Political correctness, not bigotry, to blame for Trevor Noah's Twitter critics

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Trevor Noah, the biracial South African comedian who was recently tapped to replace Jon Stewart on The Daily Show is the latest to come under fire for controversial “bigoted” and offensive remarks.

It seems like every week we hear about someone saying hateful things in an email, in a tweet, a recorded conversation or video. Many of these recent slips of the tongue were never intended for public consumption – Oklahoma University Chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, LA Clippers former owner Donald Sterling, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Riley Cooper – to name a few. Millenial Wonder Woman, Lena Dunham recently came under fire for supposed anti-Semitic comments in her ‘Dog or Jewish Boyfriend’ Quiz in New Yorker magazine.

Noah’s controversy involves Twitter. Over the course of the last five years or so, Noah has posted some tweets that has over the past 24 hours caused significantly more than 140 characters to question his character:

In 2009, he tweeted:

Almost bumped a Jewish kid crossing the road. He didn’t look b4 crossing but I still would hav felt so bad in my german car!

In 2010:

South Africans know how to recycle like israel knows how to be peaceful.

In 2012:

I’m watching Olympic women’s hockey. It’s like lesbian porn. Without the porn. #InLove.

In 2014:

Manchester United is like a white girl. Heavy upfront but lacking in the back.

As you can see, Noah is an equal opportunity offender, but the difference is that he is a comedian. If there is any doubt about this then just check out his bio line on Twitter – “Comedian from South Africa. I was in the crowd when Rafiki held Simba over the edge of the cliff, like an African Michael Jackson.”

It’s his job to make light of the things that we take seriously, to make us uncomfortable, to make us laugh at ourselves and others and maybe even provide a platform for discussion among and between different groups about the sensitive stereotypical land mines that occupy the line of demarcation between groups that can cause collateral damage and casualties.

Is this a case of people trying to find a justifiable reason to keep Comedy Central from replacing two of the most powerful cultural figures in television, Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart with black men – Larry Wilmore and Trevor Noah respectively?

In this case it doesn’t really matter because the attack is being mounted under the banner of political correctness which is unfounded here because Noah is who we thought he was – a comedian. Have we come to the point where we are going to censor comedians and demand that they toe the line of political correctness? If so we are going to miss out on a perfect medium for dealing with all forms of bigotry.

Comedy is a powerful art form. One thing that makes comedy so powerful is the fact that it connects us to other human beings in ways that we thought we were unique. How many times have you heard a comedian tell a story about some mundane embarrassing unique aspect of their lives and as the comedian gets further and further into the story you realize that you’ve experienced the exact same thing yourself.

If you were in a live audience at the time there was probably a magical moment when you and everyone else there realized that the comedian had just connected you with an entire group of diverse people who were just like you in an area of your life that you thought was truly unique.

Almost every human being holds stereotypical, offensive or bigoted views of “others”. Stereotypes are just larger than life characterizations of some characteristic or trait of a group that is grounded in some truth. The problem for our society is when people take the stereotype to be the gospel truth and act accordingly.

Feeling a certain way about an individual or a group is one thing but acting on that feeling is quite another. Comedy can help debunk the universality of the myth of the stereotype through irony and absurdity, but you have to be willing to sometimes strap in for an uncomfortable and often bumpy ride.

Comedy Central’s brand of satirical news is a very persuasive and powerful medium. Studies have shown that more and more young people get their news from satirical shows like The Daily Show. So it would seem that the above makes a good case for the new host of The Daily Show not to be one who has posted or posts politically incorrect tweets. Quite the contrary.

The new host needs to be free to make fun and light of as many of the -ism’s that he can and sometimes make us all uncomfortable in the process. And, it will be even more powerful if that host is representative of as many “other” categories as possible.

His mom is half-Jewish by the way. Noah’s brand of humor when used in the proper context will keep moving us closer to the overall goal of disarming the stereotype arsenal and helping us move towards the peaceful place of understanding that as humans we are more alike than we are different. Political correctness often only helps keep up the walls of difference.

If we as black folks want to stand up for Trevor Noah and his “right” to be an equal opportunity offender in the name of comedy, which I do by the way, then we must also realize that the equal opportunity comedy offender highway is a two way street.

We can’t have it both ways. We can’t call for the heads of white comedians who make stereotypical black jokes and even use the n-word on one hand and then criticize those calling for Trevor Noah’s head on the other hand.

That’s not to say that some of the motivations for some people calling for a pound of Noah’s flesh from Comedy Central is not rooted in race. It may very well be, but in this case we have to deal with the issues at face value.

The best defense for Noah is an argument against political correctness not an argument that the only reason they’re criticizing his tweets is because “they” don’t want another black man to replace an outgoing white anchor on the network.

If your goal is to make a cogent argument on behalf of Mr. Noah you must make a winning argument.

Political correctness is to blame not racism!

Andre Kimo Stone Guess is a contributing writer for theGrio.com and cultural critic. He is a former CEO of the August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh and former VP and Producer for Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York. Follow him on Twitter – @aeducatedguess and visit his blog at aeducatedguess.com