Born a Crime: Chapters 9–14

If they trace their lineage back far enough, at a certain point it splits into white and native and a tangled web of “other.”

Since their native mothers are gone, their strongest affinity has always been with their white fathers, the Afrikaners.

I was the anomaly wherever we lived.

But try being a black person who immerses himself in white culture while still living in the black community. Try being a white person who adopts the trappings of black culture while still living in the white community.

You will face more hate and ridicule and ostracism than you can even begin to fathom.

You will face more hate and ridicule and ostracism than you can even begin to fathom.

People are willing to accept you if they see you as an outsider trying to assimilate into their world.

Because if you work hard enough you can erase this taint from your bloodline.

All you had to do was denounce your people, denounce your history, and leave your darker-skinned friends and family behind.

Many colored people lived in this limbo, a true purgatory, always yearning for the white fathers who disowned them, and they could be horribly racist to one another as a result.

The worst way to insult a colored person was to infer that they were in some way black.

Now the finish line is back where the starting line was, and the benchmark is black.

“You think you’re high class?”—uppity, people would say in America.

Then, in a split second, before I could even react, all of these kids started pelting me with berries...

I tried to cover my face with my hands, but there was a barrage coming at me from all sides.

Then I mustered up all of my courage and turned to her.

She was the master of coasting. She knew every downhill between work and school, between school and home. She knew exactly where the gradient shifted to put it into neutral.

Being a Model C school and not a government school, Sandringham drew kids from all over, making it a near-perfect microcosm of post-apartheid South Africa as a whole—a perfect example of what South Africa has the potential to be.

At Sandringham we’d buy our lunch at what we call the tuck shop, a little canteen, and then have free rein to go wherever we wanted on the school grounds to eat—the quad, the courtyard, the playground, wherever.

At Sandringham we’d buy our lunch at what we call the tuck shop, a little canteen, and then have free rein to go wherever we wanted on the school grounds to eat—the quad, the courtyard, the playground, wherever.

Even with so many different groups to choose from, I wasn’t a natural constituent of any particular one.

Thanks to my long walk to school, I was late every single day. I’d have to stop off in the prefect’s office to write my name down for detention.

I’d found my niche. Since I belonged to no group I learned to move seamlessly between groups.

I’d found my niche. Since I belonged to no group I learned to move seamlessly between groups.

In high school, the attention of girls was not an affliction I suffered from.

The only thing I had going for me was the fact that I was tall, but even there I was gangly and awkward-looking.

In the interest of survival, the smart move was to stay on the fringe, stay out of trouble.

Johanna and I had been at the same school intermittently our whole lives.

The white neighborhoods of Johannesburg were built on white fear—fear of black crime, fear of black uprisings and reprisals—and as a result virtually every house sits behind a six-foot wall, and on top of that wall is electric wire.

The white neighborhoods of Johannesburg were built on white fear—fear of black crime, fear of black uprisings and reprisals—and as a result virtually every house sits behind a six-foot wall, and on top of that wall is electric wire.

Everyone lives in a plush, fancy maximum-security prison.

My mom used to call him Bugs Bunny; he had a cheeky smile with two big teeth that stuck out the front of his mouth.

There was this stationery shop that sold greeting cards and magazines, and it didn’t have a door, so when it closed at night there was only a metal gate, like a trellis, that was pulled across the entrance and padlocked.

You’ll be at a party with a dozen people where bits of conversation are flying by in two or three different languages. You’ll miss part of it, someone might translate on the fly to give you the gist, you pick up the rest from the context, and you just figure it out.

By the end of high school I’d become a mogul.

They would find some patch of arid, dusty, useless land, and dig row after row of holes in the ground—a thousand latrines to serve four thousand families.

I’d scrimped and saved my tuck-shop money and my CD money to buy them.

The dance was being held at some venue in a part of town I wasn’t familiar with, and at some point I got completely turned around and had no idea where I was.

Babiki was so shy that she didn’t talk much to begin with, and I was so inept with women that I didn’t know how to talk to her.

When my grandmother and great-grandmother were hysterically praying to God to destroy the demon...all of that transpired in Xhosa, but it’s stored in English.