The Left’s Dave Chappelle Problem

Dave Chappelle thinks for himself and doesn’t mind if you do too — which is why Woke World wants Netflix to cancel him.

Dave Chappelle, arguably America’s best loved comedian, apparently slept through his Intersectionality 101 class, and his would-be woke masters are purple with rage. The LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD joined with others in “condemning” Chappelle’s newly released Netflix special, “The Closer.”  Said the GLAAD press release: “Dave Chappelle's brand has become synonymous with ridiculing trans people and other marginalized communities.” The National Black Justice Coalition, another LGBTQ advocacy group, went full-blown cancel, demanding that Netflix “should immediately pull ‘The Closer’ from its platform and directly apologize to the transgender community.” “Transgender” is the “T” in LGBTQ. (No one is quite sure about the “Q”). LGBTQ activists have positioned themselves along with blacks, Hispanics, feminists, Asian-Americans, and Muslims among others as a principal subset in the intersectional coalition that has held the Democratic Party together for the last generation. In a nutshell, intersectionality means that so-called marginalized groups share common oppressors and, by extension, common political interests. Its philosophy can and has been reduced to a bumper sticker, “COEXIST.” Although useful for elected Democrats, intersectionality has not been good for comedians or their audiences. In fact, it has all but drained the humor out of American entertainment. In that each intersectional subset is expected to subordinate its interests to the larger progressive whole, there is little tolerance for insubordinate thinking, even from comedians, especially from a hugely popular black comedian like Chappelle. In “The Closer,” Chappelle calls direct attention to the unspoken rules of the intersectional game by citing the case of a 29-year-old rapper known as “DaBaby,” formerly known as “Baby Jesus” and before that as the more prosaic “Jonathan Kirk.” While performing at a Miami Rap festival in July 2021, Kirk made some crude remarks on stage directed, as he explained later, no...