The Daily Show is known for comedically addressing social injustices, but Jessica Williams is the first correspondent on the show to tackle things like racial and gender inequality with this amount of import and immediacy (and in a way that still leaves you sore from laughing). This clip about sexual assault and campus safety speaks for itself:
Last Friday, Williams had a segment on the show addressing the ridiculous new US military uniform codes which, among other things, strictly limit the ways black women in the military can wear their hair. These new restrictions are both discriminatory and counterintuitive. They more or less prohibit any natural hair style, along with neatly-kept dreadlocks and two-strand twists.
The hairstyles they do permit, however, are often painful, expensive and incredibly time-consuming. These include chemically relaxed hair, weaves, micro braids, wigs (“yeah, wigs,”) and cornrows. The new regulations, Williams says, may be a way to deter black women from enlisting in the army.
The segment is simultaneously enlightening, infuriating, hilarious, and further proof that Jessica Williams is a whole lot of awesome. According to her Wikipedia page, the Daily Show and a few episodes of HBO’s Girls are the only places she can be seen at the moment, but something tells me that’s about to change.
(images via Comedy Central)
