South African American Homelands

481 Words2 Pages
Homelands are separated “regional territories governed by autonomous and semiautonomous local leaders” based on one’s ethnicity. They serve the needs of gathering wealth in a racial state. Homelands were primarily devised to absorb the black surplus population in white areas. This occurred when black people became no longer necessary to serve the needs of white men. Expenditures on homelands were often schemes for “conspicuous consumption for government officials” . Corruption, repression and dishonest manipulation during elections were apart of daily life in all homelands. Ideological manipulation was used to justify new policies. In the 1950s and 1960s a policy called grand Apartheid was enacted. The black people were forcedly allocated into the black homelands, which situated along the outskirts of white regions of South Africa. Industries devised local sources of employment in the homelands through sources of government subsidies. The goal was intended to “slow down the illegal movement of blacks” into the rest of South Africa once…show more content…
Through methods of disciplinary, black people provided cheap labour that had been sustained within homelands for the industries. This created wealth and power for white people in areas of terrible poverty. In the factories, “wages are low, working conditions are often poor and workers protection are often minimal” for black people. Women on average earned R75 a month, whereas men earned between R75 and R100 a month in QwaQwa. However in actuality, sixty percent of QwaQwa’s industrial workers earned less than R60 a month. Wage levels were generally accepted without challenge due to fear in regions of mass unemployment and poverty. Black women provided a “cheap labour and hard-working labour force” . They lowered their self-worth and respect to survive and provide for their children as best as they
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