Born a Crime

were out in the streets, hustling,
trying to act as if we were in some
way down with the gangs, but the
truth was we were always more
cheese than hood. We had created
this idea of ourselves as a defense
mechanism to survive in the world
we were living in. Bongani and the
other East Bank guys, because of
where they were from, what they
looked like—they just had very little
hope. You’ve got two options in that
situation. You take the retail job,
flip burgers at McDonald’s, if you’re
one of the lucky few who even gets
that much. The other option is to
toughen up, put up this facade. You