{"id":51507,"date":"2017-02-11T03:27:22","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T03:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=51507"},"modified":"2017-06-13T20:18:13","modified_gmt":"2017-06-13T20:18:13","slug":"trevor-noah-colorism-and-the-unexpected-role-he-plays-in-expanding-the-divide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=51507","title":{"rendered":"Trevor Noah, Colorism and The Unexpected Role He Plays In Expanding the Divide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Trevor Noah, Colorism and The Unexpected Role He Plays In Expanding the Divide<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Atlanta Black Star<\/a>
\n2017-02-05<\/p>\n

Jared Ball<\/strong><\/a>, Professor of Communication Studies
\nMorgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s out to neutralize, not to awaken.\u201d \u2013 Willa Paskin<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The leadership of our School of Global Journalism and Communication at Morgan State University<\/a> has encouraged that professors like myself find ways this semester to incorporate into our work the new book Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood<\/em><\/a> by Trevor Noah<\/a>. Noah is the South African-born, biracial, Colored<\/a> comedian and host of Comedy Central\u2019s<\/a> The Daily Show<\/em><\/a>. Copies have been distributed to students and faculty alike and I anticipate there being a flurry of engagement for courses in media studies as Noah\u2019s book has plenty to offer.<\/p>\n

Immediately we can start with critiques of false balance and Western politicized notions of objectivity, both of which were in play during Noah\u2019s recent extended exchange with the aggressive right wing\u00a0commentator Tomi Lahren<\/a>. Many know of Noah\u2019s nightly television work and it appears many more know him now after the straw woman performed her role in enhancing Noah\u2019s credibility and right in time to coincide nicely with his book\u2019s launch. What liberal aspirant to the throne of legitimacy wouldn\u2019t want her as an interlocutor? Even in the silly film Pop Star<\/em><\/a> Conner Friel (Andy Samberg<\/a>) made sure his entourage consisted of a \u201cperspective adjuster\u201d whose sole function was to make the star look better by comparison. Muhammad Ali\u2019s<\/a> legend wasn\u2019t born by his fights with Henry Cooper<\/a> and Brian London<\/a>. It were the fights with Liston<\/a>, Frazier<\/a>, Foreman<\/a> and the federal government that told us he was the greatest.<\/p>\n

We can also as a class ask, what is happening semiotically<\/a> with the book\u2019s cover? It read to me from the first like the perfect symbolic display of Noah\u2019s entire political function as celebrity. \u00a0Noah\u2019s beige face, askew, askance even \u2013 especially \u2013 with that grin, hand touching his head, painted on a tattered township wall, imposing, top-down upon a faceless Black African woman, almost saying, in an aloof, twisted version of the Old Spice<\/a> commercial, \u201caww-shucks, look at me. Now look at you. Now look at me again. Now look at you. And back to me. I\u2019ve made it and you can to? Never mind that. Look at me!\u201d Its reminiscent of any billboard falsely advertising an exclusive lifestyle of which most onlookers can only dream…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ashley Minner is a community based visual artist from Baltimore, Maryland. She holds a BFA in Fine Art, an MA and an MFA in Community Art, which she earned at MICA. A member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, she has been active in the Baltimore Lumbee community for many years. Her involvement in her community informs and inspires her studio practice. Ashley is currently a PhD in American Studies student at University of Maryland College Park, where she is studying vernacular art as resistance in tri-racial isolate communities of the U.S. South and Global South…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,12,5,8413,1196,8,520,20],"tags":[17213,240,3048,5958,15219],"class_list":["post-51507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-communications","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-south-africa","category-usa","tag-atlanta-black-star","tag-colorism","tag-jared-a-ball","tag-jared-ball","tag-trevor-noah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51507"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54222,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51507\/revisions\/54222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}