Niggas vs. Black People

"Niggas vs. Black People" is the title of one of Chris Rock's most famous and most controversial bits. This bit, which appeared as track 12 on his 1997 album, Roll With the New, as well as his 1996 HBO special, Bring the Pain, is widely considered to be the breakthrough routine that established his status as a comedy fixture after he left Saturday Night Live.

Essentially an eight-minute rant about behaviors that Rock sees within the black community; he describes "niggas" as a cohort whose behavior is usually detrimental to the image of other black people which embodies many negative African-American stereotypes. The "niggas," he said, glorify ignorance and sloth, and brag about fulfilling any minor responsibility. Rock rejects the view that this image of African-Americans is purely cultivated by the media. In the routine, he says, "When I go to the money machine tonight, alright, I ain't looking over my back for the media, I'm looking for niggas! What, you think I've got 3 guns in my house 'cause the media outside?"

In a 2003 interview, Rock explained that the idea for the bit came from the song "Us" from the 1991 Ice Cube album Death Certificate.^[1]

The controversy caused by Rock's constant use of the word nigga led him to remove the piece from his act. In a 60 Minutes interview, Rock said, "By the way, I've never done that joke again, ever, and I probably never will. 'Cause some people that were racist thought they had license to say nigger. So, I'm done with that routine."^[2]

As an example of the routine's cultural impact, Barack Obama directly referenced it while campaigning to be elected President during a Father's Day speech on June 15, 2008, saying "Chris Rock had a routine. He said some—too many of our men, they're proud, they brag about doing things they're supposed to do. They say 'Well, I- I'm not in jail.' Well you're not supposed to be in jail!"^[3] Also, in the second episode of NBC's The Office, "Diversity Day," Steve Carell's character performs a censored version; the result is a daylong racial sensitivity seminar for the office staff.

See also

• Pound cake speech

References

1. ^ Smart Mouth, Gavin Edwards, Rolling Stone, August 13, 2003
2. ^ Rock: Bring On Oscar 'Safety Net'; Ed Bradley Talks To Oscar Host About N----- Word, Minstrelsy
3. ^ http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2008/06/obama-channels-chris-rock

External links

• Bennun, David, "Chris Rock," The Guardian, 2000.
• Chris Rock: Bring the Pain at the Internet Movie Database
• Chris Rock: Black Person or Nigga