kryptonianCodeMonkey, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

Not gonna pretend that I’ve watched all his specials. I believe I watched the first two after his return, and that’s about it. I just read about the rest, which I acknowledge comes with a layer of bias by being filtered through someone else’s lense. However, A) the flaw in the “I can’t be transphobic because I have a trans friend” argument should be apparent, especially coming from a black man in America who would have heard the “i have a black friend” argument for decades. It certainly doesn’t give you carte blanche to to say whatever you want about trans people without criticism and consequences. People are perfectly capable of befriending people that they have deep seated issues with. And cognitive dissonance is a thing. He can correctly pronoun his transwoman friend and still disparage transwomen as not being women at the same time, because that’s what he did. B) Again, while I haven’t watched that special, the fact that that is a part of his comedy show, just highlights the fact that he uses his platform to express heavy handed messages on what he sees as imperative for us to hear. That story is clearly not a joke. It’s definitely not funny. It’s a lecture, a scolding and finger pointing.

That being said, what happened to Daphne is a tragedy. Whether or not she took her life directly or indirectly due to the public backlash she got for publically supporting Chappelle, it’s still terrible that it came to that point. There’s nothing wrong with voicing your anger at speech you find bigoted, or in support of bigotry. But there is a line that gets crossed oftimes into harassment and bullying. No part of the political spectrum is innocent of that, and it’s not okay regardless of political affiliation.