Jon Stewart Forgoes All Jokes For Charleston Shooting

The Daily Show‘s host, Jon Stewart, slammed Americans’ response to the Charleston, South Carolina, shooting Thursday. Stewart opened the show promising that there would be no jokes in it.

Jon said that some people are trying hard to discount the fact that the shooting was a racist attack. He added that there will most likely be no action in the wake of this “terrorist attack.”

The shooting happened on Thursday when a 21-year-old white male opened fire on a prayer meeting. The prayer meeting was taking place inside an African-American church in Charleston, S.C.

Nine people died in the shooting. The culprit is a man called Dylann Roof.

Jon Stewart said, “I have nothing other than just sadness, once again, that we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence that we do to each other.”

David Wright of CNN said that Jon’s tone expressed both “exasperation and anguish.”

Jon Stewart also said that there was a reluctance to call this kind of shooting an act of terrorism. He sees in people’s response a major disparity. People act differently when they think a foreigner is going to kill them and when they are killing themselves.

According to Stewart, Roof’s was a completely “racist” action. In an interview with NBC, a survivor talked about hearing the gunman say, “I have to do it. You rape our women, and you are taking over our country.”

The Washington Post said that Roof’s profile photo on Facebook reveals his racist views. In the picture, Roof is wearing a black-colored jacket with two flags. The flags belong to old racist white-regimes in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Jon Stewart said that even if America acknowledged the incident for what it is, people still won’t do “jack s***.”

He also said that this was an act of violence against a church that stands as a symbol for the African-American community.

The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church is one of the oldest Black congregations in the nation. Its history dates back to the grim slavery era.

Jon Stewart used a pun to describe the situation as “black and white.” He said he hated putting it that way, but it is true.

Among the victims was Mr. Pinckney, a state senator and the church’s pastor. Six women and two other men have also died.