Revolution Televised.pdf

188 Conclusion
the interviewees are humored, others show increasingly horrified
expressions at Rock’s flag suggestions and take him quite seriously,
showing their investment in maintaining a symbol of racism.
In another episode, Rock, noting that in white neighborhoods
none of the streets are named after slain black icons, goes to the
notorious Howard Beach neighborhood to see if he can get people
to sign a petition to change Cross Bay Boulevard to Tupac Shakur
Boulevard. Cross Bay Boulevard was the initial site of a 1986 assault
on three black men by a gang of white teenagers armed with
baseball bats and tree limbs. The racially based assault left one of
the black men, twenty-three-year-old Michael Griffith, dead and
another of them, Cedric Sandiford, badly beaten.
One white man driving a van at Cross Bay Boulevard tells Rock,
“Tupac stinks, his music stinks, and I am not interested in having
this boulevard’s name changed to a piece of dirt like him.” As the
segment continues the man also claims that Tupac should have
“died before he was born” and says that Chris Rock must have
“some pair of balls to come around a neighborhood” like Howard
Beach with such a petition. He agrees that Frank Sinatra Boulevard
would be acceptable.
Rock and his cameraman drive around the neighborhood in
a van with signs that read Keep Your Head Up: Support Tupac
Shakur Boulevard. The quotation “Strictly for My Niggaz” appears
on the back window. A white fireman tries to make them pull over
and pushes the camera away. Rock refuses to pull over. One white
woman runs away from him, and another man tells him he should
go back to Jersey. Another, more pleasant woman suggests that a
change to Olivia Newton Boulevard would be better. Rock does
get several white residents to sign the petition, but the images of
the resentful whites of Howard Beach at the turn of the last century
cannot be ignored.
Not every member of this show’s audience appreciated Rock’s
sketches and stand-up. The show was taped before a live audience,
and television viewers can hear the comments of the audience
members, many of them black women, who disagree with Rock’s
position. For example, in one fake advertisement for a product
called Niggatrol, Rock claims that black men’s lives are very stressful.
He is seen standing in the street while various white people
shout “Nigger!” at him. Niggatrol works on the headaches caused
by being a black man. Niggatrol Plus was recommended for black