Ep. 196 A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib -- The Stacks Book Club (Andrew Ti)

Written By Megan Caballero

It's time for our final episode of The Stacks Book Club of the year, and we're taking on a favorite book of the year, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib. We are joined again by podcaster and TV writer Andrew Ti for this conversation which touches on cancel culture, Black cultural stereotypes, the skillful writing of the book, and so much more.

Stay tuned to the end of the episode to find out what our January 2022 Book Club pick will be!

 
 

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:08
Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I’m your host Traci Thomas, and it is the final Stacks book club day of the year. And we’re wrapping up a solid 2021 season with one of my favorite books of the year. A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib. Our guest for this conversation is TV writer and creator and co host of the podcast Yo is This Racist, Andrew Ti. Andrew and I talk today about the scope of this incredible book, the slippery slope of stand up comedy and our favorite and least favorite essays in the collection. There are no spoilers on this episode. Be sure to listen to the end of the podcast to find out what our first book club pick for 2022 will be. It’s a good one. And now it’s time for our deep dive into Hanif Abdurraqib’s essay collection A Little Devil in America with our guest, Andrew Ti.

All right, everybody. I’m really excited. It is the final Stacks book club of the year. We are joined again by the wonderful Andrew Ti. Welcome back.

Andrew Ti 1:51
Thanks for having me. Best book, worst guest of the year.

Traci Thomas 1:55
You know, we aim to do it that way. No, how dare you don’t talk about my friend Andrew Ti that way? Our book today is my favorite book of 2021. I’m pretty sure I’m recording this at the end of November. So maybe there could be something that sneaks in. But at this point, it is a little devil in America notes in praise of black performance by Hanif abdurraqib. I don’t anticipate spoilers because it’s a nonfiction essay collection. But if you haven’t read the book, and you don’t want to know anything about it, stop listening. Come back when you finish. Andrew, we always start these episodes the same way, which is what did you think kind of generally of the book?

Andrew Ti 2:37
I loved it, it took me longer than I think in retrospect, I should have to like get what was happening. I was like very not like confused, but I just didn’t understand the mechanics of it for a while. Probably- I think we talked about this- probably like 50, 60 pages.

Traci Thomas 2:58
Like the first two essays basically.

Andrew Ti 3:01
I think for me, it went a little longer a little I’m still not like confused about what’s in it, but it was like I could tell there was a and actually to to the even to the spoiler warning at the top. I don’t think there are any, like content spoiler warnings to this, but it was like a really interesting journey for me as far as like, because you can kind of tell from from just the trappings of the like the chapter titles and even the table of contents like and, and like sort of the title of the book and the subtitle. It’s like, you could tell there’s a there’s something happening here. But I was like, kind of really not seeing it. Um, as far as like the construction and like the way it was sort of put together. So that almost feels like a spoiler because maybe to me it was like such a huge revelation once I like kind of got the way these essays were being written.

Traci Thomas 3:56
Yeah, I get that. And then after you got into it, what did you think?

Andrew Ti 3:59
So that was when I realized, first of all, I needed to go back and reread up to the point where the light bulb was sort of light bulb went off. But also a thing that you had said I believe off line possibly in the earlier but maybe I probably not is is that you’d mentioned that when you were rereading it in preparation for this. You did it in conjunction with like watching some of the videos and like, and listening to the music and it really was like much more of a multimedia experience. That’s so that’s what I did the second time around. It has really positively changed what my Spotify algorithm thinks about me in a really nice way Actually, I was like, Oh, this is like much better than the like, if my problem with Spotify actually is that it’s almost exclusively used for work stuff. So it’s like a lot of soundtracks and a lot of pop music that’s like does this go in this scene?

Traci Thomas 4:57
Got it. And now it thinks that you’re like a smart like Black woman in the church.

Andrew Ti 5:04
Much smarter, much cooler.

Traci Thomas 5:06
I feel that I had a similar so I read this for the first time I think in like February or March and anticipation of having Hanif on the podcast. And then when we decided to do it, I did a reread and my reread I did on audio. The second time, I had the same thing, my first read of the book that the first few essays, especially the like, on times, I forced myself to dance sections. I had no clue what he was doing. Like I couldn’t figure out what the thing was. And it wasn’t until probably into the second or third essay that I really dropped in. I think it was about halfway through the second essay about grief and funerals that I was like, Oh, I see. He’s talking about the performance of grief or like the performance of whatever. And then once that went off for me, I could not get enough of this book. Like I even now talking about it a week after finishing it. I’m like, should I read it again, I feel like I don’t even remember all the brilliance in the book. And like, on a sentence level, like the sentences in this book are just some of the most beautiful that I think I’ve read in a really long time, which I like sentences but I’m not like Forney for sentences like writers. Yeah, crazy about that. That’s not really me. But this book made me feel like I was like, Oh, I love a sentence.

Andrew Ti 6:29
I am less as far as writers go less of a not that I don’t love not Well, I probably for a writer, I probably I think I can safely say I don’t love, like sort of wordplay or like perfect prose as much as some folks do. I am definitely more of like a story and like, like, kind of larger archetype of writer and reader. And I think also Yeah, it was the like, the poetry of it that once it kicked in, it’s impossible to not see mine, like I really was like, because I think there’s a part of me this is probably the bad part of my brain, especially for like, not like nonfiction, but for like, slightly obtuse writing was that there was definitely a part of me that was like, like, treating it almost like a puzzle. In the in the first like, like, what’s the game of it? What are we doing here? And that is probably necessary for me, but probably the wrong honest way to read this book. Like, like, it was just like, like, what am I doing? And then like, letting myself like kind of like get get into the pros and the like, train of thought of it or the like free association and that and then it became an The other thing that was constantly nagging was just the like, how does one even write something? That’s good, right?

Traci Thomas 7:54
I was having that. Especially the second time being like, wait a second, how is he weaving together, these seeming lead totally different separate strands, like going from even like, going from the chapter titles to the history and then like the pivot or the or the turn of the essay, and then bringing it into the memoir, and then bringing it into like a more contemporary example, and then connecting that to the history and like the way that it’s actually constructed. To me, I’ve never seen an essay collection that is capable of doing that. I usually feel like an essay question collection that’s really great, is like, really great memoir style essays are like really great humorous essays. But it’s very clear what’s going on. This book is like, Wait, is this memoir? Is this criticism? Is this history? Like what’s happening? And it is all of those things sort of equally. So it’s really none of those things. It’s like this new genre, which is my new favorite genre. I’ve only ever read one book in the genre. And this is the one but this is the new genre.

Andrew Ti 9:03
I mean, the genre seems to be and I wonder this, this makes you kind of wish and I may still I suppose like I listened to the audiobook. Because this genre seems to be like, this is just the smartest motherfucker you’ve ever been near just talking. Yeah. And then like with the benefit, obviously of like immense amounts of research, but then it’s like, even just from like a writing standpoint, it’s like, When does one apply the research? I guess it is just like you just have to imagine you just iterate this over and over and over again. You’ve kind of vomit out the smartest version of free association and then you strengthen and you research and then research leads you to other free associations that you can like, it seems like he’s riffing, but it’s like, right?

Traci Thomas 9:51
It can’t be right? It feels so it feels like almost conversational in the way that it bounces around now aren’t in the writing itself, the writing feels like sort of heightened, but also conversational. But the other thing that I think is like so incredible about the writing, and I don’t know if you are if you did go back and watch any of the videos like listen to any of the music, but the way that Hanif is able to write music and videos and things that are not written is so spectacular. Like when I finished the Mary Clayton essay, giving Mary Clayton her flowers, that one, I went and listened to give me shelter, approximately 100 times, I could not not listen to that song in a totally different and new way. And like, I know that song, and I love that song. So it wasn’t a new thing for me. But like also going back and like watching the Whitney Houston performance at the Grammys. Like watch. Watching that, I think that I again have seen many times. Like, it’s just, it’s crazy that someone can write the history of things that we’ve consumed with different senses, like with our eyes or ears, and he can write it in a way that makes it feel alive. And also Nia is just Yeah, mind blowing to me.

Andrew Ti 11:17
For sure i and this may be is simply just like the change in the point of view. But it’s like it changes the way you hear that song in a way that’s like, so thorough. The one that I went back to like, very like that I hadn’t seen before. So it gets knocked back was in the essay about ultimately about Soul Train. Just watching Don Cornelius do the soul trade line. And I was like, oh my god, this is like so exactly as he describes as an IF describes, and it’s like, oh, I would not have like thought of this. And it truly just felt like you know, your smartest friend who like just was introducing you to something. Part of me does a little bit wonder. Because I when I started reading this also didn’t I feel like this, this bid me on another book that I can’t remember what it was. But it was a like, sort of contemporary but not completely contemporary book. So there’s a little passage just where he mentions Dave Chappelle. And there’s, you know, obviously the because Dave Chappelle has changed so much in recent times. So it was like, it was just a little like, oh, where’s this gonna go? I’m trying to, I must say it was an essay about Kanye West from like, two or three years ago, or something like that, where you’re like, Whoa, you know, you don’t have the benefit of now. But so so once once I got past the passage about Dave Chappelle, it was clear that this was being written in like, super contemporary times. So I guess, which is all to say, like, there’s a part of me that’s like, I wonder not that I think that this book will age poorly. But I do think there maybe is like a specific like, moment of this where like, I get exactly what you’re saying. I consume Twitter and YouTube in a similar way. Because like, when I looked up the Don Cornelius video, I was like, Oh, this he, not explicitly but implicitly, I did exactly the thing that he probably did in his research. And I saw it in exactly the same way, probably on my phone or my computer in the same way. And it was like, it really felt like, Oh, I was exactly in his head for a second. And I wonder if that feeling will fade for readers? Like as time moves on? Yeah, maybe not. I don’t think it makes it any less good. But it did hit me extra hard. Like, this is perfect. I get this or I think I get this feeling at least.

Traci Thomas 13:43
That’s interesting, because I feel like the way that he protects against it being totally like of this moment is by incorporating the history, like the historical examples. Like it’s like he talks about during Don Cornelius, but he ties that into the dance marathon. And it’s like, okay, Don cord, and like Don Cornelius is in the past for us also. But whatever, whatever of these things. It’s like there’s a more contemporary example. There’s a more historical example. And then there’s his relationship to the thing. But I also feel like the Dave Chappelle part, I, I made a big highlighted note, but I wanted to talk about this. So I’m glad you brought it up. It’s in the essay about magical negros, and like my butthole clenched when he said when he said, Dave Chappelle, because the first time I read it, I didn’t think anything of it. And then this time, it was like, a week or two after Sure, the whole Fallout at Netflix, and then being real big dicks to trans people, and him being a real big dick to trans people. And, like, I literally was like, oh, fuck, I won’t have to talk about this on the show. Like, this sucks. I don’t want to do this. Like, fuck Dave Chappelle. I don’t care. I want to defend like, you know, like I was just like, but by the time he gets to the end of the essay, he sort of has protected himself against all that Dave Chappelle does after because he does mention how Dave Chappelle At one point was like transgressive and his humor and now is just like doing the same shit. As the white people like he’s Dave Chappelle is now making the jokes of the white people were laughing too hard. Exactly. But now it’s his joke, but I think there’s even a line. I want to read it because I like a jumped out to me where he says it’s sort of long, so sorry, everyone. He says Chappelle himself hasn’t changed all that much. But the era has the people who have craved permission from him haven’t changed either. It’s just that the permissions themselves have shifted, the same people who missed the message in his old jokes and laugh because it was funny to hear white people saying nigger, are the people who now like Chappelle feel as though they are being censored from expressing the truest versions of themselves, and doing what he imagined as flying in the face of critics, Chappelle is once again confirming those who wish to be confirmed, showing people that someone can say whatever they want, however, they want, privilege and all be damned. And so for me, I was like that little chunk there is basically saying, like, all of the things I said about Dave Chappelle, in the past, maybe were true, but Dave Chappelle is not that person anymore. And he is now the person that Dave Chappelle was protecting himself against. And so I felt like, I didn’t have to be like, me loves Dave Chappelle, because he very clearly is like, I recognize that I’m defending this one moment of Dave Chappelle. Yeah, but also everything that’s come since like, fuck that, and fuck that guy.

Andrew Ti 16:30
Yeah. And so I appreciate it as I think it’s clear that those, you know, maybe there’s going to be hindsight about what those moments in the past were. But I think like, also, like in a vacuum, they absolutely were. And at least we can’t know who Dave Chappelle the person actually was now or then. I mean, now it’s maybe more evident, but certainly then. But like, I think, like, you can talk about it in terms of blackness and what like, I mean, I, you know, the the retrospective, it is very clear, I think, is that, like Dave Chappelle was very fluent in talking about the perspective of a black man and a straight black man, and nothing else. And that’s like, actually, not like fine because of what he’s sort of done with his power. But it is, like reasonable, like, you know, it’s, it’s not like, it’s sort of on us that we expect geniuses in one vector to be geniuses in every factor. Right, you know, right.

Traci Thomas 17:30
And also, like, we feel like we can’t, like we can’t call out these things. Yeah, you know, it’s like tough, it’s hard because it feels like, Oh, you want to cancel Dave Chappelle. It’s like, no one wants to cancel Dave Chappelle. People just want Dave Chappelle not to be like, given a platform to be wildly transphobic, homophobic and incite violence towards trans people. Like, yeah, make your little jokes go off, like love, love, love to laugh, you know, if you can make me laugh great. But like, if you’re being horrible, you’re being horrible.

Andrew Ti 17:59
Yeah, it’s also like, what is what is cancer? I mean, I think the cancellation of it is also just like, I mean, now now we’re just speaking so broadly about culture, but it is like, I he’s definitely canceled for me in that I am not a fan anymore. Like, and that is, you know, that is that can’t do anything to him.

Traci Thomas 18:19
It’s not like someone any more considered canceling. Like, you don’t have any power over Dave Chappelle is money, ability to get a job or housing or anything. So isn’t that just fandom? That’s where I’m always confused. I’m like those.

Andrew Ti 18:31
I mean, I think that that’s the reality, right? Like, that’s the reality of what canceling quote unquote, is, is like, I simply no longer hold. I’m not a fan. Gonna hold him on a pedestal, I’m not going to consume his material. Like, I just don’t like what he has to say anymore. And when it’s not like, I have the power to, like, cancel his contract or his bank account, or like, other people being a fan of him. It’s just for me, and for I think a lot of folks who were fans, it’s like, oh, no, you were you were not speaking from abroad wise place, you were speaking from a selfish place cleverly, as, you know, a person who has experienced types of oppression, but like, you didn’t turn that experience into seeing what oppression does to other folks or broadening it. And that’s normal. I won’t say it’s like, fine, but that’s very normal. Most people’s like, experience is selfish. And that’s, like, understandable and sort of like, okay, it’s not ideal. It’s not the way the world is going to not be horrible, but it is common, right. And yeah, it’s just like, all right, he’s certainly canceled for me, but like, I don’t know, right?

Traci Thomas 19:43
I mean, I also just laugh at the like, Oh, they’ve canceled the celebrity because they don’t like them anymore. And the same people who are like up in arms about canceled culture, are obsessed with banning books. And yeah, you know, like, oh, yeah, whole thing. I don’t want to get into the rhetoric.

Andrew Ti 19:58
Rhetoric of lies. Yeah, exactly. What What What are we?

Traci Thomas 20:01
There’s nothing to say.

Andrew Ti 20:03
But yeah, so as far as like the, I just think it’s like, once again, a good example of like what this book does with like the past, which is like, you can talk about the thing you can place it in the past. And that’s what he wanted to talk about what Nick wanted to talk about, and it’s like, very like it or not like chapels material on blackness in the early 2000s. And its relationship to racism and whiteness is probably the best, like illustration of so many of these things what he did with his Comedy Central contract. Fun, little little side story is so I for a long time, I my day job in my 20s was working at Comedy Central as a digital media producer. And my very first week on the job was the week, Chappelle left that contract and it was startling, startling and tense week for someone new on the job. What am I doing here?

Traci Thomas 21:07
Okay, wait, I want to talk a little bit more about this essay. This was one of the essays that really, really was special in my reading the magical negro. And it talks about the prestige, which is the pledge, the turn, and the prestige appear, disappear reappear. And I wanted to ask you specifically in a sort of has to do with comedy and writing and the Dave Chappelle stuff, which is like, how do you navigate as a comedian, and a writer, the wrong people laughing? How do you evaluate who should be laughing and who shouldn’t be laughing. And again, this also pertains to you as a podcaster, you do a show about racism, that is a comedy show, and it’s you, an Asian man and a black or biracial I don’t know how Tawny identifies she’s mixed, but I think she would say she’s black woman talking about racism. And it’s like, you know that your audience has lots of people of color, but you also know your audience has lots of white people. And like, how do you protect I guess yourself or your peace of mind? Or your audience from who shouldn’t shouldn’t be laughing?

Andrew Ti 22:13
So I think the thing, the broad version of a thing that is not super useful, probably to this question is that, in the instances where it’s that type of topic on yours is racist, we mostly just glide out of big comedy and talk earnestly. So that probably isn’t like broadly useful to most like comedians, experiences. And then the other thing that is sort of less useful is the, like, the the main show I have written on is mixed ish, which is the spin off of Blackish. But also my show runners really, were very conscious of this. And like, this would sort of I mean, I hope this is fair to say, you know, the show was very funny. But when it was a tough topic, we would get in, like, like the racist jokes, but like, almost always in the mouths of white characters. And they would there would be a rejoinder right away. So So I guess the answer is, and then sometimes we would simply be serious, we would just like, we just got to fucking talk about this. X or Y topic. So the answer probably, which is again, not like super helpful is, sometimes it’s just you just don’t go for the joke. I think it helps for me that like my sense of humor, specifically is so tired of that type of racial humor that I just don’t go there often. Like, I don’t personally find it funny. So it’s not my wheelhouse. But I think the larger thing that maybe is more useful is like, even like, speaking like about Dave Chappelle, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover up. And what would happen if I made a joke and I, you know what, so I don’t have examples off the top of my head, but I definitely have in the past said things like, out of places of ignorance on the podcast, the most likely stuff would be stuff about Native folks or stuff about trans folks that like, came out of my mouth, often just speaking, you know, often not even for comedy, but just like, you know, said nothing wrong, wrong perspective, whatever. Oh, and obviously about women like that, you know, I’m sure I’ve said things that are, you know, unintentionally misogynist, like a lot and the real thing is, or, you know, whatever baked in like, late and misogyny, subconscious, etc. I think for me, it’s that like, the other part, the other part of the bit with Tane is like, we’re idiots. Yeah, you fucking you. We said something wrong. Absolutely. We said something wrong, I’m positive. That was incorrect. And there’s like, you know, and that a little bit has to do with sort of the ephemera of podcast Enos like, or at least our show, like, like, I do feel like your show is more making documents and there, there’s like, there’s like a point and a beginning, middle and end. And like you’re you’re making a self contained thing that isn’t like, is more evergreen than, say, any given episode of yours this racist, which is like, comes across as an advice show, but it’s sort of not like an ongoing conversation. So we’re lucky in that, like, really what I think of the podcasts, and this has probably somewhat to my detriment, gone over into my TV writing, which is like, I never think of anything as like, finished or done or the conversation, which again, doesn’t quite work as well. I mean, on TV, when we’re doing like, 23 episodes, a season of mixed ish. It’s like, you work really hard on it, you make it as good as you can get it. But it’s also like, there’s gonna be another episode. That’s sort of my mantra, it’s like, there’s gonna be another episode. Again, much, much easier for podcasts than TV. But there’s always going to be more words, you’re always gonna be able to say something, you’re always going to be able to correct you’re always going to be able to change and update and grow. And that’s sort of the sad thing with, to me the underlying thing with the Chappelle, but also with sort of all people, maybe this is just a factor of like being older and the fact the mantra of there’s always going to be another word. Always gonna be another show is less true with every passing day. Sure. But distinguish Chappelle is like Chappelle as an example. But all sorts of like, you see it many times, much more in older white comedians is like this sort of like defensiveness and preciousness about the previous thing. I mean, there was also like a generation of stand ups, I guess, like off of George Carlin that really took this like, stand up. So the new philosophers thing to heart, like, guess what?

Traci Thomas 27:10
They’re not. They’re not.

Andrew Ti 27:14
And also, philosophers aren’t that smart.

Traci Thomas 27:16
Like also philosophers are the new philosophers. They’re still exist. They didn’t go anywhere. They’re still philosophizing. But

Andrew Ti 27:24
it’s it is just like people talking about their opinions with a huge amount of cultural bias. And like an ego, and ego. And so it’s like, in that sense, they’re definitely the new philosophers. But it’s like, Chappelle is like, you know, just going off his like, as of this recording current stance on things that I’m right, and like, you know, you like inability to listen, inability to grow, like it feels like it’s simply must be a factor of like money and the echo chamber that you can build around yourself. But I also do think, and this actually, kind of gets to a later essay as well, that stand up comedy, itself is the problem. I think, like the idea that, like, stand up requires this type of specific bravery. I’m not saying it’s not hard. I’m not saying it’s not like on fun. But like the like, imagined in, in my opinion, in my opinion, the imagined crucible that standups all think they go through and that builds a brotherhood and I say, brotherhood, I know there, it’s not purely a brotherhood, but the toxic part of it is really a brotherhood, that like really like, puts the medium before the message as it were like, it’s like, just because you’re doing fucking standup doesn’t mean that inherent bravery creates like a thin, it’s like a thin blue line. You’re like, stand ups or stand ups and the most important thing is like the Brotherhood of the comic, and it’s like, no, it’s not. Some of them are awful. Some of them are saying dumb, horrible things. Like what the fuck are you talking about? And like, but yeah, it is like, you know, based off of how scary it was the first time and we all we all they all I’ve done stand up exactly seven times.

Traci Thomas 29:13
I’ve done it exactly once. I had diarrhea all day. Thank you.

Andrew Ti 29:18
Well, I was mostly doing it because we were about to do some live shows this racist show. So it was like I should literally just learn how to like hold a fucking microphone in front of people.

Traci Thomas 29:26
And that was hell, and it’s not ever that funny. Sorry, I said it. I hate stand up. I’m like anti stand up.

Andrew Ti 29:33
I hate it as well. But I but I also was like, over it and had no ambitions to be good at it. I literally was just like, this is just public speaking practice, because I’m about to do live podcasts. And it helped that it was like, like, I was a working comedy writer when I first tried it. So it was like, This is fucking easy as like, just like Be confident. Um, so I admittedly never felt that fear because I had no ambition in the space so it was no actual fail. They are and there’s no actual embarrassment. It’s like, I think nothing of these people. And so all of this is easy for me to say. But I’m just like, it’s just I hate it as a medium and like, I hate that the the fear, and actually a little bit so I liked the essay about it was it was Mike Tyson

Traci Thomas 30:21
a crown and it’s about Mike Tyson and Bernie Mac.

Andrew Ti 30:24
Bernie Mac. Yeah. And it’s like, and I also have like, I’ve never boxed like in a match, but I’ve I’ve I boxed enough that I was like, at the part where we were like sparring for real, like, where there are definitely times where I was like, Okay, fuck it. And like, and I did jujitsu enough. So I’ve done a little bit of combat sports, where I’m like, What I liked about it actually was, those were the times when I actually did feel fear. So the weird thing is, I think that was probably my favorite essay in the book. But also, I disagree sort of fundamentally with what of like half of the premise of the like, stand up parallel to it.

Traci Thomas 31:05
But I wonder if part of like, the Bernie Mac of it that he gets at is like, this fear and the sort of like, combativeness of what Bernie Mac brought to it had more to do with who Bernie Mac was like, from where he was from, what he looked like. And that he too was sort of fighting his way into this brotherhood, in this sort of bravado style way, as opposed to sort of where we see Dave Chappelle now, as someone who’s on the inside and acting like, he’s fighting this thing. You know, it’s like the difference between actually fighting your way in as a black man into a super white guy, racist, sexist homophobic space, versus being a very successful person, black guy who’s already been accepted and beloved by the people who are in there. I feel like there is like, definitely a difference.

Andrew Ti 31:58
Yeah, I guess for me, I think what the at least, like the parallel between, like combat sports and the the stand up, sort of, regardless of what my inherent feelings about, like how scary standup is go. It is like, to me, I’m trying to remember how it’s phrased in here. But but the thing I took out of this essay was like, the lesson that was sort of like, hard earned for me in combat sports, which is that like, I guess it’s basically sort of a fake it till you make it, but I always frayed, remembered it. And I again, felt him more when I was boxing, someone for the first time was like, oh, right, I’m scared of them. And what I didn’t realize until I started throwing back is they’re just as scared of me, right? Or maybe they’re not just as scared of me. But like, I can do something to them as much as they can do something to me. And in fact, the more I do something to them, the less likely until I overextend myself, which is probably the stage of of where Dave Chappelle is, he has punched himself out. He’s in the right. But up to the point, and certainly, given my personality, I’m unlikely to extend past my comfort zone that far. So I will always be a person where aggression is actually going to be better than I think it is as a strategy. Yeah. And that’s sort of what I like, what I what I really took to.

Traci Thomas 33:26
In that essay.

Andrew Ti 33:27
This essay specifically, I was like, oh, yeah, I know that feeling. And weirdly, I have never drawn those parallels. And I sort of just partially because I sort of disagree with Right, right, right right side of it. But I really got it and it was like, Yeah, I like this a lot.

Traci Thomas 33:40
We’re not going to talk about all the essays because some of them, I just don’t feel like I have a lot of thoughts or feelings about but if we skip any that you love to please speak up for yourself and your essays. The one essay that I think that we have to talk about is the 16 ways of looking at blackface. I thought that essay was so incredibly good. And I think, I mean, I think like, one of the things I’d be curious to hear you talk about as we go through this is that like, I’m a black person who studied theater who studied criticism, who is obsessed with the critique of performance. So this book is like really in my wheelhouse as a person who created theater and performed in theater. And you know, this show is essentially a show a criticism show a book criticism show. And so this book, I found really interesting to think about performance as all things and so I feel like I come to this from like a very it’s a very like on brand for me book and everything but so I’m I’d be curious to hear your thoughts if those things don’t line up for you. Obviously, you’re not a black woman so we can start diverging there. But sure, 16 ways of looking at blackface. First of all, I just love that he finally said the thing that I think many black people think, which is like blackface doesn’t look like black people at all and black people have such amazing incredible scam and white people have such horrible skin. And the fact that you’re putting like black like no depth nothing on your skin when you’re trying to imitate the people with like the most beautiful glorious skin is just like such a fucking joke and I love that he said it because I feel like it’s something that I think about but had never verbalized. So that’s that, but you probably deal with this a lot on yo, is this racist? Do you Yeah, like people pretending to be black online and like using slang and bad photos? Do you ever worry that like you’re getting emails from people on yo that are like, I’m a black person and why is it racist? For my white friend to say the N word or whatever.

Andrew Ti 35:59
So I think the thing that is like it’s talked about here for sure, but you just said I guess like sort of cosign the general idea but but and actually even relating to the theater practice of blackface is it’s like, the racists are not good at they’re not good. It’s it’s very evident. It’s just very evident what’s blackface and you and you see it on Twitter all the time. Like it’s like, it gets sniffed out like immediately and part of part of it at least on Twitter. As far as that goes, is anyone racist enough to like pretend to be black to like support a conservative aim? Has no fluency with black folks. So like, they like actually can’t pull it off. So yeah, and I guess it is just like yeah, I’m trying to think I guess it’s like on useless races. The other side of it is like, actually, I will say kind of recently, I think Tani disagreed with me on this. Is that like, possibly was it possibly with us? Yeah, I’m so sorry.

Traci Thomas 37:03
No, it’s okay. I was like, I think it was probably me. We talked about blackface on my episode around Halloween.

Andrew Ti 37:09
Yeah, I just remember to have it, but the like, it’s just sort of the like, give an inch, they’ll take a mile of it a little bit for me, or just like, I know, it’s none of the shit. Really, it also, none of the shit really matters, but sort of the fact. The fact is, like, anytime you kind of offer like an exception to white folks, specifically, they’ll fucking take it and abuse it. So that’s why on yo, is this racist? It’s just like, No, no, no, no, no, never. Right?

Traci Thomas 37:36
Well in my defense, you have to go and listen people but in my event, this the question was, a person saw, it was Halloween and a person saw a hostess at a restaurant and he thought that she was in blackface, but then when he like turned the corner, he realized that she was dressed up as the tin man from. So I said, No, that’s not racist. I think I should get his eyes checked. Because I don’t think the dressing up as a tin man is racist. Your point was like, yeah, if it looks like blackface, even if it’s not supposed to be blackface, maybe it is. But yes,

Andrew Ti 38:05
I think that, but that’s the thing. That’s like, even as you say it out loud. My position is obviously unreasonable.

Traci Thomas 38:11
Your position is unreasonable, but I get where it’s coming from. Because I also feel like in this same essay, like when they talk about the Ben Vereen story and how he was like trying to do blackface, like as this homage and like to call out the Reagan administration, and like, all this stuff, but then they just ended up cutting all this stuff that gave a context. So it is sort of one of those things where it’s like, if you don’t want to look like an asshole for doing blackface, you just shouldn’t do it. Because you’re, it’s gonna be impossible to protect that it doesn’t get interpreted in a certain way. Yeah, so I get that point.

Andrew Ti 38:46
I mean, that’s the sort of the nature of comedy too, right? Like, like, intentions and time, or intentions are just, like, trashed by time. I mean, I think to me, the biggest example of this is like, are the biggest example that I the most illustrative example of this that I know about is like, current generations of Twitter, children just know Blazing Saddles from a two second animated GIF of where the white women at

Traci Thomas 39:16
Why do you not do Blazing Saddles, at all?

Andrew Ti 39:19
Well, and well, you shouldn’t it’s an old ass movie that has, like, you know, good for the time takes on race, but the thing is, it’s like, like all satire, it just starts once it starts to fall apart, like the wheels are off of it. Right? And that is a little bit though. It’s like, comedy isn’t meant to be eternal, right? tastes change points of view change. And it’s like, okay, and that again, not that we keep wallowing in the Makos fucking Dave Chappelle, but it’s like, it’s okay. It’s okay for your shit not to be funny anymore. I mean, you know, ideally, don’t become a huge fucking bigot, right?

Traci Thomas 39:57
It’s okay for yourself. Not to be funny anymore, but it’s not okay for your new stuff. Have to be racist. homophobic. Yeah, like your old Shakedown age. Well, I guess we can get over it. Like I watched some Jamie Foxx shit where I was like, oh ye after 911 Oh my god, it’s so comfortable.

Andrew Ti 40:12
But you don’t see Jamie Foxx out there being like, it’s still perfect. I’m gonna do even more.

Traci Thomas 40:17
Yeah of course not. Of course not. Okay, we another essay. How did you feel about the essay about black people in space?

Andrew Ti 40:26
I probably read that one, slightly too superficially, but I was like, this feels dope to me that Afrofuturism just kind of vibe. It also helps that our friend toddy is as far as current fiction goes, like the main black person it’s facing or not main, I guess there’s other like Star Trek people. But she’s like in space.

Traci Thomas 40:49
She was like in space on the other space thing, too. i Yeah, this one made me deeply emotional. For whatever reason, I think part of it is because he so me, FS mother has passed away years ago, when he was young, I think like 13 or so give or take, and the aching love of a lost parent. And the way he talks about his mom, like taking off her hijab, when she comes home and her fro comes out and like my dad passed away almost 10 years ago, and that this essay just made me feel so many things. And like, also the Trayvon Martin, part of it about him being in space, and having wanted to go to space and like that, that’s an aspirational thing. And that this photo, and it just made me feel sad for black people that like we don’t get to be thought about as people who are in space. But also, it made me feel thrilled that we actually are people who are in space and go to space and like the, the both SNESs of this essay. And I’m also not a person who is interested at all in space, or science fiction, and yet this essay made me feel like I deeply care about black people being in space. And like, he has that line where he’s like, there are codes to be switched, even in sci fi, which I thought like, I don’t know, I don’t even I can’t even articulate why I loved this one so much. And I don’t remember loving it the first read but this second read, I remember feeling like deeply, deeply. Like I got teary almost reading this one.

Andrew Ti 42:24
I mean, it feels like almost like your experience is sort of as described in this in this essay, because it is like, one of the reasons that like, you know, the both like armchair psychology thing or but also just generally, like, black people have been excluded from the media of space for so long that it is like, yeah, spaces for white people spaces, you know, not, not where the future edits also, right? Of course, like because of science fiction is also sort of the dark implication of what the future what happened in the future.

Traci Thomas 43:02
Right. And I think him writing earnestly about space, I think is maybe part of it too, of like, we should get to care about space. Like we should get to have public forums where we write essays about how great spaces and our moms froze and little black boys were murdered and like that this essay should has every right to exist. I don’t know I just, I just love because-

Andrew Ti 43:23
It’s optimism. I think that’s that’s the thing is like, you have to be optimistic thinking about outerspace and like going to and that’s like an even as we are doing things like going into space for like, you can start to see that it will it is being segregated, right is like you know, if it’s this expensive and this like, whatever, you know, we’re we’re in the time when maybe some of these things can change. But as it stands like we are headed towards the Sci Fi dystopia that looks like a utopia. Even in the in like, you know, fucking the Elon Musk’s of the world’s brains and it’s like, right like this is this this essay things like it are like how you begin the fight for that sort of like equality of the future or representation or just like you know, not living in you know, yeah, it is true I think I Yeah, clearly did not like read it as like closely and as like it just-

Traci Thomas 44:27
It just clicked for me in this read, but also because I think not only is there like a vision for us in the future, and we’re finally getting to talk about and write about space, but also that like we’ve always been in space like talking about Michael Jackson and like the moonwalk and Labelle and like their costumes and like all of that stuff. I don’t know for whatever reason, I just frickin loved this one. Besides fear a crown. Were there other ones that really stuck out to you as like ones that you love.

Andrew Ti 44:54
Yeah, the one about Black punks.

Traci Thomas 44:58
Yes, that’s board up the Doors.

Andrew Ti 45:01
Yeah, that’s the one. So I think I think I may have mentioned this to you, I don’t remember. But I, immediately after finishing this, before we recorded, I was like, I was talking to a friend of mine who is a black pumpkin, I was like, you have to read this essay here, I’ll give you my copy, and was literally about to hand him the copy that I needed to successfully or unsuccessfully, depending on how people are thinking of doing but just to navigate this podcast at all, I need this book. And I was like, you have to read this, you will like this so much. But you know, because I’m also a person who I grew up in the Midwest and like, engaged with a lot of this type of white culture. I think more like what, from an even less informed place. But like, it wasn’t until a little later that it was like, Okay, these are really not my people. And that combined with aging a little bit, I think, like really, really hit me pretty personally, I was like, right, this is like, this is both both the age and the like, not being able to be part of a community that you want to be in. I mean, I definitely saw that with like, even like in comedy, it’s like such a whitespace. And like, finding finding my actual people, as opposed to the people that I thought would be my people has been interesting. Like when I first moved to LA, I was writing scripts that were basically like, clones of like parks and rec in the office. And I was like, never got work from those. And it wasn’t until I wrote something like more much more autobiographical that I started like getting jobs and it was like write write, write, write, write? I am, who I am. And learning that took way too fucking long. But yeah, but I’m there. I guess.

Traci Thomas 46:46
I wonder what you think about the Beyonce one because I when I was reading that one, I was like, I bet Andrew will have feelings about this. And it’s similar. It’s like being the only non white person in a job. I mean, obviously, this whole book is speaking to black experience. So we’re sort of stretching the definition. But she talks about, like the performance of being the good black person at work. And it’s, you know, it’s like, I think the title of the essay is, let me find it. Beyonce performs at the Super Bowl, and I think about all the jobs I’ve hated. First of all, I just loved thinking about Beyonce performing at the Superbowl as a job, because I never would think that but of course, it is very much her job. And she probably was like, the producers. And I’m like, and keep calling me about my costumes. And I guess my question is sort of, like, did you feel connected to this essay, having been the only Chinese person or Asian person, like in a workspace and like having like, you know?

Andrew Ti 47:45
That’s yeah, that’s right. I, so I think it’s like I have, but I also want to sort of be cognizant of, you know, one of the main differences of the Asian American experience in the black American experience is like, our outrages tend to be less violent, and less, like or not are outrageous, but the things perpetrated upon, like, very generally speaking, please, you know, I understand there’s lots of Yes, but very generally speaking, it’s like, you know, young young Asian men are, you know, significantly less likely to be gunned down for no reason, et cetera, you know, extrapolate from that. So, so it is a thing and there are it’s you know, a lot Well, again, I’m proud to say something that is probably technically not correct, but it’s it’s easier for Asian people to sort of code switch and and not even code switch but just like, be white adjacent well.

Traci Thomas 48:52
And there’s an expectation around the stereotypes around Asian especially east Asian that like that you are along in workspaces and that you’re smart.

Andrew Ti 49:01
One of the good ones. Yeah, exactly. And hardworking, etc. And so, so there is a little bit of that. I mean, I, it’s a little not that it’s, I guess, accepted or even as he talks about in this essay, it’s like when the sort of tragedies of the world or in Justices of the world I mean, I guess I’m just gonna speak about my experience, but like, like, there is a little bit of triangulation about like, how much like I can Oh, no, if this sort of thing or how much is right for me to own so there’s sometimes a part of that where I’m just like, but I guess I understand the feeling and I definitely have like, you know, as we’ve talked about, like, had that feeling of just being like, fuck, like, what are we going to do with today? Right? This is is this like an in any sensible place? There’s there’s a way of just like, this is a fucking mental health day like, I don’t get it.

Traci Thomas 49:59
Well, he talks about how like The weapons are hidden in the small talk. And to me that felt like so like the exact correct way to explain what it’s like to be a black woman in a white predominantly white workspace. And, you know, I have to be honest, I was not sure if this was like the right book for us to do because you’re not black. And it’s a book about black performance and whatever. And then I also thought like, it’s an interesting conversation to have with someone who performs with a black person every week on the podcast, but also writes black characters and like, writes into black performance. And so ultimately, I felt like this was actually a kind of an interesting way to approach this book, because there’s the understanding of what performance is from the observer. And then also, and that, and I think this book is more connected to is what the performers feel while performing the thing, which I don’t think we never ever take nearly as much time to think about like the performer performing versus the audience receiving performance.

Andrew Ti 51:04
Well, and I think one nice thing about this book is like, the way it kind of hops around to the personal and of course, like the, it’s most, most notable in the every, I guess sections are called movements. And they all begin with a time so I forced myself to dance essay, which that one, you know, it’s very clear, like this is about like, everyone is a performer but especially like, like it, this lens is about how like the performance of like, not performance of blackness, but the way like blackness of black people have to like perform in the sense of like, you can’t say always say what you’re thinking you always have to be you have to conform to different things at different times, within whiteness within blackness within like, you know how this book is it is about, like relating to people who are not white or black either as much, but it’s all there. And that is the thing that the sort of like, broad from the specific that I really Yeah, can talk about and really hit hard by is that like, Okay, this is this is the face we put on today. And this is, you know, this is the even more the All the world’s a stage of it. Yeah, I guess that’s a little bit of my calibration is like, sort of realizing that it is different for black folks, while relating to much of this.

Traci Thomas 52:33
Did this book, change the way that you saw or understand the performance of Asian solidarity to blackness? In the last little bit?

Andrew Ti 52:44
Yeah, I’m so the reason I am probably one of the wrong or people to ask about this question. As far as Asian folks go is, I think that’s sort of definitely my, the main way, I’m an outlier in Asian Hollywood. I am like, I would say, I think, I guess people could correct me if I have a different opinion, but I feel like I’m like relatively hard on Asian people, especially for their anti blackness, and like not owning it, I think the most prominent one I’ve talked about is like, you know, awkwafina, just completely fumbling like, hurt us, or, you know, speaking in a black set, as they say, like, and it is a thing where it’s like, the current crop of young ish Asian people, we really do not have a fluency or an experience with like a civil rights experience, like we experienced racism, and some of us identify it one way, but many of us are, like, able to shrug it off or sort of sublimate it. And partially, it’s because there isn’t like the urgency of violence associated with racism, often, again, I’m speaking very broadly here, but you know, and then a lot of us, like, don’t really like think things through or just sort of internalized, like, the white point of view about, like, things that are like, anti black in a relatively Marginal Way. And that’s also sort of combined with you know, my parents generation is just sort of veered not all of them, of course, but like, you know, my, the type of people sort of like my parents, like, like, middle upper middle class, like, East Asian people, virulently anti black, like just like, not even close to a type of solidarity. So, and then, you know, you see it in ways other ways. I guess the opposite way, that’s like, you know, the obvious clear versions are just like the Korean store owners in in South LA and the animosity there and, you know, I, so, I guess what I mean, I don’t realize it’s sort of meandering around.

Traci Thomas 54:56
I mean, like, it’s okay, I wasn’t sure it’s sort of like a really Rod and sort of unfair question, to ask you to speak on it. I just wasn’t sure if like, seeing, like, I don’t know if this book, this book changed my understanding of what it meant to be black and like the performance of blackness and a lot of ways. So I wasn’t sure if it changed your understanding of what it means to be like in solidarity with black people.

Andrew Ti 55:21
I think the way that it did change was like, I was a little like, because I kind of feel like I’m like, I’m pretty fluid and black popular culture and reading this really made me be like, Wow, that was a huge overstep anytime I even remotely thought that

Traci Thomas 55:37
I also felt that reading this book, and I was like, I’m in trouble. Like, I don’t know how to play spades.

Andrew Ti 55:44
I actually do know how to play spades.

Traci Thomas 55:50
But I don’t know how to play spades. I have like dominoes, but not spades. And I’m not good at dominoes. So just, I don’t.

Andrew Ti 55:57
We played a lot of spades in the big fish room. It was sort of in fact, I Yeah, we did an episode. Finally we, we were able to couch it as research. Basically, like anytime, like we didn’t have something directly to do with the show runners left, the fucking deck of cards came out, like spades. But, yeah, I’ve always had love spades, I guess is my point. No, but yeah, I think it is like, I mean, but that’s, as we said in the beginning, like, I think one of the things about this book is like, obviously, this book is researched. And like, it’s not just like, but it’s written in a way that he makes it sort of feel like if you’re a black person, or you’re, you know, think you know, black culture, you should be able to speak like this. Which is like not true, but I think it’s a sort of an inspiring goal.

Traci Thomas 56:50
It is inspiring. It’s so inspiring. Okay, before we have to wrap up soon, but before we do, I cannot not talk about the Mary Clayton essay a little bit more. It was my favorite. When I read it. It haunted me. I think about it almost every single day since I’ve read the book. I’ve been listening to the song, at least weekly since I read the book. The idea that we’re just a moment away, I think the quote, but he says we’re just we’re all just one moment away from someone else’s lust for power. I just I it’s just Hanif is such a good writer. And he really took a song that I like, knew and liked fine and turned it into like a song that I feel like has been haunting me and like Mary Clayton, and yeah, of all the essays in the book. For me, it was the one that just like, jumped out and grabbed me by the throat and like did not let go like the story of her recording pregnant in the middle of the night with rollers in her hair and afer and she’s bouncing on a stool and then we find out that that child died before it was born. And then like comparing it with the Meredith Hunter story and ultimate, and like all of that and then tying it into Mary Clayton now. It just is like, makes me feel like anxious. Trying to explain how great that essay is.

Andrew Ti 58:07
That essay is like, super cinematic. I think what helps is that was when I did my first read through. I was like, Okay, I have identified what’s happening here and I will put the song on while I’m reading it. And so it just fucking grips you like.

Traci Thomas 58:24
Oh my God.

Andrew Ti 58:25
They’re very like, yeah, just dynamic and like, heart pounding and like scary. Pretty scary as far as essays go.

Traci Thomas 58:37
Yeah, it’s just like, it’s unlike anything I’ve ever read in the sense that I was like, it like electrified me, like when I think about like, I feel like my heart rate is up just talking about it. And also having it be the it comes right before the Beyonce essay, which I just thought that that was like such a stellar one two punch. And when I reread it, it comes right after the Don Shirley Green Book essay. And the three of them together is just so insane. Like, to me it is the supreme essay of the of the book. I know a lot of people like the magical Negro one, the Ellen Armstrong. I know a lot of people really like the spades one. But for me, it’s the Mary Clayton one like, well, hands down.

Andrew Ti 59:22
I think it’s also like, I think you sort of like identify and maybe this was like, I wonder but it is a little like I wonder how intentional it is but just by the way it’s putting this book is put together like it must be very intentional content but the way the the book like flows into that like sort of climactic sequence is just like shit Yeah, cuz that that probably also was like It’s like, right around when I like really really was getting how to read this book. And I think I probably read those All in one sitting, like in the evening with like a glass of wine. And I was like, shit.

Traci Thomas 1:00:05
Yeah, yeah, it’s just like very intense, because the book definitely has a flow to it where it’s like you sort of are like getting getting up into it, then you get to this part where it like really hits his stride and you’re just like, holy shit, holy shit. And then the way it sort of tapers out about like closeness and it’s like the essay on masculinity, the essay like on like love and masculinity, the essay on rage and like, it sort of kind of tapers out, because I think what it is, is that these, these middle essays are actually about performances, as opposed to some of the other stuff is about the performance of grief, the performance of rage. And these are about like actual, I mean, they’re about performances of other things, but they’re also about performances in a way that like we can understand. We’re like so out of time, and I I’m like devastated because there’s so like, we didn’t even talk about the Whitney Houston stuff, which is incredible. And the Carl 10 stuff and like the stuff about what it means to be white, adjacent, and like to be successful, which means why people love you, but to also feel like, you’re like that the people that you come from, in this case black people like own you are like you’re beholden to them. There’s just so I like like, I like the idea of like acting white as an insult like that. That essay is just so good to them. I mean, they’re just so good. Like, even the ones I didn’t like, like I think my least favorite one was the beef sometimes begins with the dance, which was like about New Jack City a thing that I don’t know anything about. Sure, sure. That let’s say was like, my least favorite. It did nothing for me.

Andrew Ti 1:01:44
I was really fascinated by the like, the James Brown of it at the top. I like like interesting. Yeah, I was like,

Traci Thomas 1:01:52
Oh my God. Yeah, the interest

Andrew Ti 1:01:53
Yeah, I’m with you. But I but I think like I on the like I was reading this wrong tip. I do feel like it like it because it’s funny because like, I like they are clearly discrete essays. But I think I just thought of it as like a wave. And so like, there’s probably the ones that I liked the least or the ones that I just like, you know, didn’t process but I have some Yeah, but I just like things I just didn’t process because it was like taking on the whole thing. And it just felt like a fucking four day road trip with like, again, the smartest motherfucker you’ve ever met.

Traci Thomas 1:02:30
I don’t know anything. I feel like I used to always ask people like, Oh, do you think this book would make a good movie or a TV show? And I have to say that, I think a TV show that delves into each of these essays as like different moments in black performance, like a mini series or whatever, would be fucking incredible. And like getting to see like the footage and like, yeah, like a whole essay on like Whitney Houston and proximity to whiteness, and like the time period and all of that, like, I would just love it.

Andrew Ti 1:02:59
I even I mean I’m loathe to do this, because I worried that this is not meant to sound as if it’s diminishing it, but there is a version where like, just an amped up audiobook of this could be incredible as maybe the perfect reading or like if he would just do like a live reading with like, you know, ability to run multimedia tape behind him or something. Yeah, it’s like, I feel like it’s like so like, good as it is. But then like, yeah, the ones where I was like, had the peace of mind to like, just load the song and read it or write to be like, you know, whatever. I was like, this is like, fucking great. Like, just as it experienced. I don’t I don’t know what that would be. And again, I don’t want to cheapen it by saying like, it should be a slideshow, but like, No, I feel kind of things. That would be very good.

Traci Thomas 1:03:48
Yeah. Okay, this is the last thing we do every episode we have to do this. We talked about the title and the cover. The title is a little devil in America notes in praise of black performance. And then the cover is all black with two dancers from the sort of first essay the the Soul Train slash Dance Marathon and you the back of the man and they’re in the air and she’s like, got this look of sort of like surprised wonder like, can you believe we’re doing it? On it? And you know, without being too obnoxious about my love for this book? I think that it’s a perfect title. And I think that it is a perfect cover. Like the picture is perfect. I just when I look at it, I feel things I have thoughts. I just I love how dark I just, I just I love it. I don’t know what it’s like it’s like-

Andrew Ti 1:04:37
Oh it’s nice because it’s like dark and like a little high contrast. But it is that thing where it’s like you know, I think I think obviously probably the larger world heard most about this when moonlight came out about like cinematography and like black skins specifically. And it is that thing where you’re like, Yes, this is like a photograph of black people which is like not You know, as photography is taught, it’s not trivial to make that for, like, people who haven’t thought about it as a specific skill, right?

Traci Thomas 1:05:08
And it’s like, you can’t tell where the black of the background and the back of the people kind of begin and end. So it’s sort of like, Where does the performance start and what’s just like being black, I just love. And the title is a Josephine Baker quote, which she gets a lot of play. In the book, though, again, the Josephine Baker self was probably my second least favorite. I just, it didn’t do it for me on both reads.

Andrew Ti 1:05:33
Like, what really helped, not helped, but what may be set me up on again, I definitely would would understand if people they shouldn’t read it the way I read, but the like subhead of like, notes and praise of black performance, did sort of set me down the path of like, okay, black performance, and like, understanding that that, obviously, is going to be broader than simply like, a bunch of concert review, right, whatever, right? It could have been with a similar title. And like, I think like that, as far as like, the cover, like leads into that flow. It’s like, yeah, pretty, pretty awesome. And no, beyond grateful to you for both like, you know, letting letting me talk to you about this book, talk with you about this book, but also, like, just suggesting it in the first place. When I was like, really looking for stuff to read that was like this, like, this is like, exactly the thing that I didn’t quite know, the specifics of what was missing from what I’ve been reading, but like, this is beyond perfect for me on a personal level of like, what I needed out of my reading habits or lack thereof.

Traci Thomas 1:06:42
I love that. That’s a perfect way to end.

Andrew Ti 1:06:45
Thank you. Really, really wonderful.

Traci Thomas 1:06:47
If you haven’t read it yet, and you’ve listened to the end, you must go read this book, A Little Devil in America. It’s by Hanif Abdurraqib. Read everything he writes. Go follow him on Instagram and Twitter. He’s just like so smart and interesting. Obsessed with him. He also did an episode of The Stacks. So if you haven’t listened to that yet, it’s from April but I’ll link to it in the show notes. Andrew, thank you so much for being here.

Andrew Ti 1:07:05
Thanks for having me. This was really fun. And I’ve said it I’d said it 10 seconds ago but truly thank you so much for like getting me to read this book introducing it to me it was amazing.

Traci Thomas 1:07:15
Yay. And everyone else we will see you in the stacks.

Thank you all so much for listening and thank you to Andrew for being our guest. The stocks book club pick for January 2022 is Passing by Nella Larsen. We will be discussing this book on January 26. And you can tune in next Wednesday, January 5 to find out who our guest will be. If you love the show and want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks to join The Stacks Pack. Make sure you’re subscribed to The Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts and if you’re listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. For more from The Stacks, follow us on social media at thestackspod on Instagram at thestackspod_ on Twitter and check out our website thestackspodcast.com. This episode of The Stacks was edited by Christian Dueñas, with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Megan Caballero
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Ep. 195 The Best Books of 2021 with Lupita Aquino and Morgan Hoit