On Thursday’s episode of “The Daily Show,” Roy Wood Jr. figured out how to solve the problem of white people who call the cops on black people for no good reason — just predict the future, “Minority Report” style.
“2038. Unnecessary 911 calls on black people are a thing of the past,” some text promises at the start of the sketch. “All thanks to one mysterious team… Precops.”
The joke is a play on the 2002 Spielberg film. In that movie, a government agency called “PreCrime” has all but eliminated crime thanks to a trio of captive psychics, called “precogs,” who can see misdeeds before they happen. Cops arrest perpetrators before they can perpetrate — and just ignore the obvious constitutional violations. In the “Daily Show” clip, however, the precog played by Wood sees white people calling the cops on black people minding their own business.
First, Wood’s precop saves a black lawyer reading a newspaper from a woman with an itchy 911 trigger finger. Next, he saves a little girl with a lemonade stand from an indignant old white guy who says, “Look what Beyonce did with lemonade — you can’t trust them.” And finally, well, it turns out the precop precog has coworkers who really suck.
Weirdly, they didn’t just call this version “Minority Report,” but what can you do. It’s pretty funny, and you can watch the whole thing above. (The sketch kicks in just before the three-minute mark.)