Dave Chappelle Fires Back at Trans Extremists, Saying He's Willing to Talk With Them, "But I Will Not Be Summoned" to Bend the Knee

He filmed a post-special comedy show in which he answers his attempted cancellers, and then posted the response on Instagram.

John Sexton at Hot Air digests the clip.

Unfunny Australian feminist lecturer -- repeatedly misidentified as a "comedian" -- Hannah Gadsby had earlier attacked Chappelle for being, supposedly, anti-trans. And she attacked Netflix for giving him a platform, despite Netflix having previously treated her as a charity case and given this minor-leaguer her own special.

Bearing points out that Gadsby is not a comedian -- she is, most charitably, a monologuist who tells stories about her life (almost always involving victimization by men) which occasionally have some kind of bitter joke at the end.

I mention that because Chappelle references her in this quote.

"To the transgender community, I am more than willing to give you an audience, but you will not summon me. I am not bending to anybody's demands. And if you want to meet with me, I'd be more than willing to, but I have some conditions. First of all, you cannot come if you have not watched my special from beginning to end. You must come to a place of my choosing at a time of my choosing, and thirdly, you must admit that Hannah Gadsby is not funny."

Sexton reports on his further comments:

"It's been said in the press that I was invited to speak to the transgender employees of Netflix and I refused," Chappelle said. He continued, "That is not true. If they had invited me I would have accepted it, although I am confused about what we are speaking about.

You'll be speaking about repentance, and speaking the lines -- "Trans women are women! The only women, in fact!" -- they've written for you.

"I said what I said, and boy, I heard what you said. My God, how could I not? You said you want a safe working environment at Netflix. Well, it seems like I'm the only one that can’t go to the office anymore."

Chappelle says he has in fact been " cancelled." This is important to establish, because trans extremists know their cancel culture is toxically unpopular, and therefore claim they're not trying to get anyone cancelled even as they press the case for cancellation.

This film that I made was invited to every film festival in the United States and some of those invitations I accepted. When this controversy came out about 'The Closer,' they began disinviting me from these film festivals,” Chappelle claimed. "And now, today, not a film company, not a movie studio, not a film festival, nobody will touch this film. Thank God for Ted Sarandos and Netflix, he's the only one that didn’t cancel me yet."

...

SJW Cultural Marxist extremists are fond of saying there is no "cancel culture." They call it, instead, "consequence culture."

And the consequences they seek to inflict on others are... cancellations.

But don't call it cancel culture!

"You cannot have this conversation and exclude my voice from it. That is only fair. You have to answer the question: Am I canceled or not?!" he said. At that point the crowd cheered back loudly "NO!"

Well the correct answer is, actually, "Yes." The "NO!" is a shout of defiance. But it's not true.

Ryan Long had a good point about this: As Dave Chappelle said explicitly, this argument isn't about Chappelle being anti-trans. It's about him being pro-black.

Long notes that Chappelle isn't actually against identity politics at all. He's in favor of it. He just doesn't like the fact that White Dudes in Party City Wigs have displaced black people as The Most Oppressed People in America.

He says something like, "Chappelle thought we were still talking about George Floyd but trans people said, no, let's turn the page, we're talking about Our Grievances now"

So this is all an argument about who is at the top of the hierarchy -- black people, or White Boys In Skirts?

Note that while Chappelle definitely is an identity politics partisan pushing black grievance (and asserting the superiority of black grievance over trans grievance), he is not himself a cancel-culture warrior. Identity politics and cancel culture are most often found together, but not always.

posted by Ace at 02:16 PM

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