Dear Dean Magazine: September 2023

M Y R O N J . C L I F T O N
The laughs are flowing just as they were a few weeks ago
when the Alabama brawl happened following a group of
Black folk coming to the rescue of a lone dock worker
who was brutally attacked by a group of white boaters
who refused to move their boat from a space where they
did not belong.
Black people make fun and laugh at everything and
everybody, regardless of the social norms established
and adhered to by white Americans.
We find humor and sparks of joy regardless of our
wealth, where we live, who we love, or what we are going
through.
Black joy is unique, ubiquitous, and unstoppable.
It is therefore saddening and maddening that of all the
awfulness and hate directed at Black people, one of the
worst is the desire to mute our joy.
White people weaponized and monetized our humor
and joy for themselves in minstrel shows, blackface, and
caricatures of our features and how we walk, run, sing,
and express fear, and even how we love.
It is hard to imagine the depths of hatred of Black folk
but understanding the desire to mute our joy is a place
to start.
We are attacked for being angry — especially Black
women.
White America have long used our humor and joy for
their own entertainment while also demanding that we
not use it for our own edification — and as long as their
use of it *also harmed us they were happy about it.
As with everything race related in this country, attacking
our laughter and humor has its roots in the time of
slavery when white people owned our bodies and our
emotions.
But who doesn’t want someone to laugh or express joy?
Black folk were happy with a Black mermaid and that
caused white people to review bomb the movie before
and after it was released, while other white people
wrote editorials and produced long videos about how it
wasn’t “Historical to have a Black MERMAID.”
We could not laugh or even smile in public — unless we
got permission and even then that permission was
specious. We couldn’t cry or cry out when beaten or
whipped. And we couldn’t mourn the death of our loved
ones or the stealing of our children. We couldn’t miss our
family when we had to attend to the enslaver and their
families. And we couldn’t joke at the absurdity of the
white lives we oversaw less some child decided we
should die and their parents acted on their wishes.
Black folk were attacked for dressing up to see the first
two Black Panther movies and lectured that “Wakanda
isn’t REAL.”
DEAR DEAN MAGAZINE | SEPTEMBER 2023 | p.10