Book: Born a Crime
Noah has an epiphany when, about to sell a stolen digital camera, he looks at the pictures on it and has second thoughts. He reflects, “In society, we do horrible things to one another because we don’t see the person it affects. We don’t see their face. We don’t see them as people. Which was the whole reason the hood was built in the first place, to keep the victims of apartheid out of sight and out of mind. Because if white people ever saw black people as human, they would see that slavery is unconscionable. We live in a world where we don’t see the ramification of what we do to others, because we don’t live with them”. What does this reflection suggest about the nature of guilt and how it influenced Noah’s development and maturation? More broadly, what do his words suggest about the legacy of racism for South Africans?