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and so today, south park held a parade to honor officer barbrady and his heroic work on the chicken !@#$% case. thank you, everybody, thank you ! speech, speech ! what ? they want you to give a speech. about the whole experience over the last couple of days. oh, okay. well, first of all i'd like to thank the town of south park, the town that bore me and eventually will rob me of my life precious. second, i'd like to say to all those out there who think they can screw chickens just to teach people to read, your days are numbered ! and finally i'd like to say that reading totally sucks ass. ( together ) hurray ! yes, at first i was happy to be learning how to read. it seemed exciting and magical, but then i read this, "atlas shrugged", by ayn rand. i read every last word of this garbage and because of this piece of !@#$%

i'm never reading again ! ( together ) hurray for barbrady ! i guess reading really does suck ass. that's what i've been saying all along, you guys. i'm just glad everything turned out okay, and barbrady got his job back. it's poetic justice. thanks, boys. captioning made possible by comedy central >> from comedy central's world news headquarters in new york, this is "the daily show" with

trevor noah. ( cheers and applause ) >> trevor: thank you so much. thank you so much. welcome to "the daily show," everybody. thank you so much for coming out. and thank you for tuning in. i appreciate it. i'm trevor noah. my guest tonight, my guest tonight, a brilliant woman, author of the new book "thick." tressie mcmillian cottom is here everybody. we're going to have a fascinating conversation with her. and on tonight's show we will also be discussing the three "r"s-- robots, racism, and republicans. ( laughter ) but first, let's catch up on today's headlines. great britain. not so great anymore. ( laughter ) if you think things look badder than the new "spider-man" trailer, wait until you see it on the news. >> breaking news on brexit.

british prime minister theresa may losing a historic vote on her plan to leave the european union. the parliament overwhelmingly rejecting the deal in a vote late tonight in london. >> today's defeat was a landslide. theresa may got a shellacking. the right voted no. the left voted no. it was the worst failure of government in britain by the numbers in the history of great britain. >> trevor: good lord. what a mess. i bet mary poppins floated down, looked around, and just turned around like, "wow, you've really shit the bed now. i'm out, bitches!" ( laughter ) so with this vote, theresa may has become one of the u.k.'s least-popular people, which is impressive in a country that also has pierce morgan, right? she wanted brexit. no one has voted with her. and now that her brexit plan has been voted down, the country is faced with either calling the whole thing off or going through with brexit with no exit plan at all. yeah. it's basically like the whole u.k. suddenly realized they don't have a condom and they're

like, "well, we know what the smart thing is to do, but we also really wanted to get screwed, so..." ( laughter ) moving on. netflix, they're the streaming service that turned every blockbuster video into a seasonal halloween store, and they just made a big announcement. >> big news today out of netflix, raising prices for u.s. subs as much as 18%, effective immediately for new users. it's the company's biggest increase since it launched its streaming service 12 years ago. >. >> trevor: that's right, netflix is increasing its prices. which, i'm sorry, is so unfair. do they even care about how this is going to affect me and my mom and kibuuka, and all the other people using my account? no, they don't care. they don't care. i mean, before, i could divide $11 by the 11 people who have my password, but 13? that shit makes no sense. now i'm going to have to give two more people my log-in details, so if anyone wants to join my account.

it's tnoah, and the password is takambua. obviously, all caps. go crazy. i will admit, i do get why netflix is doing this. netflix just spent $100 million to buy "friends." yeah, that's a lot of money. that's almost as much as don jr. spent to buy his friends. ( laughter ) oh, and speaking of the trumps, it is now day 25 of the government shutdown, the longest in american history. and it looks like now even president trump is starting to feel effects. >> an odd feast for champions. the clemson tigers football team was treated to a vast spread of... fast food during their visit to the white house. much of the white house resident staff is not working because of the shutdown. so president trump, he footed the bill, and treated the n.c.a.a. champs to burgers, fries, and pizza. >> burger king, wendy's, and mcdonald's. we have big macs. we have quarter pounders with

cheese. we have everything that i like, that you like. >> what's your favorite thing here, mr. president? >> i like it all. i like it all. it's all good stuff. great american food. ( laughter ). >> trevor: i like how-- i like how he busted himself, "we got all the things they like-- that you like! that you like! that you like!" ( laughter ) and, honestly, is there anything more trump than eating mcdonald's by candlelight? ( laughter ) like, i feel like that's him. if you combine and fancy thing with any garbagey thing, that's trump's style. mcdonald's by candlelight. calfaur in a porta potty. him in the white house. you know. it's just a mix. ( laughter ) ( applause ) but i will say this: if the government shutdown means that trump gets to eat cheeseburgers every night, then this thing is going to last forever. buckle up, folks. all right, let's move on to our main story. >> racism, as we all know, it died for good the night barack obama was elected president.

( laughter ) but a strange thing happened this week. we learned that racism may be coming back to life. and it turns out, it's already in the house. >> house republican leaders came down hard on one of their own last night. iowa congressman steve king was stripped of his committee assignments less than a week after making a comment to "the new york times" that was widely seen as racist. >> the decision was made by house g.o.p. leader kevin mccarthy, and other top republicans. >> these are not the first time w have heard these comments. that is not the party of lincoln. it is definitely not america. >> he ought to resign and move on and let someone else who represents american values take his seat. >> one republican who did not weigh in was president trump. >> i don't-- i haven't been following it. i really haven't been following it. ( laughter ). >> trevor: you haven't been following it? like, what else are you doing? "i'm extremely busy, folks. do you think a name like jeff bezos comes out of nowhere? ( laughter )

genius like that takes time." but this is a big deal. the republican party has punished one of its own for making racist comments. and if you haven't been keeping up with the story, what happened is in an interview with the "new york times," steve king basically said that he doesn't think there's anything wrong with being a white supremacist. now, that feels like a pretty racist thing to say, which makes it even more surprising that trump isn't following this. i mean, you'd think an algorithm or something would have recommended it by now, be like, "if you liked charlottesville, you'll love steve king." ( laughter ) but as damning as king's comments sound to most people, he's claiming that it's not what he said. it's just how we heard it. >> "the new york times" is suggesting that i'm an advocate for white nationalism and white supremacy. i want to make one thing abundantly clear: i reject those labels and the evil ideology that they define. >> trevor: okay, so steve king went from saying those terms are not offensive to then rejecting them and calling them evil. i haven't seen a turnaround that drastic since the movie

"titanic." remember where the iceberg started off as the good guy, and then out of nowhere just started killing everybody? i was like, "what the hell, iceberg?" so as it stands, steve king said a thing that's really racist, but he claims that he isn't racist at all. so which is it? is he racist or not? well, i think this sounds like a job for trevor noah: racism detective. ( cheers and applause ) >> trevor: oh, hello. it's still me, trevor noah, racism detective. you can tell i'm a real detective because i'm wearing a funny hat, and i have a magnifying glass for, like, burning ants, or whatever people use that for. ( laughter ) so now that i have all my gear, it's time to investigate whether congressman steve king is actually a racist. and here's our first clue: a clip of steve king in 2013 saying disparaging things about mexican immigrants.

>> they aren't all valedictorians. they weren't all brought in by their parents. for everyone who is a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds, and they have calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 175 pounds of marijuana across the desert. >> okay, that's, like, the weirdest math problem i ever heard. "if jose is 130 pounds and he's hauling 175 pounds of marijuana, his calves would be the size of what fruit?" ( laughter ) like, the weirdest part of this one is that king isn't even working off existing stereotypes. he's just making up new ones that don't exist. mexicans have cantaloupe calves? you can't even tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing. even mexicans are like, "thank you? ( laughter ) i mean, i have been getting my steps in." so the first clue is racism-seeming. but on the other hand, cantaloupe isn't a racist fruit. like, if he really wanted to be

racist he could have said bananas, or watermelon, you know, classic racist fruit. so we still need more proof. look, what's this? it's another clue. >> when you talked about muslims working in your pork plants, and saying, "i don't want muslims working in my pork plant because they need extra explanation." >> i didn't say that. >> what did you say? >> first, you have to have a sense of humor here. >> here's the soundbite. >> fair enough. ( laughter ) >> trevor: damn. so steve king says he doesn't want muslims working in pork factories because he thinks it makes them happy to feed the rest of us pork because it will send us to hell. so in his mind, there are some muslims who hate everyone else so much, they're like, "i want to destroy these infidels. let's blow them up?

no, no, too easy. let's open a pork shop, feed them delicious bacon, and watch them enjoy themselves for many years and until they die naturally and watch them go to hell. ha-ha. ah, bacon grease, bacon grease. he said mexicans are drug mules with cantaloupe calves and muslims are trying to damn our souls with pork. but i don't know. does that mean he's racist or is he just hungry? without more clues, we can never know, unless there's a third clue. >> this western civilization still is a superior civilization. you cannot rebuild your civilization with somebody else's babies. you've got to keep your birth rate up. >> trevor: o-ho! goddamn it. that was so racist it burned my lungs. "you can't rebuild a civilization with someone else's babies?" i mean, on the one hand, he's right-- babies are terrible at building stuff. have you ever given a baby a power tool? i have. that's why i'm not allowed near

daycare centers anymore. ( laughter ) but what king is actually saying is that minority babies could never be american. only white babies can truly be american. and i assume they're taught how to become american by their filipino nannies. so we got three clues, but it still doesn't feel like we have enough to know for sure that steve king is racist. if only he had said something else, something really, really explicitly racist. like this. >> go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you're talking about? where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization? >> than white people? >> than western civilization itself that's rooted in western europe, eastern europe, and the united states of america, and every place where the footprint of christianity settled the world. that's all of western civilization. >> trevor: oh, man, steve king

actually has a good point here, folks-- other cultures haven't really contributed anything to human civilization. i mean, the paper in front of him was invented in china. but that doesn't countdown. whose ever used papers. and the numbers on that sign behind him, india came up with those. ( laughing ) and the christianity he just mentioned, obviously, that came from the middle east, so that's three things that non-white cultures contributed to humanity, but, i mean, who's counting, other than the indians? ( laughter ) so let's look at the evidence. on the one hand, we have steve king being racist towards mexicans, muslims, and the entire non-white world. but on the other hand, he says he's not racist. huh... even i'm not good enough as a racism detective to crack this one. so i guess it will just have to remain a mystery. join me next week when i investigate cross burnings. are they racist, or just a dramatic way to roast marshmallows? ( laughter ) i will try to find out. we'll be right back. ( laughter )

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>> trevor: welcome back to "the daily show." the future-- it's coming fast, and it's here now. which means ronny chieng is back with another installment of "today's future now." ( cheers and applause ) ♪ ♪ >> thanks, trevor. last week in las vegas was the annual consumer electronics show, where tech companies give us a first look at all the junk we'll be throwing away in six months. ( laughter ) and this year was the worst yet. they have a lot of technology and no good ways to use it. >> one of the items turning heads is a fully automated bread-making vending machine. >> the bread bob by the wilkinson baking company can

make 10 loaves an hour from scratch. the fully automated machine mixes, kneads, bakes, and sells bread like a vending machine. >> a vending machines for bread. yeah, because, i don't know about you, but when i'm craving a snack on the go, i want an entire loaf of the bread. ( laughter ) a vending machine is supposed to be convenient. there's nothing convenient about a loaf of bread. ( laughter ) while you're at it, why don't you build a vending machine for paella or whole watermelons? and that wasn't even the most unnecessary thing at c.e.s. this year. okay, look at what one company is offering for babies because they're hoping parents are too tired to notice how stupid it is. >> a company called monit has a cookie-sized attachment that you can put on a diaper, and it's bluetooth enabled, so any time a diaper gets dirty you'll get a notification on your phone. >> the sensor can detect whether there's a number one or a number two in the diaper. >> wow a diaper with built-in noteination.

you know what else has built-in notification. human shit. also, who wants to get notifications on their phone every time their baby takes a crap? notifications are supposed to be fr good things. i don't want to be like, "oh, my phone is buzzing. i wonder if that's my food. oh, no, it's just my son's food coming out of its butt. what i like about c.e.s. is that it does give me a chance to see what i would be buying if i had unlimited money. >> and lamborghini has partnered with los angeles-based company bodyfriend to create a top-of-the-line massage chair called the l.b.f.-750. it has the esthetics and paint job of a lamborghini and comes with l.e.d. lighting. >> now, if this looks like something that may be a bit too fancy for your house, you might be right. it's worth a cool $30,000, and it's mostly been sold in places like macau and asia. >> so, basically, you need to be crazy, rich, and asian to buy this. ( laughter )

interesting. anyway, you have $30,000 to spend on a massage chair. you don't need a massage character okay? what could you possibly be stressed about? is carrying all your money hurting your back? ( laughter ) but the real stars of every c.e.s. are the robots. for one week a year, they get to be the creepiest things in las vegas. >> here at c.e.s., the hottest products and robots are powered by artificial intelligence. >> artificial intelligence is programmed to give robots a personality and sometimes an attitude. >> please don't touch me when i am dancing. ( laughter ) >> yeah, you tell him, r2-me2. ( laughter ) this is just the beginning-- ( applause ) ( cheers ) --of robots asserting their rights. all right, next thing you know your roomba is going to want a living wage and benefits. i already got two cavities because my electric toothbrush went on paid vacation. ( laughter ) so that robot didn't want to be touched, but some of these other ones are getting downright needy.

>> this is a love-ot. it's a contraption is a loving robot. many of the smartest robot companies i'm seeing here, including groove x, are saying robots need to be relatable, even before they are capable. the body is covered with dozens of sensors. when i carry it and hold it and stroke it a certain way, it remembers that. it learns its relationship with me. the more time you spend with it, the better it knows you, and the more it will become attached to you and actually kind of be around you more. >> yo, tech nerds. you don't have to try so hard to make machines likable. okay, we already love them. you see this little guy right here? yo. this thing is like my best friend. i would die for it. one time i left it in the cab and i turned into liam neeson in "take it." because i have a particular set of skills and a particular set of nudes on that phone that i will be needing back. ( laughter ) >> trevor: when you say it like, i'm glad you got it back. >> yeah, i had to kill eight guys in paris, but you've got to do what you've got to do. i mean, you have seen these nudes, trevor. they're incredible. >> trevor: we don't that. ronny chieng, everyone. we'll be right back.

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♪ everyone in your family is only $10 bucks ♪y ♪ ♪ even your kid's friend who's always around ♪ ♪ at $10 bucks a head, trevor can stay ♪ ♪ 3 for $10 bucks, baby, bucks, baby, bucks ♪ mmm-hmm... ♪ oh baby, 3 for $10 bucks, ♪ ♪ baby, bucks, baby, bucks ♪ >> trevor: welcome back to "the daily show." my guest tonight is an assistant professor of sociology at virginia commonwealth university and a critically acclaimed author whose new book is called "thick, and other essays." please welcome back to the show tressie mcmillian cottom. ( cheers and applause )

>> you do this every time. >> trevor: i put the chair higher on purpose for you. >> i know. >> trevor: i just want you to experience a different, you know-- >> every time. >> trevor: i just want to see more of you. how are you? >> i am well, thank you. >> trevor: welcome back to the show. >> thank you. >> trevor: and congratulations on your new book "thick." the title of the book is "thick." and what's interesting is that for you it is not just a physical term about personality. it's a term about personality. it's a term about body, it's a term about the ideas that go into what society perceives a black woman should be. give me an understanding of what you're trying to accomplish with this book. >> that's a good question. thick was the last essay i wrote in this book. when we titled it, it all sort of came together for me and it's this. there's a theme running through the history of black women's experience of this country and of the world that is about us

being nuanced, and sometimes too nuanced for the world to perceive us as we perceive ourselves. and it was in that nuance where i wanted people to get comfortable. we're not usually very comfortable in places wher we don't have easy black-and-white answers. >> trevor: right. >> and this book is about complicating all of that, but in in a way that stories the experience of black women as being human experiences. which is what i thought, if there's any contribution of this book, it is that. >> trevor: it's interesting that you say that, because for many black women in america, they have always said that the definition of being a black woman in america is one that seems to be defined by others. >> that is correct. >> trevor: so they go, "you're the angry black woman. you're the sassy black woman. oh, you're smart for a black woman." it seems there's always some sort of qualifier that comes with that. you're trying to dissect those ideas. the book is really, really in-depth, but at the same time, easy to understand. why did you break it into essays, as opposed to writing one long book? >> i don't know that one long book would be enough for the story of black women.

oddly enough, essays are a better approach because you can take these slices of our life. and you run the risk of people thinking this is a definitive book on what it is to be a black woman. one of the things that happens when you're a black woman and you have some public personalities you become everybody's black friend who doesn't have an actual black friend. >> trevor: right. >> and i didn't want to give the impression that by reading one definitive text about black women that you know everything you need to know about black women. what this does instead is give you a slice of life and the thinking and the philosophy of black womanhood as i understand it. not just as someone who lives it and has experienced it, but someone who has studied it and thought about it at these different levels. so essays allow me to sort of slice the sections of our life experiences off in a way that i think a single narrative wouldn't allow me to do. you talk about the idea of you talk that publications, for instance don't hire enough black women as voices to constantly contribute. >> right. >> trevor: they just want to jump in and be like, "hey,

there's a black issue. black lady, can you come in and write this for us, but we're not going to hire you permanently." why do you think that's important in the conversations america has in and around its politics or social issues? >> you know, it's important on a couple of levels. it's important to black women because we deserve it, right? if you have earned the spot to contribute to the public discourse, then you should be at publications that help shape that kind of discourse. >> trevor: right. >> and our opinion pages, those mastheads, as much as we like to think that they no longer matter, indeed, in the age of social media they may matter more, and not les, because we tend to turn to the publications we trust more when news becomes more difficult to trust, right. and if those are going to be the publications that we trust, it should look li are asking for. so that's one reason. the other reason is i believe that the philosophy that black women have developed over hundreds of years says as much about black womanhood as it says about everyone else's experiences. and, frankly, i just think we're smarter if we listen to black women. that's not to say that black women are always right, but black women do always have a

right to be heard, right. >> trevor: right. >> and when you don't model what it means to take black women seriously in our public discourse, it reinforces the idea that people don't have to take us seriously. >> trevor: if you look at the ideas and you look at american relationship with the black woman, what would hope would change? you write so many ideas in the book but what would you hope you see change in the country? >> i would hope we are at a moment that it could be taken for granted if you are having a conversation about anything that has implications for the body politic writ large, that you would look around the table of that conversation and know that there are voices missing without someone having to tell you. we should not at this stage of the game have to write you a letter, send you a tweet, and write an essay about david brooks and how off track he is. we shouldn't have to do these thing anymore. that even if you don't quite understand the extent to which

our contribution is important that you should be able to look around a room and go, "something is missing here," right, without a black woman having to tell you. >> trevor: i love how in the book you talked about small and meaningful protests that you try and implement in your life. for instance, you talk about how you're done code switching. >> correct. >> trevor: you say what you love is you say, "i'm not just going to be black. i'm going to be the blackest black i can be. >> that's want way to say it, yes. >> trevor: and that's a really interesting idea. why do you think it's so important to do that? do you think-- do you think code switching reinforces the stereotypes that people have about black people, so they go, "you sound more white, ergo, whiteness is associated with smartness." and then you go, like, "no, i'm going to be as black as you think a black person can be while still maintaining that level of intelligence. is that part of it? >> code switching is a marvelous cultural tradition, and i love that i'm able to do it. i also love that i'm able to choose not to do it. when i am doing when i do it is i am acknowledging the fact that i have achieved certain status symbols that we tend to

associate with people who don't look like me. and i want to make people uncomfortable with the fact that they are uncomfortable with me. reconcile the fact that if you think i am anything worthwhile-- intelligent or attractive or important-- i want them to reconcile that with the fact that i sound like i sound, i look like what i look like, and i am what i am. ( cheers and applause ) >> trevor: it's such a powerful idea. there are so many essays that tackle so many subjects. i mean, everything from you talking about how serena williams had to basically, you know, commandeer her own treatment in a hospital because people didn't know how to treat her. you talk about the mortality rates of black women giving birth in america. you talk about your own stories where you went into your favorite bookstore, and they took your purse because they were afraid that you were going to steal books. >> right. >> trevor: which i always think is a great thing for people to steal anyway. steal the books, whatever. >> they were used books.

like, give those away! they're used, man. >> trevor: do you ever have the urge to go back to that bookstore and go, oh, no, i'm here to sign my own now." ( applause ). >> you know, we have a word for that, and that's called being petty. and yes, yes. ( laughter ) ( applause ) >> trevor: oh, man! thank you so much for being on the show. >> thank you for having me. >> trevor: it's an honor to have you here. "thick" is an amazing book by an amazing woman. tressie mcmillian cottom, everybody. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. ( cheers and applause ) ♪come along, catch a heffalump,♪ ♪sit with me on a muddy clump,♪ ♪we'll sing a song of days gone by.♪ ♪ ♪come, come, come, come, come along now,♪ ♪run away from the hum-drum, ♪we'll go to a place that is safe from♪ ♪greed, anger and boredom. ♪we'll dance and sing till sundown,♪ ♪and feast with abandon, ♪we'll sleep when the morning comes,♪

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