Comedian and actor Chris Rock told New York magazine he stopped playing colleges because they've gotten "way too conservative."
Writer Frank Rich asked Rock about some of his recent, controversial jokes about the Boston Marathon, 9/11 and the World Trade Center, and whether the backlash could hurt his career. Diving deeper, Rich asked Rock about his thoughts on students' attempt to block Bill Maher from speaking on campus due to his comments on HBO about Muslims. That's when Rock said college campuses in America were too conservative, though, not necessarily in a political way:
Not in their political views -- not like they’re voting Republican -- but in their social views and their willingness not to offend anybody. Kids raised on a culture of “We’re not going to keep score in the game because we don’t want anybody to lose.” Or just ignoring race to a fault. You can’t say “the black kid over there.” No, it’s “the guy with the red shoes.” You can’t even be offensive on your way to being inoffensive.
Rich asked when Rock started to notice that.
"Probably a couple of tours ago," Rock responded. "It was just like, This is not as much fun as it used to be. I remember talking to George Carlin before he died and him saying the exact same thing."
College students at various campuses protested to remove several commencement speakers in the spring of 2014. Civil liberty advocates, progressives, and staffers at HuffPost criticized students for being misguided in their activism against the would-be guest speakers.
h/t Rosie Gray