Obama, Politics, and Comedy

The point of this post is to provide some context for a couple of Chris Rock quotes. Yeah, he's a whiney comic, but sometimes he makes some flippantly insightful comments.

On the way in to work today, I was listening to Minnesota Public Radio's Midmorning talk show. A middle-aged white woman was interviewing two black men on the subject of Obama's inauguration. I don't remember the question, but it was something along the lines of "Now that America has elected an African-America/mixed decent person to the Office of President, is it a sign that our country has moved on from the days of blatent racism and its counterpart, the Civil Rights Movement?"

One man responded with a general "no" as he discussed the dispoportionate number of black and other minorities in prison. I can agree with that. In a way it's weird--totally bizzare, actually--that prison populations aren't respresentative of the U.S. population as a whole. However, he went on to discuss how a significant number of the minorities of America live in toxic neighborhoods/polluted communities. He summed it up by describing this situation as "environmental racism."

That is bullshit. It's not racism. "Polluted homes and communities" are cheap because demand for a polluted residence is low. When demand is low, price is low. Poor people buy cheap houses because that's all they can afford. Unfortunately, a disporportionate percentage of the poor people of America can be classified as 'minorities.' (At least, I've heard this. I don't have the time to look up Census data.) There could be a correlation made between minority housing and polluted areas, but not causation. In my book, someone who subscribes to the idea of "environmental racism" will probably believe in the Trilateral Commission--they're a conspiracy nut.

Back to the radio show - guest numero dos was asked if Obama's election meant that the U.S. was entering a post-racial period. His reply was "I don't even know what that means. I look at myself in the mirror and I don't see 'post-racial.' " I think this guy was being intentionally thick headed. Post-racial doesn't mean "sans-racial." YES the U.S. will always have a racial stigma; YES the U.S. will continue to describe people based on their skin color; however--YES, the U.S. will also continue to describe people based on their age, orientation, hair color, job title, household income, and a million other metrics. What the host was getting to was the heart of MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech--we're different races, but it becomes irrelavant. I voted for Obama for several reasons:

1. He was a better choice than the Other Guy.
2. He seems brilliantly smart and surprisingly well-rounded.
3. He uses 2+ syllable words, unlike his predecessor.

I did not vote for him because he was black, although I am proud to have voted for a guy from a statistical sub-set of the population. However, if we're talking about stigmas, I wouldn't call him a black kid. I would call him an Army brat. He was born in the U.S., was moved to Indonesia and lived there until he was 10 with his white-skinned mom and black-skinned stepdad. He lived with his white-skinned grandparents in Hawaii from 10 until 18. There are a lot of people that might say he grew up white.

I know I don't have any grounds to make these statements, since I am white-skinned and was raised white, but the "black" community (whatever that is) needs better role models, constructive peer pressure, and to abandon it's sense of victimization. Big statement, I know, but Louis Farrakhan and Jesse Jackson have made similar statements. It's not just me.

CNN: At one point in your act, you said, "Racism will never die. It will only multiply." Why do you believe that?

Rock: Well, it's never going to die. Maybe it won't multiply. Is racism going to end? No.

It's not even race. People are always going to, you know, find something wrong with people who are not the exact same as them. That's just what it is. Black, white, short, tall, religions, whatever. People are bad, man.

Now the other Chris quote:

CNN: What are you hoping Barack Obama does for this country? What do you think is his most important task?

Rock: You know, if you're the president you only have two jobs: peace and money. That's it. I mean, it's like, what did Clinton do? We were at peace and we had a budget surplus. That's it. That's the gig. The closer you get us to those two goals, you know, that's pretty much the gig. Is that too much to ask for?

It's simplistic. I know it's simplistic. I know people are joking when they quote "It's the economy, stupid." But you know what? He's dead on. Chris Rock needs to be Barack's alarm clock, and should whisper that in the President's ear every morning and every night.