Trevor Noah having grown up during the apartheid, brings an incredible perspective and presence to communicating, and pointing out the current problems within our society, to audiences. In Noah’s memoir, “Born A Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood”, he explains the adversities his family experienced from growing up in South Africa during the apartheid and then discusses the post-apartheid era of the 1990’s. He does this by zooming in on deeply personal reminiscences about being ‘half-white, half-black’ where his own birth was violating South African laws.


Noah delves into various topics that surround his experiences, such as the implication of religious colonialism from his memoir,

“The white man was quite stern with the native. 'You need to pray to Jesus', he said. 'Jesus will save you'. To which the native replied, “Well, we do need to be saved—saved from you, but that’s beside the point. So let’s give this Jesus thing a shot…But the more we went to church and the longer I sat in those pews the more I learned about how Christianity works: If you’re a Native American and you pray to the wolves, you’re a savage. If you’re African and pray to your ancestors, you’re a primitive. But then white people pray to a guy who turns water into wine, well, that’s just common sense” (Noah 6).

Noah’s background gives him a unique and multi-cultural positioning on a spectrum of issues such as race politics. In Noah’s stand up, from Comedy Central's ‘Lost in Translation (2015)’, he openly speaks about the racist police brutality and the multitude of media coverage surrounding Eric Gardner, Trayvon Martin, and Walter Scott. He deconstructs these tragedies of senseless acts of police brutality through a vehicle of humor the and looking at the reality, “I don’t know how not to die cause every day I turn on the TV it seems like another black person is being shot… so I want to learn how not to get shot”.

Noah disects comments and “questions that having nothing to do with the man being shot who was unarmed” (17:39), ending with his own personal resolution and take on being black in America,“I don’t know how not to die” (19:00) from the continual senseless and racist acts of violence from police. Noah's standup confronts the brutal racism that takes place in the US, not just telling the public but through the function of humor and satire, asking them to think critically. Especially in Stand-up comedy, a social critique allows for a conversation to be started, instigating a type of transformation that leaves the audience wanting more, and stimulating a conversation.

“While comedians will make everyone uncomfortable at some point, good comics are playing an important function in society by holding up a mirror and forcing us to confront realities that we would often prefer to ignore”(Humanity in Action).

On the episode of 'The Daily Show' following the Orlando Shooting, the show played a portion of Obama’s speech addressing the shooting, and after, Trevor challenged the audience to really take a look at what kind of country they want America to be, “…not normal is having the same thing happen to us over and over and over again and doing nothing to change it.”(2:00-2:07) He juxtaposes a comedic story from when he was growing up (2:20), to provide, an example of the dire need for change to prevent mass shootings by fostering a discussion to begin to answer some of the most important questions that we face: deciding what world we want to live in.


Comedians like Trevor Noah, are asking and looking to answer the most difficult questions we face as a society and as a country, whether people want to talk about it or not. In utilizing humor and satire, viewers are challenged to think critically about these important issues, such as dealing with racism head on in this country, being seen in the horrible and senseless acts of violence continuously. Racism is a large issue, and I think many people don't know where or how to begin because of the weight, and interconnected problems that racism itself holds. Humor and Satire, flip the equation upside down, forcing the public to think critically. Humor functions in simultaneously making an issue somehow 'digestible' as a problem that a person can work in creating change. A sense of community can be built over a shared moment of laughter, where it's understood that this is awful, but we can also move forward creating positive change, which Noah so effectively displays in his show and Stand-up.

Trevor's response to the fatal shootings of Alton Sterling & Philando Castile, in which he calls out the awfulness and injustice of the situations, while also looking at the Public's response and America's obsession with categorizing and/or binaries as a response:

“And ya know the hardest part of having a conversation surrounding Police Shootings in America, it always feels like in America, it’s like if you take a stand for something, you automatically are against something else. Such a strange world to be in.. You’re either a cat person or a dog person, you’re a redsocks or you’re yankees, when you text you either type LOL or HA HA HA...anyway the point is it’s either one or the other. With police shootings, it shouldn’t have to work that way… it seems it’s either pro cop or anti black, or pro black and anti cop, when in reality you can be pro cop and pro black. Which is what we should all be. That’s what should be aiming for.(00:24- 1:42)”