We don’t celebrate our heroes
enough in this country so many of our heroes we chastise them we bring them down it's jealousy, its hatred heroes that we don’t acknowledge Greats after Nelson Mandela we always go nobody else can live up to that, yeah
but the small levels of greatness you don’t even have to look
far, for instance our great sign language interpreter Thamsanqa Jantjies. the man who made it all happen he was there at Nelson Mandela's memorial service a service that the
whole world was watching and because of that the service was
translated to everyone all over the world translated into all languages
including sign language so Jantjies was there translating
for those who didn’t understand unfortunately he also didn’t
understand sign language which is a small problem, a problem
that he didn’t let stop him people where others see obstacles,
he saw an opportunity People go, "He's a conman! how could he do something so deceitful!" Yeah you got to go,
how can he be so deceitful that man Jantjies showed us something
super, he's a roll model to the children because he showed you shouldn’t listen to what people say
you can or cannot do if you believe in yourself and you work hard enough anything is possible. people told him his whole life they are like, "Jantjies,
you can't do sign language!" he was like, "We'll see about that bitches." and he did it, he did sign language for
the most powerful people in the world every single one of them,
Jantjies was on that stage doing it and doing it well. Nobody even suspected him, nobody people where just like,
he's doing his thing People ask like where did he
come from, did he sneak in? he didn’t sneak in, he's been the
official sign language interpreter for the government for the last 5 years. Yeah, official
for the last 5 years and apparently before this
people have complained but obviously the
complaint fell on deaf ears so nothing was done about it. So he just carried on. and now he was here,
the biggest event of his life signing for the world,
signing, just making it up in the zone, nobody suspected
I suspected I suspected, no I did
I did Let me tell you why
no, let me tell you why not because I know sign language but because I know my President and if there's one thing that's specific it's when Jacob Zuma reads a speech Jacob Zuma reads a speech he's a very deliberate man he's very calm, very measured takes his time. the rhythm is the most important thing Jantjies didn’t match his rhythm I knew there was something wrong you remember this, Zuma was there reading Mandela's Wikipedia
page, right and while he was reading Jantjies was doing totally
different, like the rhythm was wrong Zuma was there like and thereafter Nelson Mandela (sign language) went to Robin Island (sign language) for his imprison (sign language) em ment to (sign language) the rhythm didn’t match right, Zuma was on page 1
that guy was on like page 17 or something. it didn’t match up at all it's almost like Zuma was
translating sign language for us that's how slow it looked "can, can, also, sorry,
I haven’t practiced guys" it didn’t match up, none of it but Jantjies did it, he stayed there
in the face of adversity and he fought yeah, he did sign language for everyone we have to ask ourselves
questions as well as South Africans we don’t ask enough questions for instance,
did nobody think to ask him how he could speak every
single language in the world every leader came from countries everywhere they spoke in their language Jantjies translated for everyone. did nobody stop to ask,
even for a second the President of Brazil is standing up there (Speaking Portuguese) Jantjies was there
(sign language) Did no one say, hey Jantjies
you can speak Portuguese? "I'm in the zone baba, I'm in the zone." "I'm in the zone." did nobody think to ask? he did sign language for everyone,
the ambassador of China was up there (speaking Chinese) Jantjies was there on the side (sign language) No, no, no he just made it up he made everything up and he did a great job at
it, he did a great job but then like, like true South African he just took it too far, he just enough wasn’t enough, he just you know, that's our problem in South Africa
that's all it is we don’t know when to
stop, we take it to far. the same thing happens with
tenders, all these things guys are stealing houses and everything , I go guys I understand you want to
steal, I understand that I understand, but if you get
a tender to build 10 houses steal 1, build 9 at least 9 people have houses. don’t steal all the houses somebody's gonna notice and then you can't steal more houses. but no, we want it all in South Africa.
We take it one step too far. that's what Jantjies did he had done it for everyone,
he done a great job the best fake sign language
the world had ever seen. he had gotten away with it too,
until Barack Obama came up to speak this was a speech that
was going to be performed by the most powerful
man in the free world 90 million people watching that speech this my friends is the point where you pack up your little bag of tricks and you call it a day. not Jantjies. if I was Jantjies that's where
I would have called it quits "Hey Jantjies, next one."
Who is it? "Barack Obama, the whole
world is watching this one." Hey no sorry guys, sorry sorry, hey my fingers are cramping I've lost my voice, sorry. No, no not Jantjies. You are like, Barack.
"I'm there" and he was doing sign language for Barack Obama and they found out that while
he was doing the sign language he kept on using the same
signs over and over again right the few real signs that he actually knew and apparently all he knew was 4 things 4 things that he kept
on doing repeatedly they are, afterward real
sign language interpreters they found out he was doing this alright, which means greetings. greetings, he kept on doing that another one he loved doing was circle, yeah yeah, circle one of his favorites was smoking, yeah and every now and again, he'd go (gibberish) that's all he did,
over and over again can you imagine that Nelson Madela's memorial Barack Obama pouring his heart out there he is, Barack Hussein Obama and Jantjies. Uh As Americans Nelson Madela's a man that showed that uh through peace you can free not only the prisoner but also the guard Nelson Madela's a man he's beyond a man, he's a legacy a legacy I can never aspire to be but we can all look towards and a for me Nelson Mandela showed that sometimes in life
you got to go the hard way you've got to say the things that matter and always remember to do what counts I can never be Nelson Mandela can you imagine how horrible it must have been for every single deaf
person watching that speech? imagine what that must have
been like as a deaf person watching that at home, sitting there it must have been the craziest thing
they have ever seen in their lives deaf people just watching like "Hello hello what? why is he talking about smoking? why is he talking about smoking? talk about Nelson Mandela stop talking about
smoking, talk about Nelson why is he talking about, what, hello why is he this is the worst speech ever,
there's something wrong with his head the man has a smoking
problem, what the hell? talk about Mandela,
what is wrong with him? this is the worst speech I can't listen anymore, it's horrible! its horrible, I don’t want to see it I can't do this man." that speech must have been ridiculous by the way, that's only the second time I've ever told a joke
about deaf people ever only the second time I told one joke when I started
out in comedy and then I stopped because I believed you shouldn’t
make jokes about disabled people it's the wrong thing to do, it's wrong. and I never did it again
until one day my life changed I got asked to do a show. In Sun City, I was asked to do a show. Sasol was organizing a going away party
for the South African Paralympic team. When they were going out to London. And so they invited me. They said Trevor we
would like for you to come and do a show. To perform for Ama Kroko Kroko. We’d like. Oh, you forgot? Oh, you forgot that’s the name
we gave our Paralympic team? Not a nickname,
that was our official name. We had Ama-bokke-bokke, Bafana Bafana and Ama Kroko Kroko. We called our Paralympic
athletes Ama Kroko Kroko. Which means, the broken things. A bunch of crocs. That’s the worst thing you can
call a disabled person, ever. Ama Kroko Kroko. that is what we called You can’t be serious, Ama Kroko Kroko. That’s
probably what Reeva said to Oscar that night That’s the only thing I can think of. “Don’t you call me Ama Kroko Kroko!
Ahhhh!" Ama Kroko Kroko. So anyway, I have to do a
show for Ama Kroko Kroko. And because I am there I did no jokes about disabled
people or anything that could be seen as offensive. I did nothing like that. And after the show I was meeting some
of the guys, everything went well. And one of the athletes came up to me, I’ll never
forget this till the day I die. He came up to me. He was partially deaf. And he introduced
himself and he was a fan. A great fan. He was like, “Hey! Trevor!
Hey man, how are you?” I said,” Hey buddy, how you doing?
Good to meet you.” He said, “Great to meet you, I am a big fan.” I said, “Well, thank you. Thank you very much.” He said, “Yea dude, I love your stuff.
But you should have subtitles.” “because sometimes I don’t get it.” “because I am partially deaf.” I said, “Oh, I didn’t even notice.” “Yea, cool. I didn’t even notice, I just
thought you had an accent. That’s cool.” “Nice to meet you.” He said, “Yea, cool man. I just have
a quick question if you don’t mind.” I said,” Yea, go ahead. Go ahead.” He said, “How come you never
make jokes about deaf people?” I said, “I’m sorry, what?” “I don’t tell jokes about deaf people.” He said, “Yeah, how come you never
make jokes about deaf people?” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “you make jokes about everyone. Tall
people, short people, black, white. Everyone.” “but I have never heard you telling
jokes about deaf people, why?” “So you’ve never heard me.” “tell a joke” “about” “deaf, deaf people.” “Yeah” “No man, not like that you stupid.” “No man, you’re an idiot.” I said, “No, I don’t know.” “I don’t make jokes about deaf people.” He said, “Why not?” I said, “I can’t, I shouldn’t
make jokes about deaf people” “because If I did that, deaf people would
be hurt and deaf people would be offended.” “Why would we be hurt?” “It’s not like we don’t know we are deaf.” “I thought I was protecting you.” “Protecting us from what? Laughing?” “We also want jokes. Yeah, we know we are different” “but we still want the same things.” I said, “you know what is funny?
You say I must make jokes, right?” “but even if you are cool with
it, you know who will complain?” “people that can hear,
they will complain on your behalf.” “because that is what people do,
they get offended for other people.” “They will be the ones going,
”Trevor Noah is an asshole.” “He made jokes about deaf people.” He said, “So?” “Why do you care?” I said, “Because it hurts, it hurts.” He said, “Dude, you are a comedian.
Suck it up!” “You know it’s easy for you to say.” “No, you just make the jokes.
It’s funny and people will laugh.” “and then we move on.” I’m like, “Yeah you know what? You say that,
but then what do I do if they complain?” He’s like, “Dude, if they complain, then they complain, okay?” “You know what?
Go do the jokes, go do the jokes.” “and then, if they complain. Just do what I do.” I was like, “What do you mean.” He’s like, “Just don’t listen.”
