Lazy Nessy

Sense of humour is a trait most people look for in their prospective life partners. If you can’t laugh at the same things, how would you agree on other things? One of my friends would say.

As they say, laughter is the best medicine, and for someone who finds herself with a lot of pain in her body, YouTube has been my pharmacy for a couple of years now.

British panel shows are my go-to painkillers. My constants are 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Taskmaster, and Would I Lie to You? While catching up on past series of the show WILTY, I saw this one comedian for the first time. His anecdote, he used to imitate Nelson Mandela when answering phone calls.

Trevor Noah is the name Rob Brydon said.

After that, clips from other Brit shows featuring Trevor started popping up in my recommendations: 8OO10DC, QI, then his stand up in Apollo. I found him really funny, so I started watching clips from his stand-up shows, and now, videos from the Daily show have been on loop in my queue since the last quarter of 2021.

For most of the videos I watched, his family introductions has got to be one of my favourites. They usually go along the lines of “My mom was a free-spirited black woman, a Xhosa woman. My dad was Swiss from Switzerland, you know how Swiss love their chocolates” and everyone would laugh. Today, interracial relationships aren’t seen as taboo anymore, but back in the day, it was considered a crime in some parts of the world, in Trevor’s hometown, South Africa, especially. Hence, to be born to a black woman and a white dad, Trevor’s existence at that time is against the law.

Born A Crime walks us through Trevor’s life as a coloured man in a world determined to separate everything into black and white with the help of her loving (tough loving) mother, Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah.

Some of my favourite chapters were:

Robert

Trevor meets his dad after 10 years. Pressured to make up for the time they lost, Trevor interviewed his father making Robert annoyed, and the son came to a realisation that relationships are built on silences. Silent interactions and careful observations which was stolen from them during apartheid.

My favourite part of this chapter is when Trevor started getting anxious if his dad cared about him at all given that they’ve been apart for so long, and then his dad pulled out a scrapbook of articles where Trevor was in. It was a heartfelt moment. It’s unfortunate that power-hungry people took that away from a young kid and his father, but time does heal wounds, and I hope Trevor and his father are more connected than ever.

(Random note: In an earlier chapter, Trevor mentioned that his mother named him Trevor because it has no attached meaning to it. I just now realised that Trevor backwards is “Rovert…” which is almost his father’s name… No? Okay, sorry.)

Fufi

His mother adopted two dogs from her colleague. They named them Panther and Fufi. Panther, according to Trevor, was a smart, ugly dog, while Fufi is pretty but dumb. Fufi was his favourite.

Despite being stupid, Fufi knows tricks! Fufi can jump high over their fence. She can go around the neighbourhood while Trevor and his mom are out and about, and then come back by the afternoon to greet the family.

One time, Fufi thought everyone was gone so she jumped over the fence and went on her daily stroll. Trevor followed where she was going, and there she was in another neighbourhood, in the arms of another man.

Trevor was heartbroken and went home in tears. With his bawling, Trevor and his mom went to that house to claim Fufi back. With a reasonable amount of rand, the Noahs were able to get her back.

“Fufi was my first heartbreak.” Trevor wrote. The people or the things we love aren’t ours – we don’t own them. They should be doing what they’re destined to do and we should as well.

Most of us feel betrayed when we see our friends going out with other friends (I know I did back in high school), but who are we to say what they should or should not do?

Loopholes – For more than 6 years, Trevor Noah has hosted The Daily Show on Comedy Central. For those who don’t know, The Daily Show is a political satire show which, to explain simply, shits at the stupid things people do (mostly Americans).

For weeks of binging The Daily Show (Thanks, YouTube), I have proved that Trevor indeed has the ability to find loopholes in the law and play with them.

In this chapter, Trevor told a story of how he got into trouble because he wanted to eat the body of Christ but he wasn’t allowed to because he wasn’t Catholic.

It fascinates me how he pointed out that some rules are non-sense and therefore should be questioned. Why are non-Catholics not allowed to take communion when Christ Himself was not Catholic to begin with? Why do blue-collar jobs have more required skill sets than being a Philippine president?

As kids, we were always taught not to question people of authority, but why? Aren’t we supposed to grow up learning?

My Mother’s Story

From the beginning, Trevor has already established that his Mom is a big part of not only this book but his life in general.

We’ve already learned about Patricia in the earlier parts of the book; why she left Soweto, why she was named Patricia, her and Trevor’s dynamics as partners, etc. In the final chapter of the book, Trevor recounts, what I think is, the biggest conflict they ever had as mother and son.

Trevor tells the story of abuse that happened in their family, and the law and society’s failure to save her earlier from living a tragedy. A tragedy that he thought would be easy to leave behind but his mom refuses to. He came to understand that as an outsider, it might be easy to say “Oh, if that’s happening, then you should have left already,” but it wasn’t that easy if the man you’ll be leaving is the father of your children and a man you are married to. This is her family, where would she go when the law tells her to just stay because it was her fault she was getting the abuse? Where would she go if society has already deemed her as a bad woman for getting what she got?

In an earlier chapter, it was mentioned that Patrica Nombuyiselo means “She Who Gives Back”, and ever since as a kid, her mom has been giving and giving and giving. Even in this problematic marriage, she still gave and gave and gave. She sold their house to get more money for their family workshop, she gave up her job to work for their family workshop, but all of that turned to dust when a fragile male ego has been “attacked” by an independent woman’s capability.

This chapter is heartbreaking to read. Patricia never intended to hurt anyone, in fact, she was saving their family, but she was painted as a villain who steals the spotlight from her alcoholic, abusive ex-husband who’s good at fixing autos but fails to provide for the family.

Trevor also recounts a tragic incident of her mom getting shot by the ex-husband. It was not fatal, fortunately, however, the shooter only got probation for three years, and got bail because he was “supporting his kids.”

I hope the law system, not only in South Africa but around the world, would be kinder for victims. It’s heartbreaking to see the people who gave us the world, who protected us all our lives are not being protected by the authorities whose mission is to give justice for all.

Chameleon

Trevor was known as a polyglot comedian, a man who can speak different languages. That’s how I first saw him on YouTube.

I was learning a fourth language at the time, and I was so into British panel shows and comedy shows that YouTube decided to show me a video of Trevor speaking Xhosa in 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. And as the saying goes, the rest is history.

In Chameleon, we get a glimpse of how Trevor was in high school. He was mixed. Half black, half white. His teachers would urge him to join a section occupied mostly by white kids, a section they considered high, but he would prefer joining the black kids because of his environment growing up. His mom, grandmother, and cousins are all black. All his friends were black, so for him, despite what his skin colour is, he was black.

He also emphasised the importance of languages. Like Patricia, he picked up the skill of learning a number of languages to get around the country that has 11 official languages.

In the chapter The World Doesn’t Love You, he served as a translator for a Tsonga man who was jailed for petty theft. This made conversation easier with the Zulu policeman.

In the chapter, A Young Man’s Long, Awkward, Occasionally Tragic, and Frequently Humiliating Education in Affairs of the Heart, Part III: The Dance, Trevor tells a story of his tragic senior prom night that happened due to lack of communication. Literally.

It was only at that time that he knew that his date does not speak any of his languages.

This further proves that language serves as a bridge to people. You become a member of a tribe if you know the words of the tribe. It gives you the confidence that you are heard, you are understood, that you belong.

“Language brings with it an identity and culture, or at least the perception of it. A shared language says ‘We’re the same.’ A language barrier says “We’re different.” Trevor wrote.

Born a Crime was not just simply a biography of Trevor Noah, it’s a cry for help from people who have already received preconceived notions because of the colour of their skin; from desperate people who have been neglected by society; from women who’ve fought for their right for centuries, and are still fighting till to this very day; from kids who wish to acquire wisdom from this ever-changing world; from families who long for safety, stability; and from people who, after years of oppression, still work hard to rise from the consequences of the past.

Lastly, Born A Crime was a love letter to Patricia. A one of a kind woman who chose Trevor and gave him to the world.