What would you do in Ferguson that a standard reporter wouldn’t?
I’d do a special on race, but I’d have no black people.
Well, that would be much more revealing.
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.
Right. It’s ridiculous.
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.
It’s about white people adjusting to a new reality?
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.
Would you seek out someone to interview who might not normally be sought out?
I would get you to interview somebody, and I would put something in your ear, and I’d ask the questions through you.
You’d have a white guy.
And I would ask them questions that you would never come up with, and we’d have the most amazing interviews ever.
And we’d be asking white people and black people?
Just white people. We know how black people feel about Ferguson — outraged, upset, cheated by the system, all these things.
... "
A good interview. He is very insightful and articulate. No white people have done as well.
I saw that interview earlier in the week, and I agree that he came across as very insightful and articulate.
I got a particular kick out of this bit:
What has Obama done wrong?
When Obama first got elected, he should have let it all just drop.
Let what drop?
Just let the country flatline. Let the auto industry die. Don’t bail anybody out. In sports, that’s what any new GM does. They make sure that the catastrophe is on the old management and then they clean up. They don’t try to save old management’s mistakes.
That’s clever. You let it all go to hell.
Let it all go to hell knowing good and well this is on them. That way you can implement. You hire your own coach. You get your own players. He could have got way more done. You know, we’ve all been on planes that had tremendous turbulence, but we forget all about it. Now, if you live through a plane crash, you’ll never forget that. Maybe Obama should have let the plane crash. You get credit for bringing somebody back from the dead. You don’t really get credit for helping a sick person by administering antibiotics.
People who are wrong are just as sure they're right as people who are right. The only difference is, they're wrong.
— God@The Tweet of God
Yeah well, there's some bar-room bullshit in there. Obama should have just let the USA go flat-line and then (after how many years?) blame the prior administrations and THEN start to do something? That's rather stupid actually.
I liked this:
The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced.
He has a point that it isn't so much that black people have "improved" but that any improvement in fact is within the larger context of society and particularly changing attitudes among whites.
He's way off-base about blacks (at least if he means generally in the USA) having been educated for "hundreds of years". But that's because whites deprived them (generally) of educational facilities and opportunities etc. He correctly points to a change in white attitudes (that is, in governance in particular) that began to afford more equal opportunities to access the human potential that already existed.
Good for him
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
Politically it is actually astute. Let the stupid policies of the Republicans fall into the abysss of horror they were always destined to and then clean up the shit.
Chris Rock is about as politically astute as he is funny.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
I thought the thesis all along (by the dems) was indeed exactly that - and that's why Obama was elected to bring change. All of that finger-pointing was prior to the election - failed policies of the Reps; country going to H in a HB; "it's all their fault." Yes - that's politics.
But Rock's statement is that once elected Obama should have done nothing at all. Instead he should have let the USA 'flat-line" - that is "die" - then, after some undefined period of time, Obama should blame the Republicans for the death. That is stupid. Can you imagine if Obama (and the Dems) had done nothing at all for... how long? One year - two years - three? ...
I guess Rock was just making a facetious remark. Not particularly astute at all.
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
