Some of the posts defending Chappelle in here seem to follow a particular template that wouldn't fly if the words LGBT/trans were swapped with black/minorities.
Exactly, which ignores that these aren't mutually exclusive groups and is, ironically, substantiated less by evidence than by those much-reviled "feelings."
I'm at least more receptive to the "double standard" takes - which is individually true of many Chappelle critics though frequently misapplied as sweeping generalizations - than the "it's just a joke" defense.
I find the notion that comedy ought to be the
one field exempt from ethics or criticism to be a weird take. If anything, Amy Schumer wasn't penalized
enough for telling racist "jokes."
I hardly think Ice Cube was
in the wrong for confronting Bill Maher over his inexcusable use of racial slurs. That Maher has dated Black women or once gave to a scholarship fund once is hardly what I'd consider "redeeming," so using them here to exculpate Dave is pretty weak.
Many of Dave's self-appointed defenders are going much further than he has, openly justifying anti-trans resentment in a way that Dave has not, and when we see that in spaces like this we're obligated to call it out.
The antidote to White feminism is
intersectional feminism - not
sexism.
Fight fire with
water.
If you're looking for double standards, the ability of White people like Seth MacFarlane to get away with peddling (among other prejudices) blatantly transphobic and homophobic content for
decades is a good place to start, and far easier to substantiate than the claim that trans people are treated with a unique deference. Military service bans, legalizing refusal of service to trans people in the healthcare/insurance industries, bathroom bills, and youth sports bans are all examples of contemporary
de jure discrimination. How is this all of this happening to what we're told is the most protected group in the country?
The trans rights space laser must be malfunctioning.
The lack of self-awareness is a bit disappointing. It's almost as if people say society shouldn't have punching bags when they're actually ok with society having punching bags as long as it's not them.
I want to highlight this, as it's a crucial point of overarching importance.
Some people seem to suffer from this notion that the entire LGBTQIA+ community is just a privilege flex for White people, so any attempt to be treated with basic human dignity - much less achieve societal or even legal equality - is perceived the way that the Fox News crowd regard immigrants: as if they're all "line cutters" out to steal what's "rightfully yours."
Heather McGhee expertly dashes the "zero sum" fallacy with respect to social justice in
The Sum of Us, and it seems that a variation of that is in play here. As Audre Lorde so eloquently put it, "there is no such thing as a single-issue struggle, because we do not live single-issue lives."
It is not a matter of choosing between, say, racial equality OR gender equality. These are not competing or contradictory aims, nor mutually exclusive categories. It is not either/or, but, an on an existential level for many, a matter of
and.
When the
least privileged among us has attained freedom,
all of us have.
At heart, a lot of this "gay agenda" and anti-feminist nonsense is about policing gender boundaries to protect masculinity as a source of pride.
The truth of the matter is that we'd all be better off standing
with each other and against systemic, hierarchical injustice than fighting over table scraps.
