Stewart hosting ‘The Daily Show’ is what America needs right now
With Jon Stewart’s part-time, temporary return to “The Daily Show ” this week, his Monday night stints, now through the November election, may help some viewers regain a sense of sanity after the former host’s nine-year absence from network television.
He couldn’t have come back at a better time.
When Stewart walked away from the satirical news program in 2015, it left a hole for many of us who’d grown accustomed to both his face and political observations each weeknight. Following the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, fear and ignorance were rampant on Long Island, N.Y., where my family and I lived, only a few towns over from where Stewart had grown up decades earlier.
I was only 14 years old at the time, in my first week of high school when the towers were struck. It seemed like overnight, anyone with a tinge of brown skin or a “foreign” sounding name was susceptible to name-calling and acts of violence. As a mixed-race American — of Indian, Puerto Rican and Italian descent — I barely resemble any of my three backgrounds on the surface, but being ethnic-looking was sometimes enough for an ignorant bully. What are you? was a common question posed throughout my teenage years due to my olive skin complexion, thick eyebrows and curly hair, and I’d often be mistaken as Arab by ignorant classmates.
Though I was thankful for my city’s safety and proud to call myself a bornand-raised New Yorker, 24-hour cable news channels only stoked divisive flames as footage and photographs of terrorists aired repeatedly on TV screens, leading to a new kind of patriotic fervor among neighbors who made many Middle Eastern and South Asian residents feel like outsiders. For my friends and me, however, Jon Stewart was the only person we could turn to in those ensuing weeks to help us make sense of the news cycle and political climate. To us, he wasn’t just a local boy who made good. Aside from humor, he offered what no other adults could at the time: compassion.
Though he briefly disappeared from the spotlight following his “Daily Show ” departure, Stewart made headlines in June 2019 when he appeared in tears before the House Judiciary Committee, reprimanding Congress for the lack of health care for 9/11 first responders. As sorrowful as I felt for those heroic first responders, I also felt proud seeing Stewart there, once again helping the public see the truth, wanting nothing more than to support others and enlighten the rest of us.
Three months later, on the 18th anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks, I was taking my usual walk on my lunch break from work, around the corner from the New York firehouse at 106-108 E. 13th St. –– the two-story building that has become an international tourist attraction for visitors who want to pay respect to the first responders who gave and risked their lives on that fateful day.
Oddly enough, I saw no tourists lingering this time. But in the distance, a group of people were walking down the street holding a banner that read “100 Mile March in Memory of 9/11” with a goal of raising $10,000 that day.
As I stood there, waiting to pay my respects, I noticed a familiar face accompanying them. It was Jon Stewart, sporting the same beard I’d recently seen on TV and a T-shirt. There were no cameras around, no press or paparazzi, no onlookers whatsoever. As the group made their way to the firehouse, some of the resident firefighters and a New York police officer were waiting to greet them.
After a few cell phone snaps kindly taken by the officer, they thanked Stewart as he was getting ready to walk back home like any other New Yorker. There was a soberness in his eyes as he too thanked the group, glancing over to me standing there on the side. What could I say to the man who’d help me and many others get through each day, offering some hope for the next?
“Thank you,” I said to him, nearly in tears.
He gave back a small smile and humbly bowed his head as if he too wanted to weep. Acting like a typical fan or tourist myself, I quickly found the nerve to ask him for a picture. He graciously obliged. The police officer, still standing nearby, offered to take it –– talk about a New York moment. It was all too overwhelming.
Though countless other social and political satirists have come and gone, I haven’t felt the same connection as I did with Stewart. It seems tougher to generate humor in an era of deliberate division at the hands of politicians and media conglomerates. Perhaps Stewart has become a nostalgic figure for my generation like a voice from a simpler past, even though it wasn’t. Or maybe, in a time of increasing artificiality, there’s just something humane about him –– and we could all benefit from some more humanity.