“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”
What a book! What a Man! What a Mom!
I listened the audiobook and it was amazing!
For those who don’t know, Trevor Noah is a talk show host called the Daily Show, focused mainly in political humour. He’s also a stand-up comedian.
Trevor Noah has a very well-placed voice, he’s eloquent and has a fantastic accent. He mixes humour into serious issues such as racism. Moreover, he has reasoned opinions since he has a great intellect and knows what he’s talking about.
Trevor was born in 1984, in Johannesburg, South Africa, during the apartheid.
The apartheid was a system of racial segregation that took place in South Africa from 1948 up until the beginning of the 90’s. It was an authoritarian system based on white supremacy (which was a minority) that controlled economically, politically and socially South Africa. One of the controls measures was the prohibition of interracial couples/relationships.
Now we can assume the rest: Noah was born out of a forbidden relationship (sort of) between a white man and a black woman, in a complicated time for South Africa. Noah was born a crime and the whole book portraits, essentially, the racial disparity that he suffered.
He wasn’t black, nor white, therefore he suffered from racism, consciously and unconsciously by everybody from his family up to complete strangers and even the authorities.
Another fundamental issue in this book, in my perspective, is motherhood. Patricia Noah, his mother, has such wisdom, tenaciousness… such an inspiring mother and person. We can understand perfectly the love Noah has for her, for all that she fought and lived through.
Considering the current racial issue in the world, this book is a must-read. Noah is capable of narrating is own story, with his amazing voice as well as speak several African languages that he learned. Adding that he tells the funniest stories from his childhood, that makes us stop reading just to have a laugh.
We need to have more empathy for the pain they have been through, through generations, relentlessly, to put ourselves in their shoes, even just to have a taste of the pain in order to fight for what’s human.
A pain that they felt in their skin, that we’ll never even begin to know. A pain that needs to be acknowledge and eradicated so that the suffering stops once and for all. We need to take action, even the littlest helps: to fight our ignorance towards these issues and learn to know better. Always beginning to respect other’s liberty, that is when ours ends.
It’s an extraordinary book and one of the best I’ve ever read. If you can read and better yet, listen the audiobook.
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
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