♪ Shave it off, stay alive, open wide ♪
♪ Show us how to conquer first and then divide ♪
♪ Don't know if we're stayin' long, stayin' long ♪
♪ Used to staying weak ♪
♪ And now we're staying strong ♪
♪ We don't wanna go where we do not belong ♪
♪ Lonely as the day is long, day is long ♪
Hey, it's my buddy and yours,
Sarah Silverman!
- Hi!
Welcome.
Hi, everybody, welcome.
Another show, another opening.
Okay, so today we're gonna get some life advice from my dad,
I'm gonna find common ground
in one of the reddest counties in Texas,
I'll interview the brilliant DeRay Mckesson,
and, of course, we'll end the show with a prayer.
But first, before we get started,
you remember this guy.
He's our special security blanket.
The white man at a desk, Mather!
- Sarah!
- Isn't he great? If you weren't here last week,
what it is is we go to Mather
if the show gets to be a little much
and we need that reassuring comfort
of a traditional late-night talk show host.
So, say we're mid-show and, uh...
I'm talking about a...
like a cummy seahorse with floppy pussy lips.
We have Mather.
- Um, so... that just happened.
- Brings us back to normalcy. It's good, right?
It's like I never just said "floppy pussy lips."
In fact, you know what?
I'm gonna go ahead and claim I never did.
I never said floppy pussy lips,
and frankly, I'm disgusted by the accusation.
Yeah. That's good.
That's the point of this monologue really, uh...
it's that we don't know what is true anymore.
The truth has become, like, subjective.
I mean, remember when truth was facts?
Wasn't that fun?
How are we gonna heal this divided country
if we can't even agree on what is true?
It's--it's the Red Sox and the Yankees, right?
If you're from Boston,
even if the Yankees had the best record in all of baseball,
your truth is that the Yankees suck.
Which is true. They fucking suck, right?
But, hey, a Red Sox fan is just a Yankees fan
who happened to be born in Boston.
Make no mistake. It is location-based.
It's teams, and that's what it's supposed to be.
It's sports, that's fine. It's adorable.
But that same kind of blind allegiance
has infiltrated our government.
It--it's party over country-- it's party over everything.
It's party over tenets of your own party.
Right? I mean, Obama did stuff in his presidency
that should have had Republicans jizzing rainbows.
Truly.
He fucking murdered Osama bin Laden.
Yeah.
He took out several known terrorists with drones.
And I didn't even know this until about a month ago,
but it turns out he deported more immigrants
than any other president.
Now, that's something for me to reconcile.
I don't know how I feel about it,
but I sure as hell know
how Republicans should feel about it.
They should be creaming their khakis.
But no.
They still say Obama was weak on terror and immigration
because they're the Red Sox and Obama was the Yankees
and there's nothing a Yankee can do
that the Red Sox won't hate, and that is that.
People cling to the truths that they know.
And that's because, you know, changing your mind
can feel scary.
But you've all done it, you know?
Remember when you believed in Santa Claus
and then one day you didn't believe in Santa Claus anymore?
You did great. You did!
You got new information, and you let it change you.
Or remember 20 years ago when we were all walking around
like, "Princess Diana's totally alive."
You could never say that today.
There was even a time when I believed
that I would go blind if I masturbated,
which, of course, I have since disproved
time and time and time
and time and time again. Furiously.
- Too fast, too furious!
- Even the happiest people masturbate furiously,
I would say, and that is a fact.
That's a fact.
Opening up to change is scary.
It's so scary that people will use
the lamest excuses to avoid it.
They'll say, uh, "I'm too old,"
or "It's how I was raised,"
or, "I'm blind due to masturbation."
Or the classic-- "It's God's will."
- God?
Thought maybe I could help you out
with some absolute truths.
- Yes! Amazing! Yes, please!
13 billion years ago,
I created the universe
in a vast cosmos of space and time.
Your planet is one of trillions.
- God, we're so tiny and insignificant,
and yet you still care about us.
Of course. I care about
how you treat each other,
your purity of heart, your kindness,
and I will send you to Hell for eternity
if you murder...
Steal...
Do guy-on-guy butt sex...
- Wait. What?
Covet thy-- Wha--What?
- That's true? You really put people in Hell for eternity
if they put their penis in an anus?
Mm-hmm.
- Are you serious? I cannot believe that you--
Sarah! Take a chill pill.
I'm kidding. I created gay people.
- Oh. Phew!
Ah... you got me!
You're a real son of a gun, God.
Ah, call me Allah.
- Okay, Allah.
Oh! Allah!
Well, well, well, hey, everyone
frantically typing emails about how I'm once again
disrespecting the Christian God,
guess what, motherfuckers--
- Ah-ah-ahem! Uh, we here at the show
would like to apologize
for the blasphemous comments and language
Sarah used just a few moments ago regarding religion.
That is just not what our show is about.
- Uh, yeah, it is, trust me. This is my show.
Mather is just a soap-selling trope that I made up.
I know what this show is.
- How dare you?
You don't know me, ma'am.
- Oh, really, I don't? I created you.
I wrote your last line.
I write all the dumb shit you say.
Well, then I guess I'm just a puppet on a string.
Cummy seahorse.
Come here!
See the horse!
- Aw, now I feel bad.
Mather, I'm sorry.
Look, you're great.
You serve such an important role on the show.
- I need ya. - -
- Hey, I know. We've got a video to throw to,
the one with my dad. Why don't you introduce it?
- Do I have a choice? I mean--
- Of course, you do.
Come on, buddy.
This is what you do.
-
Okay.
Ladies and gentlemen, we've got some words of wisdom
from Sarah's dad, Donald Silverman,
in a segment we call Poolside with Schleppy.
Let's take a look!
- Hi, Sarah. Hi, gang.
I'm happy to be here.
Somewhat.
What would you warn someone about
who's about to have their first child?
- Start with your second.
Why do people hate Jews?
I hate some Jews, but not because they're Jewish.
Um, because they're from New York and they're pushy.
Kyle.
Oh, Carl?
After you die, I think it's the same
as what I recall before I was born.
And I don't recall a fucking thing before I was born.
Ooh.
How do you think the universe was created?
- Compared to my existence right here
with my four daughters and my wife
and my five grandchildren, a couple friends,
who gives a shit where the universe came?
It's here.
What a stupid fucking question.
Love the shit out of them,
and try-- just try to do your best.
And never put them down,
which, in Sarah's case, is, ha,
a difficult thing not to do, 'cause she's so bad.
What do you think the meaning of life is?
- The meaning of life is:
It beats the shit out of me.
Good-bye. It's been wonderful chatting with you.
I have to be going now.
- Look at him go! We'll be right back.
- Thank you so much. Welcome back.
You know, one of my goals on this show
is to find something in common
with people outside my little bubble.
And this week I'm headed to a random city in America
to do just that. Now, I wanna be spontaneous,
so to decide where to go,
I'm gonna throw this dart at a map
and see where fate takes me.
Totally random city in America.
Here we go!
I'm in Mineola, Texas, the mini-areola of Texas.
Where 87% of the people voted for Trump.
I'm here to meet the locals,
and see if we can find some common ground
and undivide ourselves.
Thank you for having me.
You guys are firemen.
Do you guys all own guns?
- Yes. - Yes.
- You're not feeling, like,
a stand-your-groundiness with me right now,
are you? - No.
- No. - No, not by any means.
-
Obvious question:
Who did you vote for and why?
- I voted for Trump. Why?
I just knew that it was somebody different
than what we've had before.
- And you voted for Trump, right?
- Trump. - What did you like about him?
- Obviously, he's done well business-wise.
- Gay marriage-- who's for it?
Interesting. Interesting.
You guys--not for it. Go on.
- Not something I...
really care one way or another.
That's what-- what happens happens.
- Then you are for it.
- I'm not for or against it.
Doesn't matter to me.
- How 'bout you, doll?
- Not for it or against it. Uh...
Haven't... got a horse in that race,
uh, so to speak.
- Would you...
speak out for somebody's right
to get married if they're gay?
- Uh, I don't know that I'd speak out,
as I've sat here quietly through most of this.
- Doesn't affect your own sexuality.
- No, it does not.
- In any way. - No, not in any way.
- So who gives a fuck?
- The people that are doing
whatever they're doing, they have to answer to
their higher power, whatever they think that may be.
- If Jesus came back... - Yeah?
- Because he's coming back.
Do you think you would believe him that he was Jesus?
- If you believe in it, you'll know.
- You think you'll know? - I will know.
- I'm Jesus. - No, you're not.
-
- Do you believe in climate change?
- I'm in the oil and gas business.
- Uh-huh. - Okay, so...
anybody out there that doesn't particularly care
for drilling or fracking or things like that,
understand--understandable.
I believe the climate has been changing
since the Earth was formed. Yes.
- Do you think that it's man-made at all?
- I have no scientific background myself
to make that decision. I don't know.
- You ever hear of Google?
- Mm-mm. That's naive of us
to think that we can have that kind of impact
on such a large space.
- 97% of scientists
say that climate change is real
and is an eminent threat.
- It is gonna change, but I don't think it's
because of my--my lawn mower.
- All right. Anyone else have anything to add
before I move on?
- I totally agree with that.
The cycle of nature been going on
for millions of years.
- We've talked about blue states.
We've talked about red states.
Let's talk about brown states.
Have you all ever shit your pants?
That's so awful. I'm sorry.
That's so rude. I'm in the South.
Have y'all ever shit your pants?
I got one.
I got one. I met a guy.
We dated two times.
And we're going to the grocery store,
and I'm going in to get bread
and I come back out, and he's gone.
It's like 100 degrees outside,
and my date is gone.
Next thing I know, his sister pulls up.
And I'm like, "Ha. Where's Kevin?"
She goes, "He shit his pants."
And I was like, "What?"
Anyways, I ended up marrying him,
having two kids. - Oh, my God!
- And I have so many poop stories
about his two children, 'cause DNA is very strong.
- So this date shit his pants and you were like,
"This is the one."
- I was in bed, uh,
and you have that dream
where you think you're going to the bathroom,
and you're not. - Shitting dream?
- You know how you dream
that you're on the toilet?
- Yeah, peeing.
- Well, it's--it's the same. Same thing.
- It must have been a real mislead, like you went,
"Oh, it was just a dream.
Oh, no, I shit myself!"
- I have a long line of poopers.
They've slid in their poop.
They've wiped poop over each other.
They've pooped out of trees.
They have pooped on each other. - Out of trees?
- Mine's put me through it.
- It just happened, and there I was.
Um, and I was wearing a dress so I had a--
A thong on.
- Oh, God! - So then you're like--
- Just like, split down the middle.
- What do you do with this?
- And I drove to, uh,
Beaumont, Texas, from College Station,
where I was working at the time...
and I didn't make it.
- That's the whole ending?
You just shit your pants?
- Wasn't me. I'll preface with that.
- Oh, he has a friend. - He's talking for a friend.
- It was a friend. Yeah.
- A friend of mine's vacation was ruined.
He was standing in front of the mirror, shaving,
and decided he would... just let one go.
Uh, needless to say, it was...
solid... -
- Not just a-- So as he clenched,
he threw his back out. -
- And ruined the rest of his vacation
because he could not stand up straight
or hardly walk.
- Your back okay now?
- Is your back okay-- - Ah!
- On my way home from college, I stopped at, uh, P. F. Chang's
to get something to eat. -
That's your first-- - Driving home on I-20,
and I had a flat tire,
so I pull over to change the tire
and start jacking the car up and...
I think I struggled too hard when I pushed one down
and pushed one out, I guess.
And just completely just annihilated--
I mean, I couldn't even wear the pants home.
- This segment was not--
was not sponsored by P. F. Chang's.
Don't think of the name P. F. Chang's
when you have diarrhea.
We would get sued.
So diarrhea. P. F. Chang's.
No.
Well, we've run the gamut:
Politics, shitting,
human rights--
- Which is all tied together, really.
If you think about it.
- It really is.
We're all connected.
And you guys are now liberal democrats.
I just made it happen. And I'm Jesus.
And then just make me disappear in a cloud of smoke,
or just play me saying this and it will be embarrassing.
I came here to try to connect with people
who maybe think differently than me
and, you know, we all are the same, really.
We all love our families,
we all care about our friends,
and we all have humiliating stories that involve shitting.
- Absolutely.
- As you know, this season I'll be interviewing people
who've experienced change.
My next guest is a public school educator
who, after the fatal shooting of an unarmed Michael Brown,
was moved to join the Black Lives Matter movement
and become a civil rights activist.
Please welcome DeRay Mckesson.
- Good to see you.
- Good to see you, too, friend.
So three years ago,
a protest broke out in Ferguson.
You were in Minneapolis at the time,
and you decided you're gonna drive nine hours to Ferguson,
join that protest, and... take us through it.
- Yeah, so Mike got killed on August 9th
and I was sitting on my couch on August 16th
and I saw what was happening on CNN,
I saw what was happening on Twitter,
and they were just two completely different stories.
And I believed the people on Twitter more
than I believed what was happening on CNN.
So I got in my car, I drove nine hours.
I put a Facebook message up that said
"I'm going to St. Louis. I'm going to Missouri."
I don't know anybody in the state of Missouri.
"I hope that somebody can like, help me find a place to sleep."
And then I just got in the car. I got tired, though,
and I ended up in Iowa in the middle of the night.
And I pulled over in front of a church
and just went to sleep.
I put some clothes over my head,
got back up, and I ended up in the street.
And that was my story--that was how I got in the street.
- Wow. That's amazing. And so Black Lives Matter is,
by design, a leaderless group.
And because of that I think that
when there's not one voice,
the downfall of that maybe a little bit--
Downfall's too strong a word, Sarah.
But one thing about it
is that it can get a little ambiguous what the cause is
or what the causes are.
Now, if you were sitting with someone
who didn't know the tenets of Black Lives Matter,
what would you tell them?
- So we think about the movement
just like we think about the Civil Rights Movement, right,
not tethered to any one group,
but there's so many people doing incredible work.
And we also think about this, actually, as "leader full,"
that there are so many leaders at every level--
they're leaders in the classrooms,
they're leaders at the local level
at the state level, at the federal level,
and that we've created a space
where people can lead wherever they are.
So you don't need one messianic leader,
like no messiah here, that we're empowering people
to lead wherever they are. And when you think about
what empowerment means, it's like I can't
actually give you power. What I can do is help you
unlock the power that you already have.
And that's what the movement is about.
So we think about the core tenets,
it's like the difference between equality and equity.
So equality is everybody gets the same thing.
Equity is people get what they need and deserve
and that we are always fighting for equity.
That like the end of racism is about equity.
The end of sexism is about equity.
The end of patriarchy is about equity.
This is always a fight about equity.
- Yeah.
Wow.
So what is the value of protest?
- Yeah, I think about in those early days.
I'll never forget getting tear-gassed the very first time
and in that moment I was like,
"America has to be better than this."
So I think about protest as telling the truth in public,
that we use our bodies to tell the truth
that Mike and Rekia and Aiyana
and so many other people should be alive...
that we disrupt board meetings and commissions
to tell the truth that they aren't using their power
in ways that benefit the lives of people of color.
So you know, we can't fix what we don't talk about,
and protest like forces us to talk about these issues.
- Yeah. It's always bizarre to me when...
people decide to not
take in the spirit of the protest,
the reason for the protest.
They need to understand it as something else
to go along with the narrative
that this protest isn't okay, you know?
- Yeah, and we shouldn't have to protest, right?
I'm the first person-- Like we should--
if voting had changed everything,
we would have voted, and that would have
made it all better, if calling people--
If all those things were the way to make change,
we wouldn't have been in the street.
But the reality is, we tried everything else
and it didn't work, so we took to the street
to force people to engage with us.
- Yeah. I mean, I think social media
has been incredible for that as well.
I mean, you've called Twitter
"where the revolution is," right?
- Yeah. I think about Twitter
as like the friend that's always awake, you know?
- Ha ha ha! - I'm tweeting about,
you know, "I need toothpaste," and, like, "Trump is wild,"
Right? Like both of those things are true.
- I know. - And that's what I'd
tell my friend if my friend was right here.
- So you're very powerful on Twitter.
You have a great voice. But you're not
the only powerful voice on Twitter.
There's also... your vest, which also has its own account.
- It does. - DeRay's vest
is an account on Twitter.
I would like to say it's probably @deraysvest.
- It is. - Big question here.
Do you share the same political views
as your vest? - I do, I do.
Now, the vest is a little snippy sometimes.
I don't run the vest account.
I didn't start the vest account.
I think the vest account is funny,
but people think that it's me.
So the vest will say snippy things to people
and they're like, "I can't believe you insulted me,"
and it's like, I didn't do that, you know?
- You're like, "Vest, you have to be nicer!"
- Literally, I'm like DMing the vest,
like, "Please stop," like just chill out.
Like stop snapping at people. I get it, but calm down.
- I love that you're DMing the vest.
- Whoever runs it is hilarious,
but... sometimes it is like a lot.
I'm like, "Okay, chill out."
- Okay, so, um...
you're really... a beautiful speaker
and I would love to know
how you would approach
communicating with unlike-minded people
in a way where we can really hear each other.
- I think some of it is making sure that
you're asking more questions than you're doing talking
so that you understand like the point of view
that the other person is bringing.
And the other is making sure
that they're doing the cognitive work.
So people ask me-- Police officers will say to me,
"Well, under what circumstances
"should the police be able to kill somebody," right?
And I'll say to them,
"When can the police kill your child?"
And then they're like, "I don't know."
It's like, well, I don't know either, right?
And I'm trying to get them to work through this too.
I'm trying to hear them process,
because we just don't approach the problem
the same way. And because I think
I'm right about some of these issues,
I don't need to preach at them.
I need to understand where they're coming from.
And that can only happen
when they're actually doing more of the processing work.
- Wow. Yeah. That's communication.
It's communication.
If it's mentionable, it's manageable,
as Mr. Rogers once said.
You have a brilliant podcast.
It's called Pod Save the People.
You talk about the steps that each of us can take
to make a difference, so take us through that.
- I think one is start where you are, right?
They're like, "Harriet Tubman didn't call me"
and tell me to be an organizer."
I saw a problem, drove to St. Louis
because I thought I could do something about it,
and, like, I started. I did exactly
what I thought I could do.
Knowing that this always starts out small--
Like, people--you know, I had 800 followers
when the protest started. I have almost a million now,
and, like, I started out small.
The third thing would be
learn a problem and learn it well.
So the more proximity that you can have to a problem--
like, so if you care about reading,
you should actually, like, see a kid learn how to read.
If you care about criminal justice,
you should try and do a ride-along
or visit a jail or do whatever you can
to get as close as possible to the problem,
read about it. There are a lot of people
whose hearts are in the right place,
but they actually aren't close to the problem
in any way, and you gotta be close to it
if you're trying to make a difference.
And the fourth is that you gotta have hope.
And there's a difference between hope as magic
and hope as work. Hope as magic
doesn't actually mean anything, but hope as work--
Like we know our tomorrows can be better than our todays
because people, like, work to make it happen,
and that's what gets us through.
- DeRay, thank you so much. - So good to be here.
- DeRay Mckesson, everybody.
I cannot believe the show is already over.
That went so fast.
It's already time to say my prayers.
Dear God I don't believe in,
thanks for blessing me with a great show,
a great interview, perfect skin,
and my really great white man at a desk.
- Aw!
You know, Sarah, it really hurts my feelings
when you say you don't believe in me.
You created the white man at a desk.
I bet it would really hurt your feelings
if he didn't believe in you.
- No, of course Mather believes in me.
I made him up. I write
everything he thinks and says.
- I don't know what's real anymore.
Be careful, Sarah. Remember,
even though I'm not part of your truth,
I'm part of someone else's.
That's something I learned from your monologue.
- You listened to my monologue?
I listen to all my creations'
monologues, Sarah.
Now what was it you wanted to tell me?
- Oh, um...
I guess I just wanted to say
that I'm sorry I still don't believe in you.
It's nothing personal, I just...
I think that humans probably made you up
to understand what is beyond our comprehension,
you know, to impose meaning
on a seemingly cruel and random universe,
and, of course, to stop us from furiously masturbating.
I love it when you masturbate, Sarah.
That's why I created it.
- You watch me masturbate?
Yeah. I watch you masturbate. Yeah.
I watch all my creations masturbate.
- - Oh. - Ooh, speaking of
masturbation, gotta go.
Dame Judy Dench. Bye!
- That's four words.
Is he in a car?
Good night, America.
I "lerve" you.
- Well, I mean, I'm sure everybody gets diarrhea
at some time or another.
But there was a bonfire
on the beach-- it got very dark.
It's kind of a gross type of story.
And I really had to let loose,
so I kind of meandered off and I pulled down my britches
and dropped it into the sand.
And then I felt--"Oh, my God, I pooped my pants.
It's gonna be disgusting."
But I put my pants on
and--and God, we took a bus back to--to the kibbutz.
And I get into my room, I pull down my pants,
and God is in Israel!
I found out God is in Israel.
My pants were totally dry.
It was like a miracle from God.
Leave it to Israel. They have God there.