I Love Chris Rock
Published October 1, 2007
By Nate Bradbury
I love Chris Rock. He manages to take the issues that confront Americans everyday, distill them, and present the issue with startling clarity. You wouldn’t expect that I think of him and James Madison as amazingly similar intellectually.
Alexander Hamilton and James Madison are part of our required curriculum-their names may sound familiar- and the Federalist no.10 essay might even ring a few bells. Hamilton and Madison, coauthors of the Federalist Papers, warned us about the dangers of factions and pitfalls inherent to the democratic process. In brief, our Founding Fathers knew what was up and were trying to look out for future generations of America.
Not surprisingly, we are still faced with the challenges that they warned us about. Sadly, the words of the Federalist Papers are big and tough to connect with. Let’s have Rock translate it for us:
“Everybody’s so busy wantin’ to be down with the gang, going ‘I’m a conservative, I’m liberal, I’m a conservative, I’m a liberal. That’s bullshit. Be a fucking person…Listen! Let it swirl around your head! Then form an opinion. ‘No,’ ‘Normal,’ ‘Decent,’ ‘Person,’ is one thing. I got some shit I’m conservative about, I got some shit I’m liberal about…”
Rock goes on to discuss guns, prostitution, and crack in that vein of discussion. Mr. Rock has made a name for himself with tirades similar to this one, but I was surprised to go back and see the similarity between this section of Never Scared and Madison’s contention that powerful factions would tear the country apart. Positioning Chris Rock, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton as intellectual brethren is odd. However, despite the marked differences in presentation and language these men are making the same point.
Everyone has a tendency of situating themselves within the groups they identify with. We have come to a place in our society where there are clean and neat packages that complement any ideological tendencies. Are you a green, pro-choice liberal? Or are you more of a fiscally responsible, small government, low taxes conservative? Generally, we don’t hear about the mixing of those interests. Why is that? Political parties, clans, and cliques are centrally interested in maintaining the “edges” of their membership.
If you watch CNN and Fox News or read The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, then you have undoubtedly witnessed the popular “shouting heads” format. Programs like Crossfire, The O’Reilly Factor, and Real Time with Bill Maher feature nominal “talking heads” whose main forms of debate involve raising their voices and shamelessly attacking the opposing group’s stereotyped faults. Republicans accuse Democrats of being soft, weak, cut-and-run-ers; and Democrats accuse Republicans of being racist, classist, and fiscally irresponsible. Despite the vehemence with which battles of political thought are waged, are we as consumers of media products getting any valuable information? I understand that everyone deserves a chance to be heard and to argue his or her respective cases. However, what if there are two pundits screaming at each other and only one of them is making a valid point?
Thirty years ago, the news media was devoted to presenting accurate information first and making money second. That pattern has reversed itself. At first, it seems like letting two “shouting heads” verbally attack each other on nationally syndicated programs would be the ideal format for delivering news to the public. They give both sides time to speak or argue their point, and then let the audience decide on their own. This seems to fit the concept that an informed populace will make well-thought and well-informed decisions. However, the system doesn’t work that way. Valuable nuggets of information get trampled and lost in the verbal battles that are waged on air every day.
The most salient of example of this is the recent controversy embroiling Bill O’Reilly (yes, again). In case you haven’t heard, O’Reilly went to lunch at the soul food restaurant, Sylvia’s, in Harlem with the Rev. Al Sharpton. After the meal, he discussed the experience with cultural critic Juan Williams on The O’Reilly Factor. He made ignorant and arrogant comments that disparaged the restaurant’s clientele and the black community in general. However, that truly was not his intention. The transcript from this program provided quotes that were eventually taken out of context and turned into Daily Show fodder.
This does not change the fact that O’Reilly is an ignorant racist; he deserved to be lampooned by Jon Stewart. His comments reflect what we as Americans already knew about him, but there was a shocking amount of media coverage devoted to this general discussion: “Is what O’Reilly said racist?”, “Does it matter?”, “What does it mean that he made the comments that he did?”, “Why does the _____ (fill in the blank with your political group of choice) media insist on shamelessly de-contextualizing quotes and libeling their competitors?” With this blast of media coverage, we as consumers certainly confront a set of questions but probably not the right set of questions. We should talk about why we still have people in our culture (like O’Reilly) that expect black people to live and act in a significantly different manner than white people. O’Reilly was attempting to make a clumsy compliment to the black community and engage in a discourse on race in America. However, his comments were perceived as racist because of his horrendous track record.
Last week, news sources across the country from MSNBC all the way to ESPN presented the viewing populace with a three-pronged headline barrage including: O’Reilly, Michael Vick, and O.J. Simpson. O’Reilly showed us again that he is ignorant and ill-prepared to produce positive news stories, Vick dug himself deeper into his legal hole with a failed drug test, and O.J. was back in the headlines with a shocking ten felony charges including kidnapping with a deadly weapon. All three men are celebrity figures and because consumers have made it abundantly clear that they are enamored with celebrity life (see Dancing with the Stars) these men made the top headlines. This is a real problem for the average person.
Media outlets gloss over arguably more important or pertinent topics to whet our appetite for stars on the prowl. Three news stories that either were bumped back or completely ignored highlight this fact. During the past week, there was a protest in Jena, Louisiana that drew nearly 15,000 supporters, Oakland police shot and killed a 20-year-old man named Gary King Jr. in the street, and a week of protests in Myanmar erupted into violence with the massacre of at least 9 civilians (including Buddhist monks) by government security forces. These events deserve national coverage and while the Jena protests and Myanmar massacres garnered some coverage, the police shooting was largely ignored despite the conflicting accounts of how and why the police used lethal force on an unarmed citizen.
With the Internet and television providing news and headlines 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, news media companies have to be more careful than ever in their choice of topics. We as Americans advocate the necessity of free speech but in many cases we would prefer that some subjects be avoided. What makes you think that you have the right to navigate life in perfectly air-conditioned comfort?
I do not advocate stepping on people’s toes, racism, sexism, or general bigotry but making issues or topics taboo only serves to compound the problem. We have become afraid to have real discussions. We can’t talk about race or skin color because we are taught that we shouldn’t even “see” color - though only Stephen Colbert claims to have actually achieved that feat. Think on the array of topics that we aren’t allowed to discuss: sex, drugs, money, and the woman’s right to choose all tend to provoke looks of surprise and discomfort. Where can we talk about the things that no one talks about?
At this point, the answer seems to be nowhere. As a minor player in this country’s media machine, I am conflicted about my role and the role of the media in general.
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