Tsotsis Term Analysis

...monotonous course.” People like Mathabane’s parents work all week and struggle to survive. On payday, tsotsis (gangsters) come to extort some of their money. Over the weekends, black people in Alexandra... (full context)

...Alexandra with a “gang” of boys between six and eight years old. They admire the tsotsis in their sharp suits and shiny shoes, and sometimes hunt for empty beer bottles to... (full context)

...remarks that she wishes she’d hauled her own son to school; instead he became a tsotsi. Now he’s dead. (full context)

...year, Mathabane witnesses a murder. As he is walking home one afternoon, he sees six tsotsis chasing two unarmed men. At the sight of gangsters, Mathabane quickly hides himself in some... (full context)

One of the men escapes, but the tsotsis corner the other in a yard and begin “carving” him with knives, machetes, and tomahawks,... (full context)

...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... (full context)