African American Humor

In this paper I discuss the African-American culture in regards to values, norms and beliefs.

ure by Maria W. Stewart she used various rhetorical devices such as personification, similes, and irony. Her use of these techniques aid her in convincing the audience that the black community is being treated poorly. She used personification and similes to create an image for the audience that makes the topic more relatable, this technique is used because the situation is foreign to the audience. While the similes, and personification create an image the use of irony drives the message home and has a large impact on the public. These rhetorical devices are used in tandem to create a solid and coherent argument.

No belief or idea is as important to me as humor. To quote Henry Drummond from Inherit the Wind, “When you lose your power to laugh, you lose your power to think straight.” Having humor is having perspective, and in doing so allows people to find truth and nuance in an otherwise black-and-white situation. Humor allows me to personally detach from a scenario and analyze it from a bird’s eye view, giving me the edge to understand what others cannot. Apart from seeking truth from humor and identifying the absurd, humor brings people together, whether it be in times of conflict or indifference. Humor is why shows like Last Week Tonight and The Daily Show thrive in times of political divisiveness, poking fun at the absurdities in politics and getting

While reading literature, we manage to forget that they have true roots to what is being written and what they actually represent. When looking at the similarities of how literature is represented it obvious to see that there are certain socially constructed groups presented. Although these socially constructed groups do vary throughout literature, they still tend to be very similar. In Alice Walker’s short story “Everyday Use,” Lorraine Hansberry play “A Raisin in the Sun,” and Langston Hughes’s poems “Harlem” and “Theme for English B” they evaluate the social construction of African Americans. What makes these authors so alike is the similarities that they share; being that they were all born in the early 1900’s, are all of African American ethnicity, and acknowledge the social construct of African Americans in these works. Looking at each of these works of literature they represent the struggles that African Americans faced when trying to be seen as equal, by allowing these works to be shown in different insights towards the battles faced in their movement towards being seen as equal.

Do all latinos have to speak spanish? This is a question that can go for many other culture. In a comedy routine by Anjelah Johnson, she jokes about her being hispanic and not knowing how to speak spanish. Anjelah Johnson effectively uses humor in this routine to get the audience to laugh. She uses humor to deliver her message that all latinos don’t have to speak spanish. She uses humor because it’s easier to communicate with a person when you’re joking.

During this time period literature had a dominance of black women writers. Their writings focused on five major traits: dominance of black women writers, intertextuality, revisiting the past, reoccurrence of historiography, and broadening of horizons. Among the major writers only one was a male. The intertextuality circled around repeat writing, the response and revision of earlier themes and motifs. Each period adds to the existing one by utilizing new contexts to literature, themes and style.

Addresses the ways in which that once black authors made several attempt at encouraging black people to read once they became aware of their real audience. Identifies Wallace Thurman as a Harlem Renaissance author who was unapologetic in his work and criticized black authors and audiences alike who expected him to modify his content to appease white people. Explores how Wallace Thurman’s intended work of art The Blacker the Berry (1929) unconsciously became propaganda for its references to racial prejudice which made prejudice within the race possible. Explores how Thurman’s satiric work calls attention to the complete futility of the aesthetic movement that was the Harlem Renaissance by critiquing and identifying its flaws and contradictions.

Authors have changed people and their views continually throughout time. Authors Zora Neal Hurston and Langston Hughes both drastically effected peoples’ views on African American people. Their most profound time was during the Harlem Renaissance, where they wrote several novels and poems about the lives of African Americans. These authors used their African American heritage and life experiences to compose these works about their communities and widen many peoples’ thoughts and actions towards the African American race. The timing of these authors’ stories, their very diverse lives, and their literature skills all helped them to accomplish their goal of change for their race and bring the races closer.

Since its start, the television industry has been criticized for perpetuating myths and stereotypes about African-Americans through characterizations, story lines, and plots. The situation comedy has been the area that has seemed to draw the most criticism, analysis, and disapproval for stereotyping. From Sanford and Son and The Jefferson’s in the 1970s to The Cosby Show (1984) and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in the 1990s, sitcoms featuring black casts and characters have always been controversial. However, their significance upon our American culture cannot be disregarded. During the 1950s and 1960s, 97% of the families were Caucasian. In the first five years of the

a real life, current-day issue is that black lives matter. Black lives matter about the lives of black people in America are being seriously threatened by the suppression of the white police. They may be beaten or killed if they oppose the police even though they had no weapons in hand. That is why more and more protests broke out across the country to protest the actions of white police against blacks. They want to be treated equally as other citizens in the United States, where many races in the world. it is not mentioned in popular culture because the concept of a white parts they do not respect the blacks. When it comes to black people often think of the bad things that black people have done to America as drug trafficking, looting, rape,

Africans have, since the early settlement of America, has had a great influence in the nation’s growth. These contributions to the United States from enslaved Africans have been greatly portrayed in American culture. Varying from cuisine, to song and dance are not only portrayed today but it has a deep-rooted impact throughout the United States. During the middle passage, enslaved Africans were forced to abandon their everyday lives, their families and their homes and forced to adapt to a new lifestyle they knew nothing of. However, upon arrival into the New World, due to their prior knowledge and wisdom from back home, they were able to quickly adapt and custom themselves to this new lifestyle in order to survive with the hope of potentially one day returning back to Africa. Unfortunately, African contributions to the culture of the United States has received little to no recognition and it has been taken credit for by Europeans and Whites since the early establishment of the United States.

Manbearpig: Half Man, Half Bear, Half Pig, but All Global Warming? South Park is a popular animated comedy series written by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. While the episodes of South Park are always humorous on the surface, each show usually has a deeper, much more profound meaning and moral. One episode of South Park entitled Manbearpig, named after the monster in the episode, has a particularly potent deeper meaning. On the surface, the episode pokes fun at monster stories, politics, and specifically Al Gore. Deeper down, however, this monster story can be read as a national allegory alluding to the dangers of global warming, the problems with the politics behind global warming, and the eventual doom we will all face

In exploring the problem of identity in Black literature we find no simple or definite explanation. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that it is rooted in the reality of the discriminatory social system in America with its historic origins in the institution of slavery. One can discern that this slavery system imposes a double burden on the Negro through severe social and economic inequalities and through the heavy psychological consequences suffered by the Negro who is forced to play an inferior role, 1 the latter relates to the low self-estimate, feeling of helplessness and basic identity conflict. Thus, in some form or the other, every Negro American is confronted with the

I have traveled all over the world but I have never been down South. Being from New York has also given me a very narrow perspective of African American culture. The purpose of this research project is to gain some understanding of Black culture specifically in the South. College has exposed me to a lot of people who were born and raised in the South and some of my closest friends are southerners. By researching the history, culture, and demographic information of the South, I plan on becoming a more well-informed American.

One of the most underappreciated and unrecognized forms of comedy is black humor. Black humor often deals with events that are not often associated with other forms of comedy, such as war, murder, insanity and death. The main reason that this form of comedy is so underappreciated is that it requires some thinking on the part of the audience and many people are not willing to do that. The types of humor that are popular today do not require much thinking and can be characterized as one-liners. However, black humor has been used as an effective means of satire usually towards a tragic event.