Veteran stand-up comedian and actor Dave Chappelle is calling out the segment of society that would take a comic’s jokes made years ago and use them as a bludgeon, as means to smear comedians on social media and have them banned, blacklisted, and boycotted.
Footage from his latest Netflix stand-up special Sticks & Stones features Chappelle announcing to the audience at The Tabernacle in Atlanta that he’s ready to “try some impressions out.”
“This is my impression of the Founding Fathers of America when the Constitution was being written”:
“Hurry up and finish that Constitution nigger, I’m trying to get some sleep,” Chappelle says, to uproarious laughter from the crowd.
“The next one’s a little harder,” Chappelle says, asking the audience to try “to guess who it is.”
“Uh, Duh… Hey, der, if you do anything wrong in your life, and I find out about it, I’m going to try take everything away from. I don’t care what I find out. It could be today, tomorrow, fifteen, twenty years from now — If I find out, you’re fucking….duh…finished.”
“Who is that?” he asked. “That’s you! That’s what the audience sounds like to me!”
***GRAPHIC LANGUAGE***
Chappelle is the greatest living American comic
pic.twitter.com/g0z8BVfbDI— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) August 26, 2019
“That’s why I don’t be coming out doing comedy all the time because y’all niggas is the worst motherfuckers I’ve ever tried to entertain in my fucking life. Goddamn sick of it. This is the worst time ever to be a celebrity. You’re going to be finished, everybody’s doomed!” Chappelle said.
That riff set up a cascade of piercing puns in which Chappelle explained what he called “celebrity hunting season.” He defended Kevin Hart — who stepped down from hosting the Oscars earlier this year after the cancel culture came for him, promoted years-old jokes some saw as homophobic — defending the deceased King of Pop (“Michael Jackson has been dead for ten years and this nigga has two new cases), embattled R&B icon R. Kelly, who’s facing more than a dozen sex crimes charges, and disgraced actor-comedian Louis C.K., whom Chappelle says was “a very good friend before he died in that terrible masturbation accident.”
Chappelle also takes aim at actor Jussie Smollett (whose name the comic says with an aggressive French pronunciation).
“African Americans, we were like oddly quiet. . . . The gay community started accusing the African American community of being homophobic for not supporting him,” Chappelle says of the actor who concocted a hoax hate crime in which he claimed to be brutally beaten by two MAGA hat-wearing fans of his FOX TV show at 2 a.m. on one of the coldest days on the year in Chicago.
“What they didn’t understand is that we were supporting him with our silence. Because we understood that this niggas was clearly lying,” he joked.
Elsewhere, Chappelle said he’s having a “MeToo headache.”
From there Chappelle walked right into abortion: “Eight states including your state [Georgia] have passed the most stringent anti-abortion laws this nation has seen since Roe V Wade. I told you. I told you.”
Of course, there was a punchline before soft political preaching to be had: “I’m not for abortion,” Chappelle said. “I’m not for it but I’m not against it either. It all depends on who I get pregnant.”
“I don’t care what your religious beliefs are — if you have a dick, you need to shut the fuck up on this one,” Chappelle said. “This is theirs. The right to chose is their unequivocal right. Not only do I believe they that have a right to chose, I believe they shouldn’t have to consult anybody, except for a physician about how to exercise that right.”
“And ladies,” Chappelle added, “to be fair to us, I also believe that if you decide to have the baby a man shouldn’t have to pay. That’s fair. If you can kill this motherfucker, I can at least abandon him. My money. My choice.”
Dave Chappelle also mourned the twelve people killed when a gunman opened fire in a Virginia Beach municipal center in May. He told the crowd that he’s had to warn his son about how to survive a school shooting drill: “Son, fuck that drill. Somebody comes to your school and wants to shoot it up. I’m just going to be honest with you. You probably going to get shot, nigga. You got a famous dad. I talk a lot of shit. They gonna be gunning for you little buddy. Just stay low. Run in a zigzag pattern. And don’t try to save anybody son, do you understand me?” Chappelle said to thunderous laughter.
Sticks & Stones is Chappelle’s latest Netflix stand-up special, purportedly part of the $60 million deal he signed with the streaming giant in 2017.
Jerome Hudson is Breitbart News Entertainment Editor and author of the forthcoming book 50 Things They Don’t Want You to Know, from HarperCollins. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.