Black Comedy

Last week I purchased tickets to my first comedy show (Chris Rock) and I thought, mmm…I wonder what the history is for Black comedians? My first thoughts were that early comedians went through a lot of struggles as did most Blacks throughout various occupations. How Black people weren’t allowed to perform in certain establishments and how this most likely created an industry of its own for Blacks to support other Blacks. And how many years it probably took before people such as Richard Pryor and many unknown comedians could ever image having more than a handful of mainstream America knew who they were. But in my search to learn about such struggles, I stumbled upon two books that focus on this subject and by random luck these books brought about some insight into the matter that I never would have considered. The first book is Black Comedians on Black Comedy: How African-Americans Taught Us to Laugh by Darryl Littleton and the second African American Humor: The Best Black Comedy from Slavery to Today by Dick Gregory and Mel Watkins.

When I first thought of looking into this, I was mostly thinking of the early 1900s - present. But these books start off with exposing the historical significance of the Black comedian at the time of indentured servants. I found the books on Amazon and I honestly appreciate the fact that the site allows you to read the first few pages of the publications they sale. Those first eight or nine pages of both gave me such a different and broader perspective on comedy in the Black community that I never tried to really think about, however I’m sure it has subconsciously always been there. Learning about this truly brought me back to my Black World History and Sociology classes.

Anyways, these pages go into how humor helped many slaves cope with their situation or to better it by being in a good standing with the plantation owner. “Many a slave was treated with favor for putting a smile on a mater’s face. Master’s would in turn send that slave off to a neighboring plantation to amuse another family” (Littleton, p. 4). Slaves would make fun of their master because he thought of the slave as stupid. “[Slaves] viewed their masters as self-important, pompous and none-too-bright. Thus their humor centered on making fun of their captors without being detected and they incorporated the many comedy traditions commonly used in Africa” (p.7).

It’s amazing how I never picked up on this, but I think I’m so used to hearing it in comedy, that I never looked at the root of this. I’ve been listening to slave based jokes as long as I can remember. About the master or mistress sleeping with a slave or how the lighter complexioned slaves were the house slaves compared to the darker skinned slaves who were in the fields. After he had got up and left I would’ve told her to wake up and I’d have been like, ‘Check this out. I see this is a pattern going on and since it’s going to keep happening we’re gonna blackmail this muthaf*cha for chitlin’s and shit.’ – Dean Cole.

I think that humor is definitely a stress reliever and being a slave was all about being in a stressful situation. Just as the slaves used music to express how they felt or relay some message they didn’t want their owners to know, comedy was just another outlet. Just because they couldn’t go to the Apollo and rub the log doesn’t mean that the momma joke they told didn’t affect us today. “…The importance of having a sense of humor became crucial in such a mind-boggling situation. This is especially true for the early slaves whose connection to their native land was vivid. Their memories weren’t based on a passed-down story or some small preserved trinket that had managed to be hidden and shared. No, theirs was a full shock of going from building a life in the land of their birth to toiling for people who call you out of your name and expected a negative reaction” (p. 8)

Needless to say these books sparked a must needed food for thought.