Trevor Noah Perfectly Explains How Cops Can Be Racist Even If They Don't Know It

Trevor Noah addressed the recent shooting of a black man named Terence Crutcher by police in Tulsa, OK, last night on The Daily Show. Speaking about the unconscious bias that affects how police react to black men, Noah explained how racism is central to the issue even if the officer denies it. Sadly, it's not the first time Noah has responded to police killing an unarmed black man.

During the segment, Noah played a clip of the lawyer representing Betty Shelby, the police officer who shot Crutcher. The lawyer denied that Shelby is racist because she was at "an all-black high school's homecoming" just the week before. Noah explained what's inherently wrong with this answer. "In an American city, there's an all-black high school and that's normal instead of weird," he said before continuing to argue that the officers involved in Crutcher's death were implicitly biased.

In one clip, we hear an officer describe Crutcher as "a bad dude" from a helicopter. Noah reacted, saying, "What exactly about that man looks bad to you? From all the way up there in your helicopter?" Noah's point is that the only attribute the officer could see from the sky was Crutcher's blackness. The entire segment is worth watching because it demonstrates how racism, no matter how imperceptible, is endemic to American society.