In the “Assault Swim” segment on Monday’s episode of The Daily Show, Senior Texas Aquatics Correspondent Jessica Williams managed to call out not only the police violence in McKinney, Texas, but many other relevant manifestations of racism—all in less than three minutes.
We see her wearing a pink string bikini over full body armor, sarcastically dubbed a “McKinney bikini,” which she donned to prepare herself for a Texas pool party. She enumerates the “lessons” learned from what happened in McKinney (which we talked about in an earlier post): “This week’s incident has taught black people here something valuable. It’s that when you go to a pool party, even in your own neighborhood that you live in, you have to know pool etiquette, which is no running, no splashing, no talking back, and if at all possible get your ass even further into the ground than it is.” Sad and scary, but true.
Most importantly, when Jon Stewart responds with mock-shock when she calls the incident “progress,” she delivers a sobering truth in return: “It’s progress because a cop pulled a gun on a group of black kids and nobody is dead,” she said.
Not only this, but she remarks on how the “open carry” gun rights of Texas apply, really, only to white people; satirically states that the cop dragged 14-year-old Dajerria Becton by her hair is “nothing new” (“White people always want to touch our hair!”); and even calls out the lack of people of color in mainstream media by explaining that there are only four black characters depicted in the 8-movie Harry Potter saga.
Kudos to Jessica Williams for, as always, using her media platform to bring attention to such important issues! Watch the full video below to see it for yourself:
Image via Comedy Central
