Regis University COM400
Humor
Sadikia:
In the African-American culture when you talk about someone like Chris Rock or Richard Pryor or someone who can bring the humor out about the race, it's seen as a genius - a particular genius - from the rest of the culture. But this was a way of survival for African-American people. I mean, you can find someone standing on the corner doing that anywhere. We made fun and joke about ourselves to get by. But, when the dominant culture did it, it was a very injurious thing. It was a mocking thing. It was a very hurtful thing. So humor is not something that we really-- It's really kind of internal to us and exclusive to the rest of us.
Bruce:
That's one that comes up a lot. Believe me, working in construction I've heard it, is hearing the word "nigger." Now, even the way it's being pronounced by me, there's a familiarity with it. And it's a word of-- It's a barrier. But the thing that's happened that some people are trying to figure out what to do with-- It's always been a barrier that kept us in. But, now, we take that barrier-- And I know this guy next to me; that's my brother. When I say it, I'm saying my brother because I know that this word has been a barrier to stop me from going here, but it's going to keep us together. And then, when someone else who's outside the barrier-- Sometimes somebody who's historically of a people who created the barrier in the first place says, Hey, I want to say it. I want to get on the side of the barrier. We're like, No. The barrier's already built. You're on that side; I'm on this side. I understand where people kind of want to transcend that, but it's not going to happen this generation.
Raymond:
As you speak, what it reminds me is how I was touched by Adam in that, for you, with the "N" word is to reclaim something historically that was a pejorative and was a way to suppress and make lesser than human a group of people through the power of the word and that it's reclaiming that power - solidarity, as I understand what you're saying.
Bruce:
Right.
Raymond:
Likewise, with Adam and what I was earlier expressing is that somebody from the outside would say, Well, you had to give up. You sold out, just like everybody that went through Ellis Island had to change their name, whether they were Irish Catholic or whether-- You look at New York, and people had to fit in. They had to sell out, where you refrained it the way you're refraining it. And what you basically taught me was this idea of, No. My name is sacred and special, and you have to earn the trust and have relationship with me before you can call me my indigenous name - my ethnic name. And, for now, you're on the porch. I'm not going to let you in the living room. And, when you're out here on my front yard and you haven't even gone into my living room, I'm Adam to you. But, once you go into my inner sanctum, into my heart in relationship, then I will give you the privilege of calling me by my real name.
Likewise, in the black community, given its historical legacy of oppression and racism, is it-- People like Richard Pryor and Chris Rock and many, many others, and even with Mexican/Chicano humorous comedians, I've heard them reclaim a lot of the stereotypes and demystify them. Like you said earlier-- I loved how you said to kind of tear down all the stereotypes and then build up-- being able to do that.