Chappelle IS The GOAT - AND - The GOAT Is Unapologetically Black! Accept No Substitutes...,

slate |  Dave Chappelle is getting plenty of heat for his latest Netflix special, The Closer. Chappelle’s 72-minute bit is squarely aimed at setting the record straight after being widely criticized for his previous specials in which he belittles trans people, gay people, and survivors of sexual violence. He says this is his intention right at the start. We should take him at his word. His routine—controversial as it is—accomplished exactly what he set out to do.

What that accomplishment reveals is not that he isn’t funny (he is). It’s not just that he is punching down (he is) or that his jokes haven’t aged well (they haven’t). His latest special confirms once and for all Chappelle was never the progressive darling many thought him to be. In 2019, when Chappelle won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Jon Stewart called him the “Black Bourdain,” a nod to the widely loved chef and documentarian whose work explored the intricacies of the human condition.

That characterization is somewhat understandable. The beauty, and ultimate demise, of Chappelle’s Show was that he deftly and publicly explored the trials and tribulations of Black life. At the time, his comedy was provocative, novel, even revelatory. It makes sense we expected the same nuance with respect to other oppressed groups. But ultimately we were just projecting onto him something that wasn’t actually reflected in his work. We expected an intersectional analysis where none existed.

The line that runs through all of Chappelle’s comedy is that anti-Blackness is the Final Boss of all oppressions. Everyone else’s pain and suffering isn’t as bad by comparison, and therefore doesn’t deserve the level of outrage and attention it currently gets in progressive circles. Consider one of his opening jokes in The Closer. “I’d like to start by addressing the LGBTQ community directly,” he says with a smirk. “I want every member in that community to know that I come in peace, and I hope to negotiate the release of DaBaby.” Chappelle acknowledges that DaBaby made “a very egregious mistake” when he made disparaging comments about people living with HIV/AIDS while onstage at a concert in Miami in July. But then the joke takes a turn.