Significant Others - W. Kamau Bell on James Baldwin and Maya Angelou

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Author and comedian W. Kamau Bell joins Liza to discuss the legacies of Maya Angelou and James Baldwin, and the importance of affinity groups.   

Welcome back to Significant Others. I'm Liza Powell O'Brien. In yesterday's episode, we learned about the profound friendship between James Baldwin and Maya Angelou. Today, I'm so excited to welcome comedian, bestselling author, and host of the Emmy award-winning CNN series, United Shades of America, W. Kamau Bell, to talk a little bit more about the impact of these artists and the importance of affinity groups. Kamau, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. So this episode that we are discussing details many things, but primarily the relationship between Maya Angelou and James Baldwin. So I was wondering if you might talk a little bit about how you see the impact that Maya Angelou had on American culture, on pop culture in general.

It's funny, when I first think of Maya Angelou, it becomes like there's famous people, there's icons, and then there's people who are like, sort of this like holders of the culture, which is sort of bigger than all those other things. Like, you know, you can be Michael Jordan, you can be Oprah Winfrey. And then there's the people that like Oprah's like, no, no, no, over here, this person holds the culture. She's the person who unlocked Oprah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that, and happy in her lifetime, because this has not always happened for people who hold the culture, specifically Black women, that she got to see it and be a part of it. I don't think that, you know, there's, I think about like, somebody like Nina Simone, who I think also has a, is sort of underrated in how much of the culture she was holding for us. And didn't really, even though she died old, I don't think she really got to feel it in the way that like maya angelo got to be sort of

brought around the world shown as like this is somebody who holds a culture so i think it's like just the impact i can think about my mom so my mom went to stanford to get a phd in african american literature and this is the late 60s earlys. And they said that wasn't a real thing. So then what did she do? She dropped out and people still call her, think she has a PhD and she does not, but she certainly has the knowledge. She says that's a certificate.

And so Maya Angelou is one of the people who sort of loudly said, this is a field. This is a thing that Black people engage in and that we do. She's one of the people that you can point to and say, she kicked the door open. So yeah, I think that I never got to meet her. I never didn't know her, but certainly feel like, you know, there's these, again, people who hold the culture and she's one of those people. And then the story, as I understand it, we can't know, obviously, whether or not she would have

ultimately written her memoir without, you know, having this interaction and this friendship with James Baldwin. But this moment of him granting her access to the world that could enable her to make this change in culture, to me, feels so precious and so specific in terms of it being this friendship-based connection. And almost a little ironic as I listen to you talking about her position in the culture, because as a writer, I consider him the foremost American writer, and I don't know that he had a similar emotional impact at the scale that she did, maybe because he wasn't the first, maybe he was the second or the third person. I don't know. I think that, I think, I think Maya really, we can't underestimate the,

the sort of the Oprah effect on how she sits in the culture. And I, you know, I think that that's, that if James Baldwin had been around for that, I would imagine that he would have had his, his run on that too. I think that he, and I think the way that most people take in James Baldwin now, which I think is actually kind of awesome, is YouTube clips of him giving speeches and him debating people. And I think there's something great about that because you can read the text and have one idea of the person he was writing in the thick of the civil rights explosion and thinking, you know, it's a frustrating feeling of how many times we have to relearn the same lessons. You know, he was saying all the stuff that we need to be hearing and remembering and saying to ourselves now and and saying it so beautifully. Well, that's great that he's having his his reverberations. and saying it so beautifully.

Well, that's great that he's having his reverberations. No, he's one of those, it's funny, one of those people who would imagine would reverberate through Instagram videos and TikTok videos. And that's what I go, sometimes it's easy to condescend to social media. It's easy to point out the problems with social media, but that is something that I think it does really well

is recontextualizing things that you might've thought were boring if they didn't come through this format. I feel he would have appreciated that. No, I think, yeah, I think he would have. I would imagine he would also have said, and what's my percentage of that? What do I get on that?

Well, that's not a bad question. This connection that they had, which I just hadn't known about before I happened to read an article that mentioned this sort of conversation, this dinner that he had with Jules Feiffer and his wife. And he brought Maya Angelou because she was feeling sad. And, you know, and then she told her stories. And the first time she had told her stories and they all loved it.

And then they called their friend the editor. And it was this kind of crazy little domino effect thing but it made me think of the phrase i don't know how prevalent this phrase is or if it's just in the the sort of work that i've been doing but this idea of affinity spaces and i don't know if that's something that you think about i mean they literally have them at my daughter's schools like you know the affinity spaces so there's like the for uh black girls for black people who identify as girls basically is what i think how they put it so there's like there's all these different affinity spaces. So there's like the, for black girls, for black people who identify as girls, basically is what I think how they put it.

So there's like, there's all these different affinity spaces at their schools where they can participate in being around their self-defined kind. Our son is in high school and they had a day

where they did some of those types of workshops. And I, he was sort of like, well, there, there really isn't a space for me, which is, you know,

because he's the one everyone's defining themselves. That's right. And he, he acknowledges that. And he's like, I'm, it's totally fine. I just literally don't know where to stand. You know? I would say stand in your discomfort. I think that's the best thing you can do. And I think the more you understand that, like, oh, this is one of the, and I'm not, I don't know your son, but I'm saying if we're talking about like racially and identities that are more marginalized and oppressed and he's not one of those identities, then now you get to sort of see a little piece of what it is to stand in the discomfort of like there's no space for me. And I would say soak it up. And so therefore, the next time somebody who is like not you tells you about their experience, you can maybe relate better just to go, oh, OK, I have I have seen a piece of that, you know.

And you have a new book out, Do the Work, an anti-racist activity book. Yeah, that book came out of really out of 2020 and the racial reckoning of George Floyd and the murder of George Floyd. and the racial reckoning of George Floyd and the murder of George Floyd by the people. That book was like basically me and Kate who wrote it were sitting in my office watching like January 6th happen while we were writing this book on how to create an anti-racist society. And then before that, in the few years before that,

I wrote my first book called The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell, which is more of a memoir. I really related to Maya Angelou saying like, I'm only 40. Like, you know, I can't, I really, when I wrote my book, I was like to Maya Angelou saying like, I'm only 40. When I wrote my book, I was like, this seems sort of ridiculous. But I really sort of at the time thought like, I really thought about her. She wrote seven autobiographies. And I get like, yeah,

this is just the one I'm writing now. Then maybe I'll write seven more or maybe I'll never write one again. But it's not that serious. I wonder with her how much coming from the place of needing to explain an experience of America, you know, to your earlier point that had not been explained in a, you know, sort of widely appealing memoir form before, if that was part of the heaviness of the lift of that and maybe why she was like okay i'm good with just this first chunk like that's enough just to get her to her 20s that was enough for an entire book yeah so i don't know if you had any of those i mean i would i would imagine that i mean first of all as you learn is like she had to get over the idea that she was there wasn't

a book in her right because i think you think about being a Black woman who's growing up Black girl in America, you're not being told that your words are important, even necessarily in your community. And there's certainly not a lot of role models out there of like Black women, like there's not a lot of Black women who've written books. And so that you're aware of because they exist, but your educational system is probably not bringing them to you. And so the idea that you have to first get over the fact that your words are worth something and then you got to do it. And I think the thing that,

that Maya clearly had was like, she was a doer. Like, if you look at her biography, like, you know, just the fact that like to have moved that many times to have had that many different,

I'm a dancer, I'm a singer, I'm a poet, like, you know, first black female streetcar conductor and yeah. Yeah. Just go at age 16. I think. poet. Like, you know. First black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco at age 16. Yeah, something like that.

Crazy. So clearly that's the key factor there is that she's somebody who like, I do things and I'm not afraid of doing new things. So, and as you see, it's like the challenge of doing it is what actually made me made her do it. Like, oh, I can't do it. Okay, now I'm going to show you. Which I think some people's brains work that way. Like, if you want to get me to do something, say I can't do it. Like, oh, I can't do it? Okay, now I'm going to show you. Absolutely. Which I think some people's brains work that way.

Like, if you want to get me to do something, say I can't do it. That's right. For me, it's just that thing about like, that's the secret sauce of her is that I'm,

I am a doer. I'm not a, she's not somebody who marinates. So then probably once she starts writing the book, it probably, I would imagine

once it started, it was like, it was a torrent. Turns out there's a lot to say. Yeah. Yeah. any number of people who functioned for you in this way, similarly to what James Baldwin offered Maya Angelou in terms of just fellowship or access

or anything that kind of set you on a certain trajectory? Oh, for sure. For sure. I mean, I think I can think of, I mean, there's, yeah, there's sort of like multiple different people for different reasons. One of the great things about James Baldwin's stories is that it's very clear. Like we think of these sort of like heroes from the past as almost being separate from their timeline. Like you sort of read their story. And in James Baldwin's story, you can see like,

no, he actually was around Malcolm and Martin. And like, he was actually friends with my, so you get to see like, there's all these people that you, the famous ones we know about that are connected to these people. But then there's all the people I'm sure that we, whose names that we don't know that, that aren't famous who are also doing that same work. So for me, it's like, I can think of people,

you know, one of my oldest friends is a guy named Dwayne Kennedy, who I met when I was 21 years old doing standup comedy. He's a standup comedian. And, you know, at the time he was like the older cat on the scene who like, everybody was like, that guy's a legend. He's the legend of the scene the older cat on the scene who like everybody was like that

guy's a legend he's the legend of the scene and for some reason he like allowed me to hang out with him actually a friend of mine sort of set me up my friend jason was like come on he's hanging out with that guy and so he initiated conversation with duane and sort of sort of was a bridge to friendship and me and duane had like and you know it took me for a while to break through my career and as soon as i did i started like basically like i can keep him in my life if I give him a job. So like every project, every major project I've had, he works on United Shades. He worked on my Netflix special. But, and when people ask him, what is your job?

Like, what do you do for Kamau? I don't know if you've seen The Sopranos. Yes. So I, so Dwayne will make fun of me because I have not seen every episode of The Sopranos. Oh boy, how dare you. I know, I know, I know. I was going to do it and then more TV kept coming out. I've seen some, but I can't.

But he says that he's the goat that is the friend of the horse in The Sopranos. He's Paiomai's goat. The emotional support goat. Yeah, but you can't really tell exactly what that person is doing, but it's clear if that person's not there, things don't go well.

And I'm luckily at the point, I don't have to explain to anybody. I'm just like, Dwayne's going to come, he'll be here, and it just happens. So, yeah. But then I look at a friend of mine who I met when I moved out to the Bay Area. I guess I met her in 2003. This woman named Martha Reinberg, who was not in this business. I was teaching a solo performance class, like, I guess I met her in 2003, this woman named Martha Reinberg,

who was not in this business. I was teaching a solo performance class, like how to do solo performance. And she was a student. And very quickly, it was just very clear to me that like, just the way that like, she was my student, but she was making fun of me in front of other students.

Like, wait a minute. And these are all adults. Let me clear. It's all like, we're all adults taking this class, but she just sort of respected what I had to say, but didn't just respect me full out all the time. And so then we sort of became, we were both only, I think we bonded because we're both only children. And there's a way in which only children understand the world. Even though she was a white lesbian and I was a black heterosexual male, but it was like, but we sort of had this only child thing that I think people don't really underestimate. That's fascinating.

Yeah. It's a whole other conversation. It's a whole other, I often tell people like separate from racism, my identifier would be only child, but racism does not let me platform that identity. So yeah. I wonder if that's ever an affinity group option. I've never seen that, but I think that if you got a room full of only children together, they'd be like, oh yeah, okay.

No, I think there's definitely affinity there yeah but yeah martha ended up becoming somebody who became like a fast friend and then a collaborator and then my student ended up directing my first my big solo show not my big the solo show that got me my career started she directed it even though she came to me as a student wow and and there's somebody who like like said that to me time, the thing that I will always quote her for is like, I was doing this solo show about ending racism. And she's like, you know, you can't end racism and make sexism worse at the same time. And I was like, what?

But I'm not a sexist. I don't do sex. She sort of explained to me like, by comparing yourself to the worst examples of sexism you're not that doesn't clear you of your own sexism so she sort of sat me down and we spent a lot of time and went through like things she had seen in my act

not necessarily my life my act how it didn't reflect me well how I was doing things because I thought they were the way that I should do them is because that's how comedy works and not actually doing things that reflected who she knew I was. So Martha is somebody who I absolutely like. It's somebody that like has that level of like,

that sort of level that like I see between Baldwin and Maya, where it's like they can sort of get to you very quickly and correct your path. And also you'll have the most fun time you ever have with two people with that person. I also think for them, there was that shorthand that you get when you shared any kind of lived experience with someone, but then also the relief of the absence of a sexual connection. Like sometimes that can be, that can be a burden too. No, I mean, I think that is a true of my friendship with Dwayne and my friendship with Martha. There's no will, they Martha. Right. Like there's no,

will they won't think there's no, like, and I will say this, that I actually recognize like as a heterosexual man in the world. I realized at one point when I was in college, I was like, I don't have any friends who are women because I think all of my sort of energy for women was around like sexual feelings.

And even if I didn't have sexual feelings, there was always some sort of like level like, well, I wouldn't. So this person's not worth my time, you know? Right. And when I realized that, I was like, that's a problem. And I think that like I, you know, you can't make people be your friends, but you can certainly figure out how to be a more interesting, open, kinder, more available to friendship person than I had been up until that point.

Did that idea just pop into your head or did someone point that out to you? Because that's kind of remarkable for a 20-something man, you know, to... Again, it's almost like what Martha said to me. How come I'm not, I can't, clearly I'm a friendly person, but somehow something's getting in the way. So it was something that like, like I really noticed as a deficit in my life. And then, and it wasn't,

I don't think until I moved to the Bay area in 97, where, and you know, you can't like, you can't create friends on a whole cloth, but like you just sort of, if you put yourself in different scenarios in different places, I think this is the big thing.

You're not afraid to be, go to the place. If you're invited to the thing and you go, that seems weird, but you go anyway, or the more open you are to being, and is i mean this is i think the whole like you know baldwin going to france like you know or maya going to like this is the idea of like huh like it's only available to you if you take up the opportunity so i think the idea being that

so many i would imagine that so many black people at that point in this country could not imagine getting on a plane and going to another country. It's shocking what he did. And I mean, he did follow Richard Wright. You know, Richard Wright had gone a couple years before. So that helped a little bit, ideologically, I would think. And there was that sort of community of writers there. It was very much the place to be as a writer.

He had not a dime to his name and what, you know, he was running almost away from America and Harlem in particular, as much as he was running toward anything. But it is, it's amazing what he did. I think even at that point, there was sort of a, there's sort of a Black narrative of like, they don't hate us in France. Like I think about, I think about Josephine Baker about like Josephine Baker did a similar thing. And Nina Simone actually at one point left the country and there's sort of a, whether the truth of it is the same, but there's a sense of like, we can get away from America there. Yeah. Well, and he said in Europe, Americans are

all American. And that was one of his revelations, right? Is that we, yeah, we are all American and it's hard to create affinity without noticing a division, right? Because that's part of what creates the affinity. And then Maya Angelou was thinking, she was, everyone was telling her, oh, it's so great over here for black people. And she thought, okay, fine. And almost moved her son and then had that experience with her African friends where she saw the absolute, you know, hideous way they were treated by the French. So she realized, no, no, no place is really safe from this. But she has that great line where she says, even just crossing into the border of Canada, she said, I have the burden of not looking at white people for the first time because I'm just not worrying about them. at white people for the first time because I'm not, I'm just not worrying about them.

No, I mean, I, and I was a person who in the midst of the 2020 part of the pandemic was like, and really, and also post like pandemic and, and George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and racial reckoning. And I would just start, I would just be like, where is there a place I can go where I could escape just even just for a little bit, just to sort of like not be caught up in the, been a lot of time looking at New Zealand. Cause because i because you really quickly find out that there's not really any place you can go as a black american and escape america and also feel like you're not alone like i would i would i would be like if you look at this the best place to live on the planet is norway so now i'm going to be the black guy in norway like you know what i mean like that well you'll be the black American in Norway

which might be doubly damning I don't know I'm sure there's a few but it's not like I don't want to go someplace and feel you know one of the things I want to escape in America is being conspicuous everywhere I go as a black American

if I do that I'm not escaping I can't just blend in I can't just relax. And then you, so, you know, and there's like, and then you, but, and then you say, well, there's places in Africa you can go. And there's also sort of like this idea of like, I'm still a Black American. Like there's just, is there any place you can sort of go

and just sort of be and breathe, you know? And so that's the, and I, you know, I still haven't answered that question yet. And I haven't really traveled enough internationally to be able to say that, but that was something that really stuck in my head. And sort of thinking about Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Nina Simone, people who did, especially artists who left. Because it was almost like they needed a place to breathe so they could do art.

Yeah, absolutely. Do you know what you're working on next? Do you know your next project? You do so many things all the time. Do you have your next project? You do so many things all the time. Do you have a next project? I mean, I'm always sort of like, I always feel like it's like one of those giant stoves where there's like 15 burners

and there's always like things I'm like, sort of like hoping to do. I mean, right now I'm like, we're actually on the book tour for the Do The Work, the anti-racism workbook and United Shades is out right now. So that's currently where all my, I think that's it right now. That and United Shades is out right now. So that's currently where all my, all my, I think that's it right now. That's where all my energy is going.

Oh, that's all. Yeah. That's all. Just the TV show and a book. And a book. Yeah. You know, when you sort of, you know, show business, you're sort of an independent contractor a lot of times. And so like, and also again, as an only child, I'm just used to sort of following my nose into wherever I want to go because I didn't have eight sisters and brothers going, no, we all have to go here. So I just think I'm always going to be sort of like following my nose, I guess. Thank you so much for doing this with us.

Thank you. And I hope to speak with you again sometime soon. No, this was fun. Thank you. Be sure to check out Kamau's new book, Do the Work, an anti-racist activity book, out now. Join us next time on Significant Others to hear about a woman who, among other things, got Marlon Brando a shrink. And finally, if you enjoyed what you heard today, be sure to rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.