As the Left insists on forcing its sociopolitical ideas down everybody’s throats through various mediums including film, television, and art, James Baldwin’s essay, <a href="http://faculty.gordonstate.edu/lsanders-senu/Everybody's%20Protest%20Novel%20by%20James%20Baldwin.pdf">Everybody’s Protest Novel</a>, is as relevant today as ever.
Penned in 1955, Baldwin’s essay takes aim at the famous protest novel, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Son">Native Son</a>, written by his friend and former mentor, Richard Wright. Suffused with communist ideals, most of Native Son amounts to didactic slop, as Baldwin rightly points out.
Wright’s zeal to infest his work with overt political tropes effectively ruins the novel. Characters lack dimension and the plot stumbles toward the absurd. Most importantly, it’s bereft of any real sense of humanity. The novel reads more like a political pamphlet or a fictional exercise in communism than a piece of genuine literature.
Baldwin elaborates:
<blockquote>“The failure of the protest novel lies in its rejection of life, the human being, the denial of his beauty, dread, power, in its insistence that it is his categorization which is real and cannot be transcended.” </blockquote>
Baldwin’s reductive, limiting notion of categorization is what the Left forcefully asserts on all of us these days. The decidedly superficial aspects of ourselves are what must inherently define us now according to the Left — be it our skin color, ethnicity, or sexual preference. We are stripped of the deeper, more essential qualities of our collective humanity.
Worse, these categories exist in a nebulous hierarchy. Only the most fringe are crowned to preside over the rest of us as gatekeepers of what is allowable, particularly in the arts. The evidence is increasingly clear.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/glaad-we-want-20-of-series-regular-characters-to-be-lgbtq-by-2025">GLAAD demands that 20 percent</a> of series regulars on shows be from the LGBTQ community by 2025. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test">The Bechdel test</a>is now a common feminist metric to coerce filmmakers and novelists into artificially representing women in their works. The progressive pull of these groups in Hollywood and elsewhere is staggering in scope and continually evidenced by the films, shows, and novels being thrown at us ad nauseam.
Certainly, if any artist attempts to stray from these measures the specter of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-no-leftists-critics-of-cancel-culture-dont-hate-democracy">Cancel Culture</a> looms over them. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dave-chappelles-rotten-tomato-standup-reviews-are-amanda-prestigiacomo">Rotten Tomatoes</a> certainly tried to undermine Dave Chapelle’s recent comedy special, Sticks and Stones, by only allowing for negative reviews from supposed critics.
Baldwin’s essay foreshadows the nefarious impact such sociopolitical strictures like virtue signaling and Cancel Culture have not only on artistry but on truth and the very notion of freedom itself.
<blockquote>“Let us say, then, that truth…is meant to imply a devotion to the human being, his freedom and fulfillment; freedom which cannot be legislated…This is the prime concern, the frame of reference; it is not to be confused with…devotion to a Cause…Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.” </blockquote>
Of course, given the nature of higher education these days, it’s doubtful many are even aware of Baldwin’s eloquent and prescient essay. Over the last thirty years, pedagogy has given way to progressive demagoguery on college campuses all across America. Healthy critical thinking is at a premium in academia and beyond.
I’d be remiss though if I didn’t note some information about Baldwin himself. Not only was he a great, complex American writer, he was black. And gay. How about them apples, progressives?

Dave Chappelle

Cancel Culture&#8217;s Failure: James Baldwin’s Famous Essay Exposes The Left&#8217;s Flawed Logic

Political Correctness

Jerry Seinfeld unofficially kicked off comedy’s woke counterpunch all the way back in 2015.
The “Seinfeld” alum declared at the time why he no longer performs for college students. They <a href="https://ew.com/article/2015/06/08/jerry-seinfeld-politically-correct-college-campuses/">get offended</a> by jokes told by one of the culture’s cleanest, least incendiary, minds.
Seinfeld struck a nerve. Still, most comedians either silently applauded the sitcom superstar or hoped the subject would just go away. Many didn’t want to get their hands dirty in the fight.
That’s no longer an option. A recent string of high-profile comments brought “Cancel Culture” to the fore. Stand-up routines by Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr and <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/sebastian-maniscalco-vmas-millennials-woke/">Sebastian Maniscalo</a> forced the subject back into the limelight.
“No Safe Spaces,” a documentary about the Left’s serial attacks on free expression, debuts this weekend at the near-perfect time. Comedian Adam Carolla and syndicated radio star Dennis Prager unite to explore how universities are clamping down on healthy debate, and why that woke sentiment is leaking into society at large.
<div id="attachment_58115" style="width: 2317px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58115" class="wp-image-58115 size-full" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Adam-Carolla.jpg" alt="Adam Carolla roasts Alec Baldwin onstage during the Comedy Central Roast of Alec Baldwin at Saban Theatre on September 07, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Comedy Central)" width="2307" height="1300" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/Adam-Carolla.jpg 2307w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/Adam-Carolla-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/Adam-Carolla-768x433.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/Adam-Carolla-1024x577.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 2307px) 100vw, 2307px" />Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images</div>
“Joker” director Todd Phillips, who previously helmed the “Hangover” series, amplified the cause. He told Vanity Fair he created “Joker” because making comedies is <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/10/joaquin-phoenix-cover-story">no longer fun</a>.
“Go try to be funny nowadays with this woke culture,” he says. “There were articles written about why comedies don’t work anymore—I’ll tell you why, because all the f***ing funny guys are like, ‘F*** this s***, because I don’t want to offend you.’
Given the cresting wave of pro-free speech sentiment, you’d think even more comedians would be lining up to defend their right to free expression.
And you’d be wrong.
For every comic ready to lash out against woke rules, another is happy to abide by them.
Take comic actor Nick Kroll, the former star of FX’s “The League.” Kroll’s Netflix series “Big Mouth” got attacked by woke scolds for “incorrectly” telling jokes tied to bisexuals and the trans community.
Kroll meekly apologized, and then he <a href="https://news.avclub.com/nick-kroll-on-making-comedy-in-a-woke-culture-you-c-1839265725">doubled down</a>.
“I’m of the opinion, personally, we have this ability to listen and communicate with the audience and hear what they have to say. And sometimes, I’m like, ‘I don’t agree with you.’ And other times I’m like ‘Yeah, I hear you. We didn’t get that exactly right. We’ll do better….’”
“I think that you can still talk about anything and be crazy and not feel too censored,” he said. “It’s a trickier time, but also we have a show where a boy sends a d*** pic to his cousin that he made out with. You can still do and say some pretty crazy, wild s***.”
Marc Maron, the overrated comic and host of the “WTF with Marc Maron” podcast, also thinks woke culture is just fine, thank you. Maron played the ludicrous <a href="https://people.com/movies/joker-marc-maron-disagrees-with-todd-phillips-view-comedy/">“punching down</a>&#8221; card to explain why.
“Really, the only thing that’s off the table, culturally, at this juncture — and not even entirely — is shamelessly punching down for the sheer joy of hurting people,” he continued. “For the sheer excitement and laughter that some people get from causing people pain, from making people uncomfortable, from making people feel excluded. Ya know, that excitement.”
YouTube star turned late-late night host Lilly Singh is also on Team Woke.
Singh, who possesses 1/24th of the career of the “Hangover” director, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lilly-singh-tackles-matt-lauer-claims-open-letter-gift-baskets-bit-1249521">blasted Phillips</a> for “whining” about woke culture on her new show “A Little Late.”
Singh pointed to popular comedy projects made during the woke era, like “Fleabag” and “Bridesmaids,” as if that’s a rational argument.
Hey, we didn’t burn ALL the books, amirite?
Singh next played the gender card.
&#8220;And get this. Women play characters that aren&#8217;t strippers or nagging wives or super hot chicks that sleep with Ed Helms even though Bradley Cooper is right there.&#8221;
She then mocked Phillips for writing the 2006 dud “School for Scoundrels,” saying, “turns you couldn’t write comedy in the pre-woke era, either.”
Yes, Singh ignored Phillips’ work on the massively successful “Hangover” trilogy, the beloved “Old School” and “Road Trip.” Oh, Phillips also boasts a story credit on “Borat.”
<div id="attachment_53785" style="width: 2743px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-53785" class="wp-image-53785 size-full" src="https://editorial.dailywire.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/DE0C25EB-705D-4DAF-8F49-9E7550E8FBD1.jpeg" alt="Actor Joaquin Phoenix and Director Todd Phillips attend the &quot;Joker&quot; Premiere at cinema UGC Normandie son September 23, 2019 in Paris, France." width="2733" height="1537" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/DE0C25EB-705D-4DAF-8F49-9E7550E8FBD1.jpeg 2733w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/DE0C25EB-705D-4DAF-8F49-9E7550E8FBD1-300x169.jpeg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/DE0C25EB-705D-4DAF-8F49-9E7550E8FBD1-768x432.jpeg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2019/10/DE0C25EB-705D-4DAF-8F49-9E7550E8FBD1-1024x576.jpeg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 2733px) 100vw, 2733px" />Photo by Stephane Cardinale-Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images</div>
Then again, Singh crushes it on YouTube.
You can read these woke defenders’ comments in two ways. That’s how they really feel about the issue … or they’re trying to stay a few steps ahead of the Woke Police. Look at Kroll’s previous white-dude-bro-comedy “The League,” a show that might get hammered by social justice scolds had it debuted in 2019.
Five white friends, and one long-suffering spouse, flex their privilege each Sunday? The mind reels…
Some comedians who previously backed woke culture have had a change of heart – for pragmatic reasons. Sarah Silverman is a prime example. She once <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/09/sarah-silverman-comedians-college-kids-tiff-2015">threw her arms around our woke age.</a>
“I think it’s a sign of being old if you’re put off by that … you have to listen to the college-aged because they lead the revolution,” she told Vanity Fair in 2015.
Earlier this year, she revealed how she lost a juicy film role because she dressed in blackface a decade earlier. It didn’t matter that she repeatedly apologized or that the show’s message wasn’t racist at all.
Now, she’s not a woke fan, calling Cancel Culture “<a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/jim-gaffigan-woke-film-critics/">righteousness porn</a>.”
Will Kroll, Maron and Singh see the light on those woke handcuffs? Or will it take getting pulled over by the PC Police before that happens?
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/far-left-group-threatens-violence-against-church-screening-the-rise-of-jordan-peterson">Far-Left Group Threatens Violence Against Church Screening ‘The Rise of Jordan Peterson’</a>

Comedians Taking Sides In The Woke Wars

Jerry Seinfeld

Sarah Silverman

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The tragic suicide of transgender comedian Daphne Dorman has been linked in a misleading way by some in the media to comedian Dave Chappelle and his “transphobic” standup.
Dorman, a transgender comedian and activist, posted a goodbye note to Facebook on Friday before committing suicide. Dorman was friendly with Chappelle, who mentioned their friendship in a “hidden extra” from his latest standup special “Sticks &amp; Stones.” 
Some in the media, however, reported on the tragedy by deceptively tying Chappelle to Dorman’s death. The smear began with a misleading headline from <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-daphne-dorman-dave-chappelle-suicide-transphobic-netflix-special-20191012-kbwfswhydjgalp4mro2hcmvpxm-story.html">The New York Daily News</a>: “Transgender actress, activist and comedienne Daphne Dorman, referenced in Dave Chappelle’s ‘transphobic’ Netflix special, commits suicide.”
“Dorman was at the center of controversy recently after she was referenced by Dave Chappelle in a stand-up special that some people called transphobic,” the piece said. “Dorman, however, ‘was laughing the hardest’ at the trans jokes in his practice set, the comedian said.”
The NY Daily News continued, notably mentioning Chappelle&#8217;s alleged &#8220;transphobic&#8221; set: 
<blockquote>Dorman was cited by Dave Chappelle in his special “Sticks and Stones.”
The Netflix show, which premiered on Aug. 26, was slammed as <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tomiobaro/dave-chappelle-transphobic-netflix-special-sticks-and-stones">offensive</a> by many critics for the comedian’s “<a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59ngpb/you-can-definitely-skip-dave-chappelles-new-netflix-special-sticks-and-stones">obsession</a> with making fun of trans people.”
Its humor, however, was praised by some conservative outlets, such as Breitbart and The Federalist.</blockquote>
The post was quickly shared online by fellow journalists. 
<a href="https://www.phillymag.com/author/ernest-owens/">Ernest Owens</a>, writer at large for Philadelphia Magazine, was explicit in contributing blame to Chappelle for Dorman’s suicide. “‘It’s just jokes,’ they said. Dave Chappelle made a ‘joke’ about a transgender actress, activist, and comedian named Daphne Dorman in his Netflix special,” Owens wrote. “She recently died to suicide. Trans people are not a joke. Enough is enough.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&quot;It&#39;s just jokes,&quot; they said.
Dave Chappelle made a &quot;joke&quot; about a transgender actress, activist, and comedian named Daphne Dorman in his Netflix special.
She recently died to suicide.
Trans people are not a joke.
Enough is enough. <a href="https://t.co/B1mAZdSgjR">https://t.co/B1mAZdSgjR</a>
&mdash; Ernest Owens (@MrErnestOwens) <a href="https://twitter.com/MrErnestOwens/status/1183423251814506496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 13, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Journalist Nicki Mayo also shared the NYDN piece, merely posting the headline, “Transgender actress, activist and comedienne Daphne Dorman, referenced in Dave Chappelle’s ‘transphobic’ Netflix special, commits suicide.”
The tweet blew up, receiving over 1,200 retweets and thousands of likes by Sunday night. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Transgender actress, activist and comedienne Daphne Dorman, referenced in Dave Chappelle’s ‘transphobic’ Netflix special, commits suicide <a href="https://t.co/GjyoAXVzSq">https://t.co/GjyoAXVzSq</a>
&mdash; Nicki Mayo (@nickimayonews) <a href="https://twitter.com/nickimayonews/status/1183148644360437760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Over an hour later, and after numerous commenters criticized the “misleading headline,” Mayo added the following tweet: “In the ‘hidden extra’ of the special, Chappelle told a story about sparking an unlikely friendship with a trans woman … Dorman confirmed on social media the same day that she was the trans woman Chappelle was referring to.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
In the “hidden extra” of the special, Chappelle told a story about sparking an unlikely friendship with a trans woman &#8230;
Dorman confirmed on social media the same day that she was the trans woman Chappelle was referring to.<a href="https://t.co/Sto35Iafeu">https://t.co/Sto35Iafeu</a>
&mdash; Nicki Mayo (@nickimayonews) <a href="https://twitter.com/nickimayonews/status/1183165559283863552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
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As <a href="https://twitter.com/shoe0nhead/status/1183440676404580359">highlighted</a> by popular YouTuber June Lapine, a.k.a. Shoe, Dorman had repeatedly praised Chappelle online. 
“Yep, I&#8217;m the Daphne that Dave Chappelle is talking about in Sticks and Stones,” Dorman’s Twitter bio reads, with an added angel emoji. 
“Punching down requires you to consider yourself superior to another group. [Dave Chappelle] doesn&#8217;t consider himself better than me in any way. He isn&#8217;t punching up or punching down. He&#8217;s punching lines. That&#8217;s his job and he&#8217;s a master of his craft. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SticksAndStones?src=hashtag_click">#SticksAndStones</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/imthatdaphne?src=hashtag_click">#imthatdaphne</a>,&#8221; Dorman posted to Twitter on August 29. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Punching down requires you to consider yourself superior to another group. <a href="https://twitter.com/DaveChappelle?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DaveChappelle</a> doesn&#39;t consider himself better than me in any way. He isn&#39;t punching up or punching down. He&#39;s punching lines. That&#39;s his job and he&#39;s a master of his craft. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SticksAndStones?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SticksAndStones</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/imthatdaphne?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#imthatdaphne</a>
&mdash; Daphne Dorman (@DaphneDorman) <a href="https://twitter.com/DaphneDorman/status/1166937728681791488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 29, 2019</a></blockquote>
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In another August tweet, replying to conservative outlet Town Hall’s piece on “Sticks &amp; Stones” “triggering” liberals, Dorman <a href="https://twitter.com/DaphneDorman/status/1166656181726658561">posted</a>, “Nah, I&#8217;m a liberal and I thought it rocked. I&#8217;m literally the Daphne he talks about meeting in the Epilogue.”
Dorman, who leaves behind a young daughter, posted the following note to Facebook on Friday, hours before news of the suicide broke:
<blockquote>I&#8217;m sorry.
I&#8217;ve thought about this a lot before this morning. How do you say &#8220;goodbye&#8221; and &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry&#8221; and &#8220;I love you&#8221; to all the beautiful souls you know? For the last time.
There&#8217;s no good way. That&#8217;s what I got out of all that thought.
To those of you who are mad at me: please forgive me. To those of you who wonder if you failed me: you didn&#8217;t. To those of you feel like I failed you: I did and I&#8217;m sorry and I hope you&#8217;ll remember me in better times and better light.
I love you all. I&#8217;m sorry. Please help my daughter, Naia, understand that none of this is her fault. Please remind her that I loved her with every fiber of my being.</blockquote>
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<blockquote cite="https://www.facebook.com/DaphneAlexandraDorman/posts/10156751918998473" class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore">
I&#039;m sorry.I&#039;ve thought about this a lot before this morning. How do you say &quot;goodbye&quot; and &quot;I&#039;m sorry&quot; and &quot;I love you&quot;&#8230;
Posted by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DaphneAlexandraDorman">Daphne Dorman</a> on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/DaphneAlexandraDorman/posts/10156751918998473">Friday, October 11, 2019</a></blockquote>
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H/t <a href="https://twitter.com/shoe0nhead/status/1183433937655386119">June Lapine</a>

SMEAR: Media Link Dave Chappelle To Trans Comedian&#8217;s Suicide

LGBT

Transgender

Among the fascinating phenomena of America’s most prominent Muslim activist organizations is how they decide which Muslims to lift up and which to ignore. Compare two recent comedy specials. One, Dave Chappelle’s newest Netflix special “Sticks &amp; Stones,” which is <a href="https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2019/08/dave-chappelle-review-netflix.html">generating intense reactions</a> given its choice of material — including abortion, #MeToo, Transgenderism, “the alphabet people” (referring to the expanding acronym LGBTQIA+), and the implications of the “cancel culture,” which seeks to silence all who do not adhere to the “woke” doctrines of political correctness.
Thinking about this hilariously offensive special brought to mind another recent comedy special that challenged different cultural taboos: Millennial Ramy Youssef’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-PSx-lf_kU">Feelings</a>,” released on HBO on June 29.
Both comedians are American Muslims, a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJobAaaxUcM">fact often forgotten</a> about Chappelle — perhaps since he is a convert who generally shuns public discussion of his faith. But Youssef, the son of Egyptian immigrants, emphasizes Muslimness as central to his comedy, TV show, and identity.
In fact, <a href="https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/facebook-and-disney-sponsor-islamist-group-mpacs-media-awards-honoring-dead-anti-semitic-activist-jamal-khashoggi/">Islamist organization the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC)</a> — a group co-founded by Hassan Hathout, who described himself as a “<a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2012/08/history-mpac-andrew-c-mccarthy/">close disciple</a>” of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna and whose current director Salam al-Marayati <a href="https://freebeacon.com/national-security/muslim-leader-who-called-israel-a-suspect-after-911-meets-with-biden-at-white-house/">suggested</a> Israel as a suspect of the 9/11 attacks — and its “Hollywood bureau chief” <a href="https://twitter.com/SueObeidi">Sue Obeidi</a> is <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/emmys-ramy-patriot-act-hasan-minhaj-muslim-portrayal-tv/">eager to promote</a> Youssef. On the contrary, MPAC does not generally even acknowledge the successes of Muslims not in line with its Islamist ideology.
One of the differences between Chappelle’s and Youssef’s styles of comedy is that the latter is more clearly playing essentially himself. And while his ideas may provoke some shocks, they do not do so in the same way as Chappelle’s over-the-top fictional character — a character who intentionally pushes ideological buttons. At times, Youssef goes fairly deep into faith, sexuality, and 9/11. While there are some exaggerations, it’s clear he’s providing what the title suggests: His “feelings.”
Youssef devotes significant time in both his special and fictional show to advancing a bizarre subject: Cousin marriage and why it should be acceptable. Youssef gets not one but two chances at the same time on prominent, hip, corporate television and this is where he places all of his chips? Obeidi and MPAC go through all this trouble to lift him up, only for the big ask of America to more readily permit … cousin marriage?
From minutes 48 – 51, Youssef asks, “You ever have that cousin growing up you kind of have a vibe with?” Then telling a story of his cousin’s wedding in Egypt and jealousy toward her husband, he asks, “Have I been in love with my cousin this whole time? &#8230; It’s only weird if you don’t have a hot cousin. If you think it’s weird, you just have an ugly family. I’m sorry … Why can’t we be with our cousins?”
He then asks the audience for, “like, a real reason?” Captain Obvious in the audience brings up genetics. “That’s propaganda … I looked into it … The rate doubles &#8230; It goes from 1.4 to 2.8% chance that something could happen.” Then he pauses for effect and says, “Like, when did 2.8% ever stop you from doing f***ing anything?” People applaud.
Then he ups the ante: “We’ve been brainwashed. This s*** started in America. They said being with your cousin would f*** up the kids because they didn’t want immigrant populations to grow … That’s racist! That’s why I’m not upset about like, the ‘Muslim ban’ and stuff. I’m still thinking about the ‘cousin ban.’”
In fact, Youssef vastly understates the potential negative impact of cousin marriages, as demonstrated by recent cases in the U.K: While British Pakistanis make up 3% of all births, their children accounted for <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/children/11723308/First-cousin-marriages-in-Pakistani-communities-leading-to-appalling-disabilities-among-children.html">30% of genetic illnesses</a> due to cousin marriage, and in 2017 the London neighborhood of Redbridge released a startling report that <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-borough-child-deaths-redbridge-parents-related-cousins-pakistani-families-council-report-a7741146.html">19% of the child deaths</a> in its borough were from cousin couples — 9% of whom were Pakistani.
Next, Youssef baits his P.C.-incubated audience: “It’s just so disappointing because I’m in this crowd of people who are like ‘woke’ or whatever, but you’re not. Like … I saw some of you when I was saying some s*** … I’m sharing a sexual feeling and you shut down … I’ll stand up for the gay community, the trans community … And I’m like yeah, I get that, cause I don’t identify as being her cousin. Gender’s a construct, so is family, like all this is just … it’s what we say it is.”
Funny? That’s not playing a character, it’s a comedian setting aside several minutes in his HBO comedy special to earnestly argue for cousin marriage on the grounds that opposing it is racist.
There is a huge difference between Chapelle, who pokes fun at hot-button controversies to generate laughs, and Youssef, who uses his jokes in a clumsy effort to shoehorn the culture of Islamist society, grafting it onto the intersectionalist arguments that people have come to expect — even when it doesn’t actually fit. The fights for gay marriage and transgender acceptance are somehow comparable to doubling one’s chances of having children with birth defects?
MPAC wants a Muslim (actually Islamist) comedian, not a comedian who happens to be a Muslim. This is significant because it further illustrates MPAC’s Islamist purpose. MPAC doesn’t want to suggest that American Muslims are just like other Americans, with similar issues. Rather, they want to keep American Muslims apart and to force Islamist sentiment down all Americans’ throats.
While it may seem counterintuitive that MPAC would promote Muslims with extreme views rather than all-American Muslim success stories, this is actually a feature and not a bug for organizations with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood. This movement is committed to Islamist values and culture overcoming American and Western values. Pushing the ideological boundaries of respectability is the goal and any tools at hand, whether it be LGBTQ sympathies, postmodernism, or the stand-up comedy traditions of provocation are fair game.
David M. Swindle is the Southern California associate of the <a href="https://counterislamist.org/">Counter-Islamist Grid</a> and a fellow for <a href="https://www.meforum.org/islamist-watch/">Islamist Watch</a>. He also works as the Director of Research for <a href="https://theisraelgroup.org/">The Israel Group</a>. Follow him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/daveswindle">@DaveSwindle</a>.

Dave Chappelle.jpg

SWINDLE: Islamist Organizations Only Elevate The ‘Right’ Muslims

Islam

Muslims

Matt Stone, co-creator of &#8220;South Park,&#8221; lamented the &#8220;cancel culture&#8221; climate in an interview with <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/as-south-park-gets-renewed-2022-matt-stone-trey-parker-have-new-movie-ideas-1238778?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_source=t.co&amp;utm_medium=referral">The Hollywood Reporter</a> (THR), wherein he accused critics of lying about their dislike of Dave Chappelle&#8217;s recent Netflix comedy special &#8220;Sticks &amp; Stones&#8221; in order to stay in the good graces of the woke crowd.
&#8220;It&#8217;s new,&#8221; Stone said of cancel culture. &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to say it&#8217;s the same as it&#8217;s always been. The kids are f***ing different than us. There&#8217;s a generational thing going on.&#8221;
&#8220;South Park&#8221; has been hit by cancel culture on many occasions, with various parenting advocacy groups working to have the show pulled off the air for nearly two decades. When it comes to Dave Chappelle, Stone doesn&#8217;t believe the comedian will be canceled anytime soon — but he did lament how critics trashed his Netflix special.
&#8220;I know some people have been canceled for genuinely, like, personal behavior, but Dave is not getting canceled anytime soon,&#8221; Stone told THR. &#8220;I feel bad for television critics and cultural critics. They may have laughed like hell at that, and then they went home and they kn[e]w what they ha[d] to write to keep their job. So when I read TV reviews or cultural reviews, I think of someone in prison, writing. I think about somebody writing a hostage note. This is not what they think. This is what they have to do to keep their job in a social media world. So I don&#8217;t hold it against them.&#8221;
In the same interview, Stone said that he and Trey Parker now feel bad for trashing Al Gore with the &#8220;ManBearPig&#8221; episode, which was an extended metaphor for climate change. To apparently &#8220;atone&#8221; for this sin, the pair recently produced a politically correct apology episode in which Gore was actually right about ManBearPig.
&#8220;We just felt like, of all of our episodes, that one has not aged very well,&#8221; Stone said. &#8220;And we came up with a funny idea how to use ManBearPig as a parable. I always felt like if we were going to rewrite that or comment on it or atone, whatever you want to call it, it&#8217;s in kind. In other words, we didn&#8217;t want to say in some interview, &#8216;Well, we don&#8217;t feel so great about that episode.&#8217; It doesn&#8217;t feel as good as &#8216;F**k that, we&#8217;ll do a whole two-parter.&#8217; And it is not just atoning. We beat ourselves up pretty good.&#8221;
That being said, Stone and co-creator Trey Parker said that they were glad to steer the show away from trashing Donald Trump, which it did for nearly all of last season, and plan to explore more fertile comedy territory.
&#8220;It was nice for us,&#8221; Parker said. &#8220;It was nice to not come in and talk about Donald Trump. And I think it was nice for people to watch and go, &#8216;Oh, yeah, there is still comedy outside of f**king Donald Trump. There is still funny sh*t as the world goes on.&#8217; And you can get your Trump comedy on so many other shows.&#8221;
&#8220;We can make a funnier show with Garrison and that whole story, but there is other stuff that is more fun,&#8221; Stone added. &#8220;But then again, if we came up with something tomorrow, we&#8217;d do it. We don&#8217;t have any rules.&#8221;

mattstone

‘South Park’ Co-Creator Matt Stone Explains Why Critics Trashed Dave Chappelle: ‘To Keep Their Jobs’

Hollywood

Hollywood Reporter

South Park

Actor and stand-up comedian Kevin Hart was released from the hospital on Wednesday after suffering a reported three spinal fractures when his 1970 Plymouth Barracuda crashed on September 1, injuring Hart and the driver.
According to <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2019/09/11/kevin-hart-released-hospital-rehab-car-crash/">TMZ,</a> Hart is now at a live-in rehab facility where he will continue to recover for at least the next week. On Thursday Eniko Hart, the comedian’s wife, told <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2019/09/12/kevin-hart-recovering-live-in-rehab-facility-wife-eniko-optimistic/">TMZ</a> that Hart is “great,” but declined to comment further on his condition.
The Saturday morning before the accident, Hart had posted a picture of himself next to the car on Instagram with a caption that read, “I added some more muscle to the family for my 40th.” The car, which he named “Menace,” was capable of traveling from 0-60 mph in just 3.2 seconds and was the eighth addition to his collection, according to <a href="https://www.grandtournation.com/cars/celebrity-cars/what-cars-does-kevin-hart-own-full-car-collection/">GrantTourNation</a>.
Last Sunday, <a href="https://pagesix.com/2019/09/07/kevin-harts-car-was-missing-important-safety-features-experts-say/">Page Six</a> reported that the car “lacked important safety features,” including a five-point harness and roll cage, “which could have prevented many of the injuries he suffered” in the accident.
In 2018, Hart drew national attention after far-left activists accused him of making anti-gay comments. As the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51288/kevin-hart-driver-suffer-major-injuries-muscle-car-james-barrett">DailyWire </a>previously reported, once &#8220;the comedian was announced as the next host of the Academy Awards — what he celebrated as one of his life dreams — past comments and jokes he&#8217;d made about homosexuality resurfaced. Amid pressure from the &#8216;outrage mob&#8217; and after being pressed by the Academy to apologize, again, for the past statements, Hart announced that he was stepping down from the hosting gig.&#8221;
The 2019 Oscars continued without a host, a situation that had only happened once before, in 1989, during which the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to open with an &#8220;11-minute musical number&#8221; that is &#8220;widely regarded as one of the worst openers in Oscars history,&#8221; according to <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2019/01/10/2019-oscars-kevin-hart-out-still-no-host/2534712002/">USA Today</a>.
Only days before Hart&#8217;s accident, comedian Dave Chappelle drew widespread condemnation from the Left for defending Hart in his latest Netflix stand-up comedy special, “Sticks &amp; Stones.”
As the <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/entertainment/tv/dave-chappelle-netflix-comedy-kevin-hart-louis-ck-michael-jackson-20190828.html">Inquirer</a> reported last month:
<blockquote>INQUIRER: “This is the worst time ever to be a celebrity,” Chappelle says early on in the special, later adding that it is currently “celebrity hunting season,” and “they even got poor Kevin Hart.”
INQUIRER: &#8230;.Chappelle then uses the Hart bit to discuss an “unwritten and unspoken rule of show business,” which is that “you are never, ever allowed to upset the alphabet people,” meaning the LGBT community. Hart, Chappelle adds, “had to learn [that] the hard way.”</blockquote>
Hart, whom Chappelle describes as “four tweets shy” of perfect, has made it known that he likes to stay out of controversial topics.
As the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/51288/kevin-hart-driver-suffer-major-injuries-muscle-car-james-barrett">DailyWire</a> previously reported:
<blockquote>DW: On an appearance on the &#8220;Joe Rogan Experience&#8221; in spring, Hart addressed the last year, which he described as &#8220;a little weird&#8221; for him, since he&#8217;s worked hard to steer clear of politics and &#8220;divisive&#8221; topics. &#8220;I don&#8217;t joke in the politics, I don&#8217;t joke in anything that has to do with the slander of others or other communities — I don&#8217;t do anything divisive. That&#8217;s my biggest thing,&#8221; he said&#8230;.
DW: “Everybody — all races, shapes, sizes, whoever you are, whatever you are — you can come to a Kevin Hart show and have a good time,” continues Hart. “So when it came out that I was a person that was divisive, that was tough.&#8221;</blockquote>

kevin_hart_2.jpg

Kevin Hart Released From Hospital

Kevin Hart

On Wednesday’s episode of &#8220;The Ben Shapiro Show,&#8221; Shapiro talks about Dave Chappelle&#8217;s new &#8220;politically incorrect&#8221; Netflix special, &#8220;Sticks and Stones,&#8221; and the Left&#8217;s reaction. Video and partial transcript below:
So I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve seen Chappelle&#8217;s new special, but it&#8217;s insanely politically incorrect. I mean incredibly so. He mocks his own audience for being too woke. There&#8217;s one point where he says, in the middle of the special, he says, &#8220;I&#8217;m going to do an imitation.&#8221; And then he says, &#8220;&#8216;You tweeted something bad five years ago, and now I&#8217;m going to come after you and destroy your career.&#8217; Who am I?&#8221; And everybody thinks, oh, well, you know, that&#8217;s the media. [But then] he says, &#8220;That&#8217;s you. That&#8217;s all of you.&#8221;
And that&#8217;s right. I mean Chappelle was correct about this. Chappelle also &#8230; specifically calls out the LGBTQ lobbying organizations for going after comedians trying to destroy their careers. And he specifically cites that Kevin Hart situation, very hilariously states that Kevin Hart — who[m] he&#8217;s known for years — is basically a perfect human, well &#8220;four tweets shy of perfect.&#8221; He talks about Kevin Hart&#8217;s career basically being destroyed, or at least significantly damaged, at the height of his career aspirations — that was the Oscars — by the woke-scolds.
And then he does a riff about abortion, and his riff about abortion ends up being kind of pro-life. And he says that he doesn&#8217;t care whether a woman has an abortion, but if the woman decides it&#8217;s the woman&#8217;s choice and only the woman&#8217;s choice, [then] men shouldn&#8217;t have to pay for the child support, which is a very common argument that is made by sorta cynical pro-lifers. And then he says, &#8220;Or maybe we have the logic of this whole thing entirely wrong.&#8221;
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The Left has gone absolutely ape bleep about this. I mean, they have gone insane about this, and the critics hate this Chappelle special. Now Chappelle used to be the sort of consensus Best Comedian Living. And there are a lot of great comedians. Chappelle was loved by everybody; everybody enjoyed his routine. Now, however, he has done something very bad, and the reviewers are very, very angry about it. And so Chappelle must be punished.
Don&#8217;t you understand? The commanding heights of Hollywood must prevent the accession of people like Dave Chappelle because Dave Chappelle has crossed too many lines. Now, Dave Chappelle is intersectional, right? He is a black man, and this means that he also makes jokes about white people. They&#8217;re very, very harsh jokes about the heroin epidemic and white folks and all the rest of this. But he is a gun-toting black man who makes jokes about abortion and LGBTQ lobbying organizations, and this means he must be exorcised. And &#8230; the commanding heights of Hollywood have to be used on behalf of one particular point of view, and if they are not, then the woke-scolds in the media and in Hollywood will come after them.
So Dave Chappelle is now the target of these woke-scolds. So <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/59ngpb/you-can-definitely-skip-dave-chappelles-new-netflix-special-sticks-and-stones">Vice</a> reviewed Chappelle&#8217;s special like this:
<blockquote>But now he chooses to blatantly ignore the historic criticism against his style of comedy and new loud-and-clear criticism from the trans community.</blockquote>
Pace magazine calls his special &#8220;boring,&#8221; &#8220;hypocritical&#8221; and &#8220;out of touch&#8221; &#8230; Basically, he had, for a long time, a zero percent at Rotten Tomatoes from critics. Why? Because critics are no longer reviewing the quality of an act. Instead, they&#8217;re reviewing the wokeness of an act, which is how Hanna Gatsby was the least funny person who has ever lived. I mean, I&#8217;m talking about the least funny human being who has ever lived. There are human beings who live in caves, in isolation — who have never heard a joke and are not properly socialized — they&#8217;re more funny than Hannah Gatsby. She has 100 percent ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. Dave Chappelle was at 0 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Why? Because he violated the rules &#8230;
Inkoo Kang of <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2019/08/dave-chappelle-sticks-and-stones-netflix-michael-jackson-louis-ck-kevin-hart.html">Slate</a> wrote:
<blockquote>Watching Dave Chappelle’s latter-day comedy specials — the most recent of which was released on Monday — is like dropping on a rascally uncle who doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, how much he’s disappointing you.</blockquote>
Alison Herman of <a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2019/8/27/20834162/dave-chappelle-sticks-and-stones-netflix-stand-up-special">The Ringer</a>:
<blockquote>Like most of Chappelle’s recent output, Sticks and Stones is designed to generate inflammatory coverage, which will in turn generate a chance for Chappelle to dismiss said coverage as reductive, opportunistic, and generally out to get him. It’s a symbiotic cycle with no end in sight, and it’s become the last thing a beloved provocateur should ever want to be: predictable.</blockquote>
Okay, they are reviewing him for his proper acquiescence to the struggle-session, Maoist-Left views of comedy. He must be destroyed. He must be destroyed. It&#8217;s really &#8230; quite pathetic.
And now the audience reviews of the special are very high. People who like Chappelle like Chappelle, and people who don&#8217;t even watch Chappelle all that often are looking at this thing going, I can&#8217;t believe that dude said that out loud. But the fact is that Hollywood will not allow this sort of thing to go forward. And so Chappelle must be destroyed.
So Chappelle is now on the target list the same way that Kevin Hart was on the target list. It&#8217;s the same reason why you saw in the last 48 hours attempts by folks in Hollywood to try and out everybody in Beverly Hills who is going to a Trump fundraiser — because everyone must think alike or be excised. The commanding heights of the culture, the commanding heights of corporate America, and the commanding heights of politics must all be occupied by folks who agree with the Left.
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ben-shapiro-show/id1047335260">Listen to full episodes of “The Ben Shapiro Show” on iTunes. </a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/show/ben-shapiro-show">Watch “The Ben Shapiro Show” on-demand!</a>

chappelle_2

SHAPIRO: The Commanding Heights Of Hollywood Now Hate Dave Chappelle

Leftism

On Tuesday’s episode of “The Michael Knowles Show,” Knowles talks about how straight pride parades are just as ridiculous as gay pride parades. Video and partial transcript below:
So what actually happened at the straight pride parade? You had 200 straight pride marchers. You had thousands of protesters. Thirty-six Antifa leftist thugs get arrested and charged, a bunch of officers assaulted. So just right here, just in those numbers, this exposes one of the big lies of pride and the whole pride movement. The thesis, the idea behind the pride parade and the pride month is that straight people are the oppressors and heterosexuality is just the dominant and oppressive culture, and it&#8217;s unfair and it&#8217;s discriminatory toward LGBTQ alphabet people. But that&#8217;s not the case.
What this parade shows this is actually exactly the opposite. The culture is inclined in every way toward every other sexual preference other than what we would call traditional marriage. Two hundred people trolling the concept of pride. Thousands and thousands of people protesting the ones protesting the pride. And guess what? The 200 straight pride pro-Trump marchers, they were not the ones who were getting violent. It was the Antifa leftist thugs who were. Tells you a lot about the culture.
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And this is why I love the straight pride meme: It just exposes hypocrisy. It&#8217;s kind of like in Dave Chappelle&#8217;s recent standup special, it&#8217;s the same exposing hypocrisy. You know Chappelle — I don&#8217;t want to ruin it, so if you haven&#8217;t seen the special, close your ears for 10 seconds. Chappelle does this joke, and the joke is this. He says, men shouldn&#8217;t have an opinion about abortion, right? Woman&#8217;s body, woman&#8217;s choice; men shouldn&#8217;t have an opinion. However, if a woman chooses not to get an abortion, and the man wants the woman to get an abortion, then he should not have to pay to support the kid. His money, his choice. If she can kill the baby, he can at least abandon the baby. And then Chappelle has this line, it&#8217;s one of the best lines of the whole special, he says, and if I&#8217;m wrong, maybe we&#8217;re wrong; figure that out for yourselves.
[Chappelle] sets the whole thing up with the logic of the Left; the logic of abortion. And then, when he gets to the logical conclusion of it, which is, well all right — [if] you can kill it, [then] I can at least abandon it [and] then I don&#8217;t have to pay to support it. When the audience necessarily objects to that, then he says, maybe if I&#8217;m wrong, maybe we&#8217;re wrong. That is the same idea with the straight pride parade. The straight pride parade is objectionable and ridiculous. I think the organizers would tell you that — they&#8217;d say, yes, it&#8217;s absurd to go out and celebrate your sexual preferences. Yea, oh yea, these certain things really sexually titillate me. Let&#8217;s hold a parade for it! Doesn’t make any sense. It&#8217;s ridiculous. That&#8217;s objectionable. But if that&#8217;s wrong. Maybe all pride parades are wrong.
<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-michael-knowles-show/id1266577963?mt=2">Listen to full episodes of “The Michael Knowles Show” on iTunes. </a>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/show/michael-knowles-show">Watch “The Michael Knowles Show” on-demand!</a>

USA &#8211; New York &#8211; Gay Pride Parade

KNOWLES: Maybe All Pride Parades Are Wrong

Antifa

Conservatism

The critics&#8217; reviews of comedian Dave Chappelle&#8217;s latest Netflix standup special &#8220;Sticks &amp; Stones&#8221; are rolling into review site <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dave_chappelle_sticks_and_stones">Rotten Tomatoes</a>, and they&#8217;re exactly what you&#8217;d expect in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39864/2019-year-wokescolds-ben-shapiro">Year of the Wokescolds</a>. But while the critics gnash their teeth over Chappelle&#8217;s unapologetic and purposefully offensive hour special, the general audience cheers.
As of Wednesday morning, &#8220;Sticks &amp; Stones&#8221; showed a 38% score from critics, with a near-perfect 99% audience score.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Critics vs. Audience score of Chappelle&#8217;s &#8220;Sticks &amp; Stones&#8221; is the least surprising thing ever. <a href="https://t.co/QejRMPlYM9">pic.twitter.com/QejRMPlYM9</a>
— Amanda Prestigiacomo (@AmandaPresto) <a href="https://twitter.com/AmandaPresto/status/1169236143277334530?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 4, 2019</a></blockquote>
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In the special, nothing is off-limits for Chappelle, hitting on so-called &#8220;cancel culture,&#8221; abortion, guns, race, the #MeToo movement, Jussie Smollett, Michael Jackson accusers, R. Kelly, Louis C.K., and LGBTQ activism.
&#8220;Like dropping in on a rascally uncle who doesn&#8217;t know, or doesn&#8217;t care, how much he&#8217;s disappointing you,&#8221; <a href="https://slate.com/culture/2019/08/dave-chappelle-sticks-and-stones-netflix-michael-jackson-louis-ck-kevin-hart.html">whined</a> Slate’s Inkoo Kang in response to the special.
While &#8220;Uncle Dave&#8221; was once cool, argued Kang, his jokes in 2019 make you &#8220;wince.&#8221;
&#8220;The soundness of their logic is as intact as ever, but they’re seldom informed by facts or new perspectives,&#8221; she wrote. &#8220;Each visit reminds you that your face is technically capable of laughing and cringing at the same time—but it certainly doesn’t feel good to do so. Despite it all, Uncle Dave insists it’s not that his viewpoints have gotten stale: Everyone&#8217;s just gotten so much more sensitive.&#8221;
Alison Herman at The Ringer said, &#8220;Sticks and Stones is designed to generate inflammatory coverage &#8230; It&#8217;s a symbiotic cycle with no end in sight, and it&#8217;s become the last thing a beloved provocateur should ever want to be: predictable.&#8221;
Entertainment Voice’s Alci Rengifo said there were &#8220;few jokes that truly hit hard and stand out.&#8221;
&#8220;Sticks &amp; Stones is terrible,&#8221; Paste Magazine’s Garrett Martin said, &#8220;and [Dave] Chappelle can only blame himself for that.&#8221;
Martin harshly critiques Chappelle&#8217;s opening riff on &#8220;cancel culture&#8221; as the comedian&#8217;s own personal venting session:
<blockquote>Among the long list of people Dave Chappelle doesn’t give a f*** about are the people who paid between $70 and $90 (before fees and charges) to see him live. The multimillionaire starts off his latest special on the largest streaming platform by belittling everybody who’s ever criticized any celebrity for insulting or offending people, using the audience at Atlanta’s Tabernacle as a stand-in for all of society. There’s not a joke or any kind of humor behind it—it’s just him venting about people being held accountable for their own words and actions. I guess it’s a brave way to start off a show, if you equate bravery with just acting like an a**hole.</blockquote>
The scores for Chappelle&#8217;s special underscore the disconnect between the media and the general public. This was also sharply exposed with media-beloved so-called comedian Hannah Gadsby (her schtick is to literally not be funny — figure that out!), who scored a perfect 100% from the critics with her &#8220;Nanette&#8221; special on <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hannah_gadsby_nanette">Rotten Tomatoes</a>. Her audience score? A miserable 54%.
This same pattern can be seen with &#8220;woke&#8221; movies, too. &#8220;Captain Marvel,&#8221; with its feminist superhero, tanked with audience scores following the premiere, though the feminist flick did well with critics:
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Captain Marvel’s audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is 35%. Ouch. <a href="https://t.co/nEV5WTGY2r">pic.twitter.com/nEV5WTGY2r</a>
— Amanda Prestigiacomo (@AmandaPresto) <a href="https://twitter.com/AmandaPresto/status/1104125348449521664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 8, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Dave Chappelle.

Dave Chappelle’s ‘Rotten Tomato’ Standup Reviews Are In. They’re Exactly What You’d Expect.

In his new Netflix special &#8220;Sticks &amp; Stones&#8221; released Monday, comedian Dave Chappelle slammed HBO&#8217;s documentary on alleged sexual abuse by Michael Jackson, said he didn&#8217;t believe Jackson&#8217;s accusers, and joked that even if Jackson did rape young boys, they were probably proud to go to school the next day having been molested by a megastar.
Chappelle&#8217;s comments came during a segment of his new stand-up comedy special focused on &#8220;celebrity hunting season,&#8221; an era he described as &#8220;the worst time ever to be a celebrity.&#8221;
In comments reported by <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dave-chappelle-slams-michael-jackson-accusers-cancel-culture-netflix-special-1234633">The Hollywood Reporter</a>, among other entertainment outlets, Chappelle warned his fellow celebrities that in the current &#8220;cancel culture&#8221; they&#8217;re all &#8220;doomed.&#8221;
&#8220;This is the worst time ever to be a celebrity,&#8221; he said. &#8220;You&#8217;re gonna be finished. Everyone&#8217;s doomed. Michael Jackson has been dead for 10 years, and this n**** has two new cases.&#8221;
HBO&#8217;s &#8220;Leaving Neverland,&#8221; he said, is &#8220;f***ing gross&#8221; and &#8220;really nasty sh**.&#8221; Though he at first expresses reluctance to admit it, Chappelle declares that he believes Jackson&#8217;s accusers — who say the star raped them when they were just 7 and 10 years old — are lying, then jokes that even if Jackson did do it, his victims should feel special to have been sexually abused by the world-famous celebrity.
&#8220;I don’t think he did it, but you know what? Even if he did do it … you know what I mean?&#8221; Chappelle said suggestively, pausing for effect.
As THR notes, the audience responded by erupting in laughter.
&#8220;I mean, it&#8217;s Michael Jackson,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;I know more than half the people in this room have been molested in their lives, but it wasn’t no goddamn Michael Jackson, was it? This kid got his d*** sucked by the King of Pop. All we get is awkward Thanksgivings for the rest of our lives. You know how good it must have felt to go to school the next day after that sh**?&#8221;
Why does the comedian not believe the accusers? Chappelle explained that it&#8217;s because troubled child actor Macaulay Culkin hasn&#8217;t come forward. &#8220;I&#8217;m not a pedophile, but if I was, Macaulay Culkin&#8217;s the first kid I&#8217;m f***ing — I&#8217;ll tell you that right now,&#8221; he said.
(For a detailed account of the sexual abuse allegations against Jackson, which span decades and involve multiple accusers, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/arts/music/michael-jackson-timeline-sexual-abuse-accusations.html">read The New York Times&#8217; summary here</a>.)
Chappelle went on to suggest that while he doesn&#8217;t believe Jackson&#8217;s accusers, he does believe the accusations against R. Kelly are true. He also denied stories about his reasons for turning down an appearance on Lifetime&#8217;s &#8220;Surviving R. Kelly,&#8221; explaining that he really didn&#8217;t go on because he doesn&#8217;t know the guy.
Another superstar that has fallen victim to &#8220;celebrity hunting season,&#8221; he said, was fellow comedian Kevin Hart, who he praised as &#8220;damn near perfect,&#8221; or, at least &#8220;four tweets shy of being perfect.&#8221;
Shortly after being named the host of the Oscars, one of his self-described life-long dreams, Hart <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39134/kevin-hart-steps-down-oscars-host-amid-firestorm-james-barrett">stepped down</a> amid pressure from the Academy to apologize again for past tweets deemed offensive to the LGBT community.
Chappelle also referenced Louis C.K., who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/23427/louis-ck-responds-sexual-harassment-allegations-ben-shapiro">admitted to</a> and apologized for masturbating in front of unconsenting women, and whom Chappelle described as &#8220;a very good friend of mine before he died in that terrible masturbation accident,&#8221; as noted by <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/dave-chappelle-calls-michael-jackson-rape-accusers-liars-defends-louis-ck-in-netflixs-sticks-and-stones">The Daily Beast</a>.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/44834/music-video-director-who-worked-michael-jackson-i-hank-berrien">Music Video Director Who Worked With Michael Jackson: I Believe His Accusers, Jackson A &#8216;Predator&#8217;</a>

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Dave Chappelle

Articles tagged with Dave Chappelle

Cancel Culture’s Failure: James Baldwin’s Famous Essay Exposes The Left’s Flawed Logic