He stalked the stage like a panther. An animal, a predator. And he went there. Oh man did he go there.
Every time I think Dave Chappelle is the best, Chris Rock comes along and knocks him off the top perch. On Saturday night, Rock held court on a Baltimore stage in the first-ever live Netflix comedy special.
The special’s title: “Selective Outrage.”
On abortion: “If you need to pay for your own abortion, you need to get an abortion.”
On woke culture: “Right now we live in a world where the emergency room is filled up with motherf***ers with paper cuts.”
On Meghan Markle: “It’s the royal family. They’re the original racists. They invented colonialism. They are the OG’s of racism.”
But everyone was waiting for him to address “the slap heard ’round the world.” Actor Will Smith slapped Rock nearly a year ago on the Oscars stage, and Rock has spoken about the incident only sparingly.
Not Saturday night. You’ll have to watch the special to get the real flavor, but here’s the cleaned-up version.
“Will Smith practices selective outrage because everyone that knows what happened, everybody that really knows, knows I had nothing to do with that s***. I didn’t have any entanglements,” Rock said.
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“Now I normally wouldn’t talk about this s***. But for some reason these n***** put that s*** on the internet. I have no idea why two talented people would do something that f***** low down. What the f***?” he said.
“We’ve all been cheated on, everybody in here has been cheated on. None of us have been interviewed by the person that cheated on us on television, like, ‘Hey I was sucking somebody else’s d***, how did that make you feel?’ Why the f*** would you do that s***?”
Of Jada Pinkett-Smith, Rock said: “Nobody’s picking on this b****, she started it. Nobody was picking on her. And then this n**** gives me a f*** concussion, OK. What the f***, man?”
Why did Rock just stand there and take the slap? He addressed that, too.
“A lot of people are like, ‘Chris why didn’t you do nothing back?’ Because I got parents that’s why, because I was raised. And you know what my parents taught me? Don’t fight in front of white people.”
With that, he dropped the mic and walked off. Next to him was a very — very — large bodyguard. In this world of selective outrage, even comedians now need protection.
The show got off to a fiery start. Just 30 seconds in, as Rock said, “I’m gonna’ try to do a show without offending anyone,” someone in the crowd was shouting something. Rock right away showed who was in charge: “N**** sit down!”
The heckler was never heard from again.
Rock is among the top social commentators of our time — think a modern-day Mark Twain. Remember, this is the man who did “N***** Vs. Black People” back in 1997, saying the former glorify ignorance and laziness and brag about fulfilling even the most minute responsibility.
On Saturday, the 58-year-old comedian got right to the issue of the day, unworried about being canceled. He opened by taking shots at people who get “triggered” and believe that “words hurt.”
“You never know who might get triggered. You say the wrong thing, motherf***ers get scared. You know what people say, ‘Words hurt.’ Anybody that says that words hurt has never been punched in the face,” Rock said. “Words hurt — when you write them on a brick.”
And Rock delivered some advice. “Don’t fall into the woke trap at all.” He said he supports equal rights for all people and social justice.
“The thing I have a problem with is the selective outrage. One person does something, they get canceled. Somebody does the exact same thing, nothing.”
That phenomenon Rock dubbed “selective outrage.”
Just a couple days after Hershey’s released a candy bar on International Women’s Day that featured a transgender — the wrapper said “HerShe” — Rock took aim at all the woke businesses out there, trying to pitch their social awareness to sell more product.
“‘We like to give back. We don’t even like the money. We like to give back.’ I was in the mall the other day, I went by the store Lululemon, I walk by and in the window of every Lululemon there’s a sign that says, ‘We don’t support racism, sexism, discrimination, or hate,’” he said. “And I’m like, ‘who gives a f—?’ You’re just selling yoga pants. I don’t need your yoga pants politics. Tell me how you work on b— sweat.”
Rock later hit an easy target — the royal family. He shredded Meghan Markle, who is half black, for playing the victim. She claimed on a show with Oprah Winfrey that members of the royal family questioned how black a baby would be with her ultra-white husband, Prince Harry.
“‘Oprah, they’re so racist they wanted to know how brown the baby was going to be,'” Rock said, playing Markle. “I’m like, ‘That’s not racist, because even black people want to know how brown the baby going to be. S***, we check behind the ears. That’s a scientific test because you’ve got to know what kind of black child you going to get,’” he said.
“I know her dilemma: black girl trying to be accepted by her white in-laws. Oh, it’s hard. It’s so hard, it’s very hard – but it ain’t as hard as a white girl trying to be accepted by her black in-laws. Now that s*** is really hard,” he said. “I’m like, ‘If you black and you wanted to be accepted by your white in-laws then you need to marry a Kardashian because they accept everybody.'”
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.