The Good, The Bad and The Funny

for representation. Right. So each group, the Blacks, the Asians, the Hispanics, the whites, are all trading at some re enactment of the NFL Draft, and all the celebrities are up for trading. And in that instance, black people are literally like giving away Colin Powell and Condeliza to the white delegation. I'm Khalil Jabr Muhammad and I'm Ben Austin. We're two best friends, one white. I'm a historian and I'm a journalist. And this is some of my best

friends are in this show. We wrestle with the challenges and the absurdities of a deeply divided and unequal country. Ah man, and boy, what a season it has been. This is our last episode. Yeah, this is our last episode. Of the season, and you've talked about the challenges and the absurdities of our differences in this country. That's right.

And we have covered everything. We have looked at life from the tennis court to inside a prison, prisons overseas, to Jewish identity to talking about candy Man, Candy Man. I'll say it again, slow down, slowdown, slowdown. You've talked about art, yep and activism as well as being on vacation, what that looks like at Martha's vineyard and all the while. We of course have tried to be funny along the way, but we will never ever be as funny as some of the folks that we're going to talk about today.

That's right, that's right. We're actually going to talk about comedians and comedy. Comedy takes us right up to the mirror of the insanities that we experience in life and shows us exactly what we're looking at. And you know, comedy can go to the ugliest places and try to make fun of it and try to exploit it, and it could go to also really like profound places. Yeah. So, so today's last episode of this season we take on comedy. Let's do it all, right, and I promise you that

Khalil is going to be very funny. Always, always, don't Khalil. From the time I was a little kid, you know, comedy has been such a central part of you know, I think, my sensibility, but of my life. You know, maybe I owe that to my brother in some way. I remember getting like the Steve Martin comedy album and yeah, we listen to that album over and over again. Yeah. Yeah, Well I I had the same experience with my dad

playing old Richard Pryor albums. Yeah. And you know what, this tradition of comedy is the perfect art form for x pressing the absurdities of this country we live in. And you know, for black comics in particular. I mean, I think about going back to Moms maybe, or or or Red Fox, who might we did know as a stand up comic. But of course, oh man, yeah, and I mean Lenny Bruce and George Carlin, Joan Rivers, Wanda Sykes.

Yeah yeah. And of course we've already talked about Richard Pryor, but Eddie Murphy defining our generation, so I mean, like became of age with this dude. Uh. And then of course Chris Rock and and and the beat goes on, yep, yep. You know. I like to think, you know, there's tons of comedy that is just insult comedy and it just tries to go to the easiest, most caricaturable aspect of

other people. But there's a lot of comedy that that goes to the third rail of what's taboo, because it's a way to make most vivid those differences and our difficulties with them, and to challenge oursel instabilities like it shakes us up, right. But I think the point is that what makes those people stand out from the crowd is precisely that they are not just funny. They are funny about the things that are on our minds. They're funny about the things that make us uncomfortable about the

world we live in. They're funny about the things that some people want to say but cannot say. And they're also funny in the way that they demonstrate the vulnerabilities of people who are essentially victims in our society, and at their best they give voice to those experiences, sometimes through humor. Sometimes we're laughing at them in order to be in solidarity with them, and it doesn't always work. It doesn't always work. It's a huge butt like slamming

on the brakes right here. That's because because we're about to talk about Dave Chappelle's most recent special on Netflix, The Closer, in which like it doesn't work, it's tiganic, but it's like it's like that that time when it's it actually feels really offensive and it hurts and like

he goes to that third rail of taboo and gets electrocuted. Yeah, and you know, this controversy unfolded during our season of recording, and the controversy is particularly around what he called the alphabet people, you know, in this really derogatory way to talk about the LGBTQ community. So here's why we decided to talk about Dave Chappelle and the controversy around The Closer because basically, in the last like twelve thirteen minutes he does some of my best friends are kind of trope.

I want you to community to know that one of the coolest people I ever met it was a transgender woman. And this is not a man that I knew that became a woman. This woman was trans when I met a live in San Francisco. Daphne d Warman is a name yo I was watching that and I was like, he is literally saying, yeah, I'm not transphobic. Some of

my best friends are trans. Yeah. It is exactly why we did this show, and of course we conceived of it, as we've often said as a show opens, that people are like, yeah, some of my best friends are black. I'm not a racist. It could be you know, anything that goes into that line that is meant to say. You can't say I'm part of the problem, or you can't say that I've done a bigot a thing because I have this relationship with someone in the representative minoritized,

oppressed population. Yeah. Yeah, I mean we've sort of been digging in on this all season about the importance of talking across lines of difference in an honest, authentic way. And the joke of our title is that you know, we are best friends, but this is the one of the most inauthentic ways to think about differences, to say, you know, I have license to say whatever the fuck I want because some of my best friends are or I'm protected from any accusations of bias or bigotry because

some of my best friends are that thing. So at the beginning of this Netflix special, that Dave Chappelle just had the closer. He starts by saying, you know, I'm going to clear the air, and this is going to be my last special. This is I'm going to say everything I need to say, all the questions you might have had about all these jokes I've said in the last for years. I hope the answer tonight. I'd like

to start by addressing the lbgt Q community. I mean, so we know pretty clearly that he's coming for a kind of fight, and this is going to be the focus. While in previous specials his dealing with homosexuality and transgender community has been small parts, this is really going to be the brunt of what he talks about for this entire hour. Well, actually, i'd say not quite, because I think this is his last shot at essentially clearing the air and doubling down on a point he started with

in the series. So he actually invites this reflection on the quote unquote entire Netflix series, which he says in that quote, we just heard and I went back to the beginning. I went to aga spin because I was curious he having heard that line. There's six specials total, there's six of them together, and it turns out that from the age of Spin to this one and the the everyone in between, he's basically doing a six part series on cancel culture. Yeah, and where this is really

relevant to us. He's giving himself licensed to do so by evoking these relationships with people who are representative of communities that he's going to use his comedy to critique or to say they're doing something wrong. And and and that moves towards you know, some of my best friends are or some of my family are, in this case his Filipino wife, who he describes in the first episode.

You know, he makes this black and Asian joke in that one, and he describes his wife as sort of the person who um gives him license to do so. He talks about his wife's friend Stewart in this first episode because Stuart is gay and he learns about gay people from Stewart. You see this pattern throughout the entire act, including claiming that he's feminist, where he said, I am a feminist because I googled it and it can be

any person who believes in equal whites of women. Then he makes this crazy comment about you know, like my mother, my daughter, my sisters. I love these people. Of course I care about that. So I think it is really

something that's sauce. That's super weak sauce as ever lived had a mom right every racist, but also being like I'm gonna use the dictionary definition of something like like if you're writing the paper or like you know, speaking of the class, it's like I look this up in the dictionary, right then you should you should be canceled for that. Anyways, that's canceled culture, Like like I don't feel that any joke is a you know, any subject is off limits for a comedy, like it's how you

approach it, um, but I do. I do feel that way about using the dictionary in that way, that that's you should be canceled for that. So I wanted to come back to that story he tells about, you know, his best friend that's that's trans woman Daphne and so

called best tender. You know, it's a real it's a it actually you know, it's both very self promoting, like he talks about that he gave her a shot in comedy and that you know, she laughs at all of his trans jokes and she would be there, white trans woman laughing loud and hard and everything I said, especially the trans jokes, very puzzling because she was obviously transu and then she defends him when there's criticisms, she goes

against her tribe. He says, he says, he says, and then she, you know, she's also attacked for defending Dave Chappelle, she kills herself. I mean, it's a it's a devastating moment in this, you know, and this is also like, actually Dave Chappelle's amazing ability to tell stories as a storyteller, which is part of his comedy. But he comes out of this in in this way that is crazy and to me gets at what the some of my best friends trope is, which is like you're really only seeing yourself.

It's being totally self centered. It is it is losing perspective. Because he comes out of this and he starts talking about both him and Kevin Hart and how they've been canceled, and you know, he says, to take a man's livelihood away as a kin to killing him, stop punching down on my people. And it's like, what, you know, he's just talked about, you know, what it's like to be trans in a way that that you know, Uh, this, Actually he hasn't talked He hasn't but he's only he's

only that's the thing. He's only talked about Daphanie as a comedian. He hasn't actually talked about her lived experiences. Yet she killed herself like it. It's like in that story, which is unexplored by him, is the incredible difficulty of being a trans person, of making this you know, transformation of yourself and then to live out in the world

and it's there without him touching it and without him. Yeah, that's the thing he's so But then him using he's only using her death in the service of blaming the actual community of trans that he's written several routines to critique throughout this entire series. But I agree, it's such a crazy moment to contrast those things two things, to juxtapose her suicide and then him and Kevin Hart getting canceled and in this show, in the closer, there's no

comedy here. It's like righteous vengeance, you know. And it's like some of my best friends trope that he uses and that we've been talking about, you know, which feels like the antithesis of comedy. That's that's not funny, you know it is it is. It is using someone else

to prove your own virtue. That's not funny. Yeah no, I like that point about the the trope of some of my best friends are being the antithesis of comedy, because you know, not only does he evoke Kevin Hart as a kind of act of solidarity as two black

male celebrities who are now subjected to cancel culture. If you recall, he opens the first show talking about his envy for Kevin Hart because his son wants to go see Kevin Hart and he has to go and buy a ticket in Sydney audience and he watches his son adore him. I think the larger point you're making is that there's something about David Chappelle at this point in his career that is unlike we've seen in any other

comic of his stature. He has turned himself into the victim upon whom's victimhood is trying to be the social commentary for inequality, for discrimination. Yeah. Man, he actually says at one point I'm not even talking about them, I'm talking about us, And they don't listen, and he's talking about him, you know, And of course, you know he is he's talking about the trans community and he ain't

listening at all. Yeah, he's literally turned this into a social commentary about Dave Chappelle, and these other people are just foils for saying, you know, not only do I not want to be canceled, I don't deserve to be canceled, and neither do these other people. Thinking about this right

now as we're talking. One of the most clarifying aspects of what's wrong with Dave Chappelle's act in this way is that a lot of older comics, you know, the Richard Pryor's, Standie Murphy's, you know, and many many others would actually take the victimized group and show their victimization and the absurdity of how they're treated as the context

for their comedy. And so there might still be all the vulgar language, the B words, the F words, the N words, and all of that, but kind of the social commentary embedded in it was the joke about the absurdity of how this oppressed population was actually being treated. And Dave doesn't do that. There is no point in which he acknowledges that trans people actually face the absurdities of their oppression and that is the balance that one

would expect. That's the balance of our show. That's how we take culture and unpack it and say, you know, here's an entry point into something that we're all observing. But it opens up into these structures that are often invisible to us, and these power dynamics, and those invisible structures, those power dynamics, they're hilarious. They're funny. Well they're funny

in the kind of tragic comic way. Right, So I want to I want to I want to go back to the first thing you said, because about cancel culture, because because in all his examples, it's not about killing ordinary black people. The identities that he's thinking about. He's focused on himself so much that it's about being both black and experiencing oppression, but being also a celebrity and being in danger of being canceled. And so he uses

examples of other celebrities, black male celebrities. I mean, he talks explicitly about it being celebrity hunting season. And there's such an interesting idea of intersectionality that's going on here because because he sort of defends himself off, you know, his premise is that you know, I'm really talking about how how black people are treated, and I might be using trans people or gay people as the joke, and again this is comedy. So the point here is I'm

not passing moral judgment as a point to make. I'm making the point that his he actually, in my opinion, is rejecting intersectionality. I'm saying, like, look, intersectionality means that you recognize multiple identities that people inhabit in their lives that they can't separate the fact that one happens to be black and happens to be a woman, and maybe gender nonconforming or might be trans, that all those things

are embodied in a person. They might also be of immigrant background, and so you can imagine these identities multiply, and our ability to see who they are based on what they want us to see, which can shift itself,

is being intersectional. It's recognizing that. And the most powerful blind spot in The Closer in particular, but I think all of these Netflix shows is his inability to see that black people are also experiencing trans identities, they are experiencing being women, they are experiencing other forms of otherness or difference, and he's basically got an ax to grind with white people no matter what they're identities are, and they have intersectionality too, which he's not acknowledging. Yeah, that

is his range of humanity that he's identifying with here. Yeah, it's confusing, and I think this is why the series doesn't work in terms of social commentary that you know, we would expect to be achieved by someone of his caliber. Because your point is exactly right, He mentions Bill Cosby, He mentions LJ. Simpson, He mentions the baby. He mentioned

Kevin Hart. He basically built a series that would allow him to have a platform to say, you know, I think the work that these men accomplished, their legacies are more significant than the things they said or the mistakes they made. He has this line and a just been where he says, you know, he's telling a story about having mead OJ. Simpson and his white agent had asked him, you know, like, how could you shake hands with that murder? And he says, in the joke, with all due respect,

that murderer ran for over eleven thousand yards. See, that's that's a funny joke. I mean, like like because because it also it also shows our sensibilities that we actually value that like he is playing the buffoon in some way, that we actually value sports over life in some form, or that we're just like we're so distractable. There's something really, there is something that really is poignant about that, Hey, Khalil.

So we've been talking about Dave Chappelle and The Closer, and you know, he does he does this taboo thing about our differences. But we were talking about it as comedy. That doesn't work as social commentary. But but let's play a game, all right, all right, right, all right, all right, So so we're gonna pick three examples of comedy routines that we think work as social commentary and as comedy. Yeah yeah, and and that actually helped us make sense

of the world. Right, That's that I think. That's that's what I'm looking forward to. You know, we'll see what happens. You go first, all right. Number one, So I picked this one because it's it's kind of a response to Dave Chappelle and it's Sarah Silverman and it's from it's actually from like an Amnesty International fundraiser called The Secret Policeman's Ball in twoy twelve, and she does this eight minute like comedy routine and it's just it just fuck

it just kills. And you know, Sarah Silverman's comedy it does go to that dangerous place and she's totally fucked up at times. Uh, she got you know, before Cancel Culture, she gotten a lot of trouble for a black face routine at one point. Um. And her comedy routine is to play sort of this innocent but then to say

the most like vulgar surprising things. And uh, here is one where she's talking about the gay community and she begins by saying like, Hey, I just went to this gay Pride parade and you know, oh my god, I had such a blast. I had a blast. But I don't want people to label me as straight or as gay, you know. I just want people to look at me, you know, and and see me as white. You know.

I Wow, It's funny. It's an echo in a way that like Dave Chappelle is actually making that very criticism in that series about whiteness being the most dominant identity no matter what these other people are experiencing. And she shows that that people do this. But it's it's actually really funny, right Like she is she's performing ignorance and and show. You know, she's playing the buffoon in a way.

I mean, she making herself the butt of the joke. Like, is there a danger that people don't pick up that she's joking? Maybe, but that's part of the danger of this comedy. Um. And I also picked this moment because then she goes in further and she actually does the Some of my best friends are trope. I can say that I totally used to go out with a guy who is half black who broke up with me because I'm a fucking loser. And I just heard myself say that that is the most pessimistic thing. I have the

worst attitude. He's half white and he broke up with me. She did it. No, she did it, No, she did it. I Mean there's so many twists and complexities in that. You know, I just heard myself. I'm so negative and you think it's the thing that she said about herself, but it's about calling him half black. I mean, man, Yeah,

she is a complete control Yeah. I mean again, I think I think the context of sort of opening with Dave Chappelle in his career at this moment, that's another example of being self aware, right, And so she's putting herself not in the position of being the victim, She's putting herself in the position of being the butt of the victimizer. Yeah right, but the joke, yeah yeah, and

that makes her the butt of the joke. Yeah. The layers of self awareness she needs there, and I mean talk about intersectionality is like she goes from her whiteness and her straightness, her sense of a woman. Uh, you know, all of these things are in play, and she's sort of moving around between them in a way that you're not even sure where she's going to come out of it.

It's great, it's really fantastic comedy. Yeah. So so so I have an example from nineteen ninety six, uh, Chris Chris year controversial routine, one that that in many ways caught me at a moment. In nineteen ninety six, I had just started graduate school. I was like learning everything for the first time about race and racism. I was

learning black history that I hadn't been taught. And you know, you go through like this whole twelve Stages of grief when this is happening to you, because you're feeling very angry, you're depressed, you're wondering why everyone doesn't know this, and when they don't, you're really frustrated. And I say that to say, when Chris Rock gave this routine in his nineteen ninety six stand up Bring the Pain Man, that was just seminal moment. It was a seminal moment right now.

I remember just when you saw that. It was like, where were you when you saw it? I could remember exactly where I was, and I yes, and I remember when I saw it. I was at home at my mom's for the summertime, and you know, I was home from grad school. And so the routine is called Blacks versus in words, and you're playing this on air, you are break. He basically opens up by saying that there's a lot of racism going on in the world right now,

but who's more racist? White people are black people, And he says it's black people because black people hate everything that white people don't like about black people. And even more, looks like a civil war going on with black people. And here's the kicker, because the two sides are black people. And in words, hey, I love black people, but I hate niggas. Go ahead, why niggas, boy? I wish they

let me join a clue. Shit, I couldn't drop off them here appropriate niggas man god man, I Chris rock his voice, his skinny ass in a leather suit, like stomp in the stage, the way that he has to like he's like a boxer before a fight, Like the way that he has to work himself up into this energy, into this aggression. Uh. And then his high pitched voice. Uh. I mean this skit as social commentary, as just like diving right in. Yeah, well, well, well see here's a

thing like it's it's it's social commentary. Yes, he doesn't put himself in the middle of it. In other words, it's not about him in the way that you know, we've been critiquing Chappelle for this latest but it is social commentary that made me really angry. Like I got the jokes, I thought it was really funny, but I was so angry about it. And did you feel that at the time and think about it differently now? Well, no, I feel I kind of feel the same because you know,

I listened to it again. But I think for me, the point is that it was social commentary, but it was social commentary in the wrong direction. It was social commentary that gave license to the Crime Bill of nineteen ninety four. And that's what I meant by being a graduate student. So I was learning about systemic racism really for the first time. And I'm like, WHOA, Like, I

get it right. I've heard these same jokes from like my cousin Marlin, who was hilarious, right and who had lots to say about you know, brothers in the hood and rest in peace. We love you. That's where I rest in peace because but like when he says that books are like kryptonite to in words because they don't read, or when he says that black people are singing welfare carols, you know, like we wish you are married welfare and a happy food stamp, which is a line that he

has in the skit. I mean he is going I mean talk about Dave Chappelle to about going all in. He is going all in. Do you think he is playing that he these are his beliefs or he is

showing the extreme of beliefs that are also he's criticizing. Well, the twenty four year old me is not aware enough to appreciate his comedy, right, So part of for me was like understanding Chris Rock as I was growing up, as I was maturing, as I was trying to learn about the world, and so I'm in a way kind of identifying with the younger activists who are upset with Dave Chappelle, because to me, this didn't translate. This just gave license to all the terrible policies that were happening

in the world. And I saw the humor in it, but I was like, it's not worth it, right, And so I couldn't no matter no matter the humor, because I do agree it's social commentary, and I actually agree it was funny. The consequences to me crossed the line. Like He's he's basically saying, like I'm worried about in words.

And the interesting thing about this, like maybe people don't know this or they forgot it, but Chris Rock actually kind of answered for this many times, and ten years later in two thousand and five, he told Sixty Minutes that he basically said, by the way, I've never done

that joke again, and I probably just will. Interesting, yeah, yeah, because some people thought that the racist things I were saying gave them license to use the in word, and he's like, I'm done with that routine, all right, let's do one more Khalil and I'm gonna. I'm gonna let you do the last one. We're gonna, we're gonna finish this game. Tell me what you got, Okay. So this is one that is like, I mean, groundbreaking for me. I mean, this is when I learned about white privilege,

helped me understand white I have never forgotten it. I've taught it to my students. It was when Eddie Murphy did this, this comedy short on Saturday Night Live in nineteen eighty four. You know, this is Eddie Murphy post forty eight hours. He's already a star. He's wearing leather in the skit and it's like saying that there are still there is still a racial divide in America. There is still a Black America and there's still a white America. And he says, so we need to understand this better,

we need to get behind this. So he goes into a makeup room backstage at thirty Rock and he basically is turned into white face. So he gets his white face. He comes out. He's wearing the tightest like straightest gray suit, blue tie combo you could have. He's got this wig on that makes his hair look, you know, super straight and super corning. Could I interrupt you for a second, man, Yeah, yeah, yeah, because this is one of the things I picked too. I picked this one also, yo, Yeah, well I picked

the exact he's got the white mustache. Shot. He looked, he looked. He looks like he's from the zombie apocalypse, his white skin, the Magnan Pi white mustache. Right, this is this is so defining for us that, independent of one another, out of all the world, we both pick this. It's Called White Like Me, which is a play on this book from nineteen sixty one where a white journalist called It's Called Black Like Me, puts on black face

and goes to the South to experience racial oppression. Right and I. And again that's where the brilliance of social commentary comes into play because talk about the absurdities that that are on view, first in that book in nineteen sixty one, and then later in what Eddie Murphy is doing in this kit. So there's three moments in this skit.

The first one when he leaves the studio, he hits Midtown man had walks into it like a newspaper, you know, like the classic newspaper shop where you all the newspapers are there next to the candy, you know, next to a few like apothecary items. And I was going to talk about this exact, you know. And he goes up to the cashier, who's white. They're in there alone, right, Let's let's play the tape. What are you doing. I'm buying this newspaper. That's all right, there's nobody around. Go ahead,

take it, take it, go ahead, take it slowly. I began to realize that when white people are alone, they give things to each other for free. Man. I've thought about that moment a thousand times since seeing that skit. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So so the whole point of that skit, right, is to show black people how what we now call white privilege works, right, Like, like white

people get free stuff that other black people pay for. Yeah, but to me, like this is this is where comedy is so incredible in pointing out how race and racism. I mean, this is this is one of the greatest jokes about structural racism. Absolutely. And so he goes to a bank to get a lot. He's sitting across the desk from the loan manager. It's said, there's a there's a plaque that says loan manager, and the loan manager is black. That's right, And here's what happens. Let's me

get this straight. Mister, mister white, fifty thousand dollars from my bank, but you have no collateral, you have no credit, you don't even have any ID. Is that correct? That's right, mister White. I'm sorry. This is not a charity. This is a busy. What a great moment to juxtapose a white guy getting a loan from a black loan officer and the loan officer following the rules, the credit rules

about about about collateral. He's like, yeah, you're you're not gonna get alone because you have nothing to put up. And this is a perfect moment for like that racial inversion we talked about in the nineteen eighties, right, So, like part of this moment is that black people are showing up in positions of power, and it's a little bit it's touching a little bit of that sense of like reverse discrimination, right, Like, Hey, the black guy's telling

me I can't get alone. But then the joke goes even further because there's a there's a white manager who walks in and sees what's going on, Harry, Why don't you take your break now, I'll take care of mister White. The guy's like, okay, thanks, you know, like thanks for finishing this for me. And then he sits down with mister White. There's two white men in a room alone. That was a close foot one. We don't have to bother with these What a silly negro. Just shank what

you want back any time, or don't we don't care. Yeah, I mean, they're they're they're laughing together. He's handing him tracts of money. As he right, he opens like you know, a container of money, says here, take what you will have at it. I mean, so obviously, in a time when black people were being subjected to systemic predatory lending practices, being denied credit when they had the credit that they actually needed to get loans, all of this ties into

all the stuff we've talked about. I mean, it's just it is just such an incredible send up for pointing out the actual structural race, the way that what the world, the world, the country is set up for you to succeed, and you know, the things are stacked in your favor, and it's taken that it's it's running with that in this hilarious way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that you picked that. I love that we picked the same one.

All right, Khalil, all of this talk about comedy has got me thinking about this entire season, and you know, some of my best friends are and you know, like basically what we've been doing of like trying to skirt this line between comedy and big ideas, and you know, like, you know, the whole idea is that that you and I really are best friends and we're comfortable with one another. We're comfortable enough to talk across our differences, and we might we might slip up and like touch that third

rail sometimes. And I think I think part of having a genuine friendship is that the other person can call you on it. That's right, yes, And also that we see the racism and the bigotry and the inequalities of the world. We tell stories about ourselves, but only to open up to these bigger questions, and that's what comedy does. That's exactly that, It is exactly what comedy is supposed

to do. But but I guess i'd also say, like even when our sort of analysis is wrong and the other person calls us on it, like, we're also comfortable with one another that we're willing to self correct, We're willing to sort of like reassess and kind of grow,

you know. Right, So you're saying that Dave Chappelle may have gotten it wrong in Age of Spin, the first of those six part series, but instead of ending with the closer like like recognize, just like I am closing by recognizing that maybe I went about this the wrong. Man he need, he needs, he needs a best friend, and he also needs to be a best friend to somebody else, right, and and the other thing I'm thinking about.

You know, even if you have one friend who in the most genuine way tells you it's okay to do something, doesn't necessarily make it right exactly, you know what I'm exactly I mean, So you better better have a bigger survey size than that, Like, you better survey more people than my one friend. And that's exactly why this show, you know, is about these big issues and trying to

find the way to understand them through through these lived experiences. Well, well, doing this show with you for this year has been amazing. I think we explored a lot of big ideas but we also we also explored our friendship. Feel I feel like this has been like four hundred hours of story corps man, so you know, like that's that's what makes me feel even better about having done this with your love you man, love you too. Some of My Best

Friends Are is a production of Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me Khalil, Debron Mohammed and my best friend Ben Austin. It's produced by Sheriff Vincent and edited by Karen Shakerjee. Our engineer is Martin Gonzalez. Our associate editor is Key Show Williams. Our associate producer is Lucy Sullivan, and our show runner is Sasha Matthias. Our executive producers are Lee tam Malad and Mia LaBelle. Special thanks to all our guests this season and to

everyone that's helped with the show. That's right. Shout out Charlie Roth to my mama and of course you called her that she was like the Archie Bunker of the show like we just referred, and of course so many others,

including Stephanie and Danielle. But also just want to say quickly to all the comedians who've made us laugh about you know our vulnerabilities and the mistakes we make, giving us a chance to see ourselves into change up and made our lives a little brighter with laughter at Pushkin Thanks to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, John Schnars, Julia Barton, Jason Gambrell, Maggie Taylor, Nicole Morano, Eric Sandler, Mary Beth Smith,

Christina Sullivan, Brian Serber, Nick, Daniella Lacan, Royston Bazzer, Maya Kanick, Sophie mckibbon, Malcolm Gladwell, and Jacob Weisberg. Holy car We have this theme song, Little Lily by Avery R. Young. We are so lucky that that's our theme song. It is just slamming like that's our walk up music every episode. Thank you, Thank you, Avery R. Young. You'll definitely want to check out his music at his website Avery ryng

dot com. You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at Pushkin Pods, and you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcast listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And if you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries, consider subscribing to pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and uninterrupted listening for four dollars and ninety nine cents a month.

And if you haven't signed up, please do. Because Dereka Purnell, the author of a new book Becoming Abolitionists, is our guest this week. Please check her out and if you want to support our show, please give us a five star review and tell some of your best friends about it. All your best friends, lots of folks, everybody. So I was I was actually reading yesterday Eddie Glaude's book on James Baldwin again again. Eddie Glaude is a Princeton professor.

He wrote this book about James Baldwin. It's a really interesting book. It's it's it's part history, it's part analysis of of Baldwin's writing, and also a memoir about what it means to be political and what it means to be black and political. Yeah, that's it. I just wanted to tell you I was reading about you don't have any insight from the actor's book. What the fuck? No, It's just like I think, if you just quoted you sound smart