Book notes: Born a Crime

By Trevor Noah.

My son had this book assigned for his 8th grade language arts class. My wife read it and absolutely loved it, so on that recommendation I read it as well.

Wow. What a fantastic book. Just like the Daily Show, this book is equal parts hilarious and educational. While reading it I could hear Trevor Noah’s diction, almost like he was reading it himself. It talks about his upbringing in South Africa at the end of Apartheid. It was illegal for white people to have kids with non-white people, punishable in jail up to 5 years, so as a mixed child (Black mom and white dad) he was literally “born a crime”. Every chapter tells a different anecdote from his childhood. Some of the moments are heartbreaking, though the things he learns in his experiences and the logical and funny way he processes them are compelling.

A running theme is how Trevor tries to fit in as a mixed Black/white person. Ironically he had the worst luck with groups of other mixed people. A key insight he discovered: Looks are only a first impression. If you sound like a member of a group they will be more welcoming.

I remember hearing about Apartheid and the freeing of Nelson Mandela when I was in grade school, but I had no idea how epic the Apartheid plan was. The South African government carefully studied other forms of oppression around the world and put all the best ideas into place. They segregated the different tribes geographically, didn’t educate them, kept them living in fear, and used them for cheap labor. Apartheid legally ended in South Africa when Trevor was 6, but the effects will linger for a long time. As he said, the oppressed people in South Africa didn’t get the chance to know there was a bigger world available to them, and even if they metaphorically “learned to fish”, nobody gave them a fishing rod.

He also talks about the domestic violence in his family from his stepdad. There is a shocking event at the end of the book (published in 2016, but the event happened in 2009) that left me scrambling to the Internet to see how things are at the moment.

This book is a must read. By halfway through the book you can’t put it down.