A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

by Hanif Abdurraqib

Dave Chappelle is back now. He’s doing stand-up again, which he always insisted was his best medium. His jokes are sometimes as layered, nuanced, and sharp as they used to be, but he often struggles with weaving in effective subject matter. He drifts into punching down, targeting queer and trans folks, or victims of sexual violence. His comedic style remains committed to walking the thin line between brash, extreme presentation and a palpable underlying message, but the line too often blurs itself and he, like other comedians of his era, gets caught up in being a victim of the times and their demand for evolution around gender, language, sensitivity. Chappelle himself hasn’t changed all that much, but the era has. The people who craved permission from him haven’t changed either, it’s just that the permissions themselves have shifted. The same people who missed the message in his old jokes and laughed because it was funny to hear white people saying “Niggar” are the people who now, like Chappelle, feel as though they are being censored from expressing the truest version of themselves. In doing what he imagines as flying in the face of critics, Chappelle is once again confirming those who wish to be confirmed. Showing people that someone can say whatever they want, however they want, privileges and all be damned.