Trevor Noah and Seth Meyers Roast Sen. Tom Cotton for Calling Slavery a ‘Necessary Evil’
Late-night hosts Trevor Noah and Seth Meyers roasted Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) for calling slavery a “necessary evil” and for objecting to teaching the 1619 Project in schools, in what Noah called the “strongest, and also possibly stupidest terms.”
In an interview with an Arkansas newspaper, Cotton referred to slavery as a “necessary evil upon which the union was built,” during an argument against teaching the Pulitzer Prize winner Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 Project in schools.
The New York Times Magazine project, which was launched in August 2019 and named after the year of arrival of the first enslaved Africans to Virginia, detailed the legacy of slavery in American history and worked to examine the impact of slavery on U.S. democracy, arts, education, and other aspects of culture.
Cotton, who accused the 1619 Project of being “racially divisive,” has also introduced legislation titled Saving American History Act of 2020, which “would prohibit the use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project by K-12 schools or school districts. Schools that teach the 1619 Project would also be ineligible for federal professional-development grants.”
“Curriculum is a matter for local decisions and if local left-wing school boards want to fill their children’s heads with anti-American rot, that’s their regrettable choice. But they ought not to benefit from federal tax dollars to teach America’s children to hate America,” Cotton added in his interview. “The 1619 Project is left-wing propaganda. It’s revisionist history at its worst”
Noah took issue with Cotton’s claims regarding the 1619 project and pointed out students are aware of racial division far before slavery is taught in schools.
“Hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up — so Senator Cotton thinks that this curriculum is racially divisive?” Noah questioned. “Really, this curriculum? Yo, you know what’s really racially divisive? Slavery.”
The host later pointed out that both Cotton and the 1619 Project are arguing the same thing — that the U.S. would not be what it is today without slavery, and questioned why the senator is fighting them in the first place.
“And here is the thing: People are upset because when Cotton says that slavery was a ‘necessary evil on which the union was built,’ it sounds like he’s defending slavery, all right?” Noah said. “And that’s not something a U.S. senator should do, even if his name is Cotton. I mean, how is he going to stay objective? I get it.”
The host then introduced a mock curriculum for K-12 schools, titled “Tom Cotton’s Lesson Plan for Slavery,” — “the only lesson plan that teaches slavery without mentioning race.”
The plan would teach children that some Americans were simply slaves to other Americans and that over time, more slaves were brought from a continent chosen at random.
Meyers similarly roasted Cotton for his views on slavery after poking fun at White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany for falsely claiming that animated series Paw Patrol was canceled during a rant on how much President Donald Trump dislikes “cancel culture.”
“A sitting United States senator said that,” Meyers said after quoting Cotton’s belief that slavery was a “necessary evil.” “At least, I think Tom Cotton is a senator — he looks like the Confederate Slender Man.”
“Seriously, these guys just keep coming up with winners. I mean, what’s next? Is Trump going to say something nice about an alleged sex trafficker and predator who was arrested by the F.B.I. at a remote — oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, right,” he added.
Watch above, via Youtube.
