“Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness... Kaffirs are as a rule uncivilized... they are troublesome, very dirty, and live almost like animals.”
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About this quote
This is a documented passage from Gandhi's early years in South Africa, and its contempt for Black Africans reflects racist attitudes he is on record as holding then and later moved well beyond. It stands as historical evidence, not teaching, and is worth reading honestly rather than sanitizing.
When to use it
- A museum labels a founder's donated collection with the full record of how the money was made, not only the praise.
- A family reads an ancestor's old letters and talks openly about the bigotry in them instead of quietly skipping those pages.
- A history class studies a reformer's early prejudiced writing alongside his later change, so students meet a whole, flawed person.