Born A Crime By Trevor Sparknotes

At the beginning of Trevor’s childhood, he was conflicted about where he belonged and felt pressured by the external forces around him such as religion, apartheid, and stereotypes. Throughout the book, Trevor learns that people are different but also the same. The divergence between good and bad is not as explicit as people yearn to believe. In Trevor’s case being mixed and predominantly sheltered when he was young delayed these realizations and made it difficult for him to grasp his place in the world. Despite his constant relocation, he was not able to roam free due to restrictions involving him being “Born a Crime.” Even if he had wanted to be treated normally by his family he could not have been, since people had committed to the ideas

But that meant sacrificing the little “oasis” he had managed to plunge into. In the first third, Trevor’s personality is shaped by school and family. One major realization came during Trevor’s time at the H. A Jack school. Trevor reflects, “before that recess I’d never had to choose, but when I was forced to choose, I chose black. The world saw me as colored, but I didn’t spend my life looking at myself. I spent my life looking at other people. I saw myself as the people around me, and the people around me were black. My cousins are black, my mom is black, my gran is black. I grew up black. Because I had a white father, because I’d been in white Sunday school, I got along with the white kids, but I didn’t belong with the white kids. I wasn’t a part of their tribe. But the black kids embraced me. ‘Come along,’ they said. ‘You’re rolling with us.’ With the black kids, I wasn’t constantly trying to be. With the black kids, I just was” (59). This is a major turning point in Trevor’s life since it was the first time, he was forced to deal with the pressure that the expectations of race set on

In any case, the fact that he “chose black” repeats a reoccurring tension within Trevor. In this quote, his confliction can easily be sensed. This culmination of thoughts brings home what it means to be human. Deep down Trevor has many inclinations about who he wants to be but knows that society already has a predetermined destiny for him. Additionally, when he says, “I saw myself as the people around me,” he exposes a commonality between all of us. Humans relate to others and connect at an emotional level when they identify the similarities between them. But Trevor did not have the freedom to effortlessly decide who he wanted to be. His connection to the black kids served as a gateway for him to gain leverage. The stereotypes and fear established by apartheid only worsened the natural tendencies of society. In one of the book excerpts Trevor explains, “the architects of apartheid understood this. Part of the effort to divide black people was to make sure we were separated not just physically but by language as well. [] Because of this, we’d fall into the trap the government had set for us and fight among ourselves, believing that we were different”