Theme of Racism in Born a Crime
Born a Crime Assessment
In each chapter of Born A Crime, Trevor Noah explores a variety of themes and topics relevant to our everyday lives. For this assignment, you’ll choose one chapter to explore more deeply through writing.
After completing some prewriting to generate ideas, you’ll compose an essay with two paragraphs:
- State a theme (Chapter Summaries WITH THEMES), provide evidence that supports the theme, and a few sentences of commentary explaining the link between the two.
- A concluding paragraph showing some real world connection to your life or current or historical events.
Your first paragraph should include:
● Claim:
○ You can either choose one of the themes provided, or construct your own.
○ NOTE: a theme should be a specific statement about the point the author is making about a topic – it’s not enough to just point out the topic (“injustice”), you have to state explicitly what the author is saying about injustice.
● Evidence:
○ Two separate pieces of evidence (quotes) in proper MLA format.
○ NOTE: Your quotes must be integrated into a sentence in your own words that makes a specific point. It cannot be shoehorned in as its own sentence.
● Reasoning:
○ In your own words, explain the connection between the evidence and your claim (thesis).
○ THIS IS THE MEAT OF THE ESSAY
Your concluding paragraph should include:
● Connection:
○ A broader connection to the real world (your life, current events, historical events)
○ THINK:
■ Why is this interesting or important?
■ Why make this point?
○ SENTENCE STEMS TO HELP YOU INTRODUCE SOMETHING FROM YOUR LIFE, CURRENT EVENTS, OR HISTORICAL EVENTS:
■ This demonstrates/is reflective of…
■ This calls to mind…
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The Theme of Racism in Chapter 8
The theme of racism features heavily in Trevor Noah's Born A Crime. Still, it is in Chapter 8 that racism's negative influence on the nuclear family becomes apparent. As envisioned, the nuclear family consists of a couple and their dependent children (Amorim and Deming, 1030). Under an apartheid regime, nuclear families were only recognized if all members were of the same race. Since Noah's mother and his European father were African, their family could not have been recognized in the apartheid society. Indeed, Noah named his book Born a Crime because his birth was a crime since cross-racial relations were illegal. That is why Noah (91) writes that "I was instructed not to…" address his father as Dad, particularly in public, because "someone would have asked questions or called the police." These apartheid laws were detrimental to nuclear families such as Noah's. The boy could not live happily with his father and mother because of racist policies. "My father and I lived on a schedule," Noah (93) writes. In other words, the racist policies of the apartheid regime invaded households and broke families among minority groups.
What is apparent from this chapter is that those who are in power work t...