Not even in the name of political correctness will I cancel Dave Chappelle.
This past weekend I perched myself on my couch with a bag of popcorn to watch Chappelle’s Netflix special, The Closer. It comes after the extraordinarily brilliant Sticks & Stones, released on Netflix in 2019.
The special earned him his third consecutive Grammy award for best comedy album as well as his third and fourth Emmy awards. It was preceded by The Age of Spin, Deep in the Heart of Texas and Equanimity & The Bird Revelation, which won a Grammy award and an Emmy award respectively. All the awards are deserved.
As with his other specials, there are loud calls for Netflix to take down The Closer. Some celebrities, such as Dear White People co-show runner Jaclyn Moore have gone as far as to boycott Netflix over what they call transphobic jokes.
It is not the first time that Chappelle has invited the ire of the LGBTIQ+ community, particularly transgender people, with his jokes. And I understand this response. Chappelle does not hold back on his jokes about transgender people – just as he does not hold back on his jokes about women, the poor and absolutely anyone that could be deemed vulnerable and persecuted. And this is precisely where my discomfort with the “Cancel Chappelle” brigade comes in.
There is an unspoken rule in society that some communities should be “protected” in ways that are not afforded to others. This an argument that Chappelle makes in The Closer. Stand-up comedy has always been characterised by crude jokes targeted at black people, persons with disabilities and specifically, at black women.
Many stand-up comedians have built their empires on this. From our very own Trevor Noah to the likes of Chris Rock, black people have been the butt of many a comedian’s jokes and this has never provoked the kind of response that jokes about the LGBTIQ+ community does.
Why are rape jokes, jokes about black women, jokes about disenfranchised black men, jokes about the marginalised and the poor, acceptable, in the same world where jokes about the LGBTIQ community are not?
The argument that the LGBTIQ+ community is persecuted and that jokes about them perpetuate this persecution is not convincing when one considers that all other communities who are the butt of jokes endure similar persecution.
Without entering into the regressive realm of oppression Olympics, would people with disabilities not be at the very top of the list of the persecuted in society? Would black women, disproportionately affected by the segmented labour market, poverty, disease and rape, not be victims of the worst kind of cruelty?
The reality is that Chappelle is deconstructing intersectionality in ways that make many people uncomfortable. He is asking questions about power relations in terms of both gender and race that we do not want to engage. And so, we do what has become commonplace: we insist on him being cancelled.
That stand-up comedy is an art that is grounded in precisely the reflections that Chappelle is making escapes us, because we insist on political correctness that denies us reflection and engagement.
But in this world where people refuse to navigate nuance, where honest conversations are shunned, where we don’t permit people to grow, where no kind of atonement is ever sufficient, where we disengage when we are uncomfortable, and where being offended on its own affords us moral high ground, Chappelle is a giant.
And for as long as he lives, the true essence of stand-up comedy: its nuances, discomfort, depth and artistry, will not die. The artist must make art that discomforts and enrages. The artist must be like Chappelle – the greatest of all time.
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