The usually unfunny and bitter Rian Malan on postapartheid black stand-up comedians (whites don’t make jokes anymore, btw?) in the Wall Street Journal. I know some of you are wondering what can Rupert Murdoch’s new paper (it’s “new” to him since he just bought it) offer. But read on. Here’s one of the jokes:
“You whites are full of s-, you know.” He proceeded to tell a story about how he pulled up at a traffic light alongside “a battered old Datsun carrying a white family” who locked their doors the instant they clocked black skin. “I’m going to hijack a Datsun?” he chuckled. “Get out of here. I drive a Mercedes.”
I saw Trevor Noah perform at Sandton when I first got here. He was seriously hilarious. Amazing. I felt like treacle was running down my body as I laughed and laughed and laughed at his jokes, and laughed even more as he destroyed the English (me), the South Africans – in turn, going through the Blacks, the Coloureds, the Whites which he divided into Afrikaners and AngloSaxons – the Americans etc etc.. I think that was the finest night I’ve spent here in the last 10 months, at the comedy show in Sandton. It was superb, and I’m sure he’s right: that being able to laugh at yourself is a sign of great strength and great advancement. You’ve reminded me to go find him again before I go.
Geeeez where did Malan learn so much about African taboos? Is there a book of African taboos somewhere – airport authors usually stick to proverbs. Africans must learn to laugh at themselves, now that’s a joke. Not so long ago, Africans were accused of the exact opposite: jokers who don’t take anything seriously, not even their own lives. But Malan isn’t the only one to think Africans should laugh for their salvation – on radio Metro a group of DJs recently spent an afternoon dissecting the “good” of apartheid. Like, without it we wouldn’t have good roads…or Mandela. They were not joking – when challenged they claimed this to be a serious matter and a constitutional right (freedom of expression that is). But back to this joke, why David Kau doesn’t get a mention is a mystery to me – he’s the least ignorant of the lot.
Thanks for this post.
Rian Malan’s album is quite funny. Very dry humour the man has.
it’s quite
funny that without the struggle we would not be having all this holidays and stuff.don’t you just get tired of going to work,i just wish we would have been more opressed so we would strike more and today we would be having more holidays.
Is that really all there is to it because that’d be falbbreagtsing.
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