It's time for Dave Chappelle to move on from the trans jokes. Ep. 645 of The Breakdown with Shaun King
I say this as a lifelong fan of Dave.
You can listen to today’s full episode of The Breakdown here - or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify! We are now getting back to emailing each episode as well.
I am HUGE Dave Chappelle fan. I've met Dave. Been to his shows. I am friends with many of his friends. But it is absolutely time for him to move on from telling trans jokes.
Here's the thing - in America - we do indeed have freedom of speech. And because of that freedom, Dave can continue to tell trans jokes for this rest of his life if he wants to. And people can protest Dave for the rest of their lives if they want to.
But here's my rub... you can really only crack jokes about oppressed groups that you ARE NOT A PART OF a few times before people get irritated. Dave has hit that threshold.
This is true for all comedians. Jewish comedians can crack jokes about Jewish people for the rest of their lives, but limits exist for anybody else that wants to move into that space.
The same is true for white comedians telling jokes ABOUT Black people, at the expense of Black people. I don't wanna hear that shit AT ALL. Do it once or twice and you can get away with it, but anything more than that, and a line has been crossed. Does that make sense?
Generally speaking, I want all of us to have broad freedoms about what we are able to say, myself included. But sometimes we have to censor ourselves when our words are doing more harm than good.
Give me your honest thoughts right here in the comments below.
It's time for Dave Chappelle to move on from the trans jokes. Ep. 645 of The Breakdown with Shaun King
Beyond his special, what jokes has he ‘continued’ to tell? Genuinely curious. Becz I promoted the hell out of that special bcz of what he was being accused of and that which wasn’t true. I’m for one getting tired of the trans community (I am a queer Black woman and it’s a totally separate community) dictating everyone else’s speech and word choice to not hurt their feelings. It’s BS and reeks of white male privilege. The ‘movement’ is a red flag. Removing the word ‘woman’ from the reproductive conversation is one HUGE and very concerning example. Leah Thomas is another.
I disagree Shaun, the very fact that people are telling him he can’t tell transgender jokes is a form of oppression. Dave is not promoting hate by telling jokes, please understand he’s a comedian and that’s comes with the territory. As a black man I was a fan of Andrew Dice Clay and presently I’m a fan of Bill Blurr imagined if I was mad at their black jokes….that’s ridiculous. Dave have an right as an entertainer do to his art form as he see fit. If Dave wasn’t the greatest comedian of his generation would we really be having this conversation.🤔