Why Is The African Diaspora The Trevor Noah Of Africa?

2. Scarcity Mindset

If you don’t know Trevor Noah, I encourage you to watch his Daily Show on Comedy Central or some bits on YouTube.

Trevor Noah was born in apartheid South Africa to a white father and a Xhosa mother in 1986, which is more explained in his memoir Born a Crime.

He has become a successful artist and entrepreneur in the US and has greatly impacted the black community in the US, South Africa, and worldwide.

How can his story relate and tell the one from the African diaspora?

Let’s examine three aspects of his life, including one from the African diaspora. Of course, the list can go further.

1. Two Worlds, One Body

This one hits home for me. It’s even worse for me because it’s three worlds for me.

I was born and raised in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa. Yet my parents emigrated from Guinea, Conakry. To be precise, we are from a village, Korbé, in the middle of Fouta Djalon. This region is called Middle Guinea. If that were not a sign, I would be the meat in the sandwich.

I spent my early years in our village, mainly with my mother. Then, when it was time to go to school, we came to Dakar, Senegal. By that time, I was six years old. I came to Dakar not speaking Wolof at all.

To put things in perspective, Senegal’s official language is French because of colonization.

However, Wolof is the unofficial language spoken by everybody on the streets, no matter your ethnical group and language.

The other pupils made fun of me because I did not speak Wolof. And it was beyond that. While growing up in Dakar, I was a Pular, and we were called names. One of them was “Ndereng,” which is our “N” word.

I eventually felt like a Senegalese, and Dakar is my home. I remember when I went on holiday to Korbe to visit my grandparents, I was considered a stranger because my Pular was not originally in Guinea. They also would label me as a stranger in Guinea.

Today, I live in Toulouse, France, and have French nationality. I am married to a white French woman, and our son Noah will grow mainly in this environment.

Sometimes, I feel that I am kind of a stranger in France.

Well, you get the drill.

My story as an African living abroad is not unique. We are millions outside the continent, first generations, second or third, with Africa in our hearts and skin.

We are a mixed race like Trevor Noah and have mixed feelings about where we belong. We might be labelled as a stranger or an immigrant in the West and a “toubab”, an “white walker” by our family and friends in our origin countries in Africa.

Many of us fall into the trap of not fully embracing our life outside Africa. Indeed, we will spend all our lives in Europe, physically, to earn money and support our families back in Africa. However, our minds are in Africa with the illusion that we will someday go back and live in Africa.

Of course, some of us will find the courage and the drive to return to our motherland. For the rest of us, and we are legion, we will spend our life in Europe and the US for so many reasons (personal or professional).

We are the white walkers, drifting away, wandering our minds in the magic land of eternal return, and not taking full advantage of all our opportunities in Europe or the US.

This is where Trevor Noah can be an example: work hard and fulfill your potential wherever you are because that’s home for you now.

2. Scarcity Mindset

Trevor Noah grew up in an apartheid environment in the townships of South Africa. Surrounded by violence in the streets and with a family with a low income, he has to learn how to do more with less.

Today, living in the US, this scarcity mindset in an abundant environment has multiplied his projects and his impact both domestically in the US and outside. He’s doing his talk shows and Netflix Specials, being the New York Times best-selling author, and having his own production company.

I came to France in 2000, in Perpignan, with a scholarship from the Senegalese government. I have lived by that scholarship until the end of my studies in 2008.

It was enough to give me money to pay my bills and live decently. Fortunately, I did not have to pay for my studies in France. I just had to pay a reasonable fee at the beginning of the year, and that’s it. Education here is free, or at least not as costly as in the US. Yet I had to work during the summer holidays to save some money for the rest of the year. During my engineering studies, I had to take out a loan to buy a computer and other materials to be on the same level as my peers.

From 2000 to 2008, I lived in a 9 m2 room in a boarding school in Perpignan or an Engineering school in Toulouse, France.

I am one of the few happy foreign Senegalese students in France. Most of the Senegalese or African students studying in France have to work and study simultaneously.

Many will wake up at 4 am and go to work from 5 am to 7 am, doing cleaning activities, sometimes in the same university where they study after school at 8 am. They will have their “normal” day as their French peers.

Some of them have to pay for their studies and support their family back home simultaneously.

Most African diaspora grew up in an environment where scarcity was the norm. When arriving in Europe or the US, they still had some constraints. The result of such a path is the development of a scarcity mindset, which can be an asset to the African diaspora.

Indeed, doing more with less is one of the critical skills the world will need in the post-Conavirus era.

However, the African diaspora is trapped in the West and back home in Africa despite this incredible scarcity mindset.

Indeed, in the West, nobody is aware of their struggle most of the time. Hence, if they manage to land a job in companies in Europe or the US, they are seen as “regular” as their peers, who had a leg start. After all, if they are where they are, it’s not so hard. This is what can be heard in the corridors of corporations.

In their home country, they are seen as “white” inside, as strangers who no longer understand the reality of Africa. Most of us just go on holiday to visit our family and then return to Europe and the US. We are not allowed to voice our concerns about where our country is going, and we are not always asked how we can contribute.

As Trevor Noah, we must be afraid to embrace both our blackness and our whiteness and raise our voices in our domestic country and our African home country.

3. Untapped Potential

When he was picked to replace Jon Stuart, Trevor Noah was just one immigrant on The Daily Show. Looking at what he is today, Comedy Central has fully tapped into his potential. And the world thanks them for helping Trevor become a true leader and inspiration to the world.

I remember my first philosophy class in High School at “Lycée Lamine Gueye ‘’ in Dakar. I remember our teacher discussing the importance of reasoning and constantly challenging the status quo.

One story that still resonates with me today is the allegory of the cave by the Greek philosopher Plato.

In a nutshell, the allegory of the cave in our context is about an African leaving the cave and traveling the world. Nobody listens to what he has to say each time he comes back.

Then he goes back to his cave in the West, and there, he’s also silenced because he’s not from that cave either. He ends up wandering between those two caves his whole life. He will never be able to reach his full potential because he was not given the opportunity. Yet he has so much to offer to both worlds because he’s the best ferryman those two will ever have.

In most African countries, the big corporations from the West and the East do not trust Africans to lead their business there. And they are not helped by the local authorities and people in power, who will always take the money and look the other way. Of course, this might sound like a cliché. However, I have seen a lot of people working in Europe being frustrated that they cannot fulfill their potential. They abandon everything, hoping to start back in their home country in Africa.

Sooner or later, they find themselves just another fish, swimming against the current in another fishbowl. Those who have the opportunity to come back to the West will do it, eventually. Those who stay embrace the system as a Stockholm syndrome, and after a long period, they are overwhelmed by the system they wanted to change the first time.

Welcome home, brother!

No matter how skilled you are in the West, you will have to battle two forces.

The first one is the one of higher standards. As an African from the diaspora, you will have, by default, to work at least twice as much as your peers at the same level. This is not the racist card. This is the unconscious bias card.

“An implicit bias/unconscious bias, or implicit stereotype, is the unconscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group.[1]“

Source Wikipedia

The second battle is the one of higher expectations. One obvious easy example is to see how Barack Obama was held to higher standards compared to Donald Trump.

The example that resonates more with me is the one of Tidjane Thiam, former CEO of Crédit Suisse, one of the biggest banks in the world.

Not only has he had to reduce his pay after a shareholder backlash, he was also fired from the company over some alleged surveillance on his neighbour. And he left the company.

We have heard a lot of stories of people in power both in Europe and the US who misbehaved, even allegedly, who did not pay such a high price for their careers. I guess they are innocent until proven guilty. And for the African diaspora, it feels quite the opposite.

For the African diaspora, the battle to fulfill our potential is on two fronts simultaneously.

In our mainland, in the West, we always have to prove that we are worth it if we are ready to pay at least double the price our peers are paying.

In our country of origin, in Africa, we still need to gain the trust of our sisters and brothers in power. We must convince them we are not here to steal their power and wealth. We must make our voice heard and challenge the status quo without being flagged as whitewashed. Indeed, we have a lot to offer to serve our country of origin.

Final Thoughts

That picture might seem dark. Yet, it is just my vision. I believe that to see, we have to open our eyes first. Then, to have a vision and a compelling future, we have to open our minds.

I hereby call all the African diaspora to be proud of being the people ferrying between those two worlds.

We have our role to play in building the future of Africa because, after all, we are proud of the black blood running through our veins.

We all have a “Trevor Noah” inside us, just waiting. Let’s wake him up and give him a voice so he can be our vessel to Africa, the real Wakanda!

How do you see the African diaspora?

Do you think that the African diaspora has a role to play in the future of the continent?

How can we help the diaspora contribute to Africa and the world?

Leave a comment below.

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