Jon Stewart did an epic monologue on race this week. Much of it was about the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity caught reciting a racist chant. But several minutes in, Stewart turned his sites on Fox News’ hypocritical dismissal of racist incidents as “an unending series of isolated events.”
“Rather than face the lingering reality of prejudice in this country,” Stewart said, “each incident, even the Department of Justice’s Ferguson Report – as comprehensive a catalog of race-based predation as anyone’s gonna find - it’s an invitation to bend over backwards to negate the role of race.”
Stewart played a clip from a Kelly file discussion of the Ferguson Report earlier in the week. In it, The Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens insisted, “It’s not a story of institutional racism in Ferguson, it’s a story of bloodsucking government that’s trying to get every ounce of revenue that it can.”
“By overwhelmingly harassing black people,” Stewart added.
He continued by pointing out the discrepancy between how Fox treats, say, a slacker surfer on food stamps and the Ferguson report.
STEWART: No accumulation of racist incidents is enough to convince these guys that racism is still a society-wide problem, especially given that conservative media’s whole business model is generalizing isolated incidents, using one lobster-eating surfer on food stamps or one renamed holiday parade to convince their fearful viewers this country’s in the throes of a freeloaders’ Christmas war.
He played a clip of Megyn Kelly validating Stephens, saying, “There are very few companies in America, whether they’re public or private, in which if you sic 40 FBI agents on the company and review every email and every document and every communication you can between the employees, you won’t find any racist emails, any inappropriate comments - and then to tar the entire organization with that is additionally problematic.”
Stewart pointed out how, despite her intent to prove the opposite, Kelly was so close to actually acknowledging the problem.
“You have the right words! Your inflection is just a little off!” Stewart shouted. “How f***ed up is that?”
Indeed.
Watch it below, from the March 11 The Daily Show, for some late Friday night, Saturday morning laughs. Because as serious and skewering as this segment is, it’s also very funny.
“The Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens insisted, “It’s not a story of institutional racism in Ferguson, it’s a story of bloodsucking government that’s trying to get every ounce of revenue that it can.” "
Yes indeed, because no matter how you slice it, HUGE TAX CUTS FOR WEALTHY AMERICANS (especially longtime Murdoch puppets like Bret Stephens) AND BIG CORPORATIONS — especially Herr Goebbels II’s (i.e. Murdoch’s) News Corporation — HAVE TO BE PAID FOR!
’Nuff said.
