Hitting all the right notes. Dave Chappelle delivered a postelection monologue on Saturday Night Live on Saturday, November 12, dropping the n-word in a monologue that was at times funny and emotional.
The 43-year-old comedian kicked off the show by addressing exactly what was on everyone’s minds: the results of the Tuesday, November 8, presidential elections.
“You know, I didn’t know that Donald Trump was gonna win the election,” he said as the audience chuckled. “I did suspect it. Seemed like Hillary was doing well at the polls, and yet, I know the whites. You guys aren’t as full of surprises as you used to be. … We’ve actually elected an internet troll as our president.”
Chappelle then noted that the incensed reaction that Trump’s presidency incited across the country have been bizarre to watch, mostly because many who are out on the streets protesting are white.
“I haven’t seen whites this mad since the O.J. verdict,” he said. “I’m not saying I’m enjoying it. I’m just saying I’ve never seen it before. I watched a white riot in Portland, Oregon, on television the other night. The news said they did a million dollars’ worth of damage. Every black person was watching that like, ‘amateurs.’”
The comedian then noted that despite the anger that the election has brought about, it’s important not to forget all the other terrible things that are happening around the nation: shootings and mass attacks like the Pulse nightclub shooting.
He sagely reminded the audience that though reports initially tied the shooter to ISIS, the information was misinterpreted; the man had “pledged allegiance to ISIS before he did what he did,” he said. “That’s not the same as being in ISIS. That’s like, if I was going to have sex with a girl, and right before I did it, I screamed out ‘Wu-Tang!’ That don’t mean I’m in the Wu-Tang Clan! I’m just shouting Wu-Tang out.”
Chappelle also used the n-word when talking about a shooting of another kind: Harambe, the gorilla that was shot and killed in May. “There are more shootings than I can literally count. You can’t even go to the goddamn zoo without seeing a shooting nowadays,” he said. “They shot a gorilla at my local zoo. And the Cincinnati police said, ‘Shooting that gorilla was the toughest decision we ever had to make.’ I said, ‘Well, you bout to see a lot of n—as in gorilla costumes in Cincinnati.”
After a few more jokes at the president-elect’s expense — noting that he wants to benefit from tax breaks from the rich, and taking a swipe at Trump’s “grab ’em by the p–sy” comment — Chappelle got serious.
He recalled a recent trip to the White House, and how, as he looked around at all the black people (and Bradley Cooper) dancing and having fun in the room, he felt moved by the scene.
“I saw how happy everybody was, these people who had been historically disenfranchised, and it made me hopeful, it made me feel proud to be an American, and it made me very happy about the prospects of our country,” he said, before delivering an unexpected line to cap off the monologue.
“I’m wishing Donald Trump luck, and I’m going to give him a chance,” he said to a silent audience. “And we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one too.”
