After a miserable week, Jon Stewart did some celebrating on The Daily Show Wednesday night, where he covered the uproar to remove the Confederate flag from outside the South Carolina State Building and elsewhere throughout the South. Still — as Stewart may know better than anyone — every silver lining has a cloud, and the host found plenty of continued ignorance to rip apart.
Stewart began with the positives, noting that supporters of the Confederate flag's removal include those attached to the older generation. Paul Thurmond, a South Carolina State Senator and the son of staunch segregationist Strom Thurmond, is among those advocating for the flag's removal. "That's like if Kool- Aid Man's son took to the floor of the Senate to give a lecture on the importance of wall preservation," Stewart cracked.
Elsewhere, retailers such as Target, Sears, eBay, Amazon and even Etsy have vowed to stop selling Confederate flag merchandise, a move ostensibly prompted by Walmart's decision to do the same. But one progressive step doesn't negate the corporate behemoth's history of questionable practices; and Walmart CEO Doug McMillon's surprise that Confederate flag merchandise appeared on store shelves was plenty to elicit Stewart's New Jersey wise-guy voice.
"'I mean, look, I knew we sold cheap guns, really cheap — to anybody,'" Stewart mocked. "'Tremendous stopping power. You come to Walmart and buy some of those guns, you could have a hell of a standoff. My point is this: I didn't know you could get them with the stars and bars holster. That sends a very dangerous message."'
Of course, there are still many who want to preserve the flag, but Stewart picked apart their fear-mongering, including an especially deft dismantling of one man's claim that doing away with the Confederate flag would be akin to Stalinism. As for the long held "heritage not hate," argument, Stewart noted the heritage being defended is one of fighting against the United States for slavery.
Stewart ended the segment with a reminder that removing the Confederate flag is "a small part of a much larger problem. Ideally this debate is only the start of a longer conversation addressing the kind of institutional and systemic racism that we have yet to disassemble, that continues to this very day."
As for the long held "heritage not hate," argument, Stewart noted the heritage being defended is one of fighting against the United States for slavery.
Stewart is a NYC Jew that grew up in the privileged life of the ruling class and went to all the elited NYC leftist schools,so he can MAYBE be forgiven for his ignorance. After all,if you grow up on Mars and that is the only place you have ever lived,all you know is stuff about Mars.
What can't be forgiven is the TOTAL lack of outrage over the LaRaza flag and the African flags being flown at anti-US protests here in the US.
Stewart is a NYC Jew that grew up in the privileged life of the ruling class and went to all the elited NYC leftist schools,so he can MAYBE be forgiven for his ignorance.
I got one of those NY edumakations. I paid attention in history class and learned that the Confederate leaders were nuts, the war was good versus evil, and Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a lone nut.
I got an education in southern Virginia in the 50's,and I learned that white southerners were all evil slave owners in the Civil War,and that the saintly President Lincoln freed the slaves.
I was also taught that America was a Democracy and that May Day should be a National Holiday here like it was in Russia.
I was seriously pissed off when I discovered it was all lies after reading actual history books in the public library. I think I was maybe 13-14 when I figured out those were lies.
They had problems with me. I told them nobody in my family had ever owned slaves,and that only communists celebrated May Day,and that all communists should be killed.
I was even outraged that my older brother had avoided service during the Korean War and lost his chance to kill commies,and raised hell with him over punking out. I relented when my mother explained to me that being a type 1 diabetic the army wouldn't take him.
Even got kicked out of the elementary school band for telling the band leader he was a "stupid yankee SOB that needed to take his ass back up north" after he made a crack about "ignorant rebels".
I was taught every one had slaves in the south and they worked them to death. Neither was true. After research I found almost no one had slaves. The people who did have slaves had lots of slaves. They were treated a lot like horses. In fact slaves were much more expensive than horses by multiples.
Nothing I was taught about slavery was accurate. In fact if the job was dangerous indentured people were used because slaves were to expensive to waste. If an indentured person were to die before they got paid guess who got to keep their pay?
