Trevor Noah responds to George Floyd protests: "Police in America are looting Black bodies"

Vanity Fair

The Daily Show was on hiatus last week, but Noah posted an 18-minute smartphone-shot commentary on Friday in response to Floyd's killing and the protests and rioting that has happened as a result. “I saw so many people online saying, ‘these riots are disgusting. This is not how a society should be run. You do not loot and you do not burn. This is not how our society is built,’” Noah said. “That triggered something in me where I was like, man, okay—but what is society? Fundamentally, when you boil it down, society is a contract. It’s a contract that we sign as human beings amongst each other. We sign a contract with each other as people, whether it’s spoken or unspoken, where we say, amongst this group of us, we agree in common rules, common ideals, and common practices that are going go to define us as a group.” Noah added: “There is no right way to protest, because that’s what protest is. It cannot be right because you are protesting against a thing that is stopping you. I think what a lot of people don’t realize is the same way that you might have experienced more anger and more visceral disdain watching those people loot that Target... if you think about that unease you felt watching that Target being looted, try to imagine how it must feel for black Americans when they watch themselves being looted every single day. Because that’s fundamentally what’s happening in America. Police in America are looting black bodies. I know someone might think that’s an extreme phrase, but it’s not. Because here’s the thing I think a lot of people don’t realize: George Floyd died. That is part of the reason the story became so big, is because he died. But how many George Floyds are there who don’t die? How many men are having knees put on their necks?”