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Greetings, ladies. Hello. Hello. I'm Sam Sanders. I'm Saeed Jones. And I'm Zach Safford, and you are listening to Vibe Check. ♪
Welcome, my loves, to another installment of Hey Sis, a Vibe Check series, where we highlight some amazing Black women for Black History Month and Women's History Month. And I'm so excited that today's conversation is with my dear friend, poet and cultural critic, Morgan Parker, the icon, the legend. I love her. We love her. I'm so ready for it. She's so great. She's kind of like you, Saeed, that she's been doing really important literary work for years, but also helping lead
A digital revolution and making sure stories from folks like us are centered and celebrated across many platforms on the internet. And she's just so talented at storytelling. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you know, Morgan is a writer who I've known for...
Gosh, we've probably been friends for over a decade now. We met at a Black poetry retreat in 2012. It's the Kaveh Kahnem Poetry Retreat. And just immediately hit it off because I was like, oh, you're a weirdo too. And you got to find your people. And it's just been a joy to write poetry.
alongside her. And I'm excited for this conversation. We're talking about her new book. It's an essay collection titled, You Get What You Pay For. And it comes out tomorrow. So it also felt like a celebration of this huge accomplishment from my friend. Yeah. I love this series so much and I low-key don't want it to end. And I think what I love about it most and what I'm going to enjoy so much about this conversation is that the series keeps showing me
that these people in the culture who I thought I knew, because I see their work, I see them online, I know their stuff, I hear y'all talk to them and I'm like, oh, I had no idea. And like learning new parts and pieces of people I thought I already knew is just fascinating to me. And,
and always so enjoyable. I truly do not want this series to end. I know it has to. I know it has to. But I've been loving it. I've really been loving it. And to piggyback off that, you know, my favorite thing, you know, the series has been mostly our friends, people we all know, or some of us know. And when it's someone that I know, but one of you knows better, I get to hear this richness and depthness and just friendship that I get to enjoy with both of you, but hear it
echoed through these conversations with others too. So it's really, it always feels like home, but different people's homes every time. We get to sneak into a different group chat. A different group chat. So Zach, what you were saying, yeah, what I really enjoyed about this series is obviously the three of us know each other very well, but there's a depth, there's a new color
that we get to see in these conversations. And in this conversation with Morgan, you know, we're talking about craft. We're talking about structure as writers. We're talking about the themes in her work, the humor and the heartbreak as she writes about visiting plantations, sitting in the courtroom during the Bill Cosby trial, for example, really working through a contemporary understanding of Blackness. And, you know, I think
I hope listeners have enjoyed the way I've brought poetry into the podcast. And so I hope you'll enjoy this conversation as an extension of that. Let's do it. All right. Well, I can't wait for you all to hear this conversation. Here we go. Here we go.
You and I got to know each other as emerging poets out on the highways and byways. All those free readings. All those free readings. You'd be like, is there wine? Oh, cheese? I know, big deal. So, you know, one of the things I'm interested is, you know, what the different genres learn from each other. So as someone who has published books
not just two poetry collections, but also a young adult novel. What did you learn from those genres, and how did they help you as you started to write You Get What You Pay For, your first essay collection? It's interesting. Some of the essays that were included in this book I was working on as I was working on my last poetry collection, Magical Negro, and working on Who Put This Song On, which actually began as an essay about high school, which I then turned
turned into this fictionalized story. So I would say that the transition to prose generally kind of all happened together, playing, I guess, with the sentence and storytelling led me into thinking about what a book of essays would look like rather than just one. So I would say that that kind of structure of
of building out a novel has helped me to think about what is the structure of a nonfiction book that isn't necessarily a straight memoir but should have an arc and feel like there are characters and there's a journey involved. And yeah, there was a way in which I'm talking about a lot of the same themes in
So I would borrow pieces from one thing or another. You know, maybe something I thought was a poem is actually an essay. A piece that I wrote in an essay is maybe a line of dialogue. So I found myself kind of pulling material from one project to another, which was interesting as well.
I mean, in this collection of essays in particular, a lot of what I was doing was almost looking back at my poems and stretching out what I have already said, but in other words and with more words. And I found that part to be a little bit excruciating, I will say, because it's like I already told y'all. Right. And we love the economy of language. Love it.
I'm like, I already just gave you two images and that was this paragraph. You know what I mean? Now I have to like pull that out into like four pages because y'all didn't get that first time. But, you know, so I did battle a little bit of that.
But I so concisely and creatively already explored this. What's the mode of delivering the same story in an essay? And like, what can the form do to like deepen or complicate what I have already said?
said. It would have been a different process, I think, if I was taking on, you know, a totally different subject. But femininity, desirability, Black womanhood, depression, all of these things have been in my work since I've started writing. So it really felt like...
a revisiting of themes, but in a different way. And even just the fact of the eye, you know, the speaker is me, you know, it's nonfiction. It says it. It says that it's me. Even, you know, my young adult novel, the character's name was Morgan Parker because that's how I am. But it still was fiction. You know, there's a little bit of hiding behind that. And I would say that all of my work is vulnerable. This felt like
like such a different claiming of that vulnerability. And I found that to be another kind of challenge of the form. Okay. I love it. You rise to it. And I wanted to start there to see if, you know, some of the assumptions I was making as, you know, I think of myself, I'm your friend. We hang out when we were both in New York at the same time or, you know, when I'm in LA, you know, we always go to dinner. You're one of the first people I text.
And also I think of you as like a friend of my mind to draw from Morrison in that, you know, I'm your friend on the page. And so this is what I would say to readers, you know, maybe this is your introduction to Morgan or you're looking to see the setup between these three books that Morgan's alluding to. So Magical Negro, you know, to me, we see Morgan Parker as a poet. Yeah.
accepting her throne as a historian. And so we're pulling from moments throughout history, you know, and it's just really beautiful. It's really a journey of over the course of a century and Diana Ross and Eartha Kitt. I was like rereading Magical Negro and like all that. You know, so we're getting this, like the poet,
using these tropes, all the way actually back to Jesus Christ. That was the last time I rewrote. I love that. Y'all know that nigga was a nigga. That's so good. So, you know, that's Magical Negro informing you get what you pay for. Totally. And in this book, we see that with Richard Pryor, Bill Cosby, Serena Wood, like write these...
as stewards of ideas. And then who put this on the young adult novel, right? I think we see that also with this collection because you are weaving and kind of intertwining your coming-of-age experiences with therapy, with self-acceptance, with, I would say, weirdness. What kind of black girl am I, right? And so the historian and the girl becoming the woman, right?
all of it worthy. It all comes together and you get what you pay for. When did I do that right? I think that's, yeah, that's a perfect way to put it. It's like collecting all of the different ages, you know? Yes. It's serving from the future, but also really looking back and getting into like, what was this experience of being a Black teenager going to therapy? And all
looking at what are all the things that led to this moment of this black girl in therapy in a way that you can't do, obviously, in a young adult novel. And to engage the storytelling in a way and the scene setting in a way that you can't always do with poetry. So I have the three poetry collections and then the young adult. And I keep thinking, I know it's like a lot. It's too much. It's like you look up one day and you're like, I don't think...
don't think I'm an emerging writer. You know what I mean? I might have fucked around. It's a stack. Like, girl, do something else. And it, alas, might not be possible. This might indeed be it. I mean, you never know. Listen. That's why every last line is a good last line.
Just in case. Just in case. But I think, you know, I often think about how one collection of poetry led to the others. And my first book is very looking inward and at the self. And There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé really engages with the performance of the self. So really the self in a community. Yeah.
magical Negro than taking more of a wide view and a historical view of the self. And so I guess my question to myself has been, will I keep going wider or will I then return and do the cycle over where it's like inward, outward, outward, outward, inward, you know? And I think that something really exciting about You Get What You Pay For is that it's
I could do all of that, you know, within one essay and then the book as a whole, you know, building something that does start inward and go outward and then come back inward. So that was kind of,
of how I wanted to structure the book is addressing both of those things, inward and outward, and kind of weaving them together. I love it. Well, as someone who's spent a lot of time with this book recently in particular, I felt it. I felt that zoom in, zoom out, and reflection. And it's never a contradiction, right?
It's a call and response between your different selves. And I love that. Well, you know, for readers, let's hone in because also this book has looked to the poets. I always tell people, you struggling with your own writing? You ashy fiction writers or ashy nonfiction writers? Look to the poets, the titles in this book.
are phenomenal. And it's not just flashy. It always functions in a significant way. And so I thought maybe, you know, to talk about one of the big ideas of the book, mental health, therapy, the mind, Black people don't go to therapy is one of the early essays. I was wondering if you could read a little bit from it. Yeah, absolutely. Direct quote from my dad. Black people don't go to therapy. I was told to be strong.
that my people had always been strong, that their strength was mine too. But when I looked with dread into my future, on days when I could bear to imagine one, I wondered, how strong? How strong do you need to be to want to die and yet keep living? How much is a nigger supposed to take, Toni Morrison wrote in Beloved.
Knowing where to start, even admitting the need for therapy, considering it an option, left an unknown frontier before my family. In our small conservative suburb, there was no model for a Black teenager seeing a psychologist. And that I was breaking a generational cultural norm was not lost on me. If Blackness was essentially defined by resilience through unimaginable struggle, what indeed did I really have to cry about?
I have grown up with therapy, and my conception of therapy has grown up with me. I've grown to love sharing the burden of what I once called self-hatred, but I now know was something else, something embedded before birth.
I've grown to appreciate and rely on the way therapy and psychiatry can help you understand how you see, maybe even why, wherein the why is, among other things, white supremacy, and specifically the kind begat in slavery.
This is yet another example of white supremacy's double conundrum, its two-sided knife, how all the reasons black people don't go to therapy, its reliance upon a culturally discriminatory if not invalidating norm, its potential for devious social control, its societal stigma, its out-of-reach expense, the reminder that slaves didn't need therapy and look what they survived.
All of that is because of white supremacy, which also happens to be the reason Black people need and deserve quality therapy. You can't live with it, but you're not allowed to live without it sticking to the walls of your brain like vines. It keeps you awake, dark summer night after sweaty night, thinking, how dare you hope for what you'll never have? Whew.
And those ideas are explored throughout the collection, which is why I tell people, get two copies of this book. You're not going to want to read it on your own. Yep. I love when I'm reading an essay and I feel that I've been waiting my entire life to read this essay and that only one person reads.
could write it. I've read attempts at this essay, no shade, but all eclipse. But this, it just, it's such a huge idea. I remember how members of my family had no shame in talking about my mom to me, a child, at how the fact that she was getting me therapy was just further proof of what a
ridiculous person she was. You know what I mean? And yeah, I mean, it's still such an ongoing issue, and I love you go to the double bind. How did you... How long have you been working on this essay? Let's start there. Yeah.
Oh, man. Well, the whole book I worked on for, I would say, five or six years. Okay. And it was like in my head for probably seven. You will? There was...
an essay that I wrote for the New York Times, and I think it was published in 2014 or 2015, about me going to therapy and how we need therapy as reparations because I spent all of this time in therapy talking about shit that is not my love life. It's like in the way, and they need to pay me for that. It's the distraction that Morrison taught you. Yes, exactly. And so that kind of built out into...
into this essay where I wanted to not just talk about this moment in time, but talk about all of the moments, all of the therapists and
What was I engaging with in these sessions? And how is it related to what was going on in the world? What was going on with my self-development? What I felt allowed to talk about? It's less a memoir of me and more a memoir of my mind, you know? Really breaking down how my psychology has developed. And a lot of that has to do with...
before I was born, you know, like what went into making a psychology like mine. And I think I spend a lot of time on my own thinking about my own journey and almost discounting the historical factors that have gone into making my mind the way it is. And so it felt like a really important practice to take those things together. Yeah.
And not privilege one over another. Yes. A detail, because poet to poet, you know, we go to the words. A detail in this essay, aside from like the essay itself, aside from the ideas, particularly in what you just read, where I was like, oh, this is going to save lives. You know, this is needed like language. That's not the only reason to value an essay, but it's a pretty valuable reason, right? You know, Morgan, you are a Black woman. Yes.
doomed to be attracted to men, as you and I often discuss. And I am a Black gay man, similarly doomed to be attracted to men against all other knowledge we have. We, yet again, you know, find them attractive. And so it's always interesting, you know, talking with you about gender, desire, because of course we have more in common than people would assume. And so, for example, you
You mentioned, and this is like, I think when you're writing about your high school, and I love this, again, you're kind of like, high school therapy, college therapy, therapy in my mid-20s, therapy now. You know, it is an evolution, like you said, your mind and your understanding changes. But early on, you say something essentially like, I just kind of thought whatever was going on in my brain, it needed to be corrected. Mm-hmm.
You know, you're like, if you view yourself as something to be corrected. And to read like a straight, cis, black woman say that, I was like, oh my God, that's like gay conversion therapy. And I'd never seen that language brought together. Can you talk about that, that correction? Yeah, I mean, well, it's about difference, right? And it's really about assimilation.
And I think because I grew up in a white conservative place where I was a part of a lot of differences, you know, like I was different in so many kinds of ways. And so I'm really tuned into, you know, which one of these is not like that. I mean, you can look at pictures of birthday parties from age five until 17. And it's like, look at the brown spot. There's Morgan, you know, and it's it's heartbreaking to see those pictures now. It's like my little...
smiling brown face amongst the sea of white. Just being aware of that difference at all times and being such like a type A people pleaser person and like wanting to be a good kid. And I mean, Christian biblical stuff also being in my head of like, you have to be a good kid or you're going to hell tomorrow. And so me then internalizing it as, okay, my difference is what's wrong with
You know, I mean, and it's generations of assimilation of like, how can I get closer to this presentation of what everyone else is or how everyone thinks that people should be? You know, all of these kind of and all of those words have asterisks attached to them, you know, and they all are political. But when you're a kid, you don't know that. You're just like, I'm different in these ways. There's something that has to be altered. Right.
And, you know, mental illness is wild that way. You like know that something is wrong. But I think my journey to accepting my mental illness was, I think, a little bit harder because I always thought something was wrong with me anyway, you know. So then to be like, wait, I don't think everyone thinks this way about like that life is so hard when they're 14, you know. But maybe for all
Because I've always thought it's confusing and hard. And so I do think there is something in having a marginalized personality and identity where you're always aware of what is alter, you know, and that as a child can be internalized as an incorrectness and something that needs to be fixed.
So, yeah, I mean, and the point I'm making in the essay is really about I didn't even really know what kind of help to ask for. It just was like, take these bad thoughts out of my mind, you know, and a lot of that, again, has to do with stigma in the black community and a lot of kind of like.
my parents own shit you know my mom is like a perpetual like stop crying which I'm like literally I can't like you're still saying that lady you know what I mean so you don't know what to ask for except for help me stop crying
Help me look like that kid and show up in the way that that kid can. So it really took me several decades to be able to say, no, I actually need help with processing X, Y, and Z or dealing with these particular situations. Or actually, no, I think I'm feeling different in this way. Or, you know, it really took me a long time to...
to approach therapy with that sort of agency. Yes. Yes. Okay. We're going to take a quick break, but don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with Morgan Parker. This special episode of Hey Sis, a Vibe Check series is presented by Ulta Beauty.
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We're back, and I'm jumping right back into my conversation with my friend and poet, Morgan Parker. As you said earlier, the book embraces yourselves. So there are, and we're going to talk about the Cosby trial next, but it's a great example where we see, because of how you've written the essay, you in the courtroom or you in the Uber with Roy. I'm so excited to talk about Roy. Such
Such a great character, as you mentioned, right? But also, you know, we get to see flashbacks, I guess, of Morgan as a girl and the way that comes to inform Morgan as a woman. And I say all this to say my sense is the way you write about mental health and coming into what I would say is a more sustaining relationship to therapy, right? It's not about correction. It's about healing. It's about learning how to love ourselves and walk forward.
That you're then able to walk into like that courtroom and you take all of you into that courtroom. And I love it. So before I go into like one of the things I love, can you talk about how you ended up – how did you end up –
Covering the Cosby trial. You didn't tell me. You were not texting me, Saeed, I'm covering the Cosby trial. I know. I only went, I mean, I only went for one day. And like, I could have gone for maybe two more days. But I was like, that was plenty. I think you got plenty. I was like, I think I got the essay straight up. And I literally left in the middle of the defense attorney's like big meeting.
whatever, like in the middle of his, you know, final conversation. And I went to like, I think I went to an outlet mall and sat at like an Olive Garden and wrote for a little bit and had one of like a chain restaurant cocktail. That was like really large. I just was like, all right. That was plenty. And now I'm going to the suburbs. Yeah, I went to Pennsylvania and,
And I went for the day. Yeah, it was kind of the tail end. But I did see Cosby himself on the stand. It was weird. It was theatrical in a way that I expected. But it also was really mundane in a way that...
It was kind of sad. And yeah, most of what I wrote and most of what I was like so appalled by was just the language of the defense attorney. You call him my enemy. My enemy. He just was. That's just what Morgan refers to. It took me a minute to be like, wait, who?
enemy I had to go back and I was like oh shit that's just the because you to my I was like oh she's containing him she's he will just be my enemy he is my I think there is like this man is my enemy I will refer to him henceforth as such I love that so
Just like, honestly, this guy is just, that's the guy. Anyone who's going to talk like that, anyone who's going to be so fervently like, well, obviously the woman is lying. You know, it's just like, that guy's the enemy. I can identify my enemy and I'm going to hone in on that.
And then also just looking at the reactions of not necessarily the jurors, but a lot of the observers in the courtroom. And I was in like an overflow room with the press. And so it was really me, yes, talking about the trial, but also talking about the folks that were covering the trial and their observations of it, which is in and of itself a whole other layer, right? It's not just what happened and then the...
reliving of what happened in a court, but it's also how that is being talked about to the public. You know, like, who are the voices that are relaying this experience to the public? So there was so many layers to the storytelling for me. From one day. For one day. And honestly, I was like, I took this 15-minute Uber ride and I got all the material just from chatting with this guy, Roy. You know? And he even said...
you better give me a little shine in your essay. So he's in there. I hope he reads the book. But yeah, it really was like,
I understand a lot about this trial without having to listen to much of the trial because there was so much being talked about around it. And that was what was most interesting to me. And this conversation of how do we deal with the realities of
sexual assault? And how do we deal with the realities of breaking down who we see as our heroes and in many cases, ancestors and, you know, cultural touchstones? What happens when those intersect with our personal politics about what is acceptable in this world? So how do not just we as Black people, but particularly Black women live in this space where
It feels like both our blackness and our womanhood is on trial, even though it's a black man on trial. Right. And you acknowledge, you complicate it because you're like, even if we're willing to accept that we believe these women that Cosby assaulted—
There are still complications. Like, everyone who's, like, a little hesitant to speak in declarative sentences about what Cosby did, many of those people just don't believe women anyway, right? So that is certainly a large, disturbing demographic. But also, you make space for, like, yeah, but there's this other stuff, and should we explore it as well? But also, I've got to say, listen, as a Black gay man, as a poet who worked in a goddamn newsroom for six years—
And just had to constantly grapple with objectivity and its violence. So there's a moment where your enemy, the defense attorney, I'm assuming it's his opening statement because he's monologuing. I love you say, he's an actor too. And he says something just so...
Well, many things that are so just like audaciously sexist, to say the least. You goof off. You lose yourself for a moment sitting amidst all these reporters. And I love it because I was like, this is what I meant. You take you everywhere you go in this book. So you goof off because it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And then later in the essay, like later in the day...
I just loved it because these same white reporters, and you point out it was men and women reporters, who looked back at you, glared when you dared to goof off. There was so much contained in that laughter, and laughter is important in the book as a thing, too. But then they're giggling.
Yes. Can you talk about that? Yeah, I mean, yes. Comedy and humor are a big concern underneath the book. Uh-huh. All up and through it. Yeah. And I think a lot about...
about the discomforts of comedy and who's laughing at what when is something that I'm really cued into. And I'm also, you know, I'm like a dark laugher, you know? We both are. Yeah, exactly. So me laughing at that moment was just like, I mean...
pure relief of like, I can't believe this, you know, I can't believe this is like for real. And kind of like looking around, like expecting other people to, you know, I'm a class clown, you know, me doing that is usually me making a friend of someone being like, I know, right. You know, like that's how I make friends on buses. Yeah. But there was none of that. There was all just like
oh, why are, you know what I mean? Like, you're stepping out of how you're supposed to be contained, you know? And yeah, then when it's him playing up and trying to be funny and saying like, well, obviously, if you're on the phone with someone and, well, why wouldn't you think that's a date if you're, you know, I mean, just really gross. What do you mean you don't remember what happened to you? She was drugged. Oh my
God. Right? Or like, well, if a woman was raped, then I'm sure they would remember that. And I'm just like, okay, so you know that? Like, this is out of control. But people are kind of giggling along, like, just giving credence to his making small of her. And I just was really struck by what
The other reporters, and particularly these white women in their ballet flats, were paying attention to. You do talk about the ballet flats. I just can't. I mean, it's just like, you know exactly that woman. You know her.
You know the bag she has. It's just a type, you know, and I was overhearing them before the trial got started talking about how they had just covered the Charleston shooter and of all these, you know, innocent black people and just the way they were talking about that versus talking about Cosby. It just really struck something in me about a how we talk about violence in the press and how.
who's allowed to talk about these things? And like you said, objectivity and like what is their subjectivity coming into it? Which is another reason that I don't shy away from bringing myself into it because that's the whole thing, right? Like obviously I'm coming at it from a particular perspective. So are those white women in their ballet flats who were like, oh, these victims of the Charleston shooting, they were so, you know, they didn't deserve this and all of that. And how come they can take
a slightly different approach with Andrzej Konstant. They never said she didn't deserve, you know what I mean? Like, I think it just was glaring, I guess, what kind of interrogation was missing. And I was shocked that folks were willing to go along with the theatrics of the defense attorney. But it really was working, which is why I was like, this is hilarious to me. I can't believe this is
You know, it's also over the top and orchestrated in a way that I would hope that we as Americans would be used to by now and used to knowing that that is bullshit.
Right. Yeah. Oh, gosh, there's so much more poets in the press galley is what I would say. One, because even still, you know, and we're haunted by knowing that those people who were giggling then get to write what becomes a part of the official. Exactly. That's pretty haunting. There's so much in this book. You know, George Bush doesn't care about black people. We
We don't have time to get into the plantation essay, but just like another example of Morgan Parker's humor that I just love. I'm just going to read the sentence. You visit a plantation in Florida. Mm-hmm. Yep. And one sentence. I'm just going to say it out of context. You can see Popeyes from the big house, period. That's like a section opener, too. It's just, you can see the Popeyes from the big house. Yeah.
Good night, everyone. Don't forget to tip your waders. I mean, that's all you need to know. I mean, that essay, I think it's very funny. I think it is hilarious. It's very funny. But it's so heartbreaking. I mean, just for readers, and in case you're curious about my visit to a plantation, wherein I was the only person on the tour. It was just me and the white man giving the tour. I think that was, like, what was most disturbing because he gave, like, a very practiced spiel. Yeah.
And he didn't adapt it, knowing... Meant for crowds, presumably, of white people. It meant for crowds of white people, like white families from Ohio. But it's me, and he's looking at me in the face and being like, imagine looking out onto your land. I'm just like, oh, are you really still asking? I gave him so many chances. I made so many little jokes that were openings, and he just kept on. So, I mean, that alone. Like, there were many other things. There's a...
Popeyes that you could see from the big house, that end of it. So that's a poem. What else is there to write? Once I saw the Popeyes, I was like, there's nothing else to write. Popeyes across the street from a plantation in Florida? I can't. It's just like, that's funny. And then for me to have this experience of being guided around it and the tour guide trying to put me
in the perspective of the master. Yep. And not acknowledging my own subjectivity, wherein I cannot enter the space of the master. You know, it just was so... Yeah, it's one of the only essays that is, like, in a present moment and, like, telling a story as it's happening, which I think makes it really funny, but it's also just, like, a really fucked-up type of situation. Oh, yeah. Blackness, displacement. I also just want to say, I love...
reading Black women, writing about Black women. And one of my favorite essays in the book, though it is hard to choose, is your essay about Serena Williams. Because though the book and your work, as we mentioned with Magical Negro, right? Like I still think about that Diana Ross poem and she's eating that like real. You know, I think about that image all the time. It is not unusual to see you praising Serena.
Black women in your work. But there was something with this Serena Williams essay in this book and seeing how you, because you write through time. I mean, it starts and it's like in the 90s when they're first on TV and your dad's like, come look at these Black girls and their father. And then, you know, all the way up to the present moment. So can you just talk about what it felt like to write about Serena Williams as a figure you have grown up alongside and you write in a self-aware way, but also like, because it ends with you, you know,
rightfully so. I think you talk about your braids being a crown that you realize you're finally wearing as an adult Black woman. Can you talk about that kind of journey? Yeah, that was a really fun essay to write. It was for ESPN originally. I get a lot of requests to write about Black girl things, obviously, including hair. And it's something that I always told my agent, like, no, I'm not going to write any essays about my hair, blah, blah, blah. And I
After I wrote this essay, he was like, how to get Morgan Parker to write about hair. Ask her to write about sports. He's like, oh, we figured it out. We cracked the code. Look over there. Kind of. And it was funny because I had this huge topic of Serena Williams. And I don't often write about sports. But, you know, I'm generally interested. And more than anything, I'm interested in Serena Williams. So I took it on. But it was really funny that...
in this roundabout way, I returned just to a black girl with braids, you know? And this way of like writing about that
kind of like the grounding for the essay of being made fun of for having my braids and then seeing the Williams sisters with their braids and being like, well, look at them. It is what it is. It is what it is. And I mean, there's like not a huge age difference. So me looking up to them in that moment, it was kind of interesting to track our stories alongside each other and just like, okay, we're like about this age, about this age,
stage in our careers, what's happening. And it just felt really good to make those connections of like, okay, here's a moment in my childhood where I felt strengthened by Serena Williams' presence. And
Then here's another moment in my life where I felt strengthened by her presence. I don't know her. I don't play tennis. You know, I don't know that she reads poems. But being able to draw those parallels, that is how I feel about Black women. There are invisible strings that we, you know, are tied to each other in these ways. And thinking about she's doing her thing in her field and I'm doing my thing in my field is—
And like, all is well, because we are alive and doing our thing. You know what I mean? I think that was really what I wanted to do by placing our stories next to each other. And I think...
I think in my belief is that Black women do that for each other without knowing it. Again, you know, we're invisibly tied to each other and our fates are tied in that way. It gives me strength to know that other Black women are handling their business in their fields. And it helps me to do the same. I edited that essay quite a bit since I wrote it for ESPN and before putting it back into the book, added a lot more moments
And wanted to then open it up a little bit. So I was able to add some moments of, you know, me being on tour and interacting with other Black girls. So I really did want it to be this kind of like cycle where...
You know, it goes on. Black female excellence continues, you know, and we're able to show ourselves to each other. And it's important for us to show ourselves not for the public, you know, but like for each other. And yeah, I think there's there's a piece underneath that.
All of it about that vulnerability and, you know, folks saying Serena Williams, like, had a breakdown or whatever. Like, us seeing those moments of vulnerability in each other helps. Even when it can harm our public image, I think there's something important about, yeah, showing up as ourselves and our whole selves. In the long run, it strengthens all of us. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's...
That's what I felt, essay to essay, just such a privilege that, you know, you have gotten to a space where you are willing to and able and in the doing understanding worthy to gift us these perspectives. It's just incredible, Morgan. Yeah.
Thank you. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. But also, thank you. I just, I really appreciate you reading it and really reading it and, you know, picking up what I'm putting down. It's kind of crazy. We got to a smooth one-third of the thing. Right? So on page 68, I
I punish myself a little. No, I was like, we don't have time. I know. How do we get? Were you going to say how I punish myself for success? Oh, yeah. So much. But I'm just so excited. Listeners, the essay collection is You Get What You Pay For by Morgan Parker. It comes out on March 12th.
You're welcome. You're welcome, friends. Get those highlighters and pins ready. Because, yeah, this isn't just someone just talking about what they've been through. This is really an offering and an opportunity for readers in the culture. And so, Morgan, thank you for the book. And thanks for joining. Thank you so much for the conversation. Appreciate you. Love ya. Bye.
Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support us, please make sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast listening platform, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, and leave a review. Most importantly, tell a friend or two. Huge thank you to our producer, Chantel Holder, engineer Rich Garcia, engineer Jordan Duffy, and Marcus Holm for our theme music and sound design. Also, special thanks to our executive producers, Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brandon Sharp from Agenda Management and Production.
And of course, we want to hear from y'all. Don't forget, you can email us at vibecheckatstitcher.com. Let us know what you think of Morgan's new book. It's out now. Buy two copies, one for yourself and one for a friend, and send us your thoughts. And let's keep the conversation going. And of course, you can keep in touch with us on social media at Sam Sanders, at Zach Staff, and at The Ferocity. Use the hashtag vibecheckpod. Stay tuned for our regular episode this Wednesday. Bye.
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