Mark Mathabane's K*ffir Boy, Black Consciousness, and the Fallacies of Liberalism

Abstract

Offering a sustained reading of Mark Mathabane's K*ffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa (1986), this essay examines autobiography in light of Steve Biko's thought to demonstrate how Mathabane's stated goals of challenging racism and advancing liberation for Black people are in conflict with his liberalism. Interrogating autobiography in view of Black Consciousness philosophy brings into stark relief contradictions that inform its racial politics. As I read work against grain and probe reasons for its enduring popularity among US readers, I show that, paradoxically, Mathabane both conceals and makes visible workings of white supremacy. While Mathabane argues that white liberals are not responsible for apartheid, he unwittingly demonstrates opposite, thereby exposing how white liberals worked alongside white nationalists to uphold racial dictatorship in South Africa. The autobiography thus illustrates what Biko calls the totality of white power structure, namely how white people work as a collective across ideological boundaries to maintain racist status quo. In process, work shows that attempt to fold Black people into logics of liberalism upholds racism that liberalism depends upon. Ultimately, K*ffir Boy reveals not only fallacies of liberalism and impossibility of white antiracism, but also unwavering importance of Black Consciousness in ongoing struggle for Black liberation.