{"id":178212,"date":"2014-12-08T02:02:36","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T02:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/12\/08\/thisiseverydayracism-its-a-white-industry\/"},"modified":"2018-09-12T23:58:34","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T23:58:34","slug":"thisiseverydayracism-its-a-white-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/12\/08\/thisiseverydayracism-its-a-white-industry\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-178212 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/12\/08\/thisiseverydayracism-its-a-white-industry\/attachment\/178213\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/tumblr_ng72kleUAu1smopzxo1_640-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/tumblr_ng72kleUAu1smopzxo1_640-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/tumblr_ng72kleUAu1smopzxo1_640-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon portrait'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/12\/08\/thisiseverydayracism-its-a-white-industry\/attachment\/178214\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/tumblr_ng72kleUAu1smopzxo2_400-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/tumblr_ng72kleUAu1smopzxo2_400-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/tumblr_ng72kleUAu1smopzxo2_400-100x100.jpg 100w\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thisiseverydayracism.tumblr.com\/post\/104549742546\/its-a-white-industry-by-chris-rock-i-was\" class=\"tumblr_blog\" target=\"_blank\">thisiseverydayracism<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><b>\u201cIt\u2019s a White Industry\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n<p>By Chris Rock<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I was probably 19 when I first came to Hollywood. Eddie Murphy brought me out to do Beverly Hills Cop II and he had a deal at Paramount, so I remember going through the gates of the Paramount lot. He\u2019s in a Rolls-Royce, and he\u2019s not just a star, he\u2019s the biggest star in the world. Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer\u2019s office was in the same building as Eddie\u2019s office, and they would come to work every day with matching cars. Some days it would be the Porsches, and the next day it would be Ferraris. I was like the kid in A Bronx Tale. I got to just hang around when the biggest parts of show business were happening. I was only there a couple of weeks, but I remember every day Jeffrey Katzenberg would call Eddie Murphy \u2014 I don\u2019t even know if Eddie was calling him back \u2014 but it was like, \u201cJeffrey Katzenberg called again.\u201d \u201cJanet Jackson just called.\u201d \u201cMichael Jackson called.\u201d It was that crazy. I\u2019ve still never seen anything like it. I had a small part in the movie, but my dream was bigger than that. I wanted to have a convertible Rolls-Royce with a fine girl driving down Melrose blasting Prince.<\/p>\n<p>Now I\u2019m not Murphy, but I\u2019ve done fine. And I try to help young black guys coming up because those people took chances on me. Eddie didn\u2019t have to put me in Beverly Hills Cop II. Keenen Wayans didn\u2019t have to put me in I\u2019m Gonna Git You Sucka. Arsenio didn\u2019t have to let me on his show. I\u2019d do the same for a young white guy, but here\u2019s the difference: Someone\u2019s going to help the white guy. Multiple people will. The people whom I\u2019ve tried to help, I\u2019m not sure anybody was going to help them.<\/p>\n<p>And I have a decent batting average. I still remember people thinking I was crazy for hiring Wanda Sykes on my old HBO show. I recommended J.B. Smoove for Saturday Night Live, and I just helped Leslie Jones get on that show. She\u2019s about as funny as a human being can be, but she didn\u2019t go to Second City, she doesn\u2019t do stand-up at The Cellar and she\u2019s not in with Judd Apatow, so how the hell was she ever going to get through unless somebody like me says to Lorne Michaels, \u201cHey, look at this person\u201d? I saw her at a comedy club four or five years ago, and I wrote her name down in my phone. I probably called four managers \u2014 the biggest managers in comedy \u2014 to manage her, and all of them said no. They didn\u2019t get it. They didn\u2019t get it until Lorne said yes a few years later, and then it was too late.<\/p>\n<p>Some of these younger black guys just want me to see their act. Some come to me for advice. Hannibal Buress called the other day. They want to know about agents and managers and the business; this kind of deal and that kind of deal; dealing with the media and dealing with family; money crap and where they should live. It\u2019s big brother shit, and they ask because there aren\u2019t that many black people to turn to. Who do you hire? Where\u2019s the big black PR agency? Where are the big black agents? Where\u2019s the big black film producer? That\u2019s why I\u2019ve been all over Steve McQueen. I put a microchip in Steve\u2019s pocket and track him like an Uber driver. Steve thinks we keep bumping into each other by accident. \u201cHey, Steve, my man!\u201d I don\u2019t care if I have to play a whip, I\u2019m going to be in a Steve McQueen movie. But I digress.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a white industry. Just as the NBA is a black industry. I\u2019m not even saying it\u2019s a bad thing. It just is. And the black people they do hire tend to be the same person. That person tends to be female and that person tends to be Ivy League. And there\u2019s nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, that\u2019s what I want for my daughters. But something tells me that the life my privileged daughters are leading right now might not make them the best candidates to run the black division of anything. And the person who runs the black division of a studio should probably have worked with black people at some point in their life. Clint Culpepper [a white studio chief who specializes in black movies] does a good job at Screen Gems because he\u2019s the kind of guy who would actually go see Best Man Holiday. But how many black men have you met working in Hollywood? They don\u2019t really hire black men. A black man with bass in his voice and maybe a little hint of facial hair? Not going to happen. It is what it is. I\u2019m a guy who\u2019s accepted it all.<\/p>\n<p>We cut it out in Top Five, but there had been a scene where Kevin Hart, who plays my character\u2019s agent, is in his office talking to me, and he finds out that \u201cZoolander\u201d (Ben Stiller) is down the hall and he\u2019s mad because none of the agents called him. He\u2019s the only black agent at the agency, and there was a line in the movie like, \u201cI\u2019m the only black agent here. They never invite me to anything, and these people are liberals. This isn\u2019t the Klan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But forget whether Hollywood is black enough. A better question is: Is Hollywood Mexican enough? You\u2019re in L.A, you\u2019ve got to try not to hire Mexicans. It\u2019s the most liberal town in the world, and there\u2019s a part of it that\u2019s kind of racist \u2014 not racist like \u201cF\u2014 you, nigger\u201d racist, but just an acceptance that there\u2019s a slave state in L.A. There\u2019s this acceptance that Mexicans are going to take care of white people in L.A. that doesn\u2019t exist anywhere else. I remember I was renting a house in Beverly Park while doing some movie, and you just see all of the Mexican people at 8\u00a0o\u2019clock in the morning in a line driving into Beverly Park like it\u2019s General Motors. It\u2019s this weird town.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re telling me no Mexicans are qualified to do anything at a studio? Really? Nothing but mop up? What are the odds that that\u2019s true? The odds are, because people are people, that there\u2019s probably a Mexican David Geffen mopping up for somebody\u2019s company right now. The odds are that there\u2019s probably a Mexican who\u2019s that smart who\u2019s never going to be given a shot. And it\u2019s not about being given a shot to greenlight a movie because nobody is going to give you that \u2014 you\u2019ve got to take that. The shot is that a Mexican guy or a black guy is qualified to go and give his opinion about how loud the boings are in Dodgeball or whether it\u2019s the right shit sound you hear when Jeff Daniels is on the toilet in Dumb and Dumber. It\u2019s like, \u201cWe only let white people do that.\u201d This is a system where only white people can chime in on that. There would be a little naivete to sitting around and going, \u201cOh, no black person has ever greenlighted a movie,\u201d but those other jobs? You\u2019re kidding me, right? They don\u2019t even require education. When you\u2019re on the lower levels, they\u2019re just about taste, nothing else. And you don\u2019t have to go to Harvard to have taste.<\/p>\n<p>Fifteen years ago, I tried to create an equivalent to The Harvard Lampoon at Howard University, to give young black comedy writers the same opportunity that white comedy writers have. I wish we could\u2019ve made it work. The reason it worked at Harvard and not at Howard is that the kids at Howard need money. It\u2019s that simple. Kids at Harvard come from money \u2014 even the broke ones come from money. They can afford to work at a newspaper and make no money. The kids at Howard are like, \u201cDude, I love comedy, but I\u2019ve got a f\u2014ing tuition that I\u2019ve got to pay for here.\u201d But that was 15 years ago; it might be easier to do it now because of the Internet. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n<p>I really don\u2019t think there\u2019s any difference between what black audiences find funny and what white audiences find funny, but everyone likes to see themselves onscreen, so there are some instances where there\u2019s a black audience laughing at something that a white audience wouldn\u2019t laugh at because a black audience is really just happy to see itself. Things that would be problems in a world where there were a lot of black movies get overlooked. The same thing happened with those Sex and the City movies. You don\u2019t really see that level of female movie that much, so women were like, \u201cWe\u2019re only going to get this every whatever, so f\u2014 you, f\u2014 the reviews, we\u2019re going, we like it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And you should at least be able to count on your people, and then it grows from there. If someone\u2019s people don\u2019t love them, that\u2019s a problem. No one crosses over without a base. But if we\u2019re going to just be honest and count dollars and seats and not look at skin color, Kevin Hart is the biggest comedian in the world. If Kevin Hart is playing 40,000 seats in a night and Jon Stewart is playing 3,000, the fact that Jon Stewart\u2019s 3,000 are white means Kevin has to cross over? That makes no sense. If anybody needs to cross over, it\u2019s the guy who\u2019s selling 3,000 seats.<\/p>\n<p>But here\u2019s one thing I\u2019ve noticed in the last five to seven years, and I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d live to see this day. There used to be black film and Eddie Murphy, and the two had nothing to do with each other. Literally nothing. And in the world of black film, everything was judged on a relative basis \u2014 almost the same curve that indie films get judged on. It was, \u201cHey, House Party made a lot of money relative to its budget,\u201d or \u201cOh, we only paid $7 million for New Jack City and it made $50 million.\u201d Now, not only are black movies making money, they\u2019re expected to make money \u2014 and they\u2019re expected to make money on the same scale as everything else.<\/p>\n<p>I think they\u2019ve been better in the last few years, too \u2014 a little more daring, a little funnier. But look, most movies suck. Absolutely suck. They just do. Most TV shows suck. Most books suck. If most things were good, I\u2019d make $15 an hour. I don\u2019t live the way I live because most things are even remotely good. But when you have a system where you probably only see three movies with African-American leads in them a year, they\u2019re going to be judged more harshly, and you\u2019re really rooting for them to be good a little more so than the 140 movies starring white people every year.<\/p>\n<p>The best ones are made outside of the studio system because they\u2019re not made with that many white people \u2014 maybe one or two, but not a whole system of white people. I couldn\u2019t have made Top Five at a studio. First of all, no one\u2019s going to make a movie with a premise so little and artsy: a star putting out a movie and getting interviewed by a woman from The New York Times. I would have had to have three two-hour meetings explaining that black people also read The New York Times. A studio would\u2019ve made it like Malibu\u2019s Most Wanted. And never in a million years would they have allowed a scene where the rich guy comes back to the projects and actually gets along with everybody. No way. In most black movies \u2014 and in most black TV shows and even in most black plays \u2014 anyone with money or an education is evil, even movies made by black directors. They have to be saved by the poor people. This goes back to Good Times and What\u2019s Happening!!<\/p>\n<p>Now, when it comes to casting, Hollywood pretty much decides to cast a black guy or they don\u2019t. We\u2019re never on the \u201cshort list.\u201d We\u2019re never \u201cin the mix.\u201d When there\u2019s a hot part in town and the guys are reading for it, that\u2019s just what happens. It was never like, \u201cIs it going to be Ryan Gosling or Chiwetel Ejiofor for Fifty Shades of Grey?\u201d And you know, black people f\u2014, too. White women actually want to f\u2014 black guys, sometimes more than white guys. More women want to f\u2014 Tyrese than Jamie Dornan, and it\u2019s not even close. It\u2019s not a contest. Even Jamie would go, \u201cOK, you got it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Or how about True Detective? I never heard anyone go, \u201cIs it going to be Amy Adams or Gabrielle Union?\u201d for that show. I didn\u2019t hear one black girl\u2019s name on those lists. Not one. Literally everyone in town was up for that part, unless you were black. And I haven\u2019t read the script, but something tells me if Gabrielle Union were Colin Farrell\u2019s wife, it wouldn\u2019t change a thing. And there are almost no black women in film. You can go to whole movies and not see one black woman. They\u2019ll throw a black guy a bone. OK, here\u2019s a black guy. But is there a single black woman in Interstellar? Or Gone Girl? Birdman? The Purge? Neighbors? I\u2019m not sure there are. I don\u2019t remember them. I go to the movies almost every week, and I can go a month and not see a black woman having an actual speaking part in a movie. That\u2019s the truth.<\/p>\n<p>But there\u2019s been progress. When I was on Saturday Night Live a few weeks ago, we did a sketch where I was Sasheer Zamata\u2019s dad and she had an Internet show. Twenty years ago when I was on Saturday Night Live, anything with black people on the show had to deal with race, and that sketch we did didn\u2019t have anything to do with race. That was the beauty: The sketch is funny because it\u2019s funny, and that\u2019s the progress. And there are black guys who are making it: Whatever Kevin Hart wants to do right now, he can do; I think Chiwetel is a really respected actor who is getting a lot of great shots just because he\u2019s really good; if Steve McQueen wants to direct a Marvel movie, they would salivate to get him. Change just takes time. The Triborough Bridge has been the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge for almost 20 years now, but we still call it the Triborough Bridge. That\u2019s how long it takes shit to change. We\u2019re not going to be calling it the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge for another 10, 15 years. People will have to die for it actually to be the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t think the world expected things to change overnight because Obama got elected president. Of course it\u2019s changed, though, it\u2019s just changed with kids. And when you\u2019re a kid, you\u2019re not thinking of any of this shit. Black kids watch The Lord of the Rings and they want to be the Lord of the Rings. I remember when they were doing Starsky &amp; Hutch, and my manager was like, \u201cWe might be able to get you the part of Huggy Bear,\u201d which eventually went to Snoop Dogg. I was like: \u201cDo you understand that when my brother and I watched Starsky &amp; Hutch growing up, I would play Starsky and he would play Hutch? I don\u2019t want to play f\u2014ing Huggy Bear. This is not a historical drama. This is not Thomas Jefferson. It\u2019s a movie based on a shitty TV show, it can be anybody. Who cares. If they want me to play Starsky or Hutch, or even the bad guy, I\u2019m down. But Huggy Bear?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I wouldn\u2019t be here if I thought I couldn\u2019t play those parts. I never limited myself. And that\u2019s the beauty of Obama. It might be a generational thing, because the difference between Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson was that Jesse Jackson never actually ran for president. He ran to disrupt the presidency. If he actually ran for president, he probably could have been president. Jesse Jackson won a bunch of primaries in Southern states, but not for five seconds did he think he could be president, whereas Obama was like, \u201cYeah, I could be president,\u201d and nobody stopped him. Literally, nobody stopped him.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/m.hollywoodreporter.com\/entry\/view\/id\/870405\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/m.hollywoodreporter.com\/entry\/view\/id\/870405<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>thisiseverydayracism: \u201cIt\u2019s a White Industry\u201d By Chris Rock I was probably 19 when I first came to Hollywood. Eddie Murphy brought me out to do Beverly Hills Cop II and he had a deal at Paramount, so I remember going through the gates of the Paramount lot. He\u2019s in a Rolls-Royce, and he\u2019s not just &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2014\/12\/08\/thisiseverydayracism-its-a-white-industry\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[15634,3382,19413,43,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178212"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178215,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178212\/revisions\/178215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}