• church life

• mom: beats+chases T, clever (calls T"thief" when running), stubborn, brave/faithful

• mini-bus incident: pushed out of car for safety

QUOTE #1

• "We had a very Tom and Jerry relationship, me and my mom. She was the strict disciplinarian; I was naughty as shit" (11).

• What do we learn about Noah?

• Noah knows he was often breaking the rules and he seems to accept that his mother needed to be strict in order to keep him in line. As a reader, I like him more for his honest self-assessment. The reference to an American cartoon suggests Noah watched a lot of tv growing up and provides terrific imagery for this readers. Lastly, Noah's choice to use the word "shit" solidifies his ongoing choice to use casual diction in his storytelling.

QUOTE #2

• "[W]e stood there, this little boy and his mom, our arms 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" (17).

• Why does Noah choose to end chapter one with this picture of he and his mom?

• This first chapter is super engaging -- we learn a lot but it's also full of action and the story is literarlly incredible. Despite the stressors in South Africa, the danger of Noah being in public as a mixed race child and his mom being in public as a woman travelling alone, it's clear that Noah and his mom are very close and use humor to frame some of their most dangerous moments together.

• Noah explains many racial classifications under Apartheid

• Mom and dad meet in underground club and then have a kid together

• Has to stay inside and can’t even play with his own cousins (outsider)

• Gives us understanding about how illegal he really is

QUOTE #1

• “Where most children are proof of their parents’ love, I was the proof of their criminality”(27).

• Why does Noah describe himself as proof of criminality instead of love?

• I believe that Noah describes himself as a proof of criminality instead of love because under apartheid it was illegal for white people to have children with black people. This shows that he was actually born a crime. What I also get from this quote is that he knows his mom just wanted a kid, and his dad granted that wish to his mom, but didn’t want to be involved too much. I can tell that him saying this is proof that he even knows he was an outsider when he was a child, because every other kid was normal, but he was born a crime. 

QUOTE #2

• “I wasn’t a lonely kid–I was good at being alone. I’d read books, play with the toy I had, make up imaginary worlds. I lived inside my head. I still live inside my head. To this day you can leave me alone for hours and I’m perfectly happy entertaining myself. I have to remember to be with people"(30).

• How does this quote help our understanding of Noah?

• This quote helps our understanding of Noah by showing us how he dealt with the fact that he was an outsider and it wasn’t going to change. Growing up in a society where he was illegal, he learned good skills on how to be alone and do things only for yourself. This skill helped his cope with being a mixed race child in South Africa during the hard times of the Apartheid. Overall, this quote truly highlights how much of an outsider he was to the world and how hard it was for him to grow up during these times and it wasn’t his fault.

• Grew up in a world run by women (he was around women most of the time)/

• Apartheid caused many children not to grow up with fathers around, for many different reasons.

• Trevor's whole family is very religious.

• His living conditions at his grandmother's house were tough.

  QUOTE #1

• "In America, the dream is to make it out of the ghetto. In Soweto, because there was no way to leave the ghetto, the dream was to transform the ghetto."

• Why did Noah choose to include this quote?

• He included this quote to highlight the fact that there was no leaving, no way to escape, but the people who lived in Soweto made do with what they had and were determined to transform it. Like how they created a black market business, etc. I think it shows overall how resilient and strong they were, and even with the harsh limits that were imposed on them, they worked through it.

  QUOTE 2

• "The story of Soweto is the story of the driveways. It's a hopeful place."

• Why did Noah choose to compare the story of Soweto to driveways?

• He chose to do this because the driveways represent the hope that one day they (the people of Soweto) could afford a car one day, it shows that even after everything they go through, they still push forward and cling to the hope that things will get better.

• Blamed but never beaten (gma was scared because he'd bruise) and felt there were perks of being "white" w/ a black fam.

• Knowledge of multiple languages and how that helped him gain trust and avoid conflict (especially in dangerous or uncomfortable situations)

• Adapted by observing people and fitting in/changing how he acted depending on who he was with.

• Trevor was often confused and didn't feel like he belonged to any racial group bc he was mixed.

  
  

Quote #1:

“I became a chameleon. My color didn’t change, but I could change your perception of my color.” (56)

• Why did Trevor Noah choose to say he was “chameleon,” and how does it help us understand race and identity in South Africa?

• Trevor includes this to show how being biracial puts him in a unique spot. He didn’t completely fit into any one racial group, but language gave him a way to blend in and "change colors" as you will. In apartheid South Africa, race was everything, but Trevor figured out how to adapt and communicate to make his way in the world. The chameleon metaphor helps us understand that identity is more complicated than just skin color. It’s about how you act and how others see you too.

  
  

Quote #2:

"But the real world doesn’t go away. Racism exists. People are getting hurt, and just because it’s not happening to you doesn’t mean it’s not happening. At some point, you have to choose. Black or white. Pick a side. You can try to hide from it. You can say, 'Oh, I don’t pick sides,' but at some point life will force you to pick a side." (56-57)

• Why does Trevor emphasize that life will force you to pick a side?

• This quote is very long, but I felt like all of it was important. Trevor emphasized this because he was being forced to pick a side himself. Even if you try to avoid the harsh realities of racism, you can’t escape them. Eventually, society will make you choose where you stand, because in a world that’s so divided by race, staying in the middle isn't an option. It highlights the pressure people (Trevor included) face to be put into a category of one or the other, even if they don’t want to.

Martin Luther King, Jr:

"[P]rivileged groups seldom give up their privilege voluntarily.”

• We get the backstory of Trevor’s mom( Patricia) and how she has navigated life until now.

• We learn more about Trevor’s childhood and struggles.

• Patricia offers Trevor the life she never had.

Quote #1

• “She didn’t have food or shoes or even a pair of underwear, but she had English. She could read and write"(65).

  
  

•  Question: How would English and writing help her if she didn’t even have the money for proper clothes.

• In a time where the people in power spoke English, simply knowing the language gave you an advantage. As Trevor has explained in previous chapters, when you speak the same language as someone else, they are more likely to recognise you as part of their group. This meant that speaking English gave Patricia a better chance of getting a well paying job and allowed her to navigate through her harsh life. 

Quote #2

• "Because, she would say, even if he never leaves the ghetto, he will know that the ghetto is not the world. If that is all I accomplish, I've done enough"(74).

  
  

• Why does Patricia say she has done enough if Trevor knows that the ghetto isn’t the world?

  
  

• Patricia is a very free and rebellious person. She always longed for other things, so her passing down the knowledge of an outside world would mean Trevor had the opportunity to dream big. Giving him a grander dream to follow could possibly allow him to escape that life in pursuit of something grander.

• Trevor is hyperactive, impulsive and a prankster: brings a knife to school, burns down a house, drinks grape juice and eats the Eucharist, etc

• T. understands his mom's discipline is from a place of love

• T. and mom write letters back and forth

  
  

Ch 7 Summary

Fufi visits another house regularly; mom buys him back

• T's mom gives a ton of advice but little of it was practical for a boy

• T accepts being rejected as a girl's valentine - he seems to have internalized the heirarchy

• regret is worst when you don't do something

• T misses an opp'ty to date a good friend

• Trevor didn’t know his father that well, and his mother said that he should go and connect with him. 

• At the ages of 12-13, Noah spent every Sunday afternoon with his father until his mom married Abel.  

• Then his father moved, and Noah could no longer see him.

• He then tracked down his father and went to get to know him and visit him for a weekend

Quote One: “Because racism never made sense to my father, he never subscribed to any of the rules of apartheid”. (104)

Question: Why did Noah choose to include this if his father was white, and not many of the rules of apartheid related to him?

Answer: I think that Noah’s father was actually pretty heavily impacted because he met Noah’s mother and had a child with her. So then he was included in the rules of apartheid. It also shows that not every white person agreed with the rules that were being placed by the government. I also think that this concept connects Noah with his father because Noah’s thoughts are that rules of apartheid don’t make sense. 

Quote Two: “You spend time with people, you observe them and interact with them, and you come to know them– and that is what apartheid stole from us: time” (110). 

Question:  How does this help us understand how impactful growing up without his father was on Noahs life? 

Answer: Not growing up with a person to model after in a male role was challenging, and then you add the fact that Noah was growing up during an apartheid. I think that it shows how both Noah and his father would have wanted to spend more time together, and the fact that his father was white got in the way of their relationship. Especially as a person who normally talked about his mother, a whole chapter dedicated to his father and their relationship showed how important it was to him. 

• He lived in Eden Park. It's a colored area and everyone looks like him. But he says he's different from them.

• He talks about his school days when he was confused about his appearance. A story that colored girl stoled his bike.

• He tells the story of the mulberry tree that happened in Eden Park, and as a result, he finds out how dangerous his mother's boyfriend is.

Quote #1

• “In Eden Park, everyone looked like me, but we couldn’t have been more different. It was the biggest mindfuck I’ve ever experienced” (117).

• Why did he say that everyone was just like him, but couldn't be more different, and why was that such a huge mental shock to him?

• He was classified as a colored person by the government based on his appearance. He also expected that he would fit in well with people who looked like him. However, he was wrong and he says that he is an outsider trying to assimilate into their world. He realized through several incidents that he is different from them and that people's culture and lifestyle are not all the same just because they look the same.

  
  

Quote #2

• "Revenge truly is sweet. It takes you to a dark place, but, man, it satisfies a thirst" (125).

• Why did he say revenge took him to a dark place and what did he learned through this revenge?

• I think it means the feeling of guilt in the process of revenge. So it makes people's emotions uncomfortable. And Noah seems to have felt this in the process of his mother's boyfriend hitting a twelve-year-old boy. What he learned through this revenge is that his mother's boyfriend is a dangerous person.

quote:

"I wasn't popular, but I wasn't an outcast. I was everywhere and with everyone, and at the same time I was all by myself" (141).

Quote:

"Thats what an apartheid did: It convinced every group that it was because of the other races that they didn't get into the club" (120).

"I was mixed but not colored-colored by completion but not by culture" (120).

. Noah has a crush on a mixed-race girl named Zaheera 

. Noah is to socially awkward to have any meaningful conversations with Zaheera 

. Noah and Zaheera communicate through letters because it is safer and more common

. Zaheera suddenly leaves, leaving Noah heartbroken and confused. 

QUOTE #1 

“Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.”

Noah is struggling with belonging because he often feels like an outsider. It gives us a look inside the head of a teenager. It shows how much people want validation.  

Why does Noah feel such a need to be chosen, and how does it connect to him growing up in an apartheid.

Noah felt such a great need to be chosen because the apartheid made him feel invisible and unseen. 

QUOTE #2

“I was everywhere with everybody, and at the same time I was all by myself” 

Noah explains how he was by himself but with everybody at the same time. This lets us know how he didn't fit in and even when he was with people he still felt alone. No matter where and with whom when Trevor was growing up, he still felt “by myself”. 

If Noah was with everybody, how could he be by himself? 

Noah meant that even if in real life he was everywhere with everybody, but mentally he was still by himself. This could be because he didn't feel like he belonged, being a mixed person during a apartheid.   

"In America, the dream is to make it out of the ghetto. In Soweto, because there was no way to leave the ghetto, the dream was to transform the ghetto" (40).

" -a knowledgeable man is a free man, or at least a man who longs for freedom" (61).

"People are willing to accept you if they see you as an outsider trying to assimilate into their world. But when they see you as a fellow tribe member attempting to disavow the tribe, that is something they will never forgive" (118).

"Since I belonged to no group I learned to move seamlessly between groups. I floated. I was a chameleon, still, a cultural chameleon...I popped around to everyone, working, chatting, telling jokes, making deliveries" (140).

"That's what apartheid did. It convinced every group that it was because of the other race that they didn't get into the club... But the truth is none of you were ever getting into that club" (120).

"My mother showed me what was possible. The thing that always amazed me about her life was that no one showed her. No one chose her. She did it on her own. She found her way through sheer force of will" (73).

Quote:

"Many colored people lived in a limbo, true purgatory, always yearning for their white fathers who disowned them, and they could be horribly racist to one another" (119).

""Learn from your past and be better because of your past," she would say, "but don't cry about your past. Life is full of pain. Let the pain sharpen you, but don't hold on to it. Don't be bitter""(66).

Quote:

"Laughing together through the pain in the light of the petrol station" (17)

"I never let the memory of something painful prevent me from trying something new" (90).

"But in my head white and black and brown were like types of chocolate. Dad was the white chocolate, mom was the dark, and I was the milk chocolate. But we were all just chocolate (54)".

"I remember the thing that caused the trauma, but I don't hold on to the trauma. I never let the memory of something painful prevent me from trying something new. If you think too much about the ass-kicking your mom gave you, or the ass-kicking that life gave you, you'll stop pushing the boundaries and breaking the rules. It's better to take it, spend some time crying, then wake up the next day and move on. You'll have a few bruises and they'll remind you of what happened and that's okay. But it's time to get up to some shit again" (91).

" I became a Chameleon. My color didn't change, but I could change your perception of my color" (56).

" I learned that even though I didn't belong to one group, I could be a part of any group that was laughing- I'd perform for them" (141).

"In Eden Park, everyone looked like me, but we couldn't have been more different. It was the biggest mindfuck I've ever experienced" (117).

"I'd hear the other kids at school singing 'End of the Road,' and I'd have no clue what was going on" (7).

"One day as a young man I was walking down the street, and a group of Zulu guys was walking behind me, closing in on me, and I could hear them talking to one another about how they were going to mug me... I didn't know what to do. I couldn't run, so I just spun around real quick and said..."(55).

"Race-mixing proves that races can mix- and in a lot of cases, want to mix" (22).

"My mother raised me as if there were no limitations on where I could go or what I could do" (73)

“I moved to B classes with the black kids. I decided that id rather be held back with the people I liked rather than move ahead with people I didn’t know”(59).

• Trevor finds a Best Friend named Teddy and they like to be naughty together.

• They steal alcohol chocolates from the mall and Teddy gets caught.

• The police, guards, and Principle pulls Trevor in to look at footage of the robbery to identify the suspect.

• He learns that the construct of race has caused them to be blind to what is sitting right in front of them.

Quote #1

"The risk of being caught was half the fun of being naughty, and now the chase was on. I was loving it" (155).

• What does this quote show us about how and who Trevor was when he was a kid?

  This shows that Trevor really was a mischievous kid and that he really didn't care about it. He wasn't in it because he loved being naughty. He was in it for the adrenaline spike and the chase after being caught. This also shows that he loved it and would keep doing it because he loved it.

Quote #2

"These people had been so fucked by their own construct of race that they could not see that the white person they were looking for was sitting right in front of them" (159).

• What does this tell us about how South African peoples world view had been affected by the Apartheid and the thoughts of social constructs?

  
  

  This quote tells us a lot about how South Africa had been so messed up by the Apartheid that they couldn't even tell who was black and who was white. They viewed Trevor as a black kid and the saw that the other thief was a white kid. If they would have been none bias, then they would have realized that the kid in the video was Trevor. This confirms that race really is a social construct.

"So you can imagine how weird it was for me. I was mixed but not colored,-colored by complexion but not by culture. Because of that I was seen as a colored person who did't want to be colored"(120).

“Growing up in soweto, our dream was to put another room on our house”(73).

"In America the dream is to make it out of the ghetto. In Soweto, because there is no leaving the ghetto, the dream was to transform the ghetto" (40).

"'Because I am not Swiss,' she said, as stubborn as ever. 'This is my country, why should I leave?(31)"

"There is shit in the bottom of the dustbin'...'are you sure no-one was here?'... 'We've been bewitched!''Its a demon."(45)

“No one has ever betrayed me more than Fufi. it was a valuable lesson”(100).

"Because the generations who came before you have been pillaged, rather than being free to use your skills and education to move forward, you lose everything just trying to bring everyone behind you back up to zero" (66)

“it felt like this ten-year gap in my life closed right up in an instant, like only one day had passed since I’d last seen him”(109).

"Go and wash up. You're not hurt. You're hurt emotionally but your'e not hurt" (123).

"People are willing to accept you if they see you as an outsider trying to assimilate into their world. But when they see you as a fellow tribe member attempting to disavow the tribe, that is something they will never forgive" (118).

" I remember the thing that caused the trauma, but I don't hold on to the trauma. I never let the memory of something painful prevent me from trying something new" (90).

"'Trevor, you're okay,' she said. "Go and wash up. You're not hurt. You're hurt emotionally. But you're not hurt" (123).

"I wasn't popular, but I wasn't an outcast. I was everywhere with everybody, and at the same time I was all by myself" (141).

"Because racism never made sense to my father, he never subscribed to any of the rules of apartheid" (104).

"She didn't have food or shoes or even a pair of underwear, but she had English. She could read and write"(65).

• Trevor met two kids that pirates stuff and joined in 

• Andrew after working with Trevor for a while gave him a CD writer ( which was very rare for a colored person to have) and started bootlegging CD's

• After high school they couldn't find any jobs so they continued  bootlegging CD’s and DJ’ing with hitler who was the dancer of the group

  
  

• Then they booked this gig for this diversity program which was at a jewish school. And the women who hired them got very angry and fired them because their dancer's name was hitler.

  QUOTE #1

• “Andrew was white. His family has access to education, resources, computers. For generations while his people were preparing to go to university, My people were crowded thatched huts singing, “two times two is four. Three times Three is six. La la la la la.” My family has been denied the things his family has taken for granted”(190).  

• Why does Noah choose to include the comparison between his family and Andrew's family? 

  • He chooses to highlight this  because he wants to show us that the white people were beyond advantaged in life compared to people of color. Noah shows us how white people often took their privileges for granted, while people of color couldn't even imagine having the same things as white people like jobs,careers and housing in a nicer area. Noah really shows us how big of a difference in opportunities white people had compared to people of color in South Africa.

  QUOTE #2

• “There is also this to consider: The name Hiter does not offend a black South African because Hitler is not the worst thing a black South African can imagine. Every country thinks their history is the most im-portant, and that's especially true in the West. But if black South Africans could go back in time and kill one person, Cecil Rhodes would come up before Hitler. If people in the Congo could go back in time and kill one person, Belgium's King Leopold would come way before Hitler. If Native Americans could go back in time and kill one person, it would probably be Christopher Columbus or Andrew Jackson” (195).

•  Why do you think Noah chose to compare Hitler to other historical characters in the sense of how history is taught depending on the country?  

• Noah is trying to show that even though hitler was beyond a horrible person, other countries may see him as “just a guy who did some pretty messed up stuff.” Countries like South Africa weren’t affected by hitler so they would have a completely different perspective on him. Other colonized countries like south africa still have a figure like hitler like Cecil Rhodes and King Leopold that have also caused pain and destruction.  

  
  

  
  

"In Eden, everyone one looked like me but we could not have been more different."

"Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being"

Quote #1

• “I looked over at the colored corner. I was staring at the most notorious, most violent prison gang in south africa. I looked like them but I wasn't them” (bottom 239).

• Why did Noah include this scene? 

• Answer: Noah included this scene to show reluctance in prison. This showed how Trevor felt unincluded in the different groups. He was scared in this situation to maybe get killed or hurt by the others.

Quote #2

• “‘Do you know why I pulled you over?’ ‘Because you’re a policeman and I’m a black person?’ ‘That’s correct. License and registration, please’” (229).

• Why does Noah include this scene?

• In apartheid the racist cops stop black people even if you're not doing anything illegal. This goes to show that being black is enough of a reason to justify arresting one in South Africa, whether right or not. demonstrating the deep-rooted prejudices ingrained in the system.