-Welcome to "Late Night."
We are gonna move on after this, I promise,
and try our very best to have a normal show,
but something happened this weekend,
and we're gonna do our best to address it now,
while appreciating that we might not be
the best people to talk about it.
But on Saturday, a gunman entered a supermarket
in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo
with an assault weapon and shot 13 people,
killing 10 of them.
It's an absolute nightmare.
And worse, it's a story
we've now seen dozens and dozens of times.
And this time, there was a small detail
in the reporting from The New York Times
that caught my eye -- just this one sentence.
"A gun dealer who said he sold the suspect
an assault weapon in recent months
described a routine transaction."
We live in a country --
and I don't know when it happened --
where an 18-year-old boy goes into a gun dealership
to buy an assault weapon, and it's a routine transaction.
Under the same legal system that won't let a person
buy a six-pack of Bud Light because it would be dangerous.
But an assault rifle, that's routine now.
The implications is that 18-year-old boys
go into that gun dealer and buy weapons of war regularly.
When a cable-news host opens his show
with a red-faced rant about white people being replaced,
that's considered a typical episode of that show.
Routine and typical.
Words like "shocking" and "stunning"
are slowly draining out of the conversation
about mass shootings, and words like "routine"
and "typical" are taking their place.
I don't know what this means,
but it feels like bad news on top of all the bad news.
The usual voices are on TV today
blaming the dark corners of the Internet,
video games, and offering thoughts and prayers.
And that, for sure, is routine and typical.
People are saying, "We should concern ourself
with mental-health issues,
rather than gun control or motive."
And maybe that's true in some cases,
but in this case, the motive was crystal clear.
This shooter is a white supremacist.
And I'm sad that hearing that phrase,
"The shooter is a white supremacist,"
has also become routine.
Incredibly sad.
Now, those are just my thoughts on these events,
but this news hit everyone differently.
So, here with her own response is one of our own writers,
Amber Ruffin.
[ Applause ]
-Hey. Hey, everyone. Seth is right.
The news is awful. I feel like [Bleep].
I feel unsafe. This is an extremely bad day.
But a bad day for me might just be a good day for you.
-How so, Amber? -Let me show you.
[ Up-tempo music plays ]
♪ Yes it's a good day for you, not for me ♪
♪ And it's a good day for sailin' at sea ♪
♪ Yes, it's a good day 'cause none of us are free ♪
♪ Till it's a good day for you to denounce white supremacy ♪
-I'm sorry. What? -I don't know, man.
I tried everything else. Maybe a little song will do it?
-Oh, Amber, you think a song will change all this?
-Dude, if this had been the original words
to this old-ass song, we may not be in this mess.
-Amber! -Oh, my bad.
Let's try 400 more "Closer Looks."
-Alright. Fair. Continue. -Thank you.
[ Up-tempo music continues ]
♪ And it's a good day for taking a nap ♪
♪ And it's a good day to dust off your cap ♪
♪ So pay attention and avoid all the traps ♪
♪ Yes, it's a good day ♪
♪ To tell your old racist relatives ♪
♪ You're not having their crap ♪
-Amber?
-Someone has to try to get through to them.
I mean, have your attempts been successful?
-Please continue.
♪♪
-♪ I said to the sun, good morning, sun ♪
♪ It's time to illuminate ♪
♪ And he said to me, "Well, there's got to be ♪
♪ A way that we can get rid of all of this hate ♪
♪ 'Cause it's a good day to get a checkup ♪
♪ And it's a good day to fill up your cup ♪
♪ So take a deep breath, give your life a cleanup ♪
♪ 'Cause it's a good day to realize ♪
♪ That these white supremacists feel safe ♪
♪ In this society we created ♪
♪ So it's the society that has to change ♪
♪ And make these people uncomfortable ♪
♪ And a good way to start that is ♪
♪ When you hear them say a racist thing ♪
♪ To tell them to ♪
♪ Shut ♪
♪ The ♪
♪ [Bleep] ♪
♪ U-U-Up ♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Amber Ruffin, everybody! Thank you, Amber.