White Humor

Author(s): Johannes Fabian

Source: Transition , 1992, No. 55 (1992), pp. 56-61
Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of the Hutchins Center for African
and African American Research at Harvard University

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/2934849

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Indiana University Press and are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to Transition

This content downloaded from

200.3.152.96 on Fri, 14 Aug 2020 16:06:57 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
T R A N S I T ION Position

WHITE HUMOR

Johannes Fabian

The idea of the barbarous Negro is a Euro-it is?) that intelligent, sensitive people
pean invention. -Leo Frobenius (like you and me) came to accept the en-
terprise as, on the whole, justified and
We still carry the mark of the master in our noble. Second, I assume that the author,
minds and spirits, like aform of tattooing car- the eminent German Africanist Leo

ried out in the initiation ceremonies of the sa-
cred grove.
-Leopold Sedar Senghor on Leo Frobenius
What I am going to report is neither great
news nor very entertaining, and certainly
Frobenius (1873-1938), is known
widely, not just among his fellow an-
thropologists and other specialists.
Many think of him as precisely the type
of intelligent and sensitive student of Af-
rican culture who should make one won-

not funny. In the end, it may not even be der how it was possible for him to iden-
illuminating. Still, it is something I have tify with colonialism.
been unable to consign to academic stor- Often cited with approval and admi-
age to be analyzed later, calmly and ob- ration, Frobenius conducted his first field
jectively. I simply need to tell about an expedition to southwestern Zaire be-
extraordinary passage I came across in a tween 1904 and 1906. Only a year after-
book written more than eighty years ago wards, in 1907, he published a 460-page
(Im Schatten das Kongostaates, Leo Frobe- report, titled Im Schatten des Kongo-
nius, 1907). Staates (In the Shade (or the Shadow?) of
Two reasons make me believe that I Congo State). The book is packed with
should try to express publicly the private
information, not only ethnographic but
outrage I felt when I read this extraor-
also historical, political, and, above all,
dinary document. First, I assume that I
economic. It shows Frobenius as a sci-

am not alone in my conviction that West-

entist driven by a desire to know and un-
ern imperialism and the atrocities of co-
derstand; he comes across as critical, hu-
lonial domination ultimately need to mane,
be and often compassionate. The
understood by asking how it was (how modern reader is under the spell of this

56 TRANSITION ISSUE 55

This content downloaded from

200.3.152.96 on Fri, 14 Aug 2020 16:06:57 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 -

powerful personality and willing to at-

tribute to the spirit of the times an oc-
casional expression of his racism, pater-
From Im Sch-allev
nalism, and repeated episodes of actual
des Kongostaates,
violence toward his African helpers and
Leo Frobenius,
the villagers he encounters. Leaving the
stark contradictions unresolved rather 1907. The legend
for the cartoon
than selecting outrageous passages for
says "Exercises in
cheap effect seemed to me a more pro-
fiitiutgen in ber tlumo- the humoristic
ductive way of reading this document of ritijfd?cn 23etracftung
contemplation of
colonial discourse (a reading which, at bcs legers: Der 30y
zuiilntl?t, ba~ Du il~n the Negro: The
any rate, was undertaken for a project
als (rwtad?fenen be, Boy wants you to
larger than exposing a single Africanist as
kanmbelft.
treat him as an
a colonial villain). At least that was my
adult."
resolve until I came to the sixteenth chap-
ter, "Among the Conquistadors of the
Kasai." The conquistadors in questionwas no interruption of the perfect rhythm. Af-

are the agents of the Compagnie du Kasai, ter this had been going on for a while I still
the semigovernmental trading companyheard another 53 whack-whacks, that is, 106
specializing in rubber and ivory. Frobe-blows. But there were certainly 150 alto-
nius accuses this company of arrogatinggether. When this had finished, the poorfel-
to itself powers that belong to the State. low was unable to walk. He was carried
He piles one example of the atrocious away, bleeding from five serious wounds.
conduct of its European employees on That is what we saw with our own eyes. Af-
another. Then he brings his story-quiteter the most simple and harmless punishment
consciously, as is clear from the it is customary to let the people take a bath.
context-to a climax (my translation): In this case, this was notpermitted. Uatobelle

received the same poor food as the other pris-

However, the most terrific and the saddest in- oners and died as a result of this treatment on
cident we weregoing to witness ourselves. On October 5.

October 4, during our second stop at Kabeya,

a sixth unfortunate pickaninny, Kaloshi Ua-
tobelle, was caught. He too was a Kapita [a
rubber buyer] who had not quite covered his
advance. He was supposed to have been an
excellent fellow, a Christian educated at the
End of story; not a word about his
reaction-did he have the urge to inter-
vene, to help the victim afterwards? Not-
ing a feeling he had at least a day later,
Frobenius does tells us that he found La-

Mission in Luebo. He arrived in the evening bryn, the European responsible for the
and next morning he was thrown to the killing, "disgusting," quickly adding,
ground and held there. A capita stood on one however, "I was in no position to inter-
side, a European on the other. Each wielded vene. " This is hard to believe from some-

a cane. It sounded like a mill: whack-whack, one who continually reports his initia-
whack-whack. And when a cane broke, an- tives in matters of "native policy" and
other one was quickly brought, so that there who acquired a reputation among other

WHITE HUMOR 57

This content downloaded from

200.3.152.96 on Fri, 14 Aug 2020 16:06:57 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
Europeans as a most meddlesome nui- designed to make bearable the horror in-
sance. spired by his narrative. The first one is
But back to the text: Gruesome facts clinical pedantry in the face of death. His
are here proffered with a detachmentreporting seems strictly objective. There
bordering on serenity. It made me wantis a phrase interjected between the main
story and his afterthoughts that must
to retch. That I reacted so violently was
certainly in part because I share withhave sounded quaint and solemn when it
was written: "That is what we saw with
Frobenius his native language. The literal
our own eyes." The observer deserves to
translation I gave cannot convey some of
be believed, even if what he observes is
the signals and connotations that make
unbelievable. Accordingly, the compo-
worse what, by itself, is a disgusting in-
sition of the event as a tableau-as an
stance of "objective reporting." Objec-
tivity, like any other normative conceptexhibit-is expected to convince a reader
who is put in the judge's chair. The vic-
used by social scientists, can become ab-
tim is identified, even named!-not a
surd, depending on context and content
(think of the ledger of a concentration
usual courtesy extended to Africans who
camp as an "objective" record). Inciden-
appear in travel accounts. Facts are given
that have a bearing on the case: Kaloshi
tally, the "we" that seems to add credi-
bility to this passage includes Mr. (Kalonji, we would write today) was a
Lemme, the expedition's artist, who buyer who failed to come up with a
presently will assume a major role. quantity of rubber deemed to match the
Lest my reaction be dismissed as sen-advance he had received. That he was ed-
ucated and a Christian presumably was
timental and moralizing, I shall now of-
mentioned to make the punishment ap-
fer suggestions for taking this episode as
a banal and therefore mind-boggling ex-pear all the more cruel. The beating is
ample of the workings of the colonialdone rhythmically, machine-like. Pun-
mind. Frobenius could not have reacted ishment takes on an impersonal, measur-
able character: At least 150 blows are
the way he did, nor could he have written
about it the way he did-yet he did.
served, five serious wounds are inflicted
What happened in this sort of writing(did
is Frobenius count along silently; did
something that transcended and deter-
he get close enough to the victim to ex-
amine him?).
mined what the author perceived as well
as the manner in which he decided to re- While realistic and objective report-
late his experience. ing may have been just a distasteful
I begin with some comments on thechoice of literary genre, I found Frobe-
text itself and then place the passage in
nius's second strategy simply sickening.
the context of the chapter and the book.A native speaker of German cannot fail to
recognize in this passage two evocations
Placing things in context often serves to
excuse them. In this case, interpretationof folklore. Both are conspicuous viola-
shall make matters worse. tions of the dominant genre. Perhaps
Frobenius committed them because he

was a bad writer; more likely he used

them in an effort to ease the tension of his

Frobenius appears to use two strategies

account.

58 TRANSITION ISSUE 55

This content downloaded from

200.3.152.96 on Fri, 14 Aug 2020 16:06:57 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 The first slip into folklore is contained kitsch: these were combinations to

in the phrase "a sixth unfortunate pick- which imperialism was as prone as, later,
aninny" (ein sechstes ungluckliches Neger- fascism.

lein). It evokes a children's song, Zehn

kleine Negerlein ... a "counting" song
telling of the sad fate of ten "little ne-
groes" who go out to undertake various If there is any doubt left about all this
things. One after the other is killed and being intentional, it is easily removed
subtracted from the count. In the mouths when we look at the pages that surround
of millions of German children the di- our passage. With three exceptions, the
minutive suffix may have sounded en-
seventeen illustrations used in this chap-
dearing, relativizing the stark message ter
of are cartoons. They are identified as
the story. Employed by Frobenius it "exercises
is in looking at the Negro hu-
moristically." Drawn by the expedi-
condescending and insulting but, as we
shall see, meant to be funny. tion's artist, Mr. Hans Martin Lemme,
A second allusion to, or rather actual
they all depict Africans either breaking
quotation from, a popular romantic song
European rules of etiquette or aping Eu-
is given in the phrase that imitates the
ropean dress and attitudes (see three ex-
amples on the following page). Just in
rhythmic sound of an old fashioned wa-
ter mill. Again, every German reading
case the reader misses the point of illus-
this is reminded of "Es klappert die
trating with funnies what is essentially a
Miihle am rauschenden Bach, klipp-catalog of colonial atrocities, Frobenius
klapp, klipp-klapp" (a song about a mill
tells us: "It is not for nothing that I il-
that is rattling away on a rushing creek).
lustrate this tragic chapter with gay little
It is impossible to determine whether
pictures from the life of the Boys. These
Frobenius simply followed an associa-
are sketches of funny experiences in daily
life drawn by the artist of the Expedi-
tion when he tried to represent the sound
made by the beating or whether he was
tion." "In Africa," he goes on somewhat
inconsequentially, "one cannot do
out to create a certain effect byjuxtapos-
enough for self-control and self-edu-
ing colonial brutality with a rustic idyll.
Was he perhaps unconsciously regress-
cation. A person who gets to be bitter
ing to childhood images and sounds in
(gallig) is in danger of losing himself."
these songs because what he described
"Therefore," he says, "I always tried to
was too much to bear? see the comical in a situation and always
As I read it-taking account of the
to emphasize the humor in it."
context, to which we will turn I think we all are inclined to see co-

presently-Frobenius pursued inlonial

this discourse as conspiratorial, trying
passage strategies whose subjectiveto hide its true motives and mechanisms;
pur-
pose at the time he was writing mayI keep
know I am. I also believe that, as a his-
torian,
us forever second-guessing. But there is I should avoid easy recourse to
conspiracy when it comes to explaining
no second-guessing the effect he created:
when we read his report now, the au-
the conduct of colonials. It left me gaping
thor's literary strategies increase the to see Frobenius, openly and without
hor-
ror. Brutality with frills, cruelty and
compunction, declare that "humor" is a

WHITE HUMOR 59

This content downloaded from

200.3.152.96 on Fri, 14 Aug 2020 16:06:57 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Frobenius's recommendation, how-
ever clumsy and tactless, is not about
Ubnnlen in her tunioriftifchen ~3etracti
compassion for Africans. His "method-
trtui bes ZTe3ers: Der 30ov reict Dir
eineii ioffeI. ological" humor fits in with those rules
against boredom, idleness, and excessive
sleep, but also fraternization, neglect of
personal appearance, and so on, which
contemporary manuals of colonization
grouped under "hygiene." Health, es-
sentially defined as self-control, was nec-
essary in order to control others.
In sum, we have in this one short pas-
sage an instance of colonial discourse in
which domination is multiply encoded:
In the repetitive event of the beating it-
self, in Frobenius's callously quantitative
ltbunlien in her buiino
account of it, in the repeated breaks of
riftifcen lcftracttlnng bes
ZTelers: Der 3oy rcicdt style or genre that occur through the
Dir eineu Secder. evocation of popular German songs, in
the graphic context of the illustrations
chosen for the chapter (each with a leg-
end part of which is repetitive), in the
"theory" of humor that is formulated to
make sense of it all and then backed up
with a multitude of anecdotes (not re-
More "Exercises in ported here) and, last but not least, in the
the humoristic con- vignette-like realistic depiction of the
templation of the scene at the end of the chapter. Each is
Negro": the Boy like another blow that startles us and pro-
claims the author's desire to show that he
hands you a spoon;
the Boy hands you a Ubuntenl in her tlunoriftifcden r 3e- was in control, no matter what hap-
tracbtunt bes tegers: Der 0oy pened.
cup; the Boy sifts
feitt Dir ben Kaffee burc? feinen Frobenius writes and reasons as a Her-
your coffee through
fentbetfd?ur3.
his loincloth. renmensch, a human being destined to
rule. At the beginning of the book he
said:
necessary virtue of the colonial agent-
not because it relativizes things, covers
distress with irony, makes inhumane sit- I shall frequently have the occasion to point
uations humanly bearable, but because it out that we must succeed, not only in under-
is needed to maintain "self-control," es- standing the Negro; but also in meeting him
sential if one wishes to maintain a posi- more than half-way if we want to utilize his
tion of power over "the Boys," who labor powerfully. But equally frequently I
stand of course for all Africans. shall show that the European must see to it

60 TRANSITION ISSUE 55

This content downloaded from

200.3.152.96 on Fri, 14 Aug 2020 16:06:57 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
that the Negro race which, after all, is dis-
posed for slavedom, recognizes him as the
Herrenmensch.

This sort of cant is easily dismissed (and Vignette at the end

by some excused) as ideological jargon of the chapter: "Un-
that did not influence what Frobenius der the rod of the

and the likes of him (and the likes of us) masters who do not
litnter ber Siucltec ber L?erren, bie ben
achieved as ethnographers. After all, we know humor: Poor
tlumior ntid)t feilnenr: Der arile Ulatobetle
seem to forgive Malinowski his racist miltinert feinc llt nbe enttcgeet. Uatobelle moans as

statements (admittedly never destined he dies."

for publication). But our reading of a

piece of factual reporting should have
whether an ethnographer's "authority"
deserves credit as a contribution to
shown that the imperialist frame of mind
can express itself in the same realistic
knowledge, or whether it merely repro-
genre that was considered appropriate
duces the political force and violence it
for ethnography. We can never be sure,
often took to put ethnographers in a po-
until we face that question directly,
sition to claim authority.

WHITE HUMOR 61

This content downloaded from

200.3.152.96 on Fri, 14 Aug 2020 16:06:57 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms