"Don't talk about the f---- police Jason. I'll kick their a----. I'm gonna f---- fight them. Those motherf----." - Amasango student

Masixole, Bramwell and Xolisani were walking back to Jane's house with me yesterday evening. They were helping me carry my laptop, and making sure nothing happened to the computer--or to me--on the way back from Eluxolweni. I don't like bringing the laptop out of the house at all anymore unless I have car transport, but the kids wanted to use it, so I brought it.

As we were approaching Bedford Street, we were having fun, but being pretty noisy. One of them was singing rather loudly. Another was swearing, not because he was angry; he knows it gets my attention because I tell him to cut it out. A third was not singing or swearing, but running along. I asked them to quiet down--and slow down--a little.

They weren't too keen on listening to me, so I eventually told them I didn't want them to get picked up by the police. It's happened before. It could happen again.

I asked them all, in the most polite way possible, to shut up, to walk at a normal pace (if they run down the street, the assumption might be "they've robbed something"), and in one boy's case, not to pee in the middle of the street.

One of the boys who had been picked up, maced and driven out of town before was also walking with us yesterday and was still really angry about the incident.

"Don't talk about the f---- police Jason. I'll kick their a----. I'm gonna f---- fight them. Those motherf----. Don't talk about the f---- police. This is my South Africa too. F--- them."

He's right. It is, technically, his South Africa. Still though, more than a decade after the end of apartheid, it's not his street. It's a street and a part of town where, if he's running and being loud, bad things could happen.

He's painted the police with a really broad brush stroke. According to this boy, anyone who wears a SAPS (South African Police Service) uniform is a horrible person. But the police painted him with an awfully broad brush stroke when they picked him up last month. Essentially, he was walking in a white area and he needed to go.

The case against the police that Jane opened because of this incident is still pending. Jane did meet with an administrator from the South African Police Service, but the meeting happened only after a lawyer called the police to request a meeting.

Now, back to Bedford Street and yesterday evening: It would be a lie to say that the street is exclusively white. Right next door lives a well-to-do black family, but I'd definitely say this family is in the minority. Most blacks who come to Bedford Street come to clean or garden for a white family during the day, and return home to the township at night.

These boys aren't cleaning or gardening and it's not daytime. But, and here's the important part, they're not doing anything wrong either.

The boy who got so angry about the police is right. It is his South Africa. It's supposedly, everyone's South Africa. But it's not his street. The rainbow nation that has come so far since apartheid still has a ways to go.