>I already know most of y'all kneejerks won't read it or
>engage with the actual assertions in it; I'm posting it for
>okp posterity. Hopefully this entire post gets archived.
>
>https://twitter.com/RaquelWillis_/status/1446516461091135496
>
>"Dave Chappelle represents a segment of society (along with
>white supremacists, hoteps, incels, and others) that is
>anxious about the waning power of cisheteronormativity and the
>patriarchy.
>
>People like him know that their outdated, limited view of the
>world is obsolete, and instead of transforming in the name of
>empathy and humility, they lean into toxicity.
>
>Chappelle reveals the ignorant tensions in the Black community
>about queerness and transness but doesn’t have the range to
>turn them on their head. In fact, he underscores the bigoted
>status quo.
>
>It’s convenient for Black cishet male comedians to talk
>about LGBTQ+ folks as if our group is only or even
>predominantly white. With that frame, they don’t have to
>contend with how Black cishet folks often enact (physical and
>psychological) violence on Black LGBTQ+ folks.
>
>With that frame, Chappelle and other Black cishet men don’t
>have to acknowledge that their hate of trans and queer people
>is more than “just jokes.” It regularly becomes beating
>“the queer” out of young people, shunning us, and even
>killing us.
>
>Let’s be clear: Homophobia and transphobia aren’t just
>dynamics that exist in the Black community. It’s antiBlack
>to assert that narrative, especially when most of the anti
>-LGBTQ+ policies pushed around the world come from a white
>colonial power structure.
>
>Interestingly, many Black folks think of queerness and
>transness as white inventions because much of the most
>regressive LGBTQ+ policies in other countries have been
>exported and stoked by white conservative and evangelical
>politicians.
>
>Chappelle could have laid bare his insecurities with his
>gender and sexuality. We know so many Black cishet men are
>scrambling to understand their place in a cultural context
>where queer and trans people have microphones and platforms
>too.
>
>Take, for instance, the DaBaby, Boosie, and Lil Nas X debacle.
>The tirades against queer and trans people being visible are
>really about their fear that their toxic and limited views on
>masculinity are losing their footing.
>
>What does it mean for Black cishet rappers to contend with the
>fact that Lil Nas X has transcended beyond their success? They
>take it as an insult to their “rightful” place as the
>gatekeepers of Black culture.
>
>And what does it mean for Black cishet men, writ-large, to
>contend with Black women, Black LGBTQ+ folks, and more
>charting their destinies independent of their patriarchal
>“leadership?”
>
>They feel owed the power that white cishet men have
>historically had, and they haven’t gotten it. They think
>we’ve jumped a few steps in the March toward equity any time
>they’re held accountable for their transphobia and
>queerphobia.
>
>Yes, transphobia and queerphobia are about fear. I don’t
>entirely buy the reframing of these concepts as solely about
>“hate for LGBTQ+ people.” They are fearful of losing a way
>of life, a claim to power, and a claim to an identity that is
>rooted in dominating “lesser” groups.
>
>I challenge Black cishet men to interrogate what their
>identity means to them. Who are you without being the
>“head” of the household/tribe/culture? Who could you be if
>you saw Black community-building and cultural-building as the
>collaborative effort it truly is?
>
>Who could you be if you took on expanding Black masculinity
>and manhood without having to repress other Black experiences
>of the feminine, gender nonconforming, queer variety?
>
>It’s sad to witness Chappelle’s decline. He was once
>someone we could count on to punch up against white supremacy,
>but in a time where damn near everyone is “woke on race,”
>it seems punching down on the trans community is his shock
>tactic.
>
>Chappelle is now a wealthy cishet Black man with little else
>to offer to his audiences, but low-hanging uninformed fruit.
>And cishet folks who claim the LGBTQ+ community have to thin a
>skin also lack the range to confront their own prejudices in a
>meaningful way.
>
>Lastly, it’s particularly sinister for Chappelle to wrap his
>special up with a narrative that the trans community viciously
>went after Daphne Dorman. I don’t buy it. He’s using that
>to justify his hate.
>
>You’re telling us that a community that has been so
>intimately aware of doxxing and harassment almost since the
>inception of social media is the culprit when we live in a
>society where trans folks continue to face systemic
>discrimination?
>
>And for all the folks caping for Dave’s narrative about his
>“trans friend,” do you consider the trans people who will
>be harassed and experience violence because he told millions
>of people to not take our experiences and voices seriously?
>
>Dave’s using his trans friend’s story is hardly any
>different than white people using their token Black friends as
>ammo to shoot down their racism. And the “trans on trans”
>harassment narrative plays out like the “Black on Black”
>crime narrative. Dave just skirts accountability.
>
>Lastly, I’ll just say one of the greatest tells that he is
>disingenuous is that he in one breath claims Twitter isn’t a
>real place (or the concerns of trans folks don’t matter),
>but that the trans people on Twitter led to Daphne’s demise.
>It’s all nonsensical.
>
>d
>
>"But rest assured, in my luxurious house built on the backs of
>people darker than me, I am sipping fine scotch and scoffing
>at how stupid you are." - bshelly