Hey everyone!

This is a subject that's consumed my mind for the past few weeks. As a cisgender white male, I only have credibility of talking about this controversy through my personal prism.

Chappelle Show debuted on Comedy Central around the time I graduated from high school. To me, Chappelle and his show was what I considered to be the best form of edgy humor. Like most guys my age, I was all-in on the Charlie Murphy sketches where he and Chappelle reenacted his stories about Prince and Rick James. Absolutely hilarious. I was on the floor laughing. "A Moment in the Life of Lil Jon" and "Wayne Brady's Show" were terrific sketches. Then in 2015, the Chappelle Show was done. When he was asked why his widely popular show was not going to air a third season, Chappelle said he was burned out, felt like he lost creative control, and was uncomfortable with the work environment. He took a trip to South Africa and walked away from a whopping $50 million contract with Comedy Central.

Over 14 years later, Chappelle made his glorious return to stand-up and scored a lucrative deal with Netflix to have six specials. And here he is, attacking and marginalizing the transgender community. He's made millions off of punching down at the LGBTQ+ community, a community that is also burned out from hate and abuse. For decades, they've been uncomfortable in their work environment, but they're not able to collectively go on a field trip to clear their head and return to a warm reception from the public. As a cisgender Black male, he can do that and not have to worry about erasure. He complains about "cancel culture," but he's neither "cancelled" nor erased out of an existence worth being recognized and protected.

There are millions of people out there who look in the mirror and see themselves in the wrong body and that's not some one-off feeling of body dysphoria. We've come so far in advancements of human psychology to recognize an undeniable truth: that we're not always the gender we are born as. There are people who will recognize who and what they're really are. Their convictions are so pure and thorough that they will undergo therapy and ensure the proper steps are taken toward transitioning, which is both a life-altering and life-affirming procedure. With the limited resources and support networks they have, they will undergo that process, knowing their happiness and personal fulfillment will come at the expense of people like Dave Chappelle thinking they're some sort of mistake.

Yet when they raise issue with jokes he made in The Closer, he proudly states he won't bend to their demands -- that he will meet with them at a time and place of his choosing? Then he complains that only he can't "go to the office anymore"? This is the same Dave Chappelle who walked out of a $50 million contract only to return and procure a contract with Netflix for over $60 million despite a decade of infrequent stand-up appearances. He's dictating the rules while acting like he's marginalized enough as a Black comedian to be the exception to them? He wants to have the cake and eat it too.

In 1991, Chappelle converted to Islam. In 2005, four years after the September 11 attacks and the wave of Islamophobia that came with it, Chappelle told Time Magazine, "I don't normally talk about my religion publicly because I don't want people to associate me and my flaws with this beautiful thing. And I believe it is beautiful if you learn it the right way." Chappelle made the choice to convert to a religion that gave him personal peace and enlightenment. He certainly wasn't born a Muslim, right? He had the privilege to make that choice. The trans community can only make the choice to live their truth and find their peace as a gender they did not originally choose to have only if they have the resources to make that happen. That's a significantly harder choice to make. That choice commands not only acknowledgment but respect. Chappelle won't respect that and he will only acknowledge the trans community as a punchline for a paycheck.

Here's what makes his transphobic more egregious. His grand-grandfather. William David Chappelle, was born enslaved. His grandson and Dave Chappelle's father, William Chappelle III, was a civil rights organizer in Ohio. The path his family paved for him started from the desire to break out of a mold made from birth and centuries of systemic oppression -- to fight for individual freedom and freedom from inequality. Dave Chappelle stands before us today, from his bully pulpit, because his ancestors recognized they were inherently more than what they were born into and more than what others believed they were. They recognized the need to break down racial and ethnic barriers to become the leaders they knew they had to be to allow future generations to thrive.

But Dave? No. Dave doesn't recognize that. And that's all on him, not anyone else. Not even the "corporate interests" he blames for the controversy. Those same "corporate interests" also support him wholeheartedly. He's wrong on all counts.

Yes, I watched his shows and specials. He's encouraged his critics to do so like they'll suddenly be enlightened by his hateful positions. But it doesn't matter. He's still Dave Chappelle: fundamentally and ironically flawed beyond redemption.