Jon Stewart and editor of The Weekly Dish Andrew Sullivan engaged in a near shouting match over “white supremacy” in America during a Tuesday episode of “The Problem With Jon Stewart.”
Guest Lisa Bond of Race2Dinner said white people are racist by upholding the structures and systems of racism and white supremacy, and therefore need to talk about ways white people “are complicit” in order to make change. Sullivan pushed back on the idea that the U.S. is a white supremacist nation, stating that the country is the most “diverse melting pot that has ever existed on planet Earth.”
“I think it’s possibly the most absurd hyperbole I’ve ever heard,” Sullivan said. “I’m an immigrant, so I have a slightly different view of this. I can tell you America in 2022 is the most multiracial, multicultural, tolerant, diverse melting pot that has ever existed on planet Earth, and there is no other place on Earth even like it. That’s why 86% of our immigrants are non-white.”
Stewart argued that black people did not choose to immigrate to America, and called Sullivan’s statements a “foundational lie.”
“I didn’t say that racism doesn’t exist. I said the term ‘white supremacy’ is an absurd hyperbole,” Sullivan pushed back. “For most people, that means the KKK, it means no rights for minorities. And this has been used simply to avoid an argument.”
Stewart pointed to historically racist policies including redlining, loans being denied to black people, and the Homestead Act. (RELATED: Juan Williams Says ‘Parents’ Rights Is Code For White Supremacists)
“You’re a bright guy, like, what the fuck are you talking about?” he asked. “You’re not living on the same fucking planet we are.”
“I think you are not living on the planet most Americans are, which is why this kind of extremism — this anti-white extremism — is losing popular support, is creating a backlash, is going to elect Republicans, and undo a lot of the good you think you’re doing,” Sullivan said.
He then called Stewart’s opening statement the “biggest reductionist, one-sided, completely biased position.” Steward then angrily said Sullivan can love the place he lives in and acknowledge the evils of its past.
“Do not tell me who I am or what I believe, motherfucker!” Stewart said.
When the hosts moved onto solutions, Sullivan suggested a focus on young education and helping to stabilize the nuclear family in the black community in order for children to succeed. Stewart said that argument ignores the causes of broken families and that the black community is searching for a better quality of life.