WEBVTT

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- Even though Black identity
is inherently complex,

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there is still a pervasive narrative

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that Blackness is a monolith,

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and this stereotype
needs to be called out.

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Joining me today is comedian,
filmmaker, and host,

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W. Kamau Bell, whose new documentary,

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"1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed," is out now.

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Kamau, thank you so much for joining me.

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- Thanks for having me.

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- With the new documentary,
you speak to children

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from various backgrounds
about their heritage,

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and how society perceives them
based on their appearance.

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Why did you decide to take
this approach for this film?

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- You know, for a long time,

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people know that I have

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Black and mixed daughters in my house.

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I got three of them.

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They are both Black and
mixed, 'cause you can be both.

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And so, people ask me like,

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"When are you gonna do something

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about mixed folks, or mixed kids?"

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'Cause they knew I had these little girls

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running around in my house,

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and I felt like I wanted
to find a way to do it

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that didn't sort of locate it

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in the sort of tragic
mulatto definition of mixed

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that often exists in this country

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when we talk about mixedness,

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because my daughters do not
come off as tragic mulattos,

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as you can see in the film.

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And I also wanted to do something
that was family friendly,

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and was something that the whole family

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could sit down and watch, which,

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on "United Shades of America"
or other things I've done,

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I wouldn't say they're family friendly.

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I do hear that, like, kids
do watch them sometimes,

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but I wanted to make
something that was actively

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for families, from little
kids through grandparents,

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to sit down and watch together,

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and have discussions about
racial identity afterwards,

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whether they are mixed or not.

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- What was your favorite part

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about making this film, particularly?

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- So when we first
decided to make the film,

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I thought it was gonna be just kids in it,

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and I thought it would be sort of, like,

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more about sort of the obvious topics

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about having mixed kids,

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like, what is mixed kids' hair like,

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and how do the parents deal with that?

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But the kids got so deep, so quickly,

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when we first started talking to them,

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that it just became a
thing where I was like,

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"Oh, this is gonna be deeper
than I thought it was."

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- I'm half Pakistani, and
I'm half African American.

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- I'm Asian and American.

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- Filipino American.

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- Black and white, I'm both.

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Half Black and half Japanese.

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- 1000% a person.

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- And it ended up being a film,

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at a time in this country where

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there are politicians
and community leaders,

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quote unquote leaders, and
school boards everywhere,

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trying to restrict what kids can learn

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about the history of of
race and racism in America.

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And they're banning books that talk about

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different identities,
racial, gender, sexuality,

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at a time when we're doing that,

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this film is, in one hour,
a very effortless rebuke

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of a lot of the anti-Blackness,

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and anti-woke laws that
are around this country.

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It is a very effortless rebuke

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of a man I like to call
presidential nopeful Ron DeSantis.

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- As a Black man in the spotlight,

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with your platform being so open

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about your interracial marriage,
how has that been for you?

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I think sometimes there can be
pushback, because, you know,

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you're not with a Black
woman, or this, or that.

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You know how it is, you
know how social media is.

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- Yeah, I've had a couple
runarounds on social media.

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So one of the best things
for all those arguments,

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is getting older, and sort of realizing,

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if you're not gonna help me pay my rent,

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I'm not gonna engage in every
discussion with you. (laughs)

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If you're not gonna help me figure out

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how to pick up my kids from school,

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and how to get 'em to the
next thing they gotta got to,

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or how to move this couch,

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I don't have to engage with
every argument with you.

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So I understand people who,

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I understand the argument about

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why people want people to
marry inside their race.

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I'm not saying you can't have that belief,

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but I am saying that I'm doing,

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me and my wife been together 20 years now.

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So whatever brought us together,

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whatever's keeping us together,

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has nothing to do with some sort of like,

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(laughs) I don't know, like,

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I don't even wanna say
what people think it is,

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but the idea being that
like, we are in this,

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and if anybody who knows my wife,

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knows she's committed to
dismantling white supremacy,

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and she has many examples in her life,

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not just being married
to me, that prove that.

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So you can have that argument,

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you can say that about me,
whatever you want to do,

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but I'm not gonna defend my marriage

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or relationship to anyone. (laughing)

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If I didn't do it, you know,
when there was times in my life

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where people in my wife's family

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weren't excited about our relationship,

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and I didn't defend it to them,

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I'm certainly not defending it to you.

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- That's a good answer.

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The mind your business is what I think.

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Just mind your business.

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- Yeah, I mean, you can have

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whatever opinions you want to have,

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it's your First Amendment rights,

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but you don't have the
right for me to have to.

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- Yeah, or even to share
it out loud. (laughing)

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Just keep that to yourself.

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- I can't stop you from doing that,

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but I'm certainly not gonna be like,

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"You know, you've made a
good point." (laughing)

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Again, I got too many
children to be spending time

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arguing with people in
the comments section,

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or on social media.

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(upbeat music)