During a recent episode of "The Daily Show," an audience member asked Trevor Noah for his views on Liam Neeson's admission that he wanted to kill a black man.
The Hollywood actor recently admitted to a journalist that a friend of his was raped by a black man and that after the crime he was on the lookout for an altercation with “any” black man on the street that he could eventually kill.
Responding to the question during the show's "Behind The Scenes" segment, Noah said he thinks the situation would've been better received if Neeson had shared the story under different circumstances.
"I think it's really difficult because in many ways it feels like an onslaught... I can understand for any black person out there to be like 'this shit never seems to end'. You think you get past the age the lynching and then there's still blackface in 2019. You hear stories every day about black people who are persecuted based on the colour of their skin. Black Lives Matter exists as hashtag for that very reason," Noah said.
"I do think though, that with the Liam Neeson story, most of it [the backlash] is because of how he told the story and where he told the story. I think if Liam Neeson had told the story on Oprah and there was a conversation, we would have seen it as a person admitting to a time in their life when they allowed their anger and hatred to fester into racism that they're ashamed of."
Adding that Neeson would've then had a sounding board to explain "the why", and that revealing your desire to kill a black during a movie about revenge is not the best place to do it.
Noah also mentions that Neeson's comments may have been misinterpreted by news headlines, emphasising that he said he wanted "to kill a black man", and joked that no-one would've taken it seriously if Tom Hanks said the same thing.
"I think a lot of people take the story a little more seriously because it's Liam Neeson ... people see him as the "Taken" guy. If Tom Hanks said the same thing ... we'd be like 'really, Tom Hanks?'" he joked.
Noah also said he felt Neeson's words were a "powerful admission", adding that he hopes the actor and the people who hear the story "understand the gravity of what he's saying and that if you're not careful you can have inside of you a hatred that is encouraged or grown by the society that you live in and you don't even realise that your actions or thoughts are wrong".
Noah also commended Neeson for acknowledging he was wrong and feeling "ashamed" but thought he still needs to admit that wanting to kill any black man for one man's actions is "racist".
Watch the video below.