This Is What You Defend?

Trying to wrap my head around what people are defending right now. 

It's gotten louder and louder each October as more and more States decide to change Columbus Day to Indigenous People's Day. A lot of people who probably never even thought about Columbus Day except to be surprised when the mail wasn't delivered or the bank was closed, come out in full voice about how we need to keep it the same as it always was. Because! Reasons! Doesn't matter that Columbus was a horrible person. Not just by current day standards, but by his own time. Drug back across the ocean in chains bad person. Doesn't matter that he had nothing to do with the USA. Doesn't matter that the version of him we were taught in school was a made up version completely. 

Somehow he is the hill they want to die on. 

Until Tuesday, when they forget all about him again. 

But watching people defend him is always weird. I mean, he's dead. He doesn't care if you like him or not. Watching people try to talk about whitewashing history and those woke snowflakes, when in actuality that's what the original taught in school piece was. Whitewashing. Cleaning up history to a palatable bite that made it easier to feel good about colonialism and westward expansion. Because that's easier than talking about seeing a peaceful people and the first thought you have is how easy it will be to enslave them. From his own journal. This stuff wasn't really hidden. I mean, one of the ships translates to The Prostitute. But sure, clean it up and serve it up. 

So it's weird to me to see people take such strong stands on how we need to keep it.

I'm fine with celebrating Italian heritage and Italian immigrants, by the way. I think having a holiday to celebrate would be fun. But it doesn't need to be a Federal Holiday. And it sure as hell shouldn't be in honor of Christopher Columbus. When you know better, you do better as Ms. Angelou said. We know better so we should sure as hell be doing better. 

Which brings me to Dave Chappelle. He went anti-LGBTQ+ again with a special focus on the T. Declared himself Team TERF. He's made jokes in this vein before and gotten called out about it. He tried to couch it that there isn't intersectionality. That gains by the LGBTQ+ community are somehow coming at the cost of gains in the African American community. As if there are no Black Queer people. As if Black Trans Women aren't especially in danger in their day to day lives. 

But see, he's a comedian. And he's just being funny. And we shouldn't judge him the same because... Reasons?

I think the fact that he is an incredibly famous comedian with an incredibly large fan base and casts such a wide net and falls back on it's just jokes makes it worse not better. 

I've been a fan of his in the past, but I just can't bring myself to support him anymore. And it won't matter. He's got that incredibly large fan base I just mentioned. And he's got a lot of people rushing out to say that it's fine, because it's just jokes. Comedy is supposed to make you think. It's supposed to make you look at the world in a different light. 

And in that way it worked. It made me look at Dave Chappelle in a different light and I think he's an asshole. 

Which is another brain boggler. Yesterday a friend of mine who is more liberal than I am (close your mouth, it happens a lot) posted about him and called him an asshole. A friend of hers came in the chastise her for that. He might not be an asshole. Just because he said this thing on stage which only an asshole would say, it's part of an act, you see. You would have to see what he does in his personal life to see if he's an asshole. 

What?

Like I said, this is not the first time he's gone to this well. It's not the first time he's made these sorts of jokes. Sure it's the first time he's announced he's Team TERF, but honestly you only need to announce that once for me to know you are an asshole so...

He's hiding behind it's just a joke. And it's working, we can't call him an asshole because comedy is different. Then he also brought out a version of "I can't be transphobic because I have a trans friend." Are you fucking kidding me? Mr. Chappelle, you walked away from your show when you realized people were laughing about the wrong things. You were their Black Friend that excused their behavior. And you are now pulling out this? Even though you've had numerous people in the trans community explain to you why what you are saying is actually dangerous for them. You don't get a pass because you know a trans person. 

But people will defend him. Because he's funny. Because he's famous. Because it's just comedy.

I disagree. Deeply. 

I've been watching people defend things that seem to me to be really clearly indefensible. We live in painful times.