Trevor Noah, comedian HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk with me, Zeinab Badawi. My guest is comedian and

satirist Trevor Noah, who presents one of the most influential

programmes on American TV, the Daily Show.

Born a crime to a black mother and white father in a parkade South

Africa, he has navigated his way through the explosive issue of race

and identity -- apartheid. With critics claiming that Donald Trump's

victory has encouraged intolerant rhetoric, does he fear that the

space for liberal satire such as his is shrinking?

Trevor Noah, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. You were born in 1984,

six years before Nelson Mandela was released, your father is a white

Swiss man, your mother was black, a union punishable by five years in

prison. How did it feel to be born a crime? The truth is for me it didn't

feel any different to being born I guess any differently, because I was

really lucky in that I was insulated as a child, so I grew up under

apartheid but I was spared from a lot of the ills of apartheid. My

parents were in a world where they face the hills, that's what I talk

about in the book, I don't make it seem like it was my struggle, it's a

struggle I didn't even know I was part of essentially and by the time

I became aware of it I was lucky enough South Africa abolish

apartheid laws and we were actively moved into democracy. You just

publish your book, born a crime, stories from a South African

childhood, you said you were insulate it from that but at the

beginning your mother did you from view, kept you at home, you didn't

lead a normal early childhood in that respect, how did you amuse

yourself, did you live in your head? That's the great thing about books,

I lived in a world where I could be everywhere, thanks to books I went

to France, space, Charlize chocolate factory, with Willie Wonka,

everywhere. That's what I try to explain, I never tried to make it

seem like I was one that was suffering, my family and people were

suffering but because I was a child I only knew this world, you know? I

watched a beautiful movie called Room, it's a fascinating story about

a woman trapped in a bunker with her child and the child doesn't know

that the world exists beyond this room because the mother has done

such a great job of insulate in him, and that's what happened to ask. We

were in a tough world where my mum couldn't be seen to be my mother,

she couldn't be with my father, she couldn't sometimes be with me in

public yet she still made that seemed like a normal world, a

testament to her parenting. She really did as you describe take on a

great deal on your behalf. You saw your father once a week and you say

how basically if I can paraphrase, you were basically too white for

your black mother and too black for your white father. What happened

when you did go out in public with your mother or when you saw your

father in public? Well, we very seldom went out together because

that would cause commotion. My parents were always trying to

obscure the fact they were a couple. As much as the country on the face

of the laws was changing, you know, anyone who knows about apartheid

tells you that what the government said to the international community

was and what was happening on the streets, they were trying to paint a

facade of a country that wasn't bad and create a world that didn't seem

like it was oppressive but it really was so sometimes my mum and I would

go out without my dad, my mum would often times dress as a maid to

navigate this world. As a black person you didn't have the freedom

is a white person had in South Africa. If you went out with a

coloured friend with you in the pushchair, you look coloured. There

were three ways she would do it, if my mum was with me she would dress

like a maid and act like she was looking after the child of someone.

If she couldn't do that she would get her friend who look like me with

my skin tone to act like she was my mother and my mother would walk with

us, that is how we could navigate more freely. I have pictures of me

as a child with my mum in the background photo bombing the

pictures, if we went with my dad, I remember one day I went to the park

with them and I only remember it as a story of me going to the park with

my parents, I was chasing my dad and screaming, daddy, and he ran away

from me and I chased him. You thought it was a game? My mum was

chasing me. Which child, even when you see kids today, they don't think

anything is happening beyond them playing. You were running after your

father saying daddy, you thought it was a game when he was running away

but it was because he didn't want to acknowledge you in public, tough? It

was completely a game for me, tough for them but exciting for me. Your

black grandparents lived in Soweto and you would obviously visit them,

but you say you were treated differently from your cousins and

other members of the family, they treated you as an honorary white.

That was one of the vestiges of apartheid. My grandfather called me

master my entire life. Sometimes I could feel it was an exaggeration

but it was definitely implicitly speaking to the country that we

lived in. He didn't treat me any differently but he always referred

to me as master. My grandmother didn't do that but she never

administered beatings for instance. My grandmother often times would be

the one who disciplined all the kids because we would stay together and

our mums would be at work and I was the one that was never it, she told

my mum she was afraid of hitting me because she didn't know how to hit a

white child. The bruises were blue and green and red and she said black

children she understood because it was the same but with me she was so

afraid of committing the crime the government told her she would be

committing. Then things got tough at home, your mother married a violent

alcoholic man, Abel, your stepfather, a mechanic, you turned

to pawn broking and dealing in stolen goods, you spent a week in a

cell, your life could have gone down a different path? Definitely. I

think that's a story all too familiar for anyone who grows up in

a place where there is poverty and in a place where there is

oppression. If opportunities are not afforded to communities, they are

for themselves the opportunities. I always say one thing that I admire

about crime is it has a fantastic outreach programme. Crime doesn't

discriminate. Crime doesn't stop seeking out new opportunities for

people. If you have ever lived in an informal community you will know

that the lines of crime are very blurred. We call it crime now and we

do know it as crime, the law, yes, but informally people trade and they

are swapping things to make ends meet. I definitely could have ended

up in a different place in my life, which is a story that happens all

too often. But it didn't to you, you got out and you launched yourself

into a career of Paul comedy and became fantastically successful in

South Africa before you moved to the United States. You said in your book

you were mixed but not coloured, coloured by complexion but not by

culture. Do you feel now we ascribe to much of an identity to people

based on their colour? Your black and you have to behave in this way,

you're coloured you have to behave in this way, white and so forth. I

don't think we can deny the colour has become linked to something.

Let's go with this, race is a construct but that construct has

been used in a lot of ways to define cultures. So now the two have almost

become linked. If you have black skin it is likely you grew up in a

black or African culture and if you have and African culture you will

give birth to more kids, African people are black, it becomes a

self-perpetuating cycle, it will never end, it is a feedback loop. So

we have prescribed too much, I think we have created that world. You do

see it in some countries where language is more unifying, where

themes go across. I've talked to people from places like the

Dominican Republic where they go, race is not really something. Other

things may define your identity. People in Brazil have the same

ideals. Nevertheless racial observations have formed in the

early stages the backbone of your stand-up comedy career. Do you now

regret some of the jokes you made? Here's an example, you said my

mother, black South African, was saying get me a white guy, well, my

father was white Swiss, of course he liked chocolate. That sounds funny

to me even when you say it! That sounds really funny, why would I

regret that? Why, some people would say that's not very funny. But the

people laugh, some people could say that's not funny, that's the way it

goes. An example, we have a well-established black comedian in

Britain called Lenny Henry, he has said he regrets doing that kind of

joke where he said he would wipe sweating brow and said I'm leaking

chocolate. But that's different. It isn't, it's using chocolate. That's

different, the Swiss loving chocolate is not a pejorative term.

You're referring to the skin colour being chocolate. My mother is proud

of being chocolate. I talk about this in the book, I saw people and

the race as chocolate. I wouldn't use that, I'm that colour and I

wouldn't say that. When I grew up I believed that all people were

chocolate is. My mum was dark chocolate, my dad was like chocolate

and I was milk chocolate. You see that as Bunny and you realise some

people don't think it is funny, Lenny Henry went on to say he knew

there had to be a better way at trying to put the message over, put

in your jokes over without having to pick on people because of their

colour or their race. His view is different from yours. Because he's

Lenny Henry and I'm Trevor Noah. But he's black. He's talking about

leaking chocolate, implying his skin colour isn't something that belonged

to him. He is trying to save his skin colour is chocolate, you're

splitting hairs here. That's what we should be doing, you are creating

racial monoliths of jokes and that's not fair to do. Every single joke

has a context, every single joke comes from a place. The most

important thing with comedy is context. Without context no

conversation is complete, without context node communication can

truly... If you take that out of context, I am putting it to you,

given what Lenny Henry has said, are you not guilty in some of your

routines with a joke like that reinforcing prejudices and promoting

stereotypes in the minds of people who may be inclined to think like

that and then they'll think, oh, Trevor Noah says his mother is

chocolate, I'm going to say that to my black friends and they might take

offence. You could be reinforcing prejudice. You could be doing

anything if you're not doing the opposite. How your action is implied

doesn't define what you were doing. Let's look at another aspect of

race. A few years ago you moved to the United States. Your routine as a

comedian often mimicked Africans and also African Americans, and about

African-Americans you have said this. You are not African but we

play a log. It's a very loose term, African American, because half the

time you use it for people who aren't even African. As long as your

black they say African American. I didn't deliver it like that, you're

not doing my jokes Justice. I'm not Trevor Noah and I'm not a comedian,

satirist. I'm just asking, are they not African-American? Here's what

missing, what you're doing right now is the equivalent of me saying now

it's raining more than ever, I'll be here with you for ever, you can

always be my friend, standing under my umbrella. Icing like a mad person

right now because I'm not doing everything that was within the

context of the song umbrella by Rihanna -- I seem. When you're doing

comedy merely by words, I spoke it, my eyes, my voice, my connection

with the audience is completely different. People can see when

you're being playful. You were being playful? That is what satire is,

poking holes. So you don't believe what you said? No, no, no. What

you're leaving out in that whole joke is what I was talking about how

in America, in America, Anglo-Saxons had successfully removed

Americanisms from minorities so every single group in America had an

identity attached to their Americanness except white Americans.

So it's African American, Asian American, Hispanic-American, Latin

American, Native American. You have Irish Americans, their white. No,

no, that didn't become on a box, and this is a joke for Americans,

understand that, as an American, understand that, on the boxes there

is no Irish American, only white, but there is African American, Asian

American, do you get what I'm saying? I was trying to make is

there was a shift among the black American community to start calling

themselves black American, they didn't want a definition by default,

i.e. You're not white, so therefore your black. They want a hyphenated

identity that linked them with the continent of their ancestors, so

therefore when you say they're not really African and they're playing

along, you cannot disconnect what you say from this debate that's

really, you know, captured the imagination of the African-American,

black American community and also, the point I want to make to you,

when you say that it feeds into a debate that's current in the United

States. Qua make a Army, the black Briton theatre director in the

United States says he has conversations with African Americans

now who says we want to go back to being called black American because

we don't have anything in common with this recently arrived

African-American, Somalis, Nigerians, South Africans such as

you, they have different language and so on, so what you say feeds

into that debate There is a difference, but these are

differences that can be celebrated or use to separate people. Noting

differences does not indecently make it a bad thing. The new one that is

indifferent as you can do them for a good reason, the same reason we

noticed different colours or flowers. That can be a good thing,

if you are using it to celebrate. You can use it the same way as an

apartheid to separate people. When you talk about African-Americans,

the conversation I was talking about is I was travelling America and

going to a lot of universities and I came to realise in many universities

in America the conversation you are having now they had. They had an

African-American student body and quickly they noticed a shift because

they could not lump like people into a model. Because there were people

from the Caribbean who said, we are not African-American. There were

people from Africa who said, these are not our views, we are Africans

in America. There's a difference. So what people themselves have said is

you can't lump us this group. Fine. Does that difference mean it doesn't

act as a cohesive form? I'm thinking in 2014 the celebrated Nigerian

author said that when she visited the US she felt that her

African-American classmate was annoyed with her because she didn't

share their anger and she said that she was not burdened, herself, by

America's terrible racial history. That difference, does it result in

the African-Americans who have arrived recently in the US, such as

yourself, acting differently or having a different psyche from the

black Americans who are the descendants of slaves and have lived

for many years in the US? I will say this, I will be careful to not

comment on the experience of every single person because I am only

myself and can only experience the people who are around me. What I do

know is this. In terms of our racial histories, South Africa and America

are similar. They talk to a black American person there are many

stories that we as human beings, there are many oppressions that we

have experienced through our selective oppressors. I think those

are the things that many people can relate to a across-the-board. So

there's more to unite, even though you say... There is definitely more

to unite, especially when you are being oppressed as a group. When you

are in the US as a black African man, I can tell you now that if you

have an encounter with the police are not going to split hairs that

you are talking about. Are you from South Africa or Detroit? That

doesn't happen. But he while, a black icon, South African born, you

present one of the most iconic news programmes in the US, The Daily Show

you took over from John Stewart last year. Now we see a lot being made

about fake news appearing on websites on the internet and that's

something people lament, especially in the recent presidential campaign,

because it distorts facts. You feel you use mockery, fake incredulity

and exaggeration, but perhaps you are treading a fine line yourself? I

don't think so, because we are operating in the space of a

newspaper at his and satire. -- news parody. When you talk about fake is,

the biggest difference is it never tells you it is fake news. We let

you know from the beginning. We are on Comedy Central.. I tell you from

the get go who I am. One thing we do maintain is factual accuracy and

that is a standard and a legacy that I inherited from John Stewart and I

keep it. I keep it not because of moral high ground, I believe that

the jokes are based on truth and so when your true foundation is solid

you will find that your jokes connect with more people. Are you

not considered into the echo chamber affect? Got now we are seeing that

there is a lot of personal invective on social media, traditional media,

polarised opinions. Argue perhaps becoming part of that? You are

implicitly a part of it. How do you not be a part of it? I will tell you

one way you can not be a part of it, is trying to operate in a space

where you are completely neutral, devoid of all opinion and giving

everybody an equal platform to share their views. Oftentimes what we've

seen is all you are doing when you do this is you are giving a platform

to either of hate speech or too divisive rhetoric that is extreme

and the middle keeps getting pushed over to the right. So when you look

at conversations that I had, for instance when someone will be on CNN

saying, "Are dues people"? You are thinking, are you going to give that

person if you? If I see the world is square, the server platform? And go

against science, and why server platform? The middle against things

we know, why do we give these people are platform? Aussie want to give

the appearance of impartiality. -- because I want to give. Should you

not be fact driven? Comment is free, that is sacred, that's what we say.

Do you feel now that you're concerned that there is right wing

rhetoric and power now combined, and I'm thinking of Steve Bannon, who is

now going to be appointed chief strategist to Donald Trump at the

White House, chairman of a Conservative website, where one

headline said the Confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage. And

of course the Confederate flag was used by the southern States, the

slave owning states. Are you worried about that combination between

right-wing rhetoric? Definitely. Donald Trump may not be saying it

using his words, the people here surrounding himself with echo the

sentiment that he is not creating an inclusive America, does not plan to

be a person that unifies America. He just says he wants to unify America

and are not saying that he himself has got far right views, I'm just

saying there are those from the far right who have hailed his victory.

This is interesting because look at you now as in his person. He worried

the up of double position where you have to appear to not say anything

that implies anything, even though it is laid out before us. So I ask

you this question. You will go, somebody is not racist... I just

saying, as an example, you are not far right, but if you surround

yourself with those people, if you are at meetings with these people,

if these people are having events where they are... If the rhetoric

that is around you completely is that, are you not that? I'm just

saying that there are those of the far right who are using his victory

to legitimise their discourse. You backed Hillary Clinton, you urge

your viewers to vote for Hillary Clinton in the presidential

campaign. We already know Donald Trump has criticised the Saturday

Night Live for running a sketch about him, saying he was prepared

for the presidency and so on and so forth. Finally, are you Trevor Noah

going to be careful with what you say about President Trump? I will

say this. I will be as careful in talking about Donald Trump as he was

when he was speaking about Barack Obama. Because at the end of the

day, free speech, and that is something I appreciate and

celebrate, free speech means that you have the right to speak out

against things that you see. Any ludicrous ideas are any instances

where there is hypocrisy within politics. I have that right and I

intend to use it. I am not fundamentally opposed to Donald

Trump as a human being, but I am in a position where every single day I

will be within a country that under his presidency and so if he affords

Mikel Nieve it -- comedic material, then I will do what I do, which is

turn it into fodder and put it on a fake news show. Trevor Noah, thank

you so much for coming on HARDtalk Hello once again,

thanks for joining me. It's time to update

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