Analysis Of Sindiwe Magona's 'Mother To Mother'

From Blouvlei to Guguletu
Black South Africans, before the early 1990s, were discriminated by and were segregated by the white South African community, due to their wealth and race. They were forced out of homes just to give room for white people, and were forced to comply with whatever a white person said. This had angered many black South Africans, who had to give up what they considered a decent life and instead had to go and live in an even worse condition. In Mother to Mother, SindiWe Magona explains the harsh reality and reasoning for why her neighbor’s son might have been responsible for the death of Amy Biehl- a white girl. Amy Biehl died due to a group of young black mob stabbing her with a knife. Magona gives the readers insight into …show more content…
In Mother to Mother, SindiWe explains how the town of Guguletu is filled with crime. It got to the point where killing someone from their township was common and no one gave a care in the world. Much of this was due to how poor the town was. White people were the ones who mostly had money, the average black South African barely had enough to fend for their family. Guguletu was a town made up of black South Africans, who were forced out of their previous town to live in “sad small houses crowned with gray and flat unsmiling roofs… oppressed by all that surrounds them”(Magona 27). These people had better lives previously and were forced into a new town, because the white South Africans wanted the other town for themselves. The people of Guguletu were forced into homes that were as depressing as their lives were in the town. They had very little opportunity to make something of themselves. There was no life, or color in the town, since every house looked the same, small with gray flat roofs. People were so numb to their surroundings that people resorted to killing and stealing, and the police would only make things