3 - Over a Barrel: Ellison and the Democratic Politics of Black Laughter

Summary

That must be the reason, thought Sandy, why poverty-stricken old Negroes like Uncle Dan Givens lived so long – because to them, no matter how hard life might be, it was not without laughter.

Langston Hughes, Not Without Laughter (1995: 249)

This race has the greatest of the gifts of God, laughter. It dances and sings; it is humble; it longs to learn; it loves men; it loves women. It is frankly, baldly, deliciously human in an artificial and hypocritical land. […] The white world has its gibes and cruel caricatures; it has its loud guffaws; but to the black world alone belongs the delicious chuckle.

W. E. B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn (1968: 148)

Somebody on the set that was white laughed in such a way – I know the difference of people laughing with me and people laughing at me – and it was the first time I had ever gotten a laugh that I was uncomfortable with. Not just uncomfortable, but like, should I fire this person?

Dave Chappelle, The Oprah Winfrey Show (2006)

On 22 August 2015, California police removed ten Black women from the Napa Valley Wine Train (Rocha 2015). The Wine Train company, which offers luxury dining along historic rail routes in California wine country, accused the women – members of a book club – of disturbing their fellow passengers by ‘laughing too loudly’. This incident generated international media attention and inspired the Twitter hashtag #laughingwhileblack that highlighted other incidents of white hostility towards Black laughter. Such a preoccupation with the styles, patterns and volumes of Black laughter is not new, as the laughter of Black Americans has long constituted a site of intense white anxiety and attempts at regulation (Chasar 2008; Parvulescu 2010: 59–77). Indeed, as scholar of American popular culture Mike Chasar notes, ‘we must recognize the extent to which race relations in the United States have been conducted via African American laughter’ (Chasar 2008: 60).

In light of this history, the current chapter seeks to determine how a critical theory of laughter can speak to and illuminate laughter's role in racial politics (particularly American racial politics).