As you may know... This country has had some issues with race. Oh, okay. [LAUGHTER] Sphincters are
tightening already. [LAUGHTER] We've had some issues with race.
There was- there was that incident in... 1619 and then... Had a few hiccups
since then, but... Mostly it's been fine! We’ve all been chillin. It's been chill. Until a couple of years ago... Another rare, bad thing happened to Black people
in the summer of 2020. - George Floyd's death
is sparking a national reckoning. - The death of George Floyd. It sparks this global movement. This racial reckoning - We here in America certainly
had our own racial reckoning in the wake of George
Floyd's death. - A growing number
of American companies facing a racial reckoning... - As America confronts a racial reckoning. - A racial reckoning... - It also comes at a time of racial
reckoning for the country. Oh! [LAUGHTER] So, you guys are finally
ready to talk about racial reper... Uhh.... Reckoning. [LAUGHTER] We don't... We don't wanna... [APPLAUSE] We don't wanna right the wrongs. We just reckon we're gonna
think about it for a bit. [LAUGHTER] Well, not to worry! This egregious, midday murder will not be in vain. Let the work of righting
centuries of oppression begin. - Aunt Jemima is being retired. [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] By any means necessary. - Cream of Wheat is removing the
Black chef from its packaging. - Chris Harrison,
host of The Bachelor, has announced
he is stepping away. - Every NFL stadium, you're going
to see phrases like, “End racism.” - Tonight we know the Dixie
Chicks are dropping the “Dixie.” - The village of Hempstead renamed “Main Street”:
“Black Lives Matter Way.” - We will now kneel for our moment of silence. [LAUGHTER] [LAUGHTER] Worst production of Lion King ever. [LAUGHTER] But more than kente-
cloth calisthenics and some long-overdue
brand readjustments, there came another, even more meaningful
cultural shift. - I think white people
need to listen. - White people should listen
to African-Americans. - White people, we need to listen. - We are listening, I am listening. - Now it's time for us to have ears to hear. [LAUGHTER] Oh, good!
‘Cause I've been using mine for fucking. [LAUGHTER] Two at a time. I likes my ear-fuckin’ like I like my Pink Floyd albums. In stereo. [LAUGHTER] Yeah... Yeah, we changed it from
rehearsal for the... [LAUGHTER] The crew, they got
a bit of a tickle out of that one. [LAUGHTER] Yes, apparently,
this racial issue that so divides America could have just been solved if only Black people
would have said something! [LAUGHTER] So... Okay, white people... Ears to hear. - This is the harsh
reality for Black people in America today. That we are expected to participate in democracy, while receiving conditional citizenship in return. - When ZIP code determines what kind of school
that you go to- when ZIP code determines
what kind of food you can eat... These are the vestiges
of enslavement. - So when they say, "Why
do you burn down the community? Why do you burn down your own
neighborhood?” It's not ours! We don't own anything! - It's amazing to me. Why we keep loving this country and this country
does not love us back. I mean, this stuff is hard to hear. But these are
tough conversations. And I would probably
have more hope, in its impact on our culture, if those same exact sentiments hadn't already been
conveyed to white people over and over and over. Like, one year earlier
on The Breakfast Club. - They never, never, never addressed the primary
problems of Black folk. Our primary problem was
not social integration or civil rights. The primary problems
you’ve never corrected. The legacies and
burdens of slavery. Or by Viola Davis at an award show in 2015. - The only thing that
separates women of color, from anyone else, is opportunity. Or in the 90s
when Sister Souljah explained this directly
to Bill Clinton and Larry King. - The thing that kills
African people in America is not what white people
say, but what they do. Their policies, their actions... See, white people are pretending that this problem is new. And we're just hearing about it now, because we love to discover stuff that's already existed. [LAUGHTER] It's kind of our thing. [LAUGHTER] “America!” [LAUGHTER] “Where did you come from?” [LAUGHTER] “First!” [LAUGHTER] As a matter of fact,
this shit has been said many times just by Chris Rock! - Shit! There ain't a
white man in this room that would change
places with me. And I'm rich! - You had a full hundred-year
head start, muthafucka! - See, the Black man gotta... - Fly! to get something that the
white man could walk to. - A Black C-Student can't even be the manager of Burger King. Meanwhile, the white
C-Student just happens to be the President of the
United States of America. [APPLAUSE] He's a very good comedian. [LAUGHTER] But you know what? Maybe you don't want to hear about our racial divide
and have it be funny. Would you rather Black people invent an entire genre of music just to explain it to us? But you know what? It's wonderful that white
people are finally ready to sit back and listen. But damn! The Black people speaking out now are just sampling the classics. - Racism is so deeply embedded into the fabric of the society. Thank you, Angela. James Baldwin went all the way to England to explain it, because he wanted to do it at white people headquarters. It comes at a great
shock to discover the country, which
is your birthplace and to which you owe your life and your identity, has not, in its whole
system of reality, evolved any place for you. For fuck's sake. Frederick
Douglass told white people, “The rich inheritance
of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you,
not by me.” He said that in 1852. And now, 170 years later, suddenly we're like, “Hey.” “You seem upset.” [LAUGHTER] [LAUGHTER] “We're still cool, though, right?” “Did we do something?” Black people have given us step-by-step instructions
through the centuries. They didn't even do that
with the electric slide... Which, by the way, three steps and then you bend-
I don't want to get into it. [LAUGHTER] And yet, even after all that, the wealth gap: worse now. Homeownership: worse now. Segregation: worse now. On average, a white
high school graduate is wealthier than a Black college graduate. Forget about them telling you. Even the stark facts
don't seem to matter. - Black Americans
should understand that if they study and work hard, they will likely succeed
in this country. Just not as much as white people who don't study as hard. [LAUGHTER] We have been told over and over and over
again by Black people that this country
has never resolved the original sins of
slavery and segregation. But the response to
that is always - If Barack Obama can make it as the son of a single white mom, then so
can everybody else. - Oprah Winfrey is, perhaps, the best example
of a talented person who made it on her
own in America. - LeBron James is a great
American success story. How can America be racist if Cleveland has a championship? [LAUGHTER] It doesn't seem to matter what Black people tell us or how many times they say it. It lands on deaf ears. Because a large swath
of white America believes that Black Americans are solely responsible
for their community's struggle. And the bias is so pervasive, we don't even notice it! - Crack... Who's responsible? Let me tell you straight out: everyone who uses drugs. Hmmm. [LAUGHTER] And perchance, who would this, “everyone” be? [LAUGHTER] - Crack has become
the new franchise, a chemical McDonald's. You want to get high, you see the guys in the gangs, in the red and blue outfits... - The front line
in the war on crack. - There are tens of thousands
more crack babies on the way. - Crack babies... - Are gonna to overwhelm every social service
delivery system. - Before, we could afford to ignore the hopelessness
represented by gangs. But now, we're afraid
it will affect our schools, our kids, our streets. - It's as innocent
looking as candy. But it's turning our
cities into battle zones. And it's murdering our children. What kind of fucking
candy do you eat? [LAUGHTER] Now, this is not to downplay, at all, the effects
of the crack epidemic. But we are
currently in the midst of an equally corrosive opioid epidemic. Although that affects a slightly different “everyone.” And how is that portrayed? - America's addiction to opioids is playing out
right down the street. Every type of person
you can imagine: successful people, funny people, moms, dads, grandparents, injured athletes, cancer patients, war veterans. Chances are greater than ever you know someone directly affected. Why are opioids so hard to quit? Well, that's fucking easy. It links opioid receptors
and inhibits an enzyme that... I'm not gonna
get into it right now. But the point is:
it's on purpose. And the people who made it
that way only had to pay a fine. But that's drugs. I'm sure poverty doesn't
have the same empathy gap. - Inner city is a
polite name for “ghetto” as in, “Black ghetto.” [LAUGHTER] And that's the
award-winning PBS journalist. [LAUGHTER] So... Uhh... Just out of curiosity, why is the Black ghetto poor? - Intelligent Americans know, it is the collapse
of the traditional family that is wreaking havoc in
the African-American community. - 72% of Black babies
are born to single mothers. - If they would start talking about the responsibilities
of fatherhood... - The dependency on welfare
was breaking up Black families. - The breakdown of the Black
family and an extraordinarily dysfunctional, toxic,
inner-city culture... “Inner city.” Excuse me! The politically-correct phrase is, “Black ghetto"! [LAUGHTER] Good day! [LAUGHTER] Uh, by the way, how do we portray poverty in the... Outer city? - Ruggedly beautiful and deeply poor Appalachia, for decades, has struggled. - People here have struggled
more and more as their factories have shuttered and their coal mines have closed. It's been a slow, painful drip of job losses for decades. - It used to be, with a
high-school degree, you could get a job that actually could provide
for your family. And the disappearance of those may lead people to feel a lot more stressed. - So that low self-worth, along
with that hopelessness feeling, we start seeing
tremendous depression. So how do you relieve
depression? You can relieve it
with drug use, alcohol use. - White people are
poor and do drugs because something has
been done to them. Black people are poor
and do drugs ‘cause they won't just
get up and do something. Everything that happens is viewed through that filter. - What started as peaceful protest
devolving into something beyond that. - An explosion of violence today. - This is not what we want people
to see of the City of Philadelphia. But, makes perfect sense. How would you like people
to see the city of Philadelphia? - The Eagles' victory touched off a wild celebration
in Philadelphia. - The celebration quickly got rowdy. Fans pulled down traffic lights. - The awning, in front of the
Ritz-Carlton Hotel, collapsed. - Started fires and tipped over cars. - Now it looks like
everybody had a good time there last night. [LAUGHTER] And thus. The problem with white people. [APPLAUSE]
Hold on. [APPLAUSE]
I’m just gonna... [APPLAUSE] I’m just gonna stop for a second, and pose, so you can
get your memes out. [LAUHTER]
Okay, there we go. Get a good picture
for your clickbaits. For however sincerely
we want to reckon and listen, the truth is, America has always prioritized white comfort over Black survival. Black people have had to fight so hard for equality that they've been irreparably set back in the pursuit of equity. And any real attempt to repera... Reperat... Repair... A ton of... That damage... (Jon whispering)
Reparation. [LAUGHTER] Sets off white people's “They're coming
for our shit” alarm, which we would know ourselves, had we actually been listening. - My feeling is, white people have a very,
very serious problem. And they should start thinking about what they
can do about it. Take me out of it. Understood.
Lead by example, Jon. Otherwise, f**k off.
I understand why people feel reparations are / were warranted, but I have yet to hear any logical proposal for actually distributing some form of cash reparations in the modern day — how do you handle something now that should have been handled with “a mule and 40 acres” or something similar 150 years ago? This is like trying to adjust the immigration policies at Ellis Island by fiddling with people’s citizenship today… Why aren’t more advocates pushing for a broader economic policy that benefits everyone at the bottom of society? Because that isn’t narrowly tailored enough to a particular ethnic/racial group?
Just listened to this on the way into work this morning. No insights at all into the greater narrative from John and he seems to be putting his chips on "reparations" despite the fact that its a ludicrous, politically toxic idea that is literally impossible to implement and...even if you managed it...would make our racial issues 10x worse.
I sincerely hate this perspective, and once again we dance around class issues all while sneering at the hard fought social changes that have been made in the US over the last two centuries.
Its never a narrative of “we’ve made significant changes to improve the lives of african americans but we need to address x, y, and z” its this histrionic claim that we’re in the same exact boat as we were in during the jim crow days. Its fucking stupid, can we point out current legislation that specifically targets african americans ? Can we please have tangible requests from activist groups that we can discuss rationally and come to conclusions on meaningful change so we can actually solve these problems? Lets check what the BLM demands are.
The BLM website has a list of seven demands. five out of the seven relate specifically to donald trump and january sixth. https://blacklivesmatter.com/blm-demands/ . The other two (yes only two) demands are Defund the police and support of the Breathe act. The BREATHE act demand focuses on the environmental justice component of the bill instead of the incarceration problem thats outlined in the bill. Defund the police is frankly just an awful slogan with nebulous principles that amounts to nothing (it also references january sixth in the statement). Ok, let’s prevent cops from buying tanks, agreed, But How does that solve the issue of police violence? Was George Floyd run over by a tank? Clearly, the most prominent Black activist group has turned all their talking points to inane Neolib obsessions.
Ok, fine. You made your demands, now lets talk about the—-oh I’m not allowed to disagree with any of them. I understand, so if I disagree with any of these neolib talking points, I disagree with BLM. Which makes me racist. Which I already am, because Im a white first generation immigrant. Or something. Got it.
Ok Ill wait til the activists leave the room. Can I talk now? Great. The infuriating thing is that we have tangible things we can focus on as a society to fix, including attempting to repair the damage from the war on drugs and ending mandatory minimums/school to prison pipeline/etc that disproportionately affects African American communities. How the fuck does Jan 6 and Donald trump dominant this conversation? How is it relevant to the tangible things we CAN change?
But nah, lets just cut them a check and nod along , hoping they’ll spare us their wrath since we’re the good whites, right John?
And once again, we talk about “white people”, as if every single pasty caucasian has the same agency as a washington politician or Jeff Bezos. Let’s just ignore class entirely, yeah that makes sense. Surely a poor Appalachian coal miner has more in common with Bill gates than a poor African American does, since Billy boy and Bill gates both need extra suntan lotion and don’t like spicy foods, or something.
I don’t think anyone with power or agency is interested in solving what we actually can solve. They just want to use angry minorities as a smoke screen to deflect from class based issues, but you’re on /r/StupidPol , so you probably already know that. Stewart really should have stayed retired.
The justification and feasibility of reparations aside it doesn’t matter if minorities are given money to make up for past transgressions if the systemic problems of society (racism, wage slavery, police brutality etc) go unresolved and the capitalist system is kept intact. Giving minorities money once isn’t a magic bullet.
Thank you my fellow white. Which other people can we write the next chapter in your series about? Asians? Blacks? Jews?
Okay sure pay reparations to African Americans…….if you’re going to be morally consistent though better take it off them right afterwards and hand it to an Iraqi, Cuban etc.
If people alive today with zero tangible connection to slavery are paying for crimes committed before they even existed and others are demanding that they do so then they too should pay for everything remotely equivalent that happened during their lifetimes as opposed to generations ago.
How about the reparations are taken exclusively from the rich. You know the ones who benefited from slavery? Not random dudes in trailer parks in west virginia.
Reparations are bribes. Revisionism is counterrevolutionary. We can't make a system of exploitation fair. You can only increase the number of exploiters exploiting others.