Getting In On The Joke Anthology Of Black Women’s Humor Gives Insight Into Their Greatest Joys And Deepest Pains

Laughter has always had the ability to be more telling than the deepest, longest conversation. What people find funny says a great deal about background, history, upbringing, and social and cultural values. Humor is a coded, complex language with hidden details about peoples’ joy, as well as their pain.

That is particularly true among African Americans. Whether the humor shows up on the front porch, in the beauty parlor and barber shop, or in the kitchen, a joke is never just a joke. A funny story or a casual observation always has deep roots.

A new book compiled and edited by English professor Daryl Cumber Dance takes a comprehensive look at that complexity, specifically from the viewpoint of black women.

“Honey, Hush! An Anthology of African American Women’s Humor” is an impressive collection of works by a wide range of authors including Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker, Terry McMillan, Gloria Naylor, Lorraine Hansberry, and Dorothy West. In addition to pieces pulled from novels, there is a wealth of poems, songs, memoirs, stories, cartoons, one-liners, and sayings that have been passed down for generations, dating back to slavery.

Even the book’s title is an in-joke. “Honey, hush,” is a phrase black women - particularly Southern black women - use among one another when they are joking, gossiping, or telling a story. Just when the humor is particularly true or especially good and the laughter is rolling hard and loud, someone might say “honey, hush.” Sometimes it is an acknowledgment, as in “Girl, we really shouldn’t be talkin’ ‘bout this, but this is good so keep goin’.” Sometimes it is an expression of disbelief, as in “Girl, no! You lyin’.”

But “Honey, Hush” is not a joke book, with pages full of punchlines. Rather it is an academic’s review of humor among black women - its source, its subject matter, its implications. The book turns humor inside out and holds it up to the light for examination as well as enjoyment.

It is an examination not often brought forth because much of the humor among African Americans is meant only for certain ears. It may be OK to joke about skin color, hair texture, or black ministers with other black people, but it is not acceptable to do so outside of that group. So, “Honey, Hush” is a bold step to let the outsiders in on the joke.

The book includes plenty of off-color, politically incorrect remarks, not to mention name-calling and familiar sayings rooted in internalized racism. Outside the black community, the subject matter would be a source of offense. But within the community, it is laugh-out-loud stuff that fits Langston Hughes’s characterization of humor as “what you wish in your secret heart were not funny, but it is and you must laugh.”

Dance lets it all hang out in an outright celebration of how African Americans have found ways to laugh even when there wasn’t always much at which to laugh. That’s what makes “Honey, Hush” an affirmation of life, strength, and triumph - because for black women, humor has been a salve, and sometimes a prayer.

In an excellent introduction, Dance discusses the source of African American humor, how it manifests itself and what purpose it serves: “If there is any one thing that has brought African American women whole through the horrors of the middle passage, slavery, Jim Crow, Aunt Jemima, the welfare system, integration, the O.J. Simpson trial, and Newt Gingrich, it is our humor. If there is any one thing that has helped us to survive the broken promises, lies, betrayals, contempt, humiliations, and dehumanization that have been our lot in this nation and often in our families, it is our humor.”

Section by section she lays out the sources of humor by category - the power of black women, motherly advice, the black community, relationships, racism.

In a chapter titled “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall,” the humor deals with how African-American women have looked at their physical appearance. In a piece by Bebe Moore Campbell, the author comes to terms with her anger over black men dating white women. It is a serious topic handled seriously. But Campbell manages to maintain an underlying humor, particularly when she describes the reaction she and a group of friends had while watching a “brother” walk into a restaurant with a blonde.

At the end of each section of the book, under the heading “Mama Sez” and “Sister to Sister,” Dance lists short sayings that have been around forever, like “Ain’t but two things I got to do - die and stay black” and “A hard head makes a soft behind.”

The book’s only shortcoming is that in its zeal to cover a lot of material, it takes pieces of many works out of context, so that many of them lose full impact.

Also, some things are funnier said out loud than they are on paper. For example, a monologue by comedian Hazelle falls flat in its shortened, written form.

But overall, “Honey, Hush,” succeeds in drawing laughter even when it hits a raw nerve.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: The book “HONEY, HUSH! An Anthology of African American Women’s Humor” Edited by Daryl Cumber Dance (Norton, 673 pp., $30)