I find Trevor Noah to be intelligent and reasonable, but most of all having a decidedly positive attitude. After reading his book Born A Crime and seeing him live in Portland, it's seems clear that his outlook and his joy is a personality trait that is at the core a choice and was modeled by his mother.
Born a Crime was a fresh read that I thoroughly enjoyed. It provided a new perspective that I found very accessible. Instead of writing down quotes, I noted a few page numbers to refer back to. So I'm reconstructing after-the-fact and picking a line or two out, when I would really like to quote the whole page (or three!). You'll have to find the book and read the section for yourself. Better yet, read the whole book.
Page 57: I was eleven years old, and it was like I was seeing my country for the first time. In the townships you don't see segregation, because everyone is black.
Page 75 - Ack, you just have to read the whole page! It gives an example of fundamental lack of logic of racism in general and of apartheid specifically.
Page 222: 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. But read the story of how he came to this conclusion!
On page 271 we see Trevor trying to understand the complexity of domestic violence situations.
Great book.
