TCB Infomercial: W Kamau Bell

Summary

The Commercial Break – TCB Infomercial: W. Kamau Bell

Date: October 14, 2025
Host: Bryan Greene
Guest: W. Kamau Bell (comedian, social commentator, former host of CNN’s United Shades of America)

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Commercial Break is an “Infomercial Tuesday” special, featuring acclaimed comedian and commentator W. Kamau Bell. With co-host Krissy out, Bryan Greene sits down for a timely and candid conversation with Bell about America’s current political turbulence, the threat of fascism, the division sown by partisan politics, the importance of activism, and the subtle power of comedy to open minds. The discussion is pointed, earnest, and often hilarious, with Bell’s signature wit providing much-needed levity. Notable for both its serious insights and its comedic asides, this episode is a snapshot of American anxiety and resilience.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The State of American Democracy & Rise of Fascism

[01:22] – [02:48], [15:30] – [19:48]

• Bell warns listeners about the “fascist takeover” threat in America, using pop culture and mythic hero analogies to highlight that change won’t come from politicians, but from people.
  • Quote (Bell, 01:22):

    "In the movie that is made about this era, the camera is zooming in right now on you. On your character. It is on you… No politician is going to save us."

• Discussion about the deployment of federal troops in American cities, comparisons to Venezuela’s breakdown (referring to Bryan’s wife and father-in-law’s lived experiences).
  • Quote (Bell, 02:32):

    "When the president has troops and law enforcement kidnapping people off streets… That’s fascism. Ta da."

  • Quote (Greene, 19:14):

    "Congratulations. You’re Venezuela."

• Populism’s dangerous pivot point – both left and right extremism end up in the same destructive place.
  • Quote (Greene, 20:20):

    “It doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s a circle and it all ends up in extremism…”

2. A Generational Struggle for Equality and Democracy

[17:06] – [18:23]

• Bell insists on participatory, not passive, resistance—optimism is possible only with action:
  • Quote (Bell, 15:30):

    "We have to work our way out of it… It’s not just gonna happen. It’s not like we go, well, the pendulum swings to the left and the pendulum swings on the right. It’s not that anymore. The pendulum could get stuck…"

• Bryan draws parallels with the civil rights movement’s long game and multiple generations’ responsibility.

3. Manufactured Division & Weaponized Ignorance

[21:23] – [24:19]

• Bell, referencing his United Shades of America reporting, describes how both rural white communities and urban Black communities share more in common than politicians claim—both want better jobs, education, and healthcare.
  • Quote (Bell, 21:23):

    "They all want the same things…but political parties are weaponizing their differences against them."

• The role of American capitalism in amplifying systemic issues, including division sown by identity politics.
  • Quote (Bell, 23:35):

    "The enemy of every episode [of United Shades] is American capitalism…which also encompasses white supremacy and racism and imperialism."

4. Weaponization of Social Issues (Trans Athletes, Immigration)

[24:19] – [27:13]

• Bell and Greene satirize the way politicians and media amplify marginal social issues—like trans kids in sports—distracting from actual policy or community needs.
  • Quote (Bell, 24:35):

    "It became a kitchen table issue…even though there’s no trans kids trying to play sports in my kid’s school…"

• Discussion shifts to the demonization of immigrants and the realities of migrant labor.
  • Quote (Bell, 26:11):

    “Jobs that they wouldn’t pay you enough to do, which is why undocumented immigrants do them…they’re not paying a living wage for those jobs.”

5. Life as a Black Commentator in Confrontational Situations

[27:13] – [34:53]

• Bell recounts filming United Shades with the KKK—his emotional endurance, the “trauma” of interacting with overt racists, and the surprising insights encountered.
  • Quote (Bell, 28:48):

    “…the idea of the show was like, black guy goes places he shouldn’t go…or the KKK rally, because I was like, you gotta go big or go home.”

  • Notable moment: The “most angry” person at the KKK meet was a young white woman whose isolated context underlines the weaponization of fear in rural environments.
• Reflections on America’s unique foundation in racism and the young age of the country relative to the civil rights movement.
  • Quote (Bell, 34:53):

    “We built the country on racism…First let’s get rid of Native Americans…then have black people do the economic work…This stuff is not a million years ago.”

6. Comedy as a Force for Change

[37:54] – [43:11]

• Bell discusses following in Dick Gregory’s footsteps—making meaning from trauma through comedy, honoring a tradition of activism-rooted humor.
  • Quote (Bell, 37:54):

    "The person I’ve been talking about a lot recently…is Dick Gregory…During the civil rights movement…being someone who has a big profile…and then going to march with Dr. King…is actually what I should be doing."

• On the mechanism of comedy in social critique—laughter opens the mind for new ideas, even as political figures (Trump) use humor themselves to bond with their base.
  • Quote (Bell, 41:27):

    "One of the things that made Donald Trump successful is that his base finds him funny…which means he’s opening them up…"

7. The Responsibility of Public Speech & Activism

[44:53] – [49:10]

• Bell calls for true amends among pop culture figures who supported destructive politics—drawing an analogy to 12-step recovery.
  • Quote (Bell, 45:05):

    "It’s not enough to go, ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’ Well, you’ve also alienated a bunch of people who you did that to. So that means you got to do more work to come back."

• He elaborates on feeling responsibility, rather than fear, to use his platform:
  • Quote (Bell, 47:14):

    "If I am who I claim to be, then I have to say something. If I…the person I’ve told the world I am, if that’s true…then how can I not say anything?"

• Crucial idea: Black history is full of figures whose risk-taking dwarfs Bell’s; keeping their sacrifices in perspective helps him continue to speak out.

8. Family, Touring Life, and Substack as a New Platform

[51:03] – [54:51]

• Bell briefly describes balancing touring and fatherhood, keeping performance dates limited for family.
• Explains Substack as a haven for journalists, comedians—even video creators—fleeing social media toxicity; it allows creators direct connection and compensation, with community and civil discourse emphasized.
  • Quote (Bell, 52:48):

    “[Substack] is like the best parts of Twitter in its heyday…with like a little bit of a Patreon model…On my substack you can’t leave a comment unless you’re paying me, which eliminates a lot of trolling…”

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• W. Kamau Bell on fascism:
  "When the president has troops and law enforcement kidnapping people off streets … That’s fascism. Ta da."** [02:32]

• Bell on personal responsibility:
  "It’s on you to figure out how to stop America’s fascist takeover. Jesus Christ. He wasn’t ready either, actually." [01:22]

• Bryan Greene channeling generational fatigue:
  “The fuckery is being done. And to get unfucked, it’s going to be generation after generation…” [17:06]

• W. Kamau Bell on comedy and activism:
  "The way I process the story is … my brain starts coming up with jokes. Not because I’m trying to do it. It’s just like, man, that’s … how it works." [39:49]

• Bell on using his platform:
  "If I am who I claim to be, then I have to say something." [47:14]

• Bell on Substack:
  "It’s social media for grown ups…you can read my content, it can make you angry, you just can’t tell me about how angry you are." [54:03]

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Timeline of Important Segments

• Fascism & pop culture hero analogies: [01:22]
• Federal troops, Venezuela comparisons: [02:32], [19:14]
• Intergenerational activism – work required: [15:30], [17:06]
• Division sown by politics and capitalism: [21:23]–[23:35]
• Weaponization of social issues: [24:19]–[26:20]
• Bell recounts KKK visit, United Shades: [27:13]–[34:53]
• Comedy as social critique & healing: [37:54]–[43:11]
• Responsibility vs. fear in public advocacy: [44:53]–[47:14]
• Touring, family life, Substack: [51:03]–[54:51]

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Episode Highlights

• An unflinching, but highly entertaining, look at the state of U.S. democracy.
• Personal and political stories that ricochet from hilarious (the TiVo/Netflix evolution) to sobering (Venezuela’s decline, America’s divisions, racism’s embedded legacy).
• The role of comedy as a bridge between activism and audience, with Bell and Greene riffing honestly about the risks and consequences of speaking up.
• Reflections on optimism, responsibility, and the reality that comedy and activism must entwine to awaken and heal.

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For Listeners

This episode is essential for anyone interested in the intersection of comedy, politics, and activism—an encapsulation of what The Commercial Break does best: making serious conversations approachable, and even laugh-worthy, while never diluting their importance.

Further engagement:

• See show notes for Bell’s tour dates and Substack
• Visit tcbpodcast.com for more episodes, audio/video archives, and to get your free TCB sticker

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Summary by TCB’s A.I. chatbot. Wah-bam!

Transcript

[Brian Greene]

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[W. Kamau Bell]

Hey. Cause somebody gotta tell you. You're not going to hear this, but I gotta tell you. It's on. It is your job to stop the fascist takeover of our country. It's on you. I know, I know you don't want to hear it now. You don't want to hear it. But in the movie that is made about this era, the camera is zooming in right now on you. On your character. It is on you. And I know you're like, but I'm not ready or I don't know what to do. I didn't train or whatever. No, you know, Neo wasn't ready. Luke Skywalker wasn't ready. Katniss wasn't ready. Shuri from the Black Panther wasn't ready. Moana wasn't ready. Those pups on paw patrol are never ready. Except for Chase. He's a cop. But yeah, it's on you. It's on you to figure out how to stop America's fascist takeover. Jesus Christ. He wasn't ready either, actually. Yeah, but it's on you. No politician is going to save us. Nobody else. It's on you. You're welcome. I'm sorry.

[Brian Greene]

On this Episode of the Commercial break.

[W. Kamau Bell]

When the president has troops and his law enforcement kidnapping people off streets and taking them to places where they, where they don't want to go and not giving them ever access to a lawyer in that process. That's fascism. Ta da.

[Brian Greene]

Congratulations. You're Venezuela.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah, yeah. No, and I think Venezuela. We did an episode of the United Shades of America about Venezuelan, Venezuelan American and that. So I'm happy, not happy, but to hear your wife say that and hear her positive, like, oh, I'm so. I've been. Right. I've been saying this happened in Venezuela and one day you look up and as I learned that episode, and suddenly using the currency for a napkin because it's not worth anything because they've totally raided everything and nothing is worth anything anymore. And people are using garbage or emptying out garbage cans to steal water. It's like that, that we're on that track right now. The next episode of the commercial break starts now. Oh, yeah.

[Brian Greene]

Cats and kittens, welcome back to the commercial break. I'm Brian Greene and there's no one here with me as Chrissy is out on her MENFO break. But I had an opportunity to talk to W. Kamau Bell on a TCB infomercial Tuesday, and I'm super excited to share that conversation with you. If you do not know W. Kamau, he is an American comedian, television show host for the commentarian, general observationalist of the world around us. And I do appreciate what he has to say, actually. I feel, and I'll tell him this, I feel like I'm bringing a cotton swab to a knife fight. Because W. Kamau is currently the reigning celebrity Jeopardy. Champion. As amongst all the other things that he is, the United Shades of America was a very popular show that was on CNN for, I don't know, seven or eight years. It had a number of seasons. And I watched almost every episode of that because it's a great look into the psychology and psyche of America at that time. I think that it started filming in like maybe the mid 2000s and. Or, yeah, maybe the mid 2000. No, no, no, no, no. In the mid 2010s. And then it just ended a couple of years ago. Go check out that show. He's also on tour. He's doing select cities. I'm gonna put a link down in the show notes. W. Kamau has makes no bones about it. He is, like I said, he's a commentary, he's a humorist, he's a comedian, and he talks a lot about politics and he talks a lot about his observations around politics, usually in a very funny way. But, you know, it's. Politics is not your thing. If you don't like your commercial break with a bit of politics, I encourage you to listen to the episode anyway. But I'm just giving you fair warning here. I think it's a prescient time to bring W. Kamau on the show and have this conversation with him. I'd like to get his opinion. I was. I'm laughing because he is currently the. The spokesperson, like the television spokesperson for the aclu. And so I just saw a commercial with him on it for the aclu, and now he's going to be here on my television screen yet again. So why don't we do this? Let's take a break, and when we get back through the magic of tele podcasting, I will bring W. Kamau here and we will have a nice conversation with him and we will ask him all the pertinent questions, like, is there any chance that democracy survives the current shit show? And, you know, we'll see what he has to say. I hope we. I hope there's an optimistic answer to this. I really do, because I'm looking for optimism in a lot of different corners, and I don't see a whole bunch. But, you know, we'll hold on, we'll hold strong, we'll keep the faith. Doesn't matter which side of the aisle you're on. We all got to defend democracy, free speech, human rights, all that good stuff. That's just, you know, basic shit that we should do. And I don't care whether or not you like what I'm about to say, we should not have troops in American cities. We just shouldn't. It just should not be happening. But, you know, we also shouldn't be kidnapping people off the street in unmarked patrol cars with unmarked officers having masks on their face. All that stuff is kind of dystopian. It's kind of bullshit. And it should stop, and it should stop immediately. So I'm not a bleeding heart liberal. I just think that we are all getting desensitized to something that is clearly fucked up. If you would have 20 years ago said to yourself that this is what is going to be happening in these United States of America, I think you would laugh. You would be like, there's no way that doesn't happen in the United States of America. Well, it's happening. And so we all should speak up and we should all defend the rights of ourselves and the rights of other people. Yeah, okay, that's it. That's all I'm going to say, so as not to turn every single listener of the commercial break off. Anyway, I enjoyed this conversation. I hope you do too. I'll be back afterwards to wrap it all up. We'll be back.

[Rachel / Candace Dillard Bassett / Commercial Break Announcer]

Hey, it's Rachel, your new voice of God here on tcb. And just like you, I'm wondering just how much longer this podcast can continue. Let's all rejoice that another episode has made it to your ears. And I'll rejoice that my check is in the mail. Speaking of mail, get your free TCB sticker in the mail by going to tcbpodcast.com and visiting the Contact Us page. You can also find the entire commercial break library, audio and video, just in case you want to look at [e-mail] Want your voice to be on an episode of the show? Leave us a message at 212-4333, TCB. That's 212-433-3822. Tell us how much you love us and we'll be sure to let the world know on a future episode. Or you could make fun of us. That'd be fine too. We might not air that, but maybe. Oh, and if you're shy, that's okay. Just send a text. We'll respond. Now I'm going to go check the mailbox for payment while you check out our sponsors and then we'll return to this episode of the commercial break.

[Brian Greene]

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[Rachel / Candace Dillard Bassett / Commercial Break Announcer]

It's Candace Dillard Bassett, former Real Housewife of Potomac.

[Brian Greene]

And I'm Michael Arsenault, author of the New York Times bestseller I Can't Date Jesus. And this is Undomesticated, the podcast where we aren't just saying the quiet parts out loud.

[Rachel / Candace Dillard Bassett / Commercial Break Announcer]

We're putting it all on the kitchen table and inviting you to the function. If you're ready for some bold takes and a little bit of chaos, welcome to Undomesticated. Follow and listen to Undomesticated, available wherever you get your podcasts. Ah, DSW Earth, place of the humble. Brag here. The shoes are so good, no one would ever know how little you paid if you didn't go telling everyone that is. And with never ending options for every single style, mood and occasion, all at really great prices, they'll definitely give you.

[Brian Greene]

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[W. Kamau Bell]

Those boots you always secretly knew you could pull off.

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[Brian Greene]

And W. Kamau Bell is here with me now on the through the magic of tele podcasting on my video screen. I'm. I'm quite honored to have you on here, my friend. How are you doing?

[W. Kamau Bell]

I guess I feel old when people are honored you show up. I guess I just, you know, it's.

[Brian Greene]

Like, hey, listen, you. Yeah, you could be hunt tricks or whatever and I'd be honored to have you on. Also my kids, you know, because my kids.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. I'd be honored to have Olivia Rodrigo on my podcast. So you can go either way. Yeah.

[Brian Greene]

Oh, there's, you know, listen, the world is run by the youth, the Utes, as they would say. And I don't know how old you are, but I'm making the assumption we're around the same age and we are not the Utes anymore. Those days have long passed.

[W. Kamau Bell]

I'm a proud member of the greatest generation, AKA Generation X. Amen.

[Brian Greene]

Amen. Generation X. So you grew up in the 90s just like I had. 80s and 90s just like I did. I was telling a friend of mine who's currently in Chicago and we were bantering back and forth about all of the stuff that's going on in Chicago, but we both grew up across the street from each other, haven't seen each other in a long time. But I said, totally off topic of politics. I said my children will never know what it's like to get up on a Saturday morning and be babysat by Hanna Barbera. They just will never know that. Hanna Barbera and a sugary cereal and I feel like they're missing out on that.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah, I mean I think it's. I really noticed especially like I've had, I have three daughters and so it's funny how much it's even changed from the 14 year old to the 7 year old that I have now and how much more access she has to. I want to see exactly what I want when I want to see it as many times I want to see it. Whereas when my 14 year old was born there was streaming, but it was like Netflix. The only like Disney movie they had on Netflix was Aristocats, you know, like so we saw that a lot and I was like, I had no idea this was so racist. But really. Yeah, so it's like just. And she had access to, to streaming. And it's funny, it always would, it would always end up. We'd go to a hotel and she would turn on the TV and be like I want to watch. And she would say something like we can't do that here. We have to sort of do whatever the hotel wants. But yeah, the choice is different.

[Brian Greene]

Understand that either. You know it was funny because I guess when, when TiVo was a thing like the very first DVR where you had to have a complicated piece of machinery installed on your TV by a technician to record the program. Yeah, I, I'm on my second marriage but I on my practice marriage, my mother in law was one of the first of to get one of those tivos and I happened to be the guy who had to go meet the technician at the time she was out of town and the technician was playing around and checking to make sure everything working. He goes, you know, it's crazy. I don't think my kids are ever Gonna watch a commercial in their entire life. They were young, and I laughed. I thought it was a funny thing that he said. And now I realize if they don't choose to, they won't watch a commercial in their entire lives. It's.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah.

[Brian Greene]

Insane. Yeah.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah. I mean, the difference is commercials figured out a way to sneak back in there, but you can still pay your way out of commercials if you want to.

[Brian Greene]

True. 599 with commercials, 89 without commercials.

[W. Kamau Bell]

It seems crazy to be. It seems crazy to be watching HBO and there's a commercial like, this is hbo. We went backwards.

[Brian Greene]

It really is. Let me ask you a question, because I just can't resist because you're. You're an. An intellectual, a true intellectual. And I really appreciate your take on the world around us. I. I like the way that you move through life. And I want to start maybe by. Let's look at the glass half full. There's obviously a lot of strife and tension, and we have an immense amount of diversity in this country currently. And that's putting it, I think, mildly. And I think anybody on. On either side of the. The spectrum could probably agree on that. What is. What's positive? Do you see. Do you see this. This current kind of turmoil that we're in? Do you see that we work our way out of this? Or is that generation. No, no, generation.

[W. Kamau Bell]

We. We. We do, but we have to work our way out of it. I think that's the way you put it is perfect. We can work our way out of it. It's not just gonna happen. It's not like we go, well, the pendulum swings to the left and the pendulum swings on the right. It's not that anymore. This is actually like, the pendulum could get stuck over there on the right, and they could actually, like, build a fortress to keep the pendulum over there. And then they could, like, you know, it's very realistic that next election day in the midterms that you go to your local polling place in your town, especially in a red state, and it's surrounded by ice patrols.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah.

[W. Kamau Bell]

You know what I mean? And you just go, huh, how am I too brown to walk into the polling place today? You know what I mean? So I think you have to understand that, like, there's a October 18th. There's another nationwide no Kings protest. November 5th. People are talking about going to D.C. on the year of the. Of the election anniversary. So, yeah, I talk to people all the time. People always ask me, what can we do? I think you got to. Actually, I just did an event with Robert Reich, who's actually a real intellectual, last night, Secretary of Labor. And like, you know, everybody's. Everybody's woke Grandpa. And he was like this in the. He's like. The antidote to feeling depressed is activism. Get active. And really, that can mean different things for different people. But you have to do it. You can't just sort of. It's not just going to happen on its own. I will say that it will take a lot more of us than we think to get to work our way out of this. The way you said it, we have to work our way. It's like a. It's like a car stuck in the mud in a rainy day. It's not just going to come out and you could wait for it to dry, but then, you know, you wait for the rain. Yeah. But that's not going to get you where you need to go at the right time.

[Brian Greene]

I forgot which. And I apologize. My brain just doesn't work like it used to. But some. One of the civil. Great civil rights leaders, it may have been mlk, he is. Someone said, this is a generational thing. We're going to have to work our way to equality. And I see that. How we're in right now, the. The fuckery is being done. And to get unfucked, it's going to be generation after generation that's going to have to be handed the responsibility of taking care of themselves and working toward the next step. Bringing it. I don't know if bringing it back, pushing it forward. Right. Making it into what it is that they want to. And I have to think, and at least this is my hope. I have to think. And I'm taking the temperature with some people who don't necessarily always agree with me ideologically. I have to think that even some of the folks that don't agree with me are seeing this in a different light right now. The steps that are being taken, sending troops into, you know, blue cities.

[W. Kamau Bell]

American cities.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah, American cities. And it's. That is a scary thing. My wife is Venezuelan. She saw this happen with Chavez. She's, you know, she was alive when this happened. And her father keeps telling me this, this is not how it happened. This. Or. He said, this is not how it was happening. This is how it happened.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah.

[Brian Greene]

No, he's saying, you're there, you're not. It's not happening. It's not going to happen. It's happened. It's already there.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah. No, it's. This is where we. I just posted a video yesterday where I was like, people are like, always ask me, what can I do? And I was like, well, the first thing you can do, there's lots of things to do, but the first thing you do is call it fascism, because that's what it is right now. It's not when, when the president is sending troops into American cities, even though the governors and mayors of those places don't want the troops there, that's fascism. When the president is prosecuting his political enemies, like Comey, that's fascism. When the president is wants the generals to swear a loyalty oath to him, not to the Constitution, which is who they swear to, but to him, that's fascism. When the president, when the president has troops and his, and his law enforcement kidnapping people off streets and taking them to places where they, where they don't want to go and not giving them ever access to a lawyer in that process, that's fascism. Ta da.

[Brian Greene]

Congratulations. You're Venezuela.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah, yeah. No, and I think Venezuela. We did an episode of the United States of America about Venezuela. I remember Venezuelan Americans and that. So I'm happy, not happy, but to hear your wife say that and hear her father, I'm like, oh. So I've been right, I've been saying this happened in Venezuela. And one day you look up and as I learned that episode, and suddenly using the currency for a napkin because it's not worth anything, because they've totally raided everything and nothing is worth anything anymore. And people are using garbage or emptying out garbage cans to steal water. It's like that, that we're on that track right now.

[Brian Greene]

I couldn't agree with you more. And I don't say this to be. I mean, there's no more alarmist about it. The alarm is ringing. It's ringing loudly. And regardless of whether you're a conservative or you're a democrat, you know, in Venezuela, democrat or liberal has a bad connotation because that is how fascism entered their lives. Here it's entering through conservatism. Right, but it's really populism at the end of the day, is, is what it is. It's. It's populism and then it turns into fascism. And so my father and Hitler was a socialist.

[W. Kamau Bell]

You know, that's right.

[Brian Greene]

It doesn't matter what you call it. And my father in law made this point to me so many years ago, that decade ago when we met and the kind of Trump was moving on the scene, he would probably have considered himself more of a conservative if he lived here and he was voting here. Right but he said to me one day, he said, it doesn't matter what you call it, it's a circle and it all ends up in extremism. All ends up in the right place. In the same place. The exact same place, right? And he couldn't have been more right about that. And I wonder when you were doing Fifty Shades or when you. Fifty Shades. When you were doing Fifty Shades, hey, yeah, sexy looked hot in that movie. Just letting you know when you were doing the CN show, United Shades of America, when you were doing that show years ago, did you smell this coming? Did you? Could you tell just by being out there on the streets having these really tough conversations and really interesting positions, could you tell that the country was kind of pulling itself apart?

[W. Kamau Bell]

So, yeah, it's interesting. When we started the show, Barack Obama was in his last year in office and at that point there was this idea that, that he was about to hand off the presidency to a woman named Hillary Clinton, that it was going to be a smooth transition because how could Donald Trump ever win? And I remember being at a, like a kid's birthday, like a birthday party. One of my kids friends in Berkeley, California and this old hippie guy was like, yeah, we thought Reagan was a joke too. And so that was like, we thought there was no way Ronald Reagan would ever be governor of California, let alone President of the United States. And that really was like, click. And then we did an episode of United Shades where, where we did two episodes in the same season. I think it was the same season. One was on the south side of Chicago with, with, with men who were in gangs and black men who were in gangs on the south side and west side Chicago. And then we did an episode in Appalachia with white ex coal miners. And I remember thinking these two people would say they are in different ends of the political spectrum or, or they would say, I don't believe in whatever the other party is. Chicago is a very democratic city. Appalachian is a very red state. And yet they all want the same things. They want better jobs, they want higher wages, they want more access to health care, they want better schools for their kids. They want there to be less potholes in the streets. So, but they've been, but, but political parties are weaponizing their differences against them. So they think I want the opposite of what that guy wants. And you both want, you want. And you've been told if that guy gets what he wants, then that means I get less of what I want. When it's like, no, that's not how it Actually ever should work. But that's how the political parties. So yeah, I would say I was really clear about the division in the country. Like was planted. It's not like a thing that happens naturally. It's a thing that is sown and planted and, and, and then on top of that, the enemy by the last season of the United States I said I think the enemy of the every episode is Cap is American capitalism. Now American capitalism encompasses a lot. Also encompasses white supremacy and racism and imperialism. So it's like it's all, it's, it's not just, you know, it's not. But that's what adds up to the specific. And I say American capitalism because other countries do capitalism differently. But that's how you end up in a situation where like poor white people in Appalachia can vote for the party that actually doesn't care about them. But they think this party is protecting tax cuts for, for rich people. And one day my lottery ticket's gonna hit and I will be a rich person who will need my taxes protected.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah.

[W. Kamau Bell]

And you're just like. And that's how they do it. So I think it's just about weaponizing difference and weaponizing ignorance. And then in this last election it was all about like for some reason making people think that America's biggest thing to be afraid of was trans kids playing sports.

[Brian Greene]

It's insane how that, how less than half a percent of the population of the history of humanity played such a big role in 400 million adults minds. Not that many voted, but it's.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah. But that it became like, it became a what they call a kitchen table issue. That became an issue that people sat down at their kitchen tables. Like we need to, to discuss trans kids in sports. Even though there's no trans kids trying to play sports in my kids school or even though the trans kid who wants to play sports is just wants to play sport. Like who cares? Like you know.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah. Sports. Yeah.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Do you, do you think NBA players think Victor Wembanyama is fair? You know what I mean? Like he's like, he's a, he's a 7 foot 4 guy who can shoot from 3 point from the 3. They don't. That doesn't seem fair. But they understand that's just what happens in sports sometimes. So I think. And you know, and to be truthful, most people playing sports are just doing it to run around and get some fresh air. Most of us, the overall majority of us aren't that good. And it doesn't matter.

[Brian Greene]

It really doesn't it doesn't.

[W. Kamau Bell]

It doesn't matter.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah. And you know, and you know, that's a, a debate in its own ilk, but it's, it's almost not worth having because it's, it affects so few people. And you address those things as you cross that bridge when you come to it, as, as we always have with the minutiae of life. But yet it was the biggest thing that, the absolute weaponization of misinformation and it's the tiniest tip of the spear that allowed all of this rabble rousing and hatred to just pour its way into this, into our discourse was amazing. And now it's the immigrants, right? It's the people who came into the country and took your job, jobs that you never wanted in the first place, jobs that you weren't filling in the first place. And by.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Jobs that they wouldn't pay you enough, jobs that they wouldn't pay you enough to do, which is why undocumented immigrants do them because they're not paying, they're not paying a living wage for those jobs.

[Brian Greene]

I know, and I think a lot of people now, including a lot of the quote unquote manosphere of the podcast world.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Right?

[Brian Greene]

That's just, I'm word that I am using to describe something. I wouldn't use it myself, but. Because I don't think it just includes men, by the way. And. But they all of a sudden they go, oh, shit. Well, this isn't what we vote. This is what we wanted. Well, this is what you got. Right now they're kidnapping Americans on the streets. And how do you put that cat back in the bag? You aren't going to. It's not going to happen unless a few brave men and women stand up and do that. I have a question for you personally, because I watched one of your episodes. It really affected me. I think it was the one where you went and you were kind of talking to KKK members. How do you prepare for that mentally? I mean, I understand, I'm sure you get this question a lot, but it's just, it's just a curiosity. It has got me on this one. How do you prepare for that mentally? How do you keep your fists in.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Here.

[Brian Greene]

And your pockets?

[W. Kamau Bell]

I don't know. I mean, I. So that one specifically was the very first episode of United Shades we ever take. It was the pilot episode that sold the series. So I was the one who pitched that idea because it was, the idea of the show was like, black guy goes places he shouldn't go. Or you Wouldn't expect him to go. And so they were like the country club or the golf course and I was like, or the KKK rally because I was like, you gotta go big or go home. But then it was like, it really was. The hardest thing about that episode was that it was the pilot. So I didn't even know the crew that well and I didn't know the producers that well. So at the times in the making of that episode when me, Kamau Bell the human was having an emotional reaction to something, there was nobody to turn to really and be like help. And I mean there was a, there was a friend of mine, was a producer on that episode, but there was just really nobody in control to turn to and be like this doesn't work for me. This thing you're asking me to do doesn't work for me. And if I have to explain it to you, I'm going to start weeping. You know what I mean? Like, you know, so, so I had a friend of mine who was there to help, but they just really didn't disregard him or me as being like as far as they were concerned, you know, host of a TV show can mean a lot of different things and some hosts are just like wind up toys and that's what they want to do. Like I'll just sort of tell me where to go, what to say, how to do it. I think of a little bit like Chris Harrison from the Bachelor. He doesn't actually care at all who gets the rose. He's just supposed to ask, you know what I mean? That's it.

[Brian Greene]

We make fun of it all the time. He walks in 30 seconds and he goes, yeah, gentlemen, there's one rose left. And he walks back out.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah. And he goes back to the hotel, the nine star hotel in Thailand where they're staying.

[Brian Greene]

That's right.

[W. Kamau Bell]

And so, but I was like came for, I wanted to do this because of what the work I'd seen Morgan Spurlock do and then he Bourdain do and Michael, and Michael Moore. And so I was like I'm, I'm, I want to be in it and have decisions and make decisions. It took me several years to get that level of control. But that episode there was just times right like for the thing the story I always tell is like at the, at the, the, the meeting those clan members in the forest where we're going to do the cross burning later. And we were there for hours because they wanted for. We got there early and it had to get dark and, and I'm Talking to the clans members and they're filming. And at some point I look around and I realize that the. The crew has their cameras down. And I realize I'm just talking to this clan member for no reason. And I have to go to the showrunner, be like, hey, man, when we're not filming, let me know. I don't just want to talk to the kkk.

[Brian Greene]

Hey, man.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Hey, man. Like, yeah, hey, man. This is actually hard for me. This is actually not fun for me. And I would hope that you understood that white guy. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's really the. Yeah, yeah. No, it's. Some of my best whites are friends, so. But it was really just the idea that, like, I had to do. There was two battles to fight. The battle of, like, getting. Dealing with the clan and then the battle with, like, showbiz not being designed for people who aren't white men.

[Brian Greene]

When it was there any insight that you took away from that specific episode that. That gave you some inch of hope that some of these, like, really hardcore bigots could. You know, there's a light at the.

[W. Kamau Bell]

End of the tunnel. The funny thing was, so there were some people, there was sort of split into two groups. There was one group of the clans members who were like, there wanted to talk to me and explain to me what they believed and why black people were inferior. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then there were people. There were some who just wouldn't talk to me because it was like, you know, a snake has entered the parlor. You know what I mean?

[Brian Greene]

Yeah.

[W. Kamau Bell]

So it just like stayed clear for me. The person who was the most angry at me was this blonde, white, young white woman who looked like she would come in third in a Britney Spears, young Britney Spears lookalike contest. And I remember thinking, like, your biggest problem is you live here.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Like, if I took you to la, you would have a totally different opinion.

[Brian Greene]

You'd have a totally different opinion.

[W. Kamau Bell]

But if you lived here. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're. You don't know the. And I really. From that I took a lot of. What they were mad about was the circumstances they were born into that they couldn't escape. And somebody had weaponized that saying, it's black people's fault. Meanwhile, they lived in Dawson Springs, Kentucky, a town that's not that black. Like, so you're mad at black people and there's nothing that many black people around here.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah.

[W. Kamau Bell]

And the ones who are know you're in the clan, so not messing with you. They're like, they all know you're in the Klan. So I think the idea being that, like, again, it's the site that, like, people's. People's fears are being weaponized against them. So these guys live in a town where there's not a lot of jobs, not a lot of opportunities, and somebody has told them at that point, it's Barack Obama's fault, the black guy. And the thing that I saw, because at the time when the episode aired, Trump was still not being really taken serious as a candidate. And some people were like, why would you do this show about the Klan? Who cares about the clan? And cut to a year later. Trump is like an ongoing concern and going to win. And then suddenly that episode, it's like. Like, since it's aired, it's grown bigger because it sort of pointed the direction that the country was going to.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah, very interesting. It really was kind of a litmus test. I remember watching the episode. I don't remember if I watched it when it first ran, but I just remember watching it, and I'm like, I. I mean, I'm obviously not a black man. I have had. No, I have had. I won the genetic lottery in that sense, but I just. From a little kid, because.

[W. Kamau Bell]

No, no, no, no, no, no. I. I won the genetic lottery. I'm six foot four. I'm six, four.

[Brian Greene]

Well, then you are. I'm a short king. So then there you go. But I just remember, just because of the way that I was raised in Chicago, that I just had a lot of hatred for the kkk. Like, that just to me, was the emblematic of everything that could go wrong in the human psyche and was also like an earmark of how much. How big our problems are here in the United States of America when it comes to race. My wife comes from Venezuela and she goes, I just can't believe how. How big of a problem racism is. You know, Venezuela is a different country, right? But they have indigenous people, they have black people. And, you know, you go to other places and it's just. It's just. It's just different. It's. We just magnify it here. We magnify it, and it's been magnified from the moment. Right?

[W. Kamau Bell]

Well, we. Because we built the country on that.

[Brian Greene]

That's.

[W. Kamau Bell]

I mean, I think, like, certainly, like, other countries have their own problems. They. They would call it nationality instead of racism. So in the uk, they think they don't have a racism problem, but get these Pakis out of here, you know, which is. So it's like, get These Arabs out of here, we don't have a racism problem, but I don't want to live next to it to a Muslim, you know what I mean? So, yeah, I think it's named different things. Nationality does a lot of the work of racism in other countries. But I would also say specifically in America, we built the country on racism. Like literally, like we, you know, first let's get rid of the Native Americans, as many as we can and push the other ones out into places we don't want to be. And then let's have black people do some of the major economic work to get this country started. And let's bring in some Chinese people to help build the connective tissue in the railroads. But also while we're here, we're also passing anti Chinese laws so that we need them here to build the railroad. But they also aren't allowed to live here, which is a weird thing. And so the country was built on racism in a way that it also wasn't that long ago. So it's not like we can even go, well, that was a, that was a millennia ago. Like in China you can go, that was a millennia ago. You cannot do that in this country.

[Brian Greene]

It's all, it's very young. The country is very young.

[W. Kamau Bell]

As I always say. Martin Luther King, Martin Luther King Jr. Would be 96.

[Brian Greene]

That's crazy to think about.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah. No people, you think he's like, well, he'd be 20 years old. No, he could still easily. 96 doesn't get you a happy birthday on the TV. It doesn't get you a, you're not there yet, you know, so you're still four years away from anybody caring about how old you are. And he can still be alive today. And you know, so it's not like we're. This stuff is not a million years ago.

[Brian Greene]

You know, I like speaking of genetic lottery, I have, I said this just a couple of weeks ago on the show when we were talking about immigration. I said it's an imaginary line in the sand and it's about, it's really like, it's really about a lottery that you win. What, what skin do you, what skin are you born into? Where are you born into?

[W. Kamau Bell]

What language do you speak?

[Brian Greene]

Were you born? What religion are, what religion are you? Or do your parents or whoever's around you, you grow up and all these things are non choice options. You don't make those choices. And largely your parents didn't make those choices and their parents didn't make those choices. So then we go around demonizing people based on things that they have no control over at all whatsoever. But we point to them and we say they're the problem and they're the bad guys and they're the evil ones and they need to get out of here. And they've committed some, you know, horrendous felony for crossing over an imaginary line in the sand when they had zero choice in it. You just won the fucking lottery. That's the only thing that happened to you, dude.

[W. Kamau Bell]

And you want it at this point in history, because at another point in history, if you'd been born in that same place, you wouldn't. You wouldn't have won the lottery. You know what I mean? So we're like, again, we're talking about that line shifts and moves and the, and that country's reputation means something different 100 years on either direction of whatever, of whatever date you were born.

[Brian Greene]

It's so true. And I wish that more people could see that. When we're ripping parents away from children at bus stops and when we're, you know, just on the news today, or when a young lady goes to the store to get food for her house and her mom's not there, when we're doing this to these people, the horrendous offense that they have committed, most of them, the horrendous offense that they have committed is walking over that imaginary line and not filling out the paperwork.

[W. Kamau Bell]

That's it.

[Brian Greene]

That's the only thing that they have done. But, you know, this has been going on forever, and I really hope that soon we, meaning the collective, we find a way to stand up and say, not in this country. Like, not right now. We're not going to do this. I hope, I pray that that is what happens. How do you personally, being an intellectual, being a commentarian, on political and just social life in general, how do you balance comedy and the very serious nature of what's going on? You come across as pretty funny a lot of the times, but you're talking about things that's pretty serious.

[W. Kamau Bell]

I mean, people ask that question. And I think the, the thought is that somehow I was like a, like a political science professor at a liberal arts college going, how do I get the message across? And then I go, jokes, you know what I mean? And I think that I, I, the, The person I've been talking about a lot recently in the. That I'm sort of walking the giant footsteps of is Dick Gregory. Dick Gregory, first of all, before he was a comedian, he was like a great. He was like a track Athlete. So I think the idea is that you could have. And then he became a comedian and he just wanted to be a comedian and really was like on the path to, like. He was like the first black comedian to sit on the panel on, like the. I think it was the Jack Parr show, the Tonight Show.

[Brian Greene]

Oh.

[W. Kamau Bell]

And he. And they booked him on the show and said, you can't sit on. He's like, can I sit on the panel? They said, no, because, you know, you're black. But that was back when they would just say no because you're black. He was like, then I don't want to do the show. And then they're like, okay, okay, you can do it. So you see somebody like Dick Gregory who, like, was on a path to be like a star comedian, but it was during the civil rights movement. He's like, it's not. Being a star comedian is not important right now. Being someone who has a big profile like Dick Gregory did, and then going to march with Dr. King, which brings more cameras, is actually what I should be doing. So I think the idea is that, like, I wanted to be a comedian because of Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live, but the world said there's. Your skills may go elsewhere, you know, so your skills may not. Maybe, maybe I would have been great on Saturday Night Live. Is Eddie Murphy being the next Eddie Murphy? But I also think that, like, no. The way I was raised and who my mom and my dad and the world I grew up in and moving to the Bay Area, sort of like, you know, I was woke before it was demonized. And, and so I don't think about, like, how do I make this funny? Because my brain is that of a stand up comedian who's always like, whatever the story is I read, it starts working on, like, that's the way I process the story is by just sort of like by rolling over the story, my brain starts coming up with jokes.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah, I got it.

[W. Kamau Bell]

And that's because I'm trying to do it. Yeah. It's not because I'm trying to do it. It's just like, man, that's. I can't believe that Trump said that. That's ridiculous. That would be like if. Blah, blah, you know what I mean? Like, it's. Yeah, that's how it works. And like, I can't believe he. I can't believe J.D. vance dropped the football trophy. That's, you know, he's supposed to be a real man. And, you know, you start to, like, your brain starts to, like, just do things with what you've been given. Now, that. That certainly means that I can't make jokes out of everything. But so in that. Which is also why I like writing on Substack. There's different ways for. There's different places for different things. So. But yeah, I'm not. It just means that, like, if I. If I don't say it, it's because I haven't found. I haven't figured out the joke yet. Not because I don't think it's worth joking about.

[Brian Greene]

Sure, yeah. I always, you know, I don't think this is any secret. I'm not giving some. Any great insight. I've never given so many great, great insight. But I always feel like comedians throughout history are the ones who open us up a little bit. Because when you're laughing, when a joke goes in there, right. When we all collectively laugh at something, you could tell a joke about the right or the left or whoever, about Obama or. But when you're, when you're laughing, your mind relaxes a little bit. The body relaxes, the mind relax. The soul takes it in. Right. It's like energetically, you're connecting people in a room or you're connecting through the TV or whatever it is. And comedians have always been boundary pushers. Let me push this idea. Let me show you how absolutely ridiculous this is satirically. Look at this from a different angle and people start to open up in a way that otherwise you can't. From a podium with a big White House logo on it or, you know, office.

[W. Kamau Bell]

And let's be clear, one of the things that made Donald Trump successful is that his base finds him funny. I'm not saying he is funny, but he is funny to them. Yes. Which means he's opening them up and they feel like he's, ah, he gets me. Like, when you laugh, you think you're agreeing, even though you're not always agreeing. You're just saying, that was a good joke. But you go, yeah, that's true. Those people do do that a lot. So I have to, you know that that is funny how you made fun of a disabled person.

[Brian Greene]

You know, like thought of the same thing.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Like, that's funny. The face you made. Which when you. And so I think the idea being that, like. And I think generally what happens a lot of times with, with press, especially presidential politics, is the. Is the sort of. The most charismatic person wins now. Charismatic for their audience. But, you know, whatever Kamala Harris was. Yeah, she was not. She was not known to rule the room with charisma. That doesn't mean she's not smart. Doesn't mean she's not qualified. Fair enough. Certainly gonna be a better president. But I think that, like, one of the things that Barack Obama had in spades, which is a funny thing to say about the black guy, is that he was very. He was hyper, charismatic, his charisma so that Mitt Romney never stood it. It didn't matter if Mitt Romney was. He. Mitt Romney was a vacuum of charisma.

[Brian Greene]

So I think that Mitt Romney was a stiff sock, let's admit it. Yeah. Sock who got overstarched. I mean.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah. I mean, gonna win. Yeah. No, it's never gonna. So I think. And you've seen like, in. In elections, like, you know, like, there's a. There's like 19 people running for mayor of New York and Eric Adams won because he's. He just had a personality. You know what I mean?

[Brian Greene]

Like, he's just cool cat. Yeah, he's a cool.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So. And then they found out, but then what happens? You get in there often, oh, we shouldn't have elected the cool cat. We should have elected one of the qualified people. But.

[Brian Greene]

Exactly.

[W. Kamau Bell]

But I think that, like, there's just a way in which every public speaker wants to be open with a joke. Every public speaker wants to be funny, because if people are laughing, you know, they're paying attention. If they're not laughing, they. You can think that. You can think they're paying attention, but they can be thinking about their laundry.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah, exactly. You and I both know how did President Bill Clinton get into office? How did he get into office? Going on Arsenio hall and playing God damn saxophone.

[W. Kamau Bell]

That's it.

[Brian Greene]

He got the white people. He got the black people.

[W. Kamau Bell]

He got the black people.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah.

[W. Kamau Bell]

And then he got the young people when he went on MTV and answered boxers or briefs. I think that's right. So, yeah, yeah.

[Brian Greene]

He was like, inhale. I tried it, but I did not inhale.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah, I didn't. Depends on the definition of what is is. Okay, so. But yeah, so I think that he was one of the first ones to understand that. I mean, you know, goes back to Kennedy initially, but, like, that being in bro. Being a part of the pop culture is actually helpful to this. And. And Trump understands that too. He's just a part of a pop culture that I don't want to be a part of, so. But that's why he's on, like, the Joe Rogan show and Theo Vaughn show and. And Andrew Schultz, because he understands connecting With Bill and Aiden Ross, all these people who are now regretting, stumping and endorsing him. Stumping for and endorsing him.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah.

[W. Kamau Bell]

But he understood that pop culture was important.

[Brian Greene]

I say to those guys who I share the potter's care, the podcast fear with, I say, we'll argue about it later. Keep speaking out. Keep, keep telling people that you made a mistake. That's okay. We'll argue about why later. Right. But now we're, we're at where we're at. And it's good that you're talking, speaking up at all. Go ahead.

[W. Kamau Bell]

But I would say that I agree with you. I would just say this. Like, I think about it without. I wrote a subject about the 12 steps to recovery from MAGA for comedians, and one of those steps is like, make amends.

[Brian Greene]

Fair enough.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Like, it's not enough to go, like, I shouldn't have done that. Well, you've also alienated a bunch of people who you did that to. So that means you got to do more work to come back. It's not enough to go, I don't agree with him anymore. But you also, it's in, in aa, you can't just go to one meeting and go, I quit drinking, everybody, I'm done. And never go to another meeting again. You have. It's a constant practice of showing people that you've changed and being held accountable and being okay. Being held accountable. And that's the thing. I think I see what happens to like, like Andrew Schultz. I didn't vote for any of this. Oh, you don't want to be held accountable. Right. And that's not, that's not a, that's not helpful to us because that means that you're, that the next week you're going to be like, ah, you know, I like the thing that Trump did today. I'm back. You know what I mean? It's about. You have to be willing in the way that I'm held accountable by my friends, when I say things, they go, come out. You said that thing. That's not actually what it is. So if you don't want to be held accountable, then I think what it feels more like is like, oops, my balance in my bank account went down. Let me, let me try to, let me try to staunch the bleeding.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah, you are, you are very right about this. And I do think that at some point there need, you know, there needs to be a reckoning on behalf of all of these pop culture fig. Listen, I, you know, I'm not here to tell anybody what they need to say or not say, that's for me to decide about my own show. But, you know, if you don't agree, say you don't agree and then say you made a mistake and say, I'm sorry I made a mistake. You know, I, at the, in the moment, it felt like the right thing to do. I sensed that it was the right thing to do. I was wrong. And now we need to speak up against it. And so, But I can appreciate that anybody saying anything at all, because it's becoming a scary time to say anything at all. You know, I am friends with one of Jimmy Kimmel's producers, and when they were going through all of that drama, he didn't say anything. He did not give me any breaking news. So, yeah, say anything that, you know, I'm not going to say anything again, anybody in trouble. But I shared that. I shared through a text message or whatever that I was, you know, rooting for them. And this is terrible and all that other stuff. And he responded. It's a very scary time. It's a very scary time. He was scared. I think he was scared. It's a very scary time to speak up. Right. And do you feel scared?

[W. Kamau Bell]

No, I feel responsible. Like, I feel like I have been, I have been given. I have been given this. I, I, you know, I say to my kids all the time, like, because we'll sometimes go places and people will give us free stuff because they know who I am and they're excited to whatever, ice cream or something. And I sort of want to go, look, we didn't earn this. They are doing this because they like the work that I do and the work that we do as a family, because I talk about as a family business. And so that's great that we get that we get free things. But if I, but then when I'm put in positions, like, should I say something? I go, the thing that happens is, like, if I am who I claim to be, then I have to say something. If I, if I. The person I've told the world I am, if that's true, which I think it's true, then how can I not say anything? Now sometimes you figure out, I gotta say, in this environment, I'll say it like this. In this environment, I'll say it like this. And I'll say differently on Instagram, then I'll say it like a, like, you know, I did an event for Brady United, which is anti gun violence, which is, which is more like corporate and lots of billionaires in the room. So there's different ways to do it, but the message is going to stay the same. It's just the delivery system changes. But yeah, I mean, certainly I get afraid. And the joke I tell on stage is whenever I get like, whenever I start to go, man, it's so hard to speak out. The ghost of Harry Tubman shows up. Oh, what is hard to do? It's hard to. Yeah, what are you. You're having our time saying a word. You're having a hard time tweeting. I don't know what tweeting is, but is it hard? Is it like, does it happen at night with white men chasing you with guns and dogs? Is that what tweeting is? You know, so keeping perspective on, you know, what am I gonna do? Is it harder to be me than it was to be Malcolm X&MLK and Medgar Evers and Rosa Parks and like. And as a black person, we have very. A lot of access to who those people are. Yeah, it's not harder. You know, it's harder to be a random, unknown black woman in America than it is to be me. So how can I not speak up for people given this platform now? Also, I know it has certainly affected my. The gigs I've been offered and the things I can do and. But then you just go, well, I just got to figure out something else, which is why I have nine jobs at all times.

[Brian Greene]

I. That is a very interesting perspective and I really appreciate that. I really do. You know, not everybody who has a microphone uses that microphone with that kind of purpose. Right. And not everybody is supposed to or built for it. That's just a reality. Some people are just here to make everybody laugh. Some people want to goof off. Some people make funny videos online.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yes.

[Brian Greene]

That's their lot in life. Right.

[W. Kamau Bell]

But I would say, like, somebody. Think about somebody like Maria Bamford, who has really sort of absurdist, like, sort of lyrical, ridiculous characters that she does, but is also figuring out a way to address mental health. She's very. It's very clear which side of political aisle she's on. She's not. Think of somebody like Margaret Cho who just would just as soon tell a dirty joke than anything else, but also has a clear. So you don't have, you know, you don't have to be on stage, you know, the raging against the machine in your jokes, to actually let people know which side of this spectrum you're on or what. You know, are you fascist or anti fascist? That's the main question. And if you can answer that Question. Yeah, you don't. I don't need you to write a joke about fascism to prove that to me, but certainly you can use your platforms to spread those messages.

[Brian Greene]

I. I couldn't agree with you more. By the way, Love, Margaret Cho. Love, Love, Love Margaret Show. Had her on the show. She's one of my favorites. And. And I like the way that she speaks up. I follow her online, and I like the way that she speaks up, and I. I'm very proud of the fact that she does. I mean, you know, she doesn't have to. She's a legend. She could sit back, rest on her laurels, you know, sit on theaters for the rest of her life, but she doesn't. She's speaks up because she knows it's. It's the right thing to do and because of her own upbringing, you know, the way that she was raised and the values that her parents installed in her in another very tumultuous time in San Francisco. And so I can appreciate that. How is. You're on. You're on tour, right? And how's that going? Where are you going next? How many cities are you going forever and ever and ever? Like, every.

[W. Kamau Bell]

No, no.

[Brian Greene]

Comedian.

[W. Kamau Bell]

No, no, no, I don't, because I got three kids at home, so I don't go. I go out. I go out and go back. I got 14 and seven. Yeah, 14, 10 and seven. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. So we're in it. We're in it. Yeah. One kid went to school late today because she wasn't feeling good. Another kid's coming home early today. She's not feeling good. So we're. We're.

[Brian Greene]

I just had one stay home for five days with a fever. Five days with a fever. With a fever. I was like, dude, I hope everything's okay. You know, like, that's when you start to get worried.

[W. Kamau Bell]

You're like, yeah, five days is a long time. It is. So I don't go out for long periods of time. So the tour is pretty spread out. So, like, my next step, my next stop is beginning in November. I'll be in Oklahoma City in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Then I'm A couple weeks later, I'm in Louisville, Kentucky. And then December 6th, I'm in. In Rochester, New York, and we'll add more dates as we do. It's just, you know, I just also have a lot of other stuff going on. And like I said, I don't like to go out and be gone because I like to see these kids grow up one piece at a time.

[Brian Greene]

I am so happy that I get to do a job where I can walk out the door and my family's there and I get to spend time with them. It's a privilege that I wasn't afforded with my own parents, but I. That's like the, the biggest blessing the universe could give you is to be had the ability to move in the same space as your, as your family for extended periods of time. You watch them grow up. So the substack. I have a lot of friends who are on Substack. I know a number of characters on, you know, got people who are making a great living doing Substack and for those who aren't turned on to Substack, this is a incredible platform where people are speaking out and speaking up and being funny and talking about all different kinds of things. It's not, it's not political by nature, but there are certainly a lot of political commentarians who are doing great work and great writing. And you're on Substack also.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah. So I think it really started out as an, as a platform as, as the newspaper started to like, like shed, you know, shed reporters and opinion writers and long form journalists. Substack started came up as a way for like those writers who are quality writers who the newspapers just don't want to pay anymore to like still do their work and get paid for it. So it's basically like, it's like Patreon, but it's more of a community than Patreon is. Because on Patreon you're not really, you're not seeing a bunch of different people. You're sort of there to support the one person you want. But like Substack I think is like the best parts of Twitter in its heyday with, with also with like a little bit of a Patreon model. So people can pay you five bucks a month for your work and you can decide what they get. For five bucks a month, everybody can get what they want, but it's just. And then in the wake of TikTok being threatened last year a bunch of TikTok people joined substack. And so now there's a lot of video content on Substack. So to me it's like, it's like social media for grown ups because it's actually about content and producing content. And like on my substack you can't leave a comment unless you're paying me, which just eliminates a lot of like nonsense trolling that you get everywhere else on the Internet. So, you know, you can read my content you can, it can make you angry. You just can't tell me about how angry you are. I don't, I don't have.

[Brian Greene]

Unless you pay.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Yeah, if you pay me, that's it. You can pay me and I'll listen to how angry you are. And it doesn't mean everybody agrees with me all the time, but it just means the people who pay appreciate the fact whether or not they agree or not, they appreciate the content, you know, so, yeah, it is a very. Yeah, so it's a, it's, it's. There's a lot of like, you know, like, there's a lot of like journalists and creators and, and, you know, Ava DuVernay joined Substack and, and yeah, there's, there's Joy Reid is on subject, who was fired by msnbc? Jim Acosta. It was like Jim Acosta got fired by CNN and then hours later was on Substack. And now he's got a daily news show. So there's a lot of news content. Medi Hassan, after he got fired by msnbc, is on Sub stack. But there's also just like a lot of fun TikTok creators on there or people who are just writing about food. They really can do whatever you want to. And the fun thing is people are excited to read other people's work and share other people's work.

[Brian Greene]

Yeah, it's a, it is a great platform and I have subscribed to a number of people on Substack. You know who the probably the number one most viewed person on MSNBC is right now? It's come out. It's the number one. You spend the most amount of time on msnbc.

[W. Kamau Bell]

I'm on day and night. I'm on day and night. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe they need to cut me a.

[Brian Greene]

Check here for the audience listening. I was sharing with come out that right before I came on, you know, I have this big video screen that I bring the guests on, but it also has my Apple TV so I can watch DirecTV or whatever. And I was watching MSNBC in the background and he was on right before he came on. He was doing commercial right before he came on my screen, which is a little surreal, to be honest. Just for me, my own experience. It's just a little bit surreal. Kamau, all of his links are going to be in the show notes. I am just honored that you came on today. I've been a fan of your work. I've probably watched every one of your episodes of the CNN show, maybe with the exception of, of a few. I think you're fighting the good fight, my friend. You are always welcome here to share your thoughts and have a conversation because you're I think what I like about you is that you're never mean spirited. You know, you're. You're opinionated, but you never mean spirited. And I also think you're one of those people who's willing to listen as much as you are willing to talk. And I think the world needs a lot more of that and especially these United States. So all the links in the show notes. I appreciate you being here today.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Thanks. Appreciate you. Thanks for having me.

[Rachel / Candace Dillard Bassett / Commercial Break Announcer]

Let me do something Brian has never done.

[Brian Greene]

Be brief.

[Rachel / Candace Dillard Bassett / Commercial Break Announcer]

Follow us on Instagram at the commercial break. Text or call us 212-4333, tcb. That's 212-433-3822. Visit our website tcbpodcast.com for all the audio, video and your free sticker. Then watch all the [e-mail] thecommercial break and finally share the show. It's the best gift you could give a few aging podcasters. See Brian, that really wasn't that difficult now was it? You're welcome. You open the fridge, there's nothing there. So what's it gonna be? Greasy pizza? Sad Drive Thru Burgers? Dish by Blue Apron is for nights like that. These are the pre made meals of your dreams. At least 20 grams of protein. No artificial flavors or colors. No chopping, no cleanup. No guilt. Keep the flavor. Ditch the subscription. Get 20% off your first two orders with code APRON20. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com terms for more. September is behind us and the school year is in full swing. By October, it's clear where kids might be struggling. IXL helps your child build on what they've learned so far and stay confident through the fall. IXL pinpoints those tricky areas and gives them extra practice before small gaps turn into bigger roadblocks. IXL is an award winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning, whether they're brushing up on math or diving into social studies. It covers math, language arts, science and social studies from Pre K through 12th grade. With content that's engaging, personalized, and yes, actually fun. It's the perfect tool to keep learning going without making it feel like school. One subscription gets you everything. One site for all the kids in your home Pre K through 12th grade. Make an impact on your child's learning. Get IXL now and listeners of this podcast can get an exclusive 20% off IXL membership when they sign up today. Visit ixcellearning.com audio to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price.

[Brian Greene]

Hey, Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now I don't know if you've heard.

[W. Kamau Bell]

But Mint's Premium Wireless is $15 a month. But I'd like to offer one other perk.

[Brian Greene]

We have no stores. That means no small talk.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Crazy weather we're having.

[Brian Greene]

No, it's not.

[W. Kamau Bell]

It's just weather.

[Brian Greene]

It is an introvert's dream.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment.

[Rachel / Candace Dillard Bassett / Commercial Break Announcer]

Of $45 per three month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra se.

[Brian Greene]

Mobile.com There you go. There you have it. The unvarnished commentary of one of the smartest minds running around earth today, W. Kamau Bell. All of the links are currently in the show notes. So if you happen to be in a city where he is going to be traveling, you may want to take this opportunity to go and say hello. I just like the way that he approaches his own humanity and fame and you know, he's moving through life, I think, I guess the way that we all should. If you have a platform and you have the ability to speak up on behalf of others who don't, maybe that's the way you should do it. So I will agree with a lot of the, the things that he's not everything. But I'll agree with a lot of the things that he said during the interview. And I'll repeat what I'm saying at the beginning. Repeat what I said at the beginning of the interview, which is this. Troops in American cities bullshit. People getting kidnapped off of the street because they're brown or have a different skin color, bullshit. Police officers and unmarked vehicles just pulling up to schools and flying helicopters on top of buildings and yanking people out and, you know, causing trouble and hoping to figure it out later. Bullshit. It's all bullshit and we should stop it immediately, if not sooner. The fuckery is going to take a long time to unfuck Generations maybe, but we got to start now. So let's get it done. And that goes for both sides of the eye. I don't care who you are, Republican or Democrat, everybody needs to toe the same line. We should be generally have a critical eye toward any government, you know, anybody in power. That's just my opinion. There you go. All right, so there's your TCB Politics episode for the month. Do us a favor, go to tcbpodcast.com all the show notes, all of the audio, all the video, all the links to our guests. All that stuff is all right there. One website tcbpodcast.com you can also get your free TCB sticker. Yes, that's still a thing and you can get it even if you've gotten one before. You can get a new one because we have new ones. So go to tcbpodcast.com hit the drop down menu. I want my free sticker. Give us your address and we will send you one at the commercial break on Instagram TCB podcast on Tick Tock and you can always watch the [e-mail] the commercial break. All these episodes, they usually drop on the same day on the video. Plus please do me a favor. 212-433-TCB that's 212-433-TCB. Questions, comments? Concerns? Content? Ideas? I take them all. I welcome the conversation. Even if you don't agree with me, I still welcome the conversation. Until next time. I love you. Best to you and until next time I will say I do say and I must say goodbye.

[Rachel / Candace Dillard Bassett / Commercial Break Announcer]

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[Brian Greene]

Doug Limu and I always tell you to customize your car insurance and save.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Hundreds with Liberty Mutual.

[Rachel / Candace Dillard Bassett / Commercial Break Announcer]

But now we want you to feel it.

[Brian Greene]

Cue the emu music.

[Rachel / Candace Dillard Bassett / Commercial Break Announcer]

Limu Save yourself money today.

[Brian Greene]

Increase your wealth.

[Rachel / Candace Dillard Bassett / Commercial Break Announcer]

Customize and save.

[Brian Greene]

We say that may have been too much feeling. Only pay for what you need@liberty mutual.com Savings very unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company affiliates.

[W. Kamau Bell]

Excludes Massachusetts.