That's How They Get You: An Unruly Anthology of Black American Humor

by Damon Young

There’s an intimacy in the moment before a fight unfolds that I look back on now and find entirely romantic. Two people, circling each other, face-to-face, trying to—through that close looking—gauge each other’s interest in limits and limitations, in line-crossing.

Black women be stewards of the good word. And in a world where Black Girl Magic and Black Boy Joy are scrutinized for reducing Black adults to children rather than celebrated for their insistence on Black people’s inherent right to happiness, liberation, and expansiveness, it serves as search party and land acknowledgment.

There’s Beyoncé Knowles, who was the first Black woman to headline Coachella. Might not seem like much, but she had to keep her composure as a sea of white faces too-proudly sang, You mix that Negro with that Creole, get a Texas Bama! Which from her voice sounds great, but from theirs…like the studio audience for a game show about plantation eugenics called Who Wants to Build a Slave.

First, you need to understand that this cultural phenomenon is not the same thing as the Holy Spirit. In churches where choirs sound like human bagpipes, the Holy Spirit is part of a three-man executive suite known as the “Holy Trinity” that includes the original single Father and his Son. “Spirit” is something that cheerleaders have and heathens drink, while “Ghosts” are invisible souls of ancestors. You can kill someone’s spirit, but aside from one member of the Wu-Tang Clan, you can’t murder a ghost.[*3] Black people aren’t afraid of spirits but we don’t fuck with ghosts.

The second kind of Holy Ghost is a more permanent version that can only be acquired during the last phase of the following three-step ritual: Saved: After accepting Black Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you dress in flowing white clothes and allow a registered Holy Ghost authority to dip you in God’s dunk tank. Sanctified: You purge your life of bad things like drinking alcohol, using the word “motherfucker,” and listening to any secular music that inspires involuntary hip movement. Filled with the Holy Ghost: Your prayers receive VIP treatment and a chosen few people develop superpowers.