That’s Some Harry Potter Sh!t
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On their Instagram page, we are golden.

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Well, hello, ladies. Hi. Hello, saints. Praise the Lord. And hello, demons. Them too. Them too. Yeah. Yeah. I'm Zach Stafford. I'm Sam Sanders. And I'm Saeed Jones. And you, my loves, are listening to Vibe Check. Vibe Check.

This week, we're going to get into the death of Queen Elizabeth II. You might have heard. I don't know. Maybe this is news to you. It's been a headline. It's been a headline. Something's going on in the United Kingdom. Let's leave it there. And then we're also going to talk about, obviously, like the Twitter frenzy and just, you know, it's surreal, I mean, to see that transition of power play out on social media. Fascinating. So we'll talk about that. And then...

we'll talk about the Emmys, which, you know. Listen, I had to watch that for this show. I had to sit through that award show. I was like, I have a feeling Sam will watch it. I was like, I'm going to go have drinks with a friend. No, I watched all of them.

All of it. But fully, it was like watching Emmys, not enjoying it, and realized at the end, I totally didn't show up to something for the Emmys. Well, but first, how are we all feeling? Let's do our vibe check. Let's start with you, Sam. How are you doing? I'm feeling two kinds of ways. One is homesick. I'm going home to Texas for a week next week. I have a conference taking me out there, and I'm staying for a week to see friends and family. I'm so excited to get there.

My middle school girlfriend just had a baby, and I'm excited to see her and hers. I actually officiated her wedding a few months ago. Our friendship means so much to me, and to see her and other folks next week is going to be great. But even more than that, besides feeling homesick, I am feeling so happy for my friend, for my sister, for my confidant, Saeed Jones, whose book is out today. Ha! Ha!

Today, alive at the end of the world, a wonderful arresting book of poetry. It's here. So I'm just excited for you and honored to be in your company on launch day. Congrats. Thank you. But you can't do this to me because, you know, and Zach saw my eyebrows. Middle school girlfriend. Yeah.

I mean, it makes perfect sense that you would have had a girlfriend in middle school. That actually fully tracks with, but tell me more. We met in science class in seventh grade, Mrs. Jones science class. We had a rocky relationship until sophomore year of high school.

Oh, wow. Yeah. And then we just stayed in each other's lives. And she's just always been there for me and hopefully I've been always there for her. But it is so amazing to see a childhood friendship go through all of these changes and still be strong. So salute. Oh, that's so beautiful. I'm so glad you mentioned that. Well, I'm glad, you know, homesickness is, it can really get to you. It's real. So I'm glad you'll be able to go home and see her. That's beautiful. But also don't distract. We're still happy for your book. Celebration. Celebration. Celebration. Celebration.

Oh my God. Well, to piggyback, I'm also very excited for Saeed's new book. What happened to me today that makes me really happy is in the midst of Saeed's book tour, I realized in all the chaos that the one book I have not read yet somehow is Isaac Fitzgerald's Dirtbag. And it arrived today. Yes. I was like, what is here? And I was like, is this something from Saeed? And I opened it because it was a book box.

And I was like, oh, it's Isaac. Just Saeed's best friend and also an incredible writer and incredible person who has been such an ally to you through this process. So it's been a very joyful day of me thinking about your universe all day. I love that. Oh, yeah. It's Dirtbag, Massachusetts. It's an incredible essay collection by Isaac Fitzgerald. We got to do an event together over the weekend. It was actually one of my first events on tour. And it's just a real joy. This book, Alive at the End of the World, is about what we're going through, what I've been going through. And so it's a vulnerable experience.

I think opening up and talking about these kinds of experiences and like what better way to like kick that off than to do it with your best friend of like 10 years who's just written a memoir. So we're both doing that work together. You know what I mean? It was just like we were able to just kind of go there. And of course, by the end, everyone in the room was crying. Yeah.

It was really fun. Well, before we move on to the news, do you have a second to read something from the book? And also tell us how you're feeling on this launch day. Sure.

I mean, I'm grateful. You know, I mean, to be candid, there were points early in the pandemic and in isolation where both grief, my mother passed away of heart disease a decade ago. And so I was working through the afterlife of that grief while in pandemic isolation. And it was like, I was surrounded by, of course, the collective grief that we're all going through. And I just felt lonely. And it was really difficult for me to,

acknowledge my feelings. And so I have to be honest that this book, these poems, I didn't intend to write them. I was just trying to live.

I was trying to live and try to like renew my understanding of how and why I live. Like what are we even here for was really like on my mind a lot because I felt distanced from so many of the joys, you know, that remind us why we're here. And so I kind of had to live out of that pain. And then unexpectedly, the living led to the writing and life.

Yeah. So I'm grateful. Long story short, I'm grateful to have lived and loved and grieved long enough to be able to share this work with everyone. And I'm excited. And I hope it resonates. I hope these poems honor what people are feeling and help you understand that you're not the only one going through this kind of stuff. And so with that in mind, I thought I'd read, with my sisters, an especially angry poem. Yes. Let it out. Let it out. It's a persona poem.

in the voice of Little Richard, who was obviously a very famous public figure, but had a lot of private pain that was directly connected to this country's racism, homophobia, and systemic abuse of Black artists in particular. And over the course of Little Richard's career, not once but twice, a white artist, Pat Bollinger,

Boone covered his songs, took all the sex and the heat and the spice and the sweat out of Little Richard's songs and then made more money off of them. And so this is in Little Richard's voice and he's pissed. Like Little Richard listens to Pat Boone sing Tutti Frutti. If I could, and I bet I could, hell, I know I could write a song that killed anyone who tried to wrap their throat around it.

I'm writing the first verse right now, riding the rhythm like your mama, straddling the preacher while your daddy looks on with a mouth full of every moan he can't have. Ain't that what you really want? A stadium full of white people screaming your stage name and a smashed guitar where your dick used to be.

Ooh.

She was pissed. All right. The fire. I love it. She was pissed. I love it. Thank you. Everyone hearing this podcast, you got to get this book, Alive at the End of the World. It's out right now. I want us to get to the first topic, which is the little old queen of England. But before that, I want to thank every listener who has sent us here at the show fan mail and tweeted us and DM'd us. We appreciate you all so much.

And we love hearing your feedback and your recommendations. Here's a favorite tweet that we got last week that we want to share with all of you. It comes from Carla Jimenez, and she wrote on Twitter, quote,

She sums it up perfectly. This is what we aspire to be. We're honored. Listen, we are so honored by all of your feedback and the fact that anyone listens to this little old show. Stay in touch with us at vibecheckatstitcher.com and tweet us with the hashtag vibecheckpod. All right, with that, let's get to it. All right, let's do it. ♪

All right. So to kick things off, let's begin with the queen and her passing. So I want to begin to set the stage for our conversation that I am very, very excited for. So Queen Elizabeth II has died at the age of 96 years old on September 8th, which was days ago. Her son, Charles III, is now king, no matter what the creator of Succession says with the Emmys. He is no longer a prince. He is the king now.

And in the wake of the announcement of her death, we have seen, I have been surprised by an incredible uproar on Twitter that has been discussing very explicitly the complicated ways in which people of color have lived under the queen's reign for many, many, many years. This woman is the longest reigning queen in the history of the world. So this is a very big moment for all of us to consider what it means to even be a royal and why they even exist. During her reign, 20 countries gained their independence from

from the British royal family. And Barbados last year was the last country to cut their ties. And they went even so far to take the Queen's face off their money. There have been great conversations about reparations there. But a lot of pain and a lot of retribution has happened. And just to set the context to why this is such a big moment for so many of the colonies, I didn't know this till today, that at the height of the British Empire, it was the largest empire the world had ever seen.

A quarter of the entire earth was ruled by the British monarchy. The queen was born four years later, which I think is really important context that she was born in the midst of the supreme ruling of this empire. And that's the queen. Well, and that's why I was so confused why anyone would question people who piled on upon her death. Yes.

I think that there is this fiction that has been served to a lot of us over the years while she was reigning that her empire was a toothless one, that the monarchy was just a symbol. It was just a figurehead, but they weren't actually doing anything. Queen Elizabeth presided over the commonwealth.

Which was the next extension of the British Empire when they couldn't call it the British Empire anymore. Exactly, the Commonwealth is a euphemism to make it seem- Yeah, it's a new dress for the supremacy, yeah. And so when Queen Elizabeth took power in the 50s, there were still territories across the world that Britain was brutally controlling.

You know, she was on the throne when the British colonial movement tried violently to stop a push for freedom in a former colony like Kenya and others. It was bloody, right? So the first thing we should know is that the reign of Queen Liz was bloody. It wasn't all sweet and fun and shiny and jewels and such. Also, even the jewels themselves were stolen. Yes, let's talk about the jewels. Every jewel in her crown, every jewel in her scepter was taken from

Nations with majority brown people or black people. The whole thing. It's like as soon as you think about what she symbolized and what she meant, I feel like there's no other way to be than mad about it. Am I wrong? No, you're not. I was interested to see in particular if upon her death, Queen Elizabeth would return to

many of these jewels and artifacts. Like, there's historical artifacts that are in the British Museum that are really important to the cultures and countries like Greece, Pakistan as well, or like, you know, the diamonds that were stolen brutally from countries like South Africa, India. To me, personally, it says a lot that she didn't. You know, so I was like, okay, well, that's

Huh, that's interesting. Okay. That says something about who she is as a person and her relationship to colonization. But also, I don't know. Yeah, like you, Sam, I was surprised that people were surprised by the anger. I was like, why would people be angry? Like, one, we've known this was coming for a long time. So I'm like, a lot of these people had their tweet drafts and their essays and their op-eds ready to go.

And maybe everything's performative. Maybe people weren't actually surprised. They just wanted to clutch their pearls. But this whole like, how could you speak? She just died. I'm like, come on.

Come on, let's not, like, this isn't just like your grandma down the street. This is someone who has ruled a brutal monarchy for generations. And I was speaking with a friend and colleague who's from Ireland and the Irish, you know, we can get into that. They had thoughts, tweets, everything. Listen, Irish Twitter joined black Twitter last week to drag that moment. They really did. Irish Twitter got out their do-rags. Irish Twitter was like, we were once black in America.

And we're going to be black today. We're fully black today. Listen. They were saying to me, you know, as Irish people, they have a very complicated history with the British monarchy. And what she was explaining to me, she goes, what's been really frustrating for the past decades is the gratification of the queen, that we have forgotten the brutality of her ruling. Even as a woman who came in at a very young age, like,

they were torturing people in parts of Africa when there was civil wars happening. They were doing really, really brutal things that the queen was specifically in charge of overseeing. But through her getting older and lasting so long, so old, like we've, she's always been old in our lifetimes. That has made us relate to her as our,

our grandmother. And it's been a very specific way in which the British royal family has molded her identity in the media because they have a lot of great hands on how the media talks about the family. And that's why right now people are like, wait a minute, this woman is supposed to be our grandma. But now we're realizing, no, she was the greatest white supremacist to walk this earth for a long time.

And it's not just that she presided over the remnants of a bloody empire. They also have a lot of money that they did not earn or shouldn't have. You know, the entirety of the royal family's estate is

It's something like $28 billion. That's their fortune. Prince Charles, now King Charles, his cut, his private estate known as the Duchy of Cornwall, while he was prince in waiting, he got a bunch of investment types involved and increased his portfolio's value by 50%.

He's getting millions of dollars a year in rental income while also being the king. The entire operation just seems fraudulent, especially when you look at the UK cutting down on social programs through serious austerity measures. None of it makes sense. None of it is right. And I don't care whose grandmother she was, whose mother she was.

We should be allowed, we are allowed to call this stuff out even upon the time of her death. And to go back to Saeed's point, the literal jewels that she wears are insignificant. They are worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars and they could change the GDP of a small country very easily and pay for services in those countries if returned and sold on the global market. So even when we see pictures of the royal family, they're wearing stolen jewelries.

Of course people are going to be mad about that. That's someone else's jewelry. So it's just insane, the asset transfers that are happening there that are untaxed. Just as an example, this is just one of the many jewels that I believe the monarchy should return. One of them is called the Cullinan Diamond. It's something like 3,000 carats, and it was discovered in what is now known as South Africa, and it was the largest uncut diamond that had ever been found.

And the stones that make up the Cullinan diamond are valued in total at $2 billion. That is billion with a B. That's just one diamond. This is just one of the examples of the crown jewels that could literally impact a nation's GDP. It's just, but what I'm fascinated since we're talking about jewels, it's like the monarchy, it has these different facets. One facet is colonization and the brutality of that. Another facet is that it's,

The funeral, the procession, all of that is going to be paid for by the people of the UK. Another facet of it, in my opinion, is that it's stupid.

Did you read the thing that happens when the queen dies and what they do next in the Ascension Council? It's some Harry Potter shit. It's some Harry Potter shit. It's just ridiculous. I don't get it. It's not real. Thank you. It's been wheeled into being by the nature of white supremacy and power. And so I have to read. Shout out to the Irish Times. This piece was written by Patrick Vandell.

I hope I'm saying his last name correctly, for the Irish Times. He wrote this March of last year. You might have seen this. He says, quote, Having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbor who's really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window, and has an insatiable desire to hear about and discuss clown-related news stories.

More specifically for the Irish, it's like having a neighbor who's really into clowns. And also, your grandfather was murdered by a clown. And that sums it up. It's both like expensive and...

Horrifying and stupid. And insulting. And insulting. And insulting. Given what they've done to us. Yeah. Well, and this was even crazy. So they have the royal family. They have a fortune and estate worth $28 billion, and it's only growing because they invest in that stuff. They're also big landlords in the UK and abroad. They own property that brings them in money. Right.

They own 130,000 acres in their real estate portfolio. And here's the thing. They don't pay taxes. Their tax rate should be 40%. They don't pay nothing. Their fortune will only grow. The whole thing is just fraud. I'm sorry. It strikes me as fraud. And anybody in any black or brown or Irish person's dimension saying be nice is

go sit down, go sit down. And to push it even further, you know, it's like I'm hard pressed to compliment Queen Elizabeth. I just am. But I will say she was effective at creating a dignified, graceful veneer on like this impossible institution. Let's say she was very effective at the PR of kind of

performing what came across, as you mentioned, this kind of elegant grandmother, you know, falsely apolitical figure. But you know who can't do that? Her son. So it's like on top of everything else, this new era, I'm like, and we've already seen like, you know, the clips being of Charles being rude to his servants. I'm like, oh no. Well, this is my question for both of you. You know, there have been some people saying the passing of the queen actually marks the

the cultural end or the end of the cultural significance of the monarchy because no one's going to care about Charles that much. I kind of feel like that might be the case. Of course, time will tell, but I'm wondering what you all think about that. Oh, 100%. I think as we expose the white supremacy infrastructure of the monarchy and now to have a man who is 70-something sit up there who's rude, not nice, and not hot,

like try to rule from there. I think it's just going to become too on the nose that this is a patriarchal system that is really outdated. It's out of touch. No one can even want to be around him or want to connect with him. So I think it is the end. The queen had that gratification and it made us be like, oh, my grandma's here. I'm going to let her pass. But Charles has never. Charles is that boss you hate. And what he did with Princess Diana, I have never forgiven. So, you know, that's where I stand with.

Yeah, I'm interested to see which country will be like the first country in the Commonwealth, like following like Barbados, which will be the next country to step away. What's interesting is everyone has to reprint their money now who has the queen on it. So like, will people use this as a moment to reconsider what the future is like other countries have? Interesting. And didn't Barbados, when they left, they had the ceremony saying, we're leaving the Commonwealth. We don't serve the queen anymore. But like the next day or the same day,

they like made Rihanna like their national hero. They like Loki made Rihanna the queen. Yes, they did. Yes, they did. They did. All right. Well, I think it's time for us to take a quick break. I need to refill my cup of tea because I think we're going to be spilling some in the next segment here. So you all stay right there. We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are Black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging Black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands. I

I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z, but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors everywhere.

at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, We Are Golden.

All right, we are back. You're listening to Vibe Check. We're going to switch it up now and talk about some other queens, namely Quinta and Lizzo and Cheryl and Zendaya and all of them. We're talking about- And Gerard. Gerard is- That's a queen. That's a queen. That's a full queen. That's a queen.

What I love about Gerard Carmichael is that there was a way he dressed before he came out, and there was a way he dressed after he came out, and it was all kinds of cool. That's called liberation. That's called liberation and also gay puberty. That boy is a young gay person now. I don't care how old he physically is. He is a young gay person. I love it. We're going to talk now about the Emmys. The Emmy Awards took place this Monday evening, and I want to start by saying a lot of folks who we love won.

And we salute them. Gerard Carmichael won. Cheryl Lee Ralph won an Emmy for her work on Abbott Elementary. Quinta Brunson won an Emmy for Best Comedy Writing for Abbott Elementary. Succession won big. Love them white folks. Zendaya won big. The White Lotus and Jennifer Coolidge won big. Lizzo beat out Drag Race for Best Competition Program. And Kenan hosted with a cameo from Kel. It was a night of black excellence. But here's the thing.

Increasingly, these types of award shows seem a little off, seem a little dated, and fewer and fewer people are watching every year. Did y'all watch the Emmys?

No. Of course, Side was out celebrating life, I hope. Yeah. I watched the whole thing from start to finish with people and it was awful. From a production standpoint, awful. I hated the show. People were being timed. They played so many people off during their speeches. It was really offensive. Kenan, who I love,

Not a great host at all. It left you wanting every other comedian, especially Regina Hall, just to take the mic and host the whole thing. It just was all over the place. It didn't know what it was doing. And I think it doesn't know who it's for anymore either. Well, this is my question for you, Zach, as someone who is part now of the awards industrial complex with your Tony. Right?

Are they making these awards for actual viewers or are they making these awards for the contracts they have for advertisements and for studio executives and the like? It just felt like this was not a show for real people. I agree with that so much. And I think what was so amazing about this year is that it did feel like you were seeing the business of Hollywood playing out in public, but they were trying to dress it up as entertainment. So the whole night was filled with a lot of jabs at Netflix. And why that's important is that this is the television academy.

The place that has been really disrupted the most by the rise of streaming is television, and they're having to sprint up because these networks, your basic cable, have ruled supreme for decades on challenge. And now services like Peacock, part of NBC, are having to sprint to make sense in the world while Netflix and all the others that are native digital are dominating them.

And it's also changed how televisions work. Like there are a lot of jokes from like Mindy Kaling who called everyone lazy in the room because they're doing eight episode seasons, not 22 when you used to do shows like The Office or other network hits where it was a mini living single where people were working constantly. Yeah, those like 23, 24 episode seasons. So that is why like through all of this, why,

art queen Quinta Bronson's rule last night of an all the wins is so important and actually good for us as black people is that a network show Abbott Elementary was amazing and won all the awards it deserved and also showed network TV that they actually have power over these streamers so we're seeing this business really play out right now well and it could have been a moment where we celebrate the ways in which sometimes streaming and broadcast can work together for good but

You know, people's parents will watch Abbott on a terrestrial TV through ABC. Their kids might watch it on streaming through Hulu. That is kind of the ideal. That is a good thing. And I wanted more of that and less of the weird...

one-upmanship of the streamers and the weird bloviating from a lot of men who should get out of the way, namely Jimmy Kimmel, who played dead on the floor next to Quinta while she got her award. Himself representing a vestige of TV of yesteryear, those late night shows, but don't get me started. Saeed, I mean, why do you think you don't care about the image anymore? Yeah, I mean, because-

Because it's almost, it's like the institution is crumbling and it's interesting to see like the viewership numbers in the eighties, the Emmys consistently had audiences of over 30 million people. Oh yeah. And then, you know, and even, you know, in the last decade it would be 10 million people, but in 2021, 7.4 million, that is a huge change. And so I guess for me,

I don't need an institution like the Emmys to tell me that someone like Zendaya, Lizzo, Gerard Carmichael, Shirley Roth, I don't need them to tell me that these artists, that these creators, these actors and innovators are brilliant.

I don't. And I think we're realizing that increasingly. And it's almost like as the institution of the Emmys and all of these award shows shrink down to size, instead what I'm noticing more and more is community and generational support. And I do think that's really beautiful. So it's like Quinta has said that with this show, part of her goal, one of the things she wanted to do was to create an opportunity for someone like Shirley Ralph, who's been an icon for all of Quinta's...

Quinta was like, I'm trying to put Cheryl on. That's what I'm really here to do. And I love that. And I love that when you look and you see, like, Quinta thanks someone like Larry Wilmore, who mentored her. He also mentored Issa Rae. Like, it's almost like as the institution of the Emmys is shrinking and looking smaller and more fragile than the large yeast.

of black love, black excellence and camaraderie is becoming more and more visible. And just to piggyback off that, you know, also other people of color like Korean communities or API communities, Asian folk also, and Bowen Yang was nominated and also presented an award. So it's just like we're seeing communities of color finally get their moments and rise up and it's through community as kind of the like infrastructure of the Emmys and it's white supremacy rule, which is similar to the monarchy is falling apart.

Well, and this is what I find very interesting about how POC these Emmys were. Perhaps the lowest rated Emmys of all time, we'll know once the ratings come out later this week, were the blackest and brownest Emmys.

And it makes me think of the trajectory of some of these legacy institutions and things like the Emmys. At its peak, when it was pulling 30 million viewers, the Emmys would never think about having a black person host. They would never want to give out that many awards to people of color. Yet, when the show was in a tailspin,

when they need to do all they can to get people to keep watching, they have Oprah open the show. They have Keenan host it. They have Lizzo up there twerking. They're like, oh, black people help us save this dying institution. We didn't want you then, but now we want you. And so it makes these moments of black and brown excellence that I see in the show a little bittersweet.

because I cannot help but think of the legacy of the Emmys themselves. They stayed as white as they could for as long as they could, and now they have no other choice but to do something else. I agree with that 100%. And something that people shouldn't read between the lines here is that as things get more POC, that's why viewership decreases. What you're seeing is that the lack of letting us in for a long time has created a culture in which we never can expect ourselves.

So then you have this one year where we're everywhere. You know, like my family back in Tennessee probably had no idea it was going to be this black. They had no, it's too late. It's too late to ask us to watch now. And then when we're there, when you saw the speeches, we have to carry the show on our backs. So Sherri Lee Ralph's speech was literally what live TV is made for. I think The Atlantic did a great write-up analyzing it. And it was, it was dramatic. It was entertaining. It was planned. There were songs. It was incredible. To anyone who has ever heard

ever had a dream and thought your dream wasn't, wouldn't, couldn't come true. I am here to tell you that this is what believing looks like. This is what stride looks like. And don't you ever, ever give up on you. Thank you.

And, you know, people of color were just consistently performing and showing up in their awards. When you look at Michael Keaton, for instance, who won Best Outstanding Actor for his role in Dope Sick, a show about the opioid crisis, that man, and I love Michael Keaton so much, so I say this with as much love as possible, you would assume that a man winning an Emmy for doing a show about the opioid crisis would talk about the opioid crisis. He does not. At all. Oh, wow. At all. At all.

And that was a consistent theme is that white people were not talking about kind of the cultural moments in which they were finding the success where black people were having to show up in these really big ways to carry the show. And it was really concerning. Well, I think we've talked about white people enough. Yeah.

I want to talk about Shirley Ralph. Can we talk about Shirley Ralph? Yes, we can talk about Shirley Ralph. The three of us are all within striking distance of being the same age. She's just been so important to us throughout our lives. She plays the mother to Lauryn Hill's character in Sister Act 2, a stern character.

A stern character whose reasoning, frankly, I still don't understand. I'm like, just let your daughter go sing in a damn choir. It's not like she wants to go be in a gang or something. But then, of course, she was... She was a stepmother on Moesha. Yeah, Dee Mitchell, an incredible Abbott Elementary. And then something else that I just... I always have to honor this. The major breakthrough in her career was that she was in the original production of Dreamgirls on Broadway. She received a Tony nomination. Beyonce played that same role when that movie came out. But

I wanted to read this because Shirley Ralph is also a longtime HIV AIDS activist. It's because she says in an interview with Pause Magazine that by the time Dreamgirls had played its last Broadway performance on August 11th, 1985, the year I was born, the show had lost one third of the cast and crew to AIDS.

And it just ravaged the production and many of the collaborators. One of the show's director and choreographer, Michael Bennett, for example, died. And so in 1990, think about where we are in this country in terms of homophobia about public health and disease. Think about how long it's taken to get a lot of people on board with thinking about HIV AIDS in a nuanced way. She created a foundation to fight HIV stigma in 1990.

It's called Diva. And I feel like this says everything about Shirley Ralph as a person. Diva, which stands for divinely inspired, victoriously aware. I love her. I love her. And so it's both that she's one of those working actors and performers who really has been a seminal part of the culture for the last 30, 40 years. But also she's been doing the work out of deep,

love you know like seeing all of these people impacted by this disease she was like oh my gosh we have to do something and for a black celebrity who was not queer to take a stand at that time in 1990 I think is actually you know kind of rare and incredible so rare so rare

Love her. She's amazing. For me, the point with this story and the queen passing is that these old institutions are increasingly showing themselves to be outdated. They're outdated and there needs to be some new gatekeepers around. I think to me it's kind of like those of us who have a healthy relationship with reality when we're talking about political power or cultural power, we're going to move on with or without you.

And where we're going, you actually would do well to go and follow. So it's kind of like whether we're talking about like the Emmys or these political institutions, catch up because we're going to keep moving. There you go. All right. It's time for a quick break. Do not go anywhere. We will be right back.

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at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, We Are Golden. All right, and we are back. Before we end the show, we always like to share something that's helping us keep our vibes right this week. I look forward to it. I love these recommendations. Zach, let's start with you. What do you want to share with us? Okay, I'm so excited. I have become obsessed with the TikTok videos about who...

who should pay for birthday dinner. What is this? Oh my God, let me explain. You know I watch my TikToks on Instagram, so I don't be knowing. Yeah, Sam will come back to the group text like two weeks from now and be like, have you heard about this birthday dinner debate? All right, so this TikToker named Dre Brown,

I think his at is at I'm Dre Brown on TikTok, who I do love. He's become very famous for doing TikToks about being a corporate baddie or being in corporate America. But he released a TikTok that has caused so much chaos where he says in there that when you go to a birthday dinner, if it is your birthday, you must pick up the bill.

If it's a trip, you should pick up the whole bill. You as the birthday person should pick up the bill. What was his reasoning? I grew up in the world. Well, I'll explain. So I grew up in a world. And you know, I am pretty bourgeois. I am pretty like a luxury loving girl. I do a lot of ridiculous things. But I always assume birthdays, you should pay for the birthday person's dinner or someone should split it. And I just was at a birthday on Friday where we split the bill and it was no big deal because it's their birthday. Okay.

He argues that birthdays are about like, because when you're kids, your parents pick up the tab for everyone. So when you invite people over, your parents pay for it. But in your adulthood, you should pay for it because you should stop faking luxury. If you don't have the money, don't fake it on your birthday. And that's the argument. It has created so much fighting on the internet. I bet he has no friends. That's what I'm, yeah, I think that's right. I can't with these Atlantic queens. I mean, listen, if, on one hand, I will say, if,

I picked a Michelin-reviewed, very expensive, da-da-da-da-da, and kind of wrangled and said, we're going to dinner here. And there was no input, no consideration about people's different price points. You know what I mean? Or insisted that we went on a vacation. Sure, I could see like, okay, well, Saeed, you really wanted this, and this is really out of people's price range. It's a pretty high demand. I could see maybe the host asking,

needing to at least participate in some way for paying for this. But I think generally, if you're just going to like a nice restaurant in your neighborhood or whatever, you know what I mean? That's the gift. Like, because I don't, if I have a birthday dinner, which is usually what I do, I don't expect gifts from my friends. I think the idea is that the gift is our time together. And sure, it's nice if your friends pick up the tab. These Atlanta queens, I can't with them. They just aren't,

They just argue over like these like paying for dinner things like every week on Twitter. They do. And I blame, you know, I blame Morehouse for this. I fully do. There's like this whole idea. And this all does tie back to the queen and white supremacy. It really does. Make it make sense. Never could I have guessed where this was going to go.

There's this idea of respectability politics, that to perform wealth is to do certain things. And this idea that you have to be singular and that you have to reign over your friend group and pay for everything and dominate it is counteractive to a community-driven friendship where we're all coming in and taking care of each other and lifting it up. So anyway, that's what I'm really interested in. I'd love to hear what people think. Please tweet at us about birthdays. Do you pay or do you not pay? What's happening?

Let me tell you my whole larger take. I can't believe that's what's helping you keep your vibe right. I'm like, Lord. I just love the chaos of it. It just makes me feel good. It is very chaotic. Well, we'll leave it there for now. Sam, what's your vibe rec for the week? I would love for everyone to just take a look at the back catalog of Cheryl Lee Ralph. I think a lot of viewers might have been introduced to her through Abbott Elementary, and she's lovely in that show.

but black America has known her as one of the premier mothers on TV for years. Perhaps my favorite role of her as a mother was the stepmother that she played on Moesha, a really, really, really good sitcom. But she's been doing this stuff for a long time. She's a TV legend. If you have the time, go watch her on TV. She's been doing the work for a while. And fun fact,

When she won her Emmy this year, Cheryl Lee Ralph became the second black woman to win an Emmy in that category. The first was the actress Jackie Harry, who won for her role in the show 227. Guess who was offered that role before Jackie got it? Cheryl Lee Ralph. Cheryl Lee Ralph. This has been in the making forever. So my rack is all things Cheryl. Love her. I love that. And 227, that's another really important-

That's a really good show. Yeah. A lot of lineage from that. Mine is, I mean, you know, we're on a podcast and I love to shout out podcasts that I love. Death, Sex, and Money, a podcast from Anna Sale. It's been one of my favorite podcasts for years. Shout out to Anna. We love her. We love Anna. I just think she's one of the best. To

To call her an interviewer, it actually feels like kind of diminishes what she does. I mean, I just I think she's very good at the art of conversation, at the art of dialogue, often about very difficult subjects. But an episode that I listened to recently that I just think everyone should run and listen to or listen to it again. She interviewed the actor Niecy Nash and her wife. They recently got married, Jessica Bolling.

And so it's like, you know, just the story of like their friendship before they were married. They were both, you know, going through a lot in their lives, how they got to know each other and how Niecy in particular, you know, initially like wasn't looking for a partner in Jessica was just looking for a friend. And then, you know, just just hearing that.

the conversation of the journey they go on and that moment where nisi's like wait a minute am i in love with whoa you know it's just it's just so wonderful and anna has interviewed nisi nash i think three times over the years so you know this is like they get each other you know what i mean it almost feels like old friends coming together and you're gonna laugh you're gonna get emotional and to be perfectly honest by the end of that damn interview i wanted a cigarette i

was like, in my next life, I hope I come back as a lesbian femme baby because they're living. They're living. Jessica Betts shares some lyrics for a song she wrote inspired by Niecy and it is so hot. I have never had. At one point, you hear Anna just go, woo, you know what?

I have never had a romantic partner write a song for me. Me either. I don't think. Why did you have to think about it for a second? I was like, I'll tell you later why. I had to go down a journey. All I want to say is that Jessica Betts loves Niecy Nash very hard. And it's very apparent. And I love that for Niecy Nash because she deserves all of that love. Beautiful. Yes. Okay. So what are y'all feeling or not feeling this week? Obviously, you can give us your feedback on the birthday dinner. I'm going to go ahead and do that.

I don't want to hear what other people have to say because I know what's right. I know what's true. But you're welcome to share your opinion about paying for birthday dinners with Zach and your recommendations with the rest of us. I mean, we love when y'all tweet us. It's been really fun seeing people kind of share what they love about the show and how it's resonating. And of course, you can email us at vibecheckatstitcher.com. Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support us, make sure to follow us on whatever your favorite podcast listening platform is. Also, tell your friends you like the show. Word of mouth is the best way to help us out.

Huge thank you to our producer, our long-suffering producer, Chantel Holder, our engineer, Brendan Burns, and Marcus Holm for our theme music and sound design. Special thanks to our executive producers, Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brandon Sharp from Agenda Management and Production. And last but not least, thank you to Jared O'Connell and Amelda Skender for all of their help.

And again, we love hearing from y'all. You can email us at vibecheckatstitcher.com and keep in touch with us on Twitter at The Ferocity, at Sam Sanders, and at Zach Stafford. Use the hashtag vibecheckpod if the spirit so much moves you, you know. And also you can follow us on TikTok. It freaks me out every time I see my own face on my For You page. It's at vibecheckpod. Stay tuned for another episode next week. Bye, my love. Stay safe out there. Bye. Bye.

Stitcher.

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