Rock Beats Paper

Listen, I know that the rules of Rock-Paper-Scissors say that paper beats rock, because paper covers the rock, but if you think of paper as something words are written on, and a large quantity of that paper with words on it has attempted to analyze and explain difficult subjects, like, say, racism, then…

…Chris Rock beats paper, actually more accurately pulverizes paper, in a new interview in New York Magazine.

While white men of privilege like Rudy Giuliani blame the victims of racism:

…responsibility is on the black community to reduce the reason why the police officers are assigned in such large numbers to the black community

Chris Rock, in conversation with Frank Rich, obliterates this line of thinking:

Chris Rock: 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.