Racist Attitudes and Their Influences in "Master Harold" ... and the boys
             We have all heard the saying that the rich keep getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer. This somewhat describes South Africa in the 1950s. During this time in Africa, the white people kept getting more powerful while the black population kept getting weaker. South Africa's apartheid system gave powerful odds to the whites and created a racist society. In "Master Harold" ... and the boys, a book set around the 1950s and during the apartheid system, the racist attitudes from the apartheid system and Hally's parents affected how Hally treated Sam and Willie, who are black and work for Hally's mother. These attitudes over-shadowed the good relationship Sam and Hally had built through most of Hally's childhood.
             "Apartheid was a system that deliberately set out to humiliate black people, even to the point of relegating them to separate benches, entails the danger of habitual indifference to the everyday detail that shape black and white relationship and finally, perverts them." (Durbach 69). South Africa passed laws and acts making the black people's lives degrading and ensured the white superiority. Four laws were passed in 1950 which included the Population Registration Act, Group Areas Act, the Amendment to the Immorality Act, and the suppression of the Communism Act. These laws did several things including classified people by color, governed areas for living according to race and controlled ownership of property, prohibited sexual contact across racial lines, and removed due process of laws for blacks. (Durbach 69).
             Apartheid was used in South Africa because the whites, while a minority in the population, wanted to be in control of the government and society. The way anything that is smaller in size, and therefore weaker, is able to get power is through intimidation. The whites made themselves...