Monish

“In society, we do horrible things to one another because we don’t see the person it affects. We don’t see their face. We don’t see them as people. Which was the whole reason the hood was built in the first place, to keep the victims of apartheid out of sight and out of mind. Because if white people ever saw black people as human, they would see that slavery is unconscionable. We live in a world where we don’t see the ramifications of what we do to others, because we don’t live with them. It would be a whole lot harder for an investment banker to rip off people with subprime mortgages if he actually had to live with the people he was ripping off. If we could see one another’s pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“We live in a world where we don’t see the ramifications of what we do to others because we don’t live with them. It would be a whole lot harder for an investment banker to rip off people with subprime mortgages if he actually had to live with the people he was ripping off.
If we could see one another’s pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“People thought my mom was crazy. Ice rinks and drive-ins and suburbs, these things were izinto zabelungu -- the things of white people. So many people had internalized the logic of apartheid and made it their own. Why teach a black child white things? Neighbors and relatives used to pester my mom: 'Why do this? Why show him the world when he's never going to leave the ghetto?'

'Because,' she would say, 'even if he never leaves the ghetto, he will know that the ghetto is not the world. If that is all I accomplish, I've done enough.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“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.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood