voice of his father, who suffered loss of identity, tradition, and respect; his father who responded angrily to Mathabane\u2019s independence. He heard the voices of his grandmother, the tsotsis<\/em> gangs, and his teachers. All pulling him in different directions. Yet early on he makes the conscious decision to listen to his mother, and gravitates toward voices that affirm support of the direction she sends him (ahhhh, if only our kids would listen to us mothers!). During the process of applying for tennis scholarships, Mathabane was told by a mentor, Geoffrey Montsisi, \u201cYou\u2019re an unusual type\u2026 you believe in yourself. That\u2019s what we blacks as a nation need. Faith in ourselves. We believe too much of what the white man tells us about ourselves and the results of that have been disastrous: whites are running our country.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\nInstitutionalized and culturally embedded fear of others<\/strong>, when used by those in power, become paralyzingly difficult to overcome. Through interaction with white tennis players, Mathabane was able to allay some of their fears about black people. When asked about how whites can live with blacks, \u201cwhen you hate us so much,\u201d Mathabane replied that \u201cas long as meaningful contact between the races was forbidden by law, the stereotypes each race had of the other would persist\u2026. Apartheid thrived on the enmity and fear between black and white.\u201d[6]<\/a> Apartheid laws structured parallel universes among different colors of people, so that \u201cmore than 90 percent of white South Africans go through a lifetime without seeing firsthand the inhuman conditions under which blacks have to survive.\u201d[7]<\/a> Apartheid was abolished in the early 1990s, and yet its \u201chideous legacy\u201d continues. In his 2001 preface to the book, Mathabane writes, \u201cThey majority of blacks [in South Africa] are still poor. They still lead lives of quiet desperation. Many still live in overcrowded and squalid ghettos.\u201d[8]<\/a> The reality, which we have seen here in America as well, is that civil rights laws can be passed, apartheid abolished, and yet the dreadful consequences of institutionalized sin linger on for generations. Laws are much easier to change than minds. And systems much harder to deconstruct than legislation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
[1]<\/a> The Penguin Book of South African Verse<\/em>, ed. Jack Cope and Uys Krige (London: Penguin, 1968), 261. Caroline Khaketla was a Sotho poet and teacher, wife of a Lesotho stateman and mother to Lesotho finance minster, ‘Mamphono Khaketla.<\/p>\n[2]<\/a> Mark Mathabane, Kaffir Boy<\/em> (New York: New Millennium, 1986), 192.<\/p>\n[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n[4]<\/a> Ibid, 310.<\/p>\n[5]<\/a> Ibid., 342-343.<\/p>\n
And a fierce look lights behind your eyes.<\/em><\/h5>\nAs the world-ball turns around and round<\/em><\/h5>\nThe fleeing partridge finds the forbidden grain.<\/em><\/h5>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 — N.M. Khaketla[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>Despair. Anger. A tight pit in my stomach from the injustice of \u201cthe system.\u201d Justification of evil. And finally, remnants of hope. So many emotions\u2014mostly negative\u2014fill the reading of Mark Mathabane\u2019s Kaffir Boy<\/em>. Watching the young Johannes develop an awareness of his family\u2019s fourth-class life, I was filled with pity and deep anger. Walking with him as he developed an awareness of the systemic separation of races, the tiers of class based on color, was painful. Listening to the justifications for separateness\u2014based on religion, based on supposed physical traits (\u201cthey have smaller brains\u201d[2]<\/a>) \u2013 I felt like we were back in the Jim Crow era of America. [Side note:\u00a0This crown on the left is patterned after British crowns. The elephant standing on the lion represents the idea of African independence from Europe. I saw this crown at the Indianapolis Museum of Art this weekend; though Ghanian, I thought it fitting for the subject at hand.]<\/p>\nWhile obviously simplistic due to word limits, there are three points that stood out to me in\u00a0this text.<\/p>\n
Stereotypes and prejudice exist in all of us<\/strong>. As a young boy, Mathabane grew to hate white people because of the apartheid system which kept him and all black South Africans living in poor conditions, receiving little or poor education and few opportunities, and imprisoned by bureaucracy. (Likewise, the young Smith boy, Clyde, grew up being taught in school to think of blacks as \u201cretarded\u201d and sub-human.[3]<\/a>) Yet exceptions to the stereotype\u2014names, faces, stories and actions\u2014transformed Mathabane\u2019s perspective of white people. The majority of white South Africans condoned apartheid, but as Mathabane met and befriended whites such as the Smiths, Wilfrid Horn, and Agnes and Bremer Hofmeyer, he discovered that not all white people accepted apartheid. Mathabane described his meeting with the Hofmeyers, their story of murder and forgiveness<\/p>\nreinforced my belief that among white South Africans there was that small minority that really believed in love, freedom and human dignity for all. So why should they be lumped into the same foul den as the racists, and made the object of hate and vengeance? Why couldn\u2019t the struggle in South Africa be not one of black against white, but one that pitted those who believed in freedom, justice and equality against those who didn\u2019t? \u00a0[4]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nGetting to know someone different from ourselves begins to crumble those barriers we place between us and others.<\/p>\n
Mathabane was a survivor<\/strong> because others believed in him, and he made good choices about the<\/a> voices he listened to. Not everyone can do that. Throughout his childhood, Mathabane heard the loving, hopeful voice of his mother, pushing him out of the nest, sacrificing deeply for him, disciplining and encouraging him. He heard the voice of his father, who suffered loss of identity, tradition, and respect; his father who responded angrily to Mathabane\u2019s independence. He heard the voices of his grandmother, the tsotsis<\/em> gangs, and his teachers. All pulling him in different directions. Yet early on he makes the conscious decision to listen to his mother, and gravitates toward voices that affirm support of the direction she sends him (ahhhh, if only our kids would listen to us mothers!). During the process of applying for tennis scholarships, Mathabane was told by a mentor, Geoffrey Montsisi, \u201cYou\u2019re an unusual type\u2026 you believe in yourself. That\u2019s what we blacks as a nation need. Faith in ourselves. We believe too much of what the white man tells us about ourselves and the results of that have been disastrous: whites are running our country.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\nInstitutionalized and culturally embedded fear of others<\/strong>, when used by those in power, become paralyzingly difficult to overcome. Through interaction with white tennis players, Mathabane was able to allay some of their fears about black people. When asked about how whites can live with blacks, \u201cwhen you hate us so much,\u201d Mathabane replied that \u201cas long as meaningful contact between the races was forbidden by law, the stereotypes each race had of the other would persist\u2026. Apartheid thrived on the enmity and fear between black and white.\u201d[6]<\/a> Apartheid laws structured parallel universes among different colors of people, so that \u201cmore than 90 percent of white South Africans go through a lifetime without seeing firsthand the inhuman conditions under which blacks have to survive.\u201d[7]<\/a> Apartheid was abolished in the early 1990s, and yet its \u201chideous legacy\u201d continues. In his 2001 preface to the book, Mathabane writes, \u201cThey majority of blacks [in South Africa] are still poor. They still lead lives of quiet desperation. Many still live in overcrowded and squalid ghettos.\u201d[8]<\/a> The reality, which we have seen here in America as well, is that civil rights laws can be passed, apartheid abolished, and yet the dreadful consequences of institutionalized sin linger on for generations. Laws are much easier to change than minds. And systems much harder to deconstruct than legislation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
[1]<\/a> The Penguin Book of South African Verse<\/em>, ed. Jack Cope and Uys Krige (London: Penguin, 1968), 261. Caroline Khaketla was a Sotho poet and teacher, wife of a Lesotho stateman and mother to Lesotho finance minster, ‘Mamphono Khaketla.<\/p>\n[2]<\/a> Mark Mathabane, Kaffir Boy<\/em> (New York: New Millennium, 1986), 192.<\/p>\n[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n[4]<\/a> Ibid, 310.<\/p>\n[5]<\/a> Ibid., 342-343.<\/p>\n
The fleeing partridge finds the forbidden grain.<\/em><\/h5>\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 — N.M. Khaketla[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/h5>\n <\/p>\n
<\/a>Despair. Anger. A tight pit in my stomach from the injustice of \u201cthe system.\u201d Justification of evil. And finally, remnants of hope. So many emotions\u2014mostly negative\u2014fill the reading of Mark Mathabane\u2019s Kaffir Boy<\/em>. Watching the young Johannes develop an awareness of his family\u2019s fourth-class life, I was filled with pity and deep anger. Walking with him as he developed an awareness of the systemic separation of races, the tiers of class based on color, was painful. Listening to the justifications for separateness\u2014based on religion, based on supposed physical traits (\u201cthey have smaller brains\u201d[2]<\/a>) \u2013 I felt like we were back in the Jim Crow era of America. [Side note:\u00a0This crown on the left is patterned after British crowns. The elephant standing on the lion represents the idea of African independence from Europe. I saw this crown at the Indianapolis Museum of Art this weekend; though Ghanian, I thought it fitting for the subject at hand.]<\/p>\nWhile obviously simplistic due to word limits, there are three points that stood out to me in\u00a0this text.<\/p>\n
Stereotypes and prejudice exist in all of us<\/strong>. As a young boy, Mathabane grew to hate white people because of the apartheid system which kept him and all black South Africans living in poor conditions, receiving little or poor education and few opportunities, and imprisoned by bureaucracy. (Likewise, the young Smith boy, Clyde, grew up being taught in school to think of blacks as \u201cretarded\u201d and sub-human.[3]<\/a>) Yet exceptions to the stereotype\u2014names, faces, stories and actions\u2014transformed Mathabane\u2019s perspective of white people. The majority of white South Africans condoned apartheid, but as Mathabane met and befriended whites such as the Smiths, Wilfrid Horn, and Agnes and Bremer Hofmeyer, he discovered that not all white people accepted apartheid. Mathabane described his meeting with the Hofmeyers, their story of murder and forgiveness<\/p>\nreinforced my belief that among white South Africans there was that small minority that really believed in love, freedom and human dignity for all. So why should they be lumped into the same foul den as the racists, and made the object of hate and vengeance? Why couldn\u2019t the struggle in South Africa be not one of black against white, but one that pitted those who believed in freedom, justice and equality against those who didn\u2019t? \u00a0[4]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nGetting to know someone different from ourselves begins to crumble those barriers we place between us and others.<\/p>\n
Mathabane was a survivor<\/strong> because others believed in him, and he made good choices about the<\/a> voices he listened to. Not everyone can do that. Throughout his childhood, Mathabane heard the loving, hopeful voice of his mother, pushing him out of the nest, sacrificing deeply for him, disciplining and encouraging him. He heard the voice of his father, who suffered loss of identity, tradition, and respect; his father who responded angrily to Mathabane\u2019s independence. He heard the voices of his grandmother, the tsotsis<\/em> gangs, and his teachers. All pulling him in different directions. Yet early on he makes the conscious decision to listen to his mother, and gravitates toward voices that affirm support of the direction she sends him (ahhhh, if only our kids would listen to us mothers!). During the process of applying for tennis scholarships, Mathabane was told by a mentor, Geoffrey Montsisi, \u201cYou\u2019re an unusual type\u2026 you believe in yourself. That\u2019s what we blacks as a nation need. Faith in ourselves. We believe too much of what the white man tells us about ourselves and the results of that have been disastrous: whites are running our country.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\nInstitutionalized and culturally embedded fear of others<\/strong>, when used by those in power, become paralyzingly difficult to overcome. Through interaction with white tennis players, Mathabane was able to allay some of their fears about black people. When asked about how whites can live with blacks, \u201cwhen you hate us so much,\u201d Mathabane replied that \u201cas long as meaningful contact between the races was forbidden by law, the stereotypes each race had of the other would persist\u2026. Apartheid thrived on the enmity and fear between black and white.\u201d[6]<\/a> Apartheid laws structured parallel universes among different colors of people, so that \u201cmore than 90 percent of white South Africans go through a lifetime without seeing firsthand the inhuman conditions under which blacks have to survive.\u201d[7]<\/a> Apartheid was abolished in the early 1990s, and yet its \u201chideous legacy\u201d continues. In his 2001 preface to the book, Mathabane writes, \u201cThey majority of blacks [in South Africa] are still poor. They still lead lives of quiet desperation. Many still live in overcrowded and squalid ghettos.\u201d[8]<\/a> The reality, which we have seen here in America as well, is that civil rights laws can be passed, apartheid abolished, and yet the dreadful consequences of institutionalized sin linger on for generations. Laws are much easier to change than minds. And systems much harder to deconstruct than legislation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
[1]<\/a> The Penguin Book of South African Verse<\/em>, ed. Jack Cope and Uys Krige (London: Penguin, 1968), 261. Caroline Khaketla was a Sotho poet and teacher, wife of a Lesotho stateman and mother to Lesotho finance minster, ‘Mamphono Khaketla.<\/p>\n[2]<\/a> Mark Mathabane, Kaffir Boy<\/em> (New York: New Millennium, 1986), 192.<\/p>\n[3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n[4]<\/a> Ibid, 310.<\/p>\n[5]<\/a> Ibid., 342-343.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
While obviously simplistic due to word limits, there are three points that stood out to me in\u00a0this text.<\/p>\n Stereotypes and prejudice exist in all of us<\/strong>. As a young boy, Mathabane grew to hate white people because of the apartheid system which kept him and all black South Africans living in poor conditions, receiving little or poor education and few opportunities, and imprisoned by bureaucracy. (Likewise, the young Smith boy, Clyde, grew up being taught in school to think of blacks as \u201cretarded\u201d and sub-human.[3]<\/a>) Yet exceptions to the stereotype\u2014names, faces, stories and actions\u2014transformed Mathabane\u2019s perspective of white people. The majority of white South Africans condoned apartheid, but as Mathabane met and befriended whites such as the Smiths, Wilfrid Horn, and Agnes and Bremer Hofmeyer, he discovered that not all white people accepted apartheid. Mathabane described his meeting with the Hofmeyers, their story of murder and forgiveness<\/p>\n reinforced my belief that among white South Africans there was that small minority that really believed in love, freedom and human dignity for all. So why should they be lumped into the same foul den as the racists, and made the object of hate and vengeance? Why couldn\u2019t the struggle in South Africa be not one of black against white, but one that pitted those who believed in freedom, justice and equality against those who didn\u2019t? \u00a0[4]<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Getting to know someone different from ourselves begins to crumble those barriers we place between us and others.<\/p>\n Mathabane was a survivor<\/strong> because others believed in him, and he made good choices about the Institutionalized and culturally embedded fear of others<\/strong>, when used by those in power, become paralyzingly difficult to overcome. Through interaction with white tennis players, Mathabane was able to allay some of their fears about black people. When asked about how whites can live with blacks, \u201cwhen you hate us so much,\u201d Mathabane replied that \u201cas long as meaningful contact between the races was forbidden by law, the stereotypes each race had of the other would persist\u2026. Apartheid thrived on the enmity and fear between black and white.\u201d[6]<\/a> Apartheid laws structured parallel universes among different colors of people, so that \u201cmore than 90 percent of white South Africans go through a lifetime without seeing firsthand the inhuman conditions under which blacks have to survive.\u201d[7]<\/a> Apartheid was abolished in the early 1990s, and yet its \u201chideous legacy\u201d continues. In his 2001 preface to the book, Mathabane writes, \u201cThey majority of blacks [in South Africa] are still poor. They still lead lives of quiet desperation. Many still live in overcrowded and squalid ghettos.\u201d[8]<\/a> The reality, which we have seen here in America as well, is that civil rights laws can be passed, apartheid abolished, and yet the dreadful consequences of institutionalized sin linger on for generations. Laws are much easier to change than minds. And systems much harder to deconstruct than legislation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [1]<\/a> The Penguin Book of South African Verse<\/em>, ed. Jack Cope and Uys Krige (London: Penguin, 1968), 261. Caroline Khaketla was a Sotho poet and teacher, wife of a Lesotho stateman and mother to Lesotho finance minster, ‘Mamphono Khaketla.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Mark Mathabane, Kaffir Boy<\/em> (New York: New Millennium, 1986), 192.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Ibid, 310.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Ibid., 342-343.<\/p>\n<\/a>Despair. Anger. A tight pit in my stomach from the injustice of \u201cthe system.\u201d Justification of evil. And finally, remnants of hope. So many emotions\u2014mostly negative\u2014fill the reading of Mark Mathabane\u2019s Kaffir Boy<\/em>. Watching the young Johannes develop an awareness of his family\u2019s fourth-class life, I was filled with pity and deep anger. Walking with him as he developed an awareness of the systemic separation of races, the tiers of class based on color, was painful. Listening to the justifications for separateness\u2014based on religion, based on supposed physical traits (\u201cthey have smaller brains\u201d[2]<\/a>) \u2013 I felt like we were back in the Jim Crow era of America. [Side note:\u00a0This crown on the left is patterned after British crowns. The elephant standing on the lion represents the idea of African independence from Europe. I saw this crown at the Indianapolis Museum of Art this weekend; though Ghanian, I thought it fitting for the subject at hand.]<\/p>\n<\/a> voices he listened to. Not everyone can do that. Throughout his childhood, Mathabane heard the loving, hopeful voice of his mother, pushing him out of the nest, sacrificing deeply for him, disciplining and encouraging him. He heard the voice of his father, who suffered loss of identity, tradition, and respect; his father who responded angrily to Mathabane\u2019s independence. He heard the voices of his grandmother, the tsotsis<\/em> gangs, and his teachers. All pulling him in different directions. Yet early on he makes the conscious decision to listen to his mother, and gravitates toward voices that affirm support of the direction she sends him (ahhhh, if only our kids would listen to us mothers!). During the process of applying for tennis scholarships, Mathabane was told by a mentor, Geoffrey Montsisi, \u201cYou\u2019re an unusual type\u2026 you believe in yourself. That\u2019s what we blacks as a nation need. Faith in ourselves. We believe too much of what the white man tells us about ourselves and the results of that have been disastrous: whites are running our country.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n