Born a Crime

SYNOPSIS:

If you want to read something that wakes you up to the events that have been shaking human kind for the last 900 years or so, read this book. Educate yourself because no one else will do that for you. Become a better human.

REVIEW

(5 STARS):

I have to thank @omeureinodanoite for recommending this wonderful audiobook, but I also have to curse her because now that's all I recommend to people.

This book tackles real-life issues with Noah telling us how it was to grow-up during apartheid in South Africa, while presenting us with historical facts and studies of that period, to help contextualize his precarious social situation. He was, indeed, born a crime. To think that a child can be considered a crime from the moment it's conceived is abhominal, so of course, I paused in perplexity. Apartheid is a subject we study in school, but it's something that happened far away and long ago, you know? To other people, at another time. It's easy to separate ourselves from it, so it keeps on being just a thing you studied a while ago and have some basic notions of what it was and when it happened. You keep on growing up, living your own life, never giving it another thought. And then George Floyd is murdered and you go on a journey of education yourself. So you pick up a book about racism and you hear about it. Again. Apartheid. 'I know what it is', you think. But you don't, not really. And as you listen to someone that actually lived it makes it more real and upsetting. It hits you. It's not an abstract piece of history anymore, a date or definition you had to memorize for your exam. It becomes a monster that you've been ignoring for all these years. Thanks to white privilege. Because let's face it: it's a privilege that I get to ignore what Apartheid is. It's a privilege that I don't have to deal with racism on a daily basis. My education is a privilege. So the monster that has now taken form, won't ever leave your side. Your mission now is to learn how to live with it and how to stop its growth.

Despite the horrible things he tells us about, Noah manages to tell his story with humour. It's crazy, but it's true. Here he is, narrating his terrible experiences while trying, at the same time, to cheer us up. But worry not, you'll feel sh*t nonetheless. It's impossible not to. Even if it wasn't me who picked up the gun and killed people based on their colour, I'm ashamed of all Europe, I'm disgusted at all the people who came before me and thought it was okay to murder human beings because they were not white. I'm appalled by how my education system is treating these issues and angry that it took me so long to see them. I'm thinking: was I ever complacent with a racist remark? When was the last time I was racist? Did I know I was being racist? And on it goes, and all this time, Trevor Noah is there, trying to make me laugh. It was a very bizarre experience.

You won't be the same person after you finish reading this memoir. It's about racism, feminism, misogyny, religious intolerance and many other f*cked up things human beings are capable of but pretend they aren't.

So I urge you to listen to this book. Noah's sexy, expressive and wonderful voice is to die for, but that's not it. He tells his story like no other, and no matter how hard an author tries, no writer can compete with their own voice. The words authors write on paper gain a new life when being read by them.

At times I forgot I was listening to a book. It was like I was at a coffee shop with my best friend and he was telling me about his life's story.

I listened to him in the car, in bed, cooking dinner... everywhere. I got hooked. But most importantly, I woke up. And I'll never go back to sleep again.