(satire) Humor is reckless and kills people. We need to do better.
Dealing with Dave Chappelle has got to be such a moral dilemma for the political left. They are the ones who built and maintain the victim hierarchy. The hierarchy demands drawing spectrum moral conclusions and situational ethics based on identity and group politics. Based on the logic of the hierarchy and identity politics, Dave Chappelle is an oppressed black man who can’t get ahead in America, victim to a systemically racist system, part of a monolithic minority that has to vote Democrat, suffers Stockholm Syndrome if he says or thinks anything remotely in support of a Republican, and is in danger of being sniped by a policeman in the throes of racist savagery soon as he steps off his front stoop. The fame, influence, tens of millions of dollars, and privileged life he’s earned with his hard work are immaterial when standing next to his victimhood.
Or at least they should be. For you see, he punched several rungs up on the hierarchy and offended those he brilliantly called “the alphabet people”. Meltdowns and canceling ensued. Like a gambling addict far into debt to the wrong people but has got a tip on a sure thing, he doubled down and used his latest special to label himself “Team T.E.R.F.”. That stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” because what we do now when the smallest of disagreements arises is fracture away from those we should be at peace and working with, label them in a pejorative manner, bring up said pejorative even when they are engaged in a debate that has nothing to do with the original issue, tell them and their associates to do better, and do nothing ourselves because telling others to do the work takes up too much time to put in any work on our own behalf. I’d love to throw Chappelle and J.K. Rowling a beach party with toy gun battles I’ve cleverly designated as “Team T.E.R.F. Surf and Nerf”.
The righteous anger on display in reaction to Chappelle’s work spewed so heavily one wonders if professional activists will ever again feel safe enough to do another honest day’s work. I’d wager no, and they’ll use COVID and Marxist vilification of exploitative capitalist employers to set themselves up with a nice salary and comfortable living sitch. Dave also has on one occasion (THAT WE KNOW OF!!!) said something not completely hateful about Donald Trump. I imagine his black card will be revoked and he’ll be disqualified from the victim Olympics by whimpering white people who can’t abide you not knowing and playing make believe with them and their pronouns like so many codependent narcissists.
Fast forward a few busy, noisy weeks, and Dave was invited to speak at Duke Ellington School of the Arts; his alma mater, as the school was fixing to name the auditorium after him. Speaking to a group of students who probably think Duke Ellington was a racist European mayonnaise monster who stole indigenous artifacts and traded African slaves for bland, flavorless food recipes, he was told his jokes kill people. They also whined about being powerless because Dave makes his audiences lock up their phones. Why some people find power in shoving a phone in the face, recording someone who suffers from Unacceptableopinionitis, and canceling them is so far beyond me I can’t even find a joke to make about it in the space between.
More importantly, this gave me fodder for content. I’m on the south side of sixty years of age and everything is about me. I’d love to not make fun of children because they have the excuse to be stupid just by dint of being stupid children. But I don’t want to get blue humor balls and not making fun of those who make it so doggone easy is like holding in a fart around a beautiful woman.
Now, far be it from me to seriously attribute group identity and play the broad brushing game, but close be it from me for my satirical side to do it, so here we go. I’ll warrant the same people who think jokes kill people are the same who claim the unvaccinated are actively trying to kill others because that makes it funnier in my mind. His jokes kill people? As if a transphobic idiot who wants to bully and drive a transgender person to suicide is going to use Dave’s jokes as moral rationalization, or as if those jokes are going to egg him on over the hump. As if humor comes from a point of hatred and othering instead of good will and normalizing.
Jokes and the unvaccinated are killing people? That’s such a logical leap I wondered if it was February 29th. I’ll bet the logical faculties of leftists are infused with Superman and flea DNA. Leftists’ favorite game must be crouching and jumping over each others’ backs in a frog-like manner. Do they particularly fancy the part in “Twelve Days of Christmas” with Lords a Leaping? Did they watch Carl Lewis win gold circa 1996 in the long jump and say “I can do that but in rhetorical form”? I’m sorry. I’ll be done with the puns now.
What is it with these incessant busybodies? Does it stick in their craw that they’re the first generation to get laid less than their parents? Are they waiting for those sex robots from THX 1138 to be invented so they don’t have to perform ponderous tasks like starting a conversation, buying gifts, and maintaining meaningful, loving relationships because that entails work and work isn’t their vibe? Do they like taking the mantle of “society’s most annoying and obnoxious squares” from ultra-conservative Christians and 50’s era shopkeepers? Is “Nice things are nice” going to be the strongest and most controversial stance anyone can take when these cancel clowns are in charge? Why does everyone else have to be unhappy just because they are? Does their codependence know no bounds? Is humor inevitably going to be out of bounds like that ridiculous 2002 Christian Bale gun-fu and Samurai sword vehicle Equilibrium?
Emotions, weak jawlines, and appropriate lighting are all going to be illegal in the future.
In all seriousness, jokes do hurt people. Pardon as I get super personal. I was never killed by a joke but I was touched in an inappropriate way. The joke approached me after school and told me my mom asked it to pick me up. My mom and I never came up with a secret passcode for this situation so I’ll be Tweeting about and canceling her here in a minute. I got in the car. The joke locked the doors “for safety” as it said and took me to a neighborhood I didn’t recognize and a house that didn’t look like anyone had lived there for a long time. I was told a nice, shiny bicycle and GI Joe toys were inside waiting for me. Then…what happened next I’ve mostly blocked out but there are snatches. Nowadays, I make my traumas everyone else’s problem and have perfected the technique of bringing down the room and thank others to not talk about it except when I am the one to bring it up and even then I get mad when they talk about it or try to relate or ask too many questions or don’t ask enough questions or talk when I’m talking or react in any way at all. That’s what leftists do, and I’m the left-est of the leftists. Good luck trying to deal with me. I’m insufferable on a professional level. I’m a sleeper agent. I made fun of leftists above and am tracking the likes to this post and will summarily commence with handing out real problems for anyone and everyone like I’m Oprah giving out free cars.. That’s what heroes do.
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Images taken from:
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/dave-chappelle-the-closer-students-duke-ellington-dc
https://www.amazon.de/Equilibrium-Christian-Bale/dp/B01LTAFSMO
