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"Crackling Day" by Peter Abrahams and “The Old Chief Mshlanga” by Doris Lessing are both stories that deal with the discrimination of the black race in South Africa. These stories present a viewpoint of life during the apartheid period in which the black race was treated as inferior because of the color of their skin. In "Crackling Day," a young black boy in South Africa challenges three white youths and, in so doing, challenges the political system of the whole country. In “The Old Chief Mshlanga,” a girl name Nkosikaas Jordan learns to see things through the eyes of the native inhabitants of South Africa and, in doing so, bring about a change in her character. In these stories the main characters confront internal and external conflicts about racism, human rights, and hopelessness. In both stories, the characters deal with an issue of racism in which one character faces it and the other causes it. In "Crackling Day," the narrator, a young black boy, is faced with hatred violence because of his ethic background. When the narrator went to the store to buy crackling for his mother, the storeowner made him beg and say, “Baas” because he was black. The narrator deals with both internal and external conflicts because he