A Walk in the Night & A dry white Season
Apartheid refers to a racial discrimination, which is based on economic, religious, political and social aspects of a person. This was incorporated in the constitution of South Africa from 1948 to 1994.It was employed to discriminate the Africans hence limiting them to access to state resources and basic needs. Martin (2005) asserts that this aspect was used by the European colonizers in order to reign with ease without objection and resistance from the local African people.
A walk in The Night film
The film features a worker in South Africa called Mikey. He works in a steel industry whereby he is sacked from his job majorly because of his race. This is because the reason given by his white supervisor cannot warrant dismissal from a job. The supervisor claimed that the worker broke the rules and regulations by going for break time before the stipulated time for employees. Mikey also happens to be of mixed race hence he is referred to as coloured. This aggravates his livelihood because this group of mixed race is discriminated by both the white and the African people. This culminates in isolation, rejection and consequent poverty among them. However, the white express more racism towards this group than do the Africans. His uncle, Doughty ridicules him of not having a white uncle. This angers Mikey, who murders him.
This bizarre situation of Mikey renders him vulnerable in many ways. For instance, he is compelled by circumstance, to take up a job as a courier for a drug dealer. This is a risky and an illegal venture yet Mikey could not afford to ignore it. Indeed, he fails to form a stable family of his own because he could not manage to fend for a family. His girlfriend’s brother, Joey also falls a victim of the discrimination of the white hence earns a living from criminal activities in their locality. Moreover, Joey has already indulged in prostitution in order to provide for his sister and her Mikey’s child. Mikey experiences difficult time operating in this society owing to the fact that racial police officers keep on pursuing him for no good reason. In addition, gangs also have added to his troubles .Indeed, life has become unbearable for him to the extent he has contemplated vacating the country to go to the United States of America.
A dry white Season film
This movie features a white and a black family in a rare cordial relationship. It highlights how a white man treats a black man with dignity against the wish of his colleagues, family and race. A school teacher named Benjamin du Toit employees a black man, called Gordon Ngubene as a gardener. However, the black has insufficient resources to improve his livelihood yet Benjamin has almost resource at his disposal given his race. This shows that the apartheid rules and regulations were in full force. One of Gordon’s children gets lost during a school demonstration. The situation got worse because the police exceeded their mandate by turning a peaceful demonstration into a riot.
Benjamin, does not care about his race hence he pursues the police because of the loss of his gardener’s child. He was warned by a certain professor, “…There are only two kinds of madness one should guard against, Ben. One is the belief that we can do everything. The other is the belief that we can do nothing.”Furthermore, Benjamin retorts that, “In an ordinary world, in a natural one, I might have succeeded. But not in this deranged, divided age. I can do all I can for Gordon or scores of others who have come to me; I can imagine myself in their shoes, I can project myself into their suffering. But I cannot, ever, live their lives for them. So what else could come of it but failure?
Whether I like it or not, whether I feel like cursing my own condition or not — and that would only serve to confirm my impotence — I am white. This is the small, final, terrifying truth of my broken world. I am white. And because I am white I am born into a state of privilege. Even if I fight the system that has reduced us to this I remain white, and favored by the very circumstances I abhor …” .He later takes part in a play as Marlon Brando where he gives consultancy on the prosecution of errand police. His colleagues are angered and disappointed by his actions. Indeed, even his family disowns him on this basis. This does not discourage Benjamin from addressing the injustice and cruelty of the police towards the Africans. He says, “. Even if I’m hated, and ostracized, and persecuted, and in the end destroyed, nothing can make me black. And so those who are cannot but remain suspicious of me. In their eyes my very efforts to identify myself with Gordon, whit all the Gordons, would be obscene.” This disillusioned the apartheid policy enforcers to the extent that Benjamin is ecstatic and, in denial of his role in the play, though he surpassed all the other players in performance.
References
Martin, P. M., & O’Meara, P. (2005). Africa. Bloomington: Iniana Univ.-Pr.
