Trevor Noah Schools Tom Cotton for Calling Slavery a ‘Necessary Evil’

Trevor Noah wasn’t exactly surprised that Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has a problem with “The 1619 Project” being taught in schools. 

“There’s one U.S. senator who is objecting in the strongest, and also possibly stupidest terms,” the Daily Show host said before diving into Cotton’s recent comments in which he seemed to agree with the Founding Fathers that slavery was a “necessary evil upon which the union was built.” The senator also called the proposed curriculum “racially divisive.” 

“Hold up, hold up,” Noah said. “So Senator Cotton thinks this curriculum is racially divisive? You know what’s really racially divisive? Slavery.” 

The host continued to go off on Cotton for “thinking racial division doesn’t exist until slavery gets taught in school.” But even if he chooses to believe that Cotton was not actually “defending slavery,” which is “just not something a U.S. senator should do, even if his name is Cotton,” Noah joked, he still doesn’t understand why he opposes The 1619 Project so vehemently.

“If you dig deeper and you take Cotton at his word, he believes that the United States could not have become the country that it is without slavery,” Noah explained. “Well, that’s the same thing that The 1619 Project says, so why is he fighting them?” 

The host ended his segment by presenting a new ad for the “Tom Cotton Lesson Plan for Slavery, the only lesson plan that teaches slavery without mentioning race.” 

“With Senator Cotton, your students will learn that in 1619, some Americans were slaves to other Americans, that over time, more slaves were brought from one of the seven continents at random, and that the Civil War ended slavery for both Blacks and whites,” the ad’s narrator said. “Students will also learn that this all happened a long time ago, which means that it has no relevance to anything happening today.” 

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