Born a Crime 🇿🇦 Trevor Noah | Ms.Carmina Reads LIVE!

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Hello everybody. Welcome to Miss Carmina Reads. Welcome to Miss Carmina Reads live.

[00:00:07]I picked out a book this morning.

[00:00:10]I remembered when I was leaving the house, I need to grab a book. I looked in my in my bookshelf to see if I could find the house in in Pooh Corner on P Corner and I didn't see it right away, but I saw this and I was just talking about this book the yesterday to my friend. So, I said if I love this book, I'm sure somebody else is going to love it, too. And maybe that somebody else is you. So, we're going to begin reading this book. It's Trevor Noah Born a Crime Stories from a South African childhood adapted for young readers.

[00:00:51]Okay, I've never read this one. I read the original version, but my child read this one, so I'm sure it's very good because he liked it. Um, so we are reading now part one.

[00:01:11]Part one. And then this is before the first chapter it says apartheid the South African government policy of racial segregation was genius at convincing people who were the overwhelming majority to turn on each other. Apart hate is what it was.

[00:01:34]You separate people into groups and make them hate one another so you can control them.

[00:01:42]During the years of aparthide, black South Africans outnumbered white South Africans nearly 5 to1. Yet we were divided into different tribes with different languages. Zulu, Chosa, Tuana, Sooto, Venda, Delea, Pedi, and more. Long before aparttheid existed, these tribal factions clashed and wared with one another. Then white rule used that animosity to divide and conquer.

[00:02:21]All non-whites were systematically classified into various groups and subgroups. Then these groups were given different levels of rights and privileges to keep them at odds.

[00:02:36]H perhaps the starkkest of these divisions was between South Africa's two dominant groups, the Zulu and the Chosa.

[00:02:46]The Zulu man is known as the warrior. He is proud. He puts his head down and fights. When the colonial army is invaded, the Zulu charged into battle with nothing but spears and shields against men with guns. The Zulu were slaughtered by the thousands, but they never stopped fighting.

[00:03:08]Hi, Lavender Lover. My day is going really well. Thank you for joining us and welcome everybody that has joined us. I hope you stay. I hope you subscribe. I hope you give me a thumbs up if you're listening.

[00:03:21]I love to see you all here. I love my readers and scholars and my subscribers.

[00:03:26]All right. So, I will continue. Um, okay. But they never stopped fighting.

[00:03:37]The Chosa, on the other hand, pride themselves on being thinkers. My mother is Chosa. Nelson Mandela, the anti-aparthide revolutionary who was imprisoned for 27 years and who eventually became South Africa's first black president was Josea. The Chosa waged a long war against a white man as well.

[00:04:02]Welcome. Hi Nolan.

[00:04:06]But wait, the Joseph waged a war against the white man as well.

[00:04:12]Welcome. Welcome all new subscribers.

[00:04:14]Welcome all readers and scholars. Um, but after experiencing the futility of battle against a better armed foe, many shows sheets took a more nimble approach. Quote, "These white people are here whether we like it or not." They said, quote, "Let's see what tools they possess that can be useful to us.

[00:04:40]Instead of being resistant to English, let's learn English. We'll understand what the white man is saying, and we can force him to negotiate with us."

[00:04:52]The Zulu went to war with the white man.

[00:04:55]The Shosa played chess with the white man. For a long time, neither was particularly successful, and each blamed the other for a problem neither had created. Bitterness festered for decades. Those feelings were held in check by a common enemy. Then aparthide fell. Mandela walked free and the black South Africa went to war with itself.

[00:05:25]That's our history.

[00:05:30]That's our history as as humankind.

[00:05:33]Chapter one. It's called run.

[00:05:38]I have 45 minutes, you guys. Let's try to make it count.

[00:05:42]I was 9 years old when my mother threw me out of a moving car. It happened on a Sunday. I know it was a Sunday because we were coming home from church and every Sunday in my childhood meant church. We never missed church. My mother was and still is a deeply religious woman, very Christian. Like indigenous peoples around the world, black South Africans adopted the religion of our colonizers. By adopt, I mean it was forced on us.

[00:06:17]My childhood involved church or some form of church at least four nights a week. Tuesday night was the prayer meeting. Wednesday night was Bible study. Thursday night was youth church.

[00:06:33]Friday and Saturday we had off. Then on Sunday we went to church. Three churches to be precise. The reason we went to three churches was because my mom said each church gave her something different.

[00:06:49]The first church offered jubilant praise of the Lord. The second church offered deep analysis of the scripture which my mom loved. The third church offered passion and catharsis. It was a place where you truly felt the presence of the Holy Spirit inside you. Completely by coincidence as we moved back and forth between these churches, I noticed that each one had its own distinct racial makeup. Jubilant church was mixed church. Analytical church was white church and passionate cathartic church was black church.

[00:07:33]Mix church was Remma Bible Church. Remma was one of those huge super modern suburban mega churches. The pastor Ray Mculi was an ex bodybuilder with a big smile, the personality of a cheerleader.

[00:07:50]Pastor Ray had complete competed in the 1974 Mr. Universe competition. He placed third. The winner that year was Arnold Struction.

[00:08:02]Every week, Ry would be up on stage working really hard to make Jesus cool.

[00:08:08]There was an arena style seating and a rock band jamming with the latest Christian to contemporary pop. Everyone sang along and if you didn't know the words that was okay because there they were right they were all right up there in the jumbo jumbotron for you. It was Christian karaoke basically. It always had I always had a blast at mix church.

[00:08:36]Remember if you're watching give me thumbs up so I know you were here. Leave me a comment or write me in the live chat. Um, I always had a blast at mixed church.

[00:08:48]White Church was Rosebank Union in Santon, a very white and wealthy part of Johannesburg. I loved White Church because I didn't actually have to go to the main service. My mom would go to that and I would go to the youth side to Sunday school. In Sunday school, we got to read cool stories. No one. The flood was obviously my favorite. I had a personal stake there. But I also loved the stories about Moses parting the Red Sea, David slaying Goliath, Jesus whipping the money changers in the temple.

[00:09:27]I grew up in a home with very little exposure to popular culture. My mom didn't want my mind polluted by sex and violence. The only music I really knew was from church. soaring uplifting songs praising Jesus. It was the same with movies. The Bible was my action movie.

[00:09:48]Samson was my superhero. He was my He-Man. A guy beating a thousand people to death with a jawbone of a donkey.

[00:09:57]That's pretty fierce. Eventually, you get to Paul writing letters to the Ephesians, and it loses the plot. But the Old Testament and the Gospels, I could quote you anything from those pages, chapter and verse. There were Bible games and quizzes every week at White Church, and I always trounced everyone.

[00:10:22]Then there was black church. There was always some kind of black church service going on somewhere. And we tried them all. the township that typical typically meant an outdoor tent revival style church. We usually went to my grandmother's church, an old school Methodist congregation. 500 African granny's in blue and white blouses, clutching in clutching their Bibles and patiently burning in the hot African sun. Black church was rough. No air conditioning, no lyrics up on jumbotrons, and it lasted forever. Three or 4 hours at least, which confused me because white church was only like an hour in and out. Thanks for coming. But a black church, I would sit there for what felt like an eternity trying to figure out why time moved so slowly. I eventually decided black people needed more time with Jesus because we suffered more.

[00:11:27]Black church had one saving grace. If I could make it to the third or fourth hour, I'd get to watch the pastor cast demons out of people. People possessed by demons would start running up and down the aisles like madmen, screaming in tongues. The ushers would tackle them like bouncers at a club and hold them down. The pastor would grab their heads and violently shake them back and forth, shouting, "I cast out this spirit in the name of Jesus."

[00:12:01]Some pastors were more violent than others. But what they all had in common was that they wouldn't stop until the demon was gone and congregation had gone and and the congregants had gone limp and collapsed on stage. The person had to fall because if he didn't fall, that meant the demon was powerful and the pastor needed to come at him even harder. You could be a linebacker in the NFL. Didn't matter. The pastor would was taking you down. Good lord, that was fun.

[00:12:34]Oh, that's nasty, Mr. Palad. But welcome. Um, Christian karaoke, fierce action stories, and violent faith healers. Man, I loved church. The thing I didn't love was the lengths we had to go in order to get to church. It was an epic slog. We lived in Eden Park, a tiny suburb way outside Johannesburg. It took us an hour to get to white church, another 45 minutes to get to mixed church, and another 45 minutes to drive out to Sutoto for black church. Then, if that wasn't bad enough, some Sundays we'd drive back to white church for a special evening service. By the time we finally got home at night, I'd collapse into bed.

[00:13:28]This particular Sunday, the Sunday I was hurled from a moving car, started out like any other Sunday. My mother woke me up, made me porridge for breakfast. I took my bath while I while she dressed my baby brother, Andrew, who was 9 months old. Then we went out to the driveway. But once we were all strapped in and ready to go, the car wouldn't start.

[00:13:54]I've been there before. Um, my mom had this act ancient broken down bright tangerine Volkswagen Beetle.

[00:14:04]Um, and she picked up and that she had picked up for next to nothing and it was always breaking down. This day I to this day I hate secondhand cars. I'll take a new car with a warranty every time. As soon as I love as much as I love church, taking public transport meant the slog would be twice as long and twice as hard. When the Volkswagen refused to start, I was praying, "Please say we'll just stay home. Please say we'll just stay home." Then I glanced over to see the determined look on my mother's face. Her jaw set and I knew I had a long day ahead of me. Come, she said. We're going to catch mini buses.

[00:14:56]My mother is a stubborn is as stubborn as she is religious. Once her mind's made up, that's it.

[00:15:04]It's the devil, she said about the stalled car. The devil doesn't want us to go to church. That's why we've got to catch the mini buses.

[00:15:17]Whenever whenever I found myself up against my mother's faith-based obstinency, I would try as respectfully as possible to counter with an opposing point of view. Or I said, the Lord knows that today we shouldn't go to church, which is why he made sure the car wouldn't start. So that way we stay home as a family and take a day of rest because even the Lord rested. Ah that's the devil talking Trevor.

[00:15:51]No because Jesus is in control. And if Jesus is in control we pray to Jesus he would let the car start. But he hasn't.

[00:16:00]Therefore no Trevor. Sometimes Jesus puts obstacles in our way to see if you overcome them. like job. This could be a test.

[00:16:16]Adele, I'm not Adele.

[00:16:19]But hi, welcome.

[00:16:23]Welcome.

[00:16:25]Remember to give me a thumbs up, subscribe. See you. See you again next live.

[00:16:31]We're reading Born a Crime by Trevor No. Um, let me see. Let me see. No, Trevor.

[00:16:43]Sometimes Jesus puts obstacles in your way to see if you overcome overcome them. Like Job, this could be a test.

[00:16:52]Ah, yes, Mom. But the test could be to see if we're still willing to accept what has happened and stay home and praise Jesus for his wisdom.

[00:17:02]No, that is the devil talking.

[00:17:05]But mom Trevor Sun is a phrase with many shades of meaning.

[00:17:15]Excuse me. It says, "Don't undermine me.

[00:17:19]Don't underestimate me." And just try me. It's a command and a threat all at once.

[00:17:28]It's a common thing for shows up parents to say to their kids. Anytime I heard it, I knew it meant the conversation was over. And if I uttered another word, I was in for a hiding.

[00:17:42]At the time, I attended a private Catholic school called Mary Veil College. I was the champion of the Mville Sports Day every single year, and my mother won the mom's trophy every single year. Why? Because she was always chasing me to give me a hiding. And I was always running not to get the hiding. Nobody ran like me and my mom.

[00:18:07]We had a very Tom and Jerry relationship. She was the strict disciplinarian.

[00:18:15]I was incorraably naughty. She would send me out to buy groceries and I wouldn't come right home because I'd be using the change from the milk and bread to play games at the supermarket. I loved video games. I was a master at Street Fighter. I could go forever on a single play. I'd drop a coin in, time would fly, and the next thing I knew, there'd be a woman behind me with a belt. It was a race. I'd take off out the door through the dusty streets of Eden Park, clambering over walls, ducking through the backyards, ducking through backyards.

[00:18:53]It was a normal thing in our neighborhood. Everybody knew that Trevor Child would come charging through and his mom would be right there behind him.

[00:19:02]She could go at a at a full sprint in high heels. But if she was but if she really wanted to come after me, she'd do this weird move with her ankles and heels and the heels would go flying and she wouldn't even miss a step. That's when I knew, okay, this she's in tobo mode now.

[00:19:27]When I was little, she always caught me.

[00:19:30]But as I got older, I got faster. And when speed failed her, she'd use her wits. If I was about to get away, she'd yell, "Stop! Thief!" Knowing it would bring the whole neighborhood out against me. Then I'd have strangers trying to grab and tackle me. And I'd have to duck and dive and dodge them all as well. the while all while screaming, "I'm not a thief. I'm her son."

[00:19:57]The last thing I wanted to do that day, that Sunday morning, excuse me, was climb into some crowded mini bus.

[00:20:08]But the second I heard my mom saya, I knew my fate was sealed. She gathered up Andrew and we climbed off the Volkswagen and went out to try to catch a ride.

[00:20:23]I was 5 years old, nearly six, when Nelson Mandela was released from prison.

[00:20:29]I remember seeing it on TV and everyone being happy. I didn't know why we were happy just that when we that just that we were I was aware of the fact that there was a thing called aparthide and it was ending and that was a big deal but I didn't understand the intricacies of it.

[00:20:52]What I do remember, what I will never forget is the violence that followed.

[00:20:58]The triumph of democracy over aparthide is something called quote a bloodless revolution.

[00:21:09]It is called that because very little white blood was spilled.

[00:21:15]Black blood ran in the streets.

[00:21:25]As the aparthide regime fell, we knew that the black man was now going to rule. The question was which black man?

[00:21:34]Spades of violence broke out between the Incata Freedom Party and the ANC, the African National Congress. As they jockeyed for power, the political dynamic between these two groups was very complicated. But the simplest way to understand it is as a proxy war between Zulu and Chosa. The Inkata was predominantly Zulu, very militant and very nationalistic. The ANC encompassed many different tribes, but its leaders at the time were primarily Chosa.

[00:22:07]Instead of uniting for peace, they turned on one another, committing acts of unbelievably unbelievable savagery.

[00:22:15]Massive riots broke out in the evenings.

[00:22:18]My mom and I would turn on our little black and white TV and watch the news. A dozen people killed, 50 people killed, 100 people killed. Ultimately, thousands of people died.

[00:22:33]Eden Park sat not far from the sprawling townships in the east rand to Tokoa and Katong.

[00:22:45]which were the sites of some of the most horrific Inkata ANC clashes. Once a month, at least would drive home and the neighborhood would be on fire. Hundreds of riers in the streets. My mom would edge the car slowly through the crowds and around the block. The blockades made of flaming tires. Nothing burns like a tire. It rages with a fury you can't imagine. Whenever the riots broke out, all our neighbors would wisely hold up behind closed doors. But not my mom.

[00:23:19]She'd head straight out and we'd inch our way past the blockades. She'd give the writers this look, "Let me pass. I'm not involved in this chaos." She was unwavering in the face of danger. That always amazed me. It didn't matter that there was a war in our dark in our doorsteps. She had things to do, places to be. It was the same stubbornness that kept her going to church despite a broken down car.

[00:23:50]That careless Sunday, we made our circuit of churches, ending up at White Church. When we walked out of Rosebank Union, it was dark and we were alone.

[00:24:04]It had been an endless day of mini buses and I was exhausted. It was 9:00 at least in those days with all the violence and riots going on. You did not want to be out late at night. We were standing at the corner of Jelico Avenue and Oxford Road, right in the heart of Johannesburg's wealthy white suburbia.

[00:24:29]And there were no many buses. The streets were empty.

[00:24:35]I so badly wanted to turn to my mom and say, "You see, this is why God wanted us to stay home." But one look at the expression on her face and I knew better than to speak.

[00:24:48]We waited and waited for a mini bus to come by. Under aparthide, the government provided no public transportation for blacks, but white people still needed us to show up to to mop their floors and clean their bathroom their bathrooms.

[00:25:04]Necessity being the mother of invention, pe black people created their own transit system, an informal network of bus routes controlled by private associations operating entirely outside the law. Different groups ran different routes and they would fight over who controlled what. There was bribery and general shadiness that went on. A great deal of violence and a lot of protection money paid to avoid violence.

[00:25:34]The one thing you didn't want to do was steal a route from a rival group.

[00:25:39]Drivers who stole routes would get killed. Being unregulated, minibuses were also very unreliable. When they came, they came. When they didn't, they didn't.

[00:25:51]Standing outside Rosebank Union, I was literally falling asleep on my feet. Not a mini bus in sight. Eventually, my mother said, "Let's hitchhike."

[00:26:06]We walked and walked. After what felt like an eternity, a car drove up and stopped. The driver offered us a ride and we climbed in. We hadn't gone 10 feet when suddenly a mini bus swerved right in front of the car and cut us off. A Zulu driver got out with a ewisa, a large traditional Zulu weapon. A war club basically it used to smash people's skulls in. Another guy, his crony got out of the passenger side. They walked up to the driver's side of the car we were in, grabbed the man who offered us a ride, pulled him out, and started shoving his clubs in his face. Why are you stealing our customers? Why are you picking people up? It looked like they were going to kill this guy. I knew that happened sometimes. My mom spoke up.

[00:26:58]Hey, listen. He was just helping him.

[00:27:00]Leave him. We'll ride with you.

[00:27:04]That's what we wanted in the first place. So, we got to the fir uh we got out of the first car and climbed into the mini into the mini bus.

[00:27:16]We were the only passengers in the mini bus. In addition to being violent gangsters, South African minibus drivers are notorious for complaining and haraging passengers as they drive. This driver was a particularly angry one. As we rode along, he started lecturing my mother about being in a car with a man who was not her husband. My mother didn't suffer lectures from strange men.

[00:27:41]She told him to mind his own business.

[00:27:44]And when he heard her speaking in Shosa, that really set him off. The stereotype of Sulu and Shosa women were as ingrained in those as those of the men.

[00:27:57]Zulu women were well behaved and dutiful. Shosa women were immoral and unfaithful. And here was my mother, her tribal, his tribal enemy, a Chosa woman, alone with two small children, one of them a mixed child, no less. Oh, you're a chosa, he said. That explains it.

[00:28:18]Disgusting woman. Tonight you're going to learn your lesson.

[00:28:25]He sped off. He was driving fast and he wasn't stopping. Only only slowing down to check for traffic at the intersections before speeding through.

[00:28:36]Death was never far away from anybody back then. My mother could be harmed. We could be killed. These were all viable outcomes, but I didn't fully comprehend the danger we were in. I was so tired that I just wanted to sleep. Plus, my mom stayed very calm. She didn't panic and I didn't know pan and and that so I didn't know to panic. She just kept trying to reason with him. I'm sorry we've upset you, Booty.

[00:29:07]You can let us out here.

[00:29:11]No, really, it's fine. We can just walk. No.

[00:29:18]He raced along Oxford Road. The lane The lane's empty. No other cars out. I was sitting closest to the mini bus's sliding door. My mother sat next to me holding baby Andrew. She looked out the window as the passing road at the passing road and then leaned over to me and whispered, "Trevor, when he slows down the next intersection, I'm going to open the door and we're going to jump."

[00:29:47]I didn't hear a word of what she was saying because by that point I'd completely nodded off. When we came to the next traffic light, the driver eased off the gas and looked around and checked the road. My mother reached over, pulled the sliding door open, grabbed me, and threw me out as far as she could. Then she took Andrew and leaped out behind me. It felt like a dream until the the pain hit. Bam! I smacked the hard on I smacked hard on the pavement. My mother landed right beside me and we tumbled and tumbled and rolled and rolled. I was wide awake now.

[00:30:28]Eventually, I came to a stop and pulled myself up completely disoriented. I looked around and saw my mother already on her feet. She turned and looked at me and screamed, "Run!"

[00:30:41]So, I ran and she ran. And nobody ran like me and my mom. It's weird to explain, but I just knew what to do. It was animal instinct learned in a world where violence was always lurking and waiting to erupt. In the townships when the when the police came swooping in with their riot gear and armored cars and helicopters, I knew run for cover, run and hide. I knew that as a 5-year-old. So, like a gazelle runs from a lion, I ran.

[00:31:13]The men stopped the mini bus and got out and tried to chase us, but they didn't stand a chance. We smoked them. I think they were in shock. I still remember glancing back and seeing them up with a look of utter bewilderment on their faces.

[00:31:30]And seeing them give up with a look of utter bewilderment on their faces.

[00:31:37]They didn't know they were dealing with the reigning champs of the Mville College Sports Day. We kept we kept going until we made it to a 24-hour petrol station and called the police. By then, the men were long gone.

[00:31:56]I still didn't know why any of that of this had happened. I'd been running on pure adrenaline. Once we stopped, I realized how much pain I was in. I looked down and the skin on my arms was scraped and torn. I was cut up and bleeding all over. Mom was too. My baby brother was fine though, incredibly. My mom had wrapped hers herself around him and he'd come through without a scratch.

[00:32:22]I turned to her in shock. What was that?

[00:32:25]Why were we are we running? What do you mean why are we running? Those men were trying to kill us. You never told me that. I just You just threw me out of the car. I did tell you. Why didn't you jump? Jump? I was asleep. So, I should have left you there for them to kill you. At least they would have woken me up before they killed me.

[00:32:52]Hi.

[00:32:54]Hi, Mahendra.

[00:32:56]Thank you for being a fan. Subscribe and give me thumbs up. Okay.

[00:33:01]Um Back and forth we went. I was too confused and too angry about getting thrown out of the car to realize what had happened. My mother had saved my life. As we caught our breath and waited for the police to come and drive us home, she said, "Well, at least we're safe. Thank God." Was going to keep quiet. I wasn't going to keep quiet this time.

[00:33:32]Look, Mom, I said, I know you love Jesus, but maybe next week you could ask him to meet us at our house because this really wasn't a fun night. She broke out in a huge smile and started laughing. I started laughing, too. And we stood there, this little boy and his mom, our arms and legs covered in blood and dirt, laughing together in the light of a petrol station on the side of a road in the middle of the night.

[00:34:02]Let me see.

[00:34:05]The chapter isn't over, but there's a whole other one page.

[00:34:16]So, it's a new section and it says apartheid was perfect racism. It took centuries to develop starting all the way back in 1652 when the Dutch Dutch East India Company landed at the Cape of Good Hope and established a trading colony Gapstead later known as Cape Town, a rest stop for ships traveling between Europe and India. To impose white rule, the Dutch colonists went to war with the natives, ultimately developing a set of laws to subjugate and enslave them. When the British took over Cape Colony, the descendants of the original Dutch settlers tked inland and developed their own language, culture, and customs, eventually becoming their own people, the Africaners, the white tribe of Africa.

[00:35:10]The British abolished slavery in name but kept it in practice. They did so because in the mid 1800s in what had been written off as a near worthless way station on the route uh on the route to the far east, a few lucky capitalists stumbled upon the richest gold and diamond reserves in the world. and an endless supply of expendable bodies was needed to go in the ground and get it all out. As the British Empire fell, the Africaners rose up to claim the South A to claim South Africa as um his rightful the Africaner rose up to claim South Africa as his rightful inheritance. To maintain power in the face of the country's rising and restless black majority, the government realized they needed a newer and more robust set of tools. They set up a formal commission to go out and study institutionalized racism all over the world. They went to Australia. They went to the Netherlands.

[00:36:20]They went to America. They saw what worked, what didn't. Then they came back uh they came back and published a report and the government used that knowledge to build the most advanced system of racial oppression. And the government used that knowledge to to build the most advanced system of racial oppression known to man.

[00:36:50]Dang. Aparthide was a police state, a system of surveillance and laws designed to keep black people under total control. A full compendium of those laws would turn more than 3,000 pages and weigh approximately 10 lbs. But the general thrust of it should be easy enough for any American to understand.

[00:37:14]In America, you had the forced removal of the na of the native peoples onto reservations coupled with slavery followed by segregation. Imagine all three of those things happening to the same group of people. all at the same time. That was aparthide.

[00:37:35]Thanks for joining me everybody. Thanks for listening. Remember to subscribe if you like to hang out and we can see each other again. Um, watch me on the replay.

[00:37:45]If you're watching me on the replay, hi.

[00:37:46]Thanks for reading with us. I love all of you readers and scholars and subscribers.

[00:37:53]Next chapter is chapter two called Borner Crimes.

[00:37:58]I'm going to go ahead and fold the page and we'll read again tomorrow.