Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (One World Essentials)

by Trevor Noah

The genius of apartheid was convincing people who were the overwhelming majority to turn on each other. Apart hate, is what it was. You separate people into groups and make them hate one another so you can run them all.

The Zulu man is known as the warrior.

The Xhosa, on the other hand, pride themselves on being the thinkers.

What I do remember, what I will never forget, is the violence that followed. The triumph of democracy over apartheid is sometimes called the Bloodless Revolution. It is called that because very little white blood was spilled. Black blood ran in the streets.

Necklacing was common. That’s where people would hold someone down and put a rubber tire over his torso, pinning his arms. Then they’d douse him with petrol and set him on fire and burn him alive.

Apartheid was perfect racism. It took centuries to develop, starting all the way back in 1652 when the Dutch East India Company landed at the Cape of Good Hope and established a trading colony, Kaapstad, later known as Cape Town, a rest stop for ships traveling between Europe and India. To impose white rule, the Dutch colonists went to war with the natives, ultimately developing a set of laws to subjugate and enslave them. When the British took over the Cape Colony, the descendants of the original Dutch settlers trekked inland and developed their own language, culture, and customs, eventually becoming their own people, the Afrikaners—the white tribe of Africa.

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.

America the dream is to make it out of the ghetto. In Soweto, because there

was no leaving the ghetto, the dream was to transform the ghetto.

Language brings with it an identity and a culture, or at least the perception of it.

Growing up the way I did, I learned how easy it is for white people to get comfortable with a system that awards them all the perks.

English is the language of money. English comprehension is equated with intelligence. If you’re looking for a job, English is the difference between getting the job or staying unemployed. If you’re standing in the dock, English is the difference between getting off with a fine or going to prison.

That, and so many other smaller incidents in my life, made me realize that language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.

But the real world doesn’t go away. Racism exists. People are getting hurt, and just because it’s not happening to you doesn’t mean it’s not happening. And at some point, you have to choose. Black or white. Pick a side. You can try to hide from it. You can say, “Oh, I don’t pick sides,” but at some point life will force you to pick a side.

Before apartheid, any black South African who received a formal education was likely taught by European missionaries, foreign enthusiasts eager to Christianize and Westernize the natives.

The only way to make apartheid work, therefore, was to cripple the black mind.

Mission schools were told to conform to the new curriculum or shut down. Most of them shut down, and black children were forced into crowded classrooms in dilapidated schools, often with teachers who were barely literate themselves.

The difference between British racism and Afrikaner racism was that at least the British gave the natives something to aspire to.

She wasn’t a burden to anyone and didn’t owe anything to anyone.

As a secretary, my mom was bringing home more money than anyone else, and my grandmother insisted it all go to the family. The family needed a radio, an oven, a refrigerator, and it was now my mom’s job to provide it.

So many black families spend all of their time trying to fix the problems of the past. That is the curse of being black and poor, and it is a curse that follows you from generation to generation.

“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 mother wanted her child beholden to no fate. She wanted me to be free to go anywhere, do anything, be anyone.

My mom did what school didn’t. She taught me how to think.

As modestly as we lived at home, I never felt poor because our lives were so rich with experience.

My mom raised me as if there were no limitations on where I could go or what I could do.

We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited.

Racism is not logical.

My mom was wild and impulsive. My father was reserved and rational. She was fire, he was ice. They were opposites that attracted, and I am a mix of them both.

Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.

You spend time with people, you observe them and interact with them, and you come to know them—and that is what apartheid stole from us: time. You can’t make up for that with an interview, but I had to figure that out for myself.

Being a man is not what you have, it’s who you are. Being more of a man doesn’t mean your woman has to be less than you.”

We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer.

The hood made me realize that crime succeeds because crime does the one thing the government doesn’t do: crime cares. Crime is grassroots. Crime looks for the young kids who need support and a lifting hand. Crime offers internship programs and summer jobs and opportunities for advancement. Crime gets involved in the community. Crime doesn’t discriminate.

When white people lose stuff they get money, just another nice perk of being white.

The hood has a gravitational pull. It never leaves you behind, but it also never lets you leave. Because by making the choice to leave, you’re insulting the place that raised you and made you and never turned you away. And that place fights you back.

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.

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.

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.”

Because racism exists, and you have to pick a side. You can say that you don’t pick sides, but eventually life will force you to pick a side.

He liked to be liked by the world, which made his abuse even harder to deal with. Because if you think someone is a monster and the whole world says he’s a saint, you begin to think that you’re the bad person. It must be my fault this is happening is the only conclusion you can draw, because why are you the only one receiving his wrath?

When you love someone you create a new world for them.

“You cannot blame anyone else for what you do. You cannot blame your past for who you are. You are responsible for you. You make your own choices.”

My mother’s greatest fear was that I would end up paying the black tax, that I would get trapped by the cycle of poverty and violence that came before me. She had always promised me that I would be the one to break that cycle. I would be the one to move forward and not back.