"I'M WRITING FOR FREEDOM!" MAPPING PUBLIC DISCOURSE ON RACE IN COMEDY
LAURA MAE MONIQUE LINDO
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES
IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN EDUCATION
YORK UNIVERSITY
TORONTO, ONTARIO
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1+1 Canada Abstract
Anti-racism workshops have been known to incite feelings of guilt, shame, and anger in response to facilitators' requests to speak explicitly about race (Chase, 2010; Earick,
2009; Srivastava, 1996). In spite of these heightened emotions being considered counter productive to the creation of positive educational environments (Earick, 2009; Solomon
& Levine-Rasky, 2003), the workshop model continues to flourish as a means of delivering anti-racist education both in and out of schools. These "negative" responses to anti-racist workshops have been re-conceptualized as markers of success, with theorists making implicit suggestions that it is the "working through" of these emotions that pose a forceful challenge to racist behaviours (Chase, 2010). Feeling strongly that there is need for alternative anti-racist educational models that do not rely so heavily upon feelings of anxiety, anger, or guilt, this dissertation examines the use of comedy to initiate explicit discussions of race in educational spaces.
The use of humour in classrooms has been discussed in educational literature, however, it has only rarely been conceived of as a pedagogical anti-racist method.
Following scholars like Bambi Haggins (2007) and Cris Mayo (2008) who have written of the pedagogical possibilities of comedic texts, this dissertation examines the performances of a particular group of comedians who make race the primary focus of their comedic work. Defining these comedians as "race comics," I use examples of their comedy to emphasize that their routines represent a common engagement with race in
iv ways that are reflected in various anti-racist educational discourses. I then introduce a small-scale study in which race comedy was incorporated into my pre-service classroom to help initiate critical dialogues about race and racism. Arguing that race comedy facilitated more risk-taking on the part of my students, I present examples of student comments throughout a 2-day "Comic Intervention" to show how their analysis of select comedic performances became a catalyst for re-considering Canadian "colourblind" discourses. I conclude with a call to continue exploring novel approaches to anti-racist education, emphasizing the effectiveness of humour and race comedy as a valuable alternative strategy.
v Acknowledgments
In 2005 when I began my doctoral studies at York University, I never could have imagined where life would take me. A new daughter, a new home, a new teaching job... all of these have shaped my work, my life, and my perspectives on why anti-racist education is important. I could not have gotten through any of this without the help, support, and guidance of a number of amazing individuals.
To begin, I would like to thank my daughters, Sofia and Danica, for their love and the joy they bring to my life each day. When I look at them and reflect upon their experiences in school, I am reminded on a daily basis that this work is critically important.
Thanks to my parents, Ossie and Gerald Lindo, and my brothers and sisters for saying yes when asked to watch the kids at the last minute as I worked diligently to finish writing.
Thank you to my wonderful friends - you know who you are - who have been there for late night phone calls, pep talks, and nights out to clear my head. Your supportive words have not gone unnoticed. May that positive energy be returned to you when you need it most and when you least expect it.
Thanks also to my wonderful dissertation committee. Your advice, support, and patience have allowed me to learn and grow in ways I never could have imagined. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication.
Finally, I would like to send a special thank you to my doctoral supervisor, Dr. Jennifer Jenson, as well as Dr. Suzanne de Castell for their support - not only involving the work that I will present here, but more importantly for reminding me that no matter what the world throws at me, I can find my way through to the light at the end of the tunnel. I have learned so much from both of you; not only about how to become a better academic, but, more importantly, how to become a better person. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
And now, as the moment has come for others outside of my circle of trusted mentors and friends to read about what I have immersed myself in for the last five years, I cannot help but smile. In the words of Dave Chappelle:
This is probably the wildest thing that I've ever done in my career, and I showed it to a Black friend of mine He looked at me like I had set Black people back with a comedy sketch. [Shrugging his shoulders] Sorry [Audience laughter] Just role it! (Cundieff, et al, 2004)
VI Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGMENTS VI CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 UNCOMFORTABLE LAUGHTER AND THE UNSPOKEN RULES OF THE (RACE) GAME 1 Anti-Racist Education: Obstacles and Issues 3 A Different Approach: Adding Comedy to Anti-Racism Education 6 DISSERTATION OVERVIEW 9 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 12 READING THE LITERATURE: AN INTRODUCTION 12 SECTION 1: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY OVERVIEW 15 Reading Humour in Psychology 16 Reading Humour in Philosophy 20 Reading Humour in Popular Culture 24 Reading Humour in Education 26 Eurocentric Tendencies — Multi-Ethnic Possibilities 33 SECTION 2: THE ROOTS OF BLACK COMEDIC ROUTES 34 SECTION 3: CREATING BLACK COMEDIANS - THE STANDUP COMEDY STAGE 39 SECTION 4: AUTOBIOGRAPHY, BIOGRAPHY, AND RACE POLITICS 46 SECTION 5: REPRESENTING BLACK AMERICA THROUGH COMEDY 53 CONCLUSION 61 CHAPTER 3: THE BIRTH OF A "RACE COMIC" 63 SECTION 1: RACE COMEDY AS PEDAGOGY. .. A POLITICAL ENDEAVOR 63 SECTION 2: RACE COMEDY AND THE ARE AGENDA 72 Assuming the Intelligence of Audiences 74 Normalizing Blackness 79 Making Racism Visible 83 CONCLUSION 88 CHAPTER 4: A RACE COMIC'S APPROACH 91 SECTION 1: THE "RACE COMIC" CODE-DEVELOPING SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE COMEDY 91 Comedic Accountability 92 SECTION 2: PEDAGOGICAL STRATEGIES - A CLOSER LOOK AT A RACE COMIC 100 Storytelling: Making Constructive Use of Real Experiences 101 Sharing Overt Race Politics in a Casual Way 106 Role Reversal: Turning a Story Upside Down Ill A Commitment to Anti-racist Principles 116 CONCLUSION 121 CHAPTER 5: A "COMIC INTERVENTION" 123 SECTION 1: FROM WHERE I STAND 125 SECTION 2: ACCESSING ANTI-RACIST PEDAGOGIES THROUGH RACE COMICS 130 Introducing the Class 132 SECTION 3: OPENING CONVERSATIONS 137 SECTION 4: ENGAGING WITH COMEDY - ENGAGING WITH RACE 146 The Racial Draft 147 CONCLUSION 158
VI1 CHAPTER 6: ANTI-RACIST EDUCATION, COMEDY, AND NEW HORIZONS 159 FINAL REFLECTIONS ON ANTI-RACIST TEACHER EDUCATION 160 MY LAST TWO STORIES. .. I PROMISE 166 BIBLIOGRAPHY 172
vm Chapter 1: Introduction
Maybe a laugh is like a sigh A form of release that connotes pleasure We can for a moment give up the facade of polite speech and the pretense of liberal rational society There is joy in this Yet perhaps - as with sighing - we are also informed by the knowledge that the break is temporary We laugh loudly for a moment, we sigh deeply for a moment And then the world keeps on turning (Atlun, 2009)
Uncomfortable laughter and the Unspoken Rules of the (Race) Game
I knew that I was marked. Black female educators like bell hooks (2003) and Annette
Henry (2000) emphasized that it would be up to me to address racism in my classroom,
simply because in traditional institutions my black female body was presumed to be the best (and often the only) candidate for the job. And so for many years I struggled with
this daunting task. The texts selected for students attempted to initiate "serious"
discussions about how race structured our lived realities. While students tried to avoid talking about race in the classroom, I re-focused their attention by pointing out how race
shaped the characters we explored. This was followed by having students consider whether and/or how their experiences would be different if racism was not so prevalent in the world. The harder I pushed to have students reflect seriously on the role race played in their lives, the harder they pushed back. Nobody wanted to admit that they were racist, and students were enraged at having to re-hve the guilt and shame of participating, even inadvertently, in racist acts. As the tension in the classroom grew, a sense of desperation began to set in - I needed to find another way to do this ARE work, and I needed it fast.
1 Traditional approaches to anti-racism education (ARE) consider overwhelming feelings of guilt, overt hostility, and unconcealed anger par for the course (Mary E
Earick, 2009; Lea & Sims, 2008; Solomon & Levine-Rasky, 2003; Washington, 1981).
Consequently, when theorists like Mary Earick (2009) or Patrick Solomon and Cynthia
Levine-Rasky (2003) discuss the counter-productive nature of experiencing these heightened emotions, they also presume that these overt emotional expressions symbolically represent the movement towards a deeper understanding of the "real life" effects of racial discourses. The "successful" anti-racist educator, then, must be prepared to work with overtly emotional responses as they arise. This interpretation of ARE resonates with the work of Lisa Woolfork (2009) who describes the benefits of a physical reenactment of past traumatic events in order to provide a "more proximate knowledge of the past" (Woolfork, 2009, p. 199). This bodily epistemology, Woolfork explains, helps to better inform moral and ethical codes of conduct (Woolfork, 2009, p. 13). Citing Zora
Neale Hurston in Their Eyes Were Watching God, Woolfork writes, "You got to go there to know there" (Woolfork, 2009, p. 2). But do we have to "go there"? Must we be expected to undergo a traumatic process of re-living feelings of guilt and shame when discussing the consequences of racial designations and continued structural racism? I wanted to believe that there was another way, and as I compared and contrasted my own
1 In spite of differences between anti-racism and critical race theory, both approaches address the role(s) race and racism play in North America I acknowledge that the birth of critical race theory from critical legal studies in the United States, and anti-racism education's focused attention on addressing continued racial inequities in educational institutions do support a different analytical approach to the field However, for simplicity I will refer to both sets of scholarship as "ARE " When introducing a particular scholar's work, however, I will refer to either anti-racist education or critical race theory based on how they have chosen to frame their theorizing 2 teaching practices to those examined in ARE literature, I became aware of a resource for
ARE that I felt had been left un-tapped. That resource was laughter.
Anti-Racist Education: Obstacles and Issues
The scope of ARE literature is marked by a common recognition of the fluidity with which racial discourses are developed and reproduced in public and private spaces (Yon,
2000). Theorists like Philippe Beneton (2001), George Sefa Dei (1996), and Agnes
Calliste (2000) propose that no singular conception of "anti-racism" can be adhered to once it is recognized that definitions of "race" vary from place to place (Beneton, 2001;
Bonnett & Carrington, 1996; Dei, 1996a; Dei & Calliste, 2000b).2 In spite of this, ARE workshops are often held in institutions where diversity is emphasized (Chase, 2010;
Srivastava, 1996). This has resulted in published concerns over the ineffectiveness of this method for approaching ARE, with theorists emphasizing that these workshops alone do not produce sustainable change for participants (Earick, 2009, p. 87). Fifteen years ago, for instance, Sarita Srivastava (1996) reasoned that anti-racism workshops created spaces for participants to consider how their racial identities were formed, while disclosing personal experiences of racism. Ultimately, it was hoped that participants would
"transfer" what was learned about the construction and production of race, racism, and anti-racism during the sessions into their schools and communities. In other words, the
2 Dei & Calliste (2000b), expanding on the difference between national anti-racist educational discourses, point to the collapsing of "multicultural education" and "antiracist education" in the United States, arguing that Canadian educational literature makes a clear distinction between these discourses. See Power, Knowledge and Anti-Racism Education A Critical Reader for a more detailed look at the subtle differences between how anti-racism and multicultural education are taken up in American and Canadian contexts 3 goal for participation in workshops like those under examination was to change (racist) behaviours by changing beliefs (Earick, 2009). Recognizing the difficulties inherent in relying upon short workshops to create long-term change, however, Srivastava (1996) clearly distinguishes these from ARE, describing the workshops as "discrete but often regular events, in contrast to antiracist education, which is part of an ongoing, general educational programme, that is 'good education' (Lee, 1985)" (Srivastava, 1996, p. 293).
In the more recent work of Susan E. Chase (2010), it is also acknowledged that ARE workshops alone do not successfully address the challenge of racism in educational contexts. Her research suggests (albeit implicitly) that ARE workshops can only become effective when combined with ongoing "diversity-oriented practices" (p. 22). For example, she explains that her research site was unique in its dedication to diversity needs on campus because of its long-term commitment to ARE workshops. In the early
2000s, staff in the Office of Student Affairs participated in "long-term diversity education", with program directors attending ninety hours of workshops over the course of three years (Chase, 2010, p. 22). Moreover, the diversity programs that offered workshops also required that participants commit themselves to the development and implementation of a yearlong anti-racist project on campus. One such initiative was the creation of a "Race Column" in the student newspaper for the purpose of keeping issues about race and racism at the forefront of dialogues among university students and faculty members (p. 26).
Anti-racist educators, Patrick Solomon and Cynthia Levine-Rasky (1996, 2003), as well as Dwight Boyd and Mary Louise Arnold (2000), however, suggest that more
4 sustainable changes like those described by Chase (2010) are further complicated by the inability to agree upon what ARE should look like. Both Solomon and Levine-Rasky
(1996, 2003) and Boyd and Arnold (2000) found that pre-service and newly certified teachers described their pedagogy as "anti-racist," even as they struggled to understand what anti-racism work might look like in practice. In 2003, based upon the completed study of just over 1,000 new and prospective educators over the course of some seven years, Solomon and Levine-Rasky (2003) demonstrated that respondents were unsure of what anti-racism was and, consequently, how it should be represented in schools and in classrooms. At the time of Solomon and Levine-Rasky's (2003) published findings, Boyd and Arnold (2000) had already noted similar results, arguing that significant problems for
ARE implementation arose because of discrepancies between what teachers defined as
"anti-racism" and how they later interpreted this enterprise. The authors maintained that more time was needed to consider the tension between the theoretical aims presented to teachers through anti-racism workshops and how these aims were being interpreted by participating teachers, especially when the teachers began to contemplate how to put anti- racist projects into practice (Boyd & Arnold, 2000). In an attempt to address the need to support teachers as they grapple with these concerns, recent publications like Mary
Pollock's (2008) Everyday Antiracism: Getting Real About Race in Schools, Mary E.
3 A number of studies expose the ambiguous understanding of anti-racism pedagogies by pre-service and new teachers. See Dwight Boyd and Mary Louise Arnold (2000) Teachers' Beliefs, Antiracism, and Moral Education. Problems of Intersection and Patrick Solomon and Andrew MA Allen (2001) The Struggle for Equity, Diversity, and Social Justice in Teacher Education. Patrick Solomon and Cynthia Levine-Rasky (1996, 2003) also describe this ambiguity based on a large-scale Canadian study conducted in the early- to mid 1990s (Solomon & Levme-Rasky, 2003, p 10). See Transforming Teacher Education for an Antiracism Pedagogy (1996) for an early description of the study while it was in process, and Teaching for Equity and Diversity Research to Practice (2003) for a more comprehensive analysis of the study and their findings 5 Earick's (2009) Racially Equitable Teaching Beyond the Whiteness of Professional
Development for Early Childhood Educators, and Charles C Smith's (2010) edited
collection Anti-racism in Education Missing in Action provide insightful examinations of
practical methods for implementing ARE in schools 4 My doctoral work adds to this
growing body of research By envisioning, implementing, and critiquing the use of
comedy to initiate discussions about racial discourses withm an ARE framework, I
present the research in this dissertation as a challenge to educators to consider different
methods for contemplating issues of race and racism in the classroom
A Different Approach Adding Comedy to Anti-Racism Education
Recognizing the limitations of ARE workshops to help participants effectively work
through their emotional responses, my use of a particular type of comedy in the
classroom was an effort to bring these dialogues back into school settings I take
seriously such cautions by scholars like Earick (2009) that speak of the counter
productive nature of heightened emotions that develop in ARE workshops, noting that
they stand in the way of creating positive change in schools and classrooms (Earick,
2009, Lea & Sims, 2008, Solomon & Levine-Rasky, 2003) As educators and students
grow accustomed to trying to make use of peripheral spaces to uncover and critique the
effects of racial discourses on their daily lives, it is important to recognize that racism
cannot be "solved" in short workshop sessions The scholarship of Eanck (2009),
This growing number of publications includes providing teachers with anti-racist resources for their classrooms, and is available both on and off line (Abboud, et al, 2002, Balliro, n d , Derman Sparks & Phillips, 1997, Kaihn, 2002, NAARR, n d , Pollock, 2008 C C Smith, 2010, Viadero 2008) 6 Ladson-Billings (2009), and Bell (1992, 2009) indicates that a lifetime of reflection is
required to work through this complex topic. Developing new approaches to ARE is both
urgent and necessary (Earick, 2009; Solomon & Allen, 2001), and mobilizing humour,
though unconventional, might be an additional strategy.
Only in rare instances has humour been explored using an ARE lens. One such
example is Cris Mayo's (2008) discussion of Black humour's anti-racist pedagogical
possibilities, drawing attention to the ways that Black queer camp and Black anti-racist performance art use humour for the purpose of commenting on presumably rigid social
categories. She also argues that, "Humour's jolting combination of pleasure and
critique... can jump-start social justice education from its occasional lurch into
unproductive, if earnest, oversimplifications" (Mayo, 2008, p. 244). Her interest in the possibilities opened up by the subversive nature of comedy poses a challenge to
traditional literature in the area of humour and in education, which has positioned humour primarily as a strategy for creating a relaxed atmosphere in the classroom (Done, 2006;
Hellman, 2007) or has regarded humour as symptomatic of effective teaching (Boskin,
1997b; Minchew & Hopper, 2008). In contrast, my work deliberately promotes laughter
as an invitation for serious contemplation about race, racism, and anti-racist pedagogies
in educational settings. Acknowledging that laughter m my teaching experiences had
always been a by-product of the "real" work, my research repositions laughter by moving
it into a central space within the anti-racist classroom. More specifically, I consider how the performances of comedic artists can be directly and indirectly incorporated into the
5 Humour in educational literature will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2 7 classroom to initiate critical thinking about contemporary racial discourses. To this end, I have selected, critically assessed, and made use of the performances of comedians who have chosen to use their comedy in anti-racist ways, in order to envision a different type of ARE.
To begin a discussion of that work, I engage with two over-arching ideas: first, I consider the pedagogical approach of a particular group of comedians who make race the primary focus of their comedic work. Labeling these comedians "race comics," I use examples of their comedy to emphasize that their routines represent more than a stylized performance. My central argument is that race comics share a common dedication to using their comedy to publicly critique racial discourses. The race comic acts in the public sphere in a way similar to "race wo/men" who have historically used their art to actively challenge racism (Carby, 1998; Ramsey Jr., 2003), using a humourous rather than a more staid approach to interrogate hegemonic discourses of race. To illustrate this,
I turn to the comedy of Dave Chappelle, contextualizing his writing and performances within the history of Black comedy. I contend that comedians like Chappelle promote an anti-racist political agenda, and, referencing the work of Gloria Ladson-Billings, I reason that their comedy can be understood as a form of ARE.
In the second half of the dissertation I demonstrate that race comedy can be deployed as a pedagogical tool that supports ARE. Having argued that race comedy affords the learner a different type of engagement in racial discourses, I draw upon the use of race comic performances in my pre-service classroom. Focusing specifically on the responses of students to the comedy viewed during two, 3-hour classes, I examine
8 what we learned as a class when confronted by our own normalized, and often discordant, definitions of the word "race." In spite of our conversations becoming increasingly uncomfortable as conflicting understandings of race were being voiced, students began to critically assess their assumptions about racial otherness and Canadian colourblindness.
Based upon these conversations, the final chapter re-iterates the need for educators to challenge students to examine their normalized racial assumptions, with an aim to better understand how race continues to shape the contemporary world.
Dissertation Overview
In order to define and distinguish "race comics" from other Black comedians, the literature review presented in Chapter 2 contextualizes their work by emphasizing the politically charged comedic roots of their comedy. The examination of relevant literature demonstrates how this brand of comedy developed in America and provides the groundwork for thinking more seriously about race comedy as an anti-racist pedagogical strategy.
Building upon the literature review, Chapter 3 takes a closer look at the recent work of scholars like Cris Mayo (2008), Mehgan Sutherland (2008), and Bambi Haggins
(2007) who describe select comedic performances that challenge racial discourses as
"pedagogical" in nature. Proposing that a pedagogical reading of Black comedians' work is necessary in order to distinguish race comics from other Black comedians, I use the work of critical race theorist Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c) as a
9 starting point for teasing out key elements of a race comic's critically astute and socially transgressive comedic performances.
Having argued in Chapter 3 that the pedagogical nature of race comedy is what makes it different in kind to the comedy of other Black comedians, I then present in
Chapter 4 a close reading of Dave Chappelle's approach to comedy. Through the analyses of interviews and performances, I demonstrate that it is his commitment to the creation of "socially responsible" comedy that provides key insights into the unique approach to pedagogy performed by race comedians. This examination of Chappelle's
ARE agenda provides a preliminary taxonomy for a better understanding of how and why race comedy can be used as a tool for ARE.
Unlike earlier chapters which examined comedic performances in order to define and explain how "race comics" make use of ARE frameworks within their comedy,
Chapter 5 of the dissertation will introduce how race comedy can be used in classroom settings. To do this, I detail why and how I developed and implemented a comedy- focused ARE intervention strategy in a pre-service classroom. The analysis of my
"Comic Intervention" will demonstrate that a new way of engaging and learning about race was afforded by introducing my students to race comedy.
I conclude with Chapter 6, which, based on the analysis presented throughout the dissertation, suggests that many students are not ready to engage with the more nuanced interpretations of race and racism that better reflect understandings of race in the 21st century. I emphasize instead that pre-service teachers, like other students and educators, need more time to reflect upon how the traditional, rigid, racial categories are
10 operationalized in their daily lives. Drawing upon the work of theorists like Annette
Henry (2000), Althea Prince (2001a,b) and bell hooks (2003), I re-iterate the need to continue to develop, initiate, and experiment with new ARE methods.
11 Chapter 2: Literature Review
True to his origin on this continent, the Negro was projected into literature by an over mastering and exploiting hand In the generations that he has been so voluminously written and talked about he has been accorded as little artistic justice as social justice Ante-bellum literature imposed the distortions of moralistic controversy and made the Negro a wax-figure of the market place post-bellum literature retaliated with the condescending reactions of sentiment and caricature, and made the Negro a genre stereotype Sustained, serious or deep study of Negro life and character has thus been entirely below the horizons of our national art (Braithwaite, 1925/1992, p 29)
Reading the Literature: An Introduction
The inter-disciplinary nature of comedy scholarship poses a unique challenge to this review. Though the need to defend which theories to examine with greater depth and which to set aside for other scholars to unpack is an aspect of any reviewer's job, doing so when working across disciplines is a difficult, yet exciting task. Section 1 begins with a general overview of the scholarship that has made humour and/or comedy an integral aspect of inquiry, focusing particularly on debates as to both the role and value of humour in society. In particular, I examine humour and comedy studies within the disciplines of psychology, philosophy, popular culture, and education, while pointing to the specific context in which race and/ or ethnicity is discussed in the literature within these disciplines.
A fundamental thematic difference between the literature discussed in Section 1 and scholarship that focuses specifically on Black comedians is the introduction of race into the dialogue about comedians and their work. In order to illuminate how and when race is incorporated into writing about Black comedic performances, I will use Sections 2 to 5 of this review to examine literature on and about Black comedians. 12 As I argued in Chapter 1, I am defining a "race comic" as a comedian who engages with race in their comedy in a way that reflects a critical approach for understanding how racial discourses affect and shape the lives of non-White people. Given my focus on
Black comedians, Section 2 will begin with a brief look at how scholars describe and contextualize the roots of comedy by Black comics in particular, pointing out that writing in this area is consistently used to negotiate Black identity politics in North America by suggesting the existence of an "authentic" Black identity. This section concludes by demonstrating that Black comedians, who choose to work using the "authentic" Black voice they have developed, are often the victims of systemic racism, which habitually results in the careers of many Black comedians beginning and ending on standup comedy stages.
In light of the systemic racism described in Section 2, Section 3 examines literature about Black standup comics, examining the specific ways in which race is discussed in scholarship that explores standup comedy. To make the case that there exists a body of work that highlights the identity struggles of this unique group section 4 looks specifically at autobiographical and biographical texts about Black comedians. The scholarship examined in this section, though unusual in traditional literature reviews, is important for understanding the context in which a race comic's work develops. Black comedians who consistently address issues of race in their comedy while attaining
"crossover success" (i.e. Black comics now have been recognized and accepted by White audiences) are decidedly rare. Moreover, as media scholar Bambi Haggins (2007) explains:
13 The process of crossover - and the extension of both humor and influence
beyond black communal spaces - adds a problematic twist to the already
Byzantine task faced by the African American comic: to be funny,
accessible, and topical while retaining his or her authentic black voice.
(Haggins, 2007, p. 4)
In terms of writing about Black comedians, auto/biographical materials provide insight into the particular ways that structural racism has affected their careers, forcing them to develop strategies for negotiating American race politics on stage, or leaving them feeling "inauthentically Black" when their desire to gain notoriety in mainstream (White) society was chosen over standing by their particular anti-racist commitments.
Auto/biographical scholarship, then, not only shows how crossover successes were able to publicly debate issues associated with American race politics, but also proves to be an effective introduction to other literature within the area of Black comedy that specifically examines issues of representation on public stages.
Concerns surrounding the positive and/or negative representations of Black bodies in comedic performance not only permeate auto/biographical literature, but also appear within critiques of Black situation comedies. Section 5 reviews the role of Black situation comedies in defining Black communities. This final section helps to illuminate typical concerns that comedy critics have had when Black communities are represented in mainstream television programming. More specifically, it shows that in spite of the growth and change of situation comedies, the concerns about how Black bodies are represented in public spaces remain very much the same.
14 Due to the vast amount of scholarship documenting the history of European comedy, this literature review will set aside discussions of the role comedy plays in
European society (Aristotle, 1999b; J. Barnes, 2000; J. Bell, 2003; Cohen, 1999; Roche,
2002; Silk, 2000; Sobshack, 1996; Vickers, 1997). Instead, recognizing the relatively nominal amount of scholarship on Black comedians and their comedic texts, I will use the literature review to add to this growing body of work.6
Section 1: An Interdisciplinary Overview
The art of using humour to comment both directly and indirectly on the plight of oppressed people has been a frequent observation in comedic studies from a variety of disciplines (Aristotle, 1967; M. M. Bakhtin, 1981; Littleton, 2006; Mbembe, 2001;
Watkins, 1994, 2002). American popular culture theorists like Lawrence Mintz (1977), literary critics like Mikhail Bakhtin (1981), and comedian/comedic historians like Darryl
Littleton (2006) argue that a comedian is a "licensed spokesman" with granted authority to comment both critically and publicly on the state of society. While scholars disagree as to whether comedy can be used as a form of cultural resistance leading to societal change
(Bakhtin, 1981; Bell-Jordan, 2007; Koziski, 1984; Littleton, 2006; Watkins, 1994, 2002) or as social commentary (Danesi, 2008; Mbembe, 2001), scholars have considered the
6 Missing from this review is a direct engagement with issues surrounding gender and comedy Though I recognize that women in comedy are, and continue to be, regularly marginalized (Knoedelseder, 2009, Warren, 1995; Zoglm, 2008). and that Black female comedians are doubly so due to both their gender and their race (Foxx & Miller, 1977; Jones, 2007, Tekmay, 2007, Watkins, 1994), the focus of my analysis will be on Black, male comedians. The question of why Black women have been successfully accepted by mainstream (White) audiences when labeled comediennes even as women in general have been unable to find a space withm the comedic world is also interesting However, it too goes beyond the scope of my doctoral work 15 value of humour and comedy in society. For example, within the fields of psychology, philosophy, education, and popular culture studies, many have explored comedy's unique ability to transgress social boundaries in subversive ways, and have argued that humour, laughter, and comedy are valuable aspects of human nature (Boskin, 1986, 1997a; Boskin
& Dorinson, 1985; Wolf, 2004; Jacobs-Huey, 2006; Mooney et. al, 2006; Rosen &
Marks, 1999).7 What follows is a brief examination of how some psychologists, philosophers, popular culture theorists, and educators have incorporated comedy and humour studies in their respective disciplines, while, more specifically, showing that this scholarship rests primarily on Eurocentric foundations.
Reading Humour in Psychology
Within the discipline of psychology, scholars have extolled the benefits of humour and laughter to the human psyche for nearly a century (Joshua, Cotroneo, & Clarke, 2005;
Martin, 2007; Penson, et al., 2005; Southam, 2003). For example, the work of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1905) devoted considerable attention to the role humour plays in healthy psychological development (Freud, 1916/1993, 1916/2003).
Comedic scholars investigating the history of comedy by Black comedians have also explored a similar transgression when examining trickster characters from African and African American folktales like Br'er Rabbit (Watkins, 1994) Here, the archetypal hero Br'er Rabbit, presumed to be less intelligent than his antagonist, the wise Br'er Fox, challenges and outwits his smarter adversary in humorous ways Comedic historian Mel Watkins (1994), connecting African folktales, North American slave stories, and later African American comedic work through comparable stories claimed that, "Trickster stones such as these are excellent examples of slave humor that also mirror themes that would resurface in black stage humor at the beginning of the late nineteenth century and survive in the acts of tum-of-the-century comedy teams " (p 76). The transgressive and/or subversive possibilities that arise from this type of comedy are crucial elements of race comedy and will be examined in greater detail throughout the dissertation. See Sigmund Freud's Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious and With and its Relation to the Unconscious (Freud, 1916/1993, 1916/2003)
16 Contemporary psychoanalysts have also shared humorous stories based on their work with patients and colleagues through published texts (Goldin, et al., 2006). However, in so doing, they argue that humour can both solidify the relationship between patient and psychoanalyst as well as provide clues as to the latent thinking processes that might affect a patient's psyche. Vereen, Butler, Williams, Darg and Downing (2006) suggest that humour can effectively strengthen the connection between analyst and analysand, especially when working with clients who are culturally diverse (Vereen, et al., 2006).
Goldin, et al. (2006) recommend thinking seriously about the underlying meaning of laughter and/or the use of humour when it arises in counseling sessions (Goldin, et al.,
2006), a point that poses an explicit challenge to older studies like Kubie's (1971) that found humour "destructive and contradictory to the therapeutic process" (Vereen, et al.,
2006, p. 12).9 Contemporary literature on humour and psychological development, then, argues that humour is intrinsically valuable for a number of reasons including, but not limited to, its ability to provide a permissible vehicle for voicing frustrations and expressing hostility in a constructive way, for building and strengthening the relationship between healthcare professionals and patients when a family member has been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, or for helping to ease the psychological strain of illness from the perspective of both the patient and his/her caregivers (Chiang-Hanisko, Adamle,
& Chiang, 2009; R. A. Martin, 2007; Vereen, et al., 2006). Psychology scholarship
9 See L S Kubie (1971) "The destructive potential of humor m psychotherapy" in American Journal of Psychiatry (pp 861-866) for more details on the negative effects of humor m therapeutic settings In stark contrast Vereen, et al (2006) provides a number of recent studies that suggest the usefulness of humour in the field of psychology 17 highlights both humour and laughter's ability to release anxiety in patients and health professionals alike, replacing an uncomfortable feeling with one more pleasurable.
The idea of humour and psychological pleasure being intricately linked is not new.
Freud's analysis of humour popularized this connection in 1916/1960 when he wrote in
Jokes and their relation to the unconscious:
The technical methods of joking which we have earlier described -
condensation, displacement, indirect representation and so on - thus
possess the power of evoking a feeling of pleasure in the hearer, though
we cannot in the least see how they may have acquired this power. (Freud,
1916/1960, p. 112)
Freud asserts in this same work that joking "is an activity which aims at deriving pleasure
from mental processes, whether intellectual or otherwise" (p. 113). Consequently, the
focus on the benefits of humour to one's psychological well-being has been particularly useful to mental health practitioners who work with terminally ill patients (Chiang-
Hanisko, et al., 2009; Joshua, et al., 2005; Kovacs, Kovacs, & Hegedus, 2009).
Throughout this dissertation, however, I am more interested in the uncomfortable feeling
that humour also creates, in part because of the possibilities these moments present for interesting dialogue and reflection
It is when analyzing moments of uneasy laughter that issues of race have also been
addressed from a psychological perspective (Fanon, 1952), in spite of there being only a
small number of published cross-cultural studies investigating the uses of humour in mental health professions (Chiang-Hanisko, et al., 2009; Vereen, et al., 2006). For
18 example, psychoanalyst Frantz Fanon (1952) suggests a more uncomfortable reading of laughter and humour when he describes the use of humour by a Black person confronted with the Eurocentric gaze in Black Skin, White Masks:
'Look, a Negro!' It was an external stimulus that flicked over me as I
passed by. I made a tight smile.
'Look, a Negro!' It was true. It amused me.
'Look, a Negro!' The circle was drawing a bit tighter. I made no secret of
my amusement.
'Mama, see the Negro! I'm frightened!' Frightened! Frightened! Now they
were beginning to be afraid of me. I made up my mind to laugh myself to
tears, but laughter had become impossible.
I could no longer laugh, because I already knew that there were legends,
stories, history, and above all historicity, which I had learned from
Jaspers. Then, assailed at various points, the corporeal schema crumbled,
its place taken by a racial epidermal schema. (Fanon, 1952, pp. 111-112)
Used first as a defense mechanism to fend off anxiety associated with being recognized and labeled "a Negro" rather than a human being, Fanon (1952) also points to the moment when laughter is unable to bring the pleasure the psyche desires. Though Fanon
(1952) may be read as referencing a time when any psychological defense mechanism would crumble beneath the weight of being frozen by the gaze of the (White) other, I consider his reference to laughter of particular importance. Fanon, himself a psychoanalyst working within the Freudian tradition, would have been trained to interpret
19 laughter as a pleasurable experience for the mind as Freud had done before him.
However, when Fanon considered the moment of "epidermalization" - the instant in which the man became Black while frozen by the White gaze - he challenged Freudian understandings of laughter as pleasure. In short, the inability of laughter to create a pleasurable experience becomes a clear movement away from traditional Freudian psychoanalytic interpretations of the psychology of laughter to which Fanon should have subscribed. Laughter no longer soothes the mind, revealing instead the tumultuous history of becoming Black in a Eurocentric world (Fanon, 1952, pp.109-140).
Reading Humour in Philosophy
Similar to explorations of humour within the field of psychology, classic examinations of humour by Western philosophers provide some insight into the ongoing debate as to the role humour can and does play in society (Downey, 2000; Hosle, 2000; Martin, 2001;
Roche, 2002; Voltaire, 1977). Aristotle (1967, 199a & b) and Bergson (1900) each argues that humour is an intrinsic aspect of human nature (Bakhtin, 1981; Barnes, 2000;
Bergson, 1900; Weeks, 2004). In terms of the particular role humour plays in society,
Ted Cohen (1999) proposes in Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters that it is
Immanuel Kant's (1790/2000) theory of aesthetics that can provide philosophical insights into this question. Cohen explains that in The Critique of Judgment Kant demonstrates that when a group agrees upon what is deemed "beautiful" they consequently point to a deeper commonality present among community members. Cohen (1999) superimposes
Kant's discussion of the beautiful on his analysis of jokes to explore a similar communal
20 recognition that develops through shared laughter (Cohen, 1999). Concerned about this
philosophical interpretation of humour because of its primary focus on positive virtues of jokes and laughter, Peter Kivy (2003) argues that Cohen's (1999) theory is inherently
problematic. While Kivy agrees that jokes and laughter help to make visible
commonalities among community members, he is hesitant to entrench these within
theories of human nature, since any revelation of a person's similarities would
simultaneously reveal vast differences that separate as much as it might reveal
commonalities. Describing what he terms the "double expression of laughter" (2003,
p.8), Kivy explains:
Laughter may be an enveloping hug for the insiders, but, I would argue, a
threatening snarl to the outsiders: inwardly cohesive, outwardly divisive.
Laughter, then, expresses both warm fellow-feeling and sudden glory. It all
depends on which end of the laughter you happen to find yourself: the 'in' or
the 'out.'
For this reason, Kivy (2003) warns against assuming that the sharing of jokes and
laughter are intrinsically "community-building" activities.
A similar philosophical argument is present in the work on comedy undertaken by
Benjamin La Farge (2004). Interested in challenging the notion that laughter necessarily
helps create a sense of community, La Farge contemplates the meaning of audience
laughter at humorous performances. He argues that "[t]he pleasure we take in comedy is
10 Kivy (2003) proposes that Cohen (1999) wants to extend Kant's sensus communis (Kant, 1790/2000) to represent humanity more generally, suggesting in a Kantian vein, "that the successful joke brings us to the recognition of our common humanity" (Kivy, 2003, p 6) 21 greatly enhanced by the presence of others. [...] But one man's laughter can be another's sorrow, and it sometimes happens we feel sorry for a character everyone else finds comical..." (La Farge, 2004, p. 118). Like Kivy (2003), La Farge complicates his analysis of laughter by proposing that it can invite others to share in what they find humorous while simultaneously shutting out those who are the focus of ridicule. The dual nature of laughter and comedy that is made visible by philosophers of humour like Kivy (2003) and La Farge (2004) demands that a more nuanced approach be taken to better understand the multiple roles laughter can play in society.
Although Western philosophers have written on the function and value of humour in society, little philosophical reflection has been paid to how Black people use humour in their negotiation of a Eurocentric society. One exception is philosopher Angelo J.
Corlett's (2005) examination of the moral dimensions of hip hop music and hip hop influenced comedy. Corlett describes the moral dilemma that arises when Black music and comedic artists decide to use presumably harmful language (e.g., "nigger" or "bitch") in their songs and routines:
... one could argue that a comedian's right to entertain are competing
morally legitimate interests that justify the use of terms such as 'nigger'
and 'bitch' insofar as some people consider the use of these terms as an
especially humorous aspect of hip-hop comedy. (Corlett, 2005, p. 148)
Using as an example what Dave Chapelle terms as "hip-hop comedy Corlett (2005) proposes that Chappelle, like some hip hop musicians, has found a way to address this moral dilemma by re-defining words like "nigger" and "bitch," "taking the term[s] back
22 and reconstituting [their] meaning[s]" (Corlett, 2005, p. 150). By arguing that
Chappelle's comedy establishes that not all uses of these words are, in fact, racist or
sexist, he explains that the artist's intention cannot be ignored when critiquing their work
on moral grounds:
We can distinguish between racial humor and racist humor, and more
generally between racial language and racist language. Whenever
language is intended by the speaker or writer to be harmful in racist or
sexist ways, it is racist or sexist language and wrong because it harms or is
intended to harm. (Corlett, 2005, pp. 151-152)
Based upon Chappelle's intention to use comedic sketches to address and challenge
issues of racism, Corlett (2005) contends that the context in which Chappelle uses these
words (i.e., his focus on life "in the hood") demands a much more complex interpretation
of these terms and their moral consequences. Moreover, Chappelle's comedy poses a
challenge to traditional philosophical readings of the ethical issues raised by his use of
morally questionable words.
Like Corlett's (2005) analysis of hip hop comedy, a popular culture lens can be
used to examine the antagonistic role of humour and laughter. Notably, discussions of
ethnicity and race-based humour appear more often within popular culture studies as
compared to psychology and philosophy where humour is principally interpreted as a
pleasurable endeavor. It seems plausible, then, that it is popular culture's focus on humour's disruptive nature that opens up these possibilities for scholarship about humour
23 and laughter—in particular, urging serious consideration of the ways in which race (and negotiating racism) informs the role humour and laughter play in diverse communities.
Reading Humour in Popular Culture
Theorists within the field of popular culture entertain debates about comedy's paradoxically divisive and communal possibilities in ways similar to the fields of psychology and philosophy (Atluri, 2009; Punyanunt-Carter, 2008; Wisniewski, 2009;
Zoglin, 2008).' This is especially true when popular culture scholars focus exclusively on ethnic or race-based humour (Iton, 2008; Littleton, 2006; Rackley, 2007; Sutherland,
2008; Watkins, 1994, 2005, 2002). For example, in Laughing Mad: The Black Comic
Personae in Post-Soul America, comedy theorist Bambi Haggins (2007) alludes to laughter's paradoxical nature while describing the likelihood of contradictory interpretations of the same comedy performance. She concludes her analysis of the comedic personality of select Black crossover successes by recognizing that laughter at the same comedic text does not necessarily reflect a similarity in interpretation of the performance (Haggins, 2007). She argues that understanding the intention of the
This observation is not new In 1973, Daniel J Leab took up this debate in his text From Sambo to Superspade The Black Experience in Motion Pictures By the 1980s, Bob Greenberg's documentary film Amos 'n Andy Anatomy of a Controversy (1986) and authors like Joseph Boskin and Joseph Dormson's Ethnic Humor Subversion and Sunnval (1985) again emphasized the paradoxical nature of humour Boskin continued to call attention to this issue well into the 90s in his text, Rebellious Laughter (1997) as well as his edited collection The Humor Prism in 20th Century America (1997) Herman Gray's (2001, 2004) research in media studies as well as Derrick Littleton's Black Comedians on Black Comedy (2006) again reiterated comedy's ability to both separate and bring groups together (Boskin, 1997a, 1997b, Boskin & Donnson, 1985, Gray, 2001, 2004; Leab, 1973, Littleton, 2006, Greenberg, 1986) 24 audience's laughter is near impossible without asking individual audience members to
explain why they laugh (Haggins, 2007).
Like Haggins (2007), popular culture theorist Joseph Boskin (1986) explores the
multiple ways in which laughter can both draw people together and/ or divide them
through disparate readings of the same comedic text. Boskin (1986, 1997a) argues that
Europeans have historically promoted the idea that humour was "good for the soul"
because of its ability to help people think more clearly about contentious issues. To
demonstrate this, he provides a close reading of the role of the court jester, who
embedded critical commentaries in comedic texts developed and performed for the ruling
classes. Boskin argued that most successful aristocracies were known to heed the court jester's advice. Through his examples of an aristocracy's success, Boskin illustrates the
ways in which the jester's humorous approach was able to bring people together. In
Ethnic Humor: Subversion and Survival, however, Boskin (1986) provides examples of
humour as a dividing force through the numerous examples of the ways in which ethnic
humour has been used to create divisions between groups of people. There, he argues that
humour creates a culture of "us" versus "them" based on ethnicity and/ or racial lines.
Boskin (1985) suggests that ethnic jokes not only help to maintain such divisions, but
they also support current racial hierarchies and social norms (Boskin & Dorinson,
1985).12
2 In Boskin's text, Rebellious Laughter (1997a) he makes further reference to a gamut of disparate humour theorists and influential texts including the ex-Marxist Max Eastman's (1936) text Enjoyment of Laughter, essayist EB White's (1977) pieces published m Essays of E B White, anthropologists Mahadev L Apte's (1987) Ethnic Humor Versus 'Sense of Humor' and oft cited Stephanie Koziski's (1984) The Standup Comedian as Anthropologist The Intentional Culture Critic as important thinkers 25 Popular culture theory poses a consistent challenge to the widespread idea that laughter is a pleasurable experience by incorporating studies of humour by racial and ethnic others within the larger field of popular culture studies. The theories of such scholars as Haggins (2007) and Boskin (1985) assist in encouraging more nuanced readings of the role of humour and laughter in society, suggesting how this might change throughout time and among different groups of people. However, in so far as popular culture theorists attempt to challenge this normalized understanding of laughter, literature discussing the role of humour in schools is firmly rooted within the "humour as pleasure" discourse, a discursive move that ensures that humour remains in the margins of educational discourses.
Reading Humour in Education
Literature examining the role of humour in schools relegates humour to the periphery of classroom experiences, with many writers insisting that humour is primarily useful in creating relaxed atmospheres (Done, 2006; Hellman, 2007). Thus, scholarship in the realm of humour and education makes a connection between humour and effective teaching strategies (Boskin, 1997b; Done, 2006; Hellman, 2007; Minchew & Hopper,
2008). This is demonstrated in the writing of former middle and high school teachers Sue
S. Minchew and Peggy F. Hopper (2008) who proposed that humour ensured a more enjoyable atmosphere for students and that this more enjoyable atmosphere was
in the general area of humour Other important figures playing a prominent role in Boskin's analysis include writers, scholars, and humorists Walk Kelly, James Thurber, Jesser Bier, Jules Feiffer, Clifton Fadiman, folklonst Alan Dundes, and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud It is Freud's Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious (1905) that Boskin returns to again and again, largely due to his own interest in everyday jokes and what they reveal about the time in which they flourish in their popularity 26 conducive to the development of student vocabulary. These teachers also contended that a closer investigation of humour could help teachers show students why word choice is important in written work. This use of humour in the classroom allows for the development of traditional educational skills (e.g., proficient writing and vocabulary development) without considering how humour can be used to challenge social norms
(Minchew, Hopper, 2008).
A similar use of humour to develop traditional classroom skills is present in the work of Elena Hoicka, Sarah Jutsum, and Merideth Gattis (2008). The authors suggested that when parents read humorous children's books to their toddlers, they made use of more extra textual utterances to help their children suspend their beliefs. Monitoring parent's reading strategies with their 1 to 2-year-old children, Hoicka, et al., (2008) found that these extra textual utterances were strategically deployed by parents to introduce the child to higher levels of abstract thinking. They concluded that reading humorous books to toddlers increased their exposure to abstract thinking, making it a very useful teaching strategy not only for parents, but also for teachers. Humour was used in these studies to support the development of traditional school-based knowledge rather than to challenge social norms or personal biases (Hoicka, et al., 2008; Minchew & Hopper, 2008).
Although toddlers may not be ready to discuss issues of race, I argue that supporting the development of their critical thinking skills from this early stage of cognitive development helps to prepare them for such conversations as early as primary school
27 (Haynes, 2002;l3 MacNaughton & Williams, 2009). Middle and high school students can also benefit from more complex discussions about race politics and/ or racism, and I maintain that humour in these cases is a useful starting point for thinking through race- based prejudices and social inequalities.
Another approach to showing the value of humour in developing traditional school-based knowledge is reflected in scholarship presenting the incorporation of humour in particular courses (Hariman, 2008; Hoicka, et al., 2008; Holmes, 2007;
Mawhinney, 2008; Rule, Sallis, & Donaldson, 2008). For example, educators like Jody
C. Baumgartner & Jonathan S. Morris (2008) used the comedic work of Jon Stewart to introduce key concepts, ideas, and issues to students enrolled in their American
Government course. Although their work will be taken up in greater detail below, it is sufficient, here, to note that the purpose for including Stewart's comedic material in the course was to create a more pleasurable learning environment for students as they developed and expanded upon their understanding of the role of governing bodies in society (Baumgartner & Morris, 2008). Emma Weitkamp and Frank Burnet (2007)
Joanna Haynes (2002) argues in her text Children as Philosophers, that, under the right conditions teachers can initiate philosophical reflections with elementary school students (Haynes, 2002). Haynes (2002) contends that primary school students often pose philosophical questions about topics as profound as life and death, or ask for deeper explanations to ethical and/or moral dilemmas Uncomfortable with taking these issues up with such young children, many teachers discount their students' philosophical requests Haynes (2002) argues that teachers must learn to discard these authoritative notions in order to open up an opportunity to have students' own concerns and questions become a focal point in philosophical discourses (Haynes, 2002, p 28) I propose that Haynes (2002) is correct in her insistence that primary school children are able to discuss issues of race and racism. Other children's books taking up this topic help to support this position. For an example of a book aimed for children 4 to 8-years-old, see Pat Thomas' The Skm I'm In: My First Book on Racism and We're Different, We're the Same by Bobbi Kates (1992). For children from 9 to 12-years-old see Michael Tyler's (2005) The Skm You Live In by (Kates, 1992; Thomas, 2003; Tyler, 2005) Finally, Glenda MacNaughton and Gillian William's text Teaching Young Children Choices in Theory and Practice (2009) provides examples of teaching techniques that engage children in discussions about race as well as philosophical reflection 28 created a humorous comic strip for their primary science classroom in the United
Kingdom with a similar goal in mind - to create a "fun" classroom atmosphere for students as they improved their science skills (Weitkamp & Burnet, 2007). Though using humour in the classroom is represented by these examples, no mention is made in either case of calling upon the instructor's choice of humorous examples to take up controversial issues. Rather, humour was used to make traditionally dull subjects more amusing for students.
The notion that humour is conducive to learning because of the relaxed atmosphere it creates for students is also supported by research literature in the areas of psychology and physiology (Garner, 2006; Society, 2009). Dr. Lee Berk et al. (989)14 as well as R.L.
Garner (2006) have demonstrated that student anxiety and stress is significantly decreased when humour becomes an integral aspect of the learning environment.
Consequently, the students' self-motivation helps to increase their self-esteem. For students with special needs, humour is also an asset, supporting their social and psychological development as they attempt to negotiate their fuller inclusion in school
(Fitzgerald & Craig-Unkefer, 2008). In studies done by Fitzgerald and Craig-Unkefer
(2008) humour was described as being integral to childhood psycho-social development.
The authors explained that for children with special needs it was particularly important that teachers helped them to develop their sense of humour so that they could all participate in the "fun" of the classroom and fit in with their peers. Similarly, in Pagliano,
14 See http //www.hohsticonlme.com/humor_therapy/humor_therapy_benefits htm for more details about Dr Berk and Dr. Tan's research in the area of the therapeutic benefits of laughter on the immune system 29 Zambone, and Kelley's work (2007), humour was also described as being essential to child development because it formed the basis for friendships among peers. Because much of humour is visual, Pagliano et al. (2007) emphasize the need to help visually impaired children to develop their sense of humour through alternative methods that did not rely upon sight. They recommend that humour be explicitly taught to the visually impaired "in order to facilitate more active inclusion in pleasurable pursuits of their social cohort" (p. 267). Although humour may appear as a central element of both studies, it is important to note that humour is only important in so far as it facilitates more
"pleasurable pursuits." As Pagliano et al. (2007) explain:
Humour is fundamental to high self-esteem and good mental health. It
reduces stress and anxiety by shifting our perspective and can replace
distressing emotions with pleasurable ones. Humour can increase energy
and even help the immune system fight infection, (p. 268)
That humour can be used to challenge social norms is not a consideration within Pagliano et al. (2007) research. I contend that humour is only rarely developed as a direct strategy for challenging the student's circumstances, and with only a small number of exceptions, literature on humour in educational sites remains deeply-rooted in pleasure discourses.
While individual instructors have discussed peripheral pleasing benefits of humour in educational spaces, the potential of humour to take up controversial issues is only rarely explored. Thinking again of Jody C. Baumgartner and Jonathan S. Morris (2008), the possibilities afforded by humorous texts to disrupt social norms is suggested through their inclusion of the mock textbook on American politics, America (The Book): A
30 Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction (2004) in their "Introduction to American
Politics" college level course. Written by Jon Stewart and the writers of his Comedy
Central program The Daily Show, this text was read alongside a standard politics textbook by Thomas Patterson, entitled We the People (2005) (Baumgartner & Morris,
2008). As part of their study, Baumgartner and Morris (2008) had students use the traditional political textbook to evaluate where Stewart's mock introduction to American
History provided only partial facts, asking students to write brief papers discussing what they found (Baumgartner & Morris, 2008). Baumgartner and Morris (2008) then used the students' analysis of Stewart's text to initiate discussions in the class, proposing that,
"[i]n many cases, the humor revealed something salient about American politics, or perhaps as importantly, what they thought they knew" (Baumgartner & Morris, 2008, p.
178). While the study showed no significant increase in test scores as a consequence of students' exposure to Stewart's text, Baumgartner and Morris (2008) did conclude that of the 97 students required to read America (The Book), the majority (88.2%) agreed that they enjoyed reading the text, with 70.6% of the students stating that the text was useful for learning about American politics (Baumgartner & Morris, 2008). Although
Baumgartner & Morris (2008) do not make explicit mention of American race politics being entertained in their classroom discussions, they do quote from the forward of
America: The book, which is said to be written by Thomas Jefferson. There, Jefferson laments, 'I had slaves. Damn, I can't believe I had slaves!" (Baumgartner & Morris,
2008, p. 171). With the comedian, Jon Stewart, referring to slavery in the text, I contend that Baumgartner & Morris' (2008) teaching model can be used to discuss race and
31 racism in the classroom, by analyzing Stewart's reference to the legacy of American slavery as a way of taking a more critical look at race politics in America
The work of Samuel Betances (1993) provides another clear example of the possible benefits to using humour in educational settings to start a conversion about contemporary race politics It is this point that distinguishes his work from that of
Baumgartner & Morris (2008) Betances (1993), an American diversity educator and community activist, uses humour to facilitate anti-racist educational workshops Arguing that teachers who develop their sense of humour in the classroom make possible stronger feelings of trust between themselves and their students, he explains that humour helps assuage feelings of discomfort that often accompany controversial conversations about gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and socio-economic differences in society Referring to educators who can develop this skill as "edutainers," Betances (1993) explains
The real edutainers, who are committed to communicating diversity, can
present insightful, entertaining presentations where laughter bonds, helps
to release tension, and promotes understanding by exposing apparent
contradictions not easily revealed or readily accepted when presented
through a didactic lecture (p 24)
However, in spite of Betances' (1993) insistence that he makes use of humour to challenge normalized beliefs, asking participants to critically assess the "uncritical scripts and forces that have shaped our world view and may cause us to internalize limiting or
15 Dr Samuel Betances, a bi-racial Harvard graduate who self identifies as being of African American and Hispamc/Latmo descent, incorporates humour and personal stories of his ethnic and racial background into his workshops and seminar presentations For an overview of Betances' workshops and lectures, see http //www speaking com/speakerpages/speakerpages b/samuelbetancesprograms php 32 destructive visions of ourselves or others" (p. 22), he explains that the role of the comedian within the purview of educational discourse is merely to instruct educators on how to effectively narrate stories in humorous ways. In contrast, I contend that humour is an effective pedagogical method for exploring issues of race and racism in educational contexts because these topics can be humorously narrated and used to initiate critical dialogues.
Eurocentric Tendencies — Multi-Ethnic Possibilities
Scholars working within the disciplines described above have examined the social role of humour and laughter. In spite of their speaking to vastly different audiences, the work within the fields of psychology and philosophy, with few exceptions (Chiang-Hanisko, et al., 2009; Fanon, 1952; Vereen, et al., 2006), is primarily concerned with Eurocentric social norms. For educational theorists, the continued reference to humour as pleasurable suggest a similar tie to Eurocentric roots, especially in light of the emphasis on the psychological benefits of humour for students. Notably, references like this harken back to the work of Sigmund Freud. Within the field of popular culture, however, this bias shifts to some degree. This could be attributed to the more serious contemplation that popular culture theorists devote to the divisive nature of humour, which invites comedic interpretations of differences between ethnic and racial groups. This could also be a consequence of the fact that Black people have been acknowledged as having shaped the realm of popular culture in ways that cannot be ignored (Cullen, 1996). Popular culture theorist Jim Cullen (1996) argues that "[d]espite their status as members of an oppressed
33 minority, African Americans have invented, elaborated, or inspired more popular culture than any other racial or ethnic group in the nation's history" (Cullen, 1996). It is presumably for this reason that literature on humour from a popular culture approach is more inclined to examine Black communities and discuss the unique qualities of their approach to humour and comedy.
What follows in Sections 2 to 5 are exclusive discussions of comedy by Black comedians. Section 2 begins with a brief introduction to literature on Black comedy, drawing upon scholarship that links developments of comedy by Black comedians to slavery in America and, consequently, to the African continent.
Section 2: The Roots of Black Comedic Routes
It has been suggested that the roots of Black American comedy can be traced to the arrival of enslaved Africans on American soil (Foxx & Miller, 1977; Levine, 1977;
Littleton, 2006; Watkins, 1994, 2002).16 To this end, writing in this area implicitly promotes a sense of an "authentic" Black American identity by making explicit connections between humour in Black communities and humour on the African continent. In 1970, William Schechter (1970) argued that social scientists commonly made reference to unique word play developed in Black communities in America,
16 The theory of African cultural retentions presumes that large-scale relocations of slaves to the New World resulted in the retention of particular cultural and social traits that were purely "African " In spite of a steady move away from theories of African cultural retentions and towards a creohzation thesis which emphasizes the synthesis of the diverse cultural influences on the Black community in America (Burton, 1997; Cullen, 1996, p 96; McKee, 1993; Mmtz & Price, 1992), historians looking specifically at Black American comedy appear to re-mscribe dated notions of African retention to explain the way(s) in which comedy has developed withm the Black community This has led to a continued reliance on examinations of slave culture in North America alongside assumptions that what was retained in the New World was most influentially "African " 34 thereby connecting them to the African continent. Concentrating upon an analysis of the dozens, a verbal game of insults in which participants ridiculed their opponent's family and relatives, Schechter explains that this required a quick wit and "way with words" which was also established among the Ashanti people in Ghana. To support the connection between Black Americans and their African ancestors, he contrasted the dozens with the Ashanti opo, defining the latter as a chanted or sung set of verses used to publicly criticize the behaviours and actions of Ghanaian chiefs: "They [the chiefs] believed that expressed invectives dissipated hostilities that otherwise might be organized into revolutions" (p. 13). The opo were considered by Ghanaian leaders to be an acceptable form of public ridicule because they provided a safe outlet for voicing frustrations of community members while decreasing the likelihood of rebellion and/ or socio-political uprisings. Although the dozens did not share in a politically motivated analysis of society as did the opo, Schechter contended that both required a similar verbal dexterity for their successful deployment. In the determination of a particularly "African" style of humour in Black communities, he subtly articulated an "authentic" Black identity that was based entirely on the notion of African cultural retentions. By connecting Black
American humour to the politically motivated humour found in Ghana, Schechter challenged stereotypical interpretations of Black humour that suggested Black Americans were naturally funny, insisting instead that what made Black humour distinctive was its foundation in a learned set of social norms developed in African contexts to work through and make public very poignant socio-political critiques. Though he argued that European and Aboriginal wit were also influential in the development of Black humour, it was his
35 emphasis on the connection between humour in Black communities and humour on the
African continent that continued to influence future scholars of Black comedy, including
Mel Watkins (1994) and Darryl Littleton (2006).17
Like Schechter (1970), Watkins (1994) suggests that comedy by Black Americans is intrinsically connected to the African continent. In his reading of the historical roots of
Black comedy, Watkins (1994) writes that, "specific word games or verbal contests such as signifying (verbally putting down or berating another person with witty remarks, also called ranking, sounding, or dissin') or the dozens (mocking someone by ridiculing their
1 R relatives) can be traced to a number of African tribal groups" (Watkins, 1994, p. 64).
The verbal games described first by Schechter (1970), and later reiterated by Watkins
(1994), act as a pre-cursor to the future development of comedy writing by Black comedians for Black audiences, embedding within them a politically charged history linked to the development of humour on the African continent. Examples of this include
Watkins' (1994) discussion of Schechter's analysis of the Ashanti opo as well as his reference to the work of French commentator Genevieve Fabre, who points to the satirical nature of African humour. Watkins (1994) interprets Fabre as arguing that 17 Unlike other historians of Black comedy, Schechter's (1970) alternative connections between Black humour and other "White" nations also serve to validate Black societies in the eyes of White theoreticians by revealing a shared use of similar "emotional outlets" for White and Black communities (Schechter, 1970, p 15) In this way Schechter's (1970) analysis also challenges the link between proficient or "natural" performers and unsophisticated cultures that is stereotypically attributed to Black people (A C Barnes, 1925/1992, Fanon, 1952, Imbo, 1998, Rampersad, 1925/1992; Senghor, 1977/2001) 18 Watkins uses "West Africa" and "Africa" interchangeably, while also avoiding any detailed discussion of the presumption that "West African" refers to "Black Africans." The assumption that West Africa is indicative of the entire continent is not a novel (mis)representation, especially within discussions of race and racial lineages which focus on black people Philosophical debates as to the existence of philosophy within Africa also make a similar conjecture, presuming that any reference to Africa (and subsequent questions as to whether or not the Africans living there participate in philosophical discourses) is referring solely to West Africa and/ or where the African's complexion is dark 36 African humour is used specifically to avoid direct confrontation while publicly
expressing grievances against family, friends, and community leaders, a point that
Watkins applies to the comedy of Black comedians in America as well. He also refers to
the social role of the griot, defined as an African verbal historian, to contextualize the
development of comedy by Black Americans. Most importantly, Watkins (1994) explains
that the griot provides politically savvy social commentary on issues in African society
through their witty dialogues with everyday people. By connecting mundane verbal word
games like the dozens to the politically charged observations of the African griot, he
superimposes a highly politicized history upon the everyday uses of humour described as
having been developed in America's Black communities. Littleton (2006), in his text
Black Comedians on Black Comedy, also proposes a similar connection between Black
American and African humour, referring to "signifying" as well as "Mama jokes" as
demonstrative of typically "African" comedic styles (p. 7). Grounding Black humour
within the existence of politically motivated African cultural retentions provides a
framework for later developments of the highly critical and subversive comedic
performances of race comics who, I will argue in Chapters 3 and 4, provide a critical
approach to analyzing race politics in their communities.
For Schechter (1970), Watkins (1994) and Littleton (2006), proposing African roots for Black comedy in America allowed each to distinguish comedy by Black
comedians from that of their White counterparts, adding a uniquely political dimension to their performances that was not an integral aspect of comedy by White comedians.
37 Literature on the typical career progressions of both Black and White comedians also provides another example of how race affects the attainment of success for each group.
For White comedians, their career trajectory has been described as beginning on standup stages, filtering into mainstream entertainment venues through network television programs, and culminating in appearances in comedic films (Haggins, 2007;
Knoedelseder, 2009). For Black comedians, however, due to systemic racism both in comedy circles and society writ large, variations of this career path have been necessary in order to facilitate continued development of their comedic artistry. Comedy theorist
Bambi Haggins (2007) explains that the pre-civil rights era in the United States saw the development of the Chitlin' Circuit - a group of Black owned entertainment establishments for Black audiences - that allowed Black comedians to hone their skills at a time when White clubs did not allow them entry. The rationale for exclusion by White club owners was either that the focus of the Black comedian's comedy was inappropriate for their patrons (e.g., if the comedian opted to include discussions of race and racism in their repertoire) or simply that Black people - be they performers or customers - were not allowed in their clubs because of segregation laws. During this period in America, working the Chitlin' Circuit was the primary means for later accessing
White comic venues and the comic "mainstream" that could allow for the possibilities
(however rare) of achieving large-scale notoriety (Haggins, 2007).
By 1980, the Chitlin' Circuit was replaced by Saturday Night Live (SNL) which premiered as "NBC Saturday Night" in 1974, and HBO comedy programming which provided comedians with the opportunity to air live recordings of their comedy shows
38 (Haggins, 2007). Though SNL launched a number of White comedians to great success,
Black comedians were regularly marginalized, with only two Black comedians in its history attaining great acclaim: Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock (though Rock's popularity arose after his time on SNL) (Haggins, 2007). More recently, SNL was also the starting point for comedian Tracy Morgan who worked on the program from 1996 to 2006, although, like Chris Rock, his real rise to fame came after working for a decade on SNL.
Morgan starred in 30 Rock, created by Tina Fey, a comedy writer for SNL between 1997 and 2006, since that time Morgan's career has begun to flourish. Aside from these exceptional cases, marginalization for Black comedians meant having their career aspirations stunted, and for many their comedic careers would begin and end on a standup comedy stage. Section 3 will provide a closer look at this important site of comedic and racial identity formation.
Section 3: Creating Black Comedians - The Standup Comedy Stage
Studies investigating the historical foundations of comedy by Black comedians have been limited (Littleton, 2006; Spalding, 1972; Watkins, 1994, 2002), and theoretical examinations of Black standup comedy are even more so (Boskin, 1986; Haggins, 2007;
Jacobs-Huey, 2006; Zoglin, 2008). Of the small number of comedy scholars who restrict their analysis to standup comedy, explicit examinations of how race are successfully discussed within comedic writing are often not explored with any profundity, if they are discussed at all (Knoedelseder, 2009; Nachman, 2003; Player, 2008; Sankey, 1998). This is evident in Franklyn Ajaye's (2002) text, Comic Insights: The Art of Stand-Up Comedy,
39 which contains 17 dialogues with famous comedians interviewed with an aim to present their individual comedic techniques. Of the 17 comedians interviewed, only 2 - Chris
Rock and Sinbad - are Black (Ajaye, 2002). In spite of Rock's comedy being known for its explicit discussion of race, no mention of race is made throughout the interview. In contrast, Sinbad made a single reference to race when he stated that he could not turn down an opportunity that presented itself early in his career to open for Black entertainers. Aside from this, however, neither comedian discussed the discursive elements framing the race-based humor both are known for, nor was either comedian prompted to discuss how they were able to successfully include humorous comments on their race politics in their comedic writing and performances (Ajaye, 2002).
In spite of the dearth of scholarship examining Black comedians in standup comedy, the literature that is available provides some insight into how the standup comedy stage becomes a site for Black comedians to publicly negotiate American race politics. Of the small number of publications that speak explicitly of the types of discussions Black comedians have about race on public stages (Haggins, 2007; Nachman,
2003; Zoglin, 2008), Lanita Jacobs-Huey's (2006) article "The Arab Is the New Nigger":
African American Comics Confront the Irony and Tragedy of September 11 serves as an excellent example. In this work she examines Black comedians in Los Angeles, exploring how they incorporated discussions of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in their standup comedy routines (Jacobs-Huey, 2006). Jacobs-Huey (2006) defines these routines as a performed patriotic ambivalence that suggests the continued existence of the
40 double consciousness referred to over a century before by W.E.B. Du Bois (Du Bois,
1903/1989). Jacobs-Huey (2006) explains:
The tenor of these and other jokes [about September 11, 2001], and
audience's reactions to them, reveal how race continues to qualify the
experiences of African Americans in the United States. Race proved to be
a pervasive undercurrent in other jokes as well, including those that
cynically hailed the arrival of a 'new nigger.' (p. 61)
Describing people of Arabic descent as the "new niggers," she argues that Black comedians detailed current shifts in racial identity politics in the United States in a way that did not position their Black bodies as higher on the racial hierarchy, but instead articulated a shared space on the bottom rung for themselves and the Arabic descendants perceived as being responsible for terrorist attacks in America. Based upon this fluid sense of racial identity and the power that may or may not become accessible because of the colour of a person's skin, Black comedians began speaking publicly about being able to experience life within the boundaries of other racial categories. Using a joke by comedian Courtney Gee to present her argument, Jacobs-Huey (2006) writes:
"[Now] White men... get to be suspects too. They get to see what it feels
like." Gee then performed his interpretation of an angry White male
passenger at an airport security checkpoint: "What?! Take off my shoes?
What the fuck for?! I don't own a 7-Eleven or have a fucking dot on my
head!" Here, Gee exploits multiple stereotypes to highlight the seeming
dissolution of racial profiling in the wake of 9/11. Collectively, he and
41 other comics depict a new day wherein non-African Americans - e.g.,
Whites, Pakistanis, Indians, and particularly Arab Americas - are
vulnerable to indiscriminate searches and police harassment. (Jacobs-
Huey, 2006, p. 61)
Comedic observations such as these illuminate the ways in which strictly held racial boundaries had collapsed as Americans attempted to fend off future terrorist attacks. All
Americans were now subject to police inspections and close scrutiny (Jacobs-Huey,
2006). This deterioration of racial boundaries demanded that White people experience living in a world where their actions were met with suspicion and mistrust, a lived reality that many Black people had always felt in America. Comedian Eddie Griffin speaks directly to this idea in his standup comedy DVD Dysfiinktional Family:
All of a sudden on 9/11 I'm an American. White people run up to me,
"Mr. Nigger, we love ya'! Come here, welcome to the family. Come here
Nigger!" That shit lasted 30 days. But I made a come up in them 30 days,
Nigga. All my loans got passed, Nigga' got credit cards. I knew what it
was to be a White American for 30 days. Walk in a bank, "Nigger, come
in, we've got cheques. Need a house loan? Right here, give it to him, he's
an American." Nigger, at 30 days, they want their shit back. "Umm,
Nigger, we figured it out. We thought we were gonna need your help, but
we've bombed 'em, so it's cool - Give us our shit back. Back to being a
Nigger - Go ahead, go ahead." (Brooks et al., 2003)
42 Though comedian Eddie Griffin supports the notion that racial boundaries shifted after
9/11, he also interprets this shift as only momentary - after the immediate fear of possible terrorist attacks dissipates, the world will go back to "normal" with Black people resuming their position at the bottom rung of America's racial hierarchy. Like Eddie
Griffin and the Los Angeles standup comedians examined by Jacobs-Huey (2006), other
Black comedians use standup comedy stages to wrestle publicly with identity race politics. This is not only exemplified in scholarship like Jacob-Huey's (2006) where standup comedy is the focus of the analysis, but also in literature where standup comedy is only briefly examined (Gallen, 2004; Mooney, 2009; Watkins, 1994, 2002). The work of Richard Zoglin provides a clear example of the latter.
Richard Zoglin's (2008) text Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s
Changed America, devotes a single chapter to Black standup comedians, while the balance of the text examines White comedians like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin who also use their comedy to resist social injustices, albeit in different ways (Zoglin, 2008). In his chapter on Black comedians, Zoglin (2008) provides a race-based political reading of
Black standup artists, arguing that the rise of Richard Pryor's racially charged standup comedy routines should be interpreted as:
... an emblem, not just of the changes comedy was undergoing, but of the
turmoil gripping the whole country - the rising tension of an era when
peaceful civil-rights demonstrations were giving way to the militant
rhetoric of the Black Panther Party, (p. 43)
43 Zoglin's (2008) reading of the development of Black standup comedy suggests that it is distinctive because it poses an ongoing challenge to racial injustices. Moreover, his analysis embeds Black comedic performances within the contentious history of race relations that continue to affect the daily experiences of Black communities in America today. Unfortunately, like much of the writing on Black comedians, those that are the focus of Zoglin's (2008) analysis are the same comedians who have successfully "crossed over," and are now cherished by White audiences (e.g., Richard Pryor, Dick Gregory, or
Bill Cosby). In this way, scholarship on Black standup comedians supports the notion that success for Black comedians remains intricately linked to their acceptance by White audiences.
It is important to note that not all scholarship about standup comedy assigns a
Black comedian's work with the political acuity described by Jacobs-Huey (2006) and
Zoglin (2008). Instead, a comedian's use of race politics within his comedic performance is often de-emphasized (Nachman, 2003). This is true even in cases where the Black comedian in question has become popular because of his ability to successfully merge his race politics and comedic personae. Gerald Nachman (2003) illustrates this in his text
Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s where he devotes a chapter to the comedy of Dick Gregory. In an attempt to curtail the political edginess of
Gregory's comedy, Nachman focuses his attention on the question of why White audiences accepted Gregory in mainstream (White) venues in spite of his being Black. As
The term "crossover" is commonly used in comedy literature to denote Black comedians who are able to become popular with both Black and White audiences, thereby "crossing" the colour line that often sets a boundary on what these comedians can say to suit the varied tastes of audience members 44 Nachman (2003) writes, "He [Gregory] was not so much a black comedian as perhaps a gray one, or maybe off-black" (p. 486), his "off-black-ness" serving to de-politicize his humour so that he appeared "bemused by the hostilities and hypocrisies of the racial divide" as opposed to being adamantly against racial injustices in America (Nachman,
2003, p. 487). Calling attention to the fact that White comedy writers wrote many of
Gregory's jokes, his racial commentary is rendered illegitimate due to its lack of (Black) authenticity, while simultaneously helping to undermine the presence of his Black body on stage (Nachman, 2003).20 Thus, even in cases where Black comedians discuss race consistently, they are prone to having their standup comedy rendered apolitical in mainstream scholarship. Texts like Nachman's (2003) serve as examples of the obstacles comedy critics create for Black comedians who wish to incorporate race politics into their comedy in an attempt to authentically represent the lived reality of Black people in
America. Section 4 will explore autobiographical and biographical literature on Black comedians who consider efforts to depoliticize their race-based work exemplary of the structural racism that not only hinders their career success, but also limits the extent to which their contemplations of contemporary racial discourses can be presented to audiences.
0 Nachman (2003) also writes that Gregory made a point of drawing a strict line between his political and comedic lives Quoting Gregory, Nachman (2003) argues that politics never permeated the comedian's standup comedy performances (Nachman, 2003, p 497). Gregory's interpretation of his comedy is not a- typical, with other race comics including the late Richard Pryor and contemporary comedian Dave Chappelle also stating publicly that their comedy is not meant to be political. This point will be taken up in greater detail further along m the dissertation 45 Section 4: Autobiography, Biography, and Race Politics
Autobiographical and biographical writing that describes comedians who have been accepted by mainstream (White) audiences (i.e., they have "crossed over") provides an accessible entry point into understanding the difficulties faced by Black comedians wanting to develop a career in comedy. This work exposes both the subtle and not-so- subtle experiences of Black comedians as they try to successfully negotiate systemic racism within and outside of comedic circles. With only a few Black comedians having attained celebrity status, the result has been an over-abundance of biographical literature presenting the life and comedy of Richard Pryor (Wolf, 2004; Pryor & Gold, 1995,
Zoglin, 2008), Bill Cosby (Charles, 2002; Cosby Jr., 1982; Gray, 2001; Jhally & Lewis,
1992), and Eddie Murphy (Sanello, 1997; Zoglin, 2008). Consequently, in 2009, Black comedians publishing autobiographical writings became a noticeable trend, with comedians Paul Mooney, Charlie Murphy, Tracy Morgan, and David Alan Grier publishing their autobiographies that same year (Grier & Eisenstock, 2009; Mooney,
2009; Morgan & Bozza, 2009; Murphy & Millis, 2009). Each comedian writes about how his own engagement with comedy is intricately linked to contemporary race politics in
America, revealing the ways in which systemic racism posed a barrier to his comedic development. These auto/biographies reveal how and why contemplating racial discourses and racism in America has become so deeply entrenched in the comedic performances of the most successful Black comedians. This is best demonstrated within
46 the autobiographies of Dick Gregory (1964, 1976), Richard Pryor (1995), Paul Mooney
(2009), and in Frank Sanello's (1997) biography of Eddie Murphy.21
Gregory's (1964) Nigger: An Autobiography recounts his fight against racism in
America, culminating in his decision to use his comedic talents to challenge de jure segregation and participate fully in the battle for Black civil rights (Gregory, 1964).
Gregory begins his account by recalling how his being Black resulted in being denied full membership on his college track team. For example, the realities of segregation ensured that despite the extent of his athletic abilities, he would consistently be denied entry into segregated restaurants where his team members ate, or in movie theatres where reserved seating forced him to sit in the balcony rather than in the better seats that awaited White patrons. For Gregory, the segregated reality of his youth precipitated his realization that explicit limitations were placed upon Black bodies no matter their success or level of education. This led to his decision to drop out of college in 1956:
Once I would have been afraid to go out into the white man's world
without my diploma, but now I knew that it really didn't matter. I'd been
around. I'd seen Negroes who had been graduated from white man's
colleges with that piece of white paper driving cabs and carrying mail. I'd
21 Although this section explores different modes of autobiographical and biographical production (e g , ghostwriting, collaborations, co-written texts etc ), it is beyond the scope of the dissertation to delve into how these various methods of writing impact upon the texts themselves It is notable, however, that the wealth of biographical texts on Black cross-over comedians suggests that the comedic biographical novel qua text explores different interpretations of the lives under investigation and the effects of the socio-political chmate(s) in which the artists lived In short, I do not suggest that this genre of writing shares a singular point of view, rather, the biographical novel allows for the inclusion of multiple starting points as well as a varied emphasis on the most influential aspects of the comedians' life by the authors. It is this multifaceted interpretation that makes the biographical novel an important inclusion in the dissertation 47 seen Negroes who got all A's in accounting go downtown to the bid
department stores only to hear, "Sorry, we're not hiring porters today."
That piece of white paper isn't enough unless they graduate you with a
white face, too. (Gregory, 1964, pp. 91-92)
Gregory describes how his experiences with racism in America were intricately linked to his development as a comedian. In contrast to Nachman's (2003) claims that Gregory
(1976) was "off-black", separating his racial and comedic identities, Gregory states in his follow-up autobiography Up from Nigger that after the assassination of President
Kennedy, "I knew one thing I could do, that I had to do, was to continue to put my career, my body, and my life on the front line in the struggle for civil rights" (Gregory,
1976, p. 21). Gregory (1964, 1976) continued his work on the front lines of the civil rights movement, doing so even to this day where he uses standup comedy stages to discuss racial injustices and support American citizens fighting for racial equality in the
United States. His autobiographies illustrate the inseparable nature of his racial politics and the development of his particular brand of anti-racist comedy.
Richard Pryor's (1995) autobiography provides another example of a Black comedian whose racial politics and comedic identity are intricately connected, and his life story reveals the push and pull of a Black man struggling to develop an "authentic"
Black identity in the world of entertainment accustomed to promoting Black stereotypes.
For example, Pryor (1995) describes his decision to mimic Bill Cosby's clean comedy style in order to become "acceptable" in White-owned clubs (Pryor & Gold, 1995, pp.
72-73). As he continued to "go for the bucks," he began to realize that carving a space for
48 himself within mainstream (White) America required that he restrain himself in ways that would necessitate silencing his race-based experiences. In 1967, while performing in Los
Angeles, Pryor walked off stage mid-performance, determined to re-make his comedic self in a way that was more attuned with the racial realities that shaped his experiences in
America: "The breakdown was the only way I could shed the phony image I'd created and start rebuilding my self-respect" (Pryor & Gold, 1995, p. 96). Pryor (1995) spent a year in
Berkeley, dealing with the emotional toll of having to choose between being
"authentically" Black or becoming a successful comedian in America. Paul Mooney
(2009), fellow comedian, comedy writer, and Pryor's best friend, described Pryor in this period as, "a man torn apart [where] Hollywood is telling him, you can have everything you want, but we have to put you through a deflavorizer first" (p.101). Mooney continued:
The fundamental truth about Richard during his year in the Berkeley
wilderness is that he's sick to death of white folks, white jive, white
culture. He feels like it's killing him. He has to get out from under it just
to survive as a man. (Mooney, 2009, pp. 101-102)
Pryor's new comedic identity - one built on self-respect - was devoted to giving voice to
Black Americans who were regularly silenced. His comedic style became inflammatory, yet he considered it more authentically his own. Pryor's (1995) description of his life, like Gregory (1964, 1976), illustrates that American racism made it difficult for Black performers to negotiate between a successful career and genuinely representing Black life
49 in America through their comedic performances. Navigating through the structural racism that existed within the entertainment business as well as within the larger
American communities had a significant impact on his comedic development.
Like Gregory (1964, 1976) and Pryor (1995), Paul Mooney's (2009) autobiography demonstrates the reality of structural racism and its effect(s) on the development of careers in comedy for Black people. Describing his research practices as he worked to become a successful comedian and comedy writer, Mooney (2009), like Gregory (1964,
1976), spent time analyzing White and Black audiences. This helped him to develop a differentiated approach when discussing race with each group:
When I imitate middle-class white speech, I see a flicker of unease cross
the faces of white people in the audience. Then, when I go into ghetto riff,
the smiles return. They're fine as long as I am making fun of the same
kind of people they make fun of, chinks and spies and niggers. But as soon
as I start talking about them, I can clear a room. (Mooney, 2009, p. 115)
Mooney's (2009) autobiography reveals a desire to place his comedic performances within the realities of American racial politics. Like Gregory (1964, 1976) and Pryor and
Gold (1995), his autobiography tells the story of his experiences within an industry that sought to maintain the racial status quo, avoid direct challenges to racial hierarchies, and
It is important to mention that Pryor & Gold's (1995) desire to provide an "authentic" reading of Black life in America through his comedy was not an attempt to promote or endorse this life for all Black Americans Rather, he was acutely aware of the damage done to the self-esteem and self-worth of Black Americans living the "ghetto life" he described with his comedy. It was his hope that by laying bare the realities of the conditions under which Black Americans lived while exploring why they behaved as they did, change might arise among Black Americans Moreover, he hoped this insight would result in large scale social change in American thought (Pryor & Gold, 1995) 50 silence overt discussions of race as much as possible. Texts like these give an account of the individual insights of Black comedians who have managed to keep race at the forefront of their comedic performances in spite of pressures from the entertainment industry to divest themselves of direct challenges to the status quo.
Similar to the ways that autobiographical writing reveals the incessant racism in the entertainment industry, biographers of Black comedians are pressured to address issues of race and racism which have framed the presence of Black comedians on the standup stage. This is a result of the negative impact racial discourses have had on the lives of
Black comedians and Black communities in America (Boskin, 1986; Chude-Sokel, 2006;
Rackley, 2007; Zoglin, 2008). This notion is clearly demonstrated in Frank Sanello's
(1997) biography of comedian Eddie Murphy. In his telling of Eddie Murphy's rise to fame, Sanello (1997) speaks to the effects of North American race politics and the subsequent racism encountered by Black comedians. He writes of the racial tokenism that
Eddie Murphy was able to overcome during his four years on SNL, a fate that the first original Black comedic cast member, Garrett Morris, was not able to rise above (Sanello,
1997). Of Garrett Morris, Sanello (1997) explains:
... a harbinger of bad things to come [Garrett Morris was] shamelessly
neglected by writers and producers during the seventies. In an era before
politically correct had even been uttered on college campuses, the writers
blithely gave Morris bit parts as a waiter, a busboy, or handyman while the
rest of the cast became national icons in bumblebee suits and coned heads.
(pp. 29-30)
51 In fact, he argues that Murphy was originally hired to play similar "Black" roles to
Morris, essentially making the ail-White comedy cast of SNL appear racially diverse.
What the producers were not anticipating was that Murphy would begin to write his own skits, and that those skits would become popular even when they commented overtly on racial injustices in America. A brilliant demonstration of Murphy's use of SNL's mainstream (White) programming to make discourses of race explicit, is a sketch in which he dresses up as a White man in order to infiltrate White society. As a White man,
Murphy is able to get material goods for free as well as unfettered access to monetary loans at the bank based solely on the colour of his skin. Making visible the different lived experiences of White and Black people in America, Murphy successfully infuses socio political commentary into a mainstream (White) comedy program. Although Murphy's standup comedy may not be as highly politicized as that of Dick Gregory, Richard Pryor, or Paul Mooney, it is clear from Sanello's (1997) perspective that Murphy's time at SNL did include using his comedy to overtly discuss the differences between life in America for Black and White citizens (Sanello, 1997).
As has been established through this brief look at auto/biographical writing on
Black comedians, this genre of writing provides a space for legitimizing Black experiences through the sharing of stories of continued racism in the entertainment business. Scholarship in this area also points to a comedian's struggle with how his work reflects Black communities, and how his performances affect the way(s) that White
Americans come to "know" Black people (Gregory, 1964, 1976; Mooney, 2009; Pryor &
Gold, 1995; Sutherland, 2008). This has lead to a rise in literature detailing the effects of
52 negative and positive portrayals of Black bodies in comedy programming. Section 5 will discuss this issue in greater detail.
Section 5: Representing Black America Through Comedy
The issue of representation and Black identity development is one that plays an ever- increasing role in the literature on Black comedy and Black comedians. Much of the research examining Black comedians and their engagement with discourses of race have been focused on blackface, Sambo imagery in advertisements or cartoons, and Minstrelsy
(Chude-Sokel, 2006; Strausbaugh, 2006; Waldo, 2007); Black performers in film and television (Mario Van Peebles, 2003/2004; Melvin Van Peebles, 2004; Winokur, 1996); and general discussions of what makes Black people laugh and/ or the nature of Black laughter (Chasar, 2008; Watkins, 1994, 2002). Boskin's (1986) text, Sambo: The Rise &
Demise of an American Jester provides an extensive look at Sambo imagery in theatre, literature, cartoons, advertisements, as well as on the radio and in film and television.
Where Watkins (1994, 2002, 2005) and Littleton (1996) argue that the Sambo represented an early image of blackness that used comedy to "put one over on the master," Boskin (1986) professes that no matter where the Sambo image is found, it perpetuates the idea that Black Americans are little more than contented fools: "The comic black: clever but not dangerous, and always capable of performing". The role of
Black bodies in comedic contexts has been principally understood as creating a space in which to perpetuate the belief that "unruly Negroes" were once and for all fully under control (Boskin, 1986, p. 100).
53 In spite of this, the early analysis of comedy by Black comedians presented by
Redd Foxx and Norma Miller (1977) or the more recent exploration of the same by
Littleton (2006) propose that for some time it was only via the most questionable comedic personas that Blacks were able to participate in the creative process of entertaining audiences (Foxx & Miller, 1977; Jones, 2007; Littleton, 2006). This trend continued in radio, television, and films, where portrayals of Black comedians continued to present stereotypical images of Black bodies being comical fools (Watkins, 1994,
2005). It is in fact this concern with stereotypical representation of Black bodies in public spaces that Katrina Bell-Jordan (2007) attributes to Dave Chappelle's decision to forfeit his fifty million dollar contract with Comedy Central as he questioned whether or not his comedy was challenging or simply promoting racial stereotypes (Bell-Jordan, 2007;
Gogan, 2009; Terry, 2006; Wisniewski, 2009; Wurtz, 2006):
Chappelle is politically astute and keenly aware of the potential
contradictions in performing race through racialized poses and stereotypes
in his comedic routines. He says he too thought some of the routines might
have 'morphed from satire to race-baiting.' With increasing concern that
his audience was growing more and more mainstream, Chappelle
contemplated whether some of his newer fans were laughing with him, or
at him - especially at his character 'Clayton Bigsby', a blind white
supremacist who doesn't know he's actually black, and the 'Niggar'
family he introduced on the show in season two. Yet, this possibility does
not disregard the show's ability to reinforce the major point that race still
54 matters. (Bell-Jordan, 2007, pp.74-75)
Concerns over how Black bodies continue to be represented on television and film have led to large-scale discussions and analyses of various popular television and variety shows by Black Americans, with an aim of discovering whether or not their influence has been helpful or harmful to the reputation of the Black community (duCille, 2001; Gray,
2001; Sutherland, 2008). Within this vein, comedy scholars who take up controversial images of Black people have referred in large part to 1950s situation comedies like
Beulah and Amos N' Andy (Gray, 2001; Haggins, 2007; Watkins, 1994; Zoglin, 2008).
Similar debates have arisen over the possible negative effects of 1970 situation comedies like The Jeffersons and Sanford and Son, which resulted in comparable analysis and criticism concerning the earlier shows of the 1950s (duCille, 2001; Gray, 2001;
Jhally & Lewis, 1992; Greenberg, 1986). Variety shows like The Flip Wilson Show, The
Richard Pryor Show, In Living Colour, and Chappelle's Show have also come under close scrutiny by both comedic theorists and comedians, each exploring the effects of particular representations and performances by Black comedians in public spaces
(Haggins, 2007; Sutherland, 2008; Wisniewski, 2009; Zoglin, 2008). While theorizing continues to probe whether or not the possibilities of crossing over into the mainstream
(White) arena - possibilities made available through many of these problematic performances - outweighs the troubling comedic representations of Black bodies in television and film, Meghan Sutherland (2008) points to another problem this theoretical focus raises. In her analysis of The Flip Wilson Show, she contends that
55 arguments over representation often divert attention away from more general explorations of why particular comedic performances rise to popularity:
In fact, the accounts of Bogle, MacDonald, and Acham offer telescopic
views of the controversy the [Flip Wilson] show raised for critics in the
press when it first aired - most of which concerned the very same problem
of audience and race. Yet, they tell us very little about how and why this
show - seemingly even more than others dealing with race at the time -
might have raised these issues so acutely. (Sutherland, 2008, p. xxii)
The need to continue critiquing particularly questionable images of Black bodies in the media, while necessary, must not be done at the expense of considering why these programs "work" for the public. This is pertinent in light of the critical role Black minorities have played in inspiring novel aspects of popular culture in North America, especially once they have achieved crossover success (Cullen, 1996).
Although interspersed amongst images of the Black buffoon are depictions of intelligent Black comedians, it also seems clear that the "enlightened" representations come with their own problems. The Cosby Show serves as a prime example of this. Jhally and Lewis (1992) explore ambivalent audience responses to The Cosby Show, a situation comedy created by Bill Cosby to publicly challenge stereotypical images of Black life in
North America. They discovered that some Black audiences saw themselves in the
Cosby's, even when their own socio-economic status was far below the images that were
56 portrayed. Likewise, White audiences often forgot the Cosby's were a Black family, also seeing themselves in the scenarios encountered week to week. Interpreting this as a sign that class issues were being collapsed upon issues of race, Jhally & Lewis (1992) worried that The Cosby Show unintentionally advocated for an individualistic reading of race politics in America. Moreover, they argued that this vision relied too heavily upon a meritocracy narrative that served to ignore countless insurmountable social problems that posed obstacles to success for Black people and Black communities in North America, a point that both Ann duCille (2001) and Herman Gray (2001) restated in their later work
(duCille, 2001, p. 413; Gray, 2001).
Despite such concerns, the popularity of The Cosby Show made it a landmark moment for Black comedians interested in working in prime time television (duCille,
2001; Havens, 2000; Jhally & Lewis, 1992). Guthrie Ramsey Jr. (2003) refers to the
"post-Cosby Show era" as leading swiftly to an influx of Black comedians successfully making it to prime time television in the 1990s. These newer shows, however, in stark contrast to The Cosby Show's upper-middle class focus, seemed to revert to the
"exaggerated performances sometimes [coming] dangerously close to worn-out, reliable stereotypes" (Ramsey Jr., 2003, p. 163). Overall, theoretical concerns about Black
23 In The Cosby Show, Heathchff "Cliff Huxtable, played by Bill Cosby, was a doctor and his wife Clair Hanks Huxtable, played by Phyhcia Rashad, was a lawyer " See, for example, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air which first aired from 1990-1996. Popular rap artist Will Smith was cast as the protagonist, and the show portrayed his adventures after moving from a ghetto in Philadelphia to live with his rich relatives in a mansion in California The situation comedy relied heavily upon a buffoon stereotype to represent lower-class Black Americans (e.g., both the character "Will Smith" played by Will Smith and his best friend from Philadelphia, "Jazz" played by Jeffrey Townes), pitting these against the "normal" upper-class behaviours of his family (e g , Will's uncle, "Philip Banks" played by James Avery, and the family butler, "Geoffrey" played by Joseph Marcell)
57 representation reveal the limited recognition on the part of Black comedic actors, performers, and writers that the images they project have a very strong influence on how the greater public - both Black and White - perceive Black individuals and their communities (Means Coleman, 2000, p. xii). As is demonstrated in Pryor and Gold's
(1995) autobiographical text, Pryor Convictions, this lack of understanding along with desires to overcome often debilitating financial strain make it difficult for many Black comedic actors to ignore the wishes of (White) network executives asking them to down play racial politics in their writing and performances or risk losing employment opportunities (Pryor & Gold, 1995).
Although situation comedies are meant to illicit laughter, it remains a key concern for comedy scholars like Narissra M. Punyanunt-Carter (2008) and Black comedians like
Dave Chappelle and Paul Mooney that constant exposure to overly exaggerated stereotypes by Black sitcom stars does little to help increase Black pride or their esteem in the eyes of White Americans (Haggins, 2007; Punyanunt-Carter, 2008). Psychiatrist
Alvin F. Poussaint, writing the forward for an audience study published by Robin R.
Means Coleman (2000), argues that since The Cosby Show's success, viewers have been bombarded with a slew of stereotypical Black casts who "shuffle and jive" like their minstrel forefathers. "Yet few Black performers appear to understand that the images they project have a powerful impact on the way African Americans are perceived by
25 "Throughout the series' [The Cosby Show] run [Bill Cosby] retained tight creative control Cosby brought psychiatrist and cultural critic Alvm F. Poussamt, a long-time friend, onboard as a consultant because he 'wanted the show to be real, the psychological interactions of the family to be real And he wanted the issues to be real issues, universal to families'" (Haggins, 2007, p 30). Alvm F Poussaint, M D. has also written a recent text with Bill Cosby entitled Come on People On the Path from Victims to Victors (2007) that looks at the role Black American males play in perpetuating social problems withm Black communities in America. 58 Whites and Blacks alike," Poussaint laments (Means Coleman, 2000, p. xii). For instance, in Bambi Haggins' (2007) analysis of what makes African American crossover comic personas successful, she points to Donald Bogle's (2001) audience study, where it was revealed that audiences believed that Flip Wilson's racy and controversial characters
(e.g., female alter-ego "Geraldine") were funny when performed to Black audiences, but when taken outside of such contexts, "and put on white television [they] could be misinterpreted" (quoted in Haggins, 2007, p. 48). Pointing to the work of Christine
97
Acham, Haggins explains that "critiques rooted in 'the tenets of uplift, [and] the fear of what white America might think of the black characters that Wilson presented,' were so preoccupied with the nature of mainstream (read white) audiences' readings of the series that they often underestimated both the power and the pleasures of the text for black viewers" (Haggins, 2007, p. 48).
From the varied audience studies that examine how viewers understand or, to use
Stuart Halls' terminology, "decode" Black American comedic work (Hall, 2001/2006), a desire to address the stereotypical perception of Black bodies is what connects them. As
Means Coleman (2000) explains, "the concern over Blackness in media is the concern over skewed and limited presentations of African Americans, their lives, cultures, and experiences, and the greater social implications of stereotyping" (p. 5). The fact that programs like The Cosby Show did not engage overtly with the social and economic disparities within Black communities was seen as adding to, rather than challenging this
1 A similar argument has been made about Black variety shows like The Flip Wilson Show which aired from 1970-1974 (Haggins, 2007, Sutherland, 2008) ~7 See Christine Acham's Revolution Televised Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power (2004) 59 media bias, creating some tension in viewers who, in spite of this, kept the show in the number one position in the ratings for the majority of its eight-year run (Gray, 2001,
2004; Haggins, 2007). The fact that The Cosby Show's international appeal was also not diminished, intensified this concern, especially when audiences critical of this dream-like representation of Black family life became aware that it was this image that was being projected to countries all over the world (Havens, 2000).
As more and more television networks include Black actors in their comic lineups, it appears to be increasingly difficult to find a viable solution to the problem of representation. Although The Cosby Show has been critiqued for not providing a space for representing the varied nature of the socio-economic life of Black Americans, a program like The PJs, a claymation series by Eddie Murphy, has been criticized for its focus on life in the projects:
The first volley against The PJs came from Spike Lee, who called the
series "incredibly demeaning... I kind of scratch my head why Eddie
Murphy's doing this... I'm not saying that we're above being made fun of
and stuff but it's really hateful, I think, towards Black people, plain and
simple." Lee was not alone. The PJs was the hot-button series for debates
about black-on-black representations even before its premiere. (Haggins,
2007, pp. 86-87)
The idea that Black people should determine how Black communities will be represented on television comes with the assumption that there is agreement on the particularities of the image that Black people want projected. Even if such a consensus could be had, the
60 problem still remains that network executives charged with making major programming decisions about the type of images presented on television, are largely White and male.
The issue is no less complicated in the area of literature where an author has the creative control over the plots, settings, and images their writing could take, for they too find themselves facing the same types of criticism when they opt to use what they perceived to be "real life" as their muse (Carroll, 2007; Gaines, 2007; Goler, 2007; Singh, 2007;
Wintz, 2007b). While this paradox surfaces time and again as new Black artists rise to fame, theoretical discussions about the importance of positive representation continue to be initiated alongside debates as to what "authentic" Blackness means. The work that follows contains within it an explicit demand that these conversations continue. Not only are they necessary for promoting more critical understandings of contemporary racial discourses, but, as I will argue throughout the dissertation, they are also useful tools for bringing these conversations into educational settings.
Conclusion
Examining how scholars explore the particular role race and racism have played in the development of comedy by Black comedians serves to politicize their performances in a way that is unique to their work. To this end, theorists like Katrina Bell-Jordan (2007) perceive Black comedy to be "retaliatory" in nature, using it to challenge mainstream discrimination, racial prejudice, and social injustice directed towards Black bodies in
America (Haggins, 2007; Jacobs-Huey, 2006; Littleton, 2006; Watkins, 1994, 2002).
Other scholarship questions the notion of retaliatory comedy, suggesting that it is difficult
61 to determine whether and if the comedian intends for their comedy to be put to such use
(Boskin, 1986). Joseph Boskin (1986) also forwards another concern with understanding
Black comedian's work as retaliatory, explaining that descriptions such as these merely reinforce racial stereotypes that perpetuate the idea that Black people are innately funny and artistic.
The literature review set out above provides a sense of the intricate ways in which race politics, identity formation, and public representation of Black bodies affects the type of comedy that is created and presented by Black comedians. The importance of how Black people have historically been represented in the media cannot be ignored, nor can the fact that many Black comedians have gained great popularity by both silencing issues of racial injustice as well as through overt discussions of the same. Where some
Black comedians might be overwhelmed by the need to take into serious consideration how images of Black life described and disseminated through their comedy can affect perceptions of Black bodies in the "real world," other comedians choose to interpret this concern as symbolic empowerment. Seeing the performances of the empowered Black comedian as distinct from that of other Black comedians, I have labeled those who use their comedic writing and performances to work through the realities of race politics and continued racism in North America "race comics." Chapter 3 will examine the particularities of a race comic's approach to comedy, arguing that what a race comic produces is best understood as ARE. Drawing upon the work of critical race theorist
Gloria Ladson-Billings, Chapter 3 will make explicit connections between her theory of culturally relevant pedagogy and the comedy produced by race comics.
62 Chapter 3: The Birth of a "Race Comic"
This chapter examines how race comics use comedic performances to "teach" their
audiences about race and racism. To contextualize my discussion, I historicize some recent work on Black comedians by scholars like Cris Mayo (2008), Mehgan Sutherland
(2008), and Bambi Haggins (2007), providing a socio-political context for their
description of these performances as "pedagogical." Proposing that such a reading of a
Black comedian's work is necessary in order to begin distinguishing race comics from other Black comedians, I draw upon the scholarship of Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995) to
envision the idiosyncratic approach to comedy offered by race comics. To this end, I briefly describe her notion of "culturally relevant pedagogy" which outlines three
effective teaching strategies for Black students in America. Arguing that race comedy, like culturally relevant pedagogy, is also made up of three key elements that allow the race comic's work to be considered different in kind from other comedians, this chapter demonstrates how these performances exemplify a critical approach to ARE pedagogy.
Section 1: Race Comedy as Pedagogy... A Political Endeavor
Critical analysis of the production of Black artists reveals a consistent interest in exploring their engagement with race politics within the fields of literature, music, theatre, film, or television (Gaines, 2007; Goler, 2007; Hiatt, 2005; Hutchinson, 2007;
28 Although the comedians examined throughout the dissertation are Black, it should not be assumed that their own race marks them as necessarily a "race comic." In short, non-Black comics can also be race comedians, for it is their engagement with comedy in the way(s) described in this chapter that allow their work to be described as "race comedy," not their own racial designation and/ or affihation(s). I have chosen to limit my discussion to Black American comedians based upon my interest in exploring the complexity of their negotiations of margmahzation both withm and outside of comedic circles 63 Jones, 2007; Julien, 2002; Rampersad, 2007; Wintz, 2007a, 2007b). This often results in a categorization of artistic performances into "high art" when the political motivation is
9Q more explicit (Finkelman, 2007; Morgenstem, 2007; Ramsey Jr., 2003). An example of this is found in the edited collection Harlem Speaks: A Living History of the Harlem
Renaissance, where contributing scholars explore the written, musical, and theatrical performances of the Harlem Renaissance (circa 1920 to 1935), referencing select popular
Black artists that exemplify artistic production during this period (Wmtz, 2007b). The artists discussed throughout the text, I suggest, become representative of "high art" for that period, and what connects their work is their engagement with racial identity politics both on and off public stages. As Carl D Wintz (2007b) explains, "[The Harlem
Renaissance] was the first concentrated involvement of African American artists, writers, musicians, singers, and intellectuals in an artistic and cultural movement that addressed the realities of the colour line in all of its complexity" (Wintz, 2007b, p. 2). Thus, the political nature of their performances and their lives distinguished the work of artists and intellectuals like Josephine Baker (1906-1975), Paul Robeson (1898-1976), W.E.B. Du
Bois (1868-1963), Alain Locke (1885-1977), Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960), and
For a demonstration of scholarship detailing the use of music to challenge racial stereotypes, see the classic analysis by Michael Haralambos (1974) in Soul Music The Birth of a Sound in Black America Guthrie P Ramsey Jr (2003) provides a more recent analysis of the same m Race Music Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop For an example of the ways racial politics have been taken up in film, scholarship on blaxploitation films provides a clear entry point into these debates See Isaac Juhen's (2002) film BaadAssss Cinema A Bold Look at 70s Blaxploitation Films for a history of the genre as well as interviews with actors, directors, and filmmakers withm the genre Scholarship examining the Harlem Renaissance also discusses the engagement with race politics by musicians and stage actors See what has become known as the core text of the movement by Alam Locke (1925/1992) The New Negro Voices of the Harlem Renaissance as well as a more recent analysis of the Harlem Renaissance by Cary D Wmtz (2007a), Harlem Speaks A Living Histoiy of the Harlem Renaissance 64 Langston Hughes (1902-1967) from others of the same period (Finkelman, 2007; Gaines,
2007; Nadell, 2007; Tekinay, 2007).
Scholarship that examines performances by Black comedians uses similar categorizations, with comedy scholars separating Black comedians who incorporate critically astute discussions about race into their comedy from the rest of the comedic community (Haggins, 2007; Sutherland, 2008; Watkins, 1994, 2002). Black comedians like Richard Pryor, Chris Rock, Dick Gregory, and Dave Chappelle who have been able to appeal to mainstream (White) audiences have each been lauded for their artistic prowess, but it is the fact that they have been able to creatively challenge the racial assumptions of their spectators without ostracizing the (White) audience members that has gained them entry into the realm of comedic "high art." Paradoxically, many comedians who achieve such success (e.g., Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle) have either claimed at some point in their career that their comedy is not to be considered political, or have had their work de-politicized by critics and reporters, a point that was taken up in Chapter 2 (Nachman, 2003). For example, Richard Zoglin (2008) argues that
Richard Pryor resisted efforts to have his race-based comedy linked to Black political movements of the 1970s as he rose to fame (Zoglin, 2008). Pryor, however, discusses the creation of his comedic personae in very racially charged and overtly political terms through his infamous alter-ego Mudbone stating that, "I told him comedy - real comedy
- wasn't only tellin' jokes. It was about telling the truth. Talking about life. Makin' light of the hard times. [...] The truth is gonna be funny, but it's gonna scare the shit outta folks" (Pryor & Gold, 1995, p. 6). Delving further into the development of his successful
65 career in comedy, he explicitly contextualizes his rise to fame within the reality of what it means to be Black in America:
I saw myself as a victim of the system, an outsider for whom justice was
out of reach, a dream, and then I saw how closely my situation mirrored
the black man's larger struggle for dignity and equality and justice in
white society. [...] I couldn't explain the transformation taking place. I
don't understand it myself. I only know my days of pretending to be as
slick and colourless as Cosby were numbered. (Pryor & Gold, 1995, p. 92-
93)
Pryor's style involves the creation of highly politicized, and, more specifically, racially charged comedy routines, bringing to the stage "the Black man's struggle in a White world." Recognizing that he could "stir up more shit on stage than in a revolution," Pryor became "uncompromisingly Black" by the late 60s and early-70s (Pryor & Gold, 1995, p.
117). To depoliticize Pryor's comedy, then, would be to disregard not only what he hoped his comedy could accomplish, but also to ignore the insurmountable influence he had on a generation of race comics who developed their abilities to write and perform politically savvy race-based comedy on public stages.
Like Richard Pryor, Flip Wilson's career is described as both apolitical and politically charged. In Meghan Sutherland's (2008) analysis of the 1970s Flip Wilson
Show, she suggests that in spite of Wilson being "the first black performer to draw the national audience necessary to attain a top-ranking spot in the Nielson rations - and the first black comedian to do so as a star of his own television show" (Sutherland, 2008, p.
66 xvii), it was his indecisive attitude towards racial politics and his decision to distance himself from overt social satire that defined his comedic aesthetic (Sutherland, 2008).
Sutherland (2008) explains, "... combined with Wilson's distinctly 'ethnic' expressions and characters, a calculated ambivalence between putting on a race-show and showing up racially-political injustice defines the program's aesthetic even more fundamentally"
(Sutherland, 2008, p. xviii). By calling attention to the "ambivalence" of Wilson's comedy, Sutherland (2008) argues, like popular culture scholar Herman Gray (2004), that comedy is potentially both political and apolitical, depending entirely on how the audience opts to read and interpret the comedic performance (Gray, 2004; Sutherland,
2008; Zoglin, 2008). In tension with this reading, Sutherland (2008) points out that The
Flip Wilson Show was understood by Wilson as being a useful pedagogical tool because its presence on network television suggested to audiences that integration was not as problematic as it seemed:
In a chilling reference to the dangers he faced breaking the popular
barriers he did, he acknowledges in the [1972 Penthouse] interview, "My
original aim was just security. Today I think it has to be a little more than
that. Without upsetting anybody, I think I can just stimulate the interest of
people in each other." At the same time, then, Wilson's response also
testifies powerfully to his own belief in the pedagogical dimension of the
show's ambivalence. (Sutherland, 2008, p. 21)
Wilson challenged supporters of racial segregation by including a racially diverse cast on the program, thereby publicly exemplifying the possibility of having racial harmony
67 through integration in America (Sutherland, 2008). In spite of this, Sutherland stresses that Wilson hesitated to use his comedic stage as a political platform to promote a particular vision of American race relations, using quotes from Wilson like "the funny had no colour" to emphasize her point. She contrasted this approach to comedy to what she describes as a more politically charged comedic style presented by Dick Gregory ( p.
24).
Like Wilson, however, Gregory's comedy garnered paradoxical interpretations of being both racially charged (Mooney, 2009; Watkins, 2002;) and apolitical (Nachman,
2003). For example, Gerald Nachman (2003) writes that Gregory excelled because of his ability to keep his race consciousness and comedic worlds separate, a point that was mentioned in Chapter 2 of the dissertation (Nachman, 2003). Nachman's position stands in stark contrast to comedy scholars examining the history of Black comedy. For example, in the work of Mel Waktins (2002) and Darryl Littleton (2006) Gregory's comedy is consistently recognized and praised for its political content. More specifically, it is his overt discussions of race and racism in America within his comedy that exemplify his comedic prowess (Littleton, 2006; Richard Pryor & Gold, 1995; Watkins,
2002; Zoglin, 2008).30
In a performance at Carolines On Broadway in New York City on November 8 and 9, 2008, Gregory showed audience members a photograph of himself sitting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr just weeks before Dr King's assassination Gregory then explained that he was very close to Dr. King and that he continued to support his racial politics. He repeated again and again that Black people should not let White America validate them, that it was ludicrous that Black people allow Black entertainers and athletes to represent "authentic Blackness" in spite of their socio-economic disconnect from "real" Black communities, and that Black people need to take pride in who they are as Black people
68 In response to these paradoxical efforts to depoliticize socially conscious race- based comedy, scholars like Katrina Bell-Jordan (2007), Bambi Haggins (2007), and Cris
Mayo (2008) describe the comedy of select Black comedians as deploying a strategic anti-racist pedagogy. For instance, Haggins (2007), describing her work in the introduction of Laughing Mad: The Black Comic Persona in Post-soul America, explains that she is "offering detailed analysis of different personae (in their movement across mediums) and the varying ideological and pedagogical imperatives in their comedic discourse..." (p. 2). By labeling the performance of Black comedians "pedagogy," she approaches her analysis in a manner that acknowledges the political complexity of Black comedic performances, thereby resisting traditional paradigms that depoliticize the development of a Black comedian's personae. Moreover, as she plants her analysis of comedians like Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Whoopi Goldberg, and Dave Chappelle within the socio-political realities of what she refers to as "post-soul America,"31 she shares numerous examples of how Black comedians make their audiences laugh as they provide significant critiques of continued racial inequalities in North America (Haggins,
2007, p. 13). Taking seriously the way(s) in which Black comedians contemplate and interpret contemporary racist ideologies, Haggins provides the groundwork for thinking about race comedy as anti-racist pedagogy.
Mayo (2008) also describes her analysis of Black humour as an examination of the
"pedagogical implications" of the social criticisms presented by Black anti-racist performance artists, who make intentional use of humour to initiate critical engagement
31Haggms defines "post-soul" as the time period after Black power movements in America, acknowledging that this term was coined by cultural critic Nelson George (Haggins, 2007, p 4). 69 with social justice issues. She argues that Black cultural practices, and, consequently, the humour that develops in Black communities, suggests a novel approach to social justice work in the classroom: "[H]umor's meta- and indirect pedagogies can communicate a critique of white dominance, chip away at white certainty, and build oppositional community that lives in and argues through contingency" (Mayo, 2008, p. 244). Like
Haggins (2007), Mayo (2008) recognizes the effectiveness of humour when used as a vehicle for social critique, emphasizing in her analysis that the Black comedic performances she examines (i.e. Black queer drag and camp, a White-authored parody of an anti-racist website entitled "Black People Love Us", and a Black-authored reparations website by Damali Ayo entitled "How to Rent a Negro") intentionally engage with social justice issues. This politicized reading of performances by Black comedians is missing from discussions that explain away political significance that might be attributable to a comedian's incorporation of race and racism in his comedy. Thus, when Bell-Jordan
(2007), for example, theorizes that Dave Chappelle's comedy should be considered as a
"a system of learning, storing and transmitting knowledge" (p. 77), she, like Haggins
(2007) and Mayo (2008) turns away from traditional interpretations of Black comedic work as mere entertainment, highlighting instead the possible benefits to furthering an understanding of contemporary racism that arise through a more serious examination of comedy. Within these thought-provoking explorations, idiosyncrasies of the comedian's race politics can be unpacked and used to initiate interesting dialogues not simply about the comedy, but also about the racial discourses that structure the social world.
It is this kind of pedagogical reading of particular Black comedian's texts that
70 allows for a distinction to be made between the work of race comics and the comedy of other Black comedians. But what is meant in this case by "pedagogical"? I argue here that what separates race comics from other comedians is their critical look at racial discourses. By this I mean to do more that merely invoke a benign reading of "pedagogy"
(i.e., pedagogy defined as "of or relating to teaching"). Instead my use of the term is meant to imply a critical pedagogical position - one that presumes that the pedagogue challenges their students (or, in the case of race comics, their audiences), taking them to a place of discomfort as described by Megan Boler and Michalinos Zembylas (2003) in
Discomforting Truths: The Emotional Terrain of Understanding Difference (Boler &
Zembylas, 2003). In this work Boler and Zembylas (2003) describe the need to recognize our complicity in hegemonic inequities by taking the time to question normalized assumption. As described by Elizabeth de Freitas and Alexander McAuley (2008) who utilize Boler and Zembylas (2003) to challenge pre-service teachers, "a pedagogy of discomfort aims to open possibilities for a more incomplete and ambiguous teacher identity that embraces difference as a source of creativity" (de Freitas & McAuley, 2008, p. 430). Likewise, Black comedians use their comedy to make visible the hegemonic racial ideologies society has normalized, bringing tensions and paradoxical social conventions to the attention of audiences. This "pedagogy of discomfort," then, not only helps to support a political rendering of a race comic's performance, developed with a clear aim to challenge a racist social system, but also makes explicit the connection between comedy by comedians like Dick Gregory or Dave Chappelle and the ongoing anti-racist work within the field of education (Haggins, 2007; Mayo, 2008; McNair,
71 2007; Means Coleman, 2000).
Before demonstrating, as I do in Chapter 5, that the work of race comics can be used to initiate discussions of racial injustice in educational environments including, but not limited to, pre-service classrooms, the following section sets out how a race comic approaches their discussions of race. I begin by making use of Gloria Ladson-Billings'
(1995) notion of culturally relevant pedagogy as one way of conceptualizing the effective pedagogical aspects of race comedy, and argue that a race comic engages with American race politics in ways similar to ARE scholars. This analysis of race comedy will be used to frame my definition of ARE pedagogy and race comics throughout the remainder of the dissertation.
Section 2: Race Comedy and the ARE Agenda
While there are no strict definitions of ARE (Dei, 1996a; Taylor et al., 2009), there are key ideas that help to connect work in the area. For instance, ARE theorists agree that (1) racism is a mundane social reality; (2) recognize that black interests are upheld insofar as they converge with white interests; (3) stress the crucial need to understand the continued effect of European colonialism on racial "others;" and (4) use oppressed peoples' narrative as authoritative texts rather than the "objective" opinions of White bodies (Bell,
2009; Bell Jr., 2009; Delgado, 2009; Taylor, et al., 2009). Gloria Ladson-Billings' (1995) early discussions of "culturally relevant pedagogy" serve as a prime example of a
(singular) theoretical development within this field. Describing her three-year study of eight American teachers who were labeled "exceptional educators" by parents,
72 administrators, and community members, Ladson-Billings (1995) challenged educational reform models that promoted what she argued was a superficial inclusion of cultural
differences, contending that they inadvertently required students to temper their
differences in order to become successful in school. Ladson-Billings explains:
These studies suggest that student 'success' is represented in achievement
within the current social structures extant in schools. Thus, the goal of
education becomes how to 'fit' students constructed as 'other' by virtue of
their race/ ethnicity, language, or social class into a hierarchical structure
that is defined as a meritocracy. However, it is unclear how these
conceptions do more than reproduce the current inequities. (Ladson-
Billings, 1995, p. 467)
Her primary concern was that this traditional approach to helping "other" students fit into the socially unjust educational system did nothing to promote the development of pedagogies that challenge and change school environments. Consequently, she demonstrated that these same differences could be harnessed in ways that instilled
cultural pride in students through critical analysis of the mainstream system, while encouraging students to recognize that they could be equally successful while harnessing their cultural skills. This approach was comprised of 3 elements: (1) promoting student achievement; (2) supporting the development of cultural competence; and (3) developing the ability to critique cultural norms (Ladson-Billings, 1995). With successful teachers incorporating these three elements into their pedagogies, administrators, educators, and
73 parents recognized that "different" students were better able to negotiate the inequitable school system because of the emphasis on more culturally relevant teaching practices.
Although it would be problematic to claim that race comics incorporate an identical tripartite approach to culturally relevant pedagogy, I would argue that it is possible to tease out key elements in race comedy. The success of a Black race comic lies in his ability to make use of issues relevant to the marginalized populations for whom he directs his comedic material and critical socio-cultural analysis. For race comics to educate audiences about contemporary racial ideologies that continue to support race- based social inequities, they too rely upon three key elements that set their comedy apart from that of other Black comedians: (1) assuming the audience's intelligence; (2) normalizing blackness; and (3) making racism visible. By drawing upon each of these techniques, a race comic summons a critical vision of pedagogy as defined earlier in this chapter - one that moves beyond a superficial lesson about race and towards a more complicated, uncomfortable, and difficult reading of contemporary racial discourses.
Assuming the Intelligence of Audiences
As mentioned in the literature review of Chapter 2, Joseph Boskin (1997b) and Peter
Kivy (2003) discuss the role of insider status and humour. Both theorists state clearly that comedians assume their audiences to be intelligent enough to recognize what connects them as "insiders." Kivy describes this occurrence as follows:
The joke, then, when it works, when we get it, reminds us that we are we:
that we are a group, a community. What community? Well, obviously,
74 whatever community has fulfilled the conditions presupposed by the joke.
And that community might be ethnic, national, professional, cultural,
religious, whatever. But it would be a group within the human family, and,
for that moment isolated from it. (Kivy, 2003, p. 6)
The same holds true for race comics. When a race comic uses humour to re-focus
audience attention on contemporary instances of racism, the performance is premised
upon the assumption that the audience's insider status will result in a common
interpretation of events. This suggests that the audience's ability to "get" the joke is the beginning step to making visible how racial politics oppresses some while empowering
others. Based upon this, I maintain that a race comic assumes that their audience is adept
enough to understand the nature of their race-based oppression. The race comic's positioning of his audience as "insiders" to the joke, then, does more than simply create a moment of shared laughter. More importantly, the race comic validates their audience's
intelligence by assuring them that the reason they are laughing - even when they giggle nervously - is because they understand both the joke and the socio-political realities that underlie the joke in question. This is apparent when race comics talk about White and
Black relations or when they discuss normalized racial assumptions of Blackness within
Black communities. Race comic Chris Rock provides an excellent example of this phenomenon in his 1996 comedy special Bring the Pain (Rotenberg, 1996) and, more specifically, in his infamous sketch "Blacks."
75 In "Blacks," Rock introduces what he calls the "civil war" among Black Americans
- a war he describes as being between "Black people" and "Niggers." Speaking directly to his audience, he explains:
Every time Black people want to have a good time, ignant'-ass niggers
fuck it up! You can't do shit without some ignant' ass niggers fuckin' it
up! [...] Hey, I love Black people, but boy I hate niggers. (Rotenberg,
1996)
With his comedic set-up in place, Rock then launches into a detailed description of what distinguishes "Black people" and "Niggers," his argument being that "Niggers" consistently try to be praised for things that "a regular man" knows he must do.32
Through the provision of various examples of differing perceptions of how a man would act if they were a "Nigger" and if they were a "Black man," Rock gives an account that distinguishes between the two warring factions (for example, by stating that the "Nigger" will say he takes care of his children, whereas "a regular man" knows that this is what he is supposed to do once he becomes a father). In order for the joke to be well-received,
Rock presupposes that the audience is able to understand (a) what distinguishes good and
32 Although it is important to consider the racial composition of the audience members at the comedy performances being outlined above, this goes beyond the scope of my doctoral work at this time To this end, however, it is interesting to note that while Chris Rock's successful HBO special Bring the Pain was taped in 1996 at the Takoma Theatre in Washington, D C (this special is said to have established Rock as both a comedian and entertainer after numerous roles in film, television, talk shows, and the comedy club circuit), he made an explicit decision to do his second comedy special, Bigger and Blacker, at the Appollo Theatre in New York City specifically to ensure that he had a Black(er) audience (Iton, 2008, p 177) Rock further explains that the "Nigger" is proud of never having been incarcerated, using this as another example of the difference between them and a "Black man " Rock emphasizes this distinction by exclaiming: "What do you want7 A cookie? You're not supposed to go to jail low-expectation-having- mother-fucker'" (Rotenberg, 1996)
76 bad behaviour, and (b) that the actions of the "Nigger" represent bad behaviour. With these two assumptions in place, Rock leads his audience through an analysis, however brief, of the stereotypical assumptions about Black bodies that have resulted in particular behaviours being associated with the term "Nigger." Moreover, by proposing that Black people can also bring the behaviour of other Black people into question, Rock illuminates how he sees himself and his "insider" audience members - as a group of intelligent Black people who challenge and, to some degree, transcend, Black racial stereotypes. Rock not only proposes that he is much too intelligent to be dismissed as just another "Nigger," but he also implies that the same is true for his audience who are intelligent enough to take part in this discussion alongside him.34
Like Rock, race comic Dave Chappelle assumes his audience to be comprised of knowledgeable insiders to the jokes being performed. That his audience does, in fact, consist of many insightful comedy lovers was revealed when comedians Charlie Murphy and Donnell Rawlings mediated a live studio audience conversation about the role of comedy in contemporary America in the 2006 release of the controversial DVD The Lost
Episodes. What made this broadcast problematic was that it featured the final skits performed by Chappelle before he walked away from a fifty-million-dollar contract with
34 As was discussed in Chapter 2 when Angelo J Corlett's (2005) "For All My Niggaz and Bitches" Ethics and Epithets was examined (see subsection Reading Humour in Philosophy), the invocation of the word "Nigger" in comedy is worthy of closer analysis Although some attention has been and will continue to be paid to the use of this word throughout the dissertation, future work will include exploring the roots and routes of controversial vocabulary such as this and the implications and possibilities of language choice to ARE At this time, and in light of the focus of the work set out m the dissertation, it is sufficient to recognize that the use of the word "Nigger" or any of its contemporary permutations (e.g , "Nigga," "Niggaz" etc) help race comics transgress social language norms while simultaneously supporting the more critical pedagogical approach to comedy I argue for within this chapter through their evocative and (for some) uncomfortable language
77 Comedy Central - skits that prompted him to publicly contemplate whether or not his comedy challenged or supported racist ideologies What is important about this segment is not the comedic performance by Chappelle, but rather the conversation that developed among his audience members as they were invited by Murphy and Rawlings to participate m a cntical discussion that explored the effects of comedy like Chappelle's on the larger Black community This public discourse presented commentary from many critically astute audience members who took advantage of this opportunity to examine the role comedy and comedic performances can and should play in society as well as consider whether or not the topic of race within comedy negatively or positively impacted multi-racial social interactions (Central, 2006) For example, audience members provided the following commentary
he's done his research And if he touches you to the point where you
think about it, I think the mission is done (Central, 2006)
You see a movie like Crash, and that's like really preachy, I feel But then
you see a sketch like this, and it gets people talking and laughing, so as long
as we're thinking about it, it's a good thing (Central, 2006)
The inclusion of audience comments like these on a DVD that would ultimately reach millions of viewers, I surmise, encourages viewers at home to engage in critical dialogues about the same, using the hve-to-air discussions from the audience as the starting point for their own contemplations
35 This, and the controversial sketches referred to here will be discussed m Chapter 4 36 Some of the audience comments will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4
78 Normalizing Blackness
In the words of Virginia Lea and Erma Jean Sims (2008), race comics are
"educulturalists" - they use the art of comedy as a means of "[facilitating] the unlocking of our unconscious minds, to interrupt the often ethnocentric, racist, classist, and sexist assumptions that lie sealed in that space. Through art, we are given insight and voice"
(Lea & Sims, 2008, p. 18). Race comics provide controversial insights into how racism continues to permeate society, normalizing for audiences a perspective on reality that is overlooked, devalued, and silenced. Pryor's comedy also serves as an excellent example of articulating these experiences, sharing them with audiences in a way that makes these
"alternative" perspectives the norm. For instance, being surrounded by "hustlers, pimps,
Johns, and prostitutes" (Watkins, 2002, p. 293), Pryor was able to use his atypical upbringing ("atypical" in that it was not the usual upbringing of someone who would later rise to fame), combined with his unapologetic and public acknowledgement of drug abuse and womanizing to show a particularly "real" aspect of Black life to North
American audiences (Pryor & Gold, 1995, p. 24).37 Mel Watkins (2002) explains that,
"Much of Pryor's humor issued from the stark contrast of the more uninhibited, early, behavior of the black lower-middle class with the tightly restrained and sometimes fatuous conduct of the white middle class" (Watkins, 2002, p. 297). Although discussions
This is not to imply that Pryor's upbringing is indicative of all Black experiences in America - many Black families have little experience with the "hustlers, pimps, Johns and prostitutes" that Pryor interacted with during his lifetime. However, the voices of these marginalized Americans, prior to his rise to fame, were rarely, if ever, incorporated into comedy routines, thereby perpetuating a silencing of their stories in public domains It was this that Pryor championed during his career—devoting his comedic storytelling to letting their voices be heard.
79 of race and American racism were often the focus of Pryor's sketches (take his piece
entitled The Bicentennial Nigger, for example, in which he reflects upon the paradoxical
celebration of America's bicentennial anniversary by Black people through the
performance of a monologue by a 200-year-old Black man), one of Pryor's most notable
contributions to race comedy resides in his ability to normalize the experiences of many
middle to lower-class Blacks in America In so doing, Pryor spoke candidly about the
"foibles of black life" (Watkins, 2002, p 298), explaining in his autobiography that
What I'm saying might be profane [ ] But it's also profound [ ] My
belief in myself was unwavering My job, as I saw it, was to throw light
where there had been only darkness I was John Wayne, taking up the
fight for freedom and justice " (Pryor & Gold, 1995, p 142)
Pryor's inspiration came from his life in Peoria, Illinois, and his comedic stones reflected the expenences of alcoholics, prostitutes, and the poor who populated this community
These were "real" people, and their problems were "real" problems, all of which Pryor understood because he, too, lived this reality I contend that Pryor challenged attempts to
ignore how race shaped the lives of the impoverished, making their perspectives on life
an example of a "normal" American life His comedic storytelling was informed by this
counter-narrative and, in the words of Ladson-Billings (2009c), became the "vehicle for
speaking against racism and other forms of inequity [raising] fundamental challenges to the cultural script we have been asked to accept" (Ladson-Billings, 2009c)
38 Pryor writes, "As a comedian, I couldn't have asked for better material My eyes and ears absorbed everything People came in to exchange news, blow steam, or have their say Everybody had an opinion about something Even if they didn't know shit about sports, politics, women, the war In fact, the less people knew, the louder they got " (Pryor & Gold, 1995, p 24) 80 Like Pryor, race comics also assume Black experiences to be "the norm," using
their comedy to challenge hegemonic racial discourses. Ultimately, by sanctioning
"Black" interpretations of life experiences, race comics draw attention to the racist acts
that Black people encounter on a daily basis. Though the Black perspective of the stories
told via comedic performances are highly unpredictable, race comics are able to both
demonstrate their own cultural competence and simultaneously support the development
of the same in their audiences. I submit that "getting the joke" means giving voice to
social injustices that form the basis of the lived realities of Black people and their
communities. Like an ARE scholar, the race comic uses his comedy to remind his
audience that racism continues to permeate the social structures of everyday life, and, by
walking audiences through their public analysis of how racism continues to frame what a
person is allowed and not allowed to do, the race comic helps audiences develop their
cultural competence. The ways in which race comics present the marginalized perspective on life is demonstrated by Paul Mooney's (1993) commentary in his audio recording, Race. In the following excerpt, Mooney discusses the ease with which it is believed that Black people are commonly involved in illegal activities:
Didn't some White man in Boston shoot his pregnant wife? And then shot
himself, trying, "Oh, niggers did it!" Always tryin' blame some niggers.
And they believed the shit! To the brother, couldn't take it or somefhin'
and he could... he jumped off a fuckin' bridge, right? Then they told.
Ain't that a bitch? Always tryin' to blame a goddamn nigger. That's why
I'm ... I'm gonna... I'm gonna start a ... a... anew... add: 1-900-Blame-
81 a-Nigger. [Rising audience laughter]. No! So when White folks get in
trouble, just call my agency.
[Mooney Sobbing]
"Blame-a-Nigger? I just pushed my mother down the stairs. I don't wanna
go to jail. Send a nigger over here!!"
"Alright, I got one on parole, I'll send him right over Ma'am."
[Mooney laughing with audience]
"Hello Blame-a-Nigger? I just ran my car into a tree - my whole family's
dead! I don't want to be blamed. Get a nigger! Get a nigger!"
[Mooney laughing with audience]
"Yeah, we got one here with a bad driving record. I'll send him right
over."
"Oh thank you! Thank you! God bless you Blame-a-Nigger!" (Mooney,
1993)
Here, Mooney (1993) provides his audience with examples of the role Black people continue to play in American society - that of culprit or scapegoat. Though the necessity of a "1-900-Blame-a-Nigger" hotline appears, at first glance, to be an absurd proposition, his use of a real example in which a Black person was falsely accused by a White person for a crime h/she did not commit - pointing out that people are "always tryin' to blame a
Nigger" - provides a persuasive rationale for his "solution" to the continued scapegoating of Black people by Whites. The creation of a hotline would ensure that the "Nigger" who is sent to the scene of the crime is aware of what h/she will be blamed for, and leaves the 82 audience assuming that the "Nigger" has agreed to act as the scapegoat in such instances.
Moreover, Mooney's hotline would decrease the unfortunate occunences in which the
"Nigger" being blamed becomes overwhelmed by the false accusation and/ or - like the
Black male used to contextualize the joke - commits suicide. Taken as a whole,
Mooney's "solution" would provides a means for dealing with the condemnation of innocent Black people in a way that treats the consequences of such false accusations with great seriousness. While on the surface it may appear that the hotline would only serve the needs of White Americans, further reflection reveals that Black interests are addressed by first acknowledging that this type of behaviour continues to affect Black
Americans, and since White Americans continue to blame Black people for their illegal
on behaviour, the best course of action is to prepare for this unfortunate social role.
Making Racism Visible
As explained above, race comics need to create Black "insiders" of their audience members in order to normalize their experiences through comedic storytelling. This also
A number of cases similar to the one presented by Mooney to contextualize his comedic performance exist - a point that adds to the significance of the joke. For example, on August 30th, 2010 Bethany Storro alleged that an unidentified Black woman threw acid m her face As media attention increased, Storro received monetary gams from fundraismg initiatives to help her as she healed from the severe burns She later recanted her story and admitted that she threw acid in her own face in an attempt to commit suicide (See http.//www cbsnews com/8301-504083 162-20017099-504083 html for more details ) In April 2010, Philadelphia Police Officer Robert Ralston intentionally shot himself, claiming that an unidentified Black man was the primary suspect. After his accusations were proven to be fabricated, he was suspended for 30 days and made to pay back the funds used to deploy a massive manhunt for the fictional suspect (See http//blackpohticalthought blogspot com/2010/05/sgt-robert- ralston-shot-himself-and html for more details). In 1995, Susan Smith alleged that a Black man stole her car with her children still inside, and drove the car into the river where her children drowned It was later proven that she had in fact drowned her own children and the manhunt for a Black assailant was wholly based on lies (See http //www thegno com/slideshow/blame-it-on-black-mfamous-racial-cnme- hoaxes.php for more details and other examples of such cases in America ) 83 provides them with an opportunity to illustrate for their audiences how racism organizes the contemporary world. To do this, they often share humorous nanatives based upon their personal encounters with racism, making racist discourses visible for their audiences. This technique allows the comedian to "prove" that racism is still a fundamental aspect of the day-to-day structuring of society and can be a useful tool for supporting the development of their audience's sociopolitical perspective. This can be demonstrated by the skillful works of Richard Pryor and Chris Rock who use their everyday experiences to emphasize that racism continues to influence how the social world is organized.
In The Richard Pryor Show (1977), Pryor performs various sketches that emphasize how racist thinking in the entertainment industry devalues Black artists, rendering them as nameless bodies useful only for entertainment purposes.40 One such example is his sketch entitled Staying Three Ahead. The performance opens with Pryor walking behind stage dressed in a crisp black suit with a yellow rose in his lapel ready to begin his comedy special. Confronting a Black man, Booster Johnson, in the midst of stealing various props from the studio, Pryor and Johnson are quickly approached by a White security guard from the television network:
[Guard] "What's going on here? Who are you?"
[Pryor] "Me?" [Pryor pointing to himself]
[Guard] "Yeah."
40 The Richard Pryor Show which was originally envisioned to be a 10 episode series was later turned into a television special after Pryor decided that he would not be willing to abide by the constrictive requests by television executives that demanded that he tone down the racially-charged social commentary embedded in program (Pryor & Gold, 1995, pp 153-155) 84 [Pryor] "Ahh... I'm Richard Pryor. I'm here doing a special."
[Guard] "Pryor? I don't believe we have any Black people here this
week." [Reaching into his back pocket, he pulls out a small Black
notebook]
[Pryor] "You've got two in front of you..." [Pryor, under his breath]
[Guard] "Let me look in my black book... Let's see, there's Ribb, Flip,
Snappy, Nipsey, Bill Crosby, Sidney Porter you're not Sidney, are you?
Nah... Pryor! Yeah - Roger Pryor." [Puts black book away]
{The Richard Pryor Show: TV Special, 1977)
When the White security guard reads from his "black book," the names of some of the most infamous Black artists are completely distorted. The erroneous recording and reading of their names by a White security guard indicates a lack of care for those included on the list. This is emphasized by the name of the star of the program - Richard
Pryor - being recited as "Roger Pryor." Though it may be argued that the White security guard's list of Black comedians is merely an example of an innocent transcription error, I contend that underlying such "innocent" ereors are more intentional indicators of racist ideologies that point to a blatant disregard for the success and accomplishments of Black artists. The re-naming of the "acceptable" Black entertainment stars by the security guard can also be considered a reference by Pryor to the re-naming of slaves during American slavery - an overt act by White Americans that has been historically recorded in films like Roots where a young Kunta Kinte (played by LeVar Burton) is being whipped by his
41 With the veritable names of the Black entertainers referred to in the sketch are Redd Foxx, Flip Wilson, Slappy White, Nipsey Russell, Bill Cosby, Sidney Portier, and Richard Pryor respectively. 85 master for refusing to answer to the slave name "Toby" (Woolfork, 2009). Pryor's sketch reveals his awareness that the real identity of Black bodies continues to be rendered insignificant, a point that he is able to accentuate by positioning himself within the skit as both the star of his own 1977 television program while at the peak of his comedic career and as "just another Black person given permission to visit the network." Pryor's example of the racist ideologies that arise "behind-the-scenes" of television programming has been confirmed by other Black comedians who followed him, with many incorporating other daily experiences of racism in their standup comedy routines (see, for example, Dave Chappelle's December 29, 2004 interview on 60 Minutes where he also
4.9 discusses examples of racism within network television). The comedy of Chris Rock also serves as a profound example of this.
Like Pryor, Chris Rock demonstrates a race comic's ability to acknowledge and reflect upon continued racial inequalities in American society. More specifically, in his
2008 HBO comedy tour Kill the Messenger (Callner, 2008), Rock explains to his audience that in spite of his material wealth, he is still forced to negotiate the racist structuring of society like all other Black Americans:
And race is the big issue. The biggest issue in the world right now: Race.
It's a big thing, man. Racism - all over the world. It will never die. It will
never die - it will only multiply, baby. Racism. All over the world. Even
in my life, there's some racism. People go, "Really?" Yeah, yeah. Yes, in
my life. I'll... I'll give you an example of how race affects my life, okay? 4-The 60 Minutes interview is available online at: http://www.cbsnews com/stones/2004/10/19/60II/mam650149 shtml. 86 I live in a place called Alpine, New Jersey. I live in Alpine, New Jersey,
right? My house costs millions of dollars. [Rising audience applause]
Don't hate the player - hate the game. [Audience erupt with applause]
In my neighbourhood, there are four Black people. Hundreds of houses —
four Black people. Who are these Black people? Well, me, Mary J. Blige,
Jay-Z, and Eddie Murphy. Only Black people in the whole neighbourhood.
So... so, let's break it down. Me? I'm a decent comedian, I'm alright.
Mary J. Blige... Mary J. Blige—one of the greatest R & B singers to ever
walk the earth. Jay Z —one of the greatest rappers to ever live. Eddie
Murphy - one of the funniest actors to ever, ever do it.
Do you know what the White man that lives next door to me does for a
living? He's a fuckin' dentist. [Audience laughter]
He ain't the best dentist in the world. He ain't going to the dental hall of
fame. He don't get plaques for getting' rid of plaque. He's just a yank-'yo-
tooth-out dentist. See, the Black man's gotta' fly, to get somethin' that the
White man can walk to. [Audience erupts with laughter and applause]
(Chris Rock, Kill the Messenger, 2008)
The joke transcribed above serves as a reminder to the audience of how little changes as
Black artists attain higher levels of economic success. Naming the only four gifted Black
87 artists that live in his neighbourhood and contrasting their career choices and accomplishments with his White neighbour—the "yank-'yo-tooth-out" dentist —Rock helps his audience recognize the nature of the discrepancies that exist for Black and
White citizens, laying bare the constraints against which Black people find themselves even as they become wealthier. Rock's analysis implies that simply believing that working hard within the system to achieve the material goods required to expand on
American housing possibilities is unwananted in light of his own experiences as a wealthy comedic actor. Taking this analysis a step further, Rock's discussion of who can afford to live in his community serves to both acknowledge and make visible the structural racism that permeates the society. Although it may be impossible to explain why a White dentist makes as much as one of today's highest earning Black comedians, that this is, in fact, the case indicates that Black people must question claims that
America has "risen above racial inequities." By showing how much harder Black people are forced to work to access even a fraction of the material wealth a White person with a
"regular" profession can attain, Rock makes visible for his audience the extent to which racism continues to determine where African Americans can and cannot afford to live. I contend that Rock, like other race comics, provides his audience with a useful lesson on race politics in the 21st century: racism structures and organizes the lives of Black people, limiting their achievement.
Conclusion
Through this brief analysis of scholarship aimed at de-politicize the comedy of Black
88 comedians like Richard Pryor and Dick Gregory, I began this chapter by offering a distinction between what might be termed "high comedy" and "mainstream comedy."
Drawing upon the work of comedy scholars like Cris Mayo (2008) and Bambi Haggins
(2007), among others, who described the performances of select Black comedians as pedagogical in nature, I argued that the pedagogical framework used to interpret the comedy they examined was a useful lens through which to distinguish race comics from other Black comedians. This was followed by a brief analysis of Gloria Ladson-Billings'
(1995) notion of culturally relevant teaching because of its challenge to traditional pedagogical practices in schools and her desire to create a space for pedagogies that challenged and changed educational environments. By turning the presumably negative characteristics of "other" students into strengths, Ladson-Billings (1995) created uncomfortable spaces in which to learn - spaces that promoted critiques of the hegemonic culture in which "other" students lived and learned, while consequently encouraging a sense of pride in their "otherness." The explicit connection I then made between Ladson-Billings (1995) work and my analysis of race comics is that race comics also promote self-respect for their racial "otherness," using it to challenge traditional understandings of the social world. Doing so in ways that are similar in kind to ARE scholars like Ladson-Billings (1995), I argued that race comedy includes the following elements: (1) Assuming the audience's intelligence; (2) Normalizing Blackness; and (3)
Making Racism Visible. To flesh out each of these aspects of race comedy, I made use of various perfomiances in the genres of standup and sketch comedy by race comics. The implication of this critical look at how race comedy is developed is that race comedy can
89 be envisioned as another critical pedagogical approach to ARE, one that I argue in
Chapter 5 can be applied in a classroom setting. The next chapter will delve more deeply into the performances of Dave Chappelle in order to flesh out the comedic/ pedagogical techniques of a race comic in greater detail, while demonstrating the benefits of his casual, yet subversive, ARE method.
90 Chapter 4: A Race Comic's Approach
This chapter provides a close reading of Dave Chappelle's comedy in order to illustrate the casual, yet transgressive approach to ARE pedagogy as used by race comics. I begin by examining interviews of the comic between 2005 and 2006, which suggest that comedians who discuss race and racism in their comedy must present their comedic performances in "socially responsible" ways. This approach to including race within their comedy ensures that they challenge, rather than support, racist ideologies, and demonstrates their acute awareness of the impact their work can have on public discourses of race. I then provide a close examination of examples from Chappelle's sketch and standup comedy as a means for teasing out the particular techniques used by race comics. This provides an identifiable language via which to now discuss how
Chappelle, along with other race comics, work pedagogically. The focus in Chapter 4 will be on the pedagogical techniques used by race comics, leaving for Chapter 5 of the dissertation an examination of how this affects the learner, where I introduce and analyze the inclusion of this type of comedy in a pre-service classroom.
Section 1: The "Race Comic" Code - Developing Socially Responsible Comedy
The purpose of this section is to detail the importance race comics place on being accountable for their edgy brand of comedy. I use as my starting point the argument forwarded in Chapter 3: that a race comic's work adheres to anti-racist principles and is inherently pedagogical because of its ability to challenge social norms through the creation of uncomfortable moments that open up the possibilities for contemplation and
91 engagement with critical commentaries about contemporary racial discourses (Bell-
Jordan, 2007; Haggins, 2007; Mayo, 2008). Due to the continued popularity of Dave
Chappelle some five-years after his departure from mainstream comedy, I begin with a brief examination of interviews of the comic during the moments leading up to, and following his departure from, Comedy Central's Chappelle's Show (between 2005 and
2006). I argue that his reason for leaving the program was based upon his belief that comedic work that makes use of controversial topics like race must be presented in socially responsible ways. Agreeing that comedians must be held responsible for the comedy they produce, a point that is reinforced by Chappelle's interviews, I contend that it is the notion of accountability that supports the idea that a race comic's performances engage with anti-racist principles. In short, it is this sentiment that provides the space for a comedian to reflect upon his work, gauging whether or not their comedy challenges or supports racial stereotypes that negatively effect Black communities today.
Comedic Accountability
In late April of 2005, comedian Dave Chappelle made one of the most politically charged decisions of his career: to walk away from a fifty-million dollar contract with Comedy
Central, putting a final stop to the taping of his infamous sketch comedy program,
Chappelle's Show. Rumours of uncontrolled substance abuse, a psychiatric hospital stay in South Africa, and his being afflicted by "intense personal issues" were the most often cited reasons for his sudden departure from the program during the taping of the 31 season (Gogan, 2009; Haggins, 2007; Teny, 2006; Wisniewski, 2009). He returned to the
92 United States a few weeks later, and m May 2005, Chappelle was featured in Time, insisting that the primary reason for his departure was not drug abuse or a need to receive psychiatric care - he took flight to South Africa to reflect upon his life and assess the present direction of his career
The first Time article was published on May 14, 2005 and provided details of discussions between Christopher John Farley and Chappelle during the taping of his 31 season, as well as an interview by Farley after Chappelle's return from South Africa
There, Chappelle explained that he was not happy with the direction his show was taking and that he did not like the man he was becoming as he worked on Chappelle's Show 43
The critics, writers, and network executives did not agree, feeling strongly that the comedy being produced by Chappelle was on par with all other sketches wntten, produced, and performed on the program Thinking specifically of Chappelle's incorporation of race in Chappelle's Show, Farley descnbed this in terms that paralleled
Mikhail Bahktin's (1981) arguments for the potential of comedy
The show worked because it talked about what Amenca finds difficult to
talk about race As mixed-race marriages multiply (Chappelle's wife is
Asian) and more kids check "Other" on census forms, the racial
Quoting Chappelle, Farley writes "If you don't have the right people around you, and you're moving at a million miles an hour, you can lose yourself,' he says" The full article can be found at http//chapelle tribe net/thread/f5459a3a-326e-433c-8249-083dl78041ac On May 15, 2005, a second article was published by Time Johannesburg s bureau chief, Simon Robinson who had sat down with Dave Chappelle while he was in South Africa Robinson writes "The picture he [Chappelle] paints is of someone struggling to come to terms with a new position and power who's still figuring out how to come to grips with how people are around him are reacting to the $50 million deal he signed last year with Comedy Central " This article can be found at http //www time com/time/pnntout/0,8816,1061415,00 html#
93 conversation may be getting even more difficult Racial divisions are
becoming more complex, harder to understand, more challenging to
discuss. That's where Chappelle comes in He takes all those hang-ups
about race and lifts them up, spins them around, puts them in our face.
Deal with it. Laugh at it. But don't ignore it.
In spite of such praise, Chappelle explained to Farley that he was concerned that his comedy no longer challenged racial discourses, but rather, supported racist ideologies.
Wanting to demonstrate how Chappelle's ambiguity about whether or not his comedy perpetuated racism m his daily interactions in the studio, Farley turned to a quote from
Chappelle's co-writer Neil Brennan:
[Chappelle] would come with an idea, or I would come with an idea, pitch
it to him, and he'd say that's funny. And from there we'd write it. He'd love
it, say, 'I can't wait to do it.' We'd shoot it, and then at some point he'd start
saying, 'This sketch is racist, and I don't want this on the air.' And I was
like, 'You like this sketch. What do you mean?' There was this confusing
contradictory thing: he was calling his own wntmg racist.45
Chappelle was concerned about racism withm the network and the possibility that he was fully implicated m the continuation of racism through his own use of stereotypical racist imagery in his comedy - these were integral issues to consider for Chappelle as he
44 See Christopher John Farley's interview at http//chapelle tribe net/thread/f5459a3a-326e-433c-8249- 083dl78041ac 5 See Christopher John Farley's interview at http //chapelle tribe net/thread/f5459a3a-326e-433c-8249-083dl78041ac
94 decided whether or not to continue his contract with Comedy Central. Like Richard Pryor
before him, Chappelle began to scrutinize his comedic texts, considering whether or not
he was giving authentic voice to Black experiences with racism in America. Notably,
Chappelle's indecision about whether or not the skits he produced were racist illuminated
his dedication to being held accountable for the types of messages his comedy conveys to
audiences. This sense of responsibility to his political ideologies and racial politics
pushed him to re-evaluate who he was, not only as a comedian but also as a Black man in
America, taking the steps he felt were required to stay true to himself and to his race
politics.46
Following his interview with Farley, Chappelle again expressed his concern about
racism within the network in his first television interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2006.47
There, Chappelle cited, as the initial "tipping point" for his departure from the show,
laughter from a White member of the crew while taping a sketch entitled The Pixies
(Gogan, 2009; Littleton, 2006, p. 312; Terry, 2006). Chappelle described the purpose of
these sketches to Oprah as aiming to make visible the racial complexities that forced
people to avoid particular behaviours because they feared they would authenticate race- based stereotypes. A total of five pixie sketches were taped by Chappelle to represent
When asked if any entertainers had given him advice as he contemplated the next steps of his career, Chappelle responded "Lauryn Hill. She did give me some advice She told me to be truthful at all costs Which is a tall order, but which was really good advice Otherwise you're going to run into one embarrassing situation after another" (http //chapelle tribe net/thread/f5459a3a-326e-433c-8249- 083dl78041ac). Chappelle's interview with Oprah Winfrey aired on February 3r , 2006. Ironically, the common sense definition of "race" - that the word "race" merely represents the colour of one's skm - is also disrupted by The Pixies, as the comedian collapses "racial," "ethnic," and "national" identity withm the sketch. This is made visible during the first televised airing of the skit in front of a live studio audience. Hosted by Charlie Murphy and Donnell Rawlings, two regulars on the program, 95 different racial stereotypes, with the comedian appearing as the "raced" pixie in each. In the first sketch, Chappelle appeared on camera as himself, sitting in first class on an airplane. After being asked by the stewardess whether he would like fish or chicken for his in-flight meal, he responded "Fish, Please." Suddenly, a pixie-sized version of
Chappelle in blackface appeared in front of him. The "Nigger Pixie" (Haggins, 2007, p.
229) reminded Chappelle of Black people's (stereotypical) love of fried chicken, hoping to persuade him to choose a meal that would support the Black stereotype. Chappelle maintained that these inner struggles with "racial complexes" were very funny moments
- moments fully deserving of comedic portrayal. However, Chappelle also acknowledged the difficulty associated with seeing images of people in blackface. What he found more worrisome, however, was what he described as the "disturbing" White laughter. "I know the difference of people laughing with me and people laughing at me. And it was the first time I had ever gotten a laugh that I was uncomfortable with" (Terry, 2006). Considering the sketch to represent "socially inesponsible" comedy, Chappelle re-iterated these sentiments about the White man's laughter for a third time on July 7th, 2006 during an interview with Anderson Cooper.5
Murphy and Rawlings introduced each of the 5 pixie segments using the terms Black, White, Asian, and Spanish. This will be examined in greater detail in Chapter 5 where, during a "Comic Intervention," I introduced the comedy of race comics to a group of pre-service teachers The instability of definitions of "race" alluded to here also permeate the classroom discussions that ensued 49 Chappelle taped a single skit each featuring a Black, Asian, and Latino pixie, as well as 2 skits where he is featured as a White pixie (Central, 2006) Chappelle later explained to Oprah that he chose to have the Black pixie appear in blackface because he believed that blackface's difficult imagery was the "visual personification of the 'N' word" (Terry, 2006). 'Transcripts of Chappelle's interview with Anderson Cooper are available at: http./Ansidecable blogsome com/2006/07/07/dave-chappelle-on-360-tomght/ 96 Chappelle worried that airing sketches that made room for racist laughter was antithetical to his larger comedic purpose: to challenge viewers by laying bare normalized, hegemonic racist beliefs. In this way, Chappelle showed how deeply he valued creating comedy that authenticated Black experiences, noting that, in no uncertain terms, this could only be done if he was socially responsible with his comedy. The Pixies sketch quickly became the focus of media attention as well as critical analysis by comic theorists like Bambi Haggins (2007), Dareyl Littleton (2006), Brian Gogan (2009), and
K.A. Wisniewski (2009). I contend that the potential "hresponsibility" of the sketch is the space it creates for racism to flourish if room is not also granted for direct discussion of the underlying ideologies that make the racist imagery Chappelle presents comprehensible. In short, the sketch presented on its own without Chappelle's explanation or what Bambi Haggins (2007) terms "the backstory," ultimately results in a loss of its pedagogically transgressive possibilities (Haggins, 2007, p. 219).
In Haggins' (2007) analysis of the comedic persona, she provides an in-depth examination of comedic performances following the Black Power Movements in the
United States. Arguing that comedy can be used to challenge social norms, she proposes that Black comedians provide an alternative reading of the mainstream (White) cultural norms in America. These alternative readings require an intellectually astute recognition of racial realities, and the deployment of particular pedagogical strategies to be effectively articulated on comedy stages. Haggins (2007) warns that these pedagogical implications are impotent without the introduction of "the backstory." De-contextualized comedy, she argues, does not promote social change. Comedians must provide a sense of
97 why a joke is told in a particular manner or the "funny" is lost on their audiences. This
"backstory" does not need to be stated explicitly, but is instead deeply embedded within the "insider" status detailed by humour theorists Stephanie Koziski (1984), Joseph
Boskin (1997b), Ted Cohen (1999) and Peter Kivy (2003). Thus, Haggins (2007) explains that in spite of the transgressive nature of Chappelle's skits, the parade of stereotypes within his comedy, which aim to thrust racial politics front and center, rarely manage to transcend the insider-outsider paradigm because the sketches alone lack the time needed to "teach" their meaning to those who are not "in the know" or who do not have the "backstory" which frames the joke (Haggins, 2007, p. 219). Thinking again of
Chappelle's "Nigger Pixie, " if one was not aware of the stereotypical assumption that all
Black people love fried chicken, an audience member could not theoretically be expected to understand that Chappelle was wrestling with a "racial complex" within the sketch.
Without being an insider, audiences would also be hard-pressed to critically consider why
Chappelle would choose to personify the Black pixie using blackface.
The provision of the "backstory" to audiences is what makes Chappelle's comedy, like that of other race comics, not only potentially subversive, but also socially responsible. What I propose here is an alternative use of Chappelle's comedy as a pedagogical tool for the promotion of ARE. If Haggins (2007) is conect and Chappelle's
Show was unable to provide ample time and direction for audiences to engage with the critical commentaries about racial politics presented by Chappelle's performances, I contend that his comedy, like that of other race comics, can be incorporated into other settings where the time can be taken to introduce and engage with the "backstory" in a
98 way that promotes and supports the transgressive pedagogical approach to comedy being used. Giving the context of a particular clip mediates the onset of disturbing laughter because it sets out a purpose for the comedian's joke and opens up the possibility of further critical dialogue about the issues at hand. For instance, as was described in
CO
Chapter 3, when the decision to air The Pixies was made in 2006 by Comedy Central, hosts Charlie Murphy and Donnell Rawlings facilitated discussions with the audience that centered around Chappelle's fear that his comedy was enabling racist thought. To do this effectively, Murphy and Rawlings were featured in a pre-taped introductory segment for the sketch that detailed Chappelle's concerns, thereby providing the "backstory" to the studio audience. Murphy and Rawlings then asked the audience to "be the judge" before showing the sketches. This was followed by an open audience discussion which was facilitated by Murphy and Rawlings - a discussion that could not have supported and/ or resulted in the level of critical commentary that it did had the audience not been provided with the "backstory" as a lens through which to contemplate the sketches.53
The strategies developed and used by race comics like Chappelle vary from comedian to comedian; however, what connects their work is their devotion to ARE '" Comedy Central included the skits in the DVD entitled The Lost Episodes Little is known of how audiences for Chappelle's Show, for instance, were selected and whether or not the selection process for live studio audiences is standardized across comedy programs like Chappelle's. For the purposes of this dissertation, however, it will be assumed that most audience members - whether they are watching Chappelle's comedy in the studio or at another venue - have chosen to be there because of an affinity to his comedy. Though studying the audience in order to gather data on how and why they came to watch Chappelle's comedy would be an interesting element for the dissertation, it goes beyond the scope of my doctoral work at this time. Instead, this chapter will focus on providing a closer reading of the particular strategies used by Chappelle in his comedy with an eye to considering how these help to forward a critical pedagogical approach to teaching about race. Because Chappelle is best known for his race-based performance I assume here that most participating audience members do so with the knowledge that his comedy aims to challenge normalized assumptions of contemporary race politics which often result in uncomfortable moments as he confronts many normalized beliefs about race. 99 principles. I contend that, like Chappelle, race comics are committed to ensuring that they
hold themselves accountable for their comedy while providing astute, critical, and often
uncomfortable social commentaries on the state of race relations through their comedic
performances. The following section will demonstrate the pedagogical force of ARE via
comedy by drawing upon examples from Chappelle's sketch and standup work. To do
this I will begin by teasing out the particular techniques used by Chappelle when he
presents audiences with a casual, yet overtly critical analysis of contemporary racial
politics.
Section 2: Pedagogical Strategies - A Closer Look at a Race Comic
Everyone has an inner racism My question is how much do you have before it gets you fucked up? (Comedian Donnell Rawlings, ComedyCentral, 2006)
After showing Chappelle's The Pixies sketch to a live studio audience, comedian Donnell
Rawlings challenged the viewers to admit that they had all participated in private, racist
dialogues. The crassness of Rawlings' inquiry should not detract from the serious
attention his question deserves. It is the very real negotiation of racism that every
individual does on a daily basis that Chappelle's comedy dares us to confront as we laugh
uncomfortably at the racial stereotypes and race-based humour his comedy engages. I
contend that it is the following four components that make a race comic's performances
like Chappelle's work: (1) Making use of realistic stories; (2) Approaching controversial
subjects in a casual way; (3) Turning stories around to demonstrate how absurd an underlying ideology really is, and; (4) Putting their commitment to ARE principles first before any other artistic choice. By examining each of these elements, what follows will
100 provide a better understanding of the critical pedagogical approach used by Chappelle as he opens up possibilities for his audiences to participate in a deeper, self-reflexive analysis of how race functions and shapes the contemporary world.
Storytelling- Making Constructive Use of Real Experiences
While it is fair to say that engaging with race in comedy may not be exclusive to Black people, race comics have an uncanny ability to make constructive use of some of the most difficult aspects of their history in a way that sets their work and their art apart from other Black comedians (Haggins, 2007; McNair, 2007; Watkins, 1994, 2002).54 The consistent and careful provision of a voice to racial "others" who are silenced within an absurd, racially hierarchical social system requires a particular expertise - one that draws a striking resemblance to the writings of many ARE scholars. Both race comics and ARE theorists incorporate their personal stories into the scope of the larger tale of racial injustice that their work is trying to tell. The use of storytelling helps to make continued racial injustices "come to life" for audiences while helping to make these issues more accessible. This is especially true when speaking to people who want to ignore that racism continues to play a large part in the lives of Black citizens in North America.
Although I acknowledge that racism and race comedy is taken up by White and other raced comedians (see, for example, the comedy of "Indian-Canadian" comedian Russell Peters who is discussed briefly in Chapter 5 of the dissertation, or "White" comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert), I have chosen to focus my doctoral work on the particularities of Black race comics who use their comedic performances to challenge racial norms. In most cases, this group of comedians examine how racial discourses affect Black communities, drawing upon their own experiences with racism. Consequently, the examples from Chappelle's comedy, chosen specifically because of the ways in which he helps audiences engage with contemporary hegemonic racial discourses that affect Black communities, may appear to imply that racism is um-directional (e g , only targeting Black people) This, however, would be a mis-reading of his comedy as a whole which does a very good job of presenting a much messier, complex, and nuanced understanding of race relations in North America 101 These stories, then, function as a method for initiating a more critical contemplation of how racism(s) - especially in their more covert forms - permeate society. By starting with personal stories, both race comics and ARE model a sense of self-reflexivity that they hope their audiences and/ or students will try to actively engage with when they think about the effects of racial discourses on their own lives. Storytelling for race comics is particularly useful, especially on standup comedy stages.
When a Black comedian discusses racial profiling (e.g., telling tales of being pulled over by police officers because they are Black, or comparing and contrasting the experiences with Black police officers with those of White Americans), the story they tell acts as a "hook" to get their audiences' attention. The more realistic the story, the stronger the connection becomes between race comic and audiences. If audience members can envision themselves as the protagonist of the tale being told, they can immediately begin to see the world through the eyes of the race comic, following along with the comic's analysis of cunent race politics while empathizing with Black experiences of racism. Race comics purposefully make use of stories within the scope of their routines, using these as a vehicle to promote a particular understanding of the racial politics in their comedy. For Dave Chappelle, this technique has been highly effective, providing what appears as an "incidental social critique" in the midst of very engaging comedic texts (Haggins, 2007, p. 194). Naming this technique "sly subversion" (Haggins,
2007, p. 184), Haggins explains that Chappelle uses his stories to make audiences more comfortable, even when he takes up uncomfortable topics like the effects of race politics and racism on Black communities in the United States. In this way, audiences consider
102 his views on race politics as "just part of the story he's telling" (Haggins, 2007, p. 180).
The use of stories, then, can be seen as Chappelle's own pedagogical strategy that aims to keep audiences comfortable enough to share and participate in thinking through the uncomfortable stories of race relations and racial inequities that sunound them. These stories encourage a critical dialogue about the role race plays in society in both his sketch and standup comedy routines.
Infused within the scope of Chappelle's socially conscious storytelling, are clear and definitive anti-racist principles that aim to expose clandestine uses of race that justify differential treatment of Black and White citizens. Similar in technique to ARE theorists like Annette Henry (2000) and Gloria Ladson-Billings (2009a, 2009b) who use examples of situations in which race played a role in their personal lives to initiate dialogue about racial inequality, Chappelle reminds all of us of the way(s) in which "race continues to be a powerful social construct and signifier" (Ladson-Billings, 2009b), making use of stories and nanatives to justify his point. Chappelle's stories of his White friend, Chip, provide a clear example of this.
In Chappelle's first televised HBO special Killin' Them Softly (2000), his story begins by describing the ease with which Chip asks a police officer for directions while under the influence of drugs. After telling the audience that the officer provides Chip
55 While the focus here is on the strategies used by Chappelle when performing his race comedy, it is not meant to imply that examining pedagogical techniques for this type of comedy-based ARE work are more important than considerations of how the audience qua learner learns differently through a race comic's critical pedagogy Rather, I am simply separating the discussion of techniques used by race comics described in Chapter 4 from considerations of how this affects the learner, to be described in greater detail in Chapter 5 In short, this examination of specific comedic teaching techniques suggests a new way of doing ARE work This is especially true when comedy is brought into traditional classrooms (see Chapter 5 of the dissertation for a further exploration of this point) 103 with the necessary infonnation, Chappelle explains that though this story may not be outstanding for White people, a Black person would never believe that s/he could speak to a police officer under similar conditions without their request being met with overt aggression. Chappelle continues, confessing to his audience, "That's how it is, but at the time I didn't think there was anything racial about it." The next story Chappelle shares with his audience, however, represents the moment that he realized how integral race is in predicting how police officers act towards Black and White people. In this story,
Chappelle is in a car with Chip, who is now driving under the influence. While stopped at a red light, Chip decides to race the car next to him. Though the other driver is unaware that he is in a race with Chip, Chip begins speeding, weaving in and out of the lanes so that the other car cannot pass him. When Chappelle and Chip are finally pulled over by the police because of Chip's erratic driving, Chip looks directly at the officer and excuses his behaviour with a simple statement: "Sorry officer... I didn't know that I couldn't do that," to which the police officer replies, "Well, now you know! Jus' get out of here..."
(Lathan, 2000). Chappelle is struck by glaring differences in behaviour between White and Black Americans and police officers, but does not overtly comment on this differential treatment - rather, the technique he uses is to insert moments within the Chip story where he starts acting differently as the police officer approaches the car. Using
Chip's voice, Chappelle tells himself, "Dave, just relax - Close your butt cheeks! Just relax..." indicating in no uncertain terms that Dave, as the Black man, expects to be thoroughly searched. In effect, Chappelle's stories outline the ways in which race
104 produces differing responses between police officers and citizens whose bodies are racially marked.
Although Chappelle's use of storytelling provides an opportunity to share opinions about the cunent state of race politics in very subtle ways, other race comics opt for more direct discussions of race politics in their comedy, woreying little to nothing about how uncomfortable this artistic decision might make their audiences. Like any other artist, race comics must develop particular approaches to their art that allow them to distinguish their method and creative expressions from other artists within their field. However, even the most brazen race comics rely on stories to authenticate the experiences of racism in
America they present through their comedy. A race comic's stories serve to validate
Black experiences in America in ways that defy claims that racism no longer exists.
Engaging storytelling is a powerful tool for race comics because of its ability to bring their audiences into the story. This is an especially useful technique for race comics who perform for inter-racial audiences, because the use of stories in their performances can help to create a sense of empathy for Black people from their non-Black audience members. The inclusion and emphasis upon stories like these also provide an opportunity for Black audience members to have their experiences of racism validated because a well-known, popular, public figure like Chappelle claims that everyday racism also affects his life.
A prime example of this more overtly challenging method of discussing race is visible in the comedy of Paul Mooney Before entering a venue to see Mooney live, hosts and hostesses provide a warning to all patrons that Mooney will discuss controversial issues and that he will be offensive Potential audience members are given this final opportunity to leave the club if they are not prepared for the jarring race- based realities Mooney aims to present. 105 Sharing Overt Race Politics in a Casual Way
Another strategy used by race comics like Chappelle is a casual approach to discussing
controversial race politics in their comedic performance. Chappelle's relaxed attitude
helps him to foster a sense of intimacy with his audience as well as present his ideas in a
way that is not perceived as angry or aggressive (Haggins, 2007, pp. 178, 191).
Moreover, this technique gives the impression to audiences that the Black perspective on
life is not debatable. That racism continues to affect Black Americans on a daily basis is
"just the way it is," and Chappelle uses the comedy stage to perform this reality for his
audiences. This presentation of intense racial politics in a "funny" manner also helps to
create a sense of comfort with which to grapple with very real and difficult experiences
of racism (Haggins, 2007, p. 181). As Haggins describes:
... Chappelle is a storyteller, who, with casual and almost lackadaisical
candor, pulls you into his world and his logic, the content of his humor
often has the sly righteousness and progressive radicalism of [Dick]
Gregory and the outlandish insider truism and gut-busting honesty of
[Richard] Pryor. (Haggins, 2007, p. 178)
In order to successfully accomplish this feat, Chappelle has also developed a tone and approach to the incorporation of his racial politics into his comedy that is non-accusatory, displacing the blame for the racial injustices so as not to vilify the audience members as they engage with his stories (Haggins, 2007). This aspect of Chappelle's comedic pedagogy forcefully supports ARE by providing an alternative approach to addressing the guilt complex that often arises in classrooms when educators attempt to discuss issues of 106 race or racism in more overt ways (this will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5).
By approaching the topic of race and racism in a way that does not lay direct blame
(Haggins, 2007), Chappelle is effectively able to keep the audience involved in the process of articulating the negative socio-political ramifications of current race politics in
North America. Most importantly, Chappelle often begins his jokes by making reference to more general, non-racial observations about life. Capitalizing upon the relaxed atmosphere this introduction creates, he then launches into his more contentious thoughts on racism in America. An example of this can be found in Chappelle's standup comedy special For What It's Worth (2004).
Chappelle begins one of his routines by saying that he has noticed some confusion around whether or not a 15-year-old should be considered an adult or a child (Lathan,
2004). "How old is 15 really?" he asks his audience. Using himself as an example,
Chappelle argues that at 15-years-old he was able to make basic decisions because he was aware of what was happening around him "to some degree"- he smoked pot, he did standup comedy in small nightclubs, and he was developing an understanding of the world in which he lived (Lathan, 2004). In spite of this, people continue to debate how much one really knows at the age of 15. Chappelle then provides a concrete example, focusing the audience's attention on the disappearance of Elizabeth Smart, a white 15- year-old who was kidnapped from her neighbourhood in June of 2002. Smart was found six months later living a few miles from her home with her kidnappers. Chappelle recalls
The obstacle guilt poses in promoting anti-racist and critical race agendas is described in vivid detail by theorists like Patrick Solomon and Cynthia Levine-Rasky (2003) and Mary E Earick (2009) 107 that while everyone else was relieved when she was finally found, he was at home thinking she wasn't really that "smart" after all:
You can't hold me prisoner around shit I recognize. I'll break away - I'll
break away! 'Fuck off me nigga, that's my bus stop. I know where I'm at.
I'm going home.' (Lathan, 2004)
Chappelle continues with this joke, telling the audience that Smart had ample opportunity to escape. Not only was she held close to home (she was only 8 miles away, "That's two exits man. That's nothin'!" Chappelle reminds audiences), but her captives left her alone unbound:
She's fifteen sittin' in the house by herself. 'How am I going to get out of
this? ... Come on Elizabeth think... Think Elizabeth... How am I going to
get out of here?' Why don't you just open the fuckin' door and go outside?
Have you thought about that? Do you have a quarter? Do you know your
phone number? You're fifteen bitch, run!" (Lathan, 2004)
Chappelle's next step is to compare Smart's disappearance with the 2002 kidnapping of a young, Black girl named Erica Pratt. Only 7-years-old, Chappelle leaves the young girl nameless throughout his routine, thereby emphasizing the lack of media interest found in
CO the triumphs of Black victims in an anti-black society. Pratt, unlike Smart, managed to
58 In a July 26, 2002 article by Mark Coatney for the Time com, Pratt was named the "Person of the Week." Like Chappelle, who by leaving her nameless emphasizes that the media is not interested in stories of Black victims of kidnapping, Coatney, without naming Pratt's race, expresses the same concern' "... [Samantha] Runmon and [Danielle] Van Dam were taken and brutally murdered, [Elizabeth] Smart stolen from her home and still missing. Those girls, white, middle-class and taken from neighborhoods where those kinds of things don't happen, you've heard of them But you probably wouldn't have heard of Erica Pratt, a seven-year-old kidnapped from a sidewalk near her home Monday night, because she is from a neighborhood where those kinds of things happen, or at least where we 108 free herself and return home within forty-five minutes of her disappearance. Her story,
Chappelle argues, should have received more media coverage since she was able to escape on her own. Chappelle asserts that the lack of media attention was a result of contemporary North American racial discourses that value Whiteness at the expense of
Black bodies (Lathan, 2004). By juxtaposing Smart and Pratt's stories and emphasizing how the media covered each, Chappelle nonchalantly opens up a space for audiences to contemplate the effects of racial discourses on American children. The connection between the stories of kidnapped youngsters and American race politics are made even more transparent when Chappelle shifts his attention again to the case of a 15-year-old
Black boy charged with life imprisonment.
To make visible the argument that race played (and continues to play) a role in the differential treatment of Black and White people whose stories are being covered in the news, Chappelle discusses the incident sunounding the sentencing of a 15-year-old Black boy charged with accidentally killing a friend while the two practiced wrestling moves seen on television. Public outrage over the incident resulted in the 15-year-old Black boy being tried as an adult, and the verdict that he was to spend the rest of his life in prison was considered a suitable penalty for the accidental death of his friend. Chappelle argues that the colour of the young boy's skin was the deciding factor on how he would be treated in the eyes of the law, reminding the audience that the police always want to try
think they do, the area of Southwest Philadelphia where she lives is a poor place where drug-dealing is common You wouldn't have heard from her except for this: She got away " (see http //www time com/time/nation/article/0,8599,331695,00.html#ixzzl6Vc0jyhj) 109 young Black offenders as adults no matter what the circumstances are sunounding the
criminal offence. Chappelle's comment is met with unwavering audience applause.
While it has been made clear that Chappelle has integrated key aspects of his racial
politics within his comedy, speaking directly to how he interprets the treatment of racially
marked bodies by both the media and the police, the question arises as to what about any
of this can be considered "funny." The humour is found at the end of Chappelle's politically charged commentary when he shifts the audience's attention for the last time
to another topic: the rumours of a video that was circulating in which R & B singer R.
Kelly is allegedly seen urinating on, and having sex with, a 15-year-old girl. Chappelle
explains that media reports considered R. Kelly's actions inappropriate because the
young girl was only 15-years-old. In light of the examples of the ways in which Black
15-year-olds have been treated in the media and by law enforcement, Chappelle responds:
If you think that it's okay to give him [the 15-year-old Black boy charged
with the accidental death of his friend] life in jail, then it should be legal to
pee on 'em. That's all I'm sayin'. You gotta make up your mind across the
board how old 15 actually is." (Lathan, 2004)
By making explicit the connection between the role race plays in all of these cases that had, prior to this, been more commonly understood as not being about race, but rather being about age, Chappelle provides his audience with a critical race "lesson" - a lesson
"set up" through the creation of a casual atmosphere, and "taught" by the crafty use of
comedic misdirection. As Haggins (2006), points out:
110 The utilization of comic misdirection within the context of casual
storytelling to make an incisive sociopolitical point is the most useful
weapon in Chappelle's discursive arsenal. (Haggins, 2007, p. 203)
Chappelle's dexterity with comic misdirection should not go unnoticed. However, I
contend that it is his ability to create and capitalize upon the relaxed atmosphere that
proves to be the key component to his effective introduction of how race politics
influences media outlets, resulting in differential treatment of Black and White people,
with young Black children receiving harsher treatment and punishment than their White
counterparts for comparable offences. As ARE scholars have and continue to argue,
recognizing and believing that race encourages different types of behaviours towards
those who are racially marked and those who are considered "White" are both important
and necessary if any hope is to be had for changing the racially-charged power dynamics
that structure our social world (Bell, 2009; Delgado, 2009; Earick, 2009; Taylor, et al.,
2009). Comedic performances like Chappelle's help to initiate this vital moment of
critical and reflexive contemplation about these social injustices by creating a relaxed
atmosphere within which to grapple with these realities.
Role Reversal: Turning a Story Upside Down
While it is recognized that Chappelle's Show ranges from being highly political to wholly
ineverent (Haggins, 2007; Wisniewski, 2009), when Chappelle focuses his attention on
the ways in which race influences day-to-day thinking, he also employs role reversal as a particularly useful tool for turning a story on its head, seeking the help of laughter to
111 initiate a public challenge to the status quo (Bakhtin, 1981). As Bahktin suggests, laughter represents a moment in time when a space is being created for closer considerations of the inconsistencies inherent in hegemonic thinking. Chappelle capitalizes on this when he re-imagines the world from a Black perspective.59 In this way, he confronts audiences with possible alternative explanations for interpreting particular experiences.
Critical race theorist D.A. Bell (2009) also makes extensive use of role reversals in his writing. For example, he describes his understanding of critical race theory's goals, beginning with an analysis of the controversial publication The Bell Curve by Richard J.
Herrnstein and Charles Munay (1996). He argues that:
To understand the motivation for and the likely intent of racial policies in
America, one need only be willing to reverse the racial composition of the
major component to those policies. To see things as they really are, you
must imagine them for what they might be. In this instance, the effort is
intended to delegitimize the illegitimate. The Bell Curve captured the
nation's fascination precisely because it laid out in scientific jargon what
many whites believe, need desperately to believe, but dare not reveal in
public or even to their private selves. The critical race theory perspective
offers blacks and their white allies insight, spiked with humor, as a balm
59 See, for example, Chappelle's comedy sketch in Season 2, Episode 8 entitled "I Know Black People." There Chappelle hosts a game show where contestants are asked to answer questions from the standpoint of Black people. 112 for this latest insult, and enables them to gird themselves for those certain
to follow. (D. A. Bell, 2009, p. 40)
Through role reversal Bell (2009) uncovers normalized racial (and racist) ideologies, presenting the possibility that after intense analysis of research data, Herrnstein and
Munay may have found clear indications that African Americans were more intelligent than their White counterparts. Since their findings did not conform to the racist ideologies structuring contemporary American society, Bell (2009) suggests that it was their fear of
"throwing the country into turmoil" by publishing the real findings linking race and intelligence that had them argue instead that Whites were in fact smarter than Blacks . As he explains, "... history shows with equal clarity, though it is less frequently acknowledged, that indications of black success and thus possible black superiority result in racist outrage" (p. 38). Bell's thought experiment is effective because it makes visible our racial assumptions, contextualizing our (racist) motivations by providing a historical context that explains why we respond differently to Black and White bodies. Moreover, the role reversal technique provides an alternative explanation that is just as plausible.
What differentiates Chappelle's use of role reversal from that of Bell (2009) is primarily his reliance of laughter as a mediating tool to discover and explore alternative interpretations of racial differences. This is demonstrated in his 2003 Reparations sketch that aired in season one of Chappelle's Show. Leading his audience through a brief discussion of whether or not Black Americans should get reparations for slavery in
America, Chappelle considers what would happen if reparations were granted, and, overnight, he imagines, Black Americans became richer than White Americans. Though
113 he complicates the sketch by making overt use of stereotypical and derogatory images of
Black people who, for instance, have lined up for hours to spend their money at liquor stores, Chappelle also contextualizes the skit by explaining to audiences that this should be understood as a warning to Black Americans. If reparations were granted, Chappelle's advice is to be thoughtful about how the money is used and where the money is spent so as not to fulfill the "dream" of White economists who also appear in the sketch, taking pleasure in Black Americans "giving back" their money by spending it in White-owned establishments. Thus, while a superficial reading of this sketch suggests that Chappelle has simply re-inscribed Black stereotypes through his comedy, the laughter ensuing from seeing these stereotypes dramatized in the sketch indicates that the audience recognizes the alternative suggestion for how to behave should reparations for slavery be granted to
Black Americans.
A more straightforward rendering of role reversal by Chappelle is found in his parody of Lil' Jon, a popular Black hip hop artist, in Season 2 of Chappelle's Show. Here,
Chappelle begins his sketches by imitating speech patterns popularized by the rapper
(i.e., "Yeah-ah!," "What?," and "O-kay!"), only to infuse his speech with highly intellectual responses to questions is a fine example of this. The following excerpt is taken from Chappelle's skit, A Moment in the Life of Lil' Jon, and begins with Chappelle, dressed as Lil' Jon, standing at an airport counter, speaking with an airport employee:
[Employee] "Are you checking any luggage today, sir?"
[Lil' Jon] "Yeah-ah!"
[Employee] "Did you pack the bags yourself?"
114 [Lil' Jon] "Yeah-ah!"
[Employee] "And the bags have been in your possession the whole time?"
[Lil' Jon] "What?"
[Employee] "Have these bags been in your possession the whole time?"
[Lil' Jon] "What?"
[Employee] "These bags have been in your possession the whole time?"
[Lil' Jon] "What?"
[Employee] "Ahh... these bags - were they in your possession the whole
time?"
[Lil' Jon] "What?"
[Employee] "And the bags have been in your possession the whole time?"
[Lil' Jon] "Yeah-ah!"
[Employee hands Lil' Jon his boarding pass]
[Employee] "Urn hum. Well, Mr. Jon, you're all set."
[Lil' Jon] "O-kay!"
[Lil' Jon looks closely at his boarding pass]
[Lil' Jon] "Uh... Pardon me, madam. Will this be reflected upon my frequent flyer miles?"
[Employee] "Did you book your flight online?"
[Lil' Jon] "Yeah-ah!"
[Employee] "Then it will be!"
[Lil' Jon] "O-kay!" In this sketch, like all of Chappelle's Lil' Jon Moments, the stereotype of the illiterate
Black hip hop artist is juxtaposed with a polite and highly intellectual conversationalist.
Chappelle's performance of Lil' Jon uses the same Black body as the vessel through which the opposite of the Black stereotype (i.e., a Black person qua intellectual) is housed. Thus each moment of playing out the stereotype and reversing the same is presented to audiences side-by-side, helping to challenge our racial assumptions about
Black bodies in general, and hip hop artists like Lil' Jon in particular. And, as the audience laughs, numerous moments are made possible that consider what the world would be like if the alternative renderings of experiences presented by Chappelle were true to life.
A Commitment to Anti-racist Principles
Chappelle's sketch comedy makes careful use of various pedagogical strategies, each of which help to visually represent for his audiences how racism poses as the fundamental obstacle for Black bodies in America today. His public critique of the entertainment business and use of comedy stages to make public his political position on race in
America show his commitment to ARE as well as his dedication to maintaining the structural integrity of his edgy comedic sketches (Haggins, 2007; Teny, 2006; Wurtz,
2006). For example, in Clayton Bigsby: Blind White Supremacist, Chappelle tells the story of a Blind man, Clayton Bigsby, who, educated at the Wexler School of the Blind, is never told that he is Black. During the mock "FrontLine" interview, the headmistress
This skit acted as the pilot for Chappelle's Show m 2003. 116 of the school, Bridgett Wexler, explains: "We thought we would make it easier on
Clayton by telling him and all the other blind kids, that he was white" (Cundieff, et al.,
2004). Being drawn to White supremacist ideologies, Bigsby rises to fame writing six books, each of which promotes White supremacist ideologies. At the time of the mock
Frontline interview, he has become the leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Because Bigsby is always robed for his appearances with the Klan, nobody except for his closest friend and driver knows that he is Black. Chappelle's sketch, then, presents an opportunity to think differently about race, suggesting that race (and White racism) is an ideological commitment that is not intrinsically linked to the colour of a person's skin. Chappelle was acutely aware of the disturbing possibilities that could have resulted from the presentation of his character Clayton Bigsby. Three years later, discussing the clip with
James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio, Chappelle argues, "Putting something like that out there is scary. Listen, if you don't like that, you're not gonna like the show." When
Lipton describes the clip as "a good test," Chappelle is quick to reply, "Not a test, as much as a manifesto or a mission statement" (Wurtz, 2006). In this way Chappelle's commitment to ARE is evident. That he would put his career on the line to open his sketch comedy series with a clip that could have resulted in stopping the program before it had a chance to take root with Comedy Central fans, demonstrates the emphasis he placed on ARE.
Chappelle's use of this controversial skit as a pilot for his program was the decision that laid the foundation for all the sketches to come. He planned on using the majority of the show to initiate dialogues about race, and was not willing to forgo this commitment to
117 secure a network contract If network executives were unwilling to accept the potential critiques for airing such controversial material, Chappelle was ready to walk away. He had in fact already turned down the onginal offer from the Fox Network to air the program. Chappelle explained m a CBS interview in 2004 that during the first meeting at
Fox, he was told that they would air the program only if he included more White characters, arguing that this would "give the show a more universal appeal."61 Stating boldly that this was an example of the network's racism, Chappelle explained:
It was racist. Look, I don't think these people sit around their house and
call black people 'n s' and all this kind of thing ... But the idea that,
unless I have white people around me on my show, that it's unwatchable
or doesn't have a universal appeal, is racist. You know? They don't make
them put black people on 'Fnends.' Or they don't make them put black
people on 'Seinfeld.' But all of a sudden I get in the room, and its like,
'Where's all the white people?'62
Chappelle's public statements about the network's racist expectations of Black artists exposed the ways m which structural racism was perpetuated withm the entertainment industry. His commitment to ARE, however, was not simply aimed to expose White racism. Chappelle also felt it important to use his comedy to explore how racism functioned in Black communities as well. This is notable in his 2000 HBO standup comedy special Kilhn' Them Softly.
51 This 2004 article can be viewed at http //www cbsnews com/stories/2004/10/19/60II/mam650149 shtml 62 This 2004 article can be viewed at http //www cbsnews com/stones/2004/10/19/60II/mam650149 shtml 118 In Killin' Them Softly, Chappelle tells the story of being left alone in the backseat of his limousine at three o'clock in the morning after one of his performances while his driver stops in the ghetto to run an enand. After looking out his windows to try and find out where he is in the city, Chappelle notices a baby on the corner. Worried about his own safety and the possibility of the "little baby on the corner trick" that could result in someone attacking him if he tries to help the child, Chappelle locks the doors. After some time waiting for the driver to return, Chappelle begins to question his fear of the baby, wondering if the baby really does need help. Slowly winding down his window ("It's an old limousine, I can roll [the window] down," he explains to his audience) he yells to the baby, "Hey baby - Baby, go home, man! It's three o'clock in the morning - what the flick are you doing up?" The baby replies, "I'm sellin' weed, nigga'!" In 2006, while speaking with drama students on Inside the Actors Studio, Chappelle critically examined his reason for writing this particular joke:
I was making a very subtle point. And here I am, a Black man in a
limousine - now we're getting into the class issues - in the ghetto. So, it's
... it's truth in jest. You know, people ... I pride myself on saying real shit
that people don't even notice I'm saying. But they feel it. 'Cause when
people come up to me they... they say, "I loved ... I loved that ah..." they
can feel it, but I don't think they really know. So when you pointed that
out, I was very impressed, man. Ahh... and it's ... sometimes I just tell
shit jokes. That's the beauty of it. (Wurtz, 2006)
119 Here, Chappelle voices his commitment to making visible the nuances of racist thinking that exists among Black people in a way that expresses "real shit that people don't even notice [he's] saying" (Wurtz, 2006). Other comedians have recognized Chappelle for his devotion to ARE in general, and his insistence on making visible the covert ways in which racism was perpetuated. For instance, comedian Charlie Murphy praised Chappelle for a sketch focused on revealing the racist framework that is promoted by news anchor coverage of Black people. Murphy argued that Chappelle's work made explicit the implicit allusions to racial stereotypes by substituting the news anchor's language with direct (racist) ideas framing the commentaries being presented (Comedy Central, 2006).
Audiences share a similar interpretation of the efficiency of Chappelle's comedic techniques, commenting that:
I think that, ah, Dave has always did (sic.) a good job of bringing race to
the surface because we all think about it, but, you know, he kind of makes
it ahh... comfortable to talk about it. And I've always appreciated that
about this show. (Central, 2006)
I thought it was funny, I thought it was intelligent. It was uncomfortable,
and I think that's the point of it. It's supposed to draw attention to people's
stereotypes, and talk about it, and make it funny. That's why the show's
successful, I think. I think that's the joy. (Central, 2006)
120 Chappelle's comedy—even at its most controversial —allows for a flow of audience commentary that reveals the possibilities of initiating critical conversations about race and racism for the studio audiences. These conversations, I contend, are effective because of his use of specific techniques that put the audience at ease as he prepares to challenge their sensibilities through his critically astute, ARE informed, comedic analysis of contemporary race politics in North America.
Conclusion
This chapter provided a close reading of the comic performances of Dave Chappelle in both standup and sketch comedy genres. Arguing that a fundamental quality of a race comic's work is recognizing that s/he must be accountable for audience reactions to the edgy brand of comedy s/he produces, I first undertook a close examination of interviews of Chappelle between 2005 and 2006, marking the period when he broke his contract with Comedy Central, and discussed his rationale for leaving his popular sketch comedy program Chappelle's Show. This was followed by an analysis of techniques used by
Chappelle in his comedy to effectively initiate discussions about how discourses of race and racism continue to affect Black people in contemporary America, drawing upon examples from Chappelle's Show (2003-2006) as well as from his standup comedy specials (2000 & 2004). By examining four techniques that ground race comedy in ARE traditions (i.e., the use of storytelling, casual approaches to controversial issues, the use of role reversal to shed light on cunent racial dynamics, and a commitment to ARE principles), I showed how each of these make Chappelle's ARE pedagogy an effective
121 tool for challenging racist hegemonic discourses. The next chapter will consider what is
"learned" about race and racism when a race comedy-focused ARE intervention strategy is brought into a university setting. What follows is an examination of my "Comic
Intervention," with a particular emphasis on the dialogues that ensued after pre-service students were introduced to race comedy in my classroom.
122 Chapter 5: A "Comic Intervention"
This chapter examines my pedagogy and what was learned about contemporary racial
discourses upon my using the work of race comics to initiate a "comic intervention" in a pre-service classroom in Ontario. Unlike the chapters preceding it, Chapter 5 takes on a more personal tone. Here, I approach ARE from an altogether different perspective, utilizing race comedy to draw participants' attention to discourses of race that, as Charles
W. Mills (1999) contends, represent positions of power based on socially constructed understandings of racial categorization. I argue that my ARE method minors the race
comic's development of race-based comedy in two equally important, yet separate ways
- first by demanding that I, as an educator, be accountable for working with "difficult knowledge" in the classroom (Britzman, 1998), and second, that I help students to recognize how we are implicated in the continued perpetuation of rigid race-based
categories when interpreting social experiences. I will use this chapter to critically
examine the results of a comedy-focused and ARE informed intervention, in order to
outline what was afforded by the specific use of comedy with my students.
Section 1 makes plain some of the experiences that have helped me to recognize how race and racial discourses have posed as obstacles in my life, leading me to question
Canadian discourses of "colourblindness" (i.e., that Canadians do not "see" races, and that no matter how we look or where we are from, we are all treated equally on Canadian soil).63 These events have each helped me develop my ARE strategies as well as
See Eduardo Bomlla-Silva's text, Racism Without Racists Color-blind Racism & Racial Inequities in Contemporary America (2010) and Susan E Chase's Learning to Speak, Learning to Listen How Diversity Works on Campus (2010) for further discussions of colourblind discourses in American 123 reminded me that it is still important and necessary to engage in open discussions about how race and racism operate in Canadian society Moreover, I will provide my reasons for working specifically with teacher candidates who are not given ample opportunity to discuss issues of race and racism explicitly and cntically throughout their teacher training Section 2 introduces the comic intervention, using as its starting point my contention that the performances of race comics can be used as an alternative ARE pedagogical strategy that advocates for socially responsible discussions about race in the classroom This section will describe my ARE goals, who the participants were, and how the comic intervention was structured Section 3 looks specifically at the discussions that ensued pnor to the students viewing the performances of race comics, providing insight into how the teacher candidates thought about race and racial discourses before being challenged by the politically charged race-based comedy they would later view This section demonstrates that teacher candidates need more opportunities to engage with and openly discuss race in teacher education classrooms if they are to become aware of when and how they make use of traditional racial categories to interpret their day-to-day experiences. Finally, Section 4 examines some of the dialogues that resulted from viewing the comedy clips In order to provide a more focused discussion in this chapter, and because the class was divided into 8 small groups, asked to analyze two separate comedy clips, and then present their analysis to the larger group, I will focus
contexts For explicit discussions of colourblind discourses in Canadian educational context, see Frances Henry and Carol Tatar's edited collection Racism in the Canadian University Demanding Social Justice Inclusion and Equity (2009) 64 As other ARE theorists have expressed in their scholarship (Henry, 2000, hooks, 2003, Prince, 2001b) it is notable that antiracist work falls most often on the shoulders of the racially marked As will be expanded upon here, my experiences have proven to be no different 124 primarily on 1 of the 8 groups who presented their clips to the class. This section will illustrate that the edgy and "politically incorrect" comedy performed by race comics created a space for students to engage in important dialogues about the consequences of
Canadian race politics on the lived realities of non-White Canadians, as well as challenged them to think about their own experiences with race in a critical and thoughtful way. 5
Section 1: From Where I Stand
It is from within my social reality and, in particular, from within my body, that I write this essay. (Prince, 2001b, p. 39)
Like Althea Prince (2001a), I too tell my story from my raced, female body. My doctoral work in the Faculty of Education will become a part of the history of Black Canadian scholarship supported by Canadian universities. And yet, that support has not been free of obstructions.
In 1998, while finishing my final year at the University of Toronto as a
Philosophy major, I was told by the graduate program director that, in spite of my A average in philosophy courses and my membership in the Golden Key Honour Society which reflected my being in the top 15 percentile of my graduating class, I was not of the caliber that his institution desired for entry into their graduate program. He advised me
5 I chose to use performances by Black American race comics in a Canadian pre-service classroom because their routines posed an overt challenge to North American discourses of race and racism More specifically, Black American race comedy serves to disrupt Canadian colourblind discourses For example, the more overt and explicit commentary on race politics presented by a race comic like Paul Mooney did not allow participants to deny that racism continues to influence the choices and opportunities of Black people in North America, challenging them instead to reflect upon how racism continues to operate in their day-to-day lives 125 not to apply as he flung a box of Kleenex across his desk for me to use to wipe away my tears. I applied anyway, believing that the meritocracy that framed Canadian educational institutions would at minimum secure my consideration for the role of graduate student of
Philosophy. I was rejected from the program. I cannot help but wonder whether it was my femaleness or my Blackness that caused me to be denied admission into his institution for higher academic learning.
In 2002, after staying away from the academy for four years, I decided to request entry into an academic program again, this time not setting my sights as high. I enrolled in an honours program in the undergraduate department at York University, working towards the completion of a double major in African Studies and philosophy. I was excited to see that the Philosophy Department offered a course in African Philosophy as well as another cross-listed with Feminist Studies that drew upon the issues of race, gender, and epistemology. In spite of the lowered academic expectations I had internalized after my time at the University of Toronto, I was able to maintain a grade point average high enough to facilitate my admittance into a graduate program if and when I had the courage to try again. However, with my desire to continue my philosophical studies at the graduate level, I was increasingly concerned about the minimal representation of women among Philosophy professors. Black women who worked within the discipline were even more rare. Drawn to philosophical contemplation of race and racial discourses, and immensely moved by the work of the African philosophers I studied throughout the Introduction of African Philosophy course, I decided to make this area of study central to my graduate school application even though
126 I had been rejected four years earlier. I also opted to apply to the Faculty of Education at
York University. I met with the graduate program director, who shared my interest in
African Philosophy, to discuss my academic desires. He informed me that while he taught the African Philosophy course, he did not feel that he had sufficient knowledge in the field to support my graduate studies. Though I had applied to the Masters in
Philosophy program anyway, when the rejection letter arrived in my mailbox, I had already mentally prepared myself. I now wondered whether it was my female body, my
Black skin, or my desire to openly engage in philosophical contemplation of race within a historically "White" discipline that stood in the way of my continuing my studies in
Philosophy.
I was surprised and a little wonied when I received my acceptance letter from the
Faculty of Education at York University. While I had done my research about the faculty and noted their commitment to diversity, equity, and social justice, I had not attended
Teacher's College and wondered if I would be able to engage with a new set of disciplinary discourses that differed in such immense ways from my training in philosophy. In retrospect, I believe that many of my concerns about my potential failure were directly connected to how my raced, female body was read and disciplined during my philosophical studies and pursuit of a graduate education in Philosophy. Racism and sexism today have found their greatest strength by mastering the art of subversion, steadily positioning obstacles and road blocks in the path of non-White, female bodies in ways that can easily be re-interpreted as individual lack (hooks, 2003; Ladson-Billings,
1995). In other words, where I questioned whether or not racism and sexism helped to
127 deny me entry into particular academic spaces, (White, male) "others" could just as easily respond that it was my lack of academic success or lack of supervisory support for my obscure academic interests, all the while never referring to my lack of Whiteness. And maybe the (White, male) "other" was right - maybe there was no longer a need for intense study of race, racism, sex, or sexism. Maybe I was just "playing the race / gender card." Maybe Canada really was colourblind.
In 2007, after completing a Master's degree in Education in 2005 and having begun my doctoral studies, I accepted a position teaching English as a Second Language
(ESL) to 7 to 13-year-olds through a program offered by the Toronto Public Library.
There, it was affirmed for me that my particular interest in the cunent materializing of racism in our everyday lives was still necessary. The ESL class was comprised of students from Brazil, Cuba, India, Mexico, and from the African continent (this particular student was not sure where in Africa he was born). In spite of their vastly different cultural norms, all of the students were fascinated with superheroes. Wanting to capitalize on their interests, we sat down to watch The Incredibles as a class, after which I prepared a lesson requiring the students to create their own superheroes. The catch was that they had to write down three super powers their heroes possessed and, as they drew, explain to the other students why they had chosen these powers over any others. The goal was to provide the students with an interesting context in which to practice their conversational
English skills. As the students participated in dialogues with their peers, they perfected their heroes, choosing colours for their clothing and deciding on the "look" their superheroes would have. As the students worked, a young African boy in the class called
128 me over. He requested a fresh piece of paper in order to begin his drawing again.
Walking over to his side of the table, I noted with great pleasure that he had begun colouring his superheroes' skin with a beautiful shade of brown. He looked up at me and said, "I made a mistake," and pointed at all of the lovely brown skin. I looked again at the table and noticed that on the white pieces of paper I had provided for the assignment, none of the students had changed the colour of their heroes' skin. This particular student, however, had tried to represent his own body in the picture and felt that doing this was a
"mistake." Trying not to make my disappointment visible, I told him that I did not think he had made a mistake and that, in fact, his drawing was quite lovely. I could tell that he did not believe me. He continued working quietly, and I too found myself silenced. As parents and guardians anived to collect their children, and I began to return art materials to their proper places, my sense of unease and displeasure began to grow. I wish I could say that I was displeased that my student was not willing to validate the legitimacy of his
Black superhero. That was, sadly, not the case. I was upset by my own pedagogical deficiency - put simply, I did not effectively respond to my student's racial dilemma. In so many other scenarios, I was quick to challenge a student's normalized assumptions
(e.g., I had explained that girls were superheroes too, and they did not have to wear skirts to do it). But when the issue of race was innocently questioned, I froze. This incident stands out for me as the driving force behind my desire to work with teacher candidates as they navigate the treacherous waters of social injustice, normalized assumptions about the society in which they live, and presumed understandings of how they fit into this world, all of which permeate our classroom walls.
129 As I began to develop my comic intervention, I knew that it was important for
teacher candidates to have an occasion to think and speak about how race works in
contemporary society. I strongly believe that through explicit discussions about race, pre-
service teachers are given a chance to develop individualized strategies for addressing
race with their students once they begin to work in their own classrooms. To do this,
however, teacher candidates, like all anti-racist educators, must first reflect upon their
own racial assumptions in order to be prepared to address their students' questions and
concerns about race from a place of honest self-reflection. To do this, I argue that race
comedy can become an interesting starting point for critical dialogues in pre-service
classrooms.
Up to this point, the focus of the dissertation has been on drawing out the
techniques used by race comics in order to demonstrate how ARE can be read back onto
their work as deeply embedded in their comedic choices and consequent performances.
Chapter 5, however, represents a change in focus as I move away from examining the
techniques used by race comics, and towards the role of the audience/ learner as I explore
how comedy might be used in a pre-service classroom setting. The following section
describes the comic intervention in greater detail, showing how it was developed to
initiate dialogue about race and racism with my students.
Section 2: Accessing Anti-racist Pedagogies through Race comics
In Chapter 4 I argued that race comics like Dave Chappelle insist that comedy about race be "socially responsible" so as to ensure that the politically charged messages embedded
130 within their comedic performances lend themselves to critical dialogue. More generally, I argued that race comics take responsibility for what is said on stage as well as the effects of their political statements on audiences and communities. Based upon these arguments,
I hypothesized that race comedy would be a useful tool as I attempted to reflect upon
Canadian colourblind discourses. Directing my attention to this issue would also allow me to challenge claims that speaking openly and explicitly about race is no longer necessary in contemporary society.
In March 2010, I developed a small-scale intervention for a group of students enrolled in a Bachelor of Education course entitled The Adolescent and the Teacher, the purpose of which was to address the silencing of explicit discussions of race in academic settings. Believing strongly that no attempts to support ARE in schools can be successful if teachers and students are unable (or unwilling) to confront and, in the words of bell hooks (2003), "move past their denial of the existence of racism" (p. 26), I used the perfomiances of race comics to challenge the students' beliefs that Canadians were colourblind. Two three-hour discussions were planned, and participants were informed that no pre-reading was required prior to our meetings. My principal goal was to support and promote the idea that serious, critical, and explicit discussions about racial discourses are necessary for the development of socially just classrooms and communities (Earick,
2009; hooks, 2003; Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c; Prince, 2001b; Taylor,
2009).
131 Introducing the Class
The pre-service class was comprised of 45 teacher candidates: 8 males and 37 females.
Only one female student in the class self-identified as "Black," while a second female student mentioned that she was from Pakistan, describing her national affiliation and using no explicit racial designation to describe herself during the intervention. Two other students identified as Chinese, though one emphasized to the class that she was born in
Canada. All other students self-identified as "White" and, on various occasions during the two sessions, divulged that they were of European ancestry.
Of the 45 students enrolled in the class, 34 completed consent forms and participated in the comic intervention. The sessions were casually presented to students who were told only that participants would be discussing and viewing race-based comedy by "African American comedians." No additional readings were assigned during the intervention.
The class was divided into small groups of either four or five students, making a total of 8 groups for the comic intervention. These groups had been pre-ananged at the beginning of the year, and by the first day of the comic intervention, students had worked closely with their group members for four classes. This anangement was intended to
Throughout the dissertation I have used the word "Black" to describe the race comics under investigation as well as the communities that they discuss through their performances Here, I acknowledge that I have referred to the same comedians as "African American." The choice to use "Black" throughout the dissertation was based upon this racial designation being used by the race comics themselves throughout their comedy At the time of the Comic Intervention, however, I was not aware of the consistency with which race comics used the term "Black" rather than "African American " As such, the comedians were introduced to the pre-service students as "African American comedians" with much of our initial dialogues immediately considering the consequences of particular racial designations 132 provide some level of comfort among the participants, who would be asked to discuss the comedic clips assigned. Each group was provided with two pre-selected clips by a single comedian, with the exception of Group B whose clips, though taken from Chappelle's
Show, included one sketch featuring Dave Chappelle and a second featuring comedian
Paul Mooney, a regular on Chappelle's sketch comedy program (see Table 5.1).
133 Table 5.1. Comic Intervention Groups - What They Watched
Group Comedian: Clip Names A. Dave Chappelle: Chappelle's Show, Season 1 Group Dave "Blind White Supremacist" (Episode 1, Chapter 3) A Chappelle B. Dave Chappelle: Chappelle's Show, Season 1 "Reparations for Slavery" (Episode 4, Chapter 1 & 3) A. Dave Chappelle: Chappelle's Show, Season 1, "Trading Spouses" Group Dave (Episode 12, Chapter 3) B Chappelle/ Paul Mooney B. Dave Chappelle: Chappelle's Show, Season 1 "Ask a Black Dude" with Paul Mooney (Bonus Features)
A. Dave Chappelle: Chappelle's Show, Season 2 "The Racial Draft" Group Dave (Episode 1, Chapter 3) C Chappelle B. Dave Chappelle: Chappelle's Show, Season 2 "White People Can't Dance" (Episode 3, Chapter 1) A. Dave Chappelle: Chappelle's Show, Season 2 "I Know Black People" Group Dave (Episode 8, Chapter 1) D Chappelle B. Dave Chappelle: Chappelle's Show, Season 2 "Chappelle on Black Celebrity Trials" (Episode 9, Chapter 3) A. Dave Chappelle: The Best of Chappelle's Show "Roots" Group Dave E Chappelle B. Dave Chappelle: The Best of Chapped's Show "The Niggar Family"
A. Chris Rock: The Best of the Chris Rock Show "Reparations Survey" Group F Chris Rock (Episode 19) B. Chris Rock: The Best of the Chris Rock Show "Educational Video" (Episode 21) A. Dave Chappelle: Chappelle's Show, The Lost Episodes "The Racial Group Dave Pixies" (Episode 2, Chapter 3) G Chappelle B. Dave Chappelle: Chappelle's Show, The Lost Episodes "Racial Pixies - Audience comments" (Episode 2, Chapter 4 & 5)
Mexican "Nigga Wake-up Call" Group Paul Mooney H Black Men & Police Stories
The students were divided into 8 groups of 4 or 5 students. Each group was asked to watch 2 race comedy performances. The performances viewed by each group are listed above.
134 To start off this exercise, I told each group that they were to become "experts" in the two clips assigned. Students were first asked to determine individually which clips they felt
"worked," which clips they believed "didn't work," and which they found "offensive."
No instructions or definitions were provided to explain what it meant to define a particular clip as "working" or "not working," nor was there a discussion about what was or was not "offensive." I made every attempt to leave these definitions up to the teacher candidates so as to allow them the freedom to make this determination on their own.
After discussing their individual responses to the clips with their group, students were asked to provide a written record of the group's response. They were provided with a worksheet to help organize their thoughts about the clips, as well as a large piece of construction paper to create a poster with their final "expert" opinions on what "worked,"
"didn't work," or was "offensive." Their posters were shared with the class during the group discussion.
A total of 16 clips were viewed during the comic intervention. Of the 16 clips, 12 were taken from Chappelle's Show, 1 of which was a "Behind the Scenes" look at The
Pixies sketch described in Chapters 3 and 4. A second of these featured Paul Mooney in his Ask a Black Dude portion of Chappelle's Show. Of the 4 remaining clips, 3 were taken from Chris Rock's The Chris Rock Show, and 1 was taken from Paul Mooney's
Know Your History: Jesus was Black and so was Cleopatra in which he discussed stories of Black males and their encounter with the police. Due to technical problems on the first day of the study, the group asked to watch Paul Mooney also watched an additional clip where the comedian discussed what he termed a "Nigger Wake-up Call" - moments
135 when ethnic others professing to be White are informed by mainstream (White) society that they are not really White. Of the 16 clips viewed, 14 used the word "nigger" repeatedly. It was only in Chris Rock's videos that the term was not used, which resulted in 7 of the 8 groups being exposed to contentious and highly controversial (and for some, offensive) language.
During the presentations, groups were asked to begin by summarizing their clips based on the details they included on their posters. Because each group was assigned different comedy clips, time was then taken for the whole class to view the routine to be discussed. This allowed the rest of the students to more fully participate in the classroom discussions. Due to time constraints and the fact that the introductory discussion about comedians scheduled for 10 minutes resulted in the students canying on an intense 30- minute dialogue about race, the class had only enough time to share their responses to 6 of the 16 clips viewed. The students' participation was videotaped on both days, field notes were also compiled at the end of each 3-hour session, and all posters and worksheets were collected on the final day of the intervention. Section 3 offers a detailed analysis of the dialogues that arose during the introductory portion of the intervention.
These opening conversations about race provide insight into the struggles the students had in recognizing the role of race in Canadian society, and act as an urgent reminder that more time is needed for pre-service teachers to think about and become familiar with their own adherence to rigid racial distinctions when interpreting Canadian experiences.
136 Section 3: Opening Conversations
To introduce the class to the work of the race comedians they would be analyzing, I planned a 10-minute activity that involved naming various Black comedians and having the students write down everything they knew about the comics named. Although they were not given a lot of time to record their responses, they were informed they could write "I know more than that!" to indicate that they had run out of time but knew more about the comedian in question. The purpose of this activity was not to elicit critical dialogue about the comedians, but was merely an "ice breaker" that I hoped would have the students begin to think about comedy before readying themselves for a more intensive analysis of the pre-selected clips. After listing the names of six Black comedians (i.e.,
Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor, Dave Chappelle, and Paul
Mooney) and asking the teacher candidates what other "African American" comedians they would include on the list, the following discussion took place:
[Florence] "Do they have to be Black? Can they be Brown? Russell
Peters?"
[Laura Mae] "Didn't I say African American? I did, right?"
[Group Laughter]
[Laura Mae] "I have a question. When I say African American..."
[Florence] "I thought you said..."
[Laura Mae] "Hold on, hold on. It's just a question. Hold your horses.
[Laughing] It's totally just a question. If I say 'African
7 All names of students are pseudonyms to protect the identities participants. 137 American,' do you make a distinction between 'Brown' and
'Black'?"
[Whole Class] "Yes."
[Laura Mae] "What's the ... can somebody tell me what the distinction
is? What's the 'Brown?' What's the 'Black?' What are we
talking about?"
[Marvin] "I think - I don't know for sure - but I think 'Brown' is...
umh Middle East over to India, kmd of.
[Susie] "Yeah, that's what 'Brown' is."
[Marvin] "Like East Asia, or West Asia I guess, to India."
[Laura Mae] "Does everybody agree with that?"
[Whole Class] "Yes."
[Laura Mae] "There is consensus?"
[Whole Class] "Yeah."68
Explanations of the physical location from which "Brown" people originate were easily described, even as Marvin attempted to couch his extremely precise geographical location of "Brown-ness" in claims that he was unsure about his definition. That the entire class appeared to agree with the definition provided also helps to illuminate the normalized racial categories used to describe non-White bodies in North America. This shared understanding, however, created an interesting dilemma for the participants, as this fixed definition of race could not be easily superimposed upon the lived realities of their more
68 Russell Peters self-identifies as a Canadian comedian whose parents are Indian or of South Asian descent 138 nuanced encounters with non-White bodies in course readings or in their daily experiences. In an attempt to have the students consider how racial boundaries were consistently being policed, I asked the students to think again about who belonged in the
"African American" racial category:
[Laura Mae] "When I say 'African American,' would you put Russell
Peters in there?"
[Whole Class] "No"
[Laura Mae] "Why not?"
[Susie] "Cause he makes the... He always tells people that he's
Indian, and stuff."
[Laura Mae] "Somebody just said... say it louder? Sony. I heard
somebody say that he's 'Brown.' And then you said ..."
[Susie] "He always makes the jokes that he's Indian and stuff, so...
you ... make the connection.
[Norma-Jean] "I think, at least in Canada, or something, that 'Brown'
necessarily... like, it does have a subjective connotation."
[Laura Mae] "If I say 'African American,' do you put Canadian people
in there? Isn't Russell Peters Canadian?"
[Tracy] "He's not Black..."
[Margaret] "He's not Black.
[Laura Mae] "So because he's not Black... wait a second..."
[Florence] "What?!?"
139 [Outburst of laughter from whole class]
[Laura Mae] "No, no, no, no, no. I want to go with that. That's very
interesting to me. So I say 'African American' and what
goes in? And what stays out?"
[Marvin] "Well, how are you using 'African American?'"
[Laura Mae] "Well, I'm asking you guys what you were ... do you know
what I mean?"
When the students attempted to refer to the fixed racial categories to justify why Russell
Peters, a Canadian standup comedian of Indian heritage, should or should not be added to the list of "African American" comedians we were creating, they were faced with the realization that these racial categories did not allow for the subjective racial and/ or ethnic affiliations particular people opted to claim. Thus, Russell Peter's self-identification as
"Indian" - this label being considered accurate by the class because of his consistent references to his Indian parents and cultural home life throughout his standup comedy routines - did not easily fit into the unyielding racial boxes we had normalized and were now being asked to use to make explicit as we categorized comedians according to race.
Moreover, this came into direct conflict with the notion that "real" Canadians were
White. This is evidenced by the outburst of laughter when a student claimed that Russell
Peters could not be considered "Canadian" because he was not Black. The difficulty involved in talking explicitly about race is a reality that suggests the need for deeper awareness of how individuals categorize "others".
140 As the moderator of the discussion, I too held my own assumptions about who should and should not be included within the "African American" racial category, and, admittedly, found it difficult to set these aside in order to support my students as they began to recognize that they held differing ideas about who belonged in and outside of particular racial designations. In spite of this, I insisted both implicitly and explicitly to the class that it was imperative that we all recognize that race-based categorizations were consistently being used as we spoke about racial "others."
While I struggled to set my own pre-determined assumptions about race aside so as to allow my students to critically asses the racial categorizations they refened to, it became apparent that they were unaware of when they drew upon the fixed racial categories they had normalized. They were also not fully cognizant of the socio-political consequences of racial designations, insisting that all racial designation did was reference skin colour. This became increasingly clear as they insisted that race was a non-issue for them while simultaneously criticizing those who chose the "wrong" racial designation for a person whose skin colour makes "obvious" the racial category to which he belongs.
Because of this dilemma, the discussions that arose in class proved to clearly contradict the participant's claims that people should be allowed to self-identify any way that they pleased. This is demonstrated by the reaction of teacher candidates to my suggestion that people's racial identifications had more to do with their ideological commitments than the colour of their skin. To do this, I provided the class with an example based on my
141 own family experiences. Asking the class to imagine that a White-skinned Jamaican person had moved from Jamaica to Canada, and, when asked for their racial affiliation, they self-identified as "Black," I requested that the class comment upon whether or not they found the person's racial identification problematic:7
[Marvin] "Well...umh, Why would they go ahead and try and put a
colour on themselves? Like, a different colour too! It's bad
enough they try and put colours on themselves which...
obviously, [there's a] clear difference in colours of skin, but
that really doesn't matter. Umh... but they're trying to put a
different colour on their skin? That doesn't make any sense
at all."
Just moments before, Marvin had expressed the simplicity with which he believed racial categories were meant to be read - race only referred to the colour of a person's skin:
[Marvin] "National pride can't get mixed up with colour of your
skin... 'cause that has nothing to do with colour of your
skin."
Marvin's comments exemplified the tension that was developing between the politically conect positions held by the students that suggested racial designations were a personal decision that should not be detennined by outside others, and the growing consensus that
69 It is important to point out that I did not tell the class that I was describing someone in my own family so as not to increase the chances that they would shy away from discussing my example 70 The example also helped to demonstrate how racial and ethnic affiliations can come into direct conflict when a person moves from one location to another, a point that was discussed in greater detail as participants began speaking about their personal experiences with race on the second day of the comic intervention 142 racial designations were pre-determined precisely because they were directly linked to the colour of a person's skin. Because the students reiterated that labeling based on the colour a person's skin "really didn't matter," they appeared to resist the idea that our choice of racial designation held consequent ideological and/or "real world" implications.
The pre-service teachers openly grappled with their visceral reactions to my examples of
"race-crossing" (e.g. the White-skinned Jamaican) which posed a direct challenge to their desire to not "see" race.
Taking a colourblind position also helped students to ignore the realities of structural racism, a point that is suggested by the following discussion:
[Suzie] "I just don't get the whole like... why can't we just let
people identify with whatever they want to identify with?
Like, why does everyone have to go into everyone else and
be like, what do you identify yourselves with? Like, just let
everyone do their own thing. Like, let them identify
whatever they want to identify..."
[Tasha] "And if it's offensive, then you use something else."
[Suzie] "Exactly... So... I don't know."
[Laura Mae] "If it's offensive?"
[Tasha] "If it's offensive..."
[Suzie] "If they find it offensive.
143 [Tasha] "... of if they don't like being called whatever you call
them, then let them know, and change it to whatever you
feel..."
[Suzie] "Yeah. Like, I don't get why we all have to put ourselves
into all these little categories, and you can only be one, or
you... you can get mushed into two other ones, and stuff
like that. Like, I think everyone should just ... be able to do
identify whatever they want. Like identify with whatever
they want. If I want to call myself Black, I'll call myself
Black. I don't know, like... I don't get the whole, like, bad
thing about calling people "Black," "White," and all that
stuff. Like I..."
[Laura Mae] "[To another student] Yes?"
[Jacqueline] "I think that's too much of an imaginary world. As bad as it
sounds, I think its part of life and everything - that we do
categorize people - and I think most people are aware that it
is bad. But it's a reality. And I think by saying "Let's all
just be happy" and everything like that, and call each other
however we want, that's too imaginary of a world."
Jacqueline challenged her fellow students to consider, recognize, and acknowledge that the deployment of racial categorizations had serious effects on how we lived our lives,
insisting that ignoring the real-world ramifications of racial categorizations was indicative of living in an "imaginary world." The tension between a simplistic
understanding of race referring only to skin colour (i.e. the position taken by Tasha and
Suzie) and racial designations being implicated in the continuation of structural racism
(i.e. the position taken by Jacqueline) were also beginning to surface. Jacqueline's
comments support the idea that a critical assessment of the students' working definition
of race was urgently needed specifically because no one considered that categorizing
people by race had real socially unjust implications for non-Whites.
In an attempt to have participants begin to consider how racial categories were
used and what the consequences of these uses were, I asked them to raise their hands if
they believed that we did categorize other people based on the colour of their skin. After I
was repeatedly asked if my choice of the word "categorize" implied making a
"judgement" of others, I clarified that I simply wanted to know if the class felt that we
categorize people on the basis of skin colour for the purpose of separating them from
others or for understanding them. A little over half the class raised their hands. I then
asked if we also fudge the people who we categorize based on the colour of their skin, to
which nobody raised their hands. A student immediately requested clarification, asking if
I was refening to judgments made "as a society." I answered, "as a society," after which
all the teacher candidates raised their hands. It is noteworthy that their agreement that society did in fact judge people based on racial distinctions allowed them to accept responsibility for judging others based on traditional racial categories, while paradoxically avoiding the responsibility because this was a problem of "society" not of the individuals in the room. The simple hand raising exercise shows the pressing need to
145 make time available for students to talk about race. More specifically, teacher candidates require support so as to begin to recognize how they use and police the rigid racial categories they profess to have transcended. The discussions that arose after watching the sketches by race comics help to support this argument by demonstrating that teacher candidates, on the second day of the intervention, began to reflect upon and share their personal stories about having their racial identities policed. The following section looks specifically at the discussions arising from the presentation by Group C of Dave
Chappelle's The Racial Draft.
Section 4: Engaging with Comedy - Engaging with Race
Day 2 discussions on the work of race comics provided an opportunity for the students to contemplate the inaccuracies of the fixed racial categories they had been trained to use throughout their educational careers, pitting these against the more complicated readings of non-White bodies that they referred to throughout their daily experiences. Though they were given time in class to consider how the fixed racial categories they had normalized over the years were used to maintain and support structural racism in the contemporary world, the review of video footage taken during the two sessions revealed that students did not have a sense of how race is used to sustain social inequities. However, the comic intervention provided a preliminary step for teacher candidates to name some of their experiences as "racial," re-interpreting these to consider the role race played in the events that they shared with the group. Using the conversations that arose after Group C presented their analysis of Dave Chappelle's The Racial Draft, the following section will
146 explore how participants attempted to reconcile their desire to consider race an inelevant social category with the challenge to claims of colourblindness posed by Chappelle's comedy.
The Racial Draft
Before examining how the class reacted to Chappelle's The Racial Draft, I will provide a brief summary of the piece. The purpose of the skit is to reveal an American racial paradox: taking pride in the mixed heritage of the American people and an undeniable attempt to classify mixed race people into a single, rigid racial category. To help resolve the paradox, Chappelle imagines a racial draft in which racial groups set out to claim famous mixed-race Americans as one of their own.
After viewing and analyzing The Racial Draft, Group C, like all other groups, were asked to complete their worksheet and include a rationale for their responses. The details included by Group C are recorded in Table 5.2.
Table 5.2. Group C Worksheet Response to "The Racial Draft"
CLIP NAME IT WORKED! DIDN'T WORK! OFFENSIVE
A. Dave Chappelle: • Yes it worked • The fact that it Chappelle's Show, because it was exaggerated Season 2 "The Racial shunned the made it Draft" (Episode 1, folly of acceptable Chapter 3) illegitimate stereotypes
• The idea of Belonging to somebody. 147 Everybody has to belong to somebody
After watching Dave Chappelle's "The Racial Draft" taken from season 2 of his his sketch comedy program Chappelle's Show, Group C recorded the following responses on the worksheet provided
When asked to complete their poster to be shared with the class, Group C included additional details that were not included in their original worksheet These additional details from the group poster are listed in Table 5 3
Table 5.3. Group C Poster Responses to "The Racial Draft
We Like: The mock thank you speeches because it shows how generally, people accept the labels placed upon them
We Didn't Like: That "Jews" were considered a race
Offensive: Stereotypical team captains (dress/ mannerisms)
While creating the poster to be shared with the class, Group C added the following responses to Dave Chappelle's "The Racial Draft "
When it came time to share their work with the class, Group C was asked to first provide their summary of the clip. The sketch was then shown to the full class, after which Group
C provided their interpretation of what worked and/ or did not work in the skit I then opened up the conversation to the rest of the class and the following comment began the classroom dialogue about Chappelle's sketch
[Vicky] "I think it worked because it it wasn't agreeing with the
skit [I e supporting the racial stereotypes being performed],
it was poking fun at how people make these assumptions 148 And, I think what was funny was how exaggerated they
were? Like I don't think people would've laughed if we
think it was true. Like... do you know what I mean? If... if
that's how we actually saw different races, and different
religions, I don't think it would've been funny. I think it
was funny because we were like, 'Oh, that's ridiculous.'"
Chanel quickly challenged Vicky's statement:
[Chanel] "I kind of disagree with that. I think that that's how people
really do see it. Like I think that people really do categorize
people like that... and look at ... like, if someone is
multiracial, if you want to call it that, like they do look at it
from either side. And I think that that's shedding light ...
like making us look foolish - that's really what we're
doing, like inside our head, you know, not saying it out
loud, but ... yeah."
Both Vicky and Chanel provided commentary about the clip that made plain the struggle of the students taking part in the intervention. While Vicky's comments reiterated the opening claims from many classmates that they did not "believe" in the exaggerated stereotypes typically attributed to members of the fixed racial categories Chappelle discussed in The Racial Draft, Chanel suggested that what is really at issue is the fact that we do make these types of race-based assumptions privately, "in our heads." Moreover, when people legitimately cross racial boundaries because of their mixed heritage, it is an
149 internal and normalized system of classification that results in attempts to place
themselves into a single, rigid, racial category. Though the students in Group C indicated
that they found Chappelle's use of exaggerated racial stereotypes offensive, none of the
teacher candidates participating in the comic intervention considered that these
stereotypical representations were meant to shed light on what it meant to be "drafted"
into a particular race. In short, the manner of dress, speaking, and the assumptions these
held for people of other races were part of the "welcome (racial) package" given to newly
acquired members of the (racial) team. In spite of the resistance to thinking of
Chappelle's sketch in this way, I contend that a number of the students were taking steps
to consider racial designations with much more profundity as the discussion continued.
For example, one student explained, "we just accept the stereotypes that are placed upon
us, and don't ... stand up to argue otherwise against them. [...] We laugh because it's
such a reality [...] and it's so true."
While students continued to think seriously about the ideas presented by race
comics, it was apparent that they hoped that their laughter at these difficult images and uncomfortable sketches was indicative of transcending race and racism:
[Patrick] "I think the reason we laugh and stuff is ... we laugh at
things that are edgy, or that cross the line. It's almost like,
you know, escapist, so... and I think that's the reason why
we laugh at some of these things. And I think another
reason we laugh is that, maybe we're over, like, not totally
150 over, but over, like hate or racism, that we can... we can
actually laugh at things like this, and not be offended, so..."
Patrick's explanation of why we laugh suggests that laughter at race-based comedy
indicates that "it" is a non-issue for audiences. This interpretation, however, led to a
dismissal of some of Group C's opinions about race. For example, Group C recorded on
their posters that they didn't like that in Chappelle's sketch, '"Jews' were considered a race." Although the use of worksheets, the creation of the posters, and taking on the role
of "expert" in front of the larger group was envisioned as a strategy for making students
accountable for their opinions about race, the group did not explain why they did not like
that Chappelle's sketch considered being Jewish as a racial category, nor did anyone in
the larger group ask for clarification on this point. I believe that vastly intense feelings that arose in the conversations that included the full class made it difficult to sustain
student accountability, and that students were more inclined to revert back to the "safe" position of denying race as a category - even if it meant a denial of a complicated historical reality that resulted in a group of people taking pride in their racial affiliation.
This position also allowed the students to deflect any suggestion on my part that they might be implicated (and likely were, as we all are) in the seriously negative socio political consequences that are a part of the lived reality of raced bodies in a racist world.
Thus, attempts like Patrick's to suggest that racism no longer exists in the contemporary world, may be symptomatic of the strength of hegemonic racial ideologies which aim to maintain racial inequities under the guise of social justice and/ or racial transcendence.
151 Like the members of Group C, another student also expressed that she found the clip offensive, explaining to the class that she was embarrassed by her inability to stop laughing at something she believed was highly offensive.
[Florence] "I was just offended by the whole thing."
[Laura Mae] "Were you offended by the whole thing?"
[Florence] "And I was laughing. But it was also offensive. And I was
just like, 'Oh my God, why am I laughing? This is so
embanassing.'"
In an effort to help her reconcile her feelings about the immediate reaction to the clip, I suggested that we had all experienced a moment similar to Florence's where we laughed at something that we felt was inappropriate. I asked the class to think about why we laughed at these controversial portrayals. Bertha's response stood out for me:
[Bertha] "I think the reason why we laugh is because, when you're
in public, and it's said as a joke, or witnessing it as a 'fact'
or a stereotype, you don't laugh cause you're scared you
might offend people, but when we're watching it... it's like,
it's a comedy show, so we're ... like... expected to laugh.
So when we see these things, we finally get to laugh."
It is possible that Florence was made uneasy by her laughter at the clip because it directly contradicted the presumed political correctness a "good" classroom teacher would display
(i.e., that we do not laugh at offensive material). Bertha's comment that "we finally get to laugh" makes visible this tension as the students were charged with the uncomfortable
152 task of viewing the edgy performances of race comics. By offering them a context in which their laughter was considered acceptable, and where they were also able to think about why they laughed, the students were granted a well-needed opportunity to critically assess the role race plays in their daily lives. The tentative steps taken by the participants to more deeply reflect upon Canadian racial discourses were made visible as we neared the end of the comic intervention.
During the final session, the students began sharing experiences in which race had become an issue for them. The experiences they shared - moments when they did not fit into their "race" and, consequently, they felt like outcasts - posed a direct threat to earlier claims that the fixed racial designations that they had normalized posed no danger to, and had no effect on, their daily experiences. These stories also challenged comments that crossing racial boundaries was possible:
[Sandra] "Well... Okay, so I'm Chinese. I was born in Canada.
And... umh... Well, [...] like, I grew up in suburban, see,
so I have a lot of, like... people say like, I'm Black-
washed... umh... cause I listen to, like... like what they
would consider like 'Black' music ... and I like
Reggaeton... and like, stuff like that. And, like, that's the
music I would dance to. [...] I have a hard time fitting in
with, like, Chinese people because the Chinese people are
all like, you know, they ... they're so... I don't... there's
such like... they're the stereotype. And they would speak
153 Chinese to each other, and then I don't ... I'm not fluent in
Chinese, so I can't, like, join in with their conversation.
And then, I'm born in Canada, and I don't really fit in with
like the 'White Culture' I guess, because ... I don't know,
like... it was hard. It's still hard. So, my friends are mostly
like, we're all very multicultural..."
The difficulty Sandra had in fully expressing her own experiences of grappling with her ethnic and racial identities being policed by others leads me to argue that teacher candidates need more time to share, work through, and contemplate the difficulties that arise when trying to negotiate racial politics in Canada. Compared to the ease with which the pre-service class was able to reiterate the normalized fixed categories of race, describing their own experiences and giving voice to the perplexity they face as they consider the effect racial discourses have had on their own lives was a much more difficult process for them. I cannot claim that the comic intervention led the pre-service teachers to a more progressive understanding of the ineffectiveness of fixed racial categories or to an awareness of the effects these socially constructed racial divisions have on real-world experiences for non-White bodies. However, I strongly believe that preliminary steps were taken that opened up the possibility for students to decompress about race, challenging them to reconsider the idea that race is only skin-deep. Though I hope that increased opportunities like this offered through the comic intervention will result in supporting students in the development of more nuanced beliefs about racial designations than those traditionally held by ARE theorists, I can only claim that the
154 comic intervention revealed that the normalized beliefs that race did not matter served to shelter the teacher candidates from recognizing when they made use of inflexible racial categories to formulate opinions about others and themselves. I do not think that their being able to vocalize experiences of not being able to cross racial boundaries - incidences of being upset by their racial identities being policed from outside -reflected a more nuanced vision of racial identity. Instead, I would argue that the comedy made visible and "real" their struggling with racial discourses. Whereas they had been accustomed to falling in line with the fixed stereotypes fashioned by society, during the comic intervention they were given a moment in time to think about and share this sense of discomfort with others:
[Florence] "I've had times where I'm on the TTC and I, like, look
around. I'm like, 'Ah crap, I'm the only White person on this
bus.' And I'm just like... I don't know, like I... I'm just like,
'Ah man, everybody's looking at me!' And I'm just like, like
I feel really weird. [...] That's never been me. Like, I've
always been the majority so... and... I don't know. [...]
Yeah, and it's like it's so weird, like, being the minority. I
like it... I think it's kind of cool, but... it's just
uncomfortable some times."
In spite of Florence's claim that being the minority was "cool," her ability to state that it was uncomfortable to be the only racial "other" was indicative of her opening up to the possibility of recognizing when she was raced as a White body. This moment, then,
155 provided her and the rest of the class with a chance to re-consider their normalized belief that only people of colour have to contend with the constraints of rigid racial designations. Though not phenomenally "radical" in terms of re-envisioning ARE in schools, this preliminary step towards thinking differently about race is important when considering Canadian racial discourses. Of course, we cannot ignore that Florence's
White body affords her the opportunity to return to her more comfortable position of power as a White person, something she did not acknowledge. However, I do hope that upon her return to Whiteness, she, along with her other White classmates, will begin to recognize that race does play a role in their daily lives.
By comparing and contrasting the conversations that preceded the comic intervention exercise with those that occurred after the clips were viewed and analyzed, and presented to the class by the students, I feel confident in arguing that a different type of learning emerged as a consequence of the comic intervention. Prior to viewing the clips, students repeated many politically conect positions about race. These included ideas like race only referred to the colour of the skin, race had no major socio-political implications, and if race did have such consequences for "raced" bodies they, as individuals, were not implicated in the process because they had transcended race by professing to be colourblind. Their positions on race were more deeply affirmed when my questions to the whole class were met with complete consensus (e.g., when I asked where
"Brown" people came from). These discussions left the group feeling confident that while the world around them might need to change so that individual racists were dealt
156 with, they themselves could rest assured that their colourblind attitudes guaranteed that they had transcended race.
I contend that after viewing, discussing, and sharing their feelings about the performance of select race comics, the students were forced to re-think the position they had originally taken: that they had no incriminate role in a racist society. More specifically, discussion of the comedy clips provided the students with an opportunity to share personal stories that were brought to light as they grappled with the critical analysis of racial politics embedded within the comedy clips. It was through this process of sharing that students began to realize that, as a whole, they and were part of the "society" they had originally blamed for judging others based on skin colour. Students were also pushed to consider why they laughed, a point that was especially true when they admitted to laughing about material that, had it been presented as a serious debate, would have been interpreted as racist and/ or quite simply "wrong."
A small number of students expressed that after participating in the Comic
Intervention, they now interpreted or "read" the world differently. Some, for instance, claimed that contemplating why they laughed at controversial portrayals of raced bodies resulted in their being more attuned to race-based discussions that occuned outside of the classroom. Students also mentioned that they had now begun to notice how often friends and family members mentioned race, and that many stereotypical and derogatory comments were made without any thought as to how this might affect the group under discussion, or even themselves.
157 Conclusion
In this chapter I attempted to show how making race comedy a "real" topic for reflection and analysis provided an opportunity for both the teacher candidates and I to gain a richer understanding of how we interpret, understand, and make sense of contemporary racial discourses in Canada. Race comedy created a space within which to help pre-service teachers take preliminary steps towards recognizing when and how race operates in their own lives in particular, and in Canadian society in general. Our discussions helped the teacher candidates realize that the fixed, hegemonic racial categories they had normalized could not explain the more nuanced and "messy" experiences of race that they experienced. Some preliminary considerations of how learning about race differed before and after viewing the comedy clips were also offered. The final chapter of the dissertation will provide concluding remarks about the future of ARE work, thinking specifically about the role comedy and laughter can play in helping to unpack Canadian race-based experiences.
158 Chapter 6: Anti-Racist Education, Comedy, and New Horizons
I have argued throughout this text that the comedic performances by Black race comics can be considered a kind of ARE. I have also demonstrated that the documentation of these performances via video, DVD, or film can be used as pedagogical resources by classroom teachers to both engage and research the processes of ARE. More specifically, teacher educators can draw upon these resources to challenge developing teachers as they struggle to find ways to reconcile the normalized, hegemonic discourses of race learned over time in their schools and communities with the "messier" experiences of being
"raced" and "racing" others in their day-to-day lives. Though I would propose that new ways of defining or explaining race in contemporary society are necessary, classroom discussions during my comic intervention pointed to an even more urgent need for students to be supported and assisted in recognizing how race and racial discourses affect their lives. Without the ability and opportunity to reflect upon how race operates in contemporary Canadian society, no changes to definitions, theories, and praxis about race will make a difference for today's students.
In light of the pre-service teacher dialogues that arose as the class discussed the performances of select race comics, I would like to take another moment to emphasize that students were only just beginning to recognize what the old categories of racial distinctions meant for them. It was only through continual dialogue over the two sessions that students began to seriously consider the role race plays in Canadian society while re thinking their initial sentiments that crossing racial boundaries was easily achieved.
Telling our students that the old racial categories no longer work to explain 159 contemporary racial realities or proposing to them that new definitions and theories of
"race" are needed, assumes that the students know how the old categories worked in their worlds in the first place. Unfortunately, it appears that the emphasis in pre-service classrooms to keep discussions in the realm of theory (if or when race is discussed) serves only to reinforce students' simplistic understanding of old, fixed racial categories placed on themselves and each other. This is not to say that re-thinking how race operates today is a useless endeavor, but only to suggest that before this can be done effectively for students, teachers, and pre-service teacher candidates, more space must be created to help students talk about their experiences as raced bodies in the world, a point that many
ARE scholars come back to time and again in their work (Earick, 2009; Ladson-Billings,
1995, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c; Solomon & Levine-Rasky, 1996, 2003).
Final Reflections on Anti-racist Teacher Education
In Chapter 4, when I explored the notion of social responsibility and the work of race comics, I did so thinking specifically about the effect this would have on future models of
ARE. Many teachers believe that ARE has been successfully addressed in schools as long as race has been "taught" to their students. But what exactly does this look like? For me,
ARE has become much more than simply telling students that we live in a world where
"race matters," although explaining that to students is certainly a part of what I do. ARE has become an opportunity for me to open up my classrooms to dialogues about our real experiences with race. Sharing personal stories, drawing on particular moments when
160 race mattered and spending time talking about how these experiences have shaped us is very important for "successful" ARE experiences.
Doing this work in schools, of course, is not without its challenges. ARE educators devote large amounts of time and energy to the struggle against proponents of those systemic pressures that would have them focus on the "real" cuniculum and leave the social justice and equity topics for their designated times (i.e. during Black History
Month or Multicultural Week). For Black educators interested in doing ARE work, other pressures abound including resistance from students who maintain that such discussions are no longer necessary. The following statements made during the comic intervention by two separate participants demonstrate this:
Why in this course are we so drawn to ethnic/visual/cultural/any type of
minorities in this course? Are we leaving out the "regular, mainstream"
students who will ALSO be in our classrooms? (Pre-service Teacher,
2010)
If we ignore racism - like, as a concept in our brains... if it doesn't exist as
a concept, to anyone - than, it will just go away. (Pre-service teacher,
2010)
The quotes above best reflect the point of departure for pre-service teachers when pushed to critically assess discourses of race and racism in Canadian schools. From resistance to seeing the need to more vigorously consider the experiences of "othered" students in the
Canadian educational system, to unadulterated support for colourblind discourses, I am consistently reminded of the necessity to continue to develop and implement ARE
161 work in my classes. Close examinations of ARE literature, however, reveals only a small number of scholars who address the practical successes and challenges of initiating anti- racist projects in the classroom (Hacker, 2003; Henry, 1998, 2000; hooks, 2003; Ladson-
Billings, 2009a; Rezai-Rashti & Solomon, 2001). Within the scope of this body of work, a growing number reflect specifically on their role as teacher-educators ( Earick, 2009;
Obidah, 2008; Solomon & Levine-Rasky, 1996, 2003). This area of specialization is important for a number of reasons, one of which is best described by bell hooks (2003) in her text Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope:
Teachers are often among the group most reluctant to acknowledge the
extent to which white-supremacist thinking informs every aspect of
culture including the way we learn, the content of what we leant, and the
manner in which we are taught. Much of the consciousness-raising around
the issue of white supremacy and racism has focused attention on teaching
what racism is and how it manifests itself in the daily workings of our
lives. In anti-racist workshops and seminars, much of the time is often
spent simply breaking through the denial that leads many unenlightened
white people, as well as people of colour, to pretend that racist and white-
supremacist thought and action are no longer pervasive in our culture,
(hooks, 2003, p. 25)
Notably, rising to the challenge inherent in ARE models - investing the time, energy, and expertise to consistently remind developing teachers that race does play a critical role in their lives - is made even more complex when the body of the educator is itself marked
162 as "racially other" (Henry, 2000; hooks, 2003; Obidah, 2008). Although only a small number of articles have been published that look explicitly at the unique obstacles faced by Black educators who incorporate ARE into their classrooms, a growing number of scholars are making visible the obstacles presented for White educators interested in the same (Bedard, 2000; Berlak, 2008; Mary E. Earick, 2009; Hyland, 2005; Lea & Sims,
2008; Luttrell, 2008; Mclntyre, 2008; Washington, 1981; Writers & Gruwell, 2006). bell hooks also addresses this paradoxical reality regarding Black and White scholarship on
ARE:
It has become more fashionable, and at times, profitable, for white folks in
academic environments to think and write about race. [...] Black folks/
people of colour who talk too much about race are often represented by
the racist mindset as 'playing the race card' (note how this very expression
trivializes discussions of racism, implying it's all just a game), or as
simply insane. White folks who talk race, however, are often represented
as patrons, as superior civilized beings, (hooks, 2003, p. 27)
For a number of non-White educators, addressing equity needs in their schools is considered by their administrators and colleagues to be their responsibility, even if they are later accused of "playing the race card" when they support the need to dialogue about race (Henry, 2000; hooks, 2003; Prince, 2001a). In response, Black educators like
Annette Henry (2000), Althea Prince (2001b) and bell hooks (2003) have explored this tension, alluding to their paradoxical positioning as "inferior" based on their black bodies, and "superior" based on their presumed "race consciousness" - a rendering of
163 their bodies as political not because of their race politics, but, rather ironically, because of the colour of their skin (Calliste, 2000; Henry, 2000; Obidah, 2008). Drawing upon
"standpoint epistemology" or "situated knowledge," Black feminist scholarship informs my analysis of this (Black and female) educator's dilemma (Henry, 1998, 2000; Prince,
2001b). As Annette Henry (1988) wrote over a decade ago, "Teaching practices are context-specific and culture-bound," and striving to become a teacher devoid of race, culture, class, sexuality, and gender is impossible to achieve (p. 134). It is this desire for neutrality that bell hooks (2003) challenges when she argues that the most counter productive ARE seminars or workshops are those primarily concerned with pretending that racial discourses and white-supremacist ideologies are not pervasive in contemporary society and that the world is, in fact, colourblind (hooks, 2003, p. 25). She writes that "I also found myself challenging students participating in the comic intervention to re consider their belief that racism no longer structures the contemporary world" (p. 25). It is from my position as a Black, female Canadian citizen, however, that I insisted on challenging my pre-service students; juxtaposing my (raced) experiences as a Black woman against the colourblind ideologies they believed framed all Canadian experiences.
Another challenge for Black educators hoping to successfully navigate this over- determined role as anti-racist educator in their own classroom is the standard issues of teacher-student power dynamics that will interfere with honest conversations about race and racism. Here, students hope to develop a positive relationship with their instructor by saying and doing whatever they believe is required to be successful in their course of study. It is impossible to gauge the extent to which these power relations shape the ebb
164 and flow of classroom conversations when discussing more traditional topics, and when explicit discussions about race and racism are initiated by a Black instructor and her/ his students, this is even more pronounced. There is no way to know with any degree of certainly when and/ or if students are merely trying to provide politically correct responses instead of recognizing and re-imagining pertinent discourses of race that affect their interpretations of the social structures and citizens with whom they live. Wanting to find a way to overcome this maze of power dynamics, I introduced the concept of race comics into my classroom, using Black comedic perfomiances as the launching pad for classroom discussions about how discourses of race affect us and will continue to affect us, as we work closely with students. I hypothesized that the comedy clips would create a distancing of pre-service teachers and the racial discourses they discussed, allowing for more sincere allusions to how they really felt about race, racism, and Canadian society.
This seeming objectivity, as they analyzed various comedy clips, would precipitate the turning of their critical gaze upon themselves, revealing the nature and consequences of the racial filters used to frame, interpret, and understand their world. A pivotal moment in the "Comic Intervention" arose when, as we began to think critically about race in the performances viewed as well as in our own lives, I introduced the work of political philosopher Charles W. Mills (1999), who discusses the conception of "Whiteness" as a position of power. We began contemplating who could inhabit this category of
"Whiteness" and what the consequences were of our inclusions and exclusions.
Connections began to be made between comfortable and uncomfortable racial embodiments, and students began to share their own stories of being "raced." For many
165 of the primarily White pre-service students, this was the first time that they had ever
considered their "White" bodies as "raced" bodies. Comedy provided an opportunity for
a different type of conversation and all opinions - those that we agreed with, those that
we challenged, and those that we were offended by - became "food for thought."
However, to better guide my students in their explorations of internalized racial
discourses, I had to commit to engaging in this uncomfortable task myself, doing so
alongside them as we worked together as a group to share our personal experiences with honesty and sincerity during the comic intervention. By the end of the course, four
students used their final assignments for my course to consider how humour and comedy
can help to sustain inaccurate racial stereotypes, each using comedy as a method for
thinking about the continued role racial distinctions play in their lives and the lives of their future students. I could not help but consider this a step in the right direction.
My Last Two Stories... I Promise.
Before concluding, I would like to share two final stories to explain why I believe so
strongly in continuing this work. My first story involves a very real part of any Course
Director's experiences: reading my course evaluations following the comic intervention.
In spite of the interesting dialogues that arose with my pre-service class, I was nervous when I downloaded the file with student comments taken from my course evaluations.
My students had emailed me and stopped by the office to say thank you for a very interesting class, but I knew that, when given an opportunity to write about what they liked and disliked during the semester, anything was possible. Of the 25 written
166 comments provided by students, 4 students stated that race was over-emphasized in the
course, writing "Less about race" as a suggestion for future courses. Their rationale was
also included: they believed that discussions of race that we spoke about in class had
little, if anything, to do with the lives of adolescents. As one student had asked on the
classroom's online forum, why weren't we talking about the "normal" kids that would
also be a part of their future classrooms?
In response, and in light of the work covered in the dissertation, I believe it is
appropriate to quote the late Richard Pryor and say, I emphasized and will continue to
emphasize race in my classroom because I know that I "could stir up more shit on stage
than in a revolution" (Pryor & Gold, 1995, p. 121). My "stage" is my classroom, and my
political agenda on that stage is continuing to find innovative and effective ways of
integrating ARE in varied educational settings. Thinking again of Pryor, ARE represents
"sojourns into tenitory considered dangerous, taboo, and, as all of us know, true to life"
(Pryor & Gold, 1995, p. 128). As an ARE educator, it is important to remember that
education, like the work of race comics, is a politically charged endeavor. And, like any
political agenda, obstacles await ARE's full inclusion in schools and communities. Like
other Black educators who came before me - educators like bell hooks and Althea Prince
who shared an overwhelming desire to make race an integral aspect of their pedagogy - I
was and continue to be forced to choose between the possibilities that negative comments
from students will pose an obstacle to my future academic career, and the prospect that pre-service teachers may gain something from thinking and speaking about race in an
167 open dialogue in my classrooms. My dedication to the latter leads me directly to my second story.
Not too long ago I was standing in line at a fast food restaurant when an altercation at the front counter caught my attention. Standing at the counter was a Black woman with three young children (the eldest would have been no older than 4-years-old) and another woman that might have been her sister. Just steps away from them stood a
White woman. The White woman was visibly annoyed, repeating over and over again to the Black woman, "Just shut up! Just shut up!" and "You can't wait! You don't know how to wait in line." As their argument escalated, the Black woman presumably threatened to "fist" the White woman if she did not stop talking. To be fair, from my vantage point in line I was unable to make out what the Black woman had said, if anything at all, but in no time the White woman was screaming loud enough for everyone in the restaurant to hear: "What? What did you say? You're going to fist me? You're going to fist me? That's it! You know what that is? That's assault - you assaulted me verbally! That's assault." The Black woman's response was now audible. She raised her voice and could be heard over the White woman's screams, requesting that the White woman walk away and stop talking to her. The White woman responded immediately,
"You verbally assaulted me! You're going to fist me? That's what you said. I'm calling the police. Dan? Dan? Come here - she said she's going to fist me!" The Black woman's response was also immediate: "Oh, okay - let's get Dan over here too! Come on Dan, come on over!" A very tall, heavy built White man came walking slowly around the corner, and stood beside the White woman. She turned to him immediately and asked at
168 full voice, "She said she's gonna fist me - that's assault right? Verbal assault? Call the
police!" Then, turning to the Black woman, she said, "Dan knows the law!" The Black
woman responded again, "So do I, I work for..." but the rest of her sentence was
inaudible as the White woman turned away and screamed at Dan, "Why aren't you
calling the police?" She then turned back to the Black woman and said, "/ don't have a
record — do you?" At that moment, I realized that race still mattered. I also realized that
in its new covert form, racism was much harder to address. As I stood in line I
contemplated leaving the restaurant, and I wondered why no manager had appeared to
intervene. I noticed another White woman leave the line and walk towards the Black and
White women involved in the fight, asking them to stop screaming and reminding them
that this was scaring the children who were present. To this, the White woman involved
in the fight turned and asked why she didn't tell the Black woman to shut up, to which
she responded, "I'm telling both of you to shut up." I saw a Black woman behind the
counter, trying to distance herself from the altercation, watching the White woman
intensely, but saying nothing. After the fighting stopped (Dan had taken the White
woman back to their seat around the corner, and no police were called), the Black woman
was visibly upset, trying to remain calm because her children were with her. I walked up
to her, and congratulated her for keeping her cool during the argument, and thinking first
of the reflection any immediate reaction to the White woman's clearly racist comments
about who is most likely to have a police record might have done to her children who
were watching. She turned to me and said thank you, and then explained that she did not have a record. We both paused, and she looked at me again and asked, "But why do I
169 have to explain that to somebody? Because I am Black, she insinuated that I have a police record. That was all because I am Black."
I left the restaurant knowing in my heart that this was not the last time that I would be reminded that race matters in Canadian society. I also recognized the importance for me to continue fighting against racism in its new, colourblind forms.
Carol A. Aylward (1999) contends in her text on critical race theory and Canadian law that, "In the United States, most observers would acknowledge that racism exists; the controversy is over the role that law plays in its maintenance and perpetuation. In
Canada, it is hard even to reach this issue because of pervasive denial of the very existence of racism in Canadian society" (p. 40). Agnes Calliste (2000) builds upon this, explaining that, "Since such overt racism is no longer acceptable, it is being replaced by a much more subtle ideology of cultural inferiority, which is very insidious and much more difficult to prove" (p. 142). Gloria Ladson-Billings (2009b) would agree, arguing that,
"...conceptions of race, even in a postmodern and/ or postcolonial world, are more embedded and fixed than in a previous age" (p. 19). So race does matter. But, as a pre- service student reminded me during the comic intervention, so does comedy:
[T]o me, comedy is... when you laugh about things, it kind of opens you
up, like, a lot, like, it's known that when you laugh ... when you have
laughter, you're more like, easier to open up to ideas, so that's why, to me,
comedy like this works because the laughter kind of makes you open up
and the fact that it actually starts to make you think about all the
assumptions and stuff, that you're like, "Oh..." The fact that you actually
170 start thinking about it, to me, kind of makes it work. (Pre-service Teacher,
2010)
Comedy opens us up to ideas, forces us to consider new perspectives, and, when performed effectively, asks us to recognize when our normalized beliefs no longer make sense. Comedy asks us to question why we laugh while we laugh, freeing us from the constraints that force us to verbalize politically conect responses that may or may not be in line with how we really feel. It is within the folds of this act of freedom that I believe the most interesting and important ARE work can be developed.
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