Dreams About Shapeshifting

The last skit Chappelle did before leaving the show… features a mini-devil that perches on people’s shoulders and encourages them to behave in stereotypical ways. In his case, the devil – who appears in Blackface — convinces Chappelle that he’ll be fulfilling a stereotype by ordering chicken on a flight. He dodges that trap by ordering fish, but the minstrel rejoices when he learns it is catfish. The moral of the story is clear: he lives in a Catch-22 where anything he does fulfills some trait on an infinite checklist of stereotypes. It is a riff on the racial gymnastics required to negotiate the most routine of daily scenarios. Or, it is a hilarious bit about a jigaboo dancing on an airplane. It depends on who you’re talking to.

In retrospect, it made perfect sense that this sketch would strike too close to home for Chappelle. A case of art imitating life. Or vice versa. A man who has demons depicting a man who literally has demons. An effort to deflate a stereotype then instead affirms one. A comedian brought down by a single snicker from a single White man he realizes is laughing with the Blackface devil, and not at him.

There’s a reason why people say context is everything.

There are dangers inherent to fighters who forget to duck and comics who become part of their own punchlines.