I just watched the episode, and although Stewart as host calling one of his guests a motherf*cker is not really proper hosting etiquette, the real infraction was allowing Sullivan’s deeply uninformed and racially charged opinions to share the stage with people who have studied this both scholarly and professionally. The fault was in Stewart booking a bigot but somehow pretending to be above the likes of Donahue or Geraldo who used to book similar panels in the hopes of provoking a reaction. The other two panelists wisely refused to engage with Sullivan, which left Stewart as the only person to react. He did. He shouldn’t have.
This is why I cannot watch these talk shows anymore. I like Stewart and he’s among the best at what he does, but what he does isn’t helpful, and in the specific case of that panel discussion I didn’t find it either funny or entertaining.
As a practical matter, obviously white people need to talk about racism, but no roomful of white people is ever going to solve the problem they/we historically created. As an equally practical matter, Sullivan should be called an ignorant motherf*cker wherever he goes, and he should never go on television again.
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Kevin M. (RPCV)