Chris Rock on the Obama presidency: 'That's not black progress. That's white progress.'
In 2008, the election of President Obama was roundly hailed as a major step forward for race relations in America — but in a lengthy interview with New York Magazine, Chris Rock explained that the term "race relations" doesn't capture what's really happening. "When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it's all nonsense. There are no race relations," he said. "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."
Rock concluded his answer by encouraging white Americans to honestly grapple with the actions of their ancestors. "Yeah, it's unfair that you can get judged by something you didn't do," he said, "but it's also unfair that you can inherit money that you didn't work for." Read the full interview, in which Rock tackles other controversial issues like the racial unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and the sexual abuse allegations against Bill Cosby, at New York.
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Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.
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