In an interview with Vulture, comedian and actor Chris Rock touched on topics outside of his new movie, including income inequality, Fox News, politics in general, racial progress, and how he feels about President Obama.
In regards to the 2014 midterms, Rock quoted another comedian: Jon Stewart.
“[Stewart] has said the reason Fox News works better than CNN is because the people at Fox News figured out how to make themselves into victims,” said Rock. “Even in victory.”
After positing the idea that, based upon election results, maybe America wants to go back to a class system, Rock said, “If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the street. If the average person could see the Virgin Airlines first-class lounge,they’d go ‘What? What? This is food, and it’s free, and they … what? Massage? Are you kidding me?’”
The discussion between Rock and Frank Rich ventured further into politics, when Rich brought up President Obama and how Rock thinks he’s done, given the criticism from the left.
“The president should be graded on jobs and peace, and the other stuff is debatable. Do more people have jobs, and is there more peace? I guess there’s a little more peace. Not as much as we’d like, but I mean, that’s kind of the gig … the liberals that are against him feel let down because he’s not Bush. And the thing about George (W.) Bush is that the kid revolutionized the presidency. How? He was the first president who only served the people who voted for him. He literally operated like a cable network.”
Rock also said that Obama shouldn’t have bailed out Wall Street and the auto industry, and just let them die, as a means to accomplish more.
“In sports, that’s what any new [general manager] does. They make sure that the catastrophe is on the old management and then they clean up … Let it all go to hell knowing good and well this is on them. That way you can … hire your own coach … get your players … We’ve all been on planes that had tremendous turbulence, but we forget all about it. Now, if you live through a plane crash, you’ll never forget that. Maybe Obama should have let the plane crash.”
Regarding racial progress in America, Rock calls that notion “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 … 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 … There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have 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.”
Read Rock’s full interview at Vulture.