David Chappelle on Rachel Dolezal: "She's just a person, no matter how we feel"
Tempting as the Rachel Dolezal scandal may be for Dave Chappelle, who once did a sketch as a blind Klansman who didn't know he was black, the comedian said he needs more time to process the issue and Dolezal's response to the backlash before tearing her down.
However, Chappelle couldn't help himself from testing a few roundabout jests on the topic on Sunday during his commencement speech at his alma mater, the Duke Ellington School of the Arts at George Washington University.
Dolezal resigned as head of the Spokane, Washington, NAACP chapter after her parents said she is white and had been pretending to be black for years.
"I think black [people]," Chappelle said, alluding to the idea of Dolezal's acceptance in the black community, "we would take her all day, right?"
"The world's become ridiculous," he told the graduates. "There's a white lady posing as a black lady. There is not one thing that woman accomplished that she couldn't have done as a white woman. There's no reason! She just needed the braids! I don't know what she was doing."
The story had still been unfolding on Sunday when Chappelle made his remarks in Washington, D.C.
"There's a lot of feelings that are going to come out behind what's happening with this lady," Chappelle predicted.
"The thing that the media's gotta be real careful about, that they're kind of overlooking, is the emotional content of what she means," Chappelle told the Washington Post during an interview at the GW commencement. "That's very nuanced where she's highlighting the difference between personal feeling and what's construct as far as racism is concerned. I don't know what her agenda is, but there's an emotional context for black people when they see her and white people when they see her."
Chappelle said he's going to withhold more judgment, and more jibes, until he hears Dolezal's reasoning.
"I'm probably not going to do any jokes about her or any references to her for awhile 'cause that's going to be a lot of comedians doing a lot. And I'm sure her rebuttal will be illuminating. Like, once she's had time to process it and kind of get her wind back and get her message together," he said.
Still, Chappelle said the idea is to be sensitive to the individual: "She's just a person, no matter how we feel about her."
Following Chappelle's comments, Dolezal broke her silence about the controversy, telling the "Today" show on Tuesday, "I identify as black."