The new literary blackface

Satire has a long history in African-American culture. The very language that black people created once they arrived in America is filled with ironic rituals and stories, which like all satire point out failures and foibles using humor. Throughout African and African-American culture, satire exists in many forms, both oral and written, in art, and even in dance, such as slave parodies of white movements in the "cakewalk."

The verbal tradition of satire embraces the oral invective of the "dozens" as well as the postmodernist offerings of poet and novelist Paul Beatty's The White Boy Shuffle. In tone, satire can range from the sly needling of Langston Hughes's Simple stories to the take-no-prisoners assaults of Ishmael Reed.

For reasons that are not quite clear, the tradition has been dominated mostly by men--both as creators and practitioners. Scholars contend that men from various African tribes regularly traded gibes about each other's mother. When the game was transported to America, it became known as the dozens. The dozens and other ritualized insults--called joning, capping or sounding--are an inventive but transparent kind of satire called invective. These attacks involve exaggerated often artful ridicule that is not always aimed at the actual frailties of the intended victim. For instance, verbal sparring might involve accusing a rival's mother of wearing combat boots even though she wears stilettos. Obviously, the insult is closer to satire and far more effective if the adversary's mother is prone to military cross-dressing.

A more indirect form of satire is signifying, in which the speaker never directly addresses the weaknesses of his or her victim. For example, a colleague who constantly leaves a mess at the coffee machine might overhear comments uttered within earshot of the offender about the sloppiness of "some people."

A more sophisticated and metaphorical form of satire is represented in black folktales that were designed to entertain adults and children during and after slavery. In Mules and Men, Zora Neale Hurston collected many stories, which satirized foolish behavior among blacks, stripped whites of their presumed superiority, or simply commented on the imperfections of human beings. A good many of the stories involve the trickster John, who always outtalks and outwits ole Massa. One of the best of these stories exposes both the greed and stupidity of slaveholding whites. In response to trickster John's goading, the master kills his horse and his grandmother and sacrifices his own life in pursuit of the almighty dollar.

The oral tradition of satire was a group experience in which blacks amused themselves, finding some relief from slavery and racial oppression. However, by the end of the 19th century African-American writers presented satire to a wider audience. Charles W. Chesnutt's The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line contains stories ridiculing the arrogance of whites ("The Passing of Grandison") and the color prejudice of mulattos ("The Wife of His Youth" and "A Matter of Principle"). "Uncle Wellington's Wives" even lampoons the lazy mulatto male, the Irish and interracial marriage.

The Harlem Renaissance produced two well-regarded satirists--George S. Schuyler and Wallace Thurman. Schuyler, a news reporter and columnist, had the perfect temperament for satire. A socialist and interracialist during the 1920s--when everybody else was interested in cultural pride--Schuyler was the type of guy who would insist that the Pope was indeed Baptist. His classic Black No More attacks the notion of racial identity, white supremacy and capitalism, in a plot in which black people are able to turn themselves white. In this inverted world, Schuyler also caricatures a host of black leaders including W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and Madame C.J. Walker.

Thurman's classic Infants of the Spring portrays the Harlem Renaissance as a movement ruined by unproductive, decadent black artists--several of whom are gay--and racist, slumming whites. Both Schuyler's and Thurman's novels are grim, cynical satires that evoke few laughs, although one of Thurman's characters does an amusing if blasphemous parody of a traditional black prayer: "Beloved, we join hands here to pray for gin...."

Langston Hughes's gift for satire reaches its pinnacle in the Simple tales. Through Simple (Jesse B. Semple), a working man who loves bars and beer, Hughes pokes fun at the bourgeois pretensions of Simple's girlfriend Joyce, the failings of black leaders and racism. Hughes uses Simple's personal life to expose the absurdity of domesticity, and to explore the national and international events of the times.

Chester Himes employed satire in several of his detective novels. For example, his novel Pinktoes involves interracial sex. Ralph Ellison in Invisible Man and Gwendolyn Brooks in poems like "The Lovers of the Poor" also make use of satire intermittently but skillfully, such that it has become a substantial cultural influence over the last 30 years.

Of course, television shows like In Living Color, and films such as Spike Lee's School Daze and Bamboozled, and Robert Townsend's Hollywood Shuffle among others, reflect the pervasiveness of black satire in contemporary culture.

Similarly, satire is represented in works by writers like Amiri Baraka as part of the Beat and Black Arts Movements with stunning effectiveness. Throughout his work, he attacks the black middle class, white liberalism, interracial sex, American racism and capitalism. His plays Dutchman, Great Goodness of Life, and a piece of Marxist agitprop entitled What Was the Relationship of the Lone Ranger to the Means of Production? reflect the multigenre array of black satire. Both Baraka's Beat and Black Arts poems make amazing use of the dozens, joning and literary satiric techniques.

However, the most influential contemporary black satirists is Ishmael Reed. Like George Schuyler, Reed attacks sacred cows with a vengeance. His targets include cultural nationalism, Western culture, capitalism, feminism, academia in novels such as The Free-lance Pallbearers, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, Mumbo Jumbo, Flight to Canada, Reckless Eyeballing and Japanese by Spring. His poetry and prose possess that same iconoclastic voice.

Reed's apostles among Generation Xers tend to be more anarchistic and less political than their literary forefather. At least Reed expresses an admiration for African culture, especially Egyptology and African-based voodoo. The novels of his literary progeny have an indeterminant meaning and are absent any heroes. Although devoid of ideological loyalties, these younger writers are quite willing to critique themselves as fiercely as they attack others. Trey Ellis's Platitudes, Paul Beatty's The White Boy Shuffle and Tuff, and Colson Whitehead's John Henry Days skewer black preppies living in integrated worlds, as well as the boys from the hood. Interestingly, Ellis's Platitudes and George C. Wolfe's play The Colored Museum also contain irreverent parodies of the work of noted black women writers.

The emergence of satire as a significant force in African-American literature is a sign of its vitality. For it takes a great deal of confidence to scorn your enemies and laugh at yourself.

Selected Black Satire:

Amiri Baraka, The LeRoi Jones/Amid Baraka Reader. Ed. William Harris. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1991, 498 pp., $14.95. ISBN 1-560-25007-0

Paul Beatty, Tuff, Knopf, 2001, 272 pp., $13.00, ISBN 0-385-72111-0; The White Boy Shuffle, Picador, 1996, 2001, 240 pp., $13.00. ISBN 0-312-28019-X

Charles Chesnutt, The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line. Univ. Of Michigan Press, 1899, 1968, $14.95. ISBN 0-472-06134-8

Trey Ellis, Platitudes, Vintage, 1988, 183 pp. Out-of-print; Right Here, Right Now. Scribner, 1999, 2000, 288 pp., $13.00 ISBN 0-684-85984-X

Langston Hughes, The Best of Simple, Noonday Press, 1961, 1990, 245 pp., $12.00, ISBN 0-374-52133-6

Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men, HarperCollins, 1939, 1990, 366 pp., $13.95 ISBN 0-060-91648-6

Ishmael Reed, Flight to Canada, Scribner, 1976, 1998, 192 pp. $11.00, ISBN 0-684-84750-7; The Free-Lance Pallbearers, Dalkey Archive Pr., 1967, 1999, 155 pp. $11.95, ISBN 1-564-78225-5; Mumbo Jumbo, Scribner, 1972, 1996, $12.00, ISBN 0-684-82477-9

George Schuyler, Black No More, Modern Library, 1931, 1999, 224 pp., $12.95. ISBN 0-375-75380-X

Wallace Thurman, Infants of the Spring, X-Press, 1932, 1999, 240 pp., $10.95, ISBN 1-874-50961-1

Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days (hardcover), Doubleday, 2001, 448 pp., $24.95, ISBN 0-385-49819-5

George Wolfe, The Colored Museum, Grove Press, 1988, 62 pp., $11.00 ISBN 0-802-13048-8

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