Trevor Noah has finally gone viral — and he's paying a steep price for how he did it.
The 32-year-old host of "The Daily Show" is being dragged on social media for interviewing Tomi Lahren, a 24-year-old conservative commentator who has compared the Black lives matter movement to the Ku Klux Klan.
Though he pushed Lahren on her ideas, Noah also took it a step forward by having dinner with his guest and sending her cupcakes for appearing on the show. For many people of color, that kind of feigned civility is the problem.
As soon as the footage of Lahren and Noah eating dinner hit the internet, people of color called out "The Daily Show" host.
The anger toward Noah grew when he wrote an essay for The New York Times explaining why he handled the Lahren interview in such a "diplomatic" way.
From The New York Times:
The past year has been so polarizing and noxious that even I find myself getting caught up in the extreme grandstanding and vitriol. But with extremes come deadlock and the death of progress. Instead of speaking in measured tones about what unites us, we are screaming at each other about what divides us — which is exactly what authoritarian figures like Mr. [Donald] Trump want: Divided people are easier to rule. That was, after all, the whole point of apartheid.
Yet his analysis has one crucial flaw: It treats bigotry as a difference of opinion, which I pointed out on Twitter as well.
In a thoughtful essay for Medium, writer David Dennis Jr. broke down exactly why Noah's interview is so angering.
"But here’s the problem. [Tomi] Lahren and [Trevor] Noah didn't just have a debate with an equal exchange of ideas," he wrote:
They weren't debating how to increase GDP or who's the best team in the NFC. They debated topics that are literally life-threatening to people who look like Trevor Noah and me. Tomi Lahren spouted violent propaganda on national television while Noah tried to get her to value his Black life. That's not a healthy debate. That type of conversation shouldn't be celebrated. And it damn sure isn't Trevor Noah’s job to convince a white person why he shouldn't die.
Noah's decision to interview Lahren isn't the problem. Refusing to recognize how harmful her rhetoric is forces us all to navigate a very complex issue.
If this blow-up shows nothing else, it should prove to Trevor Noah that racial tensions are at an all-time high — and going viral does nothing to ease that.
