"Born a Crime" chapters 2-3

 A good reader is one who reads actively, taking notes, staying engaged with the text. In active reading the process is dialectical: the story begins in the writer’s mind but is completed in the reader’s. With your journals, I would like you to do exactly that, have a dialogue with the text. For each reading, choose two passages that struck you in some way as powerful, reminded you of something in your life, raised emotions or questions in your mind, or that you admired because of the description or writing style.

Copy down the full passage, from a single sentence to a solid paragraph. It is vitally important that you copy the passage word for word. I want you to get inside the words themselves, consider their meaning. Get inside the writer’s mind, his/her style, and the flow of the sentences.

Next, free write your own response.  This is your place to spread out.  Your response to each of the two passages should aim for a solid paragraph. When you respond to your quotes, think about these things.

• Why did you choose this particular passage to write about? Describe your own thoughts and questions. Did it awaken a thought or response of your own? Describe it vividly. Did it raise questions you hope will be answered? How so?

For this week’s reading journal continue reading chapters two and three from Born a Crime.

1. Include your two short quotes and responses here. Please try to include page numbers. (It’s best if you choose one quote from each chapter.)

2. In chapter two we learn the story of how Trevor Noah’s mother Patricia met his father. How does Patricia move through a world governed by institutional racism? Describe Trevor Noah’s early upbringing.

3. Like many young males in South Africa, Trevor Noah grows up in a household surrounded by women. Describe what you learn about “Soweto,” his life there, and what struck you as notable about this chapter.

1- 

Passages:

"Where most people are proof of their parents' love, I was proof of their criminality." (p.27)

- This stuck out to me, because I can relate to it (on a less severe scale and with happier conditions of course). My mother and father's families didn't approve of them marrying. My parents had to go against everything they were taught so they could be together. This idea of a taboo relationship is similar to that of the one between Trevor Noah's mother and father in the story, with love being a bit more of a motivator on my parent's side. To me, this makes it a lot easier to sympathize with Noah's memoir.

"People built homes the way they bought eggs: a little at a time. Every family in the township was allocated a piece of land by the government. You'd first build a shanty on your plot, a makeshift structure of plywood and corrugated iron. Over time, you'd save up money and build a brick wall. One wall. Then you'd save up and build another wall. Then, years later, a third wall and eventually a fourth. Now you had a room, one room for everyone in your family to sleep, eat, do everything. Then you'd save up for a roof. Then windows. Then you'd plaster the thing. Then your daughter would start a family. There was nowhere for them to go, so they'd move in with you. You'd add another corrugated-iron structure onto your brick room and slowly, over years, turn that into a proper room for them as well. Now your house had two rooms. Then three. Maybe four. Slowly, over generations, you'd keep trying to get to the point where you had a home." (p. 41)

- This was another segment that really resonated with me, because I had a very experience growing up in a backwater Bulgarian village. Everything was left to the individual to be built from the ground up. When hard times fell, you had no choice to adapt. This idea ties in well with Noah's above description, which gives me another connection to him.

2-  Patricia moves through the institutional racism-governed world with a rebellious mindset. She ran away from home to downtown Johannesburg, where it was illegal for people of color to live. She threw herself around quite a bit, but found solace with a man in the same flat corridor as her. The two had a kid, who, from birth, was clearly different. No matter which parent he was with, his lightskinned appearance would draw unwanted attention. Noah's mother had to go to great lengths to hide him and who he was. Every once in a while, he'd spend time with his grandma in Soweto, a fairly dangerous area with heavy police presence. Just by leaving the house, he could put his family in great danger

3- Living in Soweto, the only "semi-regular" male in Trevor Noah's life was his eccentric (bipolar) grandpa. He was a loud, and somewhat careless individual.. His grandma was the complete opposite. she ran the house well and did everything there was to do. Compared to other kids, Trevor Noah's reason for growing up in a women-run world was completely different. While strict laws separated  Noah from his father, the kids he grew up with had lost their fathers in a multitude of ways. This absence of men was filled in by religion. Despite being similar to a jailhouse, Soweto certainly had a charm to it. It still had its issues, however. For example, Noah's grandmother lived in a two-room house with no running water. The only bathroom was an outhouse, which wasn't the most convenient thing to use. When Trevor opted to do his business on a newspaper inside the house, the smell and the feces found in the garbage bin made his mother think that a demon was present, which ties back to the role that religion plays for them.                                                                                   

Discussion