All my brothers and sisters have stories about Dad like this. I remember, when my sister was about to beat him in checkers for the first time, he knocked the board over.
Terry GrossAn interesting difference between African-American humor and Jewish humor, in it's kind of basic or maybe most austere type form is, African-American humor, some of it comes out of playing the dozens in which you insult the other person or insult the other person's mother, and so much of Jewish humor is like, you're insulting yourself. It's totally self-deprecating.
Terry GrossWhen you're reading a newspaper and you're seeing ads on the page, it's not kind of invasive. Like, it's on the page next to the article. You can look at it or not. You can turn the page when you're ready. On the internet, the ads - many of the ads - just are so controlling. They insist that you see them.
Terry GrossI'm first generation American, and my parents were both from Nigeria. And so I always say that I'm literally an African American. So my last name is Famuyiwa, it's different. And so that was a part of my experience from people not being able to pronounce it to not sort of having sort of a shared, common history with a lot of the kids that I was growing up with because my parents were from Africa.
Terry Gross