Defining Blackness: How Systemic Racism Divides Black Communities - Beyond the Scenes

you're gonna like it. Hey, what's up? Welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast that goes a little deeper into segments and topics that originally aired on the show. If the Daily Show is your uber, this is that tiny little water bottle you get for free during the ride. You're Adam Drivers having a little peppermints and stuff, a little free extra stuff that's right there, and I'm the

relentless chatty driver. Okay, that's maybe not the best analogy, but you get what I'm trying to say to you. Let's dive right in before you cancel this ride. Today, we're discussing a topic that Trevor covered back in twenty twenty when Kamala Harris became the first ever black woman to be nominated for vice president. Now Fox News journalists didn't skip a beat to claim she wouldn't black enough. The segment illustrates how white people have tried to define

blackness for centuries. Roll to clip. What's especially ironic about these people trying to exclude Kamala from blackness is that it's the reverse of what white America did for centuries, defining as many people as black as possible, whether they wanted it or not. Color and who qualifies as black, who qualifies as white has historically been policed not by those who were the targets of oppression, but by those who set up the system of oppression in America. Blackness

who's defined by that auction block. You were black if you could be put on that auction block and sold as property. Following the abolition of slavery, some Americans feared to rise in interracial relationships, so states began passing laws to make sure that any child with even one drop of Negro blood would be classified as Negro and deny the rights of white people. This became known as the one drop rule. The one drop rule was an attempt to save the so called purity of the white race.

By nineteen twenty five, nearly every state had a form of the one drop rule on their books. All you need is one person five generations back, who is black, and that is enough to make you black. Seriously, one black person in your family has the power to make you black, but all the white people in your family can make you whites. If anything, I feel like this was also racist to white people. I mean imagine that they were basically saying ten white sperm is not as

powerful as one black sperm. That is an insult to white sperm. And I'm offended on behalf of all my white brothers and sisters. Today, I'm joined by Emmy nominated Daily show writer Ashton Womack and author of the book One Drop, Shifting the Lens on Race, Doctor Yaba Blay. They're gonna both help us answer the question can you define blackness? Ashton? How are you doing today? Brother? I'm good, brother,

Always a pleasure being which man. Doctor Blair, thank you for gracing us with your presence and also embarrassing us with all of them wonderful books in the background and people listening can't see it, but you got them books, and I know you read them books because they ain't color coded. Of course, that's kind of like the given background for academics. You gotta show you books. Yeah, but

I don't respect people who color code that books. That just mean you put them books up there for the style, Yeah to it. It might be a phone book, you know, but that's legit books up there. So let's get right into it. White people have used many tactics to keep black people in line. We saw that with the history of the one drop rule, and we see it in

policing today. How have methods that white people have used to police and categorize us affected the we operate within this society as I started with you, in many many ways it's affected us. I mean, first off, we don't even get to control our image in the media. You know, we we're finally us. This existence is us taking reins of our media image. But before I was white people who controlled our images. So they it was what we would look at. We were like, oh is that us?

And that created that creates an image of yourself. They were creating the images of ourselves that we ingested, and then we in turn emulated those images. The best example I can use for that is like, um, I remember, I went to schools all over across America. I went to bad schools, I went to good schools. I went to the bad schools in bad neighborhoods and ghetto neighborhoods or whatever you wanna call it. Kids they just acted

like how they were. They acted how they were. But then when I went to like the middle class schools with the middle class black kids, instead of acting like they're the class they come from, the social class they come from, they just emulated the black blackness that they saw on TV. So they'd be like well off, but then acting super hood or act in ways that images

that were given to them on the television. And that wasn't I feel like that it was one of the ways that how whiteness affects our own image of ourselves, then putting out imagery that we then emulate and even if it's not true to yourself. And Sam itching over here, so let me jump in real question. It's the word acting. So I feel like we're going to cover a lot, but like this whole conversation, there's so many things we're going to cover. Hopefully there's the history of how race

is defined. Um, it's the problematics even a projecting race as an identity to an entire group of people and expecting us to act a uniform way. But even that question of you know, asking, you said acting, uh, their their their class, I think something to the extent that you said right, And so for me that's an immediate us that mean right for black people? Especially what does it mean to act hood versus active middle class, versus act upity versus act bougie. Like all of those categories

weren't necessarily created by us to begin with. So then when you have the intersection of race and class, these are different things happening. Right. Some could argue that whatever we define as hood is black culture, regardless of where you fall on an economic hierarchy. Like you like potato salad at the cookout, I don't care how much money you make, right, and you don't eat everybody's potato salad? You notice, speak to black people when you walk into

a room. It doesn't matter what you know, how much money your mama makes, so how much money you make,

or what college you went through. There's certain cultural mores that we all, I think globally right agree to and so I think what ends up happening is the intersection of race and economic status and all the intersectional axis of our identity has us confused and has us even having these conversations, right, Okay, So then on the other end of the stick, you know, I was a child that was raised by two college educators between my two parents, or five college degrees in the home, so I wasn't

allowed to go used to could, so there was always a stress on verbiage and vernacular. But then the moment I came from the white middle school back to the black middle school in seven grade, you talk light, white volte, Why are you talking a whole proper? How much have we've been bamboos with ourselves into restricting what we even know blackness to be because it is defined by white don't I say white people? I'm talking the media. I'm talking like even something as simple as who they choose

to interview for the eye witness. I've seen what happened they were over there, and then the things in the car flipped up, like how much does media play a role in influencing how black people define blackness? I mean, I would open our arms wider and say, you know,

I was talking about white people. We're talking about white supremac societyology, right, You're talking about historical way of thinking about ourselves that is very much informed by the power and privilege that has been I was going to say bestowed, but I really want to say taken by white folks. Right.

So they've come to define what white is, what good is, what black is, what bad is, what ghetto is, what they've come to give us all of these categories of behavior, and so us wanting to be free, right, wanting to have access to all of the better places, like and I'm all over the place, but stay well, no, no, keep going, keep going. I am very black capital be in a lot of ways politically for my political kind of views on the world we live in, especially the

country that we live in. And so and my family folks might call me, you know, the radical one, right, And so let's just say my community of folks, my friends, we all tend to have similar kind of ideas and see ourselves connected similarly, particularly in our relationship to this kind.

But one thing that fascinates me is for all my radical, natural haired fist bumping folk, how many of us, and by us, I mean them send their schools, send their children to predominantly white schools, right, And so on the weekends, you might be with auntie and uncle and we're talking about RBG and you know, we're talking about all manner

of things and trying to situation in your blackness. But on a day to day you are one of three, one of ten, one of however, in the school because your parents, even your radical black parents, believe that in order for you to get a good education, I can't send you to Philadelphia public schools. I gotta send you to Germantown friends, or I gotta pay tuition at another space, and I hopefully will supplement your blackness when you come home. But we and you know, in fairness, it is a

fact that our public school systems are not equally yoked. Right, So then what do you do as a black parent If you want your child to be quote unquote well educated or to have the opportunity to go on to college or higher ed, you want them to be grounded as best as possible. And so we're constantly putting these spaces of like how do we make these decisions? And some of us end up feeling like we quote unquote have sold out right and in order to take advantage

of the quote unquote best opportunities. If that makes sense. This is why I'm gonna send my kids to doctor Umar school. Right there, that's a whole separate conversation I have to explain to people. But doctor Blake, when we see people like now VP Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama, they run for office, they win, and it's you know, they win some of the highest seats in the country. They always get a little extra pressure put

on their shoulders from the Black community. They always have to carry the burden of hope, you know, we hope that this means our issues and finally be taking care. One of us is in there, one of us is it? Finally it is about time. But doctor Blake, why is it harmful for people to assume that every black person that makes it to power is a political seat for all black people or do you even think that's harmful?

I would just say that all the views expressed here are on my own, and I know that the blacks might not agree. It's hard because we have to also understand the danger of talking about the black community all skin folk and can folk. Right, So for me, the fact that no judgment love them. The fact that Barack Obama and Kamala Harris aspire to be in those positions says something to me about their relationship to a white

supremacist ideology. That might not be fair. But the fact that you want to be in power of this country, the fact that you want a suppledge a lagtion to this flag, the fact that you want to uphold the articles in this constitution, we're not the same right now. In fairness, Should we have black folks in these positions, sure, but we shouldn't we and by I mean us looking through the screens, we should not assume that that means that they'll now be able to bring us with them,

because they're also. Let me use your friend Clarence Thomas as an example. In my opinion, part of the ways in which he's been able to stay in the position and have the positions that he's ad it's almost like he's had to perform more disdain for black people to somehow prove to white folks that he's like them. Right, So, just because you're in a position of power doesn't mean that I'm bringing y'all with us. I'm going to be bringing our whoever hour is right, our needs to the table.

Sometimes I think they even have to perform a particular level of anti blackness just the white folks will trust them. I can't remember who said the quote, but I remember you kind of shift gave me perspective. Not in a good way, it just gave me more perspective of why I kept asking, Brock, don't do nothing. What's my Brother's Keeper program? You know those programs, the things we did get. When I look at it as a whole, I was like, that's not a lot for you know, the first black president.

But that's when someone I heard someone I think it was, I don't know if it was Corner it was. I don't want to attribute to the wrong quote, but it was basically, Barack Obama is not the president of Black America. Barack Obama is the president of America, and America is you know, it's a white country, guys, and so you gotta it's the same when we see like democrats who we think like, you're a Democrat, but then they shift

towards the center. You gotta sift towards, shift towards the right to get that to even be president, you gotta appeal to some white people white people, and again, I want to just I'm going to reiterate this throughout our conversation because I don't want us to focus on people as much as I want us remember ideology. As uncomfortable as it might say be to say the words out of your mouth, we are talking about white supremacist ideology.

This is not about white people. Because you said America as a white country is going to be somebody in the comments that says, well, it's this percentage of this and this percentage of that, and people of color. Okay, fine, I'm not talking about the color right of the people physically. How are we thinking? What is that constitution built upon? How do we think about those quote unquote people of color. The fact that we even have to have the language

people of color normalizes and centers whiteness. The fact that we have diversity, equity and inclusion leaves whiteness over here. We're gonna national geographic Look at all y'all other people. Whiteness is the norm. Whiteness is the center, and everything else has to make do. It's your perspective, rooted in the belief that this is a system that cannot be fixed or infiltrated or in some degree bit by bit repaired.

Is the system in which this white supremacist system and under which we all agree we exist unders black people? Is it irreparable? And if not, how do you fix it from the political side using their rules? Thank you for saying that it makes me uncomfortable. I always crenzel. I have to answer that question because I want to be able to say, yes, let's burn it down, we can fix it, right. I don't want to feel as

it's a defeating and deflating experience. You know, the more we are faced with particular realities every single day, the ways in which white folks get off the hook, you know, it can be defeating and deflating. Howsoever, I do want to believe, and I do believe, bit by bit, chip by chip, every generation we are all making a difference, right, But we have to temper our expectations. Are we going to fix it in dismantle white supremacy in our lifetime?

Likely not. It doesn't mean we don't stop shipping away at it, doctor Blake, Respectfully, I just think it being very pessimistic. We pass body camera laws and grant that the cops haven't turned them own yet, but eventually they'll turn them onto. In the meantime, we record the police, and I know they passing lost out to make it a league to record the police, and they got Jerry Mandrilla. Damn.

When you can when you can get away with storm in the capital and we come to find out who the leaders are and they'll be free, and you can get away with shooting one black man ninety times? Yes, Oh, and it doesn't even get I can tell just a personal anecdotal story that just happened on July fourth at the New York going to see fireworks, and my mom and sister, Uh, it's all these beautiful people of color,

July fourth, American Independence Day. There's literally fireworks in the air blowing up, and this lady is she looks like Clarence Thomas's wife. Literally just look like Clarence Thomas's wife. She's getting kicked out, She's getting escorted out by the cops because she's like calling people slur She did not like seeing all this beau the beautiful. It was beautiful. It was all kinds of diverse people out there celebrating America. You know, as hard as that is, you know, I

love I love everybody. But you know, as a person of color minority in this country, you know, you're like, all right, all right, I'm gonna do it. And so when she saw all these beautiful people celebrating looking different shades, she lost her stuff started calling everybody slurs. And in fourth of July, this this fourth of July, with fireworks in the air, I had a white woman let me dead in my eyes and called me a nigger and uh, and it felt like America condoned it. There were fireworks

in the area. It was like yeah, uh. And what happened was there was a black cop right next to it. And then the whole crowd was like, oh, oh, this is how, this is how nothing. It feels like nothing can be done by racism. The black cop when they go, oh, she called him an N word. To come, she said in word, She called him an inn word. The black cop goes, who she called an inn word? I don't know, she didn't called me an inn word. And he goes, no, no,

she called him and he was like, oh cool. Uh. And then because he got to keep his job though, don't he Because he's he's protecting this country, he gotta go to the locker room with them cops. He got a ride with them boys, right, And I feel this is the frustration, right. But also I know you're gonna be tired of talking around me. Asson. I'm coming back to language because again it connects to white supremacist ideology. I refuse to call myself a minority. I don't care

what's your statistics. Show what you say out of your mouth impacts how you feel in your body and vice versa. Right, and so if you see yourself as a minority, you might have your head down acting like a minority in this country. You might concede that this is y'all's country, and that is a complete revisionist idea of how things have gone down. You know, language, people of color, I get it. This is what I'm saying. It's no judgment,

for real, for real, we are trying. But I'm also here to ask us to think critically about what we say and how we do things. For black folks, our particular relationship to this country, we can't afford to be piled in with people of color. We need our own black folks. Okay, to that point of not being and powered in with people of color and black people needing

to be their own, separate, operated entity. How much pressure do you think it's put on black people that are in positions of political power to portray blackness to the public while remaining, you know, on the level with the white politicians that are in office, who they got to make the deals with. Much like that black cop where all right, you need the trust of the black community. You want the love of the black community. So you gotta make sure that you're doing something. You gotta show

up and eat the chicken. You gotta come to essence Fest and wave to the people. But I hosted essence Fest two years in a row, and I can't tell you the number of politicians, not just at the national level, but at the state and Senate level who was coming and going, hey, y'all, I got y'all back. But also I gotta go deal because you know, you look at Stacy Abrams is a great example. It ain't black people alone who put her in office, but it is black people who put her in office, if you get what

I'm saying. So how much pressure is on the backs of those politicians? And is that a fair pressure for the black community to put at their feet? It's an enormous amount. I can't even imagine the amount of pressure. Um is it fair? Maybe not? But I think what black folks are responding to is y'all come to the church. Y'all come to the sorority and fraternity meetings, y'all come to home. Come, and y'all come. When y'all are campaigning, and you are man, you are a woman, you're gonna do.

You're gonna be all right, cool. We're gonna rally up like how we do. We're gonna organize because you know how we do. We're gonna organize like how we do. And we're gonna show up and we're gonna vote for you, sister. How to the polls. Let's go right, We're gonna get all our people ain't never voted before. Come on out, we gotta one of us. We're driving. We don't care if they gerrymanded half of the state and it's only one Poland station in the next two hundred miles. We're

gonna get you there. We can get the entire time. We standing in line, but we're gonna be We're gonna be there to vote. Right. I remember the night President Obama was elected in and it was it felt like it was late. We were out at a bar. I mean, people were crying, people were overwhelmed. I felt like it was an out of body experience. The next day, at the time, I was working at a predominantly white institution. White folks didn't know how to behave They didn't know

how they should be responding. Some of them overdid it, some of them felt like they were in mourning, and black folks were just like, don't talk to me today because no I remember absolutely right. And so I think, coming back to that question, is it fair. I think black folks are trying to cash in on the work that we did to get you in office. Now you in office, and all of a sudden, we gotta understand

all these things. Be honest when your campaign, let us know that you can only do so much because at the end of the day, it's still their house. But you're gonna do what you can. Don't come telling us what you're about to do, knowing good and well you can't do it by yourself. Is this country after the

break of doctor Blay and Ashton? I want to get into how we as a community sometimes like try to police each other's blackness and see what are the things that led us to this place, the causes that have led to this effect? Is that effect with an E or A. I don't know it's talking. I'm talking. You can't tell. Let's be on the scenes. We'll be right back, doctor Blay. How can I what's the safest way to enter this part of the conversation? How do we as

a community? I don't like blackness being policed. All right, I'm gonna just start right there if I'm just using my own personal experiences. Okay, I'm a black kid that loves baseball. I was in chess club, but I also played at the park shout out to Powdery Park and West Side of Birmingham with Gangster Disciples and Vice Lord. So I grew up seeing a spectrum. I know how to swim. So there are all these things that I saw growing up that to me, we're just black people

doing a thing. So I never saw something as being a black or white thing until I went to visit relatives in more rural parts of Mississippi. And now I'm talking proper and now you're using them big words. You think you know everything, Like, in what ways do we divide ourselves as a people? And does that self policing of our own blackness. Is that a hindrance or does that help us define ourselves so that we don't drift

into losing our sense of culture. Sure, my first responses are going to it feels like a hindrance right in the ways that you've explained it, because we are holding onto very narrow ideas of what blackness is, and I think we have to take it back. Historically, I feel like as black folks, and again I'm using be capital black. There are some folks that are still lowercase B. Now when I say capital be black, I'm recognized as Blackness as a larger umbrella identity under which everyone of African

descent falls. Right. So I'm first generation gunn In born in New Orleans. My folks in Ghana might not identify as black because they've never had to. Right. It's not until you were forced to be in mixed company that you are now black or white, or Asian or Latino, these conglomerate types of identities. But when you're in Ghana, you're a Khan, You're gone, You're you know, all these other ethnic groups. The blackness happens when you leave that space.

And now you're in company with other people. Right. That being said, how could we if we're talking about this large umbrella of blackness right holding people of African descent all over the world, We couldn't even begin to say that's black behavior, that's not. I mean, whether as we wash our legs, I can tell you that we all use soap and wash cloths or some other coutrement to scrub skins. Do we do that? You know what I mean?

We got a hot sauce. There are certain things that we do all over the world, but playing chests and playing baseball, in those things, that's a part of being

a black American, I would say. But I think what happens, particularly when we start doing that North South divide, because I grew up in the South and then moved up north, and I think that is really that feels like a historical kind of we's free up here and y'all enslaved down there on both ends in terms of how we think of ourselves, right, And so y'all uppity up there, y'all speak different, y'all got different accents, y'all do things differently.

In the South, who we're looking at them as if they're backwards, you know, are closer to the cotton fields. You know. Side note, it might not make it in Everybody Loves pe Valley. I just got on the Pea Valley p Valley where I'm into it now second season, but there seeing of this show starts with a trigger for me because it was scenes of a hurricane, assumingly Katrina right. So I was already annoyed. But then as I continue to watch the show, I'm like, y'all got

every Southern accent in this show. You know the difference between a New Orleans accent and a Houston, Texas accent, and an Alabama accent and an Atlanta y'all got. So it's almost like this would It felt like I could be wrong. I didn't do my research on the show. It almost felt like somebody said, we gotta do the South. Y'all go at it because you don't respect the space culturally enough to know that there are distinctions. These are right New Orleans. We say about to We don't say Finna.

Who says Finna? Certain people say Finna. I don't say finda right these are and I think because it is aligned with blackness, all of us negated. It's not that important. It's crucial if we really respect blackness as a culture. It's crue show that some people put sugar in spaghetti and some people mix the spaghetti altogether, Like black spaghetti is a thing right a town. I just don't make spaghetti, like how we make spaghetti just lesson. I don't where

where you look? Where are your people from? Y'all with spaghetti? But it's just the same for me, And this is kind of I'm somebody. My work is on blackness, My PhD is in black studies. Right, this is my joy, and I get really excited about seeing how we're connected all over the world. And so for me, these cultural things that we don't give credit to and we don't

see the power in that. That saddens me because if we don't see the power in our own culture, we've allowed ourselves to believe off that this white supremacist ideology has projected onto us that we have no culture yet and still historically y'all went around the world stealing everybody's

culture who didn't have culture. Well, doctor actually actually about like I remember the first question or a point ahead or a point I had was about I made a class issue saying poor people act like this middle class, did you, and which I was just poorly phrase the way you describe it is like blackness can be there's a whole spectrum of blackness, which is what I was which is how I was trying to describe it using like you said, language is important, and but that My

question is you do you think the media in media in general shows the lowest essence of blackness? And then people no matter what where you are amongstad spectrum, because that's the main, that's the main, that's what we emulate,

that's what we copy. And be clear when we think about it from a production standpoint, creative standpoint, it would be so easy to say, look at how white people putting black people on TV a lot of times that I spolk a lot of times is a black directors and producers and EPs because you know why, though, again think capitalism. What's gonna sell? If the large majority of your audience is a white audience, which blackness do they

want to see? How do they maintain their delusion of supremacy right If not by being entertained by the lowest of us, by the ghettoest of us. They have to maintain the idea that they are superior to us. So let us continue to project these notions of black people being hood, not being able to speak, killing each other, sliding up and down the pole. And I don't have shame about that. What's so interesting I'm thinking of system Monique. She came out and it was a whole rally around

sisters wearing bonnets in public. I was so annoyed by that, right, not because I myself want to walk outside with a bonnet, but like, I just don't think we can afford to be out here doing these public kind of Let's get us folk together, because ultimately, what you're saying is we got to act right in front of these white folks. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't change anything. You think they're looking at what you were wearing before they shoot

you ninety times, It doesn't change anything. And so we get so caught up in the surface of things. We do the codes switching. We want to live in a certain neighborhoods, we drive certain cars. If we got Gucci, we want it right here on our chest. I want to make sure you see that as Gucci, right, because we know that there's value afforded right to the performance.

I think of value and to me that that's what we can't afford to be doing that, because ultimately, when we're not thinking critically about it, we're not recognizing how we are supporting a white supremacist ideology. We're not dismantling it, we're not pushing back against it. We're saying, you're right, let's act right, y'all, instead of saying this whole way of thinking is out of order. I think Ashton and I are going to have the same answer to this question,

but I'm asking it to you first, Doctor Blake. When we think about our upbringing and how that affects how we view blackness and what is blackness, was there ever a time in your life where you didn't feel black enough, where you felt disassociated from the black mainstream, however you

define it. Yeah, I would say in that regard, there were times where I didn't feel black American right because I grew up in a Ghanaian home, right, and so though I saw myself connected at home, we eat with our hands, you know, we listened to a different type of music, and I feel like I've always been just interested and let me connect the dots. So I don't feel, you know, so out of place, you know, And so there were things in New Orleans culture. I'm like, oh,

we do that too. It's okra and gumbo. We eat okra stew, you know what I mean. I was always trying to show people we're more like than we are different. Everybody doesn't necessarily see things those ways, but yeah, I definitely spent a lot of time. My name, my name is not Yabba. My name is Yabba, but I'm not walking around with a Ghanaian accent. So whatever makes it easy to your turnue, it's Yaba when I go to Ghana's the only place I hear people singing my song

to the right toomb. And so there's so many ways that I've had to Americanize, I should say black americanize myself because of your cultural route. How did you deal with the Black American divide between Black Americans and Africans If I'm would just be one hundred about it, where you know, we would call your slurs and you talk funny and why you wearing that? And you like the African booty scratcher Ashton, I'm sure you're familiar with that

Southern attack phrase. Yeah, yeah, And it was like it was such common place, you know, as a black American to view people like yourself as other and not part of the diaspora. Like that was never taught. I'm gonna just be real with you, Like it was never introduced. It definitely wasn't introduced in the school system. And unless you had parents that interacted with immigrants, they didn't know what the hell they was to be telling you. You

got them. I march for you, boy. You going to school and you're gonna go to college because then white

folks was beating on me in the sixties. That's and also it's not even it's not just that, it's the fact that we've othered ourselves from Africa so much as black people when we see Africans comeing over here, it's like, oh, no, you like the commercial, I see you, oh buddy, right, or even I've I've I've gotten the sense that for many black Americans there is a resentment, right because a lot of and I can speak for West Africans specifically, a lot of West Africans coming to the US and

getting quote unquote better jobs. They're going straight to doctor, they're going straight to lawyer, they're going to certain you know, and economic status and being able to live in certain areas, this idea that they are coming to take something from you. Right, I've definitely gotten that sense and it's true, Like in our West African community in New Orleans, very middle class, upper middle class at that And so for me, my code switching wasn't even about white people. It was about

going from Africa to Black America. It was about switching my behavior in that cultural zone to wanting folks to know, like, I'm down like you. So, No, I might not have a grandmama in the project, but the minute I had the ability to go to the project, I was going to hang out in the project. Like it was almost like I was trying to make sure that I knew what the experiences were about so that you couldn't keep me from them. That makes me, I want to know, then,

what is blackness? Because it seems like everybody has a relationship with blackness, no matter how whether you like some hood super hood person, you got your own person relationship with blackness, unless you're some some girl who somebody who's like, you know, I'm too white for the black people, too black for the white people. Like it seems like there's a relationship too blackness that every single black person, dark skinned person, melinated person has to deal with. So what

is that? Is there an essence we're all trying to achieve. I'm curious. So for me, again, I think that's somebody's work to do long term work. But I think our confusion, the conundrum is that we're thinking about blackness as a race and not a culture. And so we would have able to take the time to understand what a culture is and what cultural mores are, we would again be able to recognize. I hear it all the time when folks go to Ghana, when they go to Jamaica, they're like,

we do that, we do that. It's like this, you know, And I say, there's a hashtag that I've used everywhere we go. There we are. But you have to be open to seeing yourself in that way, right, And I think that's the critical thinking in the consciousnesship. You have to be open to making the connections as opposed to drawing the distinctions. We're better seated, right again, not minorities.

We are a global majority. So it's in our best interest then to see all the ways that we are connected to one another as opposed to distinct I would say. For me, if there was a time where I knew I didn't necessarily feel black enough, was when I first started doing stand up comedy, because in ninety eight, you know, off the heels of the deaf jam movement in the rise of BT's comment view, a lot of black comedy thrived in stereotypes, not necessarily not just about the world,

but also about blackness. So blackness was defined by whatever they collective shared experience was in that particular night or that group of people. So there would be nights where I get on stage, you know, And I started when I was a nineteen So my early jokes were just a nineteen year old black college student had them folks in the room is over the age of fifty and never went to college. So this book buy back joke, it ain't gonna connect with you. You had to work.

And so the one thing I did gradually learn over time though with black people and we were just talking about the diasporas. My comedy changed, My comedy evolved is that the one thing we all share is pain and a struggle and figuring out a way to make it. Whether you still live in the Caribbean or you still live overseas or if you're a black brit whatever it is,

you're dealing with some form of struggle. So when I learned how to coach whatever it was I want to talk about in the form of here's what I'm dealing with, and made it about my form of blackness, people were more it was the jokes were more well received versus have y'all ever, don't y'all all hate it when you be swimming and no, I don't get in a pool or in a pool put you know. So that's kind of where I fell out of place aston I don't know, you know, coming up in the black clubs and Houston

and Memphis and stuff. If you dealt with that, but for me, that was like the first smack in the face of like, oh I'm different. Black absolutely had the exact same experience. You know. One of my mentors is Alisa Diek. If you know anything about him, he who thrives in He thinks pressure makes diamonds and he loves going to hood rooms because that pressure make diamonds. And I would go in there, same exact thing. I'm a college kid being like Mike cars Uh, it's pushed the start.

It just takes three people my right guys maybe like boy, if you don't get that, boy, and so it was. It was. It definitely was a struggle. It maybe looking myself like damn, it's my comedy for white people, but no, actually wanted to finding myself and just being able to speak from a you one. It's two things. I know. It's black people just like speak, be real, be real, and now they can connect. It's a connection. You can

find it to be entertaining. That's it. I got in my head a lot thinking it was me and my two whiteness. No, once I started, I'm being myself more, I started connecting more with audiences. But there was a complex in my head for a while with my blackness and relationship with my comedy. And now they're also going to be other black folks like you who have similar experiences,

you know, so maybe there are your audience. But one thing I also want to come back to something you said, roy Um, because I hear this a lot when folks think about blackness and they think about the things that are common amongst us. So idea that we all have a common struggle, right like, no matter where we are across the world, and that is real because white supremacist delusion is global. For me, though, I also want us to balance that out and recognize. You know, people say

black girls are magic. That's not to take away from our humanity, but that magical piece because I also love comedy, right, the fact that even through all of these things, that y'all have the ability to make people laugh. Even while these things are happening, we find a way to come up with all the TikTok dances. Right, We've got the best music, We've got the best We're still cooking, we're

still eating good, We're still having a good time. We're still hugging and kissing and speaking to people on the street that you don't even know, wishing your baby well, like graduation. We're still doing all these things. And I think that's what they don't understand, why we're still smiling and laughing and dancing after all that they couldn't, after all that our ancestors have been through, and we still here.

We're not supposed to be here, We're still here. Not only are we still here, we can have a good time. At the same time. There are times where things happen in the world and I'm like, let me log off a social media because I'm too sensitive. Y'all ought to get all my nerves. And then there are times where I'm like, there's so much going on, let me log in, let me look at all of the wackest ratchetness means and videos, let me last It's always We're always going

to have the space to laugh and find joy. So with that, with all of that being said, and everything we have unpacked up into this point, how did you decide to write a book on all of this, doctor Blake? This is stressful, by your own admission just now, it's

sometimes stressful. So I can only imagine the process of unpacking everything to decide where to focus your book, because like, because, because your work focuses on like colorism and beauty and gender and politics, and so with this book, you figured out a way to go beyond that and explore blackness

as a whole globally, like how we're all connected. Like so when you wrote One Drop Shifting the lands Own Race, did you know this was going to be a big gass mountain that you was going to have to climb? And why did you still decide to climb the mountain? And this book? I didn't know, but step by step

one thing that is a blessing for me. I was trained at Temple University, home of afrocentricity and African centered ideology, and we talked about a place so we're not talking about black and white, were talking about African and European, right, and so it's a very black space. And one of the greatest blessings in my training was that I should center myself right in research. So many times folks are encouraged to be objective whatever that means that you should

separate yourself from the work that you're doing. And this is why you can have black folks doing research about their own communities and using language like them and they I'm gonna say me and us right, And so that there there's literally a shift in my thinking in my movement when I connect to the work right. So I grew up in New Orleans, and which you should know about New Orleans is that they're a long history of

color coded racial ideology, right. And so whereas in other places in the world are in the country white and black, in New Orleans it was white, creole black right, and creole as a larger umbrellas just to say not fully black so you could be quadroon, oct rooms, quinta roon, all these terms, right. Historically, historically literally one quarter black, three quarters white, you know, like that kind of equations.

All that to say that, historically that meant that blackness seemed to be a punishment, right, so that if you had any bit of mixing and listen to the language, you got to be something else. You didn't have to be black. So blackness was a punishment of source. I say that just to preface me. Growing up, I probably knew that I was dark skinned before I knew how to spell my name, because everybody made it a point. Oh, you're so black, You're so black, You're so black, You're

so black. She black, the black one black black black black? Are you real? Black? Black? Black? Black? Black? Like constantly I knew that I was dark skinned, right, And what I also knew just on a child's observation, my father taught a Xavier right, and so here's an HBCU. And many of the students who were sent to Xavier, they were brown skin folks. For a large majority of them were very very light skinned. Some of them may have identified as Creole, some could have passed for a variety

of things. But it's to say, just even as a child, I saw what's the mayor looked like? Right, what city council looked like? Well, the students at Xavier looked like. I could see the power and privilege that was assigned to lighter skin. I could also see how lighter skin folks treated me like I couldn't. I wasn't invited to someone who I thought was one of my best friends in elementary school. I wasn't invited to her birthday party

because my mom and said I was too black. Yeah, this is a black girl, or another black child, or a white child. I'm gonna call a creole. Creole I see right now. To me, creole is black. But who am I to tell you who you are? Right? Y'all? Rolling with it? Rolled with it? But it is to say it was a different experience, and I felt that we moved from New Orleans to Delaware because my dad went from Xavier to del State, and I had a whole different experience coming up north. Now, did I know

I was dark skinned? Yes, But then I got away pretty for a dark skinned girl. Then I had my foxy brown era, you know, like it was a different situation up here, and then of course the nineties hip hop. You know we read black and green. I'm wearing head rats like my stock is real high because I'm an original African, you know. So you know. So that was

my experience. All of that to say, by the time I got to grad school, moved back to New Orleans, and then came back up to go to grad school a temple, I had an experience with a sister who I wouldn't have called a sister at the time, who was a grad student at the program super super super super light. I didn't know anything about her, but what I knew is she would come up to the eighth floor glad Felt A Hall, which it was our common area,

and she wouldn't speak to people. How you come up here, room full of black people and you just don't speak. How did that work? So in my mind, I'm connecting dots. This is how the girls act in New Orleans. This is how you act. You one of them. You one of those people who thinks that light skin is a skill set. You one of those people who think that you have privilege because you light skins. Check. I don't fool with you, and I did not fool with her.

Right before she graduated. She got her master's. One of our common professors like, you gotta read Danielle's paper, and I'm like, I'm not reading shit. You gotta read Danyelle's paper. I read her paper. I come to find out that she her father's black, mother's white Mennonite from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she was the

blackest thing there. She was really clear that she was black and Lancaster because they told herself, and it got so bad to the point where she dropped out of high school and finished at home homeschool gd Right. She came to Temple because she wanted to be around black folks. She wanted to be in Philly with black folks. She wanted to connect with the blackest space. She got a masters in Black Studies because she wanted to right. And she came up there not speaking because she thought we

didn't like her. She thought she wasn't black enough, so she was reserving her peace. And I'm like, wow. You know then I had another experience being on a panel with a sister Rosa Clemente, and you know, we're talking about colorism. A diaspora, and she introduces herself, I'm Rosa Clemente and I'm a black Puerto Rican woman from the South Bronx. And I'm looking at her, like, black Puerto Rican,

what's that? I just know Puerto Ricans and she doesn't look black for what I thought I knew blackests who was at the time, but she was adamant to continue say black Puerto Rican, black Puerto Rican, black Puerto Rican. And so it just had me thinking, like, Yo, blackness looks a whole lot of ways in this world. But I'm also very interested in and again listen to my own how I've been impacted for folks who don't have

to be black, Why are you choosing blackness? And so the book is about me talking to them, but yeah, like, if you don't have to be black, why are you choosing blackness? And so in the book, I interview them about their blackness. And though many of them use different languages, like Danielle identifies as black and Mennonite, there are people who identifies by racial multi racial, just you know, different terms, even the again the language that we use. Wanting to

know what does that mean to you? To identify as black and mentonite or by racial or mixed race, because in fairness, I've always judged those terms because again historically and in my experience, or you're just saying you by racial so you don't have to say you black. You're trying to take the out. I've never had an out. Now, see that brings up a question after the break, I want to get into about how can we fix those

moments that you had on the eighth floor. How what can we do as fella black folks capital b to make better choices when we see a quiet Negro across the room and figure out whether or not they hate, or whether or not All this is beyond the scenes. We'll be right back beyond the scenes. We're bringing at home talking blackness, what it means to be black, and whether or not you can place all of that blackness at the foot of black politicians and expect them to

honor all different quadrants of blackness, Doctor Blade. Before the break, you were telling a very very wonderful story about a woman who I would assume now as a colleague, and how we can sometimes as black people, tend to misread one another initially if we think that your blackness is something that is different. What can we do now to

better understand each other's Black experiences? Because I will say that I feel like artistically we're in a better space now because like I would argue that a like Donald Glover or Isa Ray would not have gotten shows or would not have gotten the same looks twenty five years

ago versus today. I do think that young Black people that are different, who did not come up necessarily in the hood, you know, even Jabuki who was on with us for a long time, Ashton, I would argue that them taking their identity and owning that yes I am black and accept me as I am. Yeah, I like anime and what is I think part of it? But what can we do as layman to better understand each other's Black experiences? Doctor? I mean, that's a great question.

I want to honor our feelings though, right, And so the reason why I tell that story is I don't want to throw away the fact that I had a certain upbringing in certain certin certain painful experiences, and so that Danielle's presence was a trigger for me. I have to own that, so right, So that's that's my job and my work to work through that. The question is always how you know, is it only through therapy. I don't know. I have to work through that what could

have happened different in that situation. It's also then on Danielle to know, Okay, you want to understand blackness. There are certain things that we do as black people, right we speak, We're not saying, have a whole conversation, good morning, good afternoon, Hey, how y'all doing a not even but just to walk with your head up and not acknowledge us, We're going to think about you funnily right right there,

I am. I'm in my head all the time. And if me looking down at the ground means like I'm not participating in blackness, and I'm like, oh, well, I'm sorry, I'm insecure. I guess I'm not black? Are Now that's a good point too, because you know, at the end of the day, it's not always all about us, right, we project our stuff on the people all the time. You never know what somebody is dealing with ut how

they're thinking about. So that's that's absolutely fair. I guess what I'm struggling with as I'm struggling to answer the question, right, what can we do? I think these conversations are helpful. I think honesty, you know, about who we were. I know so many people all the course of my life who's just straight up light about where they've been and what they did trying to get their black card check. Like you ain't never hung out in the projects? Why

are you saying that? I mean even rappers, even rappers, what you're rapping about? So that's because I was going to ask you. That's from my perspective. I mean, it seems like just because it seems like we have all so much baggage with it. That's like gatekeeping blackness is it's under you're black. You're black in my in my head, since there is such a big spectrum of blackness, you can't really define it if you're black. It seems like

something that you just can't gate keep being black. But that being said, like I have one hand that feels like you shouldn't get keep blackness because we'll create complexes and insecurities and people. And then on the other hand, I don't want Jack Harlow to being rapped, so I have to find a way. Okay, I know, Okay, So then so then let's get to the ship. Then, so then let's get to it. So the last question, can

you define blackness? Because now, if you're going to introduce Jack Harlow into the conversation and go, okay, you have somebody who we think is a culture vulture and it's just coming in and co opting and experience, that speaks to that it is rooted in something spiritual that we know you cannot relate to because of your upbringing. Dog, where do you put black conservatives when we're trying to define blackness and we're not just talking about the Clarence

Thomas Says and everybody else who stumped for Trump. And I'm not naming name you know the names. We don't have to name the names. But where do you put give me a stacy dash, give me, give me a stacy dash in like, where does that fall on the blackness spectrum? Is that should that also be respected as some form of black ideology even though it's not necessarily traditional? And is that also defined as part of blackness? Or is that like a weird boil that we got to

burn off? And how you remove a bowl? Asking what you do you freeze that thing? I think I think we have to we have to continually put our celves in these in these situdes. This is uncomfortable. I don't have an answer right because nothing fits cleanly in here. Um again, blackness as a culture, do we feel some type of way then that the Kardashians got to insert things when it was convenient to make a shitload of money, and then when it's not convenient you can go back

to your original factory settings and date white boys. The booties out, they like, they straight went back to which does another They did another black thing, and they went back to their roots. They cannot stop standing the black people. It's hard to say, you know. In regards to Stacy Dash, yes, Stacy Dash, you are a black woman. I will not

take that from you. You are not in a position to represent black Alma Rosa is probably a better example because she had more of a political platform and influence, would be a more fair black conservative because some of what Stacy was doing, I could say was opportunistic in it for exposure to build your career in portfolio, whereas I feel like Alma Rosa had more calculated motives. Now in fairness, though, it's interesting, as you name these names,

we wouldn't question these people's blackness. You're black. I don't think they ever positioned themselves to say I'm a representative. They don't want to be a representative of the black community. They just want you to take them as they are. We might have a better conversation if it's somebody who's who's touting themselves as a representative the black community. Now

we got questions. So to be a representative of the black community, you have to follow those certain ideologies and certain there's me being myself without no a communication with the black community. I couldn't be part of the black COMMU why would you have communication with the black community. I'm just saying, if I was born in a vacuum, if I was born in a vacuum, why would you represent us? Just because I don't. I don't think skin

is enough qualification. So if and again this this conversation around representing black folks, what is your investment in black people's lived experiences? I think that is an important question and you got to keep your word once you're elected. This is a conversation that we could go on and on and on about. Doctor Blair. I cannot thank you enough for coming in here. The book is one drop shifting the lens on race. Ashton will Mac has not yet written a book because he is too busy going

out to New York City comedy club slinging jokes. Ashton, you need to get your life together. That's why you ain't got no books in your background. I want to read a book. Thank you, doctor, Java Blair and Ashton for taking us beyond the scenes. See you next time. Catch you guys. Listen to The Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. This has been a Comedy Central podcast.