The actor and comedian Chris Rock has posted the third in a series of Instagrams in recent weeks, showing him being pulled over by the police.
It’s unclear what he was stopped for, but by posting the images Rock is highlighting the tendency for black drivers to be detained – US Justice Department statistics released last year for 2011 found that substantially more black drivers than white were stopped. The wry phrase “driving while black”, a play on “driving while intoxicated”, has been used to describe the phenomenon; CNN newsreader TJ Holmes used it when pulled over by police in 2012, with the officer claiming it was to check Holmes had car insurance.
The most recent photo is below:
It follows two other recent instances, along with another in 2014:
Stop by the cops wish me luck http://t.co/GKE2oKnAYR
— Chris Rock (@chrisrock) April 18, 2014
Rock referenced the phenomenon in his episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, when the pair were pulled over in a Lamborghini, saying: “It’d be such a better episode if he pulled me to the side and beat the shit out of me, don’t you think? Now here’s the crazy thing: If you weren’t here, I’d be scared. I’m famous, still black. Right now, I’m looking for my license right now.”
The comedian has often addressed race issues in his standup sets, and in his films like the recent Top Five. In the Hollywood Reporter, he recently wrote an attack on the film industry’s racial inequality that was all the more incendiary for being so jaded and resigned: “How many black men have you met working in Hollywood? They don’t 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’m a guy who’s accepted it all.”
Actor Isaiah Washington meanwhile responded to Rock’s Instagram with a tweet:
I sold my $90,000.00 Mercedes G500 and bought 3 Prius's, because I got tired of being pulled over by Police. #Adapt @chrisrock
— Isaiah Washington (@IWashington) April 1, 2015
He prompted a backlash with his suggestion that black people should adapt to racial profiling, but later expanded on the comments with CNN’s Don Lemon, saying that Rock should engage with the police as to why they were continuing to pull him over. He added that black Americans faced serious and ongoing prejudice: “We have to survive under extreme circumstances... for those practicing white supremacy, they’re at war, they’re on the hunt... We have to go about the business of having serious conversations about how we survive”.
