Trevor Noah and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie interviewed at PEN America

I promise I keep it short mmm so hello everyone and and and good evening um I'm actually proud to welcome you to tonight's event featuring three members of our penguin Random House family our authors Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Trevor Noah you with Chris Jackson publisher and editor-in-chief of one wall on behalf of nearly 5,000 writers translators and editors of pan it's my great pleasure to have you here with us tonight for the 13th annual pen world voices festival of international literature I am honored to be a trustee of pen America which stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free and open expression here in the US and around the world we champion the freedom to write recognizing the power of the word to transform the world our mission is at Penn to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative voices and defend the liberties that enable each one to express themselves without fear at penguin Random House we foster healthy discourse and understanding by giving diverse voices opinions and ideas a platform and an audience with that the goals of Penn and penguin Random House are very much aligned for me personally working with Penn has also been a privilege as a student of history who grew up in a divided post-war Germany I am grateful for this matchless opportunity to expand my role as a social activist for free speech and for society based on equality and fairness this is no ordinary time for Penn America we face unprecedented threats to all most important shared values and your support is more crucial than ever in our fight to protect freedom of expression and the press defend fact-based discourse and resist measures that would impair the free flow of ideas and opinions I encourage you to to visit Penn org or one of our info tables outside after the event to learn more about pen I like to thank our sponsors the mayor's office of media entertainment and the village Voice's for their support with this event thank you all for coming tonight and a big thank you again to Chimamanda Trevor and Kris over to you [Applause] thank you very much Marcos I hope everyone can hear so and thank you guys for being here it's such an honor to be here with both of you who I've known for so long and and if it might for so long actually Trevor Avenue you that long but we've worked very closely together so thank you very much he's made up for it in the intensity relationship and I like to thank all of you for being here and for also continuing to applaud even after these two are introduced so even though you have no idea who I am it is such a beautiful night there's so much love in the room it's like sleep uniform night outside as well so I am going to bring a stinking corpse now on to the stage which is the results of our recent election and I bring this up because of our conversation tonight is going to be about straddling cultural identity and how both of you have done it and I thought it was really interesting that in the aftermath of the recent election both of you wrote pieces immediately after the election that got spread around passed around to people and it was interesting because you're both basically African immigrants country basically I'm not sure how legally legal but you are here and you both responded in really interesting ways so I'm just going to read just a short passage from each of your pieces because I think what I'm curious about is how much of your reaction was in fact informed by your by the cultures you grew up in and the countries you grew up in and that perspective so - Amanda you wrote a piece in The New Yorker called now is the time to talk about what we are actually talking about incredibly powerful piece and you said now is the time to resist the slightest extension in the boundaries of what is right and just now is the time to speak up and wear as a badge of honor the appropriate of bigots now is the time to confront the weak core at the heart of America's addiction to optimism it allows too little room for resilience and too much for agility hazy visions of healing and not becoming the hate we hate sound dangerously like appeasement the responsibility to forge unity belongs not to the denigrated but to the denigrate errs the premise for empathy has to be equal humanity it is injustice to demand that the maligned identified with those who questioned their humanity and you started this piece off saying that America has always been aspirational to you so how much of your reaction to that was informed by this kind of straddling of your cultural identities do you think I think all of it I don't I don't think of myself as an immigrant in the u.s. I think of myself as as a Nigerian who lives in America and because of my sensibilities and is I don't want to say entirely Nigerian but I do want to say largely shaped by Nigeria and I didn't leave home to come to the US until I was 19 so so I wasn't a child and I grew up in a military dictatorships group under generals Bihari Babangida Abacha and so growing up in in that kind of political space I remember being a child and my parents and their friends were talking in our living room and you know get a fairly big house and a large yard and the doors were closed and my parents were whispering because we're talking about the government and I remember thinking why they whispering and and it stayed in my mind as as an example of what it means to live in a dictatorship and having come here I mean I very quickly realized America's democracy has not ever really been tested and I think because of that there's a kind of complacency that can result and and so when the president the person who's president was elected difficult and after years of saying President Obama oh but anyway just say hi and what I was shocked by no but really what I was struck by was how very quickly people um sort of this rush to try and find the bright side or people started talking about his strategy you know people then decided to live what to me was obviously unhinged rantings people decided to liberal strategy and there was a plan behind it a loser and I just thought there isn't and and I hope that accepted me that that impulse came from just what I think or has this incredible American discomfort with discomfort Americans don't like to be uncomfortable and I think it's also linked to this optimism I mean on the one hand there's a lot I admire about that and I think it's it's the reason people come to this country there is if you compare it to the kind of world weary European boys me the world is dark you know it's true I mean I think yeah I think that's it's it's obviously if I prefer American optimism right but I think you can go to fine especially when it then has to meet what to me is a dangerous administration and I just felt really frustrated because I thought this is not the time to take on that American optimism look at the bright side we can't be uncomfortable so we have to I just and that peace came in just one mad rush one morning because I I think I think democracy is a very fragile thing and I think there's certain things that people said would never happen in this country but they are in fact happening I don't I don't think that many people thought that this would be a country where people would be scared to be to travel to be at the airports and and I have a friend who now everywhere she goes she has her green card in her in her bag and there's something about for me that's very sad because you know she said you just never know and there's a great sadness there because carrying a green card everywhere with you apart from the in practicality of it because if you use it it's a terrible process to you know you can't get it back but also it's something about about this person's view of a new America and it seemed to me that that it's important to push back at that and and that one of the things that was important to do was to just drop that idea that we can't be uncomfortable we have to be optimistic all the time there's very little cause for optimism three days later Trevor wrote a piece that was also in a in the New York Times magazine actually he said I grew up under the harsh racial oppression of apartheid as a person of mixed ethnicity the lines between black and white were clearly drawn and enforced with guns and tanks but because I'm 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 in problems with nuance if I hadn't I wouldn't have survived America I found doesn't like nuance either black people are criminals or cops are racist picked one it's us versus them you're with us or you're against us this national mentality is fueled by the hysteria of a 24-hour news cycle by the ideological silos of social media and by the structure of the country's politics so in the aftermath of the election when you two actually thought America is being and it's so clear in your book in in some of that pisode you write about as being an aspirational place all right did the election ship that for you as well I think where we're at differs slightly from Chimamanda is I agree whatever with the aspiration I don't think that negates the ability of a nation or people to take multiple steps backwards you know my mom always used to say to me life will continue to teach you a lesson until you learn it and the ultimate lesson will be death [Laughter] and she used to say that to me talking just about being a young man of color growing up in a world where the police could instantly take your life right you know she always said that to me she say learn the lesson now from me when I am the authority figure before there is another that you have to deal with and so I think when when I looked at the u.s. post the election I struggled to I struggle to to hold on to the narrative that there shouldn't be optimism because I look at numbers I agree with you completely when you say America is a place where you know the I guess the truth sort of came out in a way that many people weren't comfortable with but then I also look at the numbers and I look at the relics that in many ways Donald Trump has exposed in America's democracy you know I said that some of the thing I said Donald Trump is the stress test of America's democracy sometimes you don't realize where your roof is leaking until the major storm comes and in that moment I don't know maybe it's just me I'm not the kind of person who goes well I'm gonna move now I say well now it's time to start thinking of how to patch this roof because I don't believe it'll rain forever and so when I when I look at Donald Trump and look at post-election I go I still have to look at the numbers I still have to look at more Americans voting for Hillary now that's something that that's still something that that sticks with me as I go I can't just ignore the fact that three million more people voted for this person I can't ignore that I can't ignore the fact that it's some complicated electoral system that's a slave holdover that that gave Donald Trump the victory you know I I can't I struggled to grapple with that idea and I think that idea of mine has been reinforced you know in this post 100 days of Donald Trump because I go here is a nation where many people I agree were complacent and yet now I see people who like myself at many times has have felt we don't know how to help or what to do but people are doing things I've seen you know hundreds of thousands of women marching hundreds of of men joining them on marches I've seen people marching and fighting for what they believe in engaging with their with their politicians I mean I saw Americans protecting Muslims in an airport while they prayed that's something I never thought I'd see in my entire life after 9/11 to have Muslims in the airport Americans standing around them and I know someone might be like oh yeah but that's a that's a smoke but that's not a small thing for me that is a moment where people in that aspirational moment saw themselves as maybe being better or trying to be better and what I do appreciate is sometimes the gift and the curse of optimism but for me the gift mostly of optimism is it almost tricks you into trying to be better or it tricks you into trying to get to that place and although you may not always achieve that I do see signs and glimmers of hope and and I guess that's that's why I wrote my piece and the way I did and I think some people misunderstand it because they go they think you're saying all people must come together I'm not naive to think that that will ever happen right there are certain people where as you say you will change the policies before they change their hearts and that's what a good nation the government should do in my opinion but I do feel like there are divisions that come from the trauma of a loss and what happens is an in fighting occurs and that's what I was speaking about post the election is the divisions that happen within that group that voted against Donald Trump within that group people now go this is your fault that we lost this no it's your fault that we lost and people going like yep but let's not focus on the person that won now because that's the issue yes we've got to keep on working on these fishes that we have and they may become you know they may become greater now that this has happened but at the same time this is not the time to be divided and maybe I do go back to South Africa where at some point the ANC casada through the IFP everyone had to say okay we have a common enemy we have to figure out how we're going to defeat the apartheid government and as much as we don't agree on small ideas we have to figure out how that thing that oppresses all of us will be defeated and that's really the idea that there came to my mind post the election was if people aren't careful when the next election comes it's not that Donald Trump will be unbeatable it's that no one will agree on who should beat him and then you'll be surprised into two terms a lot quicker because on Donald Trump sylars they've showed 90% of his supporters still go yeah this guy's doing a fantastic job and so that side is not shaky at all people need to work on the on the unity of their side because what I always talk about so I thought it's interesting what she said on just about your own sense of your identity as being not an African immigrant but is the Nigerian who lives in Africa but in America what is what what is the distinction so let the last bit who lives in America part of the year party totally clear all right sure though because I have two homes I live in red bus as well mm-hmm yeah right so yeah I think and I think it's important because I do think that it there's a there's a perspective that it gives me and I and I think my if I were my I lived my entire life in the US and I bought myself as an immigrant I think maybe I would see things slightly differently I think there's also a kind of when I'm back home and because I spent back on labels not I mean I have two homes you kind of look when I mean Labor's I look at the US in a different way and there's a kind of distance that it affords me and I think it's the same when I'm in the years I look at Nigeria in a different way and and I think it ships the ships the way that I I think about these things I mean so one of the reasons that I bristled when I read Travis piece in the New York Times was because it made me think that we were sort of doing this Pollyannish let's all get and it felt and I and I respect the sentiment behind it right that sort of that kind of an eye and also respected it really but it just seemed to me put it in context right so so that the American President made himself relevant actually before he started running for president let's remember that he made himself relevant by mounting this utterly racist campaign called better ISM which really was just simply a racist campaign to legitimize America's first black president that's how he made himself relevant and then he runs for office and in that running and in the campaign he manages to speak about women in the most damning just horrendous we talk about immigrants in just simplistic dehumanizing ways and it just seemed to me all that he wins and suddenly we're being told you know try and understand him let's heal let's let and I just don't know that we shouldn't be because there's something about it but but also just seemed to me unjust right that people whose humanity had been questioned were suddenly being told now it's your job to a understand this man and be give him a chance see and I just thought no and one of the wonderful just to be clear though I wasn't that no you were just so you know no you're not talking about me you know no it's not a voice just you on the same page no I'm not suggesting that you know I mean I hear what you said but so the life and I think it's changed a bit I mean my my I wrote my piece I think was maybe two weeks after he won and it seemed to me that sort of the American media and people that people who were talking about it just weren't sure what the hell to do and to say because I think most people didn't think he would win and in many ways neither did he so there was a there was kind of a sense of what what the hell are we supposed to do about this and suddenly there was you know the kind of talk that was coming out just really made me feel that this was not the way to go and one of the wonderful things I think about a democracy is that resistance and democracy is a good thing right that dissent is is is a wonderful thing and and I think it's happening now I mean I think that a hundred days in I see it I don't see that sense of them I don't see a lot of what I found myself reacting to when I wrote that piece I live in Maryland and and just in the small community I live there all of these sort of small political meetings happening in people's homes you know I keep being invited to them you know come and let's talk about the comp the Republican Congress person that we're going to learn seat you know people are just really and and that I think is what a democracy should be and there many people in this country who haven't been active in anyway who have become active and I think it's a response to in some ways it's a kind of response I wish had happen from day one but of course it's America right you sort of have to claw through the little curdled layers of optimism but I think it's right if I may interject it I think essentially maybe maybe that's where my response comes from is that I on The Daily Show I'm really blessed to have a stuff that comprises of a wide range of people different walks of life you know different backgrounds just a group of people who come together to help create this show and one thing that I like about that is it enables me to not just live in my space but in a tiny community that I'm a part of every single day and the one thing I noticed immediately after the election was a change I noticed a shift in people's perspective I noticed a shift in people's determination I noticed a physical change you know I remember one of my female writers turned to me and she said I feel like my country has betrayed me and she looked at me and she said now we change now right this show changes and I said yes because now we have a purpose and so for myself that purpose changed when I started on the show people were like why aren't you angry said what am i angry at please explain this to me I said I do not just have anger to throw around what am i angry at I will not fake outrage because there are many things that I don't believe outrageous especially American lives in besides so if one side doesn't tell us it has to be outrageous the other side of us I has to but I go why you outrage Ana tell me why because half of the time you can find that the other side did it ten years previously when their administrate so I try and throw all of that away I go get rid of that frivolity what are you outraged about what should you be angry about and those are the moments where I feel as a human being that it is worth getting worked up and having the energy but what I noticed in my Staffan and myself and the people was a galvanizing of a spirit and so when I wrote the piece I went if this can happen in my tiny world then this can happen in the larger world that I live in which is the United States of America and so it is an optimism because I go a guy like Donald Trump what he does is he makes you wake up he makes you fight he makes you find the best in yourself and sometimes you can't find that until you are pressed you know it's the reason when a person works out they have to push themselves that's when growth happens is when you're outside of your comfort zone and so it hasn't been working and so and so essentially I go like Donald Trump is now put his now put America and the world and the world out of its comfort zone you know don't forget before Donald Trump China was like a global warming climate change man Donald Trump came in and said okay okay it's real life we're gonna fight all of a sudden president G was leading the charge he never even came to these primates agreements beforehand this is a nation like before that people like will see what we now Nations standing up in the world Amsterdam I mean the Netherlands saying we're going to donate money to helping women around the world we're going to step up we're going to become something and sometimes it is that force that attacks you that will make you become the best version of yourself because otherwise you just sit around you become complacent all right so you serve like a personal trainer to the world he is a brother wait based on his vast experience with personal trainers I'm sure um yes so come on you said a really interesting thing about about how being in two different places living in two different places gives you a kind of perspective on the other place and it's interesting when I think about the sort of trajectory of your fiction in particular like you wrote novels that took place entirely in Nigeria and then with the Marikana you wrote a novel that takes place all over the world is that partly a function of your sort of living in different parts of the world and having more experience and more I guess being more conversant with I mean it's easy to write about places that you've been to write when I wrote and also because it just seemed it's very hard for me to in talking about fiction it's very hard for me to intellectualize choices and things because the half the time I don't actually know right right so I think that with Americana the story called me just felt I wanted to write about and I would have tried something the president order to write to the president I wanted to write this contemporary thing about love obviously but also it's the kind of African immigration that I'm familiar with because I think that that the narrative that is common in in the Western world about African immigrants is that they're fleeing poverty and war and catastrophe and obviously those stories are important but it never feels familiar to me because it's not the story I know and I wanted to write about the people who are not dying who haven't been caught up in any way but who who are dreaming of more and for whom more is America actually I don't know about now but at least and and and also that story of the African who in his or her country you know isn't hungry it's well probably but has a job what makes the choice makes the choice to leave and you know sudden is washing toilets in London and and and what that is and how it shapes who you are your relationship with your your your peers like that I just I would have to try and capture that because it's very familiar to me it's a story of of the people like no one loved and it came obviously from so being familiar with that because I've lived in this country for for quite a few years off and on and I've spent time in England and I have family in England so it was the research part was fairly easy actually my sister-in-law who has a very sharp ma she said to me next time if you want to write about us just use our real name so Trevor how about for you know you actually started your career in in South Africa alright and you became a star in South Africa but then you became a star in other parts tour around the world and now you're here how does that changed your storytelling as a comedian well I think every every country has a flavor to it every country has an idea and a theme that almost dictates what the country you know defines itself as and so traveling the world one thing that I was I was always blessed with is when I traveled as as simple as it sounds I just learned more of myself you know because I always knew myself in my world I always knew what ideas I had in my world and only when those ideas were tested or applied in different places did I come to change or modify them did I come to see places and people and ideas it's a totally different thing you know first traveling the Commonwealth and seeing the similarities you know of the British Empire as it as it was and then going to country that had no history that was tied to to mine you know in a direct way coming to the u.s. though was a strange experience because it's a weirdly familiar place for me because it's it feels sort of like home but not you know it's like American South Africa almost like parallel universes it's like because it's like a an episode of black mirror way it could have been but so you know South Africa a country where black people were oppressed America country black people were and still are oppressed and then you look at the the shift but the difference was in South Africa black people were the ones who then assumed power and now that didn't shift everything overnight I mean we're still struggling with the effects of poverty and those things may take generations to fix and now there's new issues like corruption etc that come up but it was a different journey and it is a different journey and then you come to the u.s. and it's very similar but then the people and the numbers who are being oppressed changes and that changes your perspective of how you see yourself and how you see the world and you know I I was lucky enough that I came from a place where when I left South Africa to come and live in the u.s. I had experienced blackness in all its forms in terms of like you you know black didn't just mean one thing to me so black had no connotation per se I went black can be late black and be on time you know yeah we go here everywhere in the world leglock on time black South Africa in South Africa and so I went you know I went black and before black can be rich I went black can be a criminal black can be the judge black and so I was lucky in that when when I left and that's something I feel sad for a lot of South Africans who fled the country you know because they feared you know what was going to happen to them post post apartheid but they never got to see that so many people just go oh I have one image of black people and that's it but I I left with that and then I came to America and then I realized very quickly I had to shift how people saw black people how I was perceived how I was perceiving what I thought I was perceiving and that shift in my world changed it was the same when I went to when I went to the UK seeing how black people associated with everyone else in the UK and and realizing that classism is at times more powerful than race but race is still a huge factor there and then you come to the US and it becomes like race is really one of the biggest things you know even even with money it still becomes one of the biggest things and so that journey for me was one that I think cuts a lot of the fats that I that I always used to have in my mind in terms of thinking of ideas I went a lot of these ideas are learned because they come from a place a lot of these ideas and rules are fixed because they're fixed in one place but you travel from one country to another you realize what is offensive there's not offensive here you realize what is seen as oppressive here is not oppressive there you realize but then you see once you cut away the fat you see the truth of everything you start to realize more and more of the connective tissues and then I was in a space was like oh okay this I'd know from South Africa this could even be a precursor to what may happen in America and that's why from the beginning I said I think Donald Trump can win it you know I he was he was all too familiar for me you know I saw this man on TV and I went he's charismatic whether you like him or hate him he knows how to command the camera and Hillary was someone who in her own words even said she's a horrible politician in that way and American loves entertainment and loves you know the show of it all and I came from a country where our leaders are still charismatic and they connect to the people and then my one president who was kicked out was someone who was a policy wonk and didn't connect with the people and he was just focused on doing the job and not the show around the job and so that piece of traveling shaped how I saw the world so for instance when I saw that I went oh wow oh you guys my trouble and people said are you being stupid this is what happens to us every year it's silly summer we calm down and then we get you know we make our minds up in the winter and I said that that thing there is that thing is gonna do well like it's I can see how it can connect and over time I guess you know people sort of came around to what I was saying but in the end I think my travels shaped and still shaped the way I see the world it's interesting when I'm I remember I thought hmm are you speaking as I Tallahassee codes in Washington a couple of months ago and and one of the things that an arson I've actually talked about many times about one things we love about Americana is that it does feel like it's a book that has a element of sort of pan-africanism about it because it takes these different parts of via the diaspora particularly America and in Nigeria and it shows that both like places where they connect in the most magical way and in places where they are each kind of observing each other from a distance so do you believe that there is like based just on your experience living in Africa living here that there is some kind of a pan-african unity that exists between cultures throughout the Diaspora yes I do I mean I do I think I mean speaking I'm very curious about black people being on time Trevor and I will talk about it later but I did if you go yeah one of the things I've observed in traveling and just observing I feel as though that this and again when you're looking at it historically 100 years really isn't that long time and I know African American history didn't start on a slave ship it started in Africa and black people in the Caribbean a people of Africa black people in Brazil a people of Africa black people in Europe and you know and it's not just about skin color I mean that the I believe very strongly that there are cultural traditions that have been passed down have been diluted as they should be but but the thing there the strands there the things there and my I think of myself politically as Aspen Africa and it's a sort of my political worldviews its pipe and African and what that means I don't know you know it just means that I care about what's happening in Kenya and I care about what's happening in you know I I care about what's happening in to people in the by a region of Brazil I'm interested I'm interested in the way that certain Yoruba traditions have survived in Brazil and I'm interested in in you know afro-colombians I'm interested and I think I'm interested because there's a familiarity there there's something that that I feel connected to I don't think my I mean it's nice to think of American as an African and I don't know that I necessarily said no one thought I shall not write up in African too but but because my walls view is been African it doesn't suppress it doesn't surprise me that it is it's the way it's about for me that the ways about the ways in which we connected there was in which we don't connect there for me coming here and I've talked about this often about discovering that I was black when I came to the US and in some ways I think Trevor and I have such different experiences because we grew up in such different parts of Africa the South Africa is as removed as it possibly can be from Nigeria there I think bring out to South Africa and in some ways in southern Africa is to be aware of race as a present reality in your life so grow up in West Africa particularly Anglophone West Africa is to be completely oblivious of race very much aware of ethnicity and religion but race and so I still have friends in Nigeria when they talk about race I cringe because and and I do because obviously there's something in me that has become Americanized I've understood race as America understands reason and I also think that that's a and understanding Aubrey's I mean that there's a particular thing about the way America looks at race and I should also maybe clarify that usually in this case I'm talking about blackness because again obviously the different races and different forms of oppression in this country and and I don't want to go into a rant about my problems with the American left but often there is it needs to have the sort of United League of the oppressed and I think it's a very dishonest way of having conversations because I think that people experience oppression in different ways so I'm talking about blackness I just want to clarify right and because you know Hispanics have oppression it's different it's different um you know asian-americans nevermind that minority model minority thing also experienced oppression right um but so I'm talking about blackness when I came to the US I discovered I was black and it was a kind of strange thing because you know with the sort of casual arrogance that most Nigerians are bred with hi um the Nigerians here knew this is true let's be honest well so we were owning isn't ridiculous this is what I mean right we're just like yeah and right so I remember sort of coming here and my first and it's a very small moment but I was in class it was my first the first essay reroute undergrad the professor comes in the system when I don't know physical papers are still things that people bring to plan but he's like who wrote this essay this is the best essay and I want to know who wrote it and I raised my hand and he looked surprised and was a very similar moment but that's when I realized he didn't think the person who wrote this essay was black and and with my Nigerian sort of I was just like what does he not know Nigerian and there were all brilliance in my dream no but but really but just to say that it was kind of a learning thing and then I went through this process of wanting to run away from that neighbor and I recognize now that one with more labor himself back mess where I would say I'm not black of Nigerian hmm I did this for maybe a year of my time in the u.s. I'm looking but now I recognize it as um in some ways even that my reaction is an indictment of American racism because obviously I'm black but because I realized that America's understanding of black was so loaded with negativity I thought no I don't want to you know I don't know huh and I remember when people say Oh hon to black Students Union of Lego I will be going to the library you know but then I started to read and and it's important for me to talk about this because it's so important I mean especially as we're now in this age of alternative facts but it's so important to read I mean that the facts of American history and if there's no way I think that any open-minded person can read the facts of American history and just not acknowledge the the massive unending injustice of blackness in this country and so I need and it was a political choice to take on the label of blood like I'm very happily black and and I like to talk about how I lived in Brooklyn for a few months when I first came here and was an african-american man who once called me a sister this is very Le Monde snow sledding and my sister I was like I know I know but but you know I talked about this honest thing many people do this one don't talk about tonight I mean I think that the black immigrants in this country but there is that pie I mean I don't think of it as necessarily an indictment of them it's about it it's about this country I mean it's it's it's the immigrants come here they want to survive they want to do well they they absorb the terrible negative stereotypes they're not really armed with facts we haven't really read the history many of them having been educated here and they just kind of buy into it so like no I'm not your sister and and so after I had done a bit of reading I just felt so ashamed and I wanted to find him and be like I am so right I'm like my tikki my you know but but I'm yeah Trevor did you have the same I mean it's so much different way discovery Oh or shift in like how you felt racially identified when you came here well here I was lucky in that a I mean it's a weird thing to be to say you're lucky with but in South Africa because of that oppression I was used to that idea I was used to a label I was used to knowing that I'm below I was used to having or suffering from a racial low self-esteem which is something that many many South Africans have had and still have so for instance you know in South Africa it's a common thing and I know there's some parts of Africa that have this depending on the history but like in South Africa if you would drive a nice car you know into a you know a gas station or petrol station you know the attendant may say to you I'm Lulu you know which means out the white man you know and and that basically would imply look at you you're doing well you have achieved whiteness you know look at you things are going well and so white goes well black does not you know and so when something would be negative it would just be something that people would say as a throwaway thing it would be like a Monday which is just like oh you know what like black people like what are you gonna say and I didn't realize this was a thing you don't realize that you have a stigma of yourself until you you read I'm told you until you tackle it and so the one thing that we had was as I said earlier the level so as much as you have the stigma UN yeah but I can't aspire to that level of the whiteness I can live in the white area I can't drive the white man's car I can speak the language like the white man because for so long that determined your success in South Africa you know in many ways it still does for some people and so I always this funny I had Nigerian friends in South Africa and I remember I met them because there's an influx that came in and stayed you know then when I stayed in Hill bro as friends with love Nigerians and I was always shocked at how confident Nigerians were I used to watch Nigeria movies with my Nigerian friends and I was like these things are horrible I was like why why aren't you watching Hollywood movies and I remember my friend would turn to me you know my favorite turn to me and and you you said to me say what what car what can i watch that movie huh he says my favorite thing he used to say cuz it would be it would let me like a white actress on screen and I forget how he said it exactly but he used to say something along the lines of he'd be like that did that lady can't do nothin from you and and I didn't understand it but he was like no I watch our movies and our stories and our music is what we celebrate and I had never seen this is like what but in my world you aspire to the English in my world you aspire to that thing and so when I came to America it wasn't learning that I was black it was it was rather coming into a space where I realized it was like the the bridging of the gap so if Nigerians have excessive confidence and wish I never had this pitfalls let's not mean but I mean but I mean if you and then you know South Africans have a slightly diminished one I remember when I came to the US I was shocked at how some of the things that I had spired too were frowned upon in some places I remember when I first did comedy and was a really great comedian still a friend of mine in in LA and I did a show and I did a show with an all-black comedy show was called chocolate sundaes and they asked me to come on and they were like and I mean the introduction was just like it was like yo man a man we got this brother from South Africa yo go get that dude he flew all the way here man Yodas do we got showing some love we got to do and I was like wow this is they were but the guy was really you know and I and I walked on stage and the people looked at me like I was now gonna introduce the guy from Africa and I started speaking and I'll never forget this no one loved no one loved they just stared at me there was one person laughing in the balcony was Katt Williams never forget it it was Katt Williams and he was the only person who was laughing at my jokes and I got off the stage and I was like well that is that was the most horrible experience ever and the host got back on and then I guess he'd the feeling of the audience and he turned and he was a man he's like yo hang on front he's I know they got yellow bones and I and he's like [ __ ] he's like that [ __ ] came onstage yo he was talkin like the Queen I know good evening good he's like you know where the [ __ ] was Mutombo man well house I was like wait what what are you and I was like what are you and I understood and I was like oh wow this is that thing and you know what and I initially my my my pride and and you know a certain a certain amount of your fear goes like a why I will be more of this I will show you that this is the thing and I did a show a friend of mine Chris Spence I'll never forget after the show was a good show but he came up to me and he said to me he said amen I like that you play black rooms cuz a lot of comedians that do the mainstream rooms in America don't do the black rooms and he said but just be careful of one thing because people don't know you they might see you as an uppity [ __ ] and I said what does that mean and he says and he said this was maybe what six years ago and he said to me be careful that some people may perceive you as being someone who does not want to be associated with black because of how you speak because of how you dress because of how they see you and I in that moment I was like what what what is what does that mean what is that and he's like all the way the way you use your words and the way you know that's that's not seen for some people as a black thing and that's when I came to realize that a lot of the negative stereotypes very familiar to me because we've done in South Africa and it's done in the u.s. is that black people and I don't know if it's in you know the pursuit of really forming a buttress of your culture and your mind have unfortunately absorbed some of the negative elements that have just been associated with blackness because of its oppression and so now people go yeah being ignorant is black you know spending my money the way I spend it is black you know you know whether it's baby mama jokes whether it's like these are things that are black these are things that are part of my blackness as opposed to going know there is this culture that we all experience there is a culture of who we are and then there are incidental things that have been imposed on us because of our skin because of our culture because of our heritage and because it's happened for so long we've come to believe that that is a part of who we are and I still have to work to shake that every day you know and I see it in my friends and it's something that we work to shake every day but I go no actually that is not something that I'm proud of and you won't you won't get that out of you know and people go stop acting white and I go what are you saying what do you mean by stop acting white why like why are you giving that to white people that's a positive thing it's not they don't own it do you not I'm saying that's not their thing so don't be tricked into owning the negative and that's I mean that's essentially what I discovered when I got here but I it was a realization because I had a bit of it in South Africa and then it was it was a even bigger awakening when I came to to the US mm-hmm I mean if I'm a dad one real quick thing was I guess the biggest awakening for me was it wasn't in a negative way it was rotted the other and that is I've always loved celebrating different cultures because South Africa is really such a melting pot and you know whether it was my Geryon my Nigerian friends or with those my Zimbabwean friends or even in South Africa cos a Zulu Swan Abedi Afrikaans whatever it was week I was enjoying that and I'll never forget when I did shows in America and because I formed my comedy in black rooms that was what I was I was working with and that's what I enjoyed and I'll never forget the first time I took it out of a black room and I went to a white audience and I did the same jokes and it destroyed but even began in a strange way and I didn't understand why or why what was happening or you know and it took me too long in my opinion I mean it's a short amount of time in life but it took me too long lies that in the black room we were laughing at our thing when I went to the white room I was giving them the license to laugh at the black thing and I honestly didn't realize it you know I I used to make jokes about you know names like you know Shaniqua and and you know and like and I was like this is it's funny it's funny I mean it's the same way back home our teas my cousin know my Tom Sangha and I always tease her you know I'll just like I'd call her rice krispies because I was like there's always popping sounds and but but she didn't take that in it it was just like because of your name specifically my mom doesn't have click sounds in her name it but when I realized that I was like oh wow there are so many levels here and I have to be careful now of what I share we're right because we're you give it away may create a completely different connotation of what you're giving away man so now that's it that's a really great point and I wanted her for both of you and I think this is one of the interesting things about artists like both of you who have global audiences right is why this is the trivet we should record that and send it to all the white people who say well black people say that exactly so now as as a writer and as a performer and writer who who speak to these multiple audiences do you feel like you in some ways have to be aware of audience when you're writing about about different cultures do you feel in some ways like there is a that you're speaking for a group of people do you feel like you're having to maybe even strip with you which you write for export so to speak so that people everywhere no no and in particularly in fiction no when I'm writing nonfiction it's very different it's a very different creative process with nonfiction you know if I write essays I generally know what I thought well I suppose I'd like to think I know and so so in some ways I'm aware of audience I mean obviously when I read that kiss me New York I knew that I was writing for primarily a Mary audience whooping looks Nigerians will mediator just be like whatever which I'm wrong dude actually that I know the hell she's talking about me what with fiction I don't and because fiction is the thing I love and and what I think of as my life's vocation I I don't and in some ways it's become something that I'm increasingly conscious of not doing in other words because I'm aware of it's a strange thing or being fortunate to be read but also it's coming with with baggage and some of the baggage is saying to myself I don't ever want to get to the point where the storytelling that I do is shaped by any other consideration that is not my artistic vision I don't want to get there I mean I have a pact with my dear friend being a banker why neither I said to him when I start writing that kill me and he said yes evil so but but in general no I don't and I think you know I think the Atkins integrity of the story is very important and so you know I want to tell my story the way it is and I know that for example the way that I throw any more words in my in my fiction I have had many editors who think that maybe I should tone it down or taking the album you know use names that are simpler right for americanas and I just think no because I grew up reading books set in Russia long names I couldn't pronounce did we get in the way of my connecting with the characters and I take that all the time with me that there's a sense in which literature is a universal language because it is specific right and so I am and maybe that's why me sometimes I'm just really surprised that people in Japan are reading me like maybe for me it's also proof that you don't have to that you know that button especially with fiction I think and as a reader I know that the books I'm drawn to and the books that are very steeped in the specificity in the books that that don't sort of carry around any very ideas of universal I mean that I'm always very troubled when people start to say oh you're universal and I start worrying because Universal can often mean that you've stripped your walk of the things that really make it it so so you know my I mean I had somebody who very kindly suggested for example that since I had become well-known in America it might be a good idea not to the difficult name in my most recent book my book is called DHA well it's a name that's difficult even for Nigeria now but it's a name I love and I was like look that's the name were using right I mean does it mean some of my special in Iowa won't buy it because the name is scary maybe but I can live with that I mean I'm Trevor how do you feel about that you do you feel like there's a there's a degree to which you what do you feel like you have to go to the specific to reach the broadest audiences even in South Africa bespoke view you performed in front of audiences at all times right I I think as a comedian you always conscious of your audience what happened though was I guess through the internet and world accessing me before I even knew it had my specificity came to become what I was talking about all the time and so you know I agree no I agree with what you're saying in that you shouldn't try to be global if that makes sense but I go but who you are is who you are so I would argue as your mother you are global because of who you are you know what I mean you don't have to try and there's some people who are trying to be global which is why they lose it but if everyone connects with your story or if many people do your global whether you like it or not you know it doesn't mean it doesn't mean that you are I understand people run away from being like oh that means I'm stripped or commercial I get that no I'm not oh I have to say I'm actually not Precious about cook I would love to be commercial yeah I'm saying household there's no evil person who has what he loved that would commercial I'm perfectly happy with but I know what I'm saying when it comes to being global I go like no but that's that's who I am so I I go I'm Trevor Noah who grew up in South Africa I go I had the opportunity to go to a school that was at the point white and then changed and then we were the first group of mixed children who allowed into the school so I'm shaped by a piece of that I have access to a world that maybe some of people don't but that is a piece of me now the same thing with my mother my mother has a grasp of languages that she then bequeathed upon me and now I I do and I try to mirror what she did but that is a piece of me and then that you know having a father from Switzerland who is white that shaped a piece of me and then having a stepfather who was black and shaped a piece so everything connected so then I go that is my specificity is that I am touched and you know in some way connected to everything and everyone and it's also because I come from a country where that was the thing we you know we will all corralled into that group and so what happens then is the people mix up the ideas we our languages grew our our our our our forms of communication are so interlinked in South Africa that we've created languages upon languages you know with within themselves and so when I tell stories I don't write fiction but for the book as you know as the editor the specificity was exactly what I was going for because I've always believed that the specificity is what's global I think it's the other way around I almost go like that is like the real thing that everyone connects with I was listening to Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers when I was a little kid because my mom would play the music at no point did I say to myself were these who are these white people singing I didn't even know that they were white I just heard the music and it was love and they were singing a story and my mother was singing it and so I was hearing it and I was singing it with her and she was connecting with certain things maybe she wouldn't have connected with a song that was about Texas but he connected with the specificity of someone falling in love and that story that was being told and so so when I tell these stories I I think of the audience the way I think of my friends I go how would I share this with you what do I want to tell you what do I feel I need to share with you to give you a glimpse into Who I am or how I think and I know with my friends I am I most vulnerable and at the same time I'm also the most willing to learn and share I'm in a space where they get my friends get the best of me and so with every audience whether it's on stage or whether it's on a book I go I will think of you as that person and give you the best of me and the worst of me as well because if I if I do that and you accept me if you accept me for the worst of me then we have a great friendship ahead of us and if you don't accept me because of the worst of me then we shouldn't have been friends to begin with and so that's that's what I pursue all of the time and I think I've been lucky enough that my specificity is that I've been touched by everything and everyone in my world and that's what I try and talk about without forcing it mm-hmm I do think that I mean it's listening to that one of the things I've kind of discovered in the publishing world and you of course are an esteemed member of the way is that there's also a lot that is power and privilege have a lot to do they kind of breed a kind of entitlement for people who belong to groups that are powerful who then think that only their stories are universal and who are surprised when so I for example have often heard from people who seem genuinely surprised that they connected with my characters and when I was growing up reading Enid Blyton it never occurred to me not to connect with her characters because I didn't grow up in a sudden kind of entitlement that only that my world was was kind of the only world allowed to be Universal and I've also heard from some men god bless them who also say that they're surprised than you know I mean like top of a Yellow Sun and that kind of surprised that they like things you know a woman with the book and so just to see me just to say that there is that as well I think and I think it's something that is important to talk about particularly for young writer starting out I think that young writers were from not just parts of the wall but groups that are on the margins are often told that in their writing they have to sort of give the reader some form of entry which often means a kind of toning down of the specificity because and as a reader when I read some of the stories I can tell I can tell that someone's been meddling right and there's something about there's a sadness to it for me and something that increasingly I think about because and we still don't live in a world I don't think where there's just that natural assumption that every everybody's story matters equally we still don't memorize yeah I was about just just real quick off that one thing that I do think is important though is to acknowledge that sometimes you can clarify or try and help a story connect with someone without losing some of that specificity and maybe that's because I come from a world where we have 11 official languages in South Africa my life I grew up with translators it's the only world I know and this was even in the black community we would go to church and there would be three pastas on stage and they would all be preaching the same word and they were basically you know whoever the main pasta the other two would translate what the person was saying so if the first one would start out and say jesus loves all of you the next one said who chairs who can turn down okay and the next one said Moo demo cool a radical fella and it's like you were like oh I pick up on that where that guy said I pick up on that but now I understood all of the languages so I just heard the sermon three times but but what I found was very saying the same yeah definitely and but what I found was I was like oh there are ways where you can use language and you can use little stories that help you connect and and identify with my specificity I don't need to pander to you but it's the reason we use language you know it's the reason you can choose to write a book in a language the reason you can choose to write you have a movie with subtitles or a movie that is dubbed you can you can choose how you want to tell that story and so I find in that I think maybe that is what I consider is I say if you can completely not understand the story if it does not connect you in any way because of not an idea but rather a word that maybe won't be a name like just a thing that doesn't exist in your world it's hard for me to just carry on from that I would rather now just give you that little bit of knowledge and go this is what this this is what this is this is what we use it for and now you just have that thing and I go if you if you if you know it now you know it and then we can move on from there but I just tell you hey in South Africa so Mopani worms for instance I'm just gonna tell you what I'm a Pawnee worm is if I say to you growing up in so that's because you're assuming that your Vita is not South Africa yes right but but no no even maybe it's because even in South Africa there many people who don't know what Mopani worms are but but I think I'll say I mean and that's why is it for fiction I just wouldn't have any for teaching a class I wouldn't I would not at all recommend that my students do that because I also think that they often it's it's a it's about a failure of technique I think that their ways in which you use something in a story and a discerning redone knows what it is or has a general sense of what it is without being told I mean there's a part of me that just deeply resents the fact that the many parts of the world where the fiction that comes from there is read as anthropology rather than as literature and increasingly that kind of you know that kind of anthropological reading then means that you you say something you explain you're explaining your world rather than inhabit in your world and and there's a part of me that just really but can we talk about trebles mother all right and I'll end on that note on especially with Trevor's matter what is remarkable woman indeed oh my goodness I I wanted meet her I'm in all that travel seriously I just think you're so fortunate I read his book and I was so moved and I have to tell you the particular part something I found so powerful is when she said I chose to have you and I mean her story and you know the fact that she's this you know in many ways ordinary black South African woman who finds something in herself to make this just incredible extraordinary beautiful personal humane choices in her life and who decides she wants to have a child I mean I remember thinking there's not there's there's nothing more beautiful to say about the act of of reproduction than that I used to have you hmm right and and you have to excuse me I have to bring my feminist hat here there's nothing more beautifully feminist than that I mean what is what is more beautiful than a child who's so wanted right and and of course again I need to bring in my politics we should have everybody who wants to force people to have fun want to carry on wanted pregnancies we should have them read trebles book because no because I mean the idea is like I don't get it because because the idea of a woman of a woman making a choice I mean that's really what it says like I choose to have you and I found her just remarkable on so many levels I was there I am and I just I think you're very fortunate thank you very much in Argentina all right thank you so much for that Amanda and thanks both of you very much for having this conversation with us I know what and [Applause]

Channel: Yoli Chisholm

Views: 471,119

Rating: 4.8758898 out of 5

Keywords: motivation, career, networking

Id: Lz2lKmsuRPk

Length: 65min 45sec (3945 seconds)

Published: Mon May 08 2017