Mixedish | 5
Show Notes:
Julia and Christina talk about the Season 2 Premier of ABC's Mixed-ish and what it's like being a mixed kid and people not really knowing "what" you are and how Mixed-ish brings language to difficult conversations.
Transcript:
Julia: Hey friends. Welcome back to Pop Culture Makes Me Jealous. I'm your host, Julia Washington. And on this week's episode, Christina and I talk about season two, episode one of Mixed-ish.
Mixed-ish is a spinoff of Black-ish, which airs on ABC. The story follows Dr. Rainbow Johnson's childhood in the 1980s being a mixed race team in the show. Beau's mom played by Tika. Sumpter is black and her dad played by mark. Paul Gossler is white. Bo has two younger siblings, Johann and Santa Monica.
Other regular characters in the show include her mother, sister, aunt Dee Dee, and her paternal grandfather, Harrison Jackson. Season two episode, one opens up with the premise of family TV night, where the family comes together to watch Dukes of hazard. When Bo and her siblings come home from school and she shares that Johann has been called a name Bo can't bring herself to say the word and her parents make the assumption that their young son has finally encountered his first time being called that word.
Okay. Now, here we go to the.
so today, Christina, we are talking about mixture mixed dish, but specifically season two, episode one, because I feel like that episode is so huge in terms of a conversation like the whole series is amazing in my mind, but like, This particular episode is kind of huge. So you watched it because I had told you to,
Christina: I did.
And then I got on like a little rabbit hole. I was like, I gotta, you know, I do too many things at once. So I was watching it and cleaning my apartment,
Julia: but I had
Christina: watched like four episodes and then I was like, oh, this is season two, go back, start over. So then I went back to like season one and then. Wait, we're only going to be talking about the first episode.
So then, then I like switch gears again. And
Julia: I'm like, would you just focus? Like watch some
Christina: episodes, but it made me feel like I got a whole bunch like about them in such a short amount of time. And I loved them
Julia: already. Yeah. I think that ABC is doing a really good job. With the show. I was little nervous.
Like I said, I told you offline. I was nervous when they recast and our homes with Mark Paul Gossler. Cause he's just not had any wins lately. So it's like, oh my God, the kids, they also like, it took me
Christina: the whole episode to realize that. Zack Morris. I was sitting there and I was like, why does this man look familiar?
Who is he? And I'm like, but I don't like, I could not pinpoint a movie or anything. I'm like, I don't know him. And then by the end I was like,
Julia: wait, wait a second. Then I just felt
Christina: very raw. Oh, he's old enough to be doing this now.
Julia: Oh yeah. He's probably close to 50 at this point, if not older. Okay. So to dive in the show opens up with the family is at the house and come in.
Sorry,
Christina: before we dive into the episode, can I ask you like some questions, like just about the show itself and like how you felt when you saw that show coming out, how excited you fell versus like how nervous you felt like. Under-representation
Julia: side, it's a spinoff of Black-ish. So Blackish came out. I want to say in like 2012, maybe, and the premise of Blackish is Kenya burse developed this TV show with the ABC, where it is based on his family and his wife since 1999 is rainbow on the show.
Played by Tracee Ellis. Ross is based on his, on his wife, cause like the whole premise of the show is sort of loosely based on his family. Cause he does have four kids five now. Or do they have six kids now? Either way. The point is I remember the first trailer I saw for Blackish. There was, you know, cause Tracee Ellis Ross has mixed her.
Mom's Diana Ross and her dad is Jewish poor man whose name? I can never remember. Anthony Anderson plays Dre, both husband. And there's this scene where they're in their room and he's like, babe, you don't understand. You're like, not that black. And she's like, can somebody tell my hair and my ass that? And I was like, that's my girl right there.
We're going to get into this show. And we did. I mean, the whole family watches it. We love it. It's so funny. Yeah. So when the first spinoff was Grown-ish, which is on freeform, which is when the oldest daughter, Zoe goes off to college last year was the first season for mixed dish, but it was in development for a while.
Cause it was the last thing Kenya burst developed for ABC before leaving. Because of creative differences and jumping ship and going to Netflix and making a boatload of money with Netflix, as many people have lately. And they're
Christina: like, I just learned so much about pop culture when we talk points and you're over here, like I got.
And diabolical plans.
Julia: Well, I really well, when Black-ish came on, I was like, this is really great. Cause they're doing a lot of historical information woven into the show, a lot of stuff that people don't know about. Like they did an episode about Juneteenth and I literally had somebody at work go, I didn't even know that was a thing.
And I'm like, yeah, we don't teach it in school. Like, why would you like that's our independence day, there's celebrations all over the country. And also here's kind of how horrific the American history is because it took. Fucking years for people in Texas to even learn that they were free. So go ahead, go ahead.
You know, and so they did a really good job with that episode. They have a really good episode about colorism. It's just, it's really good. So when they were like, we're going to do a show about, cause they make fun of Bo a lot on the show for having grown up in a commune. And not as much lately in the more recent seasons, but there was a lot of like throwbacks to her being mixed or a lot of callbacks to her being mixed in like, well, you were where you were raised kind of white to kind of stuff.
So when they announced mixed dish, my sister and I were like, Ooh, this is going to be interesting. And yeah, on Blackish, they had her siblings as adults. I used to have this joke about how, like I was Rashida Jones, black, where it's like, you can't really tell that I'm black, but girl on black. And then they cast Rashida Jones to play.
Both sister, Santa Monica. And I was like, it's like, you guys heard me, like, it's like, you
Christina: knew that we needed
Julia: like a black girl, like me and for people who are listening, who don't know Rashida Jones is, um, Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton's daughter. And Peggy Lipton is of mod squad fame. And if you don't know who Quincy Jones is, I can't help you.
Every time
Christina: I hear like Quincy Jones, I think of his name and like the puff paint letters on the bottom of fresh prince. When I'd watch it like at Nick at night. Yeah.
Julia: Growing up. And that's not even like his height of his fame either. No, of course not. That's
Christina: just like, that's the height of his fame
Julia: in my mind.
Yeah. So my sister and I always joke that mixed dish is like growing up our lives were not that different from mixed dish minus hippie commune because our parents were conservative Christian. It's not going to be a thing that were ever
Christina: in your parents. It's the opposite.
Julia: My mom's Italian and my dad's black makes me think
Christina: of, I don't know which episode.
I think it might've been this episode where he was like, you're passing. Mexican, like if you're going to pass as anything passes white or
Julia: Italian, or at least at the very least Italian. Yeah. Gary so good as Harrison Jackson, the grandpa, he just has this sort of arrogance about him, that he w in this character, that's just so amazing.
But the episode opens up with the kids coming home and both like, Johanns been called this terrible word, blah, blah, blah. And the parents are like, oh my God. This is it. This is the time has come. We have to,
Christina: I love little siblings to
Julia: Santa Monica. I'll say it. Say it. I was like, Santi. I feel like you and me are very, and then if, if you watch Blackish, you already know coming into the mixed to show that Santa Monica grows up to be like married a couple of times, and she's on Blackish is equivalent of the real Housewives show.
You know, grows up to be this total. Like she, uh, she's personality. I don't know if it was season
Christina: one or season two, but she's like, I'm going to get divorced a lot when I grow up and like the
Julia: narrator she's like she does. And if you watch, if you watched Blackish, like you already know that. So her saying that is even funnier.
So anyway, what I loved about this first episode of the season is that any family where you have when. Uh, not a part of the major dominant culture in his situation, a black family, you have those conversations about racism early on because kids aren't immune to being treated with racial prejudice. And I think by adults, And, and that's what I mean, like there is, there is no immunity there.
So for the parents to have that innocence from the hippie commune and just in general, even though they're progressive, even though they've marched with Dr. King, it still didn't necessarily Dawn on them that this could happen to their ten-year-old and I'm like, yeah, you should know better because you, it happened to you when you were 10.
Like, I don't know.
Christina: I love the fact that. We're from a hippie commune for some reason, like
Julia: it's such
Christina: a weird element to the show that makes it, like, I think it helps remind you that it's a show, like to take it light hearted and like laugh and giggle because I feel like otherwise, like America would almost be slapped in the face aggressively.
Julia: Like well with Blackish, they do slap you in the face aggressively with it.
Christina: So they do too. But I'm saying like the hippie commune is the one thing or the running show joke that like the running thing, underlying message to like refer back to delight and moods to make it so that it is a 20 or 25 minute sitcom and not, uh, you know, hour and a half documentary.
Julia: Yeah. What I thought was hilarious. Was when. Santa Monica finely. It's like, wait, this is the word that he was called. And everyone's like, what link? They don't know how to pivot it. Wasn't her sister was
Christina: like, yeah, with that hair. And I just am like,
Julia: oh man. And then Gary Cole's character. And that's assuming that assuming he's your dad.
Sure. You're not
Christina: Mexican. Perfect. And immediately just like in, it was like, well, we don't even know if he's your dad anymore. Dad coming in clutch would like to make things
Julia: worse. He does that all the time. It's just so funny. It's not funny. It's actually, Gary's perfect. Grandpa's stereo
Christina: type or everybody has a grandpa that says things that they're not supposed to, and everyone knows it and you're like,
Julia: just laugh.
Just laugh at grandpa. Right? Gary Cole. Like I, you know, my first exposure to Gary Cole was office space and I hated him. I mean, he was, he played a great character, but like, I hated him. Like everyone's had that boss and you're just like, fuck that guy. And then he showed up on the good wife as this like rugged cowboy type.
And he was Christine brand skis, love, interests. And it was like, Gary Cole. Hi, look at you with your cowboy hat and tight pants. Like, oh my God. You're like so sexy right now. Like, but it was like the good wife for me where I was just like, all right. You kind of sexy and it's I'm here for it.
Christina: That's awesome.
So, okay. So that kind of takes us into how. How racism explaining it to children is kind of difficult. It's muddy waters to like navigate, I
Julia: would say. And then I was
Christina: going to ask you, like specifically for you going from your family and then to your, like, creating your own family, the talk that you had growing up versus how you have it with your children, how does it change?
You know, like, can we tie all of that in like I'm really interested?
Julia: Sure. So there's a scene in the show where Alicia and Paul realized those were the parents realize that the world doesn't see their children the way that they see their children, that cause, so it comes out in the episode that the kid who calls Johann.
Racial slur is also a black child. And so Alicia is devastated because that to her is saying this black child doesn't recognize another black child. And what does that mean? Like if we don't recognize each other in our own community, like, oh my God, people don't see my child, the way that I see my child.
And I think. Important conversation for parents who are going into an interracial relationship don't necessarily have, because they're like we're in love and love conquers all. And it's like cat love. Doesn't actually conquer all assholes. You don't know what kind of racism that your child's going to experience and they touch on that in the show.
Alicia eventually says my experiences are going to be different from your experiences. And we don't necessarily recognize that in general in parenting. But then when you add the layer of racism and racial prejudice to it, we really don't know. Right. So like growing up anything, I talked about this in the first episode by parents created this bubble.
That's like safe for us and we can be who we are and we're loved, and we can thrive in that bubble. But then when you get out of that bubble, the world's just like. The fuck is this, like, what are you? And I really actually love the conversation between Bo and Johan when, when Johan admits to bow finely, that he's like, it's just easier not to correct people because when I say that I'm mixed and then all of the follow-up questions and bows, like, I also hate those follow-up questions too, because those follow.
Fucking suck because you're constantly having to defend or explain your existence and you don't have to do that if you're mono-racial or look, mono-racial the amount of times I've heard you look exotic, first of all, ill, secondly, okay. Like what the fuck do you want me to do with that? And the questions that Beau and Johann say to each other that they hear all the time.
Like, what are you, are you more black or are you more white and like, shit. Don't ask children those questions, because all we know is children is this is my family. This is my existence. It's so innocent. And then when you bring in somebody, who's like, I don't get what you are. Explain it to me. So I thought that the writers did a really good job.
Figuring out how to capture that shock and confusion. One with the parents. I just assumed people would see my children the way I see my children. I thought they did a really good job at like, bringing that shocker in. Okay. I thought it was
Christina: funny too. When they found out that he was doing an accent,
Julia: he's like
Christina: doing, it's never.
Okay. Unless it's funny.
Julia: And I'm like, oh my God, we all have.
Christina: The sibling that's my brother, like, look, shut up.
Julia: Shut up. I think the reason why I was like, we have to do an episode about this show is because it really highlights. You can't make assumptions about people based on what they look like. And that's a lot of what racial prejudice is.
So when Johan admits, they just assumed and I never corrected them. I thought, yeah. You know, a 10 year old is not going to put in the work because he's 10. He shouldn't have to. Yeah. He shouldn't have to explain his existence, especially coming from the context of a hippie commune. Like that's already, so
Christina: he's like I'm fully passing as Mexican, so yeah, but I'm not passing Spanish, like same dude.
Yeah. Me and you both Johan. He talked about, he was planting his quinceanera that made me laugh. Like,
Julia: like you're not even a female, but what was so funny about him? Like, no, you can't come to the school and the PR cause you know, parents want to course correct. They want to make things right. They want to stand up for their children and they're like, why can't we come to this school?
And then that's how they learn that he's been passing him as Mexican, because if his parents show up at the campus, people will be like, oh, so you're not Mexican. Like your mom's black. What, but he had, he had presence of mind enough to know like that's bad because he's lying. He's seen in the context of I've been lying.
And so the lie is bad. Not the root of the lie is bad, but like, I've just been lying, period. That's bad. But then you pull back the layers in the context, it becomes like, really just like, ah, this is hard because they're children and that's not fair or stopped doing that to children. And it,
Christina: and it will, the other hard thing is it's it's children doing it to the other children.
So it's like, you can't even be mad at the children. Cause they're just, literally, they're being kids. They're curious and they're asking questions and they're exploring, you know, and part of being a kid is learning boundaries from your other peers. So you have to teach your kids to be. To assert themselves and be like, I don't have to answer that, you know, to you, or I don't have to talk about that with you.
Instead of just like, like we said, passing, or, you know, doing something to make it easier on their own mental state, which is fair. It is fair. Like they shouldn't have to do that. Uh, the explaining process, I mean, but it's like a part of it is just prepping your kids to go out into the world to know. It does not matter what someone looks like, you don't have the right to ask them what they are like if they would like to share that with you, then that's up to them.
And then, you know, if they want to open up conversation about that, but like, we got to just teach our kids to be more like, I don't even know, like, not in, homework's not more accepting, but more like a more interested in how we learn about cultures in a more authentic way. So that. Appropriating.
Julia: I always know when somebody suspects that I'm something because of the way that they act towards me.
And it's not a negative thing, it's just like a, oh, they think they figured out what I am. So now they're going to buddy, buddy up with me and start like being my friend and they're going to stroke my ego and yeah. Without fail. It's either interaction number three or four where they're like, so, and you're like, fuck, I know what that sow means.
And here we go. And so what was, what are you, or are you like, do you like black in you? The way you asked that is weird.
Christina: I'm so sorry. That's a waste of, one's asked you not
Julia: someone, lots of people. Yeah. Do you have like a little black, do you think a little faster, a little alien in me, there's just so many ways that that statement could be taken where you're just like, I just kinda think that maybe don't ask that.
Let it come out organically. All I can think about is
Christina: just the payments,
Julia: right? So Johann at 10 years old, Bo at 13 years old, Santa Monica, doesn't give a shit cause she's like, I'm fly as fuck. And they're already exhausted with having to explain who they are and why they're allowed to exist. There was this huge conversation online a couple of years ago where people are like, We don't have to explain this anymore to people who are not about our culture, it's not our job to educate everybody and dah, dah, dah.
And at first I was like, yeah, but how are we going to create open dialogues? So people who maybe don't have the exposure and the experience of your culture to understand. And then for like a month, people were asking me what I was and I was just like, I'm fucking 37. Well, at the time I was not 37, but now I can confidently say I'm fucking 37 and I'm exhausted by this.
And I'm like, and I think I've been exhausted by those conversations for 20 plus years. But now that we're actually having these conversations online about like, you don't get to ask, just let it come out organically. I can, I can now say. And look back and realize like, that's how I've always felt. I've just always played the game because when you're outnumbered, you kind of don't really want to get backed into a corner on anything.
Even like, I think I told you this even a couple of weeks ago, I had a coworker say to me if I didn't know your dad, I wouldn't know you were black. I would think you were elected. And I was like, okay.
Christina: And I, yeah, I guess.
Julia: Like, what do you want me to do with
Christina: that? That's such a common thing too. Probably more so because of the area we're in to be mistaken for, um, some version of Latin.
Yeah. When you're of a mixed race, just because of where we are, but I would, yeah. I think a lot of people in the mixed communities would have experience in being. Improperly,
Julia: like it's identified. I've had people, are you Dominican? Like, I mean, I don't know any Dominican's in California are there because like I've said in the past, I've never lived anywhere, but Modesto.
So I don't really know if there's like a Dominican Republic pockets of population. State, but I know that there's like a huge Dominican representation in New York. So here's how my brain works. When someone asks me, oh, are you Dominican? Or if they ask if I'm Puerto Rican, I get that quite a bit too. I'm thinking, oh, you're from Yuma.
I feel like maybe you're from back east, but I'm not going to blatantly ask you, are you from back east? I'm going to let it come out organically because that's going to help me understand why you think that I look like I could be Dominican or Puerto Rican because that's your expression. And we also have to
Christina: say, like, there's a difference between asking someone where they're from and asking someone what,
Julia: like, what are no, there's not because people who ask, what are you also ask?
Where are you from? And when you say you're from, or excuse me, I'll speak for myself when I say I'm from at esto. And that's not enough that doesn't, that doesn't explain why I look the way.
Christina: No. No, I understand. I'm just saying like in general terms, when you're getting to know someone, when you're talking to someone, when you're like having a conversation, you can ask someone like where they're from.
Just like, I would say like, oh, where are you from? Like from Seattle or whatever, just to get a sense of who they are as a person. That's okay. Like that's okay. But if you're asking where they're from to figure out what they are, that's not okay. Right. And that's, that's what I'm saying is. There's a, because I know that people are going to be like, well, no, we can't ask people where they're from.
Like, that's not what we're saying. You can ask people where they're from, but you can't ask people where they're like, you can't ask people where they're from to get more information, to help you decide what they are. Like, just wait for them to tell you or wait for it to come out naturally.
Julia: Yeah, I guess it's the way that, where you're from is.
Because you're not, we do ask, you know, we ask that's all. I was trying to clarify. Sorry, coming from my experience, where are you from? It's not an innocent question. It is a question to figure out my racial identity. I'm saying like people, I
Christina: don't think people from like, in our town should be asking you about your fault.
That's not fair. I'm saying like, yes. When you travel and stuff, like it does hit different or people you've never met before. Like genuine strangers. If they say like, where are you from? Like, they don't fucking know you live here. Like I'm from here and they're like, oh, okay. Like then do you know where to eat?
Julia: Like, that's all. I mean, are you local? But when I hear are you local here? Yeah, I am. Thanks. I can stop reminding me, stop reminding me that I've never left here guys.
Christina: Are you a local, like, you'd sounds cute when you're from like a beach town, like, are you a local likable? You're a local, like you're from our town and you're like, yeah.
Julia: And whenever anyone's like, oh, you've always lived here. It's like a jab in the heart things, finding things that I never got out. You're like, I moved to Mantega for a year. It was cool. I would never move to me Antica. Sorry, man. It's a different county. The sales tax is higher. Like, if I'm going to pay a higher sales tax, I'm moving to the bay area or LA I got the bay area so expensive though.
I know it is. But if I'm going to pay more sales tax than I'm paying in Stanislaus county, I'm not moving to San Joaquin county. No, absolutely. What I like about. On D D and grandpa Harrison, Alicia and Paul get really consumed by having to do everything this very particular way to keep their children feeling safe, loved, and wanted.
And then they kind of have these blinders to the real world because one they've lived in a commune for so long. And then two, when you create a family that isn't like typical, there's different factors involved. So I love. That the characters, Denise and Harrison exist because they kind of pull them back into quote reality from time to time.
And especially in this episode, when Denise comes back and is like, y'all lived in a commune for so long, you're basically teaching this child to not be proud of who he is because you moved to a commune that didn't celebrate anything. Everyone was equal. And so now here he is in the real world and he's just kinda like being passive about.
You know, all of these things happening, but then we find out he's not being passive. He just is tired of answering questions about who he is. And so I really liked that those twos characters exist within the show, because I think it's so easy when you are in an interview. I'm not speaking from experience.
I've not dated somebody long enough to create a family with them. So I don't know, but as a child observing, like you need those outside elements sometimes to help remind you like the world, isn't going to see your children the way that you see your children. And the parents kind of coming to that realization of just like, holy shit, they're going to have different experiences than we are.
I think the aunt and the grandpa really helped them get to that realization. And that's so important because if you go into parenting mixed children and don't have that realization, you're setting yourself up for failure in terms of being able to support them case in point when they're trying to explain what that racial slur is to Yohan and.
They have no explanation. They can't figure out how to explain it because it's outside of their culture.
Christina: Yeah. That was funny. That's when I texted you, I did too. Like what does she mean? What is he
Julia: like? Was that a joke because she didn't get it? No, she just was. Trying to pull something out of her ass to sound like an intelligent person, which I feel like
Christina: that is something.
Yeah. We also all try to do, like, you try so hard to teach your kids, like as much as you can so that those scenarios don't pop up, but it's like, you try so hard to teach them about their own cultures that you're like, shit, I can't teach. I can't learn about all the cultures and then teach. You
Julia: know, like, I don't know where that one
Christina: came from.
Like, we should probably learn about that, but we're on this problem
Julia: right now. And I love that his dad tried to make it a children's book. So you've been called the N word, what is it happening? And then that's when Santa Monica it's like, that's not what he was called. Y'all and he was called. I was like, wait, Which is basically what kicks off the episode in the conversation about, oh, our children, aren't going to be seen by the world the way that we see them.
We've talked
Christina: about how your parents have varies. Do you like going with raising your kid? How do you carry on some of those same conversations that you had growing up or do you change them and spruce. With the times
Julia: or I, I, my child can pass for white. So I think it was three years ago that I realized that all of these parenting things that I have based on kind of how we were raised.
We're not, not that they're invalid, but they weren't as necessary as it was to keep my brother's house. Yes. So, but he does, he did spend a lot of time with my dad, so it's not completely invalid and it's not completely unnecessary for me to have those conversations with him, but also kind
Christina: of, okay. Vince is mine to like an empathetic way, you know, to his own family line.
Yeah. Well, sure to like his friends and everything
Julia: else. We're double agents and being a double agent is really hard because people don't know, they don't know your context. They don't know your history. They don't know your experiences. So when they say hello, racist shit, or racially prejudice stuff, or like really racist jokes, you're just like, you don't know that I'm a double agent.
So this is fun. So now I know the truth about who you are. So. I'm going to delete you out of my phone. There's no really,
Christina: really hard like it
Julia: is. And there's no, it's, there's not a lot of conversation around it because our country still trying to grapple with the insane amounts of racism that still exist and still have every day.
So when you're a double agent and you hear things like, it's almost like we don't have a platform to talk about those things. I did see a Ted talk recently of a guy whose dad is black. His mom is white and he kind of said, you know, all these things. But he hears being a mixed race person and people assuming he's white.
I was reading, I was reading some of the stuff cause Buzzfeed did a thing about it. Problem. Number one, with the way that Buzzfeed titled their article, the title that they called the article was bothersome to me. There doesn't seem to be any validity in the mixed race experience and like experiencing.
People treating you as if you're monoracial. And so they think you're a safe person to say there's really shitty things in front of them. So Buzzfeed did a title. It was why racial people who pass for why are exposing racist moments that happened right in front of them. So I, I shared it and I said, traumatic experiences, mixed people have had.
And then I wrote fixed it because it's, it's traumatic for, I can't speak for anybody, but it's traumatic for me to hear other people that I've gotten to know and maybe liked a little bit. And then they say this stuff and you're just like, This that's hard. Number one, number two. Fuck you. Because I don't understand why you still have racial prejudice and number three, like I we're done here.
Like I'm a double agent and I'm sorry that you're upset that you're realizing now that I'm a double agent. You just shouldn't be this shitty of a person. Yeah,
Christina: it's, it's, it's even shittier. Cause then they try to make you feel bad about what they did. And you're like, no, you don't get to make me feel bad
Julia: twice.
It's just that headline to me was like, we still have a lot of work to do in the mixed community to get validated and I don't need outside validation. I just want. Society or to acknowledge, like these experiences can be really upsetting and traumatic for people, especially when it happens with a family member or like somebody you've been friends with for 20 years says something and you're just like, hold up what we've been friends for 20 years.
And you just said that out loud, like knowing that, like you knowingly said that in front of me, knowing I'm gonna say. You said that in front of me, we've been friends for 20 years, you know, that I'm black. So it's not even an ignorance thing at that point. Like it's very clear when you walk into my house or meet my family, that I am a black woman.
You just said that. Okay. So there's no. The space for us to have these conversations about when these traumatic things happen. And that's really hard too, because if you try to talk to somebody about it and they don't understand it, or their experiences with racism have been way more horrific and traumatic, which we got to start doing that to people, but still like, then there becomes this sort of competition of like, well, like we talked about in and Georgia, my oppression and issues with racism are worse and harder than you.
And, and that, then that creates a divide between people who really should be coming together and bonding over traumatic experiences and how we can heal and help and learn and grow.
Christina: Absolutely. I mean, you figured that's how a lot of people try to. Just trauma in general, any kind of mental health trauma.
Like we, we tend to do the comparison game, like, oh, well I have it harder because X, Y, and Z, even like in our own heads to like prevent ourselves from getting help. It's like, well, I know this person and they went through this and they're fine. So why should I go get help? Like, yeah, we have to allow that space, like.
People to grow and to heal and to talk about their experiences because yeah, someone might've had it worse, but it doesn't invalidate the way you felt during your time of feeling that the buzzword of that was the safest way for me to compare. I don't want to, like, I don't, I don't want to claim that I have the same mixed experiences, but I could say for the mental health aspect, like I can understand in no, absolutely though, like the, not feeling like as validated as somebody else or.
Julia: Whatever I digress. There's a conversation that's been happening in the last handful of years about toxic positivity. Right. So I need to be, I need to suck it up and be happy because I have X, Y, and Z. And that's good enough, but if I'm still not happy and there's still something missing, like. Why are we doing that to ourselves?
Why are we still saying like, you should be happy, like stop shooting all over me. Number one. And number two, you're seeing my life from the outside. You may or may not be a person that I feel comfortable and safe with about having certain conversations. We as well. Do this all the time. I'm fine. It's fine.
It's going to be fine. And, but it, that, that's the cap on, like somebody just sharing these really like stressful, slightly horrific things. You're just like, I need you to not cap that with I'm fine. It's fine. We're I'm gonna be fine because that's, you're not, you're not. And telling yourself you're going to be fine is not actually making the path towards being fun.
Yeah.
Christina: Uh,
Julia: yeah, I would say everybody's guilty of
Christina: that in some, in some capacity. And that's something that you need to, you know, in order to change that you have to be self-aware to stop doing it to yourself. And that way we don't sh you know, model that behavior. Kids or just other peers. Yeah. If you set the boundary for yourself, then you have those other people look up to you like, oh man, they seem really happy because they genuinely just tell people.
No, I can't do
Julia: that. I do love that. At the end of the episode, when Bo kind of puts the. You know, cause the 30 minute sitcom, just wrap it up real nice. And it pretty pretty bow, pretty bow and rainbow comes together. It gets buttoned up and resolved. Um, but rainbow does say something that was really impactful to me about how she, like, she realizes that her parents did sort of create this space of unconditional love and support to allow them to grow up, to be a confident adults.
And I think. So it's, that's a huge element to parenting in general, but especially when you have, um, biracial or mixed race children, because you leave that safety of a bubble and you walk into, like, we've talked about this, you walk into a room, people are like, oh, when are you? And so being able to like, give your children more confidence than what maybe other children might have.
So that way, when they do face those situations, they can just navigate it really well. And I think that. This, what this episode does is demonstrates that really well to at an early age, Alicia and Paul see their children, they have a hurdle, they give them the tools. They need to be able to continue to navigate that.
And then if someone goes back and watches, Blackish, and sees the episodes that Santa Monica and Johan show up in as adults, while their characters are. Quite hilarious. There's still that confidence. The confidence is still there. The, the ability to navigate and to choose the life that they want to have.
Despite what people see, despite how people see them is, is present. And that's huge because it is so easy to get knocked down. By the world and to start believing all of that shit that people say to you and that people do to you, you have to set up a really good foundation because some stuff may not happen right away.
Some stuff might hit when your kids are like in their late thirties, being able to navigate that and have the strength to navigate that you ha that starts really early. And it's not always as blatant as like you're going to experience this and you need to navigate it. Creating space for your children to become who they are and confident in who they are.
So they can navigate whatever shows up in 10 years, 20 years, 40 years.
Christina: That sounds like something for a parenting podcast, because I don't know how to do
Julia: that.
Christina: You'll need to go to a parenting podcast for advice on my app, but I completely understand what you're saying there. I think it was cool because there's a lot of stuff here that I had.
Absolutely. I mean, I wouldn't know because it's not my experience, but like, like now talking to you, like, yeah, like that sounds, there's so many things that like, I would have not known or experienced that I can't even imagine how you begin to like, process that as an adult and. Then heal from it and then to keep having to deal with it, like, that's gotta be super hard and it's definitely, it makes me more self-aware and I'm like, oh shit.
Like what have I ever said? That's problematic because that's people like, I'm sure I have. And I got
up
Julia: to. And I'm still learning too. Like I'm close to 40 and I'm never gonna, I'm never going to fully master it. There are some times I catch myself still to this day where I'm just like, I need to work on that mindset.
I need to reframe that mindset and figure out why this is my reaction. Like, why am I reacting this way? And then sort of moving forward with that, knowing how to navigate it. And it's finding people online to have conversations with. Faces and, you know, reading books and just very different things like that.
And it's a lot of time and it's a lot of work can be really worth it going
Christina: forward with the show. I know that it's only on season two, so hopefully there's many more seasons to come. What are some conversations or some experiences you hope that they go over in the show that you hope to see if any, or are there any like family dynamics that you wish will.
Come about that. Like we're in your own family that you want to. Onscreen.
Julia: It's a really good question. I don't know if I've ever thought about it because we've never had mixed representation on TV before like this.
Christina: So how cool that now you actually get the space to think about that. I
Julia: know how sad, but like there's an episode.
I don't know if you watched it, but there's an episode where Santa Monica was like, are we going to have black people, hot salad? I texted my sister. I was like, Holy shit. And she's like, I know it's the best line ever. And it's, she's talking about collard greens for people who don't know and collard greens.
I didn't know. See my sister and I, like, we did not watch the episodes at the same time. Like she had watched it a week before me, but all I had to do was text, you know, Santa Monica and her. Black people, hot salad. She's like, ah, and she just knew, and we were dying. Laughing. I have this memory. I think it was Easter.
I can't remember what year. It was definitely late nineties and it was our turn to host Easter. And my grandparents came over and my mom made collar greens. And my grandmother literally says to my mother, this is my father's mother. I've never had a white person make collard greens. So good before. And I'm like, okay.
So there's so many things about that statement. It's like one, one, granny, we can't, you can't really, you really probably shouldn't say something like that to somebody who's been married at that point, you know, twenty-five years to your, to your son, really dedicated life partner right
Christina: there. And she's.
Julia: You did actually did a good job too. I have some white friends from the south who, um, you know, collard greens is part of their, I was going to say,
Christina: I thought that was like, Southern saying more.
Julia: So. Yeah. Well I know like I don't, I don't know. And so, so that statement is so gross. So becoming an adult and I'm like, oh man, I need to find a place that has really good collard greens.
I haven't had any good color green since my grandparents left or there was this restaurant at one, since my grandma made that comment.
And so, so that seems really funny. I didn't know we needed mixed dish is I guess my point, I didn't know we needed it. It's not, I have to think about it. And everyone's mixed black experience is different too. I didn't know. There were as many like mixed families as there are, because there aren't a lot here and it's not represented a lot in pop culture.
So like whenever, um, there's a celebrity, who's mixed. I'm always like, oh yeah, I knew. And people are like, why would, you know a thing like that? Because we're a fucking team. Cause we're like the secret of vendors. We're like why a double agent always knows a double agent. Okay. That just reminds me of like Adolfo at her check.
Who's just like staring at
Christina: me until I speak Spanish to him.
Julia: And then
Christina: he's like, okay, it's a double agent.
Julia: Yeah, I know. Could Genea and Georgia have existed without Blackish sort of bringing bow to the forefront. You know, these are things that I think about could Kenya burrs is influenced in that way, even though a lot of his stuff is kind of the same concept.
It's a concept we don't have a lot of yet. And so it's still funny. It's still new. There's a, still a lot to explore in there because we don't have that kind of comedy on the regular. I think the first mixed couple on TV that I ever liked. Acknowledged. I think it was the Jeffersons. One of the neighbors in the apartment building that the Jeffersons lived in was the wife was black and the husband was white and that was in the seventies.
But then I don't remember seeing, I don't remember seeing, I'd have to, I'd have to dig deep into my brain files to go more. Yeah. Well, other.
Christina: References,
Julia: the Jefferson sticks out because like that's the first time I ever saw it because I watched the Jeffersons at my grandparent's house a lot. And so like brought those memories of like childhood.
I would just fit, missing my grandparents, all four of them a lot lately. So it just. You know, happy, happy feeling. Well, I want to hear about
Christina: your grandparents. Sometimes. It sounds like your gran's
Julia: just the sharp shooter. He was a peach, she was a speech or she was the best human you've ever met. It really just depends on who you talk to.
Christina: Sounds
Julia: fun. She had like a touch of gypsy in her. Cause she would sometimes say things told me this.
Christina: And he said that you feel like you have it. I love that. I feel like I'm going to sound like a hippie now, but like if you have intuition, the more you tune into it, the more you get. So
Julia: follow it. So I never really.
Thought about it. And then in pandemic, I'm realizing how many of these premonition dreams I have that come true. Right. And I started cataloging it. And then I started, I was like having this sort of like conversation with my mom about the last time we were in North Carolina, which was forever ago. And she was telling me the story about something that like my granny said, and like, sort of did.
The pastor of their church did. And then like this weird thing happened, not like a weird thing happened to my mom, but just like, you know, there was just this weird thing that sort of happened as a result of thing that my granny had done. And I was like, so, you know, 16 years later, 16 years later, it's like, after I've done, not like a super deep dive on gypsy culture in life, but like started to a little bit, learn a little bit more about gypsy culture in life in England, at least that I was.
Great granny, where you saved by the grace of God. Cause you were trying to course correct some of this gypsy shit that was going on. I feel like now I just want to
Christina: hear about her. Tell me her
Julia: life. I don't know her life story. Well. People born in the twenties, don't talk about shit, shit. But I do know that she used to tell people she was Jewish and like her stepdad was Jewish.
Supposedly she wore a star David and she like, they weren't allowed to play outside as children because, you know, you'd get this, you know, the sun kisses everybody's skin. And so she, oh, We are, why don't we celebrate Hanukkah for Jewish? Like, why aren't we celebrating any of the Jewish holidays? Why do you go to a Baptist church then?
And not as synagogue, like, I don't understand how this makes any sense. I actually, now I'm dying to know like, are there other black families who had relatives? Cause you hear about lighter skin folk passing for white. That's like the premise of vanishing half by Britt Bennett. So now I'm like, but how many people are, how many people back then were trying to pass for Jewish, especially.
Thirties because the 1930s was not kind to the. Brothers and sisters. So like a lot of this stuff doesn't compute for me. So I'm like, I need Henry Louis Gates. Jr. Can you please do a deep dive on my family history? Because I am confused by my grandmother's stepfather being Jewish, his death certificate full on says when it says in the ethnicity or race box, it says colored.
So he clearly died in the sixties, but. What I need answers and I don't know how to find them. How do I get the answers to all this? I'm not kidding. She straight up horror star
Christina: David. I would love so much if she wasn't Jewish and she just really, really wanted to be. And that's how hard she went, you know, she's like, no, I'm Jewish,
Julia: but then doesn't that like fall under cultural appropriation.
Like now I have all, I have so many more questions now based on this. But, you know what? She loved the shit out of me. And she like was always loving towards me, even up until the end. She would, I would call her all the time and I spent summers out there at, they lived on a farm in Denair. For those of you who don't know Dinair is about 15 ish miles Southeast of Modesto is so something that I didn't put in the notes, but I think is really interesting.
And I think actually it was. A really good move on the writers of mixed dishes, part, the juxtaposition of the family, sitting around loving Dukes of hazard and watching that as their family show a black family. One of the,
Christina: I, I don't know if it's in like the intro of the show or what, but she was like, rainbow says that she's like, we're sitting around watching two good old boys and like with a truck, with a Confederate flag hanging
Julia: out the back and she pauses.
Christina: And then she keeps going and I'm like, yeah,
Julia: what? Yeah. So, like I mentioned before, my dad worked in law enforcement for a very long time and we weren't allowed to watch Dukes of hazard because of the portrayal of law enforcement in it, because that was. Representative of who my dad was in his career.
Only exposure I had was when I would go to my grandparent's house and I'd be on TV there. But when you get to be an adult and realize just some of the homages that the Dukes of Hazzard has for a very specific type of era in us history, I think it's very representative of just how much we didn't necessarily look at or pay attention or challenge what was going on.
Or how things should make us feel. Yes. Why it's so funny now, and then to the internalized racism that happens when you don't. Cause I think that's what the point of the pauses of both thing. Isn't the Confederate flag. It's this acknowledgement of like, there's internalized racism here that we didn't know like that we didn't have the language for, to de to identify as such.
And we didn't necessarily like see it as we also. Let me finish my thought and we didn't necessarily see it as a bad thing because we were still sort of in an era of learning and that's the generation that started the whole colorblindness. So to level the field of light, we're all the same. So it's really like, that was just such a great moment in the show where it was just like that pause was just so like, let's you settle in and then the context of the show.
The episode comes in and you're just like, holy shit, whoever wrote this episode needs to be nominated for a fucking Emmy. Who was your favorite character on the show?
Christina: Mixed dish. I like Denise. 'cause I just, I love, I love the character. That's like, it's always like, it's always an aunt or an uncle, just someone who like really just brings you back to reality
Julia: in a very abrupt
Christina: way.
That's always my favorite character, probably because it's my least favorite person in like, Um, I like watching it in a controlled setting, like on a show, if that makes any sense, but they're always the funniest on the show, but that's probably because my whole life I'm surrounded by those people. And like, that's uncomfortable.
Julia: Like you better in a buttoned up 30 minutes. Yeah. I like
Christina: you. And you'd just polished and someone else wrote your lines, but I love Santa Monica. I think it's because she's the youngest and there's something about that. It's probably because I'm the youngest like this. Um, and the like strength that the youngest has in a family, that's like, y'all get into serious around here.
I'm only bringing it up. Like I'm going to bring y'all back to reality with some like jokes and like,
Julia: she is so cute. She makes me laugh. She seems like
Christina: she's both 15 and five all at once. I think only little girls have that
Julia: power. I definitely love Santa Monica, but that's also because. I am Santa Monica.
And then too, when we see her in adulthood and like I said, Rashida Jones plays her and adulthood on Blackish. And I'm just like, that's the kind of like, I'm Rashida Jones black. So it was like the kind of like obvious representation right there is just so. I feel seen, but I do love Elisia a lot. Her trying to navigate being I'm a black woman in a professional setting in the eighties, and then having these three children and then having a husband, like there was an episode in the first season where they tell us that Paul drops out of law school.
They say
Christina: hippie or not black people still need a backup plan. I put a note under here that said like, we should acknowledge the privilege that white people get to
Julia: be hippies like that. There's a whole, don't be a hippie. There's a whole movement online too. Like all of these like female bloggers who are non people of color talking about, you know, let your children be wild and free and all this stuff.
And that just can't exist for black children. Uh, yeah,
Christina: I would say I would stretch it out to say mixed children, because like, my mom definitely raised us. Like with a sense of like, with being Mexican, it was like, you do not act up in public. Like, no, you, you listened to us and whatever, you know, like if you're going to be wild and stuff, like I'm going
Julia: to yell at you that you
Christina: respect your parents.
Like there's no, there's like an order and there's a discipline order. And part of it is because they don't want to be seen. As causing a scene somewhere. Yeah. I wouldn't say it's like a, I don't know how to like, yeah, that's just, that was something that was very known growing up that I notice a lot more people who are motto like just all white, like don't have that urgency
Julia: yet.
Slackish touches on that too, where, you know, there's a very specific type of perception that you have to be able to meet if you want to be above the stereotypes. And then what I think mixed us shows us is that there, there is this fraction of a mixed community that does allow the freedom for their children to be who they are and to have a little touch of what we call wild.
And so that's part of what. Kids are grappling with now that they're back in society, like the kids, the parents aren't curbing them on being who they are. They're really true to that. But it's society that's saying like, you can't be ex yeah. Or Y or Z, you gotta be egg
Christina: and Aly
Julia: There is a lot of vulnerability happening in this episode. And after listening to it, there's so much more than I want to say and speak to, but I won't. If you want to join the conversation, find us on Instagram at pop culture makes me jealous tune in next week. When I review the best picture nominees at the 93rd academy award, the academy award ceremony will air on April.
2021 catch y'all next time.
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