The Daily Show tries to solve the Confederate statue argument, creatively fails

On Wednesday's Daily Show, Trevor Noah and his team took an ambitious stab at solving the intractable problem of America's Confederate monuments, which flared up again after the violent white nationalist march in Charlottesville and hasn't gone away. Noah first brought out Senior Race Relations Correspondent Hasan Minhaj, who suggested getting rid of all statues — all of them, plus all images of people and animals. "Isn't that Islam?" Noah asked. "Hasan, I told you once, and I'll tell you again — we are not doing Sharia Law." "No pressure, baby," Minaj said. "I'm just saying, you've got a statue issue and we've got a solution."

Next up was Roy Wood Jr., whose first idea was to just get rid of racism. Noah applauded the idea, but asked if he had any more practical solutions. After dismissing the idea that the statues are about remembering the Civil War, Wood got behind Charlottesville's solution of covering the Confederate monuments with black tarps, especially when Noah compared that to carrying 40s of malt liquor in paper bags. "With a paper bag, at least you're acknowledging that you're doing something wrong," Wood noted.

Wood and Noah eventually agreed on adding bits of black culture to the Confederate statues, but before that, Wood got a little serious. "Look, I know y'all want to keep your statues, but here's the thing: Slavery is a trauma that black people to this day are still dealing with," he said. "To have to look at those statues ... basically, it's like if a woman got out of an abusive relationship and then she had to keep pictures of her ex up in her house to remember the time. Like, no, I don't need pictures to remember pain." So, LeBron dunking on Stonewall Jackson? Peter Weber

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