Dave chappelle how does it feel

America might love a second-act; I love Black people who get free. America has only gotten better at trying to kill me. Laughter is no joke, which makes the betrayal, years in the making at this point, all the more devastating. I feel like a fool to have rooted for Dave Chappelle for so long. Things were easier when the men who wanted to hurt me just said so at the jump. Last weekend, I was bar-hopping in my neighborhood with friends. There was a whole gang of us. White, Black, Persian, gay, straight, trans, moisturized, un-moisturized, stoned, drunk and sober.

CNN has reached out to a representative for Chappelle and is waiting to hear back. Chappelle has been lauded throughout his career for forcing difficult topics on unsuspecting audiences and highlighting the absurdity and omnipotence of anti-Black racism. But his jokes about trans people only reflect his own intolerance, said Mx. Dahlia Belle, a Portland-based standup. Chappelle's trans jokes weren't funny, comics say. It's not that jokes about trans people can't be funny -- it's just that Chappelle's weren't, McBride said.

At several points, he referred to trans people as "transgenders," a term GLAAD advises should not be used in its noun form -- only as an adjective.

He said he was "on team TERF ," which describes people who identify as feminists, but argue that trans identities are not valid. The conditions? The joke can't be about their genitals -- Chappelle broke that rule with a particularly crude joke that invoked plant-based meat alternatives -- and it can't come from a place of disrespect, she said. A recent standup set from Belle centered on being trans and having sex with people who are trans. About one minute into her five-minute set, she turned a heartwarming story about her religious mother's acceptance of her bisexuality -- in the form of some very blunt sex advice -- into a punchline about gay sex and AIDS.

Dahlia Belle said Chappelle's most recent special, filled with jokes about trans people, "feels like a betrayal. In an opinion piece for the Guardian , Belle acknowledged Chappelle's influence on her early career and how he molded her "understanding of comedy.

While she'll gladly poke fun at herself and anyone with "greater privilege," Belle draws the line at making anyone with less privilege than her -- as a Black trans woman -- the butt of a joke, she said.

That's what makes it a joke. Nat Puff, a Seattle comedian and musician with a large TikTok following and viral videos that predate that platform, said what disappointed her most about Chappelle's statements was the apparent hypocrisy. She quoted an empathetic statement Chappelle once made about how calling people "crazy" is dismissive, that those people are "strong" and it's their environment that's "a little sick.

Dave Chappelle insulted another audience no one mentions. He doesn't seem like a hateful person, unlike J. Puff said Chappelle's influence on comedy and his advocacy for Black Americans "cannot be understated. He can create elaborate settings, like spinning a vivid description of going on a winter walk with his sister in full Muslim garb, and he can slow down his cadence and trick the audience into buying into a moment of sincerity.

I love it. The best example is during the LGBT chunk: Chappelle talks about a documentary showing a transgender person playing all these disgusting, hateful messages that he received on his answering machine.

He goes on and on about how hard they are to listen to. It made me feel sad. Because, first of all, he still had an answering machine. Success, however, by creating a bigger and different audience than they ever expected, left them unable to control what people were laughing at.

As he explained on Oprah , it was the fundamental difference between an audience laughing with him and an audience laughing at him. This is a big difference for a comedian who famously will laugh at his own jokes. So, like a war of attrition, intentionally or not, Chappelle weeded the bad element out. Already a subscriber? Log in or link your magazine subscription. Account Profile. Sign Out. Tags: dave chappelle dave chappelle live from radio city music hall comedy stand-up tv review chappelle's show More.