“The Daily Show” was on a two-week break when unarmed teen Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, Missouri, and when media coverage of the events began, Jon Stewart’s absence from the airwaves was a noticeable one. Stewart has a knack for knowing just what to say to bring events sharply into perspective, and when he returned to TV, he brought a whole lot of thoughts about Ferguson along with him. Last night, he tore into Fox anchors for implying that Brown’s shooting is not a race issue and for bringing up ignorant, paternalistic arguments against “the race card” in discussions despite the fact that Brown’s death is so blatantly about race. Stewart shares clips of several pundits essentially retreating into a bubble of white privilege in an attempt explain away the shooting as some kind of earnest accident. Ugh. Bill O’Reilly even cut his vacation short to weigh in on Ferguson because he was “outraged” — not because Michael Brown was brutally murdered, but because he didn’t like that it sparked a much-needed discussion about race in the media. Seriously. Stewart can only talk about this crappiness for so long before his own humor turns to rage:
“Do you not understand that life in this country is inherently different for black people and white people? … Race is there, and it is a constant …You’re tired of hearing about it? Imagine how fucking exhausting it is living it….I guarantee you that every person of color in this country has faced an indignity – from the ridiculous to the grotesque to the sometimes fatal – at some point in their, I’m going to say last couple of hours, because of their skin color.”
Tell it like it is, Jon! Clip above. [The Wire]
Original by Claire Hannum
