Everyone on this staff is white, certainly not by design, we all just came together, and it happened to be that way. And there’s always danger in talking about African American causes speaking as white people because you cannot really get it until you experience it. But that doesn’t mean we cannot or should not talk about it. It should just come with an acknowledgment. We really can’t know until walking in one’s shoes.

One of the most innocuous things about being what the conservatives now call “woke” (And someday, we’ll have a long talk with the liberal that invented the term and all the damage it has done) is simply the acknowledgment that race infuses itself into every significant issue in the country, from education to environmentalism. Conservatives deny it. Liberals see it as obvious.

Trevor Noah sees it as obvious in the United States but much, much harder to fight because it’s denied. In the clip below, you will see Noah asked questions by the audience, likely before taping the show (It seems like all hosts do this, and that seems awfully nice, and it is a way to warm up the crowd for them). A woman – who we came to find out is a teacher – asked Noah the difference between racism in South Africa and racism in America.

Noah borrowed back from the apartheid past to make his point that much stronger. He said that the racism in South Africa is clear and not denied. “You can’t live there!” and he says, “But that’s racist!” and the answer is “Yes.” Whereas in the United States, a black person can ask for a mortgage in a primarily white neighborhood and get the same result, but it’s all covered up as if it is not racist, giving them deniability. He notes that it makes it much harder to fight.

Noah might have been at his absolute most brilliant, and it wasn’t even on the air. This is a “woke” message that everyone needs to hear:

What’s the difference between racism in South Africa and racism in America? It comes down to directness. #BetweenTheScenes pic.twitter.com/KhsHUoP0y4

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) April 28, 2022

Absolutely wonderfully said and tragically sad.

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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, with Nicole Hickman