One can understand humor in terms of one or some combination of the three types of humor (incongruity, release, superiority) and also by envisioning humor as a finite-province of meaning in the tradition of Alfred Schutz’s essay “On Multiple Realities”. Exemplifying varieties of humor articulated by philosophical theory, especially the superiority theory, which undermines those thought “superior,” African-American humor, from the days of slavery until the 1960s, struggled against widespread cultural suppression, as a brief survey of its history shows. Contemporary philosophical discussions of trust elucidate why it would have been perfectly rational and prudent for African-Americans to avoid sharing humor that vents legitimate aggressiveness against whites even though modified by humor, and yet these discussions present the possibility that by trusting another one can transform that other. One can find examples in African-American folklore, particularly the John/Ole Massa stories, of a dream of doing what was impossible in pragmatic everyday life, namely to engage in a comic engagement with white slave-owners. In that dream, African-American slaves utopianly imagined themselves as able through humor understood as a finite province of meaning shaped by an epoché, form of spontaneity, reduced tension of consciousness, sense of self, and a distinctive temporality and sociality, to express outrage at injustice, transform even white slave-owners, and even win freedom for humorists themselves.

人们可以通过三种幽默（不协调，释放，优越）中的一种或某种组合来理解幽默，也可以通过将幽默视为阿尔弗雷德·舒茨（Alfred Schutz）的论文“关于多重现实”的传统中意义的有限来源。对其历史进行的简要调查显示，以哲学理论，尤其是优越论为代表的幽默变体为例，该理论破坏了从奴隶制时代到1960年代那些“优越”的非裔美国人幽默，与普遍的文化压制作斗争。 。当代关于信任的哲学讨论阐明了，为什么非裔美国人避免共享幽默，而这种幽默即使出于幽默而有所改变，却能避免对白人发动合法攻击，这是完全合理和审慎的，然而，这些讨论提出了通过信任另一个人可以改变另一个人的可能性。在非裔美国人的民间传说中，尤其是在约翰/奥莱·马萨（John / Ole Massa）的故事中，可以找到一个梦想，即在务实的日常生活中做不到的梦想，即与白人奴隶主进行喜剧活动。在那个梦中，非裔美国人的奴隶们乌托邦式地幻想自己能够通过幽默而被理解为一个有限的意义领域，由一个时代，自发形式，减轻的意识张力，自我意识以及与众不同的时间性和社会性，以表达对不公正的愤慨，甚至改变白人奴隶主，甚至为幽默家们争取自由。