When Those That Didn’t Know: Weren’t Told Any Better

Warning: The anecdote from Trevor Noah’s book mentioned the historical Hitler and to The Holocaust.

Go Hitler…
Recently, my wife told me about Trevor Noah’s book, Born A Crime: Stories From A South African Childhood. In the book, he related a story that I thought was an example of how multiple people may “fail” to successfully hear each other and engaging in productive, educational, empowering discourse.

Courtesy of Craiyon

Merriam-Webster provided this definition for discourse,

“verbal interchange of ideas.”

Here is an overview of the situation described in chapter 15, “Go Hitler”:

• Trevor Noah went from pirating music to becoming a DJ (after learning how to fade tracks into medleys).
• Then, he created a B-boy dance group and would be their DJ.
• Trevor had a friend named Hitler (this was the friend’s name). This was partly due to “black” South Africans having a “European” name that could be easier to write and pronounce, in addition to their traditional name. Due to nearly non-existent education, many “black” South Africans had no substantial idea who the historical Hitler was, since they were taught the scantest of correct historical fact.
• Quickly after forming, Trevor’s…