Trauma-Informed Politics

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. I'm going to introduce our next guest, Sarah Jones, by saying she's a Tony Award-winning performer, writer, and comedian who came back home from LA to perform an hour reimagining of WNYC's first-ever broadcast on our 100th birthday earlier this week. Did it in The Greene Space. Before we talk about her new work, just for the fun of it, let's take a listen to about a minute of her interpretation at that event of the then, meaning 1924 Queensborough President Maurice E. Connolly.

Sarah Jones: Queens Boulevard, which we have widened and extended from Long Island City, all the way to Jamaica. It's now wider and longer than that great marvel of Paris, the Champs-Elysees. Future generations will walk its serene, tree-lined path and revel in a boulevard that's more glamorous and prosperous than the Champs-Elysees or anything, anything to be found in all of the old world.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, a 1924 thought. We know that happened, right? You can watch the entirety of that performance at wnyc.org/100 if you'd like to. While Maurice E. Connolly may have been a first for her, Sarah is known to play a lot of characters local to the New York City area at the same time, in the same show. She's a one-woman act, a hilariously complex, multicultural cast within one person on stage and in film if you've seen her stuff, as I've been lucky to do on several occasions live.

Now she's taken to a new medium, and she joins us to preview her new podcast titled America, Who Hurt You? In this, Sarah and guest stars like W. Kamau Bell and Krista Tippett explore how our personal anxiety and pain are interacting with our shared experience of our country's political crisis. Sarah, always great to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Sarah Jones: Brian, this is a homecoming-- What can I tell you? A Queens girl. I'm a proud Queens girl. Champs-Elysees has got nothing on us.

Brian Lehrer: That's right. As a Queens boy, I say welcome home. I know that was framed as a reimagining rather than a recreation or a reenactment because they didn't have the exact language of people like Borough President Carroll on the record. Do you know if he actually said that stuff about the Champs-Elysees and Queens Boulevard?

Sarah Jones: I'm pretty sure Jennifer-- There were so many collaborators who worked on this, but I know two people in particular deserve the credit. I want to make sure that-- I believe it's Jennifer and Britt, both get the credit for pouring over, I want to say-- I'm going to give them hundreds of pages of history-

Brian Lehrer: Yes, kudos.

Sarah Jones: -to make sure that it was accurate, and they did an incredible job just distilling real things that were said by these folks. I'm pretty sure that their vision of the future doesn't match my back-to-school shopping trips on Queens Boulevard growing up.

Brian Lehrer: There you go. Jennifer Keeney Sendrow, director of much of what happens at The Greene Space. In your new podcast, turning to that, America, Who Hurt You? your co-hosts are also characters from New York. Would you like to introduce them to us? Are these co-hosts played by Sarah Jones?

Sarah Jones: Oh, Brian, I thought you'd never ask. I know we're not supposed to say it anymore, but hi, sweetheart. I know I can't call you sweetheart. It's not acceptable. I didn't ask for consent, blah, blah, blah. I told Sarah, for people who don't know her work, she comes from a multicultural family, and, yes, proudly from Queens. I and one of the co-hosts of the podcast, but people may remember, Sarah puts us in her shows, what she calls her one-woman shows. Really, that means she takes the credit and makes us come out and do all the work. We did it on Broadway, in Bridge and Tunnel. We did another show called Sell/Buy/Date. I've worked for so long, and now she's putting me on a podcast.

Anyway, that's Lorraine, who will be one of my co-hosts.

Brian Lehrer: That was hilarious.

Sarah Jones: She gets to share her opinions on, just as you said, right, our politics and our personal lives. I can't remember a time when everything just felt so-- We've been calling it a low-key mid-apocalyptic moment, and yet here we are. We're New Yorkers. As Americans, we are finding our resilience. I'm not going to tell people how to vote, but for God's sake, if there was ever a time to muster your personal fortitude and try to help us get on track politically, this is the time, and I feel like we need both. Lorraine is one of the voices that you'll hear, and others, let's see. The generational span of New Yorkers.

Hi, Brian. I'm super stoked to be here. My name is Bella, she/her pronouns. I'm so excited. Like, I was there at The Greene Space when Sarah Jones got to, you know, have this homecoming to WNYC. And now people, we were saying, like, if they haven't seen us in the theater in a long time, now we're bringing the theater right into their ears. They can just like put on their, you know, their headphones and listen to the new podcast, America, Who Hurt You? And we're actually doing a launch event right in The Greene Space, so we can't leave you all alone. We'll be back there this coming Monday if folks want to come out and join us and like, you know, talk about how amazing everything's going right now.

Brian Lehrer: That is so awesome. Bella and Lorraine and Sarah Jones, all on the podcast, all in The Greene Space. Is that a launch event for the podcast that you're going back to The Greene Space for?

Sarah Jones: It is. We, and this is not just the royal we and me with my multiple characters and personalities. It won't just be me if the audience shows up. It'll actually be me in conversation with another WNYC-- I feel like my WNYC extended family has been with me. I don't know, Brian, I feel like my first interview with you, I'm not going to date either of us, but I've been a WNYC very grateful interviewee for years now since my first shows. This homecoming includes getting to be interviewed by Rebecca Carroll, who folks know, and, ALOK, who is an incredible, writer, comedian, performer, will also be joining us, Joel Leon, another incredible performer.

We're going to have a theatrical launch event that gives a sneak peek into the podcast and this idea of our personal struggles mirroring our political struggles right now, but that the great news is if you heal one, you heal the other. You know what I mean? I'm a New Yorker. I want a twofer. I want a twofer. That's what this is for, so people should come out, and it'll be a really fun interactive conversation with me, the characters, and all those real people.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if anybody has a question or even just wants to be a fan person for Sarah or Bella or Lorraine, you can call in, 212-433-WNYC for the next few minutes, 212-433-9692. Take us into the concept behind the title of the series, America, Who Hurt You? What do you mean by that?

Sarah Jones: Yes. I was feeling the pain of everything we're going through. As you said, it's a political crisis, right? We've got literal climate crisis. It's 500 degrees outside. Then there's the reality of just a little thing like November creeping up on us as we're all trying to navigate what the future of this country needs to be right now. I think with more division than ever, social media has us all in these silos where we're feeling crazier than ever. I'll actually bring out, Hi, everybody. I'm so honored to be here. My name is [unintelligible 00:09:22]. Hi, Brian. I don't know if I got to be on your show the last time, but I listen.

I just want to say, Sarah Jones, her family is multicultural, so all of these people that you're hearing, we really have to live inside her head because she grew up with this family that around the Thanksgiving table, it looked like basically, if you've ever been persecuted or had trouble getting a green card, she might be related to you. You know what I mean? As a person from her Caribbean and Latin A relatives, I'm here to say all of us, no matter what our background, I think everybody is afraid right now. What's going to happen? How are we going to make sure that we have the- -democracy that we all need?

That's part of the impetus for America Who Hurt You? is about not just our history as a country, we have a lot to unpack. As we're seeing, if we don't unpack it, it seems to come and-- I don't know, I want to make an old New York reference. I feel we're being mugged by our own history right now, like, "Stick them up."

Let me clarify what Narita means. Narita is also one of the co-hosts. America Who Hurt You, it's like why are we in this mess? We are a prosperous country, one of the richest countries in the world. Why should we have, as we were just hearing on the broadcast, unhoused people, people in shelters, so much poverty, so much dissension among different groups, immigrants, and people from different backgrounds? This is a country of immigrants. We shouldn't have the problems that we have dividing us.

I think that division impacts us not only as a country more broadly, but also it can be really difficult to feel in the most prosperous country in the world, so many of us are struggling just to buy groceries. I think it's looking at how we're hurting as individuals and how we're hurting collectively, and how do we stop the hurt from all angles?

Brian Lehrer: You talk in the podcast about how you've mixed the personal and the political, maybe even subconsciously. We're going to play a 15-second clip from one of your episodes. This is you talking about personal trauma bleeding into activism.

Sarah Jones: My personal trauma, I know, has driven my politics in the past. I definitely remember being out there on the Planned Parenthood, I'm doing the right thing, I'm protesting, but some part of me is like, "Take that, Dad." I have to really be careful.

Brian Lehrer: Why do you feel you have to be careful? Because politics is personal, right? It makes sense that we would have personal feelings about the political actions we take.

Sarah Jones: It does, you're right, Brian. At the same time, that little clip, I do think-- my joke is that a dysfunctional family, I come from a somewhat dysfunctional family, I lovingly say on the podcast, but I think it's a redundant phrase. I don't know anybody who grew up in a perfect family with a perfect manual for how to communicate in a healthy way and I'll get it all right. It's almost impossible to not have some of our personal stuff, even if it wasn't in our family. Were we bullied at school or did we feel left out because we didn't fit in culturally or whatever that may be, those little things are traumas.

They can be little micro traumas. I can hear Lorraine saying, "Trauma, shmama. We lived through hard times. You kids, you're triggered. A TV commercial comes on and as all of a sudden you'd have to call your therapist." Anyway, so as you can hear, all of the characters, they may not agree with me, so it feels like a panel where we're all coming at this idea of trauma and healing trauma. What does it mean?

We all lived through a pandemic. That alone is a trauma that I think many of us are still either not able to process how intense it's all been these past years. We need to process this stuff because if we don't, it's actually coming out sideways in the form of, let's just say, I believe, if we look at certain people in our political world, there's one example of even childhood trauma. Let's say you grow up hearing your dad call you loser, loser, loser all the time. The next thing you know, you're on reality--

Brian Lehrer: Yes, like another person from Queens we might mention. Go ahead.

Sarah Jones: Like another person from Queens who we won't mention, even though my sister went to Q Forest and every time I think about it, I'm like, "Oh, how could I be one person removed in a certain way?" Then you find you grow up and you're on reality TV calling everyone else a loser. The next thing you know, you can run for office with that same childhood trauma driving the way you want to lead. I think it's actually a very direct link. I want to talk about that on the podcast with our amazing guests, by the way, like Krista Tippett and W. Kamau Bell.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to play a W. Kamau Bell clip from the podcast in a minute. Listeners, let me invite you for these next few minutes on that level that Sarah just presented it. In addition to calling in, if you're a fanboy, fangirl, fan person of Sarah Jones, as a few people are, what trauma in your life has informed your politics? If you want to shout one out and say it out loud, maybe it's therapeutic just to say it on the radio. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Rima in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Sarah Jones. Hello.

Rima: Sarah, this has nothing to do with trauma. You gave me great joy when you came to Washington where I lived for many, many years when you were very young and just coming up and you did Bridge & Tunnel. It was like being back in New York. You were so brilliant and funny at the Kennedy Center in a very small theater and nobody knew who you were and you were just a delightful shock, so thank you.

Sarah Jones: Aww, thank you, Rima. That feels wonderful. I'm always happy to be an ambassador from New York. I spent some formative years in DC too. I feel that was a chance to bring, yes, my character's voices. Actually, somebody who was in that show that you saw is in this current podcast. You'll get to revisit from DC or wherever you get your podcasts. You can jump on Spotify or wherever and listen into some of those same characters from Bridge & Tunnel. Let me let him.

What's good, Brian Lehrer, so honored to be here. My name is Rasheed. Thank you, Rima, for speaking up. You know what I mean? I'm the only dude Sarah Jones has on the panel of her podcast or whatever. It's real important to have everybody's different opinions, different genders, different backgrounds, because we trying to be a mirror, like a microcosm of America right now. Even if we disagree, we got to pull together so we don't do a swan dive off a skyscraper, to make a New York reference, you know what I'm saying? That's what our democracy seem to be trying to do right now. We trying to pull back from the ledge, the edge and the ledge, you know what I mean?

Brian Lehrer: Joan in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Sarah Jones and however many of her co-hosts you want to address. Hi, Joan.

Joan: Oh, hi, yes. First, I was very surprised to hear that these monologues by the borough presidents were reconstructed. I thought they were, you should pardon the expression, all dialogue guaranteed verbatim, but they weren't.

Brian Lehrer: No, no, they made it very clear. In the promos too that I did and that we did around the station, it was a reimagining, that was the word we used, not a--

Joan: Reimagining.

Brian Lehrer: Not a reenactment, yes.

Joan: You're right. Okay.

Brian Lehrer: Because we had actual copy for some of it from the historical record and the other stuff was re-put together based on news reporting of the time and other things that were found in the archives. Just for the record.

Joan: Well, it was done extremely well, very funny. What was I going to say? I guess they did not keep copies of things back in the day, right? They didn't realize that this was of historical value. They just went out into the ether somewhere and never to be heard from again, is that it?

Brian Lehrer: Not to the extent that we do today. Sarah, go ahead.

Sarah Jones: I was going to say--

Joan: One more thing.

Brian Lehrer: Joan, hang on, let Sarah address that. Sarah, what were you going to say about that?

Sarah Jones: Well, I was going to say-- Yes, just alas, they didn't have Zoom recordings back in the day. This radio broadcast was their equivalent of the most cutting edge, think AI or whatever it is that we can barely wrap our heads around. For them, just the broadcasting so that people could simultaneously be sitting in Queens or Manhattan or eventually across the country. For them, that was-- I think it's just amazing that Jennifer-- the way that they were able to painstakingly reimagine with real archival information what these folks might've said. I just thought it was extraordinary.

Brian Lehrer: These days we have a piece of software that automatically makes transcripts and they're almost perfect. They may not be perfect, but it automatically makes transcripts of every word that's spoken on the show and they wind up on our website a few days later. We didn't have that when the show first started. That software is relatively new, it's quite new. That's just one example of how things that maybe used to just go out into the ether, as Joan put it, now get saved verbatim. Joan, you had a follow up question though about Sarah's act, right?

Joan: Yes, I wanted to ask Sarah, I was very surprised at the end of the show to hear that you played both roles on that little comedy thing they did. What did they call it? The Happiness Boys or something? What was that called?

Sarah Jones: It was Jones and Hare. Jones and Hare, they were an old vaudeville act and I got to be, I guess, channel my distant cousin, Jones and Hare at the same time. That was pretty fun.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you- -Joan. Beth, in Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi, Beth.

Beth: Yes. Hi.

Brian Lehrer: Hi.

Beth: Hello?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Beth: Hi. I just want to say that I'm very inspired by the upcoming podcast, and it was just a combination of words, America, Who Hurt You? It made me think America is hurting. America is hurting, like we're feeling, but we're also actively in the action of hurting ourselves and the planet. All I just want to say is it's inspiring. I don't have a lot of words to tell you the depth of my feeling but I feel better. I feel more able hearing things on the show, even today, to face the election, and I just want to say thanks.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Sarah Jones: Beth, you have no idea. Sorry, Brian, I didn't mean to step on you. I got so emotional hearing that response, because that is exactly what my hope for, if there's a takeaway when people come and hang out with us this coming Monday at 7:00 PM at The Greene Space and get to have that live experience of a uniquely WNYC collaborative. This is what WNYC is about, is creating space for these conversations where our politics and our personal lives, we understand how intertwined they are.

When we come together with culture and art and a conversation that re-humanizes all of this and reminds us the Latin root of human and humor are the same. If we want to be our best selves as Americans, as New Yorkers, we have to tap into that. This is not an easy time. Many of us are having a really rough time, and America is hurting. What's the solution? You don't ignore it. You say, "Doc, help me." Now, I'm not a doctor, but I'm here to collectively-- I believe, collectively, we can heal both ourselves and whatever trauma we might be bringing to the table.

I remember stories like this. You have a puppy or even a goldfish, and your goldfish dies and your parents flush it down the toilet and say, "We'll get you a new one." Even that, something seemingly so small, becomes something where you grow up as an adult and if you never dealt with that, you might have problems with grief and loss that started when you were five years old and you don't even know it.

Then how does that apply to our politics? Well, when we have our own personal trauma that's in the way of us being able to advocate for our values or make sure that we are the most engaged citizens that we can be, then we can't influence our larger politics at the level we need to be able to. This is supposed to be government by the people, for the people, and I think right now it doesn't look like that in part because of our personal trauma that helps drive a political situation that we don't really want.

Brian Lehrer: All right.

Sarah Jones: Thank you, Beth.

Brian Lehrer: One more clip from the podcast. This is from the conversation that you have in one of the episodes with W Kamau Bell. It starts with him.

W Kamau Bell: When you go to see Rome, a lot of what you're looking at is what used to be.

Sarah Jones: Right, right.

W Kamau Bell: Because it was like, this used to be the center of the world. When you talk about the British Empire, the sun never sets on the British Empire until it did.

Sarah Jones: Until it really, really did. The sun set and set.

W Kamau Bell: There's all these examples of empires and superpowers that fall. It doesn't mean those countries disappear or those cities disappear, but it means they're not the same anymore. We could be entering the not-the-same-anymore.

Sarah Jones: Oh, Kamau.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, Kamau. I don't know. You could feel two ways about that, it seems to me. One is, yes, we're an empire in decline, but on the other hand, do we really take our pride from being an empire?

Sarah Jones: Brian, listen, we need to see if we can borrow you, get you on podcasts, because these are the questions. We are such resilient people. We come from such resilient people. We're generation after generation of people who literally, one way or another, have left other continents to come here and build this place. We deserve to have-- I mean, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness shouldn't just be some abstract idea. We actually really deserve to live better lives and I believe it's not us, we are not the problem.

We need to hold our governments accountable in a whole new way, and yes, being an empire that lords its power over people, I don't believe that's who we are. I think it's getting back to our better angels, for lack of a better way to put that. I don't think empire-- this is not working out for us in the way that we think it should.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Sarah Jones' new podcast, America, Who Hurt You? wherever you get your podcasts, and the kickoff event at WNYC's theater, The Greene Space next Monday. This is a ticketed event. Tickets are $20. You can get them at thegreenespace.org, the greenespace.org. Sarah, it's such a highlight whenever you come on the show. Thank you very much.

Sarah Jones: Such a wonderful experience, always. Thank you, Brian.

 

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