Can I Live? Contemporary Black Satire and the State of Postmodern Double Consciousness

This article examines how the interrelationship between the postmodern condition and the post-racial myth has shaped the works of black satirists in the twenty-first century. The desire to erase race in American discourse-even as race remains a powerful ideological sign that operates in real, material ways to affect black life-has transformed the project of black satire in the new century. Focusing on selected sketches from Comedy Central's Key & Peele, the article unpacks the ways in which contemporary black satire has forced a reconception of what the postmodern condition is for African Americans in the post-racial age.