Born a Crime: Unraveling Racism in Society

 

****This student also added research to the paper, which is not required for our class, but you can see how additional layers give more heft to the overall argument.  This was from last quarter.

 

Born a Crime: Unraveling Racism in Society

            As the political and ideological divide swells in modern day America, it is easy to see why the populace would be driven to associate this dissension with another significant element of controversy: racism. According to a recent poll reported by the NBC news channel, 66 percent of Americans regard race relations in the United States to be a critical problem. Furthermore, it is also believed that the prospect of real progress on this issue remains muddy, as differing ideas and perspectives aggressively clash. Despite the data, the problematic nature of the underlying issue goes beyond numbers.With race being a topic of great complexity, getting lost in a sea of impersonal statistics, aimless bickering, and a plethora of questionable internet commentary eventually becomes an obstacle. To build a more concrete understanding of the intricacies of racism in society, it is important to broaden the scope and seek a more personal and genuine insight into the matter. One great resource that can contextualize the true gravity of racism can be found in the authentic story of South African comedian, producer, and actor Trevor Noah.

            In the memoir Born a Crime, author Trevor Noah recounts his passage through life in South Africa in the wake of Apartheid – a brutal era under a system built from the roots of racial oppression. Beginning from childhood, Noah details the hardships of his youth as he is subjected to adversity derived from his biracial identity. He is effectively “born a crime” under the senseless, iron-fisted laws of South African Apartheid in which he is a product of the illegal marriage between his Xhosa mother, Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah and his reclusive Swiss/German expat father, Robert. Trevor spends his early days under Apartheid in a habitual form of hiding, which his young mind processes as a confusing notion. With the family constantly under the threat of the government, he grows up closely with a significant religious influence from his devout Christian mother, Patricia, who is a stubborn, resilient, and nonconformist woman, taking great responsibility in raising him with both discipline and love despite her and mischievous Trevor’s “cat and mouse” relationship. Moving forward, Trevor is eventually forced to confront societal isolation in Eden Park and Soweto as his colored racial status takes the forefront, even after the abolition of Apartheid. The hold of systematic and internalized racism begins to compound and become more prevalent in his mind. He endures ostracization from his school peers and while able to cleverly manipulate his biracial identity and language skills to his advantage, he always remains an outcast. As Trevor reaches adolescence and beyond, he begins to fully utilize his wits and resourcefulness and creates a pseudo-business involving music piracy and small bouts of petty crime in the ghetto of Alexandra. However, through hustling, he quickly finds himself trapped in the perpetual cycle of poverty, which becomes a difficult force to escape. Noah closes with one of his last bitter experiences in which his abusive, traditional Tsongan step father Abel eventually crosses the line and manifests his violent tendancies into the unsuccessful attempted murder of his mother Patricia.  THESIS:  Throughout Born a Crime, Trevor Noah exposes many of the gritty, palpable aspects of racism. It is cemented in the culture/society, setting, and personal aspects of his life. What can be learned from Noah is that through his first-hand experiences of isolation, the nature of life under Apartheid, and the influences of good people, it is crucial to acknowledge and expand the understanding of racism in society in order to potentially overcome it.

            Thematically, race and isolation play a huge role in Trevor Noah’s development. Noah’s identity as an outsider and his sense of isolation spans the majority of his life and is closely intertwined with many of his major life experiences. It can almost be considered a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it makes him very resourceful and forces him to grow as a person, but on the flip side, it locks him into a state of loneliness. When exploring the positive aspects of Noah’s social segregation, it is important to note that a large part of it comes from his ability to adapt and stay positive, which is a trait he adopts from his mother. In one particular instance in his childhood, he is tailed by several Zulu kids who discuss their plan to assault him, thinking he is white and unable to understand them. Trevor utilizes his language skill to communicate with them, which instantly defuses the situation. Noah explains, “I became a chameleon. My color didn’t change, but I could change your perception of my color” and “Maybe I didn’t look like you, but if I spoke like you, I was you” (56). Appropriately likening himself to a chameleon, Noah was able to spin what would otherwise be a disadvantage into a tool and it would become one that he relied on often. Later on in life, as he enters a diverse high school at Sandringham, he uses his position to stay neutral and gain favor with a variety of groups and find his niche. With this happening, the other side of the coin begins to show. Noah reveals, “I’d drop in, pass out the snacks, tell a few jokes. I’d perform for them. I’d catch a bit of their conversation, learn more about their group, and then leave. I never overstayed my welcome” and “I was everywhere with everybody, and at the same time I was all by myself” (141). Within these few thoughts, it is shown that although Trevor was able to make the best of being an interloper.  However,  isolation is still isolation. The main significance of being an outsider comes from how destructive it can be in somebody’s life and how complex the issue of race can be.

Even after Apartheid, the lasting effects could still be felt. In Noah’s life, it wasn’t as simple as one race vs. another, and with him being mixed, he found himself at odds with everyone. In some instances, he even exposes the concept of internalized racism within his own mind, which is a form of oppression through conscious and unconscious conditioning to accept racism as the norm. In African Affairs, by Cornel Verwey and Michael Quayle, it is stated that, “Whiteness is historically linked to privilege. Whiteness is almost universally a racial or ethnic category that also offers the opportunity to maintain this privilege. In South Africa, this privilege manifested itself in terms of both political power and economic advantage, which was reserved for white South Africans” (556). Having been exposed to this his entire life, it is easy to see why Noah would have been so disenfranchised by his situation. To further complicate the matter, his mixed race status was something that was often detrimental regardless of a part of him being “white”. However, despite the nature of the system weighing against him, Noah refused to let racism consume his life in the way it had victimized so many others. By understanding the absurdity of racism, he was able to show that identity was something more than surface level perceptions like color and language.

Shifting to the poverty stricken, geographically boxed-in locale of Alexandra, where Trevor Noah spends many of his post high school days, a real perspective can also be gained on the nuances of institutionalized racism reflected in the disparities of wealth, housing, power, and justice. Aptly compared to a modern day Gomorrah, Alexandra becomes symbolic to the failures of the post-Apartheid world. It is there where Noah becomes closer with some further ramifications of Apartheid and serves as an important vicarious window into the reasons that racism and poverty are a self-sustaining cycle. Noah states, “[We] were in a uniquely fucked situation when apartheid ended. He has been given more potential, but he has not been given more opportunity. He has been given an awareness of the world that is out there, but he has not been given the means to reach it” (208). What Trevor realized was that in some areas, they had become worse off than during the period of Apartheid. The lack of opportunity and possibility forced the birth of a subculture of crime and unemployment. Noah explains, “The hood made me realize that crime succeeds because crime does the one thing the government doesn’t do: crime cares, crime doesn’t discriminate” (209). Due to the nature of poverty in Alex, what would normally be considered unconscionable crime to some, became the baseline because things became so bad that it actually became a preferable, valid choice compared to reliance on the government for help. This effectively demonstrates that racism was systematic, deeply entrenched, and for many, unbeatable.

Along with his close friend Bogani, a natural entrepreneur, Trevor soon found himself in the business of crime as well, albeit one that didn’t pose any real threat to people. In the role of CD salesmen, loan scheming, and item trading, the duo soon found themselves entwined in the “hustler’s lifestyle” -- a deceiving way of life that could entrap a person into that lifestyle. What this showed to Trevor was that the hustler’s way of life was financially unsustainable despite his frugality. It put on the facade of some sort of progress, but ultimately ended with no actual result. He had been putting in maximal effort for minimal gain and all things considered, he soon recognizes that he is an outsider once again. Noah realizes, “I chose to live in that world, but I wasn’t from that world. The difference was that in the back of my mind I knew I had other options. I could leave. They couldn’t” (224). The fact of the matter is that the cycle of poverty is one that is almost inescapable for the ones born into those circumstances.

            What Noah experienced in Alexandra is also an observation that can almost be used in direct parallel to some of the social issues in the United states today. Similarly, many people argue that the concept of institutional and systematic racism looms over modern day America for many people of color, as the same cycle of poverty and segregation is evidently an unfortunate reality. In the academic journal, White Flight and the Endless Cycle of Poverty for Urban People of Color in America, by Oscar Syed Wade, it is explained using the example of large urban centers that, “Los Angeles has the the fourth largest economy in the United States and 16th globally just behind Mexico. Nonetheless, within this wealth and global opulence, the black and brown people of the five county regions continue to struggle in urban centers as resources and support are drained from those communities” (141). In a similar fashion, the South African government that Noah lives under is also shown to hold Alexandra in a constant cycle of poverty. Noah describes the path to Alexandra through several cordons that separate the wealthy neighborhoods of Johannesburg and the industrial town of Wynberg from Alex. The people within the community are then subject to nefarious means of creating a living for themselves, which only exacerbates the issue of ever being able to leave.

            By exploring this aspect of racial inequality directly, Noah provides awareness to the grasp of institutionalized racism and how a government can perpetuate a self-fulfilled cycle of poverty, racism, violence, and animosity towards one another in a community. With this in mind, even in the shadow of these complex issues, Alexandra still stood as a close-knit community of shared responsibility and ironically, it provided Noah with some semblance of purpose and belonging that he had not previously experienced.

Trevor Noah’s mother Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah, meaning “She Who Gives Back”, can be considered one of the most important driving forces in his life that allows him to overstep the shackles of racial issues in society. Independent, rebellious, and unstoppable, she represents optimism and hope. In contrast with Trevor, Patricia lives most of her adult life under the rule of Apartheid at its apex. Undeterred by the obstacles placed for her at the time, she lives up to her name and lays the foundation for Trevor. She harshly punishes him, but only as a method of deterrence and as a teaching point. They share both a “partner in crime” and “cop and robber” relationship. More importantly, she exposes racism, violence, and poverty as something that is able to be fought. Noah explains, “I never felt poor because our lives were so rich with experience” (72) and “My mother took me places black people never went. She refused to be bound by ridiculous ideas of what black people couldn’t or shouldn’t do. My mom raised me as if there were no limitations on where I could go or what I could do” (73). By taking the steps to expose Trevor to freedom, she is able to convey the fallacies of a government based on racism and segregation and that the state manufactured prison of oppression could be broken out of. She outlines, “even if he never leaves the ghetto, he will know that the ghetto is not the world” (74). By knowing this, Trevor could be mentally liberated from the confining beliefs that so many people were forcibly subscribed to. Even the mere fact of Trevor’s existence was proof that racism is not as powerful as it was implemented to be. Noah clarifies, “In any society built on institutionalized racism, race-mixing doesn’t merely challenge the system as unjust, it reveals the system as unsustainable and incoherent. Race-mixing proves that races can mix - and in a lot of cases, want to mix” (21). Simply put, Trevor realizes through his parent’s marriage that racism is not natural, it is acquired.

            In addition to broadening Trevor’s sense of understanding, Patricia also puts an emphasis on education. In another act of defiance against racism, she breaks the mold and becomes successful in her career. Under Apartheid, black men either worked in a factory, farm, or mine, while women would have similarly insignificant jobs such as factory work or maid work. Noah reveals that “true to her nature, she found an option that was not among the ones presented to her: She took a secretarial course, a typing class. At the time, a black woman learning how to type was like a blind person learning how to drive” (23). With this skill, Patricia is able to educate Trevor, speaking to him like an adult on occasion and teaching him some specifics about business correspondence through a letter writing exchange. Patricia’s teachings can be seen as a force that frees Trevor from the oppression of both the government and society. Oppression, according to the article, Internalized Racism: A Systematic Review of the Psychological Literature on Racism’s Most Insidious Consequence, by E. J. R. David, is defined as “both a state and a process, with the state of oppression being an unequal group access to power and privilege, and the process of oppression being the ways in which inequality between groups is maintained” (1058). Furthermore, “In addition to understanding that oppression is both a state and a process, it is important to clarify two key and necessary components of oppression—power and privilege. By its very definition, oppression does not exist if there are no power and privilege inequalities between people” (1058). By becoming an example of somebody who is not restrained by the societal rules that have been imposed, Patricia is showing Trevor that by going against the current, they are able to diminish the power that the system has over them and in turn, cannot be oppressed.

            All in all, the understanding and acknowledgement of racism in society is what will contribute to overpowering it just as Trevor Noah had done in his own life. Whether it be Noah’s life of isolation, his entanglement into poverty and social unrest, or his mother’s influences in his life, Born a Crime and its implications lend a valuable interpersonal look into how racism, at its worst, can destroy a nation and its people and leave a lasting impression. When drawing parallels to modern day issues, Noah’s accounts also leave a message of optimism and confidence that can be used as guidance into the future.

 

 

 

Work Cited

David, E. J. R., et al. “Internalized Racism: A Systematic Review of the Psychological Literature        on Racism’s Most Insidious Consequence.” Journal of Social Issues, vol. 75, no. 4, Dec.     2019, pp.         1057–1086. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/josi.12350.

Noah, Trevor. Born a Crime Stories from a South African Childhood. Spiegel & Grau, 2016.

Verwey, Cornel, and Michael Quayle. “Whiteness, Racism, and Afrikaner Identity in Post-    Apartheid South Africa.” African Affairs, vol. 111, no. 445, Oct. 2012, pp. 551–575.         EBSCOhost,   doi:10.1093/afraf/ads056.

Wade, Oscar Syed. “White Flight and the Endless Cycle of Poverty for Urban People of Color in      America.” Online Submission, vol. 4, no. 4, 1 Jan. 2017, pp. 141–145. EBSCOhost,   search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED575025&site=ehost-live.