Oh man, this is just a straight-up Blog Post because I loved this interview over at Vulture so much and I want you to read it to. This is how blogging works, right? When I’m not just making jokes about books, it’s just “here’s something that somebody else wrote and you should read it because you trust me”? Anyhow, you should trust me and read this.
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.
This is totally unrelated, but do you know there’s a place in Jack London Square that serves upside-down apple walnut pie? I had some last night after we saw Beyond The Lights (not as good as Love & Basketball but totally still great and worth seeing). Read this interview, then try to find some upside-down apple walnut pie, that’s what I think you should do for the rest of the day.
Tags: chris rock, interviews, pie, vulture
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This is a straight up Comment to say god damn this interview is so good please read it.
Also I want some pie now.
Seconding this entire straight up Comment.
Jumping on the seconding train, which I guess is thirding by this point.
I vote for cookies.
i <3 Chris Rock, frank discussions of white supremacy AND pie
This interview took me most of the morning to read, because it was just so. damn. good that I had to take it in small bits and digest it, then come back for more. SO GOOD.
Just read the interview (linked off Ashley Ford’s blog, not this one, in fact!) and it’s fantastic.
But also, I live three miles from Jack London Square… which pie place is this???
Yes, please tell us!
A search suggests Buttercup on Broadway.
I really hope Rock’s optimism is warranted. It’s interesting.
Yeah, I think we have to be careful not to grab hold of one person’s perspective as representative of everyone in his demographic, because you’ll hear a significantly different perspective from, say, Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Definitely. On this site one could read this excellent piece by Shrill, http://the-toast.net/2014/11/25/fear-of-a-nigger-… which is a much different perspective.
Context is sort of an issue as well – at the end of the day Rock and Coates do have to work with corporate publishers to make their living, their niche isn’t as stuck in twee whig-history platitudes as the Keyes or Cosby bit but they’re not exactly gonna be on the frontlines espousing the notion that guys at the top of their centuries-old empire of subjugation do not just give people freedom and dignity out of the kindness of their hearts because you phrased your polite request well enough.
I am forced to make my own apple walnut upside down pie because I live on the other side of the country
But the interview is great
This is the comment that I almost posted to the Link Roundup, but my computer was freezing up and I had to go to an appointment. Luckily, IntenseDebate saved it so:
That Chris Rock interview was fantastic. Thanks for the link. I never would have seen it, otherwise.
Because YES it was AMAZING.
I think reading it first is very smart, otherwise the upside down apple walnut pie may put you into a food coma that will not be conducive to reading. And this is important reading.
Please give out more advice as to what I should do with my day, because so far it’s been really lacking in the pie department.
I agree! Perhaps a different pie for each day of the week?
It’s crazy how good this is! Been thinking about it all day.
Wow, that is impressive. I mean, not only is Chris Rock clearly brilliant – and I have to admit I had no idea, because I’m not into comedy so I hadn’t paid much attention to him – he is a freaking incredible off-the-cuff speaker. Those paragraphs you quoted above don’t read like someone just talking in an interview, they read like an essay that’s been written and revised and edited till it’s perfect.
It was likely edited for clarity and the flow of the answers may have been tidied. That is typical of q/a style interviews. All the same, super articulate answers!
Can we talk for a minute about how many women Chris Rock complimented as his peers in this interview? He talked about a lot of his fellow comedians as in “So-and-so was saying to me the other day,” but he specifically called out Joan Rivers, Ellen Degeneres, Roseanne Barr, and Sarah Paulsen as people whose talent he admired as comedians or actors, and it was so flagrantly unusual that I actually thought he was talking about women in general far more than he was.
It’s a phenomenal interview and it has so many important things to say about race and politics and comedy and talent, but I just wanted to point out that Chris Rock is a guy who notices women in his industry and who makes sure other people notice them too, and I think that’s pretty great.
Yes! I just finished this & was really struck by the quantity of female names (he also mentioned Nora Ephron) sprinkled through the piece. It’s absolutely great.
I agree, but his reply to the Cosby question left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. ‘What do you say? I hope it’s not true. That’s all you can say. I really do.’ Well no, that’s *not* all you can say, and I would like to think that at this point in the situation (and in society) we’d be past the point of intelligent, progressive people still saying that 20+ women could all have conspired to lie, at no conceivable benefit to themselves. Everything else in the article was so great, but that bit… no.
YES, thanks so much for pointing this out. He makes so many excellent, shrewd observations, particularly about race, which only made his disappointing response to the Cosby question all the more disappointing. To say “I hope it’s not true.” is to contribute to rape culture’s innate failure to trust rape victims. It also brought to mind Roxane Gay’s excellent piece in the Guardian about believing rape victims -she talks about how of course everyone “hopes it’s not true” which is why we make endless excuses discrediting rape victims. Majorly disappointing. This is not to say that his misstep on the Cosby question negates the importance or power of his comments on race, but it certainly isn’t helpful.
I agree! Loved the piece but that stuck out to me too..
Clearly he’s got a point about the phones.
Yeah, I noticed that. Shame because the rest of the piece was so spot-on about race and he made a noticeable effort to drop a lot of talented women’s names. . .no one’s perfect, but c’mon, Chris.
Curiously, I just ate a piece of homemade bacon lattice apple pie just after reading that excellent interview. I like to think that counts, as I made it myself and it was delicious.
Holy shit, I just thought to myself ‘okay, bacon lattice apple pie cannot posssibly be what it sounds like,’ but I googled it and it IS and I have to go make one IMMEDIATELY.
I misread that as bacon lettuce apple pie and was very confused.
What kind of apples did you use?
I think they were Braeburns. They were a gift from the couple across the street. One of the recipes I looked over suggested those or Rome or Gala. I used the Loveless Cafe recipe.
Curiously, I just ate a piece of homemade bacon lattice apple pie just after reading that excellent interview. I like to think that counts, as I made it myself and it was delicious.
I misread that as bacon lettuce apple pie and was very confused.
What kind of apples did you use?
Jumping on the seconding train, which I guess is thirding by this point.
I vote for cookies.
I think they were Braeburns. They were a gift from the couple across the street. One of the recipes I looked over suggested those or Rome or Gala. I used the Loveless Cafe recipe.