my stand-up shows back home are a place where we can push away the history of apartheid’s color classifications — where black, white, colored and Indian people use laughter to deal with shared trauma and pain. In South Africa, comedy brings us together. In America, it pulls us apart.
.. but because I am neither black nor white, I was forced to live between those lines. I was forced to communicate across those lines. I was forced to learn how to approach people, and problems, with nuance. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have survived.
.. Instead of speaking in measured tones about what unites us, we are screaming at each other about what divides us — which is exactly what authoritarian figures like Mr. Trump want: Divided people are easier to rule. That was, after all, the whole point of apartheid.
.. But when our nation stood on the brink of civil war, Mr. Mandela spoke to white South Africans in a language that soothed their fears and reassured them that they would have a place in our new country. He spoke to militant black nationalists in a way that calmed their tempers but did not diminish their pride.
.. Mr. Trump’s victory has only amplified the voices of extremism. It has made their arguments more simplistic and more emotional at a time when they ought to be growing more subtle and more complex. We should give no quarter to intolerance and injustice in this world, but we can be steadfast on the subject of Mr. Trump’s unfitness for office while still reaching out to reason with his supporters.
.. We can be unwavering in our commitment to racial equality while still breaking bread with the same racist people who’ve oppressed us.
Trevor Noah Finds His Late-Night Voice
The Daily Show host was measured, respectful, and challenging in his 26-minute conversation with TheBlaze pundit Tomi Lauren.
He tried to get a genuine answer from Lahren on a much more nuanced query relating to Kaepernick’s protest. “Here’s a black man who says, ‘I don’t know how to get this message across. If I march in the streets people say I’m a thug. If I go out and protest, people say it’s a riot. If I go down on one knee, it’s wrong,’” Noah said. “What is the right way, I’ve always wanted to know, what is the right way for a black person to get attention in America?”
Will Trump Help Make The Daily Show Great Again?
Trevor Noah may find his breakout moment during a presidency that promises to dismantle many of the established systems of American democracy.
.. Trevor Noah tends to be at his best—as a comedian, and as a political observer—when he can apply his perspective as a non-American to the assorted antics of the American political system. Noah’s extended riff on candidate Donald Trump’s resemblance to an African dictator might have been the most culturally enduring observation he made during his first year at the helm of The Daily Show;
.. He hasn’t been righteously angry, in the manner of Samantha Bee, or indignantly wonky, in the manner of John Oliver, or impishly cheeky, in the manner of Stephen Colbert and Jimmys Fallon and Kimmel.
.. Noah’s comment, here, was designed not necessarily to provoke guffaws or even outrage, but rather to provoke … thought. Critical assessment. It was wonkery in the guise of comedy.
.. And on the other, there’s the fact that Noah seems to be, much like Obama himself, constitutionally calm: His perspective is more observational
.. late-night audiences, the argument further goes, haven’t been looking to comedians to explain the world so much as they’ve been looking to them to channel its many outrages. They’ve been seeking catharsis, not analysis.
.. Trump’s victory has been called, by Trump himself, “Brexit plus plus plus.”.. Trevor Noah—the man who locates himself both outside the American system and within it—may be poised, as is traditional, to help his viewers rage at the world, and to help them laugh at it. Just importantly, though, he may also be poised to help them re-imagine it.
How Trevor Noah went from biracial youth in S. Africa to leading light on U.S. TV
Critics fault him for appearing too detached on-screen, where Stewart delivered arias of indignation. “But Trevor hasn’t earned the right to be that angry about what’s happening in America,” Opio says. “And where we’ve come from, we’ve seen worse things.”
.. Nor is the writing staff’s task easy. “It’s very difficult writing for me,” he says. “You are writing for a biracial South African, who is from a world you cannot lock down. You cannot understand my experience. It is the black experience, but it’s a different black experience.”