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Trevor Noah Slams Joe Rogan's 'Planet of the Apes' Non-Apology

  • Less than two weeks after Trevor Noah schooled Joe Rogan on Blackness, The Daily Show host renewed his criticism of the podcaster, who apologized over the weekend after a montage of him repeatedly using the N-word went viral.

    "If there's ever a video that shows you saying the N-word that many times, you'd better pray for one of two things," Noah said on Monday night. "Either you're a Black person, or you're a dead man from history."

    In his apology, Rogan specifically addressed a 2013 clip in which he said walking into a movie theater in a predominantly Black neighborhood was like entering Planet of the Apes. Rogan insisted it "wasn't a racist story, but sounded terrible," and insisted he was "just trying to be entertaining," not "racist."

    "It's not just racism. That's like OG racism, the original, old-school. That's on the Mt. Rushmore of racism, you know? Black people are apes," said Noah, after playing videos of both Rogan's initial remarks and his apology. "Joe, I think you were using racism to be entertaining. I'm not saying you were trying to offend Black people, by the way, but you knew that offending Black people would get a laugh out of those white friends that you were with."

    "I'm a comedian, and I love making jokes, and I love hearing jokes. And I love all kinds of jokes. I love safe jokes, I like dark jokes," he continued. "But just because something is a joke doesn't mean it can't be something else as well because a joke can be racist. A joke can be racist and funny if you're telling it to the right crowd. The laughs don't mean that there's no racism."

    The Daily Show with Trevor Noah airs weeknights at 11:00 PM ET on Comedy Central.

    Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.

    TOPICS: Trevor Noah, Comedy Central, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Joe Rogan