Respect Authority

Lately, news stories have been emerging that are chock full of anecdotes where racist Southerners tell pollsters “We’re voting for the n****r.” (Too many asterisks? I have no idea the protocol for writing out blatantly offensive words). While these stories of what I’ll call “progressive racists” are simultaneously encouraging and depressing, I keep thinking there’s a comedy angle here that has gone entirely unexplored, and I know why.

After the first of these stories came out, and before we intelligent-minded people could even finish gasping at the rampant racism still prevalent in this country, Dave Chappelle would have been on this. Were we still in the lighthearted days when The Chappelle Show graced television sets across this nation, not one week would have passed before we’d see a faux political advertisement from the Obama campaign, advising America’s racists to “Just go ahead and vote for the n****r!” The fact that no such fake campaign commercial can exist, since no one outside of David Alan Grier is even attempting politically-subversive black comedy these days, makes me long for the days of Chappelle, and wonder why he couldn’t come back to comment on this particular election, the way Tina Fey temporarily rewound her career in the name of politics. Would a few Chappelle Show Weekend Update Thursdays really be that bad?

We need you Dave. Come back.