Chris Rock Talks White People, Racism, What “Racial Progress” Really Means, and Isolation
Frank Rich: What would you do in Ferguson that a standard reporter wouldn’t?
Chris Rock: I’d do a special on race, but I’d have no black people.
Frank Rich: Well, that would be much more revealing.
Chris Rock: Yes, that would be an event. Here’s the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it’s all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.
Frank Rich: Right. It’s ridiculous.
Chris Rock: So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship’s improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, “Oh, he stopped punching her in the face.” It’s not up to her. Ike and Tina Turner’s relationship has nothing to do with Tina Turner. Nothing. It just doesn’t. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.
Frank Rich: It’s about white people adjusting to a new reality?
Chris Rock:Owning their actions. Not even their actions. The actions of your dad. Yeah, it’s unfair that you can get judged by something you didn’t do, but it’s also unfair that you can inherit money that you didn’t work for.
Frank Rich: Would you seek out someone to interview who might not normally be sought out?
Chris Rock: I would get you to interview somebody, and I would put something in your ear, and I’d ask the questions through you.
Frank Rich: You’d have a white guy.
Chris Rock: And I would ask them questions that you would never come up with, and we’d have the most amazing interviews ever.
Frank Rich: And we’d be asking white people and black people?
Chris Rock: Just white people. We know how black people feel about Ferguson — outraged, upset, cheated by the system, all these things.
Frank Rich: So you think people can be lulled into saying the outrageous shit they really feel?
Chris Rock: Michael Moore has no problem getting it. Because he looks like them. But the problem is the press accepts racism. It has never dug into it.
Frank Rich: When Obama was running for president, a certain kind of white person would routinely tell reporters, “He’s just not one of us.” Few reporters want to push that person to the wall and say, “What do you mean he’s not like you, unless you’re talking about the fact that he’s African-American?” Where else besides Ferguson would you hypothetically want to interview white people?
Chris Rock: I’d love to do some liberal places, because you can be in the most liberal places and there’s no black people.
Frank Rich: I assume one such place is Hollywood.
Chris Rock: I don’t think I’ve had any meetings with black film execs. Maybe one. It is what it is. As I told Bill Murray, Lost in Translation is a black movie: That’s what it feels like to be black and rich. Not in the sense that people are being mean to you. Bill Murray’s in Tokyo, and it’s just weird. He seems kind of isolated. He’s always around Japanese people. Look at me right now.
Frank Rich: We’re sitting on the 35th floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel overlooking Central Park.
Chris Rock: And there’s only really one black person here who’s not working. Bill Murray in Lost in Translation is what Bryant Gumbel experiences every day. Or Al Roker. Rich black guys. It’s a little off.
But the thing is, we treat racism in this country like it’s a style that America went through. Like flared legs and lava lamps. Oh, that crazy thing we did. We were hanging black people. We treat it like a fad instead of a disease that eradicates millions of people. You’ve got to get it at a lab, and study it, and see its origins, and see what it’s immune to and what breaks it down.
Reasons why I will always love Chris Rock.