Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer widely opened the door with her take on the segregated yet, integrated mindset under the institution of Apartheid. "Good climates. Friendly Inhabitants" brings a critical eye to the hypocrisy of apartheid. The reason for the being of apartheid is to separate the 'uncivilized' or colored folk from the more civilized people aka whites. Gordimer points out that apartheid crates a mindset not only enslaving the coloreds but the whites as well. The narrator of "Good Climates, Friendly Inhabitants" is a lonely struggling white woman who is conned by a mystery man. Jack, an African worker, is an intelligent, kind hearted person who distantly looks after the narrator. Even though jack is kind to the narrator, she still refers to him and other African in derogatory terms. While still being a good person at heart, her inhabitants have taught her that she should still be racist. Gordimer points out this contradiction to show that apartheid has warped the minds of not only the inferior but the superior people as well. In relation to Gordimer's observation, America has a warped mindset from the times of slavery and racial discrimination. 
August 2009, I left for my first year of college at Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana. Ball State is located in a very rural part of Indiana and most of the students there are from farms. In being white many of the students had never interact with a black person before including my roommate. Though she seemed polite and nice I began to sense of uneasy from her when we interacted. I walking around campus I began to notice people moving away from me, or other ethnic students that crowded around the bus stop. In deciding to ask someone about these strange happening I found out that the students were hesitant to interact with me because they had never done so with a black person before.  They were fearful to interact with me because of my color. Not because of my personality or not even because of the way I dressed or walked. The institution of racisms is still in abundance in the United States is in abundance. Even though slavery has been over for at least a century and the Civil Rights movement is a prominent mark in history experienced by mine and many others grandparents. Yet, the mindset of racism has carried on through many generations.
In the story “Amnesty” Gordimer brings attention to the woman on the home front keeping a house hold together while men go and fight against apartheid. She uses a lowly farm girl whose boyfriend is using his intelligence and the justice system to fight the oppression of apartheid. Women are the backbone to the movement. Though men receive all the publicity, it is the women of give the men something to fight for. This is a very common message for members of our society. Not only do women go out and have successful careers, have they also held down the household by cooking cleaning and caring for the children. As a single mother and a child of a single mother I can identify with the difficulty of the narrator of ‘Amnesty”. She struggles with the loneliness and condescending attitude of her boyfriend being off fighting with the Africa Nation Congress. I too must balance my happiness with the weight of the world and attitudes toward my position as a young single mother. Women are looked at as a nuance and hindering to the movement. Women are not giving their fare credit for their contributions to the movement and to life.   Women are the backbone to not only the movement, but to any society. Women keep life in the things the men are fighting for. Single mothers not only breathe life into society by holding down the house hold, but by fighting as well.