"His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother's unconventional, unconditional love. " Bookcover
Honest, unbelievable, humorous, terrifying. It's hard to fathom that one book can be so emotionally contradictory but comedian Trevor Noah is a great storyteller and his journey as a young boy in South African apartheid is compelling. I enjoyed so much of this memoir. The complicated and intense love between he and his mother, the difficult position of being "colored" on the outside but black on the inside which made his life unbearably lonely, the mischief he created, the faith of a mother that repeatedly exasperated the son, but in extreme circumstances brought forth some true miracles.
Glimpsing racism in another country, from the top levels down, gave me another broader picture of our world and the ways that humans fight the same types of battles no matter where they live. This book touched on some of the same themes as "A $500 House in Detroit": governments which usually take advantage of the little guy, rather than helping. After apartheid was lifted, all manner of people who had been living under slave labor found themselves with no job and no skills. Most men found their way to Johannesburg to look for work, but with no education he becomes a petty thief and finds himself in and out of jail. As Noah muses," The more time I spent in jail the more I realized that the law isn't rational at all. It's a lottery. What color is your skin? How much money do you have? Who's your lawyer? Who's the judge? ....He had committed a crime but he was no more a criminal than I was. The difference was that he didn't have any friends or family to help him out." So many people fall through the cracks of the government systems, and they just need some education and a skill set.
This book was an interesting cultural and political experience for me. Thumbs up.
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