Stopping Chris Rock
Chris Rock, sometimes comedian and full time antagonist has been documenting the times he’s been pulled over by the police. Having been pulled over three times in the last few months for no other apparent reason than for being a black man driving a nice car, Rock has taken to documenting his interactions with his cell phone camera and incorporating the incidents into his stand-up routine. The posting of these videos and subsequent concerns regarding the events have served to raise the ire of many among us who are not lily white, lending credence to the belief that officials often engage in racial profiling, or stopping our fellow citizens for no more an offense than ‘Driving while black, or brown, or turbaned.’ In defense of our police we would like to state that we would pull over Mr. Rock, and not to ask for his autograph but because he does look suspicious.
Take a hard look at the man. Note the close set beady eyes. Notice also the redness of the sclera, the lids half lowered. These are all signs of the criminally inclined. By placing a caliper over a photograph and measuring the distance between the center of the pupils and comparing it with the overall measurement of the width of the face it has long been possible to determine a tendency towards criminal behavior. Doubt that? Compare the pupilary offsets of Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer and Lizzie Borden to those of Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan and Stephanie Courtney, the actress that plays Flo in the Progressive insurance commercials. The first all had predispositions to murder and civil disobedience, tendencies Chris Rock may yet reveal. The second group are all persons who represent propriety and good behavior. We have trusted Flo with our car, Reagan with our country and Churchill with our world and though they all may have flaws, (maybe not Flo), they never let us down.
Rocks’ reddened globes and half mast eyelids are another story, one told all too well in a famous film from the fifties. It would appear he’s party to that evil scourge that robs men of all reason, causes them to drool uncontrollably, and lust after the salty snacks. Yes, it’s even legal in our nation’s capitol but since when does being legal make it right? It’s legal for grown men to prance about San Francisco in broad daylight wearing pink chiffon tutus but does that make it right? This evidence of moral decay scars more than our retinas, it blinds us to the obvious hard and fast rules that nature has set for us. If something looks like a duck and sounds like a duck one needn’t step on it to know it’s a duck.
Chris Rock has been pulled over in the past for looking like a duck. He will be pulled over again, unless he buys a Prius. We should remember every minute the lessons these odd ducks teach us, and be wary, be very chary wary. He could turn on us at any time, say something smart and show us all as the odd ducks ourselves.