Trevor Noah delivers powerful 'Daily Show' monologue about George Floyd protests

It has been a harrowing week, as protests on the streets of America and Canada organized after the video of George Floyd’s death went viral. Police in riot gear clashed with protesters in Minneapolis and other cities, which led to violent skirmishes, looting and entire building complexes set ablaze. The Daily Show host Trevor Noah, who has temporarily renamed his show The Social Distancing Show amid the COVID-19 global pandemic, gave a very impassioned monologue filmed on a handheld device from home, to explain to viewers why the protests and looting that transpired were the unfortunately expected reaction of a society reaching a boiling point after centuries of inequality, injustice and murder.“You know what’s really interesting about what’s happening in America right now is that a lot of people don’t seem to realize how dominoes connect: how one piece knocks another piece that knocks another piece, and in the end creates a giant wave,” he began his heartfelt 18-minute speech.

 

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“If you felt unease watching that Target being looted, try to imagine how it must feel for black Americans when they watch themselves being looted every single day. Police in America are looting black bodies.”

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“If you felt unease watching that Target being looted, try to imagine how it must feel for black Americans when they watch themselves being looted every single day. Police in America are looting black bodies,” he stated.Noah explained that, against the backdrop of COVID-19, where people are losing their jobs and family members are getting sick and many of us are quarantined (and, as he astutely points out, black people are disproportionately affected by coronavirus), there has been the compounding news of Ahmaud Arbery (a black man who was shot and killed in Georgia while jogging), and then Amy Cooper (a white woman who called the cops on a black birdwatcher for asking her to leash her dog), and then George Floyd, who died while crying out, “I can’t breathe” while a white officer pressed his knee into Floyd's neck.Noah then quite eloquently described how all that can coalesce into a violent protest. He explains that we all sign a "social contract" in order to maintain order in a society that would otherwise be chaotic. “Society is a contract that we sign as human beings with each other,” he said.  “Whether spoken or unspoken, we agree in this group to common rules, common ideals, and common practices that are going to define us as a group... And the contract is only as strong as the people who abide by it.”

 

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“And then, some members of the society, namely black people, watch time and time again, how the contract that they have signed with society, is not being honoured by the society that has forced them to sign it with them.”He further explained that we as society are told if we behave in a certain way, we are maintaining the social contract, and that the police are the ones there to enforce it. But when the police not only don't adhere to that social contract themselves, but penalize black people when they protest this injustice, the contract is meaningless.“The only reason you didn’t loot Target before is because you were upholding society’s contract. There is no contract if law and people in power don’t uphold their end of it.”[video_embed id='1969215']Trevor Noah, Lizzo, Rihanna and more lend their voices to anti-racist chorus [/video_embed]This, Noah said, is why the protests and looting and violence happening all over the streets of America are not just the acts of "thugs" as some people in power have characterized them. It is society telling the powers that be that they won’t put up with this inequality anymore.Noah also made the point that black people have been told time and time again that there is no right way for them to protest—whether peacefully or aggressively. Colin Kaepernick and Martin Luther King Jr were both peaceful protesters who were told their methods weren’t appropriate.This nuanced and straight-forward explanation is something social media users are hailing Noah for, as this is a dialogue he's been long sharing. A few years ago, his heated interview with alt-right Fox News pundit Tomi Lahren also asked these questions: “What is the right way for black people to protest in America?” to which he never received an answer.The Daily Show with Trevor Noahairs Monday to Thursday at 11ep on CTV Comedy.[video_embed id='1966986']BEFORE YOU GO: Tyrone Edwards shares why he can no longer remain silent about racism [/video_embed]