Blacks- The Discriminated Species The English and Dutch subject the blacks in South Africa to racial segregation since the colonization of Africa. However, the “apartheid” comes into action in 1948 and thereby the “racial discrimination was institutionalized” (Stanford.edu). The root of the word apartheid comes from Dutch word apart ‘separate’ + heid, which means the state of being apart. The blacks are deprived of the respect and rights enjoyed by the whites. Fortunately, there has been uprising around the world against apartheid to make Africa void of racial prejudice. Authors have written millions of literary works to educate the people about the discrimination faced by the blacks. Once upon a time by Nadine Gordimer and the article the history of apartheid in South Africa by Stanford.edu are some of the remarkable examples of those literary works. In the short story, Gordimer picks out the danger of a single story on the blacks being framed as thieves and murderers. Similarly, the article provides circumstances that led to apartheid and consequential widespread discrimination of the blacks in South Africa. In both the literary works, the authors use language, allusion and context to highlight the biased and backbreaking situation faced by the blacks in Africa.
Both Nadine Gordimer and Stanford.edu use harsh diction in their language to prove that black South Africans have to confront innumerable injustice and brutal violence. The blacks are fighting for justice since the apartheid came into action. Just as in once upon a time, the blacks are being shooed away by the “police and soldiers and tear-gas and guns” (26), so too in the article by Stanford: “fines, imprisonment, and whippings” (Stanford.edu). The choice of words of Nadine Gordimer is more of criticism as she chastises the single story on blacks being framed as murderers, thieves and as people “looking for their chance…” (28). However, the precise diction in the article such as “sanctioning”, “domination”, “institutionalized”, “ethnic”, “colonization” directly tells the readers about the happenings in Africa during the apartheid. It also gives details of the sufferings of the people - “sixty-nine people dead and one hundred and eighty seven people wounded” (Stanford.edu). The diction in both the literary works lead to one conclusion: prejudice and violence against the blacks. For example, the article the history of apartheid in South Africa says that the blacks in South Africa are classified into groups based on “appearance, social acceptance, and descent” (Stanford.edu) and are devoid of “habits, education, and speech and deportment and demeanor” (Stanford.edu), whereas Nadine Gordimer classifies the black people as the “people of another color” (25). Along with the diction and language, allusion also points out the injustice against the blacks in Africa during the apartheid.
Both the short story and the article use allusion to indicate the alienation of blacks due to territorial restrictions in their own homeland. Allusion is a reference to a person, place, or thing that is known from history or any work of literature. In once upon a time, the “wise old witch”, the man’s mother, is a representation of the racist colonizers, who utterly believes in isolation of the blacks from whites by building electrical high walls around their houses and have their houses secured under an “array of different varieties of security fences, walls and devices”(29). Similarly, the article tells about the “Bantu Authorities Act” which made African reserves, known as “homelands [which] denationalized nine million South Africans” (Stanford.edu). The blacks residing at the homelands need passports to enter South Africa, thereby making themselves “aliens in their own country” (Stanford.edu). In addition, the website also sheds light on the fact that the blacks are foreigners as many parts of Africa are labeled as “non-black” areas, where “all blacks were required to carry pass books containing finger prints, photo and information on access to non-black areas” (Stanford.edu). Hence, the alienation of the blacks is exemplified by the allusion in both OUAT and the article. In addition to allusion, cultural context in Africa will clarify the bias and discrimination against the blacks as well. The cultural context in OUAT is that a polish white family residing amongst the blacks who are battling with extreme poverty and struggling for jobs, wages, and food, and later on breaking on to riots and uprisings. In OUAT, Gordimer describes the riots during the apartheid- “there were riots…buses were being burned, cars stoned, and school children shot by the police in those quarters out of sight and hearing of the suburb” (26), whereas, as stated in the article, the results are “deaths of thousands of individuals in custody, frequently after gruesome acts of torture”. (Stanford.edu), where as in the short story, the outcomes are facing the “police and soldiers and tear-gas and guns” (26). As in the short story, where people are ready to do anything for a wage: “weeding or painting a roof; anything, baas, madam” (27), the article also describes about racial laws that sanction “white-only” jobs (Stanford.edu). Figure one of the article shows the ratio of average earnings between the blacks and the whites as one is to fourteen. This indicates huge earning gaps between the two sections of people whose skin colors are different. Diction, allusion and context in once upon a time and the article history of apartheid in South Africa analyze the biased situation faced by the blacks. The main goal of Nadine Gordimer and the website are to spread awareness that the blacks and whites deserve equal rights. They want the world to know the pain and torture the blacks suffered during the apartheid just because they have a different skin color. Chocolate colored skin do not make blacks a different species. Fortunately, the apartheid is no more and the blacks live with the same rights as of whites. South Africa is finally free of racial segregation because of the sacrifices of millions of people.