Jon Stewart: Police are basically "a border patrol" between two Americas [View all]

[kpete]

I’d like to say I’m surprised by what happened to him, but I’m not. This is a cycle, and I feel that in some ways, the issue is that we’re addressing the wrong problem. We continue to make this about the police — the how of it. How can they police? Is it about sensitivity and de-escalation training and community policing? All that can make for a less-egregious relationship between the police and people of color. But the how isn’t as important as the why, which we never address. The police are a reflection of a society. They’re not a rogue alien organization that came down to torment the black community. They’re enforcing segregation. Segregation is legally over, but it never ended. The police are, in some respects, a border patrol, and they patrol the border between the two Americas. We have that so that the rest of us don’t have to deal with it. Then that situation erupts, and we express our shock and indignation. But if we don’t address the anguish of a people, the pain of being a people who built this country through forced labor — people say, ‘‘I’m tired of everything being about race.’’ Well, imagine how [expletive] exhausting it is to live that.

Imagine the anguish of living in a country that profited off the forced labor of your ancestors, and is still having this conversation: ‘‘Hey, do you think we should fly the flag of the people that fought to enslave your ancestors? What do you guys think of that? Good idea or bad idea?’’ And then you hear, ‘‘It’s history.’’ It’s not history! It’s hagiography. If you go down there and read the plaques on the Confederate monuments, they aren’t, ‘‘This [expletive] thought he could enslave people based on the color of their skin.’’ That’s not what the plaque says. The plaque honors them! Enraging doesn’t begin to describe it.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/06/15/magazine/jon-stewart-interview.html
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/15/1953421/-A-MUST-READ-interview-with-Jon-Stewart?utm_campaign=trending