Here’s the thing, I don’t know why anyone should care what anyone wears when they’re on their way to help people.

Trevor Noah

Categorized in : Opinion

We all do that as human beings, you know? It's what my mom would call shopping on an empty stomach. You're going to buy food that you shouldn't because, at the time, you are reacting to your hunger.

hunger shopping mom

I think it's despicable. I also think it's frightening that we seem to live through history over and over again. And I don't know if I'm the only one. I feel like, when you read through history books, you always judge those people in that time.

book people thinking

My mom would spend a week in jail. She would spend a day in jail here - a week again, a week and a half, two weeks. My grandmother tells me stories of how because I would be at the house, I wouldn't notice that my mom was gone because she would be at work sometimes. So it was just like time when my mom would be gone and my grandma would tell me she'll be back. And nobody knew where anybody was.

grandmother grandma mom

I think it does because if you think of where "The Daily Show" was when I inherited it from Jon Stewart, I was in a space where, essentially, everything seemed like it was on track, you know, in terms of - from a progressive point of view, you know, you're looking at Republicans who, yes, were in control of many facets of government.

government views thinking

If I could get an honest answer, I would ask Trump. "How much money would you want in order to leave the presidency?" Because I think he would have a number, strangely enough. Then we'd know how much to launch the Kickstarter for.

honest enough thinking

The police didn't afford you a phone call. You just disappeared for a while. And what was scary was we lived in a state where some people disappeared forever.

phones scary people

It's the reason the United States fell into the Patriot Act - bec... by Trevor Noah

It's the reason the United States fell into the Patriot Act - because they were reacting.

united-states patriot reason

When I was learning how to box, that was the number one thing my trainer taught me. He said you can't get angry at every single time I hit you because that's why you're here. You're going to get hit. Acknowledge that you're going to get hit and now focus on how you're going to fight properly. And living through the times is exactly the right way to put it because I have seen a slice of this only on a different continent.

focus fighting numbers

Now everyone has eyes, and now everyone has evidence. That's really changed how we tell the news and what we get from it.

news changed eye

I've lived many places all over the world, so I've always seen my... by Trevor Noah

I've lived many places all over the world, so I've always seen myself as a citizen of the world.

I learned to use language like my mother did. I would simulcast, give you the program in your own tongue.

use mother giving

I just had - we had instances - like, for instance, when I turned 13, she threw me a bar mitzvah. But nobody came.But nobody came because nobody knew what the hell that was. I only had black friends. No one knows what the hell you're doing.

mitzvah bars black

So what you do [under apartheid system] is you convince black people that the reason they are being oppressed is because there are some within their community who just can't behave. And if only they could behave, then everyone else would have more freedoms and liberties, which, of course, is not true.

black community people

I'd get suspicious looks from people just walking down the streets. Where are you from? They'd ask. I'd reply in whatever language they'd addressed me in using the same accent that they used. There would be a brief moment of confusion, and then the suspicious look would disappear.

confusion would-be people

If you can't trust your president to get the right information on a Googleable fact, then can you really trust him with the harder stuff? Which, by the way, is everything else the president of the United States has to deal with.

information president stuff

It's very rare to find a place where news itself has a political bent. Normally, let's say in the U.K. for instance, newspapers might explicitly support one party or the other, but television is just straight-up facts that are not influenced by any party from either side. In South Africa we try to maintain the same thing. Unfortunately, the government sometimes intervenes, but for the most part, the facts are the facts.

support party government

One of the people from my online team said he didn't notice - almost immediately after the [Donald] Trump victory within the following days, he noticed that there was a severe spike in hateful messages that were coming towards me.

victory team people

I hate using this term [miracle]. I'm a man of science. I'm a doctor. I don't use this word. But he said, it's a miracle your mom's alive.

In America, to have news that has explicitly taken a position is a very strange place to be in, and it's a very dangerous place to be in. And that's happening on Facebook, as you saw, and that's happening online. People are just being given their news and not the news, which is really, really scary.

strange-places taken america

I always say to people, you know - someone goes, oh, well, what are you going to do about terrorist attacks and Muslims? We got to do something. And I go, don't let those in power trick you out of your freedoms by using your fear.

tricks oh-well people