An uproarious, moving John Oliver is perfect on Ferguson

John Oliver's monologue on the protests in Ferguson in the wake of the shooting of Michael Brown is exactly as angry and hilarious as you might want it to be. On last night's episode of his HBO series, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, he took on everything from the way Ferguson's police chief and mayor have handled the situation to police militarization to how two teenagers in Saginaw County, Michigan, deal with seeing one of those giant tank-like vehicles on the streets of their town.

Here's just a taste: "No one should ever be allowed to say there is no history of racial tension here, because that sentence has never been true anywhere on Earth."

We won't spoil the best part for you, but Oliver and his team have dug up just what one police department put in the document requesting military-grade equipment. It's as ridiculous as you might expect.

If you have the time, watch the whole thing. If you only have a couple of minutes, go to 12:40 and watch the last 149 seconds. That's a great summary of what Oliver is saying, and one of the best summaries of the problems with police militarization yet.

See Vox's comprehensive roundup of what's known and what's not yet known about Michael Brown's death and subsequent events in Ferguson. Here's our video explaining Ferguson's crisis and its roots in two minutes:

Most Viewed

  1. Donald Trump reminds Republicans he can sink their party even if he loses the nomination

  2. Why did Adele sound so awful at the 2016 Grammys?

  3. Grammys 2016: Taylor Swift’s feminist acceptance speech was really about Kanye West

  4. Read Justice Ginsburg’s moving tribute to her “best buddy” Justice Scalia

  5. Republicans might end up wishing they had compromised with Obama over Scalia’s replacement

X
Log In Sign Up

If you currently have a username with "@" in it, please email support@voxmedia.com.

forgot?
forgot?
Log In Sign Up

Forgot password?

We'll email you a reset link.

If you signed up using a 3rd party account like Facebook or Twitter, please login with it instead.

Forgot username?

We'll email it to you.

If you signed up using a 3rd party account like Facebook or Twitter, please login with it instead.

Forgot password?

If you signed up using a 3rd party account like Facebook or Twitter, please login with it instead.

Try another email?

Forgot username?

If you signed up using a 3rd party account like Facebook or Twitter, please login with it instead.

Try another email?

Almost done,

By becoming a registered user, you are also agreeing to our Terms and confirming that you have read our Privacy Policy.

Authenticating

Great!

Choose an available username to complete sign up.

In order to provide our users with a better overall experience, we ask for more information from Facebook when using it to login so that we can learn more about our audience and provide you with the best possible experience. We do not store specific user data and the sharing of it is not required to login with Facebook.