[theme music]
From New York City, the only city in America,
it's the show that invented news.
This is The Daily Show with your host, DL Hughley.
[applause]
[cheering]
Hey, everybody, how you guys doing?
[cheering]
Good to see you, good to see you.
Well, I, I'm DL Hughley, and welcome to The Daily Show.
Of course, between me and Leslie and Wanda,
this is starting to look a lot like BET, I tell you that.
Do not be shocked if you see those diabetes commercials,
you know.
(SINGING) Oh, oh, oh, oh, Ozempic.
Black people love that song.
You could have one foot and you still dance to that song,
we don't even care.
All right, of course, we have a lot
that we need to talk about.
So we're going to get right to it.
So I'm sure many of you heard by now
that a young Black man in Memphis
was pulled over by the police.
And we all saw how it went down.
For the first time, we are seeing the violent arrest
of Tyre Nichols.
What began as a traffic stop--
[overlapping speech]
--quickly turned violent, as captured
on multiple videos released tonight
by the city of Memphis.
Officers are seen pulling Nichols out of the car.
[overlapping speech]
They use pepper spray and deploy a taser
during a struggle.
Then for roughly three minutes, officers
are seen repeatedly kicking and punching Nichols
while he was handcuffed.
As Nichols lay on the ground, bloodied and bruised,
several minutes go by without any of the officers
administering first aid.
Nichols died in the hospital three days later.
Is it a shocking video?
Yes.
Shocking.
You know who wasn't shocked by that?
Black people.
I know, we were like, we were not, like,
it just, like I think that is a word we should throw out
of our lexicon, because the one thing we were not,
you didn't see Black people sitting around,
can you believe they beat the shit
out of another nigger on TV?
Can you believe that?
Because it's pretty commonplace for us.
The only people who are probably shocked by this
are people who haven't been paying attention.
But for us, that's just like a flashback.
So those videos are like so commonplace,
it's hard to be shocked.
That's like watching a porno and saying,
he's going to stick that where?
Ain't no way in hell that's going to fit.
I mean, I don't know, I'm just making a point.
I don't watch porno.
Let's stick with the story, all right?
It is not shocking to Black people,
because that is probably every Black parent's nightmare.
It's like, that's why we train our children
to deal with police.
We act like they going on safari or something.
They like, don't make a sudden noise,
don't make any sudden moves, don't smile, don't run.
So you can't be shocked when the media,
also the media spend a whole week
prepping us for the video.
They told us how violent it was going to be.
To be real, that video got more pro than I did for this show.
Like, I haven't, I haven't, I haven't
seen a TV show that anticipated since the remake
of Night Court.
They wasn't playing around.
It was like they were rolling out a new movie release.
Brought to you from the people that brought you
George Floyd and Rodney King.
Um, I can tell you what I did find shocking,
was how fast those cops got arrested.
Yeah!
Nam damn.
They got arrested so fast, they didn't
even give us time to riot.
Like, I'm like nam, damn, what am I going
to do with all this gasoline?
I got to pour it back in the lawnmower.
Because usually, it takes a considerable amount of time.
More like usually when they tell us a cop got indicted,
a reporter's wiping tear gas out of her eyes, so it's.
And it's just interesting, because they
did get arrested fast.
And I just, these cops got arrested so fast,
I got to wonder, why did, oh, there's something about them.
That looks fast, arrest-worthy.
Like I can't put my finger on it,
but I want to arrest them myself.
I don't.
[applause]
I don't know.
Maybe they get their hair cut at the same place,
I don't know.
I can tell you what did scare me,
is that no one could tell us what Tyre could have done
to stop this from happening.
I mean, usually, you hear people saying,
he should have followed orders.
But they gave him 71 different orders in 13 minutes,
so not even Wendy's can turn the order around that God
damn fast.
And then they gave orders that didn't make any sense,
like telling him get on the ground
when he was already on the ground.
Like, I don't know how they do it in Memphis,
but where I'm from, the ground is as low as you can go,
that's it.
But you know, it is a complex issue.
And I know it helps me whenever I'm
delving into a complex issue that affects Black people
and I want an expert opinion, what I do
is, I turn to Fox News.
I do.
That's, I learned how to make gumbo watching that show,
too, so it's.
It's the reason that I found out
why cops do bad things in the first place,
and it's apparently because people are so mean to them.
This is a direct result of all this defund
the police stuff, right?
And if you vilify the cops, you'll get less
people wanting to be cops.
These endless wars on police departments now.
They have dissuaded a lot of good people
from becoming police officers.
That's a fact.
They've had recruitment problems
and they've had retention problems.
You can look at the data like I can.
And what happens is, you wind up
getting stuck, plain and simple, with just bad guys.
Hmm.
You would think he got his ass whooped, right?
Like, he-- But the great thing about it
is, I got a guy from Fox to say they are bad cops.
I got him to agree with Antifa, see?
I been here one day and I'm changing shit already,
it's going great.
But there is one guy on Fox News,
and this dude came up with something
that I got to tell you, I really did not see it coming.
Looked like gang violence to me.
It looked like what young Black men do when they're supervised
by a single Black woman.
And that's what they got going on in the Memphis
Police Department.
They've elected some, or put some Black woman
in charge of the police force, and we're
getting the same kind of chaos and disunity and violence
that we see in a lot of these cities that
are run by single mothers.
What the [bleep] is he talking about?
What?
What is he?
So, it is single Black mothers that are the problem.
So, wait a minute.
All of these cops, all of them, they
had single Black mothers, too?
And by the way, those are the images that came
up when I Googled good cops.
If Jason Whitlock proves anything,
it's that you do not have to be white to hate Black people.
Right.
Um, and I can understand.
How can we expect Jason to see the plight of Black people
when this dude can't even see his own dick, so?
[applause]
I'm DL Hughley, you knew I was going to do
a dick joke on Comedy Central.
Stop it, stop it.
All right, for more on this story,
I'm going to be joined by Roy Wood Jr. What can you--
[cheering]
Hello.
[laughs]
You just, you just take, just disagree with the man.
You didn't have to break his dick and then come to me.
I'm sorry.
Let's not let a dick come between us.
It's crazy.
What can you tell me about the police officers
that committed this attack?
Here's the thing, DL, first and foremost, they're
not just any police officers.
They were actually part of an elite unit
within the department with a special focus
on violent crime.
Elite unit.
That was elite?
Yeah, yeah, it was elite.
It was elite.
And the whole idea of an elite unit, it's
already kind of weird, right?
Like shouldn't the whole police force already be elite?
I mean, you already got guns.
But you know what it's like?
This is like when you get on the plane
and the flight attendant tell you,
oh, well you're lucky today.
This is one of our elite pilots.
Well, who the hell?
Who was flying this shit before, ma'am?
But there's something even weirder about this elite unit,
and that's in the name of this elite unit.
They were actually called The Scorpions.
Oh, wow.
The Scorpions.
The acronym, the police, they love the acronyms.
And Scorpion stands for Street Crimes Operations
to Restore Peace in our Neighborhoods.
- Oh. - Scorpion.
And look, I don't know about you,
DL, but look, as a rule of thumb, no police unit
should be named after a Mortal Kombat character.
I agree, agree.
You can't name a unit Scorpion,
because once you give them a name like Scorpion,
it don't matter what they're even there for.
They're going to be violent with the shit.
You can have a police unit that only does paperwork,
but if you call them Scorpions, they're
going to be swooping in and whipping ass with W-2 forms.
Agree.
Anyway.
Agree, agree.
And that's the other thing, man.
It's not that hard for the police
to name a unit after something other than a deadly animal.
You ain't got to name every unit out a deadly animal.
It's easy, watch this, watch this.
Securing Neighborhoods Alongside Kind Enforcement.
That's peaceful.
Ain't that Snake?
Don't, don't, interrupt me, I'm still thinking.
Give me a second.
What about this one, what about this one, this is peaceful.
Securing Homes and Rescuing Kids with Orderly
Lawful Functionality.
That's good. - Shark Wolf.
Damn!
OK, OK, OK.
It's tougher than I thought.
Forget acronyms, forget acronyms.
We can do one.
We can do a police unit, it's peaceful and kind.
Gentle Enforcement Needs Officers Carefully
Inspecting Downtown Elements.
Don't you want me to finish the week, man?
That's genocide.
OK, all right, well then, just forget the names.
Here's an idea.
Police got all these elite units.
Mm-hmm
How about the police form an elite unit
that's specifically trained to not kill Black People?
[cheering]
That's the unit.
It's an all out unit, bro.
Talking six months of boot camp,
learning how to identify Black people.
Identify when our hands are up.
Identifying what compliant looks like, all of it.
I bet you could do that.
If you did all of that, you could
drop the killings of Black people by as much as 20%.
[applause]
20%.
Just 20%.
Hey, that's elite to me.
We got to start somewhere.
Thank you so much, Roy.
Roy Wood Jr., everybody!
All right, when we come back, I'm
going to talk to the attorney representing Tyre Nichols'
family, so do not go away.
[applause]
[cheering]
[cheering and applause]
All right.
Welcome back to The Daily Show.
My first guest is an attorney who is representing
the family of Tyre Nichols.
Please put your hands together for Ben Crump.
How are you?
I'm good, DL. Good to see you, brother.
How you doing, friend.
You good?
I'm good, friend, other than this situation.
Out of all the time-- like, usually, you called me,
I think it's Tuesday.
And whenever I hear from you, I know it's bad news.
Like you never call when you won the Lotto or had a baby
shower or nothing like that.
It's always--
But you told me about it because my driver happened
to be Tyre's stepfather.
And he had told me about it previously.
And so it struck me differently.
Because I know Rodney and I--
I remember when he moved to Memphis.
And I knew that you were on the case,
so I was certain that something positive would happen.
Do you think that the fact that the officers were arrested so
swiftly is an indicator of things that are getting better
or that just we got five Black people,
so we're going to arrest them real fast?
You know, that's an interesting question,
DL Hughley, but I think when you look at the fact
that they are Black officers, it seemed to be that this
moved awfully swiftly.
What I mean, the police chief said--
Curiously swiftly-- very fast, very fast.
[laughter]
Very fast.
The police Chief Davis said it was important
that they take swift action, that they
move swiftly to justice, DL.
She said that because this video
was so clear that the community needed to see that.
And so I said to myself, they got fired, arrested, and
charged in less than 20 days.
So this is the blueprint going forward, DL Hughley.
They cannot say anymore to us, whether the cop is Black
or white, when you see them on video committing a crime,
using excessive force against us, that it takes six months,
that it take a year.
No, you can't tell us that anymore.
Because we're going to say you remember those five Black
police officers in Memphis?
Y'all arrested them immediately.
[applause]
What I do find interesting is that I know
that you have tried to do what you
can in terms of police reform.
But let me tell you, Congressman Jim Jordan,
he said on, I think, Meet the Press,
that he's not sure that any law, any training,
or any reform could have stopped
what happened to Tyre Nichols.
So that sounds like a setup to not do anything.
I'm tired of hearing about rotten apples.
We gotta start looking at the trees and the soil
that the trees grow on.
If the premise-- if the premise is already nothing
could have stopped that, that sounds
a lot like their approach on guns
is we might just keep everything the same
because nothing will stop it.
Yeah.
You know, DL, it really is troubling when they continue
to see all this evidence that we
have a problem with the culture of policing in America.
One of the questions I was often asked
was, well, they're Black officers,
are you surprised what they did?
And I said no.
Because the race of the police officer
isn't the determining factor of whether they're
going to commit excessive use of force.
But it is the race of the victim.
And it's often Black and brown people who bear
the brunt of police brutality.
I mean, DL, we don't see videos about white brothers
and sisters who are unarmed facing this kind
of excessive use of force.
I'm waiting to see those videos.
Because how often, DL, have we seen Eric Garner in New York
get choked-- the first I can't breathe case--
then Alton Sterling down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
then Pamela Turner, the sister outside of Houston,
who was having a mental health crisis,
and the police killed her--
DL HUGHLEY: But what is--
--and Laquon McDonald--
What is their incentive to stop?
--walking away in Chicago got shot 16 times.
But what is their incentive to stop?
Because what happens is police officers who kill Black
people get a paid vacation.
Then they come back.
They have GoFundMe accounts.
Then they say police departments need to be--
they need to be retrained, so they get more money.
So there's no real incentive to make substantive change when
nothing really severe-- and what police, they'll tend
to do, is they'll get rid of the police officers
and say now we can start at ground zero.
Everything's changed.
And I don't see anything that has changed
that is so remarkable that it would lead me
to believe that these are going to be
changes that are resonant.
Well, DL, we're making some progress.
We need to make a lot more, but we're making some progress.
Because you know what a deterrent to them
[crowd cheering]
Thank you.
Welcome back to The Daily Show.
It's such a great audience.
Y'all must be union.
Jeez.
This is my next two guests.
They have collaborated on a new book for young readers called
How To Be a Young Antiracist.
Won't you please welcome Dr. Ibrahim
X. Kendi and Nic Stone.
[music playing]
[applause]
NIC STONE: Thank you.
So, How To Be A Young Antiracist.
That means you're already banned in Florida, so.
It's funny when we talk about race because we live
in a country that the Congress and Senate voted
for Juneteenth bill, but we're the same nation that don't
want to talk about slavery.
They'll have Martin Luther King and Robert
E. Lee Day on the same days.
So I think when it comes to racism,
I think that a lot of people believe that if they're not
actively saying the n-word, or doing
or saying bigoted things, that means they're not racist.
So how can we start a conversation
about being anti-race when you're not quite
sure how to quantify racism?
We are, but I don't think a lot of people are.
And I think that's the very point.
Because if you're not doing anything
to challenge all of the injustice
and all of the inequity in our society, then what happens?
It persists.
Sure.
So therefore you're reinforcing it.
So therefore you're being racist.
And so we're encouraging people to actively
try to dismantle this structure,
including young people.
But what is their incentive?
Like, what would they be incent--
Nic, what is their-- if this system
is working for you or not, it doesn't cause you any--
because you can sleep at night.
Why would you want to change the system that seems to be
going just as you intended?
But is it actually working for you?
- Well, yeah. - It seems to be.
- Not me. - Right.
It's clearly is not working for you, but one of us.
I'm a temporary holds, but I'm talking about, like--
Yes.
I think, for me, it's all about children, right?
Like, even though this is a system that
might seem like it's working for you,
the world is actively changing.
If your children are not prepared to live in a world
and move to a world that have people that
are different from them in positions of power,
they're going to be in trouble. - Yeah.
But then they try to remake the world.
You'll see that.
Literally, we're a nation that is run by the Flintstones
and in the Jetsons.
And the [bleep] Flintstones are winning.
You have to understand that I don't believe a lot of people,
for instance, I don't believe white people--
a lot of white people-- are actively racist.
But I do believe that the notions of white supremacists,
they don't agree with their methods
but they agree with the goal, which is to keep
white people in charge.
And so if that is the premise, then what incentive--
seriously-- would there be to make
these changes that only destabilize
what you know works for you?
I think one of the things we've been showing
in studying racism is that it's actually harming white
people, too.
It's not harming them at the level it's harming people
of color, but there are actually white people who
are dying of police violence.
They're not dying at the level of Black and Brown people,
but more white people are dying of police
violence in this country than other countries.
More white people are incarcerated in this country
than other countries.
More white people are struggling
to vote in this country compared to other countries.
There were 5 million about poor whites in 1860
whose poverty was directly connected to the enslavement
of Black people.
But I think-- a lot of white people don't get this--
when you're poor, you are nigger, too.
You are You are.
You are.
You are You are.
You are.
Like, I don't think people understand--
IBRAM KENDI: No, they don't.
--that generally what hurts me, hurts you.
What is good for me is good for you.
And I think that but there is that thing where people will
give their last dime to keep things
a certain way as long as it hurts you.
Like, look at what happened with the Obamacare Act.
A lot of those people in those poor states
are being hurt by that, but they
don't care as long as you are.
Yeah.
And, but, the sense of optimism is in what
you said earlier children.
Because in children you have--
not mines, theirs-- a whole different thing but--
but in our children, we can see the potential of things
that we hope to never--
that we hope we can realize but probably never will.
So that is an angle, I think, that it's
probably substantive.
Yeah.
I think when it comes to children--
I have two of my own--
and it's important for me that they enter a world
that they feel empowered to change, which
is why we wrote this book.
So Doctor Kendi wrote his memoir years ago,
and I latched on to it, slid into his DMs,
and asked if I could do a young readers version.
Because it's important that young people have the tools.
I get so many kids who are asking, well, what do I do?
How do I help?
What do I change?
How can I get into this fight and do something about it?
And so creating a text like how to be a young anti-racist,
we're giving them information where they're
learning these definitions, they're learning
what racism actually is.
Give me an example of what racism actually is.
So racism is a system of ideas.
So you have racist ideas, and they are, basically, they're
made to keep inequities going.
Right.
Right?
So the whole purpose of a book like How To Be a Young
Antiracist is to give young people terms
that we can all agree on that way
we know what we're standing against.
Like what?
Like racism.
Having a term, a definition, for racism helps them see,
OK, this is what we're trying to fight.
Because one of the things that
happens is people who have historically been racist
refused to define that term.
Of course. Why would you?
Because it allows them to exonerate themselves
consistently and constantly.
And even young people, therefore,
don't know what it is, so they can't even assess themselves
and guide themselves.
How would they know?
We have a lot of people who are raised
by people who moved out of places that Black
people are moving into. - Yeah.
Right? That was a predicate.
We're going to move out of places that Black
people are moving into.
But those are the people who have the conversation
with the people who are now having the conversation
with the people.
So they don't think the thing that they did was racist.
That's a level of obliviousness that you can't quite quantify.
[cheering]
Well, that is our show for tonight,
but before you go, please consider supporting the Boris
Lawrence Henson Foundation.
They're a non-profit that improves
mental health services for Black communities.
If you want to support them and their work,
please donate to the link below.
Now, here is your moment of zen.
What do you love most about your son?
Is that even a fair question?
It's not a fair question, because everything
about my son, I loved.
But what I loved the most, was the way he affected people
and the way he touched people.
(SINGING) MTV.