In ” Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah, the author’s recollects his childhood growing up in South Africa. He describes his complicated relationship with his tough-loving mother, who escaped her own childhood because of her determination to live life on her own she will often break the rules and was very rebellious, she also had an attitude that her son inherited. The Trevor describes her powerful religious side, her faith in God and Jesus, a faith that her son consistently challenged. His experience of being mixed-race also affected his childhood, his mother was colored, his father was white, Trevor was born at a time when two people from different races could be charged with a crime if they were caught having an intimate relationship. For example on the film “loving” it explains how a couple in Central Point, (a small town in Virginia) where the loving’s were making their home and starting a family, they were first jailed and then banished. Richard and Mildred relocated with their children to the inner city of Washington, D.C., but the family fought their way back to Virginia. This relates to “Born in a Crime” because Trevor says he was kept indoors for much of his childhood or he could have been taken away from his mother and father, but most likely his mother could have been imprisoned because she was colored.
The book also focuses on the author’s experiences when he was an adolescent. That was the time period when he was discovering the difficulties of having relationships with young women, he was also discovering more about the dangers of being mixed race. He noted a experience in which he and a colored friend were witnessed committing an act of “petty theft”, a situation in which his friend suffered serious consequences, but he didn’t because of his complexion.
Finally the author writes in detail about his relationship with his mother’s husband Abel. He describes how his mother being assaulted; all these events led to his mother staying in the relationship and Trevor moving out; these chains of events led to his mother being shot by Abel. his mother survived the shooting his mother’s belief that her life was saved because of her faith in Jesus. Overall ” born in a crime” is a story of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, which is an important theme throughout the book in south Africa was a social, political, and cultural system of favoring whites over colored. Trevor Noah also wanted to show how he didn’t have to grow up paying “black tax”, he wanted to show the world that he is free to go anywhere, do anything, and be anyone he wanted to be.