On The Daily Show on Monday night, Trevor Noah called the NRA out for not responding to the fatal shooting of Philando Castile at the hands of a police officer last year. Noah did an entire segment about how the NRA "should be losing their goddamn minds" after seeing Castile—a legal gun owner—get gunned down by a cop who was eventually found not guilty of manslaughter last week. A dashcam video of the incident was released earlier this week and showed the officer opening fire on Castile just seconds after Castile told him that he was licensed to carry.
On Tuesday night, Noah addressed Castile’s killing again, but this time, he added a much more personal touch that made it even more effective than his segment on Monday. Noah, who has lived in the United States for about six years after spending most of his life in South Africa, spoke on how Castile had been pulled over almost 50 times by police throughout the course of his life before he was killed. Noah then opened up about how he has been pulled over by police "at least eight to ten times" in just six years.
Noah said he has been pulled over on both coasts and in a variety of different vehicles, including a Tesla. And he said that he believes that "state racism" is to blame for it. He doesn’t necessarily think it’s that specific cops are racist and bringing their racism with them when they do their jobs. Rather, Noah thinks cops as a whole are being trained to police people differently based on race.
"Oftentimes in America, the conversation gets caught up in racism as it pertains to black and white," Noah said. "But I don’t believe that that is the conversation…I believe that the police force is trained in such a way that it creates a state racism, which is different. It’s not a racism like, 'N——.' It’s a very different thing."
Noah said he thinks this explains why cops deal with people of different races in different ways.
"We’ve seen countless videos of a white woman shooting at the cops, and the cops are like, 'Oh, we’ll make a plan to get that gun away.' Because in their heads, they’re like, 'I mean, come on…She’s making a mistake. That’s what she’s doing. She’s not used to crime. Look at her,'" he said. "And then when you flip it [and the victim is black], there’s almost no way to not get shot."
Noah has an interesting perspective on police and racism in the U.S. since he’s only been living in the country for a relatively short amount of time. You can hear more about his thoughts on both in the clip above, which was captured in between segments on The Daily Show on Tuesday.
