Music played a large role in the survival of the black people in America — that and a sense of humor that just couldn't be enslaved.
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The Redd Foxx Encyclopedia of Black Humor (1977) (co-written with Norma Miller)Redd Foxx
I focus on popular culture because I focus on those areas where black humanity is most powerfully expressed, where black people have been able to articulate their sense of the world in a profound manner. And I see this primarily in popular culture. Why not in highbrow culture? Because the access has been so difficult. Why not in more academic forms? Because academic exclusion has been the rule for so long for large numbers of black people that black culture, for me, becomes a search for where black people have left their imprint and fundamentally made a difference in terms of how certain art forms are understood. This is currently in popular culture. And it has been primarily in music, religion, visual arts and fashion.
Cornel West
The logic behind white domination is to prepare the black man for the subservient role in this country. Not so long ago this used to be freely said in parliament, even about the educational system of the black people. It is still said even today, although in a much more sophisticated language. To a large extent the evil-doers have succeeded in producing at the output end of their machine a kind of black man who is man only in form. This is the extent to which the process of dehumanization has advanced.
Steve Biko
The Rev. Moon has a very good sense of humor. It's hard for me to think of a person as being mean or brainwashing people with the sense of humor he has. He truly loves people. I mean, he likes being with them. He likes being kidded-he likes being teased. I never saw a mean act on his part. He never asked for special treatment. He mopped floors and cleaned tables, and he helped other people when he was finished with his job.
Sun Myung Moon
I think my sense of humor is Jewish. I'm smarter than most white people, which is kind of a Jewish thing, too. And I think that, by and large, Arabs smell funny.
Jim Goad
The American public highly overrates its sense of humor. We're great belly laughers and prat fallers, but we never really did have a real sense of humor. Not satire anyway. We're a fatheaded, cotton-picking society. When we realize finally that we aren't God's given children, we'll understand satire. Humor is really laughing off a hurt, grinning at misery.
Bill Mauldin
Foxx, Redd
Foxx, Virginia
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