I have been trying to wrap my head around some things and in effort to increase dialogue, I’m going to put my grievances into a series called My Problem with you.
I have been relatively quiet as I watched the LGBTQ community make its strides for social progress. On a social and political front, there is not one issue that I truly have with the wants of LGBTQ community. Well, I do have one…….. Leave Dave Chapelle alone!!!!!
My problem with the LGBTQ community attacking or complaining about Dave Chapelle’s recent Netflix stand up is that they are attempting to do to Dave Chapelle what certain segments of society have done to them, silence their freedom of speech. The call from advocates to boycott him sound completely unwarranted and are starting to make me look at their movement as a whole with the side eye.
I will admit, I have never attended a Pride Parade, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect the celebration of ones own identity, but at some point, one must put reigns on their expectation of what is considered socially acceptable. Although there is no one leader of the movement, I will have to admit that from the outside, it seems that it is ran similar to how most American’s may perceive the runnings of the Kremlin by Putin. I say this because there seems to be an effort to shut down anyone who doesn’t agree with or advocate for LGBTQ causes. That’s what annoys me!
How can you be about freedom, if you require others to either be completely silent with no opinion at all, or you expect them to agree with a majority of your beliefs? If a person does not seem to agree with the more socially agreed upon beliefs, people are subjected to a very mean backlash that seems to often make people lose their jobs, friends and sometimes everything that they worked for Anyone seen Isiah Washington?). I’m not saying that a mortgage loan officer with a hating for “the gays” should be able to keep his job position, but there are some people who should be free to say what they want and not be attacked as if they are Will Smith in Enemy of the State.
When watching the 2 series stand-up, I didn’t hear anything that remotely sounded as if he hated Gay people. If anything, there seemed to be a fondness for things that seem to a person on the outside, like Gay culture. The way he spoke of Gay people was no different than when he spoke of white people…or how he speaks in general terms to most blacks. There was nothing said that I thought warranted a boycott of Dave Chapelle and I hope that Netflix doesn’t give in to the pressure and remove his stand-up.
Since when has the word Discriminate become such a dirty word, when at its root, all it means is to draw a distinction? Sure, the second definition says that it means to draw a distinction in some prejudicial or racial form, but I’m assuming that most people are open minded and reasonably intelligent so that we don’t need to use the 2nd definition. We are not all the same. That statement does not mean greater than or less than, it means that things aren’t identical. What’s so wrong about that if you aren’t belittling anyone because of the difference?
This almost makes me wonder if you can be pro-LGBTQ and be pro-comedy, pro-laughter, pro-expression, pro-freedom & pro-uniqueness? Which is odd, because when i think of the people that I know who identify with that community………are all those things. Its almost as if there is a weird perverted irony of watching the people who espouse and live the constitution seemingly be trying to restrict others use of the constitution, because it doesn’t meet to their liking!
As a black male, in America, I’ve learned that I need to pick and choose my battles. I believe that in the end, all minorities in America learn that sooner or later. The reality is…..in a democracy, people have to be allowed to be who they are in order for the concept of a democratic society to exist. The pressure to socially censor Dave Chapelle is a bad look coming from a group who is against social censorship.