Laughing 'Til We Cry

Thanks so much for your recent tribute to Richard Pryor, “In Memory of Richard Pryor” [Free the Jackson Five, January]. From the moment I first heard Richard in the early seventies, I knew I was listening to comic genius. I had never laughed so long or so hard before I listened to Richard. He could be funny reading a phone book. My brothers and I would sit and listen for hours to the routines and memorize the lines and even when we had heard them fifty times and committed them to memory, we still laughed every time. Richard also taught me to “use humor as a sword and shield as we make our way through a world riddled with pain.” I cannot ever know the deep pain of racial prejudice but Richard taught me, a fifty-two-year-old white guy, about the pain and humor of many African-Americans and I am a better person for it. His death was a blow to me too.

Dave Rasley
Tempe, AZ