Dave Chappelle Explained Why Black People Can’t Remove Their Masks
On the day of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ win, the comic delivered a ‘Saturday Night Live’ monologue that was cerebral, sharp, and timely
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Dave Chappelle’s 16-minute Saturday Night Live monologue was the complete Chappelle experience. It’s honestly an intimidating task to even try to absorb and put together cogent thoughts about something so layered and massive.
So, let’s start with the Klan joke.
Chappelle opened with jokes about his own career, including stories about his White neighbors and his royalty structure. (Somehow he’s not earning anything from HBO and Netflix now syndicating Chappelle’s Show?!)
Centering himself and his fame has been a feature in Chappelle’s stand-ups for the past decade — with mixed results. At the beginning of the monologue, he eased us into the belief that he was going to continue talking about himself. But without so much as a transition, he hit us with a joke about how White people should just wear Klan costumes to Walmart to make everyone feel safe. To call it a punch line doesn’t do the joke…
