Were you familiar with Trevor Noah before reading this interview? If so, do you look at him any differently after reading the interview. What resonated most with you about Trevor Noah’s words in the interview? Your response should be at four to seven sentences long. Also, please feel free to comment on another student’s comment. Doing this can help take ideas one step further.
19 thoughts on “Blog Post #5: Responding to the “Trevor Noah” Interview”
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So before reading the interview, I knew of Trevor Noah, I’ve watched the Daily Show and I’ve watched some of his comedy specials and enjoy his work. But after reading this interview, I can’t help but just sit back and think Trevor Noah is just truly amazing and incredibly talented. Being bilingual is one thing, but to speak 6 different languages is absolutely incredible. Then to think of some of the hardships he had to face growing up in South Africa as the child of an interracial couple. It makes you think about how lucky and fortunate we are now to be able to date whoever we want and love whoever we want. But I definitely would have to say I resonate with the misunderstanding of people being offended by certain things because sometimes people become offended for others and it confuses me a lot. Like a former teacher of mine got offended for my friend because I was making fun of him by copying his accent and it confused me because we would do it all the time and he didn’t mind.
I could understand your confusion with people getting offended for others. Today, no one can say or do anything without someone else judging or saying if it is politically correct or not. I have watched a stand up show by a guy called Kvon. In his show, he was talking about a time he was making a joke about a blind guy and a lady in the audience got offended for him. Kvon tells that she stood up saying how offensive his joke was, when the blind guy was actually laughing. The bling guy did not care and instead thanked Kvon for including him on his show since most of the time everyone does not notice or just avoid him. Sometimes I think we just need to stop trying to be so careful about things.
I love this point you made about how easily people are offended, Chelsie. Thank you for providing this example of the blind man in the audience. This current climate of everyone getting offended for everyone else seems quite silly, especially when the person that might be offended isn’t.
ELIJAH! This point you make about being confused about the fact that people become offended for others resonates with me deeply! It drives me crazy when people become offended for others, because it often seems inauthentic. Thank you for bringing this up. This is a very astute observation.
I knew Trevor Noah before I read this interview because I have read his book, Born a Crime. He is a very intelligent person who can speak six different languages, and he can use them so well to protect himself from people’s racism. I don’t understand why people have racist on others. In Spain, some ***people will call Chinese people “chinita” and then stretch their eyes with their hands…. It is so rude and people are still doing that ????And I didn’t know how to fight back because I didn’t speak Spanish yet. Therefore, language is a very very important tool in life that can defend yourself.
I love that you’ve read his book, Jia. It’s hard to know exactly why people are racist. My guess is that it comes from some sense of insecurity within them. I am sorry to hear that you experienced this in Spain. I agree that language is can be a very powerful tool in defending oneself. I loved the part of your literacy narrative where you learned some bad words to defend yourself!
I honestly did not know about Trevor Noah, but I was very entertained listening to his interview. I interpreted that he is a smart person who knows the power of language and accents. I found it very interesting how he talked about his mother, who was his teacher and taught him several languages. In a very particular case when he was walking down the street, he heard a group of guys behind him speaking in Zulu. The guys were basically planning on how to attack the “white” guy. Noah’s instinct was to speak in Zulu and tell them that he too was ready to rob someone else. at that moment, very surprised to hear this, they just laughed and apologized to him.
This is very interesting since he shows that appearances can be deceiving. I concluded that if our appearance is not the same as other people’s but we speak the same language we automatically share something in common.
I love this last point that you made, Daniela. Appearances can be deceiving, and we cannot always tell if we have language in common based on appearances. I am glad to see that this interview got you thinking about such a topic.
Before I listen to the interview, I have no idea who Trevor Noah is. Something resonated with me is about how him protected himself. During the interview, he mentioned, “I’d reply in whatever language they’d addressed me in, using the same accent that they used.” I think he is so smart since he didn’t react intensively, but solve the trouble in a nicer way. I can relate to it because as an Chinese immigrant, I often got racist from other people when I came here only for few years because I didn’t speak fluent English like they did. I am currently in the safe position because my English improved and I started to make people who speaks different languages.
I agree with you, even though his color was mostly the reason behind why people attacked him, he learned to use his language as a shield to make others feel like he was a part of them and not a stranger.
I love that you pulled this quote, Rongxin. I think it showcases how intelligent and suave Noah is. I am also glad that you brought up how we sometimes feel safer once we know a language. I know a bit of what that feeling of insecurity that comes from not knowing a language feels like, and it is quite uncomfortable.
I was familiar with Trevor Noah before reading this interview because I have watched “The Daily Show”, and I follow him on social media. I do look at him differently after the interview because I have known him mostly for his comedy and mimicking talent, but now I know him as someone who has learned to deal with multiple racist situations by using being multilingual to his advantage. Something that resonated with me about Trevor Noah’s words in the interview is the way he says that, when people hear others speaking a different language they don’t care, but the moment they start to speak English with an accent it feels like an invasion. I believe that this is the reason why racist people say, “If you live in American you should learn how to speak English properly.” Native English speakers feel like our accents are trying to alter their language.
Great points, Sadika. Try not to generalize in stating that all native English speakers feel like your accent is trying to alter their language. I don’t feel that way (though, I am sure many do)! I am glad that you got the opportunity to learn more about who Noah is here. I believe that his ability to be so funny stems from his intelligence as well as all the things – especially the not so good things – that he has experienced in his life.
I have heard of Trevor Noah and, The Daily Show, but I did not know about this interview nor his background. I do not look at him any differently after reading and hearing this interview. I mostly thought of him as a good guy and also a funny person. When Trevor Noah talks about the way he spoke and how people viewed him because of it. For instance, Trevor talked about these kids trying to mug him when he was younger, as they spoke in a different language that they thought Trevor did not know of because of his skin color. However, Trevor spoke back in that language, and the kids that were going to mug him apologized, and said they thought he was a different type of white person. Trevor also said something along the following lines during the interview, “If I Spoke like you then I was you, even though I did not look like you”. Which in my opinion is very true, because growing up you see different people throughout different communities and the way they look and speak whether it is you or their own people. Something else that stuck with me was the story about how Trevor’s mother was shot and survived. Trevor’s mom was shot by his stepfather twice, once in the head and the other on the back. The bullet hole that went through her head did not hit her spinal cord nor any veins or important brain parts. Instead, the bullet hole hit right under her eye socket and came out through one of her nostrils. Trevor’s mom was pretty brave according to the interview, and how she had Trevor since back at their home during 1984 it was illegal for a white man to have sexual intercourse with a black woman and vice versa. Yet, Trevor’s dad was white and his mom black.
I would agree with you, Derek, that Noah’s mother was incredibly brave on a number of levels. I would also agree with the point you made about how humans tend to judge whether or not they are with their “own” people or not in many situations. Even if people don’t look the same, sharing the same language can be an indication that people are with their “own”, as primitive as this may seem.
I knew Noah Trevor by name and because I have seen few of his videos on youtube. However, I did not really knew about him. After this interview, I find very interesting and impressive that he knows many languages and how to use them to protect himself. When he was talking about how others react to him mimicking his Chinese friend vs mimicking a russian, it make me think of my reaction to Latinos mimicking other Latinos. I have always feel uneasy because it seems to me that they are trying to be someone else, copying their accents and behavior. Yet, I could see how it might actually help them to make friends and protect themself since some Latinos tend to see differences before similarities.
I found him so interesting the fact that he’s able to do things that a lot of us are not able to do is interesting.I wish I can speak that much language.To see his struggle makes you want to be more grateful in life for the things you have because not a lot of people get treated the same or gets looked at the same.He gives the definition of strong and confident no matter what’s going on and I love that about him.I feel like is easy for him to communicate with others because he speaks various languages.
Before watching interview I knew quite much about him I have already known about his hard life since I read his book “Born in a crime” and knew all the facts that he has mentioned in interview. I also have seen the interview before so it was nothing knew, but no matter how much time passed I can still resonate and relate to how he used different languages to fit in into different communities. I can relate since I do the same to fit with different people by using all languages.
As a response to the first question, I did know about Trevor Noah’s existence but did not know much about his upbringing or background. Something that resonated with me was when he tells the story of his attempt to broaden his vocabulary, which negatively impacted his performance by confusing the audience with sophisticated words like perambulate. Later he realized that complex words are not always necessary, and the language he should use will depend on his purpose and his audience. If he wants people to clearly understand what his message is, using simple words would be more convenient. I can relate to Noah’s experience because many professors in high school told me that I should always use sophisticated vocabulary when writing a paper, and sometimes I had to look for synonyms that sounded more sophisticated, but since I had never heard those words before, did not properly use them and consequently, my piece would be confusing. I learned that it is fine to expand your vocabulary, but sometimes it is better not to force yourself to sound clever.