Jimmy Kimmel: 'Nascar now has done more to fight racism than the president'
Jimmy Kimmel
Jimmy Kimmel offered the week’s award for “most ‘stooped’”, to quote Donald Trump’s misspelling of stupid on Twitter, to the president’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who “astonished even the most hardened among us” when he repeatedly answered “I do not” to the question “Do you believe there’s systemic racism against African Americans in the US?”
“Sir, one more question: can you name a black person?” asked Kimmel. Kudlow’s answers were “so stupid I don’t think even Donald Trump would say it”.
“This, by the way, is the same guy who said coronavirus was ‘contained’ three months ago, and he’s still there, reporting for duty. Only the best
people,” Kimmel added.
“On the other side of the coin – the side Lincoln is on,” Nascar announced this week it will no longer allow Confederate flags at its races. “So Nascar now has done more to fight racism than the president has,” Kimmel said.
Trevor Noah
On the Daily Show, Trevor Noah discussed “one of the biggest shifts” accomplished by the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police: the removal of Confederate monuments. This week, demonstrators removed a statue of Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, in Richmond, Virginia, and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, called on Congress to remove 11 Confederate statues at the Capitol.
“Why did Congress have Confederate statues in the first place?” Noah wondered. “I mean, the Confederacy fought against America, so why would you have statues of them in America’s Capitol building? That makes no sense. It’s like white ladies having statues of gluten in their kitchen.
“It’s a little insane how it feels like the government treats actual traitors better than black citizens,” Noah continued. “George Floyd maybe had a $20 bill that was counterfeit – he gets choked to death. The president of the Confederacy was responsible for half a million dead Americans, and the response is, ‘Let’s ask the quarry for the finest piece of marble, we’ve gotta remember this guy!’”
And the army announced it would consider removing the names of Confederate officers from military bases. “I know for some people this debate might seem inconsequential,” Noah said, “but you gotta understand: the reason the military generals are open to changing the names of these bases is the same reason that Nascar is doing it – they want the military to take a unified stand against racism, and they want to show that the American military stands for all Americans, including the millions of minorities who have served within its ranks.”
Stephen Colbert
“Protests are continuing all over America, and if that makes you nervous, you might be a Confederate statue,” said Stephen Colbert on the Late Show, who called the army’s idea to remove Confederate leaders’ names from its bases “reasonable, considering those men waged war on the US military”.
The bases were named at the height of Jim Crow, “so this seems like a slam dunk”, Colbert said. “Only someone completely tone deaf to the continuing pain of black Americans, who make up 20% of the US army, would disagree.”
Of course, Trump disagreed and tweeted that the Confederate-honoring bases are part of a “Great American Heritage” and a “history of Winning, Victory, and Freedom”.
“First, they didn’t fight for freedom,” Colbert retorted. “Second, winning and victory are the same thing, and the Confederacy didn’t do either of them. You’d know that if you weren’t stupid and an idiot.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign has planned a bus tour of several states despite the risks of coronavirus spreading in mass gatherings. “I guess he just misses walking out to a large crowd that he hasn’t teargassed,” said Colbert.
His first rally is scheduled for 19 June, AKA Juneteenth, the annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery in America, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which 99 years ago this month was the site of one of the bloodiest, most destructive weeks of racial violence in the US, when white mobs destroyed “Black Wall Street”.
“Now, to be fair, there’s no way Trump knows that much American history,” Colbert said. “I’m pretty sure he just told Stephen Miller, ‘Steve, just pick the most offensive date and location you can think of, and put it up there on my Hooters calendar.’”
Seth Meyers
On Late Night, Seth Meyers reviewed the latest dismal polls for Trump, which show that his “political standing has eroded considerably over the past month”.
“So Trump and his supporters in the GOP and on rightwing TV are resorting to the only two tactics they have left: amping up the racism and nursing deranged cultural grievances,” Meyers said. For example, after the army said they would consider renaming bases named after Confederate leaders, Trump tweeted a nonsensical dissent, which White House staffers printed out and handed to reporters at a briefing.
“What do you mean they’re part of a ‘great American heritage’, a history of ‘winning, victory and freedom’?” Meyers wondered. “Confederates famously fought against America, and they lost. Since when do we name military bases after people who lost wars against America. Is there a naval base named after King George III? Would you make American soldiers train at Fort Il Duce?
“I honestly can’t even believe it’s a question at this point whether or not we should be celebrating the symbols of an explicitly white supremacist cause like the Confederacy that fought to destroy the United States,” Meyers said. “And yet Nascar,” which banned the presence of Confederate flags at its races this week, “is doing more to lead right now than the president of the United States.”