Excerpts from It's Trevor Noah: Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (Adapted for Young Readers)Trevor Noah, the funny guy who hosts The Daily Show on Comedy Central, shares his remarkable story of growing up in South Africa with a black South African mother and a white European father at a time when it was against the law for a mixed-race child to exist. But he did exist--and from the beginning, the often-misbehaved Trevor used his keen smarts and humor to navigate a harsh life under a racist government.
This fascinating memoir blends drama, comedy, and tragedy to depict the day-to-day trials that turned a boy into a young man. In a country where racism barred blacks from social, educational, and economic opportunity, Trevor surmounted staggering obstacles and created a promising future for himself, thanks to his mom's unwavering love and indomitable will. |
Apartheid (19)
Apartheid was perfect racism. It took centuries to develop, starting all the way back in 1652 when the Dutch East India Company landed at the Cape of Good Hope and established a trading colony, Kaapstad, later known as Cape Town, a rest stop for ships traveling between Europe and India. To impose white rule, the Dutch colonists went to war with the natives, ultimately developing a set of laws to subjugate and enslave them. When the British took over the Cape Colony, the descendants of the original Dutch settlers trekked inland and developed their own language, culture, and customs, eventually becoming their own people, the Afrikaners -- the white tribe of Africa.
The British abolished slavery in name but kept it in practice. They did so because, in the mid-1800s, in what had been written off as a near-worthless way station on the route to the Far East, a few lucky capitalists stumbled upon the richest gold and diamond reserves in the world, and an endless supply of expendable bodies was needed to go in the ground and get it all out.
As the British Empire fell, the Afrikaner rose up to claim South Africa as his rightful inheritance. To maintain power in the face of the country’s rising and restless black majority, the government realized they needed a newer and more robust set of tools. They set up a formal commission to go out and study institutionalized racism all over the world. They went to Australia. They went to the Netherlands. They went to America. They saw what worked, what didn’t. Then they came back and published a report, and the government used that knowledge to build the most advanced system of racial oppression known to man.
Apartheid was a police state, a system of surveillance and laws designed to keep black people under total control. A full compendium of those laws would run more than three thousand pages and weigh approximately ten pounds, but the general thrust of it should be easy enough for any American to understand. In America you had the forced removal of the native onto reservations coupled with slavery followed by segregation. Imagine all three of those things happening to the same group of people at the same time. That was apartheid.
The British abolished slavery in name but kept it in practice. They did so because, in the mid-1800s, in what had been written off as a near-worthless way station on the route to the Far East, a few lucky capitalists stumbled upon the richest gold and diamond reserves in the world, and an endless supply of expendable bodies was needed to go in the ground and get it all out.
As the British Empire fell, the Afrikaner rose up to claim South Africa as his rightful inheritance. To maintain power in the face of the country’s rising and restless black majority, the government realized they needed a newer and more robust set of tools. They set up a formal commission to go out and study institutionalized racism all over the world. They went to Australia. They went to the Netherlands. They went to America. They saw what worked, what didn’t. Then they came back and published a report, and the government used that knowledge to build the most advanced system of racial oppression known to man.
Apartheid was a police state, a system of surveillance and laws designed to keep black people under total control. A full compendium of those laws would run more than three thousand pages and weigh approximately ten pounds, but the general thrust of it should be easy enough for any American to understand. In America you had the forced removal of the native onto reservations coupled with slavery followed by segregation. Imagine all three of those things happening to the same group of people at the same time. That was apartheid.
Chapter 1: Run
We had a very Tom-and-Jerry relationship. She was the strict disciplinarian; I was incorrigibly naughty. She would send me out to buy groceries, and I wouldn't come right home because I'd be using the change from the milk and bread to play arcade games at the supermarket. I loved video games. I was a master at Street Fighter. I could go forever on a single play. I'd drop a coin in, time would fly, and the next hing I knew there'd be a woman behind me with a belt. It was a race. I'd take off out the door and through the dusty streets of Eden Park, clambering over walls, ducking through backyards. It was a normal thing in our neighborhood. Everybody knew: that Trevor child would come charging through, and his mom would be right there behind him. She could go at a full sprint in high heels, but if she really wanted to come after me, she'd do this weird move with her ankles and the heels would go flying, and she wouldn't even miss a step. That's when I knew, Okay, she's in turbo mode now.
When I was little she always caught me, but as I got older I got faster, and when speed failed her she'd use her wits. If I was about to get away she'd yell, "Stop! Thief!", knowing it would bring the whole neighborhood out against me. Then I'd have strangers trying to grab and tackle me, and I'd have to duck and dive and dodge them as well, all the while screaming, "I'm not a thief! I'm her son!" (11)
When I was little she always caught me, but as I got older I got faster, and when speed failed her she'd use her wits. If I was about to get away she'd yell, "Stop! Thief!", knowing it would bring the whole neighborhood out against me. Then I'd have strangers trying to grab and tackle me, and I'd have to duck and dive and dodge them as well, all the while screaming, "I'm not a thief! I'm her son!" (11)
Chapter 3: Trevor, Pray
Sadly, no matter how fancy you made your house, there was one thing you could never aspire to improve: your toilet. There was no indoor running water, just one communal outdoor tap and one outdoor toilet shared by six or seven houses. Our toilet was in a corrugated-iron outhouse shared among the adjoining houses. Inside, there was a concrete slab with a hole in it and a plastic toilet seat on top; there had been a lid at some point, but it had broken and disappeared long ago. We couldn't afford toilet paper, so on the wall next to the seat was a wire hanger with old newspaper on it for you to wipe. The newspaper was uncomfortable, but at least I stayed informed while I handled my business.
The thing I couldn't handle about the outhouse was the flies. It was a long drop to the bottom, and they were always down there, eating on the pile, and I had an irrational, all-consuming fear that they were going to fly up and into my bum.
One afternoon, when I was around five years old, my gran left me at home for a few hours to go run errands. I was lying on the floor in the bedroom, reading. I needed to go, but it was pouring down rain. I was dreading going outside to use the toilet, getting drenched running out there, water dripping on me from the leaky ceiling, wet newspaper, the flies attacking me from below. Then I had an idea: Why bother with the outhouse at all? Why not put some newspaper on the floor and do my business like a puppy? That seemed like a fantastic idea. So that's what I did. I took the newspaper, laid it out on the kitchen floor, pulled down my pants, squatted, and got to it.
As you first sit down to take a poop, you're not fully in the experience yet. You are not yet a pooping person. You're transitioning from a person about to poop to a person who is pooping. It takes a minute to get the first turd out of the way and get in the zone and get comfortable. Once you reach that moment, that's when it gets really nice.
It's a powerful experience, pooping. There's something magical about it. Profound, even. I think God made humans poop the way we do because it brings us back down to earth and gives us humility. I don't care who you are, we all poop the same. Beyoncé poops. The pope poops. The Queen of England poops. When we poop we forget our airs and our graces, we forget how famous or how rich we are. All of that goes away.
Squatting and pooping on the kitchen floor that day, I was like, Wow. There are no flies. There's no stress. This is really great. I'm really enjoying this. I knew I'd made an excellent choice, and I was very proud of myself for making it. I'd reached that moment where I could relax. Then I casually looked around the room and I glanced to my left and there, just a few feet away, right next to the coal stove, was Koko.
It was like the scene in Jurassic Park when the children turn and the T. rex is right there. Her eyes were wide open, cloudy white and darting around the room. I knew she couldn't see me, but her nose was starting to crinkle--she could sense that something was wrong.
I panicked. I was mid-poop. My only option was to finish as quietly and as slowly as I could, so that's what I decided to do. Then: the softest plop of a little-boy turd on the newspaper. Koko's head snapped toward the sound.
"Who's there? Hallow? Hallo?"
I froze. I held my breath and waited.
"Who's there? Hallow?"
I kept quiet, waited, then started again.
"Is somebody there? Trevor, is that you? Frances? Hallo? Hallo?" She started calling out the whole family. "Nombuyiselo? Sibongile? Mlungisi? Bulelwa? Who's there? What's happening?"
It was like a game, like I was trying to hid and a blind woman was trying to find me using sonar. Every time she called out, I froze. There would be complete silence. "Who's there? Hallo?" I'd pause, wait for her to settle back in her chair, and then I'd start up again.
Finally, after what felt like forever, I finished. I stood up, took the newspaper--which is not the quietest thing--and I slowwwwly folded it over some more, walked over to the rubbish bin, placed my sin at the bottom, and gingerly covered it with the rest of the trash. Then I tiptoed back to the other room, curled up on the mattress on the floor, and pretended to be asleep. The deed was done, no outhouse involved, and Koko was none the wiser.
Mission accomplished.
An hour later the rain had stopped. My grandmother came home. The second she walked in, Koko called out to her.
"Frances! Thank God you're here. There's something in the house."
"What was it?"
"I don't know, but I could hear it, and there was a smell."
My gran started sniffing the air. "Dear Lord! Yes, I can smell it, too. Is it a rat? Did something die? It's definitely in the house."
They went back and forth about it, quite concerned, and then, as it was getting dark, my mother came home from work. The second she walked in, my gran called out to her.
"Oh, Nombuyiselo! Nombuyiselo! There's something in the house!"
"What? What do you mean?"
Koko told her the story, the sounds, the smells.
Then my mom, who has a keen sense of smell, started going around the kitchen, sniffing. "Yes, I can smell it. I can find it…I can find it…" She went to the rubbish bin. "It's in here." She lifted out the rubbish, pulled out the folded newspaper underneath, and opened it up, and there was my little turd. She showed it to Gran.
"Look!"
"What? How did it get there?"
Koko, still blind, still stuck in her chair, was dying to know what was happening.
"What's going on?" she cried. "What's going on? Did you find it?"
"It's poop," Mom said. "There's poop in the bottom of the dustbin."
"But how?" Koko said. "There was no one here!"
"Are you sure there was no one here?"
"Yes. I called out to everyone. Nobody came."
My mother gasped. "We've been bewitched! It's a demon!"
For my mother, this was the logical conclusion. Because that's how witchcraft works. If someone has put a curse on you or your home, there is always the talisman or totem, a tuft of hair or the head of a cat, the physical manifestation of the spiritual thing, proof of the demon's presence.
Once my mom found the turd, she was more than furious. This was serious.
They had evidence. She came into the bedroom.
"Trevor! Trevor! Wake up!"
"What?" I said, playing dumb. "What's going on?"
"Come! There's a demon in the house!"
She took my hand and dragged me out of bed. It was all hands on deck, time for action. The first thing we had to do was go outside and burn the evidence. That's what you do with witchcraft; the only way to destroy it is to burn the physical thing. We went out to the yard, and my mom put the newspaper with my little turd on the driveway, lit a match, and set it on fire. Then my mom and my gran stood around the burning turd, praying and singing songs of praise.
The commotion didn't stop there because when there's a demon around, the whole community has to join together to drive it out. If you're not part of the prayer, the demon might leave our house and go to your house and curse you. So we needed everyone. The alarm was raised. The call went out. My tiny old gran was out the gate, going up and down the block, calling to all the other old grannies for an emergency prayer meeting. "Come! We've been bewitched!"
I stood there, my turd burning in the driveway, my poor aged grandmother tottering up and down the street in a panic, and I didn't know what to do. I knew there was no demon, but there was no way I could come clean. The hiding I would have to endure? Good Lord. Honesty was never the best policy when it came to a hiding. I kept quiet.
Moments later the grannies came streaming in with their Bibles, through the gate and up the driveway, a dozen or more at least. Everyone went inside. The house was packed. This was by far the biggest prayer meeting we'd ever had--the biggest thing that had ever happened in the history of our home, period. Everyone sat in the circle, praying and praying, and the prayers were strong. The grannies were chanting and murmuring and swaying back and forth, speaking in tongues. I was doing my best to keep my head low and stay out of it. Then my grandmother reached back and grabbed me, pulled me into the middle of the circle, and looked into my eyes.
"Trevor, pray."
"Yes! my mother said. "Help us! Pray, Trevor. Pray to God to kill the demon!"
I was terrified. I believed in the power of prayer. So if I prayed to God to kill the thing that left the turd, and the thing that left the turd was me, then God was going to kill me. I froze. I didn't know what to do. But all the grannies were looking at me, so I prayed, stumbling through as best I could.
"Dear Lord, please protect us, um, you know, from whoever did this but, like, we don't know what happened exactly and maybe it was a big misunderstanding and, you know, maybe we shouldn't be quick to judge when we don't know the whole story and, I mean, of course you know best, Heavenly Father, but maybe this time it wasn't actually a demon, because who can say for certain, so maybe cut whoever it was a break…"
It was not my best performance. Eventually I wrapped it up and sat back down. The praying continued. It went on for some time. Then everyone finally felt that the demon was gone and life could continue, and we had the big "amen" and everyone said good night and went home.
That night I felt terrible. Before bed, I quietly prayed, "God, I am so sorry for all this. I know this was not cool." Because I knew; God answers your prayers. God is your father. He's the man who's there for you, the man who takes care of you. When you pray, He stops and He takes His time and He listens, and 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 turd.
The thing I couldn't handle about the outhouse was the flies. It was a long drop to the bottom, and they were always down there, eating on the pile, and I had an irrational, all-consuming fear that they were going to fly up and into my bum.
One afternoon, when I was around five years old, my gran left me at home for a few hours to go run errands. I was lying on the floor in the bedroom, reading. I needed to go, but it was pouring down rain. I was dreading going outside to use the toilet, getting drenched running out there, water dripping on me from the leaky ceiling, wet newspaper, the flies attacking me from below. Then I had an idea: Why bother with the outhouse at all? Why not put some newspaper on the floor and do my business like a puppy? That seemed like a fantastic idea. So that's what I did. I took the newspaper, laid it out on the kitchen floor, pulled down my pants, squatted, and got to it.
As you first sit down to take a poop, you're not fully in the experience yet. You are not yet a pooping person. You're transitioning from a person about to poop to a person who is pooping. It takes a minute to get the first turd out of the way and get in the zone and get comfortable. Once you reach that moment, that's when it gets really nice.
It's a powerful experience, pooping. There's something magical about it. Profound, even. I think God made humans poop the way we do because it brings us back down to earth and gives us humility. I don't care who you are, we all poop the same. Beyoncé poops. The pope poops. The Queen of England poops. When we poop we forget our airs and our graces, we forget how famous or how rich we are. All of that goes away.
Squatting and pooping on the kitchen floor that day, I was like, Wow. There are no flies. There's no stress. This is really great. I'm really enjoying this. I knew I'd made an excellent choice, and I was very proud of myself for making it. I'd reached that moment where I could relax. Then I casually looked around the room and I glanced to my left and there, just a few feet away, right next to the coal stove, was Koko.
It was like the scene in Jurassic Park when the children turn and the T. rex is right there. Her eyes were wide open, cloudy white and darting around the room. I knew she couldn't see me, but her nose was starting to crinkle--she could sense that something was wrong.
I panicked. I was mid-poop. My only option was to finish as quietly and as slowly as I could, so that's what I decided to do. Then: the softest plop of a little-boy turd on the newspaper. Koko's head snapped toward the sound.
"Who's there? Hallow? Hallo?"
I froze. I held my breath and waited.
"Who's there? Hallow?"
I kept quiet, waited, then started again.
"Is somebody there? Trevor, is that you? Frances? Hallo? Hallo?" She started calling out the whole family. "Nombuyiselo? Sibongile? Mlungisi? Bulelwa? Who's there? What's happening?"
It was like a game, like I was trying to hid and a blind woman was trying to find me using sonar. Every time she called out, I froze. There would be complete silence. "Who's there? Hallo?" I'd pause, wait for her to settle back in her chair, and then I'd start up again.
Finally, after what felt like forever, I finished. I stood up, took the newspaper--which is not the quietest thing--and I slowwwwly folded it over some more, walked over to the rubbish bin, placed my sin at the bottom, and gingerly covered it with the rest of the trash. Then I tiptoed back to the other room, curled up on the mattress on the floor, and pretended to be asleep. The deed was done, no outhouse involved, and Koko was none the wiser.
Mission accomplished.
An hour later the rain had stopped. My grandmother came home. The second she walked in, Koko called out to her.
"Frances! Thank God you're here. There's something in the house."
"What was it?"
"I don't know, but I could hear it, and there was a smell."
My gran started sniffing the air. "Dear Lord! Yes, I can smell it, too. Is it a rat? Did something die? It's definitely in the house."
They went back and forth about it, quite concerned, and then, as it was getting dark, my mother came home from work. The second she walked in, my gran called out to her.
"Oh, Nombuyiselo! Nombuyiselo! There's something in the house!"
"What? What do you mean?"
Koko told her the story, the sounds, the smells.
Then my mom, who has a keen sense of smell, started going around the kitchen, sniffing. "Yes, I can smell it. I can find it…I can find it…" She went to the rubbish bin. "It's in here." She lifted out the rubbish, pulled out the folded newspaper underneath, and opened it up, and there was my little turd. She showed it to Gran.
"Look!"
"What? How did it get there?"
Koko, still blind, still stuck in her chair, was dying to know what was happening.
"What's going on?" she cried. "What's going on? Did you find it?"
"It's poop," Mom said. "There's poop in the bottom of the dustbin."
"But how?" Koko said. "There was no one here!"
"Are you sure there was no one here?"
"Yes. I called out to everyone. Nobody came."
My mother gasped. "We've been bewitched! It's a demon!"
For my mother, this was the logical conclusion. Because that's how witchcraft works. If someone has put a curse on you or your home, there is always the talisman or totem, a tuft of hair or the head of a cat, the physical manifestation of the spiritual thing, proof of the demon's presence.
Once my mom found the turd, she was more than furious. This was serious.
They had evidence. She came into the bedroom.
"Trevor! Trevor! Wake up!"
"What?" I said, playing dumb. "What's going on?"
"Come! There's a demon in the house!"
She took my hand and dragged me out of bed. It was all hands on deck, time for action. The first thing we had to do was go outside and burn the evidence. That's what you do with witchcraft; the only way to destroy it is to burn the physical thing. We went out to the yard, and my mom put the newspaper with my little turd on the driveway, lit a match, and set it on fire. Then my mom and my gran stood around the burning turd, praying and singing songs of praise.
The commotion didn't stop there because when there's a demon around, the whole community has to join together to drive it out. If you're not part of the prayer, the demon might leave our house and go to your house and curse you. So we needed everyone. The alarm was raised. The call went out. My tiny old gran was out the gate, going up and down the block, calling to all the other old grannies for an emergency prayer meeting. "Come! We've been bewitched!"
I stood there, my turd burning in the driveway, my poor aged grandmother tottering up and down the street in a panic, and I didn't know what to do. I knew there was no demon, but there was no way I could come clean. The hiding I would have to endure? Good Lord. Honesty was never the best policy when it came to a hiding. I kept quiet.
Moments later the grannies came streaming in with their Bibles, through the gate and up the driveway, a dozen or more at least. Everyone went inside. The house was packed. This was by far the biggest prayer meeting we'd ever had--the biggest thing that had ever happened in the history of our home, period. Everyone sat in the circle, praying and praying, and the prayers were strong. The grannies were chanting and murmuring and swaying back and forth, speaking in tongues. I was doing my best to keep my head low and stay out of it. Then my grandmother reached back and grabbed me, pulled me into the middle of the circle, and looked into my eyes.
"Trevor, pray."
"Yes! my mother said. "Help us! Pray, Trevor. Pray to God to kill the demon!"
I was terrified. I believed in the power of prayer. So if I prayed to God to kill the thing that left the turd, and the thing that left the turd was me, then God was going to kill me. I froze. I didn't know what to do. But all the grannies were looking at me, so I prayed, stumbling through as best I could.
"Dear Lord, please protect us, um, you know, from whoever did this but, like, we don't know what happened exactly and maybe it was a big misunderstanding and, you know, maybe we shouldn't be quick to judge when we don't know the whole story and, I mean, of course you know best, Heavenly Father, but maybe this time it wasn't actually a demon, because who can say for certain, so maybe cut whoever it was a break…"
It was not my best performance. Eventually I wrapped it up and sat back down. The praying continued. It went on for some time. Then everyone finally felt that the demon was gone and life could continue, and we had the big "amen" and everyone said good night and went home.
That night I felt terrible. Before bed, I quietly prayed, "God, I am so sorry for all this. I know this was not cool." Because I knew; God answers your prayers. God is your father. He's the man who's there for you, the man who takes care of you. When you pray, He stops and He takes His time and He listens, and 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 turd.
Chapter 5: The Second Girl
My books were my prized possessions. I had a bookshelf where I put them, and I was so proud of it. I loved my books and kept them in pristine condition. I read them over and over, but I did not bend the pages or the spines. I treasured every single one. As I grew older I started buying my own books. I loved fantasy, loved to get lost in worlds that didn't exist. I remember there was some book about white boys who solved mysteries. I had no time for that. Give me Roald Dahl. James and the Giant Peach, The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. That was my fix. (69)
Our car was a tin can on wheels, and we lived in the middle of nowhere. We had threadbare furniture, busted old sofas with holes worn through the fabric. Our TV was a tiny black-and-white with a bunny aerial on top. We changed the channels using a pair of pliers because the buttons didn't work. Most of the time you had to squint to see what was going on.
We wore secondhand clothes, from Goodwill stores or that were giveaways from white people at church. All the other kids at school got brands, Nike and Adidas. I never got brands. One time I asked my mom for Adidas sneakers. She came home with some knockoff brand, Abidas.
'Mom, these are fake," I said.
"I don't see the difference."
"Look at the logo. There are four stripes instead of three."
"Lucky you," she said. "You got one extra." (73)
We wore secondhand clothes, from Goodwill stores or that were giveaways from white people at church. All the other kids at school got brands, Nike and Adidas. I never got brands. One time I asked my mom for Adidas sneakers. She came home with some knockoff brand, Abidas.
'Mom, these are fake," I said.
"I don't see the difference."
"Look at the logo. There are four stripes instead of three."
"Lucky you," she said. "You got one extra." (73)