Imagine jumping off a bus at nine years old because the bus driver wanted to kill you and your mom because of the language that you spoke. Trevor Noah goes through that situation in his autobiography, Born a Crime. Trevor grew up in South Africa during apartheid, a time when segregation was legalized. Because of Apartheid, Noah grows up struggling because he is a mixed child in a world where white people are separated from black people. In Born a Crime, Noah shows how the idea of language is used to change people's perspectives on other people based off of their looks. One example of Noah using language to change someone's perspective on himself is when he is walking down the street as a young man. As he is walking down the street he hears …show more content…
Because Noah is colored (mixed), he appears very different than most people that were in South Africa during Apartheid. During Apartheid, mixed children were so rare because of the segregation laws. This fact leads to the Zulu guys wanting to jump Noah. Noah then says in Zulu "why don't we just mug some guys together"(55). This leads to the Zulu guys accepting Noah and just laughing along with him. They stated that they thought he was something else. This is an example of Noah using language to change someone's perspective on himself because of looks. Another example of Noah using language to change one's perspective of him based on one's judgment based on looks is when he starts his first day at an expensive Catholic school. When he starts, he feels out of place because people just assume he is the average kid based on his skin color. He is struggling to find kids to hang out with until he talks with the Indian kid for a bit. Noah then shows the Indian kid that he knows African languages and the Indian kid is starstruck. The kid shows all of the black kids. This experience makes Noah "realize that he was black"(59). Before this experience, Noah never really had to choose what race he wanted to identify as. Going to a school with many different races, but not many colored kids, makes Noah