Diversity In African Society

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Modern African society has been divided, and even further divides itself, in a multitude of ways. There are the obvious racial divisions; the class divisions and even more subdivisions within each of these. I will discuss how these divisions have come about, as well as how they overlap to create the society we know today. According to Seekings (2018), ‘modern’ in this context refers to the product of a process of ‘modernisation’, i.e. a process of profound social and economic change. It does not merely mean ‘present-day’ or ‘current’. ‘Us’ and ‘them’ is never fixed, any sort of deviance from the norm is dependent on positionality. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies (2016) define positionality as how we are positioned…show more content…
Black workers were dehumanised; the white people treated them as objects instead of humans. They were fired for no reason and simply replaced by another black person that would be subject to the exact same treatment. Even if a white person was not a manager, they still had power over all black workers. Racial abuse was the norm in the workplace, both verbal and physical. White workers would kick black workers, knowing that they would face absolutely no repercussions. This created an atmosphere of fear. The apartheid workplace regime was obviously authoritarian with intimidation being a key…show more content…
Phadi, M and Ceruti, C (2013) address class division in Soweto. People in Soweto know about class and it impacts the way they view themselves. There are four main classes, which class you belong to is determined by ‘affordability’; i.e. the capability to uphold a specific a way of life. These four main classes are: lower class, upper class, middle class and working class. Lower class was less likely to have post-school qualifications, many only having completed primary school. Inadequate schooling was both an agent and a repercussion of being lower class. They usually had more negative
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