No Jokes, only sadness: Jon Stewart skips comedy to talk about Charleston shooting

Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, a satirical news program that airs on Comedy Central, is best known for his humor and ability to put news in context. However, even he was unable to keep his show light-heated in the wake of the Charleston church shooting.

On Thursday, a young white man identified as Dylann Roof shot at worshipers at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

In what is being called a ‘racist, hate crime’, nine people including the pastor-cum-state senator died at the historic black church. The congregation had gathered for a prayer meeting when gunfire erupted.

The television host started by apologizing to his audience for ’not doing his job’ that is to look at the news and make jokes about it. He chose to instead to address the extent of the Charleston tragedy by talking about the reactions of people towards such a crime.

“I have nothing other than just sadness, once again, that we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence that we do to each other in the nexus of a just gaping racial wound that will not heal – yet we pretend doesn’t exist,” Stewart said in an emotional monologue.

An interesting point he made was comparing the shooting to a terrorist strike, arguing that people do not tend to react to racist crimes in the same way.  “If this had been what we thought was Islamic terrorism… it’s ‘we’ve got to do whatever we can – we’ll torture people! – we’ve got to do whatever we can to keep Americans safe. Nine people shot in a church, what about that? Hey, what are you gonna do, crazy is as crazy does. That’s the part that I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around,” he added.

His guest for the evening was Malala Yousafzai and he said that there was no better person to talk to that day day as he welcomed her after his opening statement.

Watch the full video here