You know where black comedy began, don’t you? It began on the slave ships (Richard Pryor, Bicentennial N-, 1976)

Slavery . . . is not funny. Like, its not funny, you know what I mean? But if you can make it funny? Like, you gotta make it real funny. (Keegan-Michael Key, 2015)

Episode includes the following: Dick Gregory, University of Iowa, Darwin Turner Lecture Series on Black Studies (1970); Richard Pryor (Bicentennial N-Word, 1976); Amber Ruffin, “Why We Need White History Month” (The Amber Ruffin Show, 2021); Franny Choi, “Whiteness Walks into a Bar” (2016).

* Dick Gregory, 1970 (University of Iowa)

Scholarship/theory to help us along with these readings/conversations:

Morgan, Danielle Fuentes. Laughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century. (University of Illinois UP, 2020)

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