Lena Waithe recently appeared on Pandora's
Questlove Supreme podcast, and chatted with popular drummer from The Roots about her Chicago origins, working with Angela Bassett and her growing fame.
This week, @LenaWaithe stops by to talk about her new show @SHOTheChi, her history making Emmy win and much more. Tune in now only on @pandoramusic
pic.twitter.com/aAUaaAlid3— Questlove Supreme (@qls) April 18, 2018
A particular topic discussed was the idea of publicly criticizing black art. Many in the black community are often skittish about doing so, especially given the limited number of stories we have. Some also fear that in today's age of growing diversity, any negative criticism will give the industry executives a reason to cut off funding of our stories, leaving us in a pop culture drought once again.
“I do think there’s this pressure on black folks to go support black stuff whether you love it or not. And I just don’t think we’ve gotten to that place where you can’t go online and be like – even with my show, I don’t know what’s real," said Waithe. "Because I don’t know if somebody is going to come out and go, “The Chi is just okay. Because then folks will be like, 'Why are you hating on – da, da, da?' They’ll be coming and saying – my thing is like I welcome it. If you don’t f*ck with it, tell me why so I can improve it.”
"I feel like until we can start criticizing each other in public, we ain’t going to ever overcome," Waithe continued. "We just kind of have to. But I think there’s this thing of we don’t want to talk about it. Trust me. I’m guilty of it. There’s things that maybe I don’t love, but I ain’t going to talk about that sh*t on Twitter.”
Waithe also touched on the state of art by dropping a brilliant food analogy.
“I always look at it like food and what you digest," Waithe mused. "So they’re being given McDonald’s, which is fast, it tastes good, and it goes through you really quickly. So then it’s like when they try to give you filet mignon, foie gras, caviar, escargot, à la Moonlight, Get Out things like that, sometimes it becomes difficult for them to eat that food –because they’re so used to McDonald’s.”
Never a stranger on topics of her intersectionality, Waithe also reiterated her allegiance to every single letter of LGBTQIA community something she also recently did when she accepted her GLAAD Award.
