The Limits of Funny and the Whiteness of Money

Dave Chappelle’s shameful trans bashing might be “humor that was never intended for white audiences anyway.” Except even then, it’s just shameful trans bashing.

Full confession: I haven’t watched Dave Chappelle’s Netflix special, “The Closer.” And I don’t intend to.

As a gay man who’s known he was gay from the age of eight, believe me, I’ve had enough abuse in my life. Some of it — and I’m sorry to say, and not wanting to cause any bad feeling or point any fingers or do anything unwokeful, for heaven’s sake, or be unfair, and I sincerely regret bringing this up, even as I bring it up — some of that abuse came from, well.

Black people.

And I don’t want to make this tiny admission into a “thing.” Like, a resentment. Or god forbid, because god apparently is kind of the driver of all of this, an accusation.

And as abuse goes, it wasn’t all that bad or that much, really. As a gay man, I’m used to abuse, from the day I realized I had an unusual urge to sing along with the “Judy at Carnegie Hall” album, or, on a good day, lip-sync Maria Callas performing “Vissi d’arte” wearing my mother’s brown chiffon cocktail dress, with the matching booties that had the fur…