Thread by @SpringsInMyStep

Dave Chappelle and I live in the same village: Yellow Springs, Ohio. I don’t know him. We’re merely co-residents among 3,900 or so others in that same small town. (Though typically Dave’s the only one new acquaintances ask me about when I mention where I’m from.) 🧵

By the way, this is going to be a ridiculously long thread and I’m warning you about that right now. So if you decide to read it, don’t act like you didn’t know what you were getting into.

[insert iaintreadingallthat.jpg here]

When I was younger, I saw a handful of movies Dave appeared in. Villagers would sometimes say things like, “I went to a party with that guy from Men in Tights when he was in YS for the summer one time.” Which I guess seemed like a vaguely interesting piece of local trivia. 🤷

I didn’t have cable when Chappelle’s Show started. Then Dave walked away from the hit series, & the word was he felt viewers were laughing for the wrong reasons. I figured if the star felt that way, the show probably wasn’t a good fit for me. Never saw more than clips in the end.

My point is, for lack of exposure I didn’t really have strong feelings about Dave’s comedy one way or another. But I was always kind of aware of his new projects because the whole village was. We’re tiny, and people love him here.

When I started hearing about some of the types of jokes and topics that were coming up in his newer specials, I again thought they wouldn’t be a good fit for me. So I did what many have been shouting about in the wake of #TheCloser’s release: if you won’t like it, don’t watch it.

Also since #TheCloser came out, I’ve seen the full range of guesses on how living here has affected Dave. “It shows that he’s been living with Real 🇺🇸 Americans in Ohio.” “Ugh, living in conservative rural Ohio must’ve rotted Dave’s brain.”

“Yellow Springs is so liberal, they must be really upset with him.” “YS is so liberal, there’s no way Dave could live there if he was actually transphobic.”

I feel like none of these quite capture the reality of the situation. First of all…

Yes, Yellow Springs is a blue dot in a sea of red. Here’s a report about regional 2020 election results: daytondailynews.com/news/who-voted…. Trump won our county (Greene) & all jurisdictions in it, EXCEPT for the outliers of Yellow Springs & the township that surrounds our village.

An EXTREMELY abbreviated list of other examples of why Yellow Springs has its reputation: In the 1850–60s YS was home to abolitionists & former slaves. Many villagers (including Dave’s dad) were active in the civil rights movement. We display BLM banners at the entrances to town.

More examples: In 1979, Yellow Springs became the smallest municipality to officially prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. In 1987, our nursing home became the first in Ohio to admit AIDS patients. By 2014, YS was the Ohio village with the largest LGBT population.

You get the idea. It’s not just the folks selling tie-dye shirts at Street Fair that give Yellow Springs its reputation for being hippie / liberal / progressive / woke / whatever you want to call it. But that doesn’t mean you can assume everyone from YS shares the same values.

Besides Dave, the person from Yellow Springs most in the news lately is Governor Mike DeWine. He lived here from birth to high school. (Didn’t know that? Maybe because it’s better for his red cred to focus on the nearby conservative Christian village where he currently lives. 🤷)

Reading fellow Ohioan @theferocity's piece in GQ (gq.com/story/chappell…) reminded me of the bill DeWine recently signed that allows medical professionals to deny healthcare services to LGBTQ+ people. So “they’re from Yellow Springs, though” isn’t a Get Out of Bigotry Free Card.

I mean, DeWine was in high school in YS while villagers were host families for Black students from Prince Edward County, VA, after their local high schools shut down to avoid integration. So you’d think he’d get that denying services can become problematic quickly. BUT I DIGRESS.

Back to #DaveChappelle. As you’ve probably noticed, on Twitter there are… mixed feelings about Dave. Here in Yellow Springs, he’s frequently described as beloved. In mid-June, downtown shops shared Facebook photos of the “Thanks, Dave! Respect.” signs displayed in their windows.

Did the store owners stop for a moment to consider how these signs could be interpreted as a mixed message to some of the visitors they were hoping to attract during 🏳️‍🌈 YS Pride 🏳️‍🌈 about 10 days later? Did it even cross their minds? I honestly have no idea.

But hey, I guess people need a livelihood, right? And Dave’s 2020 COVID cornfield comedy shows reportedly brought millions of dollars into YS / the region. (There’s even a feel-good documentary coming out about that summer…) You may have heard it said that Dave “saved the town.”

Sure, hundreds of other folks donated through @YSCommunityFdn, organized an impressive ground campaign to check if villagers had the resources they needed during quarantine, stocked the Little Free Pantries to offset food insecurity… But they can’t ALL be the hero, can they?

Moneywise, Dave’s holding company has also been buying up downtown property in Yellow Springs and making plans for renovations and new businesses. These will surely draw more tourists to town just by being associated with the Chappelle brand, and add local jobs and tax revenue.

And, like, overall it’s fine by me if Dave’s the star of the village. He’s internationally famous & tons of people love him. (It sounds like the exact opposite of a good time to my introverted self, but if it makes him happy, he’s welcome to it.) Only thing that still nags @ me…

…is Dave’s reported reaction to the infamous Access Hollywood tape in 2016 (hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-…):

💬 “He said, ‘And when you’re a star, they let you do it.’ That phrase implies consent.”

Maybe it was fully a “joke” and Dave doesn’t actually believe his own statement? 😬

Regardless, it literally hits close to home when the rich and famous “star” of your tiny village expresses that type of weird lack of awareness about power dynamics. Not specifically in the assault sense, mind you, but more in the ~everything~ sense.

And now the part you probably knew was coming: Let’s talk about #TheCloser.

Don’t worry, I won’t be attempting the cisyphean task of walking through my thoughts on the majority of the special.

If you want a summary, though:

I’m not saying hack jokes aren’t jokes. I’m just saying they’re not “real” jokes. They sound like jokes, but that’s not quite what they are, is it?

Basically, I’m a Hack-Exclusionary Radical Audience. #TeamHERA

Before I move on, I’d also strongly encourage you to read the entirety of this @YSNews letter to the editor: ysnews.com/news/2021/10/o…

The author, Iden Crockett, is another Yellow Springs resident. Her voice and perspective as a Black trans woman are absolutely worth listening to.

From here on out, I’m only going to talk about one part of #TheCloser: the ending.

tw // suicide , depression , ptsd , homophobia , transphobia

In the final ≈15 min of his most recent Netflix special, Dave Chappelle talks about Daphne Dorman. (If you’ve followed Dave’s work, you may remember Daphne as the trans woman he mentioned meeting in the epilogue of his previous special.)

Here’s how Dave tells the story:

So despite being contained within a comedy special, that part wasn’t a joke, right? It was the beautiful “true story” that made people cry.

When you listened to/read that story, what did you think had happened? Did you come away thinking Daphne posted a tweet defending her friend Dave on Twitter, was bullied relentlessly by LGBTQ+ people in response, then took her own life 6 days later? If so, you wouldn’t be alone:

But that’s not what happened—and not only because Dave misstated the number of days between Daphne opening for him and her death. (It was closer to two weeks.)

Let’s begin by putting together a timeline of events so we’re all on the same page.

(To get it out of the way: Even though they knew each other < 5 months, I’m not going to argue whether Dave and Daphne were “really” friends. The posts Daphne left behind make it pretty clear she liked Dave & if Dave says he considered Daphne a friend I’ll take his word for it.)

May 21, 2019: Daphne’s friend offers her tickets to back-to-back Chappelle performances. After the performance, Dave and Daphne meet for the first time. Dave buys her a drink.

June 8, 2019: Daphne goes to another show, and talks to Dave “during the last half of his set.” By request, Daphne gives her phone number to Dave’s crew.

(NOTE: Daphne lived in California & I’m in Ohio, so she actually posted this June 9th her time, making “last night” the 8th.)

August 26, 2019: Sticks & Stones is released on Netflix. In the epilogue, Dave talks about meeting Daphne.

Daphne’s photo appears in the credits. (She’d done a photoshoot for this earlier in the summer, so being mentioned in the special wasn’t exactly a surprise.)

August 28, 2019: Daphne posts her “punching down” tweet.

(NOTE: With that CA to OH time difference, it was technically posted late on the 28th Daphne’s time. Since it was close to midnight, though, most reactions / replies would’ve been from the 29th on.)

August 29, 2019 through ❓ days later: The period Dave claims “the trans community dragged [Daphne] all over Twitter. For days, they was going in on her, and she was holding her own ‘cause she’s funny.”

September 26, 2019: Daphne is the opener for Dave’s comedy show in San Francisco. (This would be the first and only time she opened for him.)

October 11, 2019: Daphne’s death.

So the time between Daphne’s “punching down” tweet and her death was more like 42 days. (Would your emotional reaction have been different to “…a month and a half later, my friend killed herself”?) The way Dave chose to stack story details seems to have gotten people mixed up.

🗣️ “But who cares about the dates if the point is Daphne was dragged relentlessly on Twitter by her own community before she died?!”

Well, about that…

(Collecting these types of tweets is kind of like volunteering to dive into a bottomless well of sadness. At some point I just had to decide to stop gathering examples even if there were still many more out there.)

(Seriously, I was developing a repetitive stress injury from all the copying and pasting.)

You may have seen a screenshot of Daphne’s tweet going around with a ton of replies.

What a pile-on, right? Yikes.

But that tweet’s still live on Twitter. Go take a look:

https://twitter.com/DaphneDorman/status/1166937728681791488

Almost all of the responses are from after #TheCloser came out on October 5, 2021. Lots of RIPs and 🙏❤️🐐👼 and “look, I found the tweet Dave mentioned.”

If you scroll long enough to see the handful of reactions from before her October 11, 2019, death, they’re pretty neutral or positive (pro-Daphne, pro-Dave).

Further, if we pull up the @internetarchive record of how Daphne’s Twitter page looked on October 14, 2019 (3 days after her death), we see this: web.archive.org/web/2019101418…

There were 12 replies to the tweet. Twelve. And that was actually Daphne’s most replied-to tweet of 2019.

🗣️ “But what if the bullies deleted all their mean replies after Daphne died to cover their tracks?”

I’ve definitely seen it suggested, but there are a couple of problems with that.

1) Was there really a mass coordinated deletion of mean replies in 3 days time? Who coordinated that? Did no one say, “Screw it, I’m just a troll and I’m leaving my tweets up”? Were none of the implied many bullies away from Twitter and unable to delete their posts exactly then?

2) Did no one—not “holding her own” Daphne, not the handful of folks who swear they totally for real saw this all happening—reply to ANY of the nasty comments? If they had, we should still see those replies. Deleting a mean reply tweet doesn’t delete the additional replies.

OR better yet: Did everyone who did clap back at a mean reply ALSO go back within that 3 day window and delete their defense of Daphne?

Right. Sure. This all gets more plausible by the minute, and definitely isn’t fully teetering on the edge of conspiracy theory. 🙃

🗣️ “Okay, so maybe… Daphne wasn’t dragged ‘all over Twitter’ in those replies, but in other public tweets instead?”

I took a deep, good-faith look, and… no, actually?

Seriously, considering I’ve seen people brutally dragged for having the “wrong” opinion on a cartoon character, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find a bunch of random nastiness.

Searching Daphne’s tweets & replies + the broader Twitter landscape, I found something else.

The first thing it’s important to understand is that after Sticks & Stones came out, Daphne was actively searching Twitter for discussion of the special—particularly tweets related to her / the epilogue. That pattern is apparent in her replies, but she directly stated it here:

Keep in mind, Dave hadn’t yet mentioned Daphne’s last name or said she was on Twitter in that S&S epilogue. So in cases like this, the original tweet didn’t tag @DaphneDorman and was written with no expectation that Daphne would see it—hence Daphne explaining how she found it.

(Full disclosure: the “no interest” tweeter also posted this tweet in that thread. Does “daphne is a yt” count as dragging in Dave Chappelle’s book? 🤔 If so, seems like that would just raise further questions…)

Daphne’s tweet-searching means that in cases like these where it seems like she may’ve been responding to a tweet that upset her, we not only can’t be sure what the content / tone of the original comment was, we also can’t be sure the tweeter ever expected her to see their words.

(If any of those original tweeters WERE being nasty to Daphne, I’m not saying that’s okay. I am saying that a small number of tweets that MAYBE mentioned Daphne and were MAYBE mean isn’t the same thing as the OMG THEY WOULDN’T STOP HOUNDING HER scenario many folks are imagining.)

Then we have cases like these. Again we can’t see some of the original tweets in the threads Daphne was responding to, but the fact that she’s explaining who she is in her replies casts a lot of doubt on the likelihood of those missing tweets being personal attacks.

A lot of what’s happening here seems to be 1) People hear Dave say Daphne was dragged; 2) They look for evidence of dragging and can’t find any; 3) Rather than stopping to reconsider #1, they treat any deleted / unavailable tweet Daphne replied to as “proof” of the dragging.

Thing is, you can use @internetarchive captures from past dates to find or reconstruct large chunks of Twitter conversations people are using as “proof” & that dragging accusation simply doesn’t hold up. Some of the screencaps being used as “evidence” & their reconstructed forms:

The “proof” vs. the reality

The “proof” vs. the reality

The “proof” vs. the reality

The “proof” vs. the reality

People had different opinions than Daphne, sure. That last one was even the rare example of someone replying to one of her original tweets to say so. But were these folks dragging her all over Twitter? Seems like in most cases they were discussing S&S and Daphne chose to join in.

After going through all Daphne’s own replies, here’s the meanest I could find anyone being to her. Name-calling—definitely not nice or okay! But 1) Daphne joined a thread where tensions were already high; 2) all of this happened before she ever posted the “punching down” tweet.

🗣️ “Maybe the bullying tweets weren’t replies or replied to?”

To check out that possibility, I ran a bunch of Twitter searches. You can see the details and try the searches yourself in another thread I made, but the TLDR is: Nope, no dragging there.

https://twitter.com/SpringsInMyStep/status/1457876573432864774

🗣️ “Maybe… all the bullying was in direct messages?”

Problems with that idea: 1) Private DMs don’t meet the usual definition of “dragging,” much less the very clear parallel with Dave’s own very public dragging he established right before saying Daphne was dragged on Twitter.

2) You have to opt in to even receive DM requests from people you don’t follow on Twitter. No, that doesn’t make it okay if anyone was trying to send Daphne mean DMs. But the woman was a pro web programmer—I won’t insult her skills by saying she didn’t know how to flip a switch.

On top of, y’know, the total lack of actual evidence of dragging provided by the literal hundreds of people who are acting VERY ANGRY about it on Twitter, I’ve yet to see evidence of that dragging presented in even the clickbaitiest contemporary news reports about Daphne’s death.

And there’s another big red flag.

As Daphne herself admitted, she was using alerts and searches to find tweets to read, like, and reply to. That accounts for a huge chunk of her Twitter activity after Sticks & Stones.

Now, I’ve been on the internet long enough to see my share of garbage situations.

You know what you don’t need to do when you’re in the center of a giant online shitstorm? Go out hunting for more shit.

Even allowing for morbid curiosity, who in that situation has the time?

Daphne Dorman was not dragged for days on Twitter after posting a tweet that defended Dave Chappelle. It did not happen.

🗣️ “But didn’t Daphne’s family come forward to support Dave’s story?”

NOPE. You’ve got to remember to read past the headlines of articles. (And yes, that includes YOU, writers for The Economist. 😒)

Maybe you saw a link to or screenshot of a Daily Mail headline making the rounds? But did you also see that article’s current headline?

How it started vs. how it’s going:

That current headline (dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…)—warning for deadnaming in the text) plants any accusation that a “woke mob” hounded Daphne to death squarely on Dave Chappelle’s shoulders. Why? Probably because nowhere in the article does the family say a damn thing about that:

Notice that Daily Mail article pulled quotes from a Daily Beast article? A lot of this “family backs Dave” narrative seems to stem from that DB piece (thedailybeast.com/dave-chappelle…). It’s been quoted in all the other articles I’ve seen, at least. Let’s see what the family said there:

And while we’re here, let’s also take a look at some of the things Daphne’s sister Brandy said about the family’s interactions with media in her Facebook posts. This was a tough spot for them to be in even BEFORE remembering October was the 2nd anniversary of losing Daphne.

So did Daphne Dorman’s sisters testify to Dave’s friendship and stick up for his right to make jokes (while acknowledging other feelings are valid)? Yes!

Did Daphne Dorman’s sisters back up accusations that she was Twitter-bullied to death? No!

Instead, her family mentioned Daphne’s troubled childhood and PTSD. Daphne’s friends have also cited a history of PTSD and depression, as well as some recent life challenges that would probably be tough for anyone to deal with regardless of their previous mental health state.

Daphne’s public social posts also back up what her friends & family are saying about her mental health & tough life events. I’m not going to quote those here, though, because I’d like to hope there’s at least some line we can draw before hauling all of her trauma out to examine.

And if you really, truly care what Daphne Dorman’s family thinks caused her death—here.

Her sister Becky explicitly said bullying didn’t lead Daphne to kill herself.

🗣️ “But… um… the LGBTQ+ community still didn’t do anything for her kid or Daphne after she died?”

Wow, you REALLY need there to be a rainbow villain in this story, huh?

Sorry-not-sorry to disappoint, but this allegation is also untrue.

Here’s what Dave Chappelle said in #TheCloser:

💬 “And I don’t know what the trans community did for her but I don’t care, because I feel like she wasn’t their tribe, she was mine.”

A block of his supporters seem to interpret that as: “No one from her community helped AT ALL.”

Which… is ridiculous on its face to assert without evidence, and kind of insulting to Daphne on top of that.

🗣️ “Daphne was this great, cool person! Funny and instantly likeable! But she had no friends who truly cared about her even a little bit. 😢”

What even is that?

Just from a quick browse, here are a few of the things Daphne Dorman’s community did for her:

1) Unlike other sources, the local LGBTQ paper actually bothered to let readers know how they could donate to help her family with East Coast memorial expenses. ebar.com/news/latest_ne…

2) A West Coast / SF memorial comedy showcase was held in Daphne’s honor to raise money for suicide prevention as well as Daphne’s daughter. evensi.us/suicide-funny-…

3) After that, yet another memorial was arranged for Daphne in her hometown of San Francisco. z-m-www.facebook.com/events/4399640…

No, I can’t tell you what % of attendees were trans, but it would be weird to assume only cis people attended a trans activist’s memorials.

And no, I can’t tell you what the total fundraiser amount was, because the crowdfunding site Daphne’s family used shut down last fall.

So was the trust fund set up this past summer by the world-famous multimillionaire comedian worth more in dollars than the amount her other friends raised for her kid right after Daphne’s death? Sure—totally possible.

And as we already know: they can’t ALL be the hero, can they?

🗣️ “Okay, but Dave didn’t TECHNICALLY say the Twitter bullying led to Daphne’s suicide…”

No, no, no. That weak attempt at plausible deniability was broken before it was spoken. It’s not an out to say the bullying *may* not have caused her death WHEN THE BULLYING NEVER HAPPENED.

As I said, I haven’t historically been a Dave fan. But I don’t, like, hate him or spend my time out to get him or whatever. I didn’t go looking for a “gotcha.” I just saw a bunch of people defending Dave with the equivalent of “YOU ALPHABET PEOPLE TWEETED HIS FRIEND TO DEATH.”

At first I thought, “Surely Dave didn’t come out and imply that, surely people are getting there on their own because of biases.” Looked, and no. “But SURELY he wouldn’t have made up the bullying—oh.” My natural instinct was to give him the benefit of the doubt. Didn’t work out.

Was this misinformation lazy or malicious? FUN FACT: It’s shitty either way!

I’ve seen so many people say Dave’s a great guy, loves everybody, etc. But then others also keep proclaiming Dave’s a great storyteller, master of his craft, every move he makes is calculated… 😬

And if we consider a “lazy” lack of fact-checking the best case scenario, it’s like… C’mon. He didn’t even have to do his own homework. Isn’t this exactly why Dave has Anderson Cooper on speed dial?

I’m not trying to “cancel” Dave Chappelle. I’ve already admitted I don’t watch his shows, so what the hell do I even have to take away from him? Besides, as he said recently:
💬 “Don’t worry about me… I’ve got enough money to never work again in my life.” metro.co.uk/2021/10/18/dav…

And I’m DEFINITELY not saying YS villagers should harass Dave or run him out of town or anything even remotely like that. He and his family have a right to live here peacefully. (Also the discourse on local Facebook groups is already exhausting on a good day. #SchoolLevy 😱)

AND I’m not asking for #TheCloser to be removed. One of the dumpster-fieriest aspects of this is Dave defenders claiming 🏳️‍🌈 folks want the special down because it “exposes” what they did. If @netflix pulls it to hide their own fuckup, I’m betting it’ll make everything worse.

At this point I feel like the best thing Netflix could do is leave the special up and come up with a HELLA GOOD plan to acknowledge and reduce harm.

Like what? I… have no idea! This is a lousy situation & it’s super-hard to get people to disbelieve a lie once they’ve heard it.

THIS HAS BEEN A FAIRLY DISPIRITING JOURNEY TO GO ON, LET ME TELL YOU. #BrandolinisLaw

🗣️ “At least Dave said he’s done making LGBTQ+ jokes?”

Ah, the solemn promise that lasted all of… 23 days. (Wait, is that why he’s been saying it was the worst three weeks of his life? Okay, that makes more sense now.)

nola.com/entertainment_… | foxnews.com/media/joe-roga…

Oh, but those weren’t jokes about trans people’s body parts, they were just jokes about how trans people are trying to kill him! Shortly after he told a lie that got a bunch of his fans thinking trans people were to blame for an actual death. So that’s OBVIOUSLY all fine… 😅

I’ve been thinking back to the end of August 2020—exactly a year after Daphne’s “punching down” tweet. I was downtown Yellow Springs & noticed a commotion on the corner near Subway. (1 of only 2 national chain restaurants in town. If you count Speedway as a restaurant, that is.)

A group of men were standing there “preaching” with the help of an amplifier, video camera, and a big ol’ professionally-printed banner bearing anti-LGBTQ+ propaganda.

Now, this is not typical for Yellow Springs, but it also was not surprising.

Because of our reputation (scroll up 1 mile to top of thread), sometimes people like to come here and try to get a reaction by being loud bigots. Whenever that happens, we locals have to decide whether we’ll ignore those bigots so they don’t get the reaction they’re looking for.

Turns out that mid-pandemic summer slog did not have all of us in “ignore them and they’ll go away” mode. An impromptu talent show (juggling, music, girls kissing girls) broke out as a distraction. Counter-protest signs appeared—one with an “only in YS” lewd Horace Mann joke.

Villagers and tourists gathered on all corners. At one memorable point, a YS ambulance drove through the intersection on the way back from a call. An EMT hopped on their loudspeaker and announced, “It’s okay to be gay,” before the ambulance parked at the fire station next door.

Am I telling this story because I’m trying to say Dave’s presence in town is going to draw more frequent visits from hate groups showing up to get attention? Nah. Or at least I sure hope not. And like I said, that kind of thing has occasionally happened here for a long time.

I’m telling this story because not long after it happened, they built a new fire station on the other end of town. The one the ambulance was headed to in the story is empty now. Dave Chappelle bought it, and he’s turning it into a comedy club & restaurant. ysnews.com/news/2020/12/c…

Dave Chappelle is a draw. The clickbait sites know it, the local businesses know it, and Dave sure as hell knows it. This isn’t Field of Dreams—you don’t put on comedy shows in a cornfield unless you’re pretty damn sure an audience is gonna come.

We know part 1: Slander the trans community in a special that will be seen by millions of people around the world. Make sure to claim the LGBTQ+ community is actually attacking YOU, though.

What comes next in Cancel Culture as a Business Plan?

In this case, it appears to be selling out arenas that each hold 4 to 5 times as many people as the entire population of our village. Enticing potential audience members with the promise of viewing the controversial film “They” don’t want you to see.

I haven’t watched Dave’s “Untitled” documentary yet, but I still feel relatively comfortable telling you now: it ain’t controversial. (I mean, maybe it’ll be a tiny bit controversial here in YS where people know enough about everyone to have strong opinions on village matters…

…but I doubt outsiders will be scandalized by our local zoning board hearing.) It’s just a documentary about Dave, his cornfield shows & life in Yellow Springs during the summer of COVID & #BLM. Made by the village’s resident Oscar-winners. I’m sure it’s nicely put together.

There’s part 2: So Dave won’t be “canceled,” fans race to buy tickets. The film those mean 🏳️‍🌈 people / corporate interests / whatever “They” we’re blaming today are hiding? Aw! 🥰 It’s only a cute li’l movie about a good guy hanging out with famous friends in his quaint town.

And part 3? Hey, guess who’s opening a comedy club in your favorite star’s tiny hometown?! Come give him more money so he can keep speaking truth to power & also maybe bump into one of his celeb friends downtown. That nasty cancel culture will never find us here!!! *shakes fist*

“Creatively” storytelling your way into being a suffering victim of cancel culture when you’re very clearly not is one thing. Doing it by stepping on one of the communities that makes up a higher-than-average percentage of your hometown’s population is another, even worse, thing.

People keep asking, “What’s the big deal? Who will be injured or killed because of what Dave says?” I can’t express how sincerely I’d like to hope 🤞 that the answer to that question is no one.

But not being physically attacked or murdered is just… staying alive.

And the LGBTQ+ residents of Yellow Springs (and everywhere else) deserve more than that absolute bare minimum.

Who will be the first ones in line to come to town for Dave’s comedy club? Who’s loudly, proudly saying they’re his biggest fans as they pledge allegiance to Jokes?

From what I’ve seen, seems like it’s a lot of the same folks who think the LGBTQ+ community is “punching down” on Chappelle & friends, which they can totally do because that community has all the power. Plus, the “bad” transgender people basically killed his “good” trans friend.

Cool. Thanks, Dave. That’ll be a fun crowd. Save me a seat on the patio. 🙄

In a lot of ways, even a mild to moderate influx of bigot tourism is worse than the small number of bigots who were preaching on the corner. A group with a banner and a megaphone is showy and obvious and it’s easy for others to see and hear what’s happening and offer support.

Nobody’s downtown Yellow Springs to turn people into newts or whatever it is y’all accuse LGBTQ+ folks of being up to. They’re just picking up a loaf of bread. Washing their work uniform at the laundromat. Buying some Pokémon cards with their kids. Living their human lives.

Introduce into those human lives a few hundred more stares, a few hundred more outside assessments of whether they’re performing gender “correctly,” whether they’re “real,” whether they’re a “danger,” and then yet more looks back to make sure the observer isn’t being “tricked”...

If an onlooker says something intentionally cruel or proudly ignorant, but does it with a smile or a laugh, will anyone other than the target of their words notice? If it’s painful, will anyone believe it’s not the target’s own fault because they’re just bad at taking a joke?

Think the Yellow Springs villagers who swear they’re bigtime allies, always have been, yet still don’t “get” how anything in #TheCloser could be upsetting despite multiple thoughtful explanations are going to notice this kind of subtle bullshit in the wild? Wouldn’t count on it.

You really never know what other people are going through. And unnecessarily adding extra weight to the already heavy burdens a lot of LGBTQ+ people carry… To borrow a phrase from Dave: I bet it won’t help.

This isn’t about crying for special “safe places.” It’s about a place where people should already be safe because they live there. It’s their home. A place the rest of the villagers affirmed will be a rainbow in more ways than one, and LGBTQ+ people will be welcomed & valued in.

I don’t think I’m the only one under the impression that part of the reason Dave liked YS is because he could simply be a “regular” person here, right? Avoid unwanted attention, live his life. I wonder if he ever stopped to consider that’s what LGBTQ+ people liked about it, too?

And as for Dave Chappelle himself… While he’s no doubt at the center of this storm, maybe it’s no longer helpful for him to be the center of attention.

The fact that elders in my family knew and greatly respected Dave’s father gives me a spark of hope that eventually Dave will reflect more deeply on the choices he’s been making lately, if only for his own sake.

In the meantime, his fakeout apology and iterative rounds of the blame game reinforce my belief that the rest of us shouldn’t hold our collective breath waiting for Dave Chappelle to be the one to fix this.

But for now, whether either of us like it or not, Dave is part of one of my “tribes.” (Plural because, like most of you, I have many tribes.) In that spirit, I’ll ask one question. Don’t worry, not trying to “summon” anyone & I don’t expect an answer. Just putting this out there.

“Twitter is not a real place.” That’s what you said in your special, @DaveChappelle.

But is Yellow Springs a real place to you?

Slander a community, but say they’re the ones attacking you
Talk about how you’re canceled as you play sold-out arenas
Your words can create a reality that you carry home with you
And when you’re a star, they let you do it

UPDATE: Turns out we can prove there were never more than 9 replies to Daphne's "punching down" tweet before she died.

She wasn't dragged for the tweet. And nobody went back and deleted their bullying replies, because there weren't any of them to delete.

https://twitter.com/SpringsInMyStep/status/1460009680256876544