>> and that was humorous dave barry owning the booktv room here at the miami book festival. best.state.ever: a florida man defends his homeland, was the name of the book. well, coming up in our live coverage from miami, a call-in program with senator bernie sanders, a call-in program with andrew bacevich whose newest book is called "america's war for the greater middle east." those are both coming up, and the miami book fair has now become a week-long event. and earlier this week daily show host trevor noah was in town to talk about his new book. it's called "born a crime." we're going to show that to you now. [applause] >> thank you, thank you. well, welcome to the 33rd miami book fair.

[cheers and applause] some of us have been involved from the gunning, some of us gray beards realize we've been doing this more than half our lives. [laughter] it's pretty astonishing when i think about it. but, and what a fair we have for you this year. we have everyone from james carville to dana perino to we're doing a new program this year called read caribbean, we're doing programs in spanish. we have this wonderful new part of the fair called the porch which is right that way. [laughter] and as you know, after tonight we have every evening we've got authors coming in leading to the street fair which happens on friday where we have over 500 authors coming, programs in spanish and english and creole, and there's literally something for everyone. so we hope you'll do all you can do to find out by going to

miamibookfair.com, create your own schedule, find out about all the great things you'd like to go to. it's also, it's also no exaggeration when i say that this book fair could not be done without the work of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of volunteers. but at the center of all of it is this remarkable, remarkable educational institution, and i would like to thank from the bottom of my heart everybody at miami-dade college for giving us this remarkable gift. [applause] and, you know, this has been quite a week, huh? to say the least. [laughter] and, you know, after this really very emotional week, my thoughts really, like all of us, we went

into our little cocoons and listened to music, and i had the good fortune or unfortunate thing of listening to a lot of leonard cohen during that time. but i, my thoughts began to turn to that time 35 years ago when a group of us were called down by dr. eduardo padron, the then-vice president of this very campus. and it was then a very much smaller miami-dade college. it was the early 1980s, and miami was very much in turmoil. if you can remember the early '80s. hundreds of thousands of new immigrants came here. there was an incredible amount of racial strife. there were riots. we had a very moribund downtown, nobody was sure what the future of downtown would be. in fact, many of you might remember "time" magazine had an article that said miami: paradise lost with a big

question mark. miami at the time was really straining at its seams. but under dr. padron's leadership, a group of us felt that we would help heal the wounds of our community by celebrating its diversity, because back then miami was one of the most diverse communities in the country as it is now. and that we would invite everyone under one gigantic tent to celebrate the written word and begin a conversation together. that conversation hasn't stopped for these 33 book fairs. and i, for one, want to thank dr. padron, who's now president of the largest college in the country, with eight campuses -- [applause] for never wavering from that vision. and in this year's fair, you will hear from the best writers

of poetry, fiction, history, politics and memoir, from every color of the spectrum. we need the big tent of the book fair now more than ever. it reaffirms our commitment to help all of us here and everywhere mark and celebrate what we all have in common; the love of ideas and the power of the written word to express them. we need this book fair now more than ever. i hope you'll agree with me. [applause] the book fair has grown over all these years as well, and we have some remarkable sponsors. we're pleased to announce tonight that we have a partnership with the degrassroot foundation to launch the miami book fair prize for an unpublished novella. it's, as far as i know, about the only one in the country. and we're lucky enough to have

charles and diane here with us to introduce tonight's session. charles has an mba from the harvard business school and worked in finance until founding a real estate company which he listed on the new york stock exchange. he has served on the boards of directors of several for-profit and nonprofit organizations and lectures in international business schools. clydette holds a doctorate in psychology and organizational development. in addition to an extensive career as director of behavioral sciences and family medicine residency training programs, she had an international consulting business and has served on numerous nonprofit boards. charles and clydette are chairs of the foundation which supports literary, art, education and innovation projects. they divide their time between paris and miami, and on a personal note, there couldn't be

two more nice people in the entire world. so, please, welcome charles and clydette degroot. [applause] >> thank you very much, mitchell. when clydette and i and my parents set up the foundation, one of the first projects that we initiated was a prize for an unpublished novella. we picked the novella because it's a genre that's perfect in this fast-paced society. it's a small book, and they translate very well into films. elmore leonard's, just about all of his books have been made into movies. for the last two cycles we partnered with shakespeare and company, the english bookstore in paris. and in the last competition, we had productionly 600 entrants -- approximately 600 entrants from

all around the world. and now we're very excited to be partnering with miami-dade college and the miami book fair, because we feel they can extend the reach of the prize as well as create a solid home so it's sustainable and will live a long life. >> and as charles just said, we're absolutely thrilled to be working with mitchell kaplan and the wonderful team that organize toes this wonderful book fair that goes on literally all year long. a prize like this serves, i think, a very important purpose. it's important to keep discovering new voices, and also we need to keep supporting and encouraging anyone who writes. as mitchell said, the written word very important. and the novella is a wonderful form. it's longer than a short story and shorter than a novel. and when you think of some of the -- we grew up learning about great authors reading novellas like hemingway's old man in the sea and a number of other, there's lots of other novellas

out there that we've all learned to enjoy and learn about great writers. so we are really excited about this endeavor. all the details about the prizes, how the submission process works and all of that will be up on the miami book fair web site on january 1. and most of all, we invite you all that are writers to submit your work. thank you. [applause] >> and i know you came here to listen to clydette and i, but maybe listen to the other guy first. [laughter] we're thrilled that trevor noah is here tonight with us -- [cheers and applause] as most of you know, he was born and raised in south africa where he honed his skills as a television host, an actor and a comedian. and he moved to the u.s. in 2011. in 2015 he received what i think

is the greatest acknowledgment of anybody in his industry, jon stewart selected him to take over the daily show. [cheers and applause] and backstage i was telling trevor about what a great honor i thought that was, and he said, look, he said, anybody who took over a job after jon stewart is an idiot. [laughter] and i was that idiot. [laughter] but you, he's a delightful man, and i look forward to him being out here in just a minute. but in the latest issue of "vanity fair," he said his greatest heroes are his mother and all single mothers. and he'll talk more about that in his book -- [applause] and he said the motto he lives by is everything is helping you. and i think we -- that's good

for all of us to remember in these turbulent times. trevor's going to be in the conversation with bob weisberg. after president obama was elected, bob was appointed the regional attorney for the miami district of the u.s. equal employment opportunity commission. he oversees the enforcement of federal laws that prohibit workplace discrimination throughout florida, puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands. prior to joining the eeoc in 2010, he maintained a private civil rights law practice for over 20 years representing victims of workplace discrimination and other types of civil rights violation. so please join me in welcoming trevor noah and bob weisberg. [cheers and applause]

>> hello, everyone. trevor, i want to welcome you to miami, welcome you to the miami book fair. >> thank you so much. thank you for having me, and thank you for coming out, everybody. [cheers and applause] >> and i really want to congratulate you on writing a phenomenal book. i've sort of been ins grossed in it for the last couple of weeks, and i found it poignant, scary, funny, and i learned a lot about south africa that i never would have otherwise known. i really thank you for that. >> thank you. >> and i thank you for being so truthful. >> thank you. i appreciate it. thank you. [laughter] >> i recognize, i recognize that

many of you in this room have, and your family members have shed a lot of tears since tuesday -- [laughter] and are keenly interested in hearing trevor's take on what happened -- [laughter] [applause] and i assure you that whether we get to it in our conversation or not, there is an opportunity after, there's going to be a question and answer period, and you can ask trevor all about that. so -- [laughter] so, trevor, let me start with the title of your book. it's "born a crime." what, what did you mean by that? >> well, i was born at a time when in south africa, due to the laws of apartheid, my parents weren't allowed to be in any shape or form in contact with one another. you know? i grew up during a time when we

were governed by the laws of my song nation as they were called, interracial relationships were forbidden, the mixing of races was forbidden. so essentially, i mean, being born from my parents, a white swiss man and a black woman from south africa, i was essentially born a crime. you know? the very existence of me was something that was against the law. what my parents had done was breaking the law, and because of that our lives were impacted in the way we could live as a family under those laws of apartheid. >> now, you were born in 1984. how did you interact with your mother -- your black mother and your white father? >> well -- >> at that time. >> lucky for me, i interacted with them like a child. [laughter] you know? i was very lucky in that my

participants did a great job of shielding me from the realities of what was going on in the country. i only knew the world that i was in, and i was only surrounded by people who were in the same world as i. so, you know, ignorance truly was bliss in that regard. i knew i had a father who was white, but i didn't know that he was a white person, i just knew that he was my father. i knew that i had a mom who was black. but, again, her race meant anything to me because -- nothing to me because at the time, that was the only way i knew it to be. i thought fathers were right and uncles were black, and that's how the world worked. [laughter] ..

>> and so for me i still played with my mother. with my mother. because from the outside, i don't, i don't know what had it looked leak to everyone. but a lot of people just assumed

that black woman was care caretaker in south africa and my problem, he couldn't be with us at all in public. there were time when is we were together but he wouldn't play the role of a father because then that would give the game away because that was a limitation but one story i tell in the book is when i was really young, i used to love running. i still do. but i would go to my mom and dad and if we were in public, in a park together. the only limitation was that i couldn't get too close to him. i couldn't be seen as his son. so i would chase him as any child would, their posh. but then he would run away. [laughter] to protect us. and then i was like yeah the game is on. [laughter] so if i i would chase him and my mother could be chasing me so i have great memories of running in the park with my parents. only difference is they see it

from a slightly different perspective. and you -- you talk about the book that when you visit your grandmother how -- frightened they were of you being out the in the street. >> yeah. >> you know what had, that was one of the moments when i learned from the book, i only realized that when i was writing the book, i tried to write everything from memory. but for -- for some stories i felt like i had pieces missing so i went back and i asked my grandmother and mom about a few of the story and one that fascinated me as welled i had grown up my entire life as a child who was basically locked indoors. i was an indoor kid and i didn't suffer. i loved reading. i loved staying indoors in my own world and i knew my grandmother wouldn't allow me to go inside because they were afraid they would steal you. they'll steal you. and when she said that, i assumed she meant the neighbors

or, you know, kidnappers in the neighborhood or i just assumed it was just people. only when i went become to talk to her if the back, i came to learn from her that she was afraid that the police would take me with away. because if they saw me in a black area they would know immediately i didn't belong because of the laws and every right to take me, send me to an orphanage and family would never see me again. so again i even learned as grown man i didn't even know how dire the situation actually was. >> so you didn't until like working on the book realize why earn always wanted trevor to stay inside. >> yeah, don't get me wrong i was a terrorist so protecting the world that's what i thought some of it was. [laughter] >> the booking you make -- i think repeated references to

recognizing and you say a different way the genius of apartheid how the architect built the most advance system of the oppression known to man. what about it make use describe it in that way? >> well because you have to acknowledge it's an fin insane amount of hard work that went into building such an abominable system. apartheid was perfect racism. it was a system designed to oppress a majority because america and south africa share a lot of similarities in terms of a racial history. in terms of reckoning with that racial history in the present. one place where it was different was that in south africa, black people are the majority. so question is how do you o oppress the majority to extremely difficult. how do you make the majority

unable to stand stand up and apartheid government was really, really committed to piepgding way to do that and study racisms from the dutch from os australia to united states and looked at systems and coalesce them into finding a perfect racism. so they found the key was to separate people into the most -- minutia of the groups so they didn't see black as it seemed in america. they said no we're going to divide you up into your triads. we'll divide you into color of shades and if you're biracial person, most of the time you kargz as black and south alaska africa they department do that so dividing up by language, culture, by their tribe and creating smaller groups that you could put against each other, and have dominion over within

the so it was really scary and well thought out opinion i was wanted to like sometimes why racist like they really committed. i wonder why they don't commit to making the world a better place because, i mean, very good at what they do. [applause] sometimes wish -- >> you talk a lot if how important language is and was to keeping people separate. how did it play out in sort of the apartheid sort of design? >> well, there were different ways. you know, it was everything from the schooling system in which were taught in languages that weren't theirs. certain languages were prioritized above others. language was one of the biggest barrier in term was giving someone an opportunity to switch from one world to another.

and one thing i grew up realizing was the power of language. you know, i have the quote in the book and it was nelson mandela said if you speak to a man in a language he understands, you speak to his head. you speak to a man in his language and you speak to his heart. and the power of language is something that i've learned over the years in that it's one of the biggest things that essentially there's nothing there. just a miscommunication is just people conceiving a difference. you know, just based on how you commute using different language, and what i learned very quickly my family did and even in the country we realize that language was a tool to divide people and also bring them together and i learned in my life every time i learned a new language i gained entry into another world. i gained insight into another way of living into another way of thinking, and probably one of the biggest gifts i think i

gained from learning lag languaging and continue to gain is as many as i can, and i think it's always a constant humility that's forced on you. because when you learn a new language, you can't be arrogant about it, you have to be a child again and stupid again, you have to accept that you can't be superior again. you know, because you probably don't know what superior is in that language. [laughter] but it's really something that that's why i -- you know, i advocate for that for everyone. learn a new language not about being good or not but a new language because you'll be surprised how it activates different parts of your mind in thinking about other people. >> well, as you learn new languages, did it surprise your fellow countrymen that this colored person would be speaking languages other than africa or english or whatever it might be? >> definitely. definitely. i came from a country where, you know, in terms of a ranking

english and a i guess a substance of dutch those were with two languages that were spoken and two languages you needed. everything else was considered the riffraff, below it was sub-- nothing that was to be aspired to so you have tribes in south africa you have people of colonizer and best way that i could connect with people it was to try top learn their language. you know, fellow south africans where, you know, i didn't understand how we were separated until i came to realize that language was a great tool used to separate people because fundamentally if you can nots understand the person that is stupid as it sounds you cannot understand the person. and so i set the to do that and i found that it was one of the

most amazing things i did even for myself even for selfish reasons i found that i could connect to people and it gave me access to worlds that i never would have had access to. >> it seemed not to give a compelling story away. but there are instances because your ability to speak language you were able to maneuver in worlds you might never have otherwise been able to maneuver in or been accepted in -- >> definitely that's exactly what had it is. at the same time, currently there's south africa has 11 national languages. >> that's true. that's i guess a -- to the leftover or -- [laughter] >> you know what i think happened was we came from a place where some languages were put above others. and so once we ademocracy the question was what now becomes our official language? and i guess because we had come from a world where no one wanted to put anything below or above

another thing, it was just look let's make them all official languages so we have official languages, four or five in national anthem as well which is -- extremely difficult. but -- [laughter] i guess you know, everyone's hearts were in the right place. >> your grandmother lived it until sweetto still does, and you've spent a lot of time there. >> i did. yeah. >> and you for americans and vaguely speak for myself but a lot of americans associate with with the uprisings against apartheid, and nelson mandela with -- you describe it at least to me an interesting way. you describe the stark poverty, but you also quoting here something magical about sweto

yes it's a prison designed by our pressers but also gave us the sense of self-determination. what did you mean by that? >> well i think what i meant by that was -- completely what i felt. by being in the place. and that was the strength of -- of the human being, the ability of the human being to overcome situations that may seem like they're designed it to have been designed to oppress. you know, so one of the examples people moved from different places where they lived, black people relocated, forcefully, taken out of certain areas that were taken away from black people and given to white people and then there were forelsed to live in this new place with almost nothing and yet from that nothing, came so many amazing came so many amazing ideas.

so many amazing leaders, because essentially the within thing that i think the apartheid government didn't think about was when they created sweto what they essentially did was they created a home base for folks. they created a space where people could exist and galvanize within, and what happened was, it was one of the birthplaces of the struggle. the struggle. it was one of the birthplace was protest. it was one of the birthplace was south africa's identity in terms of the politics that emerged because black people were forced to create and peenged for themselves this wasn't a space that was promoted by the government and so the people found a way to create microeconomies. you know, whether it be stores that became resellers of food. you know, people who set up their own shops to fix cars, you know, people created different economy, public transportation

that wasn't provided bit government they found ways to formalize a informal situation and normalize that so in trying to keep a group of people separated and helpless and hopeless, what ended happening i guess unintentionally is through the profit people who in sweto those people became hopeful, powerful, and more determined than ever because they became self-reliant and they saw the fruits of their labor what had really emerged from that was a fire that couldn't be extinguished by a hateful government. >> so you describe as having no running -- [applause] wasn't running water and multiple families shared one toilet o. there weren't shops so other

than the police force that might have -- wasn't police as we know but the s.w.a.t. team. >> it was a heavily militarized force. yeah. but you know that's one of the fun thy things is the side effects of that is -- you know, i know some people disagree, many people agree but you know where they talk about the moral ark of the universe spinning towards justice essentially, that was the one thing that came out of sweto. we live in a world where i shared a toilet request four different families. we shared a toilet. we shared one tap at one point to get our water from. question shared a piece of land and essentially what happened was that was what became the strength of the community. because we with weren't living in this world where we department know our neighbors. we weren't living in a world where we wrnght talking to people around us or living in a world where we were with isolated having experience by ourselves. what in effect happen haded was because of the way it was set

up, about the governments would railed aring it enabled people to find each other within those spaces and so it was terrible and wasn't a great way to live, but as i say the unintended consequences of that was that it created community. i think i told you how much i learned from the book. one thing i learned was thinking that the -- sweto was african name only to learn after reading your book that it's really an acronym for southwest township. >> yes. but that's exactly what i'm talking about power to reclaim something and take it away from someone who thought there were oppressing you because it is now an african word. something that we proudly claim so it is my home and say it as african place that it is. >> in -- 19909 apartheid ended and nelson

mandela was released and no elections i think from 1994. right? and i think a great expression in your -- description in your book is that the end of apartheid wasn't like the berlin wall coming crashing down but like a slow crumbling. >> yes. >> what was your life like not your six years old -- as a colored fern in south africa as apartheid started to end and get dismantled. as i tell in the book -- i never discounting the fact that i'm extremely lucky in that we're -- were i born a few years earlier i would have been subjected to so much more of the race i. in any were i born years later, i may not have appreciated the hardship federal once freedom

came. ing with born at the tile that i was, i was old enough to see the transition. i was old enough to see democracy take hold and yet young enough to recover from the effects of people not afforded that democracy, and when apartheid ended it was a gradual thing. america has a similar history with abolishment of history and civil rights movement. it doesn't happen overnight you know, that's the paper that you sign and people go okay i guess we were wrong. let's go home. you know -- there's a lot of convincing that has to be done still a gradual process, and that's probably one of the greatest challenges and then city speak about that in the book as well is that i've come to realize that it's frustrating. especially for people who have been o opressed when you come to realized that freedom is just it is just the beginning of the

journey. a lot of time we think of it as the end and yet it's not. i sometimes think of barriers whether it be racial, gender, you know, whatever the barriers are, i would think of it when you break that barrier down so when people of color achieve equality when women achieve equality when that happens, all that's happened is you've been allowed access to now claim the mountain. freedom is just getting there. now you still have to climb this mountain that's before you web and that's what we came to realize in south africa was that it was a wonderful momenting and really a honeymoon period because it was amazing freedom and the feeling was a special thing had. and then we were like oh, wow this is now a lot of hard work. pnches and you talk about now that black man -- can but which black man? >> you said in the book you talk about how now black -- black man can rule but which black men are going to rule? >> yeah, that became, you

know -- an issue because sometimes you don't think it will ever end especially when you're o oppressed it is never going to end. when had it ends, you find a place where everything was geared towards seeking out freedom. and not all to freedom can move forward once freedom has been achieved. >> and that's a tough thing we see in many countries all over the world. a lot of time liberty force end up being oppressors, you know, they take over, they free the people and once that freedom is achieved there's no longer anything to fight over. and then so many times question see this. i know it happens in south africa i know it hams where liberator stuff their own pocket nows and start enriching themselves and next thing you know you're in the same cycle and it's just the face at the top has changed and label has shifted but u it doesn't feel like anything has most moved foe people. >> where did you as a colored

person fit in as a apartheid that is being dismantled? >> well i was -- i was welcomey i was extremely welcomey in that my mother always lived as an outsider so to give you an understanding of this -- this -- people may not know -- in south africa all of the races were broken down. so whites, being most superior and then darkerrier skin tone fewer liberties you were afforded and this affected everything from the jobs you could have to education you could receive. to even how you were treated in prison meals you would get and what with you could wear within a prison, and so as strange as it sounds, because of my skin color, i was considered a superior race to my own mother. i was considered an inferior race to my own father. you know, so i was in a world sthoos what colored means in south africa it didn't mean anything with regard to black the same way that it does in america.

and so i grie up in a black femme and living black experience what happened it was that the country wanted to define me as something else because of how i looked. my mother on the other hand was a rebel. i mean, she had a child from a white man that tells you everything during's the time so i existed in a space where i knew that i wasn't defined bit labels that were set out for me because we never fit in. my family didn't match any family around me. no other white or colored people -- so that was something that -- i don't think, i don't think it was allowed to affect me because with of the world i grew up in. it was something my mom really fought against because she didn't believe in us being

defined by people wanted to define us as. >> with your ability to speak different languages did you find yourself, you know, fitting in or identifying with different groups at different times? >> yeah. yeah, i grew up as an outsider. and one of the greatest gifts i feel, you know, it's really hard to be an outsider most of the time because you feel like exactly that. an outsider. you feel like you never belong. the most amazing gift that i feel you receive from being an outsider is that it forces perspective on you. you cannot exist in a bubble because you were always in somebody else's bubble. you always have to see somebody else's points of view because most of the time you are in their world. and so language was one of those things. i would have to adopt somebody else's language with and live

within it to live within a different community to community with different people but because of that it shaped me in different ways that gave me access to thoughts, ideas even experiences that i never would have had. >> after -- as apartheid -- [applause] was -- was, you know, coming down, did some colored tends to colored ferns tend to relate more to the white person, the white community? as opposed to the black community or remain colored? how -- what was going on? >> definitely. you know, that in terms of the apartheid was structured in such a way that's -- about again i mean it is i don't to spoil things on the book but like the idea was -- that you could convince people and we still see this every day. people are convinced that the reason they aren't achieving is because of another group or another race that is holding them back. you know, now we're living

through the time where it is a lot of the time, you know, a white voice that is spreading that message. and that is -- that's what the government did in south africa they reached out and they said to colored people you're almost white. you're with almost there just a few shades and you could do it. [applause] but unfortunately you still got that a little bit of black in you. and so, you know, you never know if you breed correctly for a few generations if you marry right you may be able to astoned -- ascend to a place of being white and people could be reclassified rationally in south africa. so if you were a colored person qhiewz hair becomes straight enough and face light enough you could be reclassified as a white person and same could happen inversely if you were seem to be getting docked too much time in the sun. you could be reclassified now as a color from a white person and

didn't care about your genealogy and went on appearances because it is ridiculous so laws have to be ridiculous to echo ridiculousness of the ideas. so what happened was there were people who resented any part of themselves that was connected to what they were told was inferior. there were people who resented idea that they came from a place, identity, or people who in some of their minds were holding them back. as opposed to going, we need to rise up and rise up to level of the white man but rather rise up to where we belong in society. you know, achieve our equality instead it was an attitude of leave them behind, and let's try to aspire to get to the place that the white man said we could get to. >> the --

i think i mistakennably the hero of your book is your mom. >> yes. >> i think it speaks loud and clear and read you we cannily a message and ask you that comment that really struck me as to -- how special she was and is. my mom raised me as it there were no limitations on where i could go. or what i could do. when i look back i realized she raised me like a white kid not qhiet culturally but in the sense of believing that the world was my oyster, that i should speak up for myself. that my ideas and thoughts and decisions mattered. my mother showed me what was possible an thing that amazed me about her life is that no one showed her. no one chose her and she did it on her own and found a way through sheer force of will. i was nearly when mandela released ten before democracy

finally came, yet she was preparing me to live a life of freedom longing before we knew freedom would exist. [applause] >> can you sorts sort of commenn that? [laughter] >> one thing we couldn't deny growing up was -- we were living in a police state. and one of the biggest things we were talking about whether my grandmother, grandfather, aunt whoever it was was as a black child you had to be twice as good. you knew that you weren't with afforded the same liberty. you weren't allowed to be making the same mistakes because there was a system that was waiting to imprison or kill you so you always had had to be twice as good, twice as polite twice as -- just twice as a human being.

and my mom to a certain extent had that trend and that system. she brought me up as if i would be in a world where i would be free to express myself and as if i was going to live in a world where i wouldn't be o pressed. now i guess it's an extremely, an extreme risky gamble because she had no idea that it would end. but we lived as if it would. so my mom old always told me speak up, voice your concern, challenge me as your mother that was the one thing my mom, you know, viewed within mes was idea to challenge her -- don't get me wrong, i mean, i was still on end of many, many spankings from her. [laughter] but i was told that if i could challenge her because -- in challenging her we would both learn and i still try to keep that with me today. i tell people i'm proud to say that i don't know. i don't know most thing. and what's great about not knowing is the joy of filling in

that void or even knowing that you can still learn new things. a lot of time i don't know why -- we learn our entire lives and then we become tuts and go oh, we know now. we know now, we're done, and we don't always something new to learn and an idea we can't change. but my mom always -- my mom always encouraged that. >> before we go to question, and -- one final kind of question for you trevor, and i -- ...

>> from south africa and africa by taking on this, such important and prominent position in the u.s. entertainment world. >> i see myself as a proud citizen, you know, i've always considered myself a citizen of the world and once i was afforded the ability to travel, i graciously crossed that with both hands and embrace it. i tell people to try and travel. traveling is the answer to ignore reins and i truly believe that it is. [applause] and so for me i, you know, i'm really proud to come from a

country where we -- we achieved odds, we achieved over the odds and we did things that nobody believe could be done. we had a revolution in south africa and it's not a perfect country but we managed to find the way to shift power from minority that was essentially running a dictatorship and moving that over to the majority that was running the country and still is and it's not overnight. that's what i said, freedom is a lot of hard work, but i feel like i came from an exceptional place, i came from a country that's a trail blazer and i'm honored to be a child of south africa, i celebrate my heritage, i still have so much to learn about africa as a whole. again, it's not a country which is a surprise to some people, but i do consider myself an african as much as i do a south african because of how many

stories we share across the continent, how many trials and tribulations in together and so i see myself less of a trail blazer and more somebody who is rising to heights because of those who were before me and that was one of the main things my mom said to me and the book i have it is the biggest thing my mom wanted where she said, every generation should be further forward than the one that came before us. that's all she wanted. [applause] >> just for one generation to move the bar over to the next. >> a question? >> we do have time for a question. just a few. if you can come up to the mic right here so just line up. again, as all of you know trevor

has a day job. [laughter] >> a daily job, yeah. >> a nighttime daily job and he will be traveling, we are on a tight schedule, we are only going to be able to take a few questions to allow him to make it back. >> everyone is lining up. i guess we will do the daily show tomorrow right from this spot. [cheers and applause] >> let's take the first question. >> thank you, tr oh, -- trevor, i enjoy hearing from you. >> pleasure to meet you. >> thank you, same. i led a tour group in 1994 to south africa and we visited the children in the -- and the school sang to us and it was very moving, but what was interested was we had a native

south african guy helping us and he surprised me, alarmed me when he said there were better times during the apartheid because now most of us are unemployed and we've been fired from our jobs because they have to give us fair wages and i was thinking, it's like in the hebrew bible and exodus when the jews escaped from egypt and then they started complaining in the desert, if we want to go back to slavery, that's when you were speaking about freedom being so difficult. >> yeah. >> i would like your comments because i heard it more than once from other black south africans that they had better times before. >> i will say this. i cannot speak for everyone in south africa and i acknowledge that through a combination of

the hard work of my parents, lack on my part and hard work, i know that i'm in a position of privilege and i so i cannot speak to anyone that may have the same things as i do, but i do know this, freedom as i say is hard work. just because you achieve it, did you want mean that it's all going to be. a lot of the time the fault falls at the feet of those who deliver the promises of deliberation. if we look at the stories across the board and we see that in america now, the promise that is are made by the poll -- politicians, of those that will become beneficial for all. free housing and free everything. everything will be open to you. you will get to enjoy the spoils

but the truth is what you have achieved is the ability to work for the spoils and it's a tough thing and liberators now have to work on providing those opportunities. think about it like this in south africa we had one that was designed for minority. this was everything, housing, plumbing, the electrical grid system, the highways, everything, schools were just designed for a tinny piece of the population and so once the country is now free, obviously that means you're not going to be able to get everybody to the same level immediately and that means that there's going to be a lot of capital that needs to be injected, that means that there's going to be a redistribution of wealth that needs to happen. a lot of systems that need to change in order for that change to take effect, but when people say to me it was better, i struggled to grabble -- grappled

with the idea that it was better to be enslaved. [applause] >> i -- i think one of the closest parallels is when i read stories of prisoners who tell the story because of how hard we make it in society to reintegrate some prisoners would rather stay in prison, i get food, i get in bed, i know what my life is, i get to go to a library and get part of a community and when you set me free i see the world as a prison and so the question we should be asking ourselves was it better with apartheid but how do we create more opportunities not just in south africa but in america to free those people and give them access to that freedom, you know, because in the book i have a quote where i say, they say teach amend to fish and he will fish -- he will eat for a day.

give a man a fish and he will eat for a day and teach a man to fish, he will live forever. if you don't give him the tool to fish, all of that information is useless. you know, so the rod is as important as allowing him to do it. >> thank you, thank you. [applause] >> we do have limited time if you can really make them a question that would be great. [laughter] [applause] >> my name is melissa, i was born and raised in puerto rico and i came here when i was in my early 20's, just the time when you were born. i didn't know the difference between black and white until i move today this country. i did not face racism until i moved here. i saw it in a different way. my grandma was as dark as your shoes are, have you ever encountered racism and racism in this country and what have you done about it at that moment? >> yeah, i've encountered racism

in america, it has shaken me because i come from a place where we have some of the finest racism in the world. [laughter] >> you will struggle to shake me with what you have here. [laughter] >> i find often times racism in my experience comes from a place of fear strangely enough. a lot of the time i think we treat racism as a cause and yet i see it as a symptom, you know, people can disagree with me but personally i see racism as the symptom and the core stims from many different places but a lot of oh the imthat -- of the times racism comes as a fear, see brown as threat to dominance, as threat to the promise that they were given by their fathers or

leaders before who told them that this was their land and this was their future and to many people the idea of sharing is the idea of giving it all away. often times when some of them is racist to me. i'm glad it's not physical, it's mostly words, i'm a firm believer in most emotions in the world are a choice that we make, you know, things are happening to us but the way we response, is an emotional choice, so if anything i smile and send it right back. [applause] >> i don't believe you can spoil my day because of something i say. you don't define me by saying that. >> we have time for two more questions. sorry. each of you have a book. let me finish. [laughter] >> in the book is an e-mail address and i'm sure if you send

an e-mail to that e-mail address it'll get to trevor and i'm sure he will answer your question. [laughter] >> promises politicians make that they can't deliver on. [laughter] >> and then we wonder why there's a revolution. yes, ma'am. >> your father was white, so why didn't you leave? >> that was the question i asked my mom, funny enough. there were many south africans who didn't leave, they left to other countries where they could live a free life. some left to go and plan how they would go inspire and spark a revolution. others left to escape what was happening. i asked my mom that when it happened. i didn't know that we could leave. i only knew the country i was in and one day i asked my mom, why the hell didn't we leave. my dad is swiss, once i saw what switzerland was, are you kidding me? are you kidding me. [laughter]

my mom said one of the most powerful things to me and she looked at me and said, leave and -- this is my country. i'm not going to let somebody chase me out of my country. i'm going to stay here and claim what is mine. [cheers and applause] >> so it's as simple as that. i department leave because i didn't know we could leave. she wasn't going to allow somebody to take what was hers in an exchange for an easier life. [applause] >> okay, our last question. >> i made it. i'm nina, very nice to meet you. i grew up in america biracial, clearly, i experienced racism within the black community because i wasn't fully black and vice versa and on the white side, did you experience that in

south africa as a kid, did blacks ever make you feel different from them and look at you a certain way or treat you differently because you weren't as dark as they were and vice versa. >> i'm lucky that i didn't experience that in the black community. within the black community i was welcomed because, you know n essence what i found even when traveling the world, a lot of the times community that is are having a tougher time or experience that's not particularly pleasant are more welcoming to outsiders that choose that experience because they go, no one would want to be here, who are we to judge you, come on in. those communities are very welcoming. i've never experienced in african communities. i did