Trevor Noah on why his mom is his hero

I think unmistakeably the the hero of your book is your mom yes I mean I think it speaks really loud you can I'm gonna just read you quickly a passage and ask

you to comment this that really struck me as to how special she was is because my mom raised me as if 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 right 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

the thing that always amazed me about her life is that no one showed her no one chose or she did it on her own she found her way through sheer force of will

I was nearly six when Mandela was released ten before democracy finally came yet she was preparing me to live a

life of freedom long before we knew freedom would exist can you comment by mathur well one thing

we couldn't deny growing up was we were living in a police state and one of the biggest things we were taught growing up with those my grandmother my grandfather

my aunt rivet was was as a black child you had to be twice as good you knew that you weren't afforded the same liberties you weren't allowed to making

the same mistakes because there was a system that was waiting to imprison or kill you and so you always have to be twice as good twice as polite twice as

you know just twice as a human being and my mom to a certain extent but that

trend in that system she brought me up as if I wouldn't be in a world where I was free to express myself she brought me up as if I was going to live in a

world where I wouldn't be oppressed now that I guess you know it's an extremely it's an extremely risky gamble because she she had no idea that it would end but we lived as if as if it would and so

my mom always told me she said speak up no you know voice your concerns challenging me as your mother that was the one thing my mom you know imbued within me was the idea that I could

challenge her authority don't get me wrong I mean I was still on the end of many many spankings from her but but I was told that I could challenge her because in challenging her we would both

learn and I still try and keep that with me today I tell people like I'm I'm proud to say that I don't know I don't know most things and what's great about not knowing is is the joy of filling in

that void or even knowing that you can still learn new things a lot of the time I don't know why we learn our entire lives and then we become adults and we go like oh we know now we're done we know and we don't there's always something new to

learn there's always an idea that we can't change but my mom always always encouraged you