Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
(Format used for this read: Audiobook)
As of the moment I am writing this, we only have 13 more days before we move away from the Midwest and into The Sunshine State.
Let me tell you….I will be REJOICING times a MILLION to get the F UP OUTTA HERE!
I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate any kind of cold weather…and by “cold” I mean anything below 70 degrees.
I am 1000 percent for real on this.
Today is the first day of summer break for my kids. And yall it is 54 flippin degrees, super windy, overcast and chilly.
WE ARE WEARING JACKETS WHEN IT IS ALMOST JUNE.
No thank you.
We have lived here for 3 years….and lived here 5 years at an earlier time as well.
Let me assure you that I will NOT be coming back here for ANY kind of extended period of time….EVERRRR.
Anyway….
I won’t miss the Midwest.
BUT…I will miss a few people that I have met while in the Midwest.
The gals in my monthly book club are some of those very people
And this book is the last book I will read and discuss with them in person. 😥
Here is the official summary:
“Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.
Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.
The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love.”
This book was phenomenal.
It was originally designed to be an Audible original audiobook, although because of it’s wild success, it was produced in paper copies as well (which I do happen to own!)
I totally signed up for a trial 7 day Audible membership just so I could access this book….I have done this so many times, I am surprised my name has not been blacklisted 🤣
So so so glad I did not read my paper copy instead of listening….Trevor Noah reads it himself, which I always always love with memoirs and autobiographies.
He is another one of those authors who I feel like I’m just hanging out with, drinking a beer, and listening to them tell me multiple moments of their lives that have defined them. It doesn’t feel like he is reading to you…it feels like he is just conversing with you.
Since Trevor Noah himself is reading this book, all of the South African words and names in his culture are pronounced authentically and correctly and how they are supposed to be heard…which NEVER would have happened if I read it on my own.
I would have read them and pronounced them thru my own white Americanized English lens, which would have not only been incorrect, but also would have been disrespectful and dismissive. Words matter. Language matters. Pronunciation matters. We should all ensure we honor this for ALL cultures at ALL times. Do not dismiss such an integral part of someone’s identity.
“Nelson Mandela once said, ‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.’ He was so right. When you make the effort to speak someone else’s language, even if it’s just basic phrases here and there, you are saying to them, ‘I understand that you have a culture and identity that exists beyond me. I see you as a human being”
Speaking of languages, when the book was written a few years ago, Mr Noah spoke six languages. He now currently speaks 8. Most of these are African tribal languages. There is a tremendous history behind why he speaks so many…some of it is heart warming (familial ancestry) and some of it is heart breaking (oppression during apartheid).
Trevor Noah also give distinctive voices to all his loved ones in his storytelling…and you can tell it is done with love, care and such authenticity. He wasn’t mocking them; you get the sense he was trying to communicate their own vocal identity as close as he could to the way they would speak themselves.
(and the voice he uses for his younger self is BEYOND adorable…just sayin)
Faith and women were HUGE influences in the author’s life…but nobody impacted him more than his mother.
“The only authority my mother recognized was God’s. God is love and the Bible is truth–everything else was up for debate. She taught me to challenge authority and question the system. The only way it backfired on her was that I constantly challenged and questioned her.”
His mom is a FORCE, yall. She is a BADASS. She is a tenacious FIGHTER. She is STRONG and never EVER gives up. She is not perfect by any means and makes plenty of mistakes (as all mothers around the world do each and every day)…BUT her love and dedication to her son is FIERCE beyond description.
Her steadfast faith in God despite numerous hardships and struggles is awe inspiring. The wisdom filled advice she gave Trevor in all areas of life and at all ages of life fills the pages.
“Learn from your past and be better because of your past,” she would say, “but don’t cry about your past. Life is full of pain. Let the pain sharpen you, but don’t hold on to it. Don’t be bitter.”
“My mom did what school didn’t. She taught me how to think.”
“The smallest thing could prompt her. I’d walk through the house on the way to my room and say, “Hey, Mom” without glancing up. She’d say, “No, Trevor! You look at me. You acknowledge me. Show me that I exist to you, because the way you treat me is the way you will treat your woman. Women like to be noticed. Come and acknowledge me and let me know that you see me. Don’t just see me when you need something.”
Trevor Noah was born and grew up during apartheid in South Africa. He was technically “born a crime” because he has a white Swiss father and a black South African mother. “Race mixing” was considered illegal during this time. 🤬
I learned a lot about apartheid while listening to this book….my ignorance was revealed on yet another hugely important global humanitarian issue. And I have got to educate myself more. While reading, I began to learn about the laws enacted, policies enforced, and also things like Bantu schools.
“In America you had the forced removal of the native onto reservations coupled with slavery followed by segregation. Imagine all three of those things happening to the same group of people at the same time. That was apartheid.”
“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 ramifications of what we do to others, because we don’t live with them. It would be a whole lot harder for an investment banker to rip off people with subprime mortgages if he actually had to live with the people he was ripping off. If we could see one another’s pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place.”
“What happened with education in South Africa, with the mission schools and the Bantu schools, offers a neat comparison of the two groups of whites who oppressed us, the British and the Afrikaners. The difference between British racism and Afrikaner racism was that at least the British gave the natives something to aspire to. If they could learn to speak correct English and dress in proper clothes, if they could Anglicize and civilize themselves, one day they might be welcome in society. The Afrikaners never gave us that option. British racism said, “If the monkey can walk like a man and talk like a man, then perhaps he is a man.” Afrikaner racism said, “Why give a book to a monkey?”
Trevor Noah talks throughout the pages on how he navigated the world as a child in his home country, and how it changed and progressed as he became a teenager and a young adult as a biracial person. It was a complex experience and always evolving depending on where he was, when it was and who he was surrounded by.
The reader not only learns his personal life story, but also gets a lesson in history, culture, and social issues.
Reading about the “justice” system in South Africa that doesn’t even come CLOSE to delivering TRUE justice to human beings had MANY similar parallels to our own system here in the United States.
Infuriating doesn’t even come close to accurately describing this. 😡
There ARE plenty of funny stories from Mr Noah’s life you read about such as the joys of taking a shit and a childhood incident involving not using an outdoor toilet, the description of how you feel when you eat McDonalds, and a cringe worthy dance performance at a private Jewish school.
There are also plenty of heavier stories as well such as how his light skin influenced how some of his own family members treated him, the effects of apartheid on various communities and the traumatic years spent with his abusive and toxic alcoholic stepfather.
But many things he shares about his life have many layers of multiple emotions such as his racial awakening at a new school at age eleven, his entrepreneurship selling pirated CDs and DJing parties, and the hard to explain relationship with his father.
You will feel every emotion possible as you journey thru this book with the author.
Even when discussing tragic and heart breaking memories, he finds a way to infuse humor, which I believe has been a coping mechanism for him and his family members over the years. (something I can relate to on a certain level because my own family does this too)
Random tidbit: I think Trevor Noah uses the PERFECT amount of profanity, which is extremely hard to do in my opinion! It’s not excessive where there is an f- bomb on every page, but it’s sprinkled in here and there to add just the right amount of needed emotion or expression. His cursing is purposeful and is always the perfect adjective, noun or expletive for the situation at hand.
This is a fantastic book and has all the things in it that make memoirs wonderful. You learn about someone else’s personal story but you are also educated about their culture, world history, and social justice issues.
I already loved Trevor Noah before reading this, but now I love him even more….and also can understand what makes him HIM even more…which I believe is why he wrote this book.
Looking forward to my last book club discussion to see what everyone else learned while reading too.