“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable...Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Where do you look for insight into tough topics? If one is lucky, every now and then you come across a writer who states things clearly and directly, someone who cuts to the heart of a matter, laying bare human truths. Trevor Noah does that in his memoir of his childhood in South Africa, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood.

Too often when we talk about sensitive topics, we either muddle a painful truth by trying to be non-confrontational or allow vitriolic anger to preclude further conversation.  Noah manages to avoid both, using anecdotes from his own life as his touchpoint. He shows how bigoted South African society was, how it destroyed lives, communities, and cultures. His almost matter-of-fact style makes it easy to see how the truths of his life also lay bare some truths about people broadly and about our own society.

He does not sugarcoat his own personality or idealize himself; he readily admits that many things he did in his youth, though ingrained in the functioning of his community, were illegal, though he did not comprehend this at the time.  These were the tools of survival in poverty and segregation. He credits a classmate who gave him a CD writer with helping him to succeed; as he points out, it does no good to teach a man to fish if he is too poor to own a fishing rod.  Seed capital is not a handout, but a business necessity. Money gives you choices and empowerment.

The most remarkable person in his stories is his mother. She is a truly unique and courageous woman. She did not have family or economic support for her own life, yet she challenged the restrictions of the racist society, pushing boundaries often. Noah observes that she helped him by showing him a wide variety of options in a multi-faceted world, raising him to know that there was a larger life outside the township. No one had done this for her. How did she learn to do it?

Every chapter has a gem, a nugget of perception and wisdom, a window and an unexpected mirror. In a country with 11 official languages, he notes that the first way people connect is by language. He learned several African languages as well as English and it helped him time and again. Sadly, there are many evils in the world—the worst one is the one that affects you and yours and we gain nothing by claiming to out-suffer one another. Assuming that another person has the same information as you do often leads to misunderstanding and hurt; assuming that your pain is more worthy than theirs is arrogant. People are more willing to accept an outsider who is working to assimilate rather than an insider seeking to disavow the group.

There are too many ideas to paraphrase them all here; you’ll have to read it for yourself. It is a journey worth taking. Apartheid has ended, but the truths he has distilled from living under it remain powerful.