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[0:00] Tonya Pinkins: I'm Tonya Pinkins, and you're listening to You Can't SAY THAT.

[0:03] Tonya Pinkins: Welcome back for part two of my conversation with artist Franki Cox and Tchaiko Omawale.

[0:15] Tonya Pinkins: We gotta say what's being understanding.

[0:27] Tonya Pinkins: Both of you talked about 2016. I want to know what it was in 2016. I know for me, 2013 was when Zimmerman was acquitted, and that was kind of the moment when I said, I'm not taking care of white people's feelings anymore. Because I feel like all of my life I'd have to listen to white people say these like really ridiculous, cognitively dissonant, untrue, what world are you living in things, and just nod because you're like, okay, that's the world you get to pretend to live in. But 2013, that Zimmerman acquittal was like, done. So what happened in 2016 for both of you?

[1:08] Tchaiko Omawale: For me, it was the buildup of it because, again, I keep like explaining the context of not being American, and so it's like the Zimmerman thing, I felt it. But it was like, but I could, it's like there was still, when you grow up around the world and you're moving from country to country, you start to compartmentalize so that you can keep moving and fitting in. So whenever there's anything like that's painful, I was just used to being able to kind of fold it up and putting it over there. So you can feel sad for a bit, but you gotta keep going. And I think for me, it was just like murder after murder after murder, the buildup of that. And then in that particular year, I believe that was the year Muhammad Ali died.

I think that was also the year that was that year Prince died as well. There was like a, I think it was like Muhammad Ali died, and I remember feeling like less about the sports thing and more about like how he stood up for his people and didn't, wasn't so concerned about his career. And that was the year that I had decided I wanted to have a kid. And so kind of navigating Hollywood with like rich friends and some friends who were like sort of celebrities, I remember being like, I want to have a kid, and I don't want my kid to feel the way I did growing up, which is like being this poor black person. And so even though I wasn't poor, but growing up overseas compared to some of the expats that I was around, especially the white ones, like I did just have this like poor black girl mentality, and I did not want to pass that down to my kids.

So I started being very aware of like how I was showing up in my own life. And so that year I was like looking at Muhammad Ali and thinking about that's who I want to be. I don't want to care about my career more than I care about black folks. And then, you know, Jesse Williams did a speech that year at the BET Awards where he talked about the gentrification of our culture, and then Orange is the New Black that year had one of their finales was supposed to be like a Black Lives Matter finale, but instead they completely co-opted it, and they had the prison guard that killed the black woman, it was sort of, it was painted as if it was just like, oh, it was a mistake, as opposed to looking at this as like structural violence.

And when I looked at the writer's room, because that was also the year people were asking, I just happened to look at the writer's room, and there was not a single black person there, so it felt like it was like offense after offense after offense, plus the just the buildup of like murder, murder, murder, murder. Then for me, you know, and then also doing my film where I was in my film trying to say this is my contribution to black life, right? Showing this subjective inner emotional landscape of a black girl who like wants to do better for the world, but can't really help her, can't really do that much because she's stuck inside, binging her brain out and wanting to like show a different side of like I guess where we need to go for our liberation, which is also healing inside, and literally not being able to do that because of a different kind of racism, not police brutality, but like racism with liberal like film people.

And so I think all of those things together, but particularly I think the opening of like wanting to have a child and not having the child feel the way I did, even as an adult, like the you know, the poor person amongst my successful friends, made me really, really just kind of look at where I was at, and then the week it happened to me was it was after Philando Castile, because it was like two murders in a week, and I literally broke apart, and from then on, I actually had to go to therapy twice. So I mean, it was so fucked up. I had to go to therapy twice a week after that, but that was for me the culminate that that's how it culminated. That was like my climax.

[5:08] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah. How about you, Franki?

[5:12] Franki Cox: For me, it was there were all of these things happening in the world with people far in a distance, right? And I was sort of in this bubble of this liberal white community that was like, oh, that's really awful. But that's not happening here. And we really are working towards, you know, kindness and being better. So you don't have to worry about that because we're okay. We're just gonna focus on being kind. And we're gonna, you know, it's everything goes okay. That's not happening here. Oh my god, that's so don't worry about that. Where what are you talking about? That's like in Florida or something. And so then this rhetoric about the wall creeped into the elementary school yard. And while the kids were at play, they started erupting into this chorus of build the wall, build the wall, build the wall.

And the teachers, well, that in that particular community, they had great teachers who were very aware it was a diverse grouping, and the teachers are not in charge of the students when they're on the yard. They're with aides who are not well trained. So while this is and they're not able to manage it, and there's very few of them, like maybe two to you know, hundreds of little kids who are getting their yayas out because they've just had their brains packed with, you know, a lot of information to prepare them for a test, you know, so that the school can get an award and get more money based on that, and the real estate values can stay pumped up, and this community can continue to be economically desirable.

So in that they're not managing the build the wall dynamic, and out of that comes all of this N-word where they're not using it like, you know. So the first thing was we're gonna, oh, you know, it's because of music, you know. Well, Beyoncé says it. And I'm like, oh, okay, right. And I was very active as a small community, you know, school. Okay, well, you know, how about this? How about we're not teaching rap? And how about we just like how about zero tolerance? You're not gonna use that word at school. How about that? How about that? And the administration was not willing to get on board with that. And so then the word has permission. They haven't said you're allowed to use it, but they haven't said that you're not allowed to use it.

So then it starts being used as a weapon. It is weaponized now. So children who are angry with each other are now using this word. And then in the older demographic, you know, the fifth, sixth graders are not just using the word because they're mad, because maybe, maybe we'll give the kids the benefit of the doubt, they don't know what it means. But there are older kids who specifically know that it's I am calling you out because you are less, because of the hue of your skin. And I am better than you, and bad things should happen to you because of the hue of your skin. I get to hate you because of the hue of your skin. That infected my schoolyard and that touched my home. And that was what started the awakening in me.

When I found myself approaching the administration and saying, Oh my gosh, did you hear? Isn't that awful? And they said, hmm. And I said, I'm sorry. Did you not hear? No, let me tell you. Oh, you know what? You did maybe you don't know what happened. Let me tell you what happened. And they said, hmm. I had a text message on my son's phone that I had to show to them. And then they said, oh, well, the phone got hacked, maybe. Or the so that was the beginning of my awakening. Was like, I, and then in the in this next few, you know, as the days broiled on, they're approaching the end of the year. This is a big deal politically. Kids are hearing the news because their parents are watching the news.

Donald Trump is saying a lot of things, kids are hearing it, their parents are saying it. And suddenly this idyllic little island community that I lived in revealed itself. It showed that it was actually quite racist. And people were having these discussions were erupting on, you know, the next door networks, and then it was like, okay, this shit's real. This shit's real. And then, you know, the next week something happens, the kids disagree on or disobey a directive given. Like, don't run. You know, kids, these are kids, they're not in class, and they've been given a directive. You're not allowed to play, but sit inside this large open space and don't run. So they tried to do it. And then after a few minutes, one hit the other, you know, like playfully, tag the other, and the other one tagged back, and then they started chasing each other, and then they got in trouble, and they said, This is a serious offense, and you're gonna be suspended and you're not gonna be allowed to attend your elementary school graduation. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's back up. And that's my kid, by the way, that's why I give a shit.

[11:24] Tchaiko Omawale: Um, remember a week ago when that kid used the N-word like a weapon, and called another kid a fucking N. And you said nothing. You said nothing, but now my kid just got up and ran in a big open space, but he wasn't supposed to, and he's not gonna be allowed to go to his elementary school graduation, and he's gonna be suspended from school, and nobody got hurt, nobody was even close to getting hurt, harmed, no equipment was damaged. Um, and the administration responded, well, he obeyed a disappo a dis a dis uh a uh directive, and I said, So I just want you to understand that I understand that what you just told my kid is that it's okay to call someone the N-word. That's what you said that's what you just told my kid you told my child that it's okay for someone to call him the N-word not like yo bro hey stop like you that's what you told my kid and that's when I got alive that's when I woke up and that's when I got mad and I've been getting more angry every February that brings us to September 11th when we were on a Zoom class with our teacher Cynthia Bond and uh I'm still traumatized.

I I know we all bro wrote essays about it but um for me I'm gonna say I just I thought I was gonna be living the TV news where the police were gonna knock down her door and they were gonna shoot her I've been watching the video repeatedly because I've been trying to find a way to transfer it so that she can have it for evidence purposes and I have to tell you that I am I have been a wreck this morning when I was asked this morning about like what did you eat for breakfast I'm like I was it fully inside fear I was fully inside fear because I have done like okay maybe if I cut it down to five minute increments maybe if I cut it down to two minute increments and every time I cut it I have to watch it again it's like I'm reliving it every it's it's fucking horrible.

[14:01] Tchaiko Omawale: I wanted to say like with some distance from it it. It wasn't as bad. It wasn't as it wasn't it. It was horrible. No, it's fucking horrible. It's fucking horrible. It was it was horrible. It was horrible. I couldn't write about it. When I did the first time I tried to write about it, I it it ruined my day. I couldn't I couldn't function for the rest of the day. And watching her plead her humanity and knowing her humanity didn't matter and knowing that they'd sent an army to kill her because not only are we not women, we are treated like we are monsters, like we are a Godzilla. We are, you know, we are some monster that has to be uh destroyed.

[14:45] Franki Cox: Should I go?

[14:50] Tchaiko Omawale: Yeah, I mean, I feel pretty shut down about it because in order to keep moving forward, you know, I was fucked up. Like I've I uh I'm six months postpartum and up till that day I'd been doing really well with writing, which is the way in which I can possibly make a new film, it's the way in which I could possibly earn money, and that day had me back in a place that I thought I had left, which was like sitting around binge watching TV, like feeling like kind of depressed, and it was just very clear to me how racism it isn't just about like the deaths, but it's the slow deaths as well, you know. Like I literally was traumatized by that and it fucked with my ability to do the thing that I need to do to do my work to like have my joy.

And uh I I called a couple friends who reminded me they're like, don't let this shit fuck you up. This is what it means to be black. Don't let that shit fuck you up. You gotta keep working, you gotta keep writing. And so there's a way in which I'm cannot access the emotions right now, and I don't want to access the emotions that I felt because I can't afford to be out again. You know, like it's COVID. I'm I'm a black filmmaker who's just kind of like getting my career going. Like I have to write, like nobody's giving me a job just because like I have to do my work in order to like work, you know.

[16:22] Tchaiko Omawale: I have a kid, and I think for me, what you know for me, the thing that like I think about is a couple things. One, how important it is for us as black folks, and maybe let me talk from my desire, like my little child desire. My my little child desire is that all black folks makes black folks, light skinned black folks, rich black folks, celebrity black folks, really have an understanding of what anti-blackness is, so that we're not caught out, because that is like such a psychic fuck. Like it fucks with you psychically when you're surprised at what yeah, when you're surprised at racism. I think if we understand and we know what we are dealing with, then I think you're one you're much better equipped to like really sort your life out so you can have joy, which is the only way black people have survived all of this time who are in you know, like on this side of the world, right?

Like they have like when our enslaved ancestors they still found joy. Like there's there's always something that we've had to find. That's why we're still around, right? And so I think it gets worse when you have integration and when you have like friends who are close who are white, when you get fucking tricked out that the shit is not actually working, that this system is not actually it is here to fucking kill us, whether it is kill us spiritually or kill us dead, as we would say in Jamaica, that is the point of the fucking system. And I just wish that we could just know more.

[18:06] Tchaiko Omawale: And then the other thing, like, because my friends are organizers. Like when I was talking to them, they were like one of them said, This is the importance of organizing. And and my translation of that is this is the importance of being in community, right? Which is the opposite and the antithesis to what capitalism and whiteness wants you to do, which is to be an individual, which is to be excellent, right? The whole black excellence thing. I'm above all the other Negroes because I am this or I'm that, but like it is important to be in community, so that when that shit hits, because it always hits, whether it's your child being expelled or suspended, whether it's you being pregnant and fucking having to have a c-section because medical system is not set up for reproductive justice, you need fucking community to help you.

You cannot be an island alone, and thankfully, we were on the Zoom with Cynthia. But what I'm noticing in the aftermath is I it's I always wonder and ask questions what would this situation have been like if I was, if Cynthia was, I cannot speak for you two, were was a part of some sort of organizing group in which when this happened, we knew who to call, we knew what to do in the week following. There was like a movement because this is something I think about as somebody who's privileged and somebody who has to spend so much time focusing on her own work because film is hard and it takes hours and hours and hours to like you know be on set or write a script. It's just like, what is my how can I how can I how can I create a life where I am I don't want to say giving back, but where I am in community in a way of just not I I don't know, I don't know how else to say it, but like I we have the elections coming up, and regardless of who wins, there's gonna be some post-election shit.

And it's like, you know, my question to myself is Tchaiko, like, who are you in community with so that when shit happens, you're not fucking flustered and upset, but you can actually just proceed with what you should be doing.

[20:18] Tchaiko Omawale: We have this person in the White House right now who has ended all diversity training and doesn't want slavery taught because he considers it abusive to teach people about reality. I mean, um the reality for black people is either you grow up knowing that you don't get to do the things that your friends get to do, and that was something I definitely had to do with my kids. My kid got suspended for some, you know, being judged by some white teacher, like something happened and and he said he was sorry, and the principal was like, Well, I just didn't believe him. He's three years old. He's not getting the benefit of the doubt if three years old. And um, and white people, most of the white people I know, they're just not worried about what's going on in the world because they what what they're too what's foolish to me about them is that they don't realize that violence is is a is a force that needs to eat, and it may start people, but then it's looking where else?

Where else? Where else? And it's eventually going to come to them. And when all of them are gone, they're gonna turn on each other. And they have they don't have the to know how this thing works, but we know how it works because we have been at the other end of their violence for centuries. So we know how this is gonna play out. But they they they're the ones who are who are actually being caught up right now by seeing what their country really is and be like, oh my god, oh my god. Like in my movie, there's this moment that you know, some white people are like, well, why would the white guy you know try to negotiate? Like that doesn't make sense. And I'm like, well, what y'all trying to do with this man in the white house right now?

Over over 200,000 people are uh uh are dead and and there's no help. What are y'all trying to do but that? That's what my movie is showing you exactly what is happening in reality, and you are just so cognitively dissonant, and and but you can afford to be because you you're last in line for the violence to happen to you, yeah.

[22:21] Franki Cox: Yeah, I mean that shit is real to me. It's like if they didn't stop the country when even their own white kids were being shot up with guns, it's probably it's just like to me. I'm like, y'all told on yourself when you didn't stop shit for even your own being shot up. But what they stopped was they stopped standing up. They were like, oh, oh, okay, wait. We we wait, we don't care that much.

[22:45] Tchaiko Omawale: We don't really care that much. They yeah, no, they never stood up. I don't, I like white people, generally speaking. Generally, it's like a construct have just stood up for money and greed and colonization, and yeah, I mean, yeah.

[23:09] Tchaiko Omawale: I love your idea of the community. That's um I think that's a really a beautiful idea. I would love to, you know, to be a part of that. To be a part of, I mean, we're in community with Blackword Collective, we're in community. To me, I think my thing is like what do you do beyond sort of us meeting up? Like, what is it where like one of the things that I've been saying that I want to do is make sure that like everybody on Blackword Collective, I know Tanya's prepped, but like are we all prepped for an earthquake? Like, what are the, you know, just to like sort of share information because I've been spending time during this pandemic quarantining of like doing political education and learning about, you know, it's like learning about various different things, and how can I share that information with the various communities that I'm in.

But it's not my idea. It's literally the only way black people are able to survive. Like that's lit, like schools didn't teach black folks, they had to teach on their own. Like, like it's, it's I really think this, and I'm speaking for myself, right? And this is from having like two very black politically black parents, she gets fucked up when you start being around white folks. You really start forgetting, and it and and you really start forgetting, you start you, and that is also part of the design, right? It's part of the design of let's get a couple of us at the table. Let's let's let's get a black here, let's get a black there, like there's no more racism. Like they we just get a few black people, Latino people, and they'll co-sign on our bullshit. And see, see somebody black said it was okay.

[25:06] Tchaiko Omawale: Yeah, yeah. On Instagram today, I follow this account called Know Your Caribbean, and it's like a, it's really cool. There was like a video they had of this dance that an Antiguan national hero who was an enslaved man, I forget his name now, who did this war dance that only somebody, only the enslaved people knew was like a war dance, but to the like Creoles in the post they said the Creoles, either mixed people and the Creoles and the plantation owners just thought it was like a dance. They didn't know that this was like a declaration of war, and this person had organized with a bunch. Remember in the Caribbean, it's like people don't all speak the same language because they just, you know, grouped everybody, put them on this slave ship, and then brought them to this side of the world, but they organized same thing in Haiti, same thing I'm sure in the US.

They organized to kill all the plantation men, women, and children, but it was a black person, another enslaved person that sold them out. So I'm always thinking, I just I think it's such a good exercise. Like whenever you see history or something, it's to think who would I have been in that time? Because it's really easy to believe that you would be the right person, you would do the right thing in hindsight, but like who would you be at the moment?

[26:24] Tchaiko Omawale: And so I'm constantly, and I have just this is like my big, like sort of compulsive thought. Like, who am I in my industry right now? Am I the black person that is going to be the overseer? Well, is it the overseer? Is that what it's called? The black person that, yeah. Am I gonna be the overseer? Am I the, am I the house negro? Am I the like person on the side? Like I'm because the structures are kind of all the same, they just kind of shift, they shape shift, you know, and it's hard because I like my privilege, you know, and I think it's honest to acknowledge that you like the privilege. I think that's the first step. But I think it's I think it's important to think about.

[27:05] Tchaiko Omawale: There's, I don't even know why I'm going to be able to do that. I have a question about the community because that's what I was just thinking about. I believe that we actually don't really need white people. We built lots of communities that were thriving, doctors, lawyers, businesses, everything, and every damn time they came over and bombed the shit out of us.

[27:30] Franki Cox: Okay, okay. They need us, they need us to be their mudstill, as Isabel Wilkerson would put us. They need us to be a bottom for them because there really is no bottom below them, but they need us, so they keep trying to yank us back in to be in a bottom for them because we do fine when we go off on our own. What are your thoughts?

[28:00] Tchaiko Omawale: It's true, it's true. It's part of the, you know, it's just it's part of the cycle. It's part of the whole construct, you know. I haven't studied it, but I can see how it works. There's, it only functions if their foot gets to be on somebody or they're, you know, they're on some. It can only function that way. There's gotta be like, it's like you said, it's a monster. You gotta, it's gotta have food. They have to feed it. And they, you know, that's this, you know, today's Indigenous People's Day, and there's all of this stuff about, you know, I mean Christopher Columbus just coming over and like and he wrote in his own diaries about how they were raping the nine-year-olds, their taste was getting ready for younger people. It's in his diary.

[28:48] Franki Cox: Exactly.

[28:49] Tchaiko Omawale: Yes. Nine-year-olds, nine and I think it was nine and ten-year-olds he said were in demand. High in demand. He was, he was gathering up the girls. They were high in demand in Europe. And and they can hold him up as a hero. So you like, you can't, you can't be trusted people who are that, that cognitively dissident. Who are that hypocritical in their own values? And so, you know, we, we have to nod and go, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. As they say, all the crazy things they say, because they got the keys to the kingdom and the gates. But we ain't, we what we cannot do is fool ourselves. That's, that's the problem when you're Daniel Cameron and you fooled yourself when you can, this Owens and you well, it happens though, right?

[29:40] Franki Cox: I feel like it's in for me, it's in my DNA. It's in my DNA. My people survived. They survived by doing ever the whatever they needed to do.

[29:50] Tchaiko Omawale: Yes, yes, yes, you know, just keep your head low, whatever.

[29:55] Franki Cox: That's true. It is. At least that's how they survived. It's in, it's in the DNA, right? And then there's that, you know. I don't even know where it goes back in my lineage for, you know, who am I? Who who were my people? You know, were they this, were they the ones who were like, yeah, I can get you out here. Right, right into Master's hands, right? Because I got me a nice little shack and I want to keep my nice little shack. Like I, I don't know. I mean, that's part of my history too.

[30:34] Tchaiko Omawale: I hope that there's a lot of things. I found that I have ancestors. I found out I have ancestors like that. The on my maternal line, the it's uh the name is Doyen, D Aposh Phi O Y E E N. And they we just on our like Jamaican WhatsApp group, we just found out that somebody did some research and found out that after Toussaint Louverture, after the revolution was successful, uh for 20 years, Haitians left to come to Jamaica, and so it was either so the Doyens that came to Jamaica were either plantation owners or Creoles who were not down with the black people freeing themselves.

[31:13] Franki Cox: Exactly.

[31:14] Tchaiko Omawale: So we, you know, it's generations. We all have, we all have lots of different stuff going on in our DNA. I just found out that I have some turncoats.

[31:29] Franki Cox: I'm sure I have some.

[31:30] Tchaiko Omawale: I'm sure I do.

[31:31] Franki Cox: Yeah, so I think that's why I'm so allergic to internalize anti-blackness, is because I'm trying to like make up for maybe I'm trying to make up.

[31:46] Tonya Pinkins: Ladies, I um I'm really grateful to you for coming on and having really a very intimate conversation and and sharing of yourselves in a very personal way that uh I think people who listen, you know, will have an opportunity to hear something that one they would never hear because they wouldn't be interested, they wouldn't know to ask.

[32:06] Tonya Pinkins: And uh yeah, yeah. Well, it's on the Broadway Podcast Network, so it's very largely a theater based community and lots of people who are interested in Broadway. But my guests tend to come from all walks of life. I've had police officers, I've had people in the psychedelics and tarot. And so um, I think that my audience is a little wider, but in general, people come because it's the Broadway Podcast Network, and I've done a lot of Broadway. But definitely my guests come from every walk of life, and one of the things that people have thanked me for is introducing them to worlds that they wouldn't ever go into because we are such a segregated society, and it is a conscious effort that I make in my life to expand myself and my awareness to people and cultures that are outside of mine, and I'm willing to put my foot in my mouth to say a name wrong for someone to me and let that be a connection.

[33:12] Tonya Pinkins: So um, thank you, Franki Cox. Thank you, Tchaiko Omawale. My name is Thank you. And you are listening to You Can't SAY THAT on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[33:24] Tonya Pinkins: Don't say no when you mean no. Thanks for listening to You Can't SAY THAT, the show where you can. I'm Tonya Pinkins. This is part of the Broadway Podcast Network, produced by Dori Berinstein and Alan Seales, edited by Derek Gunther, music by Anthony Norman. Available wherever you get your podcast. And visit me on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, and let me know what you'd like to hear me talk about. For more information, visit bpn.fm forward slash YCST. It's not a gift if you don't give it.