
Steven Colbert Interviews Jon Stewart
Part 1
August 4, 2020
Steven:
Let’s talk about the incredible civil rights demonstrations that have been going on in the wake of George Floyd’s death and Bronwyn Taylor’s death and Ahmaud Arbery… why do you think right now there has been such a powerful movement in the street that has been so broad…like 2,000 different towns and cities…people of all walks of life, all taking to the streets demanding change. What do you think is different now?
Jon:
Such a great question. You know, I was thinking back when this happened to when I was still doing the show and the terrible tragedy in Charleston, Ferguson, Eric Garner, and I don’t know, because I remember those moments being so chilling and feeling like such a wake-up call, but also feeling hopeless – that we continue to stare at this sort of abyss of a gaping racial wound, but we never seem to do anything about. And so, in this moment, I don’t know … I think it was Will Smith who said, “It’s not that racism is worse, it’s being filmed.” But the others were on camera as well.
In some respects, I wonder if the pandemic, because we all went into a kind of stasis, and so much of the distractions of your daily life were removed, it allowed the country a moment of clarity. Because so much of the noise had ended – it’s almost like, in this moment of more quiet reflection, America stopped and smelled the racism.
You know what I mean?
There was that feeling we were in a moment’s pause, and in that one breath, maybe it suddenly became clearer…because look…the biggest obstacle to change has always been our inability to understand. It’s not just about ending segregation, it’s about dismantling the barriers….look…Black people have been working so hard for equality for so long, and the exhaustion of that, just the despair of that, and the anguish of that…that while they were fighting for equality, white people were building equity and the disparity then between the lack of equality and the rise in equity, just exacerbates…and they are always negotiating from this subservient position what should not be a negotiation.
They had to, from the get-go, ask for human hood, ask for those things that in our Declaration of Independence very clearly say are your inalienable rights from your Creator. They’re not…you know…if God creates us all equal, the American government somehow got to be the bouncer of that creed… and you had to ask and beg and plead and fight and take to the streets to gain equality. But while that was going on there, we still had legal boundaries to keep them from gaining equity and I think equality will only come once the Black community can gain the equity that was taken from them…F***…from the beginning.
I mean, you’re talking about the Homestead Act. Once all the slaves were freed, they didn’t have their own land, they didn’t get the 40 acres and a mule that was promised to them, Andrew Johnson made sure of that. So we had the Homestead Act and homesteaders were given millions of acres of land, which was the equity… Somebody was telling me – I think what they said was that 20% of the wealth in that era can actually be traced to the Homestead Act, which explicitly did not include Black people.
The Federal Housing Administration in the New Deal, explicitly said that you cannot loan these low-cost loans that were intended for White people to gain equity, you cannot give them to Black people. The most progressive piece of legislation that may have ever happened on the soil of America explicitly excluded Black people. The GI Bill in Long Island, when everybody was buying into Levittown, explicitly excluded Black people. Until and when we address that…equality will come. That to me feels like the root.
Steven:
I think that is the root and I would only add to that, is that one of the reasons I think this is a catalytic moment is because of all the work done by Black organizers over the last five to six years… specifically, Black Lives Matter, who four years ago at the election, it was “Who is this radical organization?” and now it’s generally accepted to have a proper goal and people understand what Black Lives Matter really means. It is more broadly accepted. The second thing would be… (Jon interrupts) …Go ahead…
Jon:
I was just going to say… but it’s still going to be the “but” people. So the things working against it are the “but” people… and by the way, as ridiculous as it is for two old white dudes to be sitting around saying, “The problem with racism in this country is…” (they both mimic pondering and laugh)
Steven:
I think it’s valid to talk about why it’s widely accepted because I’m talking about why it’s not just the Black community that believes this has to happen now…
Jon:
Right! And here’s why I think this is important, I think White people can function as avatars and for some reason…we used to do this on the show. We did a bit on it. I think it was myself, Jordan Klepper and Jessica Williams, and we were talking about one of those things at Ferguson and she was making a great point about systemic racism and Jordan Klepper would say, ”I don’t know, that just doesn’t sound like it’s real.”
And then I would say the same thing that she said, just slightly reformatted and he would say, “That is so deep and profound! You are such a thought leader on race. I really respect you for that.” And she’d go, “I just said that” and he’d go, “I don’t think you did.”
Because I think the problem has always been… maybe two-fold… one is the “but” people… they’ll come out and say, “Y’know, what happened to George Floyd was awful, we watched it, and no one condones that… BUT…” As soon as you hear “but” you know they’re about to negate the reality of the situation. “Ya but— he wasn’t an angel” or “what about the criminality?”
One of the biggest problems… I think the problem is twofold. One, I think there’s a wide swath of the White population, and you know this as well as I do, that believes that somehow the inequality in the Black community is on them.
Colbert:
Right! They’re not working hard enough.
Jon:
Correct. That there is a problem of virtue and culture.
“Pull your pants up!”
“If you just…”
“My grandfather had to work”
– But when your grandfather came home from World War II, he got a low-cost loan to buy a house. When a Black GI came home from World War II, they weren’t allowed to and they were never allowed to build that equity.
So the first thing is to try and have the conversation because we don’t talk about White entrenched poverty in the same way. Look at how they talk about poverty in the inner city… somehow it’s the fault of the Denizens there. But White poverty is a tragedy of circumstance – it’s globalism, it’s jobs that go overseas. Their problems are debts of despair. Opioids are treated differently than crack. Crack is criminalized and people are put away. Opioids, they’re just sad because the jobs are gone.
Well, how would you handle what has been systemically been done to the Blacks? … And [they say] to the Black community, “Hey man, c’mon, we’re not slave owners. Why can’t you get over it?” Meanwhile, look what happened to White people. Six weeks of quarantine and they’re like… (Jon puts his hands to his head with a look of exasperation) “I’m going to storm the government with my AK-47…”
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