Born a Crime

Highlands North for the longest
time. I had an easier time making
friends in Eden Park, to be honest.
In the suburbs, everyone lived
behind walls. 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. There is no sitting on the
front porch, no saying hi to the
neighbors, no kids running back
and forth between houses. I’d ride
my bike around the neighborhood
for hours without seeing a single
kid. I’d hear them, though. They
were all meeting up behind brick