Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood(18)

“How come you speak our languages?” they asked.

“Because I’m black,” I said, “like you.”

“You’re not black.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not. Have you not seen yourself?”

They were confused at first. Because of my color, they thought I was a colored person, but speaking the same languages meant that I belonged to their tribe. It just took them a moment to figure it out. It took me a moment, too.

At some point I turned to one of them and said, “Hey, how come I don’t see you guys in any of my classes?” It turned out they were in the B classes, which also happened to be the black classes. That same afternoon, I went back to the A classes, and by the end of the day I realized that they weren’t for me. Suddenly, I knew who my people were, and I wanted to be with them. I went to see the school counselor.

“I’d like to switch over,” I told her. “I’d like to go to the B classes.”

She was confused. “Oh, no,” she said. “I don’t think you want to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because those kids are…you know.”

“No, I don’t know. What do you mean?”

“Look,” she said, “you’re a smart kid. You don’t want to be in that class.”

“But aren’t the classes the same? English is English. Math is math.”

“Yeah, but that class is…those kids are gonna hold you back. You want to be in the smart class.”

“But surely there must be some smart kids in the B class.”

“No, there aren’t.”

“But all my friends are there.”

“You don’t want to be friends with those kids.”

“Yes, I do.”

We went back and forth. Finally she gave me a stern warning.

“You do realize the effect this will have on your future? You do understand what you’re giving up? This will impact the opportunities you’ll have open to you for the rest of your life.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

I moved to the B classes with the black kids. I decided I’d rather be held back with people I liked than move ahead with people I didn’t know.

Being at H. A. Jack made me realize I was black. Before that recess I’d never had to choose, but when I was forced to choose, I chose black. The world saw me as colored, but I didn’t spend my life looking at myself. I spent my life looking at other people. I saw myself as the people around me, and the people around me were black. My cousins are black, my mom is black, my gran is black. I grew up black. Because I had a white father, because I’d been in white Sunday school, I got along with the white kids, but I didn’t belong with the white kids. I wasn’t a part of their tribe. But the black kids embraced me. “Come along,” they said. “You’re rolling with us.” With the black kids, I wasn’t constantly trying to be. With the black kids, I just was.





Before apartheid, any black South African who received a formal education was likely taught by European missionaries, foreign enthusiasts eager to Christianize and Westernize the natives. In the mission schools, black people learned English, European literature, medicine, the law. It’s no coincidence that nearly every major black leader of the anti-apartheid movement, from Nelson Mandela to Steve Biko, was educated by the missionaries—a knowledgeable man is a free man, or at least a man who longs for freedom.

The only way to make apartheid work, therefore, was to cripple the black mind. Under apartheid, the government built what became known as Bantu schools. Bantu schools taught no science, no history, no civics. They taught metrics and agriculture: how to count potatoes, how to pave roads, chop wood, till the soil. “It does not serve the Bantu to learn history and science because he is primitive,” the government said. “This will only mislead him, showing him pastures in which he is not allowed to graze.” To their credit, they were simply being honest. Why educate a slave? Why teach someone Latin when his only purpose is to dig holes in the ground?

Mission schools were told to conform to the new curriculum or shut down. Most of them shut down, and black children were forced into crowded classrooms in dilapidated schools, often with teachers who were barely literate themselves. Our parents and grandparents were taught with little singsong lessons, the way you’d teach a preschooler shapes and colors. My grandfather used to sing the songs and laugh about how silly they were. Two times two is four. Three times two is six. La la la la la. We’re talking about fully grown teenagers being taught this way, for generations.

What happened with education in South Africa, with the mission schools and the Bantu schools, offers a neat comparison of the two groups of whites who oppressed us, the British and the Afrikaners. The difference between British racism and Afrikaner racism was that at least the British gave the natives something to aspire to. If they could learn to speak correct English and dress in proper clothes, if they could Anglicize and civilize themselves, one day they might be welcome in society. The Afrikaners never gave us that option. British racism said, “If the monkey can walk like a man and talk like a man, then perhaps he is a man.” Afrikaner racism said, “Why give a book to a monkey?”





THE SECOND GIRL