'The Daily Show' takes a broad look at how white supremacy shaped America

"The Daily Show" dropped this special on YouTube, gathering together past clips and assembling them into a rough chronological history of racism in America.
By Adam Rosenberg  on 
'The Daily Show' takes a broad look at how white supremacy shaped America
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Despite the Republican talking points that say otherwise, there's a massive difference between recognizing the role that racism and white supremacy played in shaping U.S. society and hating America, full stop. The Daily Show turned its attention to that history and how it helped fuel a modern resurgence of hateful beliefs in this new special, White Supremacy: The Rise and Spread in America.

Released on YouTube, the 20-minute video is basically a clip reel highlighting past Daily Show guests in their sitdowns with host Trevor Noah. But the interviews are all threaded together to form a coherent picture, starting with the legacy of American slavery and the lingering impacts of that foundational inequality going unaddressed before leaping ahead to the mainstreamed racism of the Obama and Trump years.

The clips might be older, but stringing them all together into a focused history lesson turns out to be very effective. If you believe in equal rights for all but have struggled with accepting or even just understanding how the long arc of U.S. history supports and upholds unequal systems, this is a good place to start.

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Adam Rosenberg

Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.


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