Chris Rock is weighing in on racial progress this holiday season. The comedian tells Vulture that his daughters are growing up in a world that is different from the one in which he was reared.
“It’s partly generational,” says Chris. “It’s also my kids grew up not only with a black president but with a black secretary of State, a black joint chief of staff, a black attorney general. My children are going to be the first black children in the history of America to actually have the benefit of the doubt of just being moral, intelligent people.”
Rock also addresses the concept of President Obama representing racial progress telling media, “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.” He adds, “There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years.”
Although many have been qualified, oppression prevented African Americans from attaining high social rankings in past time. Such tyranny leads Chris to interrogate his girls everyday after they enjoy a good day of school with other kids who are white. “I drop my kids off and watch them in the school with all these mostly white kids, and I got to tell you, I drill them every day: Did anything happen today? Did anybody say anything? They look at me like I am crazy.”
Chris Rock has two kids, Lola and Zahra, with wife Malaak.