Both Sides and Trevor Noah

If you don’t stand for something…

…you’ll fall for anything. At least that’s how the old saying goes. I’m not saying that Trevor Noah will fall for anything. But there is definitely at least one issue that he’s decided he’s going to ride the fence on… and it bothers me. It bothers me because I’d just recently begun to cultivate a healthy respect for the (now) popular comedian.

I watched his performance at The White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I didn’t watch it live. I ended up finding it on YouTube and watching it days later, not really expecting him to ‘wow’ me, or anything. I was hearing bits of buzz about how he had really taken some shots at his audience, and that seemed a little different than the mild mannered ‘nice’ comedian I had seen in comedy specials, so I was mildly curious.

And I was pleasantly surprised to find that nice guy Noah had indeed fired some real salty shots. He didn’t spare anyone; he had stinging little barbs for Biden and the democrats as well as Fox News and TFG. I thought his ‘set’ took some balls to deliver in the smooth and confident way he did, with the president just a few feet away, and the whole world watching. Seeing him like that made me think hey, maybe I’ve been too hasty to dismiss ole Trevor after all. The dude has some spine, and he’s not afraid to speak his mind.

My opinion of him up until that performance had been that he was someone whose appeal was being non-threatening — the “nice” black guy that you could trust. I didn’t appreciate the way he seemed to work too hard to ingratiate himself with people like the bubble-headed right wing blonde Tomi Lahren. He had only impressed me as someone whose priority was just maintaining his niche as squarely in the middle of everybody and good black buddy to all. Sort of like Whoopi Goldberg. I have a whole other story about her, but I digress.

So now that I had gained this new respect for the man; now that I was again open to listening to what he had to say, because now I felt like he might actually have some worthwhile things to say… It was in this state of mind that I came across his interview with Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes. The segment of the interview in question was when he was asked about Chappelle and the lgbtq+ community. Stahl asked Noah “In your mind did he (Chappelle) cross the line?” Here’s Noah’s response, word for word (I include Stahl’s follow-up):

“Did Dave Chappelle cross the line? Yes/No? It…