English - Born a Crime

new quotes

• abel kept running it to the ground, drinking his money

• we were so broke for weeks we ate nothing but bowls of mogoro… cooked with caterpillars

• pull over and go up to the wall where she’d put me on her shoulders like a little periscope

• she took a secretarial course, a typing class

Systematic oppression and cycle of poverty

• You were what the government said you were

• Where most children are proof of their parents love, I was the proof of their criminality

• White-collar jobs and skilled-labor jobs were reserved for whites 

• And if the monkeys ever went crazy and tried to break out of their cage, the air force could fly over and bomb the shit out of everyone

• That’s what apartheid did: it convinced every group that it was because of the other race that they didn’t get into the club

• Sometimes coloured people became Indian. Sometimes Indian people became coloured

• lack a fishing rod

• hamster wheel

Identity, belonging and community

• I was mixed but not colored—colored by complexion but not by culture

• Language even more than colour, defines who you are to people

• Maybe I didn't look like you but if I spoke like you I was you

• For all black people have suffered, they know who they are. Colored people don't

• I was everywhere with everybody, and at the same time I was all by myself

• I learned to speak the language of the people around me

• I was an anomaly wherever I go

Resilience through humour

• I was a chameleon, changing colours depending on who I was with

• this little boy and his mom, our arms and legs covered in blood and dirt, laughing together through the pain

• bawl[ed their] eyes out and laugh[ed] hysterically at the same time

• our species was going to die out if we didn't mate

• At least they would've woken me up before they killed me

• Dad was the white chocolate, mom was the dark chocolate, and I was the milk chocolate

• Now you're officially the best-looking person in the family

The power of love and faith

• Race-mixing proves that races can mix 

• When i beat you, I’m trying to save you. When they beat you, they’re trying to kill you

• Sometimes we'd pull over and go up to the wall, and she’d put me on her shoulders

• He chose to answer my letter. I was wanted

• for once I cannot argue with you. The gun, the bullets – I can’t explain any of it

• but I do have insurance... Jesus

Language

• Were going to mug me

• Felt we were part of the same tribe

• I was able to talk my way out of situations

• why don’t we just mug someone together

Patricia

• My Mom, however was a rebel

• She figured out a way to do it, and then she did it

• This is my country. Why should I leave?

• We were so broke that for weeks we ate nothing but bowls of marogo cooked with caterpillars.

Violence

• The traditional man wants a woman to be subservient

• When Abel drank, his eyes would go red, bloodshot

• These kids started pelting me with berries

• He was just beating him. Venting his rage on a boy

• I knew he had a demon inside him

• Then he shot her in the head

• abel kept running it into the ground, drinking his money