Beginning ~ by being thrown out of a car

Sometimes in big Hollywood movies they'll have these crazy chase scenes where somebody jumps or gets thrown from a moving car.  The person hits the ground and rolls for a bit.  Then they come to a stop and pop up and dust themselves off, like it was no big deal.  Whenever I see that I think,  That's rubbish.  Getting thrown out of a moving car hurts way worse than that."

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood ~ by Trevor Noah, 2016, memoir (South Africa)

Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act:  his birth.  Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison.  Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away.  Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

This is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist.  It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother — his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.

The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting.  Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty.  His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love.

Betty Burnett told me about this Trevor Noah memoir, and I got it for my Kindle.  I found this YouTube video (recorded May 29, 2020 by Trevor Noah), which I posted on my Facebook page on June 1st.  It's powerful.  After watching it, I wondered:  "Are we upholding society's contract?  How?  By not looting?  How about by not murdering black men just because you can?"  Here are a couple of quotes I pulled from the 18 minute video:

Trevor Noah says, "There is no contract if law and people in power don't uphold their end of it" (at 11:11 minutes into this 18 minute video).

"If the example law enforcement is setting is that they do not adhere to the laws, then why should the citizens of that society adhere to the laws when, in fact, the law enforcers themselves don't?" (at 11:53-12:03).

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