Reclaiming the Black Past by Pero G. Dagbovie

Author:Pero G. Dagbovie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Verso Books

The title of this chapter comes from a statement that a young Chris Rock made in a 1989 interview. Long before he became a famous comedian, Rock began telling jokes about controversial and taboo subjects, including racial inequality and the perpetual mistreatment of black people in the United States. By the early 1990s, he incorporated jokes revolving around black history into his stand-up specials. In defense of his style, in a revealing interview when he was merely twenty-three years old, he said: “You can’t deny the truth of the statements,” referring to his observations on contentious subject matters, including racism. “You know, you laugh and you think about it a little bit … Everything is funny”’10 Because I probe into varying comedic interpretations and commentaries on black history, I converted Rock’s statement into a question for the title of this chapter. Rock certainly changed over the years. But, he, like other black comedians and satirists, has remained committed to an underlying belief that “everything is funny,” or at a minimum, potentially funny, especially when dealing with African American history. Like Rock, many black comedians, before and after him, have skillfully incorporated clever, yet often inaccurate and over simplistic, discussions of slavery, racism, and past racial injustices in their stand-up performances. In particular, I consider how comedians Rock, Paul Mooney, Dave Chappelle, and Martin Lawrence; Comedy Central’s Key & Peele hosts Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele; creator of the Boondocks animated series Aaron McGruder; Saturday Night Live cast members, mainly Kenan Thompson and Leslie Jones; and other comics and satirists have parodied dimensions of black history.

Contributing to a rich history that Watkins, Haggins, and others have unraveled, many twenty-first century black comedians are highly skilled at chewing over painful episodes from African American history in entertaining and even therapeutic manners. While the violence faced by African Americans during the era of Jim Crow segregation and the civil rights movement is a familiar subject for black comedians, slavery is perhaps the most popular subject for black history material. “Though slavery is not a joke,” scholar Lisa Woofork has suggested, “it is a source for much African American humor.”11

I analyze how a group of black comics, satirists, humorists, and, for lack of a better term, jokesters have used their craft and positions as public spokespersons to put forward intriguing and sometimes controversial commentaries on the black past. Are certain dimensions of African American history off-limits to comedians and satirists? Can one go “too far” in “pushing the envelope?” If so, how do we judge what going “too far” entails? Did, for instance, Chappelle go too far in 2003 when he, as the blind ‘‘black white supremacist,’’ donned a KKK robe? Does joking about serious episodes from the black past (for example, slavery, Jim Crow segregation, lynching and racial violence) trivialize African American history? Who has been compelling and inept and why? Such inquiries guide this chapter.

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