Transcript for Podcast: "I Feel Snitty," Episode 167: "If You Aren't Listening, You Ain't Woke" is now available!

Podcast: I Feel Snitty

Episode 167: If You Aren't Listening, You Ain't Woke

Premiere Date: 10/28/21

Length: 11:36 (2,041 words)

Link: https://ifeelsnitty.podbean.com/e/if-you-re-not-listening-you-ain-t-woke/

Transcript: 

Welcome to I Feel Snitty, episode 167, entitled, “If You’re Not Listening, You Ain’t Woke.” I’m your host, Craig Rozniecki.

Political correctness is defined as “conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities should be eliminated.”

If you had asked me 5 years ago what I thought about political correctness, I would have told you, “While I think it goes too far at times, in the end, I think the good outweighs the bad, for what’s the general motto of political correctness? ‘Try to not be an asshole.’”

Fast-forward 5 years to today, however, and my opinion on the subject has wavered and become more nuanced as a result. While the motto for some has stayed true to the original of “trying not to be an asshole,” others have taken said motto further, claiming it’s, “If you’ve ever said anything in the past which could offend a person today, there can be no escaping it – you’re an asshole.”

Oh, and context and intent are irrelevant to these individuals. If they can successfully offend one person by condensing an 8-minute stand-up clip down to 8 seconds, well, then obviously the comedian in that clip is an -ist of some kind.

That brings me to Dave Chappelle. The comedy legend has recently come under fire for some comments and jokes in his latest Netflix stand-up special, The Closer. Through much of it, he talks about the LGBT community, and this offended a great number of people – especially in the “T” demographic. He’s been branded by said demographic as a “transphobe,” “homophobe,” with some even going so far as to cancel their Netflix subscriptions and/or cancel him. Due to all of this backlash, I did the craziest thing. I decided to… :: gulp :: …watch the special and make up my own mind. Not only did I watch this particular stand-up special, I watched all of Chappelle’s Netflix performances. Before I say anything further, if you’re offended by the clips you’ve seen or heard from The Closer, watch it in full. You can then grasp the full picture and thereby be able to accurately declare what it is you thought of the piece. Until then, I’m not going to take your opinion seriously.

Also, I should add this, LISTEN to what Chappelle says. Don’t just hear the volume on your phone, television, or tablet while anxiously awaiting a memorized angry response. Enter the situation with an open mind; listen; and respond accordingly. Perhaps it’s largely due to the social-media craze, texting, and the like, but that’s one thing I fail to see much of anymore – a person actually listening to what another is saying, as opposed to just holding onto a response and just waiting for their turn in the debate.

If one truly listens to Chappelle in The Closer and his other Netflix specials, he never comes down on any marginalized community. What he does is criticize the efficiency of social movements – of the process, so to speak. It’s like this… Would it be racist for a person to say, “Black lives don’t matter!”? Yes, of course. However, would it be racist for this same individual to say, “The Black Lives Matter movement has endured a few hiccups and could have improved the smoothness of their operation and outreach by doing X, Y, and Z”? No. …and that’s essentially what Chappelle has done throughout his specials, which have often times been falsely equated as being sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. After 9/11, we were basically told if we questioned anything pertaining to America’s greatness, we were unpatriotic – essentially traitors. For Chappelle, if he so much as makes an observation which isn’t 100% on board with a social movement centering around the LGBT community or he poses a question for them regarding said outreach, he’s branded as a transphobe, a homophobe. Look, nobody is perfect, so since a country is comprised of imperfect humans, it can’t be perfect, and because social movements are conducted by these same flawed individuals, they can’t be perfect either. In my opinion, it illustrates more care to acknowledge flaws in a country or social movement you respect – as you seek to improve them – than it does to naively pretend everything is hunky-dory when things clearly aren’t.

Here are just a few quotes from Chappelle’s latest Netflix special:

- “You guys are confusing your emotions. You think I hate gay people and what you’re really seeing is that I’m jealous of gay people. I’m jealous; I’m not the only black person that feels this way. We blacks, we look at the gay community and we go, ‘Goddamn it! Look how well that movement is going!’”

- “I don’t hate gay people at all. I respect the sh*t out of you. Well, not all of you. I am not that fond of these newer gays. Too sensitive, too brittle. Those aren’t the gays that I grew up with. I miss them old school gays. Them Stonewall gays, them the ones I respect. They didn’t take sh*t from anybody. They fought for their freedom. I respect that sh*t. I’m not even gay and I want to be like a Stonewall gay. Them old school, gangster gays.”

- “Any of you, who have ever watched me know that I’ve never had a problem with transgender people. If you listen to what I’m saying, clearly my problem has always been with white people.”

- “Go back tonight after the show, watch every special I did on Netlflix. Listen to everything I’ve ever said about that community. I’ll go through ‘em. I said, ‘How much do I have to participate in your self image?’ I said, ‘You shouldn’t discuss this in front of black people.’ I said, ‘I know blacks in Brooklyn that wear high heels just to feel safe.’ I asked you, ‘Why is it easier for Bruce Jenner to change his gender than it is for Cassius Clay to change his name?’ If you listen to what I’m saying, I’m not even talking about them, I’m talking about us and ‘they don’t listen.’”

- “I want your community to know that one of the coolest people I ever met was a transgender woman. And this is not a man that I knew that became a woman; this woman was trans when I met her. Lived in San Francisco, Daphne Dwarman is the name. I would do 18 shows in the Bay Area sometimes in Oakland and Dirty Hood night club and she would be there, white trans woman, laughing loud and hard, at everything I said. Especially the trans jokes, very puzzling…because obviously she was trans. And one night after one of the shows I met her. And what it was, turns out it was her dream to be a comedian. And I was her hero. It was very moving. I could not dislike somebody that felt that way about me. We became fast friends.”

He continues with a story about how he invited her to be his opening act for a show; she agreed; bombed, but once he got on stage, she sat in the front and began interacting with him about the trans community – cracking jokes and answering questions. With regard to this, he said:

“ And then the show became something cooler than a show. It became like a conversation between a black man and a white trans woman and we started getting to the bottom of sh*t. All of them questions that you think about that you’d be afraid to ask, I was just asking them and she was answering them and her answers were funny as sh*t. The crowd was falling out of their chairs and at the end of the show, I go, ‘Well, Daphne…’ I said, ‘Well, that was fun.’ I go, ‘I love you to death, but I have no f*ckin’ idea what you’re talking about.’ Man, she looks at me like I’m not her friend anymore. Like I’m something bigger than me, like I’m the whole world in a guy. Then she said, ‘I don’t need you to understand me.’ I said, ‘What?’ She said, ‘I just need you to believe…’ Just like that she goes, ‘…that I’m having a human experience.’ And when she said it the whole crowd kind of gasped. And I gave the Fight Club look. I said, ‘I believe you, bitch.’ Because she didn’t say anything about pronouns. She didn’t say anything about me being in trouble. She said, ‘Just believe I’m a person and I’m going through it.’ I know I believe you, because it takes one to know one.”

After sharing a story about backlash he received from the trans community for a different Netflix special, he added this:

“And the hardest thing for a person to do is go against their tribe if they disagree with their tribe, but Daphne did that for me. She wrote a tweet that was very beautiful and what she said was and it is almost exactly what she said. She said, ‘Punching down on someone else requires you to think less of them and I know him, and he doesn’t. He doesn’t punch up; he doesn’t punch down; he punches lines; and he is a master at his craft.’ That’s what she said.”

Near the close, he said this:

“Empathy is not gay. Empathy is not black. Empathy is bisexual. It must go both ways. It must go both ways.”

Does that sound like a homophobe or a transphobe to you? It doesn’t to me. It sounds like a comedian trying to stimulate thought; encourage civil-discourse and genuine listening; and bring everyone together around the notion that we can’t continue to move forward by maintaining an us-against-the-world attitude. We need each other.

I think something else Chappelle is trying to get across is that life is short; we’re all a little messed up; and if we can’t laugh at ourselves here and there, this privilege we call life is going to feel like much more of an autobahnesque rollercoaster than a joyride.

This is one thing which drives me crazy about the PC-world of today – how it seems to focus more attention on comedians than authority figures. Comedians like Dave Chappelle get paid to tell jokes; to push the envelope; to tempt uncomfortable laughter. Do some of these jokes go too far? Yes, but are said jokes going to undo a Mideast peace deal; overturn Roe v. Wade; or reimpose slavery? No. Language is incredibly important, but it’s seemed to me like the younger generations are obsessing over perfecting rhetoric in imperfect humans, falsely believing it can effectively substitute for action, when that’s not the case. Unfortunately, this seeming obsession with perfecting language has masked the real problems marginalized communities are facing. Sure, it’s nice to refer to a member of the LGBT community by their preferred pronoun, but whether or not we label a trans woman as “she” does nothing to establish her demographic as equal in the eyes of the law.

The term “woke” has, no pun intended, risen in popularity of late. I can’t tell you how many times – especially on social media – I’ve heard someone call themselves woke. “Be woke!” “I’m woke!” “We all need to be woke!” Are they truly “woke” or just trying to convince themselves of this? The louder they yell it, the more I have to wonder how honest they’re being. If you’re just yelling and not listening, you ain’t woke. If you’re simply pointing fingers and not engaging in civil-discourse, you ain’t woke. If you’re more intent on not offending a single person than on pushing for equality in the eyes of the law, you ain’t woke. Period.

To close the show, I’d like to set aside just 30 seconds, where I will utter all of the words and phrases which are guaranteed to not offend a single person. While listening, please think about all that could have been done in these thirty seconds to achieve equality for marginalized communities.

:: 30 seconds of silence ::

That’s it for today’s episode. Until next time, you can check me out on PodBean, Twitter, Amazon, and Blogger. This has been I Feel Snitty with Craig Rozniecki. Take care.