Speaker 1: Push it. Hey, listeners, before we get started, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to let you know this episode has some strong language,
Speaker 1: some inappropriate words. Also, at one point we talk about
Speaker 1: a suicide. Just a bear warning, but stick around the
Speaker 1: Racial Draft episode. The Racial Draft of the Chappelle Show.
Speaker 1: I have taught it so many times to my students
Speaker 1: because I mean, it is talk tribalism, right. It is
Speaker 1: such an absurd send up of how people take credit
Speaker 1: for representation. Right. So each group, the Blacks, the Asians,
Speaker 1: the Hispanics, the whites, are all trading at some re
Speaker 1: enactment of the NFL Draft, and all the celebrities are
Speaker 1: up for trading. And in that instance, black people are
Speaker 1: literally like giving away Colin Powell and Condeliza to the
Speaker 1: white delegation. I'm Khalil Jabr Muhammad and I'm Ben Austin.
Speaker 1: We're two best friends, one white. I'm a historian and
Speaker 1: I'm a journalist. And this is some of my best
Speaker 1: friends are in this show. We wrestle with the challenges
Speaker 1: and the absurdities of a deeply divided and unequal country.
Speaker 1: Ah man, and boy, what a season it has been.
Speaker 1: This is our last episode. Yeah, this is our last episode.
Speaker 1: Of the season, and you've talked about the challenges and
Speaker 1: the absurdities of our differences in this country. That's right.
Speaker 1: And we have covered everything. We have looked at life
Speaker 1: from the tennis court to inside a prison, prisons overseas,
Speaker 1: to Jewish identity to talking about candy Man, Candy Man.
Speaker 1: I'll say it again, slow down, slowdown, slowdown. You've talked
Speaker 1: about art, yep and activism as well as being on vacation,
Speaker 1: what that looks like at Martha's vineyard and all the while.
Speaker 1: We of course have tried to be funny along the way,
Speaker 1: but we will never ever be as funny as some
Speaker 1: of the folks that we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. We're actually going to talk about
Speaker 1: comedians and comedy. Comedy takes us right up to the
Speaker 1: mirror of the insanities that we experience in life and
Speaker 1: shows us exactly what we're looking at. And you know,
Speaker 1: comedy can go to the ugliest places and try to
Speaker 1: make fun of it and try to exploit it, and
Speaker 1: it could go to also really like profound places. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so today's last episode of this season we take on comedy.
Speaker 1: Let's do it all, right, and I promise you that
Speaker 1: Khalil is going to be very funny. Always, always, don't Khalil.
Speaker 1: From the time I was a little kid, you know,
Speaker 1: comedy has been such a central part of you know,
Speaker 1: I think, my sensibility, but of my life. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe I owe that to my brother in some way.
Speaker 1: I remember getting like the Steve Martin comedy album and yeah,
Speaker 1: we listen to that album over and over again. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well I I had the same experience with my dad
Speaker 1: playing old Richard Pryor albums. Yeah. And you know what,
Speaker 1: this tradition of comedy is the perfect art form for
Speaker 1: x pressing the absurdities of this country we live in.
Speaker 1: And you know, for black comics in particular. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think about going back to Moms maybe, or or
Speaker 1: or Red Fox, who might we did know as a
Speaker 1: stand up comic. But of course, oh man, yeah, and
Speaker 1: I mean Lenny Bruce and George Carlin, Joan Rivers, Wanda Sykes.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And of course we've already talked about Richard Pryor,
Speaker 1: but Eddie Murphy defining our generation, so I mean, like
Speaker 1: became of age with this dude. Uh. And then of
Speaker 1: course Chris Rock and and and the beat goes on, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: You know. I like to think, you know, there's tons
Speaker 1: of comedy that is just insult comedy and it just
Speaker 1: tries to go to the easiest, most caricaturable aspect of
Speaker 1: other people. But there's a lot of comedy that that
Speaker 1: goes to the third rail of what's taboo, because it's
Speaker 1: a way to make most vivid those differences and our
Speaker 1: difficulties with them, and to challenge oursel instabilities like it
Speaker 1: shakes us up, right. But I think the point is
Speaker 1: that what makes those people stand out from the crowd
Speaker 1: is precisely that they are not just funny. They are
Speaker 1: funny about the things that are on our minds. They're
Speaker 1: funny about the things that make us uncomfortable about the
Speaker 1: world we live in. They're funny about the things that
Speaker 1: some people want to say but cannot say. And they're
Speaker 1: also funny in the way that they demonstrate the vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: of people who are essentially victims in our society, and
Speaker 1: at their best they give voice to those experiences, sometimes
Speaker 1: through humor. Sometimes we're laughing at them in order to
Speaker 1: be in solidarity with them, and it doesn't always work.
Speaker 1: It doesn't always work. It's a huge butt like slamming
Speaker 1: on the brakes right here. That's because because we're about
Speaker 1: to talk about Dave Chappelle's most recent special on Netflix,
Speaker 1: The Closer, in which like it doesn't work, it's tiganic,
Speaker 1: but it's like it's like that that time when it's
Speaker 1: it actually feels really offensive and it hurts and like
Speaker 1: he goes to that third rail of taboo and gets electrocuted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, this controversy unfolded during our season of recording,
Speaker 1: and the controversy is particularly around what he called the
Speaker 1: alphabet people, you know, in this really derogatory way to
Speaker 1: talk about the LGBTQ community. So here's why we decided
Speaker 1: to talk about Dave Chappelle and the controversy around The
Speaker 1: Closer because basically, in the last like twelve thirteen minutes
Speaker 1: he does some of my best friends are kind of trope.
Speaker 1: I want you to community to know that one of
Speaker 1: the coolest people I ever met it was a transgender woman.
Speaker 1: And this is not a man that I knew that
Speaker 1: became a woman. This woman was trans when I met
Speaker 1: a live in San Francisco. Daphne d Warman is a
Speaker 1: name yo I was watching that and I was like,
Speaker 1: he is literally saying, yeah, I'm not transphobic. Some of
Speaker 1: my best friends are trans. Yeah. It is exactly why
Speaker 1: we did this show, and of course we conceived of it,
Speaker 1: as we've often said as a show opens, that people
Speaker 1: are like, yeah, some of my best friends are black.
Speaker 1: I'm not a racist. It could be you know, anything
Speaker 1: that goes into that line that is meant to say.
Speaker 1: You can't say I'm part of the problem, or you
Speaker 1: can't say that I've done a bigot a thing because
Speaker 1: I have this relationship with someone in the representative minoritized,
Speaker 1: oppressed population. Yeah. Yeah, I mean we've sort of been
Speaker 1: digging in on this all season about the importance of
Speaker 1: talking across lines of difference in an honest, authentic way.
Speaker 1: And the joke of our title is that you know,
Speaker 1: we are best friends, but this is the one of
Speaker 1: the most inauthentic ways to think about differences, to say,
Speaker 1: you know, I have license to say whatever the fuck
Speaker 1: I want because some of my best friends are or
Speaker 1: I'm protected from any accusations of bias or bigotry because
Speaker 1: some of my best friends are that thing. So at
Speaker 1: the beginning of this Netflix special, that Dave Chappelle just
Speaker 1: had the closer. He starts by saying, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: going to clear the air, and this is going to
Speaker 1: be my last special. This is I'm going to say
Speaker 1: everything I need to say, all the questions you might
Speaker 1: have had about all these jokes I've said in the
Speaker 1: last for years. I hope the answer tonight. I'd like
Speaker 1: to start by addressing the lbgt Q community. I mean,
Speaker 1: so we know pretty clearly that he's coming for a
Speaker 1: kind of fight, and this is going to be the focus.
Speaker 1: While in previous specials his dealing with homosexuality and transgender
Speaker 1: community has been small parts, this is really going to
Speaker 1: be the brunt of what he talks about for this
Speaker 1: entire hour. Well, actually, i'd say not quite, because I
Speaker 1: think this is his last shot at essentially clearing the
Speaker 1: air and doubling down on a point he started with
Speaker 1: in the series. So he actually invites this reflection on
Speaker 1: the quote unquote entire Netflix series, which he says in
Speaker 1: that quote, we just heard and I went back to
Speaker 1: the beginning. I went to aga spin because I was
Speaker 1: curious he having heard that line. There's six specials total,
Speaker 1: there's six of them together, and it turns out that
Speaker 1: from the age of Spin to this one and the
Speaker 1: the everyone in between, he's basically doing a six part
Speaker 1: series on cancel culture. Yeah, and where this is really
Speaker 1: relevant to us. He's giving himself licensed to do so
Speaker 1: by evoking these relationships with people who are representative of
Speaker 1: communities that he's going to use his comedy to critique
Speaker 1: or to say they're doing something wrong. And and and
Speaker 1: that moves towards you know, some of my best friends
Speaker 1: are or some of my family are, in this case
Speaker 1: his Filipino wife, who he describes in the first episode.
Speaker 1: You know, he makes this black and Asian joke in
Speaker 1: that one, and he describes his wife as sort of
Speaker 1: the person who um gives him license to do so.
Speaker 1: He talks about his wife's friend Stewart in this first
Speaker 1: episode because Stuart is gay and he learns about gay
Speaker 1: people from Stewart. You see this pattern throughout the entire act,
Speaker 1: including claiming that he's feminist, where he said, I am
Speaker 1: a feminist because I googled it and it can be
Speaker 1: any person who believes in equal whites of women. Then
Speaker 1: he makes this crazy comment about you know, like my mother,
Speaker 1: my daughter, my sisters. I love these people. Of course
Speaker 1: I care about that. So I think it is really
Speaker 1: something that's sauce. That's super weak sauce as ever lived
Speaker 1: had a mom right every racist, but also being like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna use the dictionary definition of something like like
Speaker 1: if you're writing the paper or like you know, speaking
Speaker 1: of the class, it's like I look this up in
Speaker 1: the dictionary, right then you should you should be canceled
Speaker 1: for that. Anyways, that's canceled culture, Like like I don't
Speaker 1: feel that any joke is a you know, any subject
Speaker 1: is off limits for a comedy, like it's how you
Speaker 1: approach it, um, but I do. I do feel that
Speaker 1: way about using the dictionary in that way, that that's
Speaker 1: you should be canceled for that. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: come back to that story he tells about, you know,
Speaker 1: his best friend that's that's trans woman Daphne and so
Speaker 1: called best tender. You know, it's a real it's a
Speaker 1: it actually you know, it's both very self promoting, like
Speaker 1: he talks about that he gave her a shot in
Speaker 1: comedy and that you know, she laughs at all of
Speaker 1: his trans jokes and she would be there, white trans
Speaker 1: woman laughing loud and hard and everything I said, especially
Speaker 1: the trans jokes, very puzzling because she was obviously transu
Speaker 1: and then she defends him when there's criticisms, she goes
Speaker 1: against her tribe. He says, he says, he says, and
Speaker 1: then she, you know, she's also attacked for defending Dave Chappelle,
Speaker 1: she kills herself. I mean, it's a it's a devastating
Speaker 1: moment in this, you know, and this is also like,
Speaker 1: actually Dave Chappelle's amazing ability to tell stories as a storyteller,
Speaker 1: which is part of his comedy. But he comes out
Speaker 1: of this in in this way that is crazy and
Speaker 1: to me gets at what the some of my best
Speaker 1: friends trope is, which is like you're really only seeing yourself.
Speaker 1: It's being totally self centered. It is it is losing perspective.
Speaker 1: Because he comes out of this and he starts talking
Speaker 1: about both him and Kevin Hart and how they've been canceled,
Speaker 1: and you know, he says, to take a man's livelihood
Speaker 1: away as a kin to killing him, stop punching down
Speaker 1: on my people. And it's like, what, you know, he's
Speaker 1: just talked about, you know, what it's like to be
Speaker 1: trans in a way that that you know, Uh, this,
Speaker 1: Actually he hasn't talked He hasn't but he's only he's
Speaker 1: only that's the thing. He's only talked about Daphanie as
Speaker 1: a comedian. He hasn't actually talked about her lived experiences.
Speaker 1: Yet she killed herself like it. It's like in that story,
Speaker 1: which is unexplored by him, is the incredible difficulty of
Speaker 1: being a trans person, of making this you know, transformation
Speaker 1: of yourself and then to live out in the world
Speaker 1: and it's there without him touching it and without him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the thing he's so But then him using he's
Speaker 1: only using her death in the service of blaming the
Speaker 1: actual community of trans that he's written several routines to
Speaker 1: critique throughout this entire series. But I agree, it's such
Speaker 1: a crazy moment to contrast those things two things, to
Speaker 1: juxtapose her suicide and then him and Kevin Hart getting
Speaker 1: canceled and in this show, in the closer, there's no
Speaker 1: comedy here. It's like righteous vengeance, you know. And it's
Speaker 1: like some of my best friends trope that he uses
Speaker 1: and that we've been talking about, you know, which feels
Speaker 1: like the antithesis of comedy. That's that's not funny, you
Speaker 1: know it is it is. It is using someone else
Speaker 1: to prove your own virtue. That's not funny. Yeah no,
Speaker 1: I like that point about the the trope of some
Speaker 1: of my best friends are being the antithesis of comedy,
Speaker 1: because you know, not only does he evoke Kevin Hart
Speaker 1: as a kind of act of solidarity as two black
Speaker 1: male celebrities who are now subjected to cancel culture. If
Speaker 1: you recall, he opens the first show talking about his
Speaker 1: envy for Kevin Hart because his son wants to go
Speaker 1: see Kevin Hart and he has to go and buy
Speaker 1: a ticket in Sydney audience and he watches his son
Speaker 1: adore him. I think the larger point you're making is
Speaker 1: that there's something about David Chappelle at this point in
Speaker 1: his career that is unlike we've seen in any other
Speaker 1: comic of his stature. He has turned himself into the
Speaker 1: victim upon whom's victimhood is trying to be the social
Speaker 1: commentary for inequality, for discrimination. Yeah. Man, he actually says
Speaker 1: at one point I'm not even talking about them, I'm
Speaker 1: talking about us, And they don't listen, and he's talking
Speaker 1: about him, you know, And of course, you know he
Speaker 1: is he's talking about the trans community and he ain't
Speaker 1: listening at all. Yeah, he's literally turned this into a
Speaker 1: social commentary about Dave Chappelle, and these other people are
Speaker 1: just foils for saying, you know, not only do I
Speaker 1: not want to be canceled, I don't deserve to be canceled,
Speaker 1: and neither do these other people. Thinking about this right
Speaker 1: now as we're talking. One of the most clarifying aspects
Speaker 1: of what's wrong with Dave Chappelle's act in this way
Speaker 1: is that a lot of older comics, you know, the
Speaker 1: Richard Pryor's, Standie Murphy's, you know, and many many others
Speaker 1: would actually take the victimized group and show their victimization
Speaker 1: and the absurdity of how they're treated as the context
Speaker 1: for their comedy. And so there might still be all
Speaker 1: the vulgar language, the B words, the F words, the
Speaker 1: N words, and all of that, but kind of the
Speaker 1: social commentary embedded in it was the joke about the
Speaker 1: absurdity of how this oppressed population was actually being treated.
Speaker 1: And Dave doesn't do that. There is no point in
Speaker 1: which he acknowledges that trans people actually face the absurdities
Speaker 1: of their oppression and that is the balance that one
Speaker 1: would expect. That's the balance of our show. That's how
Speaker 1: we take culture and unpack it and say, you know,
Speaker 1: here's an entry point into something that we're all observing.
Speaker 1: But it opens up into these structures that are often
Speaker 1: invisible to us, and these power dynamics, and those invisible structures,
Speaker 1: those power dynamics, they're hilarious. They're funny. Well they're funny
Speaker 1: in the kind of tragic comic way. Right, So I
Speaker 1: want to I want to I want to go back
Speaker 1: to the first thing you said, because about cancel culture,
Speaker 1: because because in all his examples, it's not about killing
Speaker 1: ordinary black people. The identities that he's thinking about. He's
Speaker 1: focused on himself so much that it's about being both
Speaker 1: black and experiencing oppression, but being also a celebrity and
Speaker 1: being in danger of being canceled. And so he uses
Speaker 1: examples of other celebrities, black male celebrities. I mean, he
Speaker 1: talks explicitly about it being celebrity hunting season. And there's
Speaker 1: such an interesting idea of intersectionality that's going on here
Speaker 1: because because he sort of defends himself off, you know,
Speaker 1: his premise is that you know, I'm really talking about
Speaker 1: how how black people are treated, and I might be
Speaker 1: using trans people or gay people as the joke, and
Speaker 1: again this is comedy. So the point here is I'm
Speaker 1: not passing moral judgment as a point to make. I'm
Speaker 1: making the point that his he actually, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: is rejecting intersectionality. I'm saying, like, look, intersectionality means that
Speaker 1: you recognize multiple identities that people inhabit in their lives
Speaker 1: that they can't separate the fact that one happens to
Speaker 1: be black and happens to be a woman, and maybe
Speaker 1: gender nonconforming or might be trans, that all those things
Speaker 1: are embodied in a person. They might also be of
Speaker 1: immigrant background, and so you can imagine these identities multiply,
Speaker 1: and our ability to see who they are based on
Speaker 1: what they want us to see, which can shift itself,
Speaker 1: is being intersectional. It's recognizing that. And the most powerful
Speaker 1: blind spot in The Closer in particular, but I think
Speaker 1: all of these Netflix shows is his inability to see
Speaker 1: that black people are also experiencing trans identities, they are
Speaker 1: experiencing being women, they are experiencing other forms of otherness
Speaker 1: or difference, and he's basically got an ax to grind
Speaker 1: with white people no matter what they're identities are, and
Speaker 1: they have intersectionality too, which he's not acknowledging. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is his range of humanity that he's identifying with here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's confusing, and I think this is why the series
Speaker 1: doesn't work in terms of social commentary that you know,
Speaker 1: we would expect to be achieved by someone of his caliber.
Speaker 1: Because your point is exactly right, He mentions Bill Cosby,
Speaker 1: He mentions LJ. Simpson, He mentions the baby. He mentioned
Speaker 1: Kevin Hart. He basically built a series that would allow
Speaker 1: him to have a platform to say, you know, I
Speaker 1: think the work that these men accomplished, their legacies are
Speaker 1: more significant than the things they said or the mistakes
Speaker 1: they made. He has this line and a just been
Speaker 1: where he says, you know, he's telling a story about
Speaker 1: having mead OJ. Simpson and his white agent had asked him,
Speaker 1: you know, like, how could you shake hands with that murder?
Speaker 1: And he says, in the joke, with all due respect,
Speaker 1: that murderer ran for over eleven thousand yards. See, that's
Speaker 1: that's a funny joke. I mean, like like because because
Speaker 1: it also it also shows our sensibilities that we actually
Speaker 1: value that like he is playing the buffoon in some way,
Speaker 1: that we actually value sports over life in some form,
Speaker 1: or that we're just like we're so distractable. There's something really,
Speaker 1: there is something that really is poignant about that, Hey, Khalil.
Speaker 1: So we've been talking about Dave Chappelle and The Closer,
Speaker 1: and you know, he does he does this taboo thing
Speaker 1: about our differences. But we were talking about it as comedy.
Speaker 1: That doesn't work as social commentary. But but let's play
Speaker 1: a game, all right, all right, right, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: So so we're gonna pick three examples of comedy routines
Speaker 1: that we think work as social commentary and as comedy.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and and that actually helped us make sense
Speaker 1: of the world. Right, That's that I think. That's that's
Speaker 1: what I'm looking forward to. You know, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1: You go first, all right. Number one, So I picked
Speaker 1: this one because it's it's kind of a response to
Speaker 1: Dave Chappelle and it's Sarah Silverman and it's from it's
Speaker 1: actually from like an Amnesty International fundraiser called The Secret
Speaker 1: Policeman's Ball in twoy twelve, and she does this eight
Speaker 1: minute like comedy routine and it's just it just fuck
Speaker 1: it just kills. And you know, Sarah Silverman's comedy it
Speaker 1: does go to that dangerous place and she's totally fucked
Speaker 1: up at times. Uh, she got you know, before Cancel Culture,
Speaker 1: she gotten a lot of trouble for a black face
Speaker 1: routine at one point. Um. And her comedy routine is
Speaker 1: to play sort of this innocent but then to say
Speaker 1: the most like vulgar surprising things. And uh, here is
Speaker 1: one where she's talking about the gay community and she
Speaker 1: begins by saying like, Hey, I just went to this
Speaker 1: gay Pride parade and you know, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: had such a blast. I had a blast. But I
Speaker 1: don't want people to label me as straight or as gay,
Speaker 1: you know. I just want people to look at me,
Speaker 1: you know, and and see me as white. You know.
Speaker 1: I Wow, It's funny. It's an echo in a way
Speaker 1: that like Dave Chappelle is actually making that very criticism
Speaker 1: in that series about whiteness being the most dominant identity
Speaker 1: no matter what these other people are experiencing. And she
Speaker 1: shows that that people do this. But it's it's actually
Speaker 1: really funny, right Like she is she's performing ignorance and
Speaker 1: and show. You know, she's playing the buffoon in a way.
Speaker 1: I mean, she making herself the butt of the joke. Like,
Speaker 1: is there a danger that people don't pick up that
Speaker 1: she's joking? Maybe, but that's part of the danger of
Speaker 1: this comedy. Um. And I also picked this moment because
Speaker 1: then she goes in further and she actually does the
Speaker 1: Some of my best friends are trope. I can say
Speaker 1: that I totally used to go out with a guy
Speaker 1: who is half black who broke up with me because
Speaker 1: I'm a fucking loser. And I just heard myself say
Speaker 1: that that is the most pessimistic thing. I have the
Speaker 1: worst attitude. He's half white and he broke up with me.
Speaker 1: She did it. No, she did it, No, she did it.
Speaker 1: I Mean there's so many twists and complexities in that.
Speaker 1: You know, I just heard myself. I'm so negative and
Speaker 1: you think it's the thing that she said about herself,
Speaker 1: but it's about calling him half black. I mean, man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she is a complete control Yeah. I mean again, I
Speaker 1: think I think the context of sort of opening with
Speaker 1: Dave Chappelle in his career at this moment, that's another
Speaker 1: example of being self aware, right, And so she's putting
Speaker 1: herself not in the position of being the victim, She's
Speaker 1: putting herself in the position of being the butt of
Speaker 1: the victimizer. Yeah right, but the joke, yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: that makes her the butt of the joke. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: layers of self awareness she needs there, and I mean
Speaker 1: talk about intersectionality is like she goes from her whiteness
Speaker 1: and her straightness, her sense of a woman. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: all of these things are in play, and she's sort
Speaker 1: of moving around between them in a way that you're
Speaker 1: not even sure where she's going to come out of it.
Speaker 1: It's great, it's really fantastic comedy. Yeah. So so so
Speaker 1: I have an example from nineteen ninety six, uh, Chris
Speaker 1: Chris year controversial routine, one that that in many ways
Speaker 1: caught me at a moment. In nineteen ninety six, I
Speaker 1: had just started graduate school. I was like learning everything
Speaker 1: for the first time about race and racism. I was
Speaker 1: learning black history that I hadn't been taught. And you know,
Speaker 1: you go through like this whole twelve Stages of grief
Speaker 1: when this is happening to you, because you're feeling very angry,
Speaker 1: you're depressed, you're wondering why everyone doesn't know this, and
Speaker 1: when they don't, you're really frustrated. And I say that
Speaker 1: to say, when Chris Rock gave this routine in his
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six stand up Bring the Pain Man, that
Speaker 1: was just seminal moment. It was a seminal moment right now.
Speaker 1: I remember just when you saw that. It was like,
Speaker 1: where were you when you saw it? I could remember
Speaker 1: exactly where I was, and I yes, and I remember
Speaker 1: when I saw it. I was at home at my
Speaker 1: mom's for the summertime, and you know, I was home
Speaker 1: from grad school. And so the routine is called Blacks
Speaker 1: versus in words, and you're playing this on air, you
Speaker 1: are break. He basically opens up by saying that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of racism going on in the world right now,
Speaker 1: but who's more racist? White people are black people, And
Speaker 1: he says it's black people because black people hate everything
Speaker 1: that white people don't like about black people. And even more,
Speaker 1: looks like a civil war going on with black people.
Speaker 1: And here's the kicker, because the two sides are black people.
Speaker 1: And in words, hey, I love black people, but I
Speaker 1: hate niggas. Go ahead, why niggas, boy? I wish they
Speaker 1: let me join a clue. Shit, I couldn't drop off
Speaker 1: them here appropriate niggas man god man, I Chris rock
Speaker 1: his voice, his skinny ass in a leather suit, like
Speaker 1: stomp in the stage, the way that he has to
Speaker 1: like he's like a boxer before a fight, Like the
Speaker 1: way that he has to work himself up into this energy,
Speaker 1: into this aggression. Uh. And then his high pitched voice. Uh.
Speaker 1: I mean this skit as social commentary, as just like
Speaker 1: diving right in. Yeah, well, well, well see here's a
Speaker 1: thing like it's it's it's social commentary. Yes, he doesn't
Speaker 1: put himself in the middle of it. In other words,
Speaker 1: it's not about him in the way that you know,
Speaker 1: we've been critiquing Chappelle for this latest but it is
Speaker 1: social commentary that made me really angry. Like I got
Speaker 1: the jokes, I thought it was really funny, but I
Speaker 1: was so angry about it. And did you feel that
Speaker 1: at the time and think about it differently now? Well, no,
Speaker 1: I feel I kind of feel the same because you know,
Speaker 1: I listened to it again. But I think for me,
Speaker 1: the point is that it was social commentary, but it
Speaker 1: was social commentary in the wrong direction. It was social
Speaker 1: commentary that gave license to the Crime Bill of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four. And that's what I meant by being a
Speaker 1: graduate student. So I was learning about systemic racism really
Speaker 1: for the first time. And I'm like, WHOA, Like, I
Speaker 1: get it right. I've heard these same jokes from like
Speaker 1: my cousin Marlin, who was hilarious, right and who had
Speaker 1: lots to say about you know, brothers in the hood
Speaker 1: and rest in peace. We love you. That's where I
Speaker 1: rest in peace because but like when he says that
Speaker 1: books are like kryptonite to in words because they don't read,
Speaker 1: or when he says that black people are singing welfare carols,
Speaker 1: you know, like we wish you are married welfare and
Speaker 1: a happy food stamp, which is a line that he
Speaker 1: has in the skit. I mean he is going I
Speaker 1: mean talk about Dave Chappelle to about going all in.
Speaker 1: He is going all in. Do you think he is
Speaker 1: playing that he these are his beliefs or he is
Speaker 1: showing the extreme of beliefs that are also he's criticizing. Well,
Speaker 1: the twenty four year old me is not aware enough
Speaker 1: to appreciate his comedy, right, So part of for me
Speaker 1: was like understanding Chris Rock as I was growing up,
Speaker 1: as I was maturing, as I was trying to learn
Speaker 1: about the world, and so I'm in a way kind
Speaker 1: of identifying with the younger activists who are upset with
Speaker 1: Dave Chappelle, because to me, this didn't translate. This just
Speaker 1: gave license to all the terrible policies that were happening
Speaker 1: in the world. And I saw the humor in it,
Speaker 1: but I was like, it's not worth it, right, And
Speaker 1: so I couldn't no matter no matter the humor, because
Speaker 1: I do agree it's social commentary, and I actually agree
Speaker 1: it was funny. The consequences to me crossed the line.
Speaker 1: Like He's he's basically saying, like I'm worried about in words.
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing about this, like maybe people don't
Speaker 1: know this or they forgot it, but Chris Rock actually
Speaker 1: kind of answered for this many times, and ten years
Speaker 1: later in two thousand and five, he told Sixty Minutes
Speaker 1: that he basically said, by the way, I've never done
Speaker 1: that joke again, and I probably just will. Interesting, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because some people thought that the racist things I were
Speaker 1: saying gave them license to use the in word, and
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm done with that routine, all right, let's
Speaker 1: do one more Khalil and I'm gonna. I'm gonna let
Speaker 1: you do the last one. We're gonna, we're gonna finish
Speaker 1: this game. Tell me what you got, Okay. So this
Speaker 1: is one that is like, I mean, groundbreaking for me.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is when I learned about white privilege,
Speaker 1: helped me understand white I have never forgotten it. I've
Speaker 1: taught it to my students. It was when Eddie Murphy
Speaker 1: did this, this comedy short on Saturday Night Live in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. You know, this is Eddie Murphy post
Speaker 1: forty eight hours. He's already a star. He's wearing leather
Speaker 1: in the skit and it's like saying that there are
Speaker 1: still there is still a racial divide in America. There
Speaker 1: is still a Black America and there's still a white America.
Speaker 1: And he says, so we need to understand this better,
Speaker 1: we need to get behind this. So he goes into
Speaker 1: a makeup room backstage at thirty Rock and he basically
Speaker 1: is turned into white face. So he gets his white face.
Speaker 1: He comes out. He's wearing the tightest like straightest gray suit,
Speaker 1: blue tie combo you could have. He's got this wig
Speaker 1: on that makes his hair look, you know, super straight
Speaker 1: and super corning. Could I interrupt you for a second, man, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because this is one of the things I picked too.
Speaker 1: I picked this one also, yo, Yeah, well I picked
Speaker 1: the exact he's got the white mustache. Shot. He looked,
Speaker 1: he looked. He looks like he's from the zombie apocalypse,
Speaker 1: his white skin, the Magnan Pi white mustache. Right, this
Speaker 1: is this is so defining for us that, independent of
Speaker 1: one another, out of all the world, we both pick this.
Speaker 1: It's Called White Like Me, which is a play on
Speaker 1: this book from nineteen sixty one where a white journalist
Speaker 1: called It's Called Black Like Me, puts on black face
Speaker 1: and goes to the South to experience racial oppression. Right
Speaker 1: and I. And again that's where the brilliance of social
Speaker 1: commentary comes into play because talk about the absurdities that
Speaker 1: that are on view, first in that book in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty one, and then later in what Eddie Murphy is
Speaker 1: doing in this kit. So there's three moments in this skit.
Speaker 1: The first one when he leaves the studio, he hits
Speaker 1: Midtown man had walks into it like a newspaper, you know,
Speaker 1: like the classic newspaper shop where you all the newspapers
Speaker 1: are there next to the candy, you know, next to
Speaker 1: a few like apothecary items. And I was going to
Speaker 1: talk about this exact, you know. And he goes up
Speaker 1: to the cashier, who's white. They're in there alone, right,
Speaker 1: Let's let's play the tape. What are you doing. I'm
Speaker 1: buying this newspaper. That's all right, there's nobody around. Go ahead,
Speaker 1: take it, take it, go ahead, take it slowly. I
Speaker 1: began to realize that when white people are alone, they
Speaker 1: give things to each other for free. Man. I've thought
Speaker 1: about that moment a thousand times since seeing that skit.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Yeah. So so the whole point of
Speaker 1: that skit, right, is to show black people how what
Speaker 1: we now call white privilege works, right, Like, like white
Speaker 1: people get free stuff that other black people pay for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but to me, like this is this is where comedy
Speaker 1: is so incredible in pointing out how race and racism.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is one of the greatest
Speaker 1: jokes about structural racism. Absolutely. And so he goes to
Speaker 1: a bank to get a lot. He's sitting across the
Speaker 1: desk from the loan manager. It's said, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a plaque that says loan manager, and the loan manager
Speaker 1: is black. That's right, And here's what happens. Let's me
Speaker 1: get this straight. Mister, mister white, fifty thousand dollars from
Speaker 1: my bank, but you have no collateral, you have no credit,
Speaker 1: you don't even have any ID. Is that correct? That's right,
Speaker 1: mister White. I'm sorry. This is not a charity. This
Speaker 1: is a busy. What a great moment to juxtapose a
Speaker 1: white guy getting a loan from a black loan officer
Speaker 1: and the loan officer following the rules, the credit rules
Speaker 1: about about about collateral. He's like, yeah, you're you're not
Speaker 1: gonna get alone because you have nothing to put up.
Speaker 1: And this is a perfect moment for like that racial
Speaker 1: inversion we talked about in the nineteen eighties, right, So,
Speaker 1: like part of this moment is that black people are
Speaker 1: showing up in positions of power, and it's a little
Speaker 1: bit it's touching a little bit of that sense of
Speaker 1: like reverse discrimination, right, Like, Hey, the black guy's telling
Speaker 1: me I can't get alone. But then the joke goes
Speaker 1: even further because there's a there's a white manager who
Speaker 1: walks in and sees what's going on, Harry, Why don't
Speaker 1: you take your break now, I'll take care of mister White.
Speaker 1: The guy's like, okay, thanks, you know, like thanks for
Speaker 1: finishing this for me. And then he sits down with
Speaker 1: mister White. There's two white men in a room alone.
Speaker 1: That was a close foot one. We don't have to
Speaker 1: bother with these What a silly negro. Just shank what
Speaker 1: you want back any time, or don't we don't care. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're they're laughing together. He's handing him
Speaker 1: tracts of money. As he right, he opens like you know,
Speaker 1: a container of money, says here, take what you will
Speaker 1: have at it. I mean, so obviously, in a time
Speaker 1: when black people were being subjected to systemic predatory lending practices,
Speaker 1: being denied credit when they had the credit that they
Speaker 1: actually needed to get loans, all of this ties into
Speaker 1: all the stuff we've talked about. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: it is just such an incredible send up for pointing
Speaker 1: out the actual structural race, the way that what the world,
Speaker 1: the world, the country is set up for you to succeed,
Speaker 1: and you know, the things are stacked in your favor,
Speaker 1: and it's taken that it's it's running with that in
Speaker 1: this hilarious way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that you
Speaker 1: picked that. I love that we picked the same one.
Speaker 1: All right, Khalil, all of this talk about comedy has
Speaker 1: got me thinking about this entire season, and you know,
Speaker 1: some of my best friends are and you know, like
Speaker 1: basically what we've been doing of like trying to skirt
Speaker 1: this line between comedy and big ideas, and you know, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole idea is that that you and
Speaker 1: I really are best friends and we're comfortable with one another.
Speaker 1: We're comfortable enough to talk across our differences, and we
Speaker 1: might we might slip up and like touch that third
Speaker 1: rail sometimes. And I think I think part of having
Speaker 1: a genuine friendship is that the other person can call
Speaker 1: you on it. That's right, yes, And also that we
Speaker 1: see the racism and the bigotry and the inequalities of
Speaker 1: the world. We tell stories about ourselves, but only to
Speaker 1: open up to these bigger questions, and that's what comedy does.
Speaker 1: That's exactly that, It is exactly what comedy is supposed
Speaker 1: to do. But but I guess i'd also say, like
Speaker 1: even when our sort of analysis is wrong and the
Speaker 1: other person calls us on it, like, we're also comfortable
Speaker 1: with one another that we're willing to self correct, We're
Speaker 1: willing to sort of like reassess and kind of grow,
Speaker 1: you know. Right, So you're saying that Dave Chappelle may
Speaker 1: have gotten it wrong in Age of Spin, the first
Speaker 1: of those six part series, but instead of ending with
Speaker 1: the closer like like recognize, just like I am closing
Speaker 1: by recognizing that maybe I went about this the wrong.
Speaker 1: Man he need, he needs, he needs a best friend,
Speaker 1: and he also needs to be a best friend to
Speaker 1: somebody else, right, and and the other thing I'm thinking about.
Speaker 1: You know, even if you have one friend who in
Speaker 1: the most genuine way tells you it's okay to do something,
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily make it right exactly, you know what I'm
Speaker 1: exactly I mean, So you better better have a bigger
Speaker 1: survey size than that, Like, you better survey more people
Speaker 1: than my one friend. And that's exactly why this show,
Speaker 1: you know, is about these big issues and trying to
Speaker 1: find the way to understand them through through these lived experiences. Well, well,
Speaker 1: doing this show with you for this year has been amazing.
Speaker 1: I think we explored a lot of big ideas but
Speaker 1: we also we also explored our friendship. Feel I feel
Speaker 1: like this has been like four hundred hours of story
Speaker 1: corps man, so you know, like that's that's what makes
Speaker 1: me feel even better about having done this with your
Speaker 1: love you man, love you too. Some of My Best
Speaker 1: Friends Are is a production of Pushkin Industries. The show
Speaker 1: is written and hosted by me Khalil, Debron Mohammed and
Speaker 1: my best friend Ben Austin. It's produced by Sheriff Vincent
Speaker 1: and edited by Karen Shakerjee. Our engineer is Martin Gonzalez.
Speaker 1: Our associate editor is Key Show Williams. Our associate producer
Speaker 1: is Lucy Sullivan, and our show runner is Sasha Matthias.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Lee tam Malad and Mia LaBelle.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to all our guests this season and to
Speaker 1: everyone that's helped with the show. That's right. Shout out
Speaker 1: Charlie Roth to my mama and of course you called
Speaker 1: her that she was like the Archie Bunker of the
Speaker 1: show like we just referred, and of course so many others,
Speaker 1: including Stephanie and Danielle. But also just want to say
Speaker 1: quickly to all the comedians who've made us laugh about
Speaker 1: you know our vulnerabilities and the mistakes we make, giving
Speaker 1: us a chance to see ourselves into change up and
Speaker 1: made our lives a little brighter with laughter at Pushkin
Speaker 1: Thanks to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, John Schnars, Julia Barton,
Speaker 1: Jason Gambrell, Maggie Taylor, Nicole Morano, Eric Sandler, Mary Beth Smith,
Speaker 1: Christina Sullivan, Brian Serber, Nick, Daniella Lacan, Royston Bazzer, Maya Kanick,
Speaker 1: Sophie mckibbon, Malcolm Gladwell, and Jacob Weisberg. Holy car We
Speaker 1: have this theme song, Little Lily by Avery R. Young.
Speaker 1: We are so lucky that that's our theme song. It
Speaker 1: is just slamming like that's our walk up music every episode.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Avery R. Young. You'll definitely want
Speaker 1: to check out his music at his website Avery ryng
Speaker 1: dot com. You can find Pushkin on all social platforms
Speaker 1: at Pushkin Pods, and you can sign up for our
Speaker 1: newsletter at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcast
Speaker 1: listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: like to listen. And if you love this show and
Speaker 1: others from Pushkin Industries, consider subscribing to pushkin Plus. Pushkin
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Speaker 1: And if you haven't signed up, please do. Because Dereka Purnell,
Speaker 1: the author of a new book Becoming Abolitionists, is our
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Speaker 1: star review and tell some of your best friends about it.
Speaker 1: All your best friends, lots of folks, everybody. So I
Speaker 1: was I was actually reading yesterday Eddie Glaude's book on
Speaker 1: James Baldwin again again. Eddie Glaude is a Princeton professor.
Speaker 1: He wrote this book about James Baldwin. It's a really
Speaker 1: interesting book. It's it's it's part history, it's part analysis
Speaker 1: of of Baldwin's writing, and also a memoir about what
Speaker 1: it means to be political and what it means to
Speaker 1: be black and political. Yeah, that's it. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to tell you I was reading about you don't have
Speaker 1: any insight from the actor's book. What the fuck? No,
Speaker 1: It's just like I think, if you just quoted you
Speaker 1: sound smart