Confronting Race, Colonialism, and Difference in African Diasporic Stand-up: The Cases of Trevor Noah and Cécile Djunga

African comedians are fast becoming prominent in the global stand-up scene, especially since the emergence of South Africa’s Trevor Noah as replacement for The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart. Noah and other comedians of African descent continually make jokes about racism in the West as well as the effects of colonialism on people of colour both in the homeland and in the diaspora. Much of what these comedians are doing has received little or no critical attention, especially from a postcolonial perspective. This paper thus seeks to conduct such an assessment through performance analysis and close reading of purposively selected stage acts by Cécile Djunga and Trevor Noah, highlighting the relevance of their joke-making in enlivening, resuscitating and eliciting newer questions and discussions on issues of racism and the negative bequests of colonialism. Specifically, Cécile Djunga continually makes jokes about racism and colonialism – including the cutting of hands in the Congo – to her Belgian audiences, while Trevor Noah resurrects his Apartheid experience in analysing contemporary racism in the US and elsewhere. The main question that confronts us in this paper is: can one laugh about these things, especially atrocious acts such as those seen in colonial Congo as well as racism in Apartheid South Africa and globally? The paper thus posits these stand-up acts as postcolonial texts designed to buttress the significance of Africa’s history and her people in a fast globalizing world.