Dave Chappelle talks about George Floyd’s death in new Netflix special

With #BlackLivesMatter going on in the USA, Dave Chappelle released a slashing new special, “8:46”, the name of the show also identifies as the length of time that a police officer held his knee on George Floyd’s neck as Floyd pleaded for his life — the show has become among the first live shows in the Coronavirus era to the total with the protests gripping the nation.
In the show Chappelle tells his audience ‘This is weird”, wearing masks in socially distanced seats.

The show was recorded in Ohio on June 6, and from the title card of the show, it seems that it was Chappelle’s first performance in nearly three months. Chappelle was dressed in black, referred regularly to a notebook and smoked a cigarette on stage.

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The set of Chappelle’s show isn’t a comedy set, there aren’t really any jokes. Instead, it’s an indirect accounting of police brutality, interrupted with images of black men who died at the hands of officers, and cleverly delivering statements his own personal history.

Chappelle covers a lot of topics, including the media, the death of Kobe Bryant, and his family members, some of whom were in the audience. He also spoke about Christopher Dorner, a former police officer in Los Angles who went on a killing binge in 2013 after declaring “unconventional and asymmetric warfare” upon the Los Angeles Police Department. Dorner had accused a coworker of excessive force in 2007 and was later fired for making false statements, despite his insistence that he was telling the truth.

“They found him … he was hiding in a cabin,” Chappelle said during the set. “When they figured out where this n—– was, no less than 400 police officers showed up and answered the call … and you know why 400 cops showed up? Because one of their own was murdered. So how the f— can’t they understand what’s going on in these streets?” he said of the recent protests.
While Chappelle made his opinions known during the special, he said he doesn’t think now is the time for celebrities to step in and speak for the public.

“This is the streets talking for themselves,” he said. “They don’t need me right now … Why would everyone care what their favorite comedian thinks after they saw a police officer kneel on a man’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds?”