Trevor Noah offers a refreshing brand of humor

Trevor Noah was born in South Africa from a black mother from Soweto and a white Swiss father. His parents’ interracial relationship was illegal under apartheid, which made his mixed culture not so popular in his neighborhood. His childhood forced him to coexist with cultures, languages and people entirely different from his own.

Instead of turning prejudice into more prejudice, Noah took what he learned growing up and turned it into intelligent humor.

Noah grew to be one of the most, if not the most, successful and loved comedians in South Africa. He hosted his own show there, Tonight with Trevor Noah, for two years. He has since performed across the world, from Late Show with David Letterman to the Sydney Opera House, was a contributor for Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show in 2012 and got drafted to The Daily Show in December.

On March 30, Trevor Noah was announced as Jon Stewart’s successor for The Daily Show. Though some used the announcement to celebrate his accomplishments and welcome a new, younger voice to The Daily Show, there were others who weren’t as confident in his abilities and took it upon themselves to rummage through his Twitter.

The tweets that they found were not appealing. In fact, they were very offensive. The notion that these tweets make Trevor Noah unqualified for the job, however, is closed-minded.

Noah said in a documentary that throughout his life, he has felt that his mixed race has caused him to be perpetually excluded. He has come to realize that when “you’ve lived everywhere and nowhere, and you’ve been everyone and no one … you can say everything and nothing and that’s really what affects my comedy and everything I say.”

Noah is known for being one of the more tame South African comedians. Kagiso Lediga, a fellow South African comedian told The Atlantic that Noah has “always been the most clean, polite comic on stage. He’s the one you’d take your mom to watch.” He doesn’t target audience members or curse, and mostly mimics to portray, not to ridicule.

As a man from a mixed background in a mixed and formerly legally bigoted country, Noah has an acutely unique perspective on our globalized world. He is known for his ability to speak to the humanity in everyone, to cross lines of race and culture and make any audience laugh.

To look at these few tweets and call him a bigot ignores Noah’s background. It claims, without evidence, that he has not grown as a comedian and person since the tweets were written. There are very few comedians who would be still in business if we deemed them illegitimate when a few unsettling jokes they made in the past didn’t land. Noah is not a bigot. Talking about bigotry and being a bigot are two separate things, and surely an organization as established, not to mention as progressive, as The Daily Show has already vetted him thoroughly in that regard.

If Noah makes lowbrow, humorless jokes on The Daily Show, you can be sure they’ll cut him loose. But that’s not what he’ll do. His international perspective, youth and sensitivity with his audience will skyrocket his success. While he might have never felt a true sense of belonging anywhere, Noah is just what The Daily Show needs. One can only hope Comedy Central can give him the stage he’s been searching for.

Claire Cahoon is a sophomore majoring in English. “Point/Counterpoint” runs Tuesdays.