Trevor Noah (1984- ), a stand-up comedian, is well-known in his native South Africa but was unknown in the US till he became the host of the “The Daily Show” (1996- ) on Comedy Central. He took over from Jon Stewart a year ago, on September 28th 2015.
Jon Stewart would be a hard act for anyone to follow, even for Jon Stewart himself in 1999 when he started on “The Daily Show”. Most of the show’s writers have stayed on, but now they were writing for a man with a different style of humour and, unlike most of them, was not White American.
The White default is something he notices about the US:
“I remember the first time someone said, ‘Oh, that episode had a lot of black jokes in it.’ And I said, ‘What are black jokes? What does that mean? Was I doing white jokes in the other episode? Cause no one ever came to me and said that.'”
Noah sees humour as universal. He says that as someone who has done stand-up comedy on at least four continents. And as someone who sees the “export-grade racism” of South Africa as merely a purer form of a condition common to much of the world. People are more South African than they think.
Race: His take on race is informed not just by being from South Africa but also by being mixed-race – under apartheid! During the first ten years of his life, South Africa was still under apartheid, which did not allow the races to mix. His Black (Xhosa) mother was thrown in jail several times for being with his White (Swiss German) father. His father could not walk down the street with him. Even his mother would let go of his hand when the police appeared. “I was born a crime,” he says.
So while he is not (yet) as funny as Jon Stewart, his understanding of race is far more profound, his jokes about it less cringeworthy and are not an afterthought. At that level, no other late-night comic currently on US television comes even close.
Issues: Once it became known he would take the place of Stewart, the minions of Gawker combed through his tweets. They found not-nice jokes about Jews and fat women.
Comedy Central, he says, has never stood in his way in doing the kind of comedy he wants. If anything, it seems they think he does not go far enough.
Smile and charm: He seems to float by on smile and charm rather than going in for the kill. But, to be fair, he seems intent on educating White people, many of whom would be frightened by Black outrage, however Stewartesque.
Soweto: Noah was brought up by his mother and grandmother in Soweto, the world-famous Black township of Johannesburg. His mother tongue is Xhosa, he was educated in English, and can speak at least some Afrikaans, Zulu, German, Tsonga and Tswana.
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- White default
- South Africa
- apartheid
- Sandra Laing – a Black girl born to White parents under apartheid!
- mixed-race identity
- Donald Trump
- racist jokes
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As always I found your blog interesting. I click on my bookmark for your page and I realize that most days I’m wary or quizzical or sometimes saddened by what I read. Please note that the wariness is not your fault. It’s simply the violent subject matter up some posts hurts my heart, quite necessarily. However today I click the link and smiled which immediately gave me to understand that your blog never fails to provoke a reaction in me. I don’t always comment but I do always read. It’s good food for thought.
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This post makes me very happy.😍😍😍
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I dated a woman from Soweto back in the day. It’s a way more multifaceted place than most Americans can imagine. It’s both way more horrible and way more fabulous than anything most Americans have ever seen. Trevor’s understanding of human nature, his vision, is nuanced beyond the ken of most Americans, but I think if he stays on the show, over time, he will expand the minds of his viewers.
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Yeah I check out the daily show regularly via torrents
@ThatDeborahGirl
You have to realize that both abagond and the mainstream media he emulates have a negative self serving bias.
The challenge is to find out just how important relevant and they are and how to look elsewhere .
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@ Mary Burrell
Thank you to you, for suggesting Abagond write about my favourite comedian of all time.
@ Abagond
Thanking for making my day.
A good and almost accurate write up.
” So while he is not (yet) as funny as Jon Stewart.”
Ha, I would have to vehemently disagree with you.
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Eish, gremlins: Thank you
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I love Trevor he is sharp and funnier than Jon Stewart and I like Jon Stewart a lot. Trevor makes me laugh. He so delightful.
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@taotesan: We both agree Trevor is funnier than Jon Stewart.😍
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@Kiwi
Was it one racist tweet or a series/pattern of racist tweets?
Do you have a link to an article about his anti-Asian bias?
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The part where he mentions he couldn’t hold his father’s hand nor his mothers walking down the street is horrid. And the guy is 4 years younger than me an had to go through that.
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@Afrofem
I too have had a hard time of finding any of the anti-asian tweets Kiwi claimed. The tweets are not even remotely offensive about anybody else anyways.
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@TeddyBearDaddy
I’m genuinely curious. We will see what examples Kiwi shares….
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The only article that I found mentioning ‘racist Asian tweets” was from Britbart.
“It’s fairly obvious no one in charge vetted Noah’s Twitter feed or they just didn’t care that it is loaded with jokes aimed at gays, Asians, the overweight, and Jews.”
“This revelation is especially interesting after learning that Noah has already trashed America as racist.”
Britbart is not bothered by Trevors Noah’s racists tweets, rather they cant stand that Trevor called America racist. lol
Trevor on white women.
“A hot white woman with a** is like a unicorn. Even if you do see one, you’ll probably never get to ride it.” lmao
His jokes against Israel I think come from Israel’s relationship with apartheid. In the U.S. his anti sematic jokes are seen as vulgar. In South Africa he is poking at an oppressor and they should be understood within that context even though the jokes are racist.
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@Barker
The fact that his own father (white) and mother (black) could not his hand while walking down the street is ‘painful’ for me to imagine. Imagine how his parents felt.
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What I always found curious is why Trevor’s German Swiss father who I presume had a choice and privilege to leave SA couldn’t have taken his own son out of that cesspool in South Africa. Heck my native Botswana next door took in Political exiles and interracial couples fleeing Apartheid. Instead he scurried back to Europe and left his own son to grow up in a very impoverished township. Guess he chose not to use that white privilege.
These white men slept with poor women in townships and got the hell out of dodge when they couldn’t stand the heat. Why couldn’t he at least bequeath his own son Swiss citizenship? Maybe Trevor wouldn’t be where he is if he’d had it easy growing up.
Reminds me of the so called ‘peace corps’ in places like Haiti fathering kids with poor devastated Haitian women and returning to their lives in the West.
Makes me sick!
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@TeddyBearDaddy
“I too have had a hard time of finding any of the anti-asian tweets Kiwi claimed.”
Because it’s B.S. as usual. Just another thread kiwi is derailing to make phony “anti-Asian” claims.
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@ Kiwi
Had I known of any anti-Asian jokes, I certainly would have pointed it out, as I did with Stephen Colbert:
On the other hand, my research methods, to say nothing of my education and experience, do have an Asian blind spot since I tend to just look at White and Black sources.
Al Jazeera is the only Asian source I regularly look at.
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@ Kiwi and others generally
Perspective and subjective appraisal appear to be significant here, specifically that Thai “joke” tweet.
It [the joke] could be more an attack on poor people than on a race.
It could also be a cynical comment on the Johns of sex tourism, or a world where there is sex tourism in the first place.
A “joke” about poor people in Haiti wouldn’t necessarily be anti black.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t think his tweet was funny or even clever. It sounded like something a beer swilling frat boy might say. Also, for what it’s worth comics have been dangerously/debatably “over the line” since at least Richard Pryor; it can be an exercise of greater difficulty than it is worth, to single out the individual comic or his/her work as racist; to each his own, though.
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above comment should have posted as Legion. tech difficulties with word press
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There’s nothing “anti-Asian” about a joke about hookers in Thailand. Kiwi needs to take her medicine.
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his
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@merrimay
“Why couldn’t he at least bequeath his own son Swiss citizenship?”
That is a good question. Why wasn’t he more of a dad to young Trevor?
I’m glad you brought up those questions.
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What is pathetic, is that racist hypocritical white Americans got their knickers in twist, with mouth frothing, dredging up a few tweets amongst thousands years before the USA was on his radar, to manufacture offense and as pretext to get him fired before he even started, all because he was taking the place of the hallowed space of a white Jewish man.
What is even more pathetic is a humourless Chinese American climbing on the band-wagon a year later, introjecting his phantom grievances as a red–herring , blaming the blog host of omitting “Asian” by fine combing twitter trying to find that one ‘racist’ tweet.
Trevor Noah is more the man he will ever be.
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@ Merrimay
All this time, I thought you were South African. 🙂
” Heck my native Botswana next door took in Political exiles and interracial couples fleeing Apartheid.”
One tragic figure that immediately comes to mind is Bessie Head. I still can hardly say her name without getting emotional, who also had a similar story to Trevor Noah.
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“What I always found curious is why Trevor’s German Swiss father who I presume had a choice and privilege to leave SA couldn’t have taken his own son out of that cesspool in South Africa.”
@ Merrimay and Afrofem
It might not be that Trevor’s biological father had left South Africa. Let me explain:
As you know there were a slew of petty and grand apartheid laws controlling every aspect of racial segregation.
I hope this would clarify rather than confuse. Trevor has a Johannesburg English accent suggestive that he might have been educated in a primary private school for Coloureds On his birth certificate, he probably would have been classified as “Coloured” even though he was Xhosa/white under the ‘population control act’.
This must have given his poor mother many headaches, because then he absolutely would not have been able to go to school in Soweto, where he lived.
By law, he would have had to go the school designated for your ‘race’.
The very inferior Bantu education was strictly enforced and reserved only for the ‘Natives’ .
That would have entailed travelling many hours on terrible transport everyday.
Although, education was free and subsidized, the primary school Trevor might have gone to required some funding, which would have been way out of the scope of Trevor’s mother. The high school might have been a Catholic (white) school which admitted different ‘races’ if they could afford it. Trevor had intimated that he went to school with white children in one of his standups. That suggests to me that his father would have paid for his education. His English accent is plummy (‘whitish with hints of Coloured’) without the idiolect Xhosa like his brother from his Shangaan step-father.
I have a very good idea which schools they might be, but that could be an invasion of privacy.
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The alternative might be as you assert, that his father emigrated.
Merrimay, travel abroad for Black and Coloureds was extremely difficult . One would have to consider all the laws: on Trevor’s birth certificate,it would have to have been ‘father unknown’. The Nazi-like bureaucratic nightmare , then would have serious criminal ramifications for his mother, explaining to the immigration authorities that her ‘Coloured’ looking son was fathered by a white man.
In those days, ‘non-whites’ leaving, was a one-way ticket.
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Having lived under apartheid myself, and as a single mother (my daughter looks more like her father than me), I would die if my daughter was separated from me. Why would it have been any different from for Trevor’s mother?
Bountiful respect to Trevor’s mother and grandmother, against incredible adversity, for bringing up such a lovely young man.
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Trevor Noah’s imaginary friend
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izULviV_HxM)
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Chinese fight to be Black:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRLGydIX1S8)
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@ Kiwi
It’s basically true. Mainly caused by rampant poverty. It’s not the Thai people he said that about but about the prostitutes in Thailand.
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“Issues: Once it became known he would take the place of Stewart, the minions of Gawker combed through his tweets. They found not-nice jokes about Jews and fat women.
But not Asians.
Once again, I am left to wonder whether Abagond’s omission of Trevor Noah’s racist tweet about Asians has more to do with his own biases or with the media’s generally lesser outrage towards anti-Asian racism.”
@Kiwi, Abagond,
As you can read in the part Kiwi already quoted, Abagond was talking here about what the “minions of Gawker” found, which was on jews and (fat) women.
And he is right on this point: see for example the coverage here:
http://nypost.com/2015/03/31/new-daily-show-host-trevor-noah-attracts-controversy-for-tweets-about-jews-and-women/
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/trevor-noah-criticized-as-anti-785447?utm_source=twitter
http://time.com/3764913/trevor-noah-twitter-backlash/
If the media did not find any jokes about Asians, why then should Abagond say they did?
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@ taotesan
I felt somewhat disturbed by the stream of jokes Trevor did in this specific piece about Chinese people (or persons of Chinese descent… in South Africa, I suppose).
I think it is racist. By the way, I don’t think that the reference to Thai prostitutes, in another piece, was racist, but this one clearly puts insistently Chinese persons in a bad light: as unsophisticated and almost dumb!
taotesan, if you don’t mind, I would suggest that you say something about the specific position of people of Chinese descent in today’s South African society and their relationships with other racial/ethnic groups there. In America things are certainly different from South Africa and it would be educative to bring to this forum some of these differences (in regard to Chinese position in society). Trevor’s piece can only be understood in today’s South African context, and only people with some direct knowledge could read it.
Speaking about Chinese or people of Chinese descent in Mozambique let me begin to say that one must divide the timeline in two parts: before Independence (of Mozambique) and after Independence.
Before Independence, Chinese descended people were a group socially closer to Whites: relatively wealthy (above Indians) and some of them created some big retail market groups. The largest Supermarket (=Man Kay Shopping Center) in Maputo was owned by Chinese families (the second one was White owned and the third one – directed to low middle class citizens – was owned by Indians, Ganha Pouco).
Their children fared very well (above average) in school.
As a child I went to schools for White children. In my class one could count approximately 20-25 pupils, majority White, with the exception of one Black child (me), one mixed race child, and one Indian or one Chinese child. When I look back to those early life experiences, I can see how privileged I was – I had the opportunity to have direct contact with a multi-racial environment, even if the country was, at the time, an European colony. Those experiences, and the fact that my best friend, as a teenager, was indeed the son of a Chinese family, allowed me to see people of other races directly, not through the lens of some preconceived system of ideas about them. The relationships between the children inside those environments were relatively healthy: racist behaviors were really very uncommon. In hindsight, one can understand that the colonial authorities, during its last years, were trying to co-opt a small class of Blacks to serve the system as almost equals to the Portuguese, the assimilados and that explained the presence of a Black child in a mainly White class. They wanted to prove that they were not racist as a system.
The Independence brought an end to that world: most Whites and also Chinese left the country to Portugal.
Today we have new waves of Chinese, brought by the current China’s enterprise in Africa. Compared to the former Chinese, they are, in general, poorer, with exception of their bosses. They can be seen side by side with locals in the same workplaces (public works) or neighborhoods and oft even in the same public transport. It is not exceptional to see a Chinese woman, alone, going to a popular market to buy things or simply walking in the street. They seem to be socially curios and exploratory, and in some musical or similar entertaining events, you can see some of them dispersed in the general public. In fact, they remain closer to the natives than the Indians, despite the fact that those came here before them (centuries ago) and never left the country in huge waves (after Independence). But race-mixing… hum, I don’t see it happening, despite the fact that sexual relations are reported here and there!
Lately we have – specially after large gas deposits were discovered in the northern part of the country and new frontiers of international relationships opened – also South Koreans and Japanese citizens, although in much smaller numbers and essentially belonging only to higher technical and managerial staff.
What brought me to think and write about my experience is the fact that we tend to be insensitive when thinking and speaking about the Other (Chinese in this particular case). The bad, the good and the ugly about them are thrown out without a second thought. Earlier closer connections with that Other can make one pause twice before doing that. We are all humans after all!
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@ Taotesan,
My am indeed half South African Tswana, but I identify more with my birthplace Botswana 🙂
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@munubantu
Thank you for sharing your observations about Asian residents of Mozambique.
It seems the Indians remain the same no matter where they go. Villagewriter expressed similar observations about the Desi (South Asian Diaspora). They only seem to break that script in the Caribbean countries; there they have intermingled with African, European, Middle Eastern and East Asian people pretty freely.
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@Merrimay,
I feel a connection to Botswana via a TV show I once watched starring Jill Scott in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Is Botswana as comfortable and laid back as shown on the small screen?
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@munubantu
Why would any rational Asian want to live in South Africa? Those that are there need to get the hell out or have their head examined.
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“Why would any rational Asian want to live in South Africa? Those that are there need to get the hell out or have their head examined.”
What?!
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@ TeddyBearDaddy
Probably, because they find that country attractive. This is the short answer and this speaks about the usual reason why people migrate from one place to another. Add to that, historical reasons: Asian communities in South Africa, specially South Asians, settled there for centuries. They see the country as theirs too. The Indians in South Africa are a pretty wealthy group. Visit the Durban area and you can see it by yourself.
But I was wondering if you see South Africa, and maybe the whole continent of Africa, as a hellish place, totally inadequate for human life.
Anyway I leave it to taotesan to explain better what is South Africa and who are the Asians in her country. If she so wants…
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@ Fan,
Yes Botswana is generally pretty cool, safe, very laid back and according to the 2016 Legatum Institute prosperity index report, ranks in at number 1 in Africa 🙂
And yes like Mma Ramotswe in the Ladies Detective Agency any problem in Botswana can be resolved over a nice cup of bush tea 🙂
Jill Scott could easily pass for a Motswana woman. She did us proud.
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@Merrimay
I loved the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency! It was so refreshing to see Africans depicted as regular human beings instead of crazy caricatures and nutty stereotypes.
I loved the subplots that involved her level headed suitor and her wacky secretary’s family life.
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@ Taotesan,
Ok fair enough, but I still stand by my earlier point that Botswana and other African countries offered refuge to black South Africans fleeing the regime. I honestly think the German Swiss could have easily crossed the border into Botswana,maybe Mozambique and fled with Trevor and his mother to Europe. He chose to leave them.
Case in point, Hermione of Harry Potter is being played by a black South African woman, Noma Dumezweni who has spoken about her family fleeing to Botswana, Kenya and Uganda before they settled in England.
Another one, Mark Mathabane, author of Kaffir Boy, grew up in grinding poverty in Johannesburg before he won a scholarship to play tennis in the US.
To think this white man with all his privileges had time to plan his township visits for some African loving that produced Trevor. Yet he couldn’t rustle up a passport for his own son. Heck I’d smuggle them in a pick up and if stopped at the border claimed Trevor’s mother was a maid or something. White men were not powerless victims, everyone took them at their word. Poor black South Africans managed to get out, what’s his excuse??
As for Trevor, I am not sure if playing up his German heritage in his comedy routines is for crossover appeal but if that were me I wouldn’t acknowledge that lily livered German coward!
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“Yes Botswana is generally pretty cool, safe, very laid back and according to the 2016 Legatum Institute prosperity index report, ranks in at number 1 in Africa🙂”
@Merrimay
That’s the exact background vibe I got from watching the show. I thought the show was excellent, as was Jill’s Botswanian accent, not that I’m an expert of such things.
Do you miss home?
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@ Afrofem
Exactly. Life is so normal in Botswana, we are regular people living normal lives that we hardly relate to how we are portrayed in the West.
Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
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@ Fan
I go home twice a year, next trip is this Christmas. Can’t wait. I have a nice plot of land that I have great plans for. 🙂
Hope we are not derailing this thread with all this talk of Botswana lol
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@merrimay
“Hope we are not derailing this thread with all this talk of Botswana lol”
I hope not. I actually enjoy logging in at times and seeing people talk about their home lands.
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@ San Frans p
That was a remarkably stupid and lazy comment, one that I was ready to ignore without an answer. I am well aware that most Americans perceptions of Africa are through the highly controlled media. We are also bombarded with American nonsense. But why did you have to succumb to that in such an undignified and ill-informed manner? Are you also the same commenter , whom I think on the white liberal thread, trashed the whole continent of Asia? Munubantu was very polite with you. I am not really in a good mood to justify the country I call home. You do not even have a scintilla of understanding of the region in question? You addresses Munubantu as if he/she lived in South Africa. Mozambique is a separate country. Africa is country?
The Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, South Korean, Indian, Cape Malay, Philipino, Pakistani citizens, no matter what their perception or attitude towards the indigenous population, are first and foremost South Africans. This is their homeland. They have been here for centuries. They are not Asians. Many have come by way of slavery and indentured slavery and a few (Chinese) for the Gold Rush. They are very much an integral part of this country. Actually after apartheid, only the very few Taiwanese and Japanese fled to Taiwan and Japan, citing crime, but supporting apartheid.
After apartheid, there is increased immigration from Pakistan, India, China and South Korea. All for the economic opportunity that South Africa can provide. Except for very small pockets of poverty amongst Indians in Durban and Cape Malays, this segment of the population are from the lower-middle class to the very wealthy. I guess all the new immigrants from Asia do not see South Africans in the same way Americans do, heavily influenced by the gargantuan media machine who hide their savage imperialism by giving a distorted and disfigured picture of Africa as a hell-hole. South Africa (Azania) is a country of extra-ordinary beauty and incredible wealth, the reason why the whites stole our country.
Yes, many people of Asian heritage, bear scars of deep humiliations and indignities by apartheid in the country of their birth, but the ANC, the present government , has not enacted any discriminatory legislation against them, even so much as providing an economic program of redress in which some Indians and Chinese have benefitted above the indigenous South Africans.
@ Munubantu as this thread is about Trevor Noah, I’ll reply later to the video clip you had found ‘racist’. The Chinese in Africa question will push Trevor Noah out as the centrepoint. It is a very important subject, I agree. You are very knowledgeable and so is villagewriter, perhaps you could ask Abagond to do a guest post on it? For now, I will say, that if the Chinese- South Africa bilateral trade agreements can seriously undermine the Zionist/ European / Afrikaner strangle-hold of the economy, then I would (reservedly, though ) support Chinese investment and immigration.
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Apology; TeddyBearDaddy
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@ taotesan
I’m a HE!
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I am now reading Trevor Noah’s book Born A Crime. Trevor is such an amazing and funny storyteller. His hard scrabble life growing up as a “colored “ child in South Africa under a evil system that punishes interracial couples. Trevor’s mother is strong and resilient. He and his mother just play the hand life dealt them, they just find ways to survive and thrive under the evil apartheid system. I highly recommend this book I really am enjoying it.
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Trevor’s mother was a smart and resourceful woman who had to find a community for her a black Xhosa woman and her “colored” child to live, she moved them to a community for colored people and said she was his nanny. When they went to live with his maternal grandmother he had to stay inside, he wasn’t allowed to play outside because it was a black township and he was a colored child, he would have been taken away from his mother. Noah, speaking all the different languages of the different tribes is quite amazing, I am reading and listening to Noah on Audible, Trevor does a wonderful job as narrator.
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In the book Trevor’s mother asks the Swiss, German man who will become Trevor’s father while they are dating, His mother tells him she wants a child,and she wants him to be the father. At first the father refuses her request because he doesn’t want to be tied down and he doesn’t want children. She keeps after him with her request, she tells him, you don’t have to see it or take care of it. It will be my child to love and have for my own.
When Trevor is 24 he goes to find his father and they have an amicable father/son relationship. His father kept all the newspaper clippings and magazine articles written about Trevor and he is proud of his son. Trevor says that his father hates racism and apartheid and how it doesn’t make sense to his father that such a hateful system that punishes people because of their skin color.
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@ Mary Burrell
Why was his mother so keen to have a biracial child?
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@Afrofem:
At that juncture in her life she had left her home to seek another life, she was just an impetuous young woman who would not surrender to the status quo, At this time she was partying with prostitutes and other free spirited people, they were in risky places where black and white weren’t supposed to be socializing, especially under the apartheid laws. She met the Swiss-German man and they became friends and lovers and she decided she wanted to have a child with him.
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@ Mary Burrell
Thanks!
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@ Mary Burrell
I too loved that book! I read or heard somewhere that they’re making it into a movie. I think that’s great, because it’ll make people aware of not only his story, but I’ll be curious to see how well a movie can convey the subtexts that run throughout.
Trevor Noah is brilliant and I suspect we have only just seen the beginnings of what he has to offer.
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@Open Minded Observer:
I wish everyone could read the book it gave me so much joy this week.
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