Transcript

#63 Jasmin · Heavyweight

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin Stevie Lane, Hello, Jonathan, I thought your generation doesn't
0:28
Speaker 1: abide by telephone calls.
0:30
Speaker 2: When my name popped up. Did you think this is
0:32
Speaker 2: an emergency?
0:33
Speaker 1: Is it an emergency?
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Speaker 2: It is sort of an emergency. It's a story emergency.
0:39
Speaker 3: Oh that is an emergency. Yeah, okay, you need my help.
0:44
Speaker 2: No, I actually I don't need your help. I have
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Speaker 2: a story for you today.
0:48
Speaker 1: So you need my help listening to it? Well, why
0:50
Speaker 1: don't you just ask me to listen to your story?
0:53
Speaker 2: Will you please listen to my story?
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Speaker 3: I'm gonna say no, what Yes, of course, you're gonna
1:01
Speaker 3: press the play button.
1:02
Speaker 2: I'm gonna start it right now.
1:04
Speaker 1: Okay, there you go.
1:05
Speaker 2: Boom from Pushkin Industries. I'm Stevie Lane and this is
1:16
Speaker 2: Heavyweight Today's episode Jasmine right after the break. There are
1:36
Speaker 2: moments in life that unfold like a movie, moments we
1:40
Speaker 2: replay over and over in our heads. Hello, how are you?
1:46
Speaker 2: I'm good? How are you? Jasmine has a moment like that,
1:50
Speaker 2: a pivotal scene in the story of her life, and
1:53
Speaker 2: it's a scene that takes place where many pivotal movie
1:56
Speaker 2: moments do. At a high school dance fourteen years ago.
2:00
Speaker 2: It isn't as pig bloody as the prom and Carrie
2:03
Speaker 2: nor as teen Wolfe as the one from Teen Wolf,
2:07
Speaker 2: but it's every bit as cinematic. And to fully understand
2:11
Speaker 2: that night of spaghetti strap dresses and party rock anthem
2:14
Speaker 2: on gymnasium speakers, I have to zoom out and start
2:18
Speaker 2: with the setting where the dance took place, the city
2:21
Speaker 2: where Jasmine grew up, Springfield, Oregon.
2:25
Speaker 4: There's hardly any black people, and in every class I
2:30
Speaker 4: was in, it would be just me and like one
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Speaker 4: or two other girls.
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Speaker 2: Census estimates put the population of black residents in Springfield
2:40
Speaker 2: at around one percent.
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Speaker 4: Oregon was one of the first states to outlaw slavery,
2:48
Speaker 4: but not because they believed that black people were worthy
2:53
Speaker 4: of not being slaves, because they didn't want black people
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Speaker 4: in the state at all. They outlawed slavery in order
3:00
Speaker 4: to keep black folks.
3:01
Speaker 2: From being there.
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Speaker 4: So there's just this ignorance and this like odd energy.
3:08
Speaker 2: There by odd energy, Jasmine is talking about the unapologetic
3:13
Speaker 2: racism she experienced all the time from a very young age,
3:17
Speaker 2: Like when Jasmine was seven and told by her friend
3:20
Speaker 2: that her friend's dad wouldn't like Jasmine because he quote
3:24
Speaker 2: didn't like black people. Or when in a high school
3:27
Speaker 2: drama class, everyone was instructed to write each other nice notes,
3:31
Speaker 2: Jasmine reads me one, I love your positive attitude, and
3:35
Speaker 2: I believe it's an exception to your ethnicity. You are
3:38
Speaker 2: a credit to your race. Or when Jasmine was in
3:42
Speaker 2: a school play and had a stage kiss with her
3:45
Speaker 2: scene partner who was white.
3:46
Speaker 4: And we kissed and then he goes, m tastes like
3:49
Speaker 4: black cherry, like that kind of stuff all the time,
3:54
Speaker 4: to the point that you know, you just laugh and
3:56
Speaker 4: you're like ha ha ha, but don't know why it
3:59
Speaker 4: makes you feel a certain way because everyone is laughing,
4:02
Speaker 4: like even in your close friends, because they also, like,
4:05
Speaker 4: do think it's funny? I think we actually sometimes even
4:11
Speaker 4: participated in the jokes at our own expense, because it's like,
4:15
Speaker 4: if you can get ahead of it, then it won't
4:17
Speaker 4: hurt as bad.
4:18
Speaker 2: How is it talked about in your family?
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Speaker 4: You know, it just wasn't. And we always like prided
4:26
Speaker 4: ourselves on being a family that can talk about things,
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Speaker 4: but race was never brought up.
4:33
Speaker 2: Jasmine's dad is black, but they didn't have much of
4:35
Speaker 2: a relationship growing up. She was raised by her mom,
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Speaker 2: who was white. Among her white aunts and white uncles
4:42
Speaker 2: and white cousins, Jasmine was the only person of color
4:45
Speaker 2: within her family.
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Speaker 4: I don't think I even heard anyone in my family
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Speaker 4: say the word black. It almost felt like a bad
4:53
Speaker 4: word kind of. I just always felt so ugly, honestly,
5:00
Speaker 4: like just ugly and frizzy and not shiny.
5:08
Speaker 2: It was a feeling that falls Jasmine all the way
5:10
Speaker 2: until senior year, all the way until homecoming.
5:18
Speaker 4: So you know, it's September and it's time to vote
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Speaker 4: for homecoming Queen, and it's like such a big deal
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Speaker 4: and a marker of popularity and beauty and worth and importance.
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Speaker 2: So this was like a big deal. Like did you
5:36
Speaker 2: remember those seniors that were king and queen in previous years?
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Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I think it was Jessica Ray and James
5:43
Speaker 4: Quinn the year before.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, like it's a thing. Jasmine was sitting in class
5:50
Speaker 2: when the PA system came on. Everyone was listening for
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Speaker 2: who would be named homecoming royalty first, the homecoming court
5:57
Speaker 2: was announced princes and princesses.
6:00
Speaker 4: And I'm pretty sure they saved the queen for last,
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Speaker 4: and they said my name, and I was in shock, Like,
6:13
Speaker 4: not only did they announce me as homecoming queen. But
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Speaker 4: Jacob King, who was like the most popular boy all
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Speaker 4: American football player, he was homecoming King. I was like,
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Speaker 4: how is it him and me? And I remember being like,
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Speaker 4: oh my god, Like did they mess up?
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Speaker 2: The homecoming queen was usually someone popular and cool, two
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Speaker 2: things Jasmine says that she wasn't in high school. She
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Speaker 2: was a self proclaimed theater nerd from a conservative Christian
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Speaker 2: household who was never invited to a single house party
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Speaker 2: or asked out on a date. But it wasn't a
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Speaker 2: mess up or a prank. After the announcement, kids came
6:47
Speaker 2: up and congratulated her. Maybe Jasmine had been wrong about
6:51
Speaker 2: how her classmates saw her. The rest of the day,
6:54
Speaker 2: Jasmine walked through the hallways as though floating through a dream.
7:02
Speaker 2: A few days later, Jasmine's queendom was announced at the
7:05
Speaker 2: homecoming football game. There on the field, Jasmine received a
7:09
Speaker 2: sash and a bouquet. The Springfield Times came to take
7:13
Speaker 2: her picture. But the thing Jasmine was most excited for
7:18
Speaker 2: was the homecoming dance. The night of the dance, Jasmine's
7:21
Speaker 2: mom helped her with her hair and makeup. She met
7:24
Speaker 2: up at a friend's house beforehand to have dinner Martin
7:27
Speaker 2: Ellie's and mac and cheese and get ready. Jasmine wore
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Speaker 2: her coolest outfit, a short, black strapless dress with lime
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Speaker 2: green feather earrings, lime green half leggings, and lime green
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Speaker 2: fingerless gloves. And in case you're thinking geez, that's a
7:42
Speaker 2: lot of lime green, I'd like to remind you that
7:44
Speaker 2: this was high school in twenty eleven. My favorite outfit
7:48
Speaker 2: was a lime green skirt with a lime green tank top.
7:51
Speaker 2: I had a lime green cell phone and lime green
7:53
Speaker 2: floaty flip flops. Lime Green was cool, okay, and Jasmine
7:57
Speaker 2: looked cool on her way to the dance. What were
8:00
Speaker 2: your expectations for the night. What did you think was
8:03
Speaker 2: going to happen?
8:04
Speaker 4: I thought that they would call my name and it
8:10
Speaker 4: would be my movie moment, Like everyone would clap and
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Speaker 4: shout and a spotlight would hit the center of the
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Speaker 4: room and I would make my way toward Jacob King
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Speaker 4: and maybe he would even whisper in my ear I've
8:27
Speaker 4: always been in love with you. And then you know,
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Speaker 4: everyone would slowly like dance around us and it would
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Speaker 4: be like, Wow, you've always been so beautiful and.
8:35
Speaker 2: Cool, Jasmon, you really had big expectations.
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Speaker 5: I really did.
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Speaker 4: I mean, I grew up watching like a Cinderella story
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Speaker 4: and what a girl wants and that's how they all end.
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Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, I thought it would change everything. In fact,
8:52
Speaker 2: it did not. And here is the moment that's been
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Speaker 2: plaguing Jasmine for years.
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Speaker 4: I don't know if they cut the music or if they.
9:02
Speaker 2: Just turned it down.
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Speaker 4: And they announced and now it's time for our homecoming dance.
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Speaker 4: My heart's beating so fast, you know, my stomach is
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Speaker 4: like about to fall out of my butt.
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Speaker 2: I'm so excited.
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Speaker 4: And then they go.
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Speaker 2: Our homecoming King Jacob.
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Speaker 4: And everyone's like, whooh, crappy.
9:20
Speaker 2: And our homecoming Clean Whitney.
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Speaker 4: Whitney, and it was really like a record scratch. Like
9:31
Speaker 4: in my head, I was like, wait what.
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Speaker 2: Whitney was one of the few other black girls in
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Speaker 2: Jasmine's grade.
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Speaker 4: And I thought I mishard and I but I was
9:43
Speaker 4: kind of frozen, and I'm just looking around and it's
9:46
Speaker 4: like the room is spinning and I'm feeling crazy and
9:49
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh my god, oh that just happened.
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Speaker 2: Overcome humiliated, Jasmine ran out of the gym to the
9:57
Speaker 2: courtyard or she collapsed at a table and cried. When
10:01
Speaker 2: eventually she dried her eyes and returned to the dance,
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Speaker 2: no one said anything to her about it, so she
10:07
Speaker 2: just did what everyone else was doing. She danced, she
10:10
Speaker 2: talked to friends, she went home. I don't know, I
10:20
Speaker 2: don't know what happened. And this is what Jasmine has
10:24
Speaker 2: wondered ever since. Why Whitney's name was called instead of hers.
10:28
Speaker 2: Over the years, she's developed two possible theories. First, was
10:33
Speaker 2: one black girl mistaken for another. That's what Jasmine's best
10:38
Speaker 2: friend from high school, Danika, has always thought. Danika is
10:42
Speaker 2: also biracial, and remembers the moment the wrong name was
10:45
Speaker 2: called to her. It didn't seem that crazy that at
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Speaker 2: their high school one black girl might be confused for another.
10:52
Speaker 2: I think that we were all a little bit interchangeable,
10:55
Speaker 2: she tells me. But then there's Jasmine's second theory, and
11:01
Speaker 2: even worse possibility. Could it be? Jasmine wonders that the
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Speaker 2: announcement had been rigged. Whitney as an athlete, she was
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Speaker 2: well liked, and she was their senior class president. In
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Speaker 2: other words, Whitney was the popular black girl. She was
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Speaker 2: part of the tight knit group of popular girls in
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Speaker 2: Jasmine's grade.
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Speaker 4: Like she was considered, like she was a pretty black
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Speaker 4: girl and always straightened her hair. Like I used to
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Speaker 4: remember thinking, when does suck girl sleep? Because she is
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Speaker 4: in every single honors class and she's always wearing makeup
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Speaker 4: and she streams her hair every day. There's no way
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Speaker 4: she gets more than three hours of sleep at night.
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Speaker 4: Like it just blew my mind.
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Speaker 2: In many ways, Whitney was the more obvious choice for
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Speaker 2: homecoming queen, which is why it felt to Jasmine like
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Speaker 2: some secret decision had been made, Like if we're going
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Speaker 2: to have a black homecoming queen, it's going to be
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Speaker 2: the popular black girl, not you. After all, it didn't
12:03
Speaker 2: feel like a mistake.
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Speaker 4: In my memory, no one was looking at me like wait, what,
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Speaker 4: Like it felt like everyone in the room wasn't on
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Speaker 4: something I wasn't in on, like there had been a
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Speaker 4: consensus reached that on the day it would be a.
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Speaker 2: Whitney and not me, because no one else seemed shocked.
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Speaker 2: But Jasmine never found out what happened that night or
12:24
Speaker 2: why was it a mix up?
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Speaker 4: Or like is the why that there could only be
12:31
Speaker 4: one black girl at the top? Is the why that
12:33
Speaker 4: they hated me? For some reason. It's like, even in
12:36
Speaker 4: this moment and throughout this conversation, I've oscillated between Okay, yeah, no,
12:40
Speaker 4: of course it was totally an accident and fuck that,
12:43
Speaker 4: no it wasn't, and both of those feel intense, And
12:48
Speaker 4: so it's like.
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Speaker 2: Where where to land? It's been fourteen years since homecoming,
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Speaker 2: but Jasmine thinks about it often, like once a week
13:02
Speaker 2: for the last seven hundred and twenty eight weeks, not
13:05
Speaker 2: that anyone's counting. Jasmine is an actor and success full one,
13:09
Speaker 2: with major roles in Yellowjackets and The Leftovers. In twenty
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Speaker 2: twenty four, she was included in Forbes thirty Under thirty
13:16
Speaker 2: list for Hollywood and Entertainment. She has a partner, a
13:20
Speaker 2: beloved cat and dog, and a news podcast for the
13:23
Speaker 2: queer community. By every metric, she's living a full and
13:27
Speaker 2: happy life. And yet it's a moment she returns to
13:31
Speaker 2: I just want to know why, Jasmine says, the popular
13:35
Speaker 2: girls ran the homecoming committee. They might have the answer,
13:39
Speaker 2: and Jasmine is still Facebook friends with a few and
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Speaker 2: can reach out. Sounds easy, right, No it doesn't.
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Speaker 4: I'm still scared of these girls, you know what I mean? Like, yeah,
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Speaker 4: the thought of that makes me feel nauseous.
13:53
Speaker 2: But that's what I'm here for, to walk up to
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Speaker 2: the cool kids at their lunch table, so Jasmine doesn't
13:58
Speaker 2: have to after the break. The popular girls popular girls.
14:24
Speaker 2: When I google the names Jasmine gives me, I find
14:27
Speaker 2: photos of them from high school. There are a lot
14:29
Speaker 2: of high ponytails and straight toothed smiles. There are a
14:32
Speaker 2: lot of sports action shots midspike and volleyball, or dribbling
14:36
Speaker 2: down the basketball court. There's a lot of eyeliner. These
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Speaker 2: are girls who knew how to dress and would never
14:42
Speaker 2: be caught dead in head to toe lime green, which yeah, fine,
14:46
Speaker 2: I'll admit it was never that cool. And the names
14:49
Speaker 2: they just sound like the names of popular girls. Ashley Bailey, Stephanie, Ali,
14:56
Speaker 2: Caitlin with a Y, Cassidy with a K. But the
15:00
Speaker 2: thing about the popular kids, their power is weakened with
15:04
Speaker 2: time outside of high school, a decade even beyond college,
15:09
Speaker 2: which they get much less intimidating. Or this is what
15:14
Speaker 2: I'm telling myself as I clear my throat and make
15:17
Speaker 2: the calls.
15:18
Speaker 1: Hi.
15:19
Speaker 2: I'm calling for Ali, Hi, Stephanie, Hi, Cassidy. My name
15:24
Speaker 2: is I'm trying to reach Keaitland, who the story is
15:26
Speaker 2: actually about homecoming. Story I'm working on about homecoming. I'm
15:30
Speaker 2: sure this is sort of a strange message, Rucy, You're
15:31
Speaker 2: having a good day. Take care bye. Most of my
15:38
Speaker 2: messages aren't returned. The couple of women who do call
15:42
Speaker 2: me back say they remember Jasmine winning and the announcement
15:45
Speaker 2: at the game, but not the incident at the dance.
15:49
Speaker 2: So I phone Jacob King, the homecoming King. He's at
15:52
Speaker 2: work and says he can talk later, but then texts
15:55
Speaker 2: me minutes after backing out. I text asking if he
15:59
Speaker 2: remembers the mix up and see the three dots typing,
16:02
Speaker 2: then the three dots stop, ha ha, you were typing,
16:05
Speaker 2: and then stop typing. I write the three dots reap here,
16:09
Speaker 2: and this time he hit send. I don't have a
16:13
Speaker 2: memory of that, and then, like everyone else, he stops
16:17
Speaker 2: answering me.
16:18
Speaker 4: Doesn't that point to something like, what are you defensive of?
16:22
Speaker 4: If there's nothing to be defensive of.
16:24
Speaker 2: It's true, and maybe they all have something to hide,
16:28
Speaker 2: but maybe they just don't like the implication that a
16:31
Speaker 2: racist mistake was made.
16:32
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, if only someone would just like talk the talk.
16:40
Speaker 2: And one popular girl does Bailey and Bailey talks the
16:45
Speaker 2: talk to me about a key piece of information. The
16:50
Speaker 2: popular girls I've been calling they weren't actually part of
16:53
Speaker 2: planning homecoming, as Jasmine had thought. That job fell to
16:58
Speaker 2: one person, the senior class president, aka Whitney, the very
17:05
Speaker 2: same Whitney who was pronounced queen at the dance that
17:08
Speaker 2: she apparently planned. And not only that, it turns out
17:12
Speaker 2: Whitney was a princess on the homecoming court, the homecoming
17:15
Speaker 2: queen runner up, a lady in waiting who dethrones the queen.
17:21
Speaker 2: Was this an act of regicide, or at least the
17:24
Speaker 2: high school version of it? At this point, it looks
17:28
Speaker 2: like the only person who might have the answers Jasmine's
17:31
Speaker 2: looking for is Whitney. Jasmine says, asking Whitney feels scary,
17:43
Speaker 2: even scarier in some ways than asking the other popular girls.
17:47
Speaker 2: Because Whitney was a popular black girl, Jasmine, if only
17:51
Speaker 2: in her own mind, often felt pitted against her, comparing
17:55
Speaker 2: herself to Whitney coming up short, which the whole homecoming
17:58
Speaker 2: debacle only reinforced. But recently, sitting at home late one night,
18:04
Speaker 2: Jasmine googled Whitney's name. What popped up was an article
18:07
Speaker 2: from the Guardian that Whitney wrote in twenty twenty eight
18:11
Speaker 2: years after high school, and the subject of the article
18:14
Speaker 2: Whitney wrote was what it was like growing up black
18:17
Speaker 2: in Springfield. The racist jobs at school, the comments about
18:22
Speaker 2: her hair, the jokes she made at her own expense,
18:25
Speaker 2: and how confusing it was to navigate alone. There were
18:29
Speaker 2: parts that felt lifted out of Jasmine's own life, Like
18:33
Speaker 2: Jasmine Whitney's family didn't talk about race, Like Jasmine, Whitney
18:37
Speaker 2: had a white mom and a black dad who wasn't home.
18:41
Speaker 2: From the article, Jasmine learned that Whitney's father was incarcerated
18:45
Speaker 2: for most of her childhood.
18:46
Speaker 4: And that she would visit him weekly and was dealing
18:50
Speaker 4: with this very heavy, very adult thing. I had these
18:56
Speaker 4: stories about her and these assumptions. Meanwhile she was fighting
19:00
Speaker 4: her own battles. How sad that we never and I
19:04
Speaker 4: never knew that, and that we never connected on that.
19:09
Speaker 2: Jasmine wonders, outside of the context of high school and
19:12
Speaker 2: popular groups and homecoming and Springfield, maybe they can. Maybe
19:18
Speaker 2: Jasmine can ask her what happened that night, addressing her
19:21
Speaker 2: not as the girl she'd felt pitted against, but as
19:24
Speaker 2: a woman with a shared past. After the break Whitney.
19:50
Speaker 2: When I reach out to Whitney, I tell her about
19:52
Speaker 2: this homecoming project, how Jasmine has questions about that night.
19:56
Speaker 2: I expect that, like the other popular girls, she won't
19:59
Speaker 2: want to talk, but she wants to help Jasmine, so
20:02
Speaker 2: she agrees. Whitney now lives in Portland, Oregon, where she
20:06
Speaker 2: works as a creative producer, and it just so happens
20:10
Speaker 2: that in about a week Jasmine will be home for
20:12
Speaker 2: a visit. So we meet up at a small Airbnb
20:15
Speaker 2: I booked for the reunion. Hi, Bhi. Whitney and Jasmine
20:21
Speaker 2: hug and greeting, Ah, you look great. They get settled
20:29
Speaker 2: on two chairs facing each other. Whitney has her feet
20:32
Speaker 2: up on her seat, Jasmine is smiling. This is crazy.
20:36
Speaker 4: I feel like last time we saw each other was
20:38
Speaker 4: high school, probably graduation day.
20:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a ten year reunion, but Jasmine didn't go.
20:46
Speaker 2: Neither did Whitney, even though she was supposed to organize it.
20:49
Speaker 2: Apparently that's the job of the senior class president, which,
20:53
Speaker 2: if you ask me, falls a little outside the term
20:56
Speaker 2: for an elected high school official.
20:58
Speaker 6: I promised an open bar.
21:00
Speaker 2: I ran on that. You promised, who was going to
21:02
Speaker 2: pay for that.
21:03
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a great question, but like seventeen, you don't
21:07
Speaker 6: think about that.
21:09
Speaker 2: But then Whitney spent the next ten years thinking about it,
21:12
Speaker 2: stressing about disappointing people if she couldn't deliver.
21:15
Speaker 6: Someone tweeted me five years later and said we didn't forget.
21:19
Speaker 6: I was like, I'm gonna bar that's really funny.
21:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, they both seem a little nervous, and so at first,
21:30
Speaker 2: Jasmine tries to make Whitney feel comfortable. She tells Whitney
21:34
Speaker 2: how much she liked her article. They trade horror stories
21:37
Speaker 2: from high school.
21:39
Speaker 6: Sophomore year, two of my friends came into my math
21:43
Speaker 6: class and we're like, so, we've decided we're going to
21:46
Speaker 6: initiate you as our black friend. It's going to rap
21:49
Speaker 6: you in toilet paper and roll you down a hill.
21:52
Speaker 4: What.
21:52
Speaker 6: Yes, it's crazy, crazy.
21:56
Speaker 4: And I'm sure it hurt. But I also there wasn't
21:59
Speaker 4: even space to allow ourselves to be hurt because it
22:01
Speaker 4: was so constant.
22:04
Speaker 2: And for Whitney, it wasn't just the racism. Whitney says
22:08
Speaker 2: she from a poor family. She grew up picking up
22:12
Speaker 2: food boxes, getting her Thanksgiving meals from the school. Whitney
22:16
Speaker 2: had to work hard to fit into that tight knit
22:18
Speaker 2: group of middle class white girls. When she was going
22:21
Speaker 2: to school every day without breakfast. Whitney says she acted
22:25
Speaker 2: like a happy, go lucky kid, when in fact, from
22:28
Speaker 2: a really young age, she was in survival mode.
22:31
Speaker 6: Like I remember being in third grade being like I
22:33
Speaker 6: can't even imagine high school because I'll probably die before then,
22:36
Speaker 6: Like there's no way I'm actually ever going to make
22:38
Speaker 6: it there.
22:44
Speaker 2: Eventually, Jasmine brings up homecoming.
22:48
Speaker 4: I want to get into the stuff.
22:52
Speaker 2: And Whitney, without hesitation, is game. I'm sad, let's do.
22:56
Speaker 4: It, Like I've just wanted to know your version of
23:00
Speaker 4: what happened.
23:02
Speaker 6: Yeah, so just to like go back, like I remember
23:05
Speaker 6: the football game where it was like now it's so
23:08
Speaker 6: like we all knew you had already won, I thought.
23:10
Speaker 2: At that point, yeah right, yeah.
23:12
Speaker 6: And then the night of the dance, I don't remember
23:18
Speaker 6: a lot except I was really stressed because I was
23:22
Speaker 6: planning it.
23:23
Speaker 2: As class president, Whitney was in charge of everything, picking
23:26
Speaker 2: out the crowns, selling the tickets, buying the decorations, setting
23:30
Speaker 2: up the gym, all largely by herself. So when Whitney
23:34
Speaker 2: thinks about homecoming, what she remembers, is how stressed out
23:37
Speaker 2: she was leading up to the dance, But the night
23:40
Speaker 2: of the dance itself.
23:42
Speaker 6: I want to be honest, I don't really remember the
23:45
Speaker 6: night like at all, Like not even I remember like
23:51
Speaker 6: getting everything like set up, trying to make sure everything
23:54
Speaker 6: was like in place, like the people working who are
23:57
Speaker 6: going to take the tickets, but the actual like that moment.
24:01
Speaker 2: The moment Jasmine remembers so clearly Whitney's name being announced instead.
24:06
Speaker 6: Of her own, I don't remember it.
24:09
Speaker 2: If Homecoming was a pivotal scene in the movie of
24:11
Speaker 2: Jasmine's life, once she's played over and over until the
24:15
Speaker 2: tape has worn thin. For Whitney, it's been taped over,
24:19
Speaker 2: but she says she's sure that if she was announced
24:22
Speaker 2: as Homecoming Queen, she never would have gone up and
24:25
Speaker 2: accepted the crown or joined Jacob King for a dance.
24:29
Speaker 6: If they called my name, I would have been horrified
24:33
Speaker 6: because I wanted everything to like just like go well,
24:36
Speaker 6: so like I would have been absolutely horrified, and I
24:39
Speaker 6: would have went somewhere and been like, hey, like that
24:42
Speaker 6: was wrong name. Can we like reset?
24:45
Speaker 2: Is there a chance that you would have been so?
24:47
Speaker 2: Like this night has to go smoothly that if you
24:50
Speaker 2: were called, you would just be like, Okay, I'm just
24:52
Speaker 2: gonna dan like you know what I mean, Like keep
24:54
Speaker 2: it moving.
24:55
Speaker 6: No, what happened to the crown?
24:57
Speaker 4: Did they put it on your head? No?
25:00
Speaker 6: Because I didn't win. I already knew I didn't win,
25:02
Speaker 6: So like I wasn't like up there like yet that
25:05
Speaker 6: crown on me?
25:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jasmine has been waiting fourteen years to ask what
25:12
Speaker 2: happened that night and getting such a non answer is
25:15
Speaker 2: a letdown. But if Jasmine is disappointed, she isn't showing it.
25:25
Speaker 2: As they keep talking, though, Whitney reminds Jasmine of another
25:29
Speaker 2: key player from that night, someone who was at the
25:32
Speaker 2: center of everything. And by everything, I mean the dance floor.
25:37
Speaker 6: Do you remember who announced the names? Like?
25:39
Speaker 2: Was it the DJ?
25:41
Speaker 4: I don't, I don't remember.
25:43
Speaker 2: I feel like it was the DJ. One of Whitney's
25:45
Speaker 2: many party planning responsibilities was hiring the DJ, a man
25:50
Speaker 2: named DJ Sip. She was his point person for the
25:53
Speaker 2: whole event, and Whitney thinks that because she was runner up,
25:57
Speaker 2: her name would have been on the list of students
26:00
Speaker 2: on the homecoming court given to DJ Sip at the dance.
26:03
Speaker 2: So when it came time to announce the queen.
26:06
Speaker 6: I feel like he just saw my name and got confused.
26:10
Speaker 6: Like we had been like talking right for like weeks.
26:12
Speaker 6: I helped set him up, and I wonder if he
26:14
Speaker 6: just like saw my name and was like, oh, like
26:17
Speaker 6: just read mine first.
26:19
Speaker 2: In other words, Whitney is saying she thinks it was
26:22
Speaker 2: just an accident, and an innocent one, not a racist one.
26:26
Speaker 2: Jasmine is skeptical.
26:28
Speaker 4: But even the mistake, I'm like, Okay, this man DJ Sip,
26:32
Speaker 4: like I'm imagining it was a white DJ.
26:35
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't it, DJ Sip.
26:37
Speaker 4: Look, we grew up in Springfield.
26:38
Speaker 5: You're certainly could be a white guy.
26:40
Speaker 6: Was like a big black guy.
26:42
Speaker 2: And anyway, Whitney says, DJ Sip wouldn't have even known
26:46
Speaker 2: that Jasmine is black. He'd never met her before. She'd
26:50
Speaker 2: have been nothing more than a name on a slip
26:52
Speaker 2: of paper.
26:53
Speaker 4: Okay, he really did just read.
26:55
Speaker 2: Our names wrong? And is that how you feel?
26:58
Speaker 4: Right now?
26:58
Speaker 2: You're like, like, do you like just to ask the
27:01
Speaker 2: blue question, like, do you believe that that's what happened?
27:06
Speaker 5: Yeah?
27:06
Speaker 4: I have no reason not to believe, Whitney.
27:10
Speaker 2: Whitney jumps in to say plainly what she's been trying
27:13
Speaker 2: to say politely.
27:14
Speaker 6: I didn't do shit. So just to be clear, I
27:18
Speaker 6: didn't do shit, and like I know, like I didn't
27:21
Speaker 6: do anything maliciously. I don't think anyone would do anything maliciously.
27:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't believe. I feel that I will never
27:35
Speaker 4: relinquish the possibility that there was foubl play, like there
27:39
Speaker 4: will forever be a part of me that's like some
27:43
Speaker 4: because at the end of the day, we did grow
27:45
Speaker 4: up with these people who like called us racist names
27:49
Speaker 4: and like said all kinds of shit we can't even remember.
27:53
Speaker 4: So I one hundred percent believe it is a possibility
27:56
Speaker 4: that someone did do something racist, whether it was to
27:59
Speaker 4: hurt me or not, like that just is possible.
28:07
Speaker 2: Outside it's gone from us to dark. It's time to go,
28:11
Speaker 2: and we say our goodbyes. In the days after the conversation,
28:16
Speaker 2: I do reach out to DJ Sip to see if
28:19
Speaker 2: he made a DJ slip, but DJ Sip tells me
28:22
Speaker 2: he has no recollection of that specific homecoming. He does
28:25
Speaker 2: tons of school gigs every year. He does say that
28:29
Speaker 2: as Whitney remembered, the names are usually provided to him
28:32
Speaker 2: on a piece of paper. He doesn't think he'd read
28:35
Speaker 2: the wrong name, though he can't be sure. I also
28:39
Speaker 2: finally get a hold of a teacher who is there,
28:41
Speaker 2: who remembers the mix up. She says, contrary to how
28:45
Speaker 2: Jasmine remembered it, everyone seemed shocked, Whitney in particular. She
28:50
Speaker 2: also thinks that, yes, the names of all the students
28:53
Speaker 2: on the court were written on a piece of paper,
28:55
Speaker 2: but whether it was the DJ's innocent misread or someone's
28:59
Speaker 2: not so innocent misright, we can't say for certain. I'm
29:07
Speaker 2: not sure where it leaves us. We still don't have
29:10
Speaker 2: a definitive answer, and in the absence of that, what
29:13
Speaker 2: we have is two women who shared many similar experiences
29:17
Speaker 2: in the same town where they both grew up, with
29:20
Speaker 2: two opposite takeaways from the night of homecoming, one who
29:24
Speaker 2: knows that it must be about race, and the other
29:27
Speaker 2: who thinks that in this particular scenario, it just wasn't.
29:36
Speaker 4: So.
29:36
Speaker 2: A few weeks later, I reach out to Jasmine to
29:39
Speaker 2: see what she took away from the conversation with Whitney.
29:43
Speaker 5: I don't know.
29:44
Speaker 2: I don't know, toggling between what Whitney is trying to
29:48
Speaker 2: suggest to her and what she knows that feels like
29:52
Speaker 2: a familiar place for her to be. Jasmine tells me
29:55
Speaker 2: about a number of auditions she's been on lately, big opportunities.
30:00
Speaker 4: And my manager and my team are so excited, and
30:02
Speaker 4: I'm like, guys, they're going to cast a white girl.
30:04
Speaker 4: I've been right every time. But my manager is like
30:10
Speaker 4: so tired of me saying that, and she's like, you're
30:12
Speaker 4: speaking that into existence, Like you need to come into
30:15
Speaker 4: these opportunities in spaces like open and give it your
30:18
Speaker 4: all and like prove to them that you're the one.
30:22
Speaker 2: Jasmine says she can see her manager's point. Assuming it's
30:25
Speaker 2: about race and going in with that defeatist attitude, it
30:29
Speaker 2: isn't helping her. But at the same time, auditioning over
30:33
Speaker 2: and over for roles she has no chance of getting,
30:36
Speaker 2: it's frustrating and demoralizing.
30:39
Speaker 4: Especially in that industry where it's just like projection, rejection, rejection, rejection.
30:43
Speaker 4: I want to be rejected because my acting wasn't strong
30:48
Speaker 4: enough or my vibe wasn't right, not.
30:51
Speaker 2: Because they're like, well, we decided to go with a
30:53
Speaker 2: white girl. And it's completely crazy making because Jasmine can
30:58
Speaker 2: never know if a rejection is because of her performance
31:01
Speaker 2: or her skin color. It's like with the Homecoming story,
31:05
Speaker 2: Jasmine will never know if it was DJ SIP or
31:08
Speaker 2: something way worse. Whitney believes it was an accident, and
31:12
Speaker 2: so it's like she's asking Jasmine to see it outside
31:15
Speaker 2: of racial lines, Like she's saying, can't this just be
31:18
Speaker 2: a mistake, the kind of mistake that could happen to anybody,
31:22
Speaker 2: And Jasmine wants to believe so, but it goes against
31:25
Speaker 2: everything she's ever learned.
31:27
Speaker 4: At a certain point, you have to make a choice,
31:30
Speaker 4: and I want to make that choice.
31:32
Speaker 2: It's just really hard. I mean it's hard. It's hard because,
31:35
Speaker 2: like I think from everything I've learned about your childhood
31:40
Speaker 2: and everything growing up, like there probably were a lot
31:43
Speaker 2: of cases where like you were right to make those assumptions,
31:46
Speaker 2: like because it was the worst case scenario.
31:49
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
31:50
Speaker 4: But I'm tired, been a little sad. Yeah, And I
32:02
Speaker 4: do think that this way of viewing the world is
32:08
Speaker 4: harming me, like in various aspects of my life. It's like,
32:16
Speaker 4: I don't know, it's like a meeting the world with
32:22
Speaker 4: like a knife out.
32:29
Speaker 2: After their conversation, I'd reached out to Whitney too. I
32:33
Speaker 2: asked her why she doesn't draw the same conclusions from
32:35
Speaker 2: that night that Jasmine does. Whitney didn't want to speculate
32:39
Speaker 2: on Jasmine's experience, but she did offer this about her
32:42
Speaker 2: own life. After high school, Whitney went away to college
32:46
Speaker 2: somewhere that was way more racially diverse than Springfield. She
32:49
Speaker 2: found herself around more people of color than she'd ever
32:52
Speaker 2: been around before, and it gave her a new sense
32:54
Speaker 2: of self confidence. It was the first time, she says,
32:57
Speaker 2: that she felt beautiful. She took classes on race and inequality,
33:02
Speaker 2: spent semesters discussing and unpacking her own childhood. Then after graduating,
33:08
Speaker 2: she worked for many years and documentary film at a
33:10
Speaker 2: job where her voice was valued for being black. Jasmine's
33:14
Speaker 2: experience after high school was quite different. She didn't go
33:17
Speaker 2: to college, went straight to auditioning and hustling for acting roles,
33:22
Speaker 2: and because she's beautiful and talented, that worked out. But
33:26
Speaker 2: success also brought her to Hollywood, a place where it
33:29
Speaker 2: took until two thousand and two for a black woman
33:31
Speaker 2: to win an Oscar for Best Actress, not exactly an
33:34
Speaker 2: environment known for valuing diversity. In some ways, it would
33:39
Speaker 2: have been better if Whitney could have told Jasmine, yes,
33:42
Speaker 2: it was some malicious swap hearing that might have hurt,
33:46
Speaker 2: but at least it would have made sense. It's far
33:49
Speaker 2: scarier to imagine what Whitney is proposing that it was
33:52
Speaker 2: just a mistake.
33:54
Speaker 4: You know, like if I let that go and it
33:57
Speaker 4: was just an accident and things just happened. Whoa who
34:02
Speaker 4: who am I You know what I mean?
34:08
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you're the homecoming queen.
34:19
Speaker 4: That feels really nice. That idea of just accepting that
34:25
Speaker 4: it seems like that might be.
34:28
Speaker 2: True about homecoming. Here's what I think. We don't know
34:38
Speaker 2: what happened, but we do know what didn't happen. No
34:42
Speaker 2: one came up to Jasmine after to say sorry. No
34:45
Speaker 2: one even came up to her to say, hey, that
34:48
Speaker 2: was weird, right. No one went to look for Jasmine
34:51
Speaker 2: or corrected the mistake, And in my conversations these last
34:55
Speaker 2: few months, most people didn't even remember it. So one
34:59
Speaker 2: black girl was substituted for another, and that went largely
35:02
Speaker 2: uncommented on and unapologized for because no one seemed to
35:06
Speaker 2: think it was a big enough deal. Jasmine had wanted
35:10
Speaker 2: to know why the mix up happened, but just as
35:13
Speaker 2: important is why it was never righted. There was never
35:16
Speaker 2: any acknowledgment, which is why it's hurt for so long.
35:20
Speaker 4: You want to know my first thought, Yeah, I had
35:23
Speaker 4: to take pictures in a little crown that might actually
35:27
Speaker 4: help it feel you know what I mean. I never
35:29
Speaker 4: got that crown. I know I didn't get it. I
35:31
Speaker 4: didn't just not.
35:37
Speaker 2: From under the table, I pull out a crown. It's
35:40
Speaker 2: shiny and gold and covered with crystals lime green of course.
35:44
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's beautiful.
35:47
Speaker 4: Why am I crying?
35:49
Speaker 2: That's so sweet. Jasmine places the crown on her head.
35:54
Speaker 4: Wow, this feels awesome. I finally got my crown. This
36:02
Speaker 4: is definitely doing something.
36:11
Speaker 2: It's a hot day, but Jasmine says she wants to
36:14
Speaker 2: go for a long walk, feel the sun, and spend
36:16
Speaker 2: an hour with herself. We say our goodbyes. When she
36:20
Speaker 2: walks out the door onto the busy New York City street,
36:23
Speaker 2: she's still wearing her crown.
37:04
Speaker 5: Now that the furnitures rip, turn into it's good will home.
37:13
Speaker 5: Now that's the last monstrant is scheming with the.
37:18
Speaker 1: Damage to frob take this moment to DESO.
37:24
Speaker 5: If we message, if.
37:25
Speaker 4: We trash.
37:28
Speaker 5: We felt around for fo.
37:30
Speaker 2: To thanks that accidentally. This episode of Heavyweight was produced
37:42
Speaker 2: by me Stevie Lane, along with Jonathan Goldstein and Phoebe Flanagan.
37:46
Speaker 2: Our senior producer is Khalila Holt. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon.
37:51
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Robin Simeon, Zach Saint Louis Neil drumming,
37:54
Speaker 2: Chris Neary and Hanne Goldman. I'm Amonger mixed the episode
37:58
Speaker 2: with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson and
38:01
Speaker 2: Bobby Lord. Additional scoring by Blue Dot Sessions, Boxwood Orchestra,
38:05
Speaker 2: Distance and Lolotone. Our theme song is by the Week
38:09
Speaker 2: of Thems, courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on Instagram
38:12
Speaker 2: at Heavyweight Podcast or email us at Heavyweight at pushkin
38:16
Speaker 2: dot FM. Jonathan will be back in two weeks to
38:20
Speaker 2: host a brand new episode, so stay tuned and time perl.
38:29
Speaker 5: We repainted