Yesterday i shared a bit of a book review of Trevor Noah’s new book, ‘Born a Crime’.

i would like to share a few of the excerpts from that book [which i recommend you get hold of] which jumped out at me:

[1] Sometimes you have to start with a fish

This one goes completely against my way of thinking, but made a lot of sense and so caused me to pause and rethink this particular ideology.

As i mentioned yesterday a lot of the book is Trevor talking about some of the not-quite-legal enterprises he was involved in while at school. One business that served him well was burning cds for his mates at school. He speaks about how this took off when his friend Andrew retired from the business and gave Trevor his cd writer [which at the time cost as much as a computer making it an impossible thing for Trevor to ever get for himself]:

‘Life was good, and none of it would have happened without Andrew. Without him, I would never have mastered the world of music piracy and lived a life of endless McDonald’s. What he did, on a small scale, showed me how important it is to empower the dispossessed and the disenfranchised in the wake of oppression. 

Andrew was white. His family had access to education, resources, computers. For generations, while his people were preparing to go to university, my people were crowded into thatched huts singing, ‘Two times two is four. Three times two is six. La la la la la.’ My family had been declined the things his family had taken for granted. I had a natural talent for selling to people, but without knowledge and resources where was that going to get me? People always lecture the poor: ‘Take responsibility for yourself! Make something of yourself!’ But with what raw materials are the poor to make something of themselves? 

People love to say, ‘Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.’ What they don’t say is, ‘And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.’ That’s the part of the analogy that’s missing. Working with Andrew was the first time in my life I realised you need someone from the privileged world to come to you and say, ‘Okay, here’s what you need, and here’s how it works.’ Talent alone would have gotten me nowhere without Andrew giving me the CD writer. People say, ‘Oh, that’s a handout.’ No. I still have to work to profit by it. But I don’t stand a chance without it.’

A few things here – the importance of empowering the dispossessed and disenfranchised in the wake of oppression which runs counter to a lot of white people ‘apartheid is over, we’re all good now’ vibes. Reconciliation happened to some measure, but restitution never did, or not in any significant ways at least. This is an area so many of us still need to really get.

Then the line in the second paragraph – My family had been declined the things his family had taken for granted – which i think speaks for itself. One of the reasons many white people don’t fully get the plight of the poor and marginalised is that we are often talking about things that are taken for granted. Which means we don’t notice them because we’ve always had them. This goes beyond material possessions to things like opportunity, having dolls as a child that look like you and being able to watch a movie where someone who looks like you is more than just the bad guy or the help.

Lastly, the fish concept is one i have never viewed in this way and would love to hear your thoughts on it. i like the double pronged way Trevor puts it – Okay, here’s what you need, and here’s how it works. The work still needs to happen. But that last line of ‘I don’t stand a chance without it’ is what hit me. In some cases there has been some incredible entrepreneurship in the townships that has seen people rise to the top despite not even having the fishing rod. But handing over the fishing rod [especially from a place of privilege or resource] seems like a more fair way to go about it.

[To see what Trevor has to say about Notions of Right and Wrong, click here]