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Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family Secrets, the secrets

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Speaker 2: that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others,

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Speaker 2: and the secrets we keep from ourselves. My guest today

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Speaker 2: is David Wright Falade, novelist, university professor, and author of

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Speaker 2: the recent essay in The New Yorker, The Truth About

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Speaker 2: My Father. David is a story of identity and belonging

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Speaker 2: and the extraordinary unfolding of a buried secret history.

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Speaker 3: My earliest memories are from Kansas City. I was born

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Speaker 3: in France, but we came here when I was around two,

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Speaker 3: So my earliest memories are from Kansas City, when I

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Speaker 3: was probably about four. My dad, Jack Wright, we called

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Speaker 3: him Dottie. My big sister Marriam and I were both

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Speaker 3: born in France, and it's just what we called him.

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Speaker 3: And it was only with age and I recognized that

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Speaker 3: what we were saying was daddy, but we'd learned to

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Speaker 3: pronounce it as little French kids. And so when we

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Speaker 3: were here, cousins with teesus and whatnot. But we lived

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Speaker 3: in a part of Kansas City in subsidized housing at

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Speaker 3: that time, sort of projects We called it the Gateway Apartments,

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Speaker 3: but it was a gateway to the West apartments, and

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Speaker 3: I learned later that the police called it the cancer

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Speaker 3: of Kansas City. It didn't feel I mean, you're a kid,

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Speaker 3: and you just you're there. We played outside and my

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Speaker 3: big sister and I were seventeen months apart and really close,

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Speaker 3: but that's the space we lived in, so I have

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Speaker 3: that first memory of there. And it was fairly tense

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Speaker 3: between Dottie and my mom, and they divorced right around then,

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Speaker 3: and we moved to Junction City, Kansas, where there was

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Speaker 3: a military base. My mom, she was a GI bride,

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Speaker 3: and another French GI bride that she knew, a woman

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Speaker 3: named Lilian who'd also married a Black GI, was stationed there,

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Speaker 3: and so we moved there. We lived with them for

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Speaker 3: a brief time. That part of Kansas was you know

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Speaker 3: Kansas as you would imagine, light rolled in grasslands and

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Speaker 3: all that, and we eventually were able to have our

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Speaker 3: own little house, my Mom and Miriam and I. Dottie

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Speaker 3: wasn't always the most responsible person with child support. I

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Speaker 3: got the document. Now he was ordered to pay fifty

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Speaker 3: dollars a month or something like that, but he sent

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Speaker 3: it irregularly. Another thing that I understood with time my mom,

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Speaker 3: when she was raising us by herself, or when she

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Speaker 3: was married, first to Dottie and then to my stepfather,

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Speaker 3: she felt most safe. Is this woman, this French jew

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Speaker 3: who had survived the Nazi occupation of Paris. People had

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Speaker 3: been to Porto, She'd lost family, they'd been in hiding

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Speaker 3: in her youth, and she was old enough to have

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Speaker 3: memories of this. Also, with this understanding of sort of

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Speaker 3: racism in the United States, she felt most comfortable when

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Speaker 3: we were on or near military basis. This is loving

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Speaker 3: v Virginia as nineteen sixty seven. I was born in

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Speaker 3: sixty four, about nineteen sixty eight sixty nine. Interracial couples

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Speaker 3: were just really, really rare, to the extent that I

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Speaker 3: remember when we were little kids, Miriam and I and

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Speaker 3: my mom and we'd see in you know, a mixed

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Speaker 3: race family on the street. We would point them out, smiling.

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Speaker 3: It was just that rare we felt for us. It

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Speaker 3: was like a sort of joy. For my mom. I

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Speaker 3: think she felt vulnerable and unsafe, so we typically lived

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Speaker 3: on or near military basis. I think it was more

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Speaker 3: than anything race. So I'm born in sixty four and

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Speaker 3: Mirriam was born in sixty two. We were both born

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Speaker 3: in France the Badatti and Mom married in fifty seven

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Speaker 3: and at first they're stationed in New Jersey and then Colorado.

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Speaker 3: But at one point he gets stationed in Georgia, and

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Speaker 3: this is like fifty eight to fifty nine. She can't go,

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Speaker 3: you know, as his white wife, and so she's in

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Speaker 3: Kansas City with his family and she's probably the only

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Speaker 3: white person around and has a sort of difficult relationship

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Speaker 3: with his family, his mother. So my grandmother, Dotty's mother

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Speaker 3: was shark with her, difficult with her. Maybe they had

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Speaker 3: just a difficult relationship. So I think she was just

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Speaker 3: fatally aware of a race more than anything. And also

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Speaker 3: it was just sort of the precarity, you know, the

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Speaker 3: danger of the sort of racial threat in the fifties

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Speaker 3: and sixties United States.

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Speaker 2: What sense did you have as a child growing up

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Speaker 2: of your mom's history as a child herself during the Holocaust.

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Speaker 2: I mean she was nine in France when she she.

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Speaker 3: Was born in thirty one, so when the Nazis occupied Paris, yes,

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Speaker 3: she was nine years old. And so that period of

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Speaker 3: Nazi occupation from forty to forty four, she was nine

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Speaker 3: to thirteen. Mom's pagental thouts, so her my grandfather's family

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Speaker 3: were really wealthy. It was this great upple, but it

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Speaker 3: would have been the quivalent of my mother's grandfather. He

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Speaker 3: was the president of the Antiquarian Society of Europe. I mean,

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Speaker 3: he was an art collector and they had this antique shop.

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Speaker 3: They were very, very, very wealthy, and so my mom

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Speaker 3: grew up in this real ease and comfort. And then

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Speaker 3: when the occupation happened, that person and his wife, well

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Speaker 3: he killed himself. She was deported. My grandfather was able

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Speaker 3: to get papers that didn't claim they were not Jewish,

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Speaker 3: but it diminished their jewishness before the law. So you know,

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Speaker 3: had the occupation gone on longer, they could have been

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Speaker 3: deported too, but they just weren't high up on the list.

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Speaker 3: And in that time they enrolled my mom in Catholic school,

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Speaker 3: Catholic day school, so she grew up in this. Really

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Speaker 3: she just was really conflicted I think about her identity

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Speaker 3: as a Jew. They were secular Jews, so I don't

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Speaker 3: know that she really understood herself as a Jew, even

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Speaker 3: though all her family, the people that they socialized with

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Speaker 3: were Jewish and then suddenly she had to try to

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Speaker 3: navigate this world where she's in Catholic school, she takes

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Speaker 3: holding Communion. She had this memory of these twin girls

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Speaker 3: who lived nearby teasing her and calling her a derogatory

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Speaker 3: name for Jewish, and she didn't quite understand what they

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Speaker 3: were saying. So I think it was very confusing for her,

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Speaker 3: and that contributed to the rebellion of the outrage that

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Speaker 3: she felt after the war.

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Speaker 2: David's mom stays with Dottie for about a decade before

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Speaker 2: they split up in nineteen sixty seven, shortly after she

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Speaker 2: meets a man named Ed Wheeler. Ed is about to

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Speaker 2: be sent to Vietnam. Just as the two fall in love,

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Speaker 2: they marry and Ed becomes David's stepfather. In turn, Dottie

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Speaker 2: now resides on the paternal periphery.

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Speaker 3: When Mom leaves, he's not very present, he's not sending

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Speaker 3: child support. And then when she starts dating at Wheeler,

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Speaker 3: but Dotty could be really funny. He would refer to

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Speaker 3: Ed Wheeler as Jesus Christ. Because my mom, I think,

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Speaker 3: just spoke up Ed Wheeler to anybody at the time,

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Speaker 3: and so he wasn't very present, but he was the

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Speaker 3: sort of person that people came to for help. His family,

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Speaker 3: my cousins and things like that, his brothers and sisters.

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Speaker 3: He was the person they would go to when they

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Speaker 3: needed anything, and he would always find it. And so again,

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Speaker 3: if we fast forward a little bit Ed Wheeler comes

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Speaker 3: back from Vietnam, we follow him to you, Arizona, where

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Speaker 3: he's stationed some Rencourt Air station out there. For some reason,

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Speaker 3: he has an army person is stationed there. And my

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Speaker 3: mom ended up getting pregnant and didn't want the child,

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Speaker 3: and Ed Wheeler and my mom got into a terrible fight, violent,

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Speaker 3: and she turns to Dottie. She calls Dottie. Dottie is

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Speaker 3: the one who sends us the money for bus tickets

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Speaker 3: from Yuma to LA, then sends you know, Wire's money

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Speaker 3: Western Union to LA, pays for the abortion, and then

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Speaker 3: wires it. So he's driving a cab at this time

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Speaker 3: he's not in the military. And then so the time

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Speaker 3: that he earns enough money, he then wires the money.

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Speaker 3: So we took a bus from Mom and Miriam and

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Speaker 3: I from LA to New York. And I remember that

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Speaker 3: parts of it we'd all sit right behind the bus driver.

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Speaker 3: I remember one bus driver told a joke, you know,

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Speaker 3: I'm whatever I am at that time six He's like

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Speaker 3: was stretched with an ow and ends with an oh

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Speaker 3: and is high in the middle. And my little six

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Speaker 3: year old Ed can't figured out it was pretty obviously.

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Speaker 3: He's like, Ohio, and we're going through Ohio. But we

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Speaker 3: end up in New York and I remember being in JFK.

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Speaker 3: I remember wooden benches at that time, and Dotty wired

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Speaker 3: the money and we got a flight back to France,

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Speaker 3: where my mom wanted to be. She didn't want to

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Speaker 3: be in Kansas City. She couldn't be in Yuma. So

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Speaker 3: he was that person who when you needed him, he

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Speaker 3: was there, but if not. There was a period of

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Speaker 3: five years we kind of disappeared from Mirus in my life.

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Speaker 3: So he was a conflicted character. He was a difficult character,

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Speaker 3: but a big soul too.

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Speaker 2: There's a line in your Wonderful piece in the New

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Speaker 2: Yorker identity is rooted in place as well as in parentage.

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Speaker 2: So what rooted you and how did you think about

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Speaker 2: fatherhood as in your father during those years, how did

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Speaker 2: you think about paternity? Dottie was your father, Ed Wheeler

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Speaker 2: became your stepfather, there's so much that strikes me in

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Speaker 2: your story of these kinds of fractures that then aren't fractures,

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Speaker 2: or that are potentially confusing for a kid. I mean,

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Speaker 2: how did all that reside for you during those years?

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Speaker 3: This hole's really true when I think about that time,

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Speaker 3: even as an adult, but as a kid, my understanding

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Speaker 3: of family was my mom, Miriam and me, and Dottie

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Speaker 3: was important and present at a young age. But I

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Speaker 3: was so young. When they're fighting and they split up

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Speaker 3: and we end up indruction City and intruction City, it's

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Speaker 3: really just us. If Miriam was part of this conversation,

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Speaker 3: she would recount many of the same things, but have

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Speaker 3: a slightly different slant, by which I mean for Miriam.

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Speaker 3: I think it was more difficult for me. My family

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Speaker 3: was Mom and Miriam and me, and they were miriam

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Speaker 3: Is just as much as my mom took care of me.

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Speaker 3: As fathers came in, it was sometimes difficult. And I

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Speaker 3: think that that my understanding of race, of myself as

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Speaker 3: a black person, is tied to that. My mom always

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Speaker 3: felt like she felt like I needed a black man

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Speaker 3: in my life. I think she was drawn to black men,

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Speaker 3: but she also felt like if there was going to

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Speaker 3: be a man in our lives, it was going to

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Speaker 3: be a black man, and so she dated black men.

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Speaker 3: But for me until we move with Ed Wheeler, after

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Speaker 3: they get together, after the you My Arizona breakup, they

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Speaker 3: get back together eventually. Until then, family to me was

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Speaker 3: Mom and Miriam at the time that we lived in

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Speaker 3: the Gabway apartment, so it's you know, it's Dotty Miriam,

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Speaker 3: me and Mom. And my mom used to have like

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Speaker 3: what was called a vanity, you know, like that sort

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Speaker 3: of little bureau with a mirror, and that's where she'd

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Speaker 3: put on makeup at the beginning of the day. And

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Speaker 3: as she recasts this event, like I'm over her shoulder

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Speaker 3: watching or she's putting on makeup, and I'm really fixed

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Speaker 3: on her, you know, like I was just sort of

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Speaker 3: an adoration before my mother. And at a certain point

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Speaker 3: I turned her and I point to myself in the mirror,

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Speaker 3: and I go, who's that colored boy? Because I don't

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Speaker 3: think I understood, Like I think what I thought of myself.

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Speaker 3: I thought of myself as like my mom that so

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Speaker 3: I should therefore look like my mom, as this white person.

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Speaker 3: So I think that it was all kind of in

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Speaker 3: my little four year old head was kind of muddled

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Speaker 3: and in my mom I can't remember how she responded,

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Speaker 3: but like that's you and da da dah, and you know,

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Speaker 3: I think she's become very aware of helping me understand race.

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Speaker 3: But I think that that ties into how she felt

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Speaker 3: like Miriam and I both needed and maybe I especially

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Speaker 3: needed a black man in my life, and I think

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Speaker 3: it becomes associated with that. To me, it's it's more

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Speaker 3: like me, Miriam and my mom and then these men

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Speaker 3: who might be part of our lives that I might

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Speaker 3: more or less feel close to.

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Speaker 2: When David's mom and Ed Wheeler get back together, the

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Speaker 2: family follows him to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. They spend three

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Speaker 2: years there. After Ed Wheeler retires from the Army, they

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Speaker 2: end up in Amarillo, Texas, when David is about eleven.

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Speaker 2: David and Miriam are two of four black students in

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Speaker 2: the entire middle school in Amarillo. Here, David encounters racism

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Speaker 2: for the first time, or at least this is his

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Speaker 2: first conscious experience of it. Some other boys pin him

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Speaker 2: down in the playground, hold him down, and give him

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Speaker 2: something called red belly. After the school treats this as

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Speaker 2: just a prank, not racism.

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Speaker 3: When we moved to Amarillo, we're in a space where

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Speaker 3: we are the no biracial families that I remember, and Amula,

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Speaker 3: there's a black Community's small, but there's one. But that's

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Speaker 3: not where we lived. We lived on the outside of

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Speaker 3: town at the Texas State Technical Institute, where my stepdad

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Speaker 3: to good job in security. And so, yeah, we're four

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Speaker 3: black kids. I'm the only black boy, and I remember

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Speaker 3: sort of the class clown in my class, funny kid,

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Speaker 3: but he was kind of also you know, western shirt,

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Speaker 3: big belt buckle, sort of stereotypical, and I'm aware enough

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Speaker 3: to be leery, but he was one of the boys

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Speaker 3: that jumped me on the playground and they hold me

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Speaker 3: down and just that feeling of power, I mean, the

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Speaker 3: red bellies when they hold you down and they expose

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Speaker 3: your stomach and then they just slap you know, stomach

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Speaker 3: with their open hand until your skin turns red. They

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Speaker 3: called a red belly. It hurts, I have to say,

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Speaker 3: but it was less the hurt than that, you know,

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Speaker 3: to be physically held down and restrained in that way,

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Speaker 3: vulnerable in that way, completely vulnerable, and it's these white boys. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: to me, it was a completely like racialized hazing, and

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Speaker 3: you know in the school again, the school is just like, ah,

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Speaker 3: these these are boys. They just sort of ride it off.

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Speaker 3: But in my family, we understand like this is a problem.

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Speaker 3: And so Miram and I actually went back to Lawton

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Speaker 3: where Fort Sill was and lived with my mom's friend

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Speaker 3: for a while so that we wouldn't be in that school.

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Speaker 3: And then when we came back to Amberillo, one of

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Speaker 3: our neighbors taught at a school in town that was

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Speaker 3: more racially mixed, and my mom found somebody's address and

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Speaker 3: used the address that we could enroll in that school,

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Speaker 3: and we ended up going to that school. The hazing

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Speaker 3: actually continued in weird ways for both of us. Merriam

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Speaker 3: and I met a little bit less so, but you know,

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Speaker 3: it was a very it was a mixed school that

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Speaker 3: there was a black population. It wasn't huge, but it

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Speaker 3: was notable. It was a very big a Mexican American population,

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Speaker 3: and probably a white population about the same size as

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Speaker 3: the black population. But in that mixedness it was it

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Speaker 3: could be kind of a rough school. And I remember Miriam,

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Speaker 3: I didn't notice what had happened, but she told me

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Speaker 3: afterwards like she had been being hazed by black girls

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Speaker 3: because she's like complected and she's you know, pretty, and

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Speaker 3: these black girls were threatening Miriam and she ended up

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Speaker 3: taking a steak knife to school to defend herself. Emerl

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Speaker 3: wasn't great for us.

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Speaker 2: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.

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Speaker 2: In David's personal history piece in The New Yorker, he writes,

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Speaker 2: indignation simmered within me, a rising fury at the sweep

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Speaker 2: and scope of the horrors that we African Americans had

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Speaker 2: born since our very beginnings. That feeling is also coupled

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Speaker 2: with a tinge of shame that comes from a long

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Speaker 2: history of oppression. Then one evening, David and his family

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Speaker 2: watched the Alex Haley television series Roots, a cultural sensation

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Speaker 2: when it came out in nineteen seventy seven, And so like.

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Speaker 3: We are watching Roots together and I don't know why.

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Speaker 3: It wasn't conscious, it was subconscious, but I just I

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Speaker 3: just I just didn't want to do it. I just

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Speaker 3: was like, I don't want to see that we all

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Speaker 3: have to do it. Part of it like being a

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Speaker 3: eleven to twelve year old resisting what her parents want

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Speaker 3: to do, but in retrospect, part of me understands, or

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Speaker 3: I think I understand that there was something deeper going on.

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Speaker 3: My mom made me sit there, so I sat there

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Speaker 3: and watch and completely getting grossed from the beginning. And

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Speaker 3: as I'm watching sort of you know Punti Quinte's experiences

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Speaker 3: first in Africa and then you know he's in the

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Speaker 3: United States, and we're watching this as a family, My mom,

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Speaker 3: my stepdad, my little sister, shaw Tala is born at

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Speaker 3: that point. She's way too young to know what she's watching,

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Speaker 3: but she's sitting in my mom's lap. And over the

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Speaker 3: course of having that experience felt to sort of racial

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Speaker 3: awakening where there's a certain pride. J are you're feeling

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Speaker 3: this moments? I mean, it just was a moving experience

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Speaker 3: for me. And this again is when we're at Ambrillo,

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Speaker 3: so that hazing experience that happened, Ream and I at

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Speaker 3: this point are in the school in town. So there's

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Speaker 3: this feeling of black pride but also at anger. So

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Speaker 3: pride and anger that this is what we, as black

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Speaker 3: people we were subjected to, but also a little bit

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Speaker 3: of a tinge of shame that we are also associated

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Speaker 3: with these people who were constantly diminished and depressed and whatever.

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Speaker 3: So it was a really complex feeling, Like I feel

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Speaker 3: like the resistance that I didn't probably have words for

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Speaker 3: that made me a little averse to what I was

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Speaker 3: about to watch had something to do with that when

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Speaker 3: I watch it. When I watched this series over the

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Speaker 3: course of that week, you know that it comes on

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Speaker 3: or whatever. You know, I feel this pride and this

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Speaker 3: anger and a rebelliousness that I'm trying and hear it

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Speaker 3: from my mother on some level, but it's beginning to

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Speaker 3: find voice. But there was also a little hint of

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Speaker 3: shame that was mixed in there too that I have

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Speaker 3: to acknowledge.

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Speaker 2: After Amarillo, David and his family follow ed Wheeler again,

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Speaker 2: this time to Borger, Oklahoma. This feels like a whole

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Speaker 2: new world, described by David as the epitome of late

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Speaker 2: seventies Bible Belt, socially conservative Christian symbolism everywhere proselytizing in

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Speaker 2: this landscape, David begins to learn code switching as he

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Speaker 2: continues to question and develop his identity. He's always been

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Speaker 2: a self described mama's boy, but now that his mom

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Speaker 2: is made sure her son has yet another male presence

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Speaker 2: in his life, David's leaning more toward traditional male behaviors

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Speaker 2: and activities. For instance, he joins the football team. This

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Speaker 2: is also when he really begins to clock and navigate

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Speaker 2: the racial nuances around him.

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Speaker 3: When we first moved to Borger, there's still a Black

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Speaker 3: You Center and a White Youth Center, at least that's

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Speaker 3: what they call them. The White You Center everybody can

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Speaker 3: go to, but mostly black folks didn't. That's where the

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Speaker 3: pool was, and the Black You Center only black folks

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Speaker 3: went to. You know, it wasn't sort of hardline segregation

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Speaker 3: like it had probably been ten years before, but the

341
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Speaker 3: remnants were still there. As a kid, you don't quite

342
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Speaker 3: know what you're seeing, but that was how it was.

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Speaker 3: But even though that stuff was there, people were just

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Speaker 3: kind of friendly. You're driving down the street and people

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Speaker 3: hank at you in wave and like aftertime you're like,

346
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Speaker 3: I don't know who that is. But it was friendly

347
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Speaker 3: in that way. And I think also I was maturing

348
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Speaker 3: as a racial being, sort of learning to coachwitch and

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Speaker 3: navigate these spaces and all that. One of my first

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Speaker 3: best friends was a Mexican American kid named Lord Gardunio

351
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Speaker 3: Jerry Paul Smith down the street with his white kid

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Speaker 3: But then from school, Leroy Horton, who to this day

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Speaker 3: is still one of my best friends, was a black

354
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Speaker 3: kid from the other side of town. So I just

355
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Speaker 3: had just a more diverse experience and generally people were

356
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Speaker 3: more friendly, and even though the racism was there, it wasn't.

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Speaker 3: It could be on the surface, but it wasn't necessarily

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Speaker 3: on the surface. And the other difference was that my

359
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Speaker 3: stepdad was hired by the sheriff to be a deputy sheriff,

360
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Speaker 3: and he was the first black deputy sheriff in the county.

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Speaker 3: There was another a black man named Greg Belton who

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Speaker 3: was an engineer and he was active, like on the

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Speaker 3: school board. But aside from that that, we were kind

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Speaker 3: of the black bourgeoisie of Borger to the degree which

365
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Speaker 3: serves a black bourgeoisie and Borger and it is bourgeois,

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Speaker 3: so we had the different sort of class and caste

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Speaker 3: experience too in that way. I mean, I probably had

368
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Speaker 3: some inclusive code switching before then, but it really is

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Speaker 3: something that I'm very consciously doing at that point when

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Speaker 3: we moved to Borger in seventh eighth grade.

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Speaker 2: Perhaps unsurprisingly, there's also a huge church culture in Borger.

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Speaker 2: In the pervasive tension between being both insider and outsider.

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Speaker 2: David starts to attend. It's not like he is committed,

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Speaker 2: but he is curious. But then one day, all of

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Speaker 2: a sudden, he finds himself being saved.

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Speaker 3: My friend Jerry Paul, he went to that church, and

377
00:20:07,760 --> 00:20:09,800
Speaker 3: my football coach was at the church, and he taught

378
00:20:09,800 --> 00:20:13,600
Speaker 3: our Sunday school class, and it was very social to me.

379
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Speaker 3: It was like guys from the team and my friends,

380
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Speaker 3: and I mean these are the kids that like, at night,

381
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Speaker 3: we're sneaking out of the house and were like, you know,

382
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Speaker 3: vandalizing stuff, and we called it being roguish. I mean,

383
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Speaker 3: there was nothing Christian about my friendship with these boys,

384
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Speaker 3: but on Sunday we would get together at church and

385
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Speaker 3: the youth minister and my coach and then eventually the

386
00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:33,600
Speaker 3: preacher were like, have you thought about being saved? Have

387
00:20:33,680 --> 00:20:36,280
Speaker 3: you felt christ in your life? And then one day

388
00:20:36,280 --> 00:20:38,800
Speaker 3: it just sort of kind of happened bigger than me,

389
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Speaker 3: and I just was like, yeah, you know, I felt

390
00:20:41,520 --> 00:20:43,760
Speaker 3: really good about it, like in this way, like I

391
00:20:43,800 --> 00:20:45,359
Speaker 3: don't know that it was the I mean, I'm sure

392
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Speaker 3: on some level was the Christian part of it. You know,

393
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Speaker 3: I'd sort of been receiving all these messages about heaven

394
00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:54,480
Speaker 3: and Hell again it's fire and Brimstone Church, Heaven and Hell.

395
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Speaker 3: And all my other friends Lee Roy across town. I'd

396
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Speaker 3: go to church with him sometimes because his mother was

397
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Speaker 3: very religon just I mean, Christianity was just part of

398
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Speaker 3: the culture. And so when I get saved, I think,

399
00:21:05,640 --> 00:21:09,000
Speaker 3: I'm I think I'm understanding myself as as being Christian.

400
00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:14,119
Speaker 3: I don't think I fully understand how that might have

401
00:21:14,200 --> 00:21:16,480
Speaker 3: implications on me being Jewish, because I understand myself to

402
00:21:16,520 --> 00:21:19,400
Speaker 3: be Jewish. But I'm just like, you know, hey, And

403
00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:23,080
Speaker 3: but my mom, she was she could be mad. She

404
00:21:23,119 --> 00:21:24,760
Speaker 3: had She was a tiny, tiny wish. She was like

405
00:21:24,800 --> 00:21:27,359
Speaker 3: five to one. You know, I'm her son, I'm her child.

406
00:21:27,359 --> 00:21:29,120
Speaker 3: I had seen her mad, but I had never seen

407
00:21:29,119 --> 00:21:31,800
Speaker 3: her mad like that. When I came home from being saved,

408
00:21:31,840 --> 00:21:34,560
Speaker 3: I was all like, you know, in the clouds, sort

409
00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:36,320
Speaker 3: of like, oh, I just had this great experience and

410
00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:38,240
Speaker 3: I'm feeling good about myself and I'm going to heaven

411
00:21:38,359 --> 00:21:41,280
Speaker 3: and I'm part of this community. And she was waiting

412
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Speaker 3: for me in the yard because the preacher, who had,

413
00:21:43,720 --> 00:21:46,240
Speaker 3: you know, asked if I was feeling the Lord or whatever.

414
00:21:46,600 --> 00:21:49,320
Speaker 3: He had gone home and told her, which was first

415
00:21:49,359 --> 00:21:51,240
Speaker 3: mistake back at his part, because I think he got

416
00:21:51,680 --> 00:21:55,040
Speaker 3: probably worse than I did. My mom was not afraid to,

417
00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:57,919
Speaker 3: you know, get in somebody's face. But then when I,

418
00:21:58,200 --> 00:21:59,840
Speaker 3: you know, walk down the street and she's sitting in

419
00:21:59,840 --> 00:22:02,840
Speaker 3: the are, she started screaming at me. When she saw me,

420
00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:05,480
Speaker 3: she was outraged, and I think it was because she

421
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:09,120
Speaker 3: was very struck by the hypocrisy of how she experienced

422
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Speaker 3: what she felt like was a hypocrisy of Christianity the

423
00:22:11,080 --> 00:22:13,919
Speaker 3: United States. Even though she was not a practicing Jewan anywhere,

424
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Speaker 3: she always wore a Star of David, very prominently a pendant,

425
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Speaker 3: and I never asked her actually, but she must have

426
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Speaker 3: experienced it as some sort of betrayal.

427
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Speaker 2: Well. It's fascinating because she was very focused on and

428
00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:33,040
Speaker 2: made sure that there would be a black man as

429
00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:37,680
Speaker 2: a role model in your life, and understood that as

430
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 2: a biracial man, a boy, you would be walking through

431
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 2: life recognized as black, not recognized as Jewish. I mean,

432
00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:50,760
Speaker 2: you weren't wearing a Star of David, right.

433
00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:53,439
Speaker 3: I think the thing that my mother feared I was

434
00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:56,840
Speaker 3: betraying was race, at least as much as not more

435
00:22:56,840 --> 00:23:00,679
Speaker 3: than Jewish is, because both Dottie and Ed Wheeler were

436
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:04,480
Speaker 3: Christian and Dotty wasn't practicing in any way. He was

437
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:06,399
Speaker 3: sort of he was a jokestra and he wouldn't make

438
00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:09,000
Speaker 3: jokes about anything, and he would call himself Christian, I'm sure,

439
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:10,919
Speaker 3: but he wouldn't go to church. But his family very

440
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:13,280
Speaker 3: much so you know, his mother Midi right with whom

441
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:15,919
Speaker 3: my mother had a complicated a difficult relationship, and his

442
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:19,960
Speaker 3: sister his older son were very Christian. But Ed Wheeler too.

443
00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:22,480
Speaker 3: There was a time where when they were first dating,

444
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:24,400
Speaker 3: when we were still in Joussian City, where we went

445
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:27,360
Speaker 3: to church with him a few times. So it wasn't,

446
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:30,119
Speaker 3: or at least it wasn't mostly the Christianity part. I

447
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:32,600
Speaker 3: think it's the fact of that white church. And I

448
00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:35,920
Speaker 3: learned this from Miriam because Miriam overheard everything, which he's

449
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 3: you know, cussing out the creature, but the note that

450
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 3: it ends on he had two daughters and she says

451
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 3: to him, what are you going to do when my

452
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:45,640
Speaker 3: son wants to date your daughters? So for her it's

453
00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:49,359
Speaker 3: the racial piece. It's the racial threat that me and

454
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:52,200
Speaker 3: this white community, and as a black boy, and I'm

455
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:54,360
Speaker 3: interacting with these people and they're calling me, you know,

456
00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:57,959
Speaker 3: their brother or their whatever in Christ. But you know,

457
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:01,600
Speaker 3: if I step across some line that I maybe she

458
00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:04,199
Speaker 3: fears I don't know how to navigate, like this is

459
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:08,800
Speaker 3: I mean, a real threat. Not so long after that,

460
00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:11,560
Speaker 3: it was the summer that I was sixteen. There was

461
00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:14,280
Speaker 3: a small town named Stanette, about ten miles away. It's

462
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:16,680
Speaker 3: much smaller than Borger, maybe a few thousand people. But

463
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 3: one of my best friends was this kidnamed Bud, a

464
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:21,000
Speaker 3: white kid, and but now were really close. But he

465
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 3: was dating this girl from Stanett, a white girl. But

466
00:24:24,080 --> 00:24:26,359
Speaker 3: the three of us were hanging out, and I remember

467
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:28,080
Speaker 3: I was working at this place called the Mister Burger.

468
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 3: It was just this little drive through burger place and

469
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 3: I was the only person there. The manager had quit

470
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:33,720
Speaker 3: and I basically ran the place, even though I wasn't

471
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 3: technically the manager. And Bud pulls up and he's like, yeah,

472
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:38,959
Speaker 3: these guys for Stinette, they want to kick your ass.

473
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:40,840
Speaker 3: And I was like huh. And they're like, they think

474
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:43,720
Speaker 3: you're dating Susan and I was like what, And so

475
00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:47,560
Speaker 3: you know, again testosterone, sixteen year old me and budd

476
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:49,000
Speaker 3: get in the car and we wround up some guys

477
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:51,960
Speaker 3: and it's mostly other white guys, interestingly, but from them,

478
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 3: their point of view is sort of Borger versus Stanette.

479
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 3: When we get there, I realize, you know, this fight

480
00:24:56,880 --> 00:25:00,639
Speaker 3: that's about to happen, this is potentially dangerous. And Susan

481
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 3: comes and she's crying, and she was there visiting her uncle.

482
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:06,240
Speaker 3: She was saying how her uncle, so a grown man,

483
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:09,680
Speaker 3: had gathered some of his friends and they had guns.

484
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:14,399
Speaker 3: So my mom's fear was not it wasn't irrational. This

485
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 3: is a real danger, and between those experiences, I always

486
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:21,439
Speaker 3: sort of understand that it's there, but I understand in

487
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:24,640
Speaker 3: real terms that I could die, This could end very

488
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:29,360
Speaker 3: poorly for me. So my mom's fears weren't unreal, right, right,

489
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:30,119
Speaker 3: of course?

490
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it strikes me that the whole insider

491
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 2: outsider dynamic only goes so far right, you're an insider

492
00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 2: until until you're not.

493
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 3: And maybe it's too late at that point to retract

494
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 3: or to back up. Yeah.

495
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:53,399
Speaker 2: The spring David turned sixteen, his mom's marriage to Ed

496
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:58,440
Speaker 2: Wheeler is deteriorating. They're heading toward divorce. It's during this

497
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 2: time David's mom and sits him down to tell him something,

498
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 2: something worth shaking.

499
00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:08,160
Speaker 3: They had gotten together and split up so many times.

500
00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:10,480
Speaker 3: I mean, they had a really rocky relationship. And at

501
00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 3: this point on the one end, I'm born again. You know,

502
00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 3: I'm pretty you can't see it, but I'm putting your quotes.

503
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:18,800
Speaker 3: I'm bored grand I'm Christian in some way. And he

504
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:22,360
Speaker 3: wants to hold this secret that she has told him

505
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 3: over her head as a way to I don't know,

506
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:28,359
Speaker 3: shame her in front of me, or I don't know

507
00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 3: exactly what his motivation was. So she beat him to

508
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 3: the puncha. She sits me down. She goes, you need

509
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:36,400
Speaker 3: to know that, you know, Dottie, isn't your father. Your

510
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:39,160
Speaker 3: real father is this man, Max falla Day. And it's

511
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 3: this man I knew from my youth. He was my

512
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 3: first love. And when you know, we were stationed in

513
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:48,159
Speaker 3: France after Miriam was born. Dottie had always been a

514
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:50,040
Speaker 3: little bit of a lady's and he was very handsome.

515
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 3: He was tall and carried himself in that way, and

516
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 3: he had not been faithful, and my mom was like

517
00:26:55,119 --> 00:26:57,439
Speaker 3: an eye for an eye. This is how she's explaining

518
00:26:57,520 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 3: to me and you know, it makes a certain sense

519
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 3: of me. Know how I knew my mom and she's like,

520
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 3: she told me she'd only they'd only slept together once,

521
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,399
Speaker 3: which I find as an adult, I find kind of improbable.

522
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:07,439
Speaker 3: But she told me we'd only slept together once. But

523
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 3: I got pregnant, and so Max Valade is your real father.

524
00:27:11,080 --> 00:27:13,399
Speaker 3: And at this point, you know, Africa to me is

525
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 3: still like, you know, what I'd learned from roots, LeVar

526
00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 3: Burton and OJ Simpson in the forest or whatever. You know,

527
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:22,199
Speaker 3: I have no conception of what Africa is. It's a

528
00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:26,120
Speaker 3: UNICEF commercial where they're wanting change or something for starving children.

529
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:30,160
Speaker 3: But she's like, you know, he comes from Dahome and

530
00:27:30,359 --> 00:27:32,840
Speaker 3: he's an architect, and he works for the un and

531
00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 3: he's from this very distinguished family, and so you need

532
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:40,200
Speaker 3: to know this. My reaction was the oppostion where my

533
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,439
Speaker 3: stepdad would have expected. To me, it just it just

534
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 3: made a weird sort of sense. I had no idea

535
00:27:44,680 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 3: who Max Validay was, but I it just made a

536
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:49,640
Speaker 3: weird sort of sense to me. It's hard to.

537
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 2: Explain why, even in the instant.

538
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 3: Even in the instance, it sort of made a weird

539
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 3: sort of sense. My mom. She had this thing what

540
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:04,439
Speaker 3: she interpreted of the character of her men with the

541
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 3: character of her children. So Dottie was a tricker. So

542
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 3: her big fear for Miriam was at Miriam would be

543
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 3: an alcoholic with Ed Wheeler, you know, he could be

544
00:28:12,400 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 3: very kind of petty, he could be kind of small,

545
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 3: and he was, yeah, vindictive and all that, and she

546
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:20,119
Speaker 3: would fear that. Shall tell my little sister inherited that.

547
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 3: And with me, I don't know, she just put different

548
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 3: expectations on me. I mean, I didn't seek to explain it,

549
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 3: but it wasn't easily explicable. Had I Miriam Micheal both

550
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 3: are really smart, and Miriam was always like I had

551
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 3: idolized Mirham. She was just so sharp, she read and

552
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 3: she was super funny. In my mind, she was the

553
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,080
Speaker 3: smart one. But I was always treated as the smart kid,

554
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 3: and I think it sort of associated with things like that.

555
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 3: And so when when I get this information, I find

556
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 3: out he's from this distinguished family and he was, you know,

557
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 3: the first West African to graduate from it called de

558
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 3: Boza in Paris. You know, I was like, okay, it

559
00:28:56,880 --> 00:28:58,280
Speaker 3: just made a certain sense.

560
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, yeah, I do, And really a feeling

561
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 2: of like, oh, every like the pieces are falling into

562
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 2: place now.

563
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, very much, so I wrote in this letter. I mean,

564
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 3: I'm also like I'm sixteen, and so I'm also becoming

565
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 3: more independent, autonomous. I was, you know, developing as a

566
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:16,960
Speaker 3: football player. I was ranked high in my class. You know,

567
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 3: I just was getting closer with Dottie. I never had

568
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 3: a close relationship with Ed Wheeler, but you know, I

569
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 3: was just my own person in my own mind. And

570
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 3: so when I find out about Max Falla Da, the

571
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 3: letter that I wrote was just sort of like, dear Max.

572
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:32,600
Speaker 3: I'm sure I called him Max. My mom told me

573
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 3: I found out Da Da Da. It was more or

574
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 3: less just I wanted you to know that I know.

575
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 3: And he wrote me a letter back totally that was

576
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 3: very neutral. What I remember most distinctly is he wrote

577
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 3: me in English. He's like, I need you to know

578
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 3: that there is nothing for you. I have nothing for you.

579
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:52,840
Speaker 3: And it wasn't that it felt like a rejection. I

580
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 3: think it just felt it's stung because I deliberately did

581
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 3: not ask him for anything. You know, I was like going, hey,

582
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 3: I want to meet you have nothing. It was just

583
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 3: sort of like, I know and his response was to

584
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 3: sort of create this distance. But even more so, the

585
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 3: thing that I understood from how my mom had told

586
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,240
Speaker 3: me about him, her best friend growing up was these

587
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:14,480
Speaker 3: two African women, and one of them I had met

588
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 3: when we lived in France briefly, maybe both of them,

589
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 3: but one of them, and they were It turns out

590
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 3: these are her relatives. What is his sister, and other

591
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 3: is his niece, And those were my mom's best friends

592
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 3: from growing up, and they remained best friends. So I

593
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 3: knew I had a sense of the fila of day family,

594
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 3: or at least as these figures that I had met

595
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 3: when I was six, and so what she's telling me

596
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 3: about him when I'm sixteen, that was part of it

597
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:40,520
Speaker 3: making sense. And so his complete rejection in that way

598
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:43,920
Speaker 3: felt like it wasn't just of me but also of her,

599
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 3: and that because I to this day I admired my mom.

600
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 3: She was complicated and difficult, and I'm not sure she

601
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 3: always made the best choices, but I loved her then

602
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 3: and love her still and admired her, and so for

603
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 3: him to treat her in that way, in my eyes,

604
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 3: was worse than what Ed Wheeler was threatening to do

605
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 3: or Ed Wheeler had ever done. It was really it

606
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:04,160
Speaker 3: felt terrible because it felt like it said something about

607
00:31:04,160 --> 00:31:04,480
Speaker 3: my mom.

608
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,680
Speaker 2: And you also, I think had or developed the sense

609
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 2: that he was her one true love, that there was

610
00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 2: a quality of their relationship that was unrequited for her. Yeah,

611
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:21,440
Speaker 2: and somehow this was the beginning of him letting you

612
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:21,720
Speaker 2: know that.

613
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:24,720
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean she said as much when she was

614
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 3: explaining to me the affair. She was like, he was

615
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 3: my first love. And she said it subsequently, and not

616
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 3: just to me, but to Miria Michelle Tall. She's like,

617
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 3: you know, this is the man that I truly love.

618
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:38,080
Speaker 3: She told me she was first attracted to Ed Wheeler

619
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 3: because they had the same voice. The Valadays all the

620
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 3: men and the women all have a very grave voice,

621
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 3: and I do too, And she would say that she

622
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 3: was first drawn to Ed Wheeler because he had Max

623
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 3: Valaday's voice, and so, yeah, I understood the depth of

624
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 3: her feeling for him, and the thing on the other

625
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 3: end was so unreciprocated. It just it was painful. It

626
00:32:03,120 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 3: was really painful.

627
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 2: David's sixteen seventeen. He's thinking about college, becoming more and

628
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 2: more autonomous. When he starts taking PSATs and thinking about

629
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 2: where he might want to go. He knows two things

630
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 2: for sure. He wants to play college football, and he's

631
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 2: not going to school in Texas. He ends up very

632
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 2: much in a place that is not Texas, far from

633
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:36,400
Speaker 2: the Panhandle, at Carlton College in Minnesota. As for Max Falladay,

634
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 2: David packs that information up into a box and intends

635
00:32:40,600 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 2: to move on with his life. If his father doesn't

636
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 2: want to have anything to do with him, well, then

637
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 2: the feeling is mutual. Max Faladay is nothing more than

638
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 2: a bullet point. David has a great experience at Carlton,

639
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 2: becomes captain of the football team, and is on his

640
00:32:57,120 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 2: way to earning his BA when his mother calls. She

641
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 2: had stayed in contact with Max, and Max has told

642
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 2: her that he wants David to come visit him in

643
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 2: Addis Ababa, where he's employed by the UN Economic Commission

644
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 2: for Africa.

645
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 3: It very much cold cocked me. It was very very unexpected,

646
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 3: and it was also coupled at the time. So Dottie

647
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 3: had been a drinker and I had been with him

648
00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 3: as he was getting sick and he ended up developing

649
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 3: gangreen and so he's hospitalized and you know, they amputated

650
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 3: toe and then another toe, and eventually a foot. And

651
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 3: at the end of this process, it happens over two years.

652
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:37,080
Speaker 3: But at the end of this process, you know, he's

653
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:39,200
Speaker 3: basically gotten either legs and he's living in a nursing home.

654
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 3: And this is happening at the time that my mom

655
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 3: is like, Max wants to meet you, Dottie. At that

656
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 3: point we had grown close. Again. I'm not a grown man.

657
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 3: I'm a college student, but I feel like a grown man.

658
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 3: And I'm on my own in Minnesota. And on the

659
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 3: way to Minnesota, I would spend time with Dottie and

660
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 3: one time he told me, you know, this is before

661
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 3: the gangreen, but he had told me, you know, captain

662
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 3: of the football team, and you're in college. He told me,

663
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 3: you're my hero. You know, I'm tearing up now. It

664
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 3: just sort of broke my heart. I mean, it was

665
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:10,360
Speaker 3: the same time Max reappears, and so I was in

666
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:12,719
Speaker 3: all that mix of things. But I agree to go.

667
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 3: And when I I agree to go, we made up

668
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:17,799
Speaker 3: this big elaborate lie, or I made up Mom and

669
00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 3: I made up this big elaborate lie to Dottie that

670
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 3: I was going to be traveling in Europe with friends

671
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:23,839
Speaker 3: and stuff. So he wouldn't know. And I do meet

672
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 3: some friends in Paris, and I stayed with my grandmother

673
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:27,759
Speaker 3: and my aunt for a little bit, and I meet

674
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:30,480
Speaker 3: an African ant, my mom's best friend, who again i'd

675
00:34:30,520 --> 00:34:32,960
Speaker 3: seen as a six year old, but I you know,

676
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:34,319
Speaker 3: when I met her as a six year old, she's

677
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 3: just my mom's African friend. And then I fly to

678
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:39,320
Speaker 3: Adis Ababa, and I meet Max.

679
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 2: Dottie never knew about Max. Is that right?

680
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:48,120
Speaker 3: So what's complicated? My understanding at the time was that

681
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,439
Speaker 3: Dottie did not know that he never knew the same aunt.

682
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 3: Max Holiday's sister. She's still alive and she and I

683
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 3: are very close, and we talked still, and she is

684
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 3: convinced that my mom told Dottie, And that may a

685
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:03,120
Speaker 3: certain sense to me too, in that my mom was

686
00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 3: my mom again if he's cheating on her, and she

687
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,960
Speaker 3: maybe is inclined to want to be with Max, but

688
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:16,200
Speaker 3: the pretext is Dottie cheating on her, and Dottie was gone,

689
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 3: he was in Vietnam briefly, and the timing of the

690
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:25,400
Speaker 3: pregnancy maybe doesn't work. And Jeraladine, Max's sister, who's who's

691
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 3: my aunt who I'm close with She's like she told him.

692
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:32,240
Speaker 3: That makes a certain sense to me because the most

693
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 3: angry that Dottie ever got with me. This is again

694
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:36,359
Speaker 3: around that time that I'm fifteen or sixteen and Mia

695
00:35:36,400 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 3: and I would spend the summer with him. Then right

696
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:41,799
Speaker 3: before going this is before I knew about Max. When

697
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:43,839
Speaker 3: we were about to go up, Miriam was just super chrying.

698
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,040
Speaker 3: Everybody still do this day likes Miriam better than me.

699
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:48,279
Speaker 3: It's just just fun and funny that I could be

700
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 3: a oldle dower maybe, But I remember thinking, I don't

701
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 3: think Dottie likes me very much. And I made the

702
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:56,279
Speaker 3: mistake of telling my mom, like just sort of we

703
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:57,719
Speaker 3: were close, I confided in her, right, I told her,

704
00:35:57,760 --> 00:35:59,520
Speaker 3: don't tell him. But the first thing she does is

705
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:01,640
Speaker 3: she tells him. And so I'm at Kansas City with

706
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 3: him and We're riding the cab, just him and me

707
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 3: and his anger. When he confronted me about it, it

708
00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:09,800
Speaker 3: was not just anger, but it was like this hurt.

709
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 3: And when I revisited that in retrospect a few years later,

710
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:16,759
Speaker 3: when he tells me I'm his hero, you know, that

711
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:19,920
Speaker 3: plays into it. And then fast forward two decades and

712
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 3: I find out that mom had told him, like, it

713
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 3: just makes a certain sense. Yeah, But at that time

714
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 3: I was told, or at least led to believe the opposite,

715
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:32,239
Speaker 3: that he didn't know because we construct this elaborate live

716
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 3: so he doesn't know that I'm going to Adiz.

717
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:38,200
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, one of the things that's so fascinating

718
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:42,600
Speaker 2: to me about your story is that there's kind of

719
00:36:42,640 --> 00:36:46,359
Speaker 2: a reckoning with what it's not possible to know. I mean,

720
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:49,200
Speaker 2: there's some things that you know, you're left to put

721
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:52,719
Speaker 2: the pieces together as best as you can. Yes, you'll

722
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:57,720
Speaker 2: never a thousand percent know because the principal players are gone,

723
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 2: and you know, what you're left with is that gut

724
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:03,360
Speaker 2: feeling that oh yeah, this makes sense and kind of

725
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 2: going with that and yes, and that's enough.

726
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 3: That's a lot, It's a lot. Yeah.

727
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:16,400
Speaker 2: So David goes off to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It's nineteen

728
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 2: eighty five. There's widespread famine, and the country is under

729
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:20,960
Speaker 2: a dictatorship.

730
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:25,680
Speaker 3: It's my first time in the developing world, and it

731
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 3: is really the developing world. It's in a really difficult place.

732
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:30,799
Speaker 3: The night before I had been out because again we

733
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 3: had this pretext of travelery friends, and I did meet

734
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 3: some friends. The night before, I'd been at like Jim

735
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 3: Morrison's grave with these friends, and we met these other

736
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:39,759
Speaker 3: folks and we were drinking from a Jerger wine. So

737
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 3: I'm on airy Ethiopia in shorts and a tank top

738
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:47,160
Speaker 3: and hungover. So you know, I landed adis in the

739
00:37:47,200 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 3: developing world, completely disoriented, not feeling very good physically. Ethiopia

740
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,240
Speaker 3: at that time. You know, this is nineteen eighty five.

741
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 3: It's not computerized in any way, and you know there's

742
00:37:59,160 --> 00:38:01,800
Speaker 3: a strong military presence, and there's this crowd of people.

743
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 3: So when I finally work my way into the airport,

744
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 3: going through customs and getting a little bit harassed, I'm

745
00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 3: looking around for somebody who looks like me. I've never

746
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:09,680
Speaker 3: seen a picture of Max, so I'm looking around for

747
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 3: somebody who looks like me, whatever that might mean. And

748
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:14,719
Speaker 3: I see somebody who's built more or less like me,

749
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:17,399
Speaker 3: and he's looking my way, but then it's clear it's

750
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:20,680
Speaker 3: not him. And at a certain point, as the airport

751
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 3: is clearing out because there's two flights a day or somebody,

752
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 3: it's not like a huge airport like we might imagine,

753
00:38:25,800 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 3: like all the people from the from the plane are

754
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:31,080
Speaker 3: basically leaving and gone, and the airport's clearing out and

755
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 3: I realize I'm on my own. I changed some dollars

756
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 3: into two beer and I got a cab and I

757
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:40,400
Speaker 3: just said the africahol and I get there and the

758
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 3: security lets me through with my American passport and I

759
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 3: find my way to his office and he's not there,

760
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 3: and Tricity's in a meeting his secretary. It's not clear

761
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 3: she knew I was coming or not. I'm pretty sure

762
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:52,880
Speaker 3: I didn't say I was his son, but I explained

763
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:55,560
Speaker 3: I'm David Wright, and she doesn't know who I am.

764
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 3: But she lets me sort of wait in this ante

765
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 3: chamber and there's a couch and I just remember just

766
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:04,319
Speaker 3: falling asleep, you know, sort of too much me and

767
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:06,560
Speaker 3: Paris and I before and the trip and the stress.

768
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:08,960
Speaker 3: And when I wake up, he's standing above me, and

769
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 3: I will remember forever this really warm smile that was

770
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 3: so much the opposite of that letter I got when

771
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 3: I was sixteen, that made me feel welcome. So we're talking,

772
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:20,880
Speaker 3: and it was just from the very beginning it was

773
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,359
Speaker 3: just so warm on a personal level. But then as

774
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 3: soon as other people, I mean, he's married at that point,

775
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 3: and I have a little brother and sister who's like

776
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 3: my little brother is he's between one and two, and

777
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:35,560
Speaker 3: my little sister had just been born, and his wife

778
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:38,400
Speaker 3: is only like five years older than me. But so

779
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:40,919
Speaker 3: when it's us in that context, you know, he lives

780
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:42,560
Speaker 3: in this house with and this is very true in

781
00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:45,279
Speaker 3: the developing world, certainly in Africa, you know, especially for

782
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:48,280
Speaker 3: people of his status. He has housekeepers and all this stuff,

783
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:51,759
Speaker 3: and to me from small town Texas, that's super uncomfortable.

784
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 3: But when we're in the context of his house, him

785
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:57,279
Speaker 3: and me, or him and me and his family, it's

786
00:39:57,400 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 3: very warm. I would go with him to work at

787
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 3: se there's nothing to do. I'd go with him to work,

788
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:03,840
Speaker 3: and I'd spend time in the library, right you know.

789
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:06,359
Speaker 3: Sometimes I'd just walk around on diese. Whenever we'd find

790
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:09,520
Speaker 3: ourselves with other people, he would immediately create this distance.

791
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:12,560
Speaker 3: He would introduce me as mister David Wright from America.

792
00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 3: He would never go this is my son. It was difficult. Frankly, again,

793
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:20,399
Speaker 3: I wasn't expecting this warm embrace, but I clearly must

794
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 3: have been expecting more than that, because it was it

795
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 3: was difficult. There was one instant this friend because she

796
00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:26,879
Speaker 3: was a woman, and he had this way of being.

797
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:28,879
Speaker 3: He was very charming, he had this way of being

798
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,760
Speaker 3: that it was all sort of plurirtatious. And this woman

799
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 3: was just a good friend of her. She was married

800
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:35,480
Speaker 3: and had children, but they were clearly good friends. And

801
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 3: as they're talking, he introduces me mister David Wright from America,

802
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 3: and she's looking at me and they're kind of playing

803
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 3: back and forth in a certain port. She goes, Max,

804
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:46,880
Speaker 3: don't tell me this boy is in your child, and

805
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:48,880
Speaker 3: he looks at her and he has this sort of

806
00:40:48,920 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 3: smirk and he goes, situvu if you wish, And that

807
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:56,239
Speaker 3: broke my heart really again. I wasn't asking to be

808
00:40:56,360 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 3: recognized as his son, but he was so deliberately have

809
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:02,520
Speaker 3: a leer about it that I was just like, I

810
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 3: was so happy to have met him. I was enjoying

811
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 3: the stay, and I felt a little bit like when

812
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:08,640
Speaker 3: I was sixteen. It felt clear to me that when

813
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,399
Speaker 3: I left that that was it. We would never see

814
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 3: each other again, and I was okay with it. It

815
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 3: turns out that I wasn't exactly welcome. I've arned over

816
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:16,920
Speaker 3: the course of the two and a half weeks I

817
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 3: was there, my mom and my aunt, his sister had

818
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:22,840
Speaker 3: sort of, you know, gotten together and sort of forced

819
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:25,360
Speaker 3: his hand. He would have been just as happy for

820
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 3: me not to come. I sort of figured out over

821
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:28,400
Speaker 3: the course of that visit.

822
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 2: So on the flight home, you felt that you had

823
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:35,719
Speaker 2: met your father, you had checked that box, and that

824
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 2: was going to be it. You had all the information

825
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:37,760
Speaker 2: that you needed.

826
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was good to go, and I was twenty.

827
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:42,720
Speaker 3: And so if I was beginning to feel independent at sixteen,

828
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 3: at twenty, you know, I'm coming into my own, especially

829
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 3: like the angry part of me. Like my little sister

830
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 3: would call me Malcolm Farakahn, you know, playfully, because I

831
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:54,880
Speaker 3: could be really angry about stuff, and that twenty year

832
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 3: old me was that person. I was very you know,

833
00:41:57,760 --> 00:41:59,320
Speaker 3: when I left the country and I went to England

834
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 3: in France, it was to get to know family. Part

835
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 3: of it was to play football, but that was the pretext.

836
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 3: It was really I was reading James Baldwin and I

837
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 3: was leaving the country like I was going to be

838
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:11,360
Speaker 3: an expatriate, and as a black man in America in

839
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty six, that was just not tolerable. And so

840
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 3: if there was a part of me, like when I

841
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 3: you know, I'm on the plane out of Adis and

842
00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 3: Max and I will never see each other. I'm okay

843
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 3: with it. I mean, I'm going back to the States

844
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:25,719
Speaker 3: at that point. But it's the nacid part of that

845
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:27,400
Speaker 3: part of me, the beginning of that part of me

846
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:31,759
Speaker 3: that's just angry black man, and try to reckon me

847
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 3: as a black man in America.

848
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:59,919
Speaker 2: We'll be right back a couple of years past Dave.

849
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 2: It is a year out of college and he's living

850
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:06,879
Speaker 2: in England, where he's playing semi professional American football. One day,

851
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:10,080
Speaker 2: he gets another teutonic shifting phone call from his mom.

852
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:14,319
Speaker 2: She says, your grandfather is on his deathbed and wants

853
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:18,960
Speaker 2: to meet you before he goes. David's confused. His grandfather,

854
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:24,040
Speaker 2: Jack Writ's father ed Wheeler's father. He asks his mom who,

855
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:27,960
Speaker 2: and she replies, simply, your grandfather.

856
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:33,960
Speaker 3: She had stayed in touch with Max, but also with

857
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 3: Jaladine Accessister, her best friend growing up. Jaldine is a

858
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:40,439
Speaker 3: little bit in the Faladay family. She was a little

859
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:43,160
Speaker 3: bit the repel, the one who would sort of push

860
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:46,880
Speaker 3: against these family more's And at that point, when I

861
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 3: meet Max, one of the things I come to understand

862
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 3: is that the faladays don't know about me. This is

863
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 3: my understanding with Todd. I learned that that's not true,

864
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:56,360
Speaker 3: but at that point, the Faladays don't know about me.

865
00:43:56,680 --> 00:43:59,319
Speaker 3: Max has kept it a big secret, and so I

866
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 3: know that he's got this distinguished family in Dajome, but

867
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:05,960
Speaker 3: he's not acknowledging me to people in Adis. So it

868
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 3: makes complete sense to me that that his family doesn't know.

869
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 3: And his older sister is this really distinguished psychoanalyst. She

870
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:14,800
Speaker 3: had first been a pediatrician, the protege of this important

871
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:17,399
Speaker 3: French pioneer im pedetitician, and then she moved from pediatrics

872
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 3: to psychoanalysis and she was Jacqulaicans protege. So I knew

873
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 3: she existed. She distinguished person, just like Max was distinguished.

874
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:26,600
Speaker 3: But all those people don't know about me. So when

875
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 3: my mom calls me, she's like, your grandfather knows. I'm

876
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:30,480
Speaker 3: just like, it doesn't make sense that that would be

877
00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 3: the grandfather she's talking about, and how does he know?

878
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:36,400
Speaker 3: But she's like, he's dying, he's in his nineties. He

879
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 3: wants to meet you. So I'm told that I need

880
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 3: to go to Paris. From London that I'm going to

881
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 3: meet Solange, who's Jacqualicanz Protege, and that she's going to

882
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:48,279
Speaker 3: arrange this trip. By this time, max is retired from

883
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 3: the UN and lives in what's been in now what

884
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:53,080
Speaker 3: had been Dajo May. So I go to Paris. I

885
00:44:53,080 --> 00:44:56,479
Speaker 3: meet Solange. She's great, she's super warm. I feel really

886
00:44:56,520 --> 00:45:00,759
Speaker 3: welcomed by her, embraced, and I take this trip to

887
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:02,960
Speaker 3: being in to see my father for the second time,

888
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 3: but then also to meet the rest of the family.

889
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 2: What is it like to be welcomed by a family

890
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:12,200
Speaker 2: that was never your family. It's this whole other world

891
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:16,319
Speaker 2: that has been you know something, even in all of

892
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 2: the insider outsiderness of your history up until that point,

893
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:22,120
Speaker 2: you had never encountered anything like this.

894
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:25,400
Speaker 3: Nothing, nothing, So I think it's it's hard to pinpoint,

895
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 3: but I think it's sometime between when I go to

896
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 3: Ethiopia and my grandfather. I know that Maxi's father is

897
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:34,759
Speaker 3: the son of a king. What that means I don't know,

898
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:37,239
Speaker 3: but it turns out what I learned over that period

899
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 3: of time is that the kings of Dahomey and the

900
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 3: Kings of Dahomey had been slave traders. So that part

901
00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 3: of West Africa, you know, there was what it's still

902
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:47,839
Speaker 3: called the avery Coast, and next to it is gone,

903
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 3: but it was called the gold Coast, and next to

904
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 3: the gold coast was called the slave coast. And that's

905
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:53,680
Speaker 3: where being In, being In and Togo and part of

906
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:56,600
Speaker 3: my Geria still are. But the dominant kingdom for about

907
00:45:56,600 --> 00:45:58,920
Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty years during the period of the

908
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 3: slave trade was the Kingdom of Dahomey and the Kings

909
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:06,200
Speaker 3: of Dahomey. Then the last king of Dahomey was a

910
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:09,279
Speaker 3: man named king named Bejanzen Bealzen. I don't know how

911
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:12,680
Speaker 3: you pronounced it in English, but my grandfather was his son.

912
00:46:13,680 --> 00:46:16,040
Speaker 3: So I find out that I've descended from the slave

913
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 3: trading kings of Dahomey. And I don't know a whole

914
00:46:18,680 --> 00:46:20,560
Speaker 3: lot more than that, but I have a sense of it.

915
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:22,879
Speaker 3: So when I meet so Luge in Paris, I ask

916
00:46:22,960 --> 00:46:24,919
Speaker 3: her some and she begins explaining it. So I don't

917
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 3: arrive there with absolutely no knowledge, but not a lot.

918
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:32,400
Speaker 3: And when I arrive my grandfather, who's in his ninety

919
00:46:32,520 --> 00:46:34,879
Speaker 3: so this was inwty seven, but he had been born

920
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:38,239
Speaker 3: in eighteen ninety four, and so he had had this

921
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:42,760
Speaker 3: really crazy life. But this incredible life, you know, descended

922
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:45,200
Speaker 3: from the king. Right when the king is defeated, is

923
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 3: when you know his mother might what would be my

924
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 3: great grandmother was pregnant with my grandfather. So when the

925
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:54,719
Speaker 3: king is exiled to Martinique, she stays in Dahomey, but

926
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:56,959
Speaker 3: my grandfather has to be in hiding as a child.

927
00:46:57,040 --> 00:47:00,439
Speaker 3: And he has this really complicated backstory, and he also

928
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:03,840
Speaker 3: has a really complicated relationship to his legacy, to his roots.

929
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 3: He doesn't take the name Baylzen, even though all the

930
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 3: beals as it now knows that he's one of the

931
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:12,759
Speaker 3: sons of the king, but the man who more or

932
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:15,200
Speaker 3: less adopted him, who was named Fala Day, he takes

933
00:47:15,239 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 3: his name. He has this really just complicated relationship to

934
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:22,440
Speaker 3: his paternity. And I don't know that as I land,

935
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 3: but that's what I learned as I meet him. I mean,

936
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:27,520
Speaker 3: he's very he's on his deathbed and he's bent. He's

937
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:30,480
Speaker 3: very frail looking. I mean he's on his deathbed figuratively

938
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:32,400
Speaker 3: because he would sit in his chair. He moved very difficultly,

939
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 3: but he would sit in his chair in the front room,

940
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:36,279
Speaker 3: and I was staying with him. So I've in another

941
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 3: developing country that I've never been. It's not like the

942
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 3: OPN eighty five, but you know, it's a Marxist lenon estate,

943
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 3: very restrictive. I have my visa, I get there and

944
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:49,680
Speaker 3: I'm living in my grandfather's house where he has electricity,

945
00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 3: but there's no running water. And it's him and then

946
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:55,600
Speaker 3: these two African workers who work for him, who are great,

947
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:58,319
Speaker 3: very friendly, but they're workers, you know. So it's me

948
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:01,319
Speaker 3: and him sitting in his room all day and he

949
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 3: were just talking. And you know, I was there for

950
00:48:04,160 --> 00:48:06,080
Speaker 3: three weeks and I spent most of them with him.

951
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 3: For as frail as he was physically, he is incredibly lucid,

952
00:48:09,200 --> 00:48:13,480
Speaker 3: but also this really strong personality. And I'm again twenty two,

953
00:48:13,719 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 3: twenty three year old me, So I'm just asking him

954
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:19,759
Speaker 3: questions very frankly about bayon Zen, about his upbringing. You know,

955
00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:23,320
Speaker 3: about my father when he was a kid, and my grandfather.

956
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:25,200
Speaker 3: You know the way that family works in Africa. You know,

957
00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:27,440
Speaker 3: the head of the family is king for lack of

958
00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:30,480
Speaker 3: a better word, and so there was a certain deference

959
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 3: that everybody had to when people would come and visit us.

960
00:48:32,760 --> 00:48:34,440
Speaker 3: But there was all this deference that wasn't just sort

961
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:36,719
Speaker 3: of like, you know, my parents and I'm going to

962
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 3: be respectful. There was this real deference and so yeah,

963
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:42,880
Speaker 3: I had this really incredible experience with him. My expectation

964
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:45,400
Speaker 3: wasn't to be embraced. I don't know what my expectation

965
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 3: was again, because he sought me out, but he completely

966
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:51,920
Speaker 3: embraced me. I thought he was very religious during his upbringing,

967
00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:54,960
Speaker 3: his father's exile, and then his father dies and he's

968
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 3: his surrogate father sends him to the missionaries for an education,

969
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:01,520
Speaker 3: and he ends up with this man named Father Opier,

970
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:04,440
Speaker 3: who ends up being this really important missionary. So I mean,

971
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 3: it's conflicted, right, the missionary presence in West Africa. But

972
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 3: this man was really had this anthropological interest in Daljomey

973
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:14,920
Speaker 3: and he took my grandfather his wing and was a

974
00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:17,319
Speaker 3: father figure, another father figure of my grandfather. So my

975
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 3: grandfather sort of caught between native culture and tradition and

976
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:24,600
Speaker 3: this important priest who takes him under his wing. At

977
00:49:24,640 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 3: this point, dajome is the stereotype of African savagery, you know,

978
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:30,399
Speaker 3: because they're slave traders, you know, and the slave trade

979
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 3: was brutal in all aspects, but the kings of Dahomey

980
00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 3: were particularly brutal in their way of affecting the slave trade.

981
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:39,200
Speaker 3: They had a professional military, and they would slaughter people

982
00:49:39,239 --> 00:49:42,360
Speaker 3: as a way to dominate neighboring villages and stuff. He's

983
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:45,040
Speaker 3: caught between that sort of image of Dahomey and this

984
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:48,600
Speaker 3: sort of culture thing that he's being educated into. He

985
00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 3: has become a journalist, an anti colonial activist. He's disappeared

986
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 3: by the French during the war, and in fact he

987
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:58,399
Speaker 3: sent us to death. The father Opier intervenes and other

988
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:00,960
Speaker 3: people intervened, and he ends up being But he's just

989
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 3: had this tumultuous life and he's telling me all these stories.

990
00:50:04,040 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 3: And at one point when I'm there, he invites his

991
00:50:06,600 --> 00:50:08,560
Speaker 3: priest because he can't go to church anymore because it

992
00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:11,040
Speaker 3: was a condition. But he invites the priest to his house.

993
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 3: And in the moment, I thought, okay, it's just a

994
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:16,360
Speaker 3: priest coming by to, you know, do whatever ritual thing happens.

995
00:50:16,719 --> 00:50:18,960
Speaker 3: I learned and after the fact that it was super

996
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 3: important that he was sort of presenting me as his

997
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:26,799
Speaker 3: only son's eldest son to the church. But then even

998
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:30,839
Speaker 3: more significantly, he organizes this trip, and again, being at

999
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:33,360
Speaker 3: right now is in a very different state, but in

1000
00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty seven, it's really a developing world. Like the

1001
00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:38,720
Speaker 3: roads are really rough. A lot of times they're not paved.

1002
00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 3: It's just really rough. But he organizes this trip to

1003
00:50:41,760 --> 00:50:43,760
Speaker 3: the village he was raised in by the Vala days,

1004
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:46,359
Speaker 3: and he's going to introduce me to the family. So

1005
00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:48,640
Speaker 3: it's not just sort of like he embraces me like hey,

1006
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 3: you're my grandson and a clap on the back. He

1007
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 3: formally introduces me to the family and to that society

1008
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:58,880
Speaker 3: as his grandson. So it was, yeah, it was super flattering,

1009
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:02,640
Speaker 3: completely shocking, very unsettling in that again, I'm sort of

1010
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:06,640
Speaker 3: James Baldwin wannabee me played football, a very Unbaldwin thing,

1011
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:09,840
Speaker 3: played football in Paris, and then suddenly I'm part of

1012
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:15,000
Speaker 3: this big African family that is very distinguished in the society,

1013
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:19,000
Speaker 3: but also that hascended up these slave trading kings.

1014
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:29,680
Speaker 2: It's just a stunning nott of identity. And David's grandfather

1015
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:32,440
Speaker 2: doesn't only want to introduce him to his living family,

1016
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 2: he wants to introduce him to his ancestors as well.

1017
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:40,360
Speaker 2: Disrespect for and worship of ancestors being central to his culture.

1018
00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 2: David finds himself in a group of people speaking in Yureba,

1019
00:51:45,360 --> 00:51:49,480
Speaker 2: a circle of elders, including Max, and here David is

1020
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:53,239
Speaker 2: being introduced as a Falladay in a very transparent way.

1021
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 2: It's the opposite of the way Max had treated him

1022
00:51:55,960 --> 00:51:59,440
Speaker 2: when he was last in Oddis. He says, this is

1023
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:02,719
Speaker 2: the eldest son of my eldest son. He is the

1024
00:52:02,719 --> 00:52:06,359
Speaker 2: product of a black person and a white person. And

1025
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:08,880
Speaker 2: then the village blacksmith arrives.

1026
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:13,480
Speaker 3: I didn't know that in the moment it's explained to

1027
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:16,400
Speaker 3: me when the blacksmith is coming, because I'm I'm asking

1028
00:52:16,520 --> 00:52:19,400
Speaker 3: you know why the blacksmith. And the first thing they

1029
00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:22,000
Speaker 3: tell me is that the blacksmith is descended from slaves.

1030
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:25,839
Speaker 3: So this blacksmith that was like a caste position and

1031
00:52:25,840 --> 00:52:28,520
Speaker 3: in dalha Mann society, so there are slaves that they

1032
00:52:28,560 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 3: sent into the slave trade, but they also had slaves themselves,

1033
00:52:31,080 --> 00:52:34,160
Speaker 3: and it was more cast position, and the blacksmith was

1034
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 3: this thing that was passed from father to son. So

1035
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 3: the blacksmith that arrives, I'm told he's the descendant of slaves.

1036
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 3: I'm imagining a younger man but he's very old, and

1037
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:45,600
Speaker 3: it's explained to me that as someone who works metal,

1038
00:52:45,600 --> 00:52:49,120
Speaker 3: who transforms metal, they know secrets, right, and so he

1039
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:51,319
Speaker 3: is exactly as you explained that he is in a

1040
00:52:51,360 --> 00:52:54,400
Speaker 3: sort of priest role for this ceremony that's going to

1041
00:52:54,440 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 3: take place. And on the right there in the car,

1042
00:52:59,440 --> 00:53:01,879
Speaker 3: my grandfather and my father were soul and the driver.

1043
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:03,800
Speaker 3: There was a certain solemnity, so I knew it was

1044
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 3: more than just sort of visiting family. But then as

1045
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:08,799
Speaker 3: we're going through all these sort of you know, like

1046
00:53:08,840 --> 00:53:11,000
Speaker 3: where you're welcomed and people come out and we're sitting

1047
00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:14,040
Speaker 3: on a porch and we exchange drinks. But then when

1048
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:16,759
Speaker 3: the blacksmith comes, they go into this room and I

1049
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:19,440
Speaker 3: see the room and there's an altar in there, a

1050
00:53:19,480 --> 00:53:22,200
Speaker 3: voodoo altra, and it's I mean, if somebody had explained

1051
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:23,839
Speaker 3: to me that that we call it voo doo, it's

1052
00:53:23,880 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 3: Vouduan's it's a religion, but it's also a way of

1053
00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 3: understanding of the world. And so to communicate with the

1054
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:32,800
Speaker 3: ancestors through the intermediary of this blacksmith, they go before

1055
00:53:32,840 --> 00:53:35,200
Speaker 3: this altar. Again, if somebody doesn't explain it, I don't

1056
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 3: know what I'm looking at. But it was just I remember,

1057
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:41,759
Speaker 3: like bird feathers and a few chicken bones and a

1058
00:53:41,840 --> 00:53:45,560
Speaker 3: mask maybe, But the site was holy. And my grandfather

1059
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:49,120
Speaker 3: and the other elder representative maybe a couple of elder

1060
00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:52,440
Speaker 3: representatives of the Faladas who lived there, and the blacksmith

1061
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:55,880
Speaker 3: go in the room. My father and I are in

1062
00:53:55,960 --> 00:53:58,880
Speaker 3: the threshold of the room. We weren't prohibited. I was

1063
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:02,319
Speaker 3: just following cues, so my father stayed out, Max stayed out.

1064
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:05,000
Speaker 3: I stayed out, or at least at the threshold of it.

1065
00:54:05,560 --> 00:54:09,800
Speaker 3: And they're speaking in Yuruba. And it's not a formal

1066
00:54:09,880 --> 00:54:13,000
Speaker 3: ceremony per se. It's nothing that I recognize as a ceremony.

1067
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:17,120
Speaker 3: But it's like talking and maybe again pouring some liquid,

1068
00:54:17,480 --> 00:54:19,600
Speaker 3: some exchange of something. It was nothing like you might

1069
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:21,480
Speaker 3: see in a movie where there's like dance and this

1070
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:24,640
Speaker 3: and that was very quiet, but it was super solemn,

1071
00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:27,520
Speaker 3: and I understood the gravity of it.

1072
00:54:32,560 --> 00:54:36,360
Speaker 2: During this trip. In his embrace of David, his grandfather

1073
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:40,120
Speaker 2: gives him a new name in their native language of Urreba.

1074
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:45,400
Speaker 3: My grandfather and is acceptance of me, named me in

1075
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:49,719
Speaker 3: Uruba Omole. The child has returned home. I think that's

1076
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:52,560
Speaker 3: what it is. But then also in font again he's stuck.

1077
00:54:52,640 --> 00:54:55,000
Speaker 3: He's not stuck, but he's sort of split between these

1078
00:54:55,000 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 3: two traditions, the Yuruba one and the font the balzan

1079
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:03,759
Speaker 3: one font is the king Bale's inside. And that name

1080
00:55:03,840 --> 00:55:09,400
Speaker 3: was erro no and pronounced erro and it means compute,

1081
00:55:09,680 --> 00:55:12,960
Speaker 3: traveling companion. And he explained it to me. He said,

1082
00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 3: my father his son to France to get an education,

1083
00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:19,680
Speaker 3: and he came back with a traveling companion. So I

1084
00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:20,839
Speaker 3: have the two days.

1085
00:55:21,719 --> 00:55:22,560
Speaker 2: It just took a while.

1086
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:26,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, you're right.

1087
00:55:26,160 --> 00:55:29,040
Speaker 2: I was a grown man now past wanting or needing

1088
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 2: a father. So where did this land with you?

1089
00:55:33,640 --> 00:55:33,840
Speaker 3: You know?

1090
00:55:33,880 --> 00:55:36,520
Speaker 2: And where does it land with you now? And also

1091
00:55:37,280 --> 00:55:40,200
Speaker 2: I'm curious you took Falada as part.

1092
00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:40,600
Speaker 3: Of your name.

1093
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:44,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, at what point in this journey did you do that?

1094
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:48,400
Speaker 3: Max? And I with time, especially after that, it was

1095
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:50,680
Speaker 3: not immediate. It took years, and I ended up living

1096
00:55:50,680 --> 00:55:52,759
Speaker 3: in France, and we see each other in France. We

1097
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 3: became very close, and at one point he asked me

1098
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:59,000
Speaker 3: to take the name and I agreed to, but I

1099
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,719
Speaker 3: said that I would not drive right. Dotty was dead

1100
00:56:01,760 --> 00:56:04,680
Speaker 3: at that point. But it felt even if Dotty wasn't

1101
00:56:05,000 --> 00:56:08,759
Speaker 3: always the most responsible father, he was a father, you know,

1102
00:56:08,840 --> 00:56:10,840
Speaker 3: especially as I learned that he had probably known the

1103
00:56:10,840 --> 00:56:12,719
Speaker 3: fact that he never made a difference, even though he

1104
00:56:12,719 --> 00:56:17,319
Speaker 3: probably knew, that just seemed disrespectful and not possible. So

1105
00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 3: I told Max that I would add falla day, and

1106
00:56:20,040 --> 00:56:23,400
Speaker 3: that didn't sit well with him, so he didn't say

1107
00:56:23,480 --> 00:56:25,000
Speaker 3: yes or no, but he didn't pursue it. So I

1108
00:56:25,200 --> 00:56:27,640
Speaker 3: remained David Wright, but that was always there between us,

1109
00:56:27,760 --> 00:56:30,040
Speaker 3: and I was actively part of the family. I'm living

1110
00:56:30,040 --> 00:56:32,239
Speaker 3: in a place that he owned in Paris, and I'm

1111
00:56:32,239 --> 00:56:35,080
Speaker 3: still playing football in France. But I'm close with so Lane,

1112
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:36,480
Speaker 3: my aunt and all the rest of the family, and

1113
00:56:36,520 --> 00:56:39,520
Speaker 3: I'm going regularly to be an ad to visit. But

1114
00:56:39,560 --> 00:56:42,000
Speaker 3: then as he got older, so this was much more recently.

1115
00:56:42,440 --> 00:56:44,640
Speaker 3: That was the nineties at early yes, But then he

1116
00:56:44,719 --> 00:56:48,000
Speaker 3: ended up having Alzheimer's, and as he was sick and

1117
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:50,919
Speaker 3: could no longer work, and my mom was sick too,

1118
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:55,280
Speaker 3: and Dottie was long dead before he lost the capacity

1119
00:56:55,320 --> 00:56:58,200
Speaker 3: to understand, it felt important to me to acknowledge to

1120
00:56:58,280 --> 00:57:00,960
Speaker 3: him that I accepted the name, and so I told

1121
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:02,840
Speaker 3: him I was accepting the name. We talked about it,

1122
00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:05,759
Speaker 3: and you know, he seemed happy, but it's still you know,

1123
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:07,680
Speaker 3: in the public world, I'm just still David, right. I mean,

1124
00:57:07,840 --> 00:57:09,600
Speaker 3: at that point, I'm in my whatever that was, I'm

1125
00:57:09,640 --> 00:57:12,000
Speaker 3: in my fifties and I'm just David. Right.

1126
00:57:14,520 --> 00:57:16,640
Speaker 2: It's during this time, with a new book on the

1127
00:57:16,640 --> 00:57:20,479
Speaker 2: horizon that David begins to explore his personal history head

1128
00:57:20,520 --> 00:57:24,840
Speaker 2: on and begins signing his name Faladay as well.

1129
00:57:26,640 --> 00:57:28,840
Speaker 3: You know, this is the other piece. It also felt

1130
00:57:29,120 --> 00:57:33,440
Speaker 3: really respectful of my mom, My mom, her whole life.

1131
00:57:33,880 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 3: It's not just this love and this unrequited love and

1132
00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:39,440
Speaker 3: whatever their complicated relationship was, but she was invested in

1133
00:57:39,480 --> 00:57:44,160
Speaker 3: me being a Faladae, and it felt respectful to her

1134
00:57:44,440 --> 00:57:46,360
Speaker 3: wishes to take the name.

1135
00:58:12,240 --> 00:58:16,280
Speaker 2: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly Zacour is

1136
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:19,480
Speaker 2: the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer.

1137
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 2: If you have a family secret you'd like to share,

1138
00:58:23,120 --> 00:58:25,560
Speaker 2: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear

1139
00:58:25,600 --> 00:58:29,000
Speaker 2: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight

1140
00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:33,200
Speaker 2: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also

1141
00:58:33,320 --> 00:58:38,120
Speaker 2: find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder and if you'd

1142
00:58:38,160 --> 00:58:40,600
Speaker 2: like to know more, about the story that inspired this podcast.

1143
00:58:41,040 --> 00:58:42,880
Speaker 2: Check out my memoir Inheritance.

1144
00:59:11,040 --> 00:59:15,280
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1145
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:17,400
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.