Diversity is no longer a problem at The Daily Show, new host Trevor Noah told The New York Times. Now that Noah has taken over, the Comedy Central show has gone from having just one black writer to what Noah describes as "an epidemic of blackness." He has also hired more women. "It's something that I'm very cognizant of," Noah told The New York Times. "Because I know how easy it is for a system to unwittingly fall prey to, let's call it, an institutionalized segregation."
For years under former host Jon Stewart, The Daily Show was criticized for having a mostly white staff. Racial tensions also reportedly bubbled to the surface in a 2011 dispute between Jon Stewart and former writer and correspondent Wyatt Cenac, who is black, after Stewart impersonated then-presidential candidate Herman Cain in a way that struck Cenac as "a little weird," The New York Times recounts. The incident led to a confrontation at a meeting, followed by an apology by Stewart and a renewed effort by the show "to dispel its reputation for homogeneity."
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"But there's two types of racial blind spots. There's active, and there's passive. Active is you saying, 'I will not hire black people or Hispanic people or females.' Passive is you going: 'I'm open to everyone. I will hire anyone that comes in the door.' But you don't realize you're limited by your current network of who you know, and what you know is often [people like] you. When you're cognizant of it, it's easier to work on." [The New York Times]
Read the full interview at The New York Times.
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