Comic superstar Dave Chappelle talked about the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing at the hands of a White cop on Memorial Day 2020.
Chappelle, 47, expounds on his own Netflix series regarding the extreme emotional trauma Floyd’s televised death caused as the first guest on the new season of “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman.” The series resumes on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020, also on Netflix.
Letterman, who is the legendary former comic host of “Late Night With David Letterman,” noted how the late Congressman John Lewis was nearly murdered during the violent police suppression on the famous Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. He compared the similarities of Lewis getting his skull cracked by police and nearly dying and how Floyd was actually killed when ex-cop Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than 8 minutes.
“What a tragic footnote to a tragic culture,” Chappelle said. “This is a lot to unpack. Nights like this are important. Just talking about it. We’re countrymen, all of us. We live in America. It’s weird now, because this game of ‘who suffered more,’ everyone keeps getting the ball. They act like everyone’s suffering is mutually exclusive from everyone else’s, and you and I both know that this is far from the case.”
Chappelle said chillingly that “it’s a thing, and I’m troubled about the volume of it,” and added that “It doesn’t sound like something that’s settling or hurtling towards an easy resolution.”
Letterman asked Chappelle if he thinks the events of this past summer will prompt the nation to pivot towards authentic change. “I’m not making any predictions. I’m very hopeful, yes, that there will be real change, and just traditionally, just from my experience, change is never like a comfortable proposition,” Chappelle said, perhaps as a portent of things to come.
“It’s uncomfortable before it’s comfortable again.”
Flip the page to check out the clip of “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” With Dave Letterman.
