Chris Rock interview

[ksen]

http://www.vulture.com/2014/11/chris-rock-frank-rich-in-conversation.html?mid=facebook_vulture

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.

TBH I had never thought of racial progress the way Chris Rock just put it but what he says makes a lot of sense and I think he's right.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

“Sometimes I get so tired of trying to save the white man’s soul.” - Thurgood Marshall

See more at: http://reflections.yale.edu/article/future-race/sound-silence-american-pulpit#sthash.m023s5Tv.dpuf

It's a sentiment that has been around for quite some time.

 

[Angry Floof]

White people have not made progress. Racism had become subverted is all. Then Obama ran for President in '08, and as many of us predicted, racism is not so subverted anymore.

But I also like how Chris talks about race. Turn this shit on its head.

 

[NobleSavage]

 

[ksen]

“Sometimes I get so tired of trying to save the white man’s soul.” - Thurgood Marshall

See more at: http://reflections.yale.edu/article/future-race/sound-silence-american-pulpit#sthash.m023s5Tv.dpuf

It's a sentiment that has been around for quite some time.

Thanks for posting that. :hug:

 

[thebeave]

LOL!!! Michael Brown should have listened to Chris Rock. He'd be alive right now.

 

[rousseau]

It's a healthier way of looking at racism, but it's not 'white people have made progress', it's 'humanity has made progress'. If white people are becoming less racist, it's likely that all ethnic groups are becoming more enlightened. If you frame the issue as being a whites-only issue, you're still racializing it.

In the grand scheme of things the goal isn't eliminating racism between any two specific groups, it's eliminating, or lessening racism on a global scale, by removing our veil of ignorance and educating people.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

LOL!!! Michael Brown should have listened to Chris Rock. He'd be alive right now.

My father walked a beat in Washington DC for over twenty years and never drew his weapon, not even during the riots of '68.

If Darren Wilson had been half the peace officer my father was, Michael Brown would be alive now,

 

[Rhea]

I didn't find the video terribly funny because I couldn't stop thinking that plenty of (mostly black) people have gotten their asses kicked, shot or killed while doing none of those things.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

 

[ksen]

a good cartoon

 

[NobleSavage]

LOL!!! Michael Brown should have listened to Chris Rock. He'd be alive right now.

My father walked a beat in Washington DC for over twenty years and never drew his weapon, not even during the riots of '68.

If Darren Wilson had been half the peace officer my father was, Michael Brown would be alive now,

What do you think your father would have thought of Michael Brown?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

My father walked a beat in Washington DC for over twenty years and never drew his weapon, not even during the riots of '68.

If Darren Wilson had been half the peace officer my father was, Michael Brown would be alive now,

What do you think your father would have thought of Michael Brown?

My father would thought him a kid in need of trip to the woodshed, not the cemetery. My father would spoken to him once and he would have listened because my father walked his beat and knew the people on it (and vice versa) and Michael Brown would have known my father didn't play.

But here's the thing

In neighborhoods where the police are not an occupying force, people tend to behave better from jump. If this neighborhood in Ferguson had beat cops on patrol who actually lived in the neighborhood, the odds of Michael Brown stealing, or obstructing traffic, drop substantially.

 

[NobleSavage]

What do you think your father would have thought of Michael Brown?

My father would thought him a kid in need of trip to the woodshed, not the cemetery. My father would spoken to him once and he would have listened because my father walked his beat and knew the people on it (and vice versa) and Michael Brown would have known my father didn't play.

But here's the thing

In neighborhoods where the police are not an occupying force, people tend to behave better from jump. If this neighborhood in Ferguson had beat cops on patrol who actually lived in the neighborhood, the odds of Michael Brown stealing, or obstructing traffic, drop substantially.

I agree. Would you be willing to cut Darren Wilson some slack? To me he seemed young and maybe a little inexperienced. From what I understand the current training is is basically to unload your clip if you feel your life is in danger. He had to at least know that shooting someone would really screw up his weekend.

 

[Sarpedon]

I don't see why anyone should, seeing as 'cutting him some slack' seems to mean 'shut up about this and never speak of it again and never change anything.'

The question should be how is change going to be organized? Things really seem to be stacked up against it.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

My father would thought him a kid in need of trip to the woodshed, not the cemetery. My father would spoken to him once and he would have listened because my father walked his beat and knew the people on it (and vice versa) and Michael Brown would have known my father didn't play.

But here's the thing

In neighborhoods where the police are not an occupying force, people tend to behave better from jump. If this neighborhood in Ferguson had beat cops on patrol who actually lived in the neighborhood, the odds of Michael Brown stealing, or obstructing traffic, drop substantially.

I agree. Would you be willing to cut Darren Wilson some slack? To me he seemed young and maybe a little inexperienced. From what I understand the current training is is basically to unload your clip if you feel your life is in danger. He had to at least know that shooting someone would really screw up his weekend.

I should cut him some slack because he was poorly trained and too inexperienced to do his job properly and so he killed a guy?

 

[RavenSky]

View attachment 1679

Dude in the earmuffs could be one of several TFT members

 

[NobleSavage]

I agree. Would you be willing to cut Darren Wilson some slack? To me he seemed young and maybe a little inexperienced. From what I understand the current training is is basically to unload your clip if you feel your life is in danger. He had to at least know that shooting someone would really screw up his weekend.

I should cut him some slack because he was poorly trained and too inexperienced to do his job properly and so he killed a guy?

Yes. I don't think he was poorly trained, rather too well trained in military tactics. They have these guys simulate dangerous scenarios 100 times until it's automatic. Take it out on the system and take it out on the police in general, but Darren Wilson is every bit a cog in the machine that Michael Brown is. I can't stand cops and I'm white. That's too bad because I would have probably liked your father.

I read briefly that Obama is going to remove some of the military gear, encourage cameras, and promote different training -- somehow. If it works, that is a good first step.

 

[ksen]

I should cut him some slack because he was poorly trained and too inexperienced to do his job properly and so he killed a guy?

Yes. I don't think he was poorly trained, rather too well trained in military tactics. They have these guys simulate dangerous scenarios 100 times until it's automatic. Take it out on the system and take it out on the police in general, but Darren Wilson is every bit a cog in the machine that Michael Brown is. I can't stand cops and I'm white. That's too bad because I would have probably liked your father.

I'm pretty sure soldiers guilty of atrocities have used those same excuses.

I read briefly that Obama is going to remove some of the military gear, encourage cameras, and promote different training -- somehow. If it works, that is a good first step.

agreed

 

[Ford]

Ferguson aside, I thought this was pretty good:

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.

We’re sitting on the 35th floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel overlooking Central Park.

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.