In defense of Dave Chappelle and Bill Burr's new comedy specials: "The risk of offensiveness has to be there"

The Washington Post

Chappelle's much-criticized Netflix special Sticks & Stones "is using comedy to ask difficult questions about the intersections of race and gender, power and privilege," says Sonny Bunch. "Sure, it might bother more-progressive viewers that he describes the LGBTQ community as 'the alphabet people,' but the bit raises serious points about who is leading the charge for equality in that community (white dudes) and who is being forced to sit in the backseat (everyone else)." He adds: "If you don’t defend the right to be offensive no matter the situation and no matter the stakes, you create a situation in which the right to offend slips away. Whatever you think of Shane Gillis’s comedy, this is why brilliant comedians like Burr, Jim Jefferies and Norm Macdonald criticized his firing from Saturday Night Live. They fear losing that right by failing to defend the principle involved. And once you lose the right to make anyone uncomfortable at any time for any reason, you’ve removed an arrow from the comedic quiver — rendering it a bit more difficult for us to see the world from a different, funnier perspective." ALSO: Chappelle and Burr realize they don't understand society in 2019, and they don't want to try.