Speaker 1: This episode is sponsored by FX's Fleischman Is in Trouble,
Speaker 1: starring Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes, Lizzie Kaplan, and Adam Brodie.
Speaker 1: The strama tells the story of recently divorced Toby Fleischmann,
Speaker 1: who dies into the world of app bass dating with
Speaker 1: the kind of success he never had in his youth.
Speaker 1: Then his ex wife disappears, leaving him with their two
Speaker 1: children and no hint of her return. Effexus Fleischman is
Speaker 1: in Trouble, streaming November seventeenth only on Hulu. Welcome to
Speaker 1: p M Mood then No Talking Points, No Bullshit podcast
Speaker 1: that takes you behind the curtain, off the red carpet,
Speaker 1: and to the front lines of progress with change makers
Speaker 1: and innovators that are doing the work to shift our
Speaker 1: culture and expand and our social impact. I am thrilled
Speaker 1: to welcome to p M Mood, the co founder of
Speaker 1: the Very Smart Brothers dot com and the author of
Speaker 1: What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker? Damon, Young Damon.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me. Oh thanks thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. This is um This is a pleasure
Speaker 1: in a treat breaking up, breaking up the monotone same
Speaker 1: thing all day, every breaking up. Yeah, this is great.
Speaker 1: We're breaking up the groundhogs a day. Um. So you
Speaker 1: have a new book. Um, what doesn't kill you, kill
Speaker 1: you make you see you blacker? Which apparently I'm gonna
Speaker 1: need the T shirt, I'm gonna need the hat. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna need a jacket. Um, I'm gonna need a mask
Speaker 1: now for them. That says it. Um, tell me about
Speaker 1: the title of this book and the theme behind it,
Speaker 1: because for me now reading it and and and seeing it,
Speaker 1: it has different feelings I'm sure from when you wrote
Speaker 1: it until now when it's coming out. So tell me
Speaker 1: about it. Um. So the book is about the an
Speaker 1: anxiety and absurdity of existing more black in America. Um.
Speaker 1: And so it's um the title actually, so there's it's
Speaker 1: a funny story about the title because the original title
Speaker 1: when I sold a proposal, and you know, with written
Speaker 1: a proposal, told a proposal, and you did all of
Speaker 1: that and actually had worked on it for for for
Speaker 1: about a few months. M post proposal was Nigga the Roses.
Speaker 1: And I want to make sure I'm pronouncing that right
Speaker 1: because my accent maybe gets a little heavy sometimes and
Speaker 1: I have a thick tongue. So people think I'm saying
Speaker 1: Nigga in the roses because I've actually been printed transcripts
Speaker 1: of interviews where people thought, that's it, Nigga in the roses, Like, no,
Speaker 1: that's like a two put pro that's not. But um
Speaker 1: so yeah, the original title was Nigga the roses, which
Speaker 1: is a term that encapsulates the state of being where
Speaker 1: you're professionally wondering how your race may have impacted your treatment.
Speaker 1: So it could it could be something innoculous like you're
Speaker 1: at a restaurant and the server you order breakfast food
Speaker 1: and the server asks you if you want hot size
Speaker 1: with your food, and you're thinking, like, who puts off
Speaker 1: off some pancakes? Like she just this assumption And again
Speaker 1: that's not. That's not like a dangerous thing for that
Speaker 1: that is the thing. And then it could become dangerous
Speaker 1: when you know you following a police and you're wondering, okay,
Speaker 1: is this cop follow me in my car because I'm black?
Speaker 1: And in the Bulk, I have a chapter about my
Speaker 1: mom where I, um, you know, I talk about her.
Speaker 1: He died it'll be seven years and in October, and
Speaker 1: how I questioned whether her treatment because she died of
Speaker 1: lung cancer. Would have been different if she were she
Speaker 1: was black. So so again Nigga ne roses. That was
Speaker 1: the concept, that was the title. And then my editor
Speaker 1: at at Harpercollums talking to her people at Barnes Noble
Speaker 1: and her people at Amazon, who were like, you know,
Speaker 1: we love Damon, can't wait for his book, but I
Speaker 1: don't We could carry a book with that title, but
Speaker 1: I don't know if we get promoted the same way,
Speaker 1: like we can't have Nigga on like seventy two point
Speaker 1: on banner edge on the top of the page of
Speaker 1: the site. Um. And and so I heard that, and
Speaker 1: then you know, I had to think of a new title.
Speaker 1: And I was actually on the plane the essencest in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, UM, working on some of the working on
Speaker 1: some of the dialog text and what doesn't kill You
Speaker 1: makes you black or dis academy and um in that term.
Speaker 1: Just if you're black in America right now, at this point,
Speaker 1: you should recognize, you should know by now that respectability
Speaker 1: is a fucking road right, and that there's no sort
Speaker 1: of like behavioral deodorant that you can wear that you
Speaker 1: can apply to get people to convince people of your
Speaker 1: humanity or your citizenship, like anyone who needs us. So
Speaker 1: they're convincing, it's proof that they can't be convinced or
Speaker 1: why even try, And so what doesn't to make the
Speaker 1: blacker is basically an acknowledgement of that and also saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, if we want to survive, if we
Speaker 1: want to survive, if we want to exist here, we
Speaker 1: have to continue to embrace blackness instead of trying to simulate,
Speaker 1: trying to, I don't know, flatten ourselves out, you know,
Speaker 1: the then embracing the saunching and blackness is the way
Speaker 1: to go. And that, let me ask you, because embracing
Speaker 1: blackness means so many different things to so many different
Speaker 1: black people, right. You know, there are sites that celebrate
Speaker 1: there are all different kinds of sites melanin magic, black girl, magic,
Speaker 1: black boy joy, all of these different types of things
Speaker 1: that are set up to give us positive representation of what,
Speaker 1: you know, what is considered a revolutionary act, which is
Speaker 1: to be proud of being black, right instead of walking
Speaker 1: around with your head bowed and literally stepping off the
Speaker 1: sidewalk to make room figuratively and literally for other people.
Speaker 1: So what does it mean for you when you say
Speaker 1: that to embrace your blackness. Well, you know, I forgot
Speaker 1: who it was with this quote. And I'm paraphrasing here,
Speaker 1: but if there are forty million black Americans, than there
Speaker 1: are forty million ways to be a black American? Right, um?
Speaker 1: And and and also too, I I I try to
Speaker 1: be very careful to to to articulate the idea that
Speaker 1: the reality that you know, so do you have this
Speaker 1: entire concept that that's pretty trendy now being unapologetically black?
Speaker 1: You just you know, alluded to it. It's now your
Speaker 1: question where you know you got to be unapologetically? This
Speaker 1: is unapologetically that what does that look like? And I
Speaker 1: recognize that for someone like me, I have more freedom
Speaker 1: to say and do certain things than someone who maybe
Speaker 1: worked at the bank does or some other sort of
Speaker 1: corporate or more traditional you know, you know, job of environment.
Speaker 1: And so are they are they less unapologized if they
Speaker 1: can't go on Twitter and cust Donald Trump out like
Speaker 1: I can, you know what I mean? And and and
Speaker 1: that's and that's just not that's it's not true. And
Speaker 1: I think that what I mean by that and what
Speaker 1: anyone you know who who has like any sort of
Speaker 1: understanding of history and just and just in the present
Speaker 1: also and just just what that means, what has meant
Speaker 1: to us. It just means not thinking of your blackness
Speaker 1: as like a detriment or a lack of bithology, and
Speaker 1: considering it to be this is, this is, this is
Speaker 1: a positive, that this is a great thing. Now how
Speaker 1: that great same manifest depends on who you are, depends
Speaker 1: on your life. But you know, we we we're indoctrinated,
Speaker 1: you know, with all of this messaging about you know,
Speaker 1: black being bad, black being disease, black being wrong and
Speaker 1: be not unapologetic. M extracts that, you know, abstracts that
Speaker 1: anti blackness, and and once the astraction happened, then you're
Speaker 1: free to be whoever you want to be. You know,
Speaker 1: that attraction, that extraction is. It's difficult because you know,
Speaker 1: even people, I mean, I still find myself maybe thinking
Speaker 1: or doing things that I think to myself, you know
Speaker 1: that there might have been some late in the air
Speaker 1: blackness and there M I get really, you know, still
Speaker 1: in this day age twenty twenty, even though it's a
Speaker 1: fuckery every year, Um, it drives me insane, like hurts
Speaker 1: my heart when I see headlines about young children still
Speaker 1: being suspended for natural hair. The video that went viral
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen of the young black wrest who was
Speaker 1: forced to cut off his locks so that he could
Speaker 1: play in the championship match. Um the prescriptions that uh
Speaker 1: A elementary school put out in a black neighborhood, policing
Speaker 1: how parents were dropping their kids off. No no do rags,
Speaker 1: no head scarves, no this that or the other thing.
Speaker 1: And you know, friends that I've had that have attended
Speaker 1: HBCUs have talked about the respectabild that that's the birthplace
Speaker 1: in some in some aspects their words, not mine of
Speaker 1: respectability politics, and other folks saying, well, then you have
Speaker 1: to understand who created those HBCUs, right, Who who created
Speaker 1: those those spaces. And even though we say that if
Speaker 1: there are forty million black people, there are forty million
Speaker 1: ways to be black, there is this mainstream way of
Speaker 1: being black or what is accepted as black. I can remember,
Speaker 1: you know, I grew up out East on Long Island
Speaker 1: in New York. And you know, as part of when
Speaker 1: I was growing up, very heavy grunge scene, punk scene, skateboarders,
Speaker 1: like that's what I That's what I grew up around
Speaker 1: in the suburbs. I remember going to college and being
Speaker 1: told because of the music that I liked that I
Speaker 1: wasn't black, right. I still get joked on in in
Speaker 1: many ways because Depeche Mode was the first concert I
Speaker 1: ever went to. Um and you know, and so it
Speaker 1: it's like, is it worse that we sometimes within the
Speaker 1: community do it to ourselves, or is it worse that
Speaker 1: we are trying to move against the reflection that society
Speaker 1: has for us that white and eurocentric is the best.
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing about, you know, doing it to ourselves.
Speaker 1: None of us are men to to to the Leviathan
Speaker 1: of anti blackness, um. None of us are me in
Speaker 1: the bad you know, um and and and it sus
Speaker 1: all aspects of like wherever the sunshine in America? Anti
Speaker 1: blackness of too, and and so it takes a lot.
Speaker 1: It takes It takes some effort, It takes some some reading,
Speaker 1: It takes some self examination. It takes them deconstructing to
Speaker 1: be able to locate it, you know, and extract it.
Speaker 1: I mean, if we I hate to use the cancer
Speaker 1: analogy because you know, I don't want to be insensitive
Speaker 1: to people who have had cancer, but I think of
Speaker 1: it in a similar manner where it's a it's a
Speaker 1: tumor that will continue to grow and men test size,
Speaker 1: you know, unless you are able to do with singing it. So,
Speaker 1: you know, hearing stories about younger black people who might
Speaker 1: have been told they were weren't black enough for or
Speaker 1: this or that. You know, I've heard that before. And
Speaker 1: I understand that too, because because again that that definitely
Speaker 1: definitely has happened, definitely does happen, but it's not I
Speaker 1: think the danger and and and I think the dangerous
Speaker 1: takeaway from that is to blame black people for that,
Speaker 1: um just because again, anti blackness is it's everywhere, and
Speaker 1: even some of the most you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: even in them, even if some of the most unambiguously
Speaker 1: pro black people and I'm saying pro black in quotations
Speaker 1: have anti blackness kind of streams. And so the question,
Speaker 1: I think or or the problem isn't necessarily black people
Speaker 1: who you know, have these um have these like like
Speaker 1: binaries of blackness, these really limited um and calculations of
Speaker 1: what it means to be black. But the problem is
Speaker 1: a greater you know, society, greater country um that has
Speaker 1: forced those definitions on us and has forced that rigidity,
Speaker 1: and it's also created an environment where we have to
Speaker 1: fear for our lives and so and in order to
Speaker 1: respond to that sort of danger, you do or say
Speaker 1: certain things that people believe will protect you, right, And
Speaker 1: so that's why you know, when you're talking about like
Speaker 1: the HBCUs and people you know maybe be intot a
Speaker 1: certain way and where those lessons came from, you do,
Speaker 1: you know, have to understand or knowledge at least that
Speaker 1: many of those architects came of age at a time
Speaker 1: when it was legitimately life thread you just exist just
Speaker 1: a little black yeah, and you know, yeah, those same
Speaker 1: threats exist now, but it's it's it's just not the same.
Speaker 1: This scale is not the same. And also there were
Speaker 1: you know, they were very radical people then people who
Speaker 1: would still be considered radical in twenty first into your context,
Speaker 1: but the definition of radical chefs, I think, so what
Speaker 1: might have been radical in nineteen twenty isn't going to
Speaker 1: be radical and desotment twenty But it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: they aren't radical. You know, you're a father, and I
Speaker 1: mean your Facebook posts give me life because I think
Speaker 1: they're just so freaking hilarious. Um, what does it mean
Speaker 1: for you, like when you were in the in the
Speaker 1: early early stages of fatherhood, when you knew that you
Speaker 1: were going to become a father, what are some of
Speaker 1: the things as a black man right in America creating
Speaker 1: this black family that came up for you that you
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that either you were going to
Speaker 1: pivot away from or lean all the way into. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's um. So the last chapter mable Um is addressed
Speaker 1: to my daughter sum who it's four years old now,
Speaker 1: but when the book was published three yeah last year,
Speaker 1: so yes, he was three. I'm a band Americum. And
Speaker 1: the chapter is about just and I think you know
Speaker 1: most parents have this where you have a child and
Speaker 1: you wanted her out a way to give them all
Speaker 1: the best parts of you while also kind of kind
Speaker 1: of filtering out the bad part. You know, you want her,
Speaker 1: you know, auto attributes that you believe to be the
Speaker 1: one that you want to brag about, the ones that
Speaker 1: you want to continue on. Those are the ones you
Speaker 1: want her to have. What your children have in the
Speaker 1: bad things, maybe the addictions or the anti blackness or
Speaker 1: whatever that you consider to be a negative part of you.
Speaker 1: You don't want your kids have that. But it's kind
Speaker 1: of impossible to do that. You know your kids are
Speaker 1: going to witness you, they're going to observe you, they're
Speaker 1: going to um model themselves after you, and so you
Speaker 1: just have to do the best job because possible to do.
Speaker 1: They're rare in the right way, and teach her the
Speaker 1: right way. And when you have a black child in America,
Speaker 1: there's also the idea like, okay, so yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you teach your children that they could be whoever in
Speaker 1: whatever they want to be. But if you also teach
Speaker 1: your black child about America, about this four hundred of
Speaker 1: year old behem, if that is going to do everything
Speaker 1: you can for thank you for filling that. Those two
Speaker 1: lessons might seem to contradict, right, It's like, on one hand,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, Dad, You're you're saying I could do everything
Speaker 1: I want to I could be everything I want to be.
Speaker 1: But you're also saying America is a motherfuck the monster,
Speaker 1: and it's it's gonna have its foot on my neck
Speaker 1: for basically my entire life once once I came out
Speaker 1: of toddlerhood, I'm gonna have its foot on my neck.
Speaker 1: And so how did those in a chapter? I ask
Speaker 1: myself it's like, how did those lessons for reconcile? And
Speaker 1: and and you know, as a parent, what you do
Speaker 1: is you just give your child as much information as
Speaker 1: possible and you tell them that, you know what, Yes,
Speaker 1: America is the way America is. But it's not going
Speaker 1: to stop you. It's not going to prevent you from
Speaker 1: being what you want to do, what you want to
Speaker 1: do it. You know, I just it's I don't have kids,
Speaker 1: but you know, when I see my friends who are black,
Speaker 1: um preparing to give birth or or raising their kids,
Speaker 1: it seems like there is this constant refrain, right, which is,
Speaker 1: how do I protect them but make sure that like
Speaker 1: their back is always straight right, and their chin is
Speaker 1: always up, and their shoulders are always back, and they
Speaker 1: know who they are, but they also know where they
Speaker 1: are right. And I think that for many it is
Speaker 1: just that constant push and pull. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the chapters, I guess, the your Um opening one about
Speaker 1: waiting to be called wanting looking to be called a
Speaker 1: nigger and you're, you know, you're seventeen, and you're and
Speaker 1: you're you know, reflecting on that and I remember the
Speaker 1: first time that I was called a nigger, and I
Speaker 1: was sixteen, and I was at school in a you know,
Speaker 1: in my in my ap government in history class, and
Speaker 1: I remember coming home and saying to my mother, I
Speaker 1: don't understand how this happened, Like I thought that racism
Speaker 1: was dead. And my mother looked at me and was
Speaker 1: just like, oh, my god, I have done you the
Speaker 1: greatest disservice. Right. That's why I will I will never
Speaker 1: forget that for as long as I live, that she
Speaker 1: was so appalled at the fact that she had reared
Speaker 1: me and raised me in this wide ass suburb of
Speaker 1: of Long Island. Uh. And I was supposed to then
Speaker 1: just assume that, you know, I wasn't supposed to be
Speaker 1: entitled like everybody else was. I wasn't supposed to have
Speaker 1: the things that they have, um and think of myself
Speaker 1: in the same way and carry myself in the same
Speaker 1: way that they did. That like the world was my oyster.
Speaker 1: And so when I was reading, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: like what was the what was the feeling there? And
Speaker 1: I loved and I love the way that you talked
Speaker 1: about your your your parents and their use of the word.
Speaker 1: And there's always you know, you go back and forth
Speaker 1: between like the Oprah generation and the younger generations and
Speaker 1: the interpretation um of the word and the phrasing and
Speaker 1: hip hop and this that and the other thing. What was?
Speaker 1: What was? Tell? Tell folks, who who are you know?
Speaker 1: Picking up picking up the book about that chapter? Oh
Speaker 1: when um my agent Karya McKinnon um first um brought
Speaker 1: up first approachman um with the idea to invite a memoir,
Speaker 1: m I kind of pushed back a bit because I
Speaker 1: that wasn't my idea. My original idea for this book
Speaker 1: would be a group of essays kind of similar in structure,
Speaker 1: in form, and theme and content to how vsp is.
Speaker 1: Where let's say you have one chapter that's that's like
Speaker 1: a deconstruction of a white privilege, and then you have
Speaker 1: another chapter that's like a really in depth book spas
Speaker 1: or something, you know what I mean, another chapter about
Speaker 1: Kanye or you know, there's a book of essays about
Speaker 1: you know, different topics, some of them silly, some of
Speaker 1: them not as silly, more sober but not really not
Speaker 1: really connected to me, more connected to my five and
Speaker 1: ability when connect to me. And she was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that would be a great idea, but I
Speaker 1: think an even better one for you is to write
Speaker 1: the story about you, about your life and about you know,
Speaker 1: all the vulnerabilities and anxieties and acts and insecurities and
Speaker 1: all that that come with it. And then you can
Speaker 1: insert those cultural and racial insight and observations into that narrator.
Speaker 1: And so I agree because she's smarter than me and um.
Speaker 1: And so when I when I first sat down to
Speaker 1: write this book, first started thinking about it, that story
Speaker 1: about my parents that's in that first chapter was like
Speaker 1: I have, it's basically like the fullcirm of the book,
Speaker 1: because you know, for people haven't read I start the book,
Speaker 1: first chapter starts with a story where my parents are
Speaker 1: like racial harassed. I like this deli Pittsburg, you know,
Speaker 1: white boy behind a counter caused them niggers. My dad
Speaker 1: fights them, my mom is there, and my grandmother's there.
Speaker 1: They're throwing them like they're breaking glass. They're like there's
Speaker 1: like there's olives everywhere and pepperoni, even ice cream. It's
Speaker 1: like they basically cause a race ride. Okay, they get arrested,
Speaker 1: but then they get let go by a black sergeant
Speaker 1: or whatever who takes a look at them. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know what y'all are racey harassed, so you could
Speaker 1: go home, And I said, And my parents are the
Speaker 1: sort of people who like their story, you know, so barbecue's,
Speaker 1: birthday parties, wedding receptions, cook outs, whatever, They're always telling
Speaker 1: the story about this time, this amazing story. And so
Speaker 1: I'm like eight, nineteen years old here in the story
Speaker 1: all the time. But I had never been called a
Speaker 1: nigger before, but I kind of wanted to just I
Speaker 1: would have a cool story, like my parents said, And
Speaker 1: then it became like this sort of thing where it's like, yo,
Speaker 1: what am I? And again, this is me as like
Speaker 1: a eleven twelve an adolescent, as a young as a
Speaker 1: as a young teenager, questioning whether I was like black enough,
Speaker 1: whether white people considered me black enough to be called anager,
Speaker 1: and then just the absurdity of like of even thinking
Speaker 1: that and having that five and I'm a thinly called
Speaker 1: one from seventeen. I wait for a bus, a city bus,
Speaker 1: to take me somewhere in some white boy speeds by
Speaker 1: the four that's fifty in, screams nigger out of his
Speaker 1: passionate windows, and just keeps driving past. And you know,
Speaker 1: when it happened, like a part of me wanted to
Speaker 1: call like come back, whips lay now this is my moment.
Speaker 1: And then you know, you go about your life. I'll
Speaker 1: go about mine. I don't have a story, but he
Speaker 1: just kept driving and and it just gone on me
Speaker 1: right at that moment. How ridiculous it was too to
Speaker 1: give any sort of of of any sort of weight,
Speaker 1: any sort of prominence, any sort of important you know,
Speaker 1: um of my racial identity um and basically or the
Speaker 1: ridiculous sense of basing my racial identity on how white
Speaker 1: people feel about right right right um and And so
Speaker 1: that's the first chapter of the book. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to make it first because one, it's you know, the
Speaker 1: book is told in a chronological order, so that you know,
Speaker 1: by the end of the booker you know, deals with
Speaker 1: stuff that happens, you know, more in the present. But
Speaker 1: also I want people to know what type of book
Speaker 1: they were getting into, because that's a nigger in that
Speaker 1: chapter probably twenty five tive and and and also get
Speaker 1: the concept of one we called it mm hmmmm in
Speaker 1: the absurdity, in the in the humor in your two
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, this is this is what I'm getting.
Speaker 1: This is this is what I got into. Will read
Speaker 1: this book, okay, damon Um. I also I have a
Speaker 1: bone to pick with you because you said you said
Speaker 1: something very violent in this book. You said that Darius
Speaker 1: love Hall was trash, I mean, and I felt I felt,
Speaker 1: I felt abused. I felt like you took what is
Speaker 1: this sacred, sacred black film love Jones and turned it
Speaker 1: into something awful. And I want you, I want you to.
Speaker 1: I want you to explain yourself. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: if it's all there in the fact. I mean. So
Speaker 1: the to the movie starts, like, really, I don't you
Speaker 1: just need to watch the movie. Oh, don't tell me
Speaker 1: to watch my favorite movie. I have watched this movie
Speaker 1: time and time again. In the first fifteen minutes. Okay,
Speaker 1: So all right, So the movie starts. He's at what
Speaker 1: the sanctuary, the name of the sanctuary. He meets Nina
Speaker 1: at the bar Nana was it? Nina? Nina? Nina? Okay?
Speaker 1: Play yes, thank you, thank you. Daniel Um meets Nina
Speaker 1: at the bar, um for Twitter or whatever. She goes
Speaker 1: back to her see he goes on stage. He reads
Speaker 1: a poem that's addressed to her. Now, of course you're
Speaker 1: watching that movie. It's like, holy shit, that's the coolest
Speaker 1: thing ever that niggas John Blaze, Oh my god. But
Speaker 1: no one could write a poem that quickly, No one,
Speaker 1: and in the three minutes to talk from him being
Speaker 1: at the bar to be him being offstage with the
Speaker 1: instrumentation and everything that went along with it. So what
Speaker 1: really happened, what likely happened, is that he wrote a poem,
Speaker 1: he had already write a poem for some other woman,
Speaker 1: met her. It's like, you know what, yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: substitute and substitute her out wrong, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's definitely what we do. But you know, okay,
Speaker 1: and then and then and then this is even worse.
Speaker 1: And then he sees he shows that better crib. Yes,
Speaker 1: and randomly did he get did he get her address
Speaker 1: from her? Yeo, he got it from his homegirl who
Speaker 1: happened to be working in a record store that she's
Speaker 1: shopping in correct, which which I'm which I'm pretty certain
Speaker 1: as a crime it is, I'm pretty suposed to that
Speaker 1: also wrote oh yeah, crime go that that basically encasulates
Speaker 1: every romantic comedy from like nineteen eighty five or like
Speaker 1: two thousand and five. Correct a crime. But also romantic.
Speaker 1: It's a lifetime special waiting to happen. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is essentially what it is. But I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I had I grew up watching that movie and waiting
Speaker 1: to find my sanctuary and waiting to find that click
Speaker 1: of just slick ass, smart, brilliant, sexy, gorgeous black folk
Speaker 1: just being black and fine. I mean, I love the movie.
Speaker 1: I love the movie. I love The thing I love
Speaker 1: most about the movie is how in love Karen Twitcher
Speaker 1: is with his characters. Like you could tell that he
Speaker 1: he loves these people. He loves the way they talk,
Speaker 1: he loves the way and look, he loves the things
Speaker 1: that they do, and that sort of love that's sort
Speaker 1: of just infatuation with the with the characters. He's creating,
Speaker 1: the characters, he's de picture he's depicting. It's it's visceral,
Speaker 1: and it's one of those things that even you know,
Speaker 1: twenty years after, you know, twenty years later, over twenty
Speaker 1: years later, it's still you know, it's still sticks. It's
Speaker 1: still like a vital part of that story, you know.
Speaker 1: And so even though Darius probably should be in prison,
Speaker 1: the movie itself, the movie itself was great, and yeah,
Speaker 1: and I know it's it's it's it's cliche and it's
Speaker 1: a little sacarana part, but I still watch it and
Speaker 1: I feel now it's it's I gotta tell you, it's
Speaker 1: still one of my favorites. But I could not help
Speaker 1: but cackle out loud as you were basically telling me
Speaker 1: that this this leading man is a stalker and is
Speaker 1: a womanizer and belongs in jail. Um I it was.
Speaker 1: It was peak damon for me. It was peaked Damon
Speaker 1: Young when I can read and laugh all the way
Speaker 1: out loud and be like this nigga is crazy. UM,
Speaker 1: So damon. You know at um at the we're we're
Speaker 1: in living in this extraordinary um extraordinary time, um where
Speaker 1: we're living in the midst of this global pandemic that
Speaker 1: is hitting us, hitting our community harder than it's hitting
Speaker 1: any other community, and it is I think that the
Speaker 1: virus in and of itself is exasperating just what it
Speaker 1: really means to be living while black in America. All
Speaker 1: of the things that we have said, researchers have told
Speaker 1: us about, politicos have talked about, activists have fought about,
Speaker 1: we're seeing play out where in fact, to your point,
Speaker 1: when we opened up this conversation. Being black in America
Speaker 1: is an extreme sport and in many ways you are
Speaker 1: taking your life in your hands every single day depending
Speaker 1: on where you are, what your social socioeconomic class is,
Speaker 1: what your health status is, all of these different things.
Speaker 1: How are you grappling with that understanding in this moment? Lee? Probably?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. Like I then, we were
Speaker 1: joking beforehand before the call started about you know, you
Speaker 1: ask how I was doing, Yeah, and I said that,
Speaker 1: you know my response now it's like the stereotypical like
Speaker 1: church mom, black church moll respond, black church grandma response.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I'm just you know, just taking it
Speaker 1: one day at a time. It's one foot after the other,
Speaker 1: and you know, every day at wake up every day,
Speaker 1: open my eyes and the Good Lord, because that's how
Speaker 1: I feel now. Yeah, like I you know, I um so,
Speaker 1: I just wrote a piece actually for the Washington Post
Speaker 1: today on Day's Friday, the What's the Day? The tenth
Speaker 1: April tenth about just the absurdity of being told, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're black that you know, if you go outside
Speaker 1: and you're wearing a hoodie or you're wearing like a
Speaker 1: math or anything, else that obscure is your face. You're
Speaker 1: going to be thought up as a threat. You know,
Speaker 1: you might get shot, you might get it cont calling,
Speaker 1: you might get shot. Whatever. And now out they were
Speaker 1: masks on ye and just that that that that I get.
Speaker 1: It's irony. Actually it's it's it's an absurd and brutal
Speaker 1: irony of you know, being just having this one thing
Speaker 1: indocrinated into you. And then with this pandemic along with
Speaker 1: all the other brutalities, along with all the other brutalities
Speaker 1: that we have to experience. Now it's like, okay, now
Speaker 1: you're telling me to wear a mask, and and and
Speaker 1: the thing is and then there has been there's already
Speaker 1: been reports of black people getting harassed by law enforcement
Speaker 1: for wearing masks in public, like that's happening, Like there were, um,
Speaker 1: there were two young black men who were harassed by
Speaker 1: some police and Walmart kind of on the kind of
Speaker 1: on camera because they were massed up and Walmart police
Speaker 1: officer told them to leave the store. And so and
Speaker 1: we also know that no, yeah, we have this national
Speaker 1: mandate you know for social distancing, and implicit in that
Speaker 1: is to kind of cattle on people who are not
Speaker 1: social distancing. But what ends up happening is now you're
Speaker 1: having white people called a police on black people who
Speaker 1: are concerting in public. So you're just finding more and
Speaker 1: creating unique ways for blackness to be criminalized. And so
Speaker 1: along with us being uniquely vulnerable to this illness, we're
Speaker 1: also uniquely criminalized when we're trying to protect ourselves from it.
Speaker 1: I swear every day you can't win for losing um.
Speaker 1: It's just extraordinary, extraordinary, And I you know, I must,
Speaker 1: I must say to you that you're writing in so
Speaker 1: many ways, in so many different times, has gotten me
Speaker 1: through when there are bad headlines and I'm like, let
Speaker 1: me go and see what he's saying, um, and go
Speaker 1: to look at your latest writing, because you have such
Speaker 1: a beautiful way of being able to um even in
Speaker 1: the most even covering the most ghastly race relations, be
Speaker 1: able to sprinkle in humor that brings my shoulders down
Speaker 1: just a little bit, right. And and it's and it's
Speaker 1: with that ease and the eloquent way in which you
Speaker 1: put word to paper, I think is is so needed,
Speaker 1: um and and so incredibly inspiring. The last question that
Speaker 1: I ask folks on PM mood all the time is
Speaker 1: about how you get in the mood to change the world.
Speaker 1: How do you get yourself together? How do I get
Speaker 1: myself together to change the world? Oh? Wow, Um, I
Speaker 1: mean I eat. I eat a lot of grits and
Speaker 1: bacon and eggs. I'm a big breakfast mood person. I
Speaker 1: had a breakfast. We had a brunch wedding. Um, and
Speaker 1: so I um, that's my fuel. I guess I could
Speaker 1: eat even very healthy um in robots breakfast. That's how
Speaker 1: I get That's how I get in the mood. I
Speaker 1: love it. And then maybe then maybe I'll go listen
Speaker 1: to some um, I don't know, I don't even know what.
Speaker 1: Maybe listen to marmon, listen to What's going on? Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1: That could play on on on repeat, on absolute repeat
Speaker 1: these days. Damon, young author of What Doesn't Kill You
Speaker 1: Makes You Blacker? You must pick it up, Damon, And
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining PM mood and for
Speaker 1: the continued brilliance that you gift the world with. It's much.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you Danielle for having me. This is
Speaker 1: great fun. And yes, thank you to funk away from everybody.
Speaker 1: Correct correct, Thanks for listening to this week's PM Mood.
Speaker 1: Just a quick announcement, my other political podcast, Woke af Daily,
Speaker 1: is now on Patreon. You get me five days a week.
Speaker 1: Forget this, folks, just five dollars a month. That is
Speaker 1: five fresh shows a week for just five dollars a month.
Speaker 1: Thanks for staying loyal and helping to support independent media,
Speaker 1: and you can continue listening to PM Mood for free
Speaker 1: every single week. Stay in the PM mood to change
Speaker 1: the world.