In essence, African American Humour can be understood as an oral tradition whose roots can be traced back to the prevelance of oral performance as an art form in pre-colonial Africa, commonly practiced by village and tribe storytellers, tricksters (Anansi), sage advisors, and historians (Dates, 2018, p. 21).
The humour is skillfully crafted and articulated by skilled communicators who can express complex and intricate socio-political and socio-historical reflections while encapsulating the nuances that come with daily Black existence in North America. It is used as an oral device to question, challenge, and advance encoded messages both publicly and privately, internally within the community and externally amongst the White population. It is used to teach, frame, shame, ridicule, child-rear, respond to, or maneuver through/within the daily harsh and hostile complexities and exhaustions brought with being Black in North America (Dates, 2018, p. 2).
Embark with us on a journey of tracing the morphology of African American humour, from the enslavement period to how we understand and interpret it today. As you go through the archive and explore its development, you will begin to see that the humorous African American communicative modes did not emerge during enslavement, but has in fact been a form of communication, community, and relational capacity building that has existed for centuries within Africa in the context of traditional African oral traditions. This misconception has arisen from intentional efforts of erasure and absence perpetrated by gatekeepers within Academia. Here, the process of creating this archive, and the stories communicated through various humorous communicative modes that you will come across IS emergence. The resistance to erasure and absence IS emergence. The ability for enslaved peoples to come together and build community and express joy despite the horrendous circumstances facing them was and IS resistance. You will come to see this as you explore the archive.
Before discussing origins and the morphology of humorous African American communicative modes, it is important that we first discuss what this is, and the different and most popular forms of said communicative modes.
Smith & Murray (2011) describe a communicative mode as a medium through which one’s intentions are expressed or conveyed to someone else. Within the context of this section of the archive, humour is the communicative mode through which an array of nuanced and complex socio-political, moral, and philosophical thought and ideas are communicated. The following are examples of popular African (which eventually transformed into African American or Black American) humorous communicative modes and are accompanied with examples or links to other sections of the archive which expand on these communicative modes in greater detail.
Animal stories employed animals to critique and denounce slavery, the conditions it brought about for the enslaved, and ridicule European slave owners through encoded language in tongue-and-cheek fashion (Watkins, 2002). The following are examples of first-hand accounts of original Animal Stories recorded in an 1882 publication of “Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings”, and how stories, using humour and encoded language, were used to impress wisdom and inspire both resistance and joy:
As a trickster who occupies the liminal space between the human and spiritual worlds, Anansi's role is to oppose and thwart the gods, including Nyame the Sky God, often resulting in chaos and misfortune for both humans the gods (Marshall 36-37a; Wickersham).
Trickster stories can be found in cultures around the world, featuring themes that emphasize cultural conceptions of morality, spirituality and religion, and the spreading of intergenerational knowledge. ( Britannica )
However despite his destructive and chaotic nature, his title of “Ananse Koroko” or “Great Spider” indicates that he still maintains high status among the Africans and African diasporas who share his stories (Mbiti, 1969, p 51; Marshall 1).
The Many Names of Anansi
Due to the tendency towards oral storytelling, variety in spelling is common (Marshall 5b)
Contemporary Jamaica: “Anansi” or “Anancy” (Marshall 5b)
Contemporary West Africa: “Ananse” or Anànse) (Marshall 5b)
African American Folklore: Aunty Nancy / Miss Nancy (Wickersham)
“Ananse Koroko”, meaning the Great Spider or the Wise One, linking the spider to wisdom (Mbiti, 1969, p 51; Marshall 1a)
Kwaku Anansi
Hapanzi, Nanzi (Britannica)
Navigate a map of Anansi Trickster Stories connected between West Africa and the Caribbean by clicking here
Although these stories have spread with the movement of the African diaspora, they originated with the Akan people in Ghana, West Africa; specifically the Asante (Ashanti) people (Wickersham). Formerly named the Gold Coast by British colonizers, Ghana is often referred to under this name in documentation about the Transatlantic slave trade (Marshall 1a)
This map demonstrates that Anansi stories are prevalent in West African nations such as Togo, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The stories traveled with people to the Caribbean via the Transatlantic Slave Trade, primarily from the Asante people in Ghana to Jamaica (the green geo tags indicate this relationship between Ghana and Jamaica)
Although these stories have spread with the movement of the African diaspora, they originated with the Akan people in Ghana, West Africa; specifically the Asante (Ashanti) people ( Wickersham ).
Reflecting cultural practices and notions of spirituality, these stories were transmitted orally after nightfall in storytelling circles, often in Akan language “Twi” (Marshall 33-34a).
Further on in this database, you will find transcriptions of Anansi stories in the original Twi, accompanied by illustrations made by members of the Ashanti, Fanti, and Ewe tribes, as documented by R.S. Rattray in his primary source book Akan-Ashanti Folk Tales (Rattray 1930).
Listen to Jamaican scholar and author, Ms. Lou tell the story "Anancy and the Yellow Snake" below:
Here is an audio recording of Anansi stories titled “Ashanti Folk Tales from Ghana”, which gives insight into version of Anansi stories from the Ashanti/Asante people based in Ghana.
Below are the Liner Notes that are attached to the CD recording of this audio clip. The recording was produced by Folkways Records (New York) in 1960, narrated by Harold Courlander, and this archival record was published by the University of Alberta.
In the Asante kingdom and culture in Ghana during the 1920s, Anansi stories were a socially acceptable method to communicate discontent with powerful people, as the community valued discussion towards conflict resolution, rather than violence. R.J Rattray addresses how “disgraceful” versions of Anansi were performed in evening storytelling sessions to expose misconduct, emphasizing the significance of oral communication and performance in this community. The stories serve to induce resolution, diffuse negative emotions or tensions into laughter rather than resentment, and act as a medium for negotiation. (Rattray, 1930, p. x; Marshall 33a)
To regulate the practice, legitimize the mockery, and protect storytellers, there were 2 primary rules to be followed when criticizing a chief, fellow villager, or even the King of Ashanti. (Marshall 34a)
The tales must only be told after nightfall.
There must be public disclaimers announced before and after each story to attest that the stories are not strictly true.
Rattray’s collection - Start: “we do not really mean, we do not really mean (that we are going to say is true)” (Rattray, 1930, p. 55)
Rattray’s collection - End: “this, my story, which I have related, if it be sweet, (or) if it be not sweet, take some elsewhere, and let some come back to me” (p. 59) or “some of you may take as true, and the rest you may praise me (for the telling it)” (p. 77)
Anansi offers social, ethical, and moral lessons that serve as the core of many Akan cultural responses to society (Britannica). In particular, Anansi represents Asante values and social structure by depicting contrasting attitudes of order and chaos (Marshall 37a). He simultaneously acts as a force of destruction and creation, of mayhem and order, due to his liminal position between human and non-human worlds, and due to his tendency to invert all social rules (Marshall 37a).
When it comes to representing order, Anansi reveals the Asante understanding that there can be no pure centrifugality. Just as the turning of the centre creates movement away from the centre, so Anansi’s movement away from order creates order. He shows the power of liminality precisely by stressing its negation of ordinary structure’ (Pelton, 1980, p. 36) (Marshall 37a).
When it comes to representing chaos, Anansi’s behaviours include disconnecting his body parts, eating his children, abusing his guests, ignoring the truth, and stealing from the sky-god Nyame. (Marshall 37a).
In addition, Marshall writes about how Anansi’s liminality helps represent his contrasting values of order and chaos. Alongside the human and spirit world, Anansi exists in the Asante ‘midden’; the liminal in-between space between the human and spiritual world. Mimicking the role of that ‘midden’, his character is depicted as an intermediary of life and death, nature and culture, and the spirit world and human world. His stories are symbolic of this ‘midden’, in part because they celebrate a cyclical > linear approach to life by linking birth to date and exploring essence as a regenerative element (Marshall 37a).
Marshall also highlights how the idea of community is valued higher against individualism, through their depiction of Anansi as a loner; without friends or family, without community, and without obligations to others. The stories feature this character but demonstrate and uphold the orderly, cooperative, communal society which is a tenant of the Asante culture (Marshall 37a).
It was precisely by testing the limitations of Asante moral code and by acting utterly opposite to the conditioned forms of human behaviour, Anansi was able to set and strengthen hierarchical Asante social structures. He became a re-creative force, by challenging the structure of Asante society with his liminality, but simultaneously reaffirming it. This force of chaos ultimately brought about an improved social order. However, while Anansi tested the boundaries of the Asante society’s system and reinforced their social rules, in the Jamaican plantation context he symbolically destroyed the enforced/abhorrent social order imposed by the European slavers (Marshall 37a).
R.S. Rattray headed the Anthropological Department of the Asante capital Kumasi during the 1920s; a department that he founded to conduct research on the Asante people and culture. His writing contributed to the early body of 20 th century European writing on the matter through methods that included ethnographic research, in which he would visit remote Asante villages, observe their evening storytelling sessions, identify the tales he considered the ‘best’, have the storyteller repeat it to him the next day, and rewrite them in Twi and English with minimal editing. (Marshall 32a)
While his work is presented as being cognizant of his position as a European scholar reproducing Asante cultural practices in their original form, it introduces discussions about the construction of archives.
What constituted the ‘best’ tale in his opinion. What meanings did he miss as an outsider to the culture, that might have dismissed particular tales from being included?
How were his research practices and understanding limited as a scholar in Europe in the 1920s? Notably, the tales reproduced in Akan-Ashanti Folk Tales are absent of any cues indicating the performance, inflections of tone, or pauses, despite being integral to the Asante oral storytelling practice. What accounts of Anansi tales could be found that more closely represent the experience of the storytelling?
How did his presence impact the delivery and content of the Anansi tales, especially as his documentation occurred during the second, private session with the storyteller the following day?
The aforementioned collection of tales is accompanied by illustrations made by members of the Ashanti, Fanti, and Ewe tribes, which he opted to use rather than attempting his own work. In addition, he pushed to offer the stories in their original Twi and English with minimal editing. Through this, he presents a degree of self-awareness about his inability to reproduce the stories accurately and responsibly.
His works have been hailed as a ‘valuable and original source’, but what original sources are being left out from the history and archives because they can’t be written and published in a traditional means? Does this imply that oral preservation and intergenerational storytelling that passes on today are less legitimate, despite being the longstanding method of practice.
How Kwaku Ananse (The Spider) Got Aso In Marriage - P.133-137 from Rattray’s “Akan-Ashanti Folk Tales”
The Elders Say, “Be It Your Kinsman, Or Husband, Or Any One At All Who Has Work To Do, If He Ask You, Help Him” - p.141-145 from Rattray’s Akan-Ashanti Folk Tales
In Jamaican Anansi tales, there are a few key differences from the Ghanaian origins.
The sky-god Nyame is replaced by Tiger
Anansi has no interaction with the spiritual world
Anansi is more man than spider and symbolizes a black slave stolen from Africa
Anansi is depicted as talking with a Lisp (patois is heavily influenced by Twi)
Anansi's actions appear more violent and remorseless. often featuring elements of plantation life (massa, whips, cane fields).
Anansi is a symbol of creative chaos and freedom from tyrannical and coercive order
In doing so, stories would focus more on how an enslaved person used Anansi tactics to survive and resist, including finding ways to do less work, eat more food, trick and steal from Massa, and generally prioritize strategy and trickery in their resistance. These changes demonstrated how the culture and spirits of the victims of slavery could not be destroyed by slavery throughout Jamaican history. The stories instead operated as parables of survival, often depicting situations where the weak could prevail over the strong.
Caribbean Newspapers archive has newspapers that mention Anansi stories from around the world (Río Piedras, P.R; Kingston, Jamaica; Mona, Jamaica; Manitoba, Canada; Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; Tunapuna, T&T; Nassau, Bahamas; Miami, Florida).
Abeng Newspaper (Vol. 1, No. 15 May 10th, 1969), Kingston, Jamaica. Page 1-3
[INSERT IMAGES]
Oral Storytelling: One of the major limitations of the textual archive is that Anansi stories are traditionally transmitted orally. By only reading the stories in their written & transcribed form, readers lose the expressions, pauses, and drama that are present in an oral performance of the tale. Thus, they hear a 2D version of what can be considered a 3D story.
Marshall highlights this strong storytelling and oral culture among the Asante in the following excerpt: “The Asante had a love of oratory and delighted in word-play and long discussions, which is exemplified in their strong storytelling tradition. They also believed that it was wrong to fight and kill when conflicts could be resolved through discussion. Europeans have contributed greatly to the image of the Asante as bloodthirsty warriors, yet a visitor from Europe to the King Osei Bonsu's court, at the beginning of the 19th century, reported that the King had 'a maxim associated with the religion he professed, never to appeal to the sword while the path lay open for negotiation' (Isichei, 1977, p. 62). Furthermore, the Anansi themselves tales undoubtedly reflect a faith in the power of words to resolve conflicts” (Marshall 33-34a).
Martha Warren Beckwith’s book “Jamaica Anansi Stories” documents the Anansi stories in English, but seeks to preserve intonation and authenticity by writing them in their original slang. The stories were transcribed from over 60 Jamaican storytellers in remote districts of Jamaica during 1919 and 1921 (Beckwith, xi). In the preface and excerpts attached below, Beckwith comments on the importance of performance and oral storytelling practices in regard to Anansi tales and offers examples of those stories.
Language and Transcription: A second key limitation of the archive is that many of the stories are preserved in translated English, as opposed to the original Twi. Resultingly, the meaning of the story is determined by the interpretation of the translator,
This issue is addressed in part by R.S. Rattray’s 1930’s book “Akan-Ashanti Folk Tales”, where he highlights how transcribers were prone to ignoring African idiom, frequently omitted details deemed trivial, but were actually key to the individuality of each story, and transcribed stories in a uniform unidiomatic expression that doesn’t reflect the spoken language of the storytellers or the mass of the people (Rattray, v). In the preface attached below, readers can see how he attempted to remedy this by documenting the stories in their original Twi and a near-literally translated English, noting that critical analysis of Rattray’s work and research methods should still be applied.
Martha Warren Beckwith
R.S. Rattray
In Venus in Two Acts, Hartman introduces the methodology of Critical Fabulation, which combines archival and historical research with critical theory and fictional narrative in order to make sense of gaps in the records, and demonstrates a “scholarly way of writing about archival silences that explicitly draws on fictional techniques.” (Princeton University Library).
Abstract: In “Lose Your Mother”, Saidiya Hartman traces the history of the Atlantic slave trade by recounting a journey she took along a slave route in Ghana. Following the trail of captives from the hinterland to the Atlantic coast, she reckons with the blank slate of her own genealogy and vividly dramatizes the effects of slavery on three centuries of African and African American history. // The slave, Hartman observes, is a stranger—torn from family, home, and country. To lose your mother is to be severed from your kin, to forget your past, and to inhabit the world as an outsider. There are no known survivors of Hartman's lineage, no relatives in Ghana whom she came hoping to find. She is a stranger in search of strangers, and this fact leads her into intimate engagements with the people she encounters along the way and with figures from the past whose lives were shattered and transformed by the slave trade. Written in prose that is fresh, insightful, and deeply affecting, Lose Your Mother is a "landmark text" (Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams).
In Routes of Remembrance, Holsey focuses on how the memories of the slave trade are constructed by local residents and government tourism efforts, and the competing attitudes towards remembering a history of slavery (Venkatachalam). Holsey approaches the subject from ‘within the geographies provided by theories of postcolonialism as well as those provided by theories of the black Atlantic’ (Holsey, p. 14), and thus argues that conflicting discourses are produced from the spatial and temporal displacements of information on the slave trade. (Venkatachalam)
Abstract: "Over the past fifteen years, visitors from the African diaspora have flocked to Cape Coast and Elmina, two towns in Ghana whose chief tourist attractions are the castles and dungeons where slaves were imprisoned before embarking for the New World. This desire to commemorate the Middle Passage contrasts sharply with the silence that normally cloaks the subject within Ghana. Why do Ghanaians suppress the history of enslavement? And why is this history expressed so differently on the other side of the Atlantic?
Routes of Remembrance tackles these questions by analyzing the slave trade’s absence from public versions of coastal Ghanaian family and community histories, its troubled presentation in the country’s classrooms and nationalist narratives, and its elaboration by the transnational tourism industry. Bayo Holsey discovers that in the past, African involvement in the slave trade was used by Europeans to denigrate local residents, and this stigma continues to shape the way Ghanaians imagine their historical past. Today, however, due to international attention and the curiosity of young Ghanaians, the slave trade has at last entered the public sphere, transforming it from a stigmatizing history to one that holds the potential to contest global inequalities.
Holsey’s study will be crucial to anyone involved in the global debate over how the slave trade endures in history and in memory." (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo5519143.html)
Along with the theme of the diaspora, Dionne Brand also alludes to a new form of archiving, which scholar Erica Johnson elaborates on in her article “Building the Neo-Archive: Dionne Brand's A Map to the Door of No Return” (2014). The neo-archive is the creation of an archive of postcolonial writers-mainly of creative and personal forms, and Johnson also suggests the idea of memory work, in which the author/scholar includes their own memory, or memories of others (generational) into the historical archive. Johnson writes, By neo-archive, I refer to fiction that creates history in the face of its absence. Unlike historians, writers of fiction can fully enter the conditional tense to which Lowe alludes-and what is more, they can merge the conditional with the present through poetic explorations of archival gaps. Brand does this in her first two novels. (Johnson 2014).
In Carby's memoir Imperial Intimacies, she draws from Anansi stories to depict the migration of bodies and stories, in reference to her Jamaican and British family. The motif of the web draws on the convergence and division experienced by diasporas in movement, the popularity of Anansi tales across the Atlantic and even beyond Afro-Caribbean groups, and the enduring and resilient qualities of a web. (Gandhi)
[REPLACE IMAGES]
View more of the maps and image carousels below, including side-by-side English-Twi story translations:
Signifying the Monkey is a vernacular tradition whose reliance on tonal inflection and use of language IS the comedic punchline in (sometimes) the absence of a punchline itself, emerging from a prevalent tradition seen in many West African tribes with origins from the trickster story of the Esu Elegbara (Dates, 2018). Its use is strategic, often employed to indirectly communicate an idea or concept humorously, as observed within Animal Stories (Zeidan, 2024).
This comedic humorous mode itself has a rich history and fascinating development throughout the post-enslavement period (see Post-Colonial Enslavement – 20th Century Comedy in the Jim Crowe & Civil Rights Movement Era section). Stand-up – though heavily gate-kept by White comedians and entrepreneurs – was both a tool and space for those of the African diaspora to skillfully and wittily discuss the intricacy of navigating racism and prejudice in America. The creation of Def Jam comedy in the 90’s completely flipped the comedic scene on its head, as it was Black owned which enabled African American comics to discuss their Blackness and lived experiences in a raunchier, uncensored, and unapologetic way (Dates, 2018).
Weisgerber (1973) describes satire as “’literary work in which vices, follies, stupidities, abuses, etc., are held up to ridicule and contempt’” (pg. 157). The ultimate goal of satire within comedic humorous modes is to persuade the audience that the current existing conditions of society can and should be improved significantly and thus, its successful delivery is heavily dependent upon the social context in which the satire is advanced (Weisgerber, 1973). Satire is interwoven into and underpins the very fabric of African American comedic humorous modes and traditions.
Black-led television, film, and stand-up comedy differs from the previously discussed humorous communicative modes in the explicit, socio-politically conscious material it incorporated and addressed through its humour (see “Black Television” under the Contemporary 21st Century Black Comedy section).
Twitter, and the subsequent social phenomenon known as “Black Twitter” gave rise to Black intellectual and comedic voices to openly and freely discuss their thoughts on an array of issues ranging from the social to the political (see “Black Twitter” under the Contemporary 21st Century Black Comedy section).
Laws and legislature explicitly prohibiting and restricting the freedom of movement and expression of the enslaved were enacted to both prevent collective mobilization for rebellion, and to crush their spirits, depriving them of hope or reprieve from the torment they were undergoing. This was essential to successfully exploiting and suppressing the enslaved, as it enabled continuous monitoring and control of their agency and prevented achievement of legal and socially perceived personhood. The following are archival sources concerning U.S. state legislature on slavery.
The Following is a copy of state legislature from the State of Louisiana in 1807, outlining the legal control the state and slave owners held over the political, social, and physical agency of enslaved peoples.
Circa 1807 - HeinOnline
This Archival Source is a copy of state legislature from the State of Mississippi in 1805, outlining the legal structures and legislature to be implemented to prevent enslaved peoples from ever being emancipated.
Circa 1805 - HeinOnline
This Archival Source is a copy of federal legislature from 1793 outlining the legal ramifications for runaway enslaved peoples once caught.
Circa 1793 - HeinOnline
Despite these attempts at controlling the movement and gathering of enslaved Africans, (as the gathering of Black men and women in groups larger than 5 was outlawed in several states including Alabama, District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia) (NMAAHC, n.d.), enslaved peoples resisted this by hosting secret gatherings deep within the woods at night. It was here that the familial, spiritual, political, social, pleasurable, and comedic relation building occurred (NMAAHC, n.d.). These can be seen as practices of the emergent. It is also here that the African American humorous communicative modes were skillfully practiced, shaped, crafted, and transformed from traditional African oral traditions, to what eventually continued to develop into what we know today as contemporary African American humour.
As previously stated, joke telling has a long and rich history within our community, utilized through proverbs within African folktales to express complex ideas, emotions, concerns, fears, or joys. Humour took the form of animal stories, rhymes, work songs, plantation sayings, jokes, lies (or tall tales) (Dates, 2018, p. 25), the “dozens”, also known as roasting or clowning, hypothesized to have been a form of venting and regulating hostilities amongst dejected and depressed enslaved populations, and “signifying the monkey” – a vernacular tradition whose reliance on tonal inflection and use of language IS the comedic punchline in (sometimes) the absence of a punchline itself, emerging from a prevalent tradition seen in many West African tribes with origins from the trickster story of the Esu Elegbara (Signifying Monkey) (Dates, 2018). Ultimately, this humour emerged from already existing traditional African oral traditions and evolved to actively respond to the traumatic conditions facing enslaved peoples. These all eventually came to form the basis for the oral tradition that is now African American humour.
As slave owners began catching onto the practice of humour and other African oral traditions amongst enslaved peoples, they were amused and even encouraged it for their own entertainment. Storytellers skillfully navigated this complicated social dynamic through the self-censoring of content within jokes and stories told as to not cause fear of the idea of self-actualization, socio-political thought, political organization and mobilisation, and thus, potential self-realization of Black peoples (Dates, 2018; Trouillot, 1995). To acknowledge this, was to acknowledge the humanity of the enslaved.
Within this was an implicit understanding that humour itself is a form of resistance when targeted towards its oppressors due to its power to subvert socio-political and cultural ideals, and to translate overt political statements into less easily traceable and punishable jokes (Simon, 2010).
Another notable example of these encoded jokes was the ‘Cakewalk’. It initially meant to mock affluent white people and their manner of strut and speech but was later transformed to be more palatable and digestible for white slave owners once they caught on to what was occurring. Subsequently, the ‘Cakewalk’ became transformed into ‘friendly’ regional competition amongst slave plantations (Dates, 2018).
Circa 1898
Circa 1903
Responses: Oppressor Censorship & Narrative Control
Humour was a tool to which enslaved peoples actively responded to and engaged with enslavement and their oppressors, helping to navigate the criminalization of their existence. To prevent the comedic and humorous from translating fully into the political, institutions of racialized violence and their oppressors responded with a twisted humour of their own to a) justify the institutionalization of slavery by over-caricaturizing and dehumanizing their portrayals of enslaved peoples b) psychologically reassure themselves that they were the superior race and class of being (Dates, 2018). This was done through the introduction of Minstrel Shows, Coon Shows, and song in the late 18th century, where narratives on the Black man as the “coon” emerged. Here, Black men began being depicted as “…ignorant, devoid of honesty or personal honour, given to drunkenness and gambling, without ambition – often featured as watermelon and chicken-loving rural buffoons” (Dates, 2018, p. 29). Due to the confinement of Black civil rights, liberties, and subsequently, economic autonomy and mobility, many Black men were forced to portray themselves in this degraded way in minstrel or coon shows to help provide for their families (Dates, 2018). Stereotypical and degrading narratives on Black Women began taking form and shape here as well.
The Mammy Stereotype: Served political and socio-economic interests of White Americans, depicting Black women exclusively as an asexual, maternal figure caricature whose loyal servitude to her master and joyous expressive attitude was used to justify and “humanize” slavery as an institution (Dates, 2018).
Anna E. Hall Collection Circa 1930
Sapphire/Angry Black Woman: This caricature was created as a framing tactic to establish the narrative of white women as a cultural norm and standard to which Black women were to be compared to. Here, Black women were characterized as being loud, aggressive, un-ladylike, hostile, dishonest, and White women as lady-like, caring, and catering towards men. This character was often accompanied by a Black Male character, who can become the target of verbal abuse, reprimanding, and emasculation for his questionable and dishonest character, as previously discussed (Dates, 2018). This narrative has continued into the 21st century through new popular media.
The Jezebel: A caricature which depicts Black women as the “slut” – constantly engaging in/with lewd sexual acts, who utilizes her sexuality to gain “…attention, love, and material goods from men” (also known as the gold digger) (Dates, 2018, p. 40-41). It was used during the period of enslavement to justify why many slave drivers were having mixed children – they were not willing participants in the sexual violence enacted against Black enslaved women, but simply allured and seduced into sex by a “deviant” and “immoral” women. It utilizes Biblical imagery and imaginaries of Queen Jezebel. It also has its roots in the pre-enslavement period with White men first encountering Black women in African tribes to which they immediately sexualized, being “scantily dressed” and dancing in “provocative manners” (Dates, 2018).
Ultimately, these have been the narratives and stereotypes created by slave owners and oppressors and continue to take shape and form within modern and contemporary media. Jokes and joke telling was not so much criminalized as it was reappropriated and weaponized as a means of both silencing and erasing identity.
Post-abolition 20th century saw a clash and confliction in the conceptualizations of Black men and women in everyday imaginaries. Many Black people moved to Harlem, New York which became synonymous for the idea that the emancipated, socially conscious, and urbane individual migrated to, playing against the backdrop of minstrel-like, caricaturized shows, movies, radio and Broadway during the Jim Crow era of segregation. This ushered in what is known today as the Harlem Renaissance (Dates, 2018). This was in contestation with some other forms of Black humour which at times uncritically reproduced stereotypes and harmful narratives of self. Comedians such as Redd Foxx & Moms Mabley however emerged as endearing, critical, and unflinching comics who skillfully spoke about daily Black life.
The 60’s – 70’s
This period of daily American life and African American humour was defined by significant socio-political upheaval and turmoil with the onset of the Civil Rights Movement, protests against the Vietnam War, and fighting for women’s rights. Subsequently, this period of social reformation saw White comedians beginning to embrace their black counterparts, providing them more mainstream exposure as they were the gatekeepers of such opportunities (Dates, 2018). Black comedians began shaping their craft around the subtle nuances present within everyday racism in an authentic and witty way, helping expose larger audiences to what life as a Black man or woman was like in North America. The following is an excerpt from Dick Gregory’s autobiography “Nigger: An Autobiography” featured in Dates & Ramirez’s (2018) novel African American Humour: The Best Black Comedy from Slavery to Today:
The 80’s – 90’s
Other forms of institutionalized racism materialized in the form over-policing of and within Black Communities. This occurred amid the onset of the crack epidemic, which allowed for an inadvertent form of social and geographical segregation (Dates, 2018). Subsequently, CRT became a dominant tool and lens through which racial socio-political inequalities could be analysed, resulting in the emergence of Interest Convergence Theory. This theory proposes that true reformation and advancements in racial equity and equality within America occurred only when it suited the interests of powerful elites and the U.S. government (Dates, 2018; Timcke, 2017). It became necessary during the Cold War in achieving the capitalist agenda of expanding the U.S.’s global sphere of influence, which entailed expansion in areas of newly freed enslaved peoples; their media image needed changing (Dates, 2018). This had a significant impact upon the commercial success and exposure of the American population to Black comedy; it suited the agendas of advertisers in increasing their sales and profits, thus beginning targeted advertising of both their products, and Black Comedy to Black consumers during their programming’s (Dates, 2018). Black comedians continued to use their platforms to discuss racial injustices and daily lived experiences through their humour, but the extent of the exposure to wider audiences remained limited due to the White gatekeepers to mainstream comedy and television.
The 90’s saw explicit increasing efforts on behalf of the U.S. government towards the improvement in race relations and encouraged engagement in inter-ethnic dialogue. With this came new emergent spaces specifically designed by Black comics for Black comics where they were able to discuss and articulate much racier explicit content such as race relations, sex, drugs, and other “off limit” subjects; this was in significant contrast to the conservatist politics of the prior decade (Dates, 2018). Many citizens and comedians, disillusioned by the war on drugs and the emergence of Hip-hop felt more encouraged and safer to freely express themselves on issued typically reserved for the in-groups within our community. The most prolific and impactful of these spaces being Def Comedy Jam, created by Russell Simmons. This was a space in which the content matter of the jokes being crafted no longer had to appeal to and be palatable for white audiences and became less self-deprecating than it did explicitly making fun of or poking fun at white people (Dates, 2018).
Black Television
Black-led television, film, and stand-up comedy was emboldened by its explicit, socio-political consciousness, addressing key issues such as social identity/identity politics, racism, racial injustice, and the black experience. The Dave Chapelle Show, Key & Peele, Black-ish, and Atlanta are all examples of television series in which play into socio-cultural stereotypes of both the Black community and other racialized communities to critically portray, articulate, and comment on the absurdity of racism and challenged pre-conceived notions and conceptualizations on race as a social construct. What was employed here is a phenomenon Simon (2010) identifies as “Reverse discourse”, a strategy often employed by Black comedians utilizing the same or similar semantics and etymology from earlier racist discourses for a reversal effect and is positioned in the context of the reversal of the social dynamics and speaker in which the language/semantics itself is employed within. It is the “other” of the earlier discourse’s articulation and inflection of new meaning in this that reverses the discourse, giving it new meaning (Simon, 2010).
Social Media & Black Twitter
Social media revolutionized and transformed the way in which content was delivered to the people. Platforms had now existed where ordinary people could create and share their own humour with others and enabled the audience to engage and interact with the content in real time in a significantly more accessible way (Dates, 2018, p. 126). It removed content moderators, gatekeepers and mediators traditionally found within broadcasted television and comedy venues. Most prolific of these platforms for Black Americans have been and continues to be Twitter, which took on a name of its own amongst the people, “Black Twitter”. This ultimately enabled more niche issues to be discussed on public digital forums that were once previously unknown to the public (Dates, 2018).
Black Twitter gave voice to Black intellectuals, trendsetters, and everyday people to discuss pressing socio-political issues or shocking pop-culture moments that would have not gone into mainstream discourse in years prior (Dates, 2018). It enabled racial injustices to become known globally in an age of globalization and interconnectedness, becoming a useful tool for sharing in-group culture to the world through hilarious trending hashtags. Ultimately, it became a unique place which housed diverse dialogue and engagement pertaining to black experiences (Dates, 2018). E.g., Examples of these hashtags include #ThanksgivingWithBlackFamilies | #OscarsSoWhite | #StayMadAbby | BlackLivesMatter, and memes generally speaking. This is especially true in its usage to respond to and have discussions on the state of U.S. politics. In most recent memory, the election of President Obama & Trump lit the internet ablaze with diverse perspectives of social political commentary. Following the election of Donald Trump and the subsequent degradation in race relations, accompanied by increasing racial violence, humour was utilized as a tool for healing, for coming to terms with the realities of what the presidency had meant for the Black community.
"1 Stat. 302 Chapter 7, 2 Congress, Session 2, An Act: Respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters. (Feb. 12, 1793)." U.S. Statutes at Large, , , pp. 302-305. HeinOnline, https://heinonline-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/HOL/P?h=hein.slavery/ssactsaa0003&i=4.
"An Act to amend the act, entitled an act prescribing the rules and conduct to be observed with respect to Negroes and other Slaves of this Territory." Louisiana - 1st Legislature, 2nd Session, , , pp. 186-191. HeinOnline, https://heinonline-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/HOL/P?h=hein.slavery/ssactsla0023&i=1.
"An Act to prevent the liberation of Slaves, only in cases hereafter named, and for other purposes." Mississippi - 3rd General Assembly, July Extraordinary Session, , , pp. 13-14. HeinOnline, https://heinonline-org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/HOL/P?h=hein.slavery/ssactsms0009&i=2.
"Anansi." In Myths and Legends of the World, edited by John M. Wickersham. New York, NY: Macmillan Reference USA, 2000. Gale In Context: Canada (accessed May 9, 2023). https://link-gale-com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/apps/doc/EJ2134050024/CIC?u=utoronto_main&sid=bookmark-CIC&xid=468c7871 .
“Caribbean Newspapers, dLOC (Caribbean Newspapers) - 100 Results.” Digital Library of the Caribbean. Accessed May 2023. https://dloc.com/collections/CNDL/results?q=anancy.
“Trickster Tale.” Encyclopædia Britannica.
[a] Marshall, Emily Zobel. 2007. “Liminal Anansi: Symbol of Order and Chaos An Exploration of Anansi’s Roots Amongst the Asante of Ghana.” Caribbean Quarterly 53 (3): 30–40. https://doi.org/10.1080/00086495.2007.11672326 .
[b] Marshall, Emily Zobel. 2012. Anansi’s Journey: a Story of Jamaican Cultural Resistance. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press.
2002 African American Humour: The Best Black Comedy from Slavery to Today.
2010 The “Other” Laughs Back: Humour and Resistance in Anti-racist
2017 Internal Rule and the Other America in Capital, State, Empire: The New American
Anna E. Hall Collection. (n.d.). “Mammy”, circa 1930. https://radar.auctr.edu/islandora/object/auc.119%3A0068
Black Twitter Thread. (n.d.). X.com. X (formerly Twitter). https://x.com/ModupeOfficial/status/1368827565876654081
Brand, Dionne. 2023. A Map to the Door of No Return : Notes to Belonging. Toronto: Vintage Canada.
Carby, Hazel V. 2019. Imperial Intimacies : a Tale of Two Islands. London ;: Verso.
Circa 1898 Hoffman/Boaz Postcard Collection: Collection Contents: NMAH.AC.0281,
Collection Contents: NMAH.AC.0281, ref518.
Comedy. Sociology 44(1): 31-48. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42857368
Courlander, Harold. 1966. “Ashanti Folk Tales from Ghana.” New York: Folkways Records, https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity%7Crecorded_cd%7C72350.
Courlander, Harold. 2017. "All Stories are Anansi's" YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBYz3mDRp84
Dates, L. Jannette, and Mia Moody Ramirez. From Blackface to Black Twitter: Reflections on Black Humor, Race, Politics, and Gender. New York: Peter Lang, 2018.
Figure 8. Illustration of Anansi in Pamela Colman-Smith's Annancy Stories (1899, 26)
Gregory, D. (2021, November 13). Dick Gregory - Caught in the act (1973) | full double LP. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSPXK99nTms&t=3s
Gregory, D. (2023, November 9). Dick Gregory • standup comedy • 1965 [Reelin’ in the years archive]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRJRMQZ9p84
Harold Courlander - Topic. "All Stories Are Anansi's." YouTube, November 19, 2017. https://youtu.be/FBYz3mDRp84.
Hartman, Saidiya V. Venus in Two acts. Los Angeles, CA: Cassandra Press, 2021.
Holsey, Bayo. 2008. Routes of Remembrance : Refashioning the Slave Trade in Ghana. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv5vddh1.8
https://sova.si.edu/record/nmah.ac.0281/ref518
Jamaican Spiderman. “Anancy and Cow Story Time by Jamaican Spiderman.” YouTube, April 23, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AG32XmJDXo.
Key, K.-M., & Peele, J. (2021, October 21). What happens when zombies are racist: Key & Peele. YouTube. https://youtu.be/FeTpzn2MkXU?si=OzYvCvvw5y0N7K9H
Key, K.-M., & Peele, J. (2023, September 4). Can I get on lot A?: Key & Peele: Comedy Central Africa. YouTube. https://youtu.be/Ubt9zdjJtOw?si=DJTwFowQn4dluZaV
Lawrence Hill Books, Chicago
Library of Congress. (2009, July 10). Cake walk. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=y7l3fYGFjRsFvfo4&v=QifiyNm6jG4&feature=youtu.be
Mythology & Fiction Explained. 2022. "Anansi | The Crazy Story of Ghana's Spider-Man Trickster" YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT-NvGBa1zA&t=1s
Mythology and Fiction Explained. “Anansi | the Crazy Story of Ghana’s Spider-Man Trickster (Exploring African Folklore).” YouTube, February 15, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT-NvGBa1zA.
National Library of Jamaica. “Miss Lou on Dinky and ‘Anancy & Yellow Snake.’” YouTube, September 6, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK6-8CfrYjE&t=15s.
National Library of Jamaica. 2019. "Miss Lou on Anancy & the Yellow Snake." YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK6-8CfrYjE&t=15s
National Museum Jamaica. “Anancy & the Snake.” YouTube, May 27, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXR5kVU2gSg.
NMAAHC. (n.d.). Illegal to gather. Illegal to Gather | National Museum of African American History & Culture. https://www.searchablemuseum.com/illegal-to-gather#community
Penny, P. (2024, May 10). First 5 minutes | Black Twitter: A People’s History | Hulu. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILVP23Y60vE
Pryor, R. (2020, June 13). Richard Pryor’s 1979 joke about police still applies | netflix is a joke. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWulvchFpYs
Rattray, R. S. (Robert Sutherland). Akan-Ashanti Folk-Tales. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1969
Rattray, R.S. (Robert Sutherland). “How Kwaku Ananse (The Spider) Got Aso In Marriage“ In Akan-Ashanti Folk-Tales, 133-137. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1969.
REF518. Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives: Hoffman/Boaz Postcard Collection |
Scholastic Records Album No. sc 7710. Produced by Folkways Records, New York. 1960.
Sherlock, Philip Manderson. 1966. West Indies. London: Thames and Hudson.
Smith, M., & Murray, J. (2011). Augmentative and alternative communication devices. Assistive Technologies, 991–1004. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-4422-9.ch050
Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives
Timcke, Scott
Trouillot, M.-R. (1995). An unthinkable history: The Haitian Revolution as a non-event. Beacon Press.
Uncle Paul. “Anancy and De Two Dawg.” Abeng. May 10, 1969. https://dloc.com/UF00100338/00014/citation.
Watkins, Mel
Way of Digital Warfare. University of Westminster Press.
Weaver, Simon
Weisgerber, J. (1973). Satire and Irony as Means of Communication. Comparative Literature Studies, 10(2), 157–172.
Zeidan, A. (2024). Henry Louis Gates, Jr.. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Louis-Gates-Jr#ref810274