The Urgent Call to Rewrite Black Narratives
with Jesse Williams
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Jermaine sits down with Jesse Williams, who brings a sharp focus to the importance of a full, honest portrayal of Black history in understanding our identities. From his early days on 'Grey's Anatomy' to his powerful speech at the BET Awards, Jesse discusses how history shapes us and the critical role of media in either reinforcing stereotypes or breaking them down.
He reflects on the impact of storytelling in pushing for social change and honors the deep roots and struggles that define our collective journey. Join us for a conversation that’s not just about looking back, but moving forward with purpose and responsibility.
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History in Focus: Jesse Williams on Identity, Storytelling, and Change
Jermaine sits down with Jesse Williams, an actor and activist renowned for his deep commitment to social justice and cultural education. This conversation illuminates the crucial role of Black history in understanding identity and influencing contemporary society.
Exploring the Depths of Black History:
Jesse Williams emphasizes the importance of a robust Black history education, critiquing the simplistic narratives often found in mainstream education. He argues that a fuller understanding of Black history is vital not just for Black individuals but for society at large, as it promotes a more nuanced understanding of American history and identity. Jesse discusses how historical awareness can serve as a foundation for empowerment and a tool for challenging systemic inequities.
The Impact of Accurate Representation:
Further, Jesse touches on the powerful role of media in shaping perceptions. He criticizes the media's frequent failure to provide accurate and diverse representations of Black lives, discussing how this lack of representation feeds into stereotypes and cultural misunderstandings. Jesse shares insights from his own experiences in the entertainment industry, particularly his roles that have challenged the typical narratives and offered more complex, humanized portrayals of Black characters.
Storytelling as a Tool for Social Change:
Jesse passionately speaks about the transformative power of storytelling in media and public discourse. He reflects on his journey from being an educator to pursuing acting, where he has continued his advocacy by choosing roles that offer depth and foster understanding. Jesse highlights his speech at the BET Awards as a moment where he used his platform to address historical injustices and call for accountability and change.
Commitment to Activism and Social Justice:
The discussion delves into Jesse’s ongoing activism, exploring how he leverages his fame to advocate for equality and systemic reform. Jesse talks about the responsibility that comes with visibility, stressing the importance of using one’s platform to challenge injustices and promote a more equitable society. He shares his views on the role of celebrities in activism, encouraging others in the public eye to speak out and support movements for social change.
Empowering Future Generations:
Finally, Jesse reflects on the importance of historical knowledge for the younger generation. He talks about his efforts to engage with young people, educating them on the importance of history and how it shapes their present and future. Jesse expresses a strong commitment to fostering a sense of responsibility in younger audiences, motivating them to pursue meaningful work that honors the sacrifices of their ancestors and contributes to societal progress.
This episode with Jesse Williams is not just a conversation; it's a call to action. It challenges listeners to rethink their understanding of history, recognize the power of their voices, and actively participate in the ongoing fight for justice and equality.
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Jermaine (00:01)
Joining us today, we are talking with Jesse Williams. He is somebody who a lot of people know from Grey's Anatomy, but he's a talented actor, a Broadway star, a director, a producer, but there's a whole nother side to him that I think is even more fascinating. Jesse, you're not just an actor, but you are a very powerful voice in the world of activism and social justice. And before you hit the screen, you are also in the classroom teaching in public schools and shaping young minds.
And I think in an age where celebrity activism can feel kind of superficial, I think you stand apart and I've talked to you before and we kind of have this interest in history and black issues and you've stood in solidarity on black issues, on labor strikes, on Palestine. And I feel like that's not just a byproduct of your fame, but it is your fame that serves as a platform for this underlying sense of justice that you have. So welcome to the show. I appreciate you coming on today.
jesse (01:01)
Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. Big fan of all that you do and have been doing. So it's my pleasure to be here.
Jermaine (01:07)
Yeah, absolutely. So I wanna start off really with, I've looked at your background and your story and I've been surprised and inspired and even shocked in some ways as far as like your background as a teacher, but it has given me a context and into how somebody like you, who has the fame and the acting career, but who is so fundamentally committed to activism and being a voice for black people and marginalized people.
And so for those who don't really know your story, going back to your earliest years in Chicago and time spent in Massachusetts, what is the context that people would need to understand how you got where you are right now?
jesse (01:49)
Well, as it relates to my words and actions in social justice spaces, I would think that relevant factors have been certainly my parentage, my parents, my upbringing, both my parents were activists, very politically active discussions around what's happening on the planet, you know, beyond domestic issues, what's happening in South Africa. You know, I'm
I'm 43, so in the 80s, we're still talking about apartheid and workers' rights, labor. Labor was a very central topic, what's happening, in terms of minimum wage, safety, security for black and brown folks in this country, war, ways in which we are drained of our energy resources and autonomy to serve.
you know, a capitalist construction were just topics that were tossed around amongst my parents and their friends. And most importantly, it was always a metric for achievement and value and purpose in life was always set out from my father specifically as what are you doing for black folks? It was the we, it was the collective always over the individual.
grows and finds new shapes as you get older and have new interests, whether that's on a sports team or in school. I mean, I was, my father always left me homework. I would come home and I have my schoolwork to do. And then he would give me assignments, articles to read and papers to write around the African burial ground or a historical figure. You know, common gifts for me were Malcolm X speeches, you know.
books, heavy, heavy reading and book reports. I had to really discuss comprehension of both nonfiction and creative writing that had to do with our collective growth and achievement. And it gave me a sense of purpose. I think that you'll find that people who understand their history, particularly folks who have been disenfranchised and whose history has been weaponized against them.
The great leaders that we have, great voices that we have, they know their history. There's a reason why people feel better about themselves, sit more upright, look you in the eye, and have context for all the propaganda that is the lens through which we're fed information. There's a reason that we're more confident and the reason that we have a sense of, our posture is a little bit different. You can't unlearn this level of context.
I give any credit for my awareness, my antenna being up to my parents and growing up in the hood in Chicago, being on welfare, being broke in the 80s in the crack era, having a sense of, and I say all that to say really not as a negative, actually a deep sense of community and interdependence on each other and love despite.
not being able to hide behind material goods and things that are other that kind of demonstrate love and affection for people, but they're really just materials. So when you don't have that, what do you have left? You have to have community and attention and support and those things. So I think all those things really factored into my childhood sense of self, my childhood sense of what my cultural appreciation and alliances. And then
Spending my formative junior high school and high school years living in lower middle class and upper middle class white spaces in New England was a huge culture shift. So I got to get a real embedded experience as a bit of an invisible man, to use Ralph Ellison's term, to sit in the rooms and see how white people operated.
and learn very quickly that they are not this lofty, intimidating thing to fear. There's actually something far more interesting happening. So I think so much about life is access, whether it's information or people or networks or resources or water or food or freedom. That's where you get real meaningful experience.
I think a pretty meaningful, unique childhood and level of access, which is also definitely provided by my complexion, my features. The proximity to whiteness is a hall pass and I certainly benefited and became pretty educated as a result.
Jermaine (06:59)
Yeah, you said something about your father really giving you this homework that I wanted to go back to and then I wanna come back forward to this kind of issue of upbringing and identity. But I really think it's important now when you see the censorship of black history, of marginalized history. I've always seen the solution as twofold, right? It's not just a...
one solution. It is you have to fight this, what's going on in the schools and the education system. But I really feel like there is another sense of kind of what your dad did, right? Like we need to be teaching our own kids and having our own collectives in terms of making sure that kids are getting this history. So just to see how much that impacted you and influenced your sense of purpose, right? Of your dad giving you this homework, giving you the things that schools, maybe you realize school is never going to give my son this. Like I have to do my part
jesse (07:49)
Yeah.
Jermaine (07:49)
I'm giving my son what he needs and that's really shaped you as a person. So I thought that was very interesting that you kind of pointed to that.
jesse (07:58)
It is, it's interesting, not only because of what it added, but it made glaringly obvious what has been subtracted from those who didn't enjoy that upbringing. A, I got my black history never from a school. It's never been a school I'm a part of until I went to Temple, which has a well-recognized Africana Studies Department, African Studies Department, particularly in graduate school.
But short of that, I was always getting it at home. I was always getting it from real lived experience and having adults around me to interpret the news that was coming in, because news and current events is history the moment it's happened. But what became more clear to me in the college years when we all start coming together from different communities and do a big school, I went to Temple University in Philly, so a really big school, it's in the hood.
And just seeing the impact of the absence of a sense of real self in the global equation, what it starved, how malnourished my peers were that had to, if you don't, if you, by the time you get to college, a lot of most people don't have the luxury of like, I'll dabble in African-American studies or African history 101. They're focused on a core curriculum. They're focused on a major.
and those things. So the few that get to take, you know, you're 19 years old for the first time learning that you didn't come from something you should be deeply ashamed of. And it's really just like kind of a surface level history at best. So I got to, I got to appreciate the role that the responsibility is ours, whether we like it or not, it shouldn't have to be, but the responsibility is in the home in terms of child rearing.
our young people to have a sense of where they sit, where they fit, what they've contributed and this and kind of their race esteem. But I also got to see an undergrad what it's like for people to get a little too, for our people to get a little too little, a little too late about their sense of self. And you kind of walk away with the generic, well, we were kings sense of, you know, it kind of feels good for seven seconds, but after that, you don't really have any ammunition.
Um, so that lack became, became glaring as well. So yeah, as you, as, as we're up against what DeSantis and, and squad have been doing in Florida and around has been happening for a long time, Tennessee to Texas, uh, you know, trying to teach slavery or, or internships and whatnot, um, and also defining Black History Month and, and black accomplishment.
by us extracting ourselves from suffration as opposed to actual, the contributions we've made that touch everybody in this society every day, multiple times a day. So yeah, it's like having goggles on, you can see the disadvantages, they're highlighted in a new way that we're, where in some ways ignorance would be bliss.
Jermaine (11:17)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You touched on a lot there, the superficiality of history and how it's almost like getting a superficial history.
I don't think a lot of people are aware and then we tap into this superficial history in terms of the Kings and Queens and not really digging deeper into the why right? It's uh, I think we've had this conversation before of like how did Matamusa get you know, his well, you know Like we're digging deeper beyond the surface right like always got the richest man in America. We're applying these same Frameworks, you know these Western frameworks to studying African history Well, you want to celebrate the richest guy, right? The billionaire that you know
jesse (11:39)
Well, yeah, and also that like...
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (11:58)
or two of them that there's exactly
jesse (11:58)
which is using Eurocentric measures of accomplishment and masculinity. And also even short of that, you think of black, what do you call it? What's this called? February Black History Month? It's actually, the framework of it is, could it be more white centered? It's only about Dr. King or what are you gonna get? You're gonna get people trying to fight against white oppression, right? Which means it's white centered. It's actually about their proximity
Jermaine (12:11)
Yep.
jesse (12:28)
to whiteness. Can you teach me about black folks that existed and lived and contributed and built something admirable and useful and practically applicable without them having to be in a relationship with you? Right, Kukuni, can we just learn about inventors, people who invented all the things you touch and feel every day, an elevator, a light, a traffic light, a cotton gin, whatever.
for the betterment of their own life. People actually affecting, take an agency in their own life, being self-determined, self-reliant, being one generation out of centuries of enslavement and building monumental institutions of higher learning, patenting when patenting was illegal before that for black folks. Self-starting, all those things that America prides itself on, right? Bootstraps, self-made. White Americans love to tell you,
coins in his pocket and nothing and he built something. We have that in droves, but that's not included in the default black history that you're gonna be fed. And because it's underrepresented in our lives, I'm talking about just kind of general American public school proximity to black history. I'm putting air quotes for those who can't see the video. You are that.
that's gonna be your first brush with this topic. And if you don't love it and really sink your teeth into it, that is gonna be overrepresented as what that genre is. So if I think black history, I think I have a dream Martin Luther King.
you're never delving into the huge, huge bounty that is beyond that. So that is one of the suffocating qualities of unde of disenfranchisement, is just one little tip, one little look through a window ends up over-representing this huge panoply of ideas, people, and concepts, whereas having equity is really the goal.
Jermaine (14:36)
Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I want to go back to this, this idea of identity, right? Black identity in specific, which I talked about in my book. And when we talk about history, it's largely tied to identity. I think there's a reason that people
want to reach back for their ancestry, ancestry.com, a billion dollar industry of genealogy and wanting to know where we came from. And I think about the words, this ties deeply with psychology, right? So there was a psychologist named Eric Erickson, and he said, in the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity, right? So I think that runs very deep. And so...
I think that this question of who I am, you know, it's rich and complex because for black people, you know, we have been cast, I think, into this relentless search for identity amidst the history that's tried to erase us. You talk about the shackles of the transatlantic slave trade, the ongoing struggles of marginalization. You think about black people searching for identity throughout the years in these different ways, right? If you remember in the 80s and 90s, people were very much embracing of this.
identity with the dashikis or you know you have the ancient Egypt culture you know what we might call the whole step culture within a subsector sector of black America you have a black Hebrew Israelites you have people claiming indigenous heritage
jesse (16:04)
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (16:06)
And I think for me, like my theory is a lot of this, because a lot of these things don't have the evidence that we would really need to support it, right? I think it's a deep void because Black people are largely an exilic people, right? I mean, a lot of us don't know where we came from. And I don't think a lot of people want to end their identity at the slave ship, right? They don't want to do that. So it's a reaching.
But I think there's something to be said though about just embracing our identity as black Americans, like in the here and now and what we've done in America, you know, woven from these strands of adversity, cultural resilience and a distinct American experience. But I wanted to get your perspective on that just as far as the black identity. And do you think there's a void there? Like what do we connect to?
jesse (16:56)
Well, sure, and it's by design. I think that when you starve a people of food, for example, and then you give them some crumbs, they'll take those crumbs and try to make something of it. And some, you know, black, we know if we don't know, you know, nobody knows alchemy like black folks, we're gonna whip it up and, you know, we'll give you chitlins and hog mugs and pig feet and all that. We're gonna make something of it. But it is still a bri product of being starved. It is not your normal cuisine.
You are making do with what you have, and history is no different. If you are starved of any sense of being anchored and having a heritage and a long tradition and a complexity, instead of being represented to yourself and others as a monolithic group that has group think in all ways, if you're starved of any of that, by osmosis, you absorb it to some level. You believe it to be true or to be rooted in some truth.
And therefore you start looking around and flailing and grasping to try to find anything that will put a salve on that wound. What's gonna make me feel better? We were, oh, we were this, we were that, we were there. It's kind of similar like government conspiracies. People have, you know that the Tuskegee experiment happened. You know that the government has done dirt in the crack era with black communities. So you're more likely to.
read a little bit deeper into most conspiracy theories. It doesn't mean you're a wacko. It means you've got a rational connection to this something distrustful about my relationship with this power structure. I'm available to learn a little bit more. With that, you're gonna have some things that get through the filter. And with history, you're going to, we're gonna want to sometimes over-correct or over-represent elements.
that are presented to us. So what is the good common denominator about the ground, the soil that is producing maybe some fringe elements I think you're indicating in that quet is that there's a curiosity there. There is a hunger there that is way more valuable than plain apathy, than indifference. So that curiosity warms my heart, makes me feel...
as a former, as a history student and history teacher, that's all I need to feed. When I'm teaching seventh graders about Nubia and ancient Sudan and Kemet, and using, showing them images of people black as night with cornrows that were ear graders and scientists and astronomers and architects, and watching their posture to remain completely shift in my classroom, and going from messing around, looking at girls, trying to throw stuff to changing,
being engaged and having follow-up questions because it gives them a place that is the only time, you know, we associate history with shame because the only history we ever learn is something to be ashamed of. Even the accomplishments are pulling ourselves up out of a place of shame. So that is a real, that's a real hard thing to scrub off. And so that's what that flailing, that's what that's that grasping.
Jermaine (20:06)
Yeah.
jesse (20:18)
is for. I was saying, you know, I don't, I don't, I see trends around like there was no, we didn't come from Africa, we're from here, you know. Okay, you found some old census that calls indigenous North Americans colored or Negro because they just saw you as dark. But I mean, okay, I don't, I don't, I've never seen any evidence to give that any footing, but I don't begrudge them because I know what they're, they're thirsty.
and they're just trying to quench that thirst. And that's the most valuable element of that equation. All of this is addressed directly for me with very simple teaching African and African-American history. The core of this is also Pan-Africanism, understanding that we, our future, our fate as American Africans is directly connected to the fate of the continent.
We are the only people who are rudderless and without any connection to a heritage of cuisine and culture and language and habits and posture and dance and science and math and music, etc. And out of that has been born a beautiful and the most popular culture in the world on the planet. But you talked about kind of 80s, 90s with the medallions and gold medallions and the Afro picks and that cultural was a dope era.
a beautiful era that was squelched for a reason. That had popular music celebrating, embracing, poking curiosities around ourself, KRS telling us about, you know, overseer, officer, giving you these breakdowns, making you think while being entertained. And that is a threat to a larger power structure. So hence comes in more self-destructive.
over-emphasizing, over-funding, over-promoting, over-marketing, gangster rap, black on black violence as celebrated. Still true, still an important part of our narrative, but overrepresented in terms of who we are. That's why a Cosby show stood out so wonderfully on television because we never were thirsty and we never got this level of hydration. Oh, we can exist in this space, which is not just a reaction to...
the strangulation of poverty, et cetera. There is a difference between, and I've always struggled and kind of wrestled with this since I was young when Ebonics became popular and we talked about black language, but it was also, it was directly connected to, it's connected to Africa, it's connected to ways in which we form our words, where languages that don't stick their tongue out with TH, because that's rude, that's not culturally accepted. So,
So Ds instead of Ths. But also Ebonics is also a byproduct of poverty, of urban poverty, which is different than rural poverty and things that are woven into this thing we call blackness, but it's also tied to class. It's tied to economic resources. So seeing us represented in ways beyond that, you know, I say if white folks were a deep, deep minority, 10, 11, 12% of a nation is large and is influential.
and they were only represented by Honey Boo Boo, some white trash, mangling language, culture, etiquette, family, there would be a huge swath of that demographic that doesn't feel represented and actually is being harmed by that over-representation. And that would be a reasonable position to take. And that is my, that's my position, that's our position. That represents a significant part of us.
Jermaine (24:13)
Yeah.
jesse (24:16)
not all of us, it doesn't mean it's based on shame because we love ourselves and we love the absolute genius that comes out of the environment that we're in, but that doesn't mean we can't be complex and interesting and ever-changing.
Jermaine (24:36)
I mean, do you see a resurgence of that 80s, 90s energy happening? I mean, with everything with the internet now and I think the wave and, you know, hip hop and music being tied to not only black.
cultural experience, music, dance, et cetera, but just the intellectual spaces as well. And now you have, I was thinking the other day, what's the wildest thing that society accepts? And I think it's, with the music, it's literally a number one song about the killing and murdering of black men, right? It's just totally accepted in society. People, not only black people, white people walking around, or driving around, or with their AirPods in or whatever, like listening to this vibe in their head at the gym, or whatever.
jesse (25:10)
in here.
Yeah.
Jermaine (25:21)
Do you think that the machine is just so efficient? I mean, especially thinking about now how people seem to be more content. It kind of ties in too with this James Baldwin quote. He said, like, nothing's changed. They've just given us more tokens, right? So we're more pacified, right?
these things are accepted. Like how do you have that resurgence of that, that eighties, nineties kind of dashiki intellectual energy where the curiosities are being fueled and we're having these conversations like that. I feel like it was a more diverse representation there. I mean, you still had gangster music then, but it was more of a balance, right? It was the fullness of the black experience from the hood to the university to, and everything in between. But yeah, it seems like we're kind of in a dark age right now.
jesse (25:43)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right, that was another great element because HBCUs were really well represented. It's an absolute shame what has happened on either side of Bill Cosby's legacy. But at that time, those shows, Different World, Abs, Debbie Allen, you know, Felicia Rashad, absolutely changing our sense of potential. Doesn't have to be self, but potential. And...
I think we have, I think you rightly point out that we are, we certainly have the elements, the tools available to us to enter a resurgence of that sense of returning to celebrating and exploring those elements of ourself and also some self-reliance. I think that in the information age, in the kind of...
melting pot of all ideas, cultures, trends. We kind of killed off regionalism in this country. We're all kind of the same. We dress the same, talk the same. There's only like New Orleans and the Bay are the only like regions left where, and I'm exaggerating surely, but where there's real dialectical distinction. But I think, yes, we could be ushering in cycling back.
to that era and that era being cool and interesting. We still have incredible in terms of, you'd be a lot of these things are left, we follow bat signals and that's usually through pop culture and pop culture is hip hop and hip hop adjacent. So we still have MCs that are conscious, that are being able to give you bangers, but also not degrade themselves or others. The role that a, all of this is anchored by a sense of.
belonging, purpose, and contribution. And I would also say that it's really important that, say black history, for example, African history and connection is not just for us. It is not just, it is deeply necessary for our white children and peers to be in that classroom, watching, listening, and learning about
all the things that they touch and affect them throughout their day that were born wholly out of Black minds and spirits. Because they're the ones that affect all this. These issues around racism have very little to do with Black people. They have very little to do with the oppressed. It has to do with power and what trinkets they're willing to dole out to us. So they're actually the most important members of that classroom, is members of the dominant class.
So like just circling back to those images around academia and teaching black studies and black history and weaving in, you know, we teach world history, world histories in high school curriculums. It's just really coded European history. It is a form of hyper Anglo-Christian religion. You're learning that the white man is God. That's a history class. If you learn that the white man created everything, it's the same thing as creating a white Jesus. You're just, we're taking something that existed
Jermaine (29:09)
Absolutely.
jesse (29:24)
pretending that somebody's the sole creator and arbiter of its value. So that, I think that's worth noting that I would never advocate for black history just for us to feel better. It directly affects the machinery of our society and makes it that much easier to look at Mike Brown or Jordan Davis or somebody deleting in the street, Ricky Avoy. It's okay for us to...
Oh, you know, it's why slavery is far less examined than the Holocaust, for example. Slavery didn't happen to people. It happened to faceless black silhouettes that weren't really going to be shit anyway. They didn't really do anything before that, so we didn't really lose anything. It just happened to these black folks. Whereas the Holocaust happened to human beings with a backstory and a life and a childhood and trades and interests and a sense of community and purpose and accomplishment and things they left behind and language and rightly so.
of course, but we have to color in that dark silhouette of the people who had affected the land from which they were torn, etc. Or else it'll continue to, or else what's the common denominator? Crimes against our beings are left unadjudicated. Or the verdict is that it's not really that important because it's not really that important. Because how can it, all the, all the metrics we use to measure importance of human life are
We don't qualify according to this very deliberately restricted marketing scheme that is like so-called history. So just trying to tether that all those things are directly connected. It's the reason why you can't care about a character in a book that's in or in a movie because they're black and the same way you care about this, same way when a missing white girl goes missing, it's a national bulletin and there's 12 missing girls that same week that you never heard of.
Jermaine (31:01)
Yeah.
jesse (31:19)
that have heroic, incredible stories, that got themselves free, but eh, what's she gonna be? Her name sounds funny. It's directly connected to history because nobody's ever looked like you has ever done shit. It's directly connected.
Jermaine (31:25)
And that's all connected to history, right? That's how important history is. It forms the identity. Yeah. Or black people just being fought or fought or cannon fodder for history is what the black body has been. And then even the talk of just the black body and academia now it's like.
You know that so much has been done to the black body. Like what about the black mind, the black brilliance, the black aspirations, the black hope, you know, so it's like and that's why too in my book. I'm like, okay, like this isn't really black history, man. This is anti black history. There's a history of black people and the things black people have done. And then there's a history of what has been done to black people. And so I think that all these things as you said, and I was going to ask you like why did you become a teacher? But I think you probably understand that these things have to be
jesse (31:52)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jermaine (32:13)
Ganked up by the root writers deep insidious weeds that need to be pulled out, right? And I was reading the other day for instance
jesse (32:22)
And that it changes. It is the fork in the road. Your life is forever changed because you absorbed information about yourself. You can't go backwards now. You have a sense of duty, a sense of purpose, a sense of newly opened potential in you. It absolutely changes the structure, the track that you're on. It almost makes a food that used to take, you know when you used to remember, you know, we used to love.
blank, we used to love eating blank. You used to love this Elio's pizza or something when we were in the hood as kids, some frozen bagels or whatever. And you go eat it later as an adult, you're like, this is nasty. The food hasn't changed, your palate has changed. And once your palate becomes more refined, once your standards get raised, you can't go backwards and be destructive to your own community because your own community is now something of value where it was actually something like a scab on your body you wanted to get rid of.
which is why it's so easy for us to dispose of each other. Because we desperately are just clinging to power in a world where we are powerless. But anyway, I can digress within a digression.
Jermaine (33:29)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, you touched on a lot. You touched on a lot. And just, yeah, when I was thinking about history and just how it cast this long shadow, and this can be tied to some of the things you're talking about in terms of.
how we view ourselves, how we view power, whether it be A over B or, you know, versus A through B. You know, you can find examples of all these things in history, but it's not being, it's only being taught through this narrow lens. Like you said, it's a Eurocentric lens that's gonna make you a cog in the machine of what is right. But one thing I was reading was this old slavery or textbook, American history textbook, and it kind of was perpetuating that myth of like the
came out, I'm probably getting the dates not all the way right, but it was probably like the summer in the 1950s. Right now, I started to think, well, President Joe Biden, he was like 20 years old when this book came out. Right. So this is the book that he was taught or even read from. Right. And this is who is the father of Iran DeSantis. Right. And I mean, so these ideas aren't that old. I mean, they continue to be perpetuated unless you have teachers committed to, you know,
jesse (34:39)
Right.
Jermaine (34:43)
changing the narrative or but you know from a teacher level from a parent level but you know how do we change the whole system itself right that's the bigger question that's the million dollar question i think is will the system change or does it have to be kind of shattered torn down and then build a new right because you're always going to have people like you going to the teaching field people having these conversations like we're having here but uh you know overall i think sometimes people can get discouraged like well damn nothing's
jesse (35:06)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, well, what you something you just said is a really good example of the value of historical context. So you said something about a what did you just say something about an oppressed group being like docile and it just being the good old the good old days. And this is that very thing affects how we
Jermaine (35:34)
Yeah.
jesse (35:41)
can absorb what's happening around the world today. So during enslavement in America, those advocating for and pushing against any sense of abolitionist movement, like slavery is not so bad. They're happy. Our Negroes are happy. They look like Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima. They're docile. They're docile people. We give them, you know, they're fed and they're clothed. And there's no real beef. What's the problem? Everything's good. It's all good. It's all calm.
because that serves the narrative. As soon as post-Civil War, now we're in the Antebellum South and slavery is over supposedly, what happens, the Black man becomes a raving lunatic beast. The Black man is a buck, a monster, ravaging the mountains and the plains, looking for white women and robbing and thieving and raping and a werewolf essentially. Because now...
that can affect policy and we can invent structures to destroy them. But just two seconds ago, just last year, they were a peaceful, calm, happy to serve people. So that shift when it doesn't serve your overall narrative or the mechanisms of your society when they're not in servitude to you, you can't just have them out here free because by definition, whiteness is to be better than blackness. If you can't stand on my neck and I get to see you out here.
Jermaine (37:00)
Right.
jesse (37:08)
free, smart, intelligent, educated, creative. What do I, I disappear, I start to shrink. I'm not as tall as I used to be. So they had to figure out ways to both directly and indirectly destroy that and destroy it by a narrative. And I mean, shit, you see that today, you know, beyond certainly beyond African people, right? There was no problem in Israel, Palestine. There's no problem, what's the problem? It's not apartheid, it's cool. Everybody's happy. They have their stuff, we have ours. There's no problem over here.
then when something goes wrong, they're a monstrous group that all of them, three-year-olds, three-month-olds, all of them deserve to die because they're all threats, they're all potential terrorists. I thought, you know, so human beings aren't necessarily changing, it's those in power who are, so without a sense of historical context, oh, this story's been told before, oh, this is familiar, I've heard this before, I've read about this before. That is life-changing on how I absorbed.
so-called news and information. If you start noticing, you can't notice trends or patterns if you have not been exposed to trends or patterns. If I tell you something for the first time, that's how you get hustled. If I've heard it before, oh, I've been warned about this. Jermaine warned me about this. He told me this is what happens when, don't play three-card Monte in the street with dudes that are hiding a ball under a cup three times. He told me what happens. Don't fall for it. They're gonna let you win the first time, and then they're gonna take it the next time.
Thank God you told me that, because if you hadn't told me that, I would have thought something different. That's the value of information and setting expectations for people. Something that simple as a principle can absolutely change the way you treat yourself and others and the relationships you form, the people you trust. It's wildly important, which is why it's so deeply attacked and affected.
Jermaine (39:06)
Absolutely. I wanna switch gears for a second and talk about like you're acting, right? I think it's very inspiring that you.
beginning, correct me if I'm wrong, Karey, your acting career, and you're like later 20s, right? Especially after being an educator. And it reminded me of this story that I had recently heard about Toni Morrison, not even writing her first novel until she was like 40, right? So it challenges this notion of when we are supposed to achieve certain milestones in life, right? So what drove you to pursue acting at this stage in your life? And was this like a long-held dream of yours? Or what sparked this transition into this?
jesse (39:31)
Yeah.
It certainly wasn't acting was not something on my radar. I didn't even, I'm not from anywhere that's close to anything that would think it's a real accessible, attainable job, nor did it interest me, frankly. I was always certain that I was going to be a civil rights attorney or a NFL player. And I, that quickly, that quickly went away. But I think that, and I've cited this before, I think that one of the things that helped me
be open and available and not squeezed too tightly was on my way to, my dad drove me to, dropped me off in North Philly for college my freshman year. And I, in that process of getting ready to go away to school, he said to me, don't stress about your major or picking a career at 18 years old, 19 years old. The average adult in America changes career six times in their lives. You'll figure, you know.
Try, try things and figure them out. Don't trust, don't believe somebody else telling you what you're gonna want with your one life. And that just took a, I don't think I thought about it a lot but it just took a pressure off before it ever got really deeply rooted in having to choose or commit to marry something when I'm in the first seventh, sixth of my life. So.
I explored photography. I came into photography as a punishment for beating somebody up in school. And then the photography I fell in love with, the dark room, that process, that led me into cinematography in college, which led me into film, having film become one of my majors. And I've always been into African history and African studies have always been a part of my life. So that's partly why I went to Temple was because they had.
Theopilo Banga used to teach there, and Malefé Asante, and Joyce Joyce, and Sonny Sanchez, and Tonya Peterson Lewis, and Dr. Benwar McDonough, and all these incredible black thinkers and educators. So it was gonna be somewhere in that world. While I was at school, while I was at college, I was teaching in the hood there on North Philly, West Philly, Kensington. On weekends, you know, college, you pick your schedule and you have days off, because you can just put your schedule on Fridays off.
clear days to be able to substitute teach and be available at local public charter schools. So I was bouncing around a lot and I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I didn't really know how to utilize my interests and make them make sense and be able to provide for myself in the process. So I didn't come to it like you said. I started, I got on Grey's Anatomy when I was 29 years old. I mean, I started.
acting kind of in earnest right before 30 years old. A year before that, I did a one act play with Edward Albee at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York. And so I started my career in Brooklyn in the city in New York and decided, if I'm gonna do this, let me try to do this or else I'll go to law school. I was ready to take study for the LSAT or go to film school, but I figured I'd try. I told myself, I said,
Gonna give myself 15 months to try this, see how it feels, see if I get any momentum, but most importantly, see if it fills something for me. And I quickly, A, I was super lucky and was able to move the ball down the field, so to speak, get a little law and order gig, get a few gigs that gave me a taste for it. But most importantly, I quickly learned that it could be a weapon for good. It could be a real tool.
vast majority of us media is the lens through which we absorb and interpret the world, the universe, how cultures form, what women are like, what men are like, what Africans are like over this whole continent, the only continent that's represented by the whole continent of this specific region or country. So I realized it was a way in which to tell stories and to personify and humanize those that don't enjoy that privilege.
Um, it was interesting that without exaggeration, my first six or seven auditions were for these opportunities that I got were for these lecherous black characters, robbing some white person on a train for a show or a movie or a sexual deviant or a, you know, some hood, or just shitty roles. Um, and that became an ongoing observation and source of discussion amongst my black peers. Like these men in this case.
had to make a lot of tough decisions. I'm raising a family. If I keep playing this dude in a do-rag robbing somebody, it gets a check and I need a check, but it's gonna prevent me from playing and getting taken seriously as the attorney in this role I really want, or this engineer in this role I really want. My reel, you put together an acting reel to show your potential and your capabilities. But if it's always, I'm already, and I'm talking about people who are darker than me, who actually are really hounded by this restriction, it's not really me.
as much. But those are big choices that people have to make in entertainment. What I do now is going to reinforce the stereotype, which will prevent me from working later. But all that is to say, I learned quickly that a pocket of creativity that always influenced me, I didn't realize it was something that was within my reach. And then I realized, oh, it is the perfect balance between...
past, present, and future. The past and present affecting a vision for the future, placing us in positions that affect all this stuff. I mean, I was deeply affected by, Do the Right Things, one of the greatest films ever made. And I used to teach it in high school, you know, on an off day when we had, you know, rolling the TV on the wheels on the cart, you know, and I'd put that in and we'd talk about it and analyze what it's saying about society. And...
Jermaine (46:05)
Damn.
jesse (46:06)
That really matters. That's a real, that is as valuable as any textbook you're gonna put on a play. If you've never experienced what it's like to be in another culture, you're seeing it on a TV show. You never, you know, that is how we think, oh, that's how y'all think? That's how, oh, that's how it works? Oh, there's another, again, Cosby Show. White society and black society maybe had not seen the nuances of a harmonious black loving marriage.
uh, raising kids of multiple ages, dealing with being professional and dealing with being highly cultured and interested and curious in life. If you don't see that, it doesn't exist. Y'all are like this. If you were like anything else, I would have seen it. We believe what we can, what's attainable and what's real, what we can see and experience. Otherwise it's a dragon. It's Smith. It looks cool, but it's an idea. It's not, it's not tangible. So what, what drew me to fall in love with
what we do, it was gradual, it wasn't immediate. It was, to answer your question, it was never a lifelong dream. I didn't really even think about acting as part of that process. In film school, I was writing and producing and shooting. And that was the creative part. And then you'll, and then an actor will come in and do that and do the rest. But I quickly learned when having to do it myself, when trying to do it myself, oh shit, like I could do this 17 different ways and 16 could be really wrong.
I could discover on the 20th that, oh, that's what it really means. Oh, this is actually fun and interesting and stimulating. Stimulating is what I needed. I certainly, I dabbled, like I did a couple of modeling campaigns to pay for college and like just get some money and support my family, get some money back to my parents and siblings and stuff. And that was strictly a financial transaction. It wasn't stimulating to me.
And if I'm not being stimulated, then I'm disrespecting my ancestors and God really. If I'm not, if I'm just phoning it in, then people, people have done fought and died and bled for me to be here. You know, I think that is also Jermaine, the role that history played in my life with a sense of duty and obligation and that obligation has been too much, too much at times and a little bit overbearing at times admittedly, but. It's real. My dad would use that on me.
Jermaine (48:08)
Yeah.
Absolutely.
jesse (48:33)
all the time if I was fucking up, if I was messing around and caught me smoking weed or something like, you, that's what your ancestors went through all this shit for? For you to be fucking around and being, we need another like black drunk guy? We need another like guy that's failing out of school? That's what everybody went through everything for. And the red dirt of Georgia to here, to get you here to do this? Fuck out of here. Like that stuff smartens you up.
Jermaine (48:54)
Yeah, the weight.
Mm.
Yeah, there's a heavy truth in that, right? There's a heavy truth in that. I mean, you feel it. So it is a burden, but it's not a burden. It's not a negative burden. It can be heavy, but it's really something that I think we all carry, right? I think a lot of us have grown up with our.
jesse (49:11)
No.
Jermaine (49:20)
parents and grandparents and it's kind of like that idea of like voting which you know that's a whole nother conversation but you know people will die for you to vote I don't know how much I've had varying thoughts on that one but it's kind of that same sense of like people came before you they gave their lives for these things right they fought blood and died for these things so at the very least you should
jesse (49:30)
Mm-hmm.
Sure.
Yeah.
Jermaine (49:41)
look at that, right, and analyze that and interrogate that and see how you situate yourself then in something bigger than yourself, right? Because you are part of something bigger than yourself and that's gonna give you a sense of responsibility. Hopefully, at least by, you might not agree with every little thing about it, but it should have some weight though, because it is heavy.
jesse (49:49)
Yeah.
Yeah.
And maybe they're just a tiebreaker. Maybe they don't have to be the impetus for what you do with your life, but maybe they're the tiebreaker when you're slacking. This is why particularly masculine energy utilizes this. It's not so much true with feminine energy, but men, we motivate each other by barking on each other, by ripping each other down. Get the fuck up, what are you, a pussy? Military bootcamp style, football coach style, get out, grinding on each other.
Jermaine (50:17)
Mmm. Yeah.
jesse (50:27)
One more, one more, one more. A motivator, one more. You know, like that sometimes, you know, in this context, if it's not the reason you do something, it is the reason you don't stop doing something or you go ahead and get up and stop hitting snooze, the snooze button and get up and go get it. Because somebody handed you this baton, we're already at 300 meters, all you gotta do is the last 100, B. Like, go. So.
Jermaine (50:40)
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
jesse (50:53)
And so history connects you in that relay race, as opposed to thinking, convincing you that you're just on an island, it's fine if you die, it's cool, it don't matter. That's a completely different sense of awareness.
Jermaine (51:04)
Absolutely.
I want to go back to this point you had talked about.
actors being pigeonholed and I think I've asked you this before and I think this could really be helpful for somebody who might feel stuff but you know you have this role in Grey's Anatomy it's a popular one of the most successful shows in history. I looked it up there's like single episodes of the show getting like 24 million views and just for some context like there's been Super Bowls in history that they're at like 100 million views right so it just shows you how
jesse (51:35)
Yeah.
Jermaine (51:41)
were pigeonholed with that role. And maybe you might have had to do something radical at one point to break away from it, right? Because I'm thinking about an example, right? You think about Daniel Radcliffe and Harry Potter, right? Like there are people who are never gonna see him as anything other than this cute little kid with glasses, right? And then he's got this movie that he plays in. It's called Imperium. Next thing you know, he's playing this neo-Nazi as an FBI agent who infiltrates a Nazi terror group, right? And I've always wondered if he did that, try to break away from this, like,
Just being stuck in that role, right? But did you ever feel in any way stuck in that like Jackson Avery? Like that's what everybody knows you as and your create creativity you want you Go ahead
jesse (52:14)
Sure.
You know what? I mean, it's, yeah, it's the right question. It's the right question. It's a reasonable question. It's something that a couple of years in, I fully became vigilantly aware of, but I don't feel it ever happened. You hear a sound, you're on the lookout for it, but that awareness keeps it from landing. And so I...
I never did anything different in order to try to remedy it or fix it. I did a couple of things. A, being on that show was never the center of my life or embodied all of my interests or actions, right? I was still super politically active and involved. I was, like I said, by then I'm 30. I'm 30-some. I'm an adult.
I have worked at 20 different jobs, lived in many, many different places and many different cultures and atmospheres in this country. I had my own interests and I was who I was. And who I was a political minded and social justice oriented black person in this country. And so that's what I was doing. So I think me being, I was regularly, you know, I'm in Ferguson, I'm in Florida, I'm on CNN talking truth to power or MSNBC or somewhere. That's...
That became, and this is around like the advent of Twitter and kind of a social media presence, barring people up. I used to be on Twitter, you know, talking about what's happening and examining what's happening, asking questions. And those were, that was me, that was my real self. And I would go to work and do this other thing. You always are like, okay, I don't wanna become, I don't wanna be Kramer, you know, only one thing.
in success, these are good problems to worry about, but anytime I kind of worried about a Jermaine, I'm like, oh, is this, God, are people only going to see me this way? People didn't. They didn't, and they don't, and I'm not. And if I never spoke or lived or had interest in any other space and I only did that, it would be a larger concern. But that never, I don't think.
You know, I'm probably the last person, you know, I'm biased and I only see life through my eyes, but it never landed as a actual fear or concern. I was aware of it. I'd have to be, I'm a strategic person. I'd have to be oblivious to, you know, I care too much about strategy and affecting change and frankly being able to provide for myself and my family.
to be ignorant to that possibility, but I'm too multi, I'm too interesting and interested for any thinking person to peg me as one thing, certainly not the one thing that is by definition not me. And that affects the way in which we form that character.
Jermaine (55:33)
Yeah.
jesse (55:43)
co-wrote many lines and storylines, and we have such an amazing writing crew on there that was really wide open to long, long conversations about what this guy, this is a black surgeon, this is a biracial surgeon whose white side is a huge part of the story, and whose mom is the Debbie Allen on that show. And I learned, New York Times did an article or interviewed me and told me I was actually the first biracial surgeon in TV history. And what does that mean? And I was like, what? That can't be, is that true? I didn't.
What does that even, okay, what is that? The amount of people that watch that show and I think the stat was something like 29% of women in medical school at whatever year this was, probably 10 years ago, credit Grey's Anatomy with inspiring them to even go into the field. A field that had that many black characters with agency, power, and a humanity, and a family.
Jermaine (56:34)
Wow.
jesse (56:42)
on that show. It was a real right place for me to learn and watch directly every Thursday night the impact of story. You know, I was certainly impetus for bringing in storylines about police accountability and misconduct. And, you know, we did stories around how Black women are treated in hospitals and gaslit and ignored about the different pain threshold expected different medications that you can't give to us to give to others because you're not aware of, you know, how physiologically.
and biologically it affects people. It was still a classroom of sorts.
Jermaine (57:18)
Yeah, it is. That really goes back to that point. Yeah, you said that about like how film, it is a classroom. It really, because that's where you, and it's the largest classroom because that's really where a lot of people are only gonna see things through film or maybe they might pick up a book, but like you're meeting people where they are. And really.
jesse (57:35)
Yeah, it can be, I should say it can be, it can be if you make it. Cause you could also, as most people do frankly, coast and just do what's the script, okay, just do that. But I should give myself some credit. I made sure like all this shit matters. I'm representing us at all times and how can this apply? What are we carrying away with us? How are we interacting with each other? What are my characters dynamics with the other black characters on the show, et cetera. So.
Jermaine (57:46)
Mm-hmm.
jesse (58:05)
Um, yeah, yeah. My interest, you know, as soon as when I, when I finally did leave the show, I did the opposite. I went on Broadway and I did a lot of other, I've been doing a lot of other different things. And I think that to your, you're kind of wondering about Daniel, who I don't know. I think that there's, we could, we could guesstimate, are they trying to over-correct or correct something?
Or also is this my first time seeing them display an interest beyond the thing they've always been known for? Right? Like, intent can't be discerned, but I know that when I left the only acting job I ever really had, I had all these interests stacked up. I had to go do them, and by definition they're going to be very different from the thing I've already done. I already did it. So, it kind of almost doesn't... Yeah, it doesn't necessarily...
Jermaine (58:37)
Mm.
jesse (59:01)
matter why? Does it work and does it play? Is there enough fuel in the tank for that to have legs?
Jermaine (59:09)
Yeah, I appreciate that perspective. And I can't leave this conversation without talking to you and going back to that, that BET award speech, man. There was so much that you said there. Um, just remember that line where you were like, we've been floating this country on credit for centuries, man. Like, can you just, can you go back just to that moment real quick, man? And like, cause if you have, anybody hasn't seen that it's, I'm sure it's on YouTube. I mean, uh, Jesse gives this very.
jesse (59:19)
Mmm.
Jermaine (59:37)
profound and moving speech at the BET Awards. Pretty sure, I mean, it was definitely a viral thing, man, but like just in the moment of giving that speech, like, you know, where were you at then, man, when you gave that?
jesse (59:55)
It's interesting because where I was at and my lived experience in that moment.
was pretty different than everything that transpired after. It was certainly not, I won't say not expected the reaction. It wasn't even considered the reaction. I had been for context on TV in some form or another pretty frequently in those years. Post Trayvon, Mike Brown.
traveling and listening more importantly than speaking, but being involved. So we're in that context and flow. And I was off doing a movie in Atlanta actually, and really siloed, focused, pretty dark, isolated role. And I got the call that I was being honored in this way and pretty important.
um, acknowledgement with a incredible legacy by the people of Belafonte and Denzel and the people that won this award. So it's meant something to me, most importantly coming from us. So, uh, I certainly, uh, looked forward to that. I also looked at it as an opportunity, um, not just for us, but for the globe, because I know that Viacom owns BET and that this is going to be
broadcast not just on BET where people are going there for a reason to watch it but Viacom owns Comedy Central and VH1 and MTV and comedy and all these other networks or other people that didn't sign up for are gonna hear this so Let's take advantage and all of this is about
being efficient, using your opportunity, whether it's personal or public. And I just, you know, kind of blacked out and barred them up. I had kind of like, I had a sense of what I wanted to say, for sure, what I wanted to make of the moment. Really, you know, how do you speak in a language that connects directly to the thousands of people that are in a room that is also
accessible but a little bit ahead of hundreds of thousands and millions of others and it turned out to be a global kind of thing.
And to make it last in a way that is not just nonfiction, that is not just straightforward, it's poetic and creative. And I still, if I'm being honest, don't think it's been really fully understood or broken down. It is, there's a lot of thought and critique in there both inside and outside of our community. So.
I don't know, you know, that it was, I was kind of, I just talking to my talking to us, you know, talking with us. It felt it just felt good and right. I flew my parents out, you know, and they're not together. They've been divorced a long time, but I flew them out to be there for that. It was their award. Anything that I get is, you know, it's they got. And so it was it was peak fellowship and community. And
Jermaine (1:02:59)
Yeah.
jesse (1:03:23)
an act of just a deep love, you know, and when I love language, I love art, my life has been transformed time and time again by the great writers of our time. You mentioned Toni Morrison or Nikki Giovanni or William Carlos Williams. I love poetry. I love creative, you know, you go to, again, hip hop has many of them. So I was...
joining a tradition that is entirely, that has had a huge impact on my life. I just, you know, so I just kind of did the damn thing. Bar for bar though, if I ever hear it, I will say it stands up. It was a pretty special.
Jermaine (1:04:07)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think whenever I mean, it's a historic moment. I mean, dare I say, man, because, you know, we're in the here and now. Right. We don't always look at things as history. Even even historians, man, a lot of them don't really touch anything past like the 1970s, 80s, you know, it was more. But I think whenever we go back through, man, like the modern moments of.
jesse (1:04:27)
Mm-hmm
Yeah.
Jermaine (1:04:36)
activism of black moments if we were just going to have a highlight reel of like, hey, this is something that was very impactful. It resonated with a lot of people. I mean, yeah, you're definitely dropping some bars in there, man. That hip hop influence came through for sure, man. But it was resonant in that way, but it was deep. You know what I mean? Because that's what hip hop is, right? It's going to hit you on the surface and then just barrel deep and stay with you, man. Just some of the things that you said and the truth that you said.
jesse (1:04:50)
You know what, Jermaine?
Yeah.
When, yeah, when people break down a lyric, when people break down a lyric later, like, yo, but yeah, there's a triple entendre there, there's a whatever, I think that to kind of fully curl this around in terms of themes we've been touching on today, all of that can only happen with a deep exposure, understanding and appreciation for our history. For, you know, the content of that expression that night was about our past, about our present, and also
making a commitment to our future, what's gonna happen, what can happen, how it's gonna be, acknowledging black women in that way for past sacrifice and commitment, and what we're gonna do. It didn't have some meeting with everybody and we all agreed that we're gonna do it, but you gotta speak things into existence and do your best to fulfill these promises. And this is the, you know, the...
History affects our future because it makes it marks you somewhere and it marks what you can be capable of. And it doesn't exist without that. And I think that is that's the promise. That's the promise and the thank you that it makes.
Jermaine (1:06:20)
I appreciate it, man. Well, Jesse, I think you're so glad to have you on, man. I don't leave me with a lot to think about, but I think that you embody the type of integrity that people yearn to see more from public figures. I don't think you're just about making these statements. I mean, anybody who listens to this, I think you could see you're about living it and breathing it, standing firm in your truth. And again, I think we're in this age where celebrity activism can kind of feel superficial and sponsored by Nike and sponsored by Coca-Cola.
jesse (1:06:48)
Yeah.
Jermaine (1:06:50)
part and I think your commitment to social justice, to racial justice isn't just a byproduct of your fame but your fame serves as a platform for your deep-seated dedication to equality and change man so I want to thank you so much for coming on the show. Appreciate you.
jesse (1:07:06)
Thank you, fam. Thank you very, very much. Appreciate the platform, your listeners, and your work. I bought Humanity Archive early and have bought it several times as gifts for others. And to see you be able to build on that in a way that's accessible, reachable across generations is dope. It's an example of how to activate on top of ideas and academia and bring things to life. So I look forward to doing that.
doing that myself and doing it together with you in the future.
Jermaine (1:07:39)
Thank you, man. I appreciate it.
jesse (1:07:43)
Alright y'all.