Larry Wilmore on Ferguson Anniversary: ‘Time Flies When You’re in a Constant Panic About Getting Shot by the Cops’

Host also praises Fox News for shift in protest coverage, even though it was Shepard Smith, “the Marilyn Muster of the Fox News team”

Larry Wilmore dedicated Tuesday’s episode of “The Nightly Show” to the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown‘s shooting and subsequent uprising in Ferguson.

Checking in to see how the city is commemorating the anniversary, producers showed footage from Sunday’s protests.

“You accidentally showed footage from last year,” Wilmore told the producers. “I want to see footage from Sunday night!”

Realizing that the footage was indeed from Sunday night, Wilmore expressed his disbelief: “There was supposed to be a commemoration, and people started shooting? […] In one year, no progress was made?”

However, he showed footage of a press conference with St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar, which Wilmore pointed out is a step in the right direction for media coverage of the protests.

“There’s too many people that have worked too hard — and I’m not talking about the police department. I’m talking about people in our community — they work too hard for this to happen and be undermined,” Belmar said.

“Wait a second, a cop is saying that the protesters weren’t the shooters?” Wilmore asked. “I guess there was a little progress, that’s not bad! Normally, shootings and protests are conflated as one and the same.”

Wilmore went on to explain the significance of this shift in the media’s perspective, since they are the ones feeding the information to the public.

Moreover, “The Nightly Show” host summarized the events of the past year very simply.

“Police acted up, people protested, the government took action, police ignored it and people are protesting again.”

“Or, as black people call it,” Wilmore concluded: “Summertime.”

Watch the video.

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