Revolution Televised.pdf

12 Reading the Roots of Resistance
Comedians of the TOBA were known for their situational routines
that reflected on black everyday realities. Comedians’ subjects
ranged from home life and food to sex and rarely addressed the
nonblack community. The TOBA comedians very seldom directly
addressed the audience; they worked in pairs of a straight man
and a comic. Although the audiences were primarily black, white
bystanders, it was always understood, would not tolerate direct address
by a black comedian, which suggested some sort of equality
between the audience and the performer. The comics’ humor also
generally excluded addressing political issues. Remembering that
they performed in an era of lynchings, we can understand why
these sentiments were veiled. 30
The following skit between Spo-Dee-O-Dee and Moms Mabley,
who played a washerwoman, exemplifies comedy typical of the
TOBA. The story is told from Spo-Dee-O-Dee’s perspective.
Hey, woman! Where’s the money?
She would reach her hand out and I would say in a stern voice,
Bring it over here, woman.
She would try to hide some of the money from me and say, I need
the money for food.
You ate yesterday. You want to eat every day? 31
Spo-Dee-O-Dee portrays a voice of authority and, as a black
man, does not directly implicate white society. However, his character’s
relationship to the black woman can be seen as a thinly veiled
portrayal of the relationship between black and white society. The
comedy of the TOBA, in addressing everyday issues of black folks,
such as the inability to find employment or the lack of access to resources,
formed the basis of a political comedy. Although it did not
directly address the emotions resulting from these circumstances,
this comedy can be considered an everyday political act—a “hidden
transcript” formed, in a communal setting, from a group’s acknowledgment
of its public reality.
Interestingly, many middle-class African Americans rejected the
comedy of the TOBA. Black comedy, like many critical African
American cultural forms, developed within the working-class black
communities. Indeed, in their desire to uplift the race, middle-class
African Americans rejected African American comedy because they
felt it did not conform to their image of blacks as respectable members
of mainstream American society. By holding and expressing