A very sober Jimmy Fallon fronted the camera from his home on Monday evening for the first time since a 2000 blackface sketch resurfaced online during the Tonight Show's week-long Memorial Day hiatus. Fallon offered an unqualified apology last week, but given he returned to screens as the U.S. is gripped by protests against police brutality and systemic racism, he acknowledged the moment called for more than jokes and celebrity video calls.
"Seeing what is going on in our country, I'm not going to have a normal show tonight, I'm going to have a different kind of show," Fallon began. "I'm going to start this personally, and then expand out because that's where we all need to start, with ourselves and looking at ourselves in the mirror."
Fallon said that he was advised to "stay quiet" during the outcry over the Saturday Night Live sketch — in which he impersonated Chris Rock in blackface — and initially took that advice out of fear.
"So I thought about it. And I realized that I can't not say I'm horrified. And I'm sorry. And I'm embarrassed," he went on. "And what that small gesture did for me was break my own silence. And what then I started to do was talk to some experts, some of which are here tonight, and this week, and I realized that the silence is the biggest crime that white guys like me and the rest of us are doing, staying silent. We need to say something. We need to keep saying something... More than just one day on Twitter. I realized I needed to get educated about how to stop the silence and the fear of saying the wrong thing."
Fallon then introduced his first guest, NAACP president Derrick Johnson, for a discussion about anti-racism — the practice of active opposition to and fighting against racism — and how Fallon himself and others can "be a better ally."
"You know, one of the worst things about these moments of realization is people want to have a quick fix outpour and then go back to their corners," Johnson told Fallon.
"For celebrity types with a huge following on their social media platforms, it's really important that we start amplifying lines of communication that opens up the issue of being anti-racist."
Fallon's other guests on Monday's show included CNN anchor Don Lemon and anti-racism activist Jane Elliott, creator of the famous 1968 "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise.
This might be basic stuff to the people who've been fighting racism for decades. But even if the year 2020 is when you realize you need to educate yourself, it's definitely not too late to start.
