Apartheid

Apartheid is a form of institutionalized racism that was prevalent in South Africa during the mid to late 20th century (Inggs 5). However, what happened after apartheid? Was it one and done? As we’ve seen in America, changing laws doesn’t eliminate racism completely. Well first we need to realize the fact that the discrimination goes far beyond race. It is no longer appropriate to define race in relation to biological or cultural origins, because of the immense processes of hybridity unleashed in contemporary life due to globalization (Inggs 45). Now if discrimination is viewed as more than just race, and race is more than biological skin color, how should we define it? Well looking at the young adult literature in South Africa we can see discrimination is being placed more heavily and class and wealth. Sarah Britten is a white writer who wrote novels with characters that were discriminated due to their class and amount of wealth instead of their race. The books emphasize the changes in perceptions of race in culture in her novels, Dolby: The Worst Year of my Life–So Far (2000) and Welcome to the Martin Tudhope Show! (2002), both of which stand out from other works in terms of experimentation with narrative voice and technique (Inggs 46). The period after apartheid in South Africa was a transitional one and we can see from looking at young adult novels from the time that the ideas of race and discrimination were clearly changing. These ideas stayed consistent even in novels that starred colored main characters. Examples of books like these would be Fiona Snycker’s Team Trilogy (2013) and Edyth Bulbring’s A Month with April-May (2013) (Inggs 47). Both of these works follow a similar pattern of discrimination based on wealth and class, even though the protagonists and author are of color.

Works Cited

Inggs, J. (2016). Transition and Transgression: English Young Adult Fiction in Post-Apartheid South Africa. SpringerBriefs in Education. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-25534-7

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