Kaffir Boy

The story "Kaffir Boy" is written by Mark Mathabane. In this story you can already tell it is about race. The story was taken place in South Africa, during a dark time called The Apartheid. For some insight this Apartheid was a policy/system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race. This took place in the years 1948 to 1994. That is a very long time where white's had the privilege to do just about anything and the black's were slaves in their own country. The voice of this story is from a young boy. In this story they never say his name, that is why it is called "Kaffir Boy". The word kaffir is used in South Africa to refer to a black person. It is now widely considered an offensive ethnic slur. The text is written in first person. The voice of this text is the author from when he was very young. The kaffir boy is usually with his Granny. He helps her work in the garden for their white madam Ellen. This text is addressed to all of the black and white society. It is addressed to children so it can have the children change history and make things better. It is addressed because we don't want to repeat history and also we want to know the truth about segregation back then and how it affects us now as a world. This connects to "Girl" and "Danger of a Single Story" because they all talk about human rights. The single story (stereotype) of this text is that Blacks are inferior to whites. They aren't good enough and they aren't equal. The setting of this story is taken place in school area then leads to Ellen's house. Ellen is an old white female who hired the kaffir boy's Granny to work in her garden. It's the first time the kaffir boy sees white schoolchildren. He see's a traffic sign that says "Children Crossing, Stop. Kinders Stap Oor". This sign is a key part of symbolism. The author put this in his passage to get the overall meaning out. The meaning of this sign and passage is that the white society wanted to keep it segregated. If blacks and whites were friends they would affect the power structure of white people being on top. The power structure would fall and white people did not want that. The word "stop" in the sign represents the racial line. No blacks were allowed to cross because no one wanted to mix. How would you feel as a person if you weren't allowed to go to school with other kids? How would you feel to be a slave in your country?