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Well, I guess it was only a question of time before the ADL condemned Dave Chappelle and SNL more generally for "popularising" anti-Semitism.
Chappelle had a SNL monologue a few days ago where he walked a tightrope between supposedly condemning Kanye and Kyrie before slyly signal-boosting some of their talking points. Kanye comes across as crazy and Kyrie as plain dumb but Chappelle is neither, so this is arguably bigger news. Of course, Chappelle has been courting controversy before, such as his perceived anti-trans comments or complaining about college kids being too sensitive these days.
So I am not sure if this is some kind of cultural shift where black entertainment elites are more willing to criticise Jews or if it is simply Chappelle running towards controversy in order to stay relevant. Maybe it is both. Nevertheless, I think the ADL has by and large been enormously inefficient and self-defeating during these past 6 weeks. It seems even some Jewish publications agree.
On the radio this morning, there was a pop news segment which mentioned the drama. They quoted Chappelle’s joke, something along the lines of:
I concur with the hosts that the joke is decently funny. It certainly works better than some of Chappelle’s “snowflakes, amirite?” bits. The best part, though perhaps unintentional, is that when quoted it looks like an apology for a different joke until the punchline.
I remain skeptical of claims that this (or random bait on Twitter, as in that other thread) implies some sort of growing black/Jewish tension. Aside from being an obvious opportunity for selection bias, it’s firmly in the “to good to check” category for those who expect to see race warring everywhere. This includes a big chunk of the dissident right as well as, apparently, the ADL.
I think the cat's out of the bag. This particular (ever-growing) set of mini-controversies will subside eventually. But awareness/noticing will increase monotonically because once you notice you don't unnotice. The next controversy surrounding this question will have even more prima facie plausibility than this controversy started by Kanye's rant, and so-on. Look at what Elon Musk tweeted yesterday. It's a hop, a skip, and a jump away from anti-Semitism.
The reason I do think that this is symptomatic of a turning point is expressed pretty well in Chapelle's set. Chapelle isn't walking a tightrope because he is concerned about unethically disparaging a people. He's worried about a reprisal for saying true things. That's not a long-term stable state. The long-term stable state is that nobody even thinks about it, or they think it's morally wrong to believe it. What we are seeing is a growing awareness, and people are being quiet and walking a tightrope because they are afraid and not because they are morally on the side of the ADL.
Only if you're looking for it. It would work just as well if the names were:
"Sam Jones" [was a student of, then regulated by] "Gary Williams" [was fucking and working with] [was a former subordinate of] "Caroline Smith" [is the daughter of] "Glenn Smith"The incestuous relationships and regulatory capture are the point Elon was making; the ethnicity/religion, while notable, is orthogonal.
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