Dave Chappelle

I have always been a fan of Dave Chappelle and his stand-up/television work. "Killing Them Softly" and "For What It's Worth" are, in my opinion, laugh out loud hilarious and able to produce the same response after repeated viewings. For example, I have heard that bit about kid's cartoons about fifteen times and when I watched it in class, I laughed about as hard as I did when I saw it for the first time.
Anyway, I tried to indentify why I found Chappelle so humorous. Yes, he does have good material and the subject matter and punchlines are hilarious. However, I think it is a little more than that. Eddie Murphy, when asked his secret to being funny, said that he was just born with the ability to tell a joke well and sound funny. I think the same is true for Dave Chappelle. A lot of this humor has to do with his voice and especially his "white person voice". Whenever Chappele imitates a white person, he always talks in a high-mannered, uptight and snooty tone and it makes the joke sound hilarious. I can understand why a black audience member would find it funny as it portrays a different race. However, I think that white people can find just as much humor in something like that. I don't find it offensive or degrading. I have met people that talk like that but I don't so I do not feel like I am really the target of any joke. What would happen if a white comedian tried to imitate a black person? I am sure that he or she would use a voice which sounds like at least a part of the racial population much like Chappelle uses a voice that sounds like a minority of the white population. A black viewer or listener would think "I know people that talk like that, not me, but I have heard it before". It may seem like a fair and equal comic trade-off but it does not work that way. The minority of a population is always able to poke as much fun at the majority but the majority is cruel if they jab at the minority. I am not quite sure how that works but I think it is fair.
In a democratic nation like America, the majority vote wins thus has the power. Therefore, whichever people are in the majority are most likely to control the power through numbers. (I am not saying white people are more powerful than the black race, or any other race for that matter, but simply that majority rules). Thus, just like I have mentioned before in such examples as presidential humor, there is a longstanding tradition of poking fun and making jokes at those in power. If the president came on TV and started ripping on the American public, surely it would not go over well. However, Letterman can go on TV every night and take shots at the government's expense. That is just how the humor flows. There is no vis-versa.
Therefore, to sum up, I think black people can make fun of white people but white people (for the most case, unless done very tastefully) cannot make fun of black people. And I am fine with that because I think it is all hilarious.