When Black Jokes Cross the Line: An Intersectional Analysis of Everyday African-American Humor about Race

• In Event: 152 - Regular Session. Race, Class, and Gender 2

Abstract

WHEN BLACK JOKES CROSS THE LINE:
AN INTERSECTIONAL ANALYSIS OF EVERYDAY AFRICAN-AMERICAN HUMOR ABOUT RACE

ABSTRACT

The scholarship on African Americans simultaneously analyzes this racial group as constituting a cohesive community—one with a shared history and culture—and also as a heterogeneous, divided racial group. When it comes to how African Americans view themselves, the results are equally divided: some studies confirm a belief in a unified group, others argue that African Americans see their own group as profoundly divided. Humor, which has been theorized to serve as a conduit to express otherwise unuttered truths, offers a unique lens through which to examine how African Americans make sense of race and racism in the twenty-first century. Drawing on 150 interviews with African Americans about their views of and experiences with racial discrimination, the opportunity structure, and inequality, this paper analyzes how respondents of different class backgrounds, genders, and generations spontaneously employ humor. While many studies emphasize class cleavages as being the most salient divide among African Americans and their worldviews, these data suggest that the differences in gendered and generational experiences are more important in predicting the variation in the topics and forms of black humor. African Americans’ views of race, racism, and discrimination are more divided by age and gender than by class position.

Author

• Nicole Arlette Hirsch, Harvard University