Kaffir Boy

Mathabane makes the junior championship team, but it is uncertain whether the government will allow the championships to take place. Southern Transvaal, the author’s team, again triumphs in the team competition, and the author learns that Arthur Ashe has won Wimbledon, causing blacks to feel a sense of pride. Mathabane is more determined than ever to reach America.

Many of the author’s friends are killed or have disappeared, and others become parts of guerrilla bands that run sorties back into the country to blow up government targets. After seeing many of his friends get picked up by the police, Mathabane is afraid he is next and begins to go to church, where he feels safe. Churches begin preaching revolution and funerals become ANC protests.

The author become friends with the white tennis player Andre Zietsman. They play at white courts, in spite of the danger, and speak openly. Andre tells Mathabane about living in America, where there is no system of enforced segregation. He admits that his reaction to this type of system, after being told that he was racially superior, is confusion. He particularly finds it strange to socialize with black people. The author vows to reach America, the “Promised Land” (342).

Mathabane’s friendship with Andre convinces him that whites can be redeemed. His family again hits hard times as his mother gives birth to her seventh child, a girl named Linah. There are now five girls and two boys. His father is not employed, and the author searches in vain for piece jobs because he is too well educated and does not have a pass. Andre gives him money, tennis clothes, and tennis rackets that tie his family over.

The author is close to graduation, and Simba Quix, the company that gave him his scholarship, invites him to work there as a black salesman, whom the company pays on par with whites. The author’s relatives, including Uncle Piet, urge him to accept the offer and to live like the blacks in Dube, a wealthy black area of Soweto. Yet the author still yearns to be free and wonders how he can get to America.

In September of 1977, the press announces the death of Black Consciousness Movement leader Steven Biko in police custody. Western nations ask for an end to draconian laws, which only become more draconian in the aftermath of his death, as gatherings of over three black people are outlawed. Blacks turn to increasingly violent plans, such as storming white kindergartens, and Mathabane continues to seek solace in books and tennis.

Helmut asks Mathabane to consider participating in the South African Breweries (SAB) Open, but the author isn’t sure. As South Africa has been banned from international competition such as the Olympics, they seek to portray sports as integrated and invite blacks to play in tournaments but do nothing to help black athletics at lower levels of competition. The author feels he would be used by whites, but Helmut tells him it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet Americans who might be able to help him get to the U.S.

In the meantime, he trains fiendishly and practices with Andre. He receives death threats, and his mother advises him to work for the Simba Chips company rather than pressing his luck and trying to reach America. Owen Williams, the founder of the SAB Open, tells Mathabane that change begins in small ways and that playing in the tournament will help the cause of blacks in South Africa. 

Neither Wilfred nor the author’s family can come to his match in the SAB Open at Ellis Park. Blacks think he is a traitor for participating, so he takes a taxi, which Wilfred has paid for, rather than take the bus. He loses to a left-handed player named Abe Segal in two sets. The author learns he has been banned from the game from the black tennis establishment, as he feared he might, and Owen Williams tells him to wait until the end of the tournament to deal with the issue.

Returning to Ellis Park, the author meets the greatest doubles team in the world, Stan Smith and Bob Lutz. Stan Smith invites the author to hit some balls and gives him some helpful suggestions on his game. Mathabane also meets Stan Smith’s girlfriend, Marjory Gengler, and they have a snack together during which the author tells them about his life. They react with genuine concern. They continue to hang out during their stay in South Africa, and Stan Smith promises to investigate scholarships in America and helps Mathabane sign up for a series of upcoming tournaments called the Sugar Circuit (and Smith pays for it, something the author’s father could have never done). Mathabane and his mother fall to their knees in prayer when he tells her the news.

The black tennis establishment is angry that the author has received Stan Smith’s help. Mathabane is to stay in Cape Town with the head of the Transkeian Consulate, a leader from the Xhosa people who has been declared an honorary white so that he can live among whites. This proves to blacks that white rules are entirely arbitrary. Black people think of him as traitor, and Mathabane is eager to meet him to ask him why he has made this decision.

The author flies to Port Elizabeth and is confused about whether he should use the bathrooms, as he is the only black person on the plane. He stays in a luxurious hotel suite that costs as much as his family could have lived on for months, and he is embarrassed by the servile attitude of the black people who work at the hotel, who say that they have to refer to him with deference or they will be fired. He befriends many Americans in the tournament.

Mathabane loses his singles match and won one doubles match before losing the second. He flies to Cape Town, where the Transkeian diplomat and his wife meet him at the airport. He sprains his ankle while jogging and loses his match in two sets. The author feels sure his chance to play in America is in jeopardy, but he rouses himself out of his depression by giving tennis clinics in Guguletu and Nyanga, areas like Alexandra. The diplomat tells him that he wants to work against apartheid from inside and takes him to the Crossroads Squatters Camp, which is worse than any ghetto with people living in plastic shacks without running water. The people living there are to be stripped of citizenship and returned to their tribal reserves, even though the government does not care that they have no way to earn a living there.

From playing on the Sugar Circuit, the author realizes that he needs to play against whites to improve his game, so he decides to apply for membership at the exclusive Wanderers Lawn Tennis Club. There, he speaks with the President named Ferguson, who tells him that he is eager to have Mathabane as the first black member but that the committee is unlikely to allow him in because they would have to build separate showers, restaurants, etc. He thinks the author could play in tournaments and use the workers’ facilities, but Mathabane is tired of living this way and wonders if he will ever get to America.

Reading the newspaper, Mathabane notices that his name has been left out of the people who had passed the matriculation exams. He goes to his school, where he found other students who claim they have failed because the government does not want them to continue their protests in the universities.

Mathabane learns he has not passed the exam because he failed a test in Tsonga, his mother’s language. When the principal appeals to the department of education, they say that they changed the author’s results from a third-class pass to a second-class, but it still isn’t good enough to attend a tribal university. He tells his mother that he does want to take the job at the Simba Chips company but continues to hope to go to America. The author receives a letter from Stan Smith saying he is still working on Mathabane’s scholarship. Mathabane joins an elite white tennis squad and becomes more comfortable with the players, but, unlike them, his family cannot afford to send him abroad to tournaments.

Mathabane is arrested for being in a white neighborhood after curfew and for not having a pass. He tries to get one, but he is unsuccessful because his parents do not have a permit. He continues to play tennis, and his relationship with his father is very strained because he does not have a job. In addition, his mother is suffering from diabetes.

The author has Andre’s help in applying for a job at Barclays Bank, as his father is on the executive board, and Andre says not to worry if he doesn’t have a pass. He gets the job and heads to the pass office, where he is subjected to indignities such as a physical evaluation before being granted a pass. He starts working as a bookkeeper and earns three times what his parents earn and helps his siblings afford books and nourishing food. He is given a raise and told he had a good future in banking. His mother tells him that they should consider moving to Tembisa, as Alexandra is to be demolished. 

Mathabane continues to play in white tournaments to improve his game and meets famous players. He one day receives two letters from America. One is from George Toley, Stan Smith’s coach at USC, who tells him he is working on getting him a scholarship, and another from Dick Benjamin, the Princeton tennis coach who has heard about the author from Toley. He includes an application and says that the author could qualify for a scholarship. He also receives letters from 40 other universities and chooses some among them to apply to. He keeps the news about the scholarship a secret from his mother. About a month later, he receives a reply from Princeton stating that if he is admitted, they will pay for his tuition, room, and board. He begins to worry that he will not get a passport, despite the government’s minimal softening in the wake of President Carter’s human rights agenda. He tells his mother he will earn enough money before leaving for school to pay for his siblings’ education.

He receives a letter from Limestone College in Gaffney, South Carolina, telling him he has a full tennis scholarship. He keeps the news secret for days, thinking it can’t be true. He tells his family at last, but his mother advises him to keep the news secret from others because of their fear of retaliation. He reads at the American Consulate about the United States. When he first goes to the Department of the Interior, he was told he could not get a passport until after school started, but when a white multi-millionaire gives him money to buy a plane ticket, he receives his passport.

On September 16, 1978, his family watches him pack his bags. Other blacks regard his departure as a miracle. His mother, aged 44, cries tears of joy. As the author kisses his father, he realizes he still loves his father dearly, and his father tells him to take care of himself. He worries about his parents in the land of apartheid. He knows he can never forget the land of his birth.

A neighbor who has never been to the airport agrees to drive him, and the author says goodbye to his siblings. He hopes for his brother to achieve his dreams, and he follows destiny by leaving for the U.S.