# Born a Crime **Covers**:: **Source**:: [[Born a Crime by Trevor Noah]] **Creator**:: [[Trevor Noah]] # Highlights ##### ^306688372 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=1559 ###### ^306688372q The curse that colored people carry is having no clearly defined heritage to go back to. If they trace their lineage back far enough, at a certain point it splits into white and native and a tangled web of “other.” Since their native mothers are gone, their strongest affinity has always been with their white fathers, the Afrikaners. Most colored people don’t speak African languages. They speak Afrikaans. Their religion, their institutions, all of the things that shaped their culture came from Afrikaners. ^306688372 ##### ^306654911 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=1576 ###### ^306654911q If a white guy chooses to immerse himself in hip-hop culture and only hang out with black people, black people will say, “Cool, white guy. Do what you need to do.” If a black guy chooses to button up his blackness to live among white people and play lots of golf, white people will say, “Fine. I like Brian. He’s safe.” But try being a black person who immerses himself in white culture while still living in the black community. Try being a white person who adopts the trappings of black culture while still living in the white community. You will face more hate and ridicule and ostracism than you can even begin to fathom. People are willing to accept you if they see you as an outsider trying to assimilate into their world. But when they see you as a fellow tribe member attempting to disavow the tribe, that is something they will never forgive. ^306654911 ##### ^306654920 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=1584 ###### ^306654920q When apartheid came, colored people defied easy categorization, so the system used them—quite brilliantly—to sow confusion, hatred, and mistrust... Afrikaners used to call them amperbaas: “the almost-boss.” The almost-master. “You’re almost there. You’re so close. You’re this close to being white. Pity your grandfather couldn’t keep his hands off the chocolate, eh? But it’s not your fault you’re colored, so keep trying. Because if you work hard enough you can erase this taint from your bloodline. Keep on marrying lighter and whiter and don’t touch the chocolate and maybe, maybe, someday, if you’re lucky, you can become white.” ^306654920 ##### ^306654914 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=1590 ###### ^306654914q Every year under apartheid, some colored people would get promoted to white. It wasn’t a myth; it was real. People could submit applications to the government. Your hair might become straight enough, your skin might become light enough, your accent might become polished enough—and you’d be reclassified as white. All you had to do was denounce your people, denounce your history, and leave your darker-skinned friends and family behind. ^306654914 ##### ^306654921 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=1594 ###### ^306654921q The legal definition of a white person under apartheid was “one who in appearance is obviously a white person who is generally not accepted as a coloured person; or is generally accepted as a white person… That’s where the government came up with things like the pencil test. If you were applying to be white, the pencil went into your hair. If it fell out, you were white. If it stayed in, you were colored. You were what the government said you were. Sometimes that came down to a lone clerk eyeballing your face and making a snap decision. Depending on how high your cheekbones were or how broad your nose was, he could tick whatever box made sense to him, thereby deciding where you could live, whom you could marry, what jobs and rights and privileges you were allowed. ^306654921 ##### ^306654917 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=1602 ###### ^306654917q Of course, whites could be demoted to colored as well. That was key. Those mixed bloodlines were always lurking, waiting to peek out, and fear of losing their status kept white people in line. If two white parents had a child and the government decided that child was too dark, even if both parents produced documentation proving they were white, the child could be classified as colored, and the family had to make a decision. Do they give up their white status to go and live as colored people in a colored area? Or would they split up, the mother taking the colored child to live in the ghetto while the father stayed white to make a living to support them? ^306654917 ##### ^306654918 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=1609 ###### ^306654918q One of the most sinister things about apartheid was that it taught colored people that it was black people who were holding them back. Apartheid said that the only reason colored people couldn’t have first-class status was because black people might use coloredness to sneak past the gates to enjoy the benefits of whiteness. ^306654918 ##### ^306654919 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=1616 ###### ^306654919q Colored people had it rough. Imagine: You’ve been brainwashed into believing that your blood is tainted. You’ve spent all your time assimilating and aspiring to whiteness. Then, just as you think you’re closing in on the finish line, some fucking guy named Nelson Mandela comes along and flips the country on its head. Now the finish line is back where the starting line was, and the benchmark is black. Black is in charge. Black is beautiful. Black is powerful. ^306654919 ##### ^297089503 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=2464 ###### ^297089503q People love to say, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” What they don’t say is, “And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.” ^297089503 ##### ^297089504 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=2466 ###### ^297089504q Working with Andrew was the first time in my life I realized you need someone from the privileged world to come to you and say, “Okay, here’s what you need, and here’s how it works.” Talent alone would have gotten me nowhere without Andrew giving me the CD writer. People say, “Oh, that’s a handout.” No. I still have to work to profit by it. But I don’t stand a chance without it. ^297089504 ##### ^297089505 highlight_tags:: [[favorite]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=2548 ###### ^297089505q I often wonder, with African atrocities like in the Congo, how horrific were they? The thing Africans don’t have that Jewish people do have is documentation. The Nazis kept meticulous records, took pictures, made films. And that’s really what it comes down to. Holocaust victims count because Hitler counted them. Six million people killed. We can all look at that number and rightly be horrified. But when you read through the history of atrocities against Africans, there are no numbers, only guesses. It’s harder to be horrified by a guess. ^297089505 ##### ^297089506 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=2768 ###### ^297089506q That’s the hood. Someone’s always buying, someone’s always selling, and the hustle is about trying to be in the middle of that whole thing. None of it was legal. Nobody knew where anything came from. The guy who got us Nikes, did he really have a “staff discount”? You don’t know. You don’t ask. ^297089506 ##### ^297089507 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=2776 ###### ^297089507q It’s easy to be judgmental about crime when you live in a world wealthy enough to be removed from it. But the hood taught me that everyone has different notions of right and wrong, different definitions of what constitutes crime, and what level of crime they’re willing to participate in. If a crackhead comes through and he’s got a crate of Corn Flakes boxes he’s stolen out of the back of a supermarket, the poor mom isn’t thinking, I’m aiding and abetting a criminal by buying these Corn Flakes. No. She’s thinking, My family needs food and this guy has Corn Flakes, and she buys the Corn Flakes. ^297089507 ##### ^297089508 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=2875 ###### ^297089508q The biggest thing in the hood is that you have to share. You can’t get rich on your own. You have money? Why aren’t you helping people? The old lady on the block needs help, everyone pitches in. You’re buying beer, you buy beer for everyone. You spread it around. Everyone must know that your success benefits the community in one way or another, or you become a target. The township polices itself as well. If someone’s caught stealing, the township deals with them. If someone’s caught breaking into a house, the township deals with them. If you’re caught raping a woman, pray to God the police find you before the township does. If a woman is being hit, people don’t get involved. There are too many questions with a beating. What’s the fight about? Who’s responsible? Who started it? But rape is rape. Theft is theft. You’ve desecrated the community. ^297089508 ##### ^297089509 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=2890 ###### ^297089509q The hood has a gravitational pull. It never leaves you behind, but it also never lets you leave. Because by making the choice to leave, you’re insulting the place that raised you and made you and never turned you away. And that place fights you back. ^297089509 ##### ^297089510 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01DHWACVY&location=3433 ###### ^297089510q That’s when I realized the police were not who I thought they were. They were men first, and police second. ^297089510