One of the themes that I am developing in my book on Americanviews of Africa is that it has become more and more difficult for Americans to imagine Africa without Africans making themselves heard. African academics teach at hundreds of American colleges and universities, African writers are read more and more widely, African pundits take to twitter and the internet to contest movements like KONY 2012. And then there's Trevor Noah.
Trevor Noah is the South African comedian who not long ago came to the U.S. (whereupon he finally became black) and recently began hosting The Daily Show.
So Noah's very presence in what has become an iconic American TV show confounds assumptions about Africa being completely "other." But of course he doesn't settle for that. One of his latest routines makes the case that Donald Trump would make a wonderful African president, that his megalomania, disregard for science, thin skin, and antipathy for immigrants evokes some leading African despots, past and present.
For believers in American exceptionalism, people who believe that the U.S. is simply better than and completely different from other nations, regardless of what we do or become, watching an African comedian draw parallels between the front-runner for the Republican nomination and African tyrants such as Idi Amin may cause some much-needed discomfort.
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