The Review of The Book 'Born a Crime': Punishments Depend on Color

In Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah, Noah is aware crime punishments depend on the color of your skin. Apartheid has caused crime to take a turn in the wrong direction. Those of color are punished for their crimes while others are not punished when they commit crimes. Noah is aware of this and there is an example in the book where Noah’s friend gets punished for his crimes after he was caught on surveillance while Noah does not get punished because of his similarities of appearance to whites. This was a prime example of how apartheid has affected his community.

In Trevor Noah’s community assumptions can be made about whether you will be punished or not for committing some sort of crime. Noah never purposely used his skin color to his advantage. He actually hung out with African Americans for the most part and wanted to be around them more than he wanted to be around white children. Noah challenges the common assumption about crimes when he is seen on the camera footage committing a crime. He decided not to let his friend get caught up alone. Noah never believed in the apartheid system in his community.

Noah’s appearance allowed him to commit these crimes and sometimes he used it to his advantage. He benefited from committing crimes because he was able to do things colored people were not allowed to do. Unfortunately, for the colored people around him, well they were punished if they were caught committing a crime. It is easy to say apartheid created crime because it was equivalent to white people being able to do whatever they want without being punished whatsoever. Also, it made colored people want to commit crimes because they were unsatisfied with their treatments, and in a way rebelling to this unfair treatment by committing crimes.

Noah benefitted from this system because he was always included in the white group because of the way he looked. He was benefitted until he and his friend got caught up. He and his friend were caught on footage selling their pirated CDs. His friend got in trouble while he did not. Noah was in a sticky situation. He did not want to bail on his friend therefore he owned up to his crime also. This situation showed that Noah was against the apartheid system, and how whites were privileged more than those of color. That is also why growing up Noah always hung out with his colored friends because that is where he was born and raised and never expected any sort of special treatment.

During this time, the crime rate was very high. A big reason of this was the because of the whole apartheid system. The segregation caused more crime in all the different neighborhoods for many different reasons. Noah being an offspring of an interracial couple was allowed to see both ends of the situation. He was put in the spots of a privileged white child and a discriminated black child. He was then able to realize what was right from wrong. His experiences shaped his opinions and morals growing up. He realized the crime rate was so high because of the corrupt apartheid system.