Born A Crime

Reading Born a Crime has been both unsettling and eye-opening for me. It felt kinda weird but also new to me—a kid who grew up both with and without his dad. Like, he had to hide who he really was whenever he was around his father. It made me wonder how that might have shaped his personality while he was growing up.

“Language brings with it an identity and a culture, or at least the perception of it. A shared language says ‘We’re the same.’ A language barrier says ‘We’re different.’” That hit me hard. Language isn’t just communication—it’s belonging, safety, power. It’s a passport into someone’s trust, or a wall that keeps you out.

And then there’s that moment when Trevor’s grandmother refuses to punish him, simply because he’s half white. It says so much about how deeply colonialism and racism work—not just on the body, but on the mind. Even inside Black communities, “whiteness” carried this aura of untouchability, of superiority. It made me think of today’s world, where some of us still unconsciously carry the same mindset: that whiteness means power, whiteness means dominance.

“You were what the government said you were.” That single sentence captures just how absurd and chaotic apartheid was. Your racial identity wasn’t about who you actually were—it was whatever the government stamped on you. You could be “upgraded” or “downgraded,” like you were some product on a shelf instead of a human being. It made me realize, more than ever, that so many of the definitions we live by—race, class, legitimacy—aren’t natural truths. They’re rules written by those in power. And rules, when you strip them down, aren’t about right or wrong. They’re about power and interest, about who gets to decide the script.

“Crime does the one thing the government doesn’t do: crime cares. Crime is grassroots. Crime looks for the young kids who need support and a lifting hand. Crime offers internship programs and summer jobs and opportunities for advancement. Crime gets involved in the community. Crime doesn’t discriminate.” It’s such a twisted but painfully honest description of what life under apartheid was like. When the state abandons people, something else always steps in to fill the gap. Crime becomes infrastructure, becomes social services, becomes family. It’s terrifying, but it also explains why so many communities hold onto the very systems that harm them—because at least those systems see them, feed them, include them. In some ways, the gangs did more for the kids in the township than the government ever bothered to. That’s the real indictment of power: when illegality becomes more humane than the law itself.

The last chapter broke me completely—I was crying the whole way through. Abel is portrayed in all his ugliness: an alcoholic, a patriarchal tyrant, a man whose fragile ego needed to crush women to feel whole. Trevor’s mom puts it perfectly: “He only wants a woman who is free because his dream is to put her in a cage.” That sentence chilled me. It captures something I’ve seen echoed across cultures: the way patriarchy doesn’t just fear strong women—it desires them, so it can control them, diminish them, clip their wings as proof of its own dominance.

And then there’s Trevor’s mom. She survives being shot in the head. And even then, lying there bleeding, she comforts her children: “Don’t cry, I’m okay.” That moment floored me. It’s strength beyond comprehension—not the kind of strength we romanticize, but the brutal, necessary resilience of women who have had no choice but to be stronger than the world allows.

What pierced me even deeper was Trevor’s honesty about paying for her surgery. He admits he hesitated. Not because he didn’t love her, but because he was calculating costs, responsibilities, survival. And in that moment you feel the clash between love and the crushing weight of what he calls the “black tax”—the fear of being pulled back into the cycle of poverty and violence, of never escaping because you’re forever paying for the past. That fear isn’t unique to Trevor. It belongs to millions of people born into poverty, who carry not just their own struggles but the burden of generations before them. That’s the cruelty of systemic inequality: it demands that the survivors keep paying, endlessly, for simply existing.

And yet, what made me angriest wasn’t just the pain—it was the so-called “justice.” Abel, a man who shot his wife, gets 3 years’ probation. No prison. No real consequence. Just a slap on the wrist. I couldn’t help but ask: in how many countries, in how many systems, are men this protected? How often do we excuse violence as “a mistake,” “a moment of rage,” instead of naming it for what it is—terror, domination, cruelty? We tell women to survive, to endure, and then we tell their abusers to “learn from it and move on.” It makes you wonder if hell really is empty—because the devils are walking free among us.

This final section of Trevor’s story doesn’t just leave you with pain—it leaves you with rage, with awe at his mother’s resilience, and with a sharper eye on the injustices that still shape our world. Born a Crime begins as a story about survival, but it ends as an indictment of a society that too often protects monsters and punishes their victims. And that’s what makes this book unforgettable: it doesn’t just tell Trevor’s story—it forces you to wrestle with your own.

Trevor Noah's book is the best one! Se of the scenarios in there are from his shows but some are really funny even though it's clear he had not an easy path through the years. I cried and laughed like never before in my life. Awesome I fell in love with it.🔝🔝