“The Daily Show’s” Michael Kosta has a problem with Scholastic’s new book censorship policy. Under this new guideline, schools can opt to exclude what have been called diverse titles from their Scholastic Book Fair. Those titles include any book that explores race, gender and sexuality, including biographies of Malala and LeBron James.
“So now bigots can just check a box and all the books will be removed? C’mon guys, if you’re going to be racist and sexist you can’t also be lazy,” Kosta said on Thursday night.
The late night host encouraged parents to “put the work in.”
“Who knows? Maybe if you took the time to read these books that you think are so terrible, actually absorb them, you might just find out that all kids books are terrible,” Kosta said.
The show, video of which you can watch above, then cut to “The Daily Show” correspondent Troy Iwata, who cautioned that children shouldn’t be reading these “graphic” books and the last thing people need is for children to be “buy curious.”
“I mean, James crawls right up inside that peach,” Iwata said.
When co-host Ronny Chieng proposed separating the books as a way to protect children, Iwata was quick to strike down his suggestion. “These kids have stormed the forbidden section like it’s a Nickelodeon version of January 6th,” Iwata joked. Ultimately, Iwata proposed the “only answer” he could think of.
“Stop banning books, but also stop teaching kids how to read,” Iwata said.
Monday marked “The Daily Show’s” first week back after the end of the WGA strike. The Comedy Central series has yet to announce a full-time host for the late night show, but Thursday night’s episode did offer something new for fans. Rather than Michael Kosta hosting the episode alone, he was joined by another temporary co-host in Chieng.
The introduction of two hosts instead of one is another way “The Daily Show” is continuing to experiment in the wake of Trevor Noah’s departure last winter. The series plans to announce its permanent host (or possibly hosts) in 2024.
