Trevor Noah asks and answers the question: When is the right time for black people to protest?

“When is the right time for black people to protest?” That’s the question The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah asked Monday night. What started as a simple and peaceful act of protest on the part of then-San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who kneeled during the playing of the National Anthem in protest of racial injustice, has become a racist’s rallying cry on the right. However, for every American who is seemingly so bigoted that they would enslave themselves under a fascist regime by smothering free speech and peaceful protests, there are millions more that are ready to take a knee.

But Donald Trump, his entire administration, and their supporters seem to feel that black athletes, and black people in general aren’t protesting the right way. So Trevor Noah wanted to figure out what the parameters for protest in our country are—specifically for black people. Noah starts with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s televised statement that black people shouldn’t protest on the field. They should do it “on their own time.”

Noah: OK, I get what Mnuchin is saying—he doesn’t mind players protesting, he just doesn’t like it when it’s on the field, you know, when everyone is watching. Yeah, do it somewhere else. Can you imagine Mnuchin giving that advice to Rosa Parks? He’ll just be like ‘Hey Rosa, why are you protesting on the bus? People have places to be. Take the bus to your house, sit down on your couch, and protest from home.’ Boom, racism solved—it’s solved.

So it’s okay if you protest on your own time? Not exactly, if you’re an ESPN commentator using her personal social media page to call out the president for being a white supremacist. Noah explains that maybe this is a fuzzy space since President Trump seems to see all of Twitter as his “work place.” So, how about Stevie Wonder, during his own show, taking a knee? Nope. According to conservatives, Stevie Wonder is an “ungrateful multimillionaire.”

Noah: Ungrateful to whom? I’m fascinated by that concept. People always say that. Ungrateful to whom? This idea that black people should be grateful is some sneaky-ass racism. Yeah because when a white billionaire spends a year screaming that America is a disaster, he’s in touch with the country; but when a black man kneels quietly he should be grateful for the successes America has allowed him to have? How is that ungrateful? I don’t understand. You know what would be ungrateful? What would be ungrateful is if Stevie Wonder got his sight back and then started complaining about colors.

After showing clips of assholes like Mike Huckabee and a slew of right-wing Fox News pundits and Republican operatives explaining that black athletes should be grateful that “they aren’t being shot in the head the way they would be in North Korea,” Noah brings it back around.

Noah: Wait, wait. You think black Americans are free from the worry of being shot by agents of the state? That’s the whole thing that they’re protesting in the first place.

After showing a clip of Sarah Huckabee Sanders attempting a sarcastic joke that falls flat during one of her gruesome White House press conferences, Noah gives us a rundown of when it’s okay for black people to protest.

Noah: 

I mean we know it’s wrong to do it in the streets.

It’s wrong to do it in the tweets.

You cannot do it on the field.

You cannot do it if you’ve kneeled.

And don’t do it if you’re rich,

You ungrateful son of a bitch.

Because there’s one thing that’s a fact:

You cannot protest if you’re black