Example 1
Shown at right are the lyrics to one of the most famous songs from the blackface minstrelsy era. Dixie (I Wish I was in Dixie) written by Daniel Emmett tells the tale of a freed slave reminiscing on his "good" times in the South. The use of African-American vernacular is pervasive throughout the song. |
Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton,
Old times there are not forgotten. Look away, look away, look away Dixie Land! In Dixie Land, where I was born in, early on one frosty mornin'. Look away, look away, look away Dixie Land! I wish I was in Dixie, Hooray! Hooray! In Dixie Land I'll take my stand, to live and die in Dixie. Away, away, away down south in Dixie! Away, away, away down south in Dixie! There's buckwheat cakes and Injun batter, Makes you fat or a little fatter. Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land Then hoe it down and scratch your gravel, To Dixie's Land I'm bound to travel. Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land I wish I was in Dixie, Hooray! Hooray! In Dixie Land I'll take my stand, to live and die in Dixie. Away, away, away down south in Dixie! Away, away, away down south in Dixie! |
Example 2
In this video, a series of animated cartoons are used to depict some of the most racist, dehumanizing stereotypes of African-Americans. Shown in the video are examples of the coon, mammy, rhythmic. Though these stereotypes appear in other examples on this page, these are emphasized to an extraordinary degree. |
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Example 3
This cartoon served as an ad for Pears' Soap in the late 19th century. The ad demonstrates that their soap is a great product because it can change skin complexion from black to white. Thus, this distasteful, incredibly racist ad from the minstrel era portrays blacks as being filthy, dirty, grimy, etc. However, once you bathe using Pears' Soap you will be clean and relieved. |
Example 5
This black minstrel scene comes from the movie Yes Mr. Bones (1951). The plot of the film itself revolves around a young child who stumbles upon a retirement home for minstrel performers. The rest of the film consists of flashbacks from the minstrel era like the one provided at the right. "Minstrel Math" harshly portrays one of the most deeply rooted anti-black caricatures: the coon (i.e. stupid, lazy, inarticulate). |
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Example 7
This clip comes from an episode of the television show Amos and Andy. Both characters express themselves using exaggerated inarticulate African-American vernacular. |
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Example 8
In this excerpt from a journal on African American comedy, Jerome Zolten analyzes the manner in which many comedians have forged their own images of black comedy. In this specific example, Zolten uses Richard Pryor's Bicentennial Nigger album to illustrate how Pryor uses ethnic humor to take a stand against racism. While Pryor is first and foremost a comedian, he is also an activist for equal rights and opportunity as shown in his comedy. |
"Comedian Richard Pryor has probably used comedy more directly than any other comedian to take a stand against racism. Pryor would say for example, "American justice. That's what you find when you look in the jails. Just us, man, just us!" In one of his most brilliant and powerful moments on record, Pryor used a stereotypical comedy image to bitterly make a point about African American experience in America (See Bicentennial Nigger - Pryor)...Up to the point, the audience, primarily white, has been laughing but Pryor drops the humor with the final sentence, and the audience in sober realization takes full force the bitterness and pain underlying the routine. This final illustration treads a fine line between comedy and entertainment and serious rhetoric. In the end comedy does little to sugarcoat the angry message" (Zolten 74)
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Example 9
In this excerpt from one of Chris Rock's stand up routines, he creates humor out of common situations faced by black slaves. He places the institution of slavery in a modern context in an effort to break down African-American stereotypes. |
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Example 10
This clip comes from the sketch comedy television show on Comedy Central, Key & Peele. In this sketch, a substitute, black, inner-city teacher comes to teach in a white middle-class school and has an incredibly difficult time pronouncing the students' names while taking attendance. While this video plays on some basic stereotypes of African-American vernacular, the humor is relatively unrelated to race. |
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Example 11
This is a stand-up routine from Dave Chappelle that many have deemed hurtful and intolerant. However, I contend that Chappelle presents the issues of Native Americans in a multiethnic approach. He points out many overt stereotypes and makes them appear ridiculous in retrospect. |
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Example 13
While this video clip is not necessarily an example of ethnic humor, it is certainly an example of modern stereotypes of blacks. Rick Ross' music video for his song "Thug Cry" shows a man in a jail cell who is expected to be released in the coming days. Throughout the music video we see expressions of gun violence, lower class living, drug lords, and overall evil. |
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Example 14
The two following examples come from the animated sitcom, Family Guy. In both video excerpts, we see the presence of the "angry black woman" stereotype. The purpose in each video is to provide comic relief as opposed to an attempt to break down the stereotype. The directors play on the fact that many black women are perceived as belligerent, stubborn, and irate. |
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Example 15
This excerpt from a journal entitled "Fight the Power: African American Humor as a Discourse of Resistance" accurately summarizes the struggles and dilemmas of present-day black comedians. There will always be a very fine line that African-Americans humorists face between being reinforcing stereotypes and breaking them down. And with that being said, black comedians will continue to face the ongoing battle between being funny and controversial. |
"In a post civil rights movement America's successful black comics have a complex dilemma. In order to avoid moral and ethical concerns wrought be achieving success at the expense of other blacks, they have to generate material that is relevant but not overly controversial, funny, but it cannot reinforce stereotypes. Because they have been deemed as having transcended immutable racial categories, comics who have achieved crossover success in theory should not have to respond to racism because they exist in a society which has eradicated slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and therefore, has overcome institutional racism. However, this raceless utopia is a myth. Consequently, the way that these "post soul" comics, those coming of age after the end of civil rights and Black Power movements, (Neal, 2002, p. 3) and their predecessors (i.e. Dick Gregory, Paul Mooney, Richard Pryor) attempt to resist racist categorizations or respond to hegemonic discourses about race in their performances reveals their awareness of the precarious social position they occupy. Their routines expose the comics' attempt to be, as Dick Gregory would say, a "black funny man" rather than a "funny black man" as a means of achieving crossover success (Haggins, 2007, p. 98), (Bailey).
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