It's Trevor Noah: Born a Crime: Part I: Chapters 5–8

by Trevor Noah
In this adaptation of Born a Crime for young readers, Trevor Noah recounts his childhood in apartheid-era South Africa.

Here are links to our lists for the memoir: Part I: Preface–Chapter 4, Part I: Chapters 5–8, Part II, Part III

Here is a link to our lists for the original edition of Born a Crime by Trevor Noah.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. ostensibly
    from appearances alone
    The homelands were, ostensibly, the original homes of South Africa’s tribes, sovereign and semisovereign “nations” where black people would be “free.” Of course, this was a lie.
  2. pillage
    steal goods; take as spoils
    Because the generations who came before you have been pillaged, rather than being free to use your skills and education to move forward, you lose everything just trying to bring everyone behind you back up to zero.
  3. beholden
    under a moral obligation to someone
    My mother wanted her child beholden to no fate. She wanted me to be free to go anywhere, do anything, be anyone.
  4. pristine
    completely free from dirt or contamination
    I loved my books and kept them in pristine condition. I read them over and over, but I did not bend the pages or the spines.
  5. concession
    a point that is yielded
    Apartheid’s walls cracked and crumbled over many years. Concessions were made here and there, some laws were repealed, others simply weren’t enforced.
  6. furtively
    in a secretive manner
    There came a point, in the months before Mandela’s release, when we could live less furtively.
  7. delicacy
    something considered choice to eat
    I’ll never forget the first time I went to a fancy restaurant as a grown man and someone told me, “You have to try the bone marrow. It’s such a delicacy. It’s divine.”
  8. preempt
    take action to prevent someone else from acting
    Whenever I went to my cousins’ house for the holidays, my mom would drop me off with a bag of tomatoes, onions, and potatoes and a large sack of cornmeal. That was her way of preempting any complaints about my visit.
  9. technicality
    a detail that is considered insignificant
    Our life turned into a courtroom drama with two lawyers constantly debating over loopholes and technicalities.
  10. missive
    a written message addressed to a person or organization
    If we were having a real, full-on argument or if I'd gotten in trouble at school, I’d find more-accusatory missives waiting for me when I got home.
  11. infraction
    a violation of a law or rule
    For major infractions, my mom, like most black South African parents, was old school.
  12. ultimatum
    a final peremptory demand
    The principal sat me down and said, "Trevor, we can expel you. You need to think hard about whether you really want to be at Maryvale next year.” I think he thought he was giving me an ultimatum that would get me to shape up.
  13. authoritarian
    expecting unquestioning obedience
    Catholic school is similar to apartheid in that it’s ruthlessly authoritarian, and its authority rests on a bunch of rules that don’t make any sense.
  14. exploit
    use or manipulate to one's advantage
    These licenses existed because hotels and restaurants needed them to serve black travelers and diplomats from other countries, who in theory weren’t subject to the same restrictions as black South Africans; black South Africans with money in turn exploited that loophole to frequent those hotels and restaurants.
  15. frugal
    avoiding waste
    He’s extremely frugal, the kind of guy who drives the same car for twenty years.
Created on Thu May 23 18:30:59 EDT 2019 (updated Thu Jun 26 15:26:10 EDT 2025)

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