We Want All the Black Stories

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Jay dot in a production of I Heart Ratings. You know, it's something about that track that makes me feel like it cleans the palette. Whatever what's going on in your day, it just cleans the palette. What's up, y'all? This is the Jay dot il podcast. This is Jill Scott, and this is Aga Graydon Danceler, and this is like its st Clair. I don't know why we're doing her bill collecting voices, but I'll take it absolutely. I love that voice. Yeah, yeah, that is my favorite Jill voice. Though you do it in that record about Philly, and I can listen to that record over and over again. That is actually like one of my favorite records. I mean, I'm sorry, I know we're not talking about that right now. It sounds like the lady in the Wiz is announcing the colors. Yeah, I want to be in the Whiz. I feel like this should be another Whiz. I'm with you, but not the last minute with the music because I don't want to say but I didn't care for that, you know, I just I just love the wid so much. It is such a you know, a staple to me. And the performance was The performances were so amazing. You know, I'm just like I can only see like Chris Brown as the scarecrow, you know. And I don't know who Dorothy would be. That's a hard with Dorothy. I'm damn you too old now. I was stuck in the nineties. I was about to say jazz Diana Ross wasn't young when I did it, what about your now money jazz and popped in my head for some reason. Oh my goodness, I would love that. That would be some soul singing for your wife. You would love that. I want to hear her sing home, Let's go, although I hear you can on the internet somewhere. Jill, I mean, come on, now, now you know you know that you would be Glinda. I would love now you know you would be Glenna. I would have to be got dark, although she would suk about with even no, she would enjoy that too. I realized that that it would typecast Jill to be Glenda. But she's got to be Glenda. I would like to hear seeing no bad news. I would like that. No, I'm sorry her, but no, okay, okay, tin Man Anthony Hamilton, Anthony interesting, I guess because Nipsey wasn't a dancer? Anthony is not that's wasn't a dancer. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. I was crazy that I just say that out loud. I don't just say you did, excuse me, forgive me, or Anthony Hamilton's or I could actually see tightest, Yeah, the tightest, tightest. Last name, I guess see Jamie Fox. Yeah, I like that better. I like that better. He's the Wish Who's the Lion women? Gag? Guess who I would want to direct? Oh? Wait, who, Steven Spielberg? Are you making this like a real intense like I think it should be. I think it should be. The storylines, it's still prevalent, you know, not being able to get a cab in New York City. You know, drugs and drug paphernalia all around, you know, all of that. I would love. Oh I got chills, I got chills. Caught my better side. Yeah, you know, yes, you ain't black. If you ain't seen The Wiz by the age of thirty, you must, you must. You start today. You know, did millennials and you gotta get them that. Those are the kind of movies that you know, they tell us. First of all, they're super entertaining, the fashion, the music, the star quality. You know. Ted Ross, it was straight out of Broadway, you know. And Nipsey Russell is a legend, smooth, beautiful way and tap dance culture, giving culture in the middle of the story. I love that kind of stuff. Lena Horn providing grace and class like out of nowhere, a baby Tolt quality. I don't know, I just I loved everything about that movie. I was so hurt actually as I got older though, because you know, like much of art, it is perfection and problematic. Got to say, so, there are some things about the Wiz that, as I've gotten older, I'm like, it's indicative of the time. It doesn't make me love it any less, but it's definitely indicative of the times. You know. It's so interesting where we are right now as black folks on film, to have all these options to go places that we haven't gone before. And then it gilds the question of should we still be hitting the same things that we've been hitting in the last fifty years on screen? I say yes, and so let's do it all. Let's do it all. We're all in the these boxes, man, these boxes don't fit. Our stories are way more dimensional. Then just Grandmama got diabetes, and uncle can't get the job, and Shanea got three kids and and nobody to help but take care of them, we've got more. It starts to feel like propaganda, you know, to ris in the same mind frame. I don't have an issue with grandma's diabetes or anything. I just think that what happens is that we don't view people in their humanity. So the mundane nous of black life is excellence. We can look at all those same things. I just think sometimes what happens is that we don't have black writers writing for black stories, and then we also don't see dimension in these characters. And let's not get it twisted. I think we discuss this before, but like last season of TV was Lovecraft, it was p Valley, it was I May Destroy You watch and thanks to Misha Green. Just to go back, and for those people who say too, I'm tired, We've done a lot with the slave narratives. It was also underground at some point. Okay, So all I'm saying is we can do it all because it and ways to tell it now you just pop pop popping like popcorn, because that's the thing. The theme is self doesn't have to change is how we tell the story from what vantage point we tell this story. We could only make movies about slavery from now until the end, and we would have so many stories and points of views if we were willing to see the humanity of the people who experienced it, right, if we were willing to write them as people, as humans. I remember when Twelve Years Slave came out, and again it was like a roup of people that was like, oh, hell another slave movie. Now, granted is a movie about slavery, but for me, I still thought it was a different narrative because I was like, well, it's about a freeman getting kidnapped, though, and that's some ill ship. We don't usually see the story of free slaves and what happened to them and what potentially could have happened, So why we gotta do that? The delicate nature of their free yeah, and the relationship between the black woman and the white woman that we saw with Lupeta. I don't know. I'm not one of the people like, yeah, I'm done with our history. We said that a lot. I'm a finitely appreciate it. Beloved love. It was dark, and it was haunting, but not in a horror story kind of way. It's telling that spiritual story of how we're existing and we do that. That's a very big part of who we are as a people. Grandma undreamed about fish, somebody's pregnant. We live this way. It's it's I mean, it is a cornerstone to the way that we express ourselves and our experience in this country and how we stayed alive, how we resisted. Our revolutions are based at it. The Haitian Revolution started with the voodoo. It started with a specific spiritual time for people in that country. I want to see that movie that Turner. That entire revolution was based on his spiritual beliefs, the idea of spirit being led by the spirit, all those things and like you to talk about what beloved. This is how we start to unpack all the layers of who we are, that all these things are tied to heather and they're not in that you know, lazy narrative of that. Oh yeah, well we just took the white man's religion and but it's like no, what we have always done is developed a way to survive, taking what we've learned and then pushed all the way back with it, and some of us just rejected the ship all the way. I want to see that movie. I want to see a movie about the Maroons, about them folks that just went into the swamp and then did not come back emancipated their own damns, daughters of the dust, daughters of the How do we not even discuss that Yo saying cofa, which was required and go fadu saying cofa. Now, well, let's talk about this whole thing to where I know my thoughts about it. But the conversation about some of these narratives are black narratives that are particular about heroes in America and our history as African Americans that are being played by Brits that some of the black actors and actresses here are like, we're having a hard time finding work. Yes, as it is. Uh so, what's like, what's the count where we at? We gotta Harriet, we gotta Martin Luther, we gotta twelve years? Oh, yes, it's right, twelve years, my man. We have the television show about cocaine snowfall. Yes, go back to what we were talking about. Specifically, we're talking about like sleep. You know in some movies, and I think we had talked about this. I think it was before You're gonna see a thousand gazillion Holocaust stories. The Holocaust stories are not over. Obviously it was very traumatic to an entire people. It was. It was terrible murders and rights just stripped from people. So yeah, they're gonna talk about that for a long time. I don't really see a reason why we can't examine slavery in different narratives, and in different narratives I think actually imperative that we do in order to build self pride, because not everybody. Do you think we're embarrassed that some of the people, some people are because to be honest, what we it's not political correct say slaves were from a nascipated people. What is emancipated people? People slave people? That doesn't come from a perspective of being ashamed. I think that's more so about saying that these people were not identifying them as slaves, and so they're identifying them as people who are being enslaved, but not that this was like some condition of their person. So I get that part of it. So we did that. We changed that there. We love to go into the insanity of it all. The horrible movie where the slave can't hold it, they've cracked open. I'm sure that that had to happen. It most definitely did. It happened, actually, And to Christopher Columbus, his son had his throat slit by an African that escaped into the mountains in hispaniol Land was never found. So we've been pushing back violently since the onset beginning, since the beginning. We'll be back after the break. I was showing a nineteen sixty eight Gordon Parks Life magazine article yesterday, and you can see that in the getting up the magazine, everything was shining, gonna sell a car, beautiful car, and have the cigarette with this drink. Everything was like that in the entire Life magazine. And then you got to Gordon Hart segment and the walls had holes in them and you could see the plaster behind the floors were dirty washing clothes in the bathtub. The husband got caught on fire trying to keep the house warm. Stuff in old clothes in between the cracks in the in the windowpane. Like for a long time, our stories are surrounded by a poverty, and I think that we've gotten to a place where we don't want to see that. We don't want to see that anymore. But this still exists in America particularly, but all over the world. I've never seen poverty like I did in Cape Town, the most beautiful place I've ever seen. That. Poverty hit me so hard I could not stop crying, and then it made it hard to enjoy anything, Like how do you drive by this every day and act like you don't see it every day? I'm not too beat on that, on being there, but there are still stories and side of that that are important. How you stick together, how you move beyond having stuff, you know, what love looks like, and how we how we move forward, how we get over All of these stories are so many. I'm you're making me want to write right now, Like right now, I think it is an interesting thing to think about black life and to really delve into what does it mean to be black and live in this world and how does that present And it's like, if you really think about it in that big of a way, there's so many stories. It feels overwhelming, the amount of stories. It does not feel at all like, oh, I'm I'm out of stories to and there it is summed up. But I think what ends up happening, like everything, you have creatives who are subject to, you know, these corporate structures, and they have to deliver a certain kind of thing all the time, and then they go into these rooms and they are not alone when they're making it, and they're not able to really give the perspective that rings truest to them. And I think we're just kind of getting to that point where we're in a writer's room full of black writers talking about black lives, and that's still limited. It's funny. I'm like, I don't even think that the black Ish room is and that is ironic, beyond ironic. But it's the real story. It's the story that Robert Townsend has been trying to tell us back in the eighties. It's a story that continues to be the case. But when you start talking about black media and the freedom of having black media, it's like then the conversation shifts from creativity to business, and it's like, who is going to do the business of this? How do we break away from that? How do we protect our art? How do we find sanctuary for our art? Probably a good question for Dave Chappelle. You think he did it create a sanctuary for his art at his house. Neil Brennan was all over his TV show. I mean, it's not like he needs any more money, people can say with the one, But do I know that? Do I even know that? I don't know what that man needs. I gotta keep remembering. I mean, I know him, but I don't ain't in his pocket. See how human that is though to do that though? Yeah, back to our other episode. But yeah, yeah, that's the part that I want to get to, just reminding myself. I don't know how he really, you know, look good. I know I had a good time when I went. That was awesome. But did he create a safe haven for himself and himself and his rich friends? Yeah, yeah, it was nice. I'm sure. Is there a sanctuary for black art without Black Wolf? I don't know. We need to ask the black wealthy? Well why why we gotta ask the black I don't know. I feel like in that way, we're right. I'm like, since they have the abilities to have these sanctuaries, let me turn it back. I remember there was a time period where somebody black will have something going on one even in black family. Right, you got your cousin that's talented. Right, They're like, y'all just need to find an open Oh, you'll just need to call Tyler Perry. Don't you live in Atlanta? Girl? You need to go up and see Tyler Perry, girl, because he needs to He need to go ahead and give you that opportunity. Still do ye? Still? Yeah? I know that? So you feel me? So my thing is, once we have black wealth that's situated within these structures and embedded in them, then how are we ever gonna get this result? We're looking for this piece of black art that really represents who we are, that really tells our story, our full selves. How do we be our full selves? And that do we take a moment and just like again, no progress, because aren't we getting pieces of ourselves? It's funny as we're talking, I started thinking about black as funk, and I was like, as many different criticisms as there are to that is in or some type of I liked it especially it depending on your exposure to black bougie. But there was some freedom that I felt in that barrass in a way, right because that was an aspect of black life. Mind you as small, So there are people like that black issue was the vehicle to him being able to actually push that freedom a little bit further down the pike. We're getting bits and pieces, and that's really good. I just don't know what's what's his name, Tanisse Coats, I don't know how to say it. Hey, Tina, Tina. I call them coats in my house coat. Get him and James bald when I think that they have really, really good representations of what it's like to be a black man in this world. But there's so many more stories to tell, and I appreciate getting bits and pieces. I really believe that the Bible, it should be continued. So the stories just stopped now so nobody else is here in the world of God nowhere. Look at the story of Whitney Houston. You know, someone that could sing like an angel, beautiful voice, and got corrupted by a business and became a product. Someone who was looking for love and all the wrong al right places, someone who could not be authentically herself and resorted to Is that not a story, you know? Look at Michael Jackson from a child, he had the voice of an old, soulful man. There's so many stories to tell that if we were to continue the Bible. Like if we're looking at these stories like folklore, you know, or and not antidotes, but nonetheless like Greek mythology as well, these stories about checking your ego, narcisis get your life together. I know I'm not even gonna argue or debated. I know that there's more stories to tell, and I'm just really super grateful that these stories are finally being told. Look at black hair or was it good hair? Good hair? It was good here. Wow. At the time, it wasn't like it was really talking about her hair. Yeah, but now we still go back on that. We're like Chris, you could missed a lot. Well. He took that he had in the access that he had that we can critique. You know, the critique comes after the revolution. You do something and then people get to come behind it and then they get the theory popping. I think we have to be open and continue to be open to all the different ways we can approach this situation, right because, like I think, sometimes people feel like it's not good enough unless it's this major theatrical release. We can make these stories were not the way. That's true, that's true. Look, we're popping now, everybody wants in on our stories. I want in. I want to see it on stage two more theatrical productions. Did you guys know that I'm on the board of Freedom Theater. I heard this from Mr Dice Rock trying to get this thing up and moving because Freedom Theater is a staple and it gave so many young people an opportunity to show and experience and learn different talents only these stage I performing as a grown up, from hanging lights, to building sets to you know, working costumes. There's a lot of jobs in that, a lot of opportunities. It's a flagship. It is beautiful, beautiful building for writing the building, it's a beautiful thing to see the willingness to pass the torch into a different leadership because I think that that's important too. With a lot of black flagships, it can be very difficult. I think moving from one generation to the next and bringing in fresh energy and ideas to preserve it. That the preservation of it is important. It has to involve the next generation. So I think that that is just an amazing thing and a beautiful thing that you're on the board there, and in every major city there's a Freedom Theater, there's a place like that that needs to be preserved, that needs to have the resources and the creativity of the generation coming after to say, Okay, we'll take the torch and moving into the next space, you know, and prepare a place for those who are coming after us. I just think that, Hey, I always thought it was something to say for all of the famous sons and daughters that come out of cities, if they just gave a little something back, it would change the whole dynamics of the city that they come from. So Joe like kudos, you shoot kudos to Gamble in that way as well, like people who actually go back home and reinvest at home. The gag is I really think that everybody on every level, you know, has to do something because if we're just waiting for, you know, some celebrity person that we think has a whole bunch of money to do something, um, you know, that's cool. My camp has been around for eleven years and it's a pleasure to sink kids doubt and have them just be free with their shoes off and with defeating the grass and riding horses and archery, and that's wonderful. And we've seen our counselors go on to college and we help them there. But there's something that the neighborhood secretary can do. You know, maybe she are one or two girls and teaches them how to quote unquote, you know, be a lady. You know how to close your legs, hold your legs, across your legs. Well, look to big brothers, big sisters because a lot of those big brothers and big sisters are not celebrities and they're doing the work and all the other organizations and that is that tribunal and that village that we're talking about. When everybody does something where you're all participating for the benefit. It doesn't have to be some big, gigantic mausoleum, you know, or some edifice. It could really just be a jump ro contest. It really can. Everybody got powers, that's right, right. We have a conversation when people all the time where they're like, oh, you know, what is your advice to artists? And we always say your best resources to your left and your right. It's not above you. A lot of times when we're trying to get something done, there's a tendency, like I said, to be black, let's get Oprah on the phone, let's write out a letter. You know, let's let's talk to someone. So let's get this person. And I think that they failed to realize that sometimes the person with the best ideas is the person you're sitting right next to you at that table. While y'all drafting letters to Oprah, y'all need to be looking to the left and asking miss Mary, like, miss Mary, I know you write grants, you think you can help do X, Y and Z. Then after she writes X amount of grants, Hey, we should put her in charge. And I think a lot of times with our organizations that we do kind of miss the point sometimes about the communal aspect of it. So what you're saying is I absolutely agree with is like really powerful, because yes, we do need the resource of the wealthy, and the resource and the connected, that's all part of it, Yes, absolutely, But as a community, everything is done for us, so we should be involved in that, and that part of it is missing to a degree. And maybe that's just because of this jointed way that we have our housing and stuff these days, and our communities are not as diverse economically anymore. So you may not have the trash man and the dentists and the lawyer and the secretary all living in the same community, so it may be hard to service each other in that way, but it's a smart idea to take a look at it and shift that kind of thinking. So I'm with that black down black time. That's Asians dream down. Yeah, I've had a dream I've set with for many years. Black I've had that same dream. I call it black Hayden. Yeah, it predates the skit. By the way, there's a skit who did it? Yeah? What's my man? The dude from get Out in his um Jordan's Peel Campbell. Yeah, Kim Peel. Wow. They did a really cool skit called black Tail. Black Guess love with a white girls black and I don't know, I'm sorry. Yeah, I've noticed just they really black, except when they go home. That's a topic one day, oh girl go home for Thanksgiving because that part, that part both their moms is white. To be honest with you, I'm saying, day you know, listen, Yes, that okay, until just for their work, I got you fifty and work I got you. Well, maybe I could beat maybe I could beat the mom, Maybe I could beat the emmy. Yeah, I just went back there for a second. She enough your arms around with child. I don't remember that. That's the best background vocals I think in the history of movies. Yeah, that was amazing. I am is feliciary. Shot you better, cast you better. You're amazing, ain't too. When I finished this film, I'm sending it to you. I mean you to cast my movie. Let me I like the Two Shack. Let me find out that you have a whole other career or several. Go ahead. I'm willing to be of assistance in any way that I can be. Just make sure you email it to AGR. Can you make sure to her sister, Vanessa del Rio get in it too. You know I love her, Yes, we do, Yes, we know. We know you ain't the only one she has loved throughout the land. I will not give up my love for her. And the sea man, I will not, and the Seamen. I hate you. I hate you deep down inside. I don't know what you're talking about. You deep down inside? You know. It was like if I lick you on the face, that's what I would do. That's that's right, that's right, that's what I would list you on the face. I can feel that when you said it, Yeah, she said of course, the world probably think that you have lavender and manilla in your spit, so it might actually I do, she said, Oh, but I do, though some boxes I will take. Oh I do. We'll be back after the break. I don't know, but I certainly want to uplift everybody for real, for real, like it's always gonna come back to this. I always want you to be everything that's just me. I want you to be everything that you are. We didn't talk about east Ray, yes indeed, and Lena Wayne who we don't. We just talk my black people, tell the black story. Okay, Lena Fay, we're gonna go. Let's go twelve years of slave. They got the name, like the name a do re name that because then we're talking about also too that the thing about she has a distribution coming so then also to taking the ownership of the stories that one step further and giving that vibe. Oh, we have to shout out Mayori, Yes, yes, Mayori Caromel Holmes. Yeah, we have to shout her out because being able to have someplace to house all the work, the work has to be seen and Mayori, but want us to shout out the Pan African Film Festival and the other festivals that came before her. I know she would be like, you know, it's so yeah, all that we want to see us. We want to see us, and not just in the little tiny ways that you think you know us or that we think we know us. We want to see us. And because the Tyler Perry's moves, because I feel like he's moving the distribution, I don't know, I feel like this man about to me and that studio, let's come on having that studio. That was a power move, and the power move really from a person who and let me tell you, y'all know, I don't get into this bootstrap theory mess, and y'all know how I feel about that. It needs to be said that this was a man who did not go to route that everybody said that a person would have to go to get this result, and he did get that result and did put hell of black folks to work in the process. That's something that you cannot take away from this man, nor should you want it. Because when I met him, he was sleeping in the car and he got out and I was like, hey, you want to sandwich or something? And he was like, I shoot too, And I said, all right, let me thinking like this room with starting ship, like I think ship. I think I'm starting to understand how that could be a little fun. No. Reality is Tyler Perry came into French connection when I was working on South Street and I sold him a shirt and yeah, he said, well, what are you doing tonight? Nice rapport conversation. He said, what are you doing Tonight's I'm not doing anything. He said, well, I have a play that was playing at the Forest. If I'm not mistaken, he was like, you'll have a ticket there. What's your name. I was like, Jill Scott, that's so crazy, And then he left me two tickets and I went to see a play and I didn't know until I looked at the play bill that he had written it, directed it, and was in it and had produced it. M I didn't get a chance to say anything to him after that, but I walked away like, oh wow, I definitely had a perception and I was walking into some kind of chipland circuit thing in my upperdeast theater background. I was like, well here, but I actually had a really good time. All these years later, he gave me my first opportunity in the film That's amazing. That's so amazing. But even the gospel play industry so amazing, and its resistance to the mainstream Broadway situation. And I said, David each Albert, yea mama want to sing. Yes, these were our moments to tell our stories, our way controlled by us, and that catered to us. Yeah again, you know what I mean. Parted as plays and videotapes in your doctor's office, and now it is evolved for one man and to a studio situation that could be distribution. My god, today, even though he said he stopped in a car, I don't know what's big gass car that was, because that motherfucker said and beat. But you do what you gotta do. You do what you gotta do. She's still a Lincoln boy. I'm grateful for all the new theater too, because like Hamilton, you know, because forever theater sound like why do you know that's what all theaters sound like? No, Bley, I'm not gonna go with youss No, that's all I did. Like that ship though I'm not gonna like I still love it. I still love it. But it needed to graduate our films. They just need to graduate, and they are doing it. And I'm so geeked about it that Jack gets to watch these movies where he's got superhero little black boys. You know that he gets to see where he gets to see that they did a studio built by black man. These are their baselines. Isn't that crazy? They started like of the Black President. These kids are all bucked up there right right. They have no idea, They have no idea from whence they Yes, it was yes for our great great great grandparents that one day their descendants wouldn't even know what it's like to have to work in somebody's field or all the other horrendous things. I don't know what it's like, but I want you to know that it happened and it existed. That's the yes, Yes, And that's the reason why we're gonna continue to tell slave narrative just you know, yeah, because it's like a whole group of folks that are absolutely like they're kind of like middle passage deniers. They're like, yo, that didn't happen. Like, so I'm like, yo, we need to tell these stories. We don't have a lot of medal passage movies. Do you remember when the Holocaust didn't happen? Remember that a couple of years ago and they were like, the Holocaust didn't happen. I was like, yo, bro, you need to sit down, we need to we need to get some movies and some books. And didn't they have video user reaching that you're who you're reaching. That's what they said. That's that's interesting. Somebody say that the other day the Holocaust was the greatest tragedy ever shown and slavery was the greatest tragedy never shown. Something like that is like, I feel like, again, there's an opportunity here to uplift a lot of resources around our stories and let people understand that there are people out here spending years studying this every aspect of black lives, from our struggles to our religious practices, to how we look at the starts, every single thing that involves our lives. Man, is so much out there, and we can start in the books, but it has to spread itself out to the music, to the movies, to the whole thing. You know what I mean? Have either of y'all seen Diane Reeves performed live before? She does this thing with her voice when she just I feel like she's just calling to the ants. I think crazy. It is one of the most amazing things vocally that I've ever witnessed. That's part of it too. It doesn't always have to be like an actual movie with a storyline. Sometimes it's an experience with art and opening up those spaces for the vocalists, the musicians, everybody to be able to tell this story, to build on this narrative, to continue to tell those things because they have spent hundreds of years lying to us, huh, telling us that we didn't have no feelings, our skin was thicker, thus shame butter So now that all the cultures in America are open to the black stories, what slavery based movies would you say to start with? Or TV? I have some real I'll just go and throw in the mix of Roots that they did like a year or two ago when they remade Roots and really gave it Like I would love to see a massive three hour type bio pick on W E. D D. Boys, you know, I mean that's already made. What would you tell somebody to go to go You need to see these oh daughters of the dust for real, right, Yeah, I definitely think Twelve Years of Slave I said in it there I cried so hard and I thought about it. I went by myself and I was like, uh, you know, maybe that ship na. I was like, people cried and mourned out loud for sinders list, so you are allowed. Yeah. So I was like, I went to go see that joint in Manniankan, Philly, and I watched my people walk out. I watched them walk out too. So that's when you know it's a good one. Yeah, that's when you know what they hit take that, which is scad man. I really felt away because I got a chance to see what freedom felt like during those times. It seemed like, okay, that's I mean, it's way better. It's way better. And he was a learned man at a beautiful family and then all of a sudden to go to that so I felt like you could really feel the depths of despair. I will not fall into pit of despair. I was like, wow, okay, Asia, I said daughters, but that's not really a slave narrative. I'm gonna throw this one out here. I know there was hell of controversy around it, but film for film, Birth of a Nation, Birth of a Nation the original versus not not the original, not the original Birth of a Nation. Sorry, I'm sorry, the other birth of a nation that was done by the brother. He had a bunch of controversy going on at the time. Damn, we can't remember his name no more. That's so messed up. Nate. His name is n Nate. I would have got it fast. If he's married to us. He's not a girl. Noticed why everybody was like, all right, dun, that's what I mean. Don't lose the feeling. But what I really want to see, I really want to see like a huge biopic about the B d D Boys because his man who was born literally at the moment that we stopped being slaves, and then his entire life story tell us the story of our struggle in a lot of ways, and he ends up a Pan African this which is like amazing. There's that. I definitely want to see a story that goes into really how slaves turned the tide in the Civil War. I want to see that story, that story about how the Union had to come and find us and then we had already walked off the plantations. We didn't wait for Abraham Lincoln like, I want to see that. I want to see some movies about the Maroons, the Maroons in Haiti, the Maroons, and in Brazil the Maroons. Here in America, they ain't want to be a part of American society. They didn't say free us and let us be a part of your government. They're like, we're gonna have a warranty. We don't want to have nothing to do with y'all. I want to see a movie about that. You can have sovereignty nowhere in the United States. Didn't they do it in Portland like they had their own little city and for a minute until someone was like, all right, that's enough, you can have sovereignty. Now what else? I'd like to see more about the Middle Passage and what happened before the Middle Passage, Like I would like to see the transaction a lot more, the transaction between the and the West Africans and the Americans. I just want to know more how we got here people. Maybe the slave trader, the black slave trader. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I want to guess. I want to know about That's what I want to know. I want to know how they convinced you. What was the day you were like, deal, yeah, that's what I'm gonna do, right, And when you realize that you were getting duped. I would love to see a little bit more about the African influence in South America, because everyone thinks that most of the slaves came here to America, and by far most something went to the Caribbean, into Brazil, into Cuba. Brazil was like one of the biggest Yeah, yeah, Brazil, Cuba and all these different places. I would love to see some movies. And I'm sure there's some that are not English speaking that are already about it, but I would love to see some some movies about that. That's an interesting question. I would be curious to know how many movies there are that aren't American made about slavery, because I told you I had that conversation with the actress that played Ruby and Lovecraft, and she's British, and she made it sound like we're just so much more knowledgeable. She's so much more knowledgeable about our blackness and our history than they are. She said, she yeah, she said, it's very different American blacks, for lack of better term, way more WoT well, I mean, it's the same thing with like black Canadians. They just didn't have to carry the they carried other stuff. They just didn't have to carry a man work and slavery every where they went. That's US, and even in Africa. I can't speak for the whole continent, but they don't really think about you know, they don't teach it. I mean, that's not a slavery thing. But I'm fascinated by learning a lot about how West Africa they don't even address slavery in their curriculum education, like, which is really they don't here either. Fatina. I did this docuseries when we talked to a bunch of folks in our community about what happened over this summer, and one of the things that we talked with everyone about was one of the questions was what was your first time learning about black life like in school and black people and white people alike? It was like, uh civil Rights movement, Martin Luther King, Uh never I didn't learn, So I went to college. There's been no real what's the word discourse? So we were spoiled Asia. I feel like that d M v d C living and maybe being in a majority black town and we're blacks were in different I don't know, but I feel like my education started away earlier, but mine did too. I think a lot of it has to do with your parents, but then also to like I said, if you go up in a city like DC, which is like so chocolate in terms of like even your educators. I didn't actually have a Caucasian teacher or a non black teacher until I was in the seventh grade. I didn't have a male teacher until I was in the seventh grade. Shout out to Brent Elementary School. My primary school, the principle was a black woman PhD. I had more than one black woman teacher who had a master's degree. All of my teachers were black women from K through sixth grade. My science teacher was a black woman. My gym teacher was a black woman. My music teacher was a black woman. The gifted and talented teacher was a black woman. There was literally two black men in the whole building. One of them was our sanitation engineer and the other person was our occasional computer teacher. And he was dope and sad about that at the same time. While that's dope that that was so sister, And circle back to right now and did DC ANDPG County have an issue with black male teachers? They are looking you. It was just on CNN the other day they are yearning for black males to come teach these kids. Listen, it's the same here, same here in Philly. That's why I shoutouts to my son who's in school, wants to be an educator, pal pal p to all the black male education majors, and what's it gonna be his other job? Singing? Right, let's see that's the problem. No, Listen, only black people respond like this when you tell them your kid wants to be an educator, because they pay teacher so bad, Like what's this other job? Yeah, they'd be like, he never gonna make no money. No, I'm not saying that. We gotta stop doing stop on it. I was in school to be a teacher. I am actually quite very much in love with the teachers. You're sure, she said, But they don't pay teachers what they deserved. It. They do, but you used to deserve words they don't. So you gotta you know, like, what's the other job? That's interesting because it's like private school pays there you go, or the level of education. Yeah, because I said, here's the thing, we don't talk about. Teachers themselves in general do not get paid the kind of money they need to get paid. However, having a certain level of education. Certifications help also to not longevity what's the word with tenure helps? All these things help, you know. I know some teachers who do very well for themselves actually, but they've taken the time to like continue their education, to get different certifications so that when they get those jobs they can ask for certain income. Now that's not the case everywhere. So before all the teachers go off for me and my social media's yeah, because I love teachers and I have so many fantastic relationships with teachers. But yeah, yeah, they don't. And he doesn't have a second job. He wants to eventually have his own school and work in mental health curriculum, particularly as it pertains to black boys. But at the end of the day, he has goals to do that. But he was really clear with me, he said, mom, my goal is to be in the classroom, and if I never leave the classroom, that's fine with me. Because he wanted me to know. He was like, I need you to know that, and you don't have to say, oh, he's gonna do this, This is no he said. If I'm a seventh grade teachers for the rest of my life. That would be fine with beautiful, because that's beautiful. Look at what you did. Look at right now, ch'all he is singing, he putting out records and stuff. May God bless us, bless his soul. How do you eat an element? One by it time? What's up you all? It's Eves back again at the end of an episode to share some things you can take with you after this conversation about black stories. They mentioned too many movies shows in theaters for me to list here, but if you missed any, listen to the episode again and jot them down. What better place to start than the stories themselves and the institutions that support them. Other than that, Asia would like to refer you to the Equal Justice Institute. It opened the Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. The museum does a really good job at tracing the line from slavery to mass incarceration in the US, and the artwork, archival materials, and presentations there are really moving, and the memorial is a poignant reminder of everything that we had to go through on this land. Of course, this history is a big part, not the only part, but an impactful part of Black American narratives, and in the same vein Layah recommends visiting the National Museum of African American histor treet and Culture when that's possible again to learn more about Black experiences of slavery. There are countless countless black filmmakers and writers that we could shout out as well, but instead of spending the rest of our lives here on this episode today, I'll point you to Michael J. Dennis, a filmmaker and the founder of the production company Real Black, as well as the Black Star Film Festival, which highlights and supports the work of Black, Brown and Indigenous artists. Links in the description. As always, thank you for listening to Jill Scott Presents j dot IL the podcast. This podcast is hosted by Jill Scott, Laa st Clair and Age Graden Danceller. It's executive producers are Jill Scott, Shaan g and Brian Calhoun. It's produced by Layas st Clair and me Eves Jeff Coke. The editing and sound design for this episode we're done by Christina Loranger. You can't have bad breath one day, Like that's a story for a lifetime, you know, I was with Jill Scott at the market the other day and her breath was pumping, pumping, pump, Right, girl, I call you back. Hello. Guess what. I was at the market with Jill Scott and her breath was horrible. All right, let me call you back changed. I was a jail at the market the other day and she lost a two day ago sale. She her breast smell so bad. I thought it was a tooth rotten in the back. I asked, and she says she did confirmed, She confirmed it. She said she was taking gender for her gender virus exactly. J dot Ill is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.