by Trevor Noah, 2016
Fantastic book! Remarkable man! Amazing Mom! This was one of our book selections for the Old Town Library Book Club, 2021-2022 season. Trevor Noah, a famous comedian now, was born under Apartheid in South Africa, to a Xhosa mother and a Swiss father. She never asked to marry his Swiss father (it was illegal, anyway), she just wanted his child. She raised him on her own. She was deeply religious. She took him to 3 churches every Sunday: White church, Mixed church, and Black church.
I learned so much about South Africa and Apartheid through his stories of growing up there and the history he includes in the book.
He was literally, Born a Crime, because intercourse between black and white under Apartheid was punished with 5 years in prison. His Mom had to hide him, hire a “colored” woman to push him in a stroller pretending to be his mother, while she walked behind them. When they lived with his grandmother in Soweto, he had to hide inside most of the time. It was possible he would be taken from her and sent to an orphanage. When he was 5 years old, Apartheid ended. His Mom had found ways to live in the white world before it ended, and she tried to give Trevor the life (education and books) that she never had. She is strong, independent, courageous, resourceful, stubborn, loving, funny, loyal, hardworking, beautiful and she raised a remarkable young man.
He talks about the different races in South Africa. There are the blacks which come from about 11 different tribes. His Mom was Xhosa, as was Nelson Mandela. They are intelligent. There are the Zulu, more warrior-like. Each tribe has its own language, and then there is the Afrikaan language, the language of Apartheid. Then, there are the “coloreds,” which are the centuries-old mixed race people from the original Dutch and the native Africans. Then, there are the mixed, which is Trevor, his Mom is black and his father is Swiss. Then there are the Whites. Then the Indian and Chinese which don’t fit in anywhere. Trevor could try to fit in with any one of these groups, but he never felt that he belonged with any of them. When he was an adolescent, he chose to be black, and that is where he spent the rest of his youth, growing up among the black youth of Johannesburg. He could speak 4 languages, and he learned that language was how you became one of the tribe, not your skin color. He tells the story about walking down the street, 4 black men following him, speaking Zulu, saying ‘let’s get this white guy.’ He turns around and says in Zulu, “Yo, guys, why don’t we just mug someone together? I’m ready. Let’s do it!” They were shocked and then laughed – ‘sorry, dude, we thought you were white – have a good day.’
He and his Mom were quite poor. She managed to always feed him and provide a home for him, but sometimes, their food was literally dog bones or caterpillars. She bought a beat-up old VW and they had freedom to get to church and go for a drive. Sometimes, she made Trevor get out and push it to conserve gas. She loves Jesus, the Bible, Church. She took him to three churches every Sunday, white church where the Scripture was studied, Mixed church, and Black church which went on forever and was very charismatic.
When her VW bug broke down, she met a mechanic named Abel and they fell in love. They eventually got married when Trevor was 8 or so. Once she was his wife, Abel became more and more strict and threatened by her independence and success. He was a mean drunk. Trevor knew he was a dangerous man and begged his Mom not to marry him, but she did. He hit her hard once and she went to the police station and reported it, but they laughed her away. Years later, he hit her again and the police came but, again, they laughed it off. Finally, she divorced him and moved away and married another man. Abel had bought a gun years earlier. One Sunday, he showed up at her new home and ended up shooting her in the butt and in the head. First shot was in the butt and as she was laying on the ground, he fired at her 4 times point blank at her head but each time the gun did not fire. She got up and ran to the car and got in, and he shot her in the head through the back window. Trevor was living on his own and his little brother calls him. It’s funny how Isaac talks to Trevor on the phone that morning – how are you, what are you doing, Mom’s been shot. Trevor runs to his car and is sobbing and sobbing as he drives to the hospital. He gets there and sees his Mom, she can talk, but her face is blown up. The nurse comes out and says they found out she has no insurance and they want to transport her to a state hospital. Trevor knows this will be her death so he hands over his credit card and says use it, take it. The nurse warns him it could be a fortune, you never know. When she says it could be 500,000 rand, he actually thinks twice about letting her die (he’s so honest), but then he says take it, use it, it doesn’t matter. It ends up being an absolute miracle! The bullet in her butt went clean through, no damage. Then, the 4 misfires when she was on the ground and Abel had her at point-blank (handguns don’t misfire). The bullet through the back of her head completely missed all of her nerves, arteries, brain, and only took a little nick out of her nose. They cleaned her up, stitched up her nose, and after a week, she was as good as new. She told Trevor, who is still by her bedside sobbing a week later to cheer-up, now he is the best-looking member of the family. Abel meant to kill her and their sons (Andrew and Isaac) and then take his life, but he ended up not doing that and when she completely recovered, because there was no prior record of his abuse, he ended up with only 3 years probation. He’s walking around free to this day.
Isaac is a miracle child – she had had her tubes tied and still ended up pregnant with him. That’s why she named him Isaac, because Isaac in the Bible was Sarah and Abraham’s child when they were 90 and 100, 25 years after the promise.
I absolutely loved this book and I love this young man, Trevor Noah. God bless you and keep you and yours forever and ever.
There were nightly prayer meetings and the women would gather at his Grandma’s in Soweto and they would pray and sing. His Grandma would ask Trevor to pray because they believed his prayers would be answered because he was white (in their eyes) and, clearly, God answered the white man’s prayer. And, he was a child. “Whenever the prayer meetings were at our house, because my prayers were so good, my grandmother would want me to pray for everyone. She would turn to me and say, “Trevor, pray.” And I’d pray. I loved doing it. My grandmother had convinced me that my prayers got answered. I felt like I was helping people.”
I love the story he tells about shitting in the house because he didn’t want to go out to the hole in the ground in the rain. He shit on a piece of newspaper but he forgot his blind great-grandma was sitting there and heard and smelled it but couldn’t see who it was. He didn’t answer her, remained silent, and wrapped it up and put it in the trash. When his Mom and Grandma got home, Great-grandma said there was a demon in the house. His Mom found the poop in the trash. They got all of the ladies together to pray to God to kill the demon. They asked Trevor to pray, and he felt so guilty as he prayed. Later that night, he prayed to God and told Him he was sorry. “…I had subjected Him to two hours of old grannies praying when I knew that with all the pain and suffering in the world He had more important things to deal with than my shit.”
There are many other stories – about having to jump from a moving minivan to escape being kidnapped (his Mom’s idea in order to save them); visiting his Swiss father who is a good and kind man but very private–Trevor could never really know him, but he got presents from Santa Clause, which never happens if your father is a black man–no way are they going to give credit to a fat, white man.
His Mom was a middle child and a girl, so not valued or loved. She went to secretarial school, got a good job, but all her money went to the family and the people around her – they always needed something. She moved to the white area of town and lived with prostitutes until she could make it on her own. Her name is Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah. She named Trevor, Trevor so he would not be beholden to any fate. The names Africans give their babies always have a meaning. Her name means, “She Who Gives Back.” She taught Trevor English as his first language and read to him constantly. The Bible was the first book he learned to read. She made sure they had books – donate books, books from subscriptions, an old set of encyclopedias. He loved those books.
His Mom showed him the world outside of the ghetto. She didn’t know apartheid would end. Trevor was six when Nelson Mandela was released and ten when democracy finally came, but Trevor’s Mom had been living as though it had ended years before, going where black people were not allowed to go, taking Trevor along, praising Jesus all the way.
Under apartheid, Chinese were classified as black and Japanese as white. The white government wanted what Japan had to offer (cars and electronics). Trevor wonders how a South African policeman would react seeing an Asian sitting on a whites-only bench – ‘get off that bench you Chinaman,’ ‘I’m Japanese,’ ‘oh, so sorry…’
He could never call his father, “Dad,” because that would get him arrested. He called him Robert. His Dad hates racism. “He just never understood how white people could be racist in South Africa. “Africa is full of black people,” he would say. “So why would you come all the way to Africa if you hate black people? If you hate black people so much, why did you move into their house?” Before Trevor was born, in the 80s, his dad opened one of the first integrated restaurants in Johannesburg and it was a booming success. The government managed to shut it down, however, by telling him he had to have separate toilets for all races.
The race called “Colored” in South Africa goes way back to the Dutch colonists 300 years ago, mixing with the Khoisan tribe which no longer exists, and then mixing with African slaves brought in to work the farms. The “Colored” people cannot trace their roots back to any but the white Dutch colonists. They have lost their roots. The Khoisan people no longer exist.
Trevor has no fear of failure or rejection; he fears regret – regret for things he should have said or done and didn’t.
He tells the story about he and Teddy, his only friend. They started shoplifting candy bars from a shop in the mall. One day they got caught and ran. Trevor ran one way, Teddy ran another. Teddy got caught, Trevor escaped. They knew Teddy had an accomplice because they got it on the mall security camera. They called Trevor into the principal’s office on Monday and asked who it was who helped Teddy. Trevor said he didn’t know. Teddy had not told them it was Trevor. Then, they showed the film to Trevor and asked him if he knew who that white guy was. They thought the person was white – didn’t know it was Trevor sitting right there.
He expained to us that South Africa has eleven official languages now: English, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, Tswana, Ndebele, Swazi, Tsonga, Venda, Sotho, and Pedi. It is not uncommon to hear them all being spoken at a gathering and you get used to not understanding everything that is said. He got a date with the most beautiful girl once and invited her to a dance and not until they got to the dance and he asked her to get out of the car and come into the dance, did he realize that she didn’t understand English and he didn’t speak Pedi. The people around them had always been translating for her before and he hadn’t even realized that.
When he graduated from high school, he started making and selling CDs and then DJ-ing street parties, which were a thing in Johannesburg. He and his friends had a dance troupe. Their best dancer was named, “Hitler.” This is amazing: Africans are not taught history, only the barest details. In their minds, Hitler was a strong and powerful man, or a powerful tank, so if you wanted your dog or son to be tough, you named them Hitler. One day they are asked to perform at a Jewish school. When they start dancing, and Hitler comes out, they start yelling, “Go Hitler!” The Jewish people are aghast and order them to leave. Think about it – the atrocities of Hitler are horrible and known – six million Jews killed; but the atrocities to black and indigenous people throughout history by Belgium’s King Leopold, Christopher Columbus, Portugal, etc., are even worse – just never counted since they were black or Native American.
He talks about how being able to buy cheese was the sign you had money. If you could put a slice of cheese on your kota, a type of sandwich, then you had made it and you were called a “cheese boy.” After apartheid ended, there were many young black men who were unemployed and no hope for the future. Slavery ended. They would get up, hang out all day. “They’re free, they’ve been taught how to fish, but no one will give them a fishing rod.” He talks about how crime is just a part of life in the hood. There are degrees of crime. He started selling pirated CDs and now he realizes it was a crime, but at the time it didn’t even occur to him that it was a crime – why do they sell CD writers?
He spent years in the hood, hustling every day, working and working and never getting anywhere. He was comfortable, accepted, busy. He’d probably still be there except a cop shot up his computer one day, and he was forced to make a change. Then, he took one of Abel’s used cars to drive out to a sale on mobile phones, slapped a license plate on it, and got caught driving it. He was more worried about getting in trouble with Abel and his Mom, so he didn’t say where he got the car. He went to jail, and in jail he learned he had to get out of that life or he was going to wind up in prison, and that was the worst nightmare imaginable. And so, thank you, God, we now have Trevor Noah, the host of The Daily Show, a Godsend to America. Thank you, Trevor Noah, for telling us the story of your life so far. You are a gift!