Sticks and Stones
By: Wannette D.
Tags: Narcissism, Addiction, Social Media, Cancel Culture, Dave Chappelle

As the saying goes, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” We would say this as kids to respond to taunting and name-calling. I was picked on a lot as a kid. I was tall, skin and bones, and always got mistaken for a boy for wearing baseball caps. I hated doing my hair (still do) and having it done. It was a waste of time to me. I had shit to do, books to read and sports to play. When that cap got knocked off, I got called names like “Buckwheata” (Yup, the female Buckwheat), Skeletor, and Olive Oyl. When neighborhood kids would greet me, they’d yell, “By the power of Grayskull!” or remind me that they saw me in a “Feed the Children” commercial. I mostly laughed at these wisecracks and occasionally clapped back. But when the boys got embarrassed after being beaten by a girl on the playground or I let them know that something they said was not very intelligent, it turned into calling me “ugly” or a “weirdo” for not being like the other girls (Losing to them at sports and laughing at their dumb jokes).

I remember running home to my Mom crying one day and telling her about being called a weirdo. She reaffirmed that I was not weird, I was different, and she was like me as a little girl. “They are the insecure ones,” she said. She advised for the next encounter, ask them nicely to stop (That MLK “non-violence”). If they don’t, clock ’em (That Malcolm “by any means necessary”). As much as I recited that sticks-and-stones rhyme, it wasn’t until adulthood I began to comprehend it. It tells the victim to ignore being taunted and to refrain from physical retaliation. Not only did I fail to ignore the teasing, on numerous occasions I responded with physical retaliation. The bumps and bruises healed but it took quite a bit longer for me to un-internalize the bullying. I’d like to think that I’ve acquired a bit of wisdom over the years, so I can now confidently say how deeply flawed that saying is. It also occurs to me that we are currently witnessing the social and cultural effects of decades upon decades of disregarding personal emotional pain.

Observing the career and comedic style of comedian Dave Chappelle provides a microscope with which to view and analyze these effects. His aptly titled Netflix special Sticks and Stones doesn’t avoid complexities and discomfort but rather invites them. He is known for his abilities as a storyteller and one need not be a fan of his prose to find deeper messages. His intentions appear to not simply make the audience laugh but also to make us think and engage in honest discourse regarding uncomfortable social topics.

The opener sets the tone…

Chappelle opens his routine with a segment in which he compares Anthony Bourdain to a man he knew in high school. Bourdain was a celebrity chef, author, and traveling documentarist of both cuisine and the human experience who in 2018 died of suicide by hanging. His death shook fans around the world including myself. For me, it was hard to fathom such a brilliant, brave, witty, and worldly human being taking his own life. Chappelle intertwined this story of the anonymous man between a verse and the chorus of Prince’s song “1999”. Chappelle explains that the man he knew in high school got into Ivy League schools and law school but in a strange turn of events ended up living with his mother and working at a Finish Line at 45-years-old. He ends the story by claiming this man he knew never considered killing himself. Comedians are masters of the art of storytelling and the opening is typically of great significance. I realized that Chappelle and Bourdain share commonality as entertainers and most of all storytellers. I considered the greater social implications of the rise of suicide in response to trauma.

Bourdain’s life was a rollercoaster much like the man in Chappelle’s story. He struggled with drug addiction and was burdened with debt while writing the book that propelled him to fame in his forties, Kitchen Confidential. Fame does not make trauma disappear and, indeed, you can never truly know what someone is going through unless you’ve walked in their shoes. With addiction and suicide on the rise, society’s collective emotional intellect is comparable to that of children on a playground dodging and combating relentless teasing and bullying on the backdrop of a capitalistic rat race, but trauma doesn’t matter because “sticks-and-stones”. If you don’t allow yourself to feel and process your emotional pain, it will do worse than break your bones. It could actually kill you.

Chappelle continues playing devil’s advocate and sets the tone for the remainder of the special by informing the Atlanta audience, “Tonight I’m gonna try some impressions out.” Light laughter echoes around the theater. “Hurry up and finish that Constitution, nigger. I’m trying to get some sleep,” Chappelle says, impersonating the Founding Fathers. He warns the audience that the next one will be harder and says in a silly voice, “Uh, duh. Hey! Durr! If you do anything wrong in your life — duh! — and I find out about it, I’m gonna try to take everything away from you! And I don’t care what I find out! Could be today, tomorrow, 15, 20 years from now. If I find out, you’re fucking — duh! — finished.” When no one in the audience can guess the impersonation, Chappelle drops the plot twist on the crowd and yells, “That’s you! That’s what the audience sounds like to me. That’s why I don’t be coming out doing comedy all the time ’cause y’all niggas is the worst mothafuckas I’ve ever tried to entertain in my fucking life.” He takes on controversial topics such as gun culture, the opioid crisis, and numerous celebrity scandals which, if you’re used to unmediated uncomfortable discussions, you most likely laughed uncontrollably and uncomfortably and enjoyed it.

From Killing Them Softly to Equanimity and the Bird Revelations he always challenged assumptions so Sticks and Stones wasn’t as surprising or shocking as the internet would lead you to believe. In Killing Them Softly (1998) he discussed racism, police brutality, and drug use. For What It’s Worth (2004) is just as lewd and he did a similar bit to his impression of the Founding Fathers, this time it was George Washington proclaiming, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. [Aside] Go get me a sandwich nigger or I’ll kill ya! [Return] Liberty and justice for all.” It’s hard to pinpoint one thing specifically that has changed in our society to explain the extreme level of fragility and outrage-culture that has devolved. It’s also hard to deny that social media has had a profound effect on human behavior. Social networks help facilitate deception, avoidance, and impersonal interaction. Today not enough time has passed to study the long-term effects of social media and in the meantime, we have been largely left to navigate this space on our own. Chappelle’s seemingly abrupt departure from Hollywood took place about the same time as the social media explosion in 2006. Today, he is taking us on a journey through the complexities of free speech in this brave new world where the internet has spawned a new drug. The common trait of artists like Chappelle and Bourdain is hyperawareness. Perhaps this makes Dave Chappelle just as much a philosopher as a comedian because he seemed to be hyperaware of the monster social media could become when most were not. Being hyperaware also carries a burden.

If you don’t allow yourself to feel and process your emotional pain, it will do worse than break your bones. It could actually kill you.

The duality of Dave…

The ability to offer deeper perspectives on controversial topics is an art that can be observed in many comedy styles (George Carlin, Richard Prior). Chappelle speaks his mind, bullshits and doesn’t bullshit at the same time, offering a one-two punch of slapstick humor and deep social commentary before delivering the knockout punch. That knockout punch is the broader perspective missing from most social commentary. Once the audience comes to, they are left deliberating: Why am I laughing at this? What does that say about me? Does he really feel that way or is he baiting me? Chappelle seemingly has never sought to answer questions or to provide resolution just offer perspective. His comedy is a lesson in duality. Duality teaches that there is a balanced interaction of opposite forces. These competing forces may appear contradictory but are actually complementary. Yin and yang, if you will. This means the opposite forces balance each other out like wind on the wings of a bird. I can recall the speculation amongst my friends regarding the title of his standup special Equanimity and the Bird Revelation (2017). I deciphered it as just that, the opposite forces that allow birds to fly symbolize freedom in a world of birds imprisoned by a cage of their own making.

Social Media and Social Power…

At the time of Chappelle’s comedy prominence, social media was just a baby. The reception of the critically acclaimed Chappelle Show preceded his temporary departure from Hollywood. Comedy like life and any art form is subjective. However, there are greater social and political implications to consider. Who got to decide what is funny enough to give it a platform changed with the birth of social media. It went from the hands of a few Hollywood elites to the public. The Hollywood elite adapted; the public didn’t know what hit them.

When something is subjective it can also be used to sway opinions. For instance, political agendas gave rise to the popularity of minstrel shows in the early 19th century in which black people were caricatured by white men in black face. Tyrone Biggums was a Chappelle’s Show character presented in a sitcom about a lovable crackhead. Presenting a crackhead this way, as a superhuman who sells real estate and commits crimes to survive, forces you to laugh at a condition that was anything but funny, especially if you witnessed it like Chappelle who grew up in Washington D.C. during the crack epidemic. Clayton Bigsby is a black, white supremacist who, in a plot twist, learns he is black then leaves his white wife for being a nigger-lover. In this racial satire, he uses blindness as symbolism to cleverly point out the absurdity of racism. Musician Rick James allowed his friend Charlie Murphy to provide comedic commentary on race, class, and drug addiction in the sketch that produced the infamous quote, “I’m Rick James, Bitch.” Chappelle did a standup set in Austin following the halt of production of Chappelle’s Show where a white man kept yelling the phrase. Chappelle said,

“Because the network officials say you’re not smart enough to get what I’m doing, and every day I fight for you. I tell them how smart you are. Turns out I was wrong. You people are stupid.”

And he was right. Many only saw the characters as caricatures of black people and completely missed the point. Then, social media became the medium of choice to manipulate and exploit that same stupidity. Deep reading, deep thought, critical thinking, and sitting with our emotions were already not up to healthy standards. Social media became a drug to fill this growing void.

Critics and Addicts…

Immediately upon opening the internet browser of your choosing, it begins to tell you how you are supposed to feel or think. The movie that has the most positive reviews is deemed the best. If a business doesn’t have a website with hundreds of reviews, it’s devalued by an algorithm. If you fail to find an answer to a question on Google, it must mean that it’s not worthy of discussion or depth. Because of this persistent popularity contest, imitation is valued over originality and shallow discussions receive more attention than those with depth. Has the internet altered our brain? I would say that it has definitely made us lazy. We spend less time on the practice of reflection and deep learning which helps us think critically and formulate our own opinions. We skim through internet content like robotic addicts until something sensational and lacking substance smacks us in the face, beckoning us to react without much thought. We receive that burst of dopamine but as with any addiction, the drug hijacks the brain requiring more just to be satisfied. Furthermore, social media has been used as a tool to cultivate a “them” versus “us” ethos where you feel obligated to choose a side and anyone who doesn’t agree must be your enemy. Adding to this madness is the tendency for free thinkers to not engage in online rabble-rousing. The average internet user imagines that most of the online opinions feel one certain way so this must be the “right” opinion. How oxymoronic?

We skim through internet content like robotic addicts until something sensational and lacking substance smacks us in the face, beckoning us to react without much thought. We receive that burst of dopamine but as with any addiction, the drug hijacks the brain requiring more just to be satisfied.

Following Dave’s special, critics ho- and hummed over shock value and took jabs at his relevance and character when Stick and Stones was not more or less controversial than his past standup specials and actually contained deeper commentary that they too missed. Some critics claimed that Dave’s special started slow but picked up in the end. Did it start slow or have our brain receptors become overwhelmed, producing less dopamine, and now everything that doesn’t excite us right away feels “slow”? Some critics called his routine “lazy”. The anonymity of the internet experience makes it easy to critique someone, even a celebrity, from afar but with a limitless platform. Calling someone out for offending you on a personal level is a form of social courage and activism. Calling someone out on social media hides behind the charade of “activism” but also activates groupthink which points out the insecurities of the in-group, becoming a form of bullying. Hashtags became a way to index digital information and engage in conversations on platforms such as Twitter. Now, they are also used by internet trolls to rally an online mob of bullies.

The problem with catchall phrases…

The reactionary culture that Chappelle addresses in the opening of Sticks and Stones reared its ugly head instantly after the debut. “Dave Chappelle Goes After Cancel Culture” was the popular catchall phrase for opinion pieces. While these phrases permit readers and staff writers to actively participate and follow online discussions, because they are now commonplace, they also have the adverse effect of simplifying complex topics. Social media hashtags are symptomatic and if we continue to focus only on symptoms and fail to treat the underlying conditions, then catchphrases only serve the purpose of arousing a mob looking for social validation.

Subsequently, just like the sticks-and-stones rhyme taught us as kids this ultimately shuts down genuine discourse and progress. Working in marketing, I observed hashtags, over and over again, taking a life of their own and then watched the causes behind them lose significance. For instance, the catchall phrase “toxic masculinity” is not the problem. It is only a cultural definition that is the result of a range of problems that relate to white male supremacy and the discriminatory institutional practices that prop it up. “Cancel culture” is not the problem but a symptom of a culture of narcissism and social media addiction that has resulted in diminished discourse and emotional incompetence. Collectivism is generally viewed as positive but well-intentioned collectivism has taken a dangerous turn to mob rule. Mobs leave destruction in their wake and most times the intent was to bring attention to a real problem that needs to be addressed.

Social media hashtags are symptomatic and if we continue to focus only on symptoms and fail to treat the underlying conditions, then catchphrases only serve the purpose of arousing a mob for social validation.

As a result, we’ve begun socially policing free speech much like we are observing within the comedic community. History teaches that this is a slippery slope. But unfortunately, it feels as though we are propelling towards a world where free expression is implied not encouraged. Free speech and expression aren’t about right or wrong. Words are subjective and by themselves are inherently powerless. Words receive power through what we project on them. Those projections become cultural norms and shape the social context of the words. The words of the bullies on the playground did hurt. However, they wouldn’t have hurt me as much if somewhere deep inside I didn’t believe their words. Yes, we should be held personally accountable when our words hurt others, but we should also be allowed room in the world to evolve and grow. Policing free speech shuts down honest discourse and doesn’t allow for the room.

The right path in a world of glasshouses…

No one emerges from the womb little Dalai Lamas, pictures of fucking human perfection. Not only is this absurd but how boring and frightening? The hope is that as we grow older, we shed our masks or the image of ourselves that we project, becoming a true reflection of our inner being. Social media amongst other external factors has thrown us off this path, but there is a way back. By studying and learning from the reactionary culture that social media has fueled, I have begun to recognize and transform my unhealthy coping mechanisms. This rehabilitation is lifelong and requires intense focus on deep learning and allowing room for honest discourse. This is the therapy necessary to process the pain that so much around us is telling us to ignore.

As children, we were taught a rhyme that conditioned us to ignore emotional pain. It failed to tell us the importance of facing that pain and having tough conversations with others and ourselves. And now, Likes, Loves, and Followers are the drug that dulls that same pain. Sticks and stones may break your bones but at the same time, a broken bone is much easier to rehabilitate than a broken spirit. I was fresh out of college and on a similar hiatus when Dave Chappelle left Hollywood and by then, I had reclaimed the word “weirdo” from the bullies. I took pride in my weirdness amongst the boring sameness of the people in my hometown. I also didn’t think he was crazy like everyone else speculated back then. That hiatus seemed to have provided clarity. The rest of us would also benefit from social media rehab to detox from a culture of narcissism, to bring balance back into our personal lives and the world.