Lisa B. Thompson is professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of three books, Beyond The Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class(University of Illinois Press, 2009), Single Black Female (Samuel French Inc., 2012), and Underground, Monroe, and The Mamalogues: Three Plays (Northwestern University Press, 2020). Her scholarship focuses on issues of identity, representation, and performance in contemporary African American culture. Thompson’s award-winning plays, which have been produced off-Broadway, throughout the US, and internationally, explore African American history and culture through the lens of the middle class. Professor Thompson’s teaching has been recognized by the Texas Exes and the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies. Her work has received support from the American Council of Learned Societies; Harvard University’sW. E. B. DuBois Research Institute; the University of Texas at Austin Humanities Institute; the Michele R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research; the University of California’s Office of the President; the Five Colleges; Stanford University’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity; Hedgebrook; the Millay Colony for the Arts; and MacDowell.
Guests
Lisa B. ThompsonProfessor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin
Hosts
Peniel JosephFounding Director of the LBJ School’s Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin
[0:00:07 Peniel] Welcome to race and democracy. A podcast on the intersection between race, democracy, public policy, social justice and citizenship. Today we’d like to welcome Professor Lisa B. Thompson to the race and democracy podcast. Uh, Dr Thompson is a professor of African and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She’s the author beyond the Black Lady sexuality and the new African American middle class. And her most recent book is Underground Monroe and the Mama Logs. Three plays that have just been released by Northwestern University Press. Um, and really three very, very exciting plays that speak to this current moment in many different ways. Eso Lisa, welcome. I’m excited about our conversation today.
[0:01:06 Lisa] Thank you so much, Dr Joseph. It’s so wonderful to be talking to your audience and to be in conversation with you. Finally, formerly and in public. So this is fantastic.
[0:01:17 Peniel] You know, I saw one of these plays, um, uh, Monroe, and I guess we’ll start there and then go to underground and the mama logs. Uh, what’s the inspiration? First of all for you, you know, black woman, very well known, And, you know, in a lot of ways, your career has just risen. Risen. I’m very, very steadily your notoriety, both in Austin, but just nationally. What’s the inspiration for you being, ah, playwright and in academic?
[0:01:48 Lisa] Thank you for asking that it’s really important for me identify as an artist scholar. I believe that my scholarship informs my artistry and my artistry informs my scholarship. They both in for my teaching. Looking back now I can see the seeds. Really, Even as an undergraduate, I would have a course. For instance, I tweeted this last weekend because Gail Jones has a new novel coming out and people are excited about that. And I think this is the articles about people that no one knows who she is. And I’m like, Well, I was lucky enough to have Richard Yarbrough as professor for my senior seminar in the English department at U. C. L. A. And he taught one of her books, and my idea as an undergraduate was two for my presentation of the take one of the sections of the book and create a short play with my scene of the partner and forces support young women who work with me on this and looking back now like you know, I was just destined to bring these two things together and continue to do that. And the first play I wrote was the one woman’s story, one woman show called Dread Times. One sister’s hair. And it was about my journey from pigtails, too, at the point. The point. My life dreadlocks or locks and wanted to tell the story what black women and beauty and I realized at that point did it for the inner city cultural centers, talent fast and it really well. But I realized at that point I was too lazy to be completely be an artist. Well, a performer at least, And that I would like better writing it and watching other people who are in great shape that wanna, you know, do it again from the top three or four times. Um, and I consider instead the classroom to be my stage. So when I bring you talk about, I have, of course, in a black in a class, of course called me thinking blackness that they’re going to be by theatrical self. And I don’t have to do it once s, I have to do it, you know, seven days a week for three years or something like that, Like this amazing artist play. Uh, actors do. So I also began doing storytelling as a child with my brother. Um, San Francisco. A lot of people think California is all hot and wonderful. That’s actually really cold in San Francisco, especially in the summer. So we spend time at home making up stories we call them shows, didn’t realize that it was a whole theater worlds where mom start taking us to see the theater. And I guess I really fell in love with the possibility of poetry and performance When, um, Sean case for Colored Girls made its way Thio to our consciousness when I was a young woman, a young child, really middle school and really fell in love with her work. So I guess for me, um, storytelling is the best way to get people to really embrace and absorb absorb the stories and the history. Um, that’s so important for us to understand the complex and the human parte elements around all that
[0:04:35 Peniel] what was the inspiration for these three plays? And let’s start with Monroe. So what does Munro about and what’s the inspiration behind it?
[0:04:44 Lisa] thank you for asking that. Actually, it’s, Ah, play that has had its birth. A graduate student at Stanford took by one playwriting class was with Sherry Berruga, three author, co author of this bitch called my back Gloria also do, uh, and she in that course she had us, um, do a prompt one day. The prompt was this is how I pray and out of that I just started thinking about I grew up in a Baptist, Um, great grandfather was a Baptist minister who actually, um, was the founding minister for True Line Baptist Church in Monroe, Louisiana. And but I was also fascinated by Catholicism because it was such a different kinds of expression of faith. And at that point, I was in school, and I I thought that wrote this monologue. But this young woman and it grew from there on, but it’s funny. It’s little tail about that is that in part of the classes, that video actually direct your own stage reading. So I ended up casting, made a Jones. I know if you know her scholar and you can see and this undergrad and his girlfriend and the undergrad is still in K. Brown and Ryan Bath, who is now his wife. Um, and I knew that Woman E Sterling
[0:05:57 Peniel] Sterling K. Brown, who’s the Emmy Award winning actor for this is us and has done so much extraordinary work. Yes,
[0:06:03 Lisa] eso And I knew from that moment, though, because he looked at that point was just annoying undergraduates. Yeah, sure, Sterling. And then I saw him perform in my reading. I’m like, Oh, my God, He’s gonna be a star. I knew then I told some people that remember that. So, um, but it came out of me. Um,
[0:06:18 Peniel] you start with Monroe. You say you dedicated to the memory of George Boldin and illiterate black man accused of writing allude note toe white woman who was lynched near Monroe, Louisiana, on April 30th, 1919, and talk about the significance because, uh, in warmth of other suns. Isabelle Wilkerson tracks Monroe. Louisiana is one of the tributaries to California to Los Angeles in terms of the great migration. So talk about the significance of setting it in Monroe, Louisiana.
[0:06:49 Lisa] Thank you for asking that too. So I was wondering, and my family didn’t talk much about it. Why they ended up in California. Everyone else went thio. Always black folks went to Chicago and to New York and other places. They’re more famous along the the whole great migration. And my family said no California and they didn’t really, um, which explained that so had to figure out my own greening around that, and I said it around a lynching. I remember him talking about lynchings during Sunday breakfast, something you know, it’ll be a small I think they would mention, but not to go with you didn’t ask me any questions at that point in time, apparently, have conversation. You would just listen. And when I when it was brought to the awesome Playhouse, I start development, developing it and thinking about it more and started doing research at that time was beginning of of the monument to lynching that Bryan Stevenson has now put into the world. And there’s a lot more discussions about what she to Paris is where Monroe is located, and I found out where my gentle, gentle mother and really, really sweet uncles were from one of the most violent places in the country in terms of lunches and number five historically, and it just blew my mind. And But, of course, this is being staged now that they’ve all passed away. But they didn’t. I just was astounding to me. The innocents my mother had it was very much reflected in the character. Cherry. Um, she was a very kind of person who would come back to the store and said, You gave me too much change. E could start crying, talking. My mother was, ah, just a too many ways to me, too good for the world she was born into and clearly too good for that. But my family made the migration. My mother was born in Monroe again raised by my, uh, that great grandfather who, um, true Fine Baptist Church is still standing with his name on it. And then my father was from Lake Charles and they met in the Bay Area. So I wanted also put on the map the way that I did not see in the world um, black California and the Bay Area in particular. And I’m still hoping to do more of that. So that’s what Monroe comes from that imagining what happens to a family one weapons to a family. After having been lynched. And also what happens to the black man that cut down his friend E because somebody to cut them down and and and bury them. I mean, what was that? And I just can’t imagine that. So it’s really bring my imagination to those those details. Um, and, um when Underground, which was the first play that I had done in Austin, comes out of thinking about the rial questions we have, they’re coming to the fore now, people saying, Oh, my God, you know, too, on the nose. I mean, after it was done in Austin, when Ward and everything but you could not leave because people I think it was just too on the nose in some ways for people like so basically asking us to consider what? How are we going to have a revolution? Is it going to be through voting? Is it going to be through, um, black middle class volunteering and going, you know, the next community and help helping people need really profound ways, but and then the other possibility is armed insurrection. So that’s the tension that’s going on in the debate between
[0:10:14 Peniel] you and I. Love to talk about that because the characters Mason and Dicks, um or Dixon Kyle When when we think about them. They were college friends in 1988. And there’s, um, an incident of sort of revolutionary violence that happens there that comes back to haunt Mason in Albany, New York But throughout the dialogue and the scenes that you right between them one I think there’s aspects of toxic masculinity within the black bourgeoisie that you really deal with. And then you also deal with the litany of sort of reading and studying that they had done. You know, you talk about, um, you E p. Newton and just James Baldwin and the library that Mason has And Kyle is, uh, you sort of have him as this professional race hustler, but you’re saying it tongue in cheek because I mean, he he really is for the people. But at the same time, they talk about doing a show, and you you write that there would be plenty of black public intellectuals who are ready to go on with their version of what’s going to save the black community while embellishing their own brand. So let’s talk about that because I thought That was very, very interesting. I thought it was very tongue in cheek and satirical at times, but also biting in terms of realism that part of where we’re at now, including in 2020 after the massive uprisings after George Floyd is, um and I thought I teach my students this to that in a neo liberal capitalist society. When you try to fight against oppression, there is a market for that as well. We all have to come to terms with that. Part of what black studies is, it is anti racism. It is anti oppression, but increasingly in the 19 sixties, but even more so now in 2020. There is a market for that. There is a value for that, including people like Bryan Stevenson, who I very much admire Ava Duvernay, who I very much admire. But there’s a market. There is a commodity, and I’m not saying they invented the market, but we’re all in it. So all of us who are feminist, all of us who are talking about intersectional justice, who are black radicalism Martin Malcolm Asada There is a market we’re getting checks from. Universities were getting checks from corporate America. At times we’re getting donors. We’re getting all kinds of stuff. So I thought it was very interesting In terms of Mason and Kyle the back and forth between them. I thought it was extraordinary.
[0:12:44 Lisa] Thank you so much. Um, and I’m in an empire of that to write. And to me, the everybody’s I’m getting all these, uh, calls and texts and emails like, you know, we want something And what I feel in this moment is an extraordinary um it’s almost like being devoured right way. It’s like how we eat We’re gluttons in America way overeat We’re gluttons. So now we’re getting what we want to feed ourselves with all the we want All the the the What was Abraham Hindi? You know? Come on, give us the beatdown about how bad we’ve been and what Abram way and it feels. But it feels like and we all know if we’re honest with ourselves, at some point they’re gonna get their fill, and then we’re back on the shelf. So the work I’ve been doing is, you know, it’s a you know, a long time, you know? I mean, my first place seemed like female was produced, and it was a great student, you know? So it’s a 21 years ago, and I’ve watched the ebb and flow. So part of it, the underground is that the guilt of the black middle class? Because I’m watching people either be unemployed or doing jobs that I call them. You know, it was essential. Workers, like, really are the essentially expendable workers, right? And I’m getting I’m getting my Amazon orders. I’m getting my, you know, curbside delivery, right? And I’m gonna buy most same time. I’m like, I’m down for the people and, you know, it’s it’s interesting. Um, Tiu have to confront those things Thio to go in two generations from the grandmother, the house cleaner to having a house cleaner.
[0:14:25 Peniel] Well, and you know what? One of the things I think is really remarkable about underground. Really, all of your writing, um, how historically specific it is because you mentioned they have a dialogue about reparations. They mentioned Tallahassee codes, but I thought it was so extraordinary is that you set the play in a restored brownstone that was built in 18 55. That was a way station in the underground Railroad and I also thought about the meta of the fact that Coats, who is the best selling author and we’re not trying toe get on him. But there was a point where he bought this million dollar brownstone, but then he his family moved out because they had leaked the address of the brownstone right. But so it’s so it’s so I think, one of this. It’s so interesting to have this conversation with you because you’re a public intellectual. You’re, you know, a star superstar, playwright, academic scholar, feminist, public intellectual, just somebody who is a big deal. And in a lot of ways, what black liberation movements have done for people like you and us is really provided us a platform where the goal was something else. The goal was liberation. The goal was, you know, the beloved community Martin Luther King Jr But what we’ve gotten as a way station is that some of us have done really, really well, and I’m not even saying people are selling out. Not at all, not at all people. People are personally sincere. They have political integrity. People are doing all kinds of investment and donation. But I thought it was very interesting with with Mason the fact that he’s got this multimillion dollar brownstone. But then also, Kyle is doing really well, too. So, on some levels, they both have carved out a space where they’re able to do really, really well within a capitalist economy, whether we say racial capitalism or plantation capitalism, where most black people are not doing well. So I want to talk about that And how e could tell from your writing. Reading you is a playwright that you you wrestle with this yourself. You know,
[0:16:37 Lisa] absolutely. I mean, that person is me, the woman that’s gone from, you know, grandmother that did the house cleaning to having a house cleaner. There’s something that, you know that I, uh but then it saying it and what does that mean? And I got to the point where during the during this period of co vid and the pandemic is that I’m realizing I’m doing a lot more things. Of course, you know myself and thinking, What if we slow down enough to everybody took care of their own stuff? That’s not really ideal life for me is that Is that where everyone had enough time to grow some fruit and grow so, uh, vegetables in their gardens with a lot of us have been doing and now has become the sheikh thing to post on instagram. Although, like intellectuals posting their first time gardening and for the same time, that was what my great grandfather did. He had a fig orchard and all that land is lost. Um, and to think about to wrestle with this What? What’s the point of all this? Right. Um, and the monologues gets that this to, you know, physically, their parents right now trying to figure out how to deal with, um, the opening of school for my child on bond. Um, with our responsibilities to the who’s going to be the front lines of that. So, yes, there’s something I wrestle with my friends wrestling with, you know, good friends who are, like, you know, off their second homes right now with the black folks, right? You know, because it’s just easier right now in the vineyard, you know, um and but it’s true. And they’ve earned those things, um, and but doesn’t mean many of us are also the ones that family turned to for help with applying to college and literally application to helping to fund it. Right? Um so back in the class is very Inter curious thing. I think it’s fascinating to me because I hadn’t met. I didn’t really meet black folks that were who had grand parents. They went to college until I got toe. The university’s undergraduate was really fascinated by by that of a floor mate who whose mother came to visit and sent a thank you note. And I was like, Oh, my God tripped me out black, black, black person and that the group in the same city and she had done a cotillion. I never heard any of that stuff. Right, Um, so that’s a fascinating to me is to see that this whole group of black people that have exists that existed, um, among in the same city that I lived in and two things come up from a one is that it’s fascinating to see this whole world they grew up in that I did not. The other one is like here. I waas this bright girl and you didn’t come take care of me or check on me or see if I was you don’t know I existed that you could have. How could you make my path easier?
[0:19:35 Peniel] Absolutely. I wanna I want to talk about mama logs a segue because you’ve written that as a as a love letter to this single black women everywhere, but certainly the characters that you have. Especially Tasha, Uh, and Beverly, You No. One is a pediatrician. The other, um, or Lauren Tosh. And Lauren, one of one is a pediatrician. On the other is a professor. Um, and this is a great story. Very, very funny as well. About motherhood. Um, gentrification. You talk about being the only black child on the playground when one goes further out west, you talk about the mother love. That happens when you when you meet this mother. And it could be a white mother. But then the breakup that can happen over over race and you know, the trump error. So, um, yeah, let’s talk about the mama logs and even the idea of birth and black women and having birth some being widowed, some divorced and split up some of the mothers, um, had their first child at 40. You know, I thought it was really, really remarkable excellent dialogue.
[0:20:53 Lisa] Thank you so much. It Z Definitely something that I wrote to keep myself from going insane. Um, first, as a first time mother at 40 myself, I was anomaly in in in many parts of the community. And I think that the black middle class single mom is an anomaly in so many ways. So, you know, your, um, in the S. So you’re at the, you know, the fancy school, but you don’t have a partner, so people you know don’t know I don’t have to deal with you. You’re, um, in the black church. But you don’t have a husband. So what to do with you, but you But you’re proud of you because you’re professionally. So that way, Like, you know, it’s like you don’t really fit in anywhere. And in the course of being a parent, I’ve I was partnered and then no longer a partner, And so this eso I experienced both as you know, partner black woman, Uh, it was like to be pregnant and a black woman, period. Just that’s a kind of eventually moment how the world treats you, Andi. Then, um, being single kind of navigating our own class issues to my favorite part of that story about really. It is not just the dealing with the white parents and racism at the schools, but it also wants on class stuff when she goes, hangs out on the East Side soccer field and ask about where to get the shoes. And they’re like, Go to the You know where that Wal Mart is. And I was just like, Yeah, go to the goodwill next to that Walmart s. So it’s just like and you realize it’s not just for your kids that they need the class. Diversity in their lives is also you’re the mother herself. Um, so I do feel like there’s a way which stretches about black single mothers, and I wanted to kind of explode that by thinking about, um, single mothers who have a certain kind of class privilege and cultural capital and how they moved to the world and for for me, it’s been important for me. Thio intervene in ways that disrupt things. The pizza I joke around, I said, By the time my son’s been a school two years for two years, the office staff sees me coming and turn the lights off. She’s coming. Oh, my God.
[0:23:10 Peniel] You’re right at one point about, um, being with your son on the playground, um, around with some white mothers and, uh, you know, Lululemon Duds, Birkenstocks, two carat diamond studs, A stylish backpack on organic snacks on day. Say, what’s her story? I haven’t seen you before. So are you new around here? And you say I’ve been spotted and they see your son and said, Wow, he’s quite a swimmer. Thanks. How old is he? Six. Wow. So, big guy, are you going to be a football player? Basketball player? And the child says, No, I’m going to be a physicist and they say You don’t say, Well, good for you. And then when the nannies spot you and that you’re not taking care of a white child, they just can’t believe it. So there’s all these different hurts, uh, and, uh, marginalization, zits, basically racism. Sometimes people call it microaggressions, but these air racist traumas that aren’t as big as lynching and violence, but they are kind of violence against the soul and the spirit, Um, and short of reinforced the caste system in the United States, you know, like you’re not supposed to be. Here s so I thought that was very, very interesting. And you had you had a line here that really, um, stuck with me where? When Lawrence says something hits the news and she says something that pushes you off the integration tightrope, I want you to talk about that. The integration. My
[0:24:46 Lisa] God, we’ve been pushed off really, really violently. This, um, this spring and, um have to be honest, you know, I couldn’t talk to some of my friends that are not black. And I just was like, I just need you to meet me a minute. Um, because, um, not all of them. Because some of the ones that didn’t didn’t need me to do a certain service in this moment. The ones I could talk Thio because we already because Because they get it. And, well, one of them, the Senate Redmond who’s at university? Really? Washington, Seattle. Who does Black city. So she you know, she understands for a personality, and there’s no thing, but some were just don’t call me about George Floyd because you didn’t call me about Trayvon. Mhm. You didn’t call me about Tamir. You didn’t call me about any. I mean, don’t. I’ve been grieving all my life, So the ones that could call me the one that called me then you know that they were there with me, though through all that, we’re clear about racial issues. I hate that I hate that term, which is just racial violence throughout all our whole friendship. And I guess for me 2016 with a moment when I rolled up my son’s schools. You probably white schools, you know, And the parents look to me. I said, Talk to your cats. Don’t talk to me. Talk to your family. Do we play your position? That’s for you to do, Do your work. I’m doing my work. Do your work. Don’t come looking at me. Talk to your and people. Parents were like, Oh my God, you know, I was already That’s fucking mom. But now it was like it was just really There’s no filter. I’m you know, and that’s continued since then because I just I don’t have to on that sometime I said to me something because in the fifth grade at that time I’m looking at these parents I’m like, because of yourself my friend. So your child, my child’s friend And you haven’t noticed There’s no black girl in your kids class from kindergarten to fifth grade because of school at two black boys in the grade, that’s all. So your child never been in the same classroom, the black growth for their entire life. And you’re looking at me and you’re shocked. You even notice I’m the black girl. It would have been that class. So for you know, you have work to do. And I’m just not my job to do that work. But I’m pointing out to you and go bless you. As I’ve learned to say now they live in the south. Bless your heart. Eso for the interesting tightrope Israel. Andi, Um, my expectations that if you’re going to continue to be in a relationship with me, is to, um do your work. And is that for me to do that? I do this for a living. I get paid to do certain things as a friend. Um, if you’re really a friend, it’s like, like like because I have friends who are differently. Abled. Is that my job? Their job to teach me about what’s like to be, uh, Thio Visual impairment. Is that their job Teach me about autism, not their job. Teach me about any of those things. And those people in my life there part of all that. And so this is my job to learn if I care about you. I hate to do that, you know, it’s a false, you know, equivalently or, you know, the crisis of analogy trying to compare these kind of things with race up. But just no matter what it is, it’s my job as a caring person in your life. So, yeah, it’s a type of fallen off of it and really has been difficult for me. Thio. Yeah. You know, to do that interaction, You know, I’m so sorry. What can I do? Wanna bring me food? It’s like it za bizarre. It’s like, Okay, um it just feels like they’re in a baby. Their babies when it comes to race and it just it for us, you know, you and I will do this for a living. It really um or, uh, difficult Thio Brief that chasm.
[0:28:32 Peniel] You right? We Yes, we are parenting while black and living in the age of anxiety in light of what’s happened with George Floyd. And really, um, this is in the mama logs, but really, just in our popular culture, what do you think is going to emerge because of the fact? Like you said, this idea of aspects of black pain being devoured, um, during this moral and political reckoning about racial justice, about black dignity and citizenship in 2020 the cove in 19 pandemic massive black unemployment, mass incarceration just so much pain and suffering, but so much, um, in a sense, attention to that pain and suffering. Uh, not yet in a policy way, in a policy way, we’ve had New York City say they’re gonna take a billion dollars from policing and put it in communities. Austin, our own city virtually. You know, nothing. L a 150 million. Um, but certainly we’ve seen people devouring anti racist books. Abram Kindy, Who’s a friend? Robin D’Angelo’s book White Fragility has sold a million copies this year alone. Um, so what do you say when you say parenting while black in this age of anxiety? But what do you what? What do you hope happens at this thing moment, Especially because you’re plays all deal with racism. I won’t even just say race. But certainly the black experience within the context of racism and white supremacy. But also the black, I would say upper middle class, not even middle class, because these were folks like us who they might not have wealth. But they have upper middle incomes relative to the rest of the black community. Especially
[0:30:22 Lisa] absolutely. Yeah, what one of them is, I’m wondering, and of course, his pipe. You know, my own personal, uh, pressing concern is the mental and emotional health of black Children. In this moment, that’s really where I’m most concerned with from the very young to especially those who are teens because of their one notion of the world is more expensive and complex than the younger Children. But also, they know that the time line between where they are in the world and where they’re heading into adulthood and what that may mean, I’m worried about them being fearful and feeling, um disempowered, um, and traumatized, um, and wondering how we’re going to how we’re going to meet that need because it’s always struck me because I lived in a nella for over 10 years. I did my, um, my be am I m a and U C L. A. And during that time was a lot going on in terms of the way in which the LAPD was a been saying force of violence because black folks and I was there during the uprising slash riots. Funny enough, I was moving that weekend. There’s another story, but just what, um, I’m always struck by when you have, whether it’s Dr Buys or uprisings. There’s never talk about the army of our team of mental health professionals going into our communities. And I tweeted recently about there not enough black therapist that exists for all the help process, the trauma and paying that we have experienced and continued to experience. And, um, that’s just to me. E brought that to my attention. What maybe want to post that thinking about the young girl Thinks she’s 17 years old, who filmed Mr Floyd’s murder. Has anyone sent her there? Therapy? Is she being who’s taking care of her beyond her? She should be protected by because we also know what happened to everybody was filmed any of these, um, highly publicized murders. They’ve all been in some way, the state has crush them. So I’m thinking this port, just a child. I just tried to cry, thinking about her. I mean, just what are we doing to protect her? And remember, portray Bonn Martin’s friend who had to testify What they you know how the public attacked her. Um, what are we doing to protect the mental emotional health support that for this next generation Andi, thinking about on goes back. Today’s right back to Monroe and my mother, Her body in l Thompson, who grew up to this really sweet person and growing up in one of the most violent places in the U. S. Um, it’s just stunning to me. Um, and I’m also grateful to her and for raising her Children to really believe it could be anything. Um, someone who did never finished college got close. Um, that’s one of those things for me that teachers like 20 units. I went back to school in central state, Um, but because of her constant desire for education in tow, drink give us as many opportunities as possible to get venture. Everything that was that was in San Francisco for us. um, raised these four Children t go out into the world, and now and then I was the first one to get graduate degree, and then I have two nieces with Ph. D s t o B. I lay that all at her feet away. That but yeah, So for me, it’s my personal stories. Been a story of class class ascension. This is why I’m passing the black middle class in this way. Um, because it’s an interesting to enter in a place that I never feel completely welcome. Um, because I’m very proud of my working class roots, But I’m also clear to from friends that I grew up with who say, Oh, you’re not, you don’t But you weren’t like working out like we were. Your dad lived in your house. Your parents were married. You had a house, not an apartment. You guys had a car, didn’t take the bus. Your great grandfather had a church, right? So it’s all relative to bond that’s been really good to keep me keep me grounded and humble. But I definitely want a world where everybody has enough what they need to be human and safe. And this that’s that’s what. Really What’s underground really is about is like, really, if we unpracticed and walk it all the way out, is it really possible for the way this country is for it to stand for it? Thio. But it meant to it’s doing exactly what is meant to do. Um, and it’s not pretty sort
[0:35:43 Peniel] of Alright, My final question, Um, what do you feel that this moment, uh, in what ways is the amplifying the work of black, especially black female voices like yourself? And I’m thinking here, you know, we, uh no, that there have always been black female playwrights. But even before the George Floyd moment, we were noticing in 2019 that The New York Times and The New Yorker and some of the big taste makers were talking about black women playwrights in the theater. Black women, um, as artists, as as intellectuals, as thought leaders. But I’m thinking specifically, um, in terms of theaters, uh, theater and and and plays. And now, since this moment, the demand for that is just increasing. So, what do you think the do you find hoping that that people are looking towards, um, black female voices um, we see that in the leadership of the black lives matter movement, we see that on a number of different levels that, you know, people are looking towards black women in this moment in a way that historically they’ve never been given this kind of visibility, even as they’ve been leaders and architects on workers within that movement. But does that give you hope?
[0:37:17 Lisa] It does give me some hope. I mean, it feels like people like dominate more. So who’s excellent work, including her play but the School to Prison Pipeline and diverse Smith and others? It’s been a wonderful time. I just want to do important plugged I want to make to, I think, black cultural studies. Black Studies in general has a theater problem, though. Um, there is a list that came out Schaumburg, just dead. Central Reading for Liberation Brought to you by the Schomburg Center. It’s been published in Hyper Allergic, and, um, there are three plays on a list of 100 texts, and it’s just devastating to me. You think you could create a list like this and not have Sean gay on it and not have I’m pretty sure if I’m if I’m missing something wrong, I think I went over pretty well. Um, you have three important text. August Wilson. You have Lorraine Hansberry and lineages. Um, wonderful. And I just plays. But there’s so many more black playwrights whose voices should be heard and recognized as part of the black literary tradition. Um, we’re missing, um, important work by, um, Alice Children’s and work by Barack aka I mean, this is so many black theater bakers and people are right now because we don’t have theater. Um, in the stages, there’s readings happening, but also a lot of people don’t understand your TV. What your streaming is so good. Because there’s so many black screenwriters writing and also black playwrights who are writing for television. I just want t to say that this crazy moment we’re in I am so happy. Thio see, more black, gay and lesbian theater makers have their work being produced and seen and again once again to diversify our notions of what blackness is across class and race and sexuality and gender on those who are non binary as well. It’s just great to see us doing it. I just wanted to be a little more time to make this list to think about, make sure we consider all the theatrical work. Um, that has been done, and it has shaped the conversation, um, about black life. Spectacularly, the moment during the sixties we get the black arts movement was such a sister of the black power movement, and we right now don’t have that being articulate, but it’s definitely there. We have the black artists, whether it’s film, TV fiction, poetry, um, speaking to this moment, and that’s what’s keeping me fed and joyful.
[0:39:55 Peniel] Alright, So let’s not forget our black playwrights. And we’ve been talking Teoh, one of the extraordinary contemporary playwrights Professor Lisa B. Thompson, who is an professor at the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of African and African Diaspora studies. Her latest book is Underground, Monroe and the Mama Logs three plays, which everyone should purchase immediately. She’s also the author of Beyond the Black Lady Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class on Really ah, vibrant public intellectual in Austin and nationally and globally in our own right. So thank you, Lisa, for joining us.
[0:40:36 Lisa] Thank you so much for having me. Pinellas has been such a pleasure. E wanna go page by next books. I could have another conversation with you. E
[0:40:45 Peniel] can’t wait to read it. This was extraordinary book. It’s really truly brilliant and and so funny and well done. Thank you.
Thanks for listening to this episode and you can check out related content on Twitter at Peniel Joseph. That’s P-e-n-i-e-l J-o-s-e-p-h and our Web site, CSRD.LBJ.utexas.edu and the Center for Study of Race and Democracy is on Facebook as well. This podcast was recorded at the Liberal Arts Development Studio at the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Thank you.