The Cultural Impact of Black American Humor with Damon Young

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Welcome, welcome.

How's everybody out there?

All right.

I'm not going to do a stand up comedy show that would not be helpful or good for anyone.

My name is Derek Young.

I am the co owner of Mahogany Books.

We started our store 2007 as an online bookstore to create make books, black books, accessible and available to black folk, not just, not only here in the dmv, but across the entire country.

It's been our honor, our privilege to serve writers, readers, people who love black culture, who love black history, who love black history and enjoy these kind of conversations.

FYI, I am from this area.

I'm from D.C.

i'm from Southeast DC.

I used to live in Forest Heights, not too far from here.

So I used to come to this library all the time when I was supposedly doing homework, but just kind of like hanging out.

And every time I come here, I feel a sense of just joy because this is something that means a lot to me, to be a person from here and to be able to create these type of moments, to bring authors, thinkers, speakers to this community, to have conversations that are near and dear to us, to have conversations for ourselves, right?

And not let.

Have.

Not have someone filter their thoughts into what we want to talk about is really, really important to me.

So that's what Mahogany Books is all about.

It's about the people, it's about the community, it's about our culture, it's about serving each other and building great opportunities.

So I'm super excited for this conversation today.

We have three guys that I am.

I just have like the utmost respect for, for their minds, for what they've written and how they contribute to our culture.

So I'm going to do a quick bio for our two conversation hosts.

We have Clint Smith, who is a friend of Mahogany Books, incredible writer, incredible poet, as well as Panama Jackson, another Incredible thinker, incredible writer.

And then Panama is going to introduce our guest of honor, brother Damon Young, who's going to talk about his book this evening is going to be Laid Back.

Okay, so I am free to run this event how I want to because Ramonda's not here.

All right.

And yes, I'm saying it for the podcast that we're recording.

So we're just going to have fun.

We're going to be laid back today and just vibe, have a great conversation.

And then we're going to do around 7:45, 7:50, I'm going to open it up for Q A and we'll just line up on the side, knock out like five or six questions for anyone that's on the panel here today.

And then at the end of that, we're going to do a book signing and picture with Damon.

So how's that sound?

Pretty good.

Awesome, awesome.

Love it.

I appreciate it.

So I'm going to of course, read the bio because I was not going to memorize it, so.

Clint Smith is an award winning writer, poet and scholar whose work explores intersections of history, race and identity.

He is the author of the New York Times bestselling book how the Word Is the profound exploration of how America remembers and misremembers its history of slavery.

A former national poetry slam champion and staff writer at the Atlantic, Clint holds a PhD in education from Harvard University and is celebrated for his lyrical insight and powerful storytelling.

Please put your hands together, help us welcome friend of Mahogany Books, Clint Smith.

And this next guy I get to spar with at least once a month at our book club, the Black Books Matter Book Club that meets in Anacostia, Southeast D.C.

and we have so many varying, contradicting, just thoughts.

He's laughing because even the book that we're going to discuss tomorrow is he already.

So it's going to be another great conversation.

But Panama Jackson, he's a dynamic writer, cultural critic and podcast host known for his sharp, witty takes on black life and pop culture.

He's the co founder of the trailblazing blog Very Smart Brothers.

Brothers.

I'm gonna say that right.

There you go.

And host of the podcast Dear Culture on the Griot.

Whether writing, speaking, or podcasting, Panama brings a unique voice that blends humor, history, and heartfelt commentary to every conversation, making him a standout chronicler of contemporary black experiences.

Put your hands together for Mr.

Panama Jack.

Hold up.

What up?

What's up, baby?

Wait, I know.

Microphones.

We gotta get on the microphones.

Look, it's not often that I Get a chance to introduce one of my best friends.

Somebody who I get money with over time, you know what I'm saying?

Like, we sold a site together, we built something together.

So it's really an honor to have the opportunity to bring out my homeboy, my brother.

Somebody who I've known, I realized today, at least for like 20 years at this point.

And we've been writing together, or we're.

Right.

2008.

What's the math on that?

I don't know.

It's been a long time, but it was.

We were for quite some time.

So some of these people who know me from.

Know us from the early days, you know what I mean?

So, yes, the wonderful, Very Smart Brothers Day.

So let me introduce.

Damon Young is an author.

He's a cultural commentator.

He is somebody that Ebony owed, and I believe he got his money.

Wait, wait, we bringing up bullshit?

Damon is an award winning writer.

He's won several awards, most of which I can't name.

I remember won the Thurber Award, and I think that was for humor, but he won it, and that's wonderful.

He's been a writer in residence at University of Pittsburgh.

His debut book, what Doesn't Kill youl Makes yous Blacker, was very black.

Wonderful book.

I used that book to teach in my class at Howard because, well, when your homies do things, you use those things to teach other people those things, right?

This book right here is one that he curated, that he put together and he enlisted all of us.

And there's funny stories about some of the stuff.

Even my inclusion in here is hilarious.

So, ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for the homie.

One of the most real niggas I know, Damon Young.

All right.

Okay.

Hey, everyone.

How y' all doing?

Good, good, good, good.

Thank you all for coming out tonight this evening.

Yeah, this.

This book.

That's how they get you an anthology.

Black American Humor.

I'm never doing an anthology again.

Okay, this is.

This is it.

But I had a lot of fun once.

All of the shit that goes into creating an anthology, once you're.

I was done with that.

And I actually got the chance to get the essays and edit and build and have conversations with people who are in the book.

That was a lot of fun.

And I think I'm gonna start tonight.

I'm gonna read one chapter.

I have a couple original pieces in it.

And also, I guess one thing that makes this anthology a little distinct from most other anthologies is that most of the stuff in here is original.

I think there are Two pieces in here that have been published before, but everything in here is original, including the piece that Panama and I and our homie Sada Grundy, which was a group text that literally was cut and paste from the group text into a chapter in the book.

So anyway, I'm gonna read a chapter title.

This chapter is an ode to capping ass niggas.

It had to be 2004, 2005, because that's when I was dating Nicole and watching the Real world on the living room couch at her mother's house with her second favorite thing to do.

And we were watching this segment on the first episode of a new season where they introduced each of the new characters with a montage filled with audition tape B roll of them doing the things they presumably do when they're not stuck in the house with seven strangers, 17 crew members and 17 million viewers.

And they introduce this black guy named Karamo.

And immediately, and immediately Nicole was like, oh, he's cute.

And immediately I was like, oh, he's gay.

Which in a moment was just me hating, but I was on the right side of history.

Anyway, his montage was mostly unmemorable in the way that these things are constructed to be.

How many times can you watch a five second clip of someone installing a carpet to exhibit their love of Jesus before it becomes one amorphous wall of subtext?

But then Karamo said and did something that will remain in my consciousness until I die.

He described himself as athletic.

I'm not even there yet.

Which, okay, fine.

He was in shape.

He looked apart.

He was muscular.

I could have whooped his ass, but it would have been a struggle.

But then they showed him shooting a layup at an outdoor basketball court and catching the ball out of the net.

And this nigga looked like he had never touched a basketball before in his life.

He shot it like it was a loaf of bread.

And not, not like a full loaf either, but a loaf that had been cut into 20 slices.

It would crumble if he held it funny.

Can a shot of temp be gluten free?

Don't.

Don't answer that.

Just know that he caught it out of the net like someone just rolled a toilet.

Like someone just threw a roll of toilet paper down a flight of stairs to him.

He caught it like it was a baby.

Not his baby, though.

Not even a baby.

He had a tangential connection to her affinity for.

But a random baby.

Someone that just decided to throw it up.

I mean, imagine for a second what you would do if you were walking down the street and someone was like catching and you were expecting a football or a watermelon or Covid, but instead it was a baby.

How awkward would that be for you?

How confused would you be?

What?

Our baby was midair.

How invested would you be in a series of decisions that led to a baby being thrown at you?

How many questions would you have about chance and serendipity and child protective services?

That was how that nigga looked.

So it was my duty as a basketball stomp to hate Karama for that lie.

And so I did for a while.

But then the hate dissipated into a curiosity.

Was that his idea?

Did they ask him to do it?

Why did he agree to do it?

Why did they even air that footage?

And then the curiosity transmuted into an appreciation for the Griffin.

It didn't matter anymore whose idea it was.

What mattered instead was Karamo's commitment to the bit.

He had to know he couldn't hoop, but he also had to know that a young and athletic looking black man is suspected to have at least a cursory competency on a hoop court and not none of the white people in the production room would question why you hoop like the ball was a box of Frosted Flakes.

He also had lived experience as a queer black man, so of course he had a relationship with the concept of performance, the idea of faking it till you make it.

The reality that sometimes it's necessary to send a representative.

All last ain't created equal.

Of course, you know, some last shame, some last kill, some last convince us to invade Iraq.

But then you have the embellishments, the hyperbole, the exaggerations that don't really harm anyone.

It's a difference between a lie that you slept with a real life woman who you know but never actually have been with, and Wilt Chamberlain's claim to have owned 20,000 women.

One has real world reputational consequences and the other doesn't really have any and exists solely to verify audacity and conjure debate about its veracity.

I grew up on these lies.

My dad had five brothers, all athletes, all cats, all storytellers, all liars who entertain us with claims about middle school football touchdown records and flaccid dick size estimates of rumored to be well endowed garbage men and highway Frisbee sessions with Charlie no face shit that could and would only be verified by them.

My cousins and I would gather each summer on porches in their living rooms in Newcastle, Pennsy, my grandma's, and at my Aunt Elnor's or in Youngstown at my Aunt Jeans.

And we plot our entire years around the privilege of soaking up these stories.

We knew these niggas was capping because they tell them each summer and the details would change each time.

But we loved it and we loved them and we loved them for it.

I think we were beginning to realize even then the virtuosic value of a capping ass nigga.

And I'm not saying that black men specifically are the only people who lie.

We ain't the most prolific or destructive white men, or even really the best at it white women.

But there's a flourish in a tenacity and entertainment value to the captain ass that is singular.

These last have fruits, of course, in the necessity of armor building and protecting us and who we love from them.

I'm reminded specifically of the Hateful Eight and how the fabricated letter from Lincoln that Sam Jackson always kept in his breast pocket saved his life more times than he probably cared to count.

I mean, what is being black and male and American more than selling a life saving lie so hard that you're sure a nigga will never call your bluff?

But it also exists within a tradition of Ori storytelling.

How we communicated to each other and with each other at both the highest and the lowest possible frequencies is 42 year old Pusha T, 25 years into his rap career, reminding us that 17 year old him stole enough coke to predict the snow like Al Roker.

We know that nigga's lying, but we appreciate the rigor of the fantasy he's telling us.

I know that Cat Williams has never and could never run 40 yards in 4.2 seconds as he claimed to be able to do on a podcast with Shannon Sharpe.

But the point ain't that he's capping or that he's delusional, or that he's drunk, or even to watch him run and note that he moves like a five year old trying on new shoes.

No, the point is to ask yourself if you dare raise him.

All right, thank you.

Well, that was entertaining.

This is black American humor.

This is the.

It's a whole book full of stuff like that, right?

Or is it.

Is everything in this book as funny as the thing that you just read?

I mean, it's funny to me right now.

There's different, you know, so when I, when I sent out a call to, you know, the people to contribute to this, I didn't necessarily give anyone a directive other than just to be funny.

Right?

You know, and people came with short stories, people came with autofic, people Came with rants.

People came with, you know, just, you know, absurd, dystopian, you know, tales or whatever.

And then some people, like Hanifa Durraqib, who's.

Whose essay begins the anthology.

His piece isn't necessarily like laugh out loud funny, although there are some funny parts.

But it's more about the relationship between humor and grief.

Right.

And also between humor and grief in a dozen.

And like the whole ecosystem of the dozens and how, you know, that could be a place where care is actually practiced, where grace is actually practiced, even though we don't necessarily think of the dozens as a place where that happens.

Right.

And so you have these essays that, you know, some of them are, you know, some of them are also very traumatic.

Some of them are also, you know, like my homie Hillary Crosley Coker, who's been a good friend of mine, wrote a piece about having a miscarriage.

Right.

It's.

And it's a, it's a really funny and it's a really dark piece.

And it's also a Trojan horse piece because it's actually about marriage.

Like, it's, It's a piece where I, after I read it, you know, I texted her.

It's like, you know, did you talk to your husband about this?

Not, not to get his permission, but to let him know, to give me heads up of what, what you're about to print in this book?

Because this is not, this is about marriage.

This is about you all's relationship.

Right.

And.

And so, and so, yeah, I just, I, What I appreciate it most is that people, so many people, these 24 generous geniuses, yourself included, trusted me with their work, trusted me with their lives, trusted me with their vulnerability.

And that's another thing about humor.

It's.

We don't think of it as like a deeply, like, vulnerable sort of act.

We think of other types of, you know, other types of content, other types of experience, other types of, like, I don't know, other types of engagement or whatever as, like, vulnerable.

But just think of the vulnerability of, like, being in a room and like, telling a joke for the first time and not knowing if the people are actually going to respond to it.

Like, you're putting yourself up, you're putting yourself out there and think about how it feels when it doesn't land.

Like, that sucks.

Right?

That's not a great feeling.

And so again, that vulnerability is something that, you know, I greatly, greatly, greatly admired with the contributors of this book.

And again, I'm glad that they trusted me enough to, you know, to do that.

And one of the one.

This is.

This is very exciting and special for me because as I told these guys before back backstage, Very Smart Brothers was like an integral part of my college in early 20s.

Like, it was.

I remember.

I don't know when y' all.

Y' all started throwing like parties at one time or you had like a rooftop part.

And we were like.

We were, you know, we were a bunch of.

It was like seven of us.

We lived in a row house in D.C.

and.

And they were.

That was very Smart brothers for like young black professionals.

Was like.

They were the coolest people we'd ever.

We never met them.

We only knew their aliases and their writing.

But.

But I was like.

I remember my friend sent me a.

Forward me an email.

The Very Smart Brothers are having.

I don't know if it was a rooftop party, but we call it rooftop.

They were like, they gonna be at Olio's.

It was.

I don't know if it was there, but that's my conception of all my.

All my DC rooftop parties are OIOs, not Os.

Oz.

Os.

Everybody was like, yeah, those Ozio days.

And.

But it was.

But the writing was so funny and so earnest and felt like you all were doing something that like nobody else in the culture was doing.

And I hope you feel as if you were rewarded by that because it was.

I think you laid the groundwork not only for people who were writing humorously, but like as a.

As a young person who had not necessarily begun to conceive of myself as a writer.

You all sort of, I think, demonstrated in so many ways what it meant and looked like to write in public and to bring what I think this anthology does so well, that mix of humor, but also earnestness, but also cultural commentary.

And to.

To demonstrate that these things didn't have to be mutually exclusive.

Right.

It wasn't that you were funny, it was also that you were really smart.

It was also that you had a really keen sense of culture and sociology and history.

So it's just, you know, if my 22 year old self could, you know, knew that he'd be up here with y' all, he'd be thrilled.

And I am thrilled.

One of the things that I liked about this and that I want to hear more about is that, you know, the process of putting together an anthology is largely.

Not largely, but is a large part of it is the curation of voices.

And one of the things that's so beautiful about this book is that it.

It represents like the heterogeneity of black people, right?

There's black queer folks, there's black immigrants, there's black Muslims, there's black men, there's black women, there's black.

It just.

It really represents the wide swath of black experiences and pushes back against.

I think.

I think black humor for a time was.

Was largely portrayed in mass media as like a black male, a black straight male iteration of humor.

And what this book does is really demonstrate that it's so much more expansive than that.

And so I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about how you decided and went through the process of making.

Not making sure, but like, how did you think about the curatorial process in that regard?

Well, you know, I'll just say something real quick.

You know, the first person, the first writer crush that I had was Angela Nessel.

Yeah, I read the.

I read the Broke Diaries when I was in college.

And if you haven't read it, you know, it is.

It's tremendously funny.

It's like, I feel like it's the first book that.

That made me laugh so violently that I, like, threw the book across the room, you know, I mean, that I had an actual, like, physical impulse to.

To do violence.

Right.

And so Angela's in this book.

Right.

And again, Angela, that was the first time I experienced where I read someone's work.

It's like, yo, I need to meet this person.

I need to meet this person one day.

You know what I mean?

And so that idea of, you know, humor being like the exclusive providence of men is just, you know, obviously it's not true, but, you know, it does.

It does persist.

And it's something that I wasn't consciously thinking of when doing a curation, but I did want to have as many different types of black people in it as I could.

Right.

And so, you know, I joked earlier, but I wasn't joking about how I'm never going to do this shit again.

And I'm not.

Because it's like asking, you know, it's like asking 50 niggas to the Promise, right?

And you reach out.

It's like, hey, you want to be a part of this?

And then you're like, waiting for some of them to contribute essays that they never.

They never, never write, never submit, definitely never submitted.

You know, sometimes you just turn the email correspondence, you.

And people ask.

I mean, I was like, I'm going to get this thing in this book somehow.

So I, you know, took a group chat and made into a chapter.

But so that part of it, you know, having to do that and I'm, you know, I'm like aggressively introverted and having to do that.

And also I don't like asking for shit, you know.

And so that part of it was not fun.

But what was fun was like once people started responding and I got like, you know, a critical mass of responses.

And I did have to cut some people, not necessarily because their work wasn't good, but because it, you know, there was already work that, that was similar, that I felt was maybe a little more of a better fit, you know.

And so, yeah, now, so you asked.

People to prom and then you were like, actually, nah.

Yeah, essentially, yeah, I'm good.

They bought their dress, I got a date.

I got a date now and out.

At one point, the one thing that I do wish, you know, you know, a point of growth, I guess, with the curation of selection.

Now, as you were saying, there are, you know, all types of black people in here and black people from all types of distinct experiences.

You know, one example I like to bring up is both Dee Watkins and Nicola Loon wrote about the experience of raising a black child, raising a black daughter in America.

And if you're familiar with either their work, these are distinct, completely distinct perspectives, completely distinct upbringing is, completely distinct ways of talking about this.

Right.

And so that, and again, that's just one example of two middle aged black people with completely different takes on the same subject.

But you know, one thing that I wish, you know, maybe if I could do it again or if I expanded the list, I don't think that anyone in there is younger than like 38 or 39.

And I don't think that anyone is older than like 52 or 53.

So maybe I would have had, you know, maybe a couple younger people or maybe people who, you know, a bit more seasoned writers also, along with elder.

Millennial, Gen X humor writing.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm not, I'm not millennial.

There's like, no, it's like a.

I feel like there's that micro generation that was, I guess, born between 1979, 1983.

We have our own category.

I'm not a millennial.

We're like X.

I think it's called Xennial.

Yeah, Exennial.

Yeah.

I do want to say that I, I was one of the problem people.

He asked me very early on, do you want to be in this?

And I gave him a topic and everything.

And I sure as hell never turned in a thing.

I had a topic, I had everything.

But to be fair, I also didn't love the idea that I came up with as much as I thought.

Like, I pitched something to you, and then I was like, I don't think I love that.

And then I just kept putting it off.

Putting it off.

And he was very nice about not saying anything.

He would hit me up randomly, like, hey, man, you gonna.

You know, you working on that piece?

I'd be like, yeah, yeah.

You know, I'm almost done capping ass niggas.

You know what I'm saying?

And.

Like, writing version of when somebody's like, where you at?

I'm five minutes away.

Yeah, I mean, I was five.

I'm still five minutes away, bro.

Like, it's.

It's.

But with that being said, I think this book, that my.

My submission wouldn't have added anything to this.

And plus, the way that I am in here, which is the.

The.

The real, actual text thread about real, actual white presidents with names like real, actual niggas, which was a genuine text conversation we had many years before this book even.

What?

Right?

This was years before this book was even.

A couple of years.

Couple years.

Many, couple years, maybe.

All right, but so.

But that kind of brings up something I wanted to ask about.

So did you.

Did everybody submit these titles or did you come up with them?

Because, like, there.

I don't know if y' all have actually looked at this or anything, but, like, my favorite part of this is just reading the damn table of contents.

Like Hillary Crossley Coker, he mentioned, can a bitch just have a miscarriage in peace.

I don't even know what that's about, but I need to read that.

Who Cries in Waffle House?

I mean, if you've been down south in Waffle House, you've definitely seen people cry because you've seen a fist fight or two.

How does shit in West Virginia at night but for Niggas by Kiesa Layman.

Right?

Like, the titles are so fascinating.

The Gorilla Racist already.

I don't even know where that's going.

I told him.

I was like, if Harambe doesn't get a shout out in this article, RIP Harambe, then something.

But it was like, damn, this joint is really called the Gorilla.

And I need to know what that's about.

Like, should I be offended or not?

I don't know.

But it's like.

And of course, Michael Harriet and Oral History of the Holy Ghost.

Like, did you come up with these titles or did people submit these?

Like, were people just on their game that much that they came through?

Because it's like a perfect collection of titles that I actually want to read.

So most of the titles were generated by the authors.

There were a few of them, maybe about three or four of them that I.

That I helped them, but most of them were generated by the authors.

Yeah, people took this very seriously.

They can't.

Like, it's not.

As somebody who also has been in the business of curation and pulling people in to do things, some of y' all have written with.

And for me, for us, in different places, it is like pulling teeth.

You do learn to hate people that you previously loved, but people.

The.

The titles, like, people don't.

Aren't really great with titles.

These are like a magnificent list and set of titles.

So, yeah, that's.

It starts out amazing just off that alone.

I'm.

I'm curious for both of y' all.

So many of us, probably everybody in this room has followed your work from 08 to now, and a lot has changed in both of your respective lives.

A lot has changed in the world.

A lot has changed.

You know, that's.

That's how.

How things go as the years pass.

I'm curious how each of your senses of humor has changed since you started writing to now.

What would and in what ways is the shift or evolution of your sense of humor, if there has been one, tied to the various facets of things that have happened?

Do you tie that to reading more or in taking more content or.

Or is it also tied to a political evolution, a sort of cultural shift in sensibilities, becoming a parent?

Like, I'm curious, what are the things that have played a role in contributing to how both of you think about humor now as compared to 17 years ago?

Well, damn, that is a hell of a question.

I.

I still find the same things funny that I used to.

Right.

So, like, I can still watch Coming to America and laugh at the exact same things that I did when I was apparently way too young to watch that movie.

But what I will say is you mentioned becoming a parent.

That definitely influences the way that I look at a lot of things.

My neighborhood has also been a significant influence on my sense of humor.

Like, I live in one of the blackest neighborhoods.

But I was telling him a story today that I probably won't, shouldn't tell, but my family's not here, so I'll do this very briefly because I'm really curious about his answer.

But, like, we all live in D.C.

know DoorDash.

Like, a lot of the.

Our Hispanic brothers and sisters are riding the bikes and all that.

Well, my neighborhood, the yns, as they like to call Them nowadays like to steal those bikes from the people and as they.

As they deliver to your door.

And that happened in my neighborhood today.

And I saw a bunch of kids.

Saw a bunch of kids behind my house.

I saw a bunch of kids behind my house.

I'm like, I know they don't live there.

Why they got all these bikes?

And then I see some cats with the doordash thing on the back come flying through.

It's like two sets of people.

And then one of the Hispanic.

One of our Hispanic brothers hops off the bike and pulls out the strap and starts running after the dude like he's about to start shooting in my alley.

Now, I'm not quick.

Like, the kids are, so I didn't record any of this, but I also was like, this is hilarious.

This is like a movie scene being shot in my bed.

Now, that shouldn't be funny, but, like, I think just the last five years have been so rough that everything just seems so funny nowadays.

So I don't know if that story actually, now that I say that out loud, it's kind of like this clip I saw of Nia Long telling people that her boyfriend in high school was 30.

And she said it because she thought it was like a flex.

And then I think she realized how terrible that sounded.

And I was really sad for Nia Long in that moment.

But, like, I think because I engage so much more with my neighborhood now, my neighborhood is literally like a hodgepodge.

My next door neighbor is a black woman from Chicago who's an AK from Tuskegee who refuses to give up R.

Kelly.

And.

But my neighbor two doors down is a guy named Ron who plays music from 8am till midnight every day.

Anybody who's been to my house has met Ron, and you know Ron.

And Ron has tried to get in my house several times.

He showed up in my house at midnight once and rang the doorbells like, hey, can I come through?

I see y' all got people.

I was like, ron, no.

Like, I don't.

I don't know you like that.

But, like, it started to make me observe so many other things differently.

Like, my observational skills have gotten better.

So my relationship with comedy has gotten better because I can see the funny.

I can see the angles and all of that stuff a little bit better now.

That's a very long answer just to say I live in a very black place.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think for me, it's my humor, I think, has shifted.

It's a bit more internal.

It's a bit more like exploratory of like anxiety, of neurosis, of shame and all the perform in like the performance of race and performance of, of etiquette, performance of sex, like, all of that, like, that's what I'm most focused on now.

And I think the pieces in there also kind of reflect that in the work and the things I'm working on now.

Currently the next book will reflect that even more.

And, and so, yeah, but I still, you know, like Panama said, I still find a lot of the same shit funny.

Like, but I think the things that I create have definitely shifted where like even, you know, if you want to go back on VSB, you know, 2015, 2016, you know, it was, it was low hanging fruit to talk shit about white people and be like, okay, this white person did this fuck shit.

And let me figure out how to say it in like 500 words in a way that is pithy and funny and relevant and also unique, right?

And I, I'm just tired of them, you know, I mean, like, I just, it's not, not even so much.

I'm just bored with those, man.

And it's this.

I'm more interested in, in the things that are happening inside of me and like, why and just getting to the bottoms, like all those wise.

And I feel like that's where for me that's like the most animating thing right now.

It's like exploring those whys and like all the decisions that I'm making and all the shit crazy circuits of neuroses that's going on in my head.

It's interesting because I'm hearing two things.

One is resonates in the sense that like, I feel like the way we talked about race and racism in history in 2015 was just fundamentally different, right?

Because that was a moment that was like early days of the Black Lives Matter movement.

And part of the shift in conversation that was happening.

Excuse me.

Is that it was black.

Oftentimes black writers, black artists, black creatives, black people, black scholars were revealing the absurdity of racism to both revealing it to white people, but also sort of collectively like shaking our heads at it amongst ourselves in a way that, not that it felt new, but I think the opportunity to discuss it so publicly in, in that kind of way maybe felt new.

And so it's in the same way that like there are books I read where they're talking about like, I remember when people were having conversations about black hair, right?

And like that was like there were documentaries coming out about black hair, people writing books that were Centered around black hair.

Like, and it was like, oh, man.

Like, good hair.

Like, what do we mean by.

Like, what is.

Who has good hair?

And that.

I mean, you think about that conversation now, it feels so silly.

It feels elementary.

It's so reductive.

Like, but that's where the conversation was.

And so.

So it's interesting.

That makes sense, because as somebody who writes about, like, the way that I write about history of.

Of black life or slavery or even how I wrote how the Word Is Passed four.

Four years ago when it was published, the texture with which I write that would probably look different now because there's a different level of sophistication that we collectively have around understanding racism not just as, like, an interpersonal phenomenon, but a systemic one, a structural one, and an historical one.

So that makes sense.

And then the other thing that I'm hearing is that it sounds like part of the shift has been a shift in, like, your conception of masculinity.

Maybe.

I don't know if I'm reading, like, in.

In that.

Like, I.

And maybe I can speak for myself, too.

Like, my conception of masculinity, black masculinity, 17 years ago, was much narrower than it is now.

Right.

Like, in the same way that there's the expansiveness of the black experience reflected in this book, I think what I like growing up, especially in high school, less so in college, but, like, it was this idea of there was still a narrow social framework around what, like, black masculinity was or could look like and how it could show up in the world.

And I think it's much more expansive now in ways that are really important.

But even when you talk about neuroses and shame and a lot of internal work, you know, and, like, even black men being able to talk about therapy or stuff like that, like, that's language that we weren't even talking about 15, 17 years ago in that same way.

Well, yeah, and I'm glad you bring it up, because it's.

You know, I'm.

Everyone, we're all, like, married dads on here on stage right now.

I know.

I'm still learning how to be a dad.

I've been a dad for nine years, and I'm still learning every day how to.

How to exist, how to be a dad, how to.

How to.

How not to be the reason why these kids are in therapy 30 years later.

You know, I mean, like, it's easy.

If you realize they're gonna go anyway.

Yeah.

But I don't want to be the reason.

I don't I don't want to be there.

I don't want to be the impetus behind that, you know, I mean, I don't want to be the main, I don't want to be the antagonist in the sessions.

I'm still learning how to be a husband.

I'm still learning how to be a good friend, you know, I'm learning.

And so those, those sorts of things, you know, and also learning how to be, you know, what does it, what does it mean to be just, just a citizen, Just to be like a, a human existing in the world, you know, I mean, with all this shit that's happening everywhere.

And also an artist who is trying to create things and also contribute and create a legacy and all those things, you know, I think is, is what I'm focused on most now, right?

So it's not as external as it might have been nine, 10 years ago.

It's more just trying to get to the bottom of, you know, of things that might be bottomless, you know what I mean?

And just trying to just figure that out and get to the bottom of stuff.

And I feel like that's where, like, I think I'm funnier now.

You know what I mean?

And I think that the humor that I attempt now is a little riskier because although it was fun, you know, doing the shit, a lot of shit that I did on vsp, sometimes it was a little low hanging fruit where we knew that, okay, this, this, you know, white man, this is, I could write a thing.

I'm going to get engagement, I'm going to get, you know, this many comments and this many tweets and this many whatever.

Like, I, I, you know, it's going to happen, right?

And so this feels a little riskier and I'm a bit more excited for that though too.

So as somebody who is at a front row seat to your 90% of your writing journey, I can say, number one, yes, you are funnier now than.

You used to be.

But I don't, I don't mean that shady.

I mean that it's just.

But there's a reason why.

See, I opened up with that because black humor.

But part of that is.

So what people got to see on VSB was the end result of every conversation that Damon and I would have things that we could never share.

The amount of things that Damon and I would both say to each other.

I would love to write this.

I can't.

This is going to fuck up my household or this is going to.

This.

The juice ain't worth the squeeze Right.

We would have so many conversations or we would just switch.

Like, hey, you write this thing because I can't be the one to do this, but because people view you this way or this way, blah, blah, blah.

Like we, we had.

Because I've been privy to so many conversations that you and I have had where I can realize now what you do differently, I think is it's always been there.

You write the nuance more now.

Like the nuance part of your writing is so much more present than the low hanging fruit.

Like, I think you are a much better writer now in what we read than you used to be.

Because you have leaned so heavily into the you of it all.

Like, that used to be one of the things about vsb.

Like this is just be clear.

Everybody knew me.

They knew everything about me because I put all my shit out there.

Like, people knew my kids.

People would walk up to me in the street and be like, how are your children?

How is that?

Like people knew all of that?

I don't know that people knew you as well in the things you were writing.

Now you are very present.

Like the very personal you is a part of everything that you do.

Right?

Like when I.

When I read what Doesn't Kill youl Makes yous Blacker, I learned about him.

And I shouldn't have learned anything by reading this book because we've been working together for so long by the time that that book comes out in 2019.

And keep in mind, I've had the pleasure of reading that thing while he's writing it.

I remember telling you that.

Damn, I learned a lot about you.

I learned about the why of the way you do things.

I.

I learned about your dress code and why you only wear certain damn colors.

And I never knew that.

It just never.

It just, you know, like, I learned all these things.

Whereas I feel like there was most people who read us on VSB knew me very well.

They knew me enough to hate me.

Some people genuinely could not stand me as a human being.

You are not one of them.

Unless I'm learning that today, by the way.

No, but, but like, I mean, but we would go places and people would be like, yo, I genuinely don't rock with you.

And they would say that to me and then I'd be like, that's fine.

Do you want a shot or not?

Like, what are we doing here?

You know what I'm saying?

Like, the relationship is different.

So what my long story short is I can see the journey in your writing and how you leaned into the anxiety, the Very personal stuff.

And I think the way that you approach it in the comedic lenses in which you do it is both very interesting, it's very learned, it's very educational for other people.

Like, even I take things.

Just listening to you read that chapter, I was like, damn, that is a hell of a.

Like when you said like, catch this.

And you said catch COVID Or I was like, damn, that's a, like, I wouldn't have thought to do that.

That was a hell of a line to put there.

Like, that's a bar, you know what I'm saying?

Like, the way that you did that, I think is emblematic of your journey as a writer, but as a comedic writer, like, you are so much more interesting because of how much you put in it, but also because the funny that I know you have, that you've been.

It's not low hanging fruit anymore.

It's all very authentically you.

And it just lands because you're actually just really good at doing the thing that you do.

So, you know, thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

And, and the thing is like, I, you know, one of the things I talked about this.

I did a thing, you know, book thing and Greenlight in Brooklyn on Tuesday, right.

And talked about how VSB was like, I don't know, it was just like this living and breathing canvas where we could experiment and if we, if we wanted to write, like, you know, okay, a take on this thing that happened politically, you could do that.

Or if I want to write some auto fiction, I could do that.

Or if I want to write some.

Something personal, something more vulnerable, I could do that.

Or something that's more sober, more serious, I could do that.

And again, you.

We are doing this together.

And so much of that sensibility was shaped by the conversations that we had and reading your work and, and watching you get in front of people too and do the thing that you do when you get in front of people.

And so, you know, it's been, you know, it's, it's.

I, yeah, I feel like I've gotten better, but I've had a lot of help, you know what I mean?

And you know, our relationship, none of this exists without that.

None of this exists without that.

We love each other.

Yeah.

It's like watching one of those reunion shows be like they back together after we never left.

We just don't.

It's.

Have you, have y' all been.

Have y' all watched?

I.

I guess there's been like that TikTok where is just calling each other to Tell them good night.

I love you.

Feels like that's happening now.

It feels like that's happening right now.

Good night, man.

Yeah, good night.

I love you, Panama.

I love you, too.

I love you, too, Clint.

Appreciate you, man.

Yeah.

All right, so we're going to head into the Q A portion of the evening.

We're going to do about four, maybe five questions.

So I need anyone who wants to ask a question to line up over here.

I will hold onto the mic while you ask the question.

And then again, your question can be for anyone on the panel.

So come on up if you're interested in asking a question.

Hey, y' all, about a million years.

Ago, you wrote probably the most divisive thing on vsb.

Black men are the white men of black people.

I was wondering if in a post.

Red pill election, all that bullshit, if.

You updated that take or have any.

More elaboration on that take or what your take on that is now.

It's the people going.

It's the people going, yeah, it's funny because, like, I'm gonna keep it a buck.

I don't think about that piece at all until people ask me about it.

Like it's, you know, it.

What was it?

2016?

Like 2014, 2017, 27?

No, that.

That was.

That piece was like 2014.

Okay, we could always fact check this.

But either way.

And so, like, I.

It's funny because what I do think about that piece, when people bring it up, I think about, you know, we talked earlier.

I talked earlier about this anthology and how there's opportunity for growth and opportunity for expansion, opportunity to include or perspective.

And so when I think about a piece like that, I think about, you know, if I were to write a thing like that again, I wouldn't, but if I did, then I would probably include more voices, more perspectives, more citations from, like, people who have been academics who have actually done that work.

You know what I mean?

Because this was just me, you know, responding to a prompt, wrote it in like an hour and a half and then posted it.

You know what I mean?

And I let Panama, I let him know because, like, yo, I'm about to write this thing.

And I knew what the reaction was going to be when it.

When it went up.

But again, I think something like that, if I were to do it again today, it would just have a bit more.

It would have just a bit more rigor and a bit more careful.

And I will say I'm going to add on to that because I.

He did tell me.

I don't Think that I knew what was coming because I ended up having her.

I ended up writing a response to that the next day because I was trying to jump in front of all the.

I remember doing that.

But the big picture, I think that was such a learning experience because it's that.

And then Natalie, who was working with us at some point at vsb, Natalie, the graph and read, started to ask the question, like, does this piece need to exist?

And then it started making me ask that question of myself.

Everything that I wrote, does this need to exist?

And if that's not a definitive yes, then we would start scrapping things.

And then it also made us start.

I know it did for me when I wrote something that was slightly contentious.

And I definitely wrote some things that I had no business writing.

I would run it by people, specifically black women that I knew, that I knew loved me, who did not want me to get canceled online or did not want the worst for me.

I would ask them first, read this and tell me in my off face.

And there were some times it was like, yo, why would you do something so dumb?

And it was like, oh, okay.

Well, thank you for letting me know.

We could just pull this one back.

So the growth from that article, like, I think we as a collective, learned a lot from that episode, from that experience, because it changed the way I did business all around, if I'm being honest.

Wait, how so?

I started asking questions about the things that I was writing before.

Like, one of the things that made VSB so popular, but also so, like, fun, was we really wrote whatever the hell we wanted to.

And.

And there wasn't a whole lot of.

There weren't a lot of guardrails.

Like, you never told me not to write something.

I never told you not to write something.

Hell, half the time I found out what you wrote when I woke up and read it.

Right?

Like, there was nothing stopping either of us from doing that risky thing.

And I wrote some.

I wrote some things that make me cringe now.

Right?

And I wish that I had thought about some of that stuff before, because I never.

It's like, dude, you don't even believe this.

You don't even feel this way.

You.

You just had an idea and you ran with it and you was like, well, the idea was more important than vetting it.

Like, it's like when you have a joke.

Like, you know, you have a joke that's really bad, you just gotta get it off because it's such a good joke, but you don't think about all the collateral damage There was a lot of that early on in vsb.

That definitely changed when we got bigger, when people start.

And because of the way that we operated in the comments.

Right.

We caught a lot of accountability for that.

You would.

You would tell.

You would tell me all the time if I said something stupid or it's like.

Or people would come for us very honestly and authentically, because it was a space they didn't want ruined.

And that episode and the other ones that I know that I did.

I can think of a couple specifically made me think a lot harder about the way that I was writing, because.

And it wasn't even about losing our audience.

It was about doing no harm for no good reason.

And that has carried with me since.

Yeah, you don't.

You know, you don't want to hurt people unintentionally.

Like, neither of us have any problem going at people who.

Who we feel like deserve it, but you don't want to, like, write a thing and then, like, oh, shit.

I.

Fuck.

I didn't.

I did not realize that this was going to be offensive, that this was going to be hurtful to a person.

And so you just.

You just think and you.

Hopefully you get better.

And last thing I'll say about that, too, is, like, with all things that I.

That I wrote, like, in 2017, 2018, 2019, I read them today, and I'm like, I would write them better now.

Like.

And so when I think of that piece, it's mostly of like, oh, just a thing from eight years ago that if I were to do it again, I'd do it better.

Like, I'm proud of what doesn't kill you, makes you blacker.

But when I read some of that now, I'm like, oh, shit.

I would write that differently.

I would write that chapter differently.

I would structure it differently.

And so, you know, it's just one of them things where, you know, I.

I think there's just.

And I think that's how you grow as a writer, as an artist, as whatever, is that you're just not satisfied and you're just trying to improve continually on who you were yesterday.

You want to be better today than you were yesterday and better tomorrow than you are today.

And.

And then you just keep that concept going.

And so when I read old shit, I'm like, this is.

I.

I'm proud of it.

It's cool that it existed in the past, but if I had to do it again, this.

Yeah, this would be better.

Hey, y' all.

It's good to see you.

I guess My question would be, how did you decide what the tenor of the book was going to be?

If you think about humor that can run a gamut from risky, as in the internal, and risque, as in sexual or other types of bodily types of humor, how did you decide what was going to go in and what you wanted it to say about black humor in general, especially with such a really compelling group of writers that you put together?

Thank you for that question.

And I.

So I was doing a radio show or podcast or something, I think, sometime last week, and one of the people on the show asked me if I felt like labeling it Black American humor was limiting it or making it more narrow.

And it took me a while to answer that question because I just never thought of that.

It just, I never, it never even crossed my mind that calling it black is putting, like a restriction on it because I felt like, okay, because it's Black American humor.

There's spaces, places that we can go that no one else here can go, you know, so you're going to get a whole lot of different shit when you have, you know, like 24 different black people in the same space, you know, with their own take on.

On what's funny and what's not.

And, and so again, I wanted to, you know, and Clint alluded to this, you know, a few minutes ago, just about how I wanted to get a bunch of different perspectives in there.

You know, like Kiese Lehman, he's going to come with a different take than D.

Cefilio.

D.

Cefilio is going to come with a different take than Anif.

Anif is going to be different from Panama.

Panama is going to be different from Hillary.

Hillary is going to be different from Alex Hardy.

Alex Hardy is going to be different, you know, from Clover Hope.

You know, Clover Hope's going to be different from Angela Nissell.

And so the list goes on and on.

Angela Nissel is going to be different from Brian broom, Roy Wood Jr.

Who's in it.

You know, this nigga, he agreed to write a thing, right?

And so I hit him up one day, you know, it's like, hey, you know, is it coming?

Is it, you know, what's up?

He's like, yeah, I'll get it to you.

I'll get it to you.

I'll get it, too.

And so like a week later, I get like a 45 minute long voicemail.

That's his essay.

Okay?

And so it is a good.

I mean, and so I had to transcribe it and kind of clean it up and turn it into a thing.

So, again, yeah, yeah, I had no idea that.

Hilarious.

Like, I saw.

I saw him last summer.

Like, you, you owe me a whole lot of shit for all the work I had to do to turn this into a thing.

That was book ready.

But, yeah, I just tried to get as many different perspectives and many different, I guess, stylistic whatevers in the book as possible.

And I hope that when people get a chance to read it, that they'll be able to see it.

And I know people ain't going to love everything in this book.

There's going to be some people, there's gonna be some essays that, you know, people might feel a little cold about or whatever, and that's fine.

It's an anthology, you know, you don't have to love everything in it, but I do want people to give everything in it a chance.

You said something.

Wait real quick.

You said something.

Now, just about the word black being the.

Limiting the word American to me is what interestingly stands out to me, Black American humor.

Because I.

I don't even think that I realized that that was in there.

And I guess I have to read more carefully because as somebody who is married to an African woman, African humor is much different than American humor.

Caribbean humor is going to be much like all the cultural stuff.

Like, I know Alex Hardy is an.

Alex Hardy's Panamanian.

He's very, very, very saucy Panamanian about all of his stuff.

Is.

Was that part of the pitch?

Like, when you pitched this to all of us, was it a black American humor thing?

Like.

Well, it was part of me recognizing my own limitations.

Right.

And recognizing that.

Yeah, I, you know, there are some, you know, there are some elements of humor throughout the diaspora that maybe I don't have as strong of a handle on as I do with Black American humor.

And so I felt more confident editing the essays that are in here and the people that I chose, because that's just what I know best.

Makes sense.

But.

So I'm gonna get to pick to take the last question before we begin the.

We gotta come on up.

Okay.

Hey, everybody.

Hello.

I want to ask a question that's kind of annoying.

I'm annoyed by it already.

But.

So you don't really see a lot of black humor in one spot written.

Black written humor in one spot.

Because we have video comedy shows.

So what are your influences?

That's the annoying question that would ask.

And how did you.

How did you decide that we needed a space for black humor that is written?

I answer the second question first.

That decision was actually my agents.

This was not my idea to do this.

And so.

Okay, so what Doesn't Kill you Makes yous Blacker was part of, like, a two book.

I got a two book deal, two books of essays.

What Doesn't Kill you Makes yous blacker came out 2019.

She was like, you know what?

My agent, Tawny McKinnon, why don't you create, like, this humor anthology, like a really quick thing.

You know, there's a quick turnaround, get out there, just give some space in between your books of essays, and then, boom, you'll have it done.

It'll be done, and then six years later, here we are.

And so her premise, you know, well, her.

The way she sold me on it.

Not just, you know, having like a, you know, having like some breathing room between the books of essays, but also because a thing like this doesn't really exist.

Now.

Paul Beatty has Hokum, right, which is, you know, another black human anthology.

But it's.

It's more of, like, an historical look at black.

At black humor and not necessarily, like, contemporary with, like, people who are living and existing and writing and working right now.

And also, when you think anthology, I think, you know, the connotation is for something that's more like, historically minded or more academic or whatever.

And this is just a bunch of niggas who I know, and I wanted them to be funny on a page, right?

Out of the 24 contributors, I personally know 22 of them.

And what was your second.

What was the first part of your question?

I forgot.

Oh, influences.

Influences all the people in this book, right?

My dad, I start the, the intro.

This book starts off by talking about my man Lavar Butler, who I tell a story about, you know, when we were all 13, playing on, like, the Directly basketball team and in Pittsburgh and like the, the, the.

The.

The early and mid-90s gangs just, like, came out of nowhere.

Like, just.

We just wake up one morning and then there's Bloods and there's Crips, and it's like, yo, what the.

And the thing is, if you've been in a neighborhood where that happens, it's not like they import.

It's not like they all come on like some ocean liner and, you know, just a whole bunch of Bloods and Crypt.

It's like, nah, it's the niggas you was hooping with and watching Ren and Stimpy with and whatever.

Now they're Crips, right?

And so we had one teammate like that.

I call him Stumpy in the book.

His name wasn't Stumpy.

And like all of us, he was 13, on a hoop team of the rest of us.

And all of a sudden one day he's a Crip.

Okay, Just all of a sudden, right?

Still on the hoop team, though, still coming to practice.

And he was 14 and he was like the eighth man on the hoop team.

So anyway, my man Lavar, who to this day is still the funniest person I've ever met, we're on a bus one day going to like one of the games, and Lumpy's talking about like snitches or starch sacks or, or whatever the that Crips talk about.

And Var was just like, man, you ain't no Crip.

And Lumpy was like, nigga, I'll shoot.

And Var was like, nigga, use an instant oatmeal Crip.

Everyone know that.

Like, someone just added water to your ass and boom, instant Crip.

Okay?

And then he was like, go get some toast, my.

And then from that, from that moment on, from that moment on, Lumpy was known as Oatmeal.

And he quit cripping like a month later too.

And so again, Var.

So talking about influences, Talking about influences, 13 year old Lavar Butler, you know what I mean?

Just someone who had all of, like, all the shit that we associate with, like highbrow comedy, like all of, like the ways of synthesizing really complex things, all the way of distilling, you know, and articulating.

And he also knew the rules of humor.

Like, he didn't pick on people who, you know, were like, poor or like, had or like less status than him or whatever.

He ripped on the bullies.

He ripped on people who could give it back, right?

And he had all that shit in him at 13.

And, you know, again, we talk about influences.

He was a tremendous, tremendous influence to me.

And so, yeah, so I was, you know, obviously you have like your, you know, people like Paul Moody and I mentioned Angela nissel.

I read catch 22 when I was in college.

Joseph Heller is someone else who was a influence.

And again, all the people in this book.

But most of the influences for my sensibility are just people I knew about in my real life, like my cousins, my dad, Panama, my friends, you know, just.

I could just go down a lot.

That's awesome.

Fantastic.

I think that's a great place to end this conversation.

Please put your hands together for the incredible Damon Young.

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