Born a Crime

know I was there; she thought I was gone because the car was gone. I heard Panther barking in the backyard, looked out, and ther ...

gate and rang the doorbell. This colored kid answered. “May I help you?” he said. “Yeah. My dog is in your yard.” “What?” “My do ...

That’s Fufi!” “No, that’s my dog, Spotty.” “No, that’s Fufi, my friend.” “No, this is Spotty.” “How could this be Spotty? She do ...

“I don’t know who you are,” he said, “but you better get out of here.” Then he went into the house and got his mom and she came ...

raced home, tears running down my face. I loved Fufi so much. To see her with another boy, acting like she didn’t know me, after ...

the mom. “Look, this is our dog.” This lady lied to my mom’s face. “This is not your dog. We bought this dog.” “You didn’t buy t ...

the house. This time we brought Panther with us, as part of the proof. My mom showed this lady the pictures and the information ...

I just wanted Fufi back. Once Fufi saw Panther she came right away. The dogs left with us and we walked. I sobbed the whole way ...

to me. The hard thing was understanding that Fufi wasn’t cheating on me with another boy. She was merely living her life to the ...

lucky to learn that lesson at such a young age. I have so many friends who still, as adults, wrestle with feelings of betrayal. ...

When I was twenty-four years old, one day out of the blue my mother said to me, “You need to find your father.” “Why?” I asked. ...

he is. Too many men grow up without their fathers, so they spend their lives with a false impression of who their father is and ...

ROBERT My father is a complete mystery. There are so many questions about his life that I still cannot even begin to answer. Whe ...

How’d he end up in South Africa? I haven’t a clue. I’ve never met my Swiss grandparents. I don’t know their names or anything ab ...

never addressed him “Daddy” or “Father,” either. I couldn’t. I was instructed not to. If we were out in public or anywhere peopl ...

hotel room and leaves it cleaner than when he arrived. He doesn’t like anyone waiting on him. No servants, no housekeepers. He c ...

book. I’m sure my parents would have been caught in their time together if he hadn’t been as private as he is. My mom was wild a ...

full of black people,” he would say. “So why would you come all the way to Africa if you hate black people? If you hate black pe ...

restaurants needed them to serve black travelers and diplomats from other countries, who in theory weren’t subject to the same r ...

to see what it was like to sit with black people. The white people would sit and watch the black people eat, and the black peopl ...