Born a Crime

Before Chapter 9 begins, Noah talks about how “[c]olored people are a hybrid, a complete mix. Some are light and some are dark. Some have Asian features, some have white features, some have black features” (115). He furthers this idea in explaining the "curse" of undefined heritage:

The curse that colored people carry is having no clearly defined heritage to go back to. If they trace their lineage back far enough, at a certain point it splits into white and native and a tangled web of "other." Since their native mothers are gone, their strongest affinity has always been with their white fathers, the Afrikaners. Most colored people don’t speak African languages. They speak Afrikaans (115).

He says that at least Black people know who they are in South Africa; colored people don’t.

Chapter 9 opens with Noah talking about the giant mulberry tree that was growing in someone’s front yard when he lived in Eden Park. When the tree bears fruit, he and all the neighborhood kids play under the tree and eat the mulberries. Despite the fact that Eden Park is a neighborhood for colored people, Noah never feels like he fits in with the other kids since he identifies as Black.