…how the fuck would you know?
So it doesn’t suddenly make it less racist-as-fuck.
Jesus fucking Christ. There are actual Nazis and right wing populists in ascendancy all over the world and people are worried about what some lefty comedian said? Fight the real fucking enemy.
I was fine with treating this like a joke he said years ago and didn’t support today. I was even fine with interpreting it as not having racist intent. But then Noah chose to address it. And, in doing so, that asshole chose to give the same fucking bullshit response that racists give.
Take his logic. It was acceptable South Africa. So let’s say he went down to the South in the US and made some n-word jokes in crowds where that is acceptable. Would people be giving him a pass then? Hell no. Let’s say he made some faggot jokes in the 1980s, in the places where people loved them. Would he get a pass now if he refused to repudiate them?
He could have easily handled this by acting the same way he does in everything else and just apologized for the joke, saying he gets why it is offensive and that he wouldn’t make the same joke today. But he refused that simple thing. He claims that it’s because comedians shouldn’t apologize–but then he’s apologized before. So he clearly doesn’t actually mean that. It’s just an excuse.
And then he tries the pitiful “Woe is me!” bullshit, claiming that people just refuse to try and understand. He pulls out the “people just want to be angry” excuse. You know, that excuse. The one used by people who say garbage things and then flip it around to where you’re wrong because you are offended. Fuck that excuse and fuck anyone who uses it.
The only saving grace would be if this article is misrepresenting things. Assuming this is as described, and Noah does not repudiate it ASAP, then this is it. I can watch my late night political comedy from literally everyone else, as they can at least apologize when their jokes are too offensive. What little chance I had of tuning back in (after several decent things I saw) will completely evaporate.
And if anyone manufactured the outrage, it was him by saying this shit. If you think you’ve covered it all, then just shut your mouth, rather than make it worse. The second you blame the people who are upset, you’re the one trying to piss people off.
Trevor Noah is a wealthy media personality with his own TV show. His reach, wealth, power, and, yes, privilege far outstrips that of literally any aboriginal person. Name me one aboriginal Australian who has anywhere near the impact Trevor Noah has. Even by your definition of racism (and I really wish we’d find a new word to describe that because any definition by which three black men beat a white man to death because he’s white isn’t “racism” because of privilege or some shit is a shite definition of racism that most people aren’t going to understand), this joke was hella racist.
Oh. So you’re trolling then. I mean, that’s a bit of a surprise, I thought you weren’t a a fucking tool. Like, this legitimately comes as a surprise to me; I know you mostly as a pretty reasonable person. Consider my expectations adjusted.
I didn’t find that joke funny. I’m willing to bet that most aboriginal people who heard that joke didn’t find that joke funny. It’s slightly wittier than “How do you starve a mexican? Put their food stamps under their work boots”, but I don’t find it funny. Y’know why? Because the punchline doesn’t make sense unless you accept, as a premise, that aboriginal women are ugly. Because that’s the joke.
And even beyond that, the joke reinforces that premise. It reinforces ugly and nasty stereotypes in our minds, reminds us of the stereotype that aboriginal woman are ugly. It punches down.
This really isn’t harmless fun. Media helps us understand reality, and part of that understanding is shaped by the premises we take in through media. What jokes people make unironically helps tell us about what premises they accept in reality. And that’s without even getting into all the uncomfortable shit “Nanette” talks about.
Really? My read on the joke is that it’s entirely implicit that there are no attractive aboriginal people. That’s the only way the punchline makes sense.
Oh hey the best objection of the lot of them. Part of me really, really wants to say “If the person who dug up dirt on you is Mike Cernovic, your dirt arbitrarily does not count”, because Cernovic is just the fucking worst, and the point here is not “make the world better” but “score political points and make their own irredeemable bullshit look better by comparison”. Great articles on it from Vox and Bob “Moviebob” Chipman.
That said… The reason we’re better than them isn’t party affiliation. It’s that we actually are better than them. Our values are better for society and the world. To the degree that they even have values that are consistent, those values are toxic and dangerous and tend to lead past the gates of Auschwitz. And part of “being the good guys” means standing up for those values. It means that when people on our side fuck up, we have to rebuke them, we have to be consistent. We don’t have to be incorrigible puritans, but if making racist jokes is not okay, we should damn well expect that if someone in “our tribe” made a racist joke, they understand why that’s wrong and apologize.
This joke is small potatoes. The non-apology is slightly larger potatoes. I don’t think any particular action is necessary against Noah. But the responses here seem like wagon-circling.
…I’ve posted in more than my fair share of threads condemning the Trump regime over the last 2-3 years. If you want to start yet another thread to “fight the actual Nazis and right wing populists in ascendancy all over the world” then feel free to open another fucking thread about it. For fucks sakes there are no shortage of them on the boards.
So I don’t need your fucking permission to open a thread that isn’t centred on the orange-buffoon or his minions. The “real enemy” is complacency. Its normalising the hate. Its letting racism go because its said by “one of the good guys.” Those “people who are worried about what some lefty comedian said” are one of the most marginalised and abused populations on the planet. They are speaking up and they have a right to speak up and they shouldn’t shut up because you guys collectively elected the most stupid person on the planet to the most powerful position in the world.
Trump was America’s fault. They allowed this to happen. I’ll do everything in my power to oppose him because Trump represents everything I stand against. But he isn’t my responsibility. Don’t you tell me what I can and can’t speak up about. This is the fucking pit, its the place we come to rant. If you are so sensitive that you can’t handle this thread then the pit probably isn’t the place for you.
Can I just say that Noah can fuck right off with his but it’s funny in South Africa bullshit. He’s saying that the joke was ok because South Africans are racist. Fuck you Trevor Noah.
I like Noah, more for his social commentary than his humor, so I find both his “joke” and weak apology disappointing.
My first thoughts reading that poor excuse for humor were:
- That’s not funny.
- That’s disappointing.
- Wot?
I mean, I kow it’s beside the point, or maybe even counterpoint in regards to discussion of the joke’s offensiveness, but even from a purely objectifying perspective, it’s just wrong. There are some truly drop-dead gorgeous aboriginal women. There are some bloody handsome aboriginal men.
But again, that ain’t the problem.
That is.
And that too.
As I said, I do like Noah, and I generally like what he does. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, and I doubt his joke came from a place of meanness, but that doesn’t change the hurtfulness of it, or the ugliness of the misogamist ideas upon which it’s based.
I’m not willing to condemn him over this one issue, but I am disappointed, and I hope he’ll reflect on the backlash and take it as an opportunity to do better.
Interesting. Most Canadians I deal with use First Nations. I’ve heard the term “aboriginal peoples”, meaning the people who were someplace first, but not aborigine referring to anyone but Australian aboriginal peoples.
If I wanted to find a really short, pithy example of white privilege, I think Asahi telling Banquet Bear what he’s allowed to find racist would be a pretty decent start.
Thanks for posting that article.
It’s well worth the read.
More wit than Noah’s attempt at humor, and more depth than most of his social commentary.
Relative privation fallacy, aisle five. Can I get a clean up on aisle five?
Disgusting joke, and a shitty apology, IMO. Hopefully Noah will recognize this and do better.
…I mean seriously, WTF? My jaw literally dropped while read I read that post. Then I burst out laughing. But my favourite bit was when Asahi said “I’ve already won the debate.” 
(Or it could have been Tee’s “I’m hoping I don’t miss the reply.” ) 
Almost all of us would fail if judged by our worst action or utterance. Even those of you who will say “I’ve never said anything offensive in my life” probably did say something that, unbeknownst to you, would severely offend some people.
This is particularly a problem for comics: there’s often a thin line between humor and giving offense.
This was understood in the olden days, and occasional bad deeds or bad words were tolerated. But toleration is not a word in the vocabulary of post-rational progressives. George Washington owned almost 300 slaves and leased another 40 — I’m surprised he is still featured on the $1 bill. (GW was from the South, but the North isn’t exempt: some of the “Boston Brahmin” made their early fortunes trading Rhode Island rum for African slaves.)
In a recent thread about Joe Biden, Dopers thought plagiarism charges were important, despite that the “scandal” was both defensible and more than 30 years ago. In an obituary thread for Pete Seeger someone thought it important to mention that this great American activist and hero was once a member of the Communist Party. In a future thread for Trevor Noah, some will find the aborigine joke to be the most important thing to mention.
Bah. Take your obsessions and intolerances and go away!
Was Noah’s joke racist and in poor taste? Yes. Does he regret it? Probably. Should he apologize for it? Perhaps, but he is worried about a slippery slope: since jokes by their very nature are often offensive to some he may soon need to apologize after every joke!
Do all of those asking Noah to apologize to aborigines also want Noah, Bee, Colbert etc. to apologize for their rude jokes about the mentally disadvantaged supporters of DJT?
…either cite the joke you think deserves an apology or fuck the fuck off. There have been enough bad takes in this thread: it doesn’t need another.
This is a wonderful case for all right wingers looking for examples to cite as “but it’s ok if liberals do it”
Here’s how it works. If you want to claim that you’re better then the other side, you have to hold yourself to a higher standard than they do. Would anyone give Roseanne Barr a pass if she’d said "It’s one of those things where, if you were to make the joke again you would probably make it better.”
As many times as people find a shitty offensive joke you made on the record, Trevor. You can spend at least as much time apologizing for the shitty offensive jokes as you spent making them, can’t you?
He’s acting like it’s a huge imposition to ask him to apologize. Nobody is asking him to walk to Our Lady of Guadelupe on his knees. Nobody is asking him to pluck out his right eye. He doesn’t need to donate all his worldly possessions to the poor and retire to a cave for a life of contemplation.
Fuckin apologize. A really good apology is gonna take maybe an hour to craft, but an acceptable one will take less than two minutes. “You know, I shouldn’t have said that. I was younger, and stupider, and didn’t always think about the effect of making jokes that furthered shitty stereotypes. I really regret making that joke, and I’m trying to do better these days.” Bam, done.
“How many times will people ask” indeed. Trevor, just fuckin make the apology. Don’t be a baby about it.
And therein lies the differences.
Somebody like Roseanne Barr is being excoriated for something she said yesterday. As in, she “apologized” for her remarks and then literally made them again almost in the same news cycle.
Trevor Noah is being excoriated (rightly) for not sufficiently apologizing yesterday for something he did years ago and wouldn’t do again now.
But apparently, we need to react to both with the same level of moral outrage or we are terrible people. Or something like that.
Often when things are apparent it’s because someone has said them–or because there’s something, anything, that counts as evidence for the apparent thing. Is this one of those times, where there’s any reason whatsoever to consider this “apparent”?
Sometimes when things are “apparent,” it’s because you’ve pulled it out of your ass. Is that what’s going on here?
From my perspective, Barr’s idiocy is far, far worse than Noah’s. But we don’t live in the world where only the biggest asshole needs to shape up. It’s possible for most of us to hold multiple thoughts in our head at once, like this:
- Barr engaged in inexcusable behavior, and her apology for it is shitty and stupid.
- Noah also said something bad–not as bad as Barr, but still bad–and his reason for not apologizing is shitty and stupid.
- There’s little way for Barr to get back into good graces. If Noah maintains his stupid non-apologizing attitude, I’ll roll my eyes and have a little less respect for him.
I like Trevor Noah. Clips from the Daily Show are a part of my bedtime ritual. But he needs to apologize and stop trying to be an edgy dickface.