Arno Rosenfeld 4/3/10

Internalized Racism in Kaffir Boy and Master Harold and the Boys

Both Sam in Master Harold on the Boys and Johannes in Kaffir Boy experience internalized racism in different, and yet also similar ways. Both understand the black's position as lower than the white man's and grapple with the question of why. Sam accepts with resignation that Hally is above him while Johannes was motivated by the overt racism he faced and used it as motivation to overcome his own internalized racism. While Johannes did experience some internalized racism, he was also very adept at noticing it in other blacks. When the policemen question his father he realizes that one recently came to Alexandria from a tribal reserve, Mathabane wrote, The authorities preferred his kind as policeman... They harbored a twisted fear and hatred of urban blacks (Mathabane 22). He realized that some blacks had a fear and hatred of other blacks and this realization may have given him a heightened sense of awareness about internalized racism and allowed him to check himself when he started to drift into the idea that blacks actually were inferior. This was slightly different than in Master Harold. Sam has a somewhat healthier personal identity as a black man, however, when he parodies being a stupid blackand drops his pants in order to mock Hally, it shows his own internalized racism. He tells Hally to tell Hally's father that, I showed you my arse and he's quite right. It's not fair. (Fugard 56). Here he is intentionally acting out what he knows to be the stereotype of a stupid black. Hally knows that Sam doesn't actually behave this way and so Sam is trying to make the point that Hally is treating him like something that Sam isn't. However, what Sam is saying, in essence, is that Hally is treating him like a stupid black, and that Sam, as a well-behaved respectful black, didn't deserve that treatment. This is acknowledges the racist stereotype of black people that Sam has.

Cases of very subtle and not so subtle internalized racism are ever present in Kaffir Boy and also appear, less frequently, in Master Harold. When Johannes is talking about the movies in which he sees the whites killing each other he says, I vowed that never would I enter such a world, and I thanked the law for making sure I could not do so without a permit. (Mathabane 54). While he didn't want to be white, he was clearly acknowledging that he felt as though Apartheid was good and must have been put in place for his benefit, whites must know what's best for him. Elsewhere, he more clearly expresses that he feels confused and inferior about being black. He states, I couldn't understand why he and his people had to have all the luxuries money can buy, while I and my people lived in abject poverty. Was it because they were whites and we were black? Were they better than we? (Mathabane 191). While he knows in his heart that blacks are not inferior to whites, he nonetheless has this nagging feelings that something must be wrong with him and his race. In Master Harold Sam has his own subtle, but telling form of interlaized racism. When Hally and Sam are discussing Men of Magnitude (Fugard 18-23), Sam only mentions whites. While he may not realize it, Sam is saying that he believes that the greatest men in the world are white, not black. This must have a negative effect on him because it limits his aspirations if he thinks that there are no great black men in the world. When Sam is only able to think of great men as white, this brings up another form of internalized racism. It's similar to when Johannes says, Oh how I envied the white schoolchildren, how I longed to attend schools like theirs (Mathabane 187), he isn't saying that he feels inferior for being black, but he aspires to be white. We see this again when he says, Someday I'll build a house as big and beautiful as Mrs. Smith's And a garden just as big and beautiful (189). His greatest aspirations look like achieving white success. This is exactly what Biko argued against. He felt like there was a sense that success for blacks meant becoming successful in the manner of white people, and Johannes is a perfect example of that. He rejects his black heritage and customs in favor of white culture and aspirations. Throughout the two books we see the protagonists struggle with what it means to be black. They

answer difficult internal questions about whether blacks are inferior and how that impacts them. In the end, while they are not true victims of internalized racism, as both are able to stand up for themselves, their lives and the actions they take are products of the racism they were immersed in for their entire lives.