Every effort helps when it comes to holding law enforcement accountable, even in small towns. Dave Chappelle proved this on Monday when he spoke at a town hall meeting in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Like so many narratives we’ve seen before, the town is mainly composed of white liberals who support left-wing politics but racial inequality still exists. It should be noted that Coretta Scott King famously attended the town’s Antioch College for music, but wasn’t hired for a job in town because she was Black.
The longstanding schism was apparent at their annual New Year’s Eve party last January when police broke up the crowd, singled out a Black man and roughed him up.
As reported by The New York Times, dozens of residents criticized the police force on Facebook, accusing officers of carrying an “us versus them” attitude. Soon after, the police chief resigned.
On Monday, Chappelle appeared at the meeting to give his two cents.
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“Huge gaffe New Year’s Eve,” he says after thanking the police department for stepping in to protect “his personal well being” at times.
“Given what the culture of our town is like, the council has a tremendous opportunity to be a leader in progressive law enforcement.”
He goes on to note that their story was in The New York Times because the travel editor is from Yellow Springs, and goes on to name all the connections everyone in town has to each other.
“And now we’re being policed by what feels like an alien force… I saw it all go down because I was there with my children, my friends and neighbors… in all fairness the crowd was drunk because it was New Year’s Eve. And I left early because nobody felt completely right. I’m trying to be balanced and fair. But what I did want to know, is what is this pool of law enforcement that you can pull a chief out of, that is special enough to police this town, which is wildly meek.”
Chapelle also noted the importance of local level politics, in consideration of what’s going on in federal government.
“In this Trump era there’s an opportunity to show everybody that the local politics reign supreme. We can make our corner of the world outstanding.”