Written by SAORI | April 24, 2023
The book in 3 sentences
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood is an autobiographical comedy book written by Trevor Noah.
It tells the story of the comedian’s upbringing as a coloured child in South Africa during the country’s transition toward the post-apartheid era. The book is rich in historical facts, but it is written in a fun way that makes it very enjoyble to read.
What I learned
The weird rules that used to apply to “coloured people”
In South Africa, mixed people came to be classified as their own separate group, referred to as “colored”.
While it was illegal to be mixed (i.e., to have a black parent and a white parent), it was not illegal to have two parents who were both colored.
Colored people were considered as second-class citizens; Afrikaners used to call them amperbaas; “the almost-boss.”
In fact, they were denied the rights of white people but given special privileges that black people didn’t have.
In the past, colored people could apply to the government to be legally recognized as white.
Acording to the legal definition at the time, a white person was “one who in appearance is obviously a white person who is generally not accepted as a coloured person; or is generally accepted as a white person and is not in appearance obviously a white person”.
Throughout generations, this definition allowed colored persons whose physical features became “whiter” (e.g., lighter skin, straighter hair, etc.), to pass arbitrary whiteness examinations and be “promoted” to white.
One such examination was the “pencil test,” which required individuals to pass a test where a pencil was inserted into their hair and if it fell out, they would be considered white.
Zulu vs Xhosa
The black South Africans were divided into different tribes with different languages such as Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Sotho, Venda, Ndebele, Tsonga, Pedi, and more.
Already before apartheid came into existence, these tribal factions clashed and fought against each other.
White rule strengthened the inter-tribal animosity by systematically classifying nonwhites into various groups and subgroups, and then giving each of these factions differnig levels of rights and priviledges.
One of the starkest of these divisions was between South Africa’s two dominant groups, the Xhosa and the Zulu.
Members of the first group are typically considered as thinkers, while those of the second as proud warriors.
In fact, when South Africa was invaded, the Zulu fought with nothing but spears and shields against men with guns. Despite being slaughtered by the thousands, they never stopped fighting.
The minibus business
Under apartheid, there was no public transportation for black people.
Therefore, out of necessity, an illegal transit system controlled by private associations emerged.
This consisted of “minibuses” running on an informal network of routes, and it involved a lot of shadiness and violence.
Different groups ran different routes and, therefore, there were a lot of fights over who controlled what.
Also, since the transport system was basically organized crime, the minibuses were very extremely unreliable: “when they came, they came. When they didn’t, they didn’t.”
Big news: a man killed a cat
In South Africa, people usually do not like cats because they are associated with witches.
As Trevor says, for South Africans, “only witches have cats, and all cats are witches”.
Thus, when a security guard beat to death a cat that ran onto the pitch in the middle of soccer match, black people did not consider it as a big deal.
The cat was obviously a witch and, thus, it had to be killed to protect the players.
While black people went about their day after hearing about the incident, white people did not. They found it absolutely horrendous.
The episode made front-page news all over the country.
The security guard got arrested and had to pay a huge fine.
Do you see the irony in all of this?
The killing of the cat was terrible, of course. But how can it be that white people have spent years watching black people being beaten to death by other white people without any problem and now they rage over the beating of a single animal?
South Africa is a mix of the ancient and the modern
South Africa is a country where the old and the new, the ancient and the modern are mixed.
In fact, while the religion of the colonizer – Christianity – was adopted among the South Africans, most of the population kept old ancestral traditions.
As Trevor says, “faith in the Holy Trinity exists quite comfortably alongside belief in witchcraft, in casting spells and putting curses on one’s enemies”.
Also, South Africans are “sitll more likely to visit sangomas – shamans, traditional healers, pejoratively known as witch doctors – than they are to visit doctors of Western medicine”.
A peculiar event mentioned in the book showing the important role that witchcraft still plays in South Africa is a trial that took place in 2011, where a man was accused to have killed a person through a lightning.
Quick notes
- South Africa has eleven official languages
- Cheese was extremely expensive in South Africa. Therefore, guys who were considered as wealthy were called “cheese boys”
- The head of a goat is referred to as “smiley” because when you’re done eating all the meat off it, the goat looks like it’s smiling at you from the plate
- The names Xhosa families give their children always have a meaning
Favorite quotes
“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.”
Trevor Noah
“Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.”
Trevor Noah
“I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done in life, any choice that I’ve made. But I’m consumed with regret for the things I didn’t do, the choices I didn’t make, the things I didn’t say. 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. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to. “What if…” “If only…” “I wonder what would have…” You will never, never know, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days.”
Trevor Noah
“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.”
Trevor Noah
“You do not own the thing that you love”
Trevor Noah
“[…] 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. I became a chameleon. My color didn’t change, but I could change your perception of my color. If you spoke to me in Zulu, I replied to you in Zulu. If you spoke to me in Tswana, I replied to you in Tswana. Maybe I didn’t look like you, but if I spoke like you, I was you.”
Trevor Noah
I often meet people in the West who insist that the Holocaust was the worst atrocity in human history, without question. Yes, it was horrific. But I often wonder, with African atrocities like in the Congo, how horrific were they? The thing Africans don’t have that Jewish people do have is documentation.
Trevor Noah
“Language brings with it an identity and a culture, or at least the perception of it. A shared
Trevor Noah
language says “We’re the same.” A language barrier says “We’re different.”
I hope that you found this blogpost valuable and that it inspired you to read Born a Crime by Trevor Noah.
Did you already know the points I discussed in the article?
What do you know about South African culture?
Let’s discuss in the comments! ✨