Full Transcript for Ep. 164: Richard Pryor, a Notorious Word, and Me – with author Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor

00:04:24.689 --> 00:04:30.540 I have such a conflicted feeling about the movies that 74 00:04:30.660 --> 00:04:33.259 he was in, but my students were like, no, we 75 00:04:33.319 --> 00:04:36.100 have to see that in order to get the context 76 00:04:36.139 --> 00:04:39.149 of what it meant for him to have his own 77 00:04:39.310 --> 00:04:42.949 voice in one context, like his stand-up, and then be 78 00:04:43.050 --> 00:04:46.389 forced to mold himself into a Hollywood voice on the other. 79 00:04:46.870 --> 00:04:49.110 And so I will be teaching in the future, but 80 00:04:49.129 --> 00:04:51.300 I hadn't really thought about Blazing Saddles until now. 81 00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:54.699 You were raised by your Ashkenazi Jewish mother and spent 82 00:04:54.740 --> 00:04:57.980 memorable time with your famous black father, which you detail 83 00:04:58.019 --> 00:05:01.500 in the book. I was struck by your admission that, quote, 84 00:05:01.920 --> 00:05:04.160 he struggled to show up as a parent, and I 85 00:05:04.220 --> 00:05:07.829 never felt funny enough or creative enough or black enough 86 00:05:07.889 --> 00:05:10.910 to be his daughter. When did you begin sorting all 87 00:05:10.930 --> 00:05:11.329 this out? 88 00:05:11.529 --> 00:05:15.209 Part of me is like, have I? I mean, actually, 89 00:05:15.230 --> 00:05:18.839 I think I have, but not really until the book 90 00:05:18.879 --> 00:05:23.459 was published. And I got to be more publicly his daughter, 91 00:05:24.339 --> 00:05:27.019 you know, and felt closer and closer to him in 92 00:05:28.360 --> 00:05:32.240 every single talk that I gave, every question that someone 93 00:05:32.379 --> 00:05:34.560 asked me about the book. Even when they weren't asking 94 00:05:34.610 --> 00:05:37.829 directly about him, there was this feeling of connection that 95 00:05:38.089 --> 00:05:42.980 I had. have felt. And so many kind people have 96 00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:44.879 said to me, he'd be so proud of you. And that, 97 00:05:44.899 --> 00:05:48.360 I don't know, that kind of bolstered that feeling of 98 00:05:48.439 --> 00:05:49.170 connection as well. 99 00:05:49.730 --> 00:05:52.810 Your half-sister, Rain, explores her own upbringing with a Jewish 100 00:05:52.850 --> 00:05:55.970 mother and Richard Pryor in her one-woman show, Fried Chicken 101 00:05:56.009 --> 00:05:56.509 and Latkes. 102 00:05:57.620 --> 00:05:58.639 How do your stories compare? 103 00:05:59.540 --> 00:06:01.980 I mean, I don't think our stories are really comparable 104 00:06:02.040 --> 00:06:07.339 because of what my father knew about us, which is 105 00:06:07.379 --> 00:06:10.550 that we are so different. But I was always sort of, 106 00:06:11.230 --> 00:06:15.750 you know, shaped as like a bookish person who, you know, 107 00:06:15.889 --> 00:06:20.610 was into books. And she was more, she's brilliant, but 108 00:06:20.829 --> 00:06:23.709 her brilliance, it comes out in her writing and on 109 00:06:23.790 --> 00:06:28.910

stage more. And so, I mean, our stories, we both 110 00:06:28.949 --> 00:06:33.110 had Jewish moms, white Jewish moms who were in their 111 00:06:33.230 --> 00:06:42.269 own right, you know, troubled and confusing people. But one 112 00:06:42.310 --> 00:06:46.560 thing about Rain is like she had, her grandparents were 113 00:06:46.639 --> 00:06:51.589 both very observant and So she like, you know, she 114 00:06:51.629 --> 00:06:54.930 knew all the prayers, you know, she every Friday night 115 00:06:55.029 --> 00:06:58.350 would get together with her grandmother and, you know, observe Shabbat. 116 00:06:59.769 --> 00:07:03.649 My grandmother did it alone. And I don't know if 117 00:07:03.709 --> 00:07:07.709 that's like more, her grandparents were, you know, very wealthy. 118 00:07:07.790 --> 00:07:11.189 Her grandfather was in the business. He was like the 119 00:07:11.290 --> 00:07:16.680 manager of Danny K. And, and my grandmother, My grandmother 120 00:07:16.720 --> 00:07:19.470 worked in a department store and my grandfather drove a 121 00:07:19.509 --> 00:07:24.970 cab and they were fairly recent, second generation immigrants. Well, no, 122 00:07:25.050 --> 00:07:28.689 actually my grandfather immigrated here. My grandmother was born here 123 00:07:28.850 --> 00:07:33.589 to people who had just come. And I don't know why, 124 00:07:33.769 --> 00:07:36.730 but they observed like Shabbat on Friday nights, but they 125 00:07:36.769 --> 00:07:39.550 did it privately. Like I had to ask later, like, 126 00:07:39.589 --> 00:07:42.069 why are you lighting those candles? Right. She just did 127 00:07:42.089 --> 00:07:46.569 it by herself. And so the outcome of that was 128 00:07:46.649 --> 00:07:49.920 that I did not have a lot of confidence. You know, 129 00:07:49.939 --> 00:07:52.259 I'd say at the beginning that I wasn't, you know, 130 00:07:52.819 --> 00:07:54.779 this enough, that enough or black enough to be my 131 00:07:54.819 --> 00:07:57.319 father's daughter. But I also didn't feel Jewish enough. 132 00:07:57.459 --> 00:07:58.759 You're joining the show? 133 00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:00.339 Click like and subscribe. 134 00:08:01.319 --> 00:08:02.879 Do you think you would have had an easier time 135 00:08:02.939 --> 00:08:06.120 growing up now when being mixed is much more common? 136 00:08:06.449 --> 00:08:11.560 I mean, 100%. There's so many great content creators on 137 00:08:11.639 --> 00:08:15.959 TikTok and, I mean, mostly on TikTok who are like, 138 00:08:16.189 --> 00:08:18.269 I am Black, I am Jewish, do not tell me 139 00:08:18.310 --> 00:08:22.589 I'm not either. I can occupy these spaces 100%. I 140 00:08:22.629 --> 00:08:24.430 don't have to give up who I am. I don't 141 00:08:24.449 --> 00:08:27.490 have to deny that identity. I felt like I had 142 00:08:27.569 --> 00:08:32.610 to sort of be one or the other. Um, growing up, 143 00:08:32.659 --> 00:08:35.620 I mean, I was like in second grade at Wilshire 144 00:08:35.659 --> 00:08:38.659 Boulevard temple in Los Angeles and having people tell me 145 00:08:38.700 --> 00:08:41.460 I wasn't really Jewish. So, you know, I couldn't be 146 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:44.419 Jewish cause I was black. So, um, I don't think, 147 00:08:44.830 --> 00:08:46.970 I mean, maybe people are hearing those things, but they're 148 00:08:46.990 --> 00:08:51.129 like sticking up for themselves when they do. And I, yeah, 149 00:08:51.169 --> 00:08:54.830 I didn't, I didn't really have that, um, you know, 150 00:08:54.850 --> 00:08:57.120 that role model. Right. 151 00:08:57.159 --> 00:08:59.830 And even the term Jews of color is very recent. 152 00:09:00.129 --> 00:09:03.429 Totally. Like, I love it. I just, I love the 153 00:09:03.450 --> 00:09:06.889 whole thing of it because it's so, there's something so 154 00:09:06.950 --> 00:09:11.220 ferocious about it. It's like, you know, I would cower 155 00:09:11.240 --> 00:09:16.580 in some ways around Black people who felt like, you know, 156 00:09:16.659 --> 00:09:23.200 that being Jewish was sort of like at the crosshairs 157 00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:25.460 of blackness, this is of course not in terms of 158 00:09:25.519 --> 00:09:28.039 civil rights, but in, you know, in terms of urban 159 00:09:28.539 --> 00:09:31.399 renewal and development, you know? And so a lot of 160 00:09:31.419 --> 00:09:33.690 the people I met in college were black people from 161 00:09:33.830 --> 00:09:36.870 cities and, you know, their ideas of what it meant 162 00:09:36.889 --> 00:09:40.509 to be Jewish was a particular framework. Right. And so 163 00:09:40.789 --> 00:09:43.000 to say that I was Jewish in those contexts felt 164 00:09:43.049 --> 00:09:46.419 like a little like, and then, you know, as I 165 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:50.370 explained already, like, you know, my my blackness was sort 166 00:09:50.429 --> 00:09:53.179 of rejected in the Jewish circles I traveled in. And 167 00:09:53.240 --> 00:09:56.730 so I love that they can be all who they 168 00:09:56.919 --> 00:09:58.490 are unapologetically. 169 00:09:58.509 --> 00:10:01.740 If you're in an argument, with another man, he may 170 00:10:01.779 --> 00:10:03.559 be white, but it's man on man for a minute 171 00:10:03.620 --> 00:10:04.220 and the shit. 172 00:10:04.039 --> 00:10:05.220 Get rough, he end up calling you. 173 00:10:06.899 --> 00:10:08.230 You gotta go, oh, shit. 174 00:10:10.529 --> 00:10:10.870 Fuck. 175 00:10:12.029 --> 00:10:14.490 Now I ain't no man no more. Now I got 176 00:10:14.509 --> 00:10:15.409 to argue with that shit. 177 00:10:16.149 --> 00:10:18.509 It's interesting that your father made the N-word a prominent 178 00:10:18.549 --> 00:10:20.830 part of his comedy, and you've made that word a 179 00:10:20.870 --> 00:10:22.309 prominent part of your scholarship. 180 00:10:23.049 --> 00:10:24.610 Do you see this as a family inheritance? 181 00:10:25.149 --> 00:10:30.029 I mean, there was a moment when I wanted to 182 00:10:30.070 -->

00:10:37.570 call the book inheritance. And there's... Let me tell you, 183 00:10:37.590 --> 00:10:43.009 I was the very last one to know that my 184 00:10:43.389 --> 00:10:49.830 deep dive into... the n-word and its history and you 185 00:10:49.850 --> 00:10:52.970 know the pedagogy how to teach it and in my 186 00:10:53.090 --> 00:10:56.389 own life had anything to do with my father's work 187 00:10:56.889 --> 00:10:58.450 now i knew that i had these stories as a 188 00:10:58.509 --> 00:11:01.950 child like you know where my father told me don't 189 00:11:01.990 --> 00:11:04.809 let nobody ever call you that but the idea that 190 00:11:04.850 --> 00:11:08.549 it had to do like he was a scholar of 191 00:11:08.590 --> 00:11:11.240 the word and so was i like that was like 192 00:11:12.029 --> 00:11:15.740 a very recent development in the process of the. 193 00:11:15.700 --> 00:11:20.169 Book Richard Pryor eventually distanced himself from the N-word. How 194 00:11:20.190 --> 00:11:21.250 did that change come about? 195 00:11:21.929 --> 00:11:26.240 My father, for people who don't know, Richard Pryor was 196 00:11:26.250 --> 00:11:31.919 a groundbreaking stand-up comedian from the 1970s. And part of 197 00:11:31.980 --> 00:11:36.039 what he did is in 1967, he famously walked off 198 00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:40.799 stage and refused to do this kind of more sticky 199 00:11:41.210 --> 00:11:44.570 humor that was popular in the Las Vegas stages. And 200 00:11:45.370 --> 00:11:47.750 et cetera. And he was like, I am not going 201 00:11:47.830 --> 00:11:52.679 to perform in crowds where they wouldn't have my grandmother 202 00:11:52.700 --> 00:11:57.149 as sitting next to them in these audiences. And so 203 00:11:57.230 --> 00:12:00.169 I want to start developing my own voice. And that 204 00:12:00.629 --> 00:12:09.360 included being authentic to the impoverished middle America, Peoria, Illinois 205 00:12:09.860 --> 00:12:12.200 world that he grew up with. He grew up in 206 00:12:12.259 --> 00:12:18.419 a brothel. His grandmother owned it. My great-grandmother. And he started... 207 00:12:18.759 --> 00:12:22.629 Speaking from that authentic voice and that voice included the black, 208 00:12:22.669 --> 00:12:28.990 the particularly black, subversive, resistant use of the N-word and 209 00:12:29.509 --> 00:12:33.179 his two Grammy award winning albums with that. And then 210 00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:36.279 at the end of the 70s, so that's at the 211 00:12:36.299 --> 00:12:39.049 beginning of the 70s. At the end of the 70s, 212 00:12:39.129 --> 00:12:43.149 he takes a trip to Kenya, sort of following the 213 00:12:43.529 --> 00:12:50.750 Alex Haley roots sort of model. And he gets there 214 00:12:50.940 --> 00:12:53.620 and he takes stock. And he's like, you know, I'm 215 00:12:53.700 --> 00:12:57.879 looking around. I see Black people running the country. I 216 00:12:57.919 --> 00:13:00.700 see Black people doing menial jobs. I see Black people 217 00:13:00.740 --> 00:13:05.879 doing everything in between. In this context, the N-word doesn't 218 00:13:06.320 --> 00:13:10.860 mean anything. This is a word that only has resonance 219 00:13:11.440 --> 00:13:14.879 in the way that I'm using it in the U.S. context. 220 00:13:16.029 --> 00:13:19.049 And it's there, he says, like kind of to describe 221 00:13:19.090 --> 00:13:25.970 his own wretchedness, you know, that blackness is degraded. And 222 00:13:26.230 --> 00:13:29.370 he's like, I don't feel like it makes sense for 223 00:13:29.409 --> 00:13:33.850 me to ever call another Black man the N-word. And 224 00:13:33.870 --> 00:13:36.490 he was so moved by that, he like broke down 225 00:13:36.529 --> 00:13:39.610 in the lobby of the Nairobi Hilton. That's the story 226 00:13:39.649 --> 00:13:42.950 he tells on stage and live on the Sunset Strip 227 00:13:43.049 --> 00:13:46.990 in 1982. And I believe it. But I also see 228 00:13:47.250 --> 00:13:51.509 in earlier moments of his work that he's starting to 229 00:13:54.220 --> 00:13:58.250 question He's starting to be in conversation with what does 230 00:13:58.320 --> 00:14:01.919 it mean, much in the way that Dave Chappelle did 231 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:05.519 when he did the Chappelle show and kind of was like, okay, 232 00:14:05.840 --> 00:14:10.799 I'm making fun of certain ideas around race and blackness 233 00:14:10.820 --> 00:14:15.679 or whatever. People are walking away. and getting something else 234 00:14:15.919 --> 00:14:18.100 than what I'm trying to deliver from it. And I'm 235 00:14:18.120 --> 00:14:21.639 not sure how I feel standing in this orbit. And 236 00:14:21.659 --> 00:14:23.419 so my father in 1977, he had a TV show 237 00:14:23.450 --> 00:14:32.460 on um, NBC, it was like a, you know, a 238 00:14:32.500 --> 00:14:36.299 variety show, a special. And in that special, he has, uh, 239 00:14:36.639 --> 00:14:41.399 a skit, I guess, if you will. It's not funny. 240 00:14:41.679 --> 00:14:45.080 It's with Maya Angelou. It's like actually really heavy, um, 241 00:14:46.379 --> 00:14:50.299 about Maya Angelou as the wife of a drunkard husband 242 00:14:50.320 --> 00:14:52.679 who passes out in front of her. And she's trying 243 00:14:52.730 --> 00:14:55.259 to appeal to him and tell him, I love you. Like, 244 00:14:55.299 --> 00:14:57.909 why are you doing this? Not comedy on a comedy 245 00:14:57.950 --> 00:15:02.230 variety show. But in that conversation, she talks to him 246 00:15:02.389 --> 00:15:05.409 about the way he uses the N-word. And he says, no, no, no, 247 00:15:05.889 --> 00:15:08.190 this drunk man on the couch played by my father. 248 00:15:08.210 --> 00:15:12.009 You know, this word is just about affection. But then 249 00:15:12.049 --> 00:15:14.860 you use it against me and you use it against yourself. 250 00:15:14.879 --> 00:15:18.320 You use it against our community. And then you curse 251 00:15:18.519 --> 00:15:23.360 life itself with this word. That's

1977. That is before 252 00:15:23.379 --> 00:15:27.470 the trip that he takes, right, to Kenya. So I 253 00:15:27.529 --> 00:15:31.370 feel like although my father put it into words and 254 00:15:31.399 --> 00:15:34.190 was clearly moved by the trip that he took to Kenya, 255 00:15:34.610 --> 00:15:39.149 that he was already thinking through what it meant to 256 00:15:39.330 --> 00:15:44.629 be out of control of your own narrative, I guess 257 00:15:44.649 --> 00:15:46.720 you would say, and your own performance. 258 00:15:47.279 --> 00:15:50.399 Was he aware of how much his comedy mainstreamed that work? 259 00:15:50.419 --> 00:15:54.419 I mean, that's the kind of question that I wish 260 00:15:54.460 --> 00:15:59.970 I could ask him. My father was diagnosed with multiple 261 00:15:59.990 --> 00:16:09.840 sclerosis in 1986, and really, by 1995 or 96, his 262 00:16:09.899 --> 00:16:14.919 ability to talk was just... So at the end of 263 00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:19.990 his life in 2005, he really wasn't. And that's just 264 00:16:20.029 --> 00:16:21.529 about the time in my life where I'd want to 265 00:16:21.549 --> 00:16:27.350 be asking questions like this. But... One hint that I 266 00:16:27.409 --> 00:16:33.889 have is that in 1982, live in the Sunset Strip 267 00:16:33.929 --> 00:16:36.289 comes out and he does the performance on stage, which 268 00:16:36.350 --> 00:16:40.549 talks about the trip to Kenya. But in an audio 269 00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:44.200 version of that, which was recorded a different time, still 270 00:16:44.259 --> 00:16:48.480 live on the Sunset Strip, but the album, he really 271 00:16:48.539 --> 00:16:53.059 talks about how as an artist, he feels like he 272 00:16:53.100 --> 00:16:59.529 made a mistake in making the words as prevalent as 273 00:16:59.590 --> 00:17:05.059 it was. Yeah. I mean, I don't really know if 274 00:17:05.140 --> 00:17:06.900 it was his fault in the way that he seemed 275 00:17:06.920 --> 00:17:10.319 to be taking credit for it, but certainly he's very influential. 276 00:17:12.019 --> 00:17:14.829 Many hip hop artists cite Richard Pryor as one of 277 00:17:14.869 --> 00:17:18.809 their influences in kind of reclaiming the word in the 278 00:17:18.849 --> 00:17:19.430 way that they do. 279 00:17:19.950 --> 00:17:22.430 In the book, you describe college classrooms where you've discussed 280 00:17:22.470 --> 00:17:25.119 the N-word. What have your students taught you about the 281 00:17:25.160 --> 00:17:26.039 word and its usage? 282 00:17:26.359 --> 00:17:30.740 I mean, everything that I know about it, honestly, without 283 00:17:30.759 --> 00:17:34.500 my students. I mean, Smith students, I teach at Smith College. Historically, 284 00:17:34.539 --> 00:17:38.819 it's a women's college. The classroom is a really magical 285 00:17:38.880 --> 00:17:41.500 place where the students will go along for the ride. 286 00:17:41.519 --> 00:17:44.680 I mean, you can put a pile of, you know, 287 00:17:44.849 -->

00:17:46.740 stink in the middle of the classroom and they will 288 00:17:46.809 --> 00:17:50.890 turn it into, you know, bouquets of flowers. They're just 289 00:17:51.569 --> 00:17:57.940 absolutely gorgeous. brilliant and engaged. And one of, from the 290 00:17:58.049 --> 00:18:01.390 time the student said that word and I came back 291 00:18:01.789 --> 00:18:04.470 and started trying to grapple in the classroom, I've just 292 00:18:04.509 --> 00:18:07.589 been learning, learning, learning, learning, learning. And I continue to 293 00:18:07.630 --> 00:18:10.309 learn from my students in, in every subject, but it's 294 00:18:10.390 --> 00:18:14.009 particularly about the, the N word. Like I think the 295 00:18:14.150 --> 00:18:17.779 biggest takeaway that I had, which shocked me. Well, I mean, 296 00:18:17.799 --> 00:18:21.779 a couple of things. One is like, I was actually stunned. 297 00:18:22.960 --> 00:18:28.059 that deeper conversations at the junior high school and high 298 00:18:28.099 --> 00:18:30.740 school level were not happening before my students got to 299 00:18:30.779 --> 00:18:33.740 me at college. I think there might be more now, right? 300 00:18:33.779 --> 00:18:39.680 There's like more pedagogical opportunity for those conversations, but, um, 301 00:18:40.329 --> 00:18:42.269 they weren't having them when I, at least when I 302 00:18:42.349 --> 00:18:45.269 first got them and some of them haven't had them still, 303 00:18:45.289 --> 00:18:48.750 I mean, till this day. And that's like, I don't know, 304 00:18:48.750 --> 00:18:53.529 18 years later or something, 16 years later. Um, I 305 00:18:53.769 --> 00:18:58.349 also learned that nearly every one of my students, no 306 00:18:58.369 --> 00:19:06.059 matter their race, are impacted by this word. It's something 307 00:19:06.099 --> 00:19:08.559 that I call in the book points of encounter. They 308 00:19:08.759 --> 00:19:14.059 don't know how to interact. with the racism that it projects. 309 00:19:14.599 --> 00:19:16.759 They don't know what to do and they have no 310 00:19:16.819 --> 00:19:19.500 place to learn it. And it's so similar to me, 311 00:19:19.519 --> 00:19:23.900 to like sex before sex education, where students are literally 312 00:19:24.029 --> 00:19:26.589 learning in the back of the bus from their friends, 313 00:19:26.690 --> 00:19:30.710 like in whispers, that they don't actually get the opportunity 314 00:19:31.269 --> 00:19:34.710 to be educated in the way that they should be, 315 00:19:34.750 --> 00:19:39.599 the way they deserve about the deeper racial history of 316 00:19:39.619 --> 00:19:41.579 the United States and how we can have a word 317 00:19:41.779 --> 00:19:48.869 that warrants its own, you know, euphemism, the N-word. Like, 318 00:19:48.910 --> 00:19:51.599 how do we have a word in our language like that? 319 00:19:51.950 --> 00:19:54.579 Well, thanks so much, Elizabeth, for this important conversation. 320 00:19:54.599 --> 00:19:55.180 Sure. 321 00:19:55.680 --> 00:19:58.359 And to our audience, now back to your regularly scheduled lives. 322 00:20:00.200 --> 00:20:02.079 Amusing Jews is here to amuse you. 323 00:20:02.099 --> 00:20:04.440 If you like being amused, go ahead and click like 324 00:20:04.500 --> 00:20:05.079 and subscribe.