00:00Placing, you know, a chocolate girl at the center as the object of affection, you know,
00:06Issa talks about it for insecure.
00:08It's, it is, it's revolutionary.
00:11Hi, I'm Dawanda Wise and you're here with R29 Unbothered.
00:14I've always had a very clear point of view, you know, every character I play will be a
00:21black woman.
00:22I remember when there were years of colorblind casting, I don't care about that.
00:25But you can, I think, tell the difference between a story that's, for example, ours,
00:31written by a group of black women and, you know, someone who's projecting their ideas
00:37of what black womanhood looks like.
00:39There are, there are so many pervasive images that we don't even realize we've been indoctrinated
00:47with until we're given an alternative.
00:49Access to free-thinking, free-spirited women, they're also usually cast more fair.
00:57You know, we're usually cast more, like, no-nonsense, the, like, tell it like it is best friend
01:04or whatever.
01:04It's like when you look back at Martin, it's ridiculous because Tashina Arnold is stunning.
01:14You know, I mean, she still is, but there were, there were certain, you know, images and stories,
01:21the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, that kept drilling these ideas home and, you know, were like a
01:29small part of dismantling and disrupting that.
01:32Like, what are you communicating, um, to young women, uh, that they can't live and occupy these
01:42spaces as, um, you know, figuring it out, free, objects of affection, you know?
01:48It is, it's like a, an act of, casting can be an act of revolution.
01:53You know, my work is for who it's for, but it's always this really lovely, um, testament to storytelling
02:01and the work when, um, it kind of hits in a universal way that you didn't anticipate and didn't expect.
02:08Or I try not to police, um, how people receive my work.
02:13It's something Spike and I have in common.
02:14They might pick up on things that I didn't put down and make me sound far more brilliant than I
02:21tried to be.
02:22Um, and I, I kind of live for those responses.
02:26I've started to practice something I will now define for the first time.
02:33And I call it, how fast can you get back to yourself?
02:39When someone is judging you or offering, uh, their opinion, their opinion can be colored with
02:46any number of things. Like, a lot of it is projection. A lot of it, people are obviously
02:51giving you opinions based on their own personal experiences. So being able to listen through
02:59the lens and listen with compassion, uh, when people are giving me their opinions about XYZ,
03:05whether that's in person or like on the interweb, I'll take in information and I will say,
03:12is this a me thing or is this a you thing? You know, it's like mouthwash.
03:18I like rinse it around, uh, around a little bit. I'll see if it hits my ego.
03:24I see if it hits some like deep truth. I figure out what it is about the thing that inflames
03:31or
03:31incites me. I talk about it with my friends if it's necessary or I journal about it and then I
03:37let it go.
03:38So, you know, so really the question is, what tools do you need to let it go? Um, and how
03:45fast
03:46can you get there?
