If you ever thought that Black History was boring you are wrong. Enter HBO's Lovecraft Country and one enthusiastic Historian/Law Professor/author, Jesse McCoy. History has has never been so interesting. We couldn't get to it all in one week, so this is the first of two episodes. This week is a really fun look at history through the lens of Lovecraft Country. Join us.
Recorded January 3, 2021
Visiting faculty (Guest): Jesse Hamilton McCoy Click here for Bio
Topics:
I’m living proof you don’t have to watch or love the show Lovecraft Country (LCC) to glean significant historical value from the script. Here to illuminate the Black history references with his down-to-earth, no non-sense yet comical insights, is Professor Jesse Hamilton McCoy.
Historical References:
This show is full of historical references so stay tuned for part 2 airing next week!
Quotes:
“They’d call their friends in the fraternity Kappa Kappa Kappa (KKK) on black bodies not being where they were supposed to be [after 5pm].” - Jesse
“[America’s] got bells and whistles and we’ve got monsters. But if you illuminate what’s going on then all these “monsters” become minuscule.” - Jesse
” If HBO knew [what this show was really about], this show would have been cancelled” - Jesse
NOTE: At the time of this airing, it has not been picked up for season 2.
Mentions:
Guest
Book: Illiumatic by J. Hamilton McCoy
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Black History Part1
[00:00:00] Rhumel: [00:00:00] Welcome back to our show.
Twanda: [00:00:02] Welcome back everybody. This is Twanda. Hey, Rhumel.
Rhumel: [00:00:07] Hey girl. Hey.
Twanda: [00:00:09] It's so exciting this, then she just says, Hey girl, Hey, with so much enthusiasm, just, I mean, we've been on the phone, like 30 minutes, but she's still just so enthusiastic. I love that about her.
Rhumel: [00:00:24] I'm excited though.
Twanda: [00:00:26] I know you always, okay. Yeah. You should be excited because this time we went full Rhumel's Alley, like we are just the whole episode, I guess, you know, I guess there's a fam U and then, then it would talking about her favorite.
I know you should see them doing like rattler. I wish you could ever going to have to really put these on YouTube, went away so y'all can see what we're doing, but, um, uh, allbut. He's a family man. And he loves the show Lovecraft country, which is like what Rummel has lived for. I swear, she's watched it eyfrom the beginning of the end a million times.
So anyway, we're going to have a fascinating show, uh, pulling in Lovecraft country and it's historical as black historical references. I'm so excited to bring Jesse McCoy back with us. Now you may remember him from a previous episode, but he is a law school professor. He's a [00:01:30] writer. Yeah. He has a brand new book out called the idiomatic.
And I can't wait to read that he's a podcaster or a husband, a father. Pan-Africanist and of course, a proud FAMU rattler and in CCU legal Eagle. So, uh, Jessie operates by day as a housing law advocate. So imagine he is extraordinarily busy right now with all the housing issues going on, what the Corona virus, um, but he often serves as a panelist at various times.
Regional and national conferences. And when he isn't advocating for low-income tenants, he is on a personal quest to expand the genre selections of African-American literature while encouraging even more black people to write. And he is living what he said he's going to do. So I'm so proud to have Jesse back with us to help shed some light
Rhumel: [00:02:25] I feel like we should have an audience. Like,
Twanda: [00:02:28] knew I'm like, yes, I should hit my button. That's that, that makes the people clap. I don't know how to do that yet, but if I did, I would hit that button and people would clap and
Rhumel: [00:02:38] I mean, that's what we, I really did feel like that that's what should have come up next. Like.
Jessie: [00:02:44] I heard it. I heard
Twanda: [00:02:45] Heard it. So we have imagination and post-production, I can do that.
Rhumel: [00:02:51] Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. All right. Well, I am like, well, Twanda , he said it I'm super excited [00:03:00] to have you back here. And when we were laying out the show, we realized we couldn't do this in one show.
Twanda: [00:03:09] Well,
Rhumel: [00:03:09] We need two shows. Now, if you have any thoughts about, Oh, I don't love what I don't like Lovecraft Country.
Twanda: [00:03:16] let me.
Rhumel: [00:03:17] Yeah. Like Twitter. So, um, Don't go anywhere becausLovecraft country is just the framework. There's going to be a whole lot of history here, and we're doing this for black history. So if you want to really kind of, um, get some more nuggets, get similar knowledge about stuff that we don't necessarily talk about in school.
This is the place you need to be. Jesse's going to be ringing the school bell for us today.
Jessie: [00:03:49] Ring Ring
Rhumel: [00:03:50] Right, right. Anyway.
Twanda: [00:03:52] He was a professor. We gone to school.
Rhumel: [00:03:54] Yeah. As we're going to school. So at one point we're going to be breaking us up and we'll be coming back next week. Okay. So Jesse. I love this show. And I was so excited when I saw that you had started it because when we talked the first time I was in the midst of watching it and I was like, Oh, have you watched it?
And you were like, no, I haven't watched it yet. And then you did. And then I would sit there and write your list. Right? [00:04:30] Read your posts that you had written about it. And I was like, he's there he's hooked. He's ready.
Jessie: [00:04:36] first of all, let me say, it's always a pleasure to be with you all. Um, I love to show, you know, not just as a black historian and as a black creative, but you have to understand there are some very revolutionary concepts in this show. I don't even think the people at HBO know what they just did.
Half of this stuff up, uh,
Rhumel: [00:05:00] that I think they took it at a very high level and they did not understand what they were getting into.
Jessie: [00:05:06] Right, right. They were looking at this from more of the Harry Potter wizardry perspective, but the sister who wrote this, she did her thing. Like she put Easter eggs out through it. So. I want to start off, um, just by kind of talking about the, the big story, because we lose that in all of the minor stories that we see as the season progresses.
The big story is that you have a family in Chicago, aptly named Freeman. It's a black family, um, who is trying to create a travel guide. For black people. Now, if you're not familiar with black history, you may not notice, but this is a real thing. Um, this travel guide, it used to be called the Negro motorist green book, and it was written by a man by the name of Victor, Hugo green, who surprisingly was also in the army.
Right. And was a postal worker. So kind of a [00:06:00] blending of George Freeman, Atticus, um, What the concept for this was that he would go through the United States and find accommodations that were willing to accept black people. You got to remember, this is from 1936 to 1966. So every year he will find where the safe places are to stay, where to save places are to eat.
What nobody ever thinks about though, when we learn about this history is the degree of, of, uh, threats to his life and existence that accompanies trying to go out and see this. And he did this using various networks throughout the South, the North, whatever, but this guy was from Harlem and our Lovecraft country series were based in the, in Chicago.
Right? Very similar places. I always say Chicago was a cleaner version of New York, right? It was very similar places. Um, but at the same time, the concept is someone who is already in a position of safety, being willing to risk and jeopardize their safety to do something good for the masses of black people.
So that's at the heart of this. All, this is what it is now. What we do is we get here and we see that along the way and trying to plot in these places, they fall into an adventure. Uh, some may say a, I don't want to say conspiracy, but they fall into a trap. I fall into a trap [00:07:30] and this is where you get into the subliminal messaging of the show, because the trap is all about.
This group of, I call them white supremacists, but this group, the son of the sons of sons, right. And the trap is that the sons of sons have been studying, uh, all kinds of weird stuff, wizardry planetary alignment, history, and they have information about some kind of genetic, um, ability that allows someone to link and become all powerful.
If they step through a portal. Right. The concept is this they've spent hundreds of years studying this, but because this rare chance they thought, you know, because their, their patriarch was the person who presented this information to them. They thought that they had the genetics to do it, but that patriarch was a slave owner.
Who actually committed sexual assault against a slave. And it turns out that the black relatives were the ones who inherited that gene tree, not the white ones. So they have done all this research to find the black ones, right. To bring them in, make them feel like, Oh, you know, we're giving you this exclusive thing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
When in actuality, It's a set up so that they can do what white America does exploit white bodies, or what's a profit and reap. [00:09:00] Um, whatever this reward is supposed to be of, you know, omnipotence.
Twanda: [00:09:04] Well, hold on. Okay. Let's see. I feel like we weren'even watching the same show. Like I didn't see the same show because I didn't get even that much. Well, you're the historian. I get that. So you're going to see some things that I don't see in the beginning and maybe Rhumel could see it. Cause she was at 15, 11 times all the way through.
13 towns, but anyway, um, uh, so use being able to say, you know, uh, just put that in the context and what they needed and you just threw in the wizardry and other stuff like, you know, and they put that in and that was fine. I just, you're just like you glossed over that. Whereas I think I got stuck in it.
Like what is happening? This is crazy. This is impossible. And when you mix that with stuff, that's really real. I think maybe that's where it kind of threw me off the rails. But anyway, I'm, I'm fascinated. So we're, we're at the point where the knee black bodies to, to accomplish the mission.
Jessie: [00:10:05] Absolutely. So, uh, th the reason that I say this is the kind of subliminal messaging of the show though, is because everything from that point is what I would consider to be allegorical or metaphorical. Right? So from that point, you already have this family, the Freeman family, right. They're going into a situation where they have to explore.
The enslaved roots of their [00:10:30] family, uh, and, and some of the detriments that come with that, but they're also going on independent self journeys, uh, amongst each character as well. So there's levels to it. Um, you, you get. Um, you know, Atticus Freeman, who is the main character, right? Atticus is a very complicated, yet simple character, right?
So Atticus in and of himself is, you know, he's a war veteran. Uh, this is somebody who, you know, he has been an abused child for most of his life. Uh, his father abused him, but for some reason he still loves his father. And he's been on the quest to try to find his father and he needs. His uncles helped to do that.
So his uncle was like, kill two birds with one stone. Let's do the mapping, right. To see where we can go. And we're going to go find your dad all in the same time. Now, an important thing to note here is that every character has their kind of their, their role. So one of the things about his uncle, his uncle is a protector.
His uncle is really nice guy, George Freeman. Uh, he's a protector. And one of the things that makes him interesting is that he has been being asked by his wife, Hypolita. To go on these trips for ever. And he has never allowed her to come with him on these trips. Why? Because he is a protector. He says this isn't safe.
And I don't want to put my wife in [00:12:00] jeopardy on these trips.
Twanda: [00:12:01] Yeah. Was that right though?
Jessie: [00:12:04] that's the interesting part about it. I don't know that there's a right or wrong. Right. So the issue is she wants to go, but he doesn't want to put her in danger at the same time. That kind of marginalizes who she is. And we'll talk about that later.
Twanda: [00:12:19] If mama ain't happy. Ain't nobody happy. Like he had not heard that.
Rhumel: [00:12:23] and I think it's the timeframe
Twanda: [00:12:26] Okay. That's true. I have to remember that
Rhumel: [00:12:28] Yeah. I mean, it would be different today if someone said to you, Oh, so, and so's husband, wouldn't let his wife go with him to do whatever. You know, he continuously says, no, everybody would be like, uh, that's a problem. But we're talking about a time where it was men were the head of their households and, you know, and.
What they said, kind of went, you know, and that was just the way it went. I mean, okay. Uh, George was, um, really, he was loving guy. You could tell he loved her. And he, and, and him saying no was from a point of protection, but it just was a different time. You know, women stayed home and took care of their kids in their, um, in their family, you know?
Jessie: [00:13:16] And I, you know, it's just one of those things where I feel like, you know, they, they do have a daughter, right? So he's like, I don't want, you know, our daughter to be an orphan. Um, if something goes wrong, but at the same time, you know, it's, [00:13:30] it's the dynamics of the relationship that, that marginalized and Hypolita lighter, at least initially.
Uh, but to allow George to go on this adventure, With Atticus and they're they're building because George wants to, at least at the beginning, stand in this place of a father figure for Atticus because George knows that his brother Montrose has been an abusive dad and not very existence in Atticus his life.
So he takes Atticus on, they go on this adventure. Now, what was it? Calculated in the equation is Lenny Lenny Lewis, uh, coming along with them. Um, and so Leddy Lewis is someone who she just ran into tick and she has her own series of issues. She has a sister named Ruby, uh, and they play perfectly this aspect of colorism, right?
So there's the light-skinned sister and the dark skin, sister and Ruby is saying, look, You get a lot of privileges. You get to live the life you want. You don't even have to confine yourself to any of the cultural norms that we have to. You didn't even come to our mom's funeral, right? You were out gala event and doing whatever you want.
And there's a narrative in Ruby's mind of who led he is and what kind of lifestyle. That she is leading. Uh, she's she's got the privilege to be adventurous and to do things she wants to do because she's light-skinned right. She can do what she wants, but Ruby has to be responsible. Ruby has to take care of everything.
And Ruby is tired [00:15:00] of carrying everybody else's baggage. Right. So,
Twanda: [00:15:04] you Jesse? Did Ruby say specifically that, um, Leddy had it better because she was light-skinned and had the privilege?
Jessie: [00:15:15] I don't think she ever says
Twanda: [00:15:16] don't think he ever said that.
Jessie: [00:15:18] yeah, she hasn't said it.
Twanda: [00:15:19] But it's funny that when you say it, I'm like, that's exactly what I was thinking too. But, and I saw, I felt that at the time, and then I also felt they didn't have the same daddy, but the point was, um, that even though they didn't say it just because she was like, I, I ascribed all of that to the scenario, um, which one was especially light and one was dark. So that's neat. I picked up on it, although I don't remember them actually saying that.
Jessie: [00:15:48] Yeah, well, yeah, that's, that's the, I feel like when they write the show up, this was the dynamic that they were trying to pit against each other and, and the whole concept that makes it beautiful is even though they are two separate people, They still love each other. Right. But the way that they love is very different.
One loves through letting me bail you out. Let me help you again. Right. You're like, let me do this. The other one is like, well, I got to live my life. It's stuff that I want to do. And you should be living your life to it's stuff that you want to do. We need to go out here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They all, I feel like ultimately, um, put themselves in their culture first, but it takes different routes to get there.
Right. So you have [00:16:30] Leddy who runs into tick, apparently were childhood friends at one point, uh, tick came back. You know how people, when they come back from the military, now they swole. So now, so now you're not just the geek reading in the room anymore. Um, and she was like, Oh, okay, well, you know, I don't want to be here getting braided by anybody, you know, by my sister, whatever.
I'm a roll with. Y'all I'm going. So she gets in the car and goes now from, from hypolita Litas perspective. Right. That's probably
Twanda: [00:16:57] you're like, wait a freaking minute.
Jessie: [00:17:00] It's like you let new people come up in here and take the trip. And I've been with you this whole time and you not letting me go.
Twanda: [00:17:07] Pissed off now. I ain't thought about it like that. She like who it is.
Jessie: [00:17:17] about her. She can come out here and dive, take more to come. That's cool. So they, they go on this adventure and from the moment that they go on this adventure,
Twanda: [00:17:26] It's so much, it's so much better watching this with you testing. I'm like, Oh, okay. Really good. I've been on the phone. What'd you think whole lot.
Jessie: [00:17:38] Yeah, well, I mean, this is what I'm here for. This is why.
Twanda: [00:17:41] I keep stopping you. Keep going. I'm enjoying this. Go ahead.
Jessie: [00:17:44] So they, they get on the road to start this travel. And as they get on the road to start this travel, we get exposed to a lot of black history that America doesn't necessarily like to see in its textbooks. Uh, the first thing we see is [00:18:00] what is the definition of a sun downtown, right? Um,
Twanda: [00:18:05] Ever showed up in any of my history books. Ever I stumbled across that a few years ago. Forgot about it. So when I saw it again, I was like, Oh yeah, that's right. Cause you know, something that I don't think of it that way anymore, but even, uh, around where I live, there's some places I know that on EDS. Uh, and I'm in North Carolina, but there's some places I know that on.
Friendly and so saying, okay, don't say out there too long, you know, if you're going to go out there saying you've got to call me a couple of times, you know, because that still exists where there are places where we don't feel as safe
Jessie: [00:18:43] gotta talk about Hickory North Carolina like that.
Twanda: [00:18:50] as a County, but whatever.
Jessie: [00:18:53] Yes. Uh, so, so this phenomenon of sundown towns, a lot of people are shocked to find out. A lot of places still are very much like this. Especially if you go out into like, I was parts of the Midwest, um, but sundown towns, for those who don't know. Uh, our towns, where if you black, you may not be here after the sun goes down and they literally will have not just police, but you know, residents at a town who was sitting there and watch and call a snitch and whatever.
Uh, if you were there getting a cheeseburger past five o'clock right. Uh, and then they go get their friends in, in, uh, that fraternity Kappa Kappa cat. Yeah.
[00:19:30] Twanda: [00:19:33] Oh, okay.
Jessie: [00:19:35] It's on, on black bodies for not being where they're supposed to be. So the difference would love grab country is it takes, um, and this, I was sad at first it takes all the supernatural powers and it infuses them into the racist. Right. So, you know, we've got people who are chasing these folks through a city because they stopped a little too long to get a restroom break and eat right.
Um, then we've got, when they finally get closer to their destination, we've got the cops, right. Got the cops a reoccurring theme, which is, you know, kind of part and parcel of a black life, a reoccurring theme, uh, of the cops always wanting to be involved and find out what's going on, but then there's some something in the woods that's picking people off.
Right. And it's, it's some sort of monstrous thing. So now everybody's running, right. And this is the first exposure that these people from Chicago have two monsters. Right? So the fact that they survived is already one thing, and there's a parallel for that and slavery and all that. But the event that you're able to, to survive something so monstrous in the first place is a Testament to you, particularly when you don't have special powers, right.
They can't fly, they can't turn it visible. Right. [00:21:00] They just run it.
Rhumel: [00:21:01] Right, right,
Jessie: [00:21:02] Then they get to this castle and this castle is important because it's a, I think they call it Ardmore. It's a castle where. Are they're the patriarch of the white family and their matriarch from their enslaved ancestors. This is where it all went down.
Right. And it's been, it's been taken, they kept it. Um, white people have made it look very beautiful on the outside. It's very alluring and they've set up all kinds of spirits. Inside of this thing, all kinds of wizardry, uh, so that when you get into the castle, all on the search for mantras, the fog, you get into the castle.
And when you get into the castle, there are illusion rooms, right? And the concept is if we can take you off of your mission, we can lure you with kindness to do what we need you to do. that you have everybody, what it is that they want to see initially. Right? So you're living in luxury after long, true white people are treating you nice right out of nowhere.
Twanda: [00:22:10] yeah. All the distractions to get you to think something else.
Jessie: [00:22:14] as you can't tell me, that's not a parallel.
Twanda: [00:22:16] No, that, that that is
Jessie: [00:22:18] get into some Nike's. Yeah. Get you some jewelry, you know, you don't need to work, like just play PlayStation.
Twanda: [00:22:27] Can I stop you right here? Cause this is one of the parts I [00:22:30] had trouble with the night before people turned into monsters and tried to kill them and they had to fight. Supernatural things. And then the next day they're like, dope. The dope. Nobody's talking about that. Like we just experienced the worst thing ever.
They're just like, let's go to this castle. And I remember having trouble with that.
Rhumel: [00:22:55] Well, that was two. And you correct me if I'm wrong, Jesse is that I think that the castle itself caused some amnesia. To, um, Leddy and George were, they didn't even remember that they were being chased by these things. And Atticus was the one who did still remember and was bothered and, um, was like, why don't you all remember this?
And so they just had to trust him. That there is something else out there and that they could not get comfortable there. But I think the fact that he was the special one is the reason why that those, um, those spells or that magic didn't work against
Twanda: [00:23:41] Okay, well, yeah, well you got it. Yeah. Okay. So could you remind me why they were? They were at the castle and they thought, Oh, this is fine. That. People, I don't really know are treating me so nicely. And like, I'd be like, I'm going to go stay [00:24:00] at the hotel that I had planned on. And then we'll come back and visit you tomorrow for our business.
But they seem like they were very comfortable with it. Did I, did I miss something? I might've missed
Jessie: [00:24:10] It was the chorus to find Montrose. So Atticus was determined that he wanted to find his dad. And his dad was missing. They had found some clues that indicate that the daddy went to Ardmore because this is a family history story that they've been telling him, passing down and Atticus wanted to do it, even though, you know, everybody was like, you crazy for wanting to do this, but I'm a roll with you anyway.
Right? So, so the thing about the monsters before I move into our more completely, the monsters, also, we find out that light scares them. Right. They can't survive when you shine a light on something. Right. And that's kind of, that's, that's kind of weird. It's one of those things where I, like, I don't know if HBO really understands what happened right there, but that the sister who wrote this, where she was saying is, look, America got a lot of stuff.
We got bells and whistles and we got monsters. But when you, you aluminate what is going on in our history, particularly then all those monsters become miniscule. Right? They're, they're nothing
Rhumel: [00:25:17] they run and hide in the dirt.
Jessie: [00:25:18] right, right. Cause they can't stop you right now, HBO, if they knew that this show would have been canceled and the reason why it's so difficult to [00:25:30] get is because. Like, I feel like this kind of revolutionary writing you can't, you can't go to HBO and be like, y'all want to do a show about black people who gonna overcome everything and that's not gonna work. You can do a show about wizards
Rhumel: [00:25:44] Yeah. Yeah.
Jessie: [00:25:46] people who are in a quest to redefine history against wizardry.
Right. You can do that, but you'd be like, nah, I want black people. How here, uh, overcoming white supremacy at all points in time, signed the check, not going to
Twanda: [00:26:00] gonna happen. Okay. So this is a brilliant and producing a story with all the Easter eggs and the hidden meanings and the parallelisms. And. If you just pay, pay attention. Now, if you tell me, you know, what, in order to make this happen, we had to throw some of his wizardry in here and, and, and sneak it in so that we can get this education across.
Now I'm more interested. It's like, Oh yeah, I see. That's
Rhumel: [00:26:29] Cause if you tried, if you try to say too, I mean, like if you even try to publicize Lovecraft country without the wizardry, it's just history and history to a lot of people is not sexy. Right. And so when you. When, I mean, it was fabulously done the way it was woven in here. And honestly also like the new age aspect of it, um, you know, the futurism [00:27:00] kind of aspect to it.
Um, there were just so many different reasons to watch it. I mean, like there were just so many different reasons why it could capture the interest of different people and, um, Cause I I've, I've told to one to all the reasons why I should not have liked it. Right. But. It's so intriguing to me and the amount of layers that are there, um, are phenomenal.
And I was really excited to see your list of things that, um, the list of history that is really incorporated in it. I mean, and some of it was kind of, it felt subliminal to me because I felt like I didn't know the points. But I was like, that rings true to me. You know what I mean? All the little points of history.
So I'm glad you're here to kind of, um, go over that, but, um,
Twanda: [00:27:55] All right. W we stopped him when he was talking about, uh, them having the B, having distractions, each room, being able to show you that perfect distraction to make you forget what you were doing. I don't miss the fact that while they were being distracted there, where they tour of people, walking around with knickknacks and drinks, watching them go through this.
Jessie: [00:28:19] Yup. And this is, this is another thing that they cleverly did. Right? So, um, you all are familiar with this concept of feminism versus [00:28:30] womanism, right? Feminism is women all together saying we deserve to be held to equal, uh, standard as men. Well, with the son of sons, you have to be assigned, right? You can't be order.
So even though the daughter, the white daughter. Is probably the best when it comes to all the sorcery, she can never qualify because they have antiquated ideas of who's allowed to be in this mystical white family. Right. The, the other side of that though, is iorder for her to achieve her full independence andliberation, she had to be in league.
In some degree with the black family, even though shedoesn't value them either, which is the criticism between feminism and womanism it's flight, you can light, you know, you can say we should all be equal, but then you're going to turn around and not treat black women equal. Right. So it's this, it's this way that she tactfully uses everybody.
To try to get to her ultimate goal of her being the one who can go through the portal and get all of the powers and her dad's not gonna allow it. So as long as he's in the picture, that's not happening. Right? So this, this whole concept starts. They go through their individual illusions. Some of which I think are important.
Like we learned about Lettie. If you didn't notice, she liked tick before now, you know, for sure that she likes tick. Uh, and you also know that tick somehow some way is going to be detrimental to her because he lowers his pants and the snake [00:30:00] comes out.
Twanda: [00:30:01] I was like, okay. That's that's a lot.
Jessie: [00:30:04] It's kind of scary, not where I thought the scene was going, but. so, so she knows the ultimately like she, even though she really, really likes tick, she now has to be cognizant that there's going to be something in their future. That is going to be detrimental. Right.
Rhumel: [00:30:25] in the pants. That's not a good thing.
Jessie: [00:30:27] Well, who you talking to? Like.
Twanda: [00:30:30] need much interpretation for that. I'm just like, yeah, bad.
Jessie: [00:30:35] Yes. So anyways, they go, they have this dinner set up for them. We also meet this, uh, I don't know if it's a Butler, but one of the sons named William, um, and he's like, you know, everybody is not against you, blah, blah, blah, blah, uh, fake ally hood, whatever the case may be. Um, and so they go, they have this dinner.
And tick is a freaking genius because tick is not for the games. He understands that there is no way in earth, let alone in America that orig white family is going to have black people just over for them to dress it up. For free, right? Like this is just, we want you here. So tick and George, George got a room of books, so he's doing all this kind of research and they find out, huh, there's an organization called the son of sons.
And they believe this, this, this, this, this, and they need, they think that there is a [00:31:30] channel to another world where you can become a manipulator. And takes like, aha, that's what it is. You need us for something, you need us to open the portal. So that means that all these stupid rules that y'all got about what, what I got to wear to the dinner and how I got to act at the dinner and all that.
I'm not doing none of that. Right. Cause you need us. Right. And the fact that, and this is deep to the fact that. The head white man in charge could not control black behavior in front of white people.
Rhumel: [00:32:11] That's funny.
Jessie: [00:32:12] That was revolutionary. I was like, Oh, HBO, y'all not even gonna look at that. Y'all y'all focused over here. So, you know, now of course the white guests. Who are sons of sons. They paid their dues every year. They dressed appropriately. They did what they were supposed to do. They're offended because they're like, first off you bled, right?
How are you going to be here? And you black and you ain't pay no dudes. Right? I been here. I've been doing what I'm supposed to do. You know what? I'm not sticking around for this I'm out. I'm done. Right. So that's embarrassing. Now or narrowly in a movie like this, that's when black people get killed, right. That'll be the end of the movie. Then I love crab recipes it's over. Right. But they [00:33:00] need them like the head guy, the sons of sons who, uh, was surprisingly of Livia. Pope's old boyfriend, I this beer, but the hand gun there. Can't kill them because he needs them, but he wants them to, to, you know, acquiesce to what it is he's trying to do and they won't do it.
So now he is upset, disrespected in front of his solid rich white company. Um, and so he's like, nah, we got to do something about this. Tic says we got to go, we got to go. We leave it. We're not going to be here, we out. And in the quest to leave and escape, then we see all of these different, uh, I guess you would call it, uh, wizardry elements come to play.
This is their first like interaction with any kind of mystical art. Right. So things are coming to play. They're trying to run. And then somebody says, hold on. I think it's George he's like, hold on. Somebody has been laying clues for us the whole time. And I think I know who it is that laid these clues. I think it's Montrose
I think mantras was here. Right? So in the quest to escape and leave. They find this tunnel and come to find out Mon Charles Smith digging his way, .Trying to get up out of there. Right. And, and so they come up, they show the end, clip mantras coming out of the [00:34:30] ground and they're mom, Charles sees them. And he's like, what are you doing here?
Because I came here. So y'all, don't have to, and they like, give me a car, you're in the car, mantras. We got to go. These why you're trying to kill us. Right. So they get in the car and unfortunately one of them doesn't make it. And the person who doesn't make it is the protector, the person who had put all of this together, this is good old George.
He does not make it out of that first kind of interaction with this wizard right now, the problem is this. Who's going to be pissed off about George not being around anymore. Hyppolite because somebody's going to have to come back and explain why her husband ain't there and why there ain't nobody.
Right? Well, he ain't having no funeral. Right? She don't like that. She know that he left with tick and Letty. So I don't know. I don't know, lady anyway. Right? Like, so we already got a problem and tick, you were supposed to be family. If anybody's supposed to tell me, you're supposed to tell me, but you lying to me and you been eating off my food and staying in my house.
Right. So that's a problem. Nobody likes Montroses. Right?
Rhumel: [00:35:40] just doesn't even like Montrose,
Twanda: [00:35:42] No, that's very true.
Jessie: [00:35:44] So. They like, Oh, we expect him to be grimy. Like we gotta be grabbed, but we hadhigher hopes for everybody else now. This is where I think everything is very interesting to me because George was solid. You knew who George was, you [00:36:00] knew he was caring. He was loving. You just knew, but now everybody has to either deal with it, right.
Dealing with the craziness that you just experienced. Well, you get back in Chicago, right? Or you got ignore it. And it's the parties that had the most conflict is tick and Montrose. And they have to talk about this whole arrangement of mantra saying you're not a man. You're not man enough. And beating him all the time when he was little.
And now tick is big and wins with military men, killing people. So now you're like, Oh, you ain't gonna beat me no more. Like, and I happened, Montrose. We find out later has his own demons. That are going on to be black and gay in the 1930s. Whew. That's a lot, a lot. So Montrose is trying to hide that. Danny's he's trying to hide some issues with alcoholism.
Um, he has a very weird way of trying to deal with stuff. Uh, they even had on the, on the way to escape, they escape with another person. There was a, I don't know, I guess he was supposed to be like a native American, a transgender person, but she was kind of the key. To the portal, I guess her voice or something was key to the portal, but macho is like, Oh no, we internet.
Now we kill her. It's over. That's it? Um, Tim is mad of course. Cause ticket's like we did all this work to save this person. Who's going to help us understand why we even getting targeted and modules is like, Nope, you're gonna have to find another way [00:37:30] Acular immediately. So then,
Rhumel: [00:37:33] I, I think, I, I think I know what that was now. Sh she,
Twanda: [00:37:37] I don't remember at this point at all, just, you know, so carry on.
Rhumel: [00:37:41] Okay. Um, she was, she was there and I don't think she herself was important, but she was the, um, Holder of the scrolls and they needed the scrolls. And so she kind of ended up coming along with them. I think they thought that she could maybe help them maybe interpret this goals or something like that.
But mantras got rid of her and the squirrels and, um, but Leddy had taken pictures because she's a photographer. She had taken pictures of them. And so they've still had that information.
Jessie: [00:38:20] interesting. Interesting. Well, yeah, so, so the issue comes down then to why didn't Montrose destroy them.
Rhumel: [00:38:30] Yeah. Well, I think he knew, and I think this was part of the thing is that he knew that this was a dangerous place for them to be. And I think Leddy, you know, even indicated at some point, like, This is, we don't need to do this, this, every single thing, we do leads to bad things. And when we're following this trail, and I think Montrose was just really afraid for his son, even he loved his son, but he had this [00:39:00] really, um, Really scarred relationship with his son and for good reason, I mean, he had treated him pretty badly, but he still cared for him and his, you know, his own way.
So
Jessie: [00:39:13] So, is it safe to say that that Montrose after George dies is trying to protect his son? He's trying to be like his brother,
Rhumel: [00:39:23] I think so. I think he always wanted to be like his brother. He just couldn't he just, he didn't have the ability to be like his brother and his brother was his protector as a child when he was being abused. Um, so I think he looked up to him and wanted to provide that protection,Like, his brother.
Jessie: [00:39:47] well, this, this is the segway,
Rhumel: [00:39:50] Okay. Okay.
Jessie: [00:39:51] talking about history, there's a reason why mantras is the way that he is. And what we find out is that mantras was there on the night of the Tulsa race riots. Right? A lot of stuff happened on the day of the Tulsa race riots. And unfortunately, Part of this, this series is that mantras has to go back to that day to relive the trauma all over again.
Right. So now as a grown adult, he has to go back to his childhood and see the day that TOSA was bombed and destroyed and all this of that happened in a given day. Um, and what we discovered is that. [00:40:30] montrose isn't somebody who quote, unquote turned gay. When he got to Chicago, he was always gay. Right. And everybody knew, you know, that his dad beat him because his dad didn't accept it.
Um, George was always a super nice guy, uh, kind of a ladies, man, you know, when he was young, the girl next door, uh, light George was apparently dating Montrose. Um,
Twanda: [00:40:54] Yeah, that was an interesting twist
Jessie: [00:40:56] always interested. And then Montrose has this thing where, you know, there's this, this image he has and from a story to him and George till all the time about some unnamed person who came out, swinging a bat like Jackie Robinson.
Right. And that's the only reason
Twanda: [00:41:12] in it.
Jessie: [00:41:13] He was, he was saved from the riots because the white people were there. They had guns, they were firing on everybody, but some unknown stranger came out and started swinging a bat like Jackie Robinson and saved him. Right. I saved him. That's all he knows.
Twanda: [00:41:30] Now, this feels like a good place to put a pin in for starting. The next one. What do you think.
Rhumel: [00:41:38] Oh, no, I think, I think because we are. There are a lot of things that Jesse has outlined for us about the characters now. So when we come back for next week's episode, um, he's going to tie in a lot of the, um, a lot of the historical references. Um, that kind of go along [00:42:00] with those characters. And so today we got an opportunity to kind of bring you up to speed if you haven't seen it.
Um, what kinds of things you can expect and maybe even to look for, um, if you haven't seen it, um, because it's, uh, how many, 10 episodes I think it was. Um, so from our little discussion, Trust me. There's so much more. So if you haven't seen it, this is an opportunity maybe to catch up on some and, um, and see what the big to-do is
Twanda: [00:42:32] Yeah. See it from a different perspective. I think at, I listened to Jesse first and Oh, listen to him. Talk about Lovecraft and I could see it as it's going along. I might've been able to excuse some of the parts that didn't make sense to me, or be able to have a different understanding of what I'm wanting to get out of the show in general.
So, I'm really enjoying this, uh, eye opening different perspective. Look at Lovecraft country.
Rhumel: [00:43:02] Yeah, absolutely. So we want you guys to come back next week. We are about to get down into it and, um, and I want to say thank you to Jesse, because like my goodness. I, first of all, I love this show, so I loved having a conversation about it. Um, but Jesse has a really great perspective and we as always appreciate his time.
So don't go too [00:43:30] far. You guys come back next week. Um, we'll be right here. So thanks everybody for stopping by today and we'll see you next week until next time. Peace and blessings.