Kaffir Boy Commotion
Books like Kaffir Boy are usually banned for the "explicit content" they provide. But great non-fiction books like these cannot be just left behind. Mark Mathabane’s astounding narrative book tells of an experience that many african americans have faced.
Many parents don’t want their children to be reading controversial books, and when topics like racism and homosexuality are aroused, they tend to challenge these books. For instance, at the age of seven Mark (a.k.a Johannes) was unknowingly lured into a hostel, where homosexual men offered food and money for sex (Mathabane 71). Parents concerns over this scene can be understood, because most children might think that it is normal to perform this action since it’s in a book. Moreover, some children will be revealed to the bitter truth and they will never trust their parents again. In addition, when Mark was ten years old he watched a man get brutally and mercilessly murdered by group of totsis (gangsters) (Mathabane 225). Mark made the mistake of adding too much detail in this scene causing it to be possibly disturbing to young readers. Furthermore, already emotionally troubled kids can be reveled to the utter horrors of death. Unintentionally, Mark has sparked a battle between the truth and censoring it, and it seems like censoring the truth is winning.
Many parents don’t want their children to be revealed to the harsh ways of the world. For example, Mark compares worrisome American parents to the Taliban, stating that “they are bands of parents who anoint themselves as thought and morality police” (USA Today). Doubtlessly Mark Mathabane is very right, after all what right do these parents have to control the thoughts and actions of these children. Instead of challenging this true story, parents should be boasting their children to read it because it teaches them to not give in to peer pressure, and to never give up. In addition, parents have used the sexual and murder-related scenes in Kaffir Boy as excuses to censor it (Contra Costa Times). These parents obviously haven’t been exposed to the true horrors of life and they don’t want their children to experience it either. Also, these over-protective parents are trying to rub off their taste and morality onto their children. Just like the Taliban, censorship is trying to demoralize our world.
Regardless of its numerous praises and awards, Kaffir Boy is one of the most commonly challenged books, and its reason for censorship is very irrational. This kind of narrow-mindedness must be obliterated from the world and there’s nowhere to start but in America, after all aren’t we the “land of the free”?
Works Cited
“Book Plumbs Agony of South African and His Nation.” The New York Times – Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 24 Sept. 1987. Web. 18 Nov. 2010.
Mathabane, Mark. Kaffir Boy: the True Story of a Black Youth’s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa. New York: Macmillan, 1986. Print.
Mathabane, Mark. “Like the Taliban, Some U.S Parents Fear Free Minds.” USA Today. 2008. Web. 18 Nov. 2010.
Patterson, Joe. “Burlingame’s “Kaffir Boy” Brouhaha.” Home – ContraCostaTimes.com. 13 Apr. 2007. Web. 19 Nov. 2010.
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