Mark Mathabane, the author of Kaffir Boy, believes that a person should behave with strength and determination and stand by his or her own beliefs. His story of life as a black child in apartheid South Africa includes many scenes of poverty and extreme degradation. In one description of his life as a young boy, he is called a fool by other boys for refusing to prostitute himself for food and money, although he is almost starving. He writes,

Throughout all the years I lived in South Africa, people were calling me a fool for refusing to live life the way they did and by doing the things they did. Little did they realize that in our world, the black world, one could only survive if one played the fool, and bided his time.

Mathabane's story lends credibility to his perspective. He refuses to debase himself, as others do, even when starvation seems the only alternative. By the end of the book, through determination and a little luck, he ends up overcoming his harsh circumstances.

In Kaffir Boy, what are the author's beliefs, and are they credible?

Mark Mathabane, the author of Kaffir Boy, believes that the apartheid regime in South Africa was inhumane, and that more people should know about it. The preface states explicitly that the book is meant as an in-depth answer to people's questions about what it was like to grow up as a black child under apartheid. Evidence of the regime's cruelty appears throughout the book, especially in the first section, "The Road to Alexandra." In this section, Mathabane is a young child who lives in constant fear and degradation. In the opening scene, for example, he is cruelly beaten by police officers.

Mark Mathabane also believes in the importance of education. The second section of the book, "Passport to Knowledge," describes the author as an older child receiving gifts of books from a liberal white family. The woman who gives Mathabane the books is condescending, but the books themselves help him improve make more sense of his world. Without the education he received from books, Mathabane would never have been able to escape from South Africa.