I think Black people (specifically talking about Black Americans here) tend to be so witty and poetic is because our ancestors were stripped away from so many mediums of communication, including being restricted from writing and speaking their own native language, that they had to find and create different and new ways to express themselves.
Industrialized nations! Competitive places, never more so than when you work for a blog or in the media and need to figure out why Thing A is better than Thing B. In this case, the you-should-be-shocked-but-come-on-how-can-you-be great writing institution that is VICE and their English bureau tried to find out Who’s Funnier: Black People or White People? Is this wrong to ask?
Maybe if you’re offended easily, but, honestly, not really. In fact, there may be something to garner from VICE’s (somewhat idiot-savant-leaning but totally unscientific and generally inconclusive) study! How?
Well, seeing as they titled the blog post BLACK PEOPLE VS. WHITE PEOPLE: WHO’S FUNNIER? but neglected to actually produce a result:
Lesson One: Controversial blog post titles are generally misleading. Also see: “I Had a One-Night Stand With Christine O’Donnell.”
They did, however, come up with findings:
CONCLUSIONS
• White people dance “like this,” while Black people dance “like thiiiiiis.”
• Black people enjoy a laugh and a joke as much as the next man.
• Despite what TV leads you to believe, not all Black comedians are Stephen K. Amos.
• Statistically, the key areas of overlap in Black and White comedy are a) chicken shops, and b) Peckham. Therefore, the only way to bring about universal harmony is for BBC3 to launch a sitcom set in a chicken shop in Peckham.
• Black people aren’t really as perturbed by gun crime as you’d expect — in fact, they’re secretly delighted by it.
• White folk are just like you and me, except they went to more expensive schools.
• Britain is a nation divided by what unites it and united by what divides it.
• White people are actually some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Especially if you never leave North Wales.
• No one likes White South Africans.
Lesson Two: Everyone has something in common, and those things are often funny in the same ways to everyone. Even, often, latent-to-active racism.
But what of all of this? Why was VICE too afraid to make a conclusion?
Lesson Three: Conclusions generate controversy. So don’t make them unless you want to start some shit. On that note:
Lesson Four: Black People are actually funnier than White People, so just get over it. But really, look at the differences between the jokes that VICE gathered. Humor is often thought of as The Great Cure-All. Humor helps relieve pain at the worst of times! Haven’t you seen Patch Adams? Well, don’t, because it’s terrible. But you get the idea.
A group of people who have been generally oppressed throughout the majority of modern civilization have to find a way to keep spirits up throughout all of those generations of life dealing them a shit hand. They will inevitably find more to laugh at than those who haven’t, because necessity is invention’s mother, especially if geopolitical oppression and evil is the abusive father! This goes without mentioning that minorities are more often than not of a lower socioeconomic strata than the races and cultures of those oppressing them, who also have their own respective lower-classes, who can share the laughs about being on the shittier floors of the social pyramid/construct with another race (see Lesson Two). Blacks are funny! Jews are funny! Latinos are funny!
Do not laugh at this, you fascist piece of shit.
[Of course, in America, this theory doesn’t really support Native Americans, which we’ve tried to understand as a cause of there being barely any left because our shithead countrymen killed them all. Which is obviously a joke better suited for a Native American to tell.]
Meanwhile, those who are of the oppressive society but shun and have shame for its oppressive ways are generally struggling to laugh with or at the problems their heritage manifested — like African Americans and Poverty-at-Large in America — because they still feel bad about it (see: Guilt, White Man’s).
The point is that any attempt to create a “Master Race” will fail because once you’re the master race what is actually, objectively funny? Nothing. You have all that oppressing to do and you’re too goddamn busy to laugh, and if you do laugh, it’s only going to be funny to you, because nobody else can share the joy you derive from being an oppressive asshole. And you can’t be the Master Race is everyone else is going to undermine you with a great joke about what an asshole you are. In fact, your legacy will only be the butt of jokes for generations to come (see: The Downfall Parody).
Conclusion VICE Didn’t Make That They Should’ve: The larger and more historically oppressed your race is, the funnier you’re going to be. Unless you’re in India and at the bottom of the caste system but the fact of the matter is that this is race-on-race class oppression, and that shit isn’t that funny, which is why the funniest thing about India is Bollywood, unintentionally so.
In-joking among Black Americans can serve multiple purposes. Outley and her colleagues examined this phenomenon in her research paper.
This year, she said, Black Americans have used humor as a discourse. “To really not only cope, but also … a way to reclaim power, to control narratives that were out there about us and to speak our truth, all while cultivating this ideal of collective identity as Black people.”
The need for Black Americans to foster a collective community to cope and reclaim power has been especially present in 2020. Disproportionate COVID-19 deaths and high-profile incidents of police violence have put a spotlight on the many ways in which systemic racism eats at Black Americans day in and day out.
“This year has been bonkers,” said Janicia Francis. She co-hosts the podcast “Tea with Queen and J.,” and is a fan of Rod and Karen Morrow’s show.
“Especially in this period of isolation for a lot of people. I enjoy when I hear podcasters laughing together. … So I do be in my apartment here laughing, like cackling aloud to myself,” Francis said, just before letting out a room-filling laugh.
New York mental health counselor Akua Genfi said that might be Francis’s mirror neurons at work. Those neurons fire when we do an action and when we see someone else do that same action.
“I’ve used this in session with clients and starting just a fake laughter. Just like, ‘Ha ha ha ha.’ And just like that,” Genfi said, “the mirror neurons in your brain are firing to mimic what I’ve just shown you. So I laugh, and then you laugh.”
Black humor lends itself to additional shared laughter with inside jokes, slang and common experiences.
“People all the time don’t get it, especially if they’re not part of the community. There’s a whole genre of researchers that actually look at it as the secret language in terms of linguistics,” Outley said.
Yet according to Diamond Stylz, there are instances when humor is harmful and not communal.
Stylz is host of the “Marsha’s Plate” podcast and executive director of Black Transwomen Inc., a nonprofit addressing concerns facing that community. Sometimes, Stylz said, she feels like she’s made to be the butt of the joke.
“When comedians use, like, trans folks as punch lines, when they use gay people as punch lines, when they use women as punch lines. It’s almost trivializing these types of really serious situations,” Stylz said.
She alluded to Dave Chappelle’s 2019 standup comedy special “Sticks and Stones.”
“Dave Chappelle called the LGBT people ‘Alphabet People’ … I didn’t hear anybody call [them that] before his standup special.”
Now, Stylz sees the phrase “Alphabet People” in digital spaces associated with anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, and she said Chappelle kind of created a slur.
Despite that, her engagement with Chappelle’s body of work is nuanced.
“So, I am a Dave Chappelle fan,” she said matter of factly. “I’m gonna watch his specials because I find him hilarious. Even the problematic jokes. But that’s me. I myself, not in public, make problematic jokes.”
The key, according to Stylz, is being aware of your impact and the setting in which you tell jokes.
“Everybody who is a comedian or uses comedy as a tool in their work, I think it is your job to actually push our whole culture forward, not add to the burning flames.”
Personal responsibility or not, it can’t be refuted that humor is a tool. It can be used to punch down and inadvertently create slurs. It can be used to punch sideways and embrace inside jokes from the comfort of your favorite podcast.
What does it look like to use humor to punch up? In 2020, Outley said, it looked like Black people were shaking the table.
“Black people were using humor … to confront systems of power. Getting individuals, particularly whites, to be discomfortable.”
In the tradition of Black humor, here’s a bit of discomfort: Stylz’s response to what the funniest aspect of 2020 has been thus far …
“I think all this COVID shit is funny for me.”
Stylz herself has lost six loved ones to COVID-19. The pandemic has disproportionately killed Black Americans and has left already-vulnerable trans Americans at a higher risk for economic instability and lack of access to medical care.
Yet she still finds irony in how the pandemic has spurred privileged identities to see the struggles that marginalized populations like trans, Black and disabled people face all the time.
“How long have disabled people rallied for us to create jobs for them to do at home? I’ve lost three jobs, and it changed the trajectory of my life. And I had to figure it out without any stimulus checks,” she said, letting out a hearty laugh.
“We been doing this. Get used to it.”