“I have a pretty simple job. I come in in the morning, we look at the news, and I write jokes about it…but I didn’t do my job today. I’ve got nothing for you…”
So states Jon Stewart in the introduction to the first Daily Show episode since the tragic events in South Carolina, when nine people at a historic African-American church in Charleston were killed in a hate-crime.
The audience laugh nervously, waiting for the punchline, but there isn’t one. Instead Stewart delivers a powerful monologue, which is as moving and heart-felt as it is tragically on-point.
The satirist is deadly serious when he criticises the “disparity of response” to a “black-and-white” murder.
He then slams the rhetoric that causes a nation to attack other countries in the name of freedom and national security, whilst at the same time ignoring and justifying the terrorism of its own people:
“We gotta do whatever we can – we’ll torture people – to keep America safe. Nine people shot in a church – what about that?”
He then cuts through the rolling news bullsh*t by distilling what happened into a single, brutally honest summary:
“Nine people were shot in a black church by a white guy who hated them, who wanted to start some kind of civil war”
He signs off with “sorry about no jokes,” but there is no need for apology. Stewart has once again said it better than anyone else ever could.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zy-o5Jiu9M
