Archive: Arts & Entertainment

SMART TALK SMART TALK

by Dr. Tilde Cedilla

BLACK HUMOR: Soon after I arrived from Cuba, I heard the term black humor. I thought it meant a particular style of humor as practiced by African Americans, and being very dark myself, I wasn’t sure how to react to that. I confided my confusion to a colleague at the Center for English as a First Language. English not being my first language, its idioms can still throw me off.

My colleague laughed, which surprised me, and told me to look it up. Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary says it’s “a form of humor that regards human suffering as absurd rather than pitiable, or that considers human existence as ironic and pointless but somehow comic.”

So it has nothing to do with race. Well, try saying that to a black person who’s been shocked at the jokes that some ignorant white people tell. One thing I’ve learned in this country is that Gentiles shouldn’t tell Jew jokes, and white people shouldn’t tell race jokes. Some white people like to talk about how far this country has come, but the jokes and the obstructionism in Congress tell me that you still have a long way to go.

 

One step on the way would be to stop using the term black humor. You have excellent alternatives in dark humor and, sometimes, gallows humor.

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