There has often been “conflict”
in this country between blacks and Hispanics, which generally revolves around
blacks blaming “Mexicans” for taking “their” jobs, or Hispanics who think of
themselves as “white” when the prejudice of the wider community is based on the
premise that they are not. The truth of the matter is that blacks and Hispanics
are in the same “boat’; being patronized by whites—usually by those who either
need to satisfy themselves that they are not “racist,” or need someone even
“lower” than they are to feel good about themselves—does not change that.
Thus it comes as a bit of a
surprise when African-American actor/comedian Chris Rock comes out in a recent
issue of the Hollywood Reporter and
states quite frankly than blacks and Latinos are in the same boat socially and
economically in America. Rock—whose essay has aroused interest in him in the
media rather than a frank discussion of what he said—opines a number of
interesting things about the state of Hollywood studio employment, such as
something I‘ve always suspected—that black women are more likely to be sought
to “diversify” office environments, in my opinion probably because the serve
both the race and the gender “diversity” numbers at one shot, and because they
are seen as less “threatening.” However, the frank but politically-incorrect
Rock on this issue admits (or perhaps he is just being sarcastic) that he’s not
sure if the current black youth culture that his daughters have embraced is
preparing them for the future:
“It's a white industry. Just as
the NBA is a black industry. I'm not even saying it's a bad thing. It just is.
And the black people they do hire tend to be the same person. That person tends
to be female and that person tends to be Ivy League. And there's nothing wrong
with that. As a matter of fact, that's what I want for my daughters. But
something tells me that the life my privileged daughters are leading right now
might not make them the best candidates to run the black division of anything.”
While Rock admits that most
movies, TV shows and books “suck,” they are all still a matter of one’s “taste,”
and he doesn’t believe that there is a difference between what white audiences
and black audiences “like.” However, he suggests that the black audience seems
to like anything with themselves in it, if only because they are just happy to
be in something.
Rock also observed that while it
is difficult for people of all colors to break into films and television, it
just seems much harder for some. “Someone's going to help the white guy.
Multiple people will. The people whom I've tried to help, I'm not sure anybody
was going to help them”—meaning, of course, anyone who isn’t white, and that
includes Latinos, and this where Rock breaks rank with many of his “brothers.”
“But forget whether Hollywood is
black enough. A better question is: Is Hollywood Mexican enough? You're in L.A,
you've got to try not to hire Mexicans. It's the most liberal town in the
world, and there's a part of it that's kind of racist — not racist like ‘F—
you, nigger’ racist, but just an acceptance that there's a slave state in L.A.
There's this acceptance that Mexicans are going to take care of white people in
L.A. that doesn't exist anywhere else. I remember I was renting a house in
Beverly Park while doing some movie, and you just see all of the Mexican people
at 8 o'clock in the morning in a line driving into Beverly Park like it's
General Motors. It's this weird town.”
It is actually a rather sad
commentary on the so-called Latino activist community that are not as
courageous in speaking frankly on the prejudices they are forced to accept as
the price of being “tolerated”—when not scapegoated for every ill of the
country. Of course, it could merely be that the people who are courageous
enough to speak out are not being given a forum to speak by the mainstream
media—or that the Latino community is so “ethnically” polarized that certain
segments of the population consider criticism of white society as an attack on
themselves as well.
At any rate, Rock pointed out a
truism that in many jobs, being “book smart” has nothing to do with the
qualifications to do the job—like acting, or working on a set, or deciding what
clothes someone should where. Hell, most people could do the job of a producer
if given the opportunity:
“You're telling me no Mexicans
are qualified to do anything at a studio? Really? Nothing but mop up? What are
the odds that that's true? The odds are, because people are people, that
there's probably a Mexican David Geffen mopping up for somebody's company right
now. The odds are that there's probably a Mexican who's that smart who's never
going to be given a shot. And it's not about being given a shot to greenlight a
movie because nobody is going to give you that — you've got to take that. The
shot is that a Mexican guy or a black guy is qualified to go and give his
opinion about how loud the boings are in Dodgeball or whether it's the right
shit sound you hear when Jeff Daniels is on the toilet in Dumb and Dumber. It's
like, ‘We only let white people do that.’ This is a system where only white
people can chime in on that. There would be a little naivete to sitting around
and going, ‘Oh, no black person has ever greenlighted a movie,’ but those other
jobs? You're kidding me, right? They don't even require education. When you're
on the lower levels, they're just about taste, nothing else. And you don't have
to go to Harvard to have taste.”
Rock asserts that things may
change, or at least there is a chance of change if people are more assertive. “I
wouldn't be here if I thought I couldn't play those parts. I never limited
myself. And that's the beauty of Obama. It might be a generational thing,
because the difference between Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson was that Jesse
Jackson never actually ran for president. He ran to disrupt the presidency. If
he actually ran for president, he probably could have been president. Jesse
Jackson won a bunch of primaries in Southern states, but not for five seconds
did he think he could be president, whereas Obama was like, ‘Yeah, I could be
president,’ and nobody stopped him. Literally, nobody stopped him.”
I don’t how many more movie roles
that Chris Rock is going to be allowed to audition for after this piece of
blunt talk, knowing how “sensitive” liberals can be on the subject of their own
hypocrisy. Unfortunately, the question of whether the blunt talk on these
topics will lead to "enlightenment," further discussion and "change"
seems unlikely.
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