Last night on The Late Show, Killer Mike appeared in “his formal sweats,” and after the sweatpant-centric introduction and a brief rundown of the multihypnehate rapper-activist-barbershop owner’s rich career, the Run the Jewels rapper and Stephen Colbert shifted their focus more to an outward-looking discussion of race in America.
Colbert assumed the position of “speaking for all white people,” and somewhat jocularly asked Killer Mike to “speak for all black people.” With that arrangement set up, Colbert asked whether Mike felt the conversation had changed this year following the tragedies and injustices black people had faced at the hands of the police and other white racists. Killer Mike responded:
White people who are watching, google Jane Elliot. She has an experiment called [Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Experiment.” I encourage you all to simply watch that, cause it’ll actually grow you. Now back to stuff that’ll make you laugh. If white people are just now discovering that it’s bad for black and working class people in America, they’re a lot more blind than I thought, and they’re a lot more choosing to be ignorant than I thought. The same problems that we’re discussing today, we discussed in 1990, 1980, 1970 and 1960…
Colbert interjected, asking if Killer Mike thinks that there’s a “systemic attempt” in the States to isolate the poor and minorities, and how we can bridge gaps. The rapper said:
I speak at colleges often… The message that I preach to white kids… is get outside the college environment, find a child who is marginal or doing exceptional in school, who’s a minority, who doesn’t look like you, not of the same religion, not of the same background — help that child matriculate into college. Help them by being a big brother or sister, help by mentoring them…What you’re going to get out of that experience is another human being that’s taking full advantage of an educational system that can help their community. But more than that it grows you as a human being to have empathy… for someone who doesn’t look like you, who’s culturally not from your background.
And because Killer Mike is an avid supporter (and co-luncher) of Bernie Sanders‘, Colbert finished the segment by asking the rapper to discuss, as quickly as he could, “why Bernie is the man.”
His elaboration on why he feels the Bern:
Bernie Sanders is the only politician who has consistently for 50 years taken [Martin Luther King’s] social justice platform into politics. Right now we have the opportunity to elect someone who is directly out of the philosophy of Kingian nonviolence. We can directly elect someone that cares about poor people, cares about women, gay, black rights, cares about lives that don’t look like his.
Watch the full segment: