The Black Joke: The True Story of One British Ship's Battle Against the Slave Trade

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This is not a history with easy answers and clear heroes and villains. While there are plenty of people who act valiantly and often do the right thing, there are always gray areas--and of course there are the slavers themselves who often act with terrible inhumanity.

The "Fun" in "Funeral": Funerals are supposed to be somber, serious ceremonies; but not in this one.Heroic Comedic Sociopath: One of the ( so-called) " good guys" is inclined toward hilariously offensive behavior. Sullivan, Anthony (2020). Britain's War Against the Slave Trade: The Operations of the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron 1807–1867. Frontline. ISBN 9781526717962. I told my dad I was writing this and asked him (at the pub) what makes our sense of humour so distinctive. He thought for a minute, sipped his beer, and said: “Everyone round here thinks they’m a comedian.” Here, and throughout, I do not use racial categories to connote that they are “real” in a biological sense. They are social and political constructions that emerged out of European colonialism and have had disparate social consequences for racialized groups and individuals over the last five centuries. See, for instance, R. Sussman, The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea. Harvard University Press, 2016.

The Chew Toy: Especially if an unfortunate loser's suffering is taken to extreme levels, and played more often for laughs than drama.Laughably Evil: A bad guy is depicted in a humorous manner, despite (or perhaps because of) their villainous actions against others. Merryweather & Seattle ( Lawrence Leadley, the Fiddler of Helperby), 1994; No. 81, pp. 48–49 (includes six sets of variations). This book covers the sheer complexity of the macroeconomic and legal issues of policing international waters to locate and capture well-financed slave ships, and how much those ships/captains lied and committed horrible acts of violence to evade capture and consequences. “Naively it seemed, many of England’s abolitionists, and at least some politicians, had expected the eradication of the trade to be a relatively simple endeavor that would pave the way to abolition of slavery itself, imagining it would take a scant few years perhaps. Slavers in large part simply contrived new methods to evade condemnation, even if captured.” “As long as there was a single flag to hide behind, the unscrupulous would exploit it.” I saw this book in a listing of history books, I grabbed it to learn of this chapter of World History. It is a historical work, describing the actions of one ship as part of the British Navy of the late 1820’s and how it fit into the West AfricaCommand, asked in Freetown. Sierra Leone, Africa. It prime mission, was to chase down the “slaver” ships as they began their voyage out of the slave ports of Africa, heading to various ports in the western hemisphere. Mostly Brazil. She was embroiled in deadly cannon battles, numerous bloody and hand-to-hand combats, and desperate pursuits across thousands of miles of ocean. Britain had abolished the slave trade in 1807, but halting it was another matter. "Portugal, Spain and Brazil had no intention of giving up slavery, and France had just reinstated it.

There was just too much money to be made," explains Rooks. The West Africa Squadron, at the time comprising as few as six vessels, struggled to stem a flood of slavers. R. Pérez, Racism Without Hatred? Racist Humor and the Myth of “Colorblindness,” Sociological Perspectives, vol. 60, no. 5 (2017): 956–974; R. Pérez and G. Ward, From Insult to Estrangement and Injury: The Violence of Racist Police Jokes, American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 63, no. 13 (2019): 1810–1829. Kafka Komedy: A form of dark comedy where the humor is based more on people's constant misery and misfortune, rather than death or violence.Subverted Kids' Show: A common variant is to make a twisted parody of a work of children's media; filling it up with adult content such as uncensored profanity, graphic depictions of sexuality, and very gruesome acts of violence. Other interesting information in this book is the different views of slaves in the different colonies, largely driven by the crops that are grown there. It is appalling. Rooks also touches briefly on Britain's role in the South American colonies' bid for freedom, homosexuality in the British Navy, tropical diseases and the state of medicine during this period, and the British Navy's use of Kroomen. Well, one thing is for sure, if you don’t get the dark joke at first — you might have to think about it for a while. Dark humor is something that either you have or do not. The best dark humor jokes you’ll probably hear are those that are innocent on the surface but are pretty deep in their hidden message. They are also quite combinable — what will you get when you combine dark humor with dad jokes? Well, you’re going to get some pretty funny dark dad jokes. But don’t mix dark humor with something controversial — you might offend some people this way. This is an intelligent, fantastically interesting book, Rooks guides us through the slave trade, but more importantly highlights and emphasises how it still guides and shapes our modern lives. I thoroughly recommend this book to everyone who ‘thinks’ they know about the abolition of slavery, and to everyone interested in unlearning or learning some truths and facts they won’t know and won’t always want to know, but they need to.