Redheaded Reviews: Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Trevor Noah, comedian, and host of The Daily Show, has written a powerful book about his life growing up in South Africa as it moved away from Apartheid. Trevor's father was a white Swiss and his mother was a black Xhosa. Either one could have gone to jail for five years if it was found out that they had had sex with each other and Trevor was proof of that, so he was kept hidden indoors throughout most of his early childhood. If his mother wanted to go to the park she asked a colored woman to walk beside him while she walked behind them.

Under Apartheid the government separated people into categories: white, black, colored, and Indian. The colored were a mix of decedents of whites and native slaves. They were treated as second-class citizens in order to sow discontent amongst the races. It was like they could almost be white, and sometimes you could actually go down to an office and have your race changed to white if you looked white enough. At the same time, you could be colored and have it changed to black just as easily. Some blacks would be able to get changed to colored or Indian. Which goes to show how arbitrary the system was. Now, Trevor wasn't colored. He was mixed race. The coloreds did not accept him. But he found he could fit in with the whites a little bit, but he felt most comfortable with the blacks especially since he knew several different languages that they spoke, even though English was the first language he learned first.

Trevor was always an outsider wherever he went due to the color of his skin and therefore it was hard to make friends. He was also a troublemaker from the first. He received plenty of hidings from his mother for the things that she knew about but there were plenty of things he did that she didn't know about. Very intelligent, and out to make a buck, he used his speed to get to the lunch truck at school as an advantage by taking orders for a price. That snowballed into other ventures such as CD pirating when he got his computer and a friend gave him a CD writer when he no longer needed it. Ever the entrepreneur he and his crew saw ways to capitalize on this and expand out into other venues.

His relationship with his mother is a close one and she is a no-nonsense woman who applied for a job as a secretary when companies were just starting to hire blacks for such positions as token jobs while Apartheid was ending. She also lived in a white neighborhood at a time when you just didn't do that. A very religious woman she made Trevor go to three churches on Sunday: the mixed church, the white church, and the black church. Then there was prayer meeting during the week. He only got Friday and Saturday off. If a special prayer was needed to be said at prayer meeting they asked Trevor to say it since he spoke English and was considered white by the blacks of the prayer groups and they believed that God would really listen to the prayers spoken in the language the bible came to South Africa in and that since Jesus was white.

Trevor's mom would eventually marry a mechanic named Abel who would drink too much and become mean. The thing was he would only hit them every year or so so the abuse was enough for you to fear it will happen again, but not enough to actually leave. She went to the cops about the abuse but they refused to press charges. Abel had ideas about how a woman should be, mainly subservient. Trevor's free-spirited independent mother did not fit that bill no matter how hard he tried to beat her into that cage she refused to go into it. She would have two sons by him, Andrew and Isaac and they would keep her from leaving him for a long time.

This was an amazing book and a real eye-opener to life in South Africa during the time period when Apartheid was ending. It's also a look at race and race relations that holds some truths that can be found in America too. Trevor Noah has lived an incredible life and this well-written book is a testament to his sense of ingenuity and survival instincts and the love a mother for her son and a son for his mother. This book is a must-read.

Quotes

And it [black church] lasted forever, three or four hours at least, which confused me because white church was only like an hour—in and out, thanks for coming. But at black church I would sit there for what felt like an eternity, trying to figure out why time moved so slowly. Is it possible for time to actually stop? If so, why does it stop at black church and not at white church? I eventually decided black people needed more time with Jesus because we suffered more.

-Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood p 8)

“Wathint’Abafazi wathint’imbokodo!” was the chant they would rally to during the freedom struggle. “When you strike a woman you strike a rock.”

-Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood p39)

Learn from your past. Life is full of pain. Let the pain sharpen you, but don’t hold on to it. Don’t be bitter.

-Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood p66)

A dog is a great thing for a kid to have. It’s like a bicycle but with emotions.

-Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood p97)

The way my mother always explained it, the traditional man wants a woman to be subservient, but he never falls in love with subservient women. He’s attracted to independent women. “He’s like an exotic bird collector,” she said. “He only wants a woman who is free because his dream is to put her in a cage.”

-Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood p253)

In Germany, no child finishes high school without learning about the Holocaust. Not just the facts of it but the how and the why and the gravity of it—what it means. As a result, Germans grow up appropriately aware and apologetic. British schools treat colonialism the same way, to an extent. Their children are taught the history of the Empire with a kind of disclaimer hanging over the whole thing. “Well, that was shameful, now wasn’t it?” In South Africa, the atrocities of apartheid have never been taught that way. We aren’t taught judgment or shame. We were taught history the way it’s taught in America. In America, the history of racism is taught like this: “There was slavery and then there was Jim Crow and then there was Martin Luther King Jr. and now it’s done.” It was the same for us. “Apartheid was bad. Nelson Mandela was freed. Let’s move on.” Facts, but not many, and never the emotional or moral dimension. It was as if the teachers, many of whom were white, had been given a mandate, “Whatever you do, don’t make the kids angry.”

-Trevor Noah (Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood p183)