Please note: This transcript has been automatically generated.

Whitney White: Often the, the dialogue is twisted to talk about what immigrants are taking from the US, but actually, what, what about what immigrants are giving to the US without any- That’s right … promise of return? Um, and Jocelyn’s found a brilliant, hilarious way to look at that subject- Yeah … to empathize with the people at the center of it, um, and humanize them.

Jocelyn Bioh: I was really, like, trying to, like, send the smoke signal- Yeah … that, um, there’s some really scary stuff down the pike if we, uh, don’t take action now.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Hey, y’all. It’s Brittany. So, Nina Simone once asked, “How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?” And I know that we are in a time that dismisses celebrity worship all out, and yeah, a lot of those famous folks, uh, need to be canceled. However, there are people who are more than just famous. They really are artists, and they understand that art is not just about feeding your ego or feeding your own pocket, it’s about forcing us to pay attention to the things that matter, which is why I saw Sinners.

I hate horror movies. I have too vivid an imagination, and I will not be able to sleep if I see something that is truly scary. And I got, on my Instagram stories and my threads, and I asked you all, I said, “Is Sinners scary?” Because I feel like I need to see it for the culture, for the cause, because Ryan is, you know, reflecting the times.

And y’all said, “No. It’s not scary at all. Don’t worry about it. It’s just a few vampires.” Y’all lied to me, and I hope they haunt you for it. But still I saw it, and I’m glad that I did, because Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, they’re definitely artists that reflect the times. We need folks who are willing to stand up and be clear that you cannot make art, if you’re not willing to tell the truth, and that’s why we’re staying undistracted.

Coming up, a playwright and a director who know how to tell the truth all the time. That’s coming up on Undistracted. So, what some of you all might not know about me is that I grew up as a theater kid, and yeah, I know I’ve done lots of other things since, but you can probably tell I know how to project very well.

That’s definitely a skill that I gained from that part of my life. I thought that’s what I wanted to pursue my whole life, but here we are in a totally different field. Um, and we usually talk about politics around here, but we are going to be talking about Broadway all the way this week. I’m so excited to be here with two of the women of the hour.

Playwright Jocelyn Bioh and play director Whitney White are pretty epic individually. Jocelyn is a Tony-nominated Ghanaian-American writer whose work keeps returning to the interior lives of African and African diasporic women, often with a really sharp, comic edge, and if you’ve seen Jaja’s African Braiding, you know how sharp that comic edge is.

And Whitney White is a Tony Award-nominated director, actor, and musician. She’s everywhere directing everything, but most recently coming off of directing the Whoopi Monologues this summer and becoming the first Black woman ever nominated twice for directing, uh, in the Tonys, as she was nominated this year for her work on the play Liberation about the 1970s women’s movement.

So that’s them separately. But, like, they’re a force when they’re together, okay? Because they teamed up on that hit play that I talked about, Jaja’s African Hair Braiding, which earned five Tony nominations and has since toured the country, and now they’re reuniting for the Broadway premiere of School Girls or the African Mean Girls play opening later this month.

Whitney, Jocelyn, welcome to Undistracted. I’m so grateful to have you all here.

Jocelyn Bioh: Thank you.

Whitney White: Thank you for having us. Thanks for having

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: us. So Whitney, you first, and then Jocelyn, we ask everybody as we open, how are you doing today in three words? I know, I’m, like, asking actors and writers for just three words, but just three words.

Whitney White: I am prepared. Um, excited.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Mm-hmm.

Whitney White: And thoughtful. Very in my thoughts today. Yeah.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Oh, okay. Okay. We’ll get into that a little bit. Jocelyn, how about you?

Jocelyn Bioh: Um, I think I am grateful, um, excited, and ooh, hungry. But I’m always hungry.

Whitney White: Wait, sister, sister, why was I gonna say hungry? I was gonna say thoughtful, hungry, and excited, but I was like, “Let me not embarrass Jocelyn-

on this wonderful, uh, podcast.” But I was gonna say hungry as well. Yeah, we’re hungry. I ordered us a little something. It’s- I ordered us something, Jocelyn. It’s coming soon.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: This is funny, ’cause we ask that every single episode, and nobody has ever said hungry, but I know you’re not the first person to think hungry-

’cause I’m hungry too. So I appreciate your honesty and transparency. This is already gonna be a good conversation, okay?

Jocelyn Bioh: Thank you. Thank you.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Before we jump into you all working together on these plays, Whitney, I have to ask you about the Whoopi Monologues. You reimagined her 1984 one-woman show, and you featured actresses like Kerry Washington and Dominique Fishback.

What drew you to revisiting this particular play right now? Why is Whoopi’s voice something that you think resonates so powerfully today? ‘Cause people, people sleep on our good girl.

Whitney White: People really sleep on Whoopi Goldberg and her achievements across television, film, and, and writing, and theater. And I, I wanted to do it, it’s a really simple reason.

It’s just, uh, she made that play in ’85 when people couldn’t see her as anything else. Mm-hmm. She couldn’t get jobs. People couldn’t see her. She couldn’t do the things she wanted to do with her life. And so, she said, “Okay, you think I’m only one thing, but I’m gonna show you that I can be everybody.” And I think that that, that, the audacity of that, of making a piece of work for yourself because no one will see you- Mm

it feels very 2020 now. And Kerry Washington is the one who had the idea actually to c- get a collecti- a collective of women together, to get five women to do one woman’s job, and I’m very, very inspired by that because we’re living- Mm … in this time where up to 600,000 Black women, probably even more, have been pushed out of their jobs in the public and private sectors.

And the idea of making a job not just for one woman, a story not just for one but for all, I was like, “I’m down with that. I wanna do that.” And I like the stories. The characters still feel so fresh- Mm … um, to me. Uh, and, and that’s why I wanted to do it. Yeah.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: I love that, and I also love that, like, you and Kerry were like, “This is as much an important timely piece of art as it will be a jobs pro- pr- program for Black women,” right?

Because –

Whitney White: Yes …

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: frankly, Broadway and theater has always been seen as being, you know, years ahead of where we are socially and politically, and yet there are so many ways in which the racism, the sexism, the, the misogynoir runs very deep on the Great White Way. So I’m curious to, to g- dig a little bit more into you all’s collective work- Yeah

because I think it’s such a powerful antidote to some of those challenges. So Jocelyn, it’s 2023. How do you all find yourselves connecting originally to make you wanna start working together on Jaja’s African Hair Braiding?

Jocelyn Bioh: Well, I had been a fan of Whitney’s for quite some time at that point. Um, she had directed, uh, uh, particularly theatrical experiences that really, really touched me.

Um, and honestly, I’m a jaded, you know, theater person. Like, I’ve, I see shows all the time. There’s v- r- rarely am I, like, you know, so moved. Um, and, and, and the, some of the things that she worked on really, uh, moved me in a, in a big way. And I had no other person in mind, honestly, to direct this play. There was…

It wasn’t like, “Oh, I’m meeting with a bunch of people.” I was kinda like- Mm-hmm … “It’s Whitney, and if she says no, then I guess I’ll figure out who else it’ll be.”

Dr. Brittney Cooper: Uh-huh.

Jocelyn Bioh: Um, and so we, when we met, um, I sent her a very early draft of the play and, and then we met and had a, a conversation. And it was like, i- kinda like now.

Like, we just… There was no real, like… It didn’t feel like an interview. We were just two, you know, women, like, connecting, understanding what the piece was. Um, and I just, yeah. I, I just was like, “She’s the perfect person for this.” All of a sudden, um, we found ourselves with an opportunity to do it on Broadway-

Dr. Brittney Cooper: Mm-hmm

Jocelyn Bioh: um, and premier it cold on Broadway, which really does not happen very often. At

Dr. Brittney Cooper: all.

Jocelyn Bioh: Um, and so we really li- we really, like… It, it was giving Color Purple. We really, like, grabbed each other by the hands, like, looked d- deep into each other’s eyes. Yes. Yes.

Dr. Brittney Cooper: Mm-hmm. And

Jocelyn Bioh: we were like, “We are going to do this, and we’re going to be excellent.”

And, um- Yeah, it was just a remarkable, a remarkable time. And so, when I had an opportunity to, to have this play done-

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Yeah …

Jocelyn Bioh: um, I was just like, “Hey, girl, wanna run it back? Uh, let’s do it again-

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Listen … but

Jocelyn Bioh: with a whole other play.” Yeah.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Like, let’s see if lightning can strike, you know, a few more times, because- Yeah

it really is remarkable, right? You make history doing this cold opening on Broadway. You make history again, um, uh, with the Tonys, both of you individually and together. But I’m also just thinking about the story of Jaja’s African Hair Braiding in the context of the attack that we’re seeing on, um, immigrants across the diaspora right now.

Mm-hmm. I’m thinking of our Haitian siblings who just- Mm-hmm … lost temporary protected status. Yeah. I’m thinking of how, how precarious, um, gaining one’s American citizenship is, and how the play really explored that. I’m curious from either of you, um, why do you think stories like that are even more important in this moment as this, um, as this play continues to tour the country.

Whitney White: Jocelyn was very brave and very brilliant to shed the light on this community, because Jaja’s follows a group of Pan-African hair braiders and during one day in their life when their, their boss and their mother from another mother, Jaja, tries to get married. Mm-hmm. And in that day, you see them running a business, working hard physical labor- Mm-hmm

doing hard, honest work, um, and getting those nickels and dimes and hundreds of dollars together to not only keep a business going, but give each other, um, the means towards survival. And I think that that portrait, that honest portrait of what it takes when people are living and working here, dumping money into the economic system, paying taxes- That’s right.

That’s right … but getting taxed and losing money that they’ll never get back, right? For services that they’re not allowed to partake in. You know- Mm-hmm … so often the, the dialogue is twisted to talk about what immigrants are taking from the US, but actually, what, what about what immigrants are giving to the US- Mm-hmm

without any promise- That’s right … of return. Um- Right … and Jocelyn’s found a brilliant, hilarious way to look at that- Yeah … subject, to empathize with the people at the center of it, um, and humanize them. It’s humanizing- Mm-hmm … the immigrant experience, um- Mm-hmm … which is totally necessary now. Mm-hmm.

Jocelyn Bioh: Which is also, what’s also crazy about the play is that like I wrote the original play in 2019.

Um, I think because of when the play eventually premiered and then toured the country-

Whitney White: Mm-hmm …

Jocelyn Bioh: you know, people thought I was really, you know, uh, um, making a commentary-

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Yeah …

Jocelyn Bioh: on what was happening in the news right that second, whereas I was really just listening to what that man was saying the first term-

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Hello

Jocelyn Bioh: and was trying to- ‘Cause some of us

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: listened the first time …

Jocelyn Bioh: Right.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: My God.

Jocelyn Bioh: I was listening to what he was saying the first time, and I was really like trying to like, uh, uh, send the smoke signal- Yeah … that, um, there’s some really scary stuff down the pike if we, uh, don’t take action now. Now- Yeah … I mean, it feels very insane of me to say, like, oh, wow, you know, what, how prescient it all, you know, is.

I, I certainly didn’t feel that way in the moment when I was writing it, and I’m really heartbroken to see- Mm … how much the play resonates even more now- Mm-hmm … than it did when I wrote it. Even when it premiered on Broadway, we were still, you know, in the Biden administration, so, uh, I- ICE detentions and all of these things that happen in the play just didn’t…

It, it seemed like it was maybe a distant past, and, uh, the way it’s all kind of come back, uh- Yeah … full circle in the most devastating way, uh- Yeah … has been really tough for me. Uh, but I’m, I’m grateful that I was able to at least change some of the implicit biases that-

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Mm …

Jocelyn Bioh: uh, audiences m- may have had about- Mm-hmm

uh, the immigrant experience. Mm-hmm. So, yeah.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: I mean, it is deeply prescient, and i- this, listening to you talk right now reminds me of what I always think when people say Octo- Octavia Butler, um, uh, predicted all of this. Mm. And I’m like, she didn’t have to be, you know, a psychic to pay attention to patterns.

And Black women from across the diaspora, we are, um, exceptional at recognizing patterns because we have to in order to survive, which is really making me think about your new play, Jocelyn. So “School Girls” is a comedy about a Miss Universe beauty pageant in Ghana that the school’s popular girl, Paulina, really wants to win, but she feels like her chances are threatened from a new girl, Ericka, from America.

Mm. And I mean, we talk about pattern recognition, and we’re talking colorism, we’re talking class, we’re talking about the ways that young girls are taught to compete with one another before we even really understand why. Did this story come from a place for you personally?

Jocelyn Bioh: Yes, uh, for sure. I, I spent a whole huge portion of my life, um, feeling insecure and- Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm … uh, having deep, you know, low self-esteem because of me walking through the world as a dark-skinned woman. Mm-hmm. It took me a very long time to own my beauty as a dark-skinned woman.

Dr. Brittney Cooper: Mm-hmm.

Jocelyn Bioh: And I never really could articulate, at least articulate it well, exactly that feeling of unwanting that I felt.

Um- Yeah … that I just was not desired, that I was just not the preferred option. And it really wasn’t about, you know, an insecurity to- towards white women. It actually- Mm-hmm … was like the kind of full breadth of colorism and, and all that it encapsulates, and I knew I wanted to write about that to some degree.

I knew I wanted to write about my boarding school experience, ’cause I have the rare experience of going to a boarding school with other kids who look like me.

Dr. Brittney Cooper: Mm-hmm.

Jocelyn Bioh: Um, and my, you know, mother went to the boarding school that the play is set in. Um- Mm-hmm … ’cause both my parents are from Ghana. And so I knew I wanted to put all of that into, uh, a play.

I came across this story that the play is loosely inspired from about the 2011 Miss Ghana Pageant, where they went and procured a biracial girl who was half white, half Ghanaian, from Minnesota, brought her to Ghana to compete in the Miss Ghana Pageant because it seemed, at least from the Ghanaian news media and entertainment blogs, that they would have a more competitive candidate in somebody who was lighter skinned.

And I just couldn’t believe, actually, that, uh, uh, facets of like, you know, uh, Western standards of beauty had infiltrated so deeply-

Dr. Brittney Cooper: Mm …

Jocelyn Bioh: into Ghana, into an African nation. It sits like above the equator. Like, everybody’s supposed to be chocolate, you know? Like, how, how, how, how could, um, something like this happen?

Yeah. And, um, and so I wanted to, you know, talk about that. And so it’s really interesting, I think, with the play. Like, the word colorism is not mentioned at all- Mm … and I think it’s because, uh, uh, uh, audiences, whether they realize that they are participating in colorism or not- That’s right … recognize it immediately when, you know, Ericka comes on stage.

I don’t even, like, shy away from it. It’s like- Mm. Mm-hmm … one of the characters literally says to Paulina, the like, you know, lead mean girl who’s like a shoo-in to be the next Miss Ghana, one of her, you know, classmates says, like, “It’s true. Who else could beat you?” And in walks in this fairer-skinned girl, and the whole audience starts laughing, and it’s like because they know already- Yeah

um, what it all means. And, uh, yeah, I, I, I was, I’m grateful, uh, to be able to bring this story to a Broadway stage 10 years later from the original production.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: It’s so interesting to me because without using the word colorism- You are able to tell the story about it, and there’s power in being able to tell the story without using the word because the word automatically puts people on defense, right?

Right. They say, “No, never me. I’ve never experienced colorism. I’ve never been colorist. I’ve never even had the thought.” Whitney, I’m curious if, if this story resonated with you growing up in Chicago. Um-

Whitney White: Oh, definitely … you know,

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: there were pieces about working on this project and elements of this experience that are universal really across the diaspora.

Whitney White: Um, it d- I mean, from one of my earliest memories of someone saying, “Yeah, I, I, I like you, but I just don’t like how dark your lips are.”

Or, “I like you- Mm … but I don’t like the way you have to wear your hair. Do you have to wear your hair like that?” Fast-forward to being a performer and going down to callbacks and, um, coming close to being the, the person in the role, and then you see, you get the role and they’re five, six, seven shades lighter than you.

Mm-hmm. Four times in a row, right? Four times in a row, not just one time, the fourth, fifth, sixth time. Um, um, hearing comments within our own community of someone saying, “Oh, that person looks smoked,” right? Or- Wow … um, that person looking smoked. Smoked is a thing. Wow. That per- someone looking… Or me not looking too smoked, but a little smoked still.

You know what I’m saying? Um, or- It makes- Um, fast-forward to now, being a director and directing a play and saying, “Hey, this lead character to me is this kind of a Black woman.” Mm-hmm. And the list that gets sent to me of wonderful actors that I love and support and work with and can’t wait to work with, but if I say that this is a role that should be someone my complexion or darker and that is quintessential to the thematic tonage of the dramaturgy of the play, right?

And I get brought people from those very lists, the people that I used to audition agai- You know what I mean? And so it’s a kind of rather insidious maintenance of a system. Yeah. Whether, whether or not people are conscious or not, and I do believe some people are more conscious than others, but now there’s a School Girls or the African Mean Girls play in the world, so you can’t be too unconscious anymore if you come- That’s right

see this play. You can’t, you can’t act like, well, you didn’t know or you didn’t notice or you didn’t realize. Um-

Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah …

Whitney White: so it’s something I, as sister, that I’ve been walking with a very long time, since my mom, you know, straightened out my very first Afro puff, you know? And me going to school- Yeah … with very proud Afro puffs and then coming home after a series of comments from other Black girls and also non-Black girls and saying, “I don’t ever wanna w- wear my hair that way again.”

Mm-hmm. And I didn’t understand why I was processing that that way, but I did. Um, and so it’s a, it’s a incredible honor to work on it now, this kind of material.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: I mean, you bring up all of the, the layers to this, right? Because it is colorism, it is featurism, it is texturism. It’s all of the things that being unambiguously Black can cost you in a society, um, that is deeply uncomfortable with us.

I told you all that I did musical theater growing up, and I remember, um, you know, every time I would do, like, um, a regional play of some kind, you know, like y- community theater or whatever, I’d have my braids because I wore braids. Come

Whitney White: on, talk about it. Talk about it. I also was a regional theater, musical theater diva.

Come

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: on. Come on. It raises good people, okay? Um, but I, you know, I grew up with braids in my hair every single day. Like, my mom ain’t have time for all of that, so either she was braiding or I was getting it braided at the African hair salon. And I used to wear braids with curls at the bottom. Now that’s popular again, but back in the day I, you know, I was…

I feel like a trailblazer. But anyway.

Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: I would be in one- rehearsals in my braids, and then it would come time for dress rehearsal, and we’d always make sure that my hair was out of the braids and pressed every single time, because that was always the request. The first professional play I ever did, St. Louis Repertory Theater, I was Little Ti Moune in Once on This Island.

Jocelyn Bioh: Ooh.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: And my mom’s talking to the director who had, um, who played Papa Ge in the original Broadway cast, and he was now directing us. And she was like, “Oh, I usually take the braids out and we can go get it straightened, and here’s what we can have done to it, and blah, blah, blah.”

And he was like, “Why would you do that?” Like, this is literally a play that takes place in the diaspora. This play is all about our people. If you don’t put some bows on them braids and two little pigtails, it like that’s actually what we need. And I remember how affirmed I felt in that moment, being able to go on stage fully as myself, as the girl I am all the time, and didn’t obviously have this kind of language, but understood that something different was happening in this moment, in this production that Black people controlled.

Yes. Um, and in a production that was, um, intentional, um, about also, you know, also a play that explores class and colorism and all of these kinds of assumptions that we make based on how a Black woman looks when she enters the room.

Whitney White: Mm-hmm.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: But I’m curious ’cause I just feel like there’s a lot of pressure right now to portray a really positive, um, existence for Black folks within our own community, right?

And when people say you’re bringing up these more difficult, nuanced topics within our community, you know, they say you’re tearing us down or you’re, you know, causing fissures. W- do you, did you have any hesitations about this play given that kind of pressure in this moment, Jocelyn?

Jocelyn Bioh: Uh, y- you know, when I was developing the play, when I was first writing the play and developing the play, you know, a decade ago, uh, you know, when you’re an early career writer, you, you know, you do these public readings, and then- Mm-hmm

they usually force you to do, like, a talk-back afterwards, which-

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Mm-hmm …

Jocelyn Bioh: you know, could probably whack- Could not push

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: you.

Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah. Is probably why. Say, “I don’t wanna talk to

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: nobody

Jocelyn Bioh: after this.” I don’t wanna talk to nobody. But, you know, it’s such a p- it’s such a vulnerable moment, because you’re- Yeah … you’ve just written the play.

You’re still working on the play. Yeah. A- and maybe you don’t really know how to talk about the play yet. The, all this to say that, like, I did get, you know, confronted by a lot of people who were very defensive or- Mm-hmm … offended, uh, by the idea I was presenting that just because someone was a lighter skinned Black woman, that that meant she was better, or…

Uh, that’s how they interpreted it, at least- Yeah … I should say. They interpreted it as that. And, um, and the, and, and when, when people come to see the play, they will also see that, like, there’s still a very sobering lesson in the fact that just because, you know, Ericka is lighter skinned, she’s still Black.

Mm-hmm. And I still highlight that, um, very clearly, uh, in the play. A- and so I, I was actually, um, confronted with those, those things early on. Mm. So I think it maybe steeled me for when I did have to- Mm-hmm … um, go out into the world with the play professionally. But it, it, it’s a very sensitive topic, particularly within our community.

I’m, I also feel like there were a lot of fights that got ignited when we had a, a talk-back that was, um, that was about, you know, colorism within other communities that weren’t- Mm-hmm … the Black community. Child, that ta- I’m glad it wasn’t recorded, but that talk-back with-… that talk-back with the, my Latino brothers and sisters, child.

It was, it got deep. It got very, very deep. Wow. And so you realize that, like, oh, you know, obviously I’m a Black woman and- Mm-hmm … uh, so I understand how colorism, you know, affects me. But w- w- you re- you realize this, this is not, this is a completely universal thing. Um- Yeah … it’s, it’s all over the world. It’s insidious all over the, uh, the world.

Not just our continent, not just America. Mm-hmm. All over. We’re not healed from it. Nobody is healed from it. And so I- Yeah … I welcome the discussion and the conversation, and even the criticism.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: And I think that this is why we wanted to spend this episode talking about the art that you’ve created, because- Everybody here at Undistracted really recognizes that it is culture that can be a portal for necessary conversations, for healing, for confrontation, for, um, it, it can really catalyze some of the work that we need to do.

And you bring up an interesting point because there’s colorism within our community, within many communities, and then there’s the fact that we still all walk through the world Black, right? So I’m thinking about a new study from the Journal of Black Studies that finds that darker skinned Black women report that they have a harder time finding a partner, and lighter skinned Black women say that they feel fetishized more often, right?

So- Wow … there, it is not to say that colorism as a systemic ism, um, is, does not create, uh, uh, harder systems for dark skinned women because it absolutely does. And we have to recognize that light skinned women, dark skinned women, brown skinned women entering the world as Black women all are having challenges of our own.

Whitney, I’m curious how you think these more nuanced conversations can be aided by a play like this?

Whitney White: Well, you know, it was like, it was W.E.B. Du Bois who said that the problem with the 20th century will be the color line.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Mm-hmm.

Whitney White: He was like, period. Now we’re in the 21st. You know what I mean? That is the problem.

It intercuts all communities everywhere- Yeah … interior to Black and Brown and indigenous communities, and BIPOC communities, or global majority communities, whatever you wanna call us Mm … the non- Yeah … the non-white us. And it also- The multi … comes from outside too, uh, and within. And I have multicultural people in my family who are part Puerto Rican.

I have a child who is multicultural. He’s a Jamaican Russian. He’s four. We’re gonna see how that turns out. Okay? Nobody’s made one before. I will, I will let you know how it goes. Uh, and so-

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: First, first of its kind off the assembly line. Yeah.

Whitney White: Yeah. And so I just, I mean, the theme is an ever- Oh … present political theme.

And also, colorism affects us. It affects our pockets. It affects our love lives. It comes into our bedrooms. Mm. It comes into our kitchen, the food that we eat, the access that we have to, the education that we can do, the jobs that we can get. And so, you know, Jocelyn’s, I always like to say that Jocelyn’s play is also not a play about, uh, racism, which is, colorism is, uh, outside of that.

Mm-hmm. That’s just something we uphold. Yeah. We take it from that, we uphold in our community, but it’s also a play of economics. That’s right. Because this girl, Ericka, her, her, her proximity to Western standards of beauty has also brought her, uh, things, lotions, hair oil, dresses, right? Yeah. Commodities that are brought in from the Western space that are like gold to these girls in Ghana.

Yeah. And so- Yeah … I- I’ve been thinking, lately I’ve been thinking not only about my own experiences, like, I remember the person saying, you know, “Your, your li- your lips are too dark. You’d be beautiful if your lips weren’t so… Why are the outside of your lips so dark?” But it’s also making me think about the, the dollar bills in our pockets, and in women’s pockets.

Mm. So not just, like, issues of love and sex, but also literal economic opportunity. Um- Yeah … and it, it, it deeply affects people’s lives. And I do think about family members of mine who came out light. They’re fully Black, they just happened to come out the way they came out. Yeah. And some of the things they’ve experienced- Mm-hmm

in the world, both, both darkly good and very bad and dangerous. So again- Yeah … Jocelyn Bioh, you know? This is why she’s the reason for the season, is we’re having this rich talk. That’s right. Um, because this play exists, and you want to watch it, you know? And she tricks you- Yeah … into wanting to watch it, you know?

Yeah. Testament of her brilliance

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Well, you all are both so brilliant, and before I let you go, you know, we’ve talked about being theater kids, writers, artists who are sensitive about their ish. I’m curious from both of you, Joslyn first, um, because I know that you feel what happens on stage, um, and that you also know that it can c- can transform the world.

What’s an early play or an early stage moment in your own life that really transformed you to bring us to the brilliance that we’re experiencing now?

Jocelyn Bioh: Oh, my goodness. Wow. You know what? Okay. So, I feel like there’s a lot of ways to answer this, but I think the truthful answer genuinely is going to be watching In Living Color.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Mm. Come on. The legendary. The inventors of the Super Bowl halftime show.

Jocelyn Bioh: Talk about it. Literally. I know. That’s my favorite thing to tell people every year. They’re like, “We know. We know.” Mm-hmm. Um, I’m gonna say In Living Color. Look, we also grew up in a time where we were able to watch approximations of theater via the sitcom or whatever, or sketch comedy, ’cause they were all filmed in front of a live studio audience.

You were- Yeah … I, I was learning and understanding comedic timing and brilliance and, and, uh, moments and, uh, of truth from these particular shows. But I would say In Living Color, uh, encapsulated all of that. It was music, it was culture, it was Black people. Mm. It was funny. Um, it was da- I was a dancer at the time too.

I, I thought I was gonna be a Fly Girl on In Living Color. That was my- Yes … end game. I thought that too. You know? When did you fall from the sky? And then it went off the air, and I was like, “Oh, Lord, I gotta pivot,” you know? Uh, and now here we are. I’m writing plays. But I, it, it taught me so much about, like, honestly, truth, truth of character- Mm

truth of comedy, and being really brave and political from a very early age. I understood immediately when I watched that show- Mm … that it was doing something very different, very brave, very nuanced, very funny, very truthful, and very, very political. Mm. And if you can put all of that together and still make an entertaining show- Yes

uh, then I, I mean, that’s, so that’s been my North Star. Um, and I’m just, I’m grateful to the Wayans family every day.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Listen, they, uh- Give them all stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, okay?

Jocelyn Bioh: Literally.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: But you’re absolutely right. There was a real era there where theater, Black theater in particular, found its home in sitcom television.

I’m thinking about Martin, I’m thinking about In Living Color, I’m thinking about- Yeah … Mad TV, I’m thinking about A Different World. My- Yeah … I mean, you know, we all know that moment when Kid read Ego Trippin’ by, by Nikki Giovanni, and you see- Yes … the brilliance of Debbie Allen and her staging of this very theater-esque moment.

One of my fav- A Different World is my favorite sitcom, and one of my favorite episodes of it that nobody ever talks about was this older episode where they, where Dwayne falls asleep and he has a dream that the women are in charge. But it’s actually-

Jocelyn Bioh: Yes …

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: a story about the election, and it’s- Yes … watched through.

And Clinton, you remember the one I’m

Jocelyn Bioh: talking about? Yes, it’s such a good episode.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: And, yes, it’s such a great… And Whitney plays Jill Blinton, right? And she’s, like, you know, a philanderer, and she’s telling her husband to go sit in the corner, and you’re hearing Jasmine Guy singing, you’re watching her dance, and you’re watching her act.

And I’m like, “This is, it’s just some of the most brilliant television that’s ever made,” and it stirred my soul up so incredibly. Whitney, close us out. What’s, what’s one of those moments for you?

Whitney White: Okay, I have two. I’m including one from cinema because I don’t think it’s talked about enough. But the first one was I was in a production of Passing Strange by Stew, uh, Stew and Heidi, and I, I, I played Desi, and that was in this production in Chicago.

It was the Chicago premiere of it. And I was kind of an… I guess you could call me, like, a alt Black girl a little bit. I was in a rock and roll band. I was in a punk band, to be honest- Okay … for, like, a lot of my youth. Um, I like sci-fi. I’m, like, there, okay? And so Passing Strange was the first time where that is the first experience in musical theater, in Western theater, where you, a multi- the multiverse of Black experience was- Mm

contained in one show. You could be a hood Negro, you could be a woke Negro, you could be- Mm … a sci-fi Negro, you could be a classical one. Mm-hmm. You could be a Du Boisian one. You could be a Malcolm X one. Right? Mm-hmm. And there’s room for you. There’s room in the gumbo pot for everybody, and that, that show changed my life.

Because up until that point, I had been told that you either had to be in Fences, or you had to be unnamed Black girl in Musical 35, Radio 3. Like me. Or you were, you know, unnamed girl in Legally Blonde, unnamed person- Mm … in Caroline, or Change, unnamed person- Mm-hmm … in Hair singing the white boy solo, number two, slave number two.

These are roles I’ve played, by the way. Slave number two- Oh, yes … in a production of Show Boat, right? Mm-hmm. And Passing Strange was like, “Hold on, let’s put names to these identities.” And then I just wanna give a shout-out to Blade. Blade, starring Wesley Snipes, is not a play. Come on, yes! But when I tell you…

No, when I tell you, I was like, “They gonna let this Black man kill all these white va- vampires and talk about it, and be in a leather suit-” She said, “Did

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: anybody

Whitney White: tell you?” … with a, with a afro fade? I was growing up in Chicago at the time, and I remember watching that VHS on the South Side of Chicago, and I was in my grandmother’s room like, “I- is the police- Wow

gonna come in right now?” Blade. Blade was kind of like-

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: You know …

Whitney White: um, an awakening for me

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Huh, Blade as Black power, Black arts, Afrofuture. That, you know, that’s interesting. I’ma have to, I’ma have to think about that. That feels like, that feels like a Twitter dissertation topic. That’s

Whitney White: good. And revisit the beat- For sure

when you, when we’re watching it, revisit the beat when Blade discovers his own mother has become a vampire.

Dr. Brittney Cooper: Oh.

Whitney White: I’m just gonna- Oh. Shout

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: out to Okay, you might be giving us something to work with. I don’t really do horror movies, but I understa- I understand where you’re going with this. I’ma have to look into this.

Word. This feels like a research topic of some kind. Yes. Jocelyn and Whitney, thank you for your brilliance. Thank you for spending time with us in this good conversation, and thanks for being with us on Undistracted. We will see you really soon. And everybody go see the plays! Go see the plays!

Jocelyn Bioh: Thank you, Brittany.

Thanks, y’all. Bye.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: All right, y’all, today I’m joined for untrending news by our group chat bestie, once again, author and gender and women’s studies professor, Dr. Brittney Cooper. Last week, the women’s movement lost an absolute legend, the one and only Gloria Steinem, who died on Wednesday at 92 in her home in New York City.

She became a feminist icon partly through co-founding Ms. Magazine in 1971, and helping build organizations like the National Women’s Political Caucus and the Women’s Media Center to champion gender equality, reproductive rights, and women’s representation in media and politics. But her death also brought attention to some controversies in her career, namely that in the late 1950s and early ’60s, she led the Independent Research Service, an organization later revealed to be funded by the CIA.

Through it, she organized American delegations to counter Soviet-backed world youth festivals in Vienna and Helsinki, which sparked a lot of backlash in the women’s movement when that became public in 1967. She admitted that the CIA backing was true, but she claimed to have alignment with the initiative itself, saying that she found the agents, quote, “liberal and far-sighted and open to an exchange of ideas.”

She also claimed that the CIA never asked her to report on other Americans, which other feminist movement organizers later claimed wasn’t true. At the time, Cold War historians and feminists like the Red Stockings argued that her account of the relationship understated how deeply involved she was. So last week, while plenty of us in the women’s movement, uh, were trying to honor her legacy, others in conservative spheres were trying to undermine it, and there was definitely still outstanding controversy, which we wanna be honest about, um, that those who wanted to understand her full legacy are still reckoning with.

Coop, you’re the perfect person to talk to about this because we either, um, die a hero or live long enough to be, um, uh, reviled or become reviled in our death, right? So, like, especially in these internet times, it can be very challenging, I think, to have these conversations with nuance. Gloria was a friend of the podcast.

She came to us to speak about reproductive rights. What’s your take on how to receive all of this while reckoning with her legacy?

Dr. Brittney Cooper: Yeah, thanks for the question. You know, let me say upfront that I teach at Rutgers where, where we founded the Gloria Steinem Initiative on- Yeah … Feminism, Media and Culture.

Um, I helped to, um, hire the first, um, chair for the Glo- the Gloria Steinem Chair at Rutgers. Also, the RAGE Lab that I am the principal investigator of, um, is partially founded by the Ms. Foundation for Women- Mm-hmm … uh, which Gloria Steinem helped to found. Uh, so my experience of Gloria Steinem in person is limited.

I met her one time, but I’ve known of her work for a very long time. Yeah. Um, uh, look I am not a Black feminist who is particularly here for white women. I mostly think that they are colluders with patriarchy, with white supremacy, with all of that. But what I am is a scholar of, uh, feminist intellectual traditions.

Mm-hmm. And it really makes me angry when people want to try to politically sloganeer over the top of those scholarly traditions and reduce them. Yeah. So, I think that Gloria Steinem had a questionable, um, engagement with the, the CIA in the era of the Cold War, but I also think that folks are taking a contemporary 21st century understanding- Mm

about the way that US democracy promotion was happening in the world- Yeah … in the ’50s and ’60s and imposing it when we don’t, when the conditions are in fact not the same and some of the assumptions are not the same. Um, and so I tend to think that what I appreciate is that there weren- was no lying about her involvement, that she was very forthright about it.

Yeah. Forthright about what it meant. The second thing I appreciate and that I have been telling people, much to their chagrin, is Gloria Steinem was a liberal feminist. She believed in the US nation state project. She believed- Yeah … in democracy. The, the sort of more radical parts of feminist movement building around the world have deep critiques of the state.

I’m not saying Gloria Steinem had no critiques of the US state. Yeah. I’m saying that liberal feminism are tho- liberal feminists are those people who go into Congress and say, “Women should make equal wages for equal work.” Yeah. “Women should, you know, have access to birth control. Women should have abortion rights.”

Those are liberal feminist positions that work through the legislation of our lives. Yeah. Radical feminist positions say that there are fundamental problems with the state. We don’t think the state as the way it is organized can do enough to protect women’s lives and women’s rights, and so you get socialist feminist and other kinds of feminist traditions.

And what has happened with Steinem, because there is a strain, particularly among Black feminists, where we automatically call, call white women suspect, which many of them deserve- … is that we also then collapse that and say that any liberal feminist position- Yeah … is a bullshit position. That’s incorrect.

The last thing I’ll say is I mark your m- your, your m- meaning to movements by the quality of your relationships, not just your sloganeering. Mm-hmm. Which is why a lot of the people who sound radical, I wouldn’t take them to anything. I wouldn’t be with them in a fight. Yeah, me. I wouldn’t have them show up with me in a protest Because they- Ain’t

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: never been in the street, but got all the words,

Dr. Brittney Cooper: child

that’s right. Because they, because they wanna be right and they wanna have bars on the internet, but- Yeah … what kind of organizing have you done? What kind of skin have you put in the game? Yeah. What groups of people lives are better because you were here? And so, when bell hooks said Gloria Steinem was anti-racist, when Angela Davis comes out, uh, to, to make a defense of Gloria Steinem and says- Yeah.

“Look, she threw her skin in the game with me in ’71 when I was locked up, when- Yeah … and I was an avowed communist and people didn’t wanna associate themselves with me because of it, and she led the treasury, the, she was the treasurer for my defense-” Yeah … uh, to be freed. Yeah. When, when Black women who’ve known this woman for decades are like, “She did a lot of organizing behind the scenes-” Yeah

“that you don’t know about because she asked not to be given credit for.” Yeah. Then what I think is that we should allow people to grow. We should recognize that these are, traditions are much more complicated than the stuff that you can learn about on the internet. Mm-hmm. And if you have credible relationships with Black feminist organizers who we know have changed the world- Yeah

that’s good enough for me

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: I think you make such salient points. First of all, let’s allow people to grow, right? And this is not about defending a white woman, God forbid. This is about putting, frankly, the kind of karma out in the world that I want to receive back. Because if something, God forbid, happened to me tomorrow, which by the way, is literally why I’m sitting in my father-in-law’s really beautiful living room, where he’s got an even nicer setup than I do.

I don’t know, I might have to start filming here. But I’m in my Labor Day best because we were gonna drive back to DC last night, and, um, a tire was low, and we said, “Hey, we gotta, we gotta go back home and try again,” right? So, like, I’m grateful for that kind of flexibility so nothing actually happened to me last night, but God forbid should something have happened.

Dr. Brittney Cooper: Right.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: There are gonna be people who pull up what I said in 2014, in 2015, and assign, um, a certain belief system that has evolved greatly over the last 12 years. Primarily, a promotion of police reform that I don’t believe in anymore, right? Yeah. That I have evolved past. I’ve been very open about that evolution.

I’ve written about it, I’ve talked about it on this podcast and on many other platforms because I decided that the best way for me to operate in integrity was to learn in public. Yeah. To say, “Hey, I got it wrong. Here’s how I got it wrong. Here’s what I’m doing to be better, and most importantly, here’s who taught me how to be better.

Here are the abolitionists I’m reading. Let’s put Derecka Purnell on the podcast. Let’s quote Mariame Kaba,” right? Like, let’s go back to Are Prisons Obsolete by, by Angela Davis, right? These are moments that I am grateful that I had enough grace with myself to develop and evolve, even if other people are not going to extend that to me.

Yeah. And so, I think it’s important that in this place where the internet flattens everything, that we acknowledge the breadth and depth of 92 years- Years … that made a phenomenal difference. Um, and it’s not to say that there was not harm done, but also if we all looked back at our own years, what is the harm that was done when we didn’t know better and therefore didn’t do better, right?

For sure. And were we the kind of people who learned better and then decided to do better? You know, I feel so grateful, um, for my co-EP who you know, Cindi Leive. She was very close with Gloria for a long time. She is how I met Gloria, at a luncheon for our also dearly departed sister Cecile Richards when her book was coming out.

Mm. And I literally sat next to Sarah Jessica Parker and Gloria Steinem, and I was like, “This is- what is, what is happening in life right now, right? Yeah. I was like, I’m just gonna let all of this goodness wash all over me. Yeah. And the conversation that we had around that table with people like them, and Padma Lakshmi, and Cindi, and Cecile was about this multiracial, deeply, um, uh, intersectional feminism.

Yeah. And perhaps if we had been having that conversation with Gloria years prior, she wouldn’t have been ready for it. But she, she and bell hooks, right, handled that beef, right? Yeah. They, they figured it out, right? She spent that kind of time with Angela Davis. There are so many ways in which I’m grateful for her example, for the paths that she laid for us to be able to have Um, feminist conversations in media spaces and actually build the pathways for that so that they can be funded and heard and seen.

Like, her fingerprints are on that, and I’m not going to pretend like that’s not true just because I didn’t agree with everything. And I hope that one day when people talk about my legacy, your legacy, any of our legacies, that we give each other the room to grow, to evolve, to know better, and to do better.

And Gloria Steinem did a whole lot of good, and she did a whole lot of better.

Dr. Brittney Cooper: That’s right.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: And that deserves honoring. That deserves respect. And she was very clear, she learned feminism from Black women, and she clearly kept on learning it- Yes … and kept on refining it from Black women. Yeah. And so, like, hey, I feel like she at the pearly gates, okay?

I, I feel like she went up, not down. Absolutely. So what, if people wanna go in about that, that’s fine. Like, what are we talking about? That’s fine. But- What are we,

Dr. Brittney Cooper: what are we talking about? I was like, listen, let me tell you something. I’m not, I… What I also understand, I have been disciplining myself away from a comment section because I was about to show my entire behind this weekend.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Child, oh.

Dr. Brittney Cooper: And I was like, y’all got me out here defending white ladies, and I’m on record as saying that I, I can count my number of white, close white women friends on one hand.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Listen, I got Cindi and two more. So- That’s about it.

Dr. Brittney Cooper: Okay, this is what I’m saying. And so I’m like, why y’all got me out here like this?

Yeah. But what I don’t like, Black feminism is sacred to me. Yeah. And our tradition was never about dragging white women just for the purposes of doing that. That’s right. And because Black women have been pragmatic organizers, we have always figured out who our white women allies are. We have always called them out when we think they could do better.

That’s right. We have called them in and built relationships. All of that is a testament to the brilliance of Black women. Yeah. And that is why it is so important for us to be able to say, “No, no, no. She was a good egg,” like Dolly Parton- Yeah. Yeah … was a good egg, right? Yeah. Come on now. She really did… In the end, if we add it all up, she did right by us.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: The sum total

Dr. Brittney Cooper: total. And you know, the marker is does the good clearly outweigh the bad? Yeah. We don’t have to make an apologia for the bad. Right. But does the good outweigh the bad? Yeah. And last, if you have a problem with Angela Yvonne Davis, do not talk to me.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Then I got a problem with you

Dr. Brittney Cooper: Shut your face up. Like, just I, I, I am, I… Listen, people talked super crazy to me about Angela Davis yesterday, i.e. in calendar year 2026- Listen … and, and talked about the ways in which she had been co-opted and the ways- Listen … in which she wasn’t a real communist. And what I wanna tell you is that those kinds of thing make me, things make me want to fight you.

And, and, and, and, e- like, because it is, it is, it is- It is the height of disrespect-

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: Yeah …

Dr. Brittney Cooper: to, to, you know, try to diminish Black women’s legacies.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: You done made my father-in-law’s dog mad. Did you hear this? Go ahead. I’m

Dr. Brittney Cooper: so- I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: No, no, no. Not you. The people who, who hate on Angela Davis. Those- I’m happy because-

Dr. Brittney Cooper: Yeah

because everybody can get it.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: I think all the time about how those of us who epigenetically are connected to generations of… that necessitated radical pragmatism, right? Sure. We have to hold multiple truths at once, and I think that being in that, i- in this body that necessitates that kind of thinking I also recognize that we are able to be more radical now because what she was doing then in so many cases, what all of them were doing then in so many cases were, was deeply radical then, even if it doesn’t look radical in a 21st century lens.

That’s right. And understanding the nature of progress, that it is not all at once, that there are steps taken forward, pushed back, and taken forward again, means that we have to understand whose shoulders on which we stand. And we don’t just get to be out here, um, in our ego and act like we got here on our own, that there were no, uh, that there was no literature that formed us, that there was no philosophy that formed us, that there were no radical practices that formed us, that there were no liberal practices that evolved into radical practices that formed us.

Like, let’s be honest about the nature of life. Yes. Such that we, like I said, give ourselves grace to, to evolve and recognize that our ability to be this evolved was because other people took steps that were highly dangerous for them at the time. And so, you know, I think that about Gloria, I think that about, uh, uh, Angela, I think that about Shirley Chisholm, right?

Yes. Who, like, plenty of people would’ve thought she, now in the 21st century lens, would’ve felt that she was a little too socially conservative, and like, we can have that conversation. And also, every time I go in the Capitol, I stare at her portrait to let it fill me with the courage that I need to keep moving forward, because I don’t get to do this without her.

That’s right. And I’m gonna be humble enough to recognize that. And frankly, we all should be. That’s right. Dr. Brittney Cooper, brilliant as always. You know, there was really only one thing to talk about this week, even in my Labor Day best, because we have to make sure that we are saying thank you, Gloria.

So thank you, Gloria. Y’all go back and listen to, uh, an episode with Gloria Steinem and Renee Bracey Sherman right here on Undistracted, where we talked about the importance of, um, reproductive freedom and reproductive justice, brought together a woman of color and a white woman to have that conversation.

And it was the first time Renee had actually ever shared space with Gloria. So I’m really proud that Undistracted helped bridge that generational gap, um, for these feminist conversations. So thanks Brittney for being here, and we’ll talk to you real soon.

Dr. Brittney Cooper: Take care. Be square.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham: So I never made my musical theater dreams come true, except when I became a co-producer on The Wiz.

I believe that The Wiz is one of the best musicals of all time, and I don’t care that it was commercially panned by critics. I believe that’s because they don’t understand the culture. You got Quincy Jones in a gold sparkling afro playing a gold piano while people dance through the Emerald City Art? Art, magic, incredible.

And being a co-producer on the revival of the latest Broadway version of The Wiz was an incredible honor and my way to finally make it to Broadway. Listen, people like Jocelyn and Whitney are using their gifts to do the work, and that is what’s required of all of us. There are lots of folks who think, “Hey, I can’t do media.

I’m not an activist. I’m not an organizer. I cook, or I write, or I do something else that can’t be offered up for good.” You’d be wrong, and you just heard from two women who showed you just how wrong you are. So, wherever your gifts and your talents and the issues that matter to you intersect, go do something about it in whatever creative way you can, ’cause we need all of you.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for doing. Nope, that’s not how we close. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being, and most importantly, thanks for doing. I’m Brittany Packnett Cunningham. Let’s go get free.

Our executive producers are Cindi Leive and myself, Brittany Packnett Cunningham.

Our producer at Collective Media is Douglas Forte with supervising producer Ryan Jones.

Our supervising producer at The Meteor is Taylor Hosking and artwork is by Bianca Alvarez.

This episode was produced with support from Liberation Ventures and The Meteor Fund.

You can follow me on all social media @mspackyetti and our incredible team @themeteor.