“So to say Obama is progress is saying that he’s the first black person that is qualified to be president. That’s not black progress. That’s white progress. There’s been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship’s improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, 'Oh, he stopped punching her in the face.' It’s not up to her. Ike and Tina Turner’s relationship has nothing to do with Tina Turner. Nothing. It just doesn’t. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.”

-- Chris Rock in his Q&A with Frank Rich in New York Magazine. Read the whole thing. It's the best Q&A I've read in years. Almost everything he says, on any subject, is poignant and spot-on. He's better here than he's been in his recent stand-up. I could pluck 20 QOTDs from this one Q&A—on Woody Allen, Bill Cosby, why “Lost in Translation” is a rich black guy's movie—but the above just seemed too perfect to pass up.