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I'm Kelli Crossley This is the Cali Crossley Show. Comedian Barrett today Thurston was raised by a black activist mother in the DC projects he attended a lily white private school got a philosophy degree at Harvard and co-founded a politics website before ending up at the satirical news website The Onion. Perhaps most importantly along the way there are today Thurston accrued over 32 years of experience of being black. These years of hard won wisdom inspired him to write a new book. It's both a childhood remembrance and a tongue in cheek guide book on. How to Be Black tackles tricky conundrums from what it means to be someone's black friend and how to be the next black president to the right way to celebrate Black History Month. Thurston minds his own history for a fresh look at identity race and politics. And he's here to talk about what it means to be authentically African-American. Up next the Black Spur tese of comedian there today Thurston. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh. The man who claims he killed a ton pates in one of the nation's most infamous missing child cases is undergoing

psychological examination in New York. This comes 33 years to the day since the 6 year old boy vanished on his way to school. Authorities are preparing to arraign pager at 9:00 this O former convenience store stock clerk who worked in the area where Pates was last seen. But the confession is also raising questions that it may be a hoax which police have said is common around anniversaries of crimes by Wall Street has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of New York for books that were destroyed during the raid on Zuccotti Park last November. NPR's Margot Adler reports that Occupy Wall Street says police destroyed forty seven thousand dollars worth of books computers and other equipment during the surprise raid that cleared Zuccotti Park last fall the OWSA library of some 5000 books was taken by police. OWSA says that officers seized almost 4000 donated books and that a thousand were returned. Two hundred of them torn and unusable. And O Ws news conference showed reporters a couple of hundred torn books on a table. The lawsuit alleges various

constitutional violations including unreasonable seizure of materials named Mayor Michael Bloomberg NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and the city sanitation chief. Protesters catalogue the library. One of the damaged books was Michael Bloomberg's autobiography. Margot Adler NPR News New York. Federal authorities are saying that an unruly passenger onboard an American Airlines flight from Jamaica had to be restrained today after rushing toward the cockpit. Once the plane landed in Miami the FBI is investigating after the aircraft arrived from Monteagle Bay. It had 165 passengers on board. The prime minister of Lebanon has confirmed that 12 Shiite pilgrims who were taken hostage in Syria have been released. NPR's Kelly McEvers reports a kidnapping had sparked protests in Shiite areas of Lebanon. The Pilgrims were abducted earlier this week near the Syrian city of Aleppo. They were traveling back to Lebanon from a religious pilgrimage in Iran. Women and children were

immediately sent home but the men remained. The Syrian government accused anti-government rebels of the kidnapping but the rebel umbrella group the Free Syrian Army denied they were involved. The kidnapping had caused Shiite protesters in Lebanon to burn tires and block roads here in the capital Beirut and beyond. That came after sectarian violence in Sunni areas of Lebanon related to the Syrian conflict killed more than a dozen people. Today Shiites around Lebanon are celebrating the pilgrims release. Kelly McEvers NPR News Beirut. At last check on Wall Street the Dow is down 44 points to twelve thousand four hundred eighty five Nasdaq off one point and the S&P 500 down 1 at thirteen 20. This is NPR News. Good afternoon from the WGBH radio newsroom in Boston I'm Christina Quinn with some local stories we're following. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has voted to renew the license of the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth for another 20 years. The agency announced today that it is authorized to renew the license before it expires on June 8th. The five member

commission voted three to one in favor of relicensing with outgoing chairman Gregory yachts go the lone dissenting vote commissioner George upas to Lucky's did not vote according to NRC records. Attorney General Martha Coakley had sought additional hearings citing unaddressed safety concerns about the facility. The Massachusetts Senate has completed work on its version of a more than thirty two billion dollar state budget setting the state for negotiations with the House over a final spending plan for the fiscal year starting July 1st. The Senate approved the budget thirty six to zero late this morning after debating hundreds of proposed amendments over the past three days. The spending package calls for no new taxes or fees and calls on the state to bar 290 million dollars from its rainy day fund to help balance the budget. A six member House Senate conference committee will now be appointed to resolve differences between the Senate version and the one previously passed by the house. Rhode Island's attorney general has approved the proposed sale of financially troubled landmark health systems into a for profit Massachusetts Hospital Group group. Attorney General Mark Peter killed kill Martin rather. Today announced that he

approved the deal for steward health care system to take over the nonprofit landmark Medical Center and one socket with reasonable conditions. State health director Michael Fein said Tuesday he had approved the deal under which landmark would become a for profit hospital. Both the attorney general and health director are required to give it the green light and the weather forecast for the remainder of the afternoon is a cloudy one with temperatures hovering around 70 tonight we will see cloudy with overnight lows in the lower 60s right now with 65 degrees in Boston 73 in Worcester and 67 in Providence. Support for NPR comes from Barnes and Noble maker of Nook Simple touch with glow light designed for reading with the lights on or off. Available at Barnes and Noble stores or YORK dot com. I'm Kelly Crossley. Today we're rebroadcasting a conversation we had with Barrett today Thurston. He's a writer standup comedian and director of digital for the satirical news site The Onion. His latest book is How to Be Black. Though we did take calls during the live broadcast. Please do not call in since this is a

repeat. Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley That's James Brown in his 1968 hit Say it Loud I'm Black and I'm proud. It's a perfect intro into our conversation today about being black. Today we're talking with the Onion's Barrett today Thurston. He's a writer. Stand up comedian and director of digital for the satirical news site. His new book part memoir and part Funny how to guide book is called How to Be Black. He joins us now from the Radio Foundation studios in New York to talk about it. Barry today Thurston welcome. Good afternoon Kelly I'm black and I'm proud. Thanks for having me. You can join the conversation too have you ever been in a situation where you're the only minority when you've had to represent everyone in your group. Barrett today talks about that. Are you

feeling the whole post racial thing. Call in at 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. That's 8 7 7 3 0 1 89 70. You can also comment on our Facebook page Facebook dot com slash Cally Crossley Show or tweet us at Kelly Crossley. So Barry today this is the question we have to ask all people with expertise and since you have black expertise let's be black. Why did you decide to write this book. So I wrote this book because publishing is an obvious way to become a millionaire. I've seen it work for everybody else and I thought this is just the best way to make it big in America. And I wrote it because it seemed like a good time because opportunity presented itself and I my publisher was actually quite excited and because we're in this era where you know my own personal story and the place that this country in particular is and probably the world more generally seems open to an update on this conversation of race and on what it means to be black and by that I mean I'm the son and maybe

of my generation are the children of the civil rights movement. We are all collectively living in something called the Obama era we have our first biracial black president and that's a very exciting into mulcher was time for everyone to go through together. And so it's time to maybe reassess how we talk about what the image of Blackness is and what it can and should and will be. And you put all of that in in a comedic context so that yeah whatever you're talking about people can hear you is that why. Well I've been doing comedy for 10 years now. I actually started doing comedy in Boston right at the Harvard Square at the comedy studio. And so that was my most frequent club also at the Emerald Isle down in Dorchester a lot of I performed all over New England and Boston is just a great foundation for a lot of this comedy you know can get people's attention. I get books to keep and pay that attention to ways that you know a straight up sociological treatise with tables and tables of numbers

just isn't as exciting. So it's my particular way of living in the world mostly and it seemed like a good way to deal with something as awkward as black as well we have a little clip of some of your stand up comedy and I thought folks should hear that as we say. Here's a parent today talking about catching a cab in New York I was OK I was recently on the road I have to come over here and I was in this cabin where I live you have a choice of British forces it happens and I don't want to get stuck on one of the bridges I'm going to get my phone I checked Google Maps the traffic data and I told my driver please take the Brooklyn Bridge and he proceeded to do that. But he had some words for me and you need to understand my cab driver was Asian and that's important because I'm racist and. He turned to having me said to me you're just a white guy. You just like to work as you say.

Some people are just like the white guys and I was so furious that I wanted to be extra black you know like undermine his idea of me and I want to stab him without fried chicken wing. But that aside you can possible can word style OOC I know only a waterborne would grant Snowden like those things are you going to let him have my cereal with lead that day I was playing the lottery so I decided. To live up to his expense Exactly. Extra wife and I offered him a very complicated financial product. Why more was the rock I owned his house and his children's college buddy. I'm bored because I would want to have a lot of homelessness. So that's my guess bare today Thurston in his stand up comedian role as we could hear a lot of your material. Is this similar to what you've written about in your book you're exploring race and and people's interaction with it and stereotypes.

Yeah yeah I mean in that story you know for the listeners that actually did happen you know a lot of comedy is embellishment I didn't you know take his children's college fund I took his home no I took it home just to prove the point. And I think he won't be making those racial assumptions about black passengers anymore. I had a similar almost similar exact tale when I met a woman at a bar and she found out that I worked at the union that I graduate from Harvard and she's like oh my god you're the whitest black guy I've ever met. So here we go again like did you not get the memo from the cab driver whose home I took. We got to run the news here like black people can do a lot of stuff and other people can do a lot of the world is open in more ways and I think we've had such a narrow projection of what is possible for black people but also for all people we have this external idea of what our identity is. And it's very different from what we know internally ourselves to be. And so I wanted to tell a lot of personal stories and use satire to explore all that. So you say in your book that this is about the ideas of blackness and

how they differ from the popular ideas promoted in mainstream media and often in the black community itself. So what are those ideas that are generally promoted in mainstream media and often in the black. Oh yes you know. You know you know it's the standard archetypes you've got like the thug and the athlete in the sassy black woman and the president of the United States it's just it's ridiculous the way people try to narrow what our opportunities are. And I think what really has happened is that we have not quite updated. You know that range the fact that my cab driver can be surprised that I'm using Google Maps on my phone to try to you know save both of us time and the money should not be surprising the level of wireless internet use by black people is actually well above average than the white in fact I was being extra black in that moment based on the data alone. But he's got an outdated idea that old nerdy techie geek things. That's got to be kind of white. And so part of the the child of this book is to try to

update some of those expectations or at a minimum remove some of them. Want to have. There are so many funny things in your book and it is very funny. And so we must mention this very early on in our conversation is that you have a guide to how to celebrate Black History Month. And I know that your new book came out three months people you know once a year people try to buy you know some black thing during February. And I kind of wanted to make this an easy decision for them. So if there's going to be something you could do I want to kind of give you a shopping list menu to choose from. Of ways to indulge your black awareness. Why did you read a couple of these like number eight in acquiring a new black friend. I like that. That's a way to Oh sure. Number eight acquire a new black friend and I are busy man I want a first name basis by the way with the with the. We can't be the black friends for all of non-black America.

So would it would behoove those of you who are not black to get your own. If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of being black friendless you can either go to the nearest black church and strike up a conversation or just fire up Facebook search for black people and start clicking add friend on the names in the resulting list. Technology is amazing and quite a time saver. And number three number three I like this this is taking requests. I feel like a deejay with us. Of Records. Number three this is actually very important as well as high on the list. Avoid being explicitly racist. This one can be a struggle for many. Racism is everywhere and it comes naturally. But it's considered to be extra offensive if you are explicitly racist toward black people during Black History Month. If nothing else it shows a lack of discipline. If you're serious about hating black people prove it by delaying that hate for a few weeks. Racism is exhausting and you could use a break. Take one on March 1st you'll return to peak form.

Fired up and ready to marginalize those are just two of the ways that my guest today Thurston from his book How to Be Black. Suggest you celebrate Black History Month and I must say they are unique. I've not heard that before so your blacks pretties is showing what I wanted to offer something that people hadn't quite heard before want to be a little different. Use innovation. You know I'm part of the digital generation so let's get with them and I just encourage people to go at a minimum. Follow Barack Obama on Twitter. It's the least you can do it costs nothing you get black history every moment and I get 40 characters or less because whatever he does is very black and very historic. There today let's talk about you because now hearing all of your ideas many of your ideas. You know it's we should explain where all this came from because you are as you just mentioned a digital native. Really. And it was you were inside of a computer. I didn't mean that. And you grew up across the street from the projects in D.C. So let's talk about some of your early years and how it shaped

you and shaped your ideas about thinking about blackness. So I grew up in Washington D.C. our nation's this functional Capitol it's always been that way people think D.C. is broken it's been broken. It's still not technically a city state it's kind of this weird limbo governing wise I grew up in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. I was raised by my mother and I have an older sister who now lives in Michigan and is doing wonderful things out there. And so we grew up in what was a predominantly black and Latino neighborhood. And I saw that neighborhood transition. Sadly into disrepair and ugliness and crime due to drugs due to the crack epidemic due to all the missed opportunities of that era and so I had a kind of a front row actual front row seat out of our window into how a neighborhood deteriorates and my mother's efforts to salvage me and our family and opportunities through all of that was a major influence on me being a part of that and witnessing that devolution of a piece of the society that I

knew. At the same time my mom was this very you know powerful figure and brought her own history and politics into our house and she was very much one of those 60s protesting hippie black people like she gave me a Nigerian name though we're not actually Nigerian. She was in the streets protesting constantly especially during my sister's early childhood but even into mine and she involved me in a lot of Afro centric education programs designed to save young black man and black girls from this deteriorating environment. And one of the efforts she took to try to save me was to put me into private school. And that ended up going to the Sidwell Friends School where the Obama daughters are attending now went from seventh grade through 12th grade and then ended up attending and graduating from Harvard. So these are three rough pieces that have built my own foundation. A bit of the like typical urban single mother story that you hear a bit of the like home boy makes good kind of story when it was one of these great schools two of these

great schools and then a middle story which you don't hear too much of what this sort of Afro centric foundation and education. And so that for me gave me a lot of perspective on America on blackness and on the the intertwining of those two in that dance we've been doing for a while. So because of that what you describe as the Rites of Passage Program that your mother enrolled you in on weekends and then the Sidwell Friends experience which you have just totally different differently coming out of that. How did you at that age now you know not now but then see yourself as black. How do you how would you have defined your blackness at that point. I was I was militant black as a kid. I was often frustrated and angry. Not all the time but I think you know one of the first books my mother ever gave me was black and white picture book called This is apartheid a pictorial introduction. And so I don't remember much of the See Spot Run type books I

probably had them but what I remember is learning what apartheid was about eight years old. And that colors your perspective on the world around you as a young impressionable child. And then when you mix that in an environment like a Sidwell Friends School which is not quite hitting you with the same cues and educational inputs there can be some conflicts. So I one of the the papers that I wrote in my early years which kind of showed how the awkward marriage of these two worlds could produce an even more awkward child. I wrote a paper for seventh or eighth grade English class basically railing against something called the US propaganda machine and I just read Marcus Garvey is also hopped up on the Garveys of thinking and of that I was using the newts grammar in language tools and word processors from the schools I had this very very. Ambitious speech that I had written in the form of an English paper addressing all black people talking about how all white people were trying to do this was and that's us. And that's very stark when you add the hormones of a young man on top of all that

and the sort of self-righteousness of youth with its own invincibility blag And so in the moment I just thought like I'm just the most righteous and correct kid out there and I got to teach the world. Black is beautiful. You can't hold us back. And he cocoa pebbles because that chocolate chocolate is black light. Going to do whatever I can put black in it as a mission and it felt kind of like a mission at that. So you know I'm in these environments where you question where your blackness questioned did you run into your early tests. Authenticity. Yes so when you when you physically cross worlds you end up you know anyone who has ever left their neighborhood their state their country to go to another. There is an interpretation and a judgment on both sides of that experience you looking out people looking in at you and so having grown up in the neighborhood I've described going to the public school I attended then shifting and taking a bus across town to go to Sidwell coming back home. People go oh you're

going to go to school the like is home what's going on over there like there was a there's always this little undermining of. So you still one of us are you are you one of them now. And it didn't happen too harshly I think with the people I directly knew. But it comes up and with the other community say oh you're from you're from that part of D.C. Well I don't I don't know anybody who lives over there ARE YOU. You went to this you went to that and one of the most comical versions that that emerged was actually a website that taps into the absurdity and the humor of all this was called Black people love us. And it was created by Jonah Peretti and his sister who were you know behind BuzzFeed and early have poet they this idea that oh I must know where to get we must know where the cool clubs are I must know what this is like. I don't I made. Salvation and like survivability of not knowing where to get you we'd like to go into that I'm trying to escape from that so there's some weird sort of judgements and expectations from both populations who don't really know all of you and these

especially of the early church kids are just weird. You're listening to a conversation I had earlier this year with Vera today Thurston. He's a writer standup comedian and director of digital for the satirical news site The Onion. We were discussing his book How to Be Black. This is WGBH Boston Public Radio. The booth.

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Morning Edition by here on WGBH Boston Public Radio a good Wednesday. Deputy Chief. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in we're talking about the onions there today Thurston's new book How to Be Black. It's part memoir part comedic guidebook. We want to hear from you. Have you ever had your racial authenticity question ever been accused of being not black enough or being too black. A Barry today we're going to take a caller right now. Do it. Kelly from Rhode Island Go ahead please you're on eighty nine point seven the Calla Crossley Show. Hi I just wanted to say I love their today's comments. I personally like using humor in my life every day because I'm one of two African-American coworkers in my entire workplace and there are very few of us in the town where I live. And so sometimes that like you think could be a little mean but I think using humor with people just to. Just

to make them squirm a little bit see how they react in certain situations. Well there are two do you have a chapter called How to be a black employee perhaps you'd like to share some advice with Kelly while she's on the line. Kelly you are you are already ahead of the game I have to say I'm very proud of what you're doing. I think you're doing blackness right. You're on mission. So just first of all keep up the good work I commend you. As I said there's there's so much that goes into you know being one of the few minorities in a workplace because you have some of the expectations of friendship without the reality of it. You know these are coworkers much more than friends but you have these awkward personal interactions people assume you have opinions on things you don't know anything about like the LPN food you have any recommendations like why. Why would I know that. Why are you asking where the clubs I don't know I don't I'm not in a club or I don't even dance I would like to dance. The company holiday party like to eat the watermelon not all the time. If you don't find interactions and I like that you you know not just this guy but you have fun back with him and that

can be one of the best sort of defeats one is a mild advantage of being in the situation of you always having this weight added to the kind of spin it back but not in an aggressive way just sort of a fun and playful way and just can defuse some of the awkwardness. These are definitely awkward situations and if you look at just the way people live in general we live an American to love pretty segregated environment. You know in terms of our zip codes and who we actually go home to and who our neighbors are in the workplace is one of those spots that things get mixed up a little bit and that's probably for the best but it's not without some of its awkward moments so I really do thank you your you never have to you could skip that chapter if you want. Right. Kelly thank you so much for your call. We have a tweet from someone buried today I love this quote. I cannot express how giddy smart black men make me and three exclamation points. That would be a regulation that is excessive excitement that they get giddy today on the air I like it. Like my my goal is actually to make

people giddy So I'm winning. So yes you are very much cool. Now you're smart. Just because you have that as part of who you are but you also had some of that intellectual shaped Herbert right here in Boston. And I note that in your book you say that Harvard was really quite freeing for you in a way that the other experience of being at Sidwell was it that you felt more open to being who whatever black person you felt you were there. Explain that. So if Harvard had been my first experience of kind of being the minority in THE SITUATION ROOM I came from DC I'm seeing black people everywhere I wake up I see black people going to bed to see black in the middle just blackness all around it abounds. And then you come to Boston and it's different. And I remember you know I didn't know much about Boston before I got here I hadn't lived here ever I visited once on my college visiting rounds and I had some bad had some negative information about the town before I got there about the segregation and

how segregated the town actually is and that got the ball so I took the subway. I saw white people on the subways I go with these white people OK like I'm just not yet seeing so many white people in the parts of my life that I was walking around on the non-school daily basis and so that the environment in which Harvard sits was very different externally but the actual educational environment was so much like Sidwell that I had dealt with a lot of those awkward moments of being the black in the classics. Asked to explain all of black history to everybody even though I'm 12 years old 13 years old and only know half of black history at that point and all of it now but at the time. Why don't you half of every single detail of the black diasporic experience so by the time I got to Harvard you know I had dealt with a lot of those transit transitionary in translation moment someone writes the N-word on a locker. Someone has some weird moment in the class on the sports field and I just it was like Sidwell was boot camp and Harvard was actual deployment. And then I remembered my training and I was less affected in a

negative way by some of the more b.s. types of activities that can go on I think most importantly it's not that I was immune to them or somehow like better or like super strong. It just I had my own sense of self was more firm. And because I had been through a lot of these trials before they didn't have the negative impact on me and the the impact that makes you question yourself and your place and doubt who you are and where you belong. That doubt I was less subject to that by the time I got to Harvard because of the time I had spent at Sidwell and also because of the household I grew up in I think that was a big part of it. OK. The DGA from Brooklyn New York your hometown. Go ahead please you're on the Kelly clearly and. Hello to both of you I actually switched places. I'm now in Bed-Stuy but I grew up and that's where Cambridge Massachusetts. So I wanted to call in because I'm a young white woman and I'm a black stepfather and I'm growing up. Cambridge

the bridge was a very interesting experience because when we would go into Boston we would experience exactly what you're saying you know you get on the red line you go downtown and you get you know this incredible these looks you know you just kind of can't believe it you know Grand Central Square is much more integrated than Harvard or. But but recently I'm actually quite horrified and I'm I wanted to call it as a white woman because as a white woman I'm kind of you know I'm an undercover sister you know so I'm getting a lot of comments from white men especially since the Whitney Houston. Rest in peace. Since her funeral I'm hearing a lot of comments about you know well why are people spending so much time she's just watched out you know not saying a lot of really negative things. And I get to be that person who they all say these things to. And of course being you know having that interesting perspective of being very

much alive and in solidarity with the black community. But you know being white being Harvard educated as well and you know having that perspective it's really frustrating for me is just joking on Twitter with many of my friends and I was. I want to talk show called post-racial my ass. OK. OK. The fact where we can talk about the fact that a lot of these things still are so huge issues and so we can talk about Boston as you know a lot of this bigger issue being passed and prologue but I think in reality I'm I'm still seeing it by working in fields corner. And you know there is a huge huge difference. Yeah. And so it is nice I have to be honest it's nice to be in Bed-Stuy. I got to be honest. It is it is very comfortable. Just thank you so much for your call. Baird you did you have a response to that. Amazing first of all I want to thank the undercover sister. We will be taking up your your notes in your report to show up at the meeting on Thursday.

And I don't think. Yeah yeah you know the location I get yeah exactly. Just the same drop box that we always used. I know what I I think there's so much there's a lot to which he said the thing that stood out she's like I'm just happy to be in Bed-Stuy and you know to think about what Bed-Stuy was and what it's become. To have someone you know say I'm really that Bed-Stuy represents this much more positive racial you know civic experience than anywhere else. You know in the north it's just kind of shocking probably the people who grew up in Bed-Stuy. So there's that. And this idea of you know that Boston's past isn't really done is certainly something that I keep hearing I moved out of Boston in 2007 and I was but I was just there last night I did a book event in Cambridge and had a lot of friends and folks come out and the city is still you know it's got such great potential. To tap into the young energy in the young migration that comes in every year. But there's a lot

left to do in her specific instance of the comments and the kind of post-racial my ass reflects what I heard from the panel of what I called my my black panel on The Book of people I interviewed who are writers and artists and I call you a post-racial America is B.S. It's a unicorn said Cueto is one of the comics and it is like a unicorn or leprechaun is a really nice idea but it's not real. So why do we keep you know ignoring the reality that there's a lot of work left to do. And so people like ADG who are in a more sensitive and open spot people kind of assume one thing about her and that's a freer with their speech around her. They might not say that in front of me but they're they assume she's one of them in mindset and slip up and she takes it to the meeting under there. You know one of the things that you're doing in this book overall over in an overarching way is to really sort of try to address the negativity that's always associated with being black. And I wanted to play a clip from Chris Rock because I thought that it sort of captured a lot of this

of what's just in people's minds even if they don't know what it's in their minds. And what you're trying to say address comedically in your book so here is Chris Rock on why people never want to be black. They don't why. That would change places with me and. That's how good it is to feel like. There's no one like. Busboy in here right now and I don't want to change. IMO rod is wiping out see where it takes me. How would you like the sky's the limit when you blacked the limits this guy. So Burton did it be it's funny but you know it strikes right at the heart of what you're really speaking about all through your book. I know it does and I think you know Chris he's obviously being hilarious there somebody's going to argue but you're Chris Rock you millionaire out happily you know get an extra leg and take your money.

They're there you know he's standing that exceptional position. But what he's speaking to is some of the statistical reality that the outcomes for black people in large are far worse among so many different. Variables and measures of life you know educationally if you want to talk about just sad realities look at the criminal justice system and the propensity to arrest to prosecute to extend sentencing the use of the death penalty like every step in that process is heavily heavily negative in far degree proportion to the population's representation for black people and not health care why there's so many things that we still have left to do and so again he could have gone out on stage with a pile of data and said all these depressing facts. Or you could state the truth differently and talk about a one legged white busboy who would want his life and one of those is more effective for certain audiences than another. Well what is effective is your book How to Be Black. We're going to continue to talk about it

particularly about telling people how to be a black friend. You're listening to a conversation I had earlier this year with Barrett Thurston. He's a writer standup comedian and director of digital for the satirical news site The Onion. We were discussing his book How to Be Black. This is WGBH Boston Public Radio. This program is made possible thanks to you. And orchard cove for their substantial updates are now complete. You can see how the new face of this independent senior community in Canton

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It's time to spring into action for the forty seventh annual WGBH spring auction bid on fine jewelry gives certificates exciting vacations weekend getaways and even a brand new Toyota Prius donated by your New England Toyota dealer. Every winning bid supports WGBH radio and television. So not only will you get a great deal you'll feel great while you're doing it. But act fast. The spring auction ends on May 30 first place your bids now at auction at WGBH dot org to solve today's healthcare crisis we have to cut costs while improving patient care. This week on innovation hub we meet mokel warriors on the front lines of biotechnology. Saturday morning at 7:00 here on eighty nine point seven. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. We're talking with writer and comedian there today Thurston. He's director of digital for the satirical news site The Onion and his new book is called How to Be Black. You can find a link to his book at our site WGBH dot org slash

Calla Crossley. We want to hear from you this hour have you ever been in a situation where you felt like you had to turn down your blackness or brownness in order to fit in. You can comment at our Facebook page Facebook dot com slash Calla Crossley or on Twitter at Cal across Lee. So there today you have a very important chapter about how to be a black friend and you call this really undercover work. Yeah I mean I think the black friend has performed some pretty heroic actions for this country. You know we like to celebrate our political office holders who do good deeds we like to celebrate the servicemen and women who put themselves in harm's way at home especially abroad and and the black friend I think is right up there with those people because essentially. You know what they do is cross lines they cross cultural lines sometimes enemy lines depending on how tense the situation is. They gather information they they share insight. It's a two way street they like the red telephone in the cold war that helped prevent nuclear holocaust from happening.

And so by a kind word by a subtle suggestion by a trusted phrase to say no don't do that don't don't touch that black person's hair. No no no no. Just because you heard it in a hip hop album doesn't mean you can say the N word. Those those words coming from trusted black friends outwardly to other communities helped lower the tension and really help keep peace in our great land so they deserve a moment of silence they deserve a monument maybe a big black wall somewhere. I think there's a lot we could do to recognize some of these sacrifices that people have made in a very unsung fashion. You mentioned before that you have a panel of black panel that you turn to when just to shore up your own blacks parties. One of the people that you talk to actually is white Christian Lander who's a writer and satirist. And I had him on the show not long ago and he put together a test to see where you fall on the whiteness scale and I have to say that I scored high enough to threaten the taking away of my black card.

So it was a little it's a little upsetting to me but I know that when Now I'm doing better as I'm talking to you it's my my you can blacker. Yeah I feel it. There's no test in your book I was ready to take a test and prove in fact I'm going to use it. I don't believe in teaching to the test Carolyn. I write all of the development of the students so that all my students and I'm learning with you OK. On a serious note about being the black friend let's talk about tokenism. And there's a whole conversation that's been going on forever about tokenism and whether people feel as though they are sellouts in some way by being the only in various spots. You certainly have been the ONLY in many situations and certainly I haven't. I'd love to get your take on it. So being the only isn't a crime it's it's a necessity for someone at some time you know that and so one's got to be first someone you know do we call Neil Armstrong a token moon lander.

You know he was the first one he was the only one what was he thinking he's so disconnected from. Let's get to some degree it's ridiculous. I think more of where that label you know things a bit more is with this notion that not only have you gone to the moon but you kind of left Earth behind and you're no longer concerned with the future on the plight of others who maybe share your experience if not just your look. And so it's much more about not the access that you gain to any new institution or opportunity but rather you know are you involved in bringing others with you Do you not care. Are you actively trying to hold other people back like the Armstrongs like nobody else comes to the moon. This is mine and mine alone like that would be some hater type activity for the astronaut who was funded by the people of Earth. So I don't know why I got stuck on this moon thing but I'm sticking with it it's a pretty apt metaphor and I just I don't know maybe as nuclear is everything about the Mona lot. That's I think that's more of the deeper challenges

around tokenism isn't merely the acceptance that OK oh how we are using this in some way are you not using it in ways that you could and that's a that's a different level of burden that people have to think about like am I responsible for all these people. What can I do to help what's too much what's not enough. Tricky tricky land to navigate but not as simple as just getting there. Well we have another caller Bruce from Mission Hill Go ahead please you're on the Kelly Crossley Show eighty nine point seven WGBH. KELLEY Oh are you sure. Thanks. Have him go on his show. I want to ask your guest how do you calculate And I think you just made a comment toward the end. How do you calculate issues that for example using our president there are some class issues that or comments that are made toward him and people myself like it somewhat is racist but there are commentators tell him no that's not racist and I also oftentimes wonder what it adds as a black person.

Do we measure against racism because our kind of our hackles are up at a higher order than others. And I'll take my answer off the air. Thanks Chris. That's that's a great question Bruce and I know our racism radar is much more sensitive having been immersed in racism on one side for such an extended period of time. The thing about the reaction to President Obama and this is actually this connects back to Jack and Jill Politics is a political blog that I helped co-found in 0 6 with Cheryl Conti and it's gone on and grown and we have even more writers I'm very excited about what that has become but when we hit our big boost in traffic and some recognition in larger circles when we were just talking to ourselves and try to get a flood of comments is it early in the 2008 Democratic campaign you know that primary said and we started calling out the president former President Bill Clinton for some of his comments and other stewards and sort of

surrogates on the Clinton side in the transition to the McCain campaign as well when people you know are making we were sensitive to it because we kind of recognize it. And I think there's a risk sometimes of being overly sensitive but I think there should be some respect as well for the fact that we're kind of experts on this whole. Racism spotting game creeping they had it for awhile were vets we got years in the game and so we kind of know know it when we see it. And one of the things that Jack and Jill Politics have benefited from was people understanding that all their speaking they see what I see and there's a paranoia around the recognition that Bruce brought up because you don't want to be the person who just like that bus driver didn't stop for me. Is it because I'm black. You know that woman didn't give me a kiss at the end of the night. Is it because I'm black Friday that you want to just attribute everything to racism you're kind of like the negro that cried racism and no one ever but you in the future. So on the extreme there's always a risk but that sensitivity is born of a real experience. And it's like

extra cost we pay. So whether we're right or not is less important to me than the fact that we're always calculating what weighs like like a GI PSN your current recalculating route recalculating routes and recalculating racism recalculate. Why did this happen why did they look at me this way. Did they say that about the president just because they hate his policies. Or was there some more subtle thing in this whole thing about him being Kenyan foreign Muslim socialist. They really believe those things. Or is that just a nother instance in the long line of trying to make him the other and bring up this sort of communist threat that has long been associated with black political activism. One of the question but that the mental tax is what concerns me more than whether it's actually racist or not. What I've appreciated is your ability in the places that you work to in some of this kind of pointed commentary that maybe characterizes as races. Here's a sample from The Onion so that people understand what The Onion news site really does and this is a video about how Barack Obama's perception as an elitist

or how the people perceive him to be an elitist is actually a step forward for African-Americans. Remember this is satire people. Now you say the media's depiction of Obama as an elitist represents a watershed moment for America. This in the past blacks were seen as ignorant or dangerous. Wright said today a black man is seen as too good for people is a huge step huge step indeed our polls show more than a third of voters think Obama doesn't understand the struggles of blue collar workers. Oh yes I never thought I'd see the day when an old white millionaire is viewed as having more in common with working folks than a black man. It's a proud day for America. It is remember there was a time when a white person would see a black man on the street and cross of the other side fan he get my vote wasn't that long ago. So he crosses out of fear he'll be asked to donate to people who dared to. Solid journalism I think America's finest news source a bit of a look is that some part of Barrington day's work at The Onion where he works that's what the kind of work that they do you

often up in these these kind of racist comment commentary that Bruce was concerned about in a comedic fashion. I have to speak about Jack and Jill Politics. And it leads me to my next question because Jack and Jill Politics it seems to me to be a very post civil rights generation voice. Some of the commentary is so sharp so precise and you know you have to go when you read it really on point. It's very well done. So congratulations to you for that work and your co-founder. But it really does oftentimes take issue with what is sacrosanct in the black community anyway for civil rights generation folks. And so I wondered if in general when you're what you're speaking about in your book about how to be black is a little bit generational as well in your approach. It absolutely is and just to be clear for our listeners I didn't write that specific Onion piece that you aired I'm proud to be part of the family of people who did

I press the publish button on the website the day it went live I think that was my specific contribution to that one so a black man published it that take that America. So your point about the generational thing. Absolutely absolutely important and here's you know people who are directly involved in major conflict you know can have a hard time seeing their struggle and that period as anything but major conflict. Their children are more distant from you take any traumatic period say World War 2 you take the civil rights movement you think all kinds of things. And you know they would like you can't joke about that and sacrosanct like you said that that's that's too soon. And then the whole kind of thing you can't talk about this tragedy and in a lighthearted way and the goal isn't just to be aggressive or sharp for the sake of it. It's like one of the reasons we can do this is because our forebears earned us that

freedom. And when I think about my own family in this line of how do you deal with power and its distribution and who holds it. My great grandfather taught himself to read. That was his revolutionary act. My grandmother was the first black employee inside the US Supreme Court building so in one generation much more freedom she's working in a major branch of government office. My mother not only was she a government employee during my childhood but before that she was out in the streets agitating for that government to do more right by all of its people and gives birth to me who can make fake news right who can satirize that government and the media and that society and has the freedom to speak truth in a different way. Each of those generations is trying to access speak and spread truth in its own way. And each one has earned a little more elbow room and a little more freedom for the ones after so it's not out of any intentional disrespect for prior generations or we don't take things as seriously. I think we see them differently

because our perspective is different I think our perspective was allowed to be different in large part because the folks that came before us offered us that opportunity with their own version of the struggle. Well I have to say again that Jack and Jill politics very well. Very insightful past that. Yeah. Let's talk about because you know you're making fun in here and it's really funny people so I know we're getting heavy here but it's fun. Not that the code switching that black people just have in their lives anyway and. So you have a foot in each world sort of even if you didn't go to Sidwell Friends and have rites of passage on the weekend. Generally speaking that's something that you do. Does that challenge your authenticity to sort to engage in the code switching that's long been a part of many black people's experience. I don't think so I don't think there's really any correlation between how authentic you are and how many worlds you live in and I even the idea of

authenticity you know from the individual's perspective it shouldn't be a question other it's other people's issue your authenticity is other people's problems because they're the one putting that on oh you're not black enough or you're too black because you live here or work there or socialize with this and that person if you're cool with it and know who you are. That's the authenticity that matters. And what the code switching I think it's a fun talent. You know you're bilingual you're bicultural our tribe cultural our. Duple cultural I don't know the world people are living in but the world has worked that way across many different lines across you know poor and wealthy across different types of working class and different types of white collar across the actual languages and across religions to be able to walk in a church and know how to behave to be able to walk in a mosque and know how to behave. There is not that behavior and conformity is the thing but to be culturally you know to be to be able to fit in or be appropriate or smoothly communicate with those around you is very valuable

thing. I think separating that from the question of authenticity and challenging the very term authenticity is more important to me than where code switching falls in relation to it. Well that just means I can take back my black card because I could be a Southern black woman who cannot make potato salad and still be Blick. I'm still black. I. Feel like the queen of black England is I confer upon you you know the Black Knight hood if it's mine to give you have it. I'm very certain that last word on why we must buy this book for you. Oh yeah this is so you know we got a lot of cool initiatives to engage the readership. We've got hoodies that we're working on getting sold we have a website how to be black to me we're asking all the questions you asked me of everyone in the public and not just black people because we share this in common. But the most effective way for people to understand what's at stake here. If you don't buy this book you're a racist. That's what it is. It's science people I'm just the messenger don't shoot me.

I talk to the scientists. It's proven if you don't buy the book you're racist. Look it's Black History Month you heard Rule number three don't be racist during Black History Month. Buy the book. That's a very good day. And he's a black sport so he knows. But thank you so much for talking with us for that very very fun time and I'm looking forward to you know what do you get the secret meeting on Thursday and as are you. I forgot to let James Rouse black and proud take us out. We've been speaking with comedian Barry today Thurston his new book is How to Be Black and you can find a link to it at our website WGBH dot org slash Calla Crossley. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash gala Crossley follow us on Twitter become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook today show was engineered by Allen madness produced by Chelsea Mertz will Rosalynn and Abby Ruzicka the Calla Crossley Show is a production of WGBH Boston Public Radio.