Erika Alexander On Reviving Good Black Characters, Working With Bill Cosby, Her Parents + More

are you watching The Breakfast Club tomorrow everyone is a DJ envy Angela Yee Charlemagne God we are The Breakfast Club we have a special guest in the building this is a very special guest I know a span I call her Maxine you call her maxi I I know the real name of all this and thank you very much, it is a pleasure to be here. Yeah, you don't say I would. I had to go through third place. Nice to see you. No, I was a Jehovah's Witness while he was growing up, so we have to go. to the Kingdom Hall on the third one they do during the VHS tape days, so I had to press record at like 6 o'clock 6:30 and make sure I had a four hour tape to record everything you knew, it was kind of funny because it was a different time and now that everyone has stuff streaming they don't have to think about that stuff, but I never saw a single live until we stopped recording, no, because we work, we film on Thursday nights mmm, that was our night of filming.

We did two shows that day, you know, there was no DVR, so, of course, no, we didn't wait for them to show up either, you know, but the truth is that we rarely saw each other, you know, it's

good

, this is what we didn't know because neither does your audience. laughs, they didn't, you had a

good

feeling and they would tell you where you are and, frankly, for a sitcom you need the audience to tell you that it's a back-and-forth and that they're the fourth character in a sitcom. how many people told you how many women were like I became a lawyer because of you you know what

more

than I am I feel like I deserve I mean Marilyn Mosby who is in Balti

more

mmm she said it Mayor de Blasio and his wife Charlene McCray really tell him what how important it was to them, you know, you meet people and they say hello and then they say something special like that and then you realize that representation matters and there I was and I hadn't gone to college.

I haven't done it yet and I was being a lawyer, but you know, I graduated high school and I kept

working

because my father passed away and you know, I just wanted to help my mother and here I was helping people become lawyers, that's it. what we need more. shows like that on TV, I know we have

black

ish, but the reason I went to Hampton is because Hillman like you made me want to go to college exactly, yeah, I mean, and you know, I saw Hillman at Whitley and everyone They wanted to go. to college brother and I was there, but you know things don't always work out that way and I was glad I killed my family, but there you go what happened, not because at that time

black

characters

in prime time audience were so positive. max I was a lawyer, a different world had kids, yeah, Cosby, show the doctor and the lawyer, but then it was like, oh, let's flip the switch and show some negative representation of what happened, well, you know, I don't know exactly What happened, I think it's racism.

There happens to be structured institutional racism, prejudice and bias in people's minds and I think even after the huge success of the Cosby Show Two Hundred and Seven Different Worlds and Lamar, yes, the Will Smith Show, there was no reason for Titan will deviate or deviate. That's exactly what happened and you can just say that you know showbiz is monitored by real people and not only did that happen, but they segregated television, in fact, they got rid of shows with majority black casts from 2002 to which Shonda Rhimes started. to show up there was, you know, I want, I don't want to discount the Bernie Bernie Mac show and then there was Chris Rock, everyone, but for the most part just nothing and it was a very difficult time and suddenly the bottom fell out of the market and the people who are doing well, we are worse off and losing their homes and that happened to all of us and it was unfortunate and then things started to change, but it took Shonda Rhimes to do Grey's Anatomy and have power and then bring to Kerry.

Washington and Viola Davis, you know, a different kind of black lead, said losing houses, was it that bad? Yes, yes, there is no doubt about it. It was so bad for me. You know, I did it almost right. It wasn't that I would work and do. guest spots and people always said you know we don't see you as much and I said you don't see me as much because there are so few parts and the parts we get don't pay as much. When paying for what's called the best of the show, they had this whole line saying, "Oh, you can't get more than the best of the show" and if you were more successful on the show, the less they would pay you, yeah, it doesn't matter.

That's not like that's not like a black, you know, it was unfortunate and it's actually still in place. Did you hate reality TV at the time because reality TV took everything every time? I don't know if you know. I think so. I mean, no. because they were just taking over the place, I thought it was a poor representation of what black women could do and, frankly, if you didn't fit that mold, there was nothing you could do. I mean, you kind of saw it. Look, it was like watching a train wreck and I enjoyed it that way because I didn't actually think it was real at first.

It took me a long time to understand it. No, this is real and yet it's not real time and we. come back and we see, you know, you see the beginning and the margins of this thing that is encroaching and you have no idea of ​​its impact on the community, what it means for you, what it means for how people see you or perceive you, but then De suddenly you're at auditions and there's the person you see right in front of you for the same role that you thought, well, are we the same kind of person?

They should have the right to go for those roles, but maybe they really don't know what I do. If I'm in the same room with them, I really believe you when you say it's systemic, because you think about all the positive images we had on television, the ratings were there, the revenue was coming in, there was no reason to change. Aside from black people, it was getting smart, people were being influenced, you said you wanted to go to college and other people wanted to be lawyers, that's the only reason, yeah, I mean, you know, I, no, I don't know, there is no other explanation. for it and that just shows how deep and dark racism is and it is in our minds and then there are many of you who know that we also have to take some of the blame, there are a lot of those images that we were not force fed, You also know, you wrote and when you went into those rooms, they often just supported the ones that played with pathology or you know, the cartoon version of us, anything that was deeper and that maybe they said that Steve McQueen or someone else could launch was immediately. seen as fake, no one would see that and it forced us to make comics to try to prove an idea that you know and with a very low margin and just to try to talk about something and that. it would be more than in our heads now you came here bringing gifts for us I did it I did it I made the concrete park it was one of those ideas at that time my brother and my writing partner with my husband in tony for year I had an idea He called Concrete Park and we were talking about it and we met a studio executive who in the middle of our presentation stopped us and told us to stop right there.

He said that black people don't like science fiction because they don't see themselves in the In the future we look at it, I can't tell me what black people like, I know, you know, and he continued until this whole story about it, but you know, for some reason, that was his thing and Tony stopped and said, well, leave it. I tell you something for black people the past is painful the present is precarious but the future is free we always create the future that's why you have rock and roll and blues and jazz he says we are the aliens that you took from the other side of the ocean to shake your world and spin your planets and by the way there's Samuel Delaney and Octavia Butler and the number one star (I'm a sci-fi star in the world) was Will Smith, clearly we didn't know what he was talking about, did we? but that's in charge of a studio, hmm, to tell that to us black people who thought they knew better and we know that, in fact, John Sweeney, the Sioux, called me to do the giant Roger, the spin-off of Buffy, Raqqah, no, he's one of the good guys, he's one of the Avengers, no one said that, you know, one day I'll dedicate a book to him, but I say he forced me to create a new set of skills and I think that's good , I mean, you understand.

I'm tired of this business. I've been doing this since I was 14 years old. You find different ways to recreate yourself and be able to have a conversation that goes beyond any character or show and you can't do it if you don't have the opportunities. or more Courtley if the data masters of him don't exist, so we did the comic again to show people what it would look like and then we published it in 2013, it was one of the best American comics and four percent it was. one of America's best graphic novels and we're still doing it and now the world has changed people like a bad lord.

I know he's crazy in the comics, but people are still in the comics. My children have never learned a comic. I was into comics as a kid, but I don't see kids making comics, it's all online, no, no, you're absolutely right and it's a shame because it wasn't just a way to stimulate their own imagination and show them. things that maybe they don't see, but you also know that reading taught them taught them how to push narrative work, continue stories, how to do cliffhangers, there were really amazing moral stories hidden in there, I mean, Jack King Kirby and Stan Lee were incredible in that, but they were just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how much talent was out there doing that to this day, if you go to a Comic Con, you go to Artist Alley full of Asian, black and brown women, men doing their thing and They are all stuck there. type of jewelry, yes, they do it for love, not because they sell a lot of money or get you, no one does that to get rich, but you do it to create intellectual property and that's why we did it.

I'm trying to get my daughter involved because they have a you know, the new Iron Man is an iron heart and she's a young black girl from Chicago around Erie Williams, yeah, but she's not feeling it, she's waiting for the movie, no, no , we know. but that's what we have to start making our young people read, they have to do it. I think their life depends on it, because if they are simply told what to think instead of reading, they should go and read about Karl. Marx and you meet Nietzsche and all these other people and you read the words of Martin Luther King and you don't just hear his voices, you actually take it in for yourself without having another voice in your head telling you or emphasizing it, because suddenly you start to discover it. who are you, they left us blueprints, but it's in a book, yeah, my father used to say anything you wanted to have from the black, you know what I like to read real physical books.

I know a lot of people download his books, but it's so I can Don't do that like I need to have the book, it's like a piece of art for me too, yeah, and in fact, he also connects you to the person's intention. In fact, they say that if you burn a book in a fire, it burns hotter than wood because yes, because of the energy it contains, not only the ink but also the pressing, all that and I don't think about that, you know, I'm not too religious spiritual, but I think there is energy in it when you touch it. a book, you know that you are touching that person's intention, you are feeling with it, you know, you just have to cover everything that has been put on the page where it is, you see what they wanted and again they are speaking to you.

I totally see it. cover, that's how I buy books if I'm at the airport, I'll be drawn to certain books, I mean I know the author, that just seems interesting, yeah, same thing in books, throwing everything around in such a fun way, the airport actually is It's a great place to then suddenly disconnect and have your own thoughts, but we need more of that because I think we get lost and we have to digest everyone's conversations, you know, and I think we need to have internal conversations, yes, alone, but also with each other and I think that's how we do it and this is a black vampire, the Vampire Slayer, which was a very famous series and he always did the ongoing series about intercourse in the comics, so he called me and told me He said: You know, I want to do a spin-off of the children's character Giles is the Buffy watcher, so if you watch the show, he's the Englishman who comes and tells her that not only are you Buffy the Vampire Slayer, you're famous and I'll show you. how to do it. being a killer, so they call him a watcher, well somehow in the comics he has returned to his childhood and that's why he goes to a high school in the city and now he meets a black vampire girl who is over 200 years old and is about to learn who he is. about to learn something about monster hunting or what it's like to be human from her because you know when in her time he's like she's like why are you hunting me?

I read that you say another oh well she didn't trust humans yeah well she and she when she wouldn't and she carries this real burden and burden and heaviness in her heart because she's angry and she has that rage but she's also lived alone. a while, she's over it and yet she says there's still no place for a Black girl, she's hiding, she's hidden and I think a lot of women can deal with that, where is it not easy? Yeah, what are you doing all that time? Yeah, it's just a bad metaphor for this period of prejudice because people havethis fear. of things that they don't understand, that vampire part, don't even think about them, they know exactly, I mean, you know, vampires, another metaphor for, I mean, you suck blood, life after death death in life all those metaphors are messed up if you look at the Mahabharata which is 15 times longer than the Bible and you look at the Bible which takes a lot of its pieces from something like the Mahabharata talks a lot about resurrection death living death even Jesus came back that kind of thing, the story The vampire is very interesting because she is seen as a very alienated person who is simply there watching and waiting to suck your blood, but they are also there as a teaching metaphor for life and what it is to live and how we don't live and so I think that it's interesting mmm you thought your father was a preacher right, he was my father was a Lutheran preacher he started the Church of God and Christ both of my

parents

were orphans I was I was born in the mountains of Arizona I was born and I was actually born in Winslow and I grew up in Flagstaff and I lived the first eleven years of my life in a hotel called the Starlight off Route 66.

Why, yeah, and my dad had his first heart attack at 35, so you know you're with a dad who's a pastor. , you're basically getting tipped wages, you've been passed an offering and then that's what you get, but he was an evangelist, that means he was itinerant, he didn't have a church, so not only would he accept a tip? He took what the pastor took after taking. You already know his money or you know his salary. A very difficult way to make a living for a person who had six children, so he finally changed from the Church of God in Christ.

Pentecostal to Lutheran because he had six children and medical care and they sent him to the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and that was good luck for me, it was the first time we were in a city that had more black people than you know. some that were in Flagstaff and I had to go to a summer program. My mom would take one of us every year and she would say it's your turn to go to an extracurricular activity and it was my turn. She knows that in fourth grade she had done. a play and she said you might like her so she sent me to the Freedom Theater which is on Broad Street.

You spent some time in Philadelphia and the movie came to town. The fifth week of the six-week program came to town and they needed girls. and they told us that everyone was going to audition, whether you want to or not, it will be good for you if we never do anything. I received the air at 5:30 no longer, now I was second place, second place in line and after eight. auditions and four screen tests cast me. Wow, that fourth grade, no, the fourth grade, she noticed that I played, but she took all this time there. She was in ninth grade, okay, so when I was 14 15 I had the opportunity to be in a movie. my little Merchant Ivory was, you know, the Miramax of its day, in fact, James Ivory just won an Oscar for, I think, Best Adapted Screenplay, so he's still around, but if you were Helena Bonham Carter, they made our Daniel Day-Lewis, they worked for some place like you think you'd have an audition if it wasn't mandatory yeah, I would have because you know I am, you know I was, I grew up, you know, everyone has their version of poor, we were pretty poor, I want I mean, we were used to the dumpster. diving and diving into incinerators for cans and digging through couches to make money and do jobs or whatever I could, I would have done anything so that maybe I would have another experience and you also know I didn't know I would get the part but I just I didn't want to miss the opportunity to say I did it and go in and be happy about it and see what happened so you know this is another Cosby Show.

When did you book The Cosby Show? My book The Cosby Show. So that would have been between 9th and 10th grade and thank you, right after 12th grade, I went around the world with the Royal Shakespeare Theater and made the film in Paris. I came back and did a play at the Public Theater with Joseph Papp and Gloria Foster was his. last play before he passed and Camille Cosby saw me in that play mm-hmm and went on masoorie kept telling Bill Cosby to come see not only Gloria Foster and she was the woman who said "have a cookie, you feel good like a rain blanket," she said you have to see Gloria and this girl and I was a girl she was talking about.

He had already auditioned several times for The Cosby Show. You should know and I never got a role because you know I was writing for that big age group that I could. I've been Malcolm's girlfriend or Tempis' girlfriend or at least friends with the opponent, but they had never found him, they found a place, they kept saying oh we'll find a place for you and by the way, in the past, that was the only one I play in the city, you know? there was no other place for a young person to be or audition so there wasn't any black people, yeah, not any black people really, but a young black person there really weren't any shows, maybe Roseanne had some things going on, but I got a call.

Could you be at her house in two hours and I introduced myself, the casting director was there and he told me that he had created a role for me. Wow, that was called Cousin Pam. I remember when you first walked into the Cosby Show back in the day, it was like you bought it. hip hop bench to the show and I was wondering if that was planned or was it just you because at the time pop was on the rise so I didn't know Kylie was trying to inject some hip-hop flavor. but I think what happened is funny that they chose me from Arizona to be hip hop.

You know, they just smell the dark skin and you know, you go, oh, that person would give us the other side of the clues, the show was getting a lot. criticism for not being relatable and that's why I think he wants to bring in another character who isn't an upper middle class kid to show you what it's like to live on the other side. He chose me. I'm a very meek version of that person, there was no way on the show for you to come and do all that and that wasn't his vibe, but he's a natural, I don't like him, Cosby thought he was edgy, like when I saw him, I thought Oh yes, she loves us.

I'm glad to say you were a little unnatural, but I was playing the part. She was your best friend on the show. She was amazing, yeah, that leaned on me. Charmaine, caramelized, no, white, we and you don't believe. God, they didn't take away their pain like that because they really gave. I don't really know if the writers knew what to do with Cousin Pam and I think they were given like okay, now go and when they hit. a group to be with gave me a story because I just floated and begged Hello cousin Claire, how are you?

Can I set the table? You know, come on, they gave them to me and then we had something to do. Everything that happens with Cosby, did you see any of that? Because I was thinking about when we were talking, we were talking about Blackish in high school, Cosby, even as a father, I now do a lot of the things that Cosby does back then, like I remember doing them. My daughter on my leg and I'm shaking her back and forth because I remember on the show, even the acting stuff that he did, I made my kids act because he raised me like a second dad.

Desert, maybe I'll do Thurber. he said all that, yes it's true, so did you see any of that? There's nothing wrong with doing something his character did. Yeah, for me, it would have been James Evans from the good old days because he was more like my dad was tough. He would help you. You know he was afraid. from my father, that kind of thing, Bill Cosby was like the best version of what a black father could be, even talking to you, he would really say what was going on in your mind and he didn't let it grow too much.

Children were not talked to, they were not seen as autonomous individuals, so it gave people psychological autonomy, which was liberating for the black community to say that there is a different way to relate to children and yes, I saw that and that's how it was. very influenced by that, to see this sinister energy that I unfortunately see, you know he wasn't who we all thought he was and it would be disappointing and it doesn't just read forward, it's painful. I think I saw things that I thought were cruel. At that time, but I also grew up in a cruel world, you know, I really had been, so you could talk to yourself about anything to say, you know, that's how adults are, you know?

And at that time I was 19 years old playing 15 you. like you take it like you know in your heart that that is much more than you would like to see try something with you know, thank God you know and I will have a moment of me too, my mother and my sister were raped in life yes , so I take accusations like that very seriously, but not me, you give us an example of what you considered Croke of look well, you know, I think that when you are the biggest star in the world and in the world let's be clear and he is not only creating television, but creating television that you have to watch after a while, things like something that intoxicates you, goes to your head, you forget about yourself and I say, you forget about yourself, you forget that you have , you're representing, not only do you know the show and stuff, but you're representing, you know who people think you're right, so when you walk in I don't expect the person to be good, but you do expect them to have some decorum and some class. about things and sometimes it just rapes you, see, I just didn't expect that and like I said, it probably wouldn't have been more than what other people might have seen, you know, going to church and you know, the woman that you admire in church. , you know, it gets nasty.

You say, what is that, but just

working

the way you know what I mean? Well, all I'm saying, the true test of a person's character is how they treat people who can't do anything for them. There you have it. I know accountability to power is how you treat people when no one's looking when they're in the dark and it's not like you know that again. I think people in the spotlight have a special burden and often people will give you the past and tell you they can't do it. always know, you know that sometime you have the right to be human, you don't have to be a role model, no, and you want more than that, you don't have to sit there to make everyone feel good, you can sit there and just say I just want that people care, thank you and being alone, it's hard to get that space and sometimes you get a little irritable, that's important, but of course, you know it's part of the burden of what you have and no one can really understand it.

That's not about whether with great power comes great responsibility, thank you love, I was trying to figure that out, but my mind, yeah, there you go, and I think that's when you look at Dave Chappelle and the people who had that, you know what happened, any kind of opinion. Hey, look, I got it, go away, that's what they're doing now, your

parents

were orphans, how did they meet? Well, you know, like orphans do in church, okay, you know if they're both his godfather or should I say like. His godfather was the city evangelists, he was the bishop, his name is Bishop WC Griffin and he became the bishop of the northwestern half of the United States.

Bishop Blake in Los Angeles replaced him. I mean, in a way, I'm royalty of the Church. Look at it that way, I mean he was a very heavy guy, but they were in the Dust Bowl of New Mexico and it was a very southern gothic existence. My mother, my grandmother was a witch, she died when witchcraft, hmm, my father started preaching. and he was ordained since he was 6 years old they said he was a special child who would literally sit on a porch and people would come up and before he could walk he would get up and recite the scriptures and then go back to playing Wow.

My father, who was prone to exaggerating and like lying outright, told some of these stories, but my mother, who didn't say no, Erica, was very true. They were in a car and went on reservations or whatever they were called, live in people's garages. and he was a healer, they would bring him in and what would happen was there were a few people in the audience at first, a tent would be put up and then he would pray to do something and then everyone would be healed, everyone would hear about a person who was healed and who knew all their lives that he had some ailment or illness and then the next night there were tons of people overflowing from Indians, Mexicans, whites and blacks to see this young healer who was my dad and that's crazy because your dad is Fascinating, you have an early ticket at thirty-five, right Wow, no one could cure him, you know, it's funny, he died, they gave him a church in East New York and before he died I made peace with him because he wasn't the right person. kinder and said he wished God had healed him and he was always wondering why I'm sorry and I was always wondering too um you said so much that I wanted that night first well you're not you're not being a witch yeah my grandma grandma her mother with a Well, she would go and listen, she had a restaurant, you know, us black people do so many catering things and all that, back then, you didn't really have a job for life, you made things and she had a little cafe, You know? hole in the wall and she would put dust on the door so that when people came in the doorbell would ring and dust would fall.

No, yes, they called it dumb dust. Right across the street was her competitor and they also had dumb dust for her to go back and forth to the deep south like you know and get stronger and stronger to feed us well once she got back and she, by the way, justI would leave my father so he could only be on the streets once. she came back and a Mexican family took him in and he didn't even remember English and they asked her to beg her to let him stay still please stay Robert they call him Roberto man she took him but she came back and he said It was all twisted. up with his head between his legs barking like a dog doing that root, boy, I'm telling you, coughing up frogs and they said the women in the church went looking for my eventual godfather, who was William Griffith, and he came and found him. saw.

They were gone for three days, he wouldn't do it, they are fast and they hunt and then they come back and they laid hands on her and they helped her get through it. This is the story now well I'm just telling you what they have to do and when he can't she can't can she get out of this he says daughter the lord told me to tell you that if you come back you are you will come back in a box no no Reverend I promise I gave up on this if I could get it he said I'm just telling you what the Lord told me to tell you and The last memory my father has of his mother is him getting into a car, a red Cadillac because her boyfriend's name was red, he would just drive by, take her and I'm begging her, please mom, don't go, Don't worry, Robert, I'll be back.

Two weeks later she was brought home in an Ami box. Have you ever wanted to give someone some shit like when my friends thought I believed in Sango? a little bit of dust I put a lot of dust on people yeah, you know the door to the White House, you know, I don't know, he made comments about Haiti being an old country. I thought someone would catch them, yeah I heard you sifting someone. You're right, I didn't think about it, man, come to him, but all that is already happening, yeah, that's going to happen, he made that happen.

You probably know the speed, you know, pushing it like you're going to lose your family. your acting and your writing, you know, I think they weren't meant to be all along. I think when it happens to you at some point you don't know that people resent you or see you as a threat and it was actually their own insecurities, but when you're young, you keep trying to please them by doing things, making things happen, say Hey, look, it could happen to you and they resent it. I'm number four, so maybe it would be harder for my older sisters and brothers to see that they consider me. like being younger not only at your age, but also at the same time, why does it happen to you?

I think ultimately my brothers loved me, but it was very difficult for me for a long time, why did you like it? Erika, I must say that I. I love you I have a goat on my daughter has International Day I have to leave are you announcing that you are leaving this time your father said he was uh you said he was a preacher but you said he was damaged and that he was a hypocrite if poverty is His sometimes is is is is is like they say it can give you metal like it can give you strength but it can also weaken you because it's not the love of things it's because you don't have anything and then you start manipulating people.

Based on what you think they can give you, now imagine an orphan abandoned on the street and only to be left with anyone and his grandmother, who would take him in at some point, would beat him; Both of my parents were abused; my mother was eventually adopted, but she my mother was extremely abused, she was sexually abused by a street worker while she was at her house, my father just used himself as this child prodigy because he could talk, he had great oratory skills, he had the so-called power, the presence or the gift of healing and insight, then the person grows and realizes that every time he does something people give him $10 hmm, so how can I get that $10 and how can I get it so that becomes your point of view and after a while that can? corrupt anyone lack of money speaks for the love of money but lack of money is just as corrupt and dangerous and disturbing so that's what happened to my father.

I try to see it through that lens because we come from slavery and we always try to say that we are our parents the best version of what they could give us but if they had very little to give us and if now I have more it is because he took the hit for That and just taking us to Philadelphia was more. to be in a place where we could learn here that people said black people are beautiful and learn about people like Frederick Douglass and all that stuff, but then there was no internet hmm, it was just God and how can you eat mmm, so yeah, he.

He was a hypocrite to a great extent and what he taught him to be was religion, we basically used an abuse of his power base, a great abuse. I think the first place you experience abuse of power is with your parents, certainly with women often. with your fathers, husbands, fathers, things like that and that happened, how do you feel about church and religion now that you're growing up, with your father and the experiences that you had. I see it as a tool to sometimes clear your mind and bring therapy to people who need it. when I say therapy to the people who need it, they gave it to the slaves, as you know, to keep us calm, just keep us in line and you know this well, but it also gave us a place to go to cry and scream and just say "you".

I know this hurts and maybe in time something will be better for me and that was important. Now I see it as something that is more than just a tool. If it can be free, it's not for me. It is not like this. Believe. that no one is right and yet there are good things in all kinds of different philosophies and ideologies, so I like reading about philosophers. I like reading about Buddhism and Hinduism. I love reading about the Quran, but there are things that would not be for me if I were Muslim because I grew up here and I am decidedly FEMINIST.

I don't know if that will work for me, but I can see how the feminine is there and how beautiful it is. I try to just be a life learner and Check it out and try anything that sticks because, mate, you need it and you're attracting it, but also to consider it as something that I don't need to carry with me and that I can take the best version or at least the one that I. I need to go through it and keep moving even more spiritually and religiously just because of what you just said, it's like a slave master was giving us, you know, it was making us sick, but then he gave us the same thing, yeah, and they kill you, Yes, you know. and that's it and they knew what I mean, this is the thing about being a human being, if you can capture our hearts and minds, you have us for life, you really do, and I think whoever fed you religion It's how you assimilate it, so if they fed you.

They would tell you and they were corrupt, so you don't take it as something pure and in my mind, my father's fortune was that we had, it was a vessel of cover-up, so it kind of went behind the curtain and he would be talking about all these things and he was bragging about what he did, he took care of the white people, you know, and how good he was and the other preachers, and they put in enough money and I thought that's corrupt, mmm, so I religion came to me. double, so I look at it that way and in fact a person who can speak well is the person you are least likely to think of if he is good at heart.

I watch people's actions over time, people make mistakes, but they make mistakes. It gives them the opportunity to redeem themselves or to live a little and grow and you see them wanting to change and adapt. For me he is a person that I can follow, listen to or learn something and anyone has that, but I am telling you a lot of that is a smokescreen for a lot of deep corruption and people say why you know, you go to church. I said not often because all the centers are there. You said you were happy to buy your mom a house.

Hmm, you used to be obsessed with shopping. your mom, a house. I was obsessed with her. I even wanted a home version. I mean, you lived hand to mouth all the time and you know after a while you know that talking about the kindness of strangers is nice after a while. something we lived in called there was a shack outside the hotel and it was infested with cockroaches and she put a chandelier in red curtains, red velvet curtains with gold tassels and a piano because she had been raised, even though her mother was very abusive She was an only child, so she had been raised by the woman in her car and her town of Carlsbad, who had more money, and she was being raised to be like Marion Anderson and, oh, you know, she talked a certain way, but she was poor. , but she tried to give it culture and I thought that one day I would have a place for my mother to put that piano and take those dolls that she bought us and take them out, so when I got a little money, that was the first time. one of the first things I did and a lot of times I can't hold on to it, you know, sometimes they don't even want it, yeah, I thought it would bring us all together, we were so emotionally dysfunctional, we were so exhausted, but being Moving Moving Moving I was to nine different schools when I settled into girls.

I Philadelphia Girls' High School and then that's probably the longest I didn't have any kind of stable education since I was in sixth grade. I just wanted a place to be and you know, I had the opportunity to do Greenville, South Carolina, where she went after my dad passed away and she had a good time there, but then things changed with the location because you all were so spread out. that she wanted everyone to be together, so Greenville is like and really out of everyone's way, but she chose the location after that, she lived in Brooklyn and I think she was just angry and couldn't accept all the people we could, that you're talking about, people were from smaller places and it's kind of a need to go somewhere where you can relax and not have it come to you all the time.

You know you don't go out in your car. It's not scratched or someone has given you a ticket. You can't even find a parking ticket. a parking spot people don't greet you when they pass you so she chose Greenville, South Carolina and the people were nice there but the family didn't get together just because there was a house where we were still ridiculously remote Yantra, what are you doing? Do you think about all these reboots they're doing just to switch gears for a second on TV shows? Do you like it? Are you thinking it's okay? I would love to see Martin or The Fresh Prince or live single or something like that.

I don't know, Angela, listen, this is what I think, I think it's great, people are nostalgic because you know things from the past maybe happen for a good reason, but for me I always try to be honest and I said if my career in film and television it would have been much better. I may have no problem dipping my toe back into that water and making the ultimate character, but for me I was life, so time is so finite, you have so little time. I guess I just want to see if I can do it. other things well and see, you know if I can make people happy for me or you know, with a different character or in a different way, so that's my goal now.

Never say Never. I enjoyed them and this wouldn't be because I didn't do it. I didn't have a good time, it's just a matter of you know, I just know that maybe because I come from orphans, my father passed away, but you don't have tomorrow today, why didn't you have a broader career? biggest career, I mean, he did six seasons of a hit show and he was on the Cosby Show, what was the problem, it was the party, what we were saying before, you know there's a structural bias in people's minds. I also think being so - called a comedy actress at least in their minds I came from drama and I was a dramatic actress but I was known for being funny.

She came in a package that they didn't find funny. You know, I'm not being you. What I mean is when I say they expected black women who were fun to be fatter, louder, more it's not like you know I can touch that, but you know that wasn't where I came from so I don't think so. I spit out

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number one. I also think comedy was ruled by black men. You know, they knew how to put on a show for a Wayans brother or any of them. They didn't necessarily think I was valuable or that I had anything intrinsic. value, so you talk about value over time and you may have invested a lot, but it doesn't mean that if they think it's valuable, if they watched the show and how much it made and if they looked at the audience, my Q score They may have said "Oh no, she will do well and people will know that it is good to invest in her, but if they don't invest in you and even though you may have proof and all kinds of positive things, you know some things." around you they say otherwise they won't do it and you'll leave hey, is this true to the character of Maxine Shaw? what's supposed to be a regular no I'm supposed to come in every once in a while she was and that's why you shoot I always saw her the good news is she was the only one who could afford her own apartment which I liked her a lot, she was really nice, but she ate other people's food, so that helped offset the cost, but no, she was supposed to come from time to time.

Then it turned out that they saw in the pilot that the audience really liked the ensemble and I didn't know that you knew that and I would have cared. I'm used to being an ensemble musician, so if I had come every now and then, that would have been the concert, but it turned outthat they knew what they wrote for and that the show was built around Kim in Latifah, exactly. Latifah and Kim had a deal. I think they even had the same agent, they had the same agent, I think it was Lee Bowser, who created the show and I think they put it together as a package.

I don't know if Kim Fields did it, but I was like TC and I was the last two people added. We were born the same day we met at a hotel we had auditioned for and I guess a day or two after the day we got cast there we were reading the chart and we were standing around, now let's get some real love between you and TZ like you said, yeah I had the same birthday, yeah, and you all look like it took someone this long, yeah, no, not at all, because kissing him would be like kissing my brother Scott in a nasty way, yeah, no.

Not at all, I mean we like to joke, you wait your whole life to find people that you can know that you have chemistry with them, chemistry here, that's something you can't buy, it has to do with what the balance is and how you . they flow from each other, but you can try to put it together to try to do it, you can even have the skill sets but it's like catching lightning in a bottle and when it's there, I guess Fred Astaire meets Ginger Rogers and they can dance, you're happy. I didn't know what would be there first if you look at the first season they wrote max. to banter back and forth with Regina, what would happen, they would double Maxine and Kyle would start responding and the audience again, that's our fourth character, would tell us they would laugh and then they started pressuring him, he still had a bitter relationship between the regime and I, but what came to light was the fact that Kyle and Max were made for each other and it turned out to be, but again, that's what you're most passionate about now, like producing or writing or acting.

If you have to say, this is where I want to be, this is my most important feeling. Well, I created a company called color for myself, one of the reasons I created it was because of the lack of opportunities for black and brown women, but also for black people in general and certainly just for older people with different abilities, no we see those people at all it's like they don't even exist so I did it and I hope I can change things but I started when I was just coming off The Cosby Show learning to write took so long to create the discipline to learn how to read enough books to see that there is a structure within a structure and yet you can't see that, so I'm really passionate about doing that. it's just that when I was doing it before, no one wanted to listen to you, they would take the meeting or have the meeting, but they would just pat you on the head and say, "Oh, great, you know, and you know, you kind of crossed it out." Mark it if they knew you, there really wasn't any platform that wanted to take a chance with the things that I was trying to present because I was trying to present black and brown people as protagonists that changed the turns of the wheel and I'm telling everyone that.

If they are doing things that are creating things, at some point you have to bide your time, it's like real estate, it can maintain its value, but finish it, don't set it up there and leave it half done, because the time will come. and that's what happened, the time came suddenly ava duvernay you had Sondra Rimes you had John Ridley Steve McQueen we have all these people I'm talking about in basements in the Shawn Martin district - you know a Richardson Neddy fool Okorafor who is doing something with George RR Martin now on HBO wonderful, amazing, talented artist and now his time has come because we have Wakanda and we have people who want to pay attention to different voices and different superheroes and different ways of seeing the world, who is heroic and what that looks like. but I had to wait for that to happen, but in the meantime I had a lot of stuff, so I did it.

By the way, I have a horror thriller that went to Lionsgate that I wrote oh, really, yeah, my favorite kind of movie. Oh, strange. The face comes because the genre is because it came out, yes, it was the last time I sent myself there to find myself there, and I do beyond which it is for free, but I also have a film that I wrote about the Children's Choir from Harlem which is maybe, but Ava Duvernay is producing partners Tammy and Paul Guards and Electric City, that's the Jamie Patrick Rothfuss company and I have Giles and that's in the bank, but you know there's a lot of things that fortunately For me I finished and now they are you.

Be valuable and people are looking for you, they come, they are looking for me and we are looking for them. A farm media color so that you feel here about us, we are looking for you. I want to do like what Def Jam and Motown did. because at the time there was no way, if you think about it, we would have overlooked Stevie Wonder's Diana Ross and all these incredible people, but they created a bridge, suddenly there was someone looking for them and they, can you imagine a world without all those ? People don't have music and white people do, but they are missing out because the Moving Image is the last place they segregated.

Lauren forgets about segregation, totally annihilated and if they can control our dreamscape, then they can take us down like dogs, that's what. I talked about times past, that's over, you won't be able to shoot our men like dogs, you won't be able to get scared and say, I was scared enough, let's show you who we are and you should be afraid of your own thoughts, that's all you're saying is very interesting. I'm very intrigued, but it's like you've waited so long, but I think it's going to be hard to take this moment away from us in Hollywood now because the people in positions of power behind the camera, being in front of the camera, you're right, but they could still do it. , what happens is that they can't do it mainly because of the Internet mmm, the world has changed, there are no borders, there is globalization.

The economy that is driving us now and that can be seen with the black panther when you think that they didn't even release it to China and/or Russia and it still hit a

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ion dollars and now it's doing you know that, but you're right. , I mean that not only four years ago there were people behind it, but there was no power, what is the point if they have no power, they have diversity offices and you go and meet the diverse people in person, who have no say? That's ridiculous, the power came from the guy who was at Marvel, who was black, who kept pushing it for years and years and years and they finally said, ok, let's do it, there's a wine cooler, it's ready, why was it installed? from Frank Vil and Creed's fruit-filled spec station, he had to do it. be Ryan Coogler first and then we had Chadwick Boseman doing all those roles, all those iconic roles to enter this iconic space as Black Panther and then you had something, but all those things had to be in place and unfortunately there were a lot of people in the behind the scenes those who had no power or just sat in their power didn't do much they didn't want to expose themselves why because they would want to risk what could fail, yes it could fail, but at least you tried well and they didn't.

I didn't even want to do that. Does it feel good like a new black Renaissance? Because you were in the original Black Renaissance that people talk about. They never refer to the original background. It's not to go back to that time. Does this feel like a new one? Yes, but for me it is a market correction to make a basket. Yes, you were always here, you were always talented, you always had your ideas and for me it's... I guess I'm a rebirth. Renaissance. I guess that's a correct way to do it. so I agree, but I think when you open it, when you open it, you said we were doing great and then they stopped, we're always there, so you can't have a revival of something that's a revival of something that always is there. there are always people creating this, now you're paying attention to it, now you want to make money from storytelling and it's a business thing and I can't deny the fact that this is exactly what will make us some money and if there are all these podcasts and radio stations, all that and not everyone is going to be as popular as you, that is, being able to look everyone in the eye, be in your space, then you are fighting for specific audiences and that's when they want you, it's okay when Fox wants. a black audience to help build their brand, their network, but it's different when they abandon that and then go another way when they think they've made it when they know they know about the World Series and all these other things that happen.

For them and for Ally McBeal, you can't give that up, but now go ahead, you know your or someone's sloppy seconds. I think you know that we have a lot of options as to where we can see things and how they can be. brought to Hulu Netflix the movies TV there's only a million YouTube they all have different outlets so we can do things and you're going to miss it, we're going to miss it and streaming in the future has always been for it, by the way, black. people are the most powerful culture creators in the world without, of course, 17% of African Americans ruling the world in terms of how we think about ourselves, we control the cool, we couldn't, we control the cool and you know what It's also about controlling cool.

Probably the best place we could be in when we think about slavery and what it brought us as far as pain and then we think about how everyone now perceives themselves through how we, how, in a way, I guess for Moving forward, we always have to check ourselves to make sure. that we are advancing powerfully what is not, you know what I mean because we really move the world, we do this, we make all this go around, so I am really proud of us and I say African-Americans, I am proud of the Latin Americans that there are now a detour from America, they are coming back, not that they ever went anywhere, but we are starting not to assert our power, but to know how they felt about it. friends scamming living single and what is the truth.

I let myself think that we're supposed to call each other friends. Yes, very good, they came in handy. We would call my girl when we started calling my daughters when we first did our pilot and it wasn't tested. Well, you know how they test things, so they went down. Now we were filming the actual series and one of the executives had a whole list of names, three, four or five of them, he read them and it was living watching friends, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they chose to live single for us and then the next year they created friends, oh, the same people who had the same thing, Warner Brothers and both Warner Brothers on the ranch lot and they were in the big lot we call it. ranch the ghetto loans because we didn't have anything on that lot we didn't really have air conditioning North or heat we had a strike because we know our artisan service table was basically rice with Tabasco sauce and Ritz crackers you know and you know I just just came from Cosby Show I didn't expect them to have a variety like that, that's what you get when you're number one in your market and all that, but I did expect us to have some kind of protein, can we have it, yes we do. a piece of ham, so no, that's what happened with friends, yeah, and you know, at the end of our career we were paid a lot less and people said, well, you had a smaller market share, I said, in comparison with what you know comparatively.

Yeah, but you know, if you think about how much they made by paying so little and how much they made this indication all over the world all these years mmm-hmm, get the damn fool who makes five million dollars, fifty-five thousand dollars in our art like our nadir the whole cast no maybe okay, yeah, I was like a lot of money and it's then, you know, if you have two point five million per episode for them or the production budget no, no, for our, you know, my salary okay, five thousand dollars a week. Okay, twenty-six shows, but if they were friends, two point five million dollars a week, per person, we'd have something to do with the network and what Nate, what am I?

NB c-- uh, if they don't NB c-- we were on Fox, I mean, you know, Fox, which just wasn't considered a net worth, had a lot of opportunities to become a network, but also what happened is that you're again looking at the fact that we did it. I didn't understand the marketing that we couldn't play, there was a lot of stuff there to hold you down and it doesn't make you feel as valuable, but yeah, I'm sure they did look at it and scale it and you know, I looked at it and how much they made compared to what that they put.

I'm sure we are on par, if not much better than what they did. I can't name a single person who offered. I am fully aware of what a great spectacle she was. she was girlfriends mm-hmm enjoy Lourdes, maybe it's Laurie, I don't know why it looks like it was a relationship now, they were like women who lived single, now we're all friends, obviously no, teef is everywhere and you already know. I don't get to see her much or say hi to her, that had probably always been the case with her because she was a rapper and totally moved in different circles.

Kim Fields is a mother of two children and is in Atlanta. She is also a director and followed me. After going, I called her Atila, come to the program. Oh, very muchtime to cut me a muffin, she did it actually, I don't know what she did in that, but she always liked Oh, book out of things, yes, she does, she has a book published. Yeah, she's, you know, that's a showbiz baby, she was born in her mother's house, she was born in Harlem, actually, Kim T C is in Atlanta, he's been doing jazz and he comes from musical theater, We all come from different places, always. we were all doing some kind of live theater, even 94, if you think about her singing and her, excuse me, her rap performance.

John Hinton is a comedian and he's from Cleveland, Ohio, he has a son so you see him on the road a lot, he spends his time between Cleveland Los Angeles and then Kim Coles we did BFF Chronicles, we did it together and that was just being goofy and We have fun and we talk more often than anyone She's a great friend Yeah I just feel like a queen He was someone who looked like She could have closed that gap for all of you back then Yeah she had the flavor unit productions on March, yes, I could have done it.

I mean, you know, I try not to hold her hostage just because you're a friend, you're supposed to do things. but I think that would have been possible, she never slipped a script like the one that gave her her first chance in the children's choir mmm, you know, but that's where she is. Oh, Miss Eric Alexander, it's been a pleasure, thank you, lots of company. looking for people, yes we are looking for you and thank you very much for everything you do because you have to know that I watch all your shows, thank you, I mean everyone, no, no, no, I learned a lot and I am really fascinated by how here they can be young people of color and talking to people about current affairs and also being kind, you know, digging and all that, it's really smart, you know you have to be smart and have to be on it all the time and I mean arrest, I think which was something beautiful.

It's not something that happened when I was a kid, you know, hopefully that means that in your book there's all the stuff happening with you and congratulations on everything, yeah, hopefully that means a lot of kids will see it too and be able to say: "Oh, I see a lot." A lot of people always hit us like, oh I want to do something like The Breakfast Club or I want to do radio, you guys inspire me, you represent me, it's big, I know it's been more than it matters, it's changing people's lives, thank you, Thanks, I can.

Don't wait to see what you do next. I know you have some fire scripts. You see, thank you. I'm doing the best I can. I better take my vitamins. Eric Alexander Yarder Breakfast Club.