16 | America Has A Problem | For Real, For Real
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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Black History for Real early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. I think that, you know, there was a knee-jerk reaction for those particular country music stations. It was like, Beyoncé, the last time I checked, Beyoncé don't do this type of music. Country music was awesome.

was already ours. Imagine if the world had the same energy for the Black cultural producers as it does for the Black cultural products. That's kind of like what people love. They love seeing non-Black people performing Blackness. You might want the rhythm, but you don't want the blues. I absolutely remember LL Cool J's "Accidental Racist" song because that's how I got blocked by LL Cool J on Twitter. Black history for real, for real, in person.

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I think you should know, black is beautiful.

For Wondery, this is Black History For Real, where we chronicle the movers and shakers throughout Black history all over the world. More often than not, these stories will educate you, and sometimes they will leave you shaking your damn head. I'm Francesca Ramsey.

And I'm Conscious Lee. And what I will tell you is that when it comes to black music, these white folks get real tricky on being able to extract things. Today is a special episode. You know, we in person. Yes. You know what I'm saying? In the flesh. Can you believe it? Not just in your ears. A nice studio set up. You know what I'm saying? And we're about to explore some things. I want you to put your thinking cap on. It might get a little provocative, you know, because black history for real is like that.

You kind of laid the foundation that we want to talk about music to kick things off. We're going to talk a little bit about modern Black history and Black history throughout music. Kick it out like this right here, right? Okay. And give me your answer, but unpackage it, right? When you think of American music, what is the master signifier of that?

American music. Okay, I have context for this, so I will say that if I wasn't knowing what I know, I would think American is just like country music.

But my version of that would be like white guy with a cowboy hat, you know, plucking on a guitar or rock and roll, both of which I know have roots from black people. But the way that they're presented and packaged as American is a very like white persona. Yeah.

Yeah. I can acknowledge that rock and roll and country music, the origin of it is not white American. But you know how colonialism and what you said, Columbus. Columbus. How Columbus works, it makes it what you're able to really hijack some and take the credit for it. So though rock and roll and country is like origins of black music, I feel like it has been culturally appropriated. Why do you?

think people associate both of those genres, but specifically country? Because you know we're about to get into Miss Mama who's disrupting the country charts in a minute. But before we get there, why do you think that people associate country with whiteness and not with Black people? I think it has a lot to do with the Southern culture and how Southern culture gets seen as being white. Mm-hmm.

So for me, it's like, okay, when you think about how black folks talk, there's a lot of ways to how we express ourself that's usually seen as being very irrational. But when we start to do it, it got a little flavor in it. It gets, you know what I'm saying, kind of circumvented, it get taken. For me, thinking about country music in the South, it's like, okay, this is the music that comes from down here. And down here, we don't give credit to black folks for nothing.

You see what I'm saying? So when you think about like country or rock and roll, it's like you can't think about a southern black position without thinking about how this position infused these two genres. Well, down here, we ain't giving credit for nothing with black folks. You know what I'm saying? So I'm going to take the production, forget the producer, and say it's mine.

Yeah, the history is really interesting. Like when I started to dig into it, realizing that at one time when everybody was just doing what's called folk music, when Black people started doing it, they were like, that's called race music now. Didn't necessarily have to have anything to do with being Black or race, but they were like, y'all do something different. So it's really interesting, this idea of when we do it,

certain folks are happy to borrow and dabble in those things, but they don't necessarily want to give us the credit. So that's why it is now ironic, fast forward to the Super Bowl, Beyonce drops two country songs.

And people are divided over them. It really is so divided. It triggered me and take me back to my high school days. I feel like the Tim McGraw nearly came out because it's all in my head. I think about it over and over again. I'm going to let you. I can't keep you. The point is, though. Listen, I'm just glad that you found a way. I like the song. That song was amazing to me. People were divided when that song came out?

Yeah, because Nelly at the top of the world, this is like when Nelly and Lil Wayne and 50 Cent is running the world. I don't remember people. Here's what's funny. Y'all remember it? No, no, I remember the song. This song is so good. No, I remember the song. What I'm saying is I don't.

One, I don't remember Tim McGraw being in it. I feel like I just blocked him out. And I don't remember people... Listen, I was ripping and running in high school. I don't know about you, but I was dabbling. And that part of my brain is maybe not firing as strongly as I would like it to. Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. Listen, for the individuals that's going to be...

Inclined to play with my intelligence in the comment section. This is the facts and not the feelings. My feelings about the Nelly. It was a hot song. My feelings on it. The facts though.

It reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100. Spent 24 weeks on the charts. 24 weeks. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40. And it's had multiple records, including the biggest jump to number one. The quickest climb to the top spot and the biggest airplay increase for all number one songs. The song was so good and such a commercial hit. I remember my high school people having mixed feelings about it.

You know what I'm saying? Either you was already a Nelly fan and you thought it was great for a crossover thing, or you was like, hey, when I want to listen to the colors, I listen to color music. I listen to country, I don't want to hear colors. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. That's really the reason why LL Cool J then was trying to slide next to the racism. They was like, uh-uh.

Nelly and Tim McGraw ain't making it, but I want something with this too. - I absolutely remember LL Cool J's "Accidental Racist" song because that's how I got blocked by LL Cool J on Twitter. - Ah, LL, James, James. - I'm not asking to be blocked. - James, James. - If you're watching, it's fine. - James, you on your ass though, sir. You is on your ass, but listen though. - It's totally fine.

So let me reframe it then. Yes. The commercial success of the Nelly Tim McGraw song was so amazing that LL Cool J thought he could reinvigorate his career with a little country crossover. He just did it lacking cultural competency. It was called Axe.

Hey, man, you know, when shucking and driving goes wrong. It was. I mean, honestly, I feel like that's something that a lot of people forgot about because it was viral. It was a big deal. I'm sure LL wants to forget about it as well. I think he absolutely does. But

It speaks to the fact that there have always been black artists who have been dabbling with country music and going back to their roots. So the fact that Beyonce is doing it, you know, another example is Darius Rucker from Hootie and the Blowfish. But people are really upset about her doing it. And I...

You know, there's many levels to it, but the misogynoir is glaringly obvious because as a black woman, she is not cosplaying country music. She is from Texas. This is authentic to her voice. She has experimented with country before when she performed with the Dixie. Sorry, just the chicks. Just the chicks now. Just the chicks. Just the chicks. They dropped the Dixie. Shout out to the racial reggae. Hold the Dixie.

Dixie, keep the chicks. When she performed with them, people were upset. But go back to the question you asked me earlier. To me, think about it. The Dixie Chicks, they name is really unique to the geographical location being below the Mason-Dixon line. Right. I will argue that the culture of being a Dixie or the culture of below that Mason-Dixon line is what cornered the market or justified the cultural appropriation of being like, you Negroes do not get to have rock and roll. You made that. We want it. Thank you. Mm-hmm.

- Country, same way. And for me thinking about like culture, like food or music, I would argue that down South is usually what happens. Think about a lot of the cultural foods that's known as Southern, that's really just things that Black folks created out of nothing. And now seeing culture, now it's a staple of Southern culture. And I think that that is indicative or it can be illustrated the same way with music. It's not Black music, it's Southern music. - So did you see that people were requesting Beyonce's song

And the local records, the stations were saying, oh, we don't play Beyonce here. We only play country music. But she made a country song. She's the first Black woman to reach number one with a country song on the country charts. Hmm. The country music that was made by Black people, damn near 100 years, 200 years later, just gets its top Black woman. What do you...

What are your thoughts on that? Well, glad you asked me, actually. Saying it a little provocatively, when you think deeply about shallow shit, you usually drown in your own understanding. I think that, you know, there was a knee-jerk reaction for those particular country music stations that was like, Beyoncé...

The last time I checked, Beyonce don't do this type of music. So for me, it's thinking about how blackness and black people get put into a box and we never get to have the ability to transcend, have infinite expression. But everybody gets to dabble in our cultural aspects. Yeah, so for me, I think about when Macklemore had won, I think the reason why so many black folks was pissed off because not only was it a white person being rewarded for like, it was great music, but it was like mediocre compared to like Kendrick Lamar. But it was like, this is how...

rock and roll and country got hijacked. But that's kind of like what people love. They love seeing non-Black people performing Blackness. They don't want it when we do it. And so it is seen as different and special. And I'm glad that you use the word, you know, mediocre and not me. I use, listen, listen, and this is for the people watching this.

There's an entire literature base that's dedicated to white mediocrity and how when it comes to different, you know, what's the word I want to use here? Merits, different standards. There is literally a whole literature base that's about how different individuals get access, opportunity and resource based off of mediocre standards compared to us or the idea. We got to work 10 times harder to get what you're going to get.

that's literally about mediocrity. - Or just for it to even be acknowledged as, it's like not seen as good until somebody else can rip it off. And then it's profitable and then it becomes more palatable for a wider, AKA white audience.

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When Black people get into a different lane, I think that it's important that Black people support those Black people in that lane. You know what I'm saying? So I feel like once she decided to make that switch, you feel me? It's like, okay, now we're going to put, to me, like energy, attention into making sure that this thing happens. I will say that's been really cool watching how many other Black country artists, especially on TikTok. I don't know if TikTok's going to be here when this comes out, but... Save it for another episode.

But I saw so many artists coming forward and she also had a black banjo player in the song, which is like really cool considering that the banjo has roots in, it is an African instrument originally. So like, you know, there's layers in that. And it's, to your point, it's really cool that she's essentially opening the door for other black artists who were already doing country music, but now they're kind of getting the chance to like do covers of her songs and more people are saying, I want to do that.

want to lift up other Black country artists inspired by her. So that is really cool that she's making that pathway. Yeah, definitely. And I think that Beyonce doing it, to me, is very like, it's very...

Like it illustrates, I would say, Beyonce is illustrating to me how black women in the black community in terms of opportunity and resource can be a trailblazer a lot of times to make it where other black folks get opportunity and resources. I can acknowledge that a lot of the country music artists that's now getting shine because Beyonce did it. They was doing country music for years. Yeah, yeah.

But Beyonce, her visibility and her influence is so impactful that now it's really spilt over. Now we get to hear about these other amazing Black country artists that we all should also give them for streams as well. It's one song I said on my timeline. I can't think of her name. The Buckle Bunny girl? How it go? A little bit. I'm a buckle bunny.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That one was like... Oh, that is a bop. Yeah, her name is... I think her name is Tanner. Yeah, she had the mic coming out the screen. Yeah, she's really cute. Yeah, I was like, yeah, this right here. And another person I like, his name is King Jerome. But it's King spelled with a C. You feel me? From Dallas. You know what I'm saying? He got his like... Is he the one that has a really, really deep, deep voice? Nah, bro got... Bro like...

Dallas, Dallas. I'm talking about he got a drop shag haircut. You know what I'm saying? He rock is Justin Boots. You feel me? He might have a Jordan's on the other day, but he really, he make music where he talk about, you know, the elements of country music. He a storyteller. He already a country black person. So he got the little twang, you know what I'm saying? And he do that guitar and he really sing that Rasmus by like that. He mixes like the black experience of being in the hood and the black experience of being in a rural area. And he talk about going between both of them.

It's very, very dope. Yeah, I love it. I mean, especially since Beyonce's Renaissance was like a tribute to house music. It does feel like she's kind of going like, y'all love this music, but y'all didn't know this came from Black people. So I'm hoping that after Renaissance, the country version, she's going to give us a rock album.

similarly, you know, kind of taking us through this journey of like the black roots in popular music that doesn't always get associated with us. You know, you know, you know, and something right here is on my mind right here, right? I think that

Country music illustrates black history for real by the way that how when we create cultural productions, how those cultural productions get extracted from our bodies, regardless of the labor, regardless of the blood, sweat, and tears. If the world likes a black production enough, the world has the ability to separate the black productions from the black flesh and make it where it's just that thing. You know what I'm saying? I'm almost like, imagine if the world had the same energy for the

black cultural producers as it does for the black cultural products. - Oh yeah. - And I don't think this is gonna happen. I feel like country music and rock music, those two things really illustrate the fungibility of blackness and black people. And if you wanna learn more about fungibility, I would recommend go reading about Afro-pessimism, you feel me, literature-based, and how like fungibility is structural, you know what I'm saying, to they say civil society. Fancy word for world, but I believe that. I think I can bust anybody's butt in a debate

about the fungibility of blackness and blackness. I ain't losing it. I am not trying to have a debate with conscious. I'm not going to lose that debate for sure. Let me put this into context then, man. Because, you know, usually...

in these situations, we didn't have Lil Nas X have to be co-signed. You know what I'm saying? Nelly had to be co-signed. - Because the country music charts did not want to play Nelly until Billy Ray Cyrus. - You need your accessory white. You need your accessory white. We can't just have these Negroes out here running wild on these country charts. Do you have your white person to accompany you? No? Not on the charts. Does Beyonce, I'm curious for your perspective, does Beyonce prove you no longer need a white caregiver to get on the charts?

Country choice. Yeah. I mean, I think Beyoncé's always been good at standing on her own. She has collaborated with a lot of artists. Like, I really loved...

her song with Jack White on Lemonade, "Hurt Yourself." And when that song was first listed, a lot of people were like, "Why is she working with him?" And I loved the white stripes, so I was very excited about it. But Beyoncé does have the ability to stand on her own, which I think really speaks to her talent. And when you go to her concerts, her audience is always very mixed. When I went to Renaissance, twice.

The audience was very, very mixed. So I think that her experimenting with country was really, really smart because she knows that she has audience across different musical genres who are going to support her. But to your point about the other Black artists who have dabbled in country, unfortunately, whether it was Anneli or Lil Nas X or...

LL Cool J. They needed someone to help put them on

Which, you know, I can appreciate, but I do think it really speaks volumes that Beyonce didn't have to do that. And not only did she not have to do that, she dropped these songs out of nowhere. She didn't give us any preparation or any lead up, you know, make sure to save my song. Here's a little snippet. She didn't do any of that. She just threw the doors wide open and gave us the songs. So I think that that really speaks to...

The way that her music resonates with her audience and the way that her fans get behind her. Because when they said that they weren't going to play her songs on the country stations, the hype lit them up. They should have showed up in a couple of hours. They copped the plea quicker than Diddy. You know what I'm saying? My follow-up question. So do you think this makes Beyoncé a cross-cultural artist? I feel like cross-cultural is a misnomer.

- It's fine. - Because country music was already ours. So she's not crossing cultures. She appeals to people from all different backgrounds. But musically, I think especially right now in this era, what I'm really enjoying is that she is exposing people to the realities of where these musical influences really come from. 'Cause when she first dropped Renaissance, there were a lot of people that were like, "I don't like this oomph, oomph, oomph music." - Definitely. - That's our music!

We created that music. That's black queer people making that music. I think that linguistically, music had the same relationships that showed, okay, as long as black folks just doing it, it's cool and it's smooth. Once too many white folks start using it and doing it, we're going to abandon it and try to create something different. And I think that it's just certain rap music, I feel like nobody wanted to give it up, but I think that it was something about rock and roll and country that eventually black folks were like, all right, y'all got it.

- But you know what, I think you bring up a really good point because I feel like that's what happened with disco, right? Like disco was taken over and black people were really enjoying themselves and then suddenly it was like, we hate disco! We're gonna burn the, do you remember when this happened? They were like crushing disco records and it was like this whole thing and I think it was black people and queer people that were enjoying disco in that way. So I think you are right. I think calling it cross-cultural, to go back to the Beyonce of it all,

I don't think it's accurate. Yeah. But I had to ask because- It's a trick question, which was a smart one. I liked it. I liked it. And just to sprinkle some more historical context so y'all know that Beyonce or the other people we've mentioned is just like not new phenomenons in the genre. Charlie Pryde is one of the most successful Black artists in country music.

He's the second highest paying selling artist at RCA right after Elvis Presley, the great Colombian country rock and roll king. You know what I'm saying? And I think it is very poetic almost on how he is specifically in relationship to Elvis Presley when it comes to country music history.

You also cannot leave out Ray Charles, who, while you might consider a soul singer, he really was a country singer. That's really what he got his roots in. And according to the legendary singer Willie Nelson, Ray Charles was most effective in boosting the genre with his album Modern Sounds in country and Western music than any other figure. And you know we're not trying to give out cookies, but shout out to Willie Nelson.

Because he says, he did it. But I feel like William Nelson is one of them other people that be really, as always, I feel like really very culturally competent and can really recognize what's going on. What I would say

is that when you talk about Ray Charles being seen as a soul artist and sometimes as a country artist, I feel like that's how the world is able to piss on us and tell us it's raining, when the antsy blagginess, 'cause it's like, okay, once we're able to distance a particular artist from the genre, the genre becomes more pure, almost.

So the fact that he could be a soul artist or a history artist, I mean, or a country artist, I feel like it's very, it speaks volumes to me. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's splitting hairs, ultimately. What's the difference? What's the difference between blues and country music?

They're like two sides of the same coin. Big old Venn diagram. There's some distinctions, but a lot of in the middle, a lot of gray. And I think that's how going back to like geographical music, black people to South, in my mind, that's how it happens. Yeah. Everybody want to be black until it's time to be black. You know what I'm saying? You might want the rhythm, but you don't want the blues.

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So now we're finna get ready to drop a little knowledge, you know what I'm saying, from one of those smooth, cool corners, you know what I'm saying, of the culture. We're going to be talking about something that get people invited to cookouts, grills. Yeah, but we're not talking about a George Foreman grill, which is kind of an old reference.

I had one when I was in college. We're not talking about back out of grade. I was like my grandparents, you know what I'm saying? At that time, they got diabetes and they felt like, you know what I'm saying, the George Foreman grill. Every time I use a cultural reference and you bring up how young you were, your grandparents were using a George Foreman grill. You feel me? They were trying to be healthy, you know what I'm saying? They felt like the George Foreman grill was a cleaner way to deal with the diabetes. Yes. Well, we're not talking about those conversations.

kind of grills. We're talking about grills of the dental variety. And you, when we were talking about this subject before we started rolling, you were getting a little heated about who is being credited with kicking off grills, whether it be people from New York or people from the

Let me unpackage it first. I think there's some context in it, right? What I would say is that us Black people from down South, we not stupid that a lot of y'all throughout the country correlate us to the plantation. As a result, a lot of y'all have issues with giving credit to Black Southerners for things that we create. I would argue, you feel me, that when it comes to something like grills, that it's probably very complex to be able to say that it started in like New York with the 70s, 1970s. Yeah, because there's connections to Indigenous people.

Exactly. Wearing them as well. Definitely. So for me, it's like the master signifier that I will argue in America, y'all New Yorkers, especially Black New Yorkers, y'all are very hegemonic to how the rest of the world understands Black culture.

What I mean by that is that literally what black folks do in New York is almost reflected and universalized as if all black folks in America operate that way. What I would say is that down south, a lot of times we got a lot of different ways of doing things, saying things and expressing ourselves and a lot of times to get to grace when we start talking about black culture. So I would like to do more research

You know what I mean? To really quantify who we're going to give credit for introducing grills to how we could do it right now. Okay, so I'm going to add a little bit of cultural context because I think that's going to help. Because I don't even know how to say that. So according to historians, there are a number of ancient civilizations, including in Italy, from 800 B.C. to 200 B.C., that were the first society to wear grills. There is also evidence that rich women had their front teeth removed...

And then we're fitted with gold band appliances, much like a dental bridge.

to hold in some decorative teeth. They also used reused teeth and replacement teeth carved out of ivory. And then, of course, the Mayans were another society that were known to wear dental adornments between the 800 BC and 900 AD. So kind of to your point, right, there's a lot of different ideas about who was doing what, but now we associate it very closely with Black culture. But it's been sticked together.

stigmatized for that reason. And now we're kind of seeing like the ebb and flow again, where now you have Kylie Jenner wearing a grill, Miley Cyrus wearing one, right? And so it's kind of being seen as less hood aesthetic or more fashionable and trendy versus when we do it is unprofessional, is hood. Yeah.

Now, I know we're talking about grills. Right. And it's a lot different from like hair or like language. But there's crossover. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So for me, it's like when whenever black people start to

Rally around something it gets stigmatized and it loses value or it gets bastardized as being uberly ghetto or uberly like irrational so I think about how gold as a as a as a product or gold as a as a big scene is being valuable in every instance and

except for if a black person got too much on. Yeah. I think that speaks volumes. That it's seen as cheap or like over-performing. And even like the dental thing is really interesting because thinking about how metallics were used to make repairs in your teeth, right? And this idea that we were kind of like,

okay, well we're gonna make it cool now. Sure, stuff's wrong with my teeth and now I got gold in here, but now I'm gonna make it fashionable. This idea of turning lemons into lemonade is a thing that we've always done. And to your point about, well then we start doing, you stigmatize us for something so we go, fine, cool.

We're going to say it's cool. And it's like, no, no, no, you can't do it like that, though. Not like that. Not like that. Not like that. I think that the grill conversation to me and like professionalism and how professionalism is weaponized against black people. The idea of being cross-cultural is something that is weird to me. Right. Because I think that in particular settings, there are certain bodies that can have grills and it seems it's being cool. It's not it's not seen as being unprofessional or where it takes away from your work.

I think they want to talk about like a Miley Cyrus or the other, you know, white people that went through a rebellious black stage. It's like, all right, the passage, but they have to prove a legitimacy of credibility when doing it. Well, it's also seen as a phase and one that they know that they're going to be able to grow out of it or they're going to be able to abandon versus, you know, blackness is not a is not a phase for us. Right. So.

So I definitely think that they get more leeway of like, well, she's just getting that out of her system. She's having a phase that she's singing this kind of music or dressing this way or doing her hair in this way or whatever, hanging out with these sorts of people. And then when it's time to settle down and get an education and start a family or whatever, we know that you will eventually come back. And we see that.

In musicians, we see that in celebrities. Yeah, I agree. I agree. You just made me think of something, like, very crazy. There's a few of them. You know what I mean? Not only that, but made me think about, like, I don't think that there's a history of Black people getting to be the main beneficiaries of Black cultural productions. We just got done talking about Nelly. Nelly and Power Wild's song, Grills...

was so big and cultural that it literally proliferated in a lot of selling of grills. Me being born and raised in Texas, and I now live in Houston, a lot of the people you going to to get your shit grilled, like, to get it fitted in, they not black. So when I think about who gets to be the main beneficiaries of black cultural productions, it's typically not black people.

people. You know what I'm saying? So when we start thinking about grills uniquely, it's like, okay, how many dentists or how many jewelers you think that, how many black jewelers do you think it is? Not that many. Yeah. It's like who gets to be the entrepreneurs in our, I mean, and I would even say like we have that too in like the hair space, right? When you go into the neighborhood and you see who's owning what hair shops, it's like who is getting, to your point, able to profit off of, you know, I think about the girl who came with On Fleek, right?

She didn't get any money off of that. But Fashion Nova and all the rest of these white companies then bastardized, I was going to say bastardized, has hijacked the language and been able to monetize that language by taking it away. What do you think we should be doing differently in that respect? Because I feel like there's so much, people make jokes about the LLC bros. They're like, start your own business. But

Is there like a tangible way that we should be, you know, they say like bring back gatekeeping. I feel like I see that online all of the time. Do you think that there's a way that we could actually regain some control over these things and be able to profit off of them? Or do you think that that's just kind of par for the course and it's always going to be?

the case? I want to like be optimistic and be like, yeah. But the pessimists in me and me understanding how structures work is like, man, we could try to protect our stuff. You know what I'm saying? I just think that when it comes to what Black people produce, the world believes that what we produce is for the world. I think that it's a I think that I think that the onus is not on Black people.

I think that the world doesn't respect the black body, and as a result, it doesn't respect things that come from the black body. So I feel like, don't give a damn what the black body do. If they don't have respect for the body, what you create with the body is what it is. So I feel like it's just a structural issue that can't really be, in my mind, like, really resolved from, you know what I'm saying? Like, we can't fix a problem that we didn't create, essentially. Yeah.

Yeah, basically. No, that's fair. Basically. And just knowing I got a lot of homeboys and family members that's locked up in jail right now because they were accessory to a crime and the judge believed that because they were present in a particular way, it was an accessory. I don't think that we are necessarily accessories to the anti-Blackness. You know what I'm saying? I think that it's structural and it's like, even if we say Black Lives Matter, or even if we say respect our grill, or even if we say you're not invited to the cookout,

They're going to come take it anyway. So it's like, what do you do in that world? I'm not sure. Yeah, no, that's, I mean, I don't know. And I didn't ask the question anticipating that you were going to have like a perfectly packaged answer. But I think just even thinking about those things is important because I think.

What you're hitting on is an important thing in terms of the fact that we often get blamed for our own oppression. Yeah. Where it's like black people need to do X, Y, and Z. But without actually zooming out and acknowledging that like we didn't create the system and we're

We're doing our best to function within it. And that doesn't mean that we always get it right, but we're doing the best that we can and we can't fix a problem that, again, we didn't create. I'm thinking about like responsibility and accountability. I think that a lot of times when we start thinking about how those concepts are applicable in the black community, it just starts to become a very, very like

like regressive. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's like, so responsibility, but you say this over here, but okay. I would. Okay. Word. Bet. Don't even make sense. I can't, I don't even have words. Black History for Real is a production of Wondery and DCP Entertainment. Sound design for this episode is by Lucas Siegel. The theme song is by Terrace Martin. For DCP Entertainment, associate producers are Quentin Hill, Brittany Temple, and Chris Colbert.

The executive producers for Wondery are Marshall Louis, Erin O'Flaherty, and Candace Manriquez-Wren. Wondery.

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