Daily Show's Jon Stewart on Charleston shooting: 'This was a terrorist attack'

‘I’m confident that by acknowledging it, we still won’t do jackshit,’ US TV host tells viewers, after murder of nine people in a South Carolina church

The Daily Show host Jon Stewart has slammed America’s response to the mass shooting in a South Carolina church, predicting that nothing would be done in the wake of a “terrorist attack” that left nine people dead.

In a sombre opening to a show he promised would contain no jokes, Stewart said some people were already working hard to discount the idea that racism was the motive behind the massacre.

Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white man, is currently in custody in Charleston.

Prior to introducing his guest – Nobel peace prize-winner Malala Yousafzai – Stewart told viewers: “I have nothing other than just sadness that once again we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence that we do to each other, and the nexus of a just gaping racial wound that will not heal but we pretend doesn’t exist.

“I’m confident, though, that by acknowledging it, by staring into that and seeing it for what it is, we still won’t do jackshit.

“Yeah. That’s us.”

The reluctance to label domestic shootings of this kind as terrorism, he went on, led to what he called a “disparity of response between when we think people that are foreign are going to kill us and us killing ourselves”.

“If this had been what we thought was Islamic terrorism … we invaded two countries and spent trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives, and now fly unmanned death machines over, like, five or six different countries …

“Nine people. Shot in a church. What about that? Eh. What are you gonna do? Crazy is as crazy is, right?”

The media response had been too slow to acknowledge the culture that made such violence possible, Stewart said: “I heard someone on the news say, a tragedy has visited this church. This wasn’t a tornado. This was racist. This was a guy with a Rhodesia badge on his sweater … This one is black and white. There’s no nuance here.

“And we’re going to keep pretending: I don’t get it, what happened, there’s one guy lost his mind. We are steeped in that culture in this country and we refuse to recognise it, and I cannot believe how hard people are working to discount it.”

Stewart pointed to what he called the “racial wallpaper” of South Carolina, where a confederate flag continues to be flown within the grounds of the capitol building: “The confederate flag flies over South Carolina. And the roads are named for confederate generals.

“And the white guy’s the one who feels like his country’s being taken away from him.”




http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/19/daily-shows-jon-stewart-on-charleston-shooting-this-was-a-terrorist-attack

How different the response because the perpetrator is white.

Or because the victims are Christians?

That'll be why he said
"He just said 'I have to do it.' He said, 'You rape our women, and you're taking over our country,'"


A sparse Facebook page, now taken down, showed an image of Roof apparently flaunting his belief in white supremacy by wearing a jacket with the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and white-ruled Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), which fought a bitter civil war against black majority rule.



Fox News are being laughed at for trying to make religion the problem.

Oh I'm not making any claims - I haven't read up about it enough to make a judgement.

Raggamuffin wrote:Or because the victims are Christians?

the guy has said that he did it because they were black

the Jon Stewart post is really good it is almost exactly what you say in the 'hate' thread but an American saying it... so you know they have to solve it as new instead of use one of our working models

Well it's early days yet. I remember that some people here were reluctant to call the murder of Lee Rigby a terrorist attack, and the perpetrators were certainly not white.

veya_victaous wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:Or because the victims are Christians?

the guy has said that he did it because they were black

the Jon Stewart post is really good it is almost exactly what you say in the 'hate' thread but an American saying it... so you know  they have to solve it as new instead of use one of our working models

Jon Stewart is one of the best news anchors in America i have never missed one of his shows in the past 7 years Big fan of his work i will miss him very much when he leaves:(

veya_victaous wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:Or because the victims are Christians?

the guy has said that he did it because they were black

the Jon Stewart post is really good it is almost exactly what you say in the 'hate' thread but an American saying it... so you know  they have to solve it as new instead of use one of our working models

indeed he guy has said that he did it because they were black thats not in dispute as far as i know and had been planning it for 6 months according to his ex room mate