Fury in the “Promised Land”

This chapter examines the development of comic rage after the civil rights movement. These works push back against the popular narrative of America’s colorblindness and that the 1980s initiated a period in which racism had ceased to exist. As part of a new artistic wave known as the New Black Aesthetic, these younger writers used their perspectives as the first post-integration generation to chronicle the new challenges facing African Americans. The unprecedented willingness to use humor as a central element in their work created a perfect site for comic rage to flourish and expand. The works that emerge focus on how cultural mulattoes—as many refer to the post-integration generation—attempt to achieve equality in a country attempting to assimilate them and erase the distinctiveness of their cultural traditions and identities.