There are so many lessons to be learned from this book that it's difficult to pick just one. However, I think the most important lesson to be learned is that stereotyping cannot be upheld. The Smith family managed to break down Mark Mathabane's belief that all white people were evil.
As a black child growing up in apartheid South Africa, Mark would have been conditioned to believe that white people were evil—and for good reason. He was being raised under the apartheid regime, in which black people were legally, politically, and socially inferior to white people. Everything in the system was designed to keep black people and white people apart.
However, when his grandmother's employers, the Smith family, show an interest in him and send books and a tennis racket to him, Mark realizes that the notion of white people's "evilness" cannot be universally applied, and that there are genuinely...
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good people from all racial groups.
The affect of this realization is deepened when Mark meets Wilfred Horn, who allows him to make use of the Tennis Ranch, which was strictly only for the use of white people. Mark receives more help from another white person when Stan Smith pays for his entry to a tennis tournament.
One of the many valuable lessons that Mark learns in the course of the events that play out in his life and on the tennis court is that there is "love" everywhere, and good people of all skin colors.
Mark Mathabane’s memoir provides numerous insights into his experience growing up during the apartheid era in South Africa and living as an immigrant in the United States.
One important message that Mathabane conveys is that parents play a crucial role in encouraging their children to overcome obstacles. In part because they had been deprived of formal education while growing up, Mark’s parents relentlessly impressed upon their children the importance of education. His mother in particular pushed him and his siblings to be serious about their studies. His diligence, combined with intellectual gifts, helped him to obtain a scholarship and later advance into higher education.
The negative, systemic effects of discriminatory policies and practices such as apartheid cannot be overcome only by individual efforts, the author clearly conveys. One of the most damaging effects of racial segregation is that it is often unevenly applied: exceptions are made for individuals when the powers that be perceive a benefit in doing so. These types of scenarios put the burden onto the selected individual to take advantage of a unique opportunity, even though it may perpetuate the systemic discrimination. Mathabane was placed in that position when he was allowed to play in a segregated tennis league. While he was able to demonstrate that a black player’s skills were sometimes superior to those of whites, thereby helping to change stereotypical perceptions, his decision did not immediately benefit all players of color and exposed him to accusations of cooptation.
Kaffir Boy shows readers that it doesn't take an over-the-top stunt or grand gesture to affect social change and better your position in life. Sometimes, all it takes is hard work.
The government wants to tell Mark who he should be: someone who carries a pass that dictates the details of his life, like where he works. Mark refuses to fit into the South African government's prescribed box for black men. Although he resists at first, once Mark's mother puts him in school, he thrives. He doesn't just get an education; he's in the ninety-ninth percentile of his class and wins a scholarship that pays for almost all of his high school education.
Education is only one of the ways that Mark works for social justice and a route out of poverty and apartheid. He also uses his tennis skills to overcome racism and make his way to America, eventually earning a tennis scholarship at South Carolina's Limestone College. Mark's journey from scared kid to confident tennis star demonstrates how hard work and resilience can quietly trump adversity.
The story of Mark's journey from urban slum squalor in South Africa to studying in the United States on a tennis scholarship is inspiring in so many ways. However, one of the central lessons this text has to teach the reader is the importance of self-belief and identity. This lesson is highlighted to both Mark and the reader at the end of the novel, in a conversation he has with Mr. Montsisi:
"I always knew you would end up going to America," he [Mr. Montsisi] said.
"Is that so?"
"You're an unusual type," he said. "You believe in yourself. That's 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."
Notice how Mr. Montsisi identifies the crucial ingredient within Mark that makes him different from the other blacks around him. He, unlike the rest of his people, has massive faith in himself and in his abilities. Many of the problems of racism in South Africa, Mr. Montsisi suggests, stem from the fact that the blacks allow their identity to be shaped by what the whites tell them about themselves. Mark is determined never to let anybody do that to him, and he vows to be the only person who shapes his own identity through his tremendous self-belief. The lessons for the reader are clear and obvious.