Of Chappelle and Shirtwaists: A Case for Hope in the Time of Trump

Shandreka Mosley
Aug 22, 2017 · 5 min read

The night of August 12, 2017, I walked under the bold blue and red of Radio City lights in Manhattan. I’d seen the Chappelle Show star by happenstance the night before at a small venue. While I laughed at jokes from an amazing showcase of up-and-coming comedians, all hell had broken loose in Charlottesville, Virginia. I wouldn’t find out about it until morning when the violence reached a tragic crescendo ending in the death of Heather Heyer, a 32-year old activist.

But hold on. Bear with me.

I don’t need to tell you any more about Charlottesville, and I won’t; you’ve suffered an ear full white nationalism, white supremacy, and culturally-hijacked tiki poles; you’ve read the comments from “many sides” and you may feel tired, exhausted; you don’t need me to rehash what the popular news outlets locked down. I’m simply offering an opinion on an opinion, something, I hope, that shines a light on these dark days.

I want to explore something, to run something by readers and thinkers and activists. I want to tell you about Chappelle, Emmett Till, shirtwaists and a small theory on hope.

Chappelle in the Media

In recent times, Dave Chappelle hasn’t been a darling of the Left. Days after Trump’s election, Chapelle publicly green lighted the controversial president’s inauguration on SNL; months later, he’d apologize, stating he “f — ked up.” Fast forward to August 2017 and Chappelle is in hot water again — this time for what many call transphobic wisecracks. When he surprised the audience at Comedy Cellar near NYU a few nights ago, I watched with the rest of the crowd, rapt and in awe, that one of our time’s greatest comedians sat arms-length away, still maintaining his hold on the same jokes that riled up the likes of George Takei.

But this essay isn’t about Chapelle’s awkward exploration a comedic sweet spot for trans people. No, this essay is about the least covered topic of Chapelle’s recent shows at Radio City — his theory of convergence, of bad things happening to bring about positive change.

The Accident

He’s far from the first person to suggest it, and will hardly be the last. In the closing of his show the night I attended, Chappelle adopted the tone of a TED speaker, incorporating the story of Emmett Till into the ongoing horror show that manifests with every push notification from CNN. He says, “I believe Trump is here to save us — by accident.”

Emmett Till

A Chicago-native, Emmett Till traveled to Mississippi in 1955 to visit family. Not too long after arriving in the deeply segregated South, the 14-year-old was brutally murdered after accusations of flirting with a white woman named Carole Bryant surfaced. The murderers — Bryant’s husband and brother, J.W. Milam — brutalized Till’s body before tossing him in the Tallahatchie River.

When the young man’s body was discovered three days later, Till was unrecognizable. Yet Till’s mother, Mamie Bradley, whom Chappelle called “brave” at his show, refused to allow authorities to bury her son, to bury his story as they’d done countless others under Jim Crow.

From Rain, Comes Flowers

You’ve probably seen the picture. Even now, the image of Emmett Till’s body remains indescribably horrific. Citizens of 1955’s America had the same reaction. For many, the evils of Jim Crow were amorphous stories, barely whispers, devoid of proof and solid evidence for those removed from lived outside of the South. And this is where the “accident” of Chappelle’s comment happens.

While the senseless killing reconfirmed the status quo in the South for Bryant and Milam, Till’s body ignited the nation and united it against a common foe — old Jim Crow and the people that emboldened it. Many historians point to the picture of Till’s body on the front page of every newspaper in the U.S. as the impetus for the massive nationwide push for civil rights in the 60s and 70s.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Tragedy

I’ve been in New York this week, put up in a little hotel in Maspeth. If you know anything about this little area, you may know that it contains a majority of the state’s “cemetery belt,” a tight congregation of old graveyards housed between Brooklyn and Queens. Rows of tightly-packed tombstones flank the expressways and greet hotel visitors from windows. As a history buff, many of my days in Maspeth were spent in the cemeteries around the area, namely Mt. Zion Cemetery. Researching Mt. Zion and others, I uncovered an accident that changed the way the U.S. handles workplace safety.

It happened in 1911 in Greenwich Village.

Legally, employers could lock all building exits from the outside, especially if most of the employees were young, unmarried immigrant women. That’s exactly what the policy devised up by owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris — of the Triangle Waist Factory was when a fire broke out on March 25th. Trapped inside the building as the fire consumed fabrics and breathable air, recent Italian and Jewish immigrants had two choices: 1) jump out of the windows onto the pavement, or 2) remain in the burning building.

A monument erected to remember the women who died during the fire.

In the end, 146 workers perished in the flames and on the streets, kickstarting a round of events that would reshape the way we viewed workers, workers’ rights and workplace safety standards.

Accidental Hope

When Chappelle talked about Trump’s accidental Superman moment, this was not in praise of Trump or any of the president’s recent antics. Instead, it was in praise of lifting the veil for from the face of racism in the Charlottesville tragedy, much like what Emmett Till’s body represented for the Civil Rights Movement.

When Trump failed to denounce classic Nazi symbols and rhetoric, it didn’t dismiss the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust or the millions more who fought against fascism. We have these monuments of the past to remind us when we see egregious hazards in the workplace, resurgences of Jim Crow, and neo-Nazi movements.

We’ve already had this tragedy, this “accident” of failing to act as millions die, of supporting a lie when it shunned the truth, of locking exits as people burned. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The Holocaust. The murder of Emmett Till. We’ve seen it, read about it, and share stories chronicling movements since the anniversary of these tragedies. But let’s not let it happen again. Let’s not allow Trump or any of his cabinet to redefine what we already know to be immoral.

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Shandreka Mosley

Written by

I travel, write, and report on beauty of knowing your neighbor.

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