Jon Stewart speaks on George Floyd, coronavirus, Confederate monuments, and more in new interview

Here it is, your Moment of Zen.

Former Daily Show host Jon Stewart returned in a lengthy new interview with The New York Times Magazine on Monday to discuss a wide range of topics including the killing of George Floyd, arguing that "in some ways, the issue is that we're addressing the wrong problem."

"The police are a reflection of a society," Stewart said. "They're not a rogue alien organization that came down to torment the black community. They're enforcing segregation. Segregation is legally over, but it never ended. The police are, in some respects, a border patrol, and they patrol the border between the two Americas." He added that "the root of this problem is the society that we've created that contains this schism, and we don't deal with it, because we've outsourced our accountability to the police."

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Stewart went on to observe that "white people lasted six weeks" in coronavirus quarantine before protesting stay-at-home orders, and "that's six weeks versus 400 years of quarantining a race of people." On the subject of the pandemic, Stewart decried the fact that "we allow the mask-wearing to be reduced to its symbolic meaning" and become an "avatar of political representation." He also slammed President Trump's response as the "wildest thing" because "I've never seen anybody who can say in the same breath, as the president does, 'I am in charge, only I can fix this, and I take no responsibility.'"

The comedian additionally blasted those defending Confederate monuments by saying, "It's not history! It's hagiography. ... Enraging doesn't begin to describe it." This interview with Stewart came ahead of the release of his new political comedy, Irresistible, although he acknowledged that coming out with a movie right now "feels ridiculous."

"It's like showing up to a plane crash with a chocolate bar," Stewart joked. "There's tragedy everywhere, and you're like, 'Uh, does anybody want chocolate?'" Read the full interview at The New York Times.