they’ve been taught how to fish, but no one will give them a fishing rod.
I like his use of a very common analogy to show How even though apartheid was abolished. There was still lingering oppression and still systemic issues that played their community.
You never wanted to go there. That’s where the serious gangsters were. You only went there if you needed to buy an AK-47.
I wonder what their gun regulations are like And how they compare to the US
The walls of apartheid were coming down just as American hip-hop was blowing up, and hip-hop made it cool to be from the hood.
It’s cool to see you similar cultural events happening on different side of the planet and how they interact/affect each other. Is it just by chance this cultural shift about where you’re from happen to be influential when an apartheid it was shutting down or was there an External event that influenced Both?
In my mind nothing was cooler than the leather coats everybody wore in The Matrix. The Matrix came out while I was in high school and it was my favorite movie at the time
It’s interesting to see how much high school is similar across the decades and cultures, Even though there’s quite a few differences like their style and exchanging music on CDs, there’s so many similarities That makes it easy to appeal to a wide audience and Give the reader an opportunity to relate to their own experiences.
Tom was a chatterbox, hyperactive and go-go-go. He was a real hustler, too, always trying to cut a deal, work an angle. He could get people to do anything
Wish we got some more characterization of Tom other than his ability to persuade people and hustle.
Every country thinks their history is the most important
How much of that is because of the country’s pride and culture vs gaps or Emphasis on Certain history in schools
We took the shitty Mazda and drove to Babiki’s house. I was an hour late picking her up. She was completely pissed off
Okay I understand that a bmw would be impressive but why didn’t he cut his loses? A cool car showing up an hour late is still an hour late He should have taken no as no and just driven the Masada and been there on time.
The white neighborhoods of Johannesburg were built on white fear—fear of black crime, fear of black uprisings and reprisals—and as a result virtually every house sits behind a six-foot wall
We can see how apartheid is more than just laws. It ran as deep as affecting infrastructure and will cast a shadow on the country for years after the legislation is gone.
I faced the same predicament I had on the playground at H. A. Jack: Where was I supposed to go?
We can see Noah facing the same predicament form his old school, is he planing on using this as a symbolic or a recurring opposition in the rest of the story? Or will he come back and and dress how this conflict has shaped in the end.
I started telling everyone at assembly, “Place your orders. Give me a list of what you want, give me a percentage of what you’re going to spend, and I’ll buy your food for you.” I was an overnight success.
He mentions having a knack for business later in the book and I believe this is the spark that later developed in to that drive we see later in his life.
There was the thing where you don’t actually talk straight to the person. You have your group of friends and she has her group of friends, and your group of friends has to go to her group of friends
It’s cool to see things like this across culture and decades, I remember seeing stuff like this in my middle school.
When apartheid came, colored people defied easy categorization, so the system used them—quite brilliantly—to sow confusion, hatred, and mistrust. For the purposes of the state, colored people became the almost-whites. They were second-class citizens
How did they think such a subjective class system would be sustainable in Designing apartheid. I guess the government achieved its goal of distracting from the oppression by sowing seeds of confusion through theses subjected to it but would that also lead to complications and confusion among the oppressors as well leading to cracks to form in the system
From an adult’s point of view, I was destructive and out of control, but as a child I didn’t think of it that way. I never wanted to destroy. I wanted to create.
His creative nature most likely went on to inspire his career in life
I chose to have you because I wanted something to love and something that would love me unconditionally in return.”
It seems like because she didn’t have a family of her own she made her own by having Noah.
When it was time to pick my name, she chose Trevor, a name with no meaning whatsoever in South Africa, no precedent in my family. It’s not even a Biblical name. It’s just a name. My mother wanted her child beholden to no fate. She wanted me to be
Despite the hardships that come with raising a child in her situation, it feels she was still able to teach strong values and ideals to Noah.
, yet she was preparing me to live a life of freedom long before we knew freedom would exist.
I feel Noah’s mom did a great job maintaining hope for a better situation.
My mom raised me as if there were no limitations on where I could go or what I could do.
I like his mother’s mentality towards building Noah’s ambition and it supports her philosophy Of a simple name without double meaning.
When you strike a woman, you strike a rock.” As a nation, we recognized the power of women, but in the home they were expected to submit and obey.
It’s seams like they uses women’s straight when it’s convenient but when it gooses against what they want in the household they expect women to be submissive. That’s seams a bit hipacriticul..
five-year-old I didn’t think of Koko as a real person. Since her body didn’t move, she was like a brain with a mouth. Our relationship was nothing but command prompts and replies, like talking to a computer.
Aging Noah shows us an example of how as a kid he didn’t fully comprehend the works around him and is able to reflect on that as an adult, obviously, he doesn’t think she’s like a computer now, But he made the comparison to represent how his interactions went when he was a kid.
Some women used hot cooking oil. Water was if the woman wanted to teach her man a lesson. Oil meant she wanted to end it.
Was there anything Put in place to avoid things like this or was it more just not enforced because of the area they lived in?.
He was trying to live up to this image of what he thought a husband should be, dominant, controlling.
Here’s an example of a harmful stereotype That is still exacerbated by Cultural ideal And it makes me think when they abolished Apartides how long did it take befor its stoped shaping day to day life.
So, true to her nature, she found an option that was not among the ones presented to her: She took a secretarial course, a typing class. At the time, a black woman learning how to
I feel like he’s spending a lot of time developing his mother. What for? Is he building trying to build up to an empathetic response later in the book? Or is he building So we are able to better understand her up coming actions?.
The police would kick down the door, drag the people out, beat them, arrest them. At least that’s what they did to the black person. With the white person it was more like, “Look, I’ll just say you were drunk, but don’t do it again, eh? Cheers
I would think the double standers and miss treatment reenforces the discrimination not only in legislation but also culture..
Apartheid was perfect racism. It took centuries to develop, starting all the way back in 1652 when the Dutch East India Company landed at the Cape of Good Hope and established a trading colony, Kaapstad, later known as Cape Town, a rest stop for ships traveling between Europe and India.
It’s quite somber to think how these government studied other forms of oppression to make sure they did it best for their desired outcome. And even nowadays, knowing what we do, I would presume they’re still Reminence of these laws in affect or even seen in culture..
She’d head straight out, and as we’d inch our way past the blockades, she’d give the rioters this look. Let me pass. I’m not involved in this shit.
He doses a great job developing his mother as a character and giving enough context So Also readers can understand her actions and motives behind them..
who became the man who tortured us for years and put a bullet in the back of my mother’s head—I’ll take the new car with the warranty every time.
It’s interesting to see how even today he holds an a satiation with second hand cars and poor out comes, it makes sense with what he outlines here but logically the second hand car in only a minor factor in his misfortune..
No! They’re going to take you!” For the longest time I thought she meant that the other kids were going to steal me, but she was talking about the police.
Here’s an example of how he trying to build a sense of blissful ignorance that he exude as a kid. It’s a good tool he uses to better the readers understanding of how he didn't see it for what it was but most like because at the time he did t know anything different