In 2016, the following Saturday after election day, Dave Chapelle did a monologue in the chappel of humour: Saturday Night Live (SNL). The nation had just had eight years of Obama, and felt that good. But now, Trump had just won. Half the nation was in shock. The other half was feelling the winds of change: an outsider from the game comming in to sweep the dirt from under the carpet. Donald was suppose to do that. But the polls explained, then, another story. Hillary didn’t win. Trump did. To this day, it’s believed the Russians had something to do, and also, to this day, every other country learned to tackle each election like a Steve Bannon horror movie. Fake news was in the house. We were going to see Zuckenberg explaining the Internet to the senators and how his business model of selling information targets the message you want to deliver to the people you choose to focus that message to. Steve Bannon used the machine like nobody else had seen it, and white folks from every estate got alarmed by the possible reborn of communism. So they picked the white millionaire from TV to do the job. He was going to make América great again. Whatever that means.
Dave Chappelle is black. That you can tell just by looking at him. He knows what every negro in the United States knows about whites. It’s called family history. Not really what you learn in school, no matter how good your parents have come up with a decent way to offer you a living. If you are black person in the United States you must face the facts of the long story that you carry on your back just from that racial trait. There ain’t no ticket out. If Chappelle had a chance, he’d quit the race, he jokes. You laugh at that because he can’t. Not because he doesn’t mean it. But that’s not the punhline. The punchline is he did the second best thing he can do: become a black millionaire.
When you are a black billionaire, more white people enter into your way of life. Or rather, you enter into the way of life of more white people. He’s gotta leave his homies from the hood in the way cause there’s not enough room to invite them over to the Country Club. There’s only room for four in this hot air ballon. Sorry homie. He drifts away into the sky. Privilege is not a thing any negro person in Chappelle’s family could talk about a few generations back. History is there and looking at it shapes, continuosly, the way we define which side are on. But also, the family history. That inner story has some deeper meanings that we need to connect with in order to come out right. Once we’ve figured out how much of it is in steak. How much each political decision provides a place in the world. You tend to want to be with your kind of people. And away from your nemesis.
Dave Chappelle, a negro comedian that has had gamed his way into the comedian hall of fame by nailing his uniqueness and overloading the quota that was already filled up by Chris Rock. That was unexpected. But he was there, even without a story from the projects, he was able to understand his middle life status to push his way into the game of making people laugh. There’s something about that thrill that makes American humour scene a big deal. It’s part of the American dream reloaded. The house, the job, and all that other bullshit somehow has fallen of the list. But humour requires a skill that you either have or don’t. If there’s no laughs, there’s no reward. And you’ve failed right there.
Obama swept his two terms with what seemed a pretty decent job comming from a country that hosts the biggest dron parade in the history. Wars can be now played from your playroom with gamers going at it: live. It’s like stand up comedy, without the laughs. Clinical accuracy is claimed. And red blared rockets proove to the night whatever it’s supposed to unveil. Innovation keeps popping up. Markets get bigger. New guerrillas in fellow countries. Buyers. Sellers. Contractors. Military influence. Our beloved guns. There’s no longer slavery here, but guns still protect the open fields of rural estates. I am the law. That seems to be the American dream of the far west, that’s introduced into the second amendment of the constitution. A rules that serves the purpose of placing the focus on what you want about the book, and disregarding what seems to go against the morals of my other good book. Between those two books, some Americans have enough to fuel a whole life of good old white decency.
Black people play a role in Américan history. It’s a heavy load to carry. It keeps popping back. Like every nation’s dark secrets. Like the Spanish Inquisition. Slavery gives most white colonialism from central europeans country a competitive advange to their own development status. What they understand as higher culture comes from their capacity in the past to play the significant rally of nations (a few of them) going out to explore for territories that had not been called upon as their own. It’s also just history. A story we’ve told ourselves to undestand how we came to be where we are. 200 nations feeling indepedent in our codependency around a global market, and a local market ever so crumbling. Colonialism and the military game of invading other countries. It did transform from wars, that have always been around, to playing war all over the place, to the US policing the world. And in the course of two great wars, we learned the limits of our own capacity to blow this shit up. Nuclear power became a thing. And also only few military industries hold the key to such kind of science. The sofistication of weapons escaleted, so much, that during the cold war the tension of blowing shit up took us to a ever state of fear. That became important to create a big conglomerate of defence, which serves just right as an euphemism. The constant threat of anihilation. To be erased by the military action of an army that represents a certain estate. Or even my own. People: control. Freedom. All this big words, thrown at each other to start a political rally.
Here’s Dave Chappelle’s set upon Trump winning the election in 2016:
Fastforward four years. The four years of the Trump show. The white man in power thought the world was at his command. Only the world didn’t laugh at his demands, for one thing, he lacked a sense of humour. His jokes didn’t point at the right target. Not as he was at the top of the power pyramid. He bullied teen environment activist, Gretta Thumberg as he thought she was just whinning and needed a chill pill. He built the wall and Mexico payed for it. Not. The wall was already there. The policing and abuses from the Mexican estate and the uncontrolled business of exploiting and raping inmigrants kept happening south of the boarder, like business as usual. Only now, to serve the purpose of adding fuel to the fire, Trump separeted the newborns, the children from their families, and place them, all, in cages, and somehow got away with that. No remorse. Twitter became his media, and the media his enemies. His international relations kept getting worse, as you couldn’t tell when was being the best friend of North Korea, Russia or Mexico, or the other way around. He was China’s nightmare and friend, in a way, until he claimed COVID19 was a China idea to create havoc around. The kung fu virus he said. Chappelle was upset the president was stealing the jokes comedians were suppossed to make.
So four years later, Dave Chappelle comes to SNL after Biden wins the election. Trump is out of the game. 74 million Americans breath and love their country again. The other 70 million feel they hate their lives because they’ve been cheated out of the White House. The are calling for the illegal votes. They already spread the fake news with their arguments already in place to make the system work against itself. Like tricking the Americans with Steve Bannon’s campaing with social media. Half truths win elections. A negro comedian comes back to talk to the people. Humour that liberals feel for. Not so much the conservatives, that find their president their source of laughs. They have all the want with Trump. The rest in pretencious laughs at things they might not even grasp fully. But just as Biden tried to bring together the American people, Dave Chappelle uses his uniqueness, as a black millionaire, to express what other priviledged don’t clearly see: the need to stop the hate of the person in the antipodes of ourselves.
That duality is what América represents. The blue and red paradigm. Like the bars in the flag. Still there. And somehow, there’s a beauty in this. But we need to hear the excluded fo that history that I mentioned before. And that comes from the lives of those we are not used to aknowledge. And they might not think the way I do. But certainly, to come closer to each other, we both need to travel to the unexpected place where nemesis feels free and safe. And from that perspective, the world will seem a completely different place.
Here’s what Dave Chapelle said, bringing the memory of the last relative of his family who was a slave. Looking at the system from inside, yet questioning what this all means. And how we tend to miss what had just happed a few years back. And what should happen in the future, to make this land, Gaia, a place to mirrow the healing proces of our neighborgs from North América.
New América: ALLS.