In a story trending recently, Dave Chappelle's landed himself in a brick over transphobism.
I'd usually either walk away, or offer this in the gender or 'cancelled' threads. 

But aside from the direct claims against him ('you're transphobic', etc), is the reasoning behind what he said. It's gotten lost in the outcry, and it's similarly important to the trans rights issue. Infact, from what I understand, Dave himself predicts this response in his act.

For context, Dave Chapelle (if you don't know him), is a super famous black, American comedian. Most here will know him, but I'm just adding this in case you don't. He was huge in the late 00s, and then decided to step out of the limelight. He was (still is) universally lauded, and has the rare distinction of courting a true mixed audience. But now, either due to boredom, or child support litigation, he's back on tour, and taking aim at current affairs.

So the current controversy finds him siding with the likes of Robert Winstone and JK Rowling on gender identity issues.
I'm going to stay well out of that argument. I don't have the exact quote, but from the above, you can imagine what he said, or find the details yourself.

What interested me, was what leads up to that part of the act.

From what I understand (I've not seen the act, but my mate went to see it live), he starts to talk about 'cancel culture' in the context of race. He suggests that a number of public figures, right up to the likes of Trump, can say some abhorrent shit about black and hispanic people, and seemingly raise their profile by doing so* (I don't really need to offer examples, but if anyone wants to be silly, 'BoJo'...), but somehow, other communities are sacred. i.e... 

This was the prelude to the transphobic comments.
And he's right. Look at the attention he's drawn, and look how the original point got lost.

*Or at the very least, in the cases of sport and social media, there's seemingly no penalty for offensive behaviour.

That's a strong argument for issuing more penalties I think?

The perceived stifling of grown up conversations about subjects like this will embolden people with nothing to loose to speak out. Chappelle won't care if he gets cancelled. If he isn't already financially sound he will always be able to make a living on the smaller venue tour.

For context - I think I saw a Chappelle skit on Caitlyn Jenner being made Woman of the Year by Vanity Fair after being a woman for 1 year...and maybe other women might be a bit pissed off about it since there are plenty of women who have been women longer than 1 year....

clearly an attack on perceived virtue signalling. He was getting plenty of laughs.

Diluted Dante wrote:

Fucking hell.  Yeah, it's well known that the trans community is sacred, and the exact same people who say abhorrent shit about black and hispanic people get to trans people and go "woah, I best not say anything here."

 
...

dynamiteReady wrote:

He suggests...

 

It was my fault for adding the word 'sacred', but was hoping it was understood as being a good proxy for 'being seen as more important than...', or what have you.

DrewMerson wrote:

Indeed, look at the attention he’s drawn. Look at him trending on twitter. Look at his comedy special still sitting front and centre on Netflix. Hardly ‘cancelled’, is he? And he’s dramatically ‘raised his profile’, I dare say more than he would have if he had not courted controversy.

Agreed, though a key point here, he's proven he doesn't need the money. So I think a good part of the reason for him putting himself in what is (lets be honest) an extremely uncomfortable position, is his desire to make a political statement.

dynamiteReady wrote:

Diluted Dante wrote:

Fucking hell.  Yeah, it's well known that the trans community is sacred, and the exact same people who say abhorrent shit about black and hispanic people get to trans people and go "woah, I best not say anything here."

  ...

dynamiteReady wrote:

He suggests...

  It was my fault for adding the word 'sacred', but was hoping it was understood as being a good proxy for 'being seen as more important than...', or what have you.

I mean that still doesn't change my response.

DrewMerson wrote:

davyK wrote:

Chappelle won't care if he gets cancelled.

Can we please stop giving credence to the notion that ‘cancelling’ is a real thing? It’s not.

davyK wrote:

For context - I think I saw a Chappelle skit on Caitlyn Jenner being made Woman of the Year by Vanity Fair after being a woman for 1 year...and maybe other women might be a bit pissed off about it since there are plenty of women who have been women longer than 1 year.…

I know it’s probably not your intention, Davy, but you may want to be careful how you word things if you don’t want to cause offence. It’s not accurate to say that a trans person has only been the gender they identify as since they actually transitioned.

I'm paraphrasing Chapelle. If you can't apply context to my posts you should probably avoid reading them.

Diluted Dante wrote:

I mean that still doesn't change my response.

Np. Just wondered what you were saying. And yes, I respect the point. 
LGBT hate is clear and obvious. 

The idea of a 'continuum' of hatred (a bit like Muzzy's continuum, but based on another set of values), supported by relative economic power/parity though, is what Dave's anchored on. We've touched upon it in part when discussing Anti-Semitism a few times in the past. It's not an easy subject. 

Anyway, he (Dave) does acknowledge the fact that transphobic hatred exists, and appears to sympathize with many of the problems that the LGBT community have to deal with (I mean, he would have to, in order to draw the parallel his argument is based on), but he does hold some seemingly controversial views about transsexual people in particular, and I'm not prepared to defend those.

I find it really hard, as someone who's basically in the intersection of all circles of privilige, to judge the relative difficulty of being in the various circles of oppression (*).  I think there's an inevitable human tendency for people to think that their circle(s) are hardest, and it's really hard to unpick that / view these things fully objectively.  Hence (IIUC) Chapelle's "it's hard to be black than trans", or Badiel's Jews Don't Count, etc.  Each such thing I read I have some sympathy with, but that's obviously leaves me with dissonance.

But I think I've come to the conclusion that, for me, those details don't really matter.  That I should do my best to be an ally to all, despite the relative needs varying.

I mean I suck at then doing that.  But at least I suck in a moderately uniform way, in my own head, rather than sucking in specific ways.  Mayber.


(*) I learned "oppression" this as the opposite of privilege, and kinda like it as a word here I think?  Feels quite powerful, so a good way to reinforce the power of privilege.

DrewMerson wrote:

Putting semantics aside, what did happen to Danny Baker, in your words? Or Kilroy Silk (excuse my lack of imagination rn).

It’s not semantics, it’s a key factor in recognising that ‘cancel culture’ is a misleading term, deliberately weaponised by cunts who want to play the victim. Don’t give them any credence by allowing the phrase to persist. As for Danny Baker or Robert Kilroy-Silk, they suffered the consequences of their stupid actions. Let’s not pretend that people being held to account is a new phenomenon, or something that requires a new term.

I'm not saying the idea is new at all. Just wanted to know if you acknowledged it, tbh.

So yeah, I was using one set of words to describe people being sacked from major broadcasters for being dicks. You used another set of words, and while you might have tried to take this concession round a hedge, I think we're close to agreeing on something.

Btw...

DrewMerson wrote:

As for Danny Baker...

Pretty sure the following was you, right?

Deleted User wrote:

...it's people at the BBC not wanting what about Danny Baker thrown at them all the time.

This is part of the problem. The response should be, “What about him?” Sacking him is pandering to the mob. Sacking him is not a rational or reasonable response to what happened. When people are not directly involved, they lose the sense of perspective of what’s being spoken about.

I mean, I'm kind of glad that we now agree Danny Baker's been "stupid". But I wondered if you'd like to reconcile the two stances?
Only if that quote is yours, mind you.

Maybe the idea of 'cancel culture' is that while people have mostly been taken to task for their actions, now people are being taken to task for voicing opinions, which wasn't so common in the past. This enters into the freedom of speech arena for those on the conservative right, often as an excuse to complain about not being able to say racist shit or whatever, mind you. People didn't have to choose their words so carefully until pretty recently.

I guess that's what the right want to call cancel culture then. Seems the last ten years have been about making up names for things and creating memes, so it's not surprising.

Free speech means people get to call you a fuckhead when you've been a fuckhead in public. If this comes as a shock to anyone, you may have to think a bit harder about what "public" means.
It's free speech culture, simple as.