The Totally Very Real White Genocide in South Africa with Dan Corder and Eugene Khoza

Television and radio host Dan Corder and comedian/actor Eugene Khoza join Trevor to discuss relations between Blacks and Whites in South Africa. The three dig deep into the country’s racial history, current social climate, and the myth of “white genocide."

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Trevor Noah?

  No guys, at my pick and pay, they know me as the kid who used to shoplift. Do you know what I mean? So at that pick and pay, when I walk past, they're like, "Wella?"

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Cash Patel.

• 0:15Trevor Noah?

  I hope this time you come into-

• 0:16Speaker 01

  You can extradite this man.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  It's not a crime.

• 0:26Trevor Noah?

  I saw Trevor Noah, even Trevor Noah. Even Trevor. He admitted, "Crimin- he used to be a criminal. In South Africa, he uses it all the time. I wonder if we could do something, we could probably do something, we gotta look at this."

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Cash, do your job.

• 0:40Trevor Noah?

  God, do your thing, Cash. Do your thing. He admitted it on camera. He admitted it.

• 0:52Trevor Noah?

  This is What Now? with Trevor Noah.

• 0:58Trevor Noah?

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• 1:33Trevor Noah?

  This segment is brought to you by Google Pixel. You know what's really frustrating? Knowing the exact information you need is somewhere on your phone, but still ending up wasting your time digging through five different apps just to actually find it. Thankfully, Google Pixel 11 is designed with Gemini intelligence, so it can proactively find the information I need right when I need it. Like my flight info on travel days, or my calendar when Eugene texts me to hang out. Oh, sorry Eugene, I'm booked. Learn more about what Google Pixel 11 can do at googlestore.com. These AI features are available in select countries and languages for users 18 and over, and make sure to check responses.

• 2:18Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, booked forever, forever.

• 2:21Speaker 02

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• 2:54Trevor Noah?

  For every conversation, he leans in. Eugene, I'm telling you, bro, we need to make that show. He leans in. Come on, game.

• 3:05Trevor Noah?

  He investigates all the claims.

• 3:10Trevor Noah?

  He leans in. Eugene Cozer is local detective. How much? How many? Do we need to report these funds?

• 3:20Speaker 03

  I'm also sensing that Eugene only asks questions of two words. How much?

• 3:24Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's Eugene.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  How many?

• 3:26Trevor Noah?

  That's Eugene.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  When last?

• 3:29Trevor Noah?

  That's when you get in. Dan, welcome, welcome to the podcast. I apologize that you met me on a day that I'm with Eugene because it means anything can happen here.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Good.

• 3:39Trevor Noah?

  But I think that's the perfect setting for a conversation about genocide. About, not just genocide. Not just genocide, guys, but a white genocide.

• 3:51Speaker 03

  The white one.

• 3:52Trevor Noah?

  A white genocide.

• 3:53Speaker 03

  The world is genocide.

• 3:54Trevor Noah?

  Which, as we know, is the worst genocide of all. You know, of which, how many have you committed this week? Me. Apparently, there's a lot of them in this country. So personally, I always start my week with a genocide or two. All South Africans. This is what we do. You know, my father always used to tell me, Trevor, must do genocides.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Sorry, your Swiss father.

• 4:15Trevor Noah?

  You know, Dan, don't spoil the jokes, bro. Why are you spoiling the jokes, Dan? Now I have to reveal to everyone that my father was a white man who lived in South Africa and loved it. Damn it, Dan. You're spoiling the narrative, Dan.

• 4:28Speaker 03

  I thought it could have been like an interesting narrative arc of the Swiss white man is also committing white genocide.

• 4:33Trevor Noah?

  This guy, you're revealing my backstory, Dan.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  Oh, no one read the book?

• 4:37Trevor Noah?

  No one.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  Everyone read the book.

• 4:40Trevor Noah?

  But, okay, so this, you know what, this is what I found particularly strange about this conversation. A lot of the time, I'll have a conversation with people and we're trying to like figure something out moving forwards. I feel like for this conversation, we're trying to figure something else, we're trying to figure something out backwards, right? Because I'll just put people on the timeline. So I, I know a lot of people in America, a lot of people in the UK, et cetera, et cetera, going, what is happening in South Africa? A lot of people like, we heard there's a genocide, we heard that white people are being mass slaughtered, this is the whole thing. So then the whole world woke up. So you guys live in South Africa? I was in New York. Then I saw the story start bubbling. So obviously I follow South African news.

• 5:21Trevor Noah?

  But you know, there's stories where it's like, guys, they don't come, like Escom doesn't come, the story doesn't actually come to America. Right? This story started overlapping and slowly you started to realize that it became part of the news, like international news. Okay. Then what was interesting, international journalists stepped in and said, we want to get to the bottom of what's happening because how could a genocide be happening under our noses? And we don't know about it, right? So the BBC, CNN, you name it. Yeah, I was even getting requests, people emailing me, hi Trevor, are you safe? We heard there's a genocide.

• 5:57Speaker 01

  I didn't ask if you're safe.

• 5:58Trevor Noah?

  No, no, I asked if I was safe because they're like, we know where you live.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  It would be incredibly funny if Facebook asked you to check in as a white person each day about whether you were still breathing.

• 6:08Speaker 03

  That would be very good.

• 6:09Trevor Noah?

  But what was interesting was as quickly as it blew up internationally, it dropped off. I saw conversations everywhere. One of them was obviously you went on Piers Morgan.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  I went to my house.

• 6:20Trevor Noah?

  You were in your house?

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:22Trevor Noah?

  And I don't know, maybe we start with this. Were you shocked, Dan, when you go on Piers Morgan? And you're almost, you're coming there to talk about the fact that there is no genocide. There's a whole panel of other people, you know, who are like, half of them are there to say there is a genocide. And then they go, they go, there is no genocide. So maybe that's where I want to start, like.

• 6:44Trevor Noah?

  How is it that there's a conversation that's going all over the world about a thing that isn't actually happening? And I don't mean like isn't happening like some people feel it is, some people isn't. No, it isn't actually happening.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  At all.

• 6:55Trevor Noah?

  So how did this start?

• 6:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I think that over the last 10 years, a raft of genuinely very talented grifters in South Africa have snake oil salesmen this idea without saying it themselves on the last step. So someone like Ernst Schurz is very clever. He will twist the data and decontextualize facts to make it look like something particularly bad is happening. And then he will go on Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson, and he'll never say there's a white genocide. He'll stop just before and then let people fill in where he's directing it to. Similarly, most of this cuck has taken place on the dark place formerly known as Twitter, like aided and abetted by Elon Musk. And on Twitter, these big established public voices who need to have a degree of tetheredness

• 7:40Speaker 03

  to reality, stop just short of saying this is the worst thing ever. Like with these race laws, they stop just short of saying there are more race laws than apartheid, therefore it's worse than apartheid. But then they let the anonymous bot troll campaigns on Twitter, which are sometimes just useful idiots, but sometimes paid for campaigners, jump to the last level. So there was this X account called Twatabas, there still is, and Elon Musk, he posted a lot of his stuff. Twatabas was just lying about a bunch of things. But what happened was the public figures did the groundwork to allow the lunatics to then lie on top of what they were saying. And then it ended up being Musk repeating and sharing these kinds of nonsense ideas all the way into the White House.

• 8:21Speaker 03

  And then when Trump went executive order time, that's when it became around the world.

• 8:26Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, that's when it became, that's when it became international.

• 8:27Speaker 03

  Because frankly, I just feel like Trump and his right wing love a white victim. All of their immigration stuff in America is about be terrified of the brown person, be terrified of the non-English speaking person. They love a white victim. But it's hard to find white victims, guys. The history of the world makes it pretty hard to find white victims. But if somebody could come along and concoct the downtrodden, tragic, endangered white person, beleaguered in South Africa, and we can save them, then that ticks all of the boxes. For that kind of campaign, and I don't know if you noticed, but it seemed like every single time for about two months, Trump had a bad day. He then tweeted about South Africa. We were the punching bag to change the narrative. To distract away, to misdirect from the other stuff that was going on in his life that would look dangerous. So I think that we were useful fodder.

• 9:13Speaker 03

  The way that's like our, um, our diplomat, Ibram Rassoul, and then special envoy M B C Jonas. Suddenly got covered by Breitbart News and Fox News. They were turned into these dangers because it was very useful to fit the kind of MAGA narrative.

• 9:27Trevor Noah?

  But what happened ten years ago? What am I missing? Like, what, like? I get that we're saying something started, but why did it start? I'm still intrigued by the why of it all. Do you know what I mean? Like, what is the purpose of starting a campaign to say there's a genocide where there is none? When are you, you know, when was the first time you heard about it?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Namia was the same.

• 9:49Speaker 03

  When did you get the email?

• 9:49Trevor Noah?

  No, I'm being serious. No, but I'm being serious though. When was, when was the first time you ever heard about like white genocide in South Africa?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  It was this year. It was when everyone caught on to it. I almost felt like I was part of living in another country because I looked outside and I was like.

• 10:02Trevor Noah?

  That's crazy.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Where is this thing happening? And I checked on my neighbor. She was fine, but she hasn't been fine for a long time. Mental. Four cats, one lady. I was like, what? If it went to happen, it would start at number forty-three, but it wasn't happening. But I get what Dan is saying. I think, um, there's a lot of victimhood that's going on and a lot of what people don't speak about in South Africa is the minority that oppressed the majority is still playing victim thirty years later. That was the surprising thing. And I was saying to you the other time, I was like, the genius of this whole concocted plan was for the former oppressor, who still oppresses some other people, to get an apology and a guarantee of nothing will happen to you, whereas they'll never, they've never apologized.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  They showed me how organized they were as an African community group. They have universities, they have unions, they have legal aid, they have everything.

• 10:51Trevor Noah?

  They speak collectively.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  They speak collectively, but they've never said collectively, even after when apartheid was declared a crime against humanity. We are sorry for what our culture and our nation has contributed to the people of this country. But they could organize and say, we are being killed.

• 11:07Trevor Noah?

  Can I tell you, can I tell you what I find interesting is I'll do shows like in random places, right? Some more random than others, but let's say if I'm in Australia somewhere, whatever, a lot of South Africans will come. And it's a broad range of South Africans. But I have yet to meet a South African who left South Africa during apartheid, or maybe even afterwards, who says they supported it.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  Yes, that's what I was about to say.

• 11:32Trevor Noah?

  Guys, I have yet, let me tell you something, I have, and I don't even mean this in like a, I just go, this was a system that was well-run, it was supported, it, I mean.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Who voted for this?

• 11:44Trevor Noah?

  I'm just like.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  Where are they?

• 11:46Trevor Noah?

  Yo.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  Like, like, where are all the people who had to have voted? I can't find a guy.

• 11:50Trevor Noah?

  I can't find twenty of them. Even, no, even, even the people you're talking about, who are now leading these like pro-Africana, pro, and like extreme, because I mean, we've got to be careful, like, you can be pro-Africana.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 12:01Trevor Noah?

  But not be like a heavy nationalist, and so, there's like a split there, you know what I mean?

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Hundred percent, yeah.

• 12:06Trevor Noah?

  But even the groups that are running far-right leaning, if you say to them, do you support apartheid? Then they go, ah, let me, I never. That was a terrible, terrible time. And I never, I never, even then, I didn't. I had a picture of Mandela on my wall.

• 12:24Speaker 03

  What, the Ravonia trial picture? Because he was in jail for twenty-seven years.

• 12:28Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I'm just like.

• 12:28Speaker 03

  This grainy old picture, the one that you get at Robben Island in the suit and the quarry. Everyone had that picture.

• 12:35Speaker 04

  And they're, and they're like, they're like, I would have voted for him three times.

• 12:38Trevor Noah?

  I would have, if I could have, if I could have. Mandela was a great, great man. So I, like, this is, this is, this is the thing that gets me, and maybe, maybe that's what we need to spend our time digging into. This is gonna be fun, it's like.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  The African accent.

• 12:52Trevor Noah?

  No, it's, it is a great accent, actually.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 12:55Trevor Noah?

  But it's like, you know, Dan, when you, when you talk about like white victimhood, it's been interesting seeing how this story stitches across the Atlantic Ocean, stitches across, you know, like, across the top of the African continent.

• 13:10Trevor Noah?

  Everywhere in the world, people have a story of being, you know, subjugated, oppressed, something. It's, it's the story as old as time, right? But some of them are like straight up just pillaging, as my friend Eugene likes to say. He's a big fan of pillaging. No, there was a lot of pillaging, but then there's, there's, there's few, there's a few instances where people were actually like oppressed because of who they were.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Systematically.

• 13:32Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, like systematically oppressed, right? It's interesting how. The label of victimhood, or like the coat of victimhood, gets to be worn most proudly by the people who are generally the perpetrators in these stories.

• 13:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, impressive, yeah.

• 13:46Trevor Noah?

  So here's something I found interesting. We like to think of Trump as being an outlier. Because Donald Trump is the one who rescued, you know, what is it, forty-nine for now?

• 13:56Speaker 03

  It was, it was actually fifty-nine. I don't know why they didn't count it properly.

• 13:59Trevor Noah?

  It was fifty-nine, right?

• 14:00Speaker 03

  It was fifty-nine.

• 14:01Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I always thought it was fifty-nine, then people started saying forty-nine at the airport. Maybe ten changed their mind, I don't know. But, okay, the forty-nine or the fifty-nine who were, who were rescued, quote unquote.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, the refugees.

• 14:11Trevor Noah?

  A lot of people in America were saying to me, like, oh my god, Trevor, it must be so strange for you seeing, I mean, like, Donald Trump, then I was like, it's not that strange, considering that Bill Clinton's administration gave thousands of visas to white South Africans only just before we had our first elections. Just think about it for a second.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  The hatch was open to escape, yeah.

• 14:33Trevor Noah?

  Yo, just think about it for a second. South Africa had just become a democracy. The world stage had agreed that apartheid, apartheid.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  It's bad.

• 14:42Trevor Noah?

  Was a crime against humanity. The whole world had done this. But just before the election, Bill Clinton's administration, not Donald Trump, Bill Clinton's administration rescued two thousand white South Africans, because they were like, hey, man, we know that you were the bad guys, but we've got to help you escape from this situation.

• 15:04Speaker 04

  Because now there's about to be different blood in the bloodbath.

• 15:06Trevor Noah?

  But you see what I'm saying? Like, I'm just like-

• 15:09Speaker 04

  Bloodbath had already happened. And now they're like, there might be white blood in this bloodbath, we have to get them out.

• 15:14Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but there's never been, okay, maybe I'm wrong, but there's never been. Dan, I don't want to put you on the spot.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  As a what?

• 15:19Trevor Noah?

  As a white. As a white.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  Don't worry, as part of my-

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Someone had to say it.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  As part of my training.

• 15:26Trevor Noah?

  Cue genocide.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Every, every morning I recite the names of every white person who has ever died in South Africa. So you can ask me about any white death.

• 15:35Trevor Noah?

  So let me ask you this, like, maybe there's something I don't know about, like, when, when you are hanging out with white people alone, like, because you live in Cape Town, or you spend a lot of time there, very white there, right? Not good or bad, it's just very white. When you're hanging out with like a group, like when white people are alone in South Africa, do they think genuinely that they are being targeted? Like, honest question.

• 15:56Speaker 03

  I think that-

• 15:57Trevor Noah?

  For being white?

• 15:58Speaker 03

  Yes, I think many, I think many white people do. I will say that all my friends know my politics. So they're on, like, all of my friends are pretty much my politics. So in my friendship circles, no one is saying, oh, it's so hard, it's so horrible, it's so terrible. But I know, because I've run WhatsApp lines when I was on Five FM, which is a historically wide radio station.

• 16:14Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  I'm a breakfast show host there, my TV show, The Quarter Report and everything, that a lot of people do feel that way, but it's some kind of fear of the destabilization of their privilege. Because the, the fear is, as more and more black people become middle class, more and more black people become, you know, like, get to the same level of wealth, and then white people think, okay, but what if I one day can't get a job, one day BEE does this, whatever? And I wanted to circle back on this, actually, to your question of what happened 10 years ago.

• 16:41Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  I think that what happened was, South Africa had the 2020 World, 2010 World Cup, we waka waka our way into our peak.

• 16:48Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 16:49Speaker 03

  Jacob Zuma came to power.

• 16:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  And finally, there was a black president who was all the bad things that white people thought black people were about.

• 16:57Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, okay.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  That's what happened. The state capture stuff, the Zuma corruption stuff. Suddenly, the Rainbow Nation was popped. Nobody says that anymore. Nobody says Rainbow Nation anymore. That beautiful brand thing, the Desmond Tutu, the Mandela, then the Mbeki.

• 17:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  And then 2010 happened, K-9's "Wave Your Flag" was much better than Shakira's "Waka Waka", we all know this to be true, but those two songs happened, the World Cup was incredible, we did the Dream Rainbow Nation thing, and then service delivery started to collapse, rampant corruption started to happen, the police started to fall apart, the whole country started to go, things are not going very well. But the, but, but many white South Africans had the dangerous black president they'd been terrified of since the beginning. And that opened a space-

• 17:34Trevor Noah?

  That's interesting.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  It opened a space for white grifters to then go, we're in trouble now, they're coming for us, they're persecuting us, white, uh, white economic empowerment, Bell Pottinger. All of this was fodder for white grifters to say, they're coming for us, we told you, we know the blacks were nice before this, and we couldn't show that Tabo Mbeki was bad, or Mandela was bad, or Tutu was bad, but now things are objectively getting worse for lots of South Africans. Here's the black boogeyman, we were telling you is coming. And then Malama came along, and this is more black boogeyman stuff, the terrifying black boogeyman, and from there it all devolved to where we are now.

• 18:08Trevor Noah?

  It's interesting you say that, because you and I laugh about this a lot. But there's a thing that happens with people, and I mean, everyone can be guilty of this, by the way. I think any group. But you know where, let's say as black people, you're hanging out together? And you'll say something about a black person, let's say who's in power. So you know, you go like Jacob Zou, Jacob Zuma, this guy, this guy. And then you'll find someone will step into that fray. And they'll say something where you're like, wait, we didn't mean it like that.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know it's bad, but.

• 18:40Trevor Noah?

  Yes. No, but you know what I mean? But they'll say something, you know, you'll be like, so much corruption. So they'll be like, they'll be like, yeah, but I mean, what do you expect? They like that.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:50Trevor Noah?

  And you're like, who's they?

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:51Trevor Noah?

  Well.

• 18:52Speaker 03

  So are you saying a black person?

• 18:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, no, no.

• 18:55Speaker 03

  Black company.

• 18:56Trevor Noah?

  What I'm saying is to you, what you've revealed, which is really interesting is

• 19:01Trevor Noah?

  black people have the ability to separate an action that is black culturally and the person that is black that is just doing something.

• 19:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:10Trevor Noah?

  Do you see what I'm saying?

• 19:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:11Trevor Noah?

  What I've noticed in a lot of these conversations is there are synonyms that are used for actions. So even when people are talking to Donald Trump in the White House, even when people are on the news or talking to Piers Moore, even when, when they're going like, look, there might not be a genocide, but the crime.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:29Trevor Noah?

  Crime has become a synonym for black.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  Just like the community.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Same as corruption.

• 19:34Trevor Noah?

  Yes, corruption is also a synonym for black.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  The community, the townships.

• 19:38Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 19:39Speaker 03

  Like it's all wink, nudge.

• 19:41Trevor Noah?

  It's another way to say black.

• 19:42Speaker 03

  Exactly. It's like the way that Black Lives Matter involved into D E I, which they're now so obsessed with. It's code word and it's usually code word for the K word or the N word.

• 19:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  Like broadly.

• 19:52Trevor Noah?

  Yeah. But can I just say as a preference?

• 19:55Speaker 04

  The sequel.

• 19:55Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but I will say, just as a preference thing to anyone who's listening, I would prefer if you called me the crime than the N word. If you meet me in the streets and you say like, look at the crime walking across the street, I'll be less offended.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  Under your regime, hip hop will be so boring.

• 20:10Trevor Noah?

  I'm just saying. What up my crime word?

• 20:14Trevor Noah?

  Already sounds better. Already sounds better.

• 20:17Speaker 04

  And now it sounds like you're asking for trouble. Crime, please.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  These crimes.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  You know, growing up, we always used to have this thing when people come to visit our house, we would wait for the moment when they leave and then we would all gossip about them.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  As soon as they're gone, my mom would call, you know, we have our house back again. South Africans have never had their house back.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  Damn.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  We've never, we've never sat as black people and said, guys, let's gossip about them.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  Damn.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  We had to, we had to make nice very quickly.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  Yo, bruh, if I had thumbs, I would snap.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 03

  What?

• 20:52Speaker 01

  We had to make nice very, very quickly. As soon as that ended, you had to be nice to the school governing body for your child to enter that school. You had to be nice to show that you're not like that kind of a crime in an estate, in a housing community, in a, you know, you had to, we had to be nice. So the ones that could played nice to be in those communities, the ones that couldn't afford played nice to work in those communities. We never had time to gossip as a family. So when it happened with Jacob Zuma, when we all said, eh, but that guy.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  And then other people heard us and said, that guy where? And they was like, no, it's not our guy.

• 21:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  He's just a guy who's doing wrong.

• 21:25Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  And then the whole conversation got lost and muddied.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  And let's not also forget, if people were fifteen when this conversation started in twenty ten, they were now twenty.

• 21:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Joining the fray and they had no idea about, because when you try to remind kids about apartheid, you're wasting their time. But if you say, now, you know, fifteen year olds struggle to tell the difference between Jacob Zuma and Nelson Mandela? Nelson Mandela is a guy on a, on a, on a note. Jacob Zuma is real.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  And then there are so many people who I talk to, one of the things that disturbs me the most in my work is how many people under the age of twenty five don't know what the TRC was.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:00Speaker 03

  So like, if I, if I was king for a day, number one, every South African has history to metric. Number two, we overhaul the metric syllabus. Because you need, there's too much Cold War in there, there's too much, why do we, who cares?

• 22:13Speaker 01

  There's Vietnam War now, my god, just talking about the Vietnam War.

• 22:14Speaker 03

  Who cares a fuck about the Cuban Missile Crisis? Who cares?

• 22:17Speaker 01

  It almost happened.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  But it didn't.

• 22:21Speaker 03

  Many things almost happened.

• 22:24Trevor Noah?

  Dan, it almost happened.

• 22:26Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 22:27Trevor Noah?

  This guy.

• 22:27Speaker 03

  Many things almost.

• 22:28Trevor Noah?

  Do you know how close they were, Dan?

• 22:30Speaker 03

  So must we put Guy Fawkes in the syllabus because it almost happened?

• 22:33Trevor Noah?

  It almost happened, Dan.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  It almost happened. But like my fundamental point is that even like I think a lot about how we only know the headlines of apartheid settler colonialism.

• 22:44Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  And before.

• 22:46Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  But even now, younger generations don't know that stuff.

• 22:50Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  And in a country which is so systemically defined even today by all of that, people who don't know that stuff have an inability to truly appreciate the dynamics that exist within our country. And the only way to help people to understand is to say, hey, we did this deal at the end of apartheid because we wanted to find out what was going on. The apartheid government was burning tens of thousands of pieces of paper, the records of their evils. Some people made a choice that we would offer amnesty in exchange for finding out what really happened and trying to get some kind of closure. Some people disagreed on that, like Biko's family, for example. Because right now, an inquiry has been opened up into why the NPA didn't pursue court cases against some people from apartheid who did not get amnesty. They were supposed to be pursued.

• 23:35Trevor Noah?

  Right, so let's just take a step back. So for those who don't know.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 23:38Trevor Noah?

  Let's just break this down for them because you're right, a lot of people don't know. A lot of people will be listening to this or watching this and going, wait, what happened?

• 23:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:46Trevor Noah?

  Because I know a lot of the world thinks of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as the gold standard in terms of a peaceful transfer of power. It is considered the gold standard of the bloodless revolution.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:00Trevor Noah?

  Right, so nowhere in the world, and this is true, nowhere in the world has there been a revolution where a minority who oppressed a majority gave up power, but then didn't see mass bloodshed. This is just, it's.

• 24:15Speaker 03

  No retribution.

• 24:16Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 24:17Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:17Trevor Noah?

  Right? And everyone looks at the TRC as the gold standard. They go, wow, what an amazing experience. A country that experienced so much trauma and so much pain came together and said, we're going to speak about this. We're going to air it on television. The whole country is going to be privy to it. And regardless of how heinous these crimes are, we're going to speak about them. And the key aspect of it is those who come forward.

• 24:40Speaker 03

  To admit.

• 24:41Trevor Noah?

  To admit what they did. Reveal it from the shadows, they will be given amnesty.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  And that's if, that's if their evidence is proven to be true.

• 24:50Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  They point us to the graves.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  And if it is sincere.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Sincere, sincere and true.

• 24:54Speaker 03

  Because Tutu was very human about it. He was like, we wanna feel like this is genuine remorse.

• 24:59Trevor Noah?

  Right.

• 24:59Speaker 03

  Because like functionally, we want remorseful people, but we also, for the victims, you have to see remorse as a victim. Or you're not gonna feel closure or feel like this person is really sorry.

• 25:09Trevor Noah?

  Right. And so that's how the story was, yeah, but that's how the story sort of ended for the world.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Hundred percent, yes.

• 25:15Trevor Noah?

  It was what a beautiful story. These people admitted mass killings and mass tortures and all of these things. And the people they did it to forgave them, the ones who were left alive.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  And then when they left those TRC meetings, the Blackpool got into taxis again and drove to the township in their four room houses.

• 25:31Trevor Noah?

  No, but what I'm saying is, I'm saying, but you see, that story.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:34Trevor Noah?

  That, that's where the story.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  And they drove back to their suburbs and privileged.

• 25:37Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but I'm saying that's, you're, you're adding to the story.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:40Trevor Noah?

  I'm saying the story.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  No, no, hundred percent, I'm agreeing with you.

• 25:42Trevor Noah?

  You know, like happily ever after?

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:43Speaker 03

  That's the end of the story.

• 25:43Trevor Noah?

  That's where it ends on, and then everyone cried, everyone hugged each other.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:47Trevor Noah?

  And then everything was perfect.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  I always say, um, to make sure that the revolution doesn't continue, you have to kill the young of the revolutionaries. The one thing that that system did, it has still had remnants of those people running private schools now and these former schools that were called model C schools. They had to make sure that these kids that were first wave to go inside these privileged schools and multi schools have the accent of the people that they were supposed to not like.

• 26:12Speaker 03

  And submit to the culture.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  It was very, yeah, you now you're playing cricket, you're in that little camp, you're playing rugby.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  Learning what Leon Schuster is.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Then you are at home, yes.

• 26:19Trevor Noah?

  Leon Schuster is amazing. Don't slander Leon Schuster on my podcast, guys.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  It's not slander.

• 26:22Trevor Noah?

  And guys, don't, don't get anyone.

• 26:25Speaker 03

  I had to go learn.

• 26:26Trevor Noah?

  Let anyone step into my world and slander Leon Schuster. I saw South Africans slandering that man a few years ago. I was like, yo, guys, if I was here, I would have fought for that man, eh? I would have fought for that man. The way, can I tell you something? The way, I know this is a tangent, but the way Leon Schuster exposed racism in South Africa.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 26:43Trevor Noah?

  I, I think we owe Leon Schuster almost as much as we owe the TRC. Because Leon Schuster. Leon Schuster showed us how much was still buried in South African culture. That man could have edited out every K word, every racist, every... That man went as an Indian.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  He could have angered people without being a person of color.

• 27:04Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  But he chose that.

• 27:05Trevor Noah?

  He went as an Indian and then people are like, ah, it's blackface what? No, it wasn't black, he was in disguise, there's a difference. Blackface is mocking a person for their race. This man went in disguise. He went as an Indian person to a white person's world. He went as a black person to a white person's world. Went as a white person, he did everything. But what he showed me, even as a child, I won't lie, TRC was one thing. Leon Schuster for me was one of the most informative experiences I had about South Africa.

• 27:28Speaker 04

  It was deeply educational.

• 27:29Trevor Noah?

  Because I was like, oh, this is what's happening when no one knows anyone's watching.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  When no one's looking.

• 27:33Trevor Noah?

  This is how they speak to their workers.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Petrol attendants.

• 27:35Trevor Noah?

  This is how they speak to somebody when they think something's gone wrong. That, yo, that was, sorry, but I interrupted, but that to me, that was like...

• 27:42Speaker 04

  Can I add to Leon Schuster before we continue? Besides, like, I understand, like, the optics of it right now feels weird. But as non-white people growing up at that time, the first time we ever saw a non-white person getting one over a white person.

• 27:59Trevor Noah?

  Yes, yes.

• 27:59Speaker 04

  Was in a Leon Schuster film. The first time we ever saw a non-white person winning a situation, whatever that situation is, was in a Leon Schuster film. And yes, later in life, Mama Bones is blackface. But the pranks, the pranks are...

• 28:13Speaker 01

  No, the pranks are flawless.

• 28:14Speaker 04

  The pranks are flawless, in my opinion.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  The pranks are flawless, absolutely flawless. Yeah, so the integration and the mix happened quite quickly. And you come from that generation, you and I, where if you went to a multiracial school or a mixed school or a form of model C school and your parents have a different accent than yours, but your parents, when they're moving around the world or around South Africa, their world, they could speak to more black people than you could.

• 28:36Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  So that became, that generation grew up. And then that generation sang in unison to the choir of, black people are corrupt, this ANC government is messing up everything, bloody blah blah. And I'm like, you know, there's many things about this government that you can say, but one thing, it is integrated and made lots of people rich who are not black. There's a lot of things that the South African government can't do. And I always say, drive around in the road, on the highways. In your suburb and see a car that is a plumber, a person that's an electrician, and see if there's a black name in that van, in that truck. There was a system that people understood very well when apartheid ended, that there'll be a lot of shortcomings.

• 29:14Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  When it comes to service delivery. In fact, the government itself will struggle to maintain their own infrastructure. So we will maintain their infrastructure and create businesses that make money. I swear now, the the blackout that Eskom caused had caused to have many more white millionaires in business than there are black millionaires.

• 29:35Trevor Noah?

  From the solar business, from the, yeah, yeah.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  I don't know any.

• 29:37Trevor Noah?

  From the, from the power generation business.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Any, any, any black solar installer that I can call. But the same people who were like this, this thing is rubbish, they were the ones, twenty fifty thousand rand will climb on your roof, will make this thing happen for you. Then I'm like, yeah, but it's the same everywhere. It's it's the, even the police are being helped by private security that's owned by white people. Do you understand what I'm saying? And I've had this conversation so many times and I'm like, this country is so weird that we come from, we can watch documentaries and see how black people were policed by white people in the seventies and the eighties. And I'm saying, what's so different now when you move around four ways?

• 30:12Trevor Noah?

  It's just been, it's been privatized now.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, but what's different?

• 30:14Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I'm response, I'm not talking about the guard at your security gate, because those are not allowed to carry firearms in the first place. So you're not as safe as you think you are. The response is armed, meaning the person that comes.

• 30:25Trevor Noah?

  So let me ask you this then, let me ask you this. Do you, do you think, because this, it's, it's interesting to see these perspectives, right? Because when I listen to the conversations that are being had.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 30:38Trevor Noah?

  And I see what people are discussing, I noticed two very different positions that people have to take. And it's really interesting. It it sort of goes back to what you, what you said at the beginning of the conversation. I noticed it when you went on Piers Morgan. Black South Africans have to start every conversation with.

• 30:59Trevor Noah?

  White people, you're not in danger.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 31:01Trevor Noah?

  We swear, we have nothing against you.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 31:03Trevor Noah?

  We love you. We love you very much. We love you so much. We love you. We want you here. We love you. We love you. Please join us. You know, we love you. Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa's president, had to go to the White House, sit with Trump and go, ah, we, we love white people. We love them. Everyone is welcome in our country. Every, we love them. We love them. And Trump's there, he's like, you hate the whites, you hate, and he's like, no, we love, even you, we love you. We love.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Where the plane would give you.

• 31:30Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, he even said, if we had, I wish we had a plane to give you. I wish we, imagine, imagine that level that you're coming from, right? And these are people who, for the most part, I mean, you know the statistics, you, you know, like, a lot of the numbers.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 31:44Trevor Noah?

  But if you look at, for the most part, those are the people who have less than nothing.

• 31:51Trevor Noah?

  And it was designed that way.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 31:53Trevor Noah?

  Right? But their role is still to coddle white South Africans and say, hey, look, you're safe and you, you're gonna be, you know?

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 32:01Trevor Noah?

  But it's interesting how, and again, we've got to be very careful of this. Cause there are many cool whites, I mean, here's one of them, you're sitting here with us, until you do something crazy, Dan. And your brother, and your brother, wherever he is.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  Who has a funny podcast called Skodong.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  What a legend.

• 32:18Trevor Noah?

  No, but like, but I, and I, you know, and this is, this is, the reason I, the reason I hop on this is not, not to be like politically correct or anything. I think it's, I think it's because I never want to be in a position where people allow us to divide and conquer ourselves.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 32:30Trevor Noah?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 32:31Trevor Noah?

  There are tons of white South Africans, tons, who are proudly South African, who stay in the country, who contribute, who integrate, who you, you speak Zulu, dance, you know what I mean? Like, things that, and, and people might be like, ah, dancing. I'm like, no, no, guys. There was a cultural stigma that came with many of these things.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 32:50Trevor Noah?

  That is now being adopted by a different generation, which is beautiful. Do you know what I mean? Hundred percent. But there's still a world where white people go, the crime that happens to them seems to be more significant than the crime that was always happening. Like, people will go, you know, crime wasn't this bad during apartheid. Then I go, guys, but the whole, the whole country was a crime. Yeah. Yeah. Crime scene.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  And crime wasn't bad in your area during apartheid is what you actually mean. Because one of, for me, one of the wildest things about apartheid is they didn't do a census of black South Africans. So we only found out even how many people there were in South Africa, including people of color in nineteen ninety five, six. In nineteen ninety five, six was the first census of all people.

• 33:31Trevor Noah?

  Real?

• 33:32Speaker 03

  And I have reread that census so many times because it's the first time you find out how many South Africans had no schools, no hospitals, no sewage, no rest. Because white South Africa had no interest in finding that out. One, because they weren't going to service it, but two, because they didn't want to let anybody else find out how bad it was. So this is another thing like the TRC, as important as the TRC defining what, what had happened in South Africa, was that census in ninety six found out what South Africa was then for the first time. And we didn't know that before then. And so, but a lot of people don't even know what was going on in that census. So what I do on the show quite often is I just go, okay, white South Africa, let's just talk for a second. Guess how many white South Africans had no electricity in nineteen ninety six? Guess how many black South Africans? And the stats are unreal in the disparity.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  I'm trying to remember some off the top of my head, but it was something like, okay, the one I can remember is there were like six million black people or black, yeah, six million black people living in informal dwellings in nineteen ninety six. And there was less than.

• 34:30Trevor Noah?

  That's, just, just to be clear, when people say informal, shacks. Yeah. We're not talking about like, yeah, we're talking about it is a non-house.

• 34:37Speaker 03

  Totally. And how many white South Africans? I think there was like less than fifty thousand. Like, and, and people don't know that. And that's when I say again, like, you need to understand, oh, thirty years is so long. No, it's fucking not.

• 34:49Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it's nothing.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  Not when that is what you're trying to recover from. And I know that some people think that I bat for the ANC, which I obviously don't, if you look at all my material.

• 34:56Trevor Noah?

  But your shirt says otherwise.

• 35:00Speaker 03

  This is the Springboks and nothing else.

• 35:05Trevor Noah?

  Comrade Dan. Comrade Dan. Oh, Bradan, as we call him. We have revealed you. Comrade Dan, now's the time.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  Revolutionary greetings.

• 35:18Trevor Noah?

  We're gonna continue this conversation right after this short break. Some of the most interesting things you learn happen while you're doing something completely ordinary. Maybe you're cooking dinner while watching a history video. Maybe you're on a flight catching up on a long-form interview. Or maybe you're trying to figure out how to fix something in your house because apparently owning a screwdriver means you're an electrician now. But you see, that's one of the things I love about YouTube Premium. I travel a lot, so I download videos before a flight. That way, I'm not leaving my entertainment in the hands of airplane wifi. Yeah, I've made that mistake before. You think you're gonna watch something in 4K and suddenly everyone's face is pixels. But one of my favorite features is smart downloads.

• 36:03Trevor Noah?

  You see, YouTube Premium can automatically download recommended videos for you based on what you already watch. So sometimes I'll get on a plane, I look at my phone, I'm like, "Ah, I didn't download anything." And it's like, "No, YouTube already thought about this. They packed entertainment for me in my little lunchbox." And with background play, I can lock my phone, switch apps, and whatever I'm watching just keeps on going. So, if you like YouTube, you will love YouTube Premium. Sign up now for your free trial at youtube.com/premium. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. Earth can be a lot sometimes. Heat waves, gas prices, bad head days. Why not go where life is good? Escape to Pluto TV.

• 36:49Trevor Noah?

  Turn off your problems and turn on your favorite movies and shows. You know, the ones you already love. From Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy, to Dirty Dancing, to Top Gun Maverick. From Alias to The X-Files. It's all here and all free. Go where the TV is always good. Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.

• 37:18Speaker 03

  Something that's so important to understand about even looking at today's stats of how many people live here, there, whatever, is that if you know how bad it was in South Africa in 1996, to then see how much good Mandela's ANC did, the RDP rollout of houses was one of the most record-breaking, large housing programs in human history. And if you look now, they stopped doing it, and enduring Mbeki's reign, everything started to go wrong, and then Sinsuma, and even in Trump, they're doing virtually nothing, and the state is decrepit and awful, and they've done terrible things that we can't forgive them for. But consider where they got from 96 to about 2006, unbelievable building of a country, from dire inequality to making so many South Africans things that

• 38:00Speaker 03

  they could have never imagined happening. And we need to know that. We all need to understand what was in that census in 1996, to get that in this rainbow nation queue thing, while the TRC was happening, that's the country that apartheid and settler colonialism left us.

• 38:14Trevor Noah?

  Well, you know what it goes to. And I think this is a conversation that a lot of people struggle with. People don't understand that there is a distinct difference between the apology, and then, in some way, shape or form, the retribution, or someone amending, or you know what I mean?

• 38:32Speaker 03

  The restitution.

• 38:33Trevor Noah?

  Where's the restitution?

• 38:34Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 38:34Speaker 04

  Can I step in here quickly? There's a quote, and I don't know who to attribute it to, but it's-

• 38:39Trevor Noah?

  You can just say "they say".

• 38:40Speaker 04

  Is, I'm not sure of their gender. So, yeah, they is better.

• 38:44Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 38:45Speaker 04

  They, they, they said that South Africa is what happened when forgiveness was given before guilt was admitted.

• 38:54Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 38:55Speaker 04

  That's why we find ourselves here.

• 38:57Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 38:58Speaker 04

  Forgiveness was given before guilt was admitted. And that, like, statement alone speaks to every single thing you guys have been speaking about now.

• 39:07Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  No one says sorry.

• 39:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it's a- But it's not even just like, like even if you say everyone said sorry. You know, I think of, I think of some of the lessons that, you know, they'll teach you, you know, couples therapists, for instance, relationship therapists, one of the things they, if you read the books, they'll always talk about something very specific and they go, in a relationship, if you're with somebody and they wrong you, right? So they talk about like infidelity and I think like Esther Perel has in some of her books and stuff, they go, a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that the infidelity ends when the person admits to it and seeks forgiveness. But that's actually the beginning of the journey. Because now what has to happen is the person who has wronged their partner has to spend all their time, and I know this sounds crazy,

• 39:53Trevor Noah?

  spend all their time showing their partner that they haven't forgotten their transac- the, the transgression.

• 39:58Speaker 03

  It's the rebuild.

• 40:00Trevor Noah?

  You literally, and, and people who hear this would be like, wait, what? But think about how many times, whether it's on TV or in real life, you've heard people who've had some sort of infidelity in a relationship go, you know, like their partner brings it up and it's like, ah, this again. I already said sorry. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know why the person brought it up again? Because you don't anymore. And if the person feels like you don't, yeah, if the person feels like you have gotten over it before they have, they're gonna bring it up.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  Your example is actually really good because something that I think about is that white South Africans have never earned black South Africans's trust.

• 40:35Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  That, that is another part of the post TRC conversation. An apology is not enough.

• 40:40Trevor Noah?

  Guys, white people, white people in South Africa couldn't say Mbeke.

• 40:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:44Trevor Noah?

  That shit, guys, guys, that shit used to blow my mind.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  You have to work harder than that.

• 40:48Trevor Noah?

  The president of the country, his name was Tabor Mbeke.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  No clicks.

• 40:53Trevor Noah?

  No, nothing. Not even one challenging thing. Do you know what I mean? Not Nomatam Sanga, no, Mbeke. People without fear would go, eh, yeah, President Mbeke. Then you'd go like, Mbeke. Mbeke, then you're like, Mbeke. They'd be like, ah, I can't say it.

• 41:08Speaker 03

  Of course you can.

• 41:09Trevor Noah?

  Then I go, but let some tennis player come along who's at Wimbledon.

• 41:12Speaker 03

  From Eastern Europe.

• 41:13Trevor Noah?

  And they'll have a name that, yo, all consonants, no vowels. I've never seen these people struggle. You know where you're like, so you can say that name, but Mbeke, you, why can't you say, can you say mm? Can you say be? But it it felt like, it always felt like to me, it was, it wasn't so much that they couldn't say it.

• 41:33Speaker 03

  Wouldn't bother.

• 41:34Trevor Noah?

  It felt like it was like, no, it's not even wouldn't bother, it felt like.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  It was a silent revolution, it was a silent protest.

• 41:39Trevor Noah?

  It it, yeah, it felt like they were, it felt like they were giving something up.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:42Trevor Noah?

  I wanna make your sound.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:44Trevor Noah?

  And that's why genuinely, like, when I look at my brother's generation, my brother's twenty years younger than me, my youngest brother, right? Yo, the kids that he goes to school with, they don't bat an eyelid at any of this. Mbeke, nothing to them. Genuinely nothing, genuinely, genuinely nothing. When I look at like, young white kids growing up now, I can't speak for all of them, but I know from my generation already, like, when we went to school, versus the kids now, yo, bro, these kids, so many of them don't see it as a, like a, an inferior thing, because they've seen rich black, they've seen poor black, they've seen corrupt black, they've seen, you know what I mean, like.

• 42:18Speaker 03

  They've also had, um, famous black people in their lives.

• 42:21Trevor Noah?

  I never thought of that.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  Which is a really, really big deal. It's like really, really important to understand the extent to which celebrity agenda sets what we should bother to learn, do and care about. And like, like, like the fact that, like, the fact that young white South Africans know my pimpie and they know um and oxen chair.

• 42:38Trevor Noah?

  I never thought of that.

• 42:39Speaker 03

  And they can talk about all of those things, Rabada right now at the cricket, I don't know when this comes out, also Americans, you don't know what I'm talking about with this anyway, so it doesn't matter.

• 42:46Trevor Noah?

  Tyler's a good one.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  Tyler's another good one.

• 42:48Trevor Noah?

  Just, just that alone, you're right, actually.

• 42:50Speaker 03

  People make the effort for their heroes and, uh, white South Africans are black heroes now, at least some. And that is, it makes a huge, huge, huge difference to your understanding of what is worth putting your effort into, actually learning to care about and do.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I think South Africa became, um, a poster child for diplomacy. We almost had to, as a country, put our best foot forward. And the ones who could speak the better English had to be sent out there in the world to go and apologize on behalf of the transgressors. And two systems were adopted to make sure that that happens. So our government swapped retribution for restitution.

• 43:24Trevor Noah?

  Hmm.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  BE is not an ANC manufactured program. It's an apartheid system program. It existed before for white people to benefit from government contracts. Tenders were not invented by the ANC. They were invented by the apartheid government.

• 43:41Trevor Noah?

  Well, I mean, they for every government, if we're fair.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I'm not saying.

• 43:43Trevor Noah?

  Every government in the world has a tender system to. Yeah.

• 43:46Speaker 03

  No, but Eugene's thinking about.

• 43:47Trevor Noah?

  But what you're saying is in South Africa, a lot of people think tenders were invented by the ANC. Yeah.

• 43:51Speaker 04

  Because the word tender premier did not exist during apartheid.

• 43:53Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but tenders.

• 43:54Speaker 04

  Tender premieres existed.

• 43:55Speaker 03

  But like, what is colonialism and apartheid if not white economic empowerment? That's exactly what it is. And that's actually what I feel like more South Africans should start doing is using the same language to show the comparison.

• 44:07Trevor Noah?

  But can I, can I tell you, can I tell you what it is? Sorry, I'll tell you this before you go forward.

• 44:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:11Trevor Noah?

  I'll tell you this. This is where I think a lot of these things actually start falling down.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 44:16Trevor Noah?

  And I, I think it's, it's interesting because there are parallels in the United States.

• 44:20Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 44:20Trevor Noah?

  For the most part, it boils down to marketing and it boils down to implementation. Right? I think it was Lil Wayne who said, uh, real G's move in silence like lasagna.

• 44:34Speaker 04

  Like lasagna.

• 44:35Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Olanyaza in the Eastern Cape.

• 44:41Trevor Noah?

  You, you know what, what, what's so profound about that when you think about it is

• 44:47Trevor Noah?

  during apartheid, right? During any of these systems in, in America even, they weren't as explicit as people think

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 44:56Trevor Noah?

  about saying, we are helping you because you are white.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:02Trevor Noah?

  They denied people because they were black, but they didn't say to white people, we are helping you because you are white. So what they said was, hey, guys, there's a system called welfare.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:11Trevor Noah?

  If you cannot afford to buy food and you cannot afford to have a house, the government will help you. Uh, there's a system called, what, what assistant? There's, there's Medicare, there's Medicaid, there's healthcare, there's pension. What is pension? No, when you're old, the government will look after you because you need to be looked after. Everyone deserves to be looked after. But then what they would do is they would just exclude.

• 45:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:32Trevor Noah?

  Black people from everyone. So now people grew up in a world thinking everyone gets looked after because they deserve to be.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:39Trevor Noah?

  You are a single mother, you are a widow, a widower, you're an orphan.

• 45:44Speaker 03

  You're injured, you're disabled.

• 45:45Trevor Noah?

  Injured, you're disabled, it doesn't matter, everyone deserves to be looked after. And then they excluded from everyone. Then what happens? Then what happens? Laws start to change, right? So in America, what happened? They said, okay, no, now black people can go to the school. Now, black people can go swim in a swimming pool. Immediately from that moment, you see it in American history, you see it in South African. I grew up with public pools, right? That, when I was growing up, it was batshit crazy to have a swimming pool in your house, guys.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:14Trevor Noah?

  I don't think you understand, even now, when I look at people, I go like, guys, you know, when you fly, you know, when you're landing in any city in the world and you look down, people don't understand how crazy it is to have a body of water

• 46:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:26Trevor Noah?

  in the backyard of your house that is for your sole consumption, just you and your family

• 46:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:31Trevor Noah?

  have fifty thousand liters of water.

• 46:33Speaker 03

  At your disposal.

• 46:34Trevor Noah?

  For your occasional use.

• 46:35Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 46:36Trevor Noah?

  Guys, when I was growing up, there was one pool in the neighborhood, and it was run by the government, and everyone went there and we swam together. And then we all went home, because you don't swim every day, and that's life, you know what I mean? But it was interesting to see when they said, black people are gonna come to the pool. People then said.

• 46:56Speaker 03

  We'll get our own pools.

• 46:57Trevor Noah?

  We're getting our own pools. And then what happened? The pools all shut down.

• 47:00Speaker 03

  It's your business.

• 47:01Trevor Noah?

  I don't even think there's a, there's a, yeah, you're right. I don't even think there's a public pool anywhere, anywhere that I know of.

• 47:06Speaker 03

  So, uh, just on, on what you were talking about just now, uh, is one of the most extraordinary acts of welfare to pull people out of poverty was in the nineteen fifties, when the apartheid government dedicated nearly all of its tax revenue to pulling poor white Africaners out of poverty. And that was massive, massive welfare grants, unemployment grants, jo- job seekers grants, illness and childhood and old age grants. And when I talk about white economic empowerment, and I've covered it in this way specifically, a lot of people tried to like muddy the waters and gray what happened during apartheid. And so what I do is I go, okay, let's go and look at the apartheid government's official record of the policies that they did. Cause you can't fight with me on that. It's on the record. It's in our government policies.

• 47:49Speaker 03

  That is what they did systematically from nineteen forty eight all the way through until about the nineteen sixties. And if they were providing food parcels or if they were doing construction or whatever, they were only giving the tenders to white Afrikaan owned companies. And so if you look at some of the biggest companies in South Africa today, those are companies that the apartheid government made. Made to gain Afrikaan wealth, but it goes further back than that, even pre apartheid. In the nineteen twenties, uh, more and more big companies were hiring skilled black South African workers, particularly on the mines and to do construction in and around Johannesburg. White Afrikaan in particular, uh, unskilled workers protested and went on strike. And in response to keep their vote, the apartheid government created, sorry, the pre apartheid government, the union government.

• 48:34Speaker 03

  Made public works, infrastructure programs, like they built things like, like the dam. Hard to be a sport.

• 48:41Trevor Noah?

  Hard to support them.

• 48:42Speaker 03

  And they only hired white people.

• 48:44Trevor Noah?

  Yep.

• 48:44Speaker 03

  They made public works, infrastructure public, uh, projects to create jobs only for white people.

• 48:49Trevor Noah?

  Interesting fact, that land, that land was donated.

• 48:52Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 48:52Trevor Noah?

  Was owned by a single person who said, you guys can have it.

• 48:56Speaker 03

  So when you're talking about America, what I find fascinating in American politics, as you will know, is that very, very often if the left says a branded thing. Uh, the right will twist it on the same branding to make it seem similar. So black lives matter, blue lives matter.

• 49:09Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 49:09Speaker 03

  Stop the steal, stop the whatever, right? In South Africa, if we started saying white economic empowerment is our history, people would go, oh. It's just like B E E, except B E E doesn't go nearly as far in the disempowerment of one group of people or the benefiting of another. If we all just started saying W E E over and over again, people would understand what apartheid's actual economic project was. Cause in the history books, you, you do need to learn about the crimes, you do need to learn about the like aberrations of justice and the violations of people's human rights. But you also need to deal with the economic superpower of creating white wealth. And if we as a country started to think about apartheid like that, we would better understand that redress laws and policies like B E E now.

• 49:53Speaker 03

  Both work, need to happen and are helping the still disempowered.

• 49:57Trevor Noah?

  It's funny you say that. I was having a conversation with a gentleman in London who had left South Africa, South African guy. And he was talking to me about like his journey and he goes, he's like, Trevor, you know, I left South Africa. Um, our family, we had to leave and, and you know, it's just terrible. And I was like, yeah, you know, crime is really bad and corruption, we can't get under control. We got, we got to work on these things. He's like, yeah, yeah, you know, it's just really bad. And, you know, and I just feel like, look, ah, you know, and, and you know, when someone starts couching comments, cause look, and here's the thing, I'm not like, I just, let's be honest, Trevor, uh, like be, like to have black economic empowerment, like what are you saying? And, you know, and, and come on, man, why don't we just say we start from scratch? Everyone's equal. We just start from scratch. And, and he said it in a really earnest way. He said, Trevor,

• 50:41Trevor Noah?

  isn't it making it worse when a government says that black people or, or people who are Indian or like they should get help just because of what happened, but my, my kids weren't around for that. So my kid goes to school with a kid who's black. They started at the same time.

• 50:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 50:59Trevor Noah?

  So they have the same footing.

• 51:00Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 51:01Trevor Noah?

  And I was like, okay, this is, this is an interesting way to think of it. Now let me ask you a question.

• 51:08Trevor Noah?

  Would you be willing to give your entire bank account and your housing away? To a black family. So now I'm going to ask you as a white South African to give a black family your house? And your car and your money in the bank, give it all to them. And he went, no, I would, I would never do that. And I said, okay, but why would you not do that? It's not because I've, I've, I've worked for this. I said, okay, but now if I did take it all from you, if I took it all from you, talking from the first investment all the way, if I took it all from you, what would your problem be? He's like, no, you've, you've taken everything I've worked. I said, yes, but your son is starting from scratch. So your son will make the money for you.

• 51:50Speaker 03

  Should be fine.

• 51:51Trevor Noah?

  Then he's like, no, but I mean, do you know how long it took me to work for this? And I can't just give it to you and, and I have to, my son, I have to pay for him to go to school. And I said, okay. So now, why is it that you are able to understand the power of the compound interest and the compound wealth that you have acquired over generations? And yet, you're unable to acknowledge it for every black person who was never allowed to acquire any wealth from their generations. Most of us, imagine living in a world where most of us are the first generation of our families that ever tipped the needle above one. Most black families in South Africa lived from zero, and all you did was, you didn't

• 52:33Trevor Noah?

  get to one, you just did this to get to the next month, and then it was zero, and then it went below zero, and then you just tried to get up, and then back below zero, and then you tried to get, most of us are the first generation of like excess, I would call it. But with, and we're, we're like a mega minority.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  I can even do you one better.

• 52:51Trevor Noah?

  You always wanna one better me?

• 52:54Trevor Noah?

  What kind of friendship is this, guys?

• 52:56Speaker 01

  For the, after the first elections in ninety-four, that was the first generation of black people to say and do what they like.

• 53:03Trevor Noah?

  That's wild, dude.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:05Trevor Noah?

  Just think about that for a second.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  And do what you like. And people take that for granted, and I'm always thinking to myself.

• 53:11Trevor Noah?

  I wonder who was the first black person who just like wiggled?

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Was like, yay!

• 53:15Trevor Noah?

  Just.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  At okay.

• 53:16Trevor Noah?

  Just like the first, cause no, just okay, think about this for a sec, we take this for granted now, we all take this for granted. There was a time in South Africa, not a ti- cause a time makes it sound like it was like black and white pictures.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  And then all of a sudden, it was color, everything was good.

• 53:28Trevor Noah?

  No, this is, this is when there's color pictures. There's color footage, color pictures, black people couldn't walk in the street randomly. If you shook the wrong way, you were taken away. Do you know what I mean? But now, I wanna know, cause obviously, there's very meaningful things, I'm sure some, some people like.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  Is this your sincere face?

• 53:48Trevor Noah?

  Some people were like, I'm going to school.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  Is this your, is this how you purport sincerity?

• 53:52Speaker 03

  Trevor, I've just met you for the first time.

• 53:53Trevor Noah?

  This is very sincere, look.

• 53:54Speaker 03

  But I can see how hard you are fighting.

• 53:56Trevor Noah?

  No, no, this is very.

• 53:57Speaker 03

  Inside of you right now. His cheeks are battling, his brain.

• 54:01Trevor Noah?

  This is very sincere, look.

• 54:02Speaker 03

  I just met you and I can see how hard you're working.

• 54:04Trevor Noah?

  Look, and some people were like.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Okay, let's do my hand.

• 54:07Trevor Noah?

  Some people.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  Say don't today.

• 54:10Trevor Noah?

  He's made many Russian men cry. You know, some people like, I'm gonna go to school, I'm gonna start a business, I'm gonna... But I wonder, there must have been some black people who were just like... Because I know we think of it in a meaningful way all the time. But you know how wonderful it is to be able to act the fool in life with no repercussions? And I mean this in like a...

• 54:31Speaker 01

  No, hundred percent. You do that for a living?

• 54:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but there was no comedy during that.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying, yeah, we should know.

• 54:37Trevor Noah?

  There was none?

• 54:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:38Trevor Noah?

  What is it? They had the same rule of like the bible, three or more, if three or more are gathered...

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, from an island.

• 54:44Trevor Noah?

  Literally, but it was though. They said if like, how many people, how many black people was it? If it...

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, three or more.

• 54:50Trevor Noah?

  Once you passed a certain amount of black people, they said it was a political gathering inherently.

• 54:53Speaker 04

  You guys would be safe because it's one and a half, black people, one and a half white people.

• 54:57Trevor Noah?

  With this guy, with this shirt. With this shirt.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  With undercover protection.

• 55:02Trevor Noah?

  With undercover... My man, actually, actually, this is a good question to ask you. This is a good question to ask you. Why do you think white people get almost double angry? With white people who speak out? Because I've seen...

• 55:18Speaker 03

  My comments.

• 55:19Trevor Noah?

  I've seen like black people, but they'll just go, yeah, you, you, whatever, you know, they run the gamut from you're delusional to you're a monkey? But it's the usual, ah, whatever. Dan, when you speak, hey, my man, let me tell you something, you make, and I won't say white people, in fact, I'll separate groups. You as a white person, when you speak, you make racists very angry.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  No, uncomfortable.

• 55:39Trevor Noah?

  Uncomfortable is an understatement, bro.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Angry.

• 55:42Trevor Noah?

  This guy gets death threats, where I'm reading his comments like, yo.

• 55:47Trevor Noah?

  You know where I'm like, hey, Dan? Yeah, no, here, my man. Yeah, no, okay. Properly.

• 55:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, uh, so I believe that the most threatening thing to a white supremacist is not a person of color. It's a white person who disagrees with them. Because white people listen to white people instinctively, more than they listen to people of other races. And I think that that is true of all different kinds of intersections. Men listen to men easily, in a way they don't listen to women. Straight people listen to other straight people in a way instantly that they don't listen to queer people.

• 56:23Trevor Noah?

  So you think it's a power thing?

• 56:24Speaker 03

  I think that if somebody has an agenda of trying to create a world in which black people are lesser, or black people are like this... For white people to all agree with them with, the most threatening thing to them is a white person who goes, you're wrong. Because that white person could make other white people think, oh, maybe he is wrong. Maybe black people aren't actually like this. Maybe it's not like that.

• 56:45Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 56:45Speaker 03

  When I talk it's a direct threat to their project of convincing white people that black people are like this and a threat and whatever. And so, I mean, yeah, lots of death threats, lots of sometimes hilarious comments, to be fair, because most bigots online are not funny or intelligent. They just say dumb shit. But I was once called son of the soy, and that's objectively hilarious.

• 57:08Trevor Noah?

  As in like soybeans?

• 57:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, because son of the soil, son of the soy. And I was like, you thought about that. That's good. Like, you worked a little bit on that. That was nice.

• 57:18Trevor Noah?

  That's poetic. I like poetic racism.

• 57:20Speaker 03

  You are my favorite hater.

• 57:21Trevor Noah?

  Like poetic hatred, poetic racism. That's, that's good. I like that.

• 57:25Speaker 03

  But, but I think also that for, for white people who disagree with me, I think some of them aren't doing a project of trying to convince everybody that black people are worse. Some of them just have deep-seated, unacknowledged racism within themselves that goes like this. When I'm called a race traitor, me, when I'm called a race traitor, what it shows about the person accusing me of being a race traitor is that they conceive of races as teams. My team is the white team. Daniel, white, you're on my team.

• 57:52Trevor Noah?

  Automatically.

• 57:53Speaker 03

  And teams compete in sport.

• 57:55Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  So you need, as a white person down on the white team, we need to be working together to look after our team. If you say anything that criticizes white people, or heaven forgive the Democratic fucking alliance, then you are a race traitor, which means that you are harming the white project, the white team's attempt to win, and you are strengthening another team's attempt to win. That is a fundamentally, subliminally racist conception of how race should be most important in the way that you build power and protect community. That you should sacrifice truth in order to protect the white team. Exactly. And so I think that for some white South Africans who don't like what I'm saying,

• 58:39Speaker 03

  you'll see in my comments, it's almost never a counterfactual or a counterargument.

• 58:43Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 58:43Speaker 03

  It's always a personal attack.

• 58:45Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, to your people. They'll say, how can you do this to your people?

• 58:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. You're gay. You're a black lover. Whatever that means. Like, like, like all of these different.

• 58:53Trevor Noah?

  It means you love blacks. Love them.

• 58:56Speaker 03

  No, but you know what I mean, right?

• 58:57Trevor Noah?

  You just drive down the street and you see them on the side of the road and you're like, mm, mm, mm.

• 59:02Speaker 03

  And the other thing that they love to say is like, yeah, of course you love Joburg.

• 59:05Speaker 01

  I can't.

• 59:06Speaker 03

  Which obviously means.

• 59:07Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, like a wink.

• 59:08Speaker 03

  You like black women, Dan. Oh, no, black, black men specifically because people love accusing any man they dislike of being gay as though it's somehow a problem.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  You hear that, Trevor?

• 59:21Speaker 03

  And then.

• 59:22Trevor Noah?

  I don't even know what.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Nah, I don't know what you know. What are we talking about?

• 59:25Trevor Noah?

  You hit me with that and I'm like, I'm still trying to figure out what that means.

• 59:30Speaker 03

  But, sorry, just, just to finish, the same conversation we're talking about is the Cape Town versus Joburg conversation.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 59:36Speaker 03

  So you said Cape Town very, very white, right? Predominantly Cape Town International is very white. Cape Town, South Africa is not. They're completely different worlds. I have quite often, I think very reasonably critiqued the housing crisis, the Airbnb crisis, some of the DA's decisions ruling Cape Town, even in as though they've also done a lot of really good stuff and built an in part world-class city. If I criticize Cape Town, it's the same.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 59:58Speaker 03

  It's, it's, it's racialized. They say you're a race traitor. They're saying Cape Town, but they mean whites. Just like you were saying earlier.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:06Speaker 03

  Crime means black. Joburg means black. Cape Town means white. You are criticizing us, our team.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Why are you doing that?

• 1:00:13Speaker 03

  Our home base in this game of tag.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  But I guess the revolution has always wanted to adopt one single white person here and there to just kind of, to just kind of get through to the, you, you, and you, you might think it's funny, but you're actually right. Joe Slovo was that for the ANC.

• 1:00:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:27Speaker 01

  Um, Father Chuskerson was that for.

• 1:00:29Speaker 03

  I'll be sucks.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  For, for Desmond Tutu. So there was always one where they're like, you need to roll with this guy. And when we started doing comedy, to get the gigs that you want to get, you must have a white agent.

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

  You had to have a white person.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  There has to be someone who says he will show up, he will come, demand the certain time.

• 1:00:42Speaker 03

  No, you had to vouch, vouch for you.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  Vouch, vouch hard.

• 1:00:44Trevor Noah?

  People like, people like Joe Parker.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:00:46Trevor Noah?

  This is a white comedian who was having to promise white companies that a black performer was worth having.

• 1:00:55Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:00:55Trevor Noah?

  Not even like trust. He would have to vouch and go, I promise you, this person is worth having at your event.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:03Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:01:04Trevor Noah?

  Please trust me on this.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  And remember the handholding that we used to suffer before?

• 1:01:06Trevor Noah?

  Yo.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  The person would show up with you.

• 1:01:08Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Make the introductions, shake hands.

• 1:01:10Trevor Noah?

  He'd just stand there.

• 1:01:11Speaker 03

  No, just stand there on the side.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  Make them comfortable.

• 1:01:13Trevor Noah?

  Like literally, so we would go and perform.

• 1:01:15Speaker 03

  No, sorry, I mean like, I mean, I mean like act like a chaperone.

• 1:01:17Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, fully chaperone.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  Acting.

• 1:01:18Speaker 03

  Because, because, because, because, because they believe that you are irresponsible and can't handle yourself.

• 1:01:24Trevor Noah?

  But not Joe.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Do you even, do you even own a? Jacket?

• 1:01:28Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  You know, someone come meets you in the car.

• 1:01:29Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:30Speaker 01

  Where's your?

• 1:01:31Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:32Speaker 03

  Can you do a tie? You know what I'm saying? Can you tie a tie?

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 1:01:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. So there's, there's always that. There's always those stats that a person in twenty twenty five can still quote fresh in their mind. We don't even need to go as far as apartheid is. But I always think people get lost in the stats. There's very simple stats in this country. White people are the minority. White people as a minority, they're the most educated as a number of people than black people. They have gainful employment more than black people. They outgun us. They outwealth us. They outlive us.

• 1:02:04Speaker 03

  People forget the outlive, which is really important.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:07Speaker 03

  In terms of medical healthcare, in terms of nutrition, in terms of a lack of, because early childhood malnutrition is what stunts so many young black children.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:17Speaker 03

  It's the first five to six years.

• 1:02:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:18Speaker 03

  Where you do not have enough food and you, and all of the early childhood nutrition research in the world talks about how people are physically stunted. They're mentally stunted.

• 1:02:28Trevor Noah?

  Mentally is the big one if you don't have enough.

• 1:02:30Speaker 03

  Totally. But I mean, the other thing that we were talking about around the Piers Morgan thing is the safest people in South Africa are white men.

• 1:02:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:37Speaker 03

  Because of all the infrastructure, which creates secure neighborhoods, high walls, electric fences, good, uh, safe working environments, good cars.

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  Firearms.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, sometimes firearms, sometimes, sometimes firearms. Uh, but then, and, and then the most vulnerable are black women. Because again, the least protected in the most destitute conditions, very, very often.

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  And most vulnerable at the same time.

• 1:03:01Trevor Noah?

  Yes, and, and in all communities as well.

• 1:03:04Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  So I, I always say to people, if you want to know what equality looks like, drive around any township, any black neighborhood or anywhere where there's black men gathered as a group. Whether they're traveling together or going to watch soccer and tell me what size pants they wear, just as, as an average between all of them in townships and in squad camps. Very small, very thin. That's malnutrition.

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  You can't put them next to their counterpart, who is of another race, especially white. And from muscle mass to the size of their pants, not being overweight, the size of their pants.

• 1:03:35Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I know what you mean.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's what tells you what the systematic system has been able to do and still survives and thrives under these conditions because of what they eat, what they know, how much they walk versus how much they exercise.

• 1:03:49Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  Because if, if hard work was a real thing, most black women that spend most of their youth in transit from four in the morning up until six in the evening would be wealthy.

• 1:03:58Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  So I don't buy it any, any when everyone tells me, you know, you work hard. I'm like, I know plenty of people doing well that don't work hard at all. And I know enough people just be on the highway and see what, who's in a bus and a minibus. And even, even middle class black women now are working harder.

• 1:04:14Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  And they're still working and complaining about being underpaid and having more responsibilities and still finding themselves in these situations. When I go to self-defense classes and I, and I'm in a group and I'm usually one.

• 1:04:25Trevor Noah?

  Are you teaching or you?

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  No, when I'm attending.

• 1:04:27Trevor Noah?

  Okay.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  And I'm, and I'm one of, or two of twenty and I see how to identify a threat. And I'm like, hold on, you're talking about me here. I don't see a threat the same way.

• 1:04:39Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  My other counterparts who are in this training course see a threat. When I'm driving, I'm not as paranoid. I don't look around at a black guy crossing a car.

• 1:04:47Trevor Noah?

  But you know why?

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:48Trevor Noah?

  You know why?

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:04:49Trevor Noah?

  It comes back to the flattening of people.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  Tell us more. Do you know what the flattening of people is?

• 1:04:55Trevor Noah?

  It's as simple as the flattening of people.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  I listen to this podcast. I know.

• 1:05:02Trevor Noah?

  I'll, I'll, I'll tell you, I'll tell you what. So I remember years ago, I read a paper that was breaking down what was commonly referred to as like a racist stereotype. You know where people go, all Asians look the same. Right? And so someone went out and actually did a study. And they found that to people who have never grown up with any Asian people around them, all Asians do look the same. Because you are unable to differentiate the features and you're unable, yeah, you're unable to distinguish them.

• 1:05:31Speaker 03

  So it's an exposure problem?

• 1:05:32Trevor Noah?

  It's completely an exposure thing. And then they tracked it between people and they found it's not that one race of people is inherently unable or able to identify another group. It's all just about exposure.

• 1:05:43Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:05:44Trevor Noah?

  So you come back to South Africa. Black people were forcibly exposed in a section to white people.

• 1:05:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:52Trevor Noah?

  Right? Because they had to work for them, they had to work in the mines, they had to work in the houses, they had to work, you know what I mean? But that's still a slither of them. Yeah. Many black people lived a life completely isolated from white people. And so many black people, funny enough, can't tell the difference, like, half of my family cannot tell the difference between any of my white friends. Like, if I brought you, Dan, now to my house, I promise you some of them would go, oh, nice to see you again. I swear to God. Yes. I swear to God, they'd go, oh, nice to see you again. Then I'd be like, no, this is not him.

• 1:06:20Speaker 03

  I mean, I am a redhead, so it's slightly more like.

• 1:06:23Trevor Noah?

  My friend, my friend, they'll just think on that day in particular, there was something. Not to she say something, yes. Not he, did he bend? He did something to your head. Something, hey, oh, it's your jacket, man. No, but, but, and I, and I used to be shocked, I'd be like, I'd be so shocked by how like half my family, then when I sat with them, I went, oh, wow. These are all the people in my family who were never exposed to white people. Right? And the flip happens. Now, you look at it through the lens of crime, right? You live in a country where from your birth, you were kept away from black people. You were not shown black people except to say like, this is the kafar, the danger, the threat. Right? You were never introduced to black people, you were never, there was no meaningful interaction with black people.

• 1:07:08Trevor Noah?

  The country then becomes integrated. Now, South Africa is a rainbow nation. We're all together, but we're not. We all know.

• 1:07:15Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 1:07:15Trevor Noah?

  So there was white flight, white people immediately fled to little enclaves where they're like, can we be safe here? And now there were fewer black people that they were interacting with. But now what happens? Where are the only black people they interact with? A beggar at the street corner? And somebody who's robbing them?

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  A teller.

• 1:07:34Trevor Noah?

  Somebody who's serving them? Cleaning the house. Somebody who's... But these are not human interactions where you actually study another person's features and you look at it. It's not, it's not, it's not a space where you see the human on the other side. There's no encounter, right? Exactly. It's just like a fleeting encounter. Yeah. And so, the one thing I think of, and I know it's like a weird way to phrase it, but where I feel sorry or understanding for white people as I go. If your only interaction with black people is when they rob you, you will then think that crime is black. Because you, even apart from your actions, have been part of a system that didn't let you hang out with, you know what I mean? Because it's not like white people were allowed, you know what I mean, to be fair. White people weren't allowed to hang out with black people.

• 1:08:20Trevor Noah?

  And I always go like, one of the worst things that happened-

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  It was also a crime. That association was a crime.

• 1:08:24Trevor Noah?

  One of the, one of the strangest things about racism that we forget is, and I think I will attribute this quote, Ryan, was Nelson Mandela who said, he learned in his time in Robben Island, that one of the hardest aspects of racism, and this is not the quote, but basically he was saying is- So it wasn't him? No, no, I'll tell you when it starts. I'll tell you when, I'll tell you when the quote starts. Because I'm giving you the context first. He spent a lot, he spent a lot of time at Robben Island, a lot of, like, pretty much all his time. And um, he made friends with most of his prison guards. Yeah.

• 1:08:59Trevor Noah?

  And it got to the point where at Robben Island, they knew, the, the administration knew you could not let Nelson Mandela or any of his cohorts associate with a prison guard for longer than like a few months. Okay. Because the prison guards started to see them as human beings and they started to treat them differently. Right.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:09:15Trevor Noah?

  Because Mandela would greet them, he'd ask them about their families, he would talk about himself as a human being, he'd wish them happy birthday. But it wasn't just him. Yeah. People make it seem like Mandela was this saint guy. No, he was- He was a cohort. He was a human. That's all he was. He was just being a human. Yeah. And the other, other people who were imprisoned with him would do the same thing, to the point where the prison guards went-

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  What did you say this guy did again?

• 1:09:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, like, he doesn't seem like the animal that you said he is.

• 1:09:44Speaker 03

  Because bigotry requires dehumanization.

• 1:09:47Trevor Noah?

  And separation is the big one.

• 1:09:48Speaker 03

  So no exposure?

• 1:09:49Trevor Noah?

  No exposure.

• 1:09:50Speaker 03

  Which allows for dehumanization.

• 1:09:52Trevor Noah?

  No exposure. And so they did that. And that's when Mandela said, in that process, he learned that in a system of oppression, you have to free not only the prisoner, but also the guard.

• 1:10:01Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 1:10:02Trevor Noah?

  And that's the thing I think we never, like, we really never get into in South Africa, and I see it in the US as well, is that white people are also suffering from a system that was created by their ancestors.

• 1:10:18Speaker 03

  In a different way.

• 1:10:19Trevor Noah?

  Because now, I'm like, yo, white people are terrified in a way that they don't have to be. I know this is gonna sound crazy. You're not being hijacked because you are white. You're being hijacked because you have the car that the people want. Now, you must ask yourself why you have that car. I'm not saying blame yourself, but I'm just saying the chances of you being robbed or hijacked are directly proportional to how much things you have. You having the things is directly proportional to how much you benefited from the system before you. But again, I'm not saying it's your fault.

• 1:10:47Speaker 03

  The effect of the system is that you experience it as a race attack. You experience it as because of your skin color.

• 1:10:53Trevor Noah?

  Because you're like, how else is this happening? It's not happening to anyone else. It's how you're seeing it. And then the people you hang out with, they're also white. They also got robbed. They also got someone kidnapped. They also, so you go, this happens to us. You get what I'm saying?

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. No, a hundred percent. I think that's why, even at that young age, I was not impressed by Tzotzi winning an Oscar. I was like, this is...

• 1:11:13Trevor Noah?

  The movie?

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, the movie.

• 1:11:14Speaker 03

  It plays into the fantasy.

• 1:11:15Speaker 01

  It plays into the fantasy and the stereotype. And yay! They're angry and jumping walls and taking things because they are on the other side of a place that we...

• 1:11:22Speaker 03

  And the miracle is that this animal brought the baby back. Like, we never thought. The miracle. Oh, wow.

• 1:11:29Trevor Noah?

  You see?

• 1:11:29Speaker 03

  We didn't know a black person could do that.

• 1:11:36Speaker 01

  Then cosplaying as a racist. Then see me trying to...

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  The same space?

• 1:11:47Speaker 03

  It's very safe.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  I bring my kids here all the time.

• 1:11:52Trevor Noah?

  But yeah, you're right.

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  Yes, so there were those situations where there were more movies about that and series and the incentivization to create stereotypes is very huge in this country in television. And I'm glad at my house, we don't watch mainstream television. But I'm saying in this country.

• 1:12:08Trevor Noah?

  Everywhere.

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  In this country, Tina, we live it full factor. You know, when I go to your US and watch your TV, I'm like, you guys are not watching TV. You're watching commercials the whole day. Tina, here we watch reality shows that purport the stereotype of how black single women behave, about how taxi drivers behave, our taxi owners, and about women with taxi owners and people who are fighting for a home in the township. All those rhetorics are live and happening and seasons get renewed. Season 10 of people fighting for a family home in the township.

• 1:12:37Trevor Noah?

  You don't.

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  But what about?

• 1:12:38Trevor Noah?

  So you don't know, you know, it's funny when you say that. I realize sometimes when you have these conversations with people, you just do this next time you're hanging out in a group of South Africans who are talking.

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  What, have three microphones and?

• 1:12:50Trevor Noah?

  If you want.

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  Okay, sir.

• 1:12:51Trevor Noah?

  You have them on your iPhone, but like, if you sit around and have these conversations,

• 1:12:57Trevor Noah?

  if you sit around and have these conversations, notice how differently people respond when you include yourself in being aggrieved, right?

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:13:05Trevor Noah?

  Depending on the color of your skin. It's a really crazy thing.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:08Trevor Noah?

  So I will see a white South African say, and it doesn't always happen, but when it does, it's really funny. White South African will go, yeah, man, this crime, you know, I don't feel safe and blah, blah, blah. Another white South African go, yeah, me too. I just, you know, it's just, it's terrible. And then a black South African will say, yeah, you never know when they're coming. And then the white South Africans will look at them like, I mean, they'll look at them like, no, no, but we, but we're like afraid of them. You know what I mean? They, they, sometimes they look at a black person like, no, but you can like, it's your cousin. You can, you can ask him not, you can ask him not to take your car. I can't do anything.

• 1:13:46Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:13:47Trevor Noah?

  I can't do anything. Think about it, my Becky. It's just you and your cousin. You're safe.

• 1:13:54Speaker 04

  White people think, white people think that black people's houses with burglar bars is to keep them in.

• 1:13:59Trevor Noah?

  Yes, but, but you know what? It's, it's, it's, and I think, I think.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  You don't feel sorry for this man?

• 1:14:06Trevor Noah?

  No, but but you know what I mean, Dan, it's like to your point, I think I think that's that's maybe one of the greatest disservices and injustices we did in our system. And by the way, I am somebody who's actually quite for what happened with the TRC. I know a lot of people have issues and a lot of people go it was wrong and this and this and this. I think it was innovative. I think it was the first time it's ever been done. I don't think it's ever been done anywhere else.

• 1:14:32Speaker 03

  Not not in that way.

• 1:14:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, people always try and propose it.

• 1:14:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:35Trevor Noah?

  But I think with any system or any idea, there's going to be the implementation and you realize, oh, we could improve on that. Like a constitution, you can always improve a constitution, but its starting point.

• 1:14:44Speaker 01

  Especially that part that says, South Africa belongs to everyone who lives in it.

• 1:14:48Speaker 03

  You don't like that part?

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  Uh, no.

• 1:14:50Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:14:53Trevor Noah?

  This is a conversation for another day.

• 1:14:55Speaker 03

  That's a podcast theory.

• 1:14:56Trevor Noah?

  This is a conversation for another day. No, so so so what I mean is like you can always improve a constitution. You can always improve an idea. I think the TRC first time out, my goodness.

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 1:15:06Trevor Noah?

  What an attempt to mend and to bridge the gaps in a nation where people were separated i- i- in a way that most nations have never experienced, right? But I think the one thing we have yet to do and we have never done is gone, hey, what is that exposure therapy that people need?

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:26Trevor Noah?

  And and like and sort of an involuntary exposure therapy.

• 1:15:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:30Trevor Noah?

  You know, I I I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, Dale, and we were talking about how at our school, they had a program where, because we were the first generation that was like, literally, you and I were the first generation, how old are you, Dan?

• 1:15:45Speaker 03

  Thirty one.

• 1:15:45Trevor Noah?

  Thirty one, yeah, so we were the first generation of kids that went to school with kids of a different race.

• 1:15:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:52Trevor Noah?

  Literally, I sometimes think about how crazy that was. When I go like literally, the first year in my school, that there were black kids, Indian kids, colored kids, with white kids. That was the first time that had ever happened.

• 1:16:06Speaker 03

  You guys were round one, you were the first child.

• 1:16:08Trevor Noah?

  We were literally.

• 1:16:09Speaker 03

  All an experiment.

• 1:16:09Trevor Noah?

  Yo, our teachers.

• 1:16:10Speaker 03

  Could have gone so wrong.

• 1:16:11Trevor Noah?

  Our teachers had never seen a black child in front of them in a classroom before.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  Our parents had to wear their Sunday best for the first drop off.

• 1:16:18Trevor Noah?

  Drop off, our parents didn't even know what a drop off was.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  I mean, drop off.

• 1:16:23Trevor Noah?

  No, but think, but just think about that as a concept. I remember being shocked that when I went to school. Yeah. Kids were dropped off by their parents in a vehicle that they owned. Like, one child got out of one car. Hmm. Meanwhile, when the black kids got there, it looked like a circus trick. Where like one car and they'd open a door and then like. So many. You're fifteen. Hmm. You, and, and that's how we just traveled around. The back of every buggy, the back of every van was all of us, you know what I mean? But that exposure, like our school had this program where they went. We want every kid to go and stay at another kid's house who they're friends with. They weren't even like, they don't like a stranger. Yeah. But they said, hey, you guys are friends. But it was a deliberate program. Yo. It was amazing to see.

• 1:17:08Trevor Noah?

  To, talking about like exposure therapy. It was amazing to see how the black kids weren't particularly surprised by what they experienced. Because many of them had moms who were working for white people. So they had seen a glimpse of a white life. That is sense of it, yeah, for sure. Let me tell you something. Every single white kid who went to go and live with a black family for a weekend. Every single one of them went home and said the same thing. They said, mom and dad, do you know how black people live? And not in like a righteous way, just like a child. Like a curious way. Like a fourteen year old, fifteen year old, they went, yo, do you, do you know how they live? Hmm. Do you know how they come to school every day? Do you know that they have to take three buses to get here? With other people, with strangers.

• 1:17:54Trevor Noah?

  Do you know that they don't have hot water in the morning at their house? You, you have to make a fire and then heat it up. And then they. Or the coal stove. And then you have to do it again for each person and they have to. You know, they all, they don't have their own bathrooms. You know that their toilet's outside? Hmm. I go to school with this kid. I see myself as his direct like competition in that way. Yeah. But I'm going, how is he doing math when he woke up like that? Hmm. Does it in the dark. How is he playing cricket with me?

• 1:18:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:21Trevor Noah?

  Or playing soccer with me? How does he have the energy when he ate like that?

• 1:18:25Speaker 03

  And that goes back to the conversation you had with that guy in London about like starting completely equal from scratch. And about BEE laws and redress laws and justice and transformation laws. It's that exact conversation.

• 1:18:38Trevor Noah?

  We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break. Some of the most interesting things you learn happen while you're doing something completely ordinary. Maybe you're cooking dinner or watching a history video. Maybe you're on a flight catching up on a long form interview. Or maybe you're trying to figure out how to fix something in your house because apparently owning a screwdriver means you're an electrician now. But you see, that's one of the things I love about YouTube Premium. I travel a lot, so I download videos before a flight. That way, I'm not leaving my entertainment in the hands of airplane wifi. Yeah, I've made that mistake before. You think you're going to watch something in 4K and suddenly everyone's face is pixels.

• 1:19:21Trevor Noah?

  But one of my favorite features is smart downloads. You see, YouTube Premium can automatically download recommended videos for you based on what you already watched. So sometimes I'll get on a plane, I look at my phone, I'm like, ah, I didn't download anything. And it's like, no, YouTube already thought about this. They packed entertainment for me in my little lunchbox. And with background play, I can lock my phone, switch apps, and whatever I'm watching just keeps on going. So if you like YouTube, you will love YouTube Premium. Sign up now for your free trial at youtube.com/premium. Terms apply. Cancel anytime. Therapy is one of those things lots of people talk themselves out of without even realizing it.

• 1:20:03Trevor Noah?

  Like it's too expensive or it's too overwhelming figuring out even where you're gonna start. But Ruler is one way to make that first step feel a lot more doable, offering accessible, affordable therapy that fits your needs. Sign up in just a few minutes and get matched with a therapist who fits what you're looking for. Need to talk to someone quickly? Appointments are often available as soon as the next day. And with insurance, sessions average around a $15 copay. You can also see estimated costs upfront, so there's a lot more clarity going in. And in terms of outcomes, 93% of Ruler patients report symptom improvement.

• 1:20:43Trevor Noah?

  If therapy's been sitting in the back of your mind, Rula is a pretty simple way to take that first step. So turn off the talk track that's keeping you from progress and head to rula.com. That's R U L A dot com to find a therapist the easy way.

• 1:21:06Speaker 03

  Trevor, I wanted to, um, I wanted to suggest something though, because we've been talking about exposure, but there's something along with that, which is about getting South Africans to empathize with each other. So a positive example is the Springboks. If we all feel proud of the Springboks for like making South African, like it cool and like good to be South African, to be proud. But like ironically, one thing that quite often doesn't perfectly cut through all, all classes in a capitalist society, but does further than anything else to create empathy, is service delivery failure. So one of the best ways for South Africans to empathically get together is to go fuck Escom.

• 1:21:42Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:21:43Speaker 03

  And to go fuck the police.

• 1:21:44Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:21:45Speaker 03

  I have seen black and white South Africans of different classes.

• 1:21:48Trevor Noah?

  Escom has brought us together.

• 1:21:48Speaker 03

  Like it's brought, no.

• 1:21:50Trevor Noah?

  No, it has.

• 1:21:50Speaker 03

  It's a joke and it's the truth.

• 1:21:52Trevor Noah?

  No, it's true.

• 1:21:52Speaker 03

  Right?

• 1:21:52Trevor Noah?

  It's true.

• 1:21:53Speaker 03

  A, a common agreement that the ANC has failed us in terms of service delivery. And other things that, you know, puddles on the road.

• 1:22:00Trevor Noah?

  But can I tell you what I like about Escom more than the ANC?

• 1:22:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:22:02Trevor Noah?

  The ANC's politics. So what ends up happening is people then fall into that trap of making it a synonym for black.

• 1:22:08Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:22:08Trevor Noah?

  So they go, look at what the ANC has done to South Africa. Then you go like, then a black person will say, yeah, no, hey, I'm gonna start my own political party. Then they're like, no, no, but you might do the same thing. I mean, look at what the ANC has done. Then you're like, oh, okay, you're using it. What I like about Escom is it's this nameless, faceless power utility.

• 1:22:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:29Trevor Noah?

  And what it has done, and this is something that is like, it's, it's crazy to say, but Escom, the power provider in South Africa, has done something that has never happened in South Africa. It has made every South African. Experience the same thing regardless of the color of their skin.

• 1:22:51Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:22:52Trevor Noah?

  Um. This is the first time in our history.

• 1:22:54Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:22:54Trevor Noah?

  When a black person and a white person can sit together and go.

• 1:22:57Speaker 03

  Your stage eight.

• 1:22:58Trevor Noah?

  We have the exact same problem.

• 1:23:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:23:02Trevor Noah?

  And to your point, we take for granted how it's sad that it has to be a problem, but it's like that is something that is so fundamentally powerful.

• 1:23:09Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 1:23:09Trevor Noah?

  Is for two people to go, hey, man, you live in a township. I live in a suburb.

• 1:23:14Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:23:15Trevor Noah?

  But we both.

• 1:23:16Speaker 03

  We get it. We get it. Kind of amazing.

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  And those are the small victories that as South Africans we tend to miss. I mean, the biggest victory for the T R C was not justice, which would have been great for the victims and the families of the victims. But overall for South Africans was to see these authoritarians who were backed by the state machinery to decimate black people, being told to sit down and shut the fuck up.

• 1:23:40Speaker 03

  Damn.

• 1:23:40Speaker 01

  That had never happened. It happened live with everyone watching. Desmond Tutu and whoever was in the pen could say to them, you, this is not flak blast. You're going to sit down, you're going to listen and you're going to answer these questions. That was the overall resounding victory for all South Africans watching, not the fact that they point us to the grave. So if their protest was to bait fuss and stay the course and not snitch on each other. Well, that's for him in his grave to take too. But for us as South Africans, as we're all watching, and we saw this mild mannered man Desmond Tutu disabling them with kindness. But subtly telling them as well to sit down and shut the fuck up for the first time ever. That was more powerful to South Africans than Mandela's fist in the air after wearing his wife's glasses,

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  standing outside the library in, you know, those were not.

• 1:24:28Speaker 03

  There's a good frame there. Listen, that he looked good.

• 1:24:32Speaker 01

  After, after pulling up in a crested, you know, so those, that for us as, as black people sitting there all together and was repeating the new cycle. Was the biggest victory.

• 1:24:42Speaker 03

  Do you think? It's not the same, but we're talking about things that provide unity and agreement.

• 1:24:48Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:49Speaker 03

  Do you think that the largely black South African led, but many different race groups in South Africa, communally telling the refugees to Tutsins and Futsak was similar? It was like, you guys fuck off.

• 1:25:01Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:25:02Speaker 03

  We don't want you here. You're completely wrong.

• 1:25:04Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:25:04Speaker 03

  We all agree that you've benefited by going to America off of a lie that we all as a country reject.

• 1:25:10Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, it's similar.

• 1:25:11Speaker 03

  We all as a country, we all as a country say farm murders are not disproportionate or more brutal than all other murders in South Africa.

• 1:25:16Trevor Noah?

  Well, you see, but even, even that, if you pause, I think it's also, this is like something that's, guys, branding, man, if there's one thing I've learned in observing American politics, whoo, don't mess around with branding, especially right wing, as you say.

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:25:27Trevor Noah?

  Right wing branding is flawless.

• 1:25:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:29Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean? Left wing branding is.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  Tried and tested.

• 1:25:30Trevor Noah?

  Left wing, left wing branding is often academic and like ephemeral at best. It's like, what does that mean?

• 1:25:36Speaker 03

  You need a slogan, you need a tag.

• 1:25:38Trevor Noah?

  Yo, just think about it for a second, guys. Farm murders. Guys, why is a murder labeled differently than any other murder?

• 1:25:44Speaker 03

  Totally. White genocide.

• 1:25:46Trevor Noah?

  But, but I'm like, guys, there are murders happening every single day in South Africa, everywhere.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:25:52Trevor Noah?

  They've never been given a special title.

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:25:54Speaker 03

  Also, farm murders implies owners, when most of them are laborers or people who just happen to live on the farm.

• 1:26:00Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:26:00Speaker 03

  But the branding is wink, nudge suggestive, that it is the owners who are wink, nudge, white.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  And you write to add to that, robberies in farms are actually the problem.

• 1:26:10Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 1:26:10Speaker 01

  And the same farmers are not willing to disclose what is being robbed in those farms. As we all know, farms are not cash flush businesses. There's a tractor, there's a buggy.

• 1:26:22Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  There's equipment, but what else is there inside your game farm that is worth more than your car in a safe this big?

• 1:26:30Speaker 03

  And it's also.

• 1:26:30Trevor Noah?

  What is it?

• 1:26:31Speaker 01

  Firearms.

• 1:26:32Speaker 03

  I don't know the stats of ownership of firearms.

• 1:26:34Trevor Noah?

  But they are expensive.

• 1:26:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, they are very expensive.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  Firearms.

• 1:26:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:37Speaker 01

  The robbery is of the firearm. So if you have to think about someone who has a cache of firearms because they cater to guests that come from overseas, that can fly in their firearms.

• 1:26:45Trevor Noah?

  Oh, yeah, that's true.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  To shoot the kudus and the buffalos. Now there's four, five hundred thousand rands worth of firearms and ammunition in a safe. And you've got laborers that don't live or.

• 1:26:53Trevor Noah?

  Registered to be in this country, right next to the border of the place where they come from. Guess what they're gonna take in your house?

• 1:26:59Speaker 03

  Something that's also, I mean.

• 1:27:00Trevor Noah?

  What about your iPhone?

• 1:27:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure, for sure. And I mean, the nature of rural South Africa is that very, very often a farm is the only place with any kind of asset value for a hundred square kilometers. And everybody else living in that area are impoverished people living in townships. And that's just a crime story about class. If you only have one really successful, high-value asset business in a whole area where everyone else doesn't have food to eat, what do you think's gonna happen? It's like completely a class dynamic function.

• 1:27:28Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:28Speaker 03

  Happening in rural areas where the farms are the only places worth robbing, because that's the only places of any kind of value.

• 1:27:33Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but I think sometimes when we say that, we, we, we actually um lose part of an argument that, that. It, it muddies it, I'll tell you why. So sometimes when we say these things, it makes people go, oh, so you're saying I'm only getting robbed because I have the money. Yeah, but I don't wanna be robbed, I don't wanna be killed, you get what I'm saying? No, no, and that's not what you're saying. I, I know this is gonna sound crazier, but I think people need to understand. In South Africa, I'll, I'll say there's two statements. Number one. Crime affects everyone.

• 1:28:07Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:08Trevor Noah?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 1:28:08Speaker 03

  Universe.

• 1:28:09Trevor Noah?

  Crime is not, is not gonna discriminate against your race, your what, but to your point, the people who are least affected by crime in South Africa.

• 1:28:16Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 1:28:17Trevor Noah?

  Are white men.

• 1:28:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:28:18Trevor Noah?

  The same ones who are crying the most.

• 1:28:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, and by the way.

• 1:28:21Trevor Noah?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:28:22Speaker 03

  And this is my particular.

• 1:28:23Trevor Noah?

  But our crime does not discriminate. In fact, you remember that story of um, who was that guy who came to South Africa on a honeymoon? Shrendivani. Shrendivani, do you remember the story?

• 1:28:31Speaker 01

  Remember when you loved this jacket?

• 1:28:33Speaker 03

  Wife dies in the township.

• 1:28:34Trevor Noah?

  So, yes.

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  Remember when you loved this jacket?

• 1:28:36Trevor Noah?

  I loved this jacket.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  We loved this jacket.

• 1:28:39Trevor Noah?

  We.

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  I love this jacket.

• 1:28:41Trevor Noah?

  Thank you, okay. So.

• 1:28:44Speaker 03

  So. Go record a minute.

• 1:28:48Trevor Noah?

  So Shreend Devani, the story, for those who don't know, Shreend Devani was, it was a story of, uh, I think it was an English national and he came to, uh, South Africa for his honeymoon. And then he was, he was on honeymoon with his, with his new wife and then she was tragically killed. And his story was that they got kidnapped by South Africans, with black South Africans kidnapped them. And then murdered her and then he escaped somehow. They let him go and he was, and that was, that was the story. And I will never forget this till the day I die because it's one of the, one of the darkest, it's like macabre. Because it's dark, but it's strangely funny, especially the further you get from it time wise. So literally, South Africans were like, no, if they killed, if they killed her, they're like, we'd kill you also.

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're the biggest threat here as a man.

• 1:29:32Trevor Noah?

  And he was like, no, they, they killed her, but then they let, they're like, eh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and in the same way, I say that it's like the same thing. I go like with this,

• 1:29:42Trevor Noah?

  you know, white genocide. It's like, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, here, our crime comes for everyone. We, here, we have democratic crime. Have something.

• 1:29:51Speaker 03

  Equal opportunity crime.

• 1:29:52Speaker 01

  And indiscriminate crime.

• 1:29:54Trevor Noah?

  Our crime. It's not black empowered, it's not white empowered. Have something, someone will try and take it from you. Now, we're not saying we're for that. But we are saying that it's, you know what I mean? That's, that's the reality of it. It's like we're living in a world. But I, I would love to go back to what you're saying about like the shared empathy. Is, I mean, is there actually a way that that can happen?

• 1:30:16Speaker 03

  What do you mean actually?

• 1:30:17Trevor Noah?

  So you were saying like the spring box, you know, like the, the national rugby team. I will say this is just, and this is just like a side opinion of mine. I personally blame Bafana Bafana.

• 1:30:26Speaker 03

  Yes, of course.

• 1:30:27Trevor Noah?

  Personally, personally, if you look at South Africa's story, our worst moments,

• 1:30:34Trevor Noah?

  democratic South Africa, our worst moments happen when Bafana Bafana is doing his worst.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  You're engaging me too much on this.

• 1:30:41Trevor Noah?

  But I'm saying Bafana Bafana. But I'm saying Bafana Bafana.

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:30:48Trevor Noah?

  Our, our soccer team.

• 1:30:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:30:50Trevor Noah?

  Our football team, guys, when it's at its worst, the country, that team has an outsized weight on its shoulders that I think they need to acknowledge.

• 1:30:59Speaker 03

  And Kaisa Chiefs.

• 1:31:00Trevor Noah?

  Guys.

• 1:31:02Trevor Noah?

  You look at, you look at, you look at twenty ten. You know what part of the reason twenty ten was so good for us? Cause we were in the World Cup. We didn't have to qualify for it. We were definitely gonna be in it.

• 1:31:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:31:11Trevor Noah?

  Nineteen ninety eight, that whole period, that honeymoon. What were, what were we doing as, as the soccer team in the country? We were winning. Do you get what I'm saying? And I think, I know this is a stretch, but I do think there's also an element in South Africa of when the rugby team wins, the whites have won. Blacks support the rugby team as well, but the apparatus of it is still seen as like, oh, the white institution did a thing right. When the cricket team wins, they go, yeah, you see the white thing won. When Bafana Bafana loses, crime. You see those crimes? Did you see how they were playing?

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:46Trevor Noah?

  It's crime that one. And I'm being serious.

• 1:31:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:50Trevor Noah?

  And that's why I say like Bafana, I'm like, Bafana Bafana has an outsized influence on how the country sees itself. Many of my Brazilian friends have said the same thing. They go, they go, when the Brazilian national team is doing well, Brazil is doing well. When we're doing terribly, you'll see more protests, more violence, more everything. And I'm, it might just be confirmation bias, but I do think there's something to how the collective experiences its reality based on like a few.

• 1:32:16Speaker 03

  I think it's a consensus decision of how we're doing, expressed in a very, very small representative example that makes us feel proud.

• 1:32:23Trevor Noah?

  Yes, that's true.

• 1:32:24Speaker 03

  It's like, it's like, uh, our very best are the best at the world at a thing that the world cares about. And soccer is the most extreme version of that, cause soccer is bigger than any religion. It's bigger than any nation. It's the most practiced cultural thing on the planet. Uh, and we are a football nation first and foremost. Particularly amongst black South Africans, we're a football nation first and foremost. And so if football, soccer, our best eleven, the boys, Bafana, our best stock are good. We feel good. But if our best offering is getting trashed by, or say drawing with Les Sutu, and no disrespect to Les Sutu, but you know how South Africans feel about Les Sutu?

• 1:33:04Trevor Noah?

  That was heavy disrespect.

• 1:33:08Speaker 03

  You see how South Africans talk about Nsusu?

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  Especially when Nsusu was like, he wants-

• 1:33:11Speaker 04

  Nsusu kipatsharre lo, Nsusu?

• 1:33:13Speaker 01

  Especially-

• 1:33:14Trevor Noah?

  Ni na, ni alze orki shab.

• 1:33:16Speaker 01

  Ake mu itse outie.

• 1:33:18Trevor Noah?

  Yote raite.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  Ake zukurutze deka ai mutako.

• 1:33:22Trevor Noah?

  Ake se ya ha eki tiki tifo li ei.

• 1:33:26Speaker 03

  I'm just saying, we all saw how South Africa, even black South Africans talked when Nsusu said they wanted half of the free state back. We all saw that. No, but what I'm saying is, it speaks to our pride in ourselves, our own self-value, even if we are not the soccer players ourselves.

• 1:33:41Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 1:33:41Speaker 03

  The same way that, like, frankly, and this is both funny and not a joke, when KESI Chiefs won the Nedbank Cup first victory in 10 years, many nine-year-old kids saw their dads happier than they had ever seen them in their whole lives.

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:33:57Speaker 03

  There were nine-year-olds who had seen their dads joyful, truly, in a childlike manner for the first time in their whole lives.

• 1:34:04Speaker 01

  Because of that one resounding victory.

• 1:34:06Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:34:06Speaker 01

  That terrible nine-year-old.

• 1:34:08Speaker 04

  They should have, they're terrible nine-year-olds, they should have done better.

• 1:34:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, once more, by the way.

• 1:34:12Speaker 04

  They should have, they should have made their parents happier.

• 1:34:15Speaker 03

  But what I'm trying to say is-

• 1:34:16Speaker 01

  And you're right.

• 1:34:16Speaker 03

  When Tyler does really well, it does have a psychic, emotional effect on how we feel. When you do really well, it has a psychic- I do have a question for you.

• 1:34:26Speaker 01

  True.

• 1:34:26Speaker 03

  Sorry, I've been, I've, I thought of this a bit earlier, but like, with, with your success, it made so many of us feel proud. Not just people in the industry, but South Africans going, our very best are at the level of the very best. And so we were all very, and remain deeply invested in you as a project, as a successful person. Charlie's throne is the same, Tyler's the same. But what I've been thinking about with you recently is that you're almost like Captain South Africa to South Africans. You're like Captain America, because you are our guy who went to the world and showed America what it was like to look at America from outside of it. And you became the center of all of these massive, vital discussions about race and class and world identity and stuff.

• 1:35:09Speaker 03

  And so people expect you to be our Captain America, our shield, the one who defends us in the face of- Everything, almost has to do country duty, patriotic duty. People say, oh, Trevor must tell Trump that he's wrong about South Africa. Trevor must tell Elon Musk to stop doing this.

• 1:35:27Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:27Speaker 03

  And I want, I've always genuinely wanted to ask what that's like for you. Because there's this weird thing that you need to be our greatest South African patriot. Because of how we as a country conceive of you. And I'm quite interested to know what that's like for you to go through.

• 1:35:45Trevor Noah?

  So let me start by saying this. If I meet Trump one on one, ha, guys.

• 1:35:49Speaker 03

  On site?

• 1:35:50Trevor Noah?

  Hey, guys, ah, my man, I'm telling him eh.

• 1:35:55Trevor Noah?

  Telling him everything.

• 1:35:56Speaker 03

  Everything?

• 1:35:57Trevor Noah?

  You, hey, as, ha.

• 1:36:02Trevor Noah?

  Hey, wena.

• 1:36:05Speaker 03

  Wait, are you telling me that Trump will learn what this means from you?

• 1:36:08Trevor Noah?

  My man, Trump, Trump knows it.

• 1:36:10Speaker 03

  Oh, he knows it?

• 1:36:11Trevor Noah?

  He's halfway there. Wena, wena, wena. Those, those things we also.

• 1:36:20Trevor Noah?

  No, no, no, no, you know, I mean, you're very kind, I think.

• 1:36:26Trevor Noah?

  How do I think of it for, for me? So the first and most important thing is I do not believe most of the hype. Okay? Because I have friends who humble me very regularly. So, no, but, but, but, but on the real is I go. One of, one of the most beautiful things I've learned throughout history is how the stories that we flattened to um, sort of like lift up individuals. Oftentimes a much more complex tapestry than we think. So we say Nelson Mandela, but if we're honest, the list of names that is in and around it is, is so massive that you're like, oh, this guy was not really like the thing.

• 1:37:11Speaker 03

  It didn't, it didn't live and die by him.

• 1:37:13Trevor Noah?

  No, and, and now I'm not saying Nelson, I'm not gonna be like, oh, Nelson Mandela didn't do much. No, I'm not saying that, but I'm saying you, you forget that this was an apparatus. You forget that this was strategic, Martin Luther King Junior, another example, you know? Everyone from his wife, and this is often the case, by the way, with many of these great men. The wife is the person who's doing like mo- most of, if not half of the work or more. And their name doesn't live on in the exact same way. You know, writing the speeches, building the strategy, fighting when they're in prison for twenty seven years, etc. So I think it's easy for people to think of Captain America. But I'm like, yo, man, the Wakandans made that shield. You know what I mean? Who's that vibranium coming from? Do you know what I mean? Who built his? Because that guy doesn't know how to make a costume. Who put him in that fridge? Who pumped that medicine into his veins? Who made him?

• 1:37:59Trevor Noah?

  The guy went to training. Who's training him? How did? So I think if you ever make the mistake of thinking that you, as an individual, are a superhero, you then forget every little piece of the puzzle that came together to make you who you are. So I just go, I'm just, I like, I love football. So for me, life, football is an analogy for life always, but I go. The thing I love about football, soccer, the sport, is you really learn very quickly. You are just in a team. Every position on the team.

• 1:38:30Speaker 03

  Vital.

• 1:38:31Trevor Noah?

  Vital. Strikers get all the credits.

• 1:38:34Speaker 03

  When the ball lands, all the time.

• 1:38:35Trevor Noah?

  Yo, man, strikers get all the credit. But let me tell you something.

• 1:38:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:38:38Trevor Noah?

  Good luck being a striker who gets all the credits when your defender lets you down, when your midfielder lets you down, when your goalkeeper lets you down. Just good luck on that. So for me, genuinely, I, I, and it helps me alleviate some of the pressure because I go, I don't take the acclaim the same way I don't take the pressure.

• 1:38:53Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 1:38:53Trevor Noah?

  Because I go, you can be grateful. I'm like, hey, thank you. I did my best and I'm, I'm honored that anyone could think that. But at the same time, when someone's like, ah, you must tell them. I do think it's funny. If someone's like, Trevor, you must tell Trump. Then I'm like, my man, I, I would love to see the world you think I live in.

• 1:39:10Trevor Noah?

  I love the fact that you think I live next door to the White House.

• 1:39:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:39:13Trevor Noah?

  And then every morning I drive out and Trump is there. Beep beep, hey! Ah, man, ah, ah. I, I wish that was the case.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  I'm visualizing that, sorry.

• 1:39:22Trevor Noah?

  But you know what I'm saying?

• 1:39:23Speaker 01

  Sorry, I got, I got, sorry.

• 1:39:27Trevor Noah?

  Look, no, I I I wish that was the case, but I but I, yeah, I think.

• 1:39:32Speaker 03

  I just think it's an interesting thing that you go through in in the way that South Africans perceive of you versus what.

• 1:39:40Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, I'm I'm with you, but I also.

• 1:39:42Speaker 03

  The truth of your career.

• 1:39:42Trevor Noah?

  I also find it's it's also semi generational.

• 1:39:45Speaker 03

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:39:46Trevor Noah?

  There are many South Africans who are a certain generation who sort of don't see me like that. They just see me as like a fun ambassador, like our kid who made it.

• 1:39:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:39:54Trevor Noah?

  There's people who are older than me who go like, oh, well done, Bafanas, well done. Then there's people who are my age who are like, ah, my man, ah, nice to see you. I've seen younger ones who are just like, I'm like a mythical figure to them. I honestly think everyone has a role to play. And I don't mean this in like a like a kumbaya kind of way. I think everyone has a role to play. And we take for granted how much of an impact that role has. We all take it for granted. But that's something that my mom left with me, like, man, and you and I have a similar story with like our moms.

• 1:40:26Trevor Noah?

  Man, my mom, I remember we'd like go somewhere, random, a a a school that's got a church event on a weekend. So it's it's a school, but it's now it's church for the weekend. We'd walk in onto the grounds. There'd be papers lying on the ground, you know, like packets of chips that have been thrown away by the school kids. My mom would start picking them up. Guys, these things are infinite. As the wind blows, so do they. My mom would start picking them up. I would stand there like, what are you, what are you doing? It's a Sunday. We're here for a church. She'd be like, hey, Wena, help me. But I'm like, Mom, first of all, it's not our school. It's a Sunday. Come on, man. She's like, hey. Then I'm like, yeah. And then she would always say, if I'm not gonna clean it, who's gonna clean it then? Because everyone else is walking past here saying it's not my problem.

• 1:41:08Trevor Noah?

  And I think we take for granted, and this is this is where it's like difficult in life, and I think it's for all things.

• 1:41:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:14Trevor Noah?

  It's you and your personal relationships, it's you and your community, you and your society, you as a nation.

• 1:41:21Trevor Noah?

  Two things can be true at the same time. There's a duality that exists that's difficult for people to deal with. Because sometimes we're fighting against someone who's trying to flatten it. And so then we become flat ourselves.

• 1:41:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:33Trevor Noah?

  So someone goes, there's genocide of white people in South Africa. And then you go like, South Africa is great. Then you're like, now you can't address the things that are happening in South Africa. Because this person is trying to flatten it. You wanna deal with the corruption in the government. But you know, when you say, yes, there's corruption, they go, yes, the blacks. Then you're like, no, you're using my acknowledgement to empower your racism. But I'm actually trying to work on a problem that needs to be solved. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:42:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:42:03Trevor Noah?

  And so I think if you think of it in those small interactions. Like, guys, white people take for granted, you know, you said it in the beginning, Eugene. White people take for granted how much leeway and grace black people have given them in South Africa. And not like a you're lucky thing, but like as an Ubuntu thing, like, like real levels of it.

• 1:42:28Trevor Noah?

  Real, and some of it is, you know, internalized oppression maybe, but some of it is just like, yo, man. We're still people.

• 1:42:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:42:36Trevor Noah?

  We're still people. And I think like a white person, the average white person takes for granted how their tone of voice, the way they interact with a black person, the way they, and I've seen the difference. I've seen some white people who think the person who cleans their house is lucky to have that job.

• 1:42:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:42:55Trevor Noah?

  And then I've seen white people who go, yo, man, this person has been cleaning my family's home for maybe two generations even.

• 1:43:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:43:05Trevor Noah?

  This person has watched and raised my children.

• 1:43:08Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 1:43:08Trevor Noah?

  This person has cooked food for my entire family for decades. How is it that they still don't have a driver's license?

• 1:43:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I hear you.

• 1:43:18Trevor Noah?

  How is it that this person who has watched us, they've moved houses with us?

• 1:43:23Speaker 01

  Relocated their lives.

• 1:43:25Trevor Noah?

  But how is it that this person hasn't moved houses?

• 1:43:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:43:29Trevor Noah?

  So what has happened in our world? Because now if that person was a blood relative, I don't think you would be as proud of yourself.

• 1:43:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:43:36Trevor Noah?

  I don't I don't think you'd be able to look at yourself going like, oh, yeah, no, my my aunt has lived with us for forty years. She raised me and my and and my brothers and sisters.

• 1:43:44Speaker 01

  For second their own kids and their livelihood.

• 1:43:46Trevor Noah?

  Every day when she goes home. She walks for ten, twenty minutes, then catches a transport then to another transport to another transport. That takes her three and a half hours to get home.

• 1:43:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:43:59Trevor Noah?

  That's my aunt.

• 1:44:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:01Trevor Noah?

  No one would be proud of that.

• 1:44:02Speaker 03

  Wouldn't tolerate it either, wouldn't allow it to happen.

• 1:44:04Speaker 01

  Forget that. Sorry, sorry.

• 1:44:06Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  Even the the safety conversation with domestic workers versus the people that other people that live in the house who are family members.

• 1:44:11Trevor Noah?

  My man.

• 1:44:12Speaker 01

  They would know how to protect themselves, where the firearm is, where the panic button is, where the who to call. But the person who stays there in the house alone.

• 1:44:19Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:44:19Speaker 01

  Apparently, according to people, they're exempt to being violated. But here's my thing.

• 1:44:23Trevor Noah?

  They aren't, to your point, actually to expand on that.

• 1:44:25Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:44:26Trevor Noah?

  And you do say this, Dan, and I think it's important to hit on.

• 1:44:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:29Trevor Noah?

  There are so many times when these farm murders are spoken about.

• 1:44:34Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:44:35Trevor Noah?

  And the same people who are going, talking to Trump, going around the world, parading the story, they completely ignore everyone else who also lost their lives in that same robbery or that that same attack.

• 1:44:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:46Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 1:44:47Trevor Noah?

  A house.

• 1:44:48Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:44:48Trevor Noah?

  On a farm was robbed.

• 1:44:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:51Trevor Noah?

  Was raided.

• 1:44:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:44:52Trevor Noah?

  The people who were on it were killed.

• 1:44:55Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:44:56Trevor Noah?

  Two of them maybe, three of them maybe were white. The remaining people aren't even counted. And I always say to people, that's probably one of the greatest injustices that black people have suffered throughout time.

• 1:45:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:45:06Trevor Noah?

  Is that even in the worst atrocities. Go to the Holocaust, Germans counted Jewish people meticulously.

• 1:45:14Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:45:14Trevor Noah?

  We've got a book and numbers.

• 1:45:15Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:45:16Trevor Noah?

  The same Germans in Namibia estimates.

• 1:45:19Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:45:19Trevor Noah?

  How many black people were killed in those concentration camps?

• 1:45:22Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:45:23Trevor Noah?

  Estimates.

• 1:45:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:45:24Trevor Noah?

  We still don't know, we still, the only reason we know numbers from even the slave trade was because of books.

• 1:45:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:45:29Trevor Noah?

  Because of stock.

• 1:45:30Speaker 01

  Accounting, not even.

• 1:45:32Trevor Noah?

  But not accounting of humans.

• 1:45:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:45:34Trevor Noah?

  Accounting of money.

• 1:45:35Speaker 03

  Cause you need to sell.

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:45:37Trevor Noah?

  But I'm saying like that, that's, and I think that's one of the big things in South Africa is like if, if we, if we think of it that way. It's not saying to a white person, be guilty, don't, forget guilt.

• 1:45:47Speaker 01

  No, leave it.

• 1:45:47Trevor Noah?

  Forget guilt for a moment. Because guilt now makes it, then it's easy for someone to be like, but I wasn't here, I wasn't here, bro. Yeah, it's fine, my man.

• 1:45:55Speaker 01

  Why do they?

• 1:45:57Trevor Noah?

  It's fine.

• 1:45:57Speaker 01

  Why, why?

• 1:46:00Speaker 01

  Why do?

• 1:46:07Speaker 01

  Also, which, which part of the syllabus is it for white female teachers that teaches them these two lines? Ach, tula wena, niya rasa, it's not a shebin here.

• 1:46:16Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but you see that.

• 1:46:17Speaker 01

  Wh- wh- where does that?

• 1:46:19Trevor Noah?

  But all of that, bro.

• 1:46:20Speaker 01

  Come from?

• 1:46:21Trevor Noah?

  All of that.

• 1:46:22Speaker 01

  What makes it okay for?

• 1:46:23Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:46:23Speaker 01

  A, a person of authority to stand in front of a class where school fees are being paid and minds are being shaved? And say those words without consequence, ach, tula wena.

• 1:46:32Trevor Noah?

  Yes.

• 1:46:33Speaker 01

  Niya rasa, it's not a shebin here.

• 1:46:34Trevor Noah?

  But, but because, remember.

• 1:46:35Speaker 01

  Where is a shebin?

• 1:46:36Trevor Noah?

  But that's my thing, is. She's right, it's not a shebin here.

• 1:46:41Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:46:42Trevor Noah?

  And shebin's are loud places.

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:46:44Trevor Noah?

  But in that instance.

• 1:46:45Speaker 03

  Not ideal teaching environment.

• 1:46:46Trevor Noah?

  Yeah, but, but in that instance, you're using shebin as a synonym for what?

• 1:46:50Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:46:50Trevor Noah?

  This is not a place of blackness, man.

• 1:46:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:46:52Trevor Noah?

  Don't be black here, man.

• 1:46:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. I want to, uh, off of what you just said about the uncaringness towards black death versus the hyper fixation on white death? Or like victims of white crime. One of the thing, the, the great things that frustrates me about South Africa is that overwhelming mainstream media obsesses over and cares over white suffering? In a way that they don't over black suffering. So I often say, if a black person sneezes near a white person, it's a news headline. Whereas many black people will die and it won't even become a report.

• 1:47:24Trevor Noah?

  No.

• 1:47:25Speaker 03

  So that comes from during apartheid, all of the massive media companies, their, their buying audience was white readers, Swadchafan. All of the rest. But since apartheid, the capitalist incentive to continue to cater to a paying, reading, literate, highly educated audience has meant obsession over white plight without reporting on black death and black suffering and impoverished people's suffering. And then it also comes down to something that you always talk about with, which is language, which is so important. Because if broadly, the biggest media in the country and the hyper-commercialized media is broadcasting in English and Afrikaans, it's just less likely that anyone's ever going to think, what does the Zulu community want to read about?

• 1:48:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:04Speaker 03

  What does a Xhosa community care about? Which often then means people dying, people really, really suffering. And so if you come to South Africa and you read our biggest news sites, 365 days of the year, something extraordinarily horrific needs to happen to a black person before it's news.

• 1:48:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:24Speaker 03

  Something unbelievably, Tabo Besta needs to happen.

• 1:48:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:48:28Speaker 03

  To hear about that.

• 1:48:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it needs to happen.

• 1:48:31Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:48:31Speaker 01

  Before we go home.

• 1:48:32Speaker 03

  Whereas, whereas smaller infractions, and again, whenever we talk about crime, as you said earlier, we can't debase it. We can't, I'm not saying that these crimes don't matter. I'm just saying smaller, less harmful crimes when white people are the victims become explosions.

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:48Speaker 03

  And for that explosion to happen for a black victim.

• 1:48:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:48:50Speaker 03

  It needs to be horrific. Like, think about how Tabo Besta never, ever, and there are other reasons why the Oscar Pistorius case was so massive. But Tabo Besta versus Oscar Pistorius, and I know it's horrible to bean count when people have died, but Tabo Besta, all of his victims, the horrific shit that he did for such a long time, versus the coverage of Oscar Pistorius, because Reva was a white victim. And again, not debasing Reva at all, the tragedy or everything. What I'm trying to talk about is how South Africa's media needs to change to care about black suffering properly. And they may actually find out that that's, in a purely capitalistic way, really good business. Because most people in South Africa are black and want to know about their lives and their lived experiences.

• 1:49:33Speaker 01

  You know what Dan is saying is absolutely true. And I even go a step further and I say, there's a systematic way that the media has kept the white, a black majority that Is influential and exposed to technology, busy and distracted. Cause every time something happens that's big, something else happens in the pipeline that kind of distracts us from this whole thing. For example, as black people, we are forced to always take the moral high ground when things happen. Apart date, we are being told we must be emotionally mature. It wasn't me, it was the system, now you guys are in schools. Yes, but I'm like, no, now you're expecting me to cure something that was caused by a system with my emotions. So how about a system gets created to cure what that system managed to do?

• 1:50:16Speaker 01

  So we need a systematic problem, I mean systematic solution for systematic problems. And let me deal with my emotions and spend my time the way I like. But the fact that we are always distracted and when something happens, people go to a country and purport whatever they purport. Then we look at our local economy and politics, something seismic always happens right in the middle of that. And I'm going, we're such a small country that that kind of manipulation can happen.

• 1:50:38Speaker 03

  Totally. And what I want to add to that, looping back to the T R, oops, sorry, looping back to the T R C. Is one of the terrible things about the T R C that the country has constantly been distracted away from. Is that many victims were awarded financial restitution and have not got it yet.

• 1:50:54Speaker 01

  Till today.

• 1:50:54Speaker 03

  It's two thousand and twenty five.

• 1:50:57Speaker 01

  I didn't know that.

• 1:50:57Speaker 03

  And every single year, the remaining victor, the remaining people who were awarded financial compensation.

• 1:51:04Speaker 01

  They were awarded this and they haven't received it.

• 1:51:07Speaker 03

  And many of them have died now. And every year they get together and they demand from the justice upon where is our money? And they're dying. And the T R C, you were talking about our first phase was beautiful, but since then. People who were not given amnesty have not been charged. Inquiries are now being opened, but it's twenty twenty five, the Craddock Four have been long dead in the ground. And only now that case is being investigated when in the early two thousands, those were the people who were supposed to be investigated first. And thousands and thousands of people who were awarded, victims who were awarded financial compensation from the T R C are still begging the government. To give them the money that they should have got in like two thousand and two. But we are so distracted as a country that that doesn't make the news.

• 1:51:51Speaker 03

  That you two who are both very informed didn't know about it until now. And I only found out four months ago because my brother was working at the kind of conference gathering where all of the still alive victims came and said. Where is our fucking money? And so, yes, we do need to talk about how South Africa also, I mean, I'm sure you guys saw recently, South Africa is the most online country in the world, we're the most phone addicted country in the world.

• 1:52:14Speaker 01

  I did not see that, actually.

• 1:52:15Speaker 03

  In terms of screen time, we're like number one in the world.

• 1:52:17Speaker 01

  I did not see that.

• 1:52:18Speaker 03

  We're number one in like corruption and that.

• 1:52:20Speaker 01

  Wow, I didn't see that.

• 1:52:22Speaker 03

  And rugby, those are our strengths. But in despite of all of that, we are a deeply, easily distracted nation. And that means that we don't know things as basic as there are victims of the T R C who have not yet got compensation in twenty twenty five. It's crazy.

• 1:52:36Speaker 01

  We don't even know when the by-elections are. The average South African doesn't know when the by-elections are. They're not advertised, the parties discuss among themselves. Then they go along, select a person and the by-elections happen, ten people show up, the war is won. So there's a lot of people, and I did say this, I said in a part in McGee's podcast, a few years ago, I said, there's a systematic approach to distracting South Africans digitally. So these, I've said this, it's on record. So these facts that you're saying make sense. I did say it, I said, if you maybe switch off your phone a little bit and maybe not look at the hashtags and not look at what videos are trending, maybe dig deeper, there's something there. From every crisis that we've experienced in this country, it all starts out with something else happening, pot Bellinger style, what was it again?

• 1:53:16Speaker 03

  Bell potting.

• 1:53:17Speaker 01

  Bell potting just style on the side, purporting to be something else. And then all of a sudden, we don't know that the by-elections happened, or this person got annexed as a mayor, or Helen Zelensky is trying to be the mayor of Haute. We, is it all, after you've just done the roast, now you're using that as a platform to launch your mayorship in the same city that you, but we, when we say this, we look like we're speaking from a place of privilege. And because we are speaking from a place of privilege, we can afford not to use technology as an escape goat, but as a vessel to get this information. So, but I think that is our problem right now in South Africa. I think it's our nature to be accepting, to be willing, to try, to forgive, to move forward. But we've never had our own house to ourselves when the visitors have left and speak the truth amongst each other as a family.

• 1:54:01Speaker 01

  And decide how we're gonna do this life thing with the, with the neighbors and how we feel about our relatives who keep showing up and making it as if all we've done here was waste our time and not build a wall that's high enough. That's what we need to be having in this country. But I feel like people like you. Dan, and I'm not saying you as a white person, I'm saying you as a brave person to forsake everything that could go wrong. We live in that corporate world where calls will stop because you've said something that you were not supposed to say. And you're not toeing the line, but for you to say, I'm not doing this because I work for a channel. I'm not doing this because I'm white. I'm doing this because I know that is the ultimate sacrifice in the modern day era. It's not picking up an AK forty seven and going to the trenches and trying to live in Lusaka and fight from there. It's you saying something and people like us who want to say something, we're not gonna be people's favorites.

• 1:54:47Speaker 01

  Our calls are gonna dry up a little bit. People are gonna be offended in somewhere where they make a decision. But at the end of the day, we are saying what South Africans are not privileged enough to say. And that's one way where I think the middle class and the Mandela experience or experiment can be used. When in unison, people who come from three different backgrounds can sing with one voice and go, but are we looking carefully at what is being said here?

• 1:55:08Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:08Speaker 03

  I think that's incredibly kind. Thank you. Uh, what I will, what I will. I love how every week a different political party is paying my bills according to South Africa. I've had EFF, Soros, Putin, DA, Freedom Front Plus, like every week. And, and, and something that I like about what is starting to happen in South Africa is people are starting to recognize that there are, that there are people who are clearly bought and paid for and spoken for to push an agenda.

• 1:55:35Trevor Noah?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:36Speaker 03

  And you can spot it. You know the position they're gonna take on everything, what they're gonna talk about and not talk about. But slowly but surely, what America has, which you know better than I guess anyone else in this room, is people. America has people who you broadly know their politics, but you definitely know that they're saying what they really think. Because now and again, say, Jon Stewart will say, fuck these Democrats. They're fucking this up so badly. South Africa is slowly getting to the point now where if you, people like you, who consistently say what they think. And everyone goes, ah, but that's not part of the agenda that I thought he was a part of. If you do that for long enough, eventually people will go, ah, no, fuck Eugene's just saying what he thinks. And then they can really believe what you think because they don't think you're bought, paid for and spoken for. And that's my project is I just need to keep talking. I just need to keep saying exactly what I think.

• 1:56:21Speaker 03

  And after long enough, people will go, yeah, eight weeks of the year, we think he's A and C. Twelve weeks of the year, we think he's DA. Twenty weeks of the year, we think he's MK. He's probably just saying what he genuinely thinks.

• 1:56:32Speaker 04

  But if people really know you.

• 1:56:34Trevor Noah?

  He's truly a member of the Rainbow Nation.

• 1:56:37Speaker 04

  But if people.

• 1:56:38Trevor Noah?

  That's what this guy's doing.

• 1:56:39Speaker 04

  If people really know Dan, they know that his real money comes from collecting all the checks of coming second in Eric Tinkler lookalike competition.

• 1:56:47Trevor Noah?

  That's a deep cut. You see, you still want to call him the butt of the joke.

• 1:56:52Speaker 03

  I am, football is my religion. I know more about Eric Tinkler than I know about some of my siblings, brother. Like, I know it's deep.

• 1:57:00Trevor Noah?

  You think this guy butt of the joke, man.

• 1:57:05Speaker 01

  Ladies and gentlemen.

• 1:57:05Trevor Noah?

  The only reason he's the butt is because he'll shit on you. This one. He'll shit on you from a high height. Yo, man, Dan, um, thank you, man. Thanks for joining us.

• 1:57:14Speaker 03

  Thank you, man.

• 1:57:15Trevor Noah?

  Uh, but to Eugene's point, thank, because I think we take for granted that any issue worth discussing or fighting or moving in and around is not meant to be held by one person.

• 1:57:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:57:27Trevor Noah?

  You know, I, and that's, that's where I think we've, we've always got to come around on these issues is if we think this is a white people thing, we've lost it. If we think it's a black people thing, we've lost it. If we, it's like, no, no, it's a people thing. And I think speaking about it from everybody's perspective just lends a little credence to it. And so that, that was really one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you because I, I loved just seeing from, and I could see in your eyes, the moment when you're sitting with people on Piers Morgan, everyone has come, the, the premise is like white genocide in South Africa. And immediately everyone proceeds to say, there is no white genocide. Like literally everyone calls. I was saying to Eugene, you know what it's the equivalent of in South Africa?

• 1:58:07Trevor Noah?

  It's like people have phoned the police, called the police and they said, so I'm getting murdered. Someone's murdering me right now. And the police come to their house and they go, where's the murder? And they go, okay, there's not actually a murder.

• 1:58:19Speaker 03

  But why I've got.

• 1:58:20Trevor Noah?

  But while you're here, can we talk about, can we just talk about how every time I come home, she, that tells me to put my shoes on, and the police are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait. Where's the crime though?

• 1:58:34Speaker 03

  Exactly what it is.

• 1:58:35Trevor Noah?

  Well, it's not a crime per se, but you can you not see how?

• 1:58:39Speaker 03

  And it could one day become a crime.

• 1:58:41Trevor Noah?

  And I think that's what a lot of these people did, which I'm glad you call out as BS. They used the most heinous word they could think of. They used the word that would grab attention.

• 1:58:50Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 1:58:51Trevor Noah?

  To then expose what, if we're honest, are gripes. Gripes that everyone has a right to have, by the way. I'm not saying you shouldn't be angry about crime. No, but there are gripes that we share equally. And to your point and to what you said as well, we don't even share it equally because on the, in South Africa. If you wanna run to the White House and you wanna ask them for help, talk about black women. Do you know what I'm saying? If you said to me like, hey man, Trump is coming here because what's happening to black women in South Africa is unacceptable. Then I'll go, hey man, Trump.

• 1:59:17Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 1:59:18Trevor Noah?

  Get in here and do your thing. Does that make sense? But you're not. You know what I mean? You've used your power and your access to it to go and argue about gripes. Because fundamentally, the last thing I'll say on this is, I have never in my life seen refugees with Samsonite luggage. I have never in my life seen refugees fleeing a five-bedroom house. You know what I mean? And I'm not saying it just in terms of wealth, because I understand as a refugee, you can be pushed out. optionally evacuating just because.

• 1:59:53Speaker 03

  And crucially, I've never seen a refugee leave his mother behind. He'll fetch her later.

• 1:59:58Trevor Noah?

  Bruh, I've never seen a refugee doing viewings at their house on a Sunday afternoon. I mean, it's a three-bedroom.

• 2:00:06Speaker 01

  It's a lovely area.

• 2:00:07Trevor Noah?

  Yo, bruh, I've never seen a refugee selling their quarry before they leave. Is your turn now? You've never seen a refugee do what? These are the games we play in South Africa. Okay, I'll take it. I've never seen a refugee with cholesterol before.

• 2:00:28Speaker 03

  That's good. I'm not gonna beat that. Thank you, Eugene.

• 2:00:30Trevor Noah?

  Oh, man. No, man, this was great. Dan, Eugene, this was too much fun. Uh, quick confession, this actually wasn't the, we were actually planning to kill you when you got here. But, uh.

• 2:00:41Speaker 03

  That's why I brought you gifts.

• 2:00:42Trevor Noah?

  You know what?

• 2:00:43Speaker 03

  To try and, to try and.

• 2:00:44Trevor Noah?

  You know what, Dan? You're one of the good ones, man. You're one of the good ones.

• 2:00:47Speaker 03

  Thanks, man. I appreciate it.

• 2:00:54Trevor Noah?

  What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions. The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jodi Avigan. Our senior producer is Jess Hackle. Claire Slaughter is our producer. Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown. Thank you so much for listening. Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now.

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