On this episode, I go one-to-one with the cast of Walk Like a Man, written, produced,
and directed by Lorenda D. Brown.
It's an adaptation of her award-winning novel by the same name.
So stay tuned because a brand new one-to-one with me, Onyx, is coming up next.
Hi, and welcome to the show.
Walk Like a Man was the first African-American lesbian play to be performed off Broadway.
As Lorenda says herself, it's about life, not lifestyles.
The play features a culturally diverse cast that touches issues of labels and stereotypes
in LGBTIQ relationships, love, safe sex domestic violence, safe sex, sexual identity, HIV, AIDS,
and more.
I recently got a chance to catch up with some of the cast.
Take a look.
Which monologue foreseen in Walk Like a Man do you identify most with?
Surprisingly, I don't think I've ever said this either.
It'll probably be more.
Yes?
Why?
It'll probably be more.
More and I have a lot of things in common.
I don't discuss them often, but more and I have a lot of experiences in common.
Wow, well, I thank you for sharing that with us.
I really appreciate that.
Tell me about your role in Walk Like a Man.
I have a couple of roles.
I think that, generally speaking, I guess I bring the sexy, so to speak, or at least
I try to.
I open up the play with the prologue, which is a monologue about a young woman's first
time being with another female, so it's a little spicy, it's a lot of fun.
How does the audience react to that piece?
They're usually very shocked and surprised because I try to have a little audience participation.
It's always a great way to start off the play.
Okay, what next do you do?
I also have a role in the scene called Legally Yours, an office party.
Office party is about a couple and one of the females not being exactly comfortable with
her partner.
Okay.
So just kind of about how they figure that out.
Legally Yours is a really powerful piece about a couple and their decision to have a baby
and some of the things that happen as a result of that.
So how is it, how do you feel going from playing the opening character who is very sexy and
fun to go into a serious piece like Legally Yours?
I actually like going to the serious piece because I kind of open the play with the sexy
scene and then not end the play with the sexy scene.
It's fun to have a little bit of difference in the middle there.
Okay, now I know you do a piece called Tastes Like Chicken, the title of You Treat Me.
So can you tell me a little bit about that?
Tastes Like Chicken is pretty much what it says.
It's about an experience between two best friends who have been friends for years and
they see each other after a long time and one of the young ladies decides that she wants
to see if it tastes like chicken.
Wow, I love it.
First time I saw the play I think was 2007 and when I left the play I said I don't know
how it's going to happen but I'm going to be in that play next year.
Now I always ask my guest to give a message to someone who may be struggling with coming
to terms with their sexuality.
But what I want to ask you specifically is if you can say something to one of our viewers
who may be struggling with coming out on the job and how to handle that?
I think that for anyone thinking about coming out on the job you have to weigh your options
because I know that probably everyone at my job may not be quote unquote accepting of
my decision but at the same time I'm really good at what I do.
So it's kind of like the double-edged sword where if you're going to be this you have
to be twice as good as that because people find excuses to discriminate.
So I just think it has to be up to the individual.
You have to know what kind of people you're working with and how it can affect your job.
I think that I'm probably just now coming into both identities so to speak where this
is my friends and some of my family members know about my sexuality but this is my first
job where I've just been completely open and ironically we were in a faculty or a meeting
not really a faculty meeting and I was talking about doing research with identity formation
for black lesbians and one of my colleagues just asked in front of about 10 or so people
are you a lesbian and it caught me off guard and you know a year ago two years ago I might
not have answered but this time I did and I said yes.
How did that feel?
It felt good because it was the first time I think that anyone has ever asked me and
I honestly said yes I usually say well why do you want to know or you know a difference
doesn't make but this time I said yes and so it felt really good.
Well congratulations on that I know a lot of people think it's easy but it's not always
easy to be out on your job so.
It's not and I think that I have a lot of people who I talk to who are a lot younger
and I always say to them that I think that's the one thing I admire about you all is that
you have that freedom to say you know this is who I am and I'm just now getting to that
freedom even after having been with someone for 10 years we were you know roommates so
I'm now getting to that place where I can say she was my partner.
So now I think because I'm in higher ed I'm in a position where I could do that.
I used to be a K-12 teacher and if someone had asked me that in a faculty meeting I honestly
even now I probably still would not say yes so you have to understand the environment that
you're working with.
Keep it locked on one to one with Onyx because I have more with the Walk Like a Man cast
next.
Welcome back.
As I continue my conversation with the cast of Walk Like a Man Cole Thomas shares some
thoughts on the significance of the play and how life experiences contribute to the audience's
reaction to it.
I worked in the counseling field for many years and you know I'm real aware of walking
wounded a lot of us who kind of walk around and we look okay and we're walking tall and
we're good looking you know all that good stuff or beautiful as you know as you have
it but in a lot of pain and carrying a lot of baggage and I like the fact that we are
going to be up there really exploring you know what are some of the roots of some of
the bad feelings that we carry around because you know we kind of play them off but it's
there.
And it's also interesting just to have people who experience the pain to have a voice and
to say you know this is what this feels like from my end you might be having fun but I'm
not entertained.
It is my understanding that you have been performing with this play the longest out
of all the cast members is that correct?
I started with when the play started back in I guess it was 2005 and I was on a couple
years hiatus and I came back last year.
So what has this journey been like?
I'm thinking.
You think?
Think away.
It's been unreal.
I did an interview with the Georgia voice just yesterday and I was talking about the
fact that when I came along there was no public lesbian art.
Not any that I saw and certainly no black lesbian art and I mean pictures other than
erotica which you had to kind of go digging for and again that's not as public as this
is.
Nothing on television, nothing on stage and so when this opportunity came along to be
on stage and we started in Washington D.C. it was like I've never heard this done and
not only have I never heard it done but I'm now having the opportunity to be a part of
making this piece of artistic history.
Things move so quickly now and in this day and age and there's a lot of opportunity I
think for people to be impulsive and jump on the first thing going and sometimes you
got to stand back and go okay what impact am I having and I'm very much about having
impact and I heard some of the other interviewees talking about community service and some
of the other things that many of the participants in the play are also involved and that makes
me very proud to be a part of this cast in that way too.
I am a part of an organization that I found it called Agenda Benda and we have also a
community service leg and a retail leg and again when I listen to what everybody is involved
in whether it's artistic, community service, what they do professionally it's very striking
what a powerful group of women we are and I couldn't say that even twenty years ago
much less way, way, way back when I was in college that I mean I felt very alone.
We had a small group of us and we were kind of frowned upon and that was on a very small
black campus for undergraduate school and it was nothing.
Trust me when I tell you Facebook, it was nothing.
If we didn't create it, it wasn't there.
I'll be back after this short break.
Keep it locked for more One to One with Onyx.
Thanks for coming back for more One to One with Onyx.
Domestic violence and lesbian relationships is not often openly talked about let alone
shown in mass media aside from Roberta Monroe's award-winning short film Danny and Alice.
But Walk Like a Man brings the issue to the stage in ways that really touch the audience
and dispel some of the myths surrounding it.
Watch as Monica Ray Simpson and Linda Clay share their experiences about the play.
It was a very difficult character for me I was very appreciative of the part and I really
loved the challenge of being able to kind of channel myself in a different way artistically.
But you definitely have to, I did a lot of research just looking at different stories
and reading different testimonials of women who have gone through domestic violence and
different types of abuse from their partner and just trying to draw from the experience
of those women.
I'm grateful I've never been in a domestic violence situation or abused in any way.
But I really just wanted to know what that journey was like.
So Black is Blue is a piece that Lorenda asked me to do that deals with domestic abuse.
Deals with the woman being in a situation where she's afraid to leave the person because
she thought she's found her ideal partner.
Her ideal partner is frustrated because she's law enforcement officer and she's frustrated
because she hasn't come out to her partner.
So she ends up taking out all of her frustrations with her partner at home and abusing her.
Wow.
Now do you play the abuser?
Yeah, which is a stretch for me.
How do you get into that character?
Well, actually for me it's a matter of pushing through and finding that angry space, angry
not for myself but for the other people that are in abusive situations.
As I do this part I feel like I'm standing in solidarity with these women who have had
to endure abuse in many different ways and in this particular scene it's more about
physical abuse and some emotional abuse but the physical abuse is just so blatant and
really put in your face but this is really just hopefully like opening up the eyes of
people saying that, helping them to understand that abuse happens in so many different types
of ways and so just really trying to tap into the spirit of those women who have had to
go there.
It's been a tremendous experience.
People are really, well in Texas we have mixed because I think there was some laughter
but I think it was the nervous laughter as in, wow you're hitting home and this is hitting
close for me but other people have walked out crying, people have really been appreciative
for her presenting the piece.
I performed this piece in Miami for the first time and the audience, it was very quiet,
it was very still and not a lot of emotion came out but I think that silence is just
very telling sometimes and so what I read from the silence was just that people were
kind of connecting to this whether they had experienced it personally or connecting to
it in a way where they've known other people who have experienced it and so to see it in
your face I think that it just really kind of awakens people and just kind of does something
to them on the inside and it's hard you know to kind of emote you know from that space
but I know that the silence was really, really thick in the room.
All the myth is that we're all human and that's the bottom line.
No matter whether you're gay, straight, bi, trans, you have that underlying humanness
and regardless of who you are, something with your background, your history, anything can
actually bring that out so we all have it and it's just a possibility.
What are some things as a community that we could do to get awareness about HIV transmission
in women and also about domestic violence?
For the HIV transmission I think it's important for everyone to get tested.
I think it's important for us to know our sexual history as far as our partners and
who we've been dealing with.
So I would definitely tell everyone to get tested and to know your status.
As far as the domestic violence, I think that if people have the strength to step outside
of their situations and themselves and know that they don't have to stay there, they're
not in prison, there is help and there's a way out that they should seek help.
Don't go anywhere because more one to one with Onix is up next.
Welcome back.
All too often labels are based just on someone's outward appearance.
Sadly, this happens even in the LGBTIQQ community.
Watch us Tajir and DeRaila share with me their experiences of being stereotype and the importance
of the representation of the characters they portray.
Tajir.
Yes ma'am.
Talk to me about your role in the office party.
That's what it's called, right?
Yeah.
Okay, talk to me about that.
The office party.
I am, my girlfriend is having a party at work and she's not out, so she wants me to be
girly with dress, heels, and I literally look like a drag queen.
It's like I'm very uncomfortable at the party and little does she know, everybody knows.
Right.
That she is a lesbian.
Yeah, right, so it's kind of funny because I look funny in the dress, you know.
I had a girlfriend who just, she just wasn't, she liked my boy style, but it just wasn't
for everybody else and she wanted me to wear a wig, you know.
Wow.
You know, she didn't want to hold my hand, you know, nothing, so it didn't last long.
Right.
You know, I couldn't pretend to be somebody who I'm not.
Right, I understand that a lot of people who are maybe outside of the community don't understand
and they feel like it's just clothes, so it doesn't matter.
If you can really talk to me a little bit about how that made you feel as an individual,
having to change something that you felt comfortable in.
Well, it just made me feel fake, only like I wasn't real, you know, pretending to be
someone else when I'm worrying about someone else's happiness versus my own and I don't
live like that, you know, I live and make myself happy and somebody can't understand
that.
Y'all is in the work scene or out in the public, you know, I don't care, you know, I really
don't because I have to be me, I have to be happy because at the end of the day that's
who is about, it's about me, you know, so I really don't, it doesn't bother me and I
get it at work so much, it doesn't really bother me anymore and I mean it's like you
accept me and if you don't, I don't care.
So what are some of the things or the negative things that people may say about your appearance?
Oh, my appearance, well I guess any stud probably got stopped about the bathroom, I just relocated
here so I knew it my job and I went in the women's bathroom and this lady, she stared
at me and then she said, oh, this is the women's bathroom and I told her, I was, like I said
I heard it before so it didn't bother me but I was like, it's okay, I can use the bathroom
sitting down, you know, she looked at me and I just went in the stall, you know, and I
don't know, I mean she brought, I didn't, actually she did stand there for a while like,
wow, I can't believe he's really going to use this bathroom, you know, but I get that
a lot, you know, even with my kids, people think I'm my daughter's boyfriend, you know.
Wow, interesting.
Yeah, so I'm used to it, this has always been me, the only thing I know is, oh, right.
If you could talk to a young stud right now who is really learning to accept everything
about themselves and dealing with these issues, what is some advice you could give them?
Live for self, God created you, you know, He didn't make no mistake, you know, growing
up there was always this poster that I would read on my cousin's bedroom door and it says,
I know I'm somebody because God don't make no jump, I'm not jump, He didn't make a mistake
with me, so being a stud, being who I am makes me so happy and in turn, it makes my family
happy, my children accept me, my friends accept me, you know, so just be yourself and love
yourself, that's all you can do and don't pretend, there's a lot to be out here to be pretending
to be a man, you know, and I love that, I love that, don't pretend to be a man to be
yourself.
Be yourself, 100% yourself, you know, and everything else will fall into place, it has
for me.
Right, beautiful, well said.
I want to talk a little bit about your organization, can you tell me what it's called?
Yes, Gem Boy.
Gem Boy is a collaboration of Gem and I Entertainment, my partner, and That Boy Productions.
Gem and I Entertainment is the party scene, That Boy is community service.
So we decided to join them together.
So we have parties, maybe once, twice a month, NDC, I've only been here like three weeks,
and then we also do community service events, this is going on my fifth year of a holiday
toy drive, I collect toys and donate it to NDC, it's called the Hospital of the Sick
Children, and also we have a back to school to drive as well, and with that we just, families
who are in need, I remember my high schoolers need stuff, so we collect everything from
T9 calculators to staples, and we sponsor families with these supplies, book bags, whatever,
you know, one year I even got coats to give to people, you know, it's really great, it's
growing, I have more people that's like really coming on board and say I want to help, once
I get settled, I want to go ahead and you know, give them back here in Atlanta, and
also NDC, that's my thing, just give them back, we do sickle cell walks, age walks,
you know, I have gay kids, they look at me, they call me pops, you know, and I support
them and they support me, so it's like whatever I do, they're there, so you're like a mentor
to them, and you're leading them down a positive direction, I applaud you for that, and please
know I'm new here to Atlanta, but I will support you 100% any way you can.
Now what made you start to get into the community service aspect of it, because a lot of people
love to throw parties and they love that life, but you're actually taking it a step further,
what made you do that?
Well, I'm a single parent, and I came from a single parent home, and I know a lot of
times you can't do the things you want to do for your family, because you lost your
job or whatever reason, I know how hard it is, and I did whatever possible for my kids,
and it was really not too many things that I knew about out there to go for help, so
I figured being an entertainer, a male illusionist, the tip money that I make from these people,
you know, three nights a week, maybe I can get them to donate to help other families
out there, and that's what I did, I would go to the clubs and set up, you know, set
up shop, and when my posters say, hey, help us out, whatever, whatever, you know, so it
makes me feel good to give it back.
When I performed, it wasn't about money, it was just making somebody happy, so my way
of trying to make somebody happy, somebody else happy, is giving back, paying it forward,
so that's what I got into it, and I think, you know, it's just, it's a wonderful feeling
when somebody say, thank you, you know, I really needed that, or this helped me out a lot,
you know, and I don't do it for a pattern on the back, but like I said, I know I've
been there as a child and as a parent, I know how it is, so I love it, I love it, my kids,
they help my biological children, they help me out as well with it, and it's just, it's
really, really great, and I got to meet some interesting people, you know, and it's just
one, it's a wonderful thing, and I'm so happy I started it, and I'm looking forward to go
on for years.
Well, I'm happy you started it, too.
Talk to me about your radio show.
Oh, and you know, it's amazing that you are on the other, that you're interviewing me
after I got to interview you and your cast and your executive directors and everybody,
and that was such a beautiful show.
I love both of the shows that we did, and I'm so honored that not only were you on the
show, but it's archived, everybody can go and hear it any time they want to, but my
show, you know, as, you know, is more about breaking down the stereotypes, and as far
as I'm concerned, we are all walking stereotypes, I mean, you can say that, you know, from African
American men and women who are in the homosexual lifestyle, you know, people will automatically
make it negative.
I'm an African American woman, I'm a lesbian, I'm a single parent, I'm this, I'm that,
and it's not negative, you're a walking stereotype, and it's time to break down those walls and
look at people for who they are rather than who they aren't, or what they don't have,
or who they should be.
We need to let people understand that you don't have to have your name and lights, you don't
have to be on stage, you don't have to be on YouTube, you don't even have to be on Facebook
to be heard.
Absolutely.
And that's the main goal, because once we're heard, then we can begin to break down stereotypes.
A lot of people feel that they're not heard, and I want to open the forum where everyone
is heard, and I don't care how old you are, how young you are, your color, your background,
I don't care if you're East Coast, West Coast, or Africa, I don't care, it doesn't matter.
You have a voice and it needs to be heard.
You can look at my complexion, and you can listen to my voice, and you can look at my
complexion and listen to my voice and say, those two don't match at all.
You can look at my haircut and say, how did that white boy get a fade?
How did that white boy keep a fade?
First off, I'm not white, that's your first misconception, because you're looking at my
face, you're looking at me from face value.
If you knew my heritage, you would know I'm mixed.
Do I, another one, oh you trying to act black, no baby, I'm not acting at all, this is who
I am, period point blank, and if you met my family, trust and believe, just like the rainbow,
we're a bag of skittles, we are the rainbow.
I'm masculine, and I wear my clothes, and I act the way I act, and yes, I will cuss
like a sailor in a heartbeat, and I won't care, but it's not because I'm trying to be
a man, or trying to portray men as negative, ugly, disrespectful, I'm not trying to put
that out there, I'm just being myself.
So who's it more important to, for me to feel comfortable in my skin?
I have to.
If I'm okay, I don't care, your opinion doesn't really matter.
I'm the one that I lay down with at night, I'm the one that I wake up with in the morning,
and I love what I see in the mirror, because baby I have those days I feel real conceited
and be like, true, I date me in a heartbeat.
You put me in a dress, trust and believe you will see a change, because I will feel squirmish,
and I will be uncomfortable, because that's not who I am, I need to be authentically me,
who I am in every single aspect, from my mentality, my emotional, and I need to bring that out
to my physical.
Stay tuned to find out what's on tap for my next show.
Hey, what's going on?
This is your boy Arrell, and you're watching One to One with Alex, keep it locked.
Well that's it for this episode, thanks for watching.
Walk Like a Man is on tour all over the country, so don't forget to check it out when it's
in your city.
Join me next time when I take you to the Mother's Day mission with the fabulous Kelly Price.
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter and Like One to One with Onyx on Facebook.
Until next time, peace.
