The Interview Mo’Nique Deserves: Implicating Us All In Blacktrans Violence, Even Our Community Truth-tellers
I’ve been thinking a lot about Mo’Nique’s recent interview on Club Shay Shay with Shannon Sharpe. Specifically, pondering on what it means to be a truth-teller in this country, at this time.
truthtelling requires-
engaging risk,
engaging loss,
being alienated,
being despised,
being positioned as the problem
and being the holder of everyone’s projections.
And, most importantly, being free and undeterred in our pursuit of living honestly and in just.
Mo’Nique touched on all of the aforementioned in this interview, perhaps never using these words but the sentiments are wholeheartedly present.
This interview reminded me that Blacktrans humans are never centered in our collective Black politic-
not by the folks who scream for our death in public;
not by the folks who are entirely indifferent;
not by the folks who proclaim to love us;
and, heartbreakingly, not even by the majority of us Blacktrans humans.
What are the implications of being the most hunted and killed peoples in this country and not being at the center of anyone’s intimate politic, including your very own peoples and communities?
In this interview, the truth was limited to only the experiences of Black cisgender women and men and the treacherous gender binary. Blacktrans humans were nowhere near the center of this interview, and we must be if we’re talking justice and truth and liberation for all Black peoples.
Mo’Nique stated that the only person that risked something to help her during the height of her struggle was a Blacktrans sister, T.S. Madison, who spoke to Lee Daniel’s on her behalf. Madison is the first Blacktrans woman to star in and executive produce their own reality television show called the T.S. Madison Experience.
T.S. Is responsible for reuniting Mo’Nique and Lee Daniels by pushing Lee to find a real apology for his participation in the violence against Mo’Nique and the greater violence committed on Black cisgender women.
This is all Mo’Nique said in regards to Blacktrans humans- she acknowledged that a Blacktrans human had her back in the most difficult time in her career and perhaps life. This is more than any other Black celebrity has ever acknowledged in regards to Blacktrans labor and humanity. And, what does this acknowledgment mean in the context of truthtelling around the Black experience? In other words, what is an acknowledgment of Blacktrans labor without holding yourself accountable to Blacktrans violence and Blacktrans survival and ultimately the living of Blacktrans humans?
This got me thinking about the interview Mo’Nique actually deserves around truthtelling — an interview that she has earned after uplifting Blacktrans labor and risking to tell the truth. One with an interviewer that has a conscious Blacktrans politic, meaning, being interviewed by a Blacktrans truthteller instead of Shannon Sharpe.
The set of interview questions below are a gift of labor to the courage of Mo’Nique and an investment in her continued learning and doing around Blacktrans dignity and living.
The Interview Mo’Nique Deserves:
On Blacktransness:
“It took a transgender”
In the future, perhaps, add woman to the above proclamation -
it took a transgender woman
Talk to us about what it means that T.S. Madison stood up for you in truth and in public. Help put it in context for us.
What is your responsibility to T.S. Madison? How do you contribute to bettering her quality of life — and the lives of all Blacktrans humans?
How do you hold Black folks accountable to Blacktrans violence?
(Humans escaping death routinely, like your friend, TS Madison)
What can the greater Blacktrans community expect from you moving forward?
Who have you allowed to tell your story, in earnest? Who do you allow to interview you? What do they look like? What is their intimate politic? How do they hold Blacktrans humans at the center of their work, their art and their living?
On Career and Black Celebrity:
“it was never the Oscar for me”
Talk to us about the Blacktrans politic of both the Image and BET awards?
When things were going well in your career, what did it feel like to be held by power?
What did you know about power before you entered the room with Oprah Winfrey, Lee Daniels and Tyler Perry?
In retrospect, who have you stepped on to get to where you got? Who do you have regrets about when you think back?
Who would you be if you weren’t blackballed? What would your relationship be to Truth, to Justice and to Power? What would your agency look like? What would your relationship to integrity be?
After being Blackballed and dehumanized, who did you lose? Who stayed with you?
Why did you want to be famous? What about celebrity culture did you crave? Does trauma play a role here?
What has been the cost of fame (at this moment)?
On Black Fatness:
You moved from super fat (political term) to fat/thick over the years -
How has your weight loss in later years impacted your intimate politic around Black fatness?
How do you make sense of the collusion of other black women in the treachery? I.e. Taraji P. Henson, Vivica Fox, Angela Bassett?
The collusion of black fat women in the treachery?
I.e. Oprah Winfrey, Danielle Brooks, Queen Latifah?
What roles are available to you as a Black fat entertainer?
What role are you most proud of?
On Black cisgender heterosexual (and queer) men —
Katt Williams, Charlamagne, DL Hughley and Al Sharpton:
What is your intimate politic around the Black cisgender man? How do you love them and hold them accountable?
Why do you believe Katt Willam’s (your twin) didn’t reference you in their Club Shay Shay interview?
In what ways, in this entire conversation, are Black cis men still positioned in our center as a community? Think Katt Williams, as his interview has been placed at the center of this larger Black intra-community conversation around respectability and desirability.
What are the stats of this interview?
What awards has it/will it win?
How has Katt been uplifted throughout this entire conversation?
What is the significance of Al Sharpton turning his back on you and moving towards the oppressor? Who is he supposed to be? What is his legacy? What is the greater significance of this?
What does an apology from Charlemagne mean to you? What makes an apology real or worth it?
Why do you think Katt forgot to include DL Hughley in “the group?” How do you make meaning of this? What are the very real implications?
How did leveraging DL’s experience with his daughter make your point further in regards to Black women and Black girls surviving Black men and the greater patriarchy?
How do we situate Katt, DL, even Shannon Sharpe and all the other cisgender Black men in the greater context of unhelpful Black men? What do they actually do to address the violence against the most vulnerable Black peoples? Let’s try.
On Monique (the human, not the entertainer):
What is the allure of living in delusion? Why do most people choose living in delusion instead of in truth?
What is the relationship between love and justice?
Talk to us about the costs of striving to live in truth routinely.
In what ways, do you live a queered life? Meaning, in what ways do you buck the system in your everyday living.
Let’s unpack the high school story. What’s at the center of this story? What can Black cisgender humans learn from this story?
What have you forgotten? Who have you forgotten as you became an active participant in celebrity?
The use of “babies” has become signature to you? I want us to embrace it as a political term? How do you define “babies”? Who gets to receive the love and protection as one of your babies?
Who are your heroes? Why are they your heroes? What do they look like? How do they live? How did they live? What have they said about Blacktrans humans? Let’s make meaning of this.
Can we talk about the terminology and the politics of “king and queen” in the context of this country?
“We’ve been trained to fight against you; we’ve been trained to go against you; We’ve watched our mommas, our grandmammas, our aunties speak ill of a Black man. So now when a Black man comes and he good — you waitin’ for the bad because grandmamma told you Black men what’n shit, mamma told you Black men what’n shit and your auntie said Black men ain’t shit.
So all you have in your mind is Black men ain’t shit — so when you get that beautiful Black man, he’s now got to say to you — erase everything they taught you because I’m here.”
Is it safe for Black women to erase everything they were taught about Black cisgender men?
What do you want to say to Black girls? And, what do you want to say to Black cisgender women in regards to Blacktrans humans?
What does making it right look like? And, what of Blacktrans humans if you get both an apology and compensation from Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey?
Codi (they, them, Codi) is the Founder and Executive Director of Haus of McCoy, a queer and trans community center in Lawrence, Kansas. Moreover, Codi is a writer for the Lawrence Times, a liberation coach, a cultural critic and a dreamer who critiques pop culture at the intersection of Blacktrans liberation. Codi enjoys trash TV, spending time with beautiful Blacktrans people and loving on their dog, Monét.
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