During my morning grind, I watched Dave Chappelle: The Closer with an open mind and a lot of things to say on this blog especially about his opinions on the LGBTQ community.
Before watching, I told myself I'd keep an open mind because Dave Chappelle is not only one of my favorite "woke" comedians, he's also someone I admire from his decision concerning his Comedy Central TV show alone. As a proud supporter of the LGBTQ community, I wouldn't believe that Dave Chappelle would say anything offensive outside of comedy. The show is called The Closer because he declared he wasn't going to do any more specials for a while after this.
Most of his special, he clarified his feelings on life, race, and gender. He started with the controversy surrounding Hip Hop Artist DaBaby who made some homophobic comments at a concert.
"If you didn't show up today with HIV, AIDS, or any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that'll make you die in two to three weeks, then put your cellphone lighter up," he told attendees at a concert July 25th. "Ladies, if your p---- smell like water, put your cellphone lighter up. Fellas, if you ain’t sucking d--- in the parking lot, put your cellphone lighter up."
Dave commented how the rapper shouldn't have said what he said and went on to condemn what DaBaby said but only condemning the way he said it. He criticized the level of reaction to DaBaby's homophobic comments compared to the reaction to DaBaby's stance on racism and the outrage on that. Dave is actually speaking to racist establishment who tells us when we need to be offended and when we don't need to be. No one is saying we can't be angry at bad remarks but to cancel someone every time they say something off-color. He makes the point also to where it's easier to get away with offending people of color than it is in the LGBTQ community.
"Twitter is not a real place," Chappelle said about his feelings on attempts of being canceled on Twitter.
He goes on to ask, "Why is it easier for Bruce Jenner to change his gender than it was for Cassius Clay to change his name?"
He made serious questions about racism in between the jokes. Are the jokes offensive in my opinion and are the jokes offensive enough to cancel? No. These jokes while about the LGBTQ community are no more offensive than jokes about black folks being always late or white people's inability to dance. This in no way can compare the Michael Richards' N-word rant in Hollywood's Laugh Factory in 2006 and there were zero calls to cancel him.
I'm not going to spoil the whole concert but I will give it four stars out of five and that's because I've seen Dave Chappelle funnier. Don't get me wrong, he was laugh out loud funnier but I understand, this one was to make a point.
Now on to my main point.... Cancel Culture & a lot of your hypocrisy concerning it. A lot of you are hypocrites because as soon as someone takes a stance you don't agree with you want to cancel them. What's funny is I've seen some of the same people call for the cancellation of someone praise the same people they wanted canceled. For example, a few weeks ago, many of you wanted to cancel Lil Nas X who are now praising him.
"Old Town Road", you loved him. Then a few weeks ago when he was giving lap dances to Satan in a video, you wanted to cancel him. Now that he announced he was done with homosexuality, now you respect him again. All this time, you know he's an entertainer who's into "shocking" his fans. However you feel about Lil' Nas X, he accomplished his mission of you all talking about him.
Now before one say starts celebrating, let me break the news that both sides participate in it. No one group is better than the other. As soon as someone says or does something the other disagrees with, we want them canceled. We live in a society where everyone is entitled to their own opinion no matter how asinine we think that opinion is. We've all gotten so sensitive to where folks can't say anything any more. Now before we blame social media, let's go onto say we're to blame.
We watch social media like it's the Holy Grail and believe anything they tell us and think in anyway it wants us to think. I'm not saying everyone but quite a few do. As long as you agree with the headline (because many don't read the articles), you're good but as soon as the same source print something you don't like, it's time to cancel.
Back to Dave Chappelle, agree or disagree but he was not being offensive. He wasn't even comparing plights between groups. All he said was society need to be aware that if you're going to be offended by one, you should be offended by all. We as black folks should not have to be told to quit whining and get over ourselves while other folks are losing their jobs over slurs about other groups. We're getting killed on a daily basis but no one even gets offended by that. Instead of a cancel culture, let's start a culture which cares about all victims of hate.