Kaffir Boy: Chapter 38 Summary & Analysis

Although the South African government forbids Arthur Ashe from entering the country for six years for making critical remarks about apartheid, in November 1973, they allow him to come play in a tournament. As they anticipate Ashe’s arrival, Mathabane becomes friends with a fellow player and sharp Zulu student named David. David remarks that if Ashe had made such critical remarks in South Africa, he likely would’ve numbered among the ranks of black activists who mysteriously “commit suicide” in prison, under the supervision of white authorities.

Since schools are not allowed to teach black history, David teaches Mathabane about the African National Congress (ANC) liberation movement. The ANC movement began in 1912 and sought the peaceful liberation of all black people in South Africa, following the example of Gandhi. However, the apartheid government refused to even negotiate, and many ANC leaders were driven underground. In Mathabane’s generation, tensions between the government and the ANC run high.

Even Wilfred is excited about Arthur Ashe’s arrival to South Africa. At the same time, another black boxer named Bob Foster beats a white opponent and, for the first time, the apartheid government allows photos of the fight to be published in the newspapers. However, Mathabane has no interest in boxing and he hates Bob Foster. Unlike Ashe, Foster refuses to speak out against apartheid, criticize the white government, or visit the ghettos, and many black people see him as a traitor, an “Uncle Tom.”

On the first day of Ashe’s tournament, Mathabane watches him win all of his matches in a packed stadium in Johannesburg. The minority of black spectators are ecstatic, and the mood in the black bus on the way home is overjoyed and energetic.

However, as the bus drives back into the ghetto toward Alexandra, Mathabane can feel everyone’s spirits fall as they see the rundown buildings and tired faces of black workers. Mathabane wonders how black Americans came to be so successful, and if they are somehow different than black South Africans. He thinks of all the famous black American athletes, writers, musicians, who descended from a slavery more extreme and severe than anything South Africans experienced. Somehow, black South Africans seem stunted as a people, unable to dream or achieve in the same way, which only perpetuates racist ideals of “white supremacy.” Mathabane realizes that he will never be able to truly rise to Ashe’s level of skill as long as he stays in South Africa.

Ashe wins his next several days of tournament games, seemingly aware that his performance will reflect on all black athletes’ ability in the minds of white Afrikaners. Mathabane is stuck by Ashe’s confidence while speaking to white people—if someone asks him a question he considers beneath him, he “dismisses” it and says what he wants to say.

At the end of the week, Ashe holds a tennis clinic in Soweto for black tennis players. Although Mathabane is not invited as an athlete, Wilfred gives him the fare to go to Soweto anyway to try to see Ashe once again. The train is so packed that people hang out the windows or ride on the roof, which results in several of them being electrocuted or falling to their death. According to the passengers, this is typical—the train is always packed. When Mathabane gets off the train and starts walking to the clinic, he sees a gang of tsotsis robbing and murdering a man “in broad daylight,” so he backtracks and takes a longer route instead.

On Mathabane’s way to the clinic, a drunk on the street claims that Arthur Ashe is “a gift,” and Mathabane reflects that he seems a “black messiah sent from strange shores to come liberate us,” to show black people what they can accomplish if they don’t let apartheid tell them who they are. However, when Mathabane finds Ashe standing on a stage, giving a speech, some black protesters tell the athlete to go home—even though they love him, they believe his “presence legitimizes the system.” Ashe loses his last match in South Africa to a white man, but before he leaves, he petitions government leaders to end apartheid in sports, or else international teams will boycott the country. He also states that “black patience” is running out quickly, and that “black moderates [are] turning into radicals and revolutionaries.”

When Ashe leaves, he forms the Black Tennis Foundation (BTF) which entices corporate sponsors to fund and promote black tennis leagues in South Africa. Hoping to get to America, Mathabane writes several letters to Ashe but hears no reply. Several younger players start seeing Mathabane as their role model, but many in Alexandra start to hate and threaten Mathabane for spending time in white communities and playing a white sport, calling him “Uncle Tom.” Mathabane starts being more cautious, but refuses to quit tennis or give up his white friends.