Born a Crime

taught more about World War II than the typical black kids in the townships were, but only in a basic way. We weren’t taught to ...

Poland and in 1941 he invaded the Soviet Union and in 1943 he did something else. They’re just facts. Memorize them, write them ...

and kill one person, Belgium’s King Leopold would come way before Hitler. If Native Americans could go back in time and kill one ...

that’s really what it comes down to. Holocaust victims count because Hitler counted them. Six million people killed. We can all ...

So in Europe and America, yes, Hitler is the Greatest Madman in History. In Africa he’s just another strongman from the history ...

Successful black families were moving to the suburbs, but their kids still wanted to have block parties and stay connected to th ...

learning about and embracing one another in this post-apartheid era. This kid’s mom asked us if we wanted to play at a cultural ...

booked a minibus, loaded it up with our gear, and drove over. Once we arrived we waited in the back of the school’s assembly hal ...

“Yeahhhhhh!” “Make some noise!” “Yeahhhhhh!” I started playing. The bass was bumping, my crew was dancing, and everyone was havi ...

“Are you guys ready?!” “Yeahhhhhh!” “You guys are not ready! Are you ready?!” “Yeeeaaahhhhhhhh!” “All right! Give it up and make ...

ler!” And I was right there on the mic leading them along. “Go Hit- ler! Go Hit-ler! Go Hit-ler! Go Hit- ler!” The whole room st ...

A teacher ran up behind me and yanked the plug for my system out of the wall. The hall went dead silent, and she turned on me an ...

teacher ran out, so clearly the dance was the thing she found so disgusting. But this was a move that African people do all the ...

And there it was. You people. Now I saw what the deal was: This lady was racist. She couldn’t see black men dancing suggestively ...

just white people. All I was hearing was some white lady shouting about how white people beat us before and they’ll beat us agai ...

school. We danced out. We danced down the street pumping our fists in the air. “Go Hit-ler! Go Hit-ler! Go Hit-ler! Go Hit-ler!” ...

Alexandra was a farm originally named for the wife of the white man who owned it. Like Sophiatown and other black spots populati ...

fought and held on and asserted its right to exist. Wealthy white suburbs like Sandton grew around it, but Alex remained. More s ...

can’t do that. Alex can’t get any bigger, because it’s pinned in on all sides, and it can’t build up, because it’s mostly shacks ...

THE CHEESE BOYS My friend Bongani was a short, bald, super-buff guy. He wasn’t always that way. His whole life he’d been skinny, ...