Born a Crime

Chapters 1-5

Reading Check

1. 5 to 1 (Chapter 1)

2. 4 nights each week (Chapter 1)

3. Afrikaners (Chapter 2)

4. Swiss and German (Chapter 2)

5. Noah’s grandfather on his mother’s side, named Temperance Noah (Chapter 3)

6. A chameleon (Chapter 4)

7. A Bantu school (Chapter 5)

Short Answer

1. The Zulu were known for being warriors, while the Xhosa were known for being more intellectual/scholarly. Each group had different privileges conferred upon them by their white oppressors, thus keeping them from coming together as a unified front. Rather than banding together to fight their common enemy, each group blamed the other for a problem that neither group created. (Chapter 1)

2. Because, as they are coming home from church, Noah’s mother gets into a confrontation with their minibus driver. The minibus driver is Zulu, while Noah’s mother is Xhosa—two warring tribes in South Africa. The driver, essentially, calls Noah’s mother a “whore” and implies that he is going to rape her. So, Noah’s mother tells Noah and his baby brother that, when the minibus slows down, they are going to jump out in order to escape. (Chapter 1)

3. South Africans adopted the religion of their colonizers (Christianity), but many held onto their old ancestral ways. So, for example, Noah points out that the major Christian tenets—such as the Holy Trinity—can exist “comfortably” alongside a belief in witchcraft. (Chapter 2)

Chapters 6-8

Reading Check

1. They were classified as Black. (Chapter 6)

2. By writing them down on paper (Chapter 6)

3. Terror (Chapter 6)

4. Black cats (Chapter 7)

5. Fufi (Chapter 7)

6. Cape Town (Chapter 8)

7. A restaurant (Chapter 8)

Short Answer

1. She told Noah it is not about finding out who he is; it is about letting his father know who he is. She felt that too many men grow up without their fathers and thus live with delusions about who their fathers are and what a father should be. (Chapter 8)

2. Noah discovers that Fufi, as it turns out, had been leading two separate lives with two different families. Noah watches her run to another house in the neighborhood and jump their fence. When Noah knocks on the door of that house, they tell him that Fufi is their family dog. Eventually, Noah’s mother pays the family 100 rand to give them back the dog. (Chapter 7)

Chapters 9-14

Reading Check

1. A mulberry tree (Chapter 9)

2. H.A. Jack (Chapter 10)

3. Valentine’s Day (Chapter 10)

4. Flowers, a teddy bear, and a card (Chapter 10)

5. Charter schools (Chapter 11)

6. Salma Hayek (Chapter 12)

7. He would befriend the children of domestic workers. (Chapter 13)

8. 11 (Chapter 14)

Short Answer

1. The “curse” is that “mixed people” have no clearly defined heritage to go back to. If they go back far enough into their family’s lineage, they will find that it “splits into “white” and native and a tangled web of other.” There are more questions than answers in a “mixed person’s” heritage. (Chapter 9)

2. Petrol is the resource that Noah’s mother is good at conserving. To conserve petrol, his mother used to turn the car off at stop lights and make Noah push the car, inch by inch, if they were in a gridlock. (Chapter 11)

Chapters 15-18

Reading Check

1. Bolo, Bruce Lee, and John (Chapter 15)

2. A CD writer (Chapter 15)

3. Hitler (Chapter 15)

4. Alexandra (Chapter 16)

5. Batteries (Chapter 17)

6. Zulu (Chapter 17)

7. Custard and jelly (Chapter 18)

Short Answer

1. Noah writes that every German school child learns about the Holocaust before they finish high school—not just the facts of the Holocaust, but the immense gravity of what it means to global society. This makes Germans, for the most part, appropriately “aware and apologetic,” according to Noah (Chapter 15). Meanwhile, in South Africa, modern-day school children aren’t taught about the atrocities of apartheid, aside from the basic facts. This mirrors shortcomings in how American school children are taught about the history of segregation/slavery. The result is that South African/American school children never get a full picture of what apartheid/segregation/slavery means to society. (Chapter 15)

2. At the end of apartheid, cheese boys would lose their wealth/status. And once cheese boys and their family have had a taste of wealth and prosperity, it is more difficult to let go of that wealth/status and return to poverty. (Chapter 16)