I Know The Game Now

Can I ask you a weird question? I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. You don’t have to answer it, and if it doesn’t go well, we’ll just edit it out anyway. Is it weird to be the only white people in a row? I mean, you can be honest. Does it feel strange? Are you worried at all? Give me your money, motherfucker. I’m just fucking with you. This guy’s got ice in his veins. He didn’t even buckle.

You know, like many black men my age, the first time I voted was eight years ago. That’s right. I saw Obama on TBS, said, “I’m voting for this nigga.” I remember the day I voted for Obama. I voted in Ohio. And my vote matters in Ohio. Ohio is a battleground state. But when I pulled up to the polls, all of the soldiers were in line. There were so many black people in that goddamn line, I didn’t even know it was the polls. I thought it was the check-cashing place. We were hugging each other , and old people were singing hymns and spirituals and shit. It was like the OJ verdict times ten or some shit. I’ve never seen black people that happy.

Eight years later, I’m pulling up to the polls again. This time, I’m driving a brand-new Porsche. Because the Obama years were very good to me. I was early voting… and when I parked my car, I figured out something that it would take the rest of the country another week to figure out. I understood that Donald Trump was gonna be our next president. Because in Ohio, unlike DC, you could see the results in the parking lot. All these goddamn pickup trucks and tractors and shit. And then I walked up, and I saw a long, long line… of dusty white people. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these were the poor whites. I must tell you, I’ve never had a problem with white people ever in my life, but full disclosure… the poor whites are my least favorites. We’ve got a lot of trouble out of them. And I’ve never seen so many of them up close. I looked them right in their coal-smeared faces. And to my surprise… you know what I didn’t see? I didn’t see one deplorable face in that group. Saw some angry faces and some determined faces, but they felt like decent folk. No, they did. In fact, I’m not even lying, and not to sound fucked up, but I felt sorry for them. I know the game there. I know that rich white people call poor white people trash. And the only reason I know that is because I made so much money last year, the rich whites told me they say it at a cocktail party. And I’m not with that shit. I stood with them in line, like all of us Americans are required to do in a democracy, nobody skips the line to vote, and I listened to them. I listened to them say naive poor white people things. “Man, Donald Trump’s gonna go to Washington, and he’s gonna fight for us.” I’m standing there thinking in my mind, “You dumb motherfucker. You are poor. He’s fighting for me.” And they all looked at me. They could tell who I was voting for, just as easily as I could tell who they were voting for. But do you guys know what we all had in common? Not one of us, not a single one of us, looked like we felt good about what we had to do in that booth. We were just doing our goddamn duty.

Yes, I voted for Hillary Clinton, of course I did. I voted for her because I liked what she said vastly better than I liked what he said. To be honest with you, at that point, that shit was like watching Darth Vader do the “I Have a Dream” speech. That bitch is mean as hell. She’d already Karate Kid swept Bernie Sanders legs from underneath him. Boy, it was hard voting for that shit. But it was the lesser of the evils. I know you were a Clinton supporter, miss. I am sorry to say like that. It didn’t feel bad voting for her, but it didn’t feel as good as it should’ve. She was gonna be our first woman president. They were gonna make coins out of this bitch. And somehow, she just missed the dunk. Of course she should’ve beat him. You know what voting for her felt like? It was bittersweet. It felt like I was lucky enough to eat Halle Berry’s pussy. And whilst I was doing so, she fucking farted in my face, man. Now you understand, I’d still do it. But, boy, I wish she didn’t fart in this great nation’s face.

I voted that day, and then that same day I flew to New York City. I had work. That night, I was in a comedy club in New York, and I said to an audience almost exactly what I just said to you. And I didn’t know that there was a journalist in the room. And this journalist wrote an article. The headline of the article said, “Dave Chappelle is an avid Donald Trump supporter.” Yeah. I had no idea the paper said that. You know how I found out? My wife called me from Ohio the next morning in a goddamn panic. “David. David, what the fuck… is going on in New York?” I said, “I’ve been good, but what have you heard?” My wife said, “The paper is saying that you’re a Donald Trump supporter.” I was like… [sighs] I said, “Don’t worry about that shit, baby. Nobody in their right mind would believe that.” And she said, “No, David, people believe it.” And then she started reading the comments to me. Oh, they were terrible. All these black people calling me all kinds of Uncle Toms and shit. I should tell you, this is a very serious allegation from one black to another. I was incensed. Uncle Tom? How am I Uncle Tom, nigga? You the one that reads the Observer.

Anyway, all this shit goes down. And Saturday night rolls around, and now Trump is the president, and I’m hosting Saturday Night Live. And I didn’t really prepare my monologue. I just kind of winged it. At the end of the monologue, I don’t even remember what I said. I said something like, “Fuck it. We’re historically disenfranchised, and we’re gonna give him–” Something about, “We’re gonna give him a chance if he gives us a chance.” I don’t know what I said, but whatever I said, I really wish I didn’t say that shit. It was not worth the trouble. Walking to the barbershop and all them black people be looking at me like, “Yo, Dave, what’s up with your boy?” Yo, nigga, yo! He’s not my boy. ‘Cause I don’t care if you’re Republican or Democrat, if you support him or not, any objective person is gonna have to admit that this motherfucker is having a terrible go of it. He really is. We’ve had presidents before that have done bad jobs, but this shit is worse than a bad job. It’s scary to watch. Holy shit. It’s like seeing a crack pipe in your Uber driver’s passenger seat. What the fuck is wrong with this guy? Yo, he is lunching, nigga.