I Am a Funny Black. (Part I)
- Jeremy León
- Feb 8
- 8 min read
“Pardon me for living, but this is my world, too. I can't help, what's cool to us might be strange to you.”
-Prince (“Bold Generation”, 1982)
What a Funny Black Is?
Yes, I am a proud Black Daddy. I can also be a Black Sugar Daddy when the times call for it. But what I am to my core is a Funny Black. What da hell is a Funny Black? you may ask yourself. Sit back for a minute and let me school ya.
Funny Blacks are just like everyone else. We are in the constant search of our own “Cheers” where everybody knows our name and they’re always glad we came. Since outgroup members are prone to believe in the homogeneous nature of members who are not part of their group, most non-Black folks think that all Black people have the same interests, are motivated by the same stimuli and completely understand one another. This was especially true for me considering that my formative years corresponded with an era in which the vast majority of the portrayals of Black men in the media centered around uber-masculine figures like Reggie Jackson or the rugged and toothless Leon Spinks.
Or we were defined by snazzy-dressing pimps like Huggy Bear or Dolemite. One of the biggest Black male TV stars of my adolescence was Mr. T., a sort of amalgamation of all those aspects. Both Blacks and non-Blacks propped these figures up as the quintessential model for male blackness, and any significant deviations from these norms could lead to ridicule and isolation, unless you were cute and adorable like Black midgets Gary Coleman and Webster.
“The Cosby Show” attempted to make inroads in the diversification of Black male prototypes, but besides Bill himself, none of them strayed too far from the black male-hood model we had known all along. Yes, the Cosbys lived in a bomb-ass brownstone, but the only things that made Theo and Cockroach different from the average Brooklyn Black boys was their zip code and the price tag on their Coogi sweaters. Theo was a very typical Black teen at the time: He still wanted to get laid. He listened to urban music. He let his curiosity get him into a little bit of mischief. He emulated his father. He played sports. He was prone to break out into the Running Man on occasion. And he sho’ nuff wasn’t gay or bi. Maybe the only thing that made Theo atypical was that I don’t remember him dating any white girls on the show, a groundbreaking concept. “The Cosby Show” wanted to show the world that Theo was not a typical Black kid from New York because he never got suspended from school and he never picked up a gun or wore a thick gold chain. But those things don’t happen to the vast majority of Black boys anyway. Theo was not a Funny Black. If our focus were on female Funny Blacks, we’d need to look no further than Denise. Lisa Bonet was a Funny Black, and not only because she was mysteriously 12 times lighter than her siblings. She was just a bit...off.
Yes. We Funny Blacks are misunderstood, off-kilter, strange, atypical. Whereas other Black kids get yelled at by their mothers, our actions are often met with deadly silence and a quizzical look that reads Did you really come out of me? We are misunderstood by our own people and the worse thing about it is that they oftentimes see our strange ways as calculated or deliberately designed to bring shame and embarrassment to the family name. We Black people are creative and all that, but we sure love us some social conformity.
But for a FUN-B (Funny Black), attempting to toe the line and emulate the actions, preferences and beliefs of everyone else in our social group feels constricting and unnatural. So, when we express ourselves by following our hearts, we are stung by rejection and catechism, but we will continue along the same course of awkwardness even in the face of criticism and repudiation from our own peeps because we simply don’t know any other way.
Isn’t a Funny Black just a Black Nerd?
I’m not surprised by this confusion, but the Funny Black is a much broader category than the Black Nerd. Though there may be some overlap between the FUN-B and the Black nerd, not all nerds reach Funny Black status. Nerds are sometimes too insular and specific in their interests to make any impact on the social standing of Blacks in general. Black nerds are sometimes so focused on whatever they’re looking at through a microscope or some Harry Potter shit that the fact they’re Black is of no importance to them. They are nerds who just happen to be Black. FUN-Bs welcome Black nerds into our folds with pleasure and good cheer because we understand where their insecurities come from.
There is a Black Nerd Movement that received a tremendous boost with the creation of the Black Nerd Problems empire that was conceptualized and cleverly executed by William Evans and Omar Holman. I had never heard of this initiative until I stumbled upon their book at the library and brought it home. I have read their book...well, most of it...well, some if it and it solidified my perception that a black nerd is a narrow categorization that is recognized by and extends across all racial and ethnic groups. On Big Bang Theory, they threw an Indian nerd in there to scare off accusations of racial exclusion and it worked because a nerd comes in all races and ethnicities. A Funny Black, though, is Black. His or her idiosyncrasies and behaviors are exclusively defined within the parameters of mores, values and expectations of Black cultures. There is plenty of overlap, of course, so here are some handy examples you can refer back to if you get confused:
Cornell West is a nerd, but not a Funny Black.
Lenny Kravitz is a Funny Black but not a nerd.
Wayne Brady is both.
Growing up, I was a full on Funny Black because if I had been a nerd everyone, black, white, latino, would have recognized that and categorized me as such. But I wasn’t a textbook nerd because I had friends, went to parties, and enjoyed a very active social life. (I even got laid once or twice!). I was a Funny Black because the kids in school thought I was pretty cool. All except the other Black students. They looked at me, sucked their teeth and instantly knew something was askew. The fact that I had grown up with a great deal of distance between me and what is considered “The Black Community”, I was considered an outsider.
It’s about group dynamics. Take a black bird chick and raise it in captivity away from other black birds. Then years later introduce it to its natural habitat. That black bird is going to have one helluva time fitting in. All the other black birds will know there is something kinda funky about this newcomer as they stand at a distance and observe him with a jaundiced eye as he pecks at the same seeds, uses the same twigs to build a nest and does the same chicken dance to attract a mate. The white ibises, brown thrashers and yellow warblers won’t detect these oddities, but the other black birds will instantly know that there’s something a little off about that new brutha in town. He’s funny. A funny black bird.
Nerd Cornell West, FUN-B Lenny Kravitz and Nerdy FUN-B Wayne Brady.
It's not easy to explain what a Funny Black is, but I can say what a Funny Black is not.
A Funny Black...
...is not a big time Christian. A few days ago, I watched the NFL Awards and every single brotha that walked on that stage to accept his award thanked the Mose Hi, my Lard and Savior, Jeebus Cries for his talent and dazzling white teeth. A Funny Black is pretty loose when it comes to religious beliefs; if he has any interest in the topic, don’t be surprised if he says he’s currently dabbling in atheism, paganism and Shinto.
...is not trying to be white. Though we Funny Blacks are often accused of being a persnickety Black like Benson DuBois or trying to be white, we don’t know much more than ordinary Blacks about the intentions and behaviors of white people. I have no Black friends who enjoy Maria Callas like I do, so if I want to talk about that documentary they finna do on her, I have to dial up a white friend. That don’t mean I want to be white. It means I wanna talk about La Callas with someone. Mainstream Blacks accuse us of acting white because there are still too few categories that encompass the scope of attitudes and interests Black people may have outside of what’s considered the norm.
...is not entertained by certain forms of run-of-the-mill entertainment like Tyler Perry movies and Drake. Being indifferent towards these entertainment choices can dramatically alienate us from the Black community.
...will not date outside of his race because he diminishes the joys of dating Black men. We want nothing more than to be accepted by other Black folks with our eccentricities and all. But since this does not happen as often as it should, we are often left to explore other races because we feel constricted by the inflexible paradigms that rule how we are supposed to think and behave. We date outside of our race because mainstream Blacks make us feel unwanted and even unloved. We’re ridiculed for how we dress. We can’t dance right. We listen to weird music. Our vernacular lacks edginess.
...is not the white folks’ Ambassadors for All Things Black. We are many times just as baffled as everyone else by the behaviors and actions of mainstream Black folks and need to remind white people to not always look to us to explain some outlandish shit somebody posted on Black Twittah.
...is not going to side with the Black side of an issue just because it’s the Black side of the issue. I remember being in grad school watching the O.J. Simpson verdict in my office. There in my office, huddled around my little TV were three other FUN-Bs like me and as they read the verdict, they showed a split screen of how Black and white people reacted to the verdict. Ours was the same reaction as the white side of the screen because we were in disbelief that a murderer was going to go free, even a Black one.
...is not offended when we say or do something, and people respond with “Black people don’t usually do or say ________”. We see this as a badge of honor because one of a Funny Black’s goals is to show the world that Black people do play tennis like Arthur Ashe, do excel in the sciences like Kizzmekia Corbett, do run successful businesses like Byron Allen, do know how to swim like Reece Whitley, and do play the fuckin’ flute like Funny Black extradordinaire Andre 3000.
Part II coming soon...
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