We Can’t Keep Defending Dave Chappelle

Backlash came as inevitably as the sunrise after Dave Chappelle fired off against the transgender community in his latest special, The Closer. The 40-year-old comedian apparently can’t help himself when it comes to slinging mud at anyone who isn’t like him.

The ignorant remarks made in his special invoked outrage from advocates, viewers, and even people behind the scenes at Netflix. Chappelle seems unhealthily fixated on bringing down the queer and trans communities in tandem for laughs—and it’s not soliciting the laughs.

Not one.

Accoding to them, he appears to defend confirmed transphobe J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, by saying “I’m Team TERF… gender is a fact,” referring to the term “TERF,” meaning trans-exclusionary radical feminist. He goes on to say that “Every human being in this room, every human being on Earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on Earth. That is a fact.” before attempting to apparently backpedal with “Now, I am not saying that to say trans women aren’t women” before going into explicit detail with jokes about trans women’s genitalia.

GLAAD condemned Chappelle over twitter, calling his brand “synonymous with ridiculing trans people and other marginalized communities” and goes on to point out that the feedback to his distasteful special shows that people will not support “anti-LGBTQ diatribes.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, employees of Netflix planned to stage a walkout Wednesday, October 20 to make the company address the damage Chappelle’s special has done to the trans and queer communities.

And Chappelle, either failing or ignoring to see the harm he is doing to LGBTQ communities with his resources and platform, appears to love the attention he gets, stating recently at the Hollywood bowl, “If this is what being canceled is like, I love it.”

Co-CEO Ted Sarandos appears to wish to downplay the damage Chappelle does to the LGBTQ community in his statements, as well. Speaking from one who is not even a member of the community, and therefore cannot even accurately assess the impact on said community, Sarandos says, “We have a strong belief that content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm,” also failing to see how this may affect the community at large with encouraging anti-trans and anti-queer sentiment.

According to Time, Sarandos is going to leave the special up no matter how many people reasonably want its removal. When capitalist interests interfere, it appears any other values or reason flies out of the window. We are left with damaged communities, while people like Sarandos and Chappelle walk away with lined pockets and self-aggrandizement, priding themselves on hurting people in the name of “creative power.”