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"Race-mixing proves that races can mix- and in a lot of cases, want to mix. Because a mixed person embodies that rebuke to the logic of the system, race-mixing becomes a crime worse than treason" (Noah 20). This quote shows how a child of mixed race goes against the system of an apartheid and they are the human embodiment of what the apartheid goes against. Due to Noah being a child of mixed race, two races who were completely different and Segregated during the apartheid, Noah's life was very hard as he was abused due to him being mixed race. Being a mixed race person was illegal during this time, being a person was illegal. - Bana

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“I didnt know how to describe it, Sam Ja! The miracle happened! I was running, waiting for it to crash to the ground, but at the end of the string, tugging at it as if it wanted to be free.”(Fugard 30)

Even at a young age, Hally’s perception of a black man is altered by prejudice. When reminiscing on the moment, he describes it as a miracle. Instead of acknowledging Sam's ingenuity in creating the kite, he believes it happened out of nowhere. I believe that this showcases Hally’s closed mindset regarding things that are foreign to him. Similar to this situation Halle disapproves of Willie and Sam’s passion for ballroom dancing. This also applies to Sam and his conversation of men of magnitude. Due to the belief in his superiority as a white male, Hallie automatically devalues the opinion or sttance of the other person. Thus terminating any chances of growing as a person.
- Andrew Ward

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"They set up a formal commission to go out and study institutionalized racism all over the world... They came back and published a report, and... used that knowledge to build the most advanced system of racial oppression known to man... Apartheid was a... system... designed to keep black people under total control" (Noah 19). Trevor Noah explains the roots of apartheid as well as how much thought and time was invested into oppressing these groups of people. It's shocking that people who already held the most societal power found it necessary to further tighten their control and oppress black people with a system that greatly limited their basic liberties. He reveals the lengths of the government's efforts in order to ensure their control over the black majority, and it helped me to grasp how thought-out and advanced apartheid is. I also think it's necessary that he went into such detail about apartheid's origin and purpose because it helps readers empathize more closely with all those that were oppressed by it for so many years. Understanding the implications and effects of apartheid is crucial in dismantling the years of racism and oppression that continue in societies today.
-Christine Chu

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“The doctors took her up to the delivery room, cut open her belly, and reached in and pulled out a half-white, half-black child who violated any number of laws, statues, and regulations- I was born a crime.” (Noah 23, 24). Trevor Noah tells us that under apartheid, his existence was a crime. His mom was black and his dad was white. Because of their differing races, the two of them conceiving a child was illegal and broke many of the apartheid laws. He could not be seen with his white dad or he could be fined or imprisoned. The fact that he could not be seen with his mother or father caused him to feel embarrassed and ashamed of his skin tone and race. Because he was biracial under the apartheid laws prohibited him from doing many things.  Noah wasn’t allowed to freely play in the streets with his cousins and friends because he was mixed. Instead, his grandma allowed him to play in the backyard alone. He was so young and didn’t clearly know or understand the apartheid laws. He didn’t know the consequences of simply being seen outside of his home with his family simply because he was biracial.

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“She told him to mind his own business, and when he heard her speaking in Xhosa, that

really set him off…  Zulu women were well-behaved and dutiful. Xhosa women were

promiscuous and unfaithful. And here was my mother, his tribal enemy, a Xhosa

woman alone with two small children… ‘Oh, you’re a Xhosa,’ he said.

‘That explains it. Climbing into strange men’s cars. Disgusting woman’”(Trevor 16). Trevor Noah’s personal recollection reveals the increasing ethnic conflict and division under apartheid. The situation described in the minibus is a microcosm for the distinct racial division between minorities in South Africa, specifically the ideological contention between the native Zulu and Xhosa cultures. South Africa’s title as the “rainbow nation” is certainly appropriate given its historical legacy as a figurative melting pot of racial, religious, and economic identities. The established strata of the region demonstrate diversity on a scale likely unique to history, many South Africans can trace their descent to Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Muslim, Hindu, European, Afrikaner, and Asian heritage. The apartheid succeeded in creating a brutal police state, institutionally normalizing racism, systematically oppressing civil outcries, and--most tragically--driving marginalized groups against each other. The conflict is an allegory for the divisive state of South Africa, the driver’s attitude is influenced by his internalizing of the environment around him. He embraces conflict and stereotypes, lashing out at the thought of another driver taking his passengers. While the white-Black racial power struggle is principal when examining the apartheid, the struggles between minorities--consequent to apartheid laws--is equally significant and despondent. The horizon following Mandela’s freedom is inconceivably wide, however, it is bleak with the discordant dregs of the past.

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I ran after him screaming , “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” People started looking. He panicked and ran away. I thought it was a game and kept chasing him.” (Noah 24) This really bothered me, to the point its gone from my dialectal journals to here in the padlet. It shows that the Dad feared so much of judgement and/or for his life that he had to run away from his son, and its unfortunate because he kept chasing someone who didn't wanna be chased. This passage is a very upsetting and sad passage because it shows that a lot of kids most likely couldn't grow up with fathers or mothers because it wasnt allowed, because of the color of their skin. It also shows that the government was trying to be break people up, and weaken them. It didn't want any other power but them.

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"Almost everything that’s ever gone wrong in my life I can trace back to a secondhand car. Secondhand cars made  me  get  detention  for  being  late  for  school...  If it hadn’t been for the Volkswagen that didn’t work, we never would have looked for the mechanic who became the husband who became the stepfather who became the man who tortured us for years and put a bullet in the back of my mother’s head" (Noah 3).

Even though this passage is at the very beginning of the first chapter, it established itself as one of the most memorable  to me. In my opinion, these lines could simply not be looked over when reading through the book. They capture your attention and set up the novel, allowing the readers to create predictions in their head. I really admire the way Noah is able to capture the attention and create an environment when the readers are allowed to use their imagination to anticipate what is going to happen. In addition, another thing that made the passage stand out was the dramatic change between the levels of severity of the impact that the Volkswagen had. The contrast been detention and death, created an amazing forum where the numerous different effects of the car could be compared. His mother's death may make the comment about detentions seemed insignificant, but it all added to the depth and layers of his statement.

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“Because a mixed person embodies that rebuke to the logic of the system, race-mixing becomes a crime worse than treason” (Noah 21).

A strategy that the apartheid attempted to accomplish was to separate and segregate people of different races. Trevor Noah, being a person of mixed race goes against everything the apartheid tried to accomplish. One of the main purposes of the apartheid was to separate people and race-mixing is a direct violation of that. Therefore, Noah shares it is even worse than treason since it’s such an offense to the system the apartheid represented. This quote stood out to me because it exemplifies the racist and controlling society that the apartheid attempted to maintain.  Like most authoritarian systems, apartheid responded to challenges to control by trying to crush them entirely. Yet even under the oppressive influence of apartheid, people of different races experienced love and desire and mixed-race people show that no system of laws can ever fully control or contain human impulses.

-Jasmin P

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“Race-mixing proves that races can mix—and in a lot of cases, want to mix. Because a mixed person embodies that rebuke to the logic of the system, race-mixing becomes a crime worse than treason.” (Noah 20).
Not only does this quote reveal the reasoning behind the the title of the autobiography, but it describes how much hatred was behind the idea of interracial relationships. Trevor Noah was born as a colored child, and although there is absolutely nothing he could do to control his genetic makeup, he was constantly abused because of his appearance. Race-mixing proved a reality that the government did not want to admit, the possibility of attraction between people of different races, so they condemned the behavior race-mixing as much as possible.
- Montana Dettore

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“The police would kick down the door, drag the people out, beat them, and arrest them. At least that’s what they did to the black person. With the white person it was more like, “Look, I’ll just say you were drunk, but don’t do it again, eh? Cheers” (Noah 22).

Trevor Noah explains the different  consequences between a white and a black person and how it's looked upon. This demonstrates how much privilege a white person attains in our society. In this text, the police are an example of white supremacy and how big of a role it's played in the apartheid (and now). This really resonated with me because this shows how unjustly and corrupt the systems of laws are. Police non objectively make decisions based off one's race and it's just an excuse to abuse their power and take control of people of color.

-Rachel M

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Soweto was designed to be bombed – thats how forward thinking the architects of apartheid were. The township was a city unto itself, with a population of nearly one million” (Noah 25).

I found this passage meaningful because it really puts into perspective how planned out apartheid was. It's really sad and interesting to learn that the creators of apartheid went to such extents to make sure that the black majority would stay powerless. One of the things that Trevor Noah does great is explaining apartheid, as he incorporates historical facts into the story. I have learned so much about how apartheid was created and how it operates just by reading the first two chapters.
-John Mott

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“The genius of apartheid was convincing people who were the overwhelming majority to turn on each other. Apart hate, is what it was. You separate people into groups and make them hate one another so you can run them all.” (Noah 8). In this passage, Trevor Noah describes how power and racism creates oppression by breaking down society from the inside out. This really resonated with me because he notes that oppression occurs from the inside out and not directly from outside, because as groups in a society we are stronger than to be broken from the outside rather than it spreading from the inside. He notes that as individual humans we aren’t different from each other but, by manipulating and isolating each other we create a system of hate for each other and specific groups of people. Within Chapter 1 we can see how the Apartheid government manages to do this by focusing on separating people in groups. Trevor displays that separating each other and influencing hate on each other allows for one group to seize control over others. I think Trevor really encapsulates what the apartheid government did in this quote. To me it's sickening and sad to see how one race is reigns supreme over others.

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“Under Apartheid, if you were a black man you worked on a farm or in a factory or in a mine. If you were a black woman, you worked in a factory or as a maid. Those were pretty much your only options" (Noah 21). This quote resonated with me because of Trevor Noah's sudden abandonment of humor and bluntness. This is a fact and there's nothing else to it. The Apartheid system was made to exploit people of color and make sure they did not hold any power in society. This passage opens readers' eyes to the unfairness of the way the system treats people of color versus white people. It's an overt expression of white supremacy in South Africa. Government leaders gatekeep better, higher-paying jobs from people of color to keep them from gaining enough power and wealth to rise up against them. People of color did not work jobs higher than the lower class. Based on this passage, I can infer that it was rare to see a person of color even in the middle class. It's very sad that so much of the powerful in Africa are white when so much of the population is Black. -Trentin

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“Unlike in America, where anyone with one drop of black blood automatically becomes black, in South Africa mixed people came to be classified as their own separate group, neither black nor white but what we call ‘colored’”(Noah 20).
To this day in America, if one has a drop of black blood they are still considered black. I wonder, do mixed people wish to be classified as their own separate group, do they wish to be automatically subjugated to a particular race group, or do they wish for the right to choose which race group they want to be classified as? This text relates to the apartheid issue where being mixed was a crime and were segregated even more than black people due to the low numbers of mixed people at the time. Mixed people were classified in their own segregated group and were most likely also disliked by black people who shared similar conditions of oppresion but wished to not be associated with people “tainted” by white blood.

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“It was animal instinct, learned in a world where violence was always lurking and waiting to erupt. In the townships, 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 five-year-old(Noah 17). This quote resonated with me because it reveals how common occurrences, such as this one were in Noah’s life. Due to the Apartheid system, Noah didn’t have the privilege of a normal or safe childhood. The looming threat of danger forced him to be on constant alert and grow up rapidly. Running from the threat of death isn’t something experienced by many five-year-olds, but for Noah, it was second nature. It wasn’t uncommon for him to have to just run with little to no knowledge of why it was necessary. Noah and other non-white children born during Apartheid were forced to quickly adapt to a system so cruel that most people couldn’t even imagine enduring that much suffering.
-Leo Facher

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“But the more we went to church and the longer I sat in those pews the more I learned about how Christianity works: If you’re Native American and you pray to the wolves, you’re a savage. If you’re African and you pray to your ancestors, you’re a primitive. But when white people pray to a guy who turns water into wine, well, that’s just common sense” (Noah 9)

This Quote resonated with me because of how Trevor Noah used humor to blunt the impact of his statement, making a statement that seems so profound and yet no one has said it so obviously before. He is simply pointing out christian churches exert their power by systematically degrading and dehumanizing any conflicting ideologies. The terms “savage” and “primitive” are used in a derogatory manner to describe behavior that the church deems uncivilized. Thus elevating the perception of the christian faith, which can be argued as equally uncivilized.
-Branwen Whitten

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“I ran after him screaming, ‘Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!’ People started looking. He panicked and ran away. I thought it was a game and kept chasing him” (Noah 20).

Throughout the chapter, Trevor Noah talks about how under apartheid, his existance was basically illegal. Unable to even be seen with his dad in public as a baby, Noah was constantly viewed as an embarrassment for the majority of his childhood. Being such a core memory that occurred when he was a toddler, it is evident that these memories and injustices  deeply affected him throughout adulthood. Being a mixed child meant he couldn’t even play with his neighbors or family. Alone and segregated, Noah never understood the consequences he could face by simply playing or by being with his family in public. Apartheid prevented several people from living a normal childhood. It introduced the ideas of segregation and exposed children to the racial injustices of the world at an age where it should’ve concerned them.

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“The genius of apartheid was convincing people who were the overwhelming majority to turn on each other. Apart hate, is what it was. You separate people into groups and make them hate one another so you can run them all.” (Noah 3)

A clear breakdown on why exactly Apartheid was so successful despite the fact that it should not have worked. It emphasizes how hate was used to turn people against each other and govern with hate. Also shines a light on how people were marginalized and separated in order to rule them all. Trevor Noah does an excellent job of addressing how Apartheid happened and not just addressing that it did in order to prevent a system like this from ever happening again. This line stood out to me because it used 1 word, hate in order to emphasize the point Noah was trying to make
-Josh

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“The doctors took her up to the delivery room, cut open her belly, and reached in and pulled out a half-white, half-black child who violated any number of laws, statutes,

and regulations—I was born a crime”(Noah 23).

Imagine from the moment you were born, the majority of society has already rejected you as a person. Plus it is illegal to just be yourself. That is what Trevor Noah had to go through. Anybody should be given the freedom to create life with whoever they wish and should not be bound in any sort of way by any law or government or person. This one quote has meaning to all of Trevor Noah's life. It made him feel isolated as a kid, alone. It kept with him forever. He wasn't able to lead a "normal" life due to him being a mixed child. He wasn't able to go outside and play with the other children. He wasn't allowed to just walk around with anybody. Everywhere he went, his family had to be careful and keep him hidden. Although he did not know of any other kind of life, it was still hard.-Lucas

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“In any society built on institutionalized racism, race-mixing doesn’t merely challenge the system as unjust, it reveals the system as unsustainable and incoherent. Race-mixing proves that races can mix—and in a lot of cases, want to mix. Because a mixed person embodies that rebuke to the logic of the system, race-mixing becomes a worse crime than treason” (Noah 20)
This is an example of an overt way that systems oppress people. Having a relationship with someone of a different race was illegal, and having a kid was even worse. A mixed person defies the laws created, therefore making their existence "a crime". This also stood out to me due to the similar law that existed in the United States. My father was directly affected by that law, leading it to affect me. Being born before interracial marriage was legal, he was adopted around age 5. With the little information that we have on his parents can lead to assume that he was affected by this law. This very open law made to oppress people also led to many covert ways of oppression, such as stereotypes. - Sarah Ashby

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“If the monkeys ever went crazy and tried to break out of their cage, the air force could fly over and bomb the sit out of everyone” (Noah 28)
There are so many things to address in this quote I don't know where to begin. With the use of the word “monkey,” Noah is establishing the government and the overall white view of the Black and mixed part of the population. As animals and crazy ones at that that are known for being stupid and rambunctious. This is not only dehumanizing but flattening because comparing human beings to their primitive ancestors is something that never should happen. Referring to their home as a cage, and establishing that they needed to be kept in there only added to that fact. Second, with the use of the word “crazy,” Noah is implying that the government thought that in revolting, the people weren’t fighting, they were just crazy. But is it so crazy to not want basic human rights and recognition? Finally, the second half of the sentence has humor, a kind of satire, that only reinforces the fact that Noah uses laughs and jokes to cope and address serious issues like literally killing people with bombs.
-Annelise

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“Because the minibus business was completely unregulated, it was basically organized crime. 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” (Noah 15).
This passage stood out to me because it shows how the effects of overt oppression lead to more dangers. The Apartheid system denied all non-whites public transportation, but because they still had to travel to white areas for work, they had to develop their own transit system. This system of minibuses created even more problems for Black people just trying to get to work - the unregulated and often illegal operation led to bribery, corruption, and even violence. This was generally the only choice for many people who couldn't afford cars or lived further away, due to segregation by the government. Trevor Noah shares his experience riding in a minibus, one time leading to him being thrown out of the bus because of the strong possibility they were going to be killed. This resonates with me because many people only think about the overt oppression going on, such as the refusal of public transportation, but don't consider the dangerous situations that come out of that, such as the minibus system.
- Elena Frigola

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“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 through the pain in the light of a petrol station on the side of the road in the middle of the night” (Noah 19). Trevor Noah’s depiction of apartheid is pretty interesting. It’s told from a naive childish perspective, which makes the subtle examples of oppression all the more intense. It's somewhat as if he became desensitized to violence and conflict, not only by the frequency, but the severity of his predicaments. In addition, his mother’s relationship with him seems borderline disturbing. Not only because their dynamic is authoritarian, but because in many ways his mother is another example of oppression. She is devoutly religious, and consigns her faith to Trevor, who albeit skeptical, seems to have partial faith. Almost the entirety of the chapter is narrated as a progressive development between Noah and his mother, emphasizing religion and how instead of hope, it divided them. Of course, it's unclear whether their relationship can be described as abusive, but it certainly wasn’t healthy. It seems Noah suffered from both apartheid and adolescence. - Jett

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"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. She told him to mind his own business, and when he heard her speaking in Xhosa, that really set him off...'Oh, you’re a Xhosa,' he said. 'That explains it. Climbing into strange men’s cars. Disgusting woman.'"(Noah 16). This passage really resonated with me due to Trevor Noah's mom's refusal to listen to nonsense from a man, especially someone who hypocritically lashes out at her for taking his transportation after previously yelling at her for almost using an alternative to the minibusses. I was appalled by the bus driver's attitude and language towards her and impressed by how she stayed calm but also didn't submit to him during the ride. I think she displays a lot of bravery as well as wit in this story. This passage also shows how BIPOC populations not only had to fear white people and the hierarchical status and power they maintained, but also the dangers sparked by tribal disagreements among non-whites. Apartheid not only gained and kept control through oppression but also by dividing the oppressed and turning them against each other.
- Lila Bragard