Modified On April 13, 2006
It hits the stands Saturday. Esquire will run a 10-page interview with Dave Chappelle on why he walked.
“The bottom line was, white people own everything, and where can a black person go and be himself or say something that’s familiar to him and not have to explain or apologize?”
We suppose there’s some truth to this, now that even BET is owned by Sumner Redstone (and folks don’t get much whiter than Sumner Redstone). Television executives only see one color: green. But even the casual observer must conclude that, when you’re Dave Chappelle, you spend a lot of time explaining yourself to a lot of people, not just white folks. (“I was invited to lunch the other day with Bill Cosby and Morgan Freeman… so you know I did something wrong.” –Chappelle on stage at Wiley’s Thursday night.)