Wednesday, October 22, 2008

If you don’t laugh you will cry: two 'jokes' about the upcoming American election

In a comment on my last post, “Why imagination is necessary for governance,” jdid said, referring to the recent Canadian election: “lol, all I can do is laugh.” When I remarked that he must be “a man of extraordinary courage for [he was] clearly… laughing in the face of enormous adversity…” his response was “Clarabella, if I don’t laugh I would cry.” I owe him an apology. I should have recognized the backdrop of sobriety, the typical Caribbean modus operandi of “taking serious ting make joke”. I should have twigged to it because it’s the MO I employ in my own writing, whether prose or poetry. I've more than once explained that it’s not just possible but necessary for me to infuse humour into serious subjects because this is what we do in the Caribbean. “If we doan laff, we haffi bawl!” Since Whappy was a bwoy, laughter has been our strategy of survival in the midst of grief, pain, devastation, ruin.

That brings me to two ‘jokes’. I owe the first to fsjl, who passed it on:

So a canvasser goes to a woman's door in Washington, Pennsylvania. Knocks. Woman answers. Knocker asks who she's planning to vote for. She isn't sure, has to ask her husband who she's voting for. Husband is off in another room watching some game. Canvasser hears him yell back, "We're votin' for the nigger!" Woman turns back to canvasser, and says brightly and matter of factly: "We're voting for the nigger."

I can’t remember where I saw the second, and so reproduce it from memory.

Obama is at the pearly gates, and St Peter says to him, “What makes you think you deserve to enter here? What did you do on earth to distinguish yourself?” Obama replies: “Well, I was the first black President of the United States.” “Oh!” replies St Peter. “And when did this take place?” Obama replies, “About twenty minutes ago.”

I have to admit that these are ‘jokes’ in the tradition of – what? Black humour? Dark comedy? (The ironies here are so numerous that I’m finding it hard to breathe.) “Black humour” according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, “often uses farce and low comedy to make clear that individuals are helpless victims of fate and character.” [In the case of joke number one, character, and joke number two, fate?] We should remember that it was traditionally the clown in the king’s court, the one playing the ‘fool’, whose job it was to “speak truth to power,” as the popular lingo now puts it, and that clowns and their comedian progeny have always been serious folk, tellers of unpalatable truths – witness, in modern times, Pryor, Gregory, Goldberg, Carlin, among many others.

The Democratic presidential candidate and those who surround and advise him, and see to his security, are obviously well aware of these truths.

Consider the second matter first. Senator Obama was given a heavy security detail very early in the campaign and Christian prayer warriors – another kind of security detail, if you will – ‘cover him with the blood of Jesus,’ both groups acting out of the recognition that what he is doing is something that puts his person at risk. Coming to terms with this must require a deep, continued and abiding courage on the part of himself and his family, knowing as they do that throughout American history, harbingers of change, both white and black, have paid the ultimate price.

And consider the first tale, a slice of life so convincing, I think it’s precious – a promise of willy-nilly perception so madly possible, it’s exhilarating! If those who conceive of black people as niggers will nevertheless vote for a nigger as president, then there must be a means by which understanding can well up in people, never mind that their attitudes are confused and conflicted and wrong-headed and deeply offensive. Believers would say it’s the Spirit Wind, blowing “where it listeth.”

So I do not find either 'joke' offensive. They present boldly and baldly contemporary realities that the American public ignores at their peril. By having them presented as jokes, people are jolted into facing what is, terrible as that prospect may be. And Americans, many of them, perhaps most of them, either won’t be able to laugh, or won’t be able to stop laughing, for fear of being overwhelmed by tears that leave them beyond being comforted.

8 comments:

Jdid said...

no apology necessary

I'm worried about that assassination thing to be honest. Remember early in the democratic campaign there were black people who didnt want to vote for him cause they were sure they were sending him to his death?

I wouldnt be like that but every time I see him giving a big speech in front of a crowd I prepare myself for the possibility that a shot will ring out. but thats the reality of an Obama presidency i guess, he will have more folk than usual gunning for him

The first joke I think actually some folk are starting to realize wait a minute we've voting for a black dude and are starting to second guess themselves. thats why i'm not a big fan of polls. i want to see what happens on the 4th

clarabella said...

I'm with you on all of this, jdid. This man is not Colin Powell, someone who's had his say, been his been and done his thing. Obama is a young man, with young kids, and with much of his life, in the normal course of things, still to be lived. He's to smart not to understand these runnings and the concomitant risks, which is why I believe that he's not just in it for the fame and fortune. It's like what a lot of gay people I know say when asked, "Why did you choose to be gay?" Who in their right mind would choose to be the President of the United States at this sad hour? Only a true patriot? Only a madman? Only a truly patriotic madman?

FSJL said...

I'm holding my breath, metaphorically that is. I'd be dead long before the 4th if I did it literally.

This election year has made theatre of the absurd seem seriously realistic (Woman-of-the-People Palin's $150K clothes-shopping spree, John McCain's suspending of his campaign, the campaign technique of Rudolph Giuliani, anything to do with either Tom Tancredo or Duncan Hunter). The state of the economy has proved George W.'s commitment to bringing back the good old days since we seem to be reliving the highlights of the 1930s.

Rethabile said...

I find neither joke offensive. As you say, Pryor and Carlin have taken truths and turned them into laughing matters, which always made them easier to swallow.

Two things I'd like to say. One is that I'm not sure King and the Kennedys expected to be rubbed out. Malcolm and Evers apparently did. Obama does. Perhaps that'll make it that much harder to get to him.

Secondly, people who have a goal in mind, change, radical change, people with a fight in their fists or on their tongue, such people are usually already beyond fear. I don't know how much fight Obama is carrying, but in the face of more dangerous adversity, Mandela, Tutu, Gandhi, and many others forged ahead despite everything else. I have an example within my own family. And I say this after hearing you say, "Coming to terms with this must require a deep, continued and abiding courage on the part of himself and his family, knowing as they do that throughout American history, harbingers of change, both white and black, have paid the ultimate price."

Yes. And I think that while such people may not throw caution to the wind, they certainly graduate to another level at which what needs to get done must get done.

clarabella said...

Hi rethabile:

Thanks much for this comment. I'm glad you find neither joke offensive. I think sometimes people don't understand the difference between grinning and laughing, which always has something on the other side of it that I won't try to describe here. Maybe in a post, some time. I do know you have an example in your own family, and in a way, I have one too. Brings home the whole business of freedom, truth and justice...

I'm interested in your comment, "...I'm not sure King and the Kennedys expected to be rubbed out. Malcolm and Evers apparently did. Obama does." Glad if you would expand on it.

I agree that Mandela, Tutu and Gandhi (I thought of the likes of them when I wrote the post) are men beyond fear, with a foot already in eternity, however one conceives of that. I think they "saw their way clear..." which is how I think of it in my own life, when what I need to do is so inexorable, I am moved along into the doing of it almost without having to consent.

It's like you say "...while such people may not throw caution to the wind, they certainly graduate to another level at which what needs to get done must get done."

It often seems that one needs a whole history, a whole heritage of struggle to arrive at that clarity of vision. But I don't know. Half a century ago, an indulged, Catholic libertine somehow knew that the USA was a grossly divided, unjust, inhuman and inhumane place that needed radical fixing. How does one explain that?

clarabella said...

Hi fsjl:

DON'T hold your breath. Don't! We want you here on Stanmore Hill! (I am just seeing the double entendre in that wonderful name!) I think this year has moved things like camp and theatre of the absurd into previously unimaginable heights – or is it depths? Seems John McCain's makeup bill bids fair to rival Sarah's shopping spree. But all that is for fiction's sake isn't it – grist of the virtual space? Real is the collapse of the world economy, that return of the good ole days that GW promised. Real is the possibility of Sarah in the White House. Real is the need to fast and pray and meditate. (Came out as 'mediate', and that, verily, too...) And it matters not whether you believe. If God's there, God will find us. If God isn't, truly, God help us!

FSJL said...

When a crazy young woman makes up being assaulted by a big black man who carves a backward B into her face, and when John McCain's younger brother calls 911 to complain about being stuck in traffic, I swear I must be getting some sort of weird effect from whatever it was that I was doing in my youthful days in Irvine Hall.

Stanmore Hill was my father's property (Stanmore was the name of the district). I discovered, early on, the habit some half-educated people had of over-correcting and writing 'Stand-More' when I told them where I lived.

Rethabile said...

Clarabella said: I'm interested in your comment, "...I'm not sure King and the Kennedys expected to be rubbed out. Malcolm and Evers apparently did. Obama does." Glad if you would expand on it.

I wanted to say that people like King and the Kennedys could not have imagined that hatred (or money, who knows) could go as far as doing what happened to them. Just about nobody had gone like that before, and so it was probably unthinkable, and therefore that much easier to execute.

One rode in a convertible with the roof down, the other stood unprotected on a balcony in a southern state (not that it made any difference).

Even after his brother had been killed, I doubt the younger Kennedy thought it could happen again.

And so if I'm right, and they did not sense the danger to their lives because the possibility was unthinkable, what would have happened if they had indeed sensed the danger? Would they have gone on in pursuit of their goals like Mandela, Gandhi and others, despite the risk?

Can the knowledge one is at risk reduce their chances of reaching greathood?