The Daily Show host put aside the funny for his opening monologue on Wednesday night saying new video released by police following the acquittal of Jeronimo Yanez (the police officer involved in the shooting of Philando Castile) "broke him."
“You see so many of these videos,” Noah continued. “And you start to get numb. But this one? Seeing the child. That little girl. Getting out of the car after watching a man get killed. It broke my heart into little pieces.”
As Noah continued his monologue, he pointed out how police departments using body cameras to help clear up what happens during police shootings have not been the panacea activists have been hoping for
"And black people have already taken that initiative, right?” Noah said. “Thanks to cell phones, every black person has a body cam now. Black people have been saying for years, ‘Just give us an indictment. Just an indictment. Just get us in front of a jury. Just in front of a jury of our peers. Of our fellow citizens. We’ll show them the video, the evidence, and they will see it, and justice will be served.’ And black people finally get there, and it’s like, ‘Wait, what? Nothing?’ You hear the stories, but you watch that, and forget race. Are we all watching the same video? The video where a law-abiding man followed the officer’s instructions to the letter of the law and was killed regardless? People watched that video and then voted to acquit? And the saddest thing is, that wasn’t the only video that they watched.”
On Tuesday, The Daily Show released video of a candid question and answer session during which the Daily Show host spoke openly and honestly about what it is like being a black man in America and his own experience of being pulled over by police. According to Noah, despite being in the U.S. for about 6 years, he's been stopped at least 8 to 10 times.