Born a Crime

Noah's experience was complicated not just because he was colored but because he was biracial. Apartheid governed his life in in South, and institutionalized laws, fraternization between whites and non-whites for example, made even casual conversation between blacks and whites a crime, and even impacted micro-communities (tribes), who also found themselves set against each other. In writing about his childhood, the author notes that he was "born a crime" and gives examples of times when his status as a biracial child had to be kept secret. He even notes a time when he visited his black grandmother and wasn't allowed to play with his black cousins.