Hokum 19-36 (10/23/12)

For me, Hokum missed the mark. Key phrase: for me. We were assigned three different short stories from Hokum, an anthology on African-American humor. Of those three stories, two pulled some grins out of me; one didn’t affect me whatsoever. Perhaps, and this is just a shot in the dark but, perhaps, I didn’t find this anthology funny so far because I cannot relate to any of the content hardly. The three stories were written in 1923, 1926, and 1944 respectively, and the setting and contents of each story are from a time when African-Americans and white Americans were still segregated. I found the blatant racism, which was seemingly presented nonchalantly, unfortunate and offensive. Perhaps that is the point though. These authors are making light of a marred and unfortunate history of their ancestors, namely, slavery and segregation.

Specifically, W.E.B. Dubois’ short story, On Being Crazy, was not as funny to me as interesting as an analytical presentation of society and it’s “craziness”. The term “social equality” is thrown around and wrongly used as an African American man encounters racism every way he turns. I simply did not find this funny. The next short story, ‘Possum or Pig, by Zora Neale Hurston, was my least favorite of the three, which is saying quite a bit. I think the point of the story is that John, the slave, outwits his master by claiming he is cooking a possum instead of a pig. Right when it seems he is caught for actually cooking a pig, John denies responsibility if what he pulls out of the put is a pig because he claims to have put a possum into the pot. We don’t get to see the rest of the encounter, but Zora Neale Hurston often writes stories where John, a slave, outwits his master and even wins his freedom, so I believe this story follows suit. I think I understand the humor of this story more than the other. Hurston is mocking an authority figure and uplifting the cunning trickster. I can appreciate this form of comedy but did not find this particular example to be funny.

The last, longest story in the assigned reading is Let Me at the Enemy- an’ George Brown by Chester Himes. Although this story was the longest and had the most undecipherable slang in it, I enjoyed it the most. It’s an interesting story and really came full circle at the end when the main character, High C, gets drafted in the army anyway, and George Brown gets drafted shortly after him. Even with this story, I felt I enjoyed it more as a story than any sort of comedy. I couldn’t help but think… if this is an anthology of African-American humor where do Dave Chappelle and Martin Lawrence fit in?