Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges was recently accused of making “gang signs” when she posed for a photo with a get-out-the-vote volunteer, who was African-American.
The sign? The two simply pointed at each other.
“That’s a gang sign?” Jon Stewart asked on “The Daily Show” on Wednesday night. “All this time, I’ve been the lead-in to a notorious gang member.”
He then showed a photo of Stephen Colbert of “The Colbert Report” pointing at Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
But in Hodges’ case, the simple act of pointing led to a report on local news claiming she was flashing the “gang sign” and, according to one law enforcement official, “showing solidarity with the gangs.”
The station had been tipped off about the photo by local police shortly after Hodges publicly called on the department to root out bad officers.
That led Stewart to conclude that the issue wasn’t about the mayor using her index finger to point, which has since been dubbed #pointergate. It was about the police pointing a different finger at the mayor.
Yes… the middle one.
Stewart concluded that pointing has to be added to the already long list of “innocent things black people do that look suspicious.”