There are some good points in here tho...


>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.




I actually don't disagree with any of that. Even the part about Chappelle "underscoring the bigoted status quo." That's a fair accusation. But she starts trying to be a psychologist... one who comes across very unaware of the Black community's historical trajectory, especially Black men.




>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.


None of that is verifiable. It's nothing more than a narrative created to explain what she's seeing. It's not informed by history or stats.
Black men writ-large have never sought to be white men or to have the power that they have. These are the kinds of narratives created when no one actually cares what Black men have to say, never finds it odd that institutions reject our studies of ourselves, and it's considered taboo to humanize our experience of white patriarchy, which disproportionately targets us for death and torture.




>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?



Does she realize how many of us are raised by single mothers and exist in heavily matriarchal communities. How many of us grow up having never seen a Black man even stand up to a Black woman in our personal lives? How many of us know all the women in our lineage while the men are spoken about in passing or as utilities... or just negatively overall? In other words, the vast majority of Black men ALREADY know who we are without being the "head". It's the position our community is in now and has been in for about 40 or 50 yrs at least.



>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.



People aren't woke on race. People have some awareness but are mostly wildly uninformed historically and statistically. Unfortunately, she's proving that point.



>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.



I don't see any lies there. The tone of the piece just seems to be using "cishet Black man" with some suggestion that cishet Black men operate with some disproportionate privilege with regard to the rest of the Black community, which has been thoroughly debunked at this point.



>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.




Can't be mad at her for saying that. I'd say with him it's more an unwillingness to accept the concept of people being born into the wrong body as legit, but I understand why she says he's using Daphne's story to justify it.




>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?




Idk why she finds that impossible to believe. Oppressed communities attack each other all the time due to differing beliefs on how their oppression should be handled.



>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?



That's a bit hyperbolic. He told some jokes that were in bad taste, yet he also told a story of hanging out with this person, and inviting her on his show... becoming her friend. Her family loves Dave, etc. Idk if that's "telling millions of people to not take their experiences and voices seriously", especially when he literally says he believed her when she said she was having a human experience. Granted, I have a more nuanced view of that elsewhere in the post, and while I don't necessarily feel it's enough, I don't think he's calling for or encouraging violence against trans people. If anything, he encouraged HIS crowd to show more understanding to trans people than they currently do. That's where I have to say Trinity kinda has a point about meeting people where they are, especially when you're trying to broaden their minds. If he did something negative, he showed his crowd, by example, how to accept the person but not their full experience... which I do agree is harmful still. Not violence or harrassment... but it's definitely hurtful.




>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.



I wish she would've said more about how she feels he's skirting accoutability. Accountability for her death? Does she feel he's partially responsible? I've said in another post in here that I think it's possible he could've contributed but no one knows for sure.



>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.




That's a really good point. What's ironic though, is she contradicts herself in the same way. Her whole article is a critique of a part of her own community, saying they're violent toward another part of her community. Then she says

>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?

YES! Because aren't you telling us that a communtiy that has been intimately aware of violence and harassment since the inception of this country is the culprit when we live in a society where Black folks continue to face systemic discrimination? Yet she asks her question like trans' experience makes it impossible for them to perpetrate the similar behavior. She didn't think that one through.