"If slaves had oil and booty shorts on, we might have been free 100 years sooner," he cracks.But lines like that assume that the struggle over oppression is a zero sum game - that, because some gay people have access to white privilege in America, that all their concerns about stereotyping and marginalization are hollow and subordinate to what Black people face. Eventually, he was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge - carrying a concealed weapon - though the family of the 19-year-old who died insists that DaBaby started the fight.In The Closer, Chappelle eventually says he's jealous of the progress the gay rights movement has made in America. "But you better not hurt a gay person's feelings."What Chappelle doesn't say, is that DaBaby claims he was defending himself against two men who tried to rob him and his family in the store. Chappelle jokes DaBaby "punched the LGBTQ community right in the AIDS" before recalling a 2018 incident where the rapper was involved in a fight inside a North Carolina Walmart where another person was shot and killed."In our country, you can shoot and kill a n-," Chappelle says. I don't really care what point he's trying to make a joke which sounds like anti-Semitism gets a hard pass from me.) And the message Chapelle has for those who have criticized him about transphobic, homophobic or any other phobic jokes, seems to be: race trumps all.This idea surfaces when he talks about rapper DaBaby, who was pilloried publicly for making homophobic comments during a concert in July. And he'll have to work a little to get them back on his team again – which he does.(He also knows reviewers like me will quote the joke and criticize him for it, which I am. He knows, in the moment, that such a punchline will briefly break the spell he has on the audience make them rethink their allegiance to him, at least for a second. Because that was pretty awful.Coming from Chapelle, a joke like that felt like a dare. "It's gonna get worse than that," Chappelle retorts, laughing. His punch line is the title for the film: Space Jews.Even the adoring audience in Detroit took a breath on that one. That much is obvious, early in the special, where he talks about an idea for a film centered on an ancient civilization which discovered space travel, left the planet and then came back, determined to claim the Earth for their own. Considered the Greatest Of All Time among many comedy fans – Chappelle says it about himself, wryly, toward the end of the special – The Closer finds him surrounded by an enthusiastic audience in Detroit ready to go wherever he takes them. Regardless of what he's actually saying.Of course, these days, the fix is in. But at times – especially during his latest special for Netflix, The Closer – he also seems to have a daredevil's relish for going to dangerous places onstage and eventually winning his audience over. Sometimes, he does it to make a larger point.