- What I do when I travel is I try to speak to people
in their accent and see if they can catch me out.
That's one of my favorite games.
Like I'd walk into a store in Edinburgh
and I'd just be like, "Good afternoon.
I would like to buy a pair of shoes."
They'd be like, "Where are you from?"
"I'm from Scotland."
"Aye, what part?"
"Johannesburg."
(audience laughs)
When people say they don't like immigrants,
most of the time, they're not referring to immigrants
who look and sound like them.
They're talking about immigrants who speak differently,
who look different, you know?
Cause an accent comes with a connotation.
You think you know if someone is smart or stupid
because of their accent.
And yet the truth is an accent
is not a measure of intelligence,
it's just someone speaking your language
with the rules of theirs.
Accents have connotations, we cannot deny it.
Look at the French.
We all believe that the French are romantic.
Why?
Because of their accent.
They've got that thing.
"Duu..."
"I was thinking that maybe we could duu...
How you say, afterwards, maybe we could try to uhh..."
"Oh my God, he's so sexy, oh my God."
Accents determine how we see people.
Same thing happens with the Russians.
The Russians, the most feared people on the planet.
Why?
Because of how they speak.
I don't care who you are, you cannot deny
that when a Russian speaks, you are not comfortable.
(audience laughs)
Soon as they open their mouth.
"Yeah, go to kill you, break you."
"And destroy your family."
Even if they say nice things,
it still sounds menacing and dangerous.
"Yeah, fluff it up with some teddy bears.
Happy Valentine's Day."
It sounds like a threat.
You must remember, I come from an African country
and all over Africa, we have traffic lights,
but we don't use them.
It's less of a command and more of a suggestion.
It's not "stop!" It's "stop?"
It's almost like an African traveled the world,
saw that other people had traffic lights
and then just brought them back,
but didn't know what they were for.
Like, the guy was just like, "Guys, guys, guys,
we need to get traffic lights, ah?"
And people were like, "What for?"
"It's for the intersection, it adds atmosphere."
(audience laughs)
I went to Bali on vacation, yeah.
Out in Indonesia. If you've never been,
make a plan and get out there, it's an amazing place.
I went out with some of my friends,
learned a few things about myself as a person.
Most important thing I learned is somebody needs to invent
a TripAdvisor specifically for Black people, right?
No, because just generally I find that
what white people wanna do on vacation,
is what Black people are trying to escape.
And not in a bad way, it's just like,
we want different things out of life, you know?
Like my white friends are always inviting me camping,
for instance, always.
Like with enthusiasm, they will all be like,
"Trevor, you wanna go camping, dude?"
I'm like, "Why?"
"Why?"
He's like, "Dude, what do you mean why?
It's amazing, you're kidding me.
it's like no water, no electricity, you know?
It's just like us in the great outdoors.
You like, you gotta like take a dump in like in the hole,
in the floor or something, dude."
"I'm like, yeah, that was my life.
That was me growing up."
You know how hard I worked to never go camping again.
Every day.
(audience cheers)
Every day.
Every day I wake up in my bed and I'm like,
"Thank God I'm not camping."
If my family saw pictures of me camping,
they would be devastated.
My grandmother saw me out in the woods she'd be like,
"Oh, what happened to Trevor?
I thought he was successful.
Oh, it must be the crack (cries)."
Before we went I asked my friend, I was like,
"Yo, Mitch, what are we gonna be doing?"
And he was like, "Dude, don't ask questions Trevor,
it's just gonna be a great time."
I was like, "Yeah, I wanna know what the great time
is gonna be about."
He was like, "Dude, don't ask questions."
I should have asked questions.
Cause we had fun.
But the trip, like there were a few things that were weird
that I wouldn't necessarily do on my own.
For instance, on the third day of the trip, right.
We had what was planned, was billed in our itinerary
as an authentic Balinese experience, right?
That's what they call it, an authentic Balinese experience.
And what they did was they woke us up at 5:00 AM,
put us in a little bus and we drove for like three hours
and we got there, get off the bus, we're like
in the middle of it, it's like a remote village
and the little tour guide really happy, way too happy
for that time.
And he's just like, "Welcome, everybody,
are you ready for a good time?"
And I'm like, "Yay."
And so he's like, "My name is Dang Basan.
And I'm going to be your guide.
Today, you will have an authentic Balinese experience.
So exciting, follow me."
And so we follow him and he walks up to a little door
and I'm like, "Oh, okay, this is gonna be like a temple
or a cave or something.
And he's like,
"Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the real Bali."
And he opens the door into somebody's house.
This is not a museum house, this is just a house.
Like someone lives there every single day.
He opens the door and he's like,
"This is the home of someone in Bali.
He eats here, he sleeps here."
I'm like, "Does he know we're here?"
(audience laughs)
Because like we didn't knock.
Nobody answered the door.
For all I know we're breaking and entering right now.
We're in some weird Balinese gang.
I don't know how this works.
And as I'm about to ask the question, he turns
and he's like, "Over here, you can see the owner
of the house, he's in the corner."
And we turn and there's a man, the whole time.
He was just sitting there, frozen stiff.
And now I'm like, "Is this guy part of this?
I don't know if we should be doing this
or should not be doing this."
And Dang Basan turns to him,
he starts speaking to him in Balinese.
And he's like, (mimics Balinese)
He's like, "Okay, you can touch anything."
And so I'm like, "Oh no, I don't think we should-"
Before I can even finish the people in our tour group
were like, "Yeah, touch it all.
Oh my God, touch it all.
Oh my God.
Does he sleep here?
Oh wow, is this where he eats?
Oh my God, I can never do this.
Oh my God.
Excuse me, thank you so much for having us.
Oh my God, I appreciate my life so much more right now.
Thank you so much, this is horrible.
Can we take a selfie?
Thank you, are you on Instagram?
I'll just put hashtag the man, thank you.
Oh my God."
This is like something culturally,
I'm not supposed to be doing.
As an African person, I should not be in somebody's house,
rummaging through their life.
So I'm standing in the corner really uncomfortable.
And the owner of the house, he's really accommodating,
he's friendly.
You know, he's like, "Yes, thank you, enjoy, enjoy,
thank you."
And then he turns and he looks at me
and this was one of the most magical moments, right?
Because he was smiling at everyone else,
and his face completely changed when he turned.
He was a little hospitable, he's like,
"Yes, thank you, thank you-"
(audience laughs)
And with his eyes,
he proceeded to have the most in-depth conversation with me
that I've ever had.
And it's not like the eyes conversation was new to me.
Like you can have an eyes conversation with anyone
you have a connection with, you know what I'm talking about?
Like, it could be somebody of the same race
when you're in public.
It could be like a husband and wife,
like wives are really good at having eyes conversations.
Like they'll like shit on you hard.
Like you'll be in public together
and then you'll say something off, you'll be like,
"If only she did that."
And she'd be like, "Oh hell no,
I cannot believe you said."
But it's just eyes,
"I cannot believe you said all of that.
Wait until the next, oh, you wanna air our dirty laundry
out in public.
Oh, you're gonna see how this is gonna end up.
Oh, you say this and enjoy this moment right now.
Cause you know, it's over."
And you're like, "Yeah, I shouldn't have done that."
All with eyes, right.
That's what he did to me.
Cause one minute he's smiling at everybody.
And then he turns and he looks at me and just with his eyes,
he was like, "What are you doing here?"
And so with my eyes, I was like, "Hey man, I'm sorry.
I didn't know this was your house.
They said it was an authentic experience,
that's why I came."
He's like, "Yeah, authentic for white people.
You got your own poor, go back to where you came from."
I said yeah, "I shouldn't be here, man.
I'm sorry, man, I'm sorry."
If you expanded your view,
you realized that the rise of nationalism is taking place
all over the world in Austria, in Australia, in England.
That was what Brexit was all about, right?
They made it seem like it was about the economy,
but it wasn't.
The truth was it was fundamentally people
who wanted their country back.
It never went anywhere, but they still wanted it back.
I saw people on the news talking to the BBC.
"That's why I'm voting for Brexit,
that's why I'm voting for Brexit, right?
Because this bloody country is going to the dogs, right?
This bloody country and I want Britain back.
That's why we voting for Brexit,
because we want Britain back."
From who?
Britain is like 95% white.
Who do you want it back from?
People say the weirdest things, the craziest things.
"These bloody immigrants, they come over here.
They up to no good, right?
I hate these bloody immigrants,
they need to go back to where they came from."
"But why do you hate them so much?"
"I'll tell you why I hate them, tell you why, right.
Because they're not even trying to be British,
that's why.
They don't even try to be British, right?
They come here, they bring their own bloody culture.
They bring their own food,
spit their own bloody languages,
try to take over the whole bloody place.
"Well, that sounds British to me, I mean."
(audience cheers)
If there's one country, if there's one nation in the world
that has no rights to complain about immigration,
it's Great Britain.
I also understand that for me,
it is a little bit different, you know,
I have a privilege in that I come from a country
where the word n***a was never used to oppress anybody.
I mean, we had another word
'cause we have the best racism, come on now.
But not that word.
The word we had was the word kaffir or kafir.
So we had another word, same thing.
It's crazy to me as well sometimes.
You know, same racism, different word.
And here it means nothing, right?
Kafir, kafir, nothing.
Some people be like, "Is that like a probiotic?
Is that what that is?"
Yeah, probiotic of my pain.
'Cause we don't have that in our supermarkets
for obvious reasons.
No one warned me in America, I walked down the dairy aisle.
I was like, "Oh, yogurt, ice cream (screams),
this lactose is intolerant."
I still can't believe the things Donald Trump says,
he's such a, for me, Donald Trump is an emotional paradox,
I'm not gonna lie.
Logically I can process him. Emotionally, I struggle.
On the one hand I will admit, I wake up many days,
terrified at the notion that he's president
of the most powerful nation in the world.
But I also must admit,
I wake up many days knowing he's gonna make me laugh.
Yeah, there's terror and there's joy
and I don't know how to feel.
You know what it feels like sometimes?
It feels like there's a giant asteroid
headed towards the earth, but it's shaped like a penis.
Like I think I'm gonna die, but I know I'm gonna laugh.
I have the pleasure of meeting president Obama
while he was still in office.
Probably one of the craziest experiences
I've ever had in my life.
(audience cheers)
Came out of nowhere, came out of nowhere.
I was at The Daily Show, I was in my office
and I got a phone call from the administration.
And someone on the other end was like,
"Hi, Trevor, would you like to interview
the President of the United States in the White House?
And I was like, "Ah, do you ask stupid questions?"
It's like, of course I wanna meet the President
of the United States.
Are you serious?
And the day finally came, went to DC with my TV crew
and they set us up in a room,
which is literally opposite the Oval Office.
We put all our cameras in place.
And all we're doing now is waiting for the president
to arrive.
So we're staring at the door with bated breath.
And the reason we're staring is because they don't give you
an exact time of the president's arrival for his safety.
So they just give you a window, like the cable guy.
So we're all waiting there listening to every footstep,
every moment.
And then he just popped in behind us,
scared the shit out of everybody.
'Cause there's a secret door,
but they don't tell you, again, for safety, right?
So we're staring at that door
and all of a sudden he was like, "Hello."
And I was like, "Ahh! (screams)"
But I had a great time in the interview with him.
He was really, really kind to everyone in the room.
And then we turned off the cameras and I promise you,
he became even nicer.
We just had a conversation, I thought he was gonna leave.
I mean, he's President of the United States.
You've gotta go do something.
And he just chilled for a bit, you know?
And we spoke as human beings and it went really well
until he turned to me and he said,
"Trevor, you know, I actually, I got a show
that I'm doing in a few weeks, got a little thing,
that I thought maybe you want to pop by and perform,
if you don't mind."
I said, "Mr. President, I would be honored,
you just let me know when and where,
what's the show gonna be for, sir?"
He said, "Well, Trevor I'm doing a little thing for my aides
and I thought, maybe you'd want to be there."
I said, "I would love to, thank you...
Um, I'm sorry, a show for what?"
He said, "For my aides, Trevor."
I said, "You have AIDS?"
(audience laughs)
And then he explained what he meant
and I wanted the earth to swallow me whole
because I had just looked at the President
of the United States and asked him if he had AIDS.
And you know what the worst thing is,
is that he was nice to me as well.
'Cause I said that and then he explained
and I was like, "Oh, I'm so sorry Mr. President,
I didn't mean that.
I don't even know why I thought,
it's just like, you said aides and like the AIDS."
You know, because here's the thing in my defense, right.
I get it now, he means aides,
as in, the White House aides,
the people who help the president, I get it now.
But in my defense where I'm from, AIDS is some other shit
that doesn't help anybody.
No one in Africa is walking around like,
"Let me introduce you to my AIDS."