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Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

Trevor Noah

Start date: March 1, 2017

Finish date: March 31, 2017

Discussion: Monthly Group Reads

Why we're reading this: March's topic/theme is ethnicity/race. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah …more
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What Members Thought

Feb 24, 2019 Suzy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: listened-to, mia-book-tours, autobiography-memoir, audio-faves, made-me-smile, coming-of-age, non-fiction

4 +++ stars

I loved listening to Trevor Noah tell me the story of his growing up in pre and post Apartheid South Africa. He was not only born a "crime" because his mother was black and his father white - a crime under Apartheid - he didn't fit in to any of the classifications into which people were registered to keep them neatly segregated into a myriad of communities. White, colored and black, which broke down many native African tribes with unique languages. This singular background made Noah a ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Sep 25, 2017 Alana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: educational, political, biographical, foreign-culture, comedy, memoir

"People love to say, 'Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime.' What they don't say is, 'And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.'"

"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 eve "People love to say, 'Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime.' What they don't say is, 'And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.'"

"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...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."

I admit it, I'm one of those out-of-touch people who had no idea who Trevor Noah is. I did watch a YouTube video of his show the other day because I was curious what accent he has (since he describes being able to switch between languages and accents at about the drop of a hat) so I can picture him now, at least.

I just finished Nelson Mandela's autobiography a few weeks ago, and my boss had just finished this and recommended it to me. While I enjoyed Mandela's account, this was another side of South Africa: not an alternate view, exactly, because Noah was still among the oppressed peoples, but while Mandela was firmly from a specific recognized tribe of region, the Xhosa, Noah, being a blend of Xhosa and Swiss, was basically a no-man's land of ethnicity. No one wanted to claim him. Being what is referred to as "colored" in that region (being a mixture of white and black parentage) he was viewed as white by the blacks and as black by the whites, and felt culturally black among the colored groups, etc.

I loved his tidbits about some of the ridiculousness of apartheid. One of the most interesting moments is in one of the side thoughts between chapters, where he explained that persons of Chinese ancestry were classified as black, but Japanese were classified as white, because South Africa wanted to keep better business dealings with Japan at the time. The whole thing shows the utter ludicrousness of the entire system.

His life, while difficult, was certainly very colorful and entertaining (if more dark comedy than really laughable at times). Some of his exploits made me chuckle at the similarities to all young boys everywhere, but so many were unique to the time, place and culture in which he grew up. There are heart-wrenching and shocking moments, with strong moments of family, dreams, and honest looks at various caste-type groups and how everyone was affected by the evils of the system. It's a lighter (physically and emotionally) read than Mandela's book, but they are interesting to read as companions. (Situationally appropriate) language warning, but well worth reading.
4/5 ...more

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Jun 08, 2017 Heather rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, 2017

This was SO entertaining. I loved the audiobook. There were truly so many great stories about life in South Africa that I had never known about, and the storytelling in this book is phenomenal and SO interesting. Trevor Noah makes his childhood humorous, and I would highly recommend this book if you are looking to just get a different point of view on what it might have been like to grow up in a country very different from ours in North America.

2 likes · Like · see review