It’s still there nestled in a box as a painful keepsake: the “none blacks” placard I stole as a toddler from the door of a café in Durban, where my mother — who easily passes for a European — met a white friend for coffee. “My four-year-old daughter did that for fun,” the café owner explained. “They know not to come here,” That wasn’t strictly true: the flapping kitchen door revealed a black woman wearing a hairnet, gloves, and an apron: less a human being than a human resource.