Two famous white men scream at each other about the existence of white privilege. (Comedy Central)
Jon Stewart says everything you want to say about white privilege to Bill O’Reilly
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
Bill O'Reilly's appearance on The Daily Show on Wednesday was destined to be fiery — he and Jon Stewart are polar opposites politically, and they have had some heated, semi-theatrical exchanges in the past. In this latest encounter, O'Reilly and Stewart have at it about white privilege because O'Reilly said in August that it doesn't exist.
(Fox News)
Stewart gets O’Reilly to make a few simple concessions:
- That poor people have it harder in terms of finding work and obtaining an education than non-poor people.
- That black people wouldn’t be able to live in O’Reilly’s hometown of Levittown, New York, when he was growing up there in the 1950s and 60s (above).
- That racism caused real harm to black people 50 years ago.
Stewart wasn’t as effective in getting O’Reilly to admit the existence of the residual effects of slavery and systemic discrimination in contemporary America, that non-white immigrants’ experiences could be more difficult than white immigrants’, or that women still experience harmful discrimination. Watch the whole interview below:
Related: The racism of the US criminal justice system in 10 charts
See More:
