Chappelle, 41, was in town to deliver the commencement address to this years graduating class of his alma mater, the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. In explaining why artists are important to contextualizing the world, he cited Dolezal.
The worlds become ridiculous, he told the awestruck grads at George Washington Universitys Lisner auditorium. Theres a white lady posing as a black lady. There is not one thing that woman accomplished that she couldnt have done as a white woman. Theres no reason! She just needed the braids! I dont know what she was doing.
Despite the mention in his speech, backstage and no longer held to the constraints of a 15-minute time slot, Chappelle revealed why he would wait a while before he incorporated any Dolezal jokes into his act, if he decides to do so at all.
The thing that the medias gotta be real careful about, that theyre kind of overlooking, is the emotional content of what she means, Chappelle said thoughtfully, between drags of American Spirit cigarettes. Theres something thats very nuanced where shes highlighting the difference between personal feeling and whats construct as far as racism is concerned. I dont know what her agenda is, but theres an emotional context for black people when they see her and white people when they see her. Theres a lot of feelings that are going to come out behind whats happening with this lady.