Hokum 19-36

Today we started reading Hokum, "an anthology of African-American humor". I wasn't sure what to expect from the reading until I jumped right in. We read 3 stories, "On Being Crazy" by WEB Dubois, "'Possum or Pig?" by Zora Neale Hurston, and "Let me at the Enemy--an' George Brown" by Chester Himes.

As I read, one of the common themes I noticed was that these African American writers often wrote things that seemed to ridicule their own culture. The front page of the book is a picture of an eaten slice of watermelon, which seems to correspond with self-ridicule, since there are stereotypes portraying African Americans as loving watermelon. While Dubois didn't make fun of his own culture, Hurston's short story (set in pre-Civil War times) seems to make fun of a situation where a slave has done something against the master's rules and is trying to avoid punishment. The main character (John), a slave, has been stealing piglets for food for a little bit of time, causing his master to be suspicious. When the master investigates, John does everything he can to avoid punishment; he tries to convince his master that he should go to his own house instead of his small cabin; he tells him he is cooking possum instead of pig. But at the last minute, when the master demands to have some of what John is cooking, John comes up with a response that I thought was pretty funny: "Well, ah put dis heah critter in heah a possum,--if it comes out a pig, 'tain't mah fault." Finally realizing there is no way to convince his master to leave, John feigns innocence essentially acknowledges that he may actually cooking a pig, but that it isn't his fault because he did not start off with a pig.

If this story had actually occurred, it is unlikely this humorous excuse would have saved John from punishment (thus showing the futility of his exercise), but his wit makes light of a tense situation and ends before anything bad happens. 

In Himes's story, I really sensed that the main character High C was being ridiculed. First, he believes a man (George Brown) who promises a job that seems suspiciously misrepresented, follows up on the recommendation, and then loses his job, his money, and his woman (Beulah). In the end though, he enters the army, which was his original plan, where he finds he is able to get revenge on George Brown, the man who ruined his life. This humorous twist at the end of the story fills out loose ends in the story and leaves the imagination open to what may have happened between him and George Brown after the story is over.

Overall, I really enjoyed these stories. While they were not laugh-out-loud comedies, they were entertaining stories with a little twist at the end.