0:00

When billionaires break the rules,

0:02

our communities pay the price. Representative

0:04

Jasmine Crockett joins his stereo on

0:06

their latest episode of a candid

0:08

combo by Elon's Doge Chaos, the

0:10

stock market in Elon Musk. Plus,

0:13

host Alyssa Master Monaco, and guest

0:15

host Samantha B, breakdown Trump's tariffs

0:17

and ICE teaming out with the

0:19

IRS. Listen to Astaria now, wherever

0:21

you get your podcast or on

0:23

YouTube. Hey,

0:26

this is Duray. We're going to positive

0:29

to people in this episode. We got

0:31

a lot going on. This is great.

0:33

You know, the world is so wild

0:35

and I'm happy that I get to

0:37

process it with this group people. It

0:40

was me, Miles and Sharanda, this week,

0:42

talking about the news that you might

0:44

not have heard of and some other

0:46

things that were just going on. And

0:49

then Miles sat down with actor, performer,

0:51

and now New York Times best-selling author

0:53

Bob the Drag Queen. Every

0:59

week it gets a little while

1:01

to hear in these United States

1:03

of America, but we are happy

1:05

to be back. This is Drey at

1:07

D-R-A-Y on Twitter. This is Miles

1:10

E. Johnson, Miles dot E. Johnson

1:12

on Instagram. And this is

1:14

Sharanda Bassier. There's so

1:16

much no one's looking for me

1:19

on LinkedIn. But people have a

1:21

real post on LinkedIn like like

1:23

essays and I'm never checking for

1:25

essays on LinkedIn, but they're

1:28

there. the rise of the LinkedIn

1:30

influencer. We are definitely in

1:32

that moment right now. It's a

1:34

moment. Well, a lot happened in this

1:37

past week with regard to the,

1:39

you know, the national political landscape.

1:41

Miles, one of the things that

1:44

you said that legitimately cracked me

1:46

up, you were like, language is

1:48

a struggle for everyone, but.

1:50

Donald Trump. And it feels like

1:53

language has been a struggle for

1:55

the left for a while. Bernie

1:57

Sanders did the biggest rally of

1:59

his I think career recently, 36,000

2:01

people, him and AOC and LA.

2:03

He also made an appearance at

2:05

Coachella. If you did not see

2:07

that last night, he was on

2:10

the main, he was on the

2:12

stage at Coachella. And it really

2:14

is him, AOC, and Jasmine Crockett,

2:16

who seemed to be the three

2:18

people repeatedly in the press sort

2:20

of holding. the fire to Donald

2:22

Trump. So I'm interested in your

2:25

analysis about what's going on with

2:27

Bernie AOC and Jasmine Crockett. And

2:29

then I just want to say,

2:31

I don't know if you saw

2:33

that somebody tried to set Josh

2:35

Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania's house

2:37

on fire yesterday. The governor's mansion,

2:40

he had to get evacuated, and

2:42

whole thing, but this just happened.

2:44

It just got reported Sunday morning,

2:46

it happened Saturday night. But let's

2:48

start with Bernie AOC, Jazmine Crock.

2:51

You always give us

2:53

like these little tidbits

2:55

of breaking news that

2:57

I'm like that just

2:59

rewired and reorganized my

3:02

whole brain was at

3:04

the bench a hero

3:06

bit but Josh Shapiro

3:08

sorry sorry sorry okay

3:11

my brain's not as

3:13

we rewired which I always

3:15

am. I still am just

3:17

not feeling it. Like I'm

3:19

just not, or I just

3:21

am not feeling the wave,

3:23

right? Like I'm not feeling the

3:26

AOC Bernie stuff, and I guess

3:28

also it's not. targeted towards me.

3:30

I guess it's not target towards

3:33

the communities that have proximity to,

3:35

but again, the thing that I've

3:37

been reading about and studying about

3:40

and really caring and thinking about

3:42

has been black people in our

3:44

political power and it kind of

3:47

bleeding out and what can we

3:49

do to solve that and maybe

3:51

also what are the reasons why

3:53

that's happening. And it does bother

3:56

me that it feels like whatever

3:58

the Democrats are pushing. to

4:00

help make people feel things.

4:02

I just have not felt

4:05

them anywhere that I've been

4:07

between Ohio, Kentucky, and

4:09

like these other places

4:11

where Midwestern black people are.

4:13

I think. They also are just

4:15

not resonating in my friend group,

4:17

right? And so, you know, we

4:19

talked about, like, Bernie being at

4:21

Coachella. And most of my friends,

4:24

like, look, we watched Coachella from

4:26

our couches these days, right? But

4:28

we did stream it. And literally

4:30

no one mentioned that Bernie was

4:32

there. We all talked about Missy

4:34

Set and how the crowd didn't

4:36

deserve her because they had no

4:38

idea what was happening, right? We

4:40

all talked about Gaga, Gaga, mixed

4:42

reviews on Glorilla. Like, even Bernie

4:44

showing up at that place at

4:46

this thing that we're all watching,

4:48

it just didn't resonate. Like, it

4:50

just didn't even get a passing

4:52

mention. And I think to Miles

4:54

this point, maybe that's because we're,

4:57

you know, black and brown people,

4:59

at least in that group text,

5:01

right? Like, from our mid-thirties to

5:03

our mid-forties, and it's like we

5:05

have for so long been thought

5:07

of and talked of and talked

5:09

about ourselves as sort of the

5:11

backbone of the Democratic Party. we

5:13

aren't at the center of those

5:15

efforts. And yeah, and it's showing.

5:18

Do you think anybody, would

5:20

you say that's true with

5:22

Jasmine Crockett too? Is she

5:24

penetrating the Fring groups?

5:27

I think she's penetrating

5:29

the Frang group in

5:31

that like. y'all look

5:33

at your girl again

5:35

way, right? I think

5:37

people for the most

5:39

part agree with and

5:41

appreciate how she votes

5:43

on issues. I think

5:45

there are some questions

5:47

about who the target

5:49

demographic or audiences are for

5:51

a lot of the stuff

5:53

that she creates and

5:56

puts out online and be

5:58

a social media. I just,

6:00

I don't want to, I feel

6:02

like this will just bleed into

6:04

my news, so I'll just save

6:06

it, but yeah, to quote

6:08

Whoopi Goldberg, you in Danger

6:10

Girl. It's, it's, it's really,

6:12

really, really weak. Like, you

6:15

know what it reminds me

6:17

of in my pop culture

6:19

brain? It's something I've never

6:21

actually seen. I never saw

6:23

a Destiny's Child Performance without

6:25

Biance. And what I do

6:28

feel like politically what I'm

6:30

witnessing is a democratic performance

6:32

without any star power. And

6:34

you know, as great as

6:36

I think Latoya and Latavia

6:38

and Aldeger and Michelle and Kelly

6:41

are, I think that there needs

6:43

to be somebody who's on the

6:46

precipice of performance, who would get

6:48

down and shake that weave and

6:50

shake that ass and really drive

6:53

that point of that song home.

6:55

Democrats need that same person and

6:58

they don't have that person, what I'm

7:00

realizing the more I'm reading about it

7:02

and understanding the moment we're in

7:04

is that they can't have that person

7:07

because of ties they have to corporations

7:09

and things that have just successfully

7:11

blocked other type of political thought out.

7:13

And you think that the influencers

7:15

sphere is not that either and I

7:18

only asked because you have been so...

7:20

both thoughtful and persistent about us

7:22

looking at YouTube and the sub stack

7:24

people and the tick-talkers who who

7:26

have huge followings on the left

7:28

or like bigger followings than a

7:30

lot of people have. Do you

7:32

not think that they will be

7:34

the messengers at some point in

7:36

a legitimate way? So you're talking about

7:39

whatever tick-talker. who's a political influencer

7:41

and will one day be somebody

7:43

who people take seriously? Well, you're

7:45

saying like that the that jet

7:47

that the group of people I

7:49

brought up don't have the star

7:51

power. Do you think the star

7:53

power exists in the influencers sphere? Like

7:55

can the can the head of the

7:57

Democratic Party be somebody who's not in

7:59

a among the elected ranks. Yeah.

8:01

Yeah, sure. I think that could

8:04

happen. I think. It won't happen

8:06

because I think that the Democratic

8:08

part is just obvious with how

8:10

the Democratic Party wants to be

8:12

made up. They want those people

8:14

who have the star power to

8:16

be the engines for the people

8:18

they have already designated to be

8:20

the leaders. So they don't want

8:22

that person to come and replace

8:24

Hiking Jeffries or replace Nancy Pelosi

8:26

because they might accidentally do something

8:28

radical. They might accidentally do something

8:30

that offends or is against APAC.

8:32

So they don't really want that,

8:34

but they do want you to

8:36

espouse their... messages. So if there's

8:38

this, you know what, and I

8:40

just thought about this, there, there,

8:42

the Democratic Party recreates its own

8:44

classhood. It makes it, it successfully

8:46

creates these monarchs and these clitons

8:49

and these obamas, and then it

8:51

uses the serfs, the influencers in

8:53

order to perpetuate their power. That

8:55

seems like the system that they're,

8:57

they're happy with and that they

8:59

want to continue to perpetuate. They

9:01

just want to. reconfigure it a

9:03

little bit so it can beat

9:05

Trump and get a few more

9:07

votes. Now in terms of, you

9:09

know, it is noticeable to me

9:11

too that people of color are

9:13

not at these rallies, weren't at

9:15

the hands-off rallies, not at the

9:17

Bernie AOC thing. None of my

9:19

friends have, none of my black

9:21

and brown friends have gone to

9:23

them. A lot of my white

9:25

friends have gone to them. But

9:27

I say that again, only because

9:29

Stephen A. Smith, the sports commentator,

9:31

seems to be becoming even more

9:34

serious about running for president and

9:36

he is one of the highest

9:38

paid commentators on TV. He obviously,

9:40

as you know, he is a

9:42

black man who prides himself on

9:44

having a black male audience. And

9:46

we have not talked about this

9:48

in any bingue, you know, what

9:50

it what you make of Stephen

9:52

A. Smith's seeming play for the

9:54

presidency. Recently, just through my own

9:56

health and through. therapy sessions and

9:58

stuff I've been thinking about body

10:00

dysmorphia and thinking about my interactions

10:02

with it. I've also been thinking

10:04

about other dysmorpheus and how black

10:06

people with fame with money have

10:08

a dysphoria around how they're actually

10:10

perceived and who they actually are

10:12

and they think just because people

10:14

will turn them on while they're

10:16

cutting their onions and people will

10:19

turn them on and they can

10:21

listen to them yell while they're

10:23

folding their laundry that that equates

10:25

political power and A, it does

10:27

not. Also, it's insulting to most

10:29

black people. And then when we

10:31

look at black people and people

10:33

in general not showing up, this

10:35

is the type of insulting, this

10:37

is the type of thing that

10:39

deflates and depresses people because it's

10:41

not just something that happened. New

10:43

York, so here's what I see.

10:45

a marketing publicity move in order

10:47

to try to make people think

10:49

that Stephen A should be our

10:51

next president. And that's why he

10:53

was on the view that many

10:55

times. That's how come that New

10:57

Yorker article came out with him.

10:59

And that's how come he initially

11:02

said, no, I'm not smart enough

11:04

because he knows that will make

11:06

people like that. And now he's

11:08

kind of doing the storytelling of

11:10

how he. how he's going to

11:12

eventually say, no, I can do

11:14

it. That's what I see. I

11:16

see somebody who is in concert

11:18

maybe with some folks in the

11:20

Democratic Party trying to convince us

11:22

that he's a valuable choice because

11:24

they, because Democrats, again, Democrats want

11:26

to create a Trump they can

11:28

control. And but the Trump card

11:30

of being a Trump is the

11:32

uncontrollability, you know. Are we sure

11:34

that Stephen A is a Democrat?

11:36

That's my, that's my first question.

11:38

Well, don't be shit no more.

11:40

Well, I actually, I'm just not

11:42

even sure he would pretend to

11:44

be one, you know what I

11:47

mean? I find it really interesting

11:49

that people think that all you

11:51

need is popularity to be president

11:53

of the United States, right? I

11:55

think that that is really fascinating

11:57

to me. I also think what

11:59

is going unsaid here is that

12:01

whether people will say it aloud

12:03

or not, people are like, well,

12:05

if this black man can be

12:07

president, then hell, anyone can be

12:09

president. Right. I think that's how

12:11

we ended up with Trump. I

12:13

think like having Obama in the

12:15

White House where a lot of

12:17

people made people think that like,

12:19

well, if he can do it,

12:21

anyone can do it. And I

12:23

think what people did not play

12:25

up enough about Obama was his

12:27

actual understanding of things like constitutional

12:29

law system of government worked, right?

12:32

I think people were like, oh,

12:34

we like him. He's charming. That's

12:36

all you need to be president.

12:38

And I think it's one of

12:40

the reasons that people have been

12:42

floating other names like the rock,

12:44

right? Because people are like, if

12:46

there's a personality that we can

12:48

all sort of get behind. And

12:50

I just wonder what it means

12:52

to live in a culture and

12:54

in a cultural moment where celebrity

12:56

can be leveraged in this way.

12:58

But yeah, I think Stephen A.

13:00

Smith is going to find out

13:02

the hard way to Miles' point

13:04

that like, well, a lot of

13:06

people might watch you on TV

13:08

and pal around with you at,

13:10

you know, at different mixers. They

13:12

don't want you to have any

13:14

influence over their real lives. And

13:17

you're going to say that in

13:19

no uncertain terms, I think. I

13:21

am sort of surprised it. He

13:23

also doesn't realize that the white

13:25

people have been supporting Trump because

13:27

of white supremacy and they will

13:29

turn on Stephen A. Smith in

13:31

12 seconds and a heartbeat. That

13:33

all those black people who supported

13:35

Trump, they didn't even get fake

13:37

jobs in the administration. They are

13:39

just hanging out this go round.

13:41

It is interesting, how little substance

13:43

we find in the administration, I

13:45

think about the Secretary of Education.

13:47

confusing AI with A1 at a

13:49

huge education conference. Toronto, which I

13:51

want to talk about, but the

13:53

way that his confusion and the

13:55

way that Trump's mastery of the

13:57

media has essentially just overshadowed. the

14:00

deep incompetence is just, I don't

14:02

know, I think I'm like floored

14:04

by it, especially as it is

14:06

no longer theoretical, it's like kids

14:08

are actually dying from measles, you

14:10

know, it's like there are real

14:12

consequences, people are, people are experiencing

14:14

it, which I know we say

14:16

every week, but it still surprises

14:18

me every week, Miles. Something that

14:20

both of you all said, what

14:22

it made me think of, is

14:24

how a huge, maybe the biggest

14:26

point of Trump that it seems

14:28

like a lot of people want

14:30

to ignore about how he gets

14:32

elected and how he got power

14:34

is that he relinquished his own

14:36

personal brand to the extremes of

14:38

his own party. So he went

14:40

from a neoliberal Democratic, I like

14:42

gay people, but I like low

14:45

taxes, kind of person who's in

14:47

the spear, who's going to good

14:49

morning America, Trump. And then he

14:51

decided to totally destroy that image

14:53

in order to create something that

14:55

fascist. people on the extremes of

14:57

the right can love and commit

14:59

to. The problem with Democrats trying

15:01

to recreate that is that they're

15:03

never gonna do that with leftist.

15:05

They're never gonna, you know, all

15:07

the bullshit terms social leftism in

15:09

the world, what is it, socialist,

15:11

Democrat, like all these kind of.

15:13

all these kind of like language

15:15

soups that they come up with

15:17

are never going to have the

15:19

bite like make America great again

15:21

because in that phrase was an

15:23

agreement at the same time with

15:25

neo-nazis, the KK, with a very

15:27

conservative folks and politics like that

15:30

phrase. put a lot of different

15:32

people who are on the far

15:34

right, far right in agreement, and

15:36

the Democrats are not even interested

15:38

in creating that. You know, again,

15:40

I'll say this for the third

15:42

or fourth week in a row,

15:44

that happened when Liz Cheney came

15:46

on. I was like, oh, you're

15:48

not even trying to pretend to

15:50

little fist in the air, pretend

15:52

like you care. You're just saying,

15:54

no, Cheney lethal weapons. is like

15:56

the thing about Make America Great

15:58

again is that it harkens back

16:00

to this moment that people can

16:02

feel viscerally, right? Like the pull

16:04

of nostalgia is like very strong

16:06

and very real and people can,

16:08

even if they weren't there for

16:10

that moment, imagine what that looks

16:12

like, right? And we on the

16:15

left. are trying to push people

16:17

to a reality or a version

16:19

of reality that has never existed.

16:21

And the work of public imagination

16:23

is very hard work and we

16:25

don't have a muscle around that,

16:27

right? So you're trying to say

16:29

to people, you're competing with a

16:31

like. Here's when things were great

16:33

and you know exactly what that

16:35

looks like and exactly what that

16:37

felt like for here's what we

16:39

think doing the following things will

16:41

result in. And that's like a

16:43

real, that's really hard work, you

16:45

know, especially I think in a

16:47

moment when people are focused on

16:49

bread and butter issues and rent

16:51

in Los Angeles is $4,200 for

16:53

a one bedroom, you know. Now

16:55

that I want to go to

16:58

the news, but I'm interested in,

17:00

Miles, I'll kick it over to

17:02

you to you to start us

17:04

with your news about Jasmine. And

17:06

Sharanda, what I'd ask from you,

17:08

and you know, it's always so

17:10

fun that we don't talk about

17:12

these things before we record, is

17:14

I'm actually interested in what would

17:16

your advice be to start talking

17:18

to black people? So if we

17:20

acknowledge that the Bernie, AOC crowds,

17:22

the hands-off people, like it is

17:24

very white, even, you know, most

17:26

of the subjects we see, the

17:28

one we talked about last time,

17:30

was a really great analysis of

17:32

the moment, of how black people

17:34

are, are not engaging. I'll just

17:36

make the case very simply for

17:38

this question is that black people

17:40

are, you can't win, the Democrats

17:43

cannot win without black people, it

17:45

is statistically impossible. But after your

17:47

news, Miles, if you can set

17:49

us up, if you can start

17:51

us after you introduce your news,

17:53

but like what would our advice

17:55

be to insert here? Whether it's

17:57

the party, organizers, just God, I

17:59

don't know what is it about

18:01

what we do? Yeah, whatever, yeah,

18:03

because I mean, I have what

18:05

I would say my basis, but

18:07

I'm interested in what y'all gotta

18:09

say. Hey, you're listening to Potsy

18:11

of the People. Stay tuned, there's

18:13

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20:26

I'm just going to jump

20:28

in. Some representative Jasmine Crockett

20:30

suggests the United States needs

20:33

illegal immigrants because we done

20:35

picking cotton. So I had

20:37

to go around the country

20:39

and educate people about what

20:41

immigrants do for this country

20:44

or the fact that we

20:46

are a country of immigrants.

20:48

Right, right. The fact is,

20:50

ain't none of y'all trying

20:52

to go and farm right

20:55

now. You're

20:58

not, you're not, we're done picking

21:01

cotton. We are, you can't pay

21:03

us enough to find a plantation.

21:05

So this was a huge viral

21:07

video on the internet and you

21:09

know, when you speak a lot,

21:12

and I know this from just

21:14

speaking weekly, publicly, that every single

21:16

thing that comes out my mouth

21:18

ain't a gym. I try to

21:20

be as emotionally generous as possible

21:22

when I read people's blunders because

21:25

if you're speaking all the time,

21:27

something's not always going to hit.

21:29

But what you do say is

21:31

indicative of something bigger. And sometimes

21:33

what you do speak even in

21:36

flaw is indicative of a greater

21:38

truth. And I thought what was

21:40

interesting, specifically two weeks after I

21:42

spoke to the aunties who are

21:44

too... black women in the life

21:46

as they will call it, living

21:49

on farmland that was once occupied

21:51

by Harriet Tubman. What I've noticed

21:53

is that there was there's actually

21:55

so many people, I was, listeners

21:57

can remember that conversation, but there's

22:00

so many black people who are

22:02

interested in agriculture. There's so many

22:04

black people who are interested in

22:06

touching land again and taking their,

22:08

and taking their food back and

22:10

doing maybe a little bit more

22:13

labor or doing labor that was

22:15

once marked southern and only for

22:17

slaves and reclaiming that. So that's

22:19

just, just to me proof positive

22:21

of like a kind of like

22:24

disconnection she has. But then the

22:26

bigger disconnection that. made it so

22:28

I just couldn't ignore my own

22:30

conscience and not bring this up

22:32

is the fact that the black

22:35

laboratory stance when we know there's

22:37

a slavehood identity in America is

22:39

not saying you done being a

22:41

slave you don't want to do

22:43

that no more to let those

22:45

Mexicans do it is how do

22:48

we abolish having a slavehood identity

22:50

in America? That's what you said.

22:52

That's how that's how you that

22:54

that is the the the black

22:56

liberatory black radical Tradition and that

22:59

is the tradition that so many

23:01

of these people have been skating

23:03

around which leads me to Jasmine

23:05

Crockett I can jump to Corey

23:07

Corey Booker who did all the

23:09

theatrics in the in the in

23:12

the pulpit and Then a video

23:14

of him comes of him telling

23:16

folks of a pack how can

23:18

they court Black folks, how can

23:20

they better court black folks? And

23:23

then you have Corey Booker telling

23:25

people or an APAC This is

23:27

how you get black people to

23:29

be in alliance with you politically

23:31

This is how you get black

23:34

people young and he's telling them

23:36

how to do it And then

23:38

you then then we wonder how

23:40

come there is this disconnect. The

23:42

disconnect. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm gonna

23:44

stop apologizing for stuff, but I

23:47

just really hope you hear my

23:49

soul, but this era of leadership

23:51

in the Democratic Party, truly, truly,

23:53

truly, truly discuss me. Discuss me

23:55

not just because I can look

23:58

at things and say, oh, you're

24:00

disconnected from the black community. Oh,

24:02

you took money and was brought.

24:04

by APAC, so a lot of

24:06

your stances on Israel and Palestine

24:08

are not informed by your moral

24:11

compass, but your baking count. Not

24:13

just that, it discussed, it discussed

24:15

me because at the same, at

24:17

the same time, I look at

24:19

people like Corey Bush. I look

24:22

at people like Jamal Brown. It

24:24

discussed me because they are willingly,

24:26

um, separating themselves from any type

24:28

of black unity, black power that

24:30

can be created in this moment.

24:32

in defense of the state. I'm

24:35

like, where did we lose the

24:37

plot? There's always been black people

24:39

who have interacted with the government

24:41

and have interacted with political movements

24:43

and have found a way to

24:46

still come out morally sound, to

24:48

come out morally censored. But it

24:50

just seems like we're not there

24:52

anymore. Just not to mix my

24:54

words in this era of what

24:57

I see, a political minstrelcy is

24:59

what I will call it, is

25:01

going to be damning. We're so

25:03

perpetually concerned about this history book

25:05

that will probably be illegal in

25:07

100 years if we're going down

25:10

the same road that we're not

25:12

actually thinking critically about the moment

25:14

we're in right now and that

25:16

we can see it all. So

25:18

we at the same time see

25:21

you in the pulpit talking for

25:23

25 hours. And we

25:25

see you talking to the white

25:27

lady comforting her about what she's

25:30

going to, and what she's going

25:32

to do. But we also see

25:34

your total absence in morality than

25:37

the things that activate black people.

25:39

So yeah, so anyhow, I brought

25:41

in the jags and McCrocket moment

25:43

not to just demonize her in

25:46

that moment, not to just to

25:48

call her out or to... say

25:51

critical things about her, but this is

25:53

indicative of the grander moment that we

25:55

are in and it's the last thing

25:58

is this is definitely connected. to my

26:00

news last week with Obama and a

26:02

shout of Shakur, this continuing rotting of

26:04

black political power by black neoliberal careers,

26:07

and it's really making us suffer, you

26:09

know? Yeah, I think I want to

26:11

pick up on this idea that like

26:14

if the work and the working conditions,

26:16

let's just say they are beneath you

26:18

than they are beneath everyone, right? I

26:20

think what it reveals to me, though,

26:23

also is a lack of understanding of

26:25

what black people are talking about when

26:27

they're talking about the particular points of

26:29

friction and pain that they experience when

26:32

they see themselves, quote unquote, competing with

26:34

immigrants for jobs, right? Most of those

26:36

jobs are actually not agricultural jobs, right?

26:38

Black people have not been. in large

26:41

numbers anyway, for the most part, working

26:43

agricultural jobs for generations, right, at least

26:45

the last two. But where we have

26:47

been present is in factories and meat

26:50

packing plants, in other sorts of manual

26:52

janitorial services, etc. right? And so, you

26:54

know, in my full-time work, I do

26:57

a lot of kind of cross-racial, multi-racial

26:59

coalition building, and I think a couple

27:01

of things that I would suggest as

27:03

my advice to Democrats as they are

27:06

thinking about how to talk about these

27:08

issues. One is to help black people

27:10

understand that immigration is also a black

27:12

issue, right? So there are black immigrants

27:15

to the U.S. There are undocumented black

27:17

people in the United States and that

27:19

the people we are talking about in

27:21

many instances actually share our surnames, our

27:24

cultures, our religion, our faith practices, etc.

27:26

right? So there's an othering that happens

27:28

even when we're engaging black people on

27:30

an immigration conversation that allow someone like

27:33

a Jasmine to say what she said,

27:35

right? Because she also has bought into

27:37

the rights narrative about who is immigrating

27:40

here. And that has meant that black

27:42

people, to the extent that immigration is

27:44

a top three issue for them, and

27:46

it's the thing that is driving them

27:49

to the polls, have actually cited Republicans

27:51

on this issue, right? This is not

27:53

actually the way to get black people

27:55

who again are. voting on immigration to

27:58

side with Democrats. So that's one. The

28:00

second thing that I would say is

28:02

black people understand better than anyone what

28:04

a path to opportunity means and can

28:07

and should look like. I think engaging

28:09

black people in helping define what that

28:11

can and should look like for people

28:13

who have been historically locked out of

28:16

opportunity is also good work for the

28:18

Democrats and for community organizers to do,

28:20

right? So we all agree that immigration

28:23

and our immigration system needs to be

28:25

fixed, right? Part of the reason we

28:27

need to fix it is that it

28:29

keeps people locked out of opportunities to

28:32

fully engage, right? And to do work

28:34

with dignity, to be able to access

28:36

housing, et cetera, which black people have

28:38

also historically been marginalized from, right? For

28:41

a host of reasons, either because of

28:43

a host of reasons, either because of

28:45

restrictive covenants or because of like, you

28:47

know, some of your brothers convicted of

28:50

a felony, he now can't come live

28:52

with your family again because you live

28:54

in public housing, whatever the situation, how

28:56

do we fix this so that no

28:59

one else has to experience it, that

29:01

the Democrats are losing an opportunity to

29:03

do and to take advantage of? And

29:06

then I think lastly, you know, I

29:08

think a theme of the last few

29:10

weeks anyway, you know, I've been in

29:12

conversation with you all is that we

29:15

are still engaging on issues writ large

29:17

using the frameworks and the lexicon determined

29:19

by the right. And for as long

29:21

as we are doing that, we are

29:24

losing ground. And there's a real push,

29:26

I think. and an opportunity for us

29:28

to say, like, how are people talking

29:30

about this in everyday life? How are

29:33

people in Jackson, Mississippi, who are black,

29:35

talking about immigration, and how do we

29:37

figure out how we bring some of

29:39

that language and some of that discourse

29:42

to the national platform? Because I think

29:44

we would hear very different things and

29:46

very different issues and very different concerns.

29:49

Actually, I lied, one more thing. I

29:51

grew up in Watts. true. And what

29:53

I hear from my friends and my

29:55

family members who are there is that

29:58

there's a sense of loss. There's a

30:00

sense of loss of identity, a sense

30:02

of loss of home, a sense of

30:04

loss of culture. And we have to

30:07

tend to that sense of loss if

30:09

we are going to get to a

30:11

place of being able to bridge and

30:13

build solidarity and ensure that our black

30:16

elected leaders aren't saying stuff like that

30:18

work is beneath us. Let those other

30:20

people do it. It is not. Neither

30:22

is Compton. is majority Latino. And you

30:25

know, when I was growing up there,

30:27

the Latinos were mostly from Mexico, and

30:29

even that has shifted. Increasingly, they're from

30:32

El Salvador, from Guatemala, etc. So even

30:34

like, you know, the sort of legacy

30:36

Mexican stores and, you know, businesses now

30:38

have have shifted, right? And I think

30:41

last thing I'll say is, if y'all

30:43

didn't catch the stuff that was happening

30:45

on the LA City Council a couple

30:47

of years ago, right, where you have.

30:50

Latino city council members saying anti-black things

30:52

and anti-indigenous things, right? They were talking

30:54

about a different wave of immigrants and

30:56

migrants who were coming to the United

30:59

States, often also from their countries of

31:01

origin, right? But those people are now

31:03

browner, are now more indigenous, and are

31:05

now blacker. And so even the Latino

31:08

electets in Los Angeles are like, oh

31:10

yeah, when we said Latinos, we didn't

31:12

mean them, right? And so like there's

31:15

a real opportunity, again, I think for

31:17

Democrats to pull up from some of

31:19

the regional to figure out how that

31:21

can shape and influence conversations that are

31:24

happening on the national stage. I want

31:26

to double click on everything you say,

31:28

boom, boom, boom. The only thing I

31:30

add is I think you're right. I

31:33

think that I think the left doesn't

31:35

even know they were participating in the

31:37

rights framing and is not being attempted

31:39

to reframe, which is a real challenge.

31:42

I also think in, you know, when

31:44

I say this, I can see already

31:46

like a consultant putting together this like

31:48

crazy document, but. Just instead of statements

31:51

of hope. Nobody who's ever worked at

31:53

McKenzie should be involved in this. Right.

31:55

Like, somebody, like, what are the things

31:58

we believe in? Like, everybody should have

32:00

health care. Everybody should have free education

32:02

that includes lunch. I don't know, like,

32:04

like, what are those core commitments? Like,

32:07

we can actually win on those, and

32:09

I am frustrated that we have not

32:11

figured that out. As you know, voter

32:13

ideas, the hell that I will die

32:16

on, the save act, which would require

32:18

you to have a birth certificate or

32:20

pass for it to vote, which would

32:22

nullify every driver's license in the United

32:25

States. It's crazy that that that is,

32:27

that that passed the House, as like

32:29

a legitimate. law is nuts. So, you

32:31

know, hopefully the Senate votes against that

32:34

because that would be unreal as voter

32:36

suppression. The last thing is a little

32:38

blasphemous to me as an organizer, but

32:41

having been in the room with a

32:43

lot of elected officials, I think that

32:45

almost all of the membership-based biggest groups

32:47

that represent marginalized communities do not represent

32:50

marginalized communities for real. I don't think

32:52

that they actually speak for them anymore.

32:54

So I, like when I see the

32:56

big African American groups, the big, all

32:59

these identity groups in the room saying

33:01

that this is what people of community

33:03

believe, I'm like, I don't know if

33:05

you've been in community or that, like

33:08

I'm like, that's not, I don't think

33:10

that's real. You know, and I think

33:12

about Sharana and I just worry at

33:14

the juvenile jail in Cleveland, and I

33:17

think about the number of people who

33:19

talked about prison stuff or jail stuff,

33:21

who haven't been to a jail, the

33:24

voice, how you are the, like I

33:26

just don't know, and I do think,

33:28

I remember being in that meeting with

33:30

Obama, with legacy groups, who I like,

33:33

and I'm just like, I don't think

33:35

that the urgency that I'm seeing on

33:37

the street every day, y'all, y'all have

33:39

that in this room. There's like a

33:42

suit and tie element to this that

33:44

is not the people that I'm with

33:46

who are willing to tear everything down

33:48

or who are just so forlorn because

33:51

their family who are getting killed. tight

33:53

and it is putting them reports and

33:55

I'm like I don't think y'all are

33:57

I don't know so I do I

34:00

don't know if that's a barbershop tour

34:02

or Whatever it is, but I do

34:04

think that people don't, so nobody's sitting

34:07

in no more barbershaws. No, barbers, I

34:09

said this a lot. No more. What

34:11

are these churches? Can I, come on

34:13

miles, what you got? I'm into, you

34:16

know, you gave me directions. I still

34:18

ain't following, because I didn't want to.

34:20

comments on that. So you know how

34:22

black people, how a lot of our

34:25

creations, specifically I'm talking about black Americans,

34:27

a lot of our creations are built

34:29

upon existing things and we recreate them.

34:31

So that's what happened with jazz and

34:34

soul food. And when I was I'm

34:36

just a nostalgia junkie, so I just

34:38

love how it makes me feel, but

34:40

then also it's just interesting to see

34:43

what was happening in the 60s, 70s,

34:45

and 80s on television and stuff like

34:47

that. And I was like, black people

34:50

were in debate with each other, black

34:52

people were talking to each other, and

34:54

it was sharpening each other, and I

34:56

was like, well, if black people in

34:59

this era were to take something from

35:01

the dominant white political culture and recreated,

35:03

talking to Jasmine Crockett and Joaquin Jeffries

35:05

and we don't have a debate around

35:08

that and talking about that, that is

35:10

killing the black community. The fact that

35:12

Tanahassee Coates and Obama are not talking

35:14

about what's going on in Palestine, that

35:17

is hurting the black community. The one

35:19

thing that the right doesn't do, they've

35:21

already done the work of their own

35:23

segregation. It's called Left and Right, so

35:26

once you get into the spirit of

35:28

the red in the right, they all

35:30

talk to each other. It's high and

35:33

low. It's like a good Mark Jacobs

35:35

outfit where you got a little bit

35:37

of something $5 and something $500 on

35:39

when you like kind of listen to

35:42

how they talk. It's just that great

35:44

combination of high and low. And on

35:46

the left, there's not that. And then

35:48

so you have high, highly capable, highly

35:51

intelligent, experienced black people who are barred

35:53

from talking. talking to others. highly intelligent

35:55

experience black people and that's how come

35:57

we're so stagnant in the thought and

36:00

I think that's how come there so

36:02

um so much just interest when the

36:04

when topics are directed towards black people

36:06

because we're getting elementary topics because Taunahas

36:09

and Coates can't talk to Corey Booker

36:11

and say hey how come you got

36:13

all that APE money what about that

36:16

video? That's the conversation. That's the conversation

36:18

that's going to revitalize something. To me,

36:20

that is a black primary. That is

36:22

black people using their own intelligence and

36:25

using their own experience in all their

36:27

intellectual capacities in order to, A, show

36:29

other black people how to think and

36:31

how to debate and what ideas are

36:34

out in the sphere. But then also

36:36

saying, oh, I deserve to be your

36:38

leader because look how I conquered that

36:40

debate and conquered that discourse. That fear

36:43

of that happening is what's killing us

36:45

too. Just for the record, his name

36:47

is Jamal Bowman. Jamal, Jamal Bowman, Jamal

36:49

Brown. It cracks me up. I love

36:52

it. Spray blackne. Yeah, yeah, I like

36:54

Jamal Brown. Yeah, Jamal, yeah, Jamal, me.

36:56

I'm sorry Jamal, me. Can we AI

36:59

correct that? Can we A1 correct me?

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56:00

Yeah, interesting. I have a slightly

56:02

different. What you got? What you

56:04

got? What you got? Chevron Abate

56:06

CA. I think that my, what

56:08

I believe now that I didn't

56:10

believe 10 years ago, particularly about

56:12

the protest, is that proximity is

56:15

not expertise. And I think there

56:17

were a lot of people who

56:19

felt proximate to the issue, who

56:21

felt proximate to the moment and

56:23

felt proximate to the protest. that

56:25

I don't think learned anything or

56:27

helped other people learn anything. Do

56:29

you know what I mean? And

56:31

I don't know what you mean.

56:34

Can you explain further? So there

56:36

are a lot of people who

56:38

felt personally impacted and implicated, right,

56:40

but what was happening in the

56:42

moment. They were black. They had

56:44

experienced police violence. They lost someone

56:46

to police violence, etc. Right. But

56:48

the work of the protesters, I

56:50

think maybe it's sort of building

56:53

on DeRae's point and the storytelling

56:55

is and the helping people make

56:57

sense of what's happening, is also

56:59

to then get to a place

57:01

where you were able to propose

57:03

solutions, right? And there were a

57:05

lot of people who did not,

57:07

from what they were hearing on

57:09

the ground, what they were experiencing

57:11

on the ground, have the capacity

57:14

and the ability to then turn

57:16

that into actionable recommendations for what

57:18

we could do. And the people

57:20

who could not do that often

57:22

were continuously either given the mic

57:24

or taking the mic, right? And

57:26

I think it got us stuck

57:28

in this place and space of

57:30

like a sort of admiration of

57:33

the problem. And I think it

57:35

meant that we missed a window

57:37

for us to sort of, you

57:39

know, enact policies and enact changes

57:41

that could have gotten us there.

57:43

And I think that. It's a

57:45

really hard thing to say to

57:47

someone that your trauma doesn't make

57:49

you an expert on a subject,

57:52

right? Or that your experience doesn't

57:54

make you an expert on the

57:56

subject. But I think especially in

57:58

a culture that overall is. in

58:00

a moment of devaluing expertise and

58:02

devaluing studying and devaluing research, like

58:04

there's something about what we call

58:06

praxis, right, the marrying of understanding

58:08

research and policy and practice that

58:11

we didn't get right in the

58:13

movement. And I think we in

58:15

some ways over-indexed on or over-valued

58:17

proximity to the protest or proximity

58:19

to the pain in a way

58:21

that meant we missed an opportunity

58:23

to really elevate people who had

58:25

developed through some of that work

58:27

and expertise on what could have

58:30

been Real and meaningful solutions. Does

58:32

that make sense? Is that clear

58:34

of miles? No, that's that's super

58:36

duper duper duper clear I was

58:38

listening to you like it was

58:40

audible and Charlotte, not only did

58:42

we not make space for the

58:44

people who had developed expertise, we

58:46

didn't, part of the consequence of

58:49

what you just named is that

58:51

we did not communicate to new

58:53

activists that the gaining of expertise

58:55

was the skill. We were sort

58:57

of like, if you just are

58:59

outside long enough, and if you

59:01

have had a bad experience with

59:03

the police, and if you love

59:05

black people, that is your, that's

59:07

enough. And what happened was that,

59:10

you know, 10 years later, you're

59:12

like, well, we probably should change

59:14

the law. And you're like, well,

59:16

we probably should change the law.

59:18

And you're like, well, that's not.

59:20

Well, they're like, you know, it

59:22

becomes a saying where you're like,

59:24

you don't actually even have that

59:26

raw skill. to actually do anything

59:29

to the system. You don't understand.

59:31

This is part of the storytelling

59:33

problem. It's hard to tell a

59:35

story about a system you don't

59:37

actually understand well. You know, like

59:39

that becomes one of the rubs.

59:41

I think about my, I was

59:43

raised by two people, or both

59:45

my pants were addicted to drugs.

59:48

My father raised us, my mother

59:50

left when I was three. I

59:52

am an expert on addiction. I

59:54

just in private people use their

59:56

proximity as expertise. I appreciate you

59:58

calling that out because I think

1:00:00

it is so true. So, I

1:00:02

agree with everything that you all

1:00:04

said. And I'm wondering, as we're

1:00:07

all, we're all, we're part of

1:00:09

the LGBT alphabet soup on this

1:00:11

podcast now. Which, by the way,

1:00:13

Miles just figured out about me

1:00:15

today. I didn't, I did not

1:00:17

know. Don't be, you don't know

1:00:19

what you think about me. Don't

1:00:21

be put my brothers all on

1:00:23

the podcast. Yes, me

1:00:26

and every single person dueling underneath your

1:00:28

fitness picture. So I think everything that

1:00:30

you all are saying around like race

1:00:32

disparities and like the in the activism

1:00:35

and the organizing around that that seems

1:00:37

true and I wouldn't know I wouldn't

1:00:39

know I wouldn't I wouldn't know to

1:00:41

even like to push back but another

1:00:43

thing that I saw happen is somehow,

1:00:46

so when I look at the right,

1:00:48

the right agrees that the government is

1:00:50

bad, needs to be reworked, needs to

1:00:52

be overhauled, and my life is not

1:00:55

feeling good, and somebody needs to happen.

1:00:57

So the right has the right like

1:00:59

a diagnosis, I guess, right? It seems

1:01:01

like for a really long time, the

1:01:03

left didn't have the right diagnosis. I

1:01:06

think that it's symbolic. symbolic in the

1:01:08

fact that you're inside of the slave-built

1:01:10

White House that we love to remind

1:01:12

everybody that, you know, your ancestors, your

1:01:15

slaves did. And, you know, the big

1:01:17

thing was, can we get a third

1:01:19

bathroom? Where the sentiment... And the nation

1:01:21

was, fuck that house at that time,

1:01:24

you know, for everything that was going

1:01:26

on. And whatever that is, that made

1:01:28

people feel like they were more interested

1:01:30

in the ascension in neoliberal celebrity culture

1:01:32

than disrupting it. That to me feels

1:01:35

like a huge part of what y'all

1:01:37

are talking about too. And I think

1:01:39

that there in the That is not

1:01:41

just exclusive to black folks. That has

1:01:44

to do with LGBT activists. Everybody who

1:01:46

was doing something was really about how

1:01:48

do I get a seat at this

1:01:50

table when I think that the thing

1:01:53

that people want to see, the thing

1:01:55

that people felt was, no, we want

1:01:57

somebody, if you do got to see

1:01:59

at the table, we want you to

1:02:01

flip it over. We want you to

1:02:04

say that this table is making us

1:02:06

suffer. We want somebody who has a

1:02:08

sentiment that or a right diagnosis that.

1:02:10

things are not good. But when you

1:02:13

see people say, things are good, we

1:02:15

just need to pass something, it just,

1:02:17

you know, it just doesn't hit. And

1:02:19

I wonder, yeah. I'm happy to bring

1:02:21

it up. And I don't know what

1:02:24

we, I know we are coming up

1:02:26

on top, but that's interesting to me

1:02:28

because I think my diagnosis of this

1:02:30

is actually that that is a response

1:02:33

to the far left scaring the base.

1:02:35

is actually what I think happens here.

1:02:37

So I think that people are, like,

1:02:39

you know, I think we see this

1:02:42

with the Obama's, with the Obamacare, we

1:02:44

see it with Biden, with a lot

1:02:46

of the initiatives, people come in and

1:02:48

like, let's shake up the system, let's

1:02:50

take big swings and do not. Like

1:02:53

whether we like the swings they took

1:02:55

is a different story, but I think

1:02:57

that they actually have taken big swings.

1:02:59

But I do think what is different

1:03:02

about the right and the left base

1:03:04

is that the right is not scared

1:03:06

by the, partly because the base is

1:03:08

white. They're not scared by the implosion

1:03:11

of the system because they will be

1:03:13

fine and the implosion is really going

1:03:15

back to a time that we've seen

1:03:17

before. I do think that some of

1:03:19

the far left rhetoric, not the actual

1:03:22

substance, but the rhetoric I think scares

1:03:24

our base and I'll use D-fund as

1:03:26

a good example. My father is on

1:03:28

board with like too on, he is

1:03:31

not there. I think that that is

1:03:33

true of the majority of our base.

1:03:35

So defund is far left? I didn't.

1:03:37

Yes, yes, Miles. Yes. Okay, I guess

1:03:39

I don't. I guess I don't. Okay,

1:03:42

okay, okay, okay. So, right, you want

1:03:44

me on this? On that. Relatively, right,

1:03:46

I understand. Like, are y'allish probably seals?

1:03:48

Are y'allish people who are a part

1:03:51

of it are far left? Are you

1:03:53

saying that the idea that sentiment is

1:03:55

far left? I think the sentiment is

1:03:57

experienced as being far left by your

1:04:00

average person, right? Okay, got it. And

1:04:02

when we did polling at the height

1:04:04

of, what was that, 2020, 20, 20,

1:04:06

21, like it was black people who

1:04:08

were like, now wait a minute, all

1:04:11

right, I got problems with the police

1:04:13

too, but also my neighborhood is unsafe

1:04:15

and there's a tension there for people

1:04:17

that you gotta contend with, you know?

1:04:20

That makes sense to me, I didn't

1:04:22

know if we were talking about citizens,

1:04:24

like people or the sentiment. Yeah, I

1:04:26

think it's a sentiment. And I think

1:04:29

that like, so I think that like,

1:04:31

no FBI, no ice, no like I

1:04:33

think that the people are actually willing,

1:04:35

in terms of the actual policy prescription

1:04:37

of the redoing, I actually think our

1:04:40

people are there. But I think the

1:04:42

packaging of it scares people. So like

1:04:44

I think about Maryland, their Maryland is

1:04:46

like second only to some like Alabama

1:04:49

in terms of incarcerating kids as adults

1:04:51

or like putting kids in the adult

1:04:53

system. There's a group of activists who've

1:04:55

been trying to get this undone for

1:04:57

a long time, and what they keep

1:05:00

saying is that we charge too many

1:05:02

kids as adults, which is true. But

1:05:04

all it needs is one weekend of

1:05:06

a kid in Baltimore City who's 15,

1:05:09

shooting somebody, and it is literally, it's

1:05:11

just, it's what it's right? Yeah. Part

1:05:13

of what we've been trying to say

1:05:15

to people is what is a winning

1:05:18

message is all kids should start in

1:05:20

juvenile court. I can win on that

1:05:22

10 out of 10. Now that takes

1:05:24

the moral, like I, you know, I

1:05:26

can't yell about it as much, but

1:05:29

from a policy perspective, they actually end

1:05:31

up in the exact same place. And

1:05:33

that, but there is a group of

1:05:35

people who feel like the only way

1:05:38

to be honest is to keep saying

1:05:40

that we need to stop incarcerating kids

1:05:42

as adults. And you're like, I get

1:05:44

it, but, but people in communities are

1:05:46

like, why did that 16-year-old shoot him?

1:05:49

Everybody agrees that Kitch is starting kick-court,

1:05:51

which is like, actually, that's the policy

1:05:53

win. And I think that that difference,

1:05:55

I used to think that that difference

1:05:58

was semantics. Now I think that that

1:06:00

is the, that's the game. That is

1:06:02

like where we win or lose. Does

1:06:04

that make sense? Hey, you're listening to

1:06:07

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1:08:29

Yeah. Today,

1:08:43

I have the absolute honor of

1:08:45

speaking with someone who is not

1:08:47

only a trailblazer in drag and

1:08:49

comedy, but also a sharp cultural

1:08:51

commentator and now a visionary author.

1:08:53

Bob the Drag Queen needs no

1:08:55

introduction, but today we're meeting Bob

1:08:57

in a New Light as the

1:09:00

Mine Behind, Harry Tubman, live and

1:09:02

concert. It's a bold, genre-bending novel

1:09:04

set in the reality where the

1:09:06

return brings historical figures, including Harriet

1:09:08

herself, back into our modern world.

1:09:10

It's part satire, part prophecy, and...

1:09:12

entirely unforgettable. In Bob's hands, Harriet Tubman

1:09:15

doesn't just return, she performs, and she

1:09:17

reclaims a space and pop culture that's

1:09:19

equal parts legend and liberation. We're going

1:09:21

to talk about history, justice, drag, and

1:09:24

what it means to imagine freedom through

1:09:26

a different kind of spotlight. Bob, the

1:09:28

Drag Queen, welcome. So I'm gonna be

1:09:31

honest with you, okay? Be honest, I

1:09:33

prefer. I thought I was reading the

1:09:35

book, or when I heard the idea

1:09:37

of the book. I didn't know how

1:09:40

I was gonna feel. Okay. I wasn't

1:09:42

like sold on it. I'm not, I can

1:09:44

be a little critical. And I'm like, listen,

1:09:46

you don't, don't, don't go shaking those grounds.

1:09:48

I'm that kind of Negro. Right. It's a

1:09:50

pretty common response. I get to the title

1:09:53

of the book, you know, here's I'm in

1:09:55

live in concert. I always say, I understand

1:09:57

how on the surface this sounds like, I

1:09:59

wrote this. Okay, I was just watching

1:10:01

the view. I could see how

1:10:03

this on the surface sounds like

1:10:05

an S&L sketch, you know what

1:10:07

I mean? But once you get

1:10:09

into the reverence of the book,

1:10:11

it's quite reverent. I have a

1:10:13

lot of reverence for Harris. And

1:10:15

that's what I was going to

1:10:17

say. Like, I kid you not,

1:10:19

I was crying on chapter two

1:10:21

when you were, when you were,

1:10:23

walking her through Harlem and she

1:10:25

was responding to seeing free black

1:10:27

people. I'm like, I was in

1:10:30

tears, I was like, oh, Bob,

1:10:32

you're a really good writer. And

1:10:34

I don't mean to say that,

1:10:36

like, I'm surprised, but there was

1:10:38

just a way that you, like,

1:10:41

the, you were doing literary poetic

1:10:43

things with pros. And when it

1:10:45

was really supposed to be funny,

1:10:47

and I'll tell the audience right

1:10:50

now, it's, it's a, it's a

1:10:52

kind of alternate dimension where. kind

1:10:54

of based in reality, but this

1:10:56

thing called the return happens and

1:10:58

a whole bunch of historical folks

1:11:01

come back and people from the

1:11:03

past come back and one of

1:11:05

those people being Harriet Tubman and

1:11:07

the main character Darnell is this

1:11:10

ex music producer and he gets

1:11:12

acts by Harriet Tubman to help

1:11:14

her produce. Oh, you are from

1:11:16

Georgia, he got acts. You know,

1:11:19

no, I will fuck up a

1:11:21

word. I'm like, I'm Kakah. No,

1:11:23

for real. But, um, so any

1:11:25

who for the readers, it's somewhere

1:11:28

for me, it lives

1:11:30

somewhere inside of like

1:11:32

Samuel Delani, like how

1:11:34

he, like how he does Afrofaturism, a

1:11:36

John Waters film with their reverence. And

1:11:38

then like Aaron Magruder with the boondocks

1:11:41

because when I was reading it even

1:11:43

the parts that were really funny it

1:11:45

still put it was just so smart

1:11:48

and so sharp but when it was

1:11:50

supposed to be deep and sad and

1:11:52

and and and filled with memory it

1:11:55

was it was that I was I'm

1:11:57

really really impressed with you and I

1:11:59

I would like to, I mean, I'm

1:12:02

not on this level, but it's kind

1:12:04

of like James McBride when he would

1:12:06

write something like the Good Lord Bird,

1:12:08

where the concept of the Good Lord

1:12:11

Bird is quite absurd. It's this enslaved

1:12:13

young boy who gets kidnapped by John

1:12:15

Brown, but John Brown thinks he's a

1:12:17

little girl, so now he has to

1:12:20

live his life as a girl for

1:12:22

years, even through his puberty. It's quite

1:12:24

absurd. It does take itself, it does,

1:12:27

it's not, it's not, it's not slapstick

1:12:29

humor. There is humor in it. You

1:12:31

will, you will find yourself laughing in

1:12:33

the book for sure, but it's not

1:12:36

just like, Harriet Tub, I mean, we,

1:12:38

you know, it's not, it's not that

1:12:40

goofy. I mean, even with Bob, and

1:12:42

I'm a, I'm a fan supporter, like,

1:12:45

of you, but like, to feel like

1:12:47

I perisocially know you is also ridiculous,

1:12:49

but I know that you kind of

1:12:52

can undersell something or kind of like

1:12:54

the deadpan comedy is a part of

1:12:56

your comedy. I'm saying you are a

1:12:58

really gifted writer. Oh, thank you. There

1:13:01

was just parts. I just want people

1:13:03

to are hearing it to know that

1:13:05

you really put your foot in the

1:13:07

writing process of this. And I was

1:13:10

just really proud. Well, that's not just

1:13:12

Miles. The New York Times also agrees.

1:13:14

Okay, okay, okay, okay. So I want

1:13:17

to get into like my first question.

1:13:19

So the return brings back Harriet Tubman

1:13:21

in the formerly enslaved into modern day

1:13:23

America. What do you think we learn

1:13:26

about ourselves through their reactions to our

1:13:28

current world? Well, I think there's a

1:13:30

couple of things. One is, obviously, one

1:13:32

is about how far we've come, right?

1:13:35

So how far we've come, but also

1:13:37

the fact that the, that doesn't mean

1:13:39

the journey's over. You would think that

1:13:42

if Harris haven't came back today and

1:13:44

was like, oh, we're free, I'm good,

1:13:46

we can, we're good, freedom was achieved,

1:13:48

but, but it's about how like, you

1:13:51

know, the goal post for freedom has

1:13:53

moved, it, because, actually. She was never

1:13:55

done. She was never done. She lived

1:13:57

into her 90s, almost 100 years old,

1:14:00

when no one was living that long.

1:14:02

And even when, you know, you would

1:14:04

think that in, I think she passed

1:14:07

in like, I'm not sure the year,

1:14:09

but she lived to be about nine

1:14:11

years old. And according to the interwebs,

1:14:13

she passed in 1913. This was well

1:14:16

after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, well

1:14:18

after. So you think she'd be like,

1:14:20

I'm good now, I can stop. This

1:14:22

is almost 50 years after the Emancipation

1:14:25

Proclamation was signed. But obviously she continued

1:14:27

her work as a scout for the

1:14:29

US military. She continued her work as

1:14:32

a scout for the US military. She

1:14:34

continued her work as a community builder,

1:14:36

building a home, a retirement home for

1:14:38

formerly enslaved people. Like the work was

1:14:41

never done for her. So I imagine

1:14:43

if she got back, the work would

1:14:45

still continue. How can you kind of

1:14:47

walk me through how you how this

1:14:50

idea came to you? Because this is

1:14:52

it because you just told me you

1:14:54

don't do any drugs. I thought I

1:14:57

knew how it came to you, but

1:14:59

now I'm like something that how did

1:15:01

it happen? No, I've been over 16

1:15:03

years actually. Congratulations. Thank you, one day

1:15:06

at a time. But I think I

1:15:08

was in I was working on I

1:15:10

was in Anderson America at the Berkeley

1:15:12

Repertory Theatre. And somehow this idea came

1:15:15

to me, like I would love to,

1:15:17

I know this idea sounds, it sounds

1:15:19

like I was high, but I swear

1:15:22

to you I was sober. I just

1:15:24

remember thinking myself, I would love to

1:15:26

hear Harry Tubman's album. That was the

1:15:28

thought, I would love to hear Harry

1:15:31

Tubman's album. So then I actually started

1:15:33

writing it as a play first. And

1:15:35

the play was gonna be, are you

1:15:38

a theater nerd at all Miles? I

1:15:40

am, like deep, like, like, theater, no.

1:15:42

Okay. The you know when I initially

1:15:44

started writing the the play it was

1:15:47

going to be like you were going

1:15:49

to a concert think Hedwig and Yang

1:15:51

your inch think Lady dead Emerson bar

1:15:53

and grill. You were seeing passing strange.

1:15:56

I've not seen it, but I lived

1:15:58

in New York City when it was

1:16:00

on Broadway, but I was too poor

1:16:03

to go get to. So I saw

1:16:05

it on PBS. Oh, work. Work. But

1:16:07

it kind of would be like, you

1:16:09

know, it's like you're at a concert.

1:16:12

But then I got this book deal,

1:16:14

and they actually offered me to write

1:16:16

about like a memoir, and I just

1:16:18

didn't want to write a memoir. I

1:16:21

wouldn't read my memoir so I wouldn't

1:16:23

want to write it. And I wouldn't

1:16:25

want to create anything that I wouldn't

1:16:28

want to consume myself. I don't want

1:16:30

to create an art that I want

1:16:32

to consume myself. So I'm actually really

1:16:34

glad that I got a chance to

1:16:37

do this as a novel because it

1:16:39

pushed me. I got out of the

1:16:41

world of writing the concert and then

1:16:43

I wrote about the actual creation of

1:16:46

the album, which kind of is a

1:16:48

little bit more August Wilson's... Montrainy's, Montrainy,

1:16:50

which is about the recording of an

1:16:53

album, which also I found out that

1:16:55

I might be Montrainy's cousin because we're

1:16:57

both from Columbus, Georgia. Well, hold on,

1:16:59

when did you, wait, when did you

1:17:02

find this out? So, Montrainy, let me

1:17:04

look at this up, Montrainy's legal name

1:17:06

is, because she has the same last

1:17:08

name as my father. Yeah, her name

1:17:11

is Gertry Pridget. And my father is

1:17:13

Frank Bridget. So for me to like

1:17:15

find out that her name was Pridget

1:17:18

and my dad started doing some research

1:17:20

and going back to the genealogy and

1:17:22

tracing her back and realizing that we

1:17:24

might actually be cousins, like me and

1:17:27

Moraney might actually be cousins, which is

1:17:29

amazing because she was this remarkable queer

1:17:31

artists from Columbus Georgia. And you know,

1:17:33

there are three famous queer artists from

1:17:36

Columbus Georgia, all black, me. Ma Rainey

1:17:38

and Wayne Brady are all from Columbus,

1:17:40

Georgia. Now that's variety, right? That's variety,

1:17:43

but there is a connective tissue to

1:17:45

that. That's interesting. There is a connective

1:17:47

tissue to that. That's weird. And it

1:17:49

feels interestingly enough. It feels like you

1:17:52

as a. a performance artist, a drag

1:17:54

artist, and now like a writer, it

1:17:56

feels like you are the bridge between,

1:17:58

like, am I ready to wait for,

1:18:01

but may reach a little queer bridge,

1:18:03

yeah, no, you know, I see it,

1:18:05

that's how I see it. It's a

1:18:08

little early in the conversation, but I

1:18:10

do want to ask this before I

1:18:12

move from the return, because I was

1:18:14

so fascinated by that idea. I was

1:18:17

wondering when you were writing about the

1:18:19

return and conceptualizing this. I know that

1:18:21

your mother passed, and I was wondering,

1:18:23

like, with this idea of, like, people

1:18:26

who passed on returning, was this, like,

1:18:28

any way cathartic to your grief when

1:18:30

you were writing it? Was that an

1:18:33

element to it? I actually finished the

1:18:35

book before my mother passed away. I've

1:18:37

been reading the book for four years.

1:18:39

And we were, we were, by the

1:18:42

time I had finished the book, we

1:18:44

were already in the, by the time

1:18:46

my mother passed away, we were already

1:18:48

in the like reading the final drafts,

1:18:51

you know, me and my editor, we're

1:18:53

in that part of the, the process

1:18:55

already. So, no, that was, that wasn't

1:18:58

really part of it. My mother passed

1:19:00

away after I had a, conceived the

1:19:02

return and if you want the real

1:19:04

truth is it was a little bit

1:19:07

of lazy writing the way that I

1:19:09

wrote the return if I'm being fully

1:19:11

honest with myself because I didn't I

1:19:13

didn't explain it because I didn't I

1:19:16

didn't bother to be like the time

1:19:18

space continuum of the molecular structure of

1:19:20

the defibrillator not into all that because

1:19:23

I'm not a scientist. We'll figure out

1:19:25

maybe in book three or four we'll

1:19:27

figure out how the return happened but

1:19:29

right now just know they're back. We

1:19:32

don't know how they're back. No, I

1:19:34

actually love that. Actually, I'm anti the

1:19:36

whole over explaining paranormal phenomena and stuff

1:19:38

because To be frank to me that's

1:19:41

like white people shit like it's like

1:19:43

half to like no one two three

1:19:45

how something happens part of it It

1:19:48

needs to feel a little mystical That's

1:19:50

funny that you felt it was lazy

1:19:52

writing because I thought it was such

1:19:54

a compelling idea and speaking of theater.

1:19:57

I'm writing a play now about Robert

1:19:59

Johnson and eight energized me about that,

1:20:01

but then it made me wonder. Oh,

1:20:03

nice. Did I inspire you? Am I

1:20:06

an inspiration? You are specifically, like, and

1:20:08

I want to know about this too,

1:20:10

like, that wasn't the popular thing to

1:20:13

write about Harriet Tubman. So I'm, so

1:20:15

you're, you're, you're, let's talk about it.

1:20:17

You're black and gay inside of, um,

1:20:19

LA. You know, you, we're, we're in

1:20:22

the media. atmosphere that we're in, nothing

1:20:24

about that says, let me write about

1:20:26

Harriet Tubman and ancestral veneration and all

1:20:28

this other stuff in a book. Like,

1:20:31

where did that gumption and that bravery

1:20:33

come from? Or did you, what was

1:20:35

your thought process around that when it

1:20:38

comes to doing this and putting into

1:20:40

the commercial space? Well, I mean, I'm

1:20:42

nothing if not bold. And I think

1:20:44

that, first of all, Harriet Tubman is

1:20:47

shockingly enough. insanely underrepresented in terms of

1:20:49

like widely consumed media. She's only been

1:20:51

depicting in a few movies and a

1:20:53

few TV shows. So the first main,

1:20:56

the first major motion picture depiction of

1:20:58

Harit Tubman was actually an Abraham Lincoln

1:21:00

vampire Slayer. I don't know if you

1:21:03

know another or not. That was the

1:21:05

first time she was actually depicted on

1:21:07

screen in a major motion picture. And

1:21:09

then it was the Haritubman movie with

1:21:12

Cynthia Revo. And she's also depicted on

1:21:14

the show underground. and she was depicted

1:21:16

in The Good Lord Bird on Showtime

1:21:18

with, but even Abraham Lincoln, I mean,

1:21:21

I'm trying, what, that did not come

1:21:23

out a long time ago. Like it

1:21:25

was, it was a pretty late film

1:21:28

to consider like all these people have

1:21:30

been like represented in media, but somehow

1:21:32

Harriet Tubman was just, everything vampire hunter

1:21:34

came out in 2012. Wow. That's wild.

1:21:37

Wait, so you're saying that that was

1:21:39

the first? The first time that she

1:21:41

was depicted in a major motion picture

1:21:43

ever. That is wild. Outside of like.

1:21:46

things you learn for school or you

1:21:48

know like those PBS things but like

1:21:50

in a major blockbuster. She feels so

1:21:53

ubiquitous in black life because of for

1:21:55

obvious reasons but you would you'd kind

1:21:57

of assume certain things have happened? Maybe

1:21:59

people are afraid to write about her

1:22:02

you know what I mean? I know

1:22:04

that like for example I know that

1:22:06

she was not the movie with Cynthia

1:22:08

River was not particularly well received. You

1:22:11

know what I mean? So I don't

1:22:13

think that it's far-fetched to imagine that

1:22:15

people were like, I just don't feel

1:22:18

comfortable writing about this woman because of

1:22:20

how it's going to be received. And

1:22:22

there was some notion that I thought

1:22:24

to myself, people might not like the

1:22:27

way that I'm portraying her. Obviously, mine

1:22:29

is very fictional, right? So the way

1:22:31

that I portray her is very, it's

1:22:33

all made, I mean, I account real

1:22:36

things that happen to her, but I'm

1:22:38

not actually like, it's not about Darnell's

1:22:40

life. Yeah, you have a lot of

1:22:43

playroom too. Yeah. And then for the,

1:22:45

you're kind of leading me into my

1:22:47

like another question that I had for

1:22:49

you because Darnell was from where I'm

1:22:52

at in the book right now, Darnell

1:22:54

is really going through it and you're

1:22:56

kind of like learning about his past

1:22:58

and when in the music industry and

1:23:01

I think I think there's like a

1:23:03

line around like any time he thinks

1:23:05

about music there's like anxiety in his

1:23:08

stomach or something and I have so

1:23:10

many people and I know you have

1:23:12

so many people who are interacting with

1:23:14

fame and media and the attention economy

1:23:17

and rejection and and oh my goodness

1:23:19

you're 45 you're like that kind of

1:23:21

stuff how much of that was cathartic

1:23:23

or critique too. Well, a lot of

1:23:26

it was just like reimagining the things

1:23:28

that happened to me in my life.

1:23:30

Because, you know, when you are a

1:23:33

public figure, you go to the same

1:23:35

thing that everyone else goes through, but

1:23:37

it's, but it's amplified. because everyone's watching

1:23:39

it happen. You know what I mean?

1:23:42

Like if you've ever been through divorce

1:23:44

or a breakup, imagine if everyone was

1:23:46

watching it and also giving their critiques

1:23:48

on it, if you don't even know.

1:23:51

And then on top of that, you

1:23:53

know, Darnell has a lot of, what's

1:23:55

we're looking for? I guess I'll just

1:23:58

call it criticism and projection on people

1:24:00

in his life because he thinks they're

1:24:02

going to be judging him. So he's

1:24:04

actually judging himself through their lens without

1:24:07

giving them the opportunity, the option to

1:24:09

even build their own judgment. He's, he's,

1:24:11

because he's judging himself through the lens

1:24:13

specifically of older black people, he is

1:24:16

projecting his own insecurities onto them as

1:24:18

opposed to allowing them to pass their

1:24:20

judgment themselves. That is so, Bob, you're

1:24:23

so smart. And not that you, like,

1:24:25

obviously, I watch you in Monet's podcast,

1:24:27

I just, I consume you, but like,

1:24:29

it's just, anytime you say something, I'm

1:24:32

like, oh, you just, that, that brain

1:24:34

is working. But that, so I'm, I'm

1:24:36

curious around, when you're talking about Darnell

1:24:38

and his, I will, I will guess

1:24:41

I would say like his, his own,

1:24:43

his own, his own anxieties around his

1:24:45

only anxieties around fame. I'm wondering what

1:24:48

was I guess I'm trying to just

1:24:50

gain your business like what what what

1:24:52

what what how much was like auto

1:24:54

biographical how much was it just like

1:24:57

um just you pulling things down from

1:24:59

the ethers well that was not quite

1:25:01

me like I mean spoiler everyone who's

1:25:03

reading the book I'm just gonna give

1:25:06

you all one more spoiler and this

1:25:08

is also to you because you don't

1:25:10

you haven't haven't met this far in

1:25:13

the book yet you know you find

1:25:15

out about having to the book that

1:25:17

Darnell was very, very, very publicly outed

1:25:19

in a very betraying way. Like he

1:25:22

thought that it was going to be

1:25:24

this great thing and it just ended

1:25:26

up blowing up and ruining his career.

1:25:28

So, you know, in the moment in

1:25:31

a moment where he chose to go

1:25:33

against his instincts and be vulnerable. He

1:25:35

ended up losing everything. He lost everything.

1:25:38

He had built up so much for

1:25:40

himself and then he trusted someone and

1:25:42

it did not work out for him

1:25:44

and he felt quite vulnerable because of

1:25:47

that. So... I think that maybe some

1:25:49

instances in my life where I let

1:25:51

my guard down and it really backfired

1:25:53

and it affirmed my worst thoughts about

1:25:56

people and about society and about trust,

1:25:58

you know, you can't trust none of

1:26:00

these folks, you know, these holes ain't

1:26:03

loyal, you know, I don't trust no

1:26:05

nig, I don't fit no bitch, you

1:26:07

kind of go back into that space

1:26:09

again. And it's showing how Darnell became

1:26:12

that. You know, I have these moments

1:26:14

where like, if you bumping someone at

1:26:16

the grocery store, And then all you

1:26:19

see is that you bump this lady

1:26:21

and she turns around and she yells,

1:26:23

fuck you! In your head, like this

1:26:25

is out of control. But obviously a

1:26:28

lot of stuff happened for a bump

1:26:30

to set this lady off. a lot

1:26:32

of stuff had we don't know we

1:26:34

don't know she woke up in the

1:26:37

morning she stubbed her toe her her

1:26:39

her her dog died her her husband

1:26:41

left her you know her kids are

1:26:44

getting her kids are in trouble at

1:26:46

school then she got to the place

1:26:48

the cart the cart on the buggy

1:26:50

was was wobbling she had to get

1:26:53

a new one she got the new

1:26:55

cart it fell over all her okay

1:26:57

you playing this woman through it putting

1:26:59

the groceries back in the thing she's

1:27:02

finally thinking herself this is great and

1:27:04

then after all that you bump her

1:27:06

So obviously everything that happens in your

1:27:09

life is just every reaction you have

1:27:11

is an is an is an amalgamation

1:27:13

of all the things that have happened

1:27:15

you up to this point and that's

1:27:18

how we that is why we respond

1:27:20

the way that we respond. Yeah yeah

1:27:22

no I look that's that's so thoughtful

1:27:24

just kind of like the domino effect

1:27:27

of people's emotions and how you end

1:27:29

up there so can you tell me

1:27:31

a little bit about how you got

1:27:34

into Drag like that what what would

1:27:36

that that story was your eyes that

1:27:38

big here are you you're like oh

1:27:40

my god I don't know that was

1:27:43

the million time I answered that eyes

1:27:45

I mean it is that's not why

1:27:47

I mean I also have like I

1:27:49

have a lazy eye So somehow I

1:27:52

have to actively open my eyes wide

1:27:54

so that one of my eyelids is

1:27:56

in the group. When I was, when

1:27:59

I moved to New York City, when

1:28:01

I was 22 years old, I moved

1:28:03

to New York City to be a

1:28:05

Broadway actor, I got on a college

1:28:08

and I was like, I want to

1:28:10

go make it on Broadway, honey, they're

1:28:12

going to gag for me. And then

1:28:14

the real gag was, I didn't realize

1:28:17

that you really have to be able

1:28:19

to really sing and dance really well

1:28:21

to be on Broadway. I did not

1:28:24

know that. So I did not, I

1:28:26

never got cast in anything obviously because

1:28:28

I'm not a great singer and I'm

1:28:30

not a great dancer like that. But

1:28:33

when I got there, the year I

1:28:35

moved to New York City, I believe

1:28:37

the next year Rupal Draghires came out.

1:28:39

I saw it on TV and I

1:28:42

had done some makeup in college like

1:28:44

during the makeup course where I had

1:28:46

dressed up in drag before, but I

1:28:49

had never taken it much further than

1:28:51

that. And then I just saw it

1:28:53

on TV and I thought to myself,

1:28:55

my God, this looks like so much

1:28:58

fun. I was really inspired by seeing

1:29:00

Bibi's Harbinay, the winter repose drag race.

1:29:02

I loved how regal she was, although

1:29:04

she was funny at times. I had

1:29:07

a different, I have a much different

1:29:09

approach to my performance style than Bibi's

1:29:11

Harbinay does. But I was still so

1:29:14

captivated by her beauty and her grace

1:29:16

and how regal she was. And I

1:29:18

wanted to embody some of that myself.

1:29:20

Some of that myself. I bought myself

1:29:23

a little makeup kit from Ben Nye

1:29:25

online. I applied the little skills that

1:29:27

I had and I hit the town.

1:29:29

I started doing drag. I fully immersed

1:29:32

myself in the New York City drag

1:29:34

scene. Like I've worked at so many

1:29:36

bars in New York City, almost all

1:29:39

of them. If a bar existed when

1:29:41

I was in New York City. especially

1:29:43

if it was a Manhattan, I probably

1:29:45

worked at it at some point. Right,

1:29:48

right. That's, I love that, um, that

1:29:50

going to New York, uh, that's almost

1:29:52

like parallel to Roopold, speaking of. I

1:29:54

know that I read Roopold's book. Roopold

1:29:57

California, Atlanta, Atlanta, New York. Yeah, but

1:29:59

Atlanta, New York thing to me, it's

1:30:01

a certain type of trajectory. type of

1:30:04

girl. Why does questions in my head?

1:30:06

I want to go back to the

1:30:08

book really quickly because we're talking about

1:30:10

drag. So here's what I'm always fascinated

1:30:13

with black people who perform. I've performed.

1:30:15

I think black people on the stage

1:30:17

and music go together. But to me,

1:30:19

you're always Tangling with

1:30:22

minstrelcy, because that's the legacy of black

1:30:24

people in performance in America. And I

1:30:26

think that sometimes I overthink it or

1:30:28

get a little bit too nervous around

1:30:31

it and maybe subdue myself. And, huh?

1:30:33

I have a theory on that too.

1:30:35

Yeah. Black people because of our relationship

1:30:37

to this country and how our bodies

1:30:40

and our minds have been commodified in

1:30:42

negative connotations. We are the only people

1:30:44

who I can think of who have

1:30:46

been taught to be ashamed of basically

1:30:49

our ingenuity. We're the only people who

1:30:51

are taught to be ashamed and embarrassed

1:30:53

by our ingenuity and the things that

1:30:55

we create and the things that we

1:30:58

do because no matter what we do

1:31:00

is ghetto, it's stupid, it's trashy, it's

1:31:02

yada yada yada yada or someone else

1:31:04

did it to make fun of us,

1:31:07

right? Like, for example, a lot of

1:31:09

black people are like, I'm not gonna

1:31:11

eat watermelon in public. Japanese people don't

1:31:13

think twice about eating sushi. Mexican people

1:31:16

are twice about eating burritos. You know

1:31:18

what I mean? They don't, people from

1:31:20

India don't think, don't think twice about

1:31:22

eating curry. They just fucking do it

1:31:25

because they don't have the, they don't

1:31:27

have the long lasting shame surrounding, liking

1:31:29

things that your culture likes. You know

1:31:31

what I mean? And I think a

1:31:34

lot of black people have this feeling

1:31:36

like if I do the thing, they

1:31:38

think niggas do, then they don't think

1:31:40

I'm one of them niggas. You know

1:31:43

what I mean? And I don't want

1:31:45

to be, you know, I don't want

1:31:47

to come off that way. But it's

1:31:49

really interesting because when we're in our

1:31:52

own spaces and we're not being perceived

1:31:54

by other races, then people tend to

1:31:56

be more free. Right? So the difference

1:31:58

between, we were talking about Tyler Perry

1:32:01

before the camera turned on, the difference

1:32:03

between Tyler Perry when he was just

1:32:05

doing the the Chitlin circuit, he was

1:32:07

doing those plays, versus the way he

1:32:10

was perceived once he became Tyler Perry,

1:32:12

once he made that first he became

1:32:14

Tyler Perry, once he made that first

1:32:16

he made that first he made that

1:32:19

first he became Tyler Perry, once he

1:32:21

made that first movie, that first he

1:32:23

made that first, because white people are

1:32:25

watching, because white people are being perceived.

1:32:28

And the other question is, is it

1:32:30

wrong to, is it wrong to continue,

1:32:32

but is it wrong to not code

1:32:34

switch? Is it wrong to not, you

1:32:37

know, make yourself more palatable so that

1:32:39

you won't embarrass other black people? Why

1:32:41

is our behavior embarrassing? If it was

1:32:43

good enough for black folks in a

1:32:46

black context to laugh, why is it

1:32:48

bad when white people are watching? What

1:32:50

about white eyes changes what you're doing

1:32:52

making it more embarrassing? Yes, like round

1:32:55

of applause in my brain. Like around

1:32:57

everything you said, it reminds me of

1:32:59

when I was watching Arthur Jafai, cinematographer

1:33:01

speak and talk about how black people,

1:33:04

once the camera becomes into play, the

1:33:06

whole interaction with the performer changes because

1:33:08

the camera is, is... is a replacement

1:33:10

for like the white gaze and people

1:33:13

automatically shift how they act when they

1:33:15

know they're gonna be recorded or they're

1:33:17

being surveilled. So I definitely agree with

1:33:19

you that my only piece of pushback

1:33:22

would be not that you need any

1:33:24

but just for the sake of conversation

1:33:26

is that I do think black people's

1:33:28

cultural productions specifically black Americans cultural productions

1:33:31

have always been produced out of humiliation

1:33:33

or out of or out of dire

1:33:35

need. So it's not just that we

1:33:37

have soul food. We were on the

1:33:40

stage having minstrel and we were having

1:33:42

fun. on stage, it was because we

1:33:44

were being mocked and made fun of

1:33:46

on stage. So there is this little

1:33:49

paradox in us that wants to be

1:33:51

free and unrespectable, but also doesn't want

1:33:53

to perpetuate things that would seem disrespectful,

1:33:55

which long way leads me into my

1:33:58

question around was any of that. I

1:34:00

want to say on the topic, just

1:34:02

for a second. But also, when you

1:34:04

think about things like, for example, pauper

1:34:07

food like fish and chips. It's based

1:34:09

out of being poor, being broke, and

1:34:11

only being able to afford fish and

1:34:13

chips. When the Irish are eating potatoes,

1:34:16

it's not just because they love potatoes,

1:34:18

it's they couldn't get anything else. They

1:34:20

had to have potatoes. It was the

1:34:22

cheapest thing they can get their hands

1:34:25

on. And I do believe that there

1:34:27

is a, what you're saying, that it

1:34:29

is true. A lot of what we

1:34:31

have as black people in America, a

1:34:34

lot of it comes from degradation. through

1:34:36

the hardest times. And I asked myself,

1:34:38

like, how strong is that? What's more

1:34:40

strong than taking pig brain and turning

1:34:43

into hoghead cheese? What's stronger than taking

1:34:45

chitlins and turning them into a delicacy

1:34:47

that you could pay $50 a plate

1:34:49

for today because people in the house

1:34:52

didn't want to eat pig intestines? What

1:34:54

is stronger than taking chicken and making

1:34:56

it the most common protein in America

1:34:58

when the truth is back in the

1:35:01

day? They gave us the chickens and

1:35:03

they would eat the turbs. because the

1:35:05

turkeys were huge and full of protein

1:35:08

and full of all this life and

1:35:10

they would give us the puny little

1:35:12

chickens. You know what is stronger than

1:35:14

that? But then again, the feeling of

1:35:17

embarrassment is so valid because the relationship

1:35:19

that black Americans have to this country

1:35:21

is probably the most complex relationship in

1:35:23

the history of the world, especially in

1:35:26

America. Absolutely. I dewrote your question, sorry.

1:35:28

You know, no, it was a great

1:35:30

derailing. So I was just wondering because

1:35:32

of the reverence and I'll name it

1:35:35

like the answer. So if there's a

1:35:37

white gaze, I think a lot of

1:35:39

black artists and thinkers probably have an

1:35:41

ancestral gaze where they have this hairy

1:35:44

tummy finger being like, oh don't you

1:35:46

disrespect our legacy? Don't you know, and

1:35:48

you're kind of like having anxiety, it

1:35:50

feels like with this book you... broke

1:35:53

through that and just as a drag

1:35:55

performer because some of so much of

1:35:57

it is about that kind of meta

1:35:59

commentary on gender on expectation it feels

1:36:02

like fuck you in your stereotypes and

1:36:04

fuck you for and fuck you trying

1:36:06

to make me respectable and scaring me

1:36:08

with with this ancestral gaze I'm gonna

1:36:11

perform anyway I'm just wondering how did

1:36:13

you get to the space to write?

1:36:15

Like that and I kind of asked

1:36:17

a similar question to Jeremy Oh Harris

1:36:20

who did slave play I'm like how

1:36:22

did you get to the point where

1:36:24

you didn't think that you were going

1:36:26

to be haunted for doing that Well

1:36:29

I don't know right I don't really

1:36:31

have a lot so that didn't bother

1:36:33

me so much but when you think

1:36:35

history would let you leave you to

1:36:38

believe that you didn't have any ancestors

1:36:40

who thought the way you do history

1:36:42

have you believe that all of your

1:36:44

ancestors were Christian His would have you

1:36:47

believe that there were no gay people

1:36:49

there wasn't a single queer walking around

1:36:51

anywhere But your brain should let you

1:36:53

know obviously queer people exist in a

1:36:56

vacuum Like for example you need black

1:36:58

people to make black people you need

1:37:00

Asian people you need white people to

1:37:02

make white people you do not need

1:37:05

queer people to make queer people We

1:37:07

pop up anywhere if you started a

1:37:09

new nation on a colony on an

1:37:11

island It would probably within one generation

1:37:14

a queen is gonna pop up You

1:37:16

know what I mean? You don't need,

1:37:18

you don't need queer people to make

1:37:20

queer people. Yet we still have that

1:37:23

common thread that connects us throughout all

1:37:25

of our societies because of the way

1:37:27

that we're treated by the majority as

1:37:29

the minority. So I know that I

1:37:32

know that I have accessions who are

1:37:34

like me, who are queer like me,

1:37:36

who bucked against, uh, gender stereotypes like

1:37:38

me. like me. You know, if you

1:37:41

look at William Dorsey Swan, you'll know

1:37:43

that there were a gender-bending enslaved people,

1:37:45

formerly enslaved people, who were throwing balls

1:37:47

and encouraging other people to dress up

1:37:50

and get up in gowns and walk

1:37:52

around and parade and have fun and

1:37:54

express themselves even though history would tell

1:37:56

you those people didn't exist. They'll wipe

1:37:59

Bayard rusten away from the history books

1:38:01

as if he was not there. on

1:38:03

the, you know, on the mall in

1:38:05

Washington. Right, right. No, that, certain parts

1:38:08

of what you just said, just kind

1:38:10

of like, you know, sometimes I do

1:38:12

see like a separation even with reading.

1:38:14

Well they try to make you think

1:38:17

that they they try to make you

1:38:19

believe and this is this is a

1:38:21

product of I think of white supremacy

1:38:23

but it affects black people really strongly

1:38:26

where some black folks try to make

1:38:28

you believe that your awareness is completely

1:38:30

separate from your blackness like there are

1:38:32

two different things as or as if

1:38:35

your awareness makes you less black. then

1:38:37

a black person who's not queer, which

1:38:39

is crazy, by the way. That's obviously

1:38:41

not how that works at all. You

1:38:44

know what I mean? I remember the

1:38:46

quote, I am my ancestors while the

1:38:48

streams, while the streams, baby. My ancestors

1:38:50

couldn't even imagine that I'd be able

1:38:53

to be up here doing what I'm

1:38:55

doing to this day. Well, I guess,

1:38:57

so everything that you just said, but

1:38:59

just a complicated, just a teeny bit

1:39:02

further, it's not hard for me to

1:39:04

believe when it comes to sexual or

1:39:06

gender identities that those things existed. I

1:39:08

think the part, and maybe you were,

1:39:11

I don't know how purposefully you were

1:39:13

offering this, but I think the part

1:39:15

that really hit me was that the

1:39:17

irreverence. So like, like, so if you're

1:39:20

Bob the drop It's not really just

1:39:22

about what you're doing in your bed

1:39:24

and your sexuality and stuff. You're still

1:39:26

showing up as a destructive, irreverent force

1:39:29

against a heterosexual dynamic that is pushing

1:39:31

up against it and not doing respectable

1:39:33

things. So it's one thing to be

1:39:35

Bayard Rustin. It's another thing to say,

1:39:38

actually, I don't believe in none of

1:39:40

this shit, and I'm actually going to

1:39:42

spend my life being this kind of

1:39:44

enlightened trickster energy around these things that

1:39:47

you think are real. I'd like to

1:39:49

me that's different in Boulder and that's

1:39:51

why a I respect your artwork but

1:39:53

also that's why that kind of illuminated

1:39:56

me where I'm like well yeah if

1:39:58

you're here now then of course somebody

1:40:00

was just as a reverent then it's

1:40:02

only in their mind you know. Yeah.

1:40:05

Yeah, but those are some great, such

1:40:07

great points that you've made. There's some

1:40:09

things around Quakers and just historical tidbits

1:40:11

that you put in the book. I'm

1:40:14

wondering how many of those historical tidbits

1:40:16

you put inside of the book on

1:40:18

purpose, because I thought as I was

1:40:20

reading it, I was like, well. where

1:40:23

education is going. This is really good

1:40:25

to have in a book so you

1:40:27

know it. How much of that was

1:40:29

intentional? Well, it was all intentional. I

1:40:32

mean, I really, well, one, I really

1:40:34

wanted to have this Quaker character because

1:40:36

I do think it's really funny, especially

1:40:38

when I envisioned him. Have you ever

1:40:41

seen Marshmallow or Dead Mouse? Yes, with

1:40:43

the big mask during the. In my

1:40:45

head, D.A. Quakes has this giant Quaker

1:40:47

hat that goes all the way down

1:40:50

to it. It's like a huge hat

1:40:52

like an LED going across the screen.

1:40:54

I just love the visual of that.

1:40:56

I bet D.J. in there. Yeah. And

1:40:59

I did want to point out that,

1:41:01

you know, Quakers were a pretty big

1:41:03

part of the abolition movement. Some of

1:41:05

them, but they were actually banned from

1:41:08

certain towns, because they were too anti-slavery.

1:41:10

They were, that you couldn't be a

1:41:12

Quaker in certain towns. Or not legally,

1:41:14

but you'd be run out of town,

1:41:17

because they knew that you'd probably be

1:41:19

helping, because they were deeply convicted. And

1:41:21

it's really interesting how. how white people

1:41:23

and black people, but specifically white people,

1:41:26

could use the Bible to come to

1:41:28

drastically different conclusions. But using the same

1:41:30

book, right? Like if you look at

1:41:32

John Brown, John Brown was on paper

1:41:35

a maniac. He was so religiously convicted

1:41:37

that he would ask you to your

1:41:39

face, and this is like a carbon

1:41:41

on multiple occasions, he would ask you

1:41:44

to your face, are you pro-slavery or

1:41:46

are you for the free state? And

1:41:48

if you said pro-slavery, there were times

1:41:50

that he would literally kill you right

1:41:53

where you stood. Because he felt so

1:41:55

convicted, he's a white man. He felt

1:41:57

so convicted by God that his duty

1:41:59

was to help black people become free,

1:42:02

that he was like, but I'm not

1:42:04

wrong though. Like there's an account of

1:42:06

him going to a judge's house in

1:42:08

the middle of the night and dragging

1:42:11

him out and killing him and his

1:42:13

sons because they had ruled against, they

1:42:15

had unjustly ruled against an enslaved person

1:42:17

who was trying to petition for their

1:42:20

manumission and he just killed him and

1:42:22

went about his business and just said,

1:42:24

and now off to my next thing.

1:42:26

But then you have the exact people

1:42:29

who were reading the same book being

1:42:31

like, you're literally not even a person.

1:42:33

Right. Right. Right. Right. It's crazy. It's

1:42:35

crazy to me how you can read

1:42:38

the story of Moses and justify and

1:42:40

not connect the dogs. Not like early

1:42:42

bad media literacy. That was that was

1:42:44

that was pre-interative or was it cognitive

1:42:47

dissonance? You know what I mean? And

1:42:49

I think they both feed each other.

1:42:51

You know, I think that probably that

1:42:53

is feeding media illiteracy. Um, um, so

1:42:56

because I know you have a heart

1:42:58

out and I have so many questions

1:43:00

I'm so nosy but so I'm so

1:43:02

I want to just kind of get

1:43:05

to a juicy one but we kind

1:43:07

of talked about it so I know

1:43:09

that you're I know that you're atheist

1:43:11

but in the book you kind of

1:43:14

a position Darnell as an atheist but

1:43:16

then you talk about Harriet Tubman's praying

1:43:18

and you talk about like her her

1:43:21

belief in the Lord I know I

1:43:23

think it's iconic I'm in kind of

1:43:25

like African and black spiritual communities. So

1:43:27

Harriet Tubman understanding getting a lot of

1:43:30

her direction from the Lord and then

1:43:32

in her having these kind of like

1:43:34

psychedelic experiences in order to be able

1:43:36

to figure out where to go. That

1:43:39

is something that people inside of the

1:43:41

black like who do community use as

1:43:43

a significant as significance of being like

1:43:45

oh what we're doing does lead to

1:43:48

freedom no matter what age you're in

1:43:50

but I thought hey I thought it

1:43:52

was so beautiful to talk about black

1:43:54

atheism in your book I've never seen

1:43:57

a kid I never seen a character

1:43:59

engaged with the discomfort of seeing people

1:44:01

do Christian things and engaged with that.

1:44:03

And I thought it was also really

1:44:06

generous for you to acknowledge that belief,

1:44:08

even without holding that. And I guess,

1:44:10

you know, like, I just, can you

1:44:12

just dig into how you wanted to,

1:44:15

how you want to address spirituality and

1:44:17

stuff in the book? Well, it happens

1:44:19

to me a lot, you know, I

1:44:21

remember being on the set of we're

1:44:24

here, the show I did for HBO,

1:44:26

and I was not raised atheist to

1:44:28

be clear. Like I met a few

1:44:30

people who were raised atheist later in

1:44:33

life. Obviously there's not a lot of

1:44:35

them itself. And I remember thinking of

1:44:37

myself how crazy it is to be

1:44:39

raised to be like, no, no, no,

1:44:42

no, it's not a god. That is

1:44:44

so wild to me. I had to

1:44:46

come to this conclusion on my own

1:44:48

or through my own research and through

1:44:51

listen to other people. Like, that doesn't

1:44:53

make sense. But I remember being on

1:44:55

set for we're here for the show.

1:44:57

And everyone's like grabbing their hands and

1:45:00

I was so uncomfortable. I was so

1:45:02

uncomfortable because I felt like I was

1:45:04

surrounded by Christians and like if I

1:45:06

did not participate in their ritual, then

1:45:09

because Christians are not like if a

1:45:11

bunch of witches say let's all get

1:45:13

together and be witchy and you say

1:45:15

no, they'll be chill. But if you

1:45:18

tell the Christians know, they're telling they'll

1:45:20

be like, oh my God, you're of

1:45:22

Satan. So you're a patient. So you're

1:45:24

an enemy. So you're literally an enemy

1:45:27

then. Right. You know what I mean?

1:45:29

And I've been in a lot of

1:45:31

situation. I don't want to fucking bout

1:45:33

my head. I don't want to be

1:45:36

with y'all. this like you know let's

1:45:38

thank the Lord for all this stuff

1:45:40

because I don't believe in that it

1:45:42

makes me very uncomfortable and I remember

1:45:45

I'm going to Las Vegas and going

1:45:47

to see Monique in Vegas and I

1:45:49

had never seen a famous black person

1:45:51

stand on stage and call out the

1:45:54

church in a way that wasn't just

1:45:56

like they still in money it was

1:45:58

in a way that it was like

1:46:00

the church is fucking us up I

1:46:03

had never and I could see the

1:46:05

room tense on her and I was

1:46:07

like go bad bitch go bad bitch

1:46:09

go because it is really brave to

1:46:12

do that it's bold to do that

1:46:14

in a room full of black you

1:46:16

don't know how it's going to be

1:46:18

received and there were some of us

1:46:21

there who were like think I remember

1:46:23

going to her but I thank you

1:46:25

for speaking on that like thank you

1:46:27

so she was based on how the

1:46:30

how the church is holding us back

1:46:32

and and making us treat our queer

1:46:34

family members because you know Monique has

1:46:36

a queer son And yeah she's queer

1:46:39

she's queer she talked about her whole

1:46:41

queer experience in this show that I

1:46:43

saw about her lesbian her first lesbian

1:46:45

date. Oh wow. And she that she

1:46:48

went and it was her first polyamorous

1:46:50

lesbian date so she like her husband

1:46:52

helped her get ready for this date

1:46:54

with this woman it was so it

1:46:57

was so beautiful and liberating and I

1:46:59

never got a chance to see black

1:47:01

people talk like that without calling it

1:47:03

some white person. A lot of black

1:47:06

folks are doing today is actually the

1:47:08

epitome of white people's shit. Christianity is,

1:47:10

the way that is produced in America

1:47:12

is literally white people's shit. Yes, yes.

1:47:15

Any other act like being aepist is

1:47:17

like people's shit? No, no, no, no.

1:47:19

And like I haven't experienced polyamery and

1:47:21

I haven't um and I just told

1:47:24

you I wasn't an atheist but I

1:47:26

see myself in solidarity with people who

1:47:28

are complicating what it means to be

1:47:30

black and I feel like that story

1:47:33

and Monique and what she was doing

1:47:35

is doing that and then what that

1:47:37

segment of your book did I was

1:47:39

like oh I love that representation of

1:47:42

a black person not just being like

1:47:44

yes Jesus when something happens and being

1:47:46

like no I feel uncomfortable I don't

1:47:48

like this last question I have for

1:47:51

you before I have to before I

1:47:53

have to let you go, is what

1:47:55

is the future for this series? I

1:47:57

guess what I'm really trying to say

1:48:00

is I think there should be more

1:48:02

and more books and I do think

1:48:04

the theater. ideas should still be revisited.

1:48:06

So I'm just wondering where your imagination

1:48:09

is at when it comes to this.

1:48:11

Well, so for heritage, I've been live

1:48:13

in concert, I'm still, I am still

1:48:15

working on the play. I will get

1:48:18

this play up on stage. I cannot

1:48:20

wait. I really believe it's going to

1:48:22

be, I think this will be probably

1:48:24

one of my longest lasting legacies in

1:48:27

my career. To be honest, I do

1:48:29

too. things that I've done with this

1:48:31

with this with this intellectual property and

1:48:33

the people who have helped me create

1:48:36

it. I'm working with a really remarkable

1:48:38

producer named Kevin Antone so I met

1:48:40

on the Madonna tour. He was her

1:48:42

music director. He's worked with everyone from

1:48:45

Janet Jackson to Sierra to Insink to

1:48:47

Shakira. everyone he's an amazing producer from

1:48:49

Boston and my dear friend from Atlanta

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ocean Kelly we're working on we're working

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on the musical together still to this

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day okay I love that I'm so

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excited I yeah I just want you

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to keep on going with it because

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it's just so important so special Bob

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the drag queen I'm so happy to

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have spoken with you I'm so appreciative

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and thank you for putting really good

1:49:12

thoughtful art in