Dick Gregory and activist style: identifying attributes of humor necessary for activist advocacy.

• Author: Rossing, Jonathan Paul

Denouncing oppression or advocating for human rights infrequently evokes levity. Social justice advocacy is often austere, if not funereal. Tragic injustices often vivify the stakes of human rights struggles, consequently rendering humor almost unfathomable. Imagine cracking jokes about Emmett Till after his murder in 1955 or riffing on Matthew Shepard's slaughter in 1998. Nevertheless, humorists regularly use their art to advance serious causes, even amidst tragedy. Literary satirists Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain typify humor in service of social justice. Bert Williams, an African American vaudeville artist who performed with the Ziegfeld Follies, subtly critiqued racism through minstrelsy at the turn of the 20th century. Following the holocaust, Jewish humorists critiqued the moral failings of the complicit and fostered solidarity among survivors. Contemporary examples of humor bent toward social justice include Margaret Cho's feminist, queer, anti-racist stand-up comedy and W. Kamau Bell's sharp socio-political comic criticism.

In his work on political styles, Robert Hariman (1995) argued, "To the extent that politics is an art, matters of style must be crucial to its practice;" in short, " [P]olitical experience is styled' (pp. 2-3, emphasis in original). Human agents negotiate power relations, knowledge, and social-political identity with "a coherent repertoire of rhetorical conventions," "habitual communicative practices," "aesthetic reactions," and "compositional techniques" that guide behavior, inform socio-political action, influence decision-making, distribute power, mold perceptions, shape attitudes, and mediate reality (Hariman, 1995, pp. 2-4, emphasis in original). In short, style and politics interweave. In this essay I continue the investigation of political styles to explore a particular set of conventions associated with an activist style of advocacy. Insofar as communities worldwide continue to struggle for justice, humanization, and recognition, critical scholars must identify discursive practices that constitute an activist political style. At its best, humor sharpens understanding of injustice, brings communities together, and provokes dialogue and action (e.g. Hutcheon, 1994; Mintz, 1988; Nachmann, 2003; Rossing, 2011). Therefore, I argue that humor figures as a necessary, if not sufficient, element of an activist style of advocacy. Said differently, activism necessarily takes place with a comic sensibility.

Comedian and activist Dick Gregory, who performed at the apogee of the United States Civil Rights Movement, offers an illustrative case study for understanding humor as a component of an activist style. Dick Gregory's career as both activist and humorist highlights particular habits, attitudes, and conventions of an activist style, thereby offering what Hariman (1995) called a "mirror text" (p. 5, 177). Furthermore, Gregory's work provides guidelines for recreating similar patterns in political action and thus, invites critical interrogation of the functioning of such a political style in U.S. racialized public culture. This essay begins with an overview of scholarly connections between humor and activism with an emphasis on humor oriented toward racial justice. Next, a brief biography of Dick Gregory explains why his career uniquely suits him for a consideration of the intersection of activism and humor. Then the argument proceeds in three parts. First, comically styled advocacy overcomes barriers to identification and powerfully unites communities in understanding and purpose, humanizing all parties in the struggle. Second, humor imbues activism with a creative spirit necessary to awaken new perspectives on reality and to challenge the status quo. Third, humor fosters hope required for optimistic progress in the face of daunting obstacles. In conclusion, I consider limitations and opportunities for humor in advocacy for racial justice.

ACTIVISM AND HUMOR

In Attitudes toward History, Kenneth Burke (1984) famously articulated the comic corrective. The comic frame is the methodic view of human antics as a comedy, albeit as a comedy ever on the verge of the most disastrous tragedy" (p. iii). This frame encourages a charitable attitude towards others; that is, it positions fellow community members as social animals inescapably susceptible to folly and fallacy. When we err or when others deceive us, the comic frame helps people avoid cynicism or hostility in favor of self-study and self-reflection. Consequently, the comic frame helps people recognize foibles and learn from mistakes. Said otherwise, the comic frame "considers human life as a project in Composition'" and "offer[s] maximum opportunity for the resources of criticism" (p 173). In short, "criticism had best be comic" (p. 107). Following Burke's observation, I argue that activist advocacy had best feature humor as a characteristic attitude.

My argument joins a body of scholarship that articulates humor and activism. Rhetorical scholars have explored the role of humor and the comic frame in social movements and social change. A. Cheree Carlson (1986), for example, analyzed Mohandas Gandhi's leadership during the Indian civil rights movement. His non-violent strategies and tactics epitomized styles associated with the comic frame such as a charitable performance of identification. Adrienne Christiansen and Jeremy Hanson (1996) analyzed ACT UP's (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) direct action protests at the height of the AIDS crisis in the United States. They illustrated how ACT UP employed a comic frame to change perceptions of gay men and to promote moral action in response to the AIDS epidemic. More recently, scholars such as Amber Day (2011) have examined humor in political protest and dissent. News satirists such as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, The Onion, and documentarians such as Michael Moore employ humor to intervene meaningfully into political conversations and redirect public debates. For example, the "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in 2010, hosted by Stewart and Colbert, challenged polarized, biased political media coverage and sought to shape national attitudes about political partisanship in Washington, DC (Jones, Baym, & Day, 2012).

Ample research also considers the use of humor in advocacy against racial injustice. From slavery to the present, an "assertive and openly critical" humor emerged from the black community and predominantly black social gatherings to subvert racial norms, challenge injustices in mainstream society, and provoke social protest (Watkins, 1994, p. 39). Such humor features connections to the African American rhetorical tradition of signifying, a practice featuring playful language games and tropes that displace, revise, and call attention to meaning (Gates, 1988). As such, African American humor may not always appear as a direct protest against the socio-political structures of racism and their material manifestations; however, this humor often brings to consciousness the subtle ways racism influences identity, social relations, opportunities, and more (Carpio, 2008; Timmerman, Gussman, & King, 2012). Moreover, humorous discourse creates non-threatening spaces in which people challenge and subvert ideological presuppositions (Haggins, 2007). Although such humor has a well-documented history in the African American tradition and even in African trickster tales (Gates, 1988; Watkins, 1994), this humor is not exclusively the work of Black artists. For instance, Stephen Colbert, a White comedian with a satirical news program on Comedy Central, undermines postracial logics and strategically highlights Whiteness and White privilege in ways that could draw attention toward persistent racial injustices (Rossing, 2012).

I mean not to overstate the power of humor in social transformation. Indeed, scholars have warned about the limitations of political humor for social change. Polysemy consistently limits humor. Audiences may find their biases and political ideologies confirmed rather than refuted when enjoying satire or irony (Baumgartner & Morris, 2008; Gring-Pemble & Watson, 2003). Arguably the greatest anxieties about humor arise from the possibility that it naturalizes oppressive social difference and distinctions (e.g. Anderson, 2011; Park, Gabbadon, & Chernin, 2006). Prior cultural knowledge also hinders humor and exacerbates the potential for multiple meanings. If audience members lack cultural awareness of the issues at stake in humor, they are less likely to enjoy or accept the comedic messages (Banjo, 2011).

Recognizing humor alone will not transform society, I nevertheless argue that attitudes and conventions associated with humor must figure prominently in socio-political activism. My argument neither focuses on effects of activist humor nor seeks to define the intentions or meanings of such humor. Rather, I am interested in the way humor plays a prominent role in the performative guidelines and in the repertoire of attitudes and behaviors necessary for social justice advocacy. Against this backdrop of scholarship on activism, protest, race, and humor, I consider the career of Dick Gregory to argue for humor's role in an activist style.

COMEDIAN AND ACTIVIST DICK GREGORY

The 1950s and 1960s witnessed an eruption of comic criticism in U.S. public culture as satirists skewered political unrest, foreign affairs, civil rights issues, and other important public issues (Kercher, 2007; Nachman, 2003). During this comic boom, black comedians addressed problems of racism, integration, segregation, and ongoing civil rights struggles. Those routines, however, played principally to black audiences in black theaters, particular in the Theater Owner's Booking Association, also known as the "Chitlin Circuit" (Foxx & Miller, 1977, Watkins, 1994). Black comedians popular with white audiences retained characteristics of minstrel personas such as Jim Dandy or Stepin' Fetchit that white...