Trevor Noah Stand Up

thumbs up thank you thank you thank you goodnight how are you doing i guess that means ok thats what it means the right sound whoa no sound for sad someone makes that sound how are you feeling oh no its just that thank you so much for having me thanks for coming y'all looking cool and chill nice weather isn't it yeah so chill just got back from atlanta it was one hundred and seven degrees fahrenheit yeah sweethearts that's where the worst is they all come up to me and they go well You must be used to this being from Africa.

No, I'm not. I am from Africa. and i passed out wouldn't the local news love it i'd be running and falling over in the heat they'd have their vans reporting live they'd be

stand

ing there getting so hot in atlanta even africans are passing out i've been in the united states for ages a few months and i'm really impressed by the place it's not what i expected at all different from the brochures and pamphlets there are a lot of assumptions i had about america before i came here and i've come to learned that those were wrong for one i just assumed that people spoke english here it's far from it you don't know what it's not so much the language so much of the pronunciation of the words it baffles me it's just what the americans have done with the language you guys have wow you just did something you put 22s on the English language has tires that tune my language that's what you've gone with you know I don't under

stand

I was talking to this woman in the middle of each other The day she came up to me and wanted me to see something I don't know what even though she I was like, oh my gosh, look over there.

I told him to look how she is. she there are two of them I don't understand anything not even small words only the pronunciation you know small things that catch you for example I pronounce the opposites of uncle as aunt I say my aunt here you say my aunt who for me is an insect that made me look like a jerk when my friend told me his ant was dead and i was like there are tons of those out there what a great way to end the friendship i couldn't get help the other day when i was looking for a battery for my remote because that's what i say battery a small form of energy like in america you say battery which to me is a different form of energy sponsored by chris brown and you know what i understand we live on different sides of the world so its ok the language will evolve this It's something I've come to but I hope I've changed one thing in your hearts forever just one thing and that's that wild animal that looks like a horse it has black and white stripes yes do me a favor from now on please it's not zebra ok it's zebra just like it's not debra it's deborah same word structure plus you can't name them because you don't have them zebra this is crazy everything here is different you know how hard it is learn when you come here you have to change everything there is a measurement system which is only i mean america you have your own imperial system you know on my side of the world we use the metric system and by my side i mean the rest of the world you know where is the metric system which is, among other things, very efficient it's a very simple process you know everything goes into each other and here you have the imperial system which is fine i mean i won't judge you if you want to be imaginary that's up to you, but I feel like there's some consistency that needs little things like, uh, when we abbreviate our little measure to milligrams, we use mg milligrams mg milligrams and you guys have ounces ounces which you then abbreviate or z there's no z in the word ounces i don't know that pales in comparison to what you've done with pounds that to me please explain how the abbreviation for pounds became lbs lb pounds i sound like the idiot who walks into the store saying can i have both? labs bag of sugar i was like if you mean pounds i said i don't see the p no i don't see j well it means pounds are not pounds a lot of that is what it means this is horrible i love it i have a have no problem with these things .

I will learn them. I'm willing to take this in stride because that's not why I came to America. Not to analyze the English language. No, I came to America because I always wanted one thing and that is me. i always wanted to be black you laugh but it's true yes that's all i ever wanted i grew up in south africa during a time known as apartheid and for those who don't know apartheid was a law in south africa that made it illegal for blacks and whites to interact with each other , you know if you did that then you would get in trouble for example like a young black girl sitting here with the white man if you did this in South Africa then they would get arrested guys you couldn't. t during apartheid you couldn't arrest the black girl they just ask you not to do it again and such and such this is awkward for me because i grew up in a mixed family you know well i am the mixed one in the family huh my mother she's a black south african woman and my father is swiss from switzerland so he was a white man and basically good he's still a white man it's not like he's changed so i said through hard work and determination he will turned black which is not no that guy is looking at me how is it possible no is no sir ok ok 100 ok his position of privilege is just as it was though it would be something if he could work that hard you turned black that would just be right?

It would change the workplace forever to see guys walking into his office talking to the boss jeremiah I think I'm going to take a few days off I uh I don't know sorry C'mon yeah I've been putting in some overtime and I don't know man, just yeah yeah look I mean the wife loves it but I can't take the chance I just filled out a new loan application and my credit looks great so I'm taking a few days off yes yes no it's ok sir he's still alive my father is still alive and he's still very very white uh from Switzerland my mother has a woman from South Africa yes and they got together during this time that it was against the law, but they didn't care, you know, they were mavericks, they were just, you know, they fought the man.

Well you know how the Swiss loved chocolate so he was there and they got together and had me which was illegal so I was born a crime which is something they never thought about because as a family we could. We don't normally live together, you know, like on the streets, my dad had to walk across the road, he could wave at me from afar like a creepy pedophile and then my mom could walk with me, but if the police showed up, then. she would have to let go of my hand let go of me and act like i'm not hers every time so we don't get caught be like woo should be like i don't know it was horrible i felt like a bag of weed and one of the punishments for this crime was that i never they gave me a race they never called me black they never called me white they gave me horrible names like mixed race and mutt and half cast and you know it was a horrible time for me and one fateful day i will never forget it i met an american in south africa and he he told me, well, you know, Trevor, it's funny that you say that because if you come to the United States, you will be labeled as black. he said really and he was like hell yeah oh yeah everyone's black out there I was like wow ok I want to be black and I found out it's true that mixed race people are classified as black in America, yes, the only traps and no one tells you this. you have to like and succeed first before they say you mix you achieve success and they upgrade you to black all the famous mixed people do it singers like alicia keys and mariah carey yes mixed but then they say black singers huh jocks like tiger woods mixed but then they say the black golfer is the most famous mixed person on the planet by far Barack Obama a half and half mix right down the middle but then they say he's the first black president of America which is interesting because when he was running he was called by the mixed candidates, I see how. it works everyone makes it obvious now they say yes barack of course she won of course it wasn't so obvious when he started it wasn't it i remember comedians would come out they used to insult him guys would come on stage and be like man how many see to that crazy coed idiot running for president?

Did you all see that full mixed race of a president? What are they going to see? man the whites gonna vote for a dummy joint even a black man we can even a hot black bacon some men's food thinking he's gonna do it man that mixed food that crazy ass mixed food have some mixed food that mixed food and then he won and all of a sudden they were just like mine so i see how it works you know i understand to go black i have to work hard and i'm willing to do the time yeah i took the first chance i was able to buy myself a ticket from plane from south africa and i said i'm going to america i'm going there and i'm going to be black and i got on that plane it was an 18 hour flight 18 hours of non-stop flying and i sat in my chair and spent every moment practicing being black, just practicing, I was like I ain't gonna mess up this black attunity I just sat there working on everything I was watching every noir movie and the tv show is going on yeah yeah yeah you know I mean you know I mean yeah , king kong don't affect me yeah what you talking about willis i was just i was grinding you laughed but 18 hour flight and i landed at jfk and i was fluent my black american foreshizzled my nizzle was just coming out so black even i was laughing it was like my man should have seen me like this oh this you this you that has to be the epitome of cool in my opinion there is nothing cooler this is black americans are so cool they can make you feel good about you same by just asking if it's you you don't believe me ask a black American man to come up to you and just say hey hey hey right? this you this you this you and you will be like i think its magic i was that nigger not just any nigger but the coolest black in the world and thats nigger american i can say this with confidence being from africa i know nigger i am well versed in the arts of black i'm from the black factory i'm serious i've seen all kinds of black from light black to navy black i know i know black and there ain't no cooler black than american black nothing cooler ya know why american blacks i mean that just you look at how much they have done to influence modern pop culture you know little things and the big ones how you look at the music you have you know jazz hip-hop r b all the black american clothing styles you know this general swag they have brought to everything , even to little things like walking, I mean, walking is such a mundane activity, isn't it?

It's just a very this is very there's nothing cool about this you just move from place to place and almost everyone can do it this is this is it there's nothing and then the African Americans came along and then they added that bounce and then and all of a sudden you look really cool you just know you look like you have a purpose you just have that yeah look this is cool and it must be hard for a murderer to kill you that's why if you look in american history not a black man was ever murdered while i was walking that's ever when they stopped and said something bang that's when they left cuz they got the ride that's why if you look at obama every time he gets off planes or gives a speech he always has that little bounce just before because in his head it's like you never know never know never know I listened to African Americans and it's the most amazing use of the English language I've ever come across because they don't paint any punctuation.

The sentences are crossed. It's fantastic. The first time I ever had a conversation with a black man I was in baltimore maryland this guy came up to me after the show he didn't even walk he just floated him he just walked up to me like hey oh baby hey You, let me scream at you for a minute, man, let me scream at you. he said he's alright he's like man i'm not even going to be the leader i'm not even going to be the leader i came here dude i even know who you were man i didn't even know i listened to the show.

I bought my girl. We were out there. you went out there you were doing your thing i was just like you man i even know they got fucking yellow bones out there in the mother country man i was just like you this kid better be fun man but i ain't gonna lie you went out there you was doing what you came keeping it moving you were just beating i was like alright man maybe this guy is the truth i got flow to show you know what i mean and i said no but i love it its the most amazing use of english i have ever come across , just that word alone, just the strength of it nothing means You know what I mean just sums it up, isn't it just that you know?

No questions or statements. Is this like why we've been fooling around with syllables for so long? I don't understand. Today was a crazy day. I told them they were crying y'know I'm serious it just flows it's magical it says it all I feel like I've wasted years of my life without a meme I wish I could go back in time and relive my favorite moments. watch my favorite movies again i've seen them brought to life this is sparta na mean power let's give her something you know i want to take that word home with me to africa i hope i hope and i pray that one day i have a daughter just so i can name her name you know no because it sounds soundsexotic and foreign has got got that thing will you be like

trevor

who is that oh this is my girl nah i mean she just got it you know its wonderful just back off i bet even the greats like shakespeare would have loved to use that word they say who made up more words than anyone but i don't mean oh i bet he's in his grave saying i wish i did you can see him in one of those great plays on the manchester stage and london stage actors they were walking around with their big necks ah yeah prometheus and here he comes flying i'm a humble actor's son na mean that's the magic that's what it was man it was so black you should have . i caught myself walking through the airport yelling random things brooklyn i don't even know where that was super black ah so this guy came up to me and said oh yeah daddy say what you man we did it man we made it and now that we are our kind we have to stick together man of our kind 18 hours of flight and still not black was puerto rican