highly intellectual verbal skills competition?????....I don't think so...
First of all, “the dozens” originally were not just focused on “Yo mama” jokes…when we played the dozens we attacked everything. “Yo mama” jokes were usually sticky ground; most of us didn’t play that…talking about somebody mama could quickly turn into an all-out fight. It seems to me that the generation that came after me, were a little less sensitive about “yo mama” jokes, then we were.
I had once read that the term, "playin’ the dozens" derived from white slavers…it was the way slavers critiqued the slaves which were auctioned, sold and bought after leaving slave ships. Supposedly enslaved Africans were sometimes presented for critique in lots of twelve (dozen).
90% of most jokes about or that included Black folks when I was growing up castigated, buffooned and maligned Black folks… and I grew up in an all Black community! It was obvious that many of these jokes were passed down for generations and some were invented by racist whites and passed on to Black folks during Jim Crow and slavery days.
The days of Black folks tearing themselves down for a good laugh should be over…this type of stuff comes from the days when African Americans had a very poor self and social image of themselves. Some things just need to stay in the past or die out.
African people already have many ways and traditions for developing and sharpening our improvisational skills from oration to music, we don’t need the art of verbally attacking each other…"the dozens have no cultural value AT ALL!
First of all, “the dozens” originally were not just focused on “Yo mama” jokes…when we played the dozens we attacked everything. “Yo mama” jokes were usually sticky ground; most of us didn’t play that…talking about somebody mama could quickly turn into an all-out fight. It seems to me that the generation that came after me, were a little less sensitive about “yo mama” jokes, then we were.
I had once read that the term, "playin’ the dozens" derived from white slavers…it was the way slavers critiqued the slaves which were auctioned, sold and bought after leaving slave ships. Supposedly enslaved Africans were sometimes presented for critique in lots of twelve (dozen).
90% of most jokes about or that included Black folks when I was growing up castigated, buffooned and maligned Black folks… and I grew up in an all Black community! It was obvious that many of these jokes were passed down for generations and some were invented by racist whites and passed on to Black folks during Jim Crow and slavery days.
The days of Black folks tearing themselves down for a good laugh should be over…this type of stuff comes from the days when African Americans had a very poor self and social image of themselves. Some things just need to stay in the past or die out.
African people already have many ways and traditions for developing and sharpening our improvisational skills from oration to music, we don’t need the art of verbally attacking each other…"the dozens have no cultural value AT ALL!