Jon Stewart came out punching Tuesday night, in defense of the citizens of Baltimore. Full clip and transcript is below the fold.
Stewart: Let's get right to the top story! The lawless, destructive riots shaking our nation (clips of riots) ... no, those are Kentucky fans, I'm sorry. The lawless (new riot clip) ... no, those are Michigan State fans after winning. (New riot clip) No, I'm sorry that's a pumpkin festival gone awry. Come on! Those are just kids blowing off steam with good-natured arson. (Clips of Baltimore) There you go, that's the worrisome, let's call it "urban violence" we were looking for.
(Clip of Today Show hosts: "It has been a night of violence, chaos, lawlessness in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray. Right now, the National Guard is on the scene, trying to restore peace and as we said, all public schools are closed today.")
Stewart: Ahhh ... (smacks desk) ... fuck it. That's probably the one time kids don't even want to hear school's closed. Honey, no school! You have a riot day. Just stay in your pj's and watch your favorite cartoons ... be pre-empted by our neighborhood in flames.
Once again, the combination of an economically struggling inner city and the police force charged with keeping its citizens out of everyone else's view has combusted. Like Watts and Detroit in the 60s, Georgia in the 70s, Miami in the 80s, L.A. and St. Petersburg in the 90s, the cyclical eruptions appear like tragedy cicadas. Depressing in their similarity, predictability and intractability. Or to put that another way ...
(Clips of Wolf Blitzer describing Baltimore over and over again, saying "hard to believe this is going on in a major American city.")
Stewart: Elvis leading a heard of Orthodox Jewish unicorns through a city street, THAT would be hard to believe! This shit, this shit happens all the time! Ferguson was just a few months ago and you were talking about it!
(More clips of Wolf Blitzer acting incredulous)
Stewart: I am worried about you. Do I need to get (Adam) Sandler (50 First Dates graphic) to go over to your house and just run shit by you every morning? Well. Look, Blitzer may have been taken off guard, but certainly the Mayor of Baltimore wouldn't be taken off guard.
(Clip of Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Governor Larry Hogan responding to the media)
Stewart: Ooh! Well, isn't the governor a little passive-aggressive? I mean, I was there all weekend, uhhh, by the phone, but fine if she wants her city to burn. Who am I? Just a simple governor with executive authority to provide a standing army of reserve men. But, I guess calling them out would not be on fleek (sic) ... (points to audience) ... You mother fuckers, you swore that's a thing! You swore that "on fleek" was a thing. They swore to me that "on fleek" was a thing.
So, the mayor was a little late with her emergency state declaring. When should she have done it?
(Clips of media talking about state of emergency in Baltimore the night before)
Stewart: Sure, they could've declared a state of emergency in Baltimore on Sunday, maybe Saturday. Or maybe somewhere in the 1970s. And this seems to indicate the issue in our city emergency alert system. There appear to be only two points on the scale ... normal and on fire. Even volcanoes have a four step warning system. They don't just go from clear skies to the floor is lava! And clearly Baltimore was belching smoke far before Saturday.
(Media clips describing Baltimore's poverty rate as double the national average, unemployment rate for African American men hovers at 30%, high school graduation rate for black males are devastatingly low, etc)
Stewart: You know your city is fucked up when its last successful employment program was casting extras for a television show about how fucked up your city is! And, when getting arrested is one of your more reliably lucrative options.
(Media clips describing $6 million paid out by Baltimore since 2011 in police abuse cases)
Stewart: The police brutality lottery is now 6 million dollars! All you need is a broken tail light and a dream. And to the police's defense, it's not really their job to fix the whole mess.
(Media clip saying police have become a surrogate for jobs, education and all the things these communities need)
Stewart: It's not sustainable. Maybe a more nuanced alert system could allow for more productive intervention beyond—"you have 10 seconds to disperse." Or we can agree to keep ignoring the roots of how systemically, historically disenfranchised many African American communities still are. Only paying attention to them when we fear their periodic fiery ball of anger threatens to enter our air space. Like some kind of Alex Haley's comet. And once again, breathing a blissful sigh of forgetful relief when it's another near-miss. We'll be right back.