Dear Culture

Smart, opinioned, and funny, the culture needs more W. Kamau Bell

Episode 47
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Award-winning writer, producer, director, comedian, and TV host W. Kamau Bell joins Dear Culture to talk about his latest project for HBO Max. The documentary ‘1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed’ shines a light on mixed raced children. In true Bell style, the doc provides laughs and hard truths. 

PARK CITY, UTAH – JANUARY 20: W. Kamau Bell attends the Lunar New Year Dinner presented by Sunrise Collective at Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Suzi Pratt/Getty Images for Sunrise Collective)

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Panama Jackson [00:00:00] You are now listening to theGrio is Black Podcast Network. Black Culture Amplified. This episode is supported by FX’s Dear Mama: The Saga of Afeni and Tupac Shakur. This deeply personal five part docu series from award winning director Allan Hughes shares an illuminating saga of mother and son. She was a revolutionary intellect and leader in the Black Panther Party. He was a rapper and political visionary who became known as one of the greatest rap artists of all time. His Dear Mama all New Fridays on effects stream on Hulu.

Panama Jackson [00:00:35] What’s going on, everybody? Welcome to Dear Culture, the podcast for by about the culture here on theGrio Black Podcast Network. I’m your host, Panama Jackson. And today we have a very special guest. You know him from television. He has a show United Shades of America, which has delved into all manner of shenanigans in this country’s ongoing race discussion. He had the all important we need to talk about Cosby documentary, which also delved into all kind of conversations we needed to have in this country. He had a podcast. I love the title of this. I want to make sure I get this right. Denzel Washington is the greatest actor of all time period, which you delved into movies where Denzel was it. I love that. You know, you have an upcoming documentary, which I cannot wait to talk about from HBO, which is screening now called 1,000% Me Growing Up Mixed. And your discourse has led to what had to be the most awkward take back of all time with the KKK.

[00:01:33] Don’t you think that by wearing the same robes that it’s hard to separate those two different clans?  I have that opportunity to wear klansman robe. Why? Because I’m white and I believe in the ideas, rituals and the beliefs of the Klu Klux Klan. I was raised that way.

Panama Jackson [00:01:47] So my guest today is none other than W Kamau Bell, comedian, writer, director, podcaster, host. How are you doing, brother?

W. Kamau Bell [00:01:56] You know, just Black men try to stay employed and feed his kid. That’s what I am right here.

Panama Jackson [00:02:01] Listen. You’re doing a good job of it. And I have to ask what I think might be the most important question I will ever ask any show I ever do for the rest of my life.

W. Kamau Bell [00:02:11] Yes.

Panama Jackson [00:02:11] How often do you get confused for Questlove?

W. Kamau Bell [00:02:14] Oh my God. Here’s the funny thing about it. There was a time where I talked about it a lot, and then I felt like I was talking about it so much that I was probably annoying him by talking about it. So I stopped talking about it. But then he said he got confused. He started getting confused for me. I was like, okay, so at least this is a two way street. And then I thought, Well, it’s probably at some point, well, I’m probably big enough now, so it doesn’t happen anymore. I literally got off the plane in Sundance this year and somebody walked up to me, grabbed the picture and said, Can you sign this? And I said, Wait, who am I? They said, Questlove. Me and my wife, we laughed and laughed. So. No, it is. It is. It is. And then I you know, he you know, he was at Sundance at the time. We didn’t see each other like it is. If he’s actually in the vicinity of where I am, then it’s going to happen like 50% of the time people recognize me. If he’s not there, if I’m in a place where people think he might be like. Like right now I’m in New York City. It’s going to happen. Like one out of ten people are going to think. But yeah, it is a regular occurrence. And he and sometimes I pull up pictures like I’m a lot more gray than he is. He’s got a fuller beard. You got like some sort of like some some dreads or something. So it doesn’t matter.

Panama Jackson [00:03:28] I mean, y’all are too tall Black dudes, man. With big hair like it’s. Nobody ever asked me if I’m Questlove.

W. Kamau Bell [00:03:36] So, yeah, I mean, I’m not mad at it. He’s one of the coolest people ever walked the planet. And I am not. So I’m happy for the association in whatever way it comes. I, I always say I look like Questlove. If he had, instead of being the drummer of The Roots, he’d sold insurance.

Panama Jackson [00:03:52] Yeah, I love it. There you go. True story. I get confused for Kid from Kid N’ Play often or people not confuse people tell me I look like him so much so that one time my wife and I were in New Orleans, and this dude who was a bouncer at a club saw me on the street and pulled me over like, Yo, are you is Kid your dad? I was like, Yes, he is. And they let me in the club free. They were like, Come on. Hey, yo, it’s Kid’s Kid. It was crazy. So, you know, not quite the same thing. I’m not putting out culturally relevant stuff, but, you know, it got me in a club in New Orleans for free. So you take whatever you can.

W. Kamau Bell [00:04:27] You know, you take the with where you can. Yeah. No, I just. I just felt especially bad last year. If Questlove was getting confused with the fact that I’d done that Cosby. But because I was like, that attention is not going to be as fun as the other type of thing where we got when he was sleeping severe enough.

Panama Jackson [00:04:39] Fair enough. Well, speaking of docs, you have a documentary that’s currently screening at various places I saw call 1,000% me growing up mixed.

1000% Me [00:04:48] I’m really proud of the current and future generation of mixed kids that are being loud and proud. Our kids have been instruments of healing.

Panama Jackson [00:04:58] I want to ask about this specifically for two reasons. One, I mixed. Two one that I remember. So when I wrote I wrote that article years ago about how troubled my relationship with my white mother. It made me famous for like a day in the Black community and maybe even the white community, but so much so that I got invited to be a part of a documentary about the loving generation. Right. I’m somebody who grew up with my Black father and Black stepmother, so I grew up Black. My dad was always like, you know, your mom was white, you were not. So I grew up like Black with a white mother, so to speak. And I was always kind of judgmental about mixed kids. I’m like, Yo, you just Black or whatever. Like you ain’t the mixed thing is annoying. But the documentary really opened my eyes and enlighten me about, like, the plight and travails of a lot of other mixed people. So I’m stopped being less judgmental. You know, I was not one of the chorus of Meghan Markle haters who, like you, just a Black woman, like calm and calm, you’re jets. So this documentary, which is billed, is multiracial kids and their family share the joys and struggles of growing up mixed in the Bay Area. What is this documentary going to teach me about my mixedness.

W. Kamau Bell [00:06:05] I mean, I think here’s the thing. First of all, I totally understand what you’re saying because I have noticed since since I’ve been working on this doc, you know, the algorithm now knows I’m reading things about mixed race folks. So the algorithm is sending me a lot more mixed race content. And I have and I’ve been very made very aware of the fact that there’s not a lot of space in many Black folks heads to hear from mixed people about their experience.

Panama Jackson [00:06:28] Yes.

W. Kamau Bell [00:06:30] To hear from Black mixed race Black people about what their struggles are, what they’re dealing with, and I understand where that comes from. But at the same time, there’s got to be some space for these people to talk about who they are and what and how they experience the world. And especially as that demographic grows, which it does grow every year. But there’s just going to have to be a way that this community can talk about their experience and also the way we talk when the film, it’s not less of one thing and less of another. It’s both. And.

[00:06:58] If I asked you what ingredients make you? Black, Asian and love. And a llama and a Corgi.

W. Kamau Bell [00:07:06] I explain to my daughters from very early age like, Look, you can be mixed. You can consider yourself half Black and half white. You also are Black, but you’re definitely not white. So it was a way to go. Look, all of these can exist at one time, but the one that can’t exist is white. And even if even for a middle kid who’s who’s light skinned and has her wavy hair, you are not a white person, no matter what the world may try to identify you as that. You cannot identify yourself in that way. And also on top of that, like seeing my oldest daughter interact with her friends who are mixed and not mixed, Black and white, mixed of all sorts of different mix. And I just noticed is like feels like they’re drawn to each other in some way. Like, there’s something about that mixed experience that, like, brings them together. So that’s why first are they and there’s some sort of conversation here and it was always about, I want to hear from the kids before they get fucked up by their adulthood.

Panama Jackson [00:08:02] Right. So it is interesting because I look, I do agree, like the violin is very tiny for mixed kids struggles. It really is like people. I remember I used to write articles about this early on in our early VSB days and I would like write an article about being mixed. The response was always, don’t nobody care about this. We don’t care about no mixed kids struggle. You just light skinned. Just enjoy it. Enjoy it. Go, go enjoy your lightskinedness and whatever nonsense that comes with and stuff like that. But I do think you’re right. There’s a story. So for instance, my sister, I had, you know, I have a younger sister and. You know, little girls tend to look at their mom one way, right? You know, So she was always very much like, I’m not I’m not Black, I’m peach. I’m like, mommy. I’m like, mommy. You know, she was very much actively seeking it until she got to high school, fell in love with Tupac. And then all of a sudden, she was the Blackest thing out there. You know what I’m saying? Like, it was, you know, there was she was thugged out hardcore. Like we she went through her militant phase in high school, you know, and I’m in college like, heavy into that stuff, but. Like what was one of the most interesting stories you got? Like from talking to the kids about this? Kinda like their mixed experience. Like what was something that was really interesting that stood out?

W. Kamau Bell [00:09:16] I think the thing that that that a lot of times people struggle with in the mix conversation is like, well, which do you identify with? Like which one but which what if you basically sort of like pick a side like you were saying earlier? And these kids are like very capable of not picking a side and not being confused about their ability to not pick a side. So there’s not like it’s not like I am this, it’s not this or this or it is not some newness. It’s both. It’s like I am white, I am I am Blackness, I am indigenous. So we have kids who are like three different, you know, who have a kid who’s like, I mean, this one is sort of her dad is half Black and half white. Her mom is half Black and half Korean.

Panama Jackson [00:09:56] Oh wow.

W. Kamau Bell [00:09:57] Yeah. Now you’re going to tell her she’s not mixed. You’re going to tell her she doesn’t have the edge, she says. And the problem she struggles with is access to her Blackness. Because people say you’re not Black enough to say this or do this. And it puts her in this camp where, like, where are you going to do go hang out with the other half Black, a quarter Korean, quarter white kids. So what you’re doing is you’re putting this kid into a corner by herself, which eventually is going to leave her by herself and isn’t a healthy way to lead your life. So for me, it’s this idea of like I think there’s a discussion about just mixedness in general that mixed people can have and should have, that the rest of us should step out of and let them have it. And maybe with this film you can be present for it. But it doesn’t have to have it doesn’t actually have to have anything to do with you if you’re not a part of this community.

Panama Jackson [00:10:45] Yeah, and it is fascinating. So, you know, I’m mixed. My dad is a Black man from Alabama while my mom is a white woman from France. My wife is also mixed, but she’s mix the Ghanaian and Italian like her, her father from Italy, like she she grew up in Ghana and moved to America when she was like 11. Right. So we’re both mixed. But the experience is very different. Right? Like in in Accra, where she grew up, you know, that was very desired, so to speak. You know, that that kind of, you know, like the racial issues are everywhere. Right? So we have you know, I have four kids and my wife and I have three now. See, my wife was a Howard. I went to Morehouse. So we’re both very heavily leaning into the Black side. Right. There’s not you know, there’s not there’s not a lot of mixedness. It’s like we’re Black people who happen to have like white parents kind of thing, right? But we have one of my boys is darker than everybody in the house. Got the standard I got to go to the barbershop and get edged up, lined up, whatever. Two of my kids, though, are very light skinned, wavy hair boys, right? So I imagine the conversations that they’re going to have when they get older are going to be like, what are you light weight? Your parents are Black, like that kind of thing, and it’s going to open up all kind of convos. But it’s also fascinating to kind of look at them because we raised them Black, right? They don’t have any questions about it, like they know that they’re Black, but I know it’s coming. So it’s interesting. I don’t know that they’re going to be the kind of kids that would gravitate towards like the mixed community. But I am glad that there is like so much more agency now to decide who you are and what that means and like what that means for your identity and who you’re going to be growing up. You know, because I when I was younger, that just was it was an option and I was an Alabama nobody you Black white or hate to say.

W. Kamau Bell [00:12:24] Racial too that there’s not there was a you know when I was a kid it was biracial but I don’t know if I knew any biracial kids because nobody was identify themselves that way.

Panama Jackson [00:12:32] Right. Right. Fascinating. I love these conversations. We’re gonna take a quick break here. We come right back with Kamau Bell talking about a 1,000% me growing up mixed here on Dear Culture. All right. We’re back to our Dear Culture. I’m with W Kamau Bell. We’re talking about a documentary has called 1,000% Me growing up mixed. As somebody who’s delving into this, what are the the conversations that you see that are happening constantly that are we just can’t run away from anymore?

W. Kamau Bell [00:12:59] I mean, like, here’s the thing. I understand like a couple weeks ago, again, the algorithm is sending me things about mixedness. There is a whole remember, I’m sure you must have talked about this at some point, but Logic did is cover of.

Panama Jackson [00:13:14] Today was a good day.

[00:13:15] Just waking up in the morning gotta thank God. I don’t know but today seems kinda odd.

W. Kamau Bell [00:13:24] And and in it he you know, he’s doing a cover so he drops the drops N bomb. And and there was all this talk about it can he is is he Black enough to do that. Is he Black and do that? That’s its own discussion. I’m a let let people have that discussion. But I saw a segment from the Joe Budden podcast where they were talking about Logic and Joe Budden, that’s one of.

Panama Jackson [00:13:45] Hates Logic.

W. Kamau Bell [00:13:46] Ideological, and he admits it’s one of his hobbies. But Melissa Ford is on there just talking about and she’s mixed. I didn’t know she was mixed until this conversation came up. And she explicitly talks about like, nobody wants to hear me talk about what it is to be mixed. Black people don’t have any space for this. And sort of so therefore I don’t talk about it. And in the funny about the Joe Budden podcast, because like they will talk about anything but the whole room got uncomfortable, sort of like, how do we talk about the mixed race experience? I feel like it is in the Black community. It is still one of those. It’s one of those other third rail conversations where it’s like if we look like we’re it feels like if we’re making space for the mixed race conversation conversation, we’re making space for whiteness. And the last thing we do in the Black community is make more space for whiteness. And to me, that’s just proof that white supremacy is doing its job to fuck us up, that we can’t we can’t talk about ourselves amongst ourselves without being trying to be aware of what whiteness is doing in that conversation when it’s when. Meanwhile, there’s mixed people going like, I don’t know where to talk about my experience.

Panama Jackson [00:14:48] Yeah.

W. Kamau Bell [00:14:49] To me this film is about like showing that like kids aren’t as messed up about that until we’ve messed them up.

Panama Jackson [00:14:55] Man, that’s super facts. Because, I mean, think about Obama, right? Like, we like you claim horror because it’s like this is this is our is like we we got somewhere. We’re Tiger Woods. I mean, listen, we’ll take Tiger as long as long as Tiger. And, you know, we accepted Tiger.

W. Kamau Bell [00:15:11] I get it. We had the problem with like, what combination? Wait a minute. Like, I think Obama kind of learned from Tiger. And on the census, he had the option to pick mix and Obama said Black, Black, Black, Black, Black, Black, Black, Black. Because he understood that, like Black people need this need to see me claim my Blackness, they don’t want to see me claim my white mom, even though I was close with my white mom then I was with my Black dad, my Kenyan dad. So I think like the idea being that like I’m aware that this stuff is complicated, but the way we make it less complicated is by creating more space of the conversation. And as more and more mixed race people exist in the world, they’re going to want to have that conversation. And the last thing I want is my daughters afraid to talk about their identity.

Panama Jackson [00:15:52] Absolutely. And the Obama convo was funny because it was the first time I’d seen so many white people trying to claim a Black dude, right? Like it was like, Nah, he’s actually mixed guys. Like, this is not a Black man. Like, Wait a minute, y’all created the one drop rule. Like, we were over here abiding by the rules. He’s dealing with all the white supremacy and all that comes with it. You now you want to change the rules because we got a presidential candidate that all of a sudden he’s if he’s not Black, then who is right?

W. Kamau Bell [00:16:18] I like what I think. I like him so much. He’s got a claim is what I’m a claim his whiteness because I like him that much. Yeah.

Panama Jackson [00:16:24] Hilarious. Hilarious.

W. Kamau Bell [00:16:26] And Obama was savvy and that was like, you can claim me, but watch who I claim.

Panama Jackson [00:16:32] Yeah, I love it. I love I love the fact that that’s a conversation that is something that. That. I look forward to seeing the doc. I’ve not seen it yet. But as you know, as a mixed person who, like I said, I’ve learned that, you know, everybody’s experience is different and that my vantage point may it’s not. It’s not necessarily outdated, but it’s just limiting. Right. Like, I’m not going to force everybody to conform to the way that I view my own upbringing and all that other stuff. So I look forward to seeing it because I’m genuinely curious about what it’s like to see people who aren’t encumbered by all the other crap. Like again I went to high school in Alabama, right? Ain’t no choices. You know like so there’s it’s just a different way of looking at it and you know even watching my own kids how that will inform them. So I look forward to it.

W. Kamau Bell [00:17:13] Yeah yeah and and you know let me be clear. Like this is two of three or like all three of my kids, right? And my daughter’s with two of them. Talk about it. And my one, my middle kid is super light skin with wavy hair. Sort of has, like, what we call Moana hair. My oldest kid, my youngest kid look like the classic Cheerio commercial mixed race kids like the the giant brown light brown afro with the caramel color skin. And so I know that in my house, the way they grow up and their conversations are going to be different about it. But also this was filmed in the Bay Area. So the Bay Area just has access to a lot of different conversations about identity that the rest of the country doesn’t often have.

1000% Me [00:17:49] Just because we live in a diverse community does not mean that racism and all that doesn’t happen. A high percentage of interracial couples have no idea what the experience is for this child that they brought into the world.

W. Kamau Bell [00:18:04] I know the way that and the documentary is centered around children. So the way that these Bay Area kids are talking about their experience is really an example for I think we can all talk about it but I know is that way all the mixed race kids in the country are talking about it.

Panama Jackson [00:18:16] Absolutely. I would say one more break here to going to come back with. I have a couple of questions for you. Then some Blackfessions and Blackmendations, here on Dear Culture. We’re back here on Dear Culture. I’m still here with W Kamau Bell. And you know, we’re talking about mixed race in which there’s a conversation about race. So I got to ask the all important question. Angel Reese, Caitlin Clarke, Man, what did this expose about our issues with the racial. Like our racial issues. As somebody who delves and lives in this world constantly talking about this stuff and breaking it down. What are your thoughts?

W. Kamau Bell [00:18:51] I mean, you know, there’s not a better example of the system of white supremacy that we live in than go then seeing something that ultimately sports like. And I’m a sports fan, but it’s not that important or just a basic level. It’s just that it’s a way for us to distract ourselves and also to find some joy in a life filled with pain. So let’s be clear about that, which is important, but it’s not like it’s not like whether or not we’re going to invade another country. So I’m just going to be clear about that. So it is meant to be a distraction and it’s meant to be a thing that we just sit back and enjoy. And one of the things that we explicitly enjoy about it, people who follow sports on real. We enjoy when athletes preen. And we enjoy athletes being better than us and being proud of it and being a little bit shitty about it, if we’re honest. You know, there’s there’s there’s some of the greatest moments in sports are athletes being like, Man, look how good I am. You know, my favorite Michael Jordan moment is the shrug, where he’s like, I don’t even know I was this good. Apparently I’m even better than I thought. And sports is filled with that. NFL is filled with players, with players sacking quarterbacks and standing over them and yelling in their face. And we all cheer these things. So I think there’s there’s this level of like, but if it’s a Black person versus a white person, suddenly all that goes away and it’s about this poor, pure, innocent white girl who is not asked to be poor, pure innocent.

Panama Jackson [00:20:14] Right.

W. Kamau Bell [00:20:15] And this Black woman who, as she said, very clearly has felt like she’s been described as a thug and is and is not a good person. So suddenly now, all the stuff that is that is embedded into sports goes away because this poor, innocent white girl who was not asked for that protection is  being assaulted, assaulted in quotes by this Black woman, even though the white girl, the thing she’s doing to her is the thing that that white girl had done to other people. So I think it is just a great example. And so not only was the reaction indicative of the system white supremacy, but then how quick white people who were many of whom were supposed to be are who claimed to be on team Black folks just were like, oh, my God. Like they ran to this white lady.

Panama Jackson [00:21:01] Sprinted, sprinted to do it.

W. Kamau Bell [00:21:03] It’s like, wait, I thought you were cool. I mean, or also, I thought you were an asshole. Like when you see white people are known to be assholes. Being like that was classless. What? You. But you’re classless. I’m not trying to, you know, say Dave Portnoy. But I’m saying, like, how are you going to call out? And then you got Keith Olberman. I thought you were one of the good white folks. Like to see how whiteness just it just like, bubbled up out of them. And they couldn’t stop it because they wanted to protect this white woman who was not asking for their protection.

Panama Jackson [00:21:35] Absolutely. Hold that thought. Let’s take a break. And we’re back. But we have come to the end of my show where we do two my favorite segments. One is a Blackfession. It’s a confession about your Blackness, where we ask people to share something that people might be surprised to know about them because they’re Black. So do you have a Blackfession?

W. Kamau Bell [00:21:54] So is the thing like I got to ask questions because I realized so is it something that is like. Like I didn’t like, Oh, that Black guy loves polka music. Is it like that.

Panama Jackson [00:22:04] It could be anything. So a lot of times people are like, you know, these are movies I haven’t seen. People would be surprised to know people ain’t seen Friday. But like also sometimes it’s things people have interesting hobbies and fascinations that are like interesting. I would not have guessed that. So the gamut is the gamut is available to you.

W. Kamau Bell [00:22:22] I think because people see my Blackness in some sort of like he’s not he’s not the he’s not the he’s not Black. Like, again, it’s like you I felt like I was like an honorary mixed person because I was like, Black but not do it my Blackness right. You know, I was like, you know, I was called you know, I was called an Oreo at various points in my life, maybe even recently. I just turned off the comments. But but so I think for me, it’s like I was my mom has I’ve celebrated Kwanzaa my entire life. Like my mom has been, we’ve been celebrating Kwanzaa since I was a little kid. Like there are literal pictures that say Christmas Tree, and then the day after Christmas it says underneath Kwanzaa Bush. So for me, Kwanzaa was like a thing that and when I was celebrating it, I thought we were the only house in the neighborhood that celebrated it. There was not like.

Panama Jackson [00:23:11] Could be true. That could very well be true.

W. Kamau Bell [00:23:14] There wasn’t like a community Kwanzaa celebration in Mattapan, Boston, when we were celebrating Kwanzaa. So for me, I feel like that gives me a level of Blackness that Black people who think I’m not Black enough. I’m like you. You’re right. You don’t. You don’t have I got this punch of my Black card that you don’t have. I’ve been celebrating Blackness since before mainstream America and even mainstream Black American, I’ve been celebrating Kwanzaa since before mainstream Black America knew what Kwanzaa was.

Panama Jackson [00:23:38] Which you’re absolutely right, because I think everybody’s kind of on board with Kwanzaa now in a way that’s kind of surprising. Like really? Because I remember when we all, like, clowned Kwanzaa like, nonstop, like we were 100% out on Kwanzaa. That’s that’s good. That’s that’s good stuff, because I didn’t know that. And honestly, I think people might be surprised by that.

W. Kamau Bell [00:23:59] You know, everything else I’ve already said, like, I didn’t grow up like listening to hip hop, even though I’m the same age as hip hop. I did not grow up listening to hip hop the way that Black people. But I’ve I’ve talked about that and that’s why I feel like I’ve given away all my Black. In fact, you have my on on being Black in ways that people don’t expect.

Panama Jackson [00:24:14] All right. Well, we also like to palate cleanse on occasion with a Blackmendation. What you got?

W. Kamau Bell [00:24:21] Music. This is a Blackfession. Now I’m thinking about it. One of the first concerts I ever went to was a Tom Petty concert.

Panama Jackson [00:24:31] Okay.

W. Kamau Bell [00:24:31] Now going the other way. I’m going like and I’ve been to a grate. And I bet when my best friend was a Grateful Deadheads, I’ve been to several Grateful Dead concerts as a teenager. Now it might be cool for Black people to be at a Grateful Dead concert. But back then it was not.

Panama Jackson [00:24:44] They selling those T-shirts at Target right now. You know what I mean?

W. Kamau Bell [00:24:49] In the nineties, I’m just trying. I try to give you both. I’m trying to give you celebrating Kwanzaa, went to a Grateful Dead concert so you can take.

Panama Jackson [00:24:56] We call that well-rounded. We call that well-rounded. Because I used to listen to Motley Crue. In middle school I was a Motley Crue dude. Like Motley Crue and Skid Row and all those are my bands. 100%.

W. Kamau Bell [00:25:07] That’s funny. Yesterday I saw a Black dude wearing a Nirvana T-shirt. I’m like, You have no idea that I died for you to wear that t-shirt. You have no idea how much I suffered so you could walk down Sixth Avenue wearing a Nirvana t shirt, Black man.

Panama Jackson [00:25:22] There you go. I love that. All right. So we also add Blackmendations to the end of our show, which is a recommendation by, for and about something Black. Could be anything. Anything you read up on, whatever you got. So do you have a Blackmendation for us?

W. Kamau Bell [00:25:35] I do. I do. It’s a YouTuber, a Black YouTuber. I know if you’re familiar with him. F.D Signifier?

Panama Jackson [00:25:41] I’m not.

W. Kamau Bell [00:25:44] He’s on YouTube and he’s a Black YouTuber who is like, I think he’s in Atlanta now, but I think he’s from Chicago. But he like, does these like hour long breakdowns on whatever’s going on in Black culture and like really deep dives that are very well thought out about things going into Black culture.

F.D Signifier [00:26:02] If Black men are lagging behind Black women at every level of education, but then we get to the highest levels of education for the first time on this entire graph, they outdo Black women. What confounding factors do you think best explain that outcome?

W. Kamau Bell [00:26:20] He’s got like 441,000 subscribers, so he’s not small. But I just don’t know that. He’s like, I don’t know that. I don’t know that he’s known, known, known. And I also don’t know. I sort of watch his things. And every now year I’m afraid he starts talking about these like leaders. Let’s talk about me. But he doesn’t he speaks the truth. And and I agree with him like 99% of the time. And I probably imagine if he said that about me, I’d be like, yeah, he’s got a point. But like, he’s got like an hour and a half long breakdowns, unlike, like two part videos that are like out of long about like sort of the career of Kanye West and how it affects him personally, what Kanye’s life and career have come to. Very sensitive but super F.D Signifier on YouTube.

Panama Jackson [00:27:02] All right. I’ll definitely check that out. That put me up on game. I can appreciate that. When’s the documentary coming out?

W. Kamau Bell [00:27:09] It’ll be out sooner than later. It’ll be out. It’ll be out. It’ll be out before the kids are out of school.

Panama Jackson [00:27:14] All right, then. I think that works. My brother, W Kamau Bell. I appreciate your time, your attention to detail and these discussions about these racial discourse. Discussions. We love them. We appreciate everything that you do. It all matters. I mean, literally almost everything that you do is something that illuminates some aspect of this insanely hilarious. And I’d, uh, social construct of race in all of its glory and destruction. So. So thank you for your work.

W. Kamau Bell [00:27:47] I’ve always been inspired and jealous of your writing. So thank you for having me.

Panama Jackson [00:27:51] Appreciate you, brother. Thank you. And thank you to everybody for checking out Dear Culture, which is an original program of theGrio Black Podcast Network. It is produced by Sasha Armstrong, edited by Geoff Trudeau, and Regina Griffin is our director of podcasts. Again, my name is Panama Jackson. Thank you for listening. Have a Black one.

Maiysha Kai [00:28:26] We started this podcast to talk about not just what Black writers write about, but how.

Ayana Gray [00:28:31] Well, personally, it’s on my bucket list to have one of my books banned. I know that’s probably bad, but I think.

Maiysha Kai [00:28:37] Oh, spicy.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault [00:28:38] They were yelling N-word, Go home. And I was looking around for the N-word because I knew it couldn’t be me because I was the queen.

Keith Boykin [00:28:46] But I am telling people to quit this mentality of identifying ourselves by our word, to start to live our lives and to redefine the whole concept of how we work and where we work and why we work in the first place.

Misty Copeland [00:29:01] My biggest strength throughout my career has been having incredible mentors and specifically Black women.

Omar Epss [00:29:07] I’ve been writing poetry since I was like eight. I’ve been reading Langston Hughes and James Baldwin and Maya Angelou and so forth and so on, since I was like a little kid.

Rhiannon Giddens [00:29:16] Like the banjo was Blackity Black, right? For many, many, many years everybody knew.

Sam Jay [00:29:23] Because sometimes I’m just doing some Sam that I just want to do it.

J. Ivy [00:29:29] I’m honored to be here. Thank you for doing the work that you do. We’ve signed and bright and we and like you said, we all keep Writing Black.

Maiysha Kai [00:29:36] As always, you can find us on theGrio app or wherever you find your podcasts.