Born A Crime by Trevor Noah (2016)

When Trevor Noah was born, his existence was primarily illegal. At the time, South Africa was under the rule of apartheid, a system that aimed to not only separate black and white people, but to also encourage racism between the two groups. Apartheid also forbid the relationship between a black woman and a white man (or vice versa), which was exactly what Trevor Noah parent’s were. As he grew up, he went from being hidden in his grandmother’s house to easing into public life as apartheid came to an end. But, just because apartheid was coming to an end didn’t mean the centuries of ingrained racism in South Africa’s people went away. In his true story, Trevor Noah discusses how his life from birth was affected by South Africa’s society, and how he survived it.

I have been a huge fan of Trevor Noah ever since he took over The Daily Show in 2015. If you’re a liberal like me, you would definitely enjoy his show, and love how he is not afraid to critically analyze and criticize America’s current situation on national T.V. He also features a lot of conservative point of views on his show, and discusses them respectively. Not only that, he is also incredibly funny. So, when I got the opportunity to review his biography, I was ecstatic, and was not in the least disappointed.

Before reading Born A Crime, I had almost no knowledge of South Africa’s history, except that some pretty terrible things happened. After reading this, I still don’t know everything, but I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what’s going on. Something that was really helpful was that before each chapter, that was a section explaining any important history that was going on at the time. With that, as well as the stories of Trevor Noah, I feel that this book could offer a lot of learning to the reader. With every year that Trevor grows up, and that apartheid weakens, the reader can obviously tell how much freedom and equality can affect a person’s life. While sharing his personal stories, Trevor compares apartheid to what’s happening in both the past and present, and is able to very clearly show that we are on a path to apartheid. Hopefully, his stories with inspire people in America to prevent that from happening.

The only concern I have is that people in America, especially one’s that deny racism, will use South Africa’s history as a sort of “proof” that racism doesn’t truly exist in America. I can already see the argument. It would go something like: “In South Africa, racism was a law. In America, there’s no such thing. People here only say it exists when they don’t get what they want.” Luckily, there’s a logical argument to that, with A) until the Civil Rights movement, it was in fact the law to separate race, and B) right now, we have a president-elect who is a white supremacist and is supported KKK.

Regardless of what conversations this book will bring up, I think anyone could enjoy it purely based on the humor. So many times, I found myself laughing out loud at something Trevor Noah said. It was like reading The Daily Show, and it was awesome knowing that Trevor Noah wrote the whole book by himself, and all the words were his. I also really appreciated his story and that he was so truthful with how he came to his success. His was truly a story that shows that anyone can be successful with enough love and support.

Thought provoking and emotionally moving, Born A Crime has a story meant to teach.

5 Stars