“Top Five” actor Chris Rock has spoken out on a grand jury’s decision not to indict a New York police officer in the chokehold death of 43-year-old Eric Garner.
This one was on film. https://t.co/Zm7DKL09ok
— Chris Rock (@chrisrock) December 3, 2014
The writer and director for the positively reviewed comedy “Top Five” added, “It’s sad when something is on videotape. It’s sad.”
Chris Rock recently penned an essay about race in Hollywood for The Hollywood Reporter, and although the 49-year-old comedian has stated that the essay wasn’t him “being political” and that he was just “stating the facts,” the actor has always made eye-opening comments regarding the subject of race.
“it’s the most liberal town in the world, and there’s a part of it that’s kind of racist — not racist like ‘F*** you,n***’ racist, but just an acceptance that there’s a slave state in L.A.,” wrote Chris Rock, according to the NY Daily News.
Aside from his essay, the native New Yorker gave an interview for New York magazine in which he spoke of the state of race in the Obama era in relation to his own experience as a father, according to MSNBC.
“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. That’s white progress,” Rock said.
He continued, “The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.”
Other celebrities, including “Law and Order: SVU” actor Ice-T, has spoken up about the verdict regarding Eric Garner as well.
“My stomach is twisted over this thing. We all kind of witnessed a snuff film on television when you saw that video. And when you come back and say no crime has been committed, it's hard for people to swallow," he said, according to Journal Times.
