“The blues speak to us simultaneously of the tragic and the comic aspects of the human condition and they express a profound sense of life shared by many Negro Americans precisely because their lives have combined these modes. This has been the heritage of a people who for hundreds of years could not celebrate birth or dignify death and whose need to live despite the dehumanizing pressures of slavery developed an endless capacity for laughing at their painful experience”
Ellison - Blues People
Reflections: Anthology of African American Philosophy
What would it mean to experience pain outside of the need to diffuse it with comedy? What would it mean to stop laughing at pain and see it through the lens of a prolonged traumatic response; and the possible effects of diminishing or outright dismissing pain through the need to laugh at it?
“This group experience is shared by many Negros, and any effective study of the blues would; d treat them first as poetry and as ritual”
Ellison - Blues People
Reflections: Anthology of African American Philosophy
The mechanisms of creative ingenuity within the Black culture depict wondrous capabilities to explore emotion and attempt to begin to, or remain aligned with, the process of healing. Catharsis from deep rooted trauma falls short under the guise of only turning pain into fodder for others to be entertained. Diminishing the self to a joke is not a way to explore generational trauma from the terrors of slavery and the horrors of Jim Crow. While laughing at pain can feel good, it does not fully expose the depths to which pain is felt because it is incapable of doing so by reducing it to joke. I doubt that slaves would see the levity in their dehumanization, no matter how many generations they felt removed from it.
While it may be funny for a second, it becomes less of a joke when this is used against you by racists or unaware people who have become comfortable with laughing at your pain and therefore the pain of the people who may have the same lineage of suffering. It becomes easier to just laugh at the pain you experience instead of acknowledging the hegemonic order that forces you into believing that laughing at the pain is a viable way to deal with it or heal from it.
- Comedy can do a lot of things but it has not yet proven to demonstrate its ability to provide restoration and healing for an entire nation. Comedy has become just as divisive as the situations it is supposed to bring levity to, and introduce a jovial way to intellectualize the trivialities of society.
The creative ability of Black beings spans all genres. It is multidimensional, multifaceted. Blues, jazz, gospel, comedy, etc... are all aesthetics that support the healing process for the traumas people continue to experience and suffer through. If there be any lessons learned from the uncomfortable process of healing, is that everything isn’t funny; nor is it meant to be diffused by turning it into a joke or allowing the self to become a caricature who clowns their way through life to avoid dealing with their own personal traumas; who would rather contribute to the collective ones that still need to be addressed. There is no longer the need to jive with a shuck. You and your pain are not a joke.
-Yogabrofessor
Montmarquet, J. A., & Hardy, W. H. (2000). Reflections An Anthology of African American Philosophy. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA65356223
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