Host Louis C.K. discusses what it was like growing up in the 1970s, when it was okay to be racist and everyone knew about the town child molester.
Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen — Louis C.K.! …
[into the microphone] Thank you very much, you guys! … [the audience cheers]
Hi. A little early for that. Well, thank you very much for being here. This is the 40th year of this show’s existence and this is the finale so I’m very honored honestly to be asked to host it. So thanks and I’m glad you guys are here. Yeah, that’s fine.
Anyway, I was born in 1967, so I grew up in the ’70s. So I’m not racist — however, I do have mild racism. It’s the best I could do coming out of the seventies because that was a very racist decade. People said racist things all the time and nobody got offended. The only time someone got offended if you said something racist in the 70s is when they would then say ‘Hey you interrupted me, I was saying something racist, why did you interrupt me?’ So I have mild racism. It’s benign, it’s not aggressive. It’s not even negative racism, it’s mild racism.
I’ll give you the example. If I go to a pizza place I’ve never been to before, and it’s run by four black women. I’ll go like. “Hm…” See, it’s very mild! It’s extremely mild racism. I’d noticed that. “Hm, you don’t usually see that, four black women running a pizza place…” Unless it’s called “Four Black Girls Pizza,” or something like that. — Like that’s the all point of the place.
Here’s another example of mild racism. If I’m in a hospital and the doctor comes in to treat me and the doctor is from China or India, I’ll think “well, good, good… good, more of that! Why not?” It’s very mild racism.
This is another example. If I’m in a gas station late at night and a young man comes in wearing a hooded sweatshirt… if he’s white I’ll think “oh he’s an athlete.” If he’s black, unless he has a big smile on his face, that I’ll become mildly racist and this is what I think, I think “That’s fine. Everything is fine! Nothing is gonna happened. No, of course, I’m fine. Why would I even think that for a second!”
This because I was raised in the seventies. The seventies were very different time. Everything was different in the 70’s than it is now, except the Middle East. It’s exactly the same as it was in the seventies. It’s been the same fights and you know what, it’s boring now, that’s the worst part of it. When I was a kid we’re like “Uhh…” but you can’t go like this for a 1000 years. After awhile when you fight people don’t care, ’cause when you both just keep fighting everybody is just like ‘Those guys are dicks, they just fight.’ That’s what it’s like…
I have 2 kids and they fight sometimes. When they first start fighting I get concerned. I go in the room and I’m like “Hey what’s going on? What’s wrong? Are we having some feelings? Can we listen to each other please? Can we please just listen to each other? Okay, you go first.” And she goes– she’s like– [bickering sound] “Hmm…yeah, that sounds hard.” [bickering sound continues] “Okay, okay, thank you thank you. Okay, now you… [bickering harsher sound] ‘Cause I like this one a little more so that’s why I’m making… [bickering harsher sound continues] Hmm…
And they work it out. You help them working it out. But if they keep fighting, you stop doing that. After a while you just go in the room and you just go “HEY! JUST SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU! YOU’RE BOTH WRONG! ‘Cause you won’t stop fighting! You’re in a family, there’s other people in this family and you’re being a couple selfish little bitches that won’t fix anything! You’ll share a room, we can’t afford another room, so just deal with it!”
Somehow this has to do with Israel and Palestine… I don’t remember now.
It is because my kids are like Israel and Palestine, and I’m like America. The little one is like Palestine because she always gets screwed, she gets the worse deals. She’s like “she threw a rock at my face!” I’m like “You’re fine. You have a great life, you take a rock to face once in a while, you’re fine.
The older one is like Israel. She comes up to me, ‘She burned all my dolls.’ I’m like, ‘Look, I can’t do anything about it right now. Your sister is crazy. Please don’t make me talk to her. I’ll work it out you and me, okay? We’ll go out and I’ll buy you a really cool missile… and you do whatever you want with it, is totally up to you.’
The seventies were very different. In the seventies there was a child molester that lived in my hometown. It wasn’t a big deal. We called him a child molester, it was just like “yeah, that’s the house where the child molester lives. Hey kids, don’t be stupid, you’ll get molested. Just stay away from the child molester’s house. I know because he did something to me when I was your age. So just stay away from the child molester’s house.”
We had a town child molester, his name was Jean Baptiste, this is a true story. He liked teenage boys, that’s when you would find out because I was a teenage boy. He didn’t like me and I felt a little bad. [in a French accent] “Not you…” He wasn’t into me. But he would drive next to teenage boys and would say “Hello, would you like to go to McDonald’s?” And you’d be, like “No.” And he’d be like “Why? You don’t like McDonald’s?”
And then you were trapped because of course everybody liked McDonald’s, it was the seventies. And then I had one friend who used to get in the car and he’d like “Sure, I’ll go,” and he’d get in the car. He’d go to McDonald’ss, eat a burger and say “See you” and he’d just take off. And Jean Baptiste was like “duoghhh.” But he would always try, “Maybe this time!!!”
Because child molesters are very tenacious people. They love molesting childs [sic], it’s crazy. It’s like their favorite thing. I mean it’s so crazy because when you consider the risk in being a child molester—speaking not of even the damage you’re doing, but the risk—there is no worse life available to a human than being a caught child molester and yet they still do it. Which from, you can only really surmise, that it must be really good. I mean from their point of view, not ours, but from their point of view, it must be amazing for them to risk so much!
How do you think I feel? This is my last show, probably.
Look, I can’t key into it. Because I love Mounds bars, I love Mounds bars, it’s my favorite thing right, but there’s a limit. I can’t even eat a Mounds bar and do something else at the same time, that’s how much I love them. Like if I’m eating a Mounds bar I cant read the paper. I have to just sit there with it in my mouth, and go “Why is this so good? I love this so much.” Because they are delicious, and yet if somebody said to me “if you eat another Mounds bar you will go to jail and everyone will hate you,” I would stop eating them. Because they do taste delicious, but they don’t taste as good as a young boy does—and shouldn’t!—to a child molester, not to me! Not to us, because we’re all awesome.
All right, we did it. We got through it.
