Born a Crime – Trevor Noah

I’m not a regular watcher of The Daily Show, but I’ve come to appreciate the pitch-perfect coverage of American politics under Trevor Noah’s tenure at the anchor desk. The man-on-the-street interviews at Trump rallies are cringe-worthy perfection and expertly expose the hypocrisy of his most ardent followers.

It’s easy to think of Noah as a comedian simply observing and reporting on the world’s happenings, but after finishing “Born a Crime,” you understand that he comes at this commentary from a lived experience. He understands misogyny from men in power, systemic racism, senseless violence and living at the poverty line because that was his daily life for more than 20 years in South Africa.

For elder Millennials, “Crime” offers a first-hand account of apartheid — from someone around our age — that those of us in sheltered white communities didn’t have the world knowledge to grasp in middle school current events discussions in the early 1990s.

Throughout the memoir, Noah seamlessly shifts the narrative from humorous coming-of-age memoir to the somber realities apartheid and post-apartheid politics had on his family and the Black and Colored (apartheid categorization for biracial individuals) communities.

There’s enough social and political history given to help fill in knowledge gaps, but he doesn’t belabor injustices, instead he shows how they manifested and impacted his family, mainly through the experiences of his mother and biggest champion, Patricia.

First, as the title suggests, Noah was born a crime as it was illegal for white and Black people to date. That meant neither his mother, who is Black, nor his father, who is white, could be seen in public with him out of fear they would be arrested, and he would be taken away.

So, his mother found another Colored woman to walk with him while in public, while she trailed behind. Let that sink in a minute.

He speaks often of not knowing where to belong and feeling largely isolated and disconnected from others. He was hidden away for his safety. Black relatives treated him differently, because they perceived him as white. Each school year was a challenge to fit in. His stepfather never accepted him.

In the fantastically self-narrated audiobook, Noah shares these darker moments with a casual and humorous delivery that will make you feel guilty for laughing out loud at memories so painful.

Some of the lighter chapters follow Noah’s adventures in his late-teens and early twenties, where he was an entrepreneur selling pirated CDs, stolen goods and offering loans. He also was a DJ and had a dance crew, which in one of the more cringeworthy chapters, failed at a gig spectacularly.  

The specter of racism hangs over these chapters too, but they illustrate his mettle and can-do attitude — a belief that life would always work out for him — which is a direct result of his mother. In one passage he says:

“My mom raised me as if there were no limitations on where I could go or what I could do. When I look back, I realize she raised me as a white kid. Not culturally, but in the sense of believing the world was my oyster, that I should speak up for myself. That my ideas thoughts and decisions mattered.

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. Growing up in Soweto, our dream was to put another room on our house, maybe have a driveway, maybe someday, a cast iron gate at the end of the driveway because that’s all we know.

But the highest rung of what’s possible is far beyond the world you can see. My mother showed me what was possible. The thing that always amazed me about her life, is that no one showed her. No one chose her. She did it on her own. She found her way through sheer force of will.”

Throughout the memoir, he alludes to his mother being shot by his stepfather, and the last chapter — the longest in the book — dives into the events that led his strong and independent mother to fall victim to a manipulative abuser. It’s a powerful endnote on the long-lasting repercussions of apartheid, where people have lived oppressed for so long they can’t imagine a life any better.  

There were a few sections that didn’t quite work for me — mainly those that Noah added clearly for comic relief — but, overall, I found this to be an engaging, informative and funny memoir. If you like the WTF aspects of Tara Westover’s “Educated” but also want some humor, “Crime” is the perfect combo of both.

Rating (story): 4/5 stars

Rating (narration): 5/5

Format: Audiobook (SIL’s library)

Dates read: January 9 - 15, 2021

Multi-tasking: Fine, but you’ll miss some of the emotion of the events given Noah’s generally light delivery.