re: Chappelle's Show removed from HBOMAX per his request

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This seems like an overly sensitive reaction, especially for a comedian. If it bothered him that much, did he address it with the crew member? A pixie in blackface isn't exactly high art, but he even admitted it was funny. Seems rather pretentious to get angry about someone laughing at the sketch the "wrong" way.

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Dave lost sight of what he thought he should be able to control. You can put the joke out there, do the skit, but you have no control over how the joke is received. He thought his audience was laughing at him, not with him. The entire show centered on race, why be surprised if there's a tinge of racism in the response? Is that the truth of it or was Dave's perception of it skewed? I think the money made Dave self-conscious about the material he was doing. Was he a sellout? A high paid minstrel? Shucking and jiving for the white man's money? I think it bothered him so he said frick it and quit. I rewatched all of the show not too long ago and some of the material really doesn't hold up well. But that may have more to do with the hyper-sensitized racial environment we are currently in than with Dave's skits.

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Dave lost sight of what he thought he should be able to control. You can put the joke out there, do the skit, but you have no control over how the joke is received.

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That's the point where ego takes over. Maybe someone was whispering in his ear back then, maybe it was just his own personality changing once he achieved the level of acceptance he had been wanting.

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He thought his audience was laughing at him, not with him.

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It was both. Generally speaking, people laugh at and with comedians. They laugh at the funny things they say but they also laugh at them for their unique views on life. It's not a malicious laughter but an amused one.

For someone who does material like Dave's, involving unique characters as well as impersonations, people are laughing at his unique views, the characters and the things they are saying. That encompasses both laughing with as well as at the comedian, writers and other actors. Again, it's not a malicious laughter.

To be a comedian but so far gone into your own head to not understand this though, that's someone young Dave would probably have made fun of (if not young Dave, young Damon Wayans certainly would have).

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Was he a sellout? A high paid minstrel? Shucking and jiving for the white man's money? I think it bothered him so he said frick it and quit.

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As I mentioned earlier, I think that's how he started to see himself and then had a meltdown, went to Africa for some cleansing and then quit.

Which is fine it's his life, but I think he overreacted to what he was doing and why he thought the show was so popular.

Lets not forget, he started that shtick - N-word this, N-word that - focusing so much on black parody. It made him a lot of money...and then maybe he thought like you said, he sold out and got the fame cheap.

I thought the show was balanced and poking fun at racism, not racist itself. He made fun of white people and black people equally and how they perceive each other.

Like I said before, maybe he had peers (who were jealous) whispering in his ear that he was a sellout or hurting their race or whatnot. Maybe he had a wife or best friend who Kaepernicked him.

Yeah I've caught reruns of the show, and it holds up incredibly well IMO. Some of it is just as funny now than it ever was, if not moreso even based on the climate we currently live in.