Editing Dozens (game) (section)

==Purpose and practice==
The Dozens is a "pattern of interactive insult" evident among all classes of African Americans, among men and women, children and adults.<ref name="Dollard, pp. 278–279">Dollard, pp. 278–279.</ref> Usually two participants engage in banter, but always in front of others, who incite the participants to continue the game by making the insults worse. Frequently used topics among players who "play the Dozens" or are "put in the Dozens" are one's opponent's lack of intelligence, ugliness, alleged homosexuality, alleged incest, cowardice, poor hygiene, and exaggerations of physical defects, such as crossed eyes.<ref name="Dollard, pp. 278–279" />

Participants in the Dozens are required to exhibit mental acuity and proficiency with words. In his memoir ''[[Die Nigger Die!]]'' (1969), [[H. Rap Brown]] writes that the children he grew up with employed the Dozens to kill time and stave off boredom, in the way that whites might play [[Scrabble]]. Brown asserts playing the game is a form of mental exercise. Sociologist Harry Lefever states that verbal skill and wit is just as valued among African Americans as physical strength: "Verbal facility is thus a criterion that is used to separate the men from the boys".<ref name="lefever" /> According to author John Leland, the object of the game is to stupefy and daze one's opponents with swift and skillful speech. The meaning of the words, however, is lost in the game. The object of the game is the performance.<ref name="leland2004"/>

Adolescents incorporate more sexual themes in their versions, often called the "Dirty Dozens". The language also becomes more playful, with participants including rhymes:

<blockquote><poem>
I was walking through the jungle
With my dick in my hand
I was the baddest motherfucker
In the jungle land
I looked up in the tree
And what did I see
Your little black mama
Trying to piss on me
I picked up a rock
And hit her in the cock
And knocked that bitch
About a half a block.<ref name=chimezie/>
</poem></blockquote>

Many forms of the Dozens address sexual situations or body parts:

<blockquote>
<poem>
If you wanta play the Dozens
Play them fast.
I'll tell you how many bull-dogs
Your mammy had.
She didn't have one;
She didn't have two;
She had nine damned dozens
And then she had you.<ref>Dollard, p. 283.</ref>
</poem>
</blockquote>