Chris Rock, On Race and Money

Filed in archive General on February 11, 2008

I saw Chris Rock this weekend, and was happy to mine his act for a personal finance nugget I could re-use. The bit that struck me was when Rock talked about how much more a black person has to do than a white person to be financially successful. I'm paraphrasing, but here's basically what he said:

"I live in Alpine, New Jersey, in a $3 million home. There are 4 other black people that live in my neighborhood. So it's me, a fairly successful comedian, then Mary J. Blige, one of the greatest R&B singers of all time, Jay-Z, one of the greatest rap artists, and Denzel Washington, one of the great actors today, right? Everyone else is white.

You know what my neighbor does?

He's a dentist!

He's not the greatest dentist of all time. He's not a superstar dentist. He's just a dentist!

You know what it would take for a black dentist to live in that neighborhood? If a black dentist wanted to live in that neighborhood, he would have had to invent teeth!"

I think when this was delivered, Rock used the "F" word a few times for emphasis, but I left that out.