He made waves recently by explaining that college students are too sensitive for him to continue doing stand-up comedy on campus, and now comedian Chris Rock is back with a lengthy rumination on being black in Hollywood in The Hollywood Reporter.
For our purposes, though, what’s interesting is Rock’s thoughts on college, specifically why Howard University – a federally charted historically black college in Washington, D.C. – doesn’t have a humor publication.
Rock, not even a college graduate, actually started and bankrolled such a publication at Howard:
Fifteen years ago, I tried to create an equivalent to The Harvard Lampoon at Howard University, to give young black comedy writers the same opportunity that white comedy writers have. I wish we could’ve made it work. The reason it worked at Harvard and not at Howard is that the kids at Howard need money. It’s that simple. Kids at Harvard come from money — even the broke ones come from money. They can afford to work at a newspaper and make no money. The kids at Howard are like, “Dude, I love comedy, but I’ve got a f—ing tuition that I’ve got to pay for here.”
This is a recurring class divide in college, between the students whose families have enough wealth that they can take low- or no-paying creative jobs and build up a resume, and those who lose out on creative opportunities because they are paying their own way through.
This does beg the question: Why doesn’t Rock try again at Howard? Perhaps through an endowment that will pay the writers for their work?
Read The Hollywood Reporter article.
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