"Niggas vs. Black People" is the title of one of Chris Rock's most famous and most controversial stand-up comedy routines. This routine, 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. The routine is also widely cited as his magnum opus and is often considered one of the greatest in the history of stand-up comedy.
Essentially an eight-minute rant about behaviors that Rock sees within the black community; he describes "niggas" as a cohort whose behavior—which embodies many negative African-American stereotypes—is usually detrimental to the image of other black people. 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 three 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.
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. 'Cos some people that were racist thought they had license to say nigger. So, I'm done with that routine."
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!" 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.
Famous quotes containing the words black people, black and/or people:
“I marvel at the many ways we, as black people, bend but do not break in order to survive. This astonishes me, and what excites me I write about. Everyone of us is a wonder. Everyone of us has a story.”
—Kristin Hunter (b. 1931)
“Of course I’m a black writer.... I’m not just a black writer, but categories like black writer, woman writer and Latin American writer aren’t marginal anymore. We have to acknowledge that the thing we call “literature” is more pluralistic now, just as society ought to be. The melting pot never worked. We ought to be able to accept on equal terms everybody from the Hassidim to Walter Lippmann, from the Rastafarians to Ralph Bunche.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)
“These people figured video was the Lord’s preferred means of communicating, the screen itself a kind of perpetually burning bush. “He’s in the de-tails,” Sublett had said once. “You gotta watch for Him close.””
—William Gibson (b. 1948)