Reflections by Elaine Carlson

Suddenly I know I have to watch Dave Chappelle. I have heard so much about him it is difficult for me to hold back. I realize he has been around for some time but I just became aware of him because of the recent controversy – from being accused of being disrespectful to trans.

So I watched his "Closer" and "Sticks and Stones."

He is good. You can talk about him without having to put Air Quotes around Comedy Routine. In addition to being funny he is --- outrageous, raunchy, vulgar and obscene, and he is relevant, irrelevant, a bad ass and --- . Do I have to put in provocative?

The day after I saw those two shows the news came out that Mort Sahl died. In his sweater and while holding a newspaper he could have given a knockout performance with Chappelle's material. And the reverse is certainly true. Just imagine what could be --- "Now in theaters – Dave Chappelle as Mort Sahl in the movie about that legendary comic."

There is no doubt Chappelle is doing his own thing but at the same time he is following and building on the lead of Mort Sahl. We can mourn the death of a great comedian but not of biting social commentary.

In "Closer" Chappelle said, "There is a problem in that feminist movement, isn't there? From its inception in America there has always been a racial component.

"When Susan B. Anthony was having that meeting and Sojourner Truth's Black ass showed up. Read your history books. All the White women asked Sojourner Truth not to speak. They didn't conflate the issues of women's rights and slavery. But you know how Black bitches are, so Sojourner Truth went up there anyway.

"She did a famous speech, she said 'Ain't I a woman?' 'Ain't I a woman?' That's right."

Chappellee wasn't restrained when he was talking about what he sees as the competition between Blacks and Gays.

He says, "You think I hate gay people and what you're really seeing is that I'm jealous of gay people. I'm jealous, I'm not the only Black person, that feels this way. We Blacks, look at the gay community and we go "God damn it! Look how well that movement is going."

"And we've been trapped in this predicament for hundreds of years. How the fuck are you making that kind of progress? I can't help but feel like if slaves had baby oil and booty shorts …. we might have been free a hundred years sooner. You know what I mean?

I am a little disturbed by the way Chappelle frames the conflict. I am sure he knows there are Black Gays. But why doesn't he acknowledge that fact in his act? When he said, "We Blacks, look at the gay community..." he could have said, "When we Blacks look at the White Gay community."

While I was watching I thought Chappelle was talking about an ugly passage in Black History.

He says, "This is a wild story. I learned this past Juneteenth of a story, this is true. And it's that there was a Black man who was in South Carolina during slavery who somehow got granted his freedom by his so-called master. And when his master granted him the freedom he also gave him a plot of land.

"Now it turns out, this brother was brilliant. He had a good eye, good knack for farming. And he farmed this plot of land very successfully and made a lot of money, and this is where the story gets crazy. When he got all that money… this n*gga brought some slaves.

"Have you ever heard this before? This is a true story. Not only was he a slave owner, he became a slave breeder. And employed tactics that were so cruel even White slave owners were like, 'Yo, my man.'

"He was a wild dude, but he did it just because that's what successful people did at the time. He just wanted to be down, what a fuckin' tragedy. How can a person that went through slavery perpetuate the same evil on a person that looks just like him. It's mind blowing. And shockingly, they're making a movie about him. Ironically… it is called Space Jews."

I thought the suggested title Space Jews was offensive but I was surprised when several Jewish critics suggested the anecdote itself was anti-Semitic.

Gabe Friedman, "Dave Chappelle jokes about world-conquering 'Space Jews' in new Netflix Special," Jewish Telegraphic Agency October 6m, 2021. In a recap of Chappelle's introductory statements Friedman says, "Then he turns to Jews, saying UFO videos [he watched during a recent sickness] gave him an idea for a movie."

Chappelle said, "In my movie idea we find out that these aliens are originally from Earth. That they are from an ancient civilization that achieved interstellar travel and left the Earth thousands of years ago.

"Some other planet that they go to and things go terrible for them in the other planet so they come back to Earth and decide that they want to claim the Earth for their very own. It is a pretty good plotline,

[cheers from audience] "Yeah! I call it Space Jews. Space Jews.

[more cheering from audience] All right. It's going to get worse than that, hang in there."

And then Chappelle relates the tale of the freed Black slave who after becoming successful buys slaves.

"Closer" and all the other shows of Chappelle are called comedy. But so much of what is said is so damn serious.