Born a crime

​I've been watching Comedy Central's The Daily Show for many years.  In fact, I'm a loyal and longtime fan, since high school.  Jon Stewart, the Show's host, stepped down in 2015 and replaced with Trevor Noah, a South African comedian.  He is super funny.  His humor connects with global audiences.  Trevor's humor has a lightness and optimism that is so refreshing to watch.  He uses his outside (South African) perspective to his advantage.  He is actually very good at making fun of himself and the rest of the world.  In my opinion, Trevor Noah's comedy is so universal that it has the power to exceed borders.  

Watch few of his Youtube clips if you don't know Trevor Noah. 

I just finished his memoir, Born a Crime.  Amazing book.  Born to a black South African mother, and a white Swiss father in apartheid South Africa, Trevor entered the world as a biracial child in a country where mixed race relationship was forbidden.  So he was not just a misfit, he was, as the title of his book says "born a crime."  

In South Africa, at that time, race categories were so arbitrary and yet so prominent, and Trevor never had a group to call his own.  As a little boy living with apartheid laws, he couldn't even be seen in public with his white father or his black mother.  He explains in the book how his father would walk far ahead of him to ensure he wouldn't be seen with his biracial son.   Many times his mother would pose as a maid to make it look like she was just babysitting another family's child.  There were many more problems, like on the schoolyard, where he was a misfit.  

Magically during Trevor's childhood, he quickly finds out that there's a freedom that comes with being a misfit.  A polyglot who speaks English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, Tsonga, Tswana not to mention German and Spanish, Trevor used his talent for language to bounce from group to group and win their hearts in some of the most stressful situations and even avoid being mugged by locals.  

Noah tells the story of how he discovered that language was stronger than skin color in building connections with other people during his childhood in South Africa.  He writes, "My color didn't change, but I could change your perception of my color.  If you spoke to me in Zulu, I replied to you in Zulu.  If you talked to me in Tswana, I replied to you in Tswana,  Maybe I didn't look like you, but if I spoke to you, I was you."  

Trevor is a super funny comedian but his story growing up in South Africa is truly tragic.  Father moved away, the family was desperately poor, he was arrested, and the list goes on and on.  His mother was shot by his stepfather.  In Noha's hands, these moving stories are told in a way that will often leave the readers laughing.  Trevor got this comedy skills from his mom.  Even after his mom's shot in the face, and somehow survives, she tells Trevor from her hospital bed to look at the bright side.  "now you're officially the best-looking person in the family," she jokes.  

Trevor writes:  "if my mother had one goal, it was to free my mind."  
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The real hero of Trevor Noah's book is her mother.  She is a truly extraordinary person.   In fact, her greatest gift was to give Trevor the ability to think for himself and see the world from his perspective.