"Born a Crime" by Trevor Noah
Each blank space corresponds to a single word.
When I was born, my
hadn’t seen her family in three years,
she wanted me to know them
wanted them to know me, so
prodigal
returned. We lived in
, but I would spend weeks at
time with my grandmother in Soweto,
during the holidays. I have so
memories from the place that in
mind it’s like we lived there,
. Soweto was
to be bombed—that’s
forward-thinking the architects of
were.
township was a city unto itself,
a population of nearly one million.
were only two roads in and
. That was so the military could
us in, quell any rebellion. And
the monkeys ever went crazy and
to break out of their
, the air force could fly over and
the shit out of everyone. Growing
, I never knew that my grandmother
in the center of a bull’s-eye.
the city, as difficult as it
to get around, we managed. Enough
were out and about, black, white,
colored, going to and from work,
we could get lost in the
. But only black
were permitted
Soweto. It was much harder to
someone who looked like me, and
government was watching much more closely.
the white areas you rarely saw
police, and if you did it
Officer Friendly in his collared shirt
pressed pants. In Soweto the police
an occupying army. They didn’t wear collared
. They wore riot gear. They
militarized. They operated in teams known
flying squads, because they would swoop
out of nowhere, riding in armored
carriers —hippos, we called them—tanks with
tires and slotted holes in the
of the vehicle to fire their
out of. You didn’t mess with
hippo. You saw one, you ran.
was a fact of life. The
was in a constant state of
; someone was always marching or protesting
and had to be suppressed. Playing
my grandmother’s house, I’d hear gunshots,
, tear gas being fired into crowds.
memories of the hippos and the
squads come from when I was
or six, when apartheid was finally
apart. I never saw the police
that, because we could never risk
police seeing me. Whenever we went
Soweto, my grandmother refused to let
outside. If she was watching me
was, “No, no, no. He doesn’t
the house.” Behind the wall, in
yard, I could play, but not
the street. And that’s where the
of the boys and girls were
, in the street. My cousins, the
kids, they’d open the gate and
out and roam free and come
at dusk. I’d beg my grandmother
go outside. “Please.
, can I
play with my cousins?” “No! They’re
to take you!” For the longest
I thought she meant that the
kids were going to steal me,
she was talking about the police.
could be taken. Children were taken.
wrong color kid in the wrong
area, and the government
come
, strip your
of custody, haul
off to an orphanage. To police
townships, the government relied on its
of impipis, the anonymous snitches who’d
on suspicious activity. There were also
blackjacks, black people who worked for
police. My grandmother’s neighbor was a
. She had to make sure he
watching when she smuggled me in
out of the house. My gran
tells the story of when I
three years old and, fed up
being a prisoner, I dug a
under the gate in the driveway, wriggled
, and ran
. Everyone panicked.
search party went out and tracked
down. I had no idea how
danger I was putting everyone in.
family could have
deported, my
could have been arrested, my mom
have gone to prison, and I
would have
packed off to
home for colored kids. So I
kept inside. Other than those few
of walking in the park, the
of memory I have from when
was young are almost all indoors,
with my mom in her tiny
, me by myself at my gran’s.
didn’t have any friends. I didn’t
any kids besides my cousins. I
a lonely kid—I was good at
alone. I’d read books, play with
toy that I had, make up
worlds. I lived inside my
. I still live
my head. To
day you can leave me alone
hours and I’m
happy entertaining
. I have to remember to be
people.
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