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 ZIWE INTERVIEWS Yassir Lester TRANSCRIPT 6/18/20

Ziwe: Hello!

Yassir Lester: What’s up?

Ziwe: I see, Yassir, that you have an interesting, interesting sign behind you.

Yassir Lester looks at his sign. It is a print-out that reads “Free Ghislaine Maxwell.”

Yassir Lester: I mean, that's just something that I, I've always had that. I like art. So I keep art up around the apartment, you know, to some people when they come they have something nice to look at so that's the, that's the piece I have.

Ziwe: You know sex trafficking is no laughing matter. Yassir –

Yassir Lester: Mhmm, it’s not.

Ziwe: I was terrified of this interview because I find you to be one of the funniest people I know who will ultimately get me in trouble for this.

Yassir Lester: I’m gonna get you in trouble!?

Ziwe: Yeah.

Yassir Lester: Okay, nice try. We’ll see. If either one of us come out of this with a career, we both failed.

Ziwe: Oh my goodness. Now, Yassir, you famously date a white woman so my first –

Yassir Lester: [laughs] Famously!

Ziwe: Famously date a white woman. My first question for you is do you believe that black women are not worth love?

Yassir Lester: [laughs] You know what, this is, you know, and truly this is something I think about all the time. I'm like do black women deserve love, and I absolutely think they do. I'll say this, my girlfriend now, half-white. I think it's very important. Though, I know white presenting. But this is who I am dating, you know, and like I've dated everybody, date black girls, date everybody.

Ziwe: You’ve dated black girls before and what was that experience like, Yassir?

Yassir Lester: I’ll say this, the same as dating anybody else except, you know, what’s it called? There is a shorthand involved when you date someone of your own culture and background, but other than that, you know, it's pretty much the same. You scream, you fight, you eat, you hang out, you do all the same things.

Ziwe: I don’t love hearing that you scream at black women. Now Yassir, what does black love mean to you?

Yassir Lester: Sorry, what was your question?

Ziwe: What does black love mean to you, Yassir Lester?

Yassir Lester: Here’s the thing. Black love, it's more than just, you know, it's more than just the traditional sense of the word. It is a mutual understanding of each other's like struggle and victory, I would say. It's not just, it's not just the simple like I think a lot of people, you know, I think it's like a lot of incense and like scented candles, and like real bad memes where it’s like a man, it's like a cartoon of a man protecting his woman, but there's like knives being thrown into his back, and it's just like “if you ain't doing this, then you ain't doing nothing.” But I do think in its simplest form, it’s not just a love and appreciation of your partner, but it’s love and appreciation of the shared cultural experiences that you have.

Ziwe: Right so just knowing that you're not involved with black women…

Yassir Lester laughs.

Ziwe: Where do you stand on miscegenation, Yassir Lester?

Yassir Lester: Where do I stand on what? I’m sorry.

Ziwe: Miscegenation.

Yassir Lester: Oh, here’s the thing, like I personally love it, can't get enough of it, clearly.

Ziwe: [exhales] Do you do race play by the way?

Yassir Lester: [laughs] Here’s the thing, there, look, anyone can, anyone's kinks and fetishes are what they are. There are certain things that it's just like “what are we doing?” You know what I mean? And I feel like that's a like “what are we doing?” You know? So no, sorry.

Ziwe and Yassir Lester laugh.

Ziwe: How many black friends do you have, Yassir?

Yassir Lester: The question should be the opposite. I think it should be how many friends of other do I have. My friends and family are black, and then it's like I have Indian, Akash, Persian, Reza, Jewish, though Nick Cannon hates it, Robby Slowik, and then the rest of my homies are just black people. Black, not just black, men, women, non-binary, everyone.

Ziwe: You’re friends with everyone. So could you name five white people off the top of your head?

Yassir Lester: Can I name five white people?

Ziwe: Sure.

Yassir Lester: Ok, Wes Anderson, Leslie Nielsen, Steve Kerr, Shaun King, and Rachel Dolezal.

Ziwe: [Laughs] Honestly, fair. Okay, so famously you go on Danielle Schneider and Casey Wilson’s podcast “Bitch Sesh,” and every single time you go on this podcast you have, they have to apologize for the things that you say.

Yassir Lester: Yes.

Ziwe: So my first question is, is making these white women apologize for you, your form of reparations?

Yassir Lester: Here's…a little bit yes, and it's not, it's not them specifically, but I do feel like we're at a time in history: black people should do and say whatever they want at all times with no repercussions, and then y’all sort it out. Like it's not on us anymore. Like I'm not going to be the type that goes like “oh, I apologize for the…” Like I don't feel, like I feel bad for if anyone thinks I'm specifically coming at like their family. That's what I feel bad for. But like the general, like I've had the Bitch Sesh fans come after me and call me a racist against white people and a little bit, it's like yes. Like I'm the thing Terry Crews is talking about, talking about like I'm not just saying black lives matter, I am saying black lives better.

Ziwe: Wow.

Yassir Lester: Like I'm a black supremacist.

Ziwe: Well cause you famously said “gingers have no souls.”

Yassir Lester: Okay, out of context. I said that the belief is that gingers have no souls. What I said specifically is I said that ginger kids with attitudes need to watch it because when they grow up, they're going to start getting treated like black people by other white people. That's what I said, and I hold that to be true. Cause white people dunk on gingers constantly. Like they truly act like as if they are not their own flesh and blood. So that's what I was saying. I was just like yo, like ginger kids like y'all need to chill because when y'all get out here in the world like they're not going, it's not going to be sweet for you.

Ziwe: Okay, and you also described a housewife who has black children as “tragically mixed who looked like two homeless street kids from Venice.” How do you stand by that?

Yassir Lester:  Okay, here's…because again I got cut off, I did say they were tragically mixed, and then I went on to say like Blake Griffin. What I was trying to say before I got cut off was that they didn't take any of the color. That's what I was trying to say. And also the homeless thing, I should have used “surfer” instead of “homeless.” Homeless is a funnier word than surfer, but there are a lot of mixed kids out in Venice surfing who also, a lot of them are homeless, now again…

Ziwe: Uhhh.

Yassir Lester: But again, I didn't, I wasn't like coming at the, it was truly just like ah “oh they’re like mad mad light-skinned.” As someone who is mixed and light-skinned, and I'm not even saying this as someone to be like, “oh well, look I should be able to say it,” but I will say, it was an observation that was not, it wasn't completely, you know, it wasn't as articulate, articulated as it could be and now here we are, and you know, now you don't apologize for me because next time I talk about them, I’m going to say “just like Ziwe says” and then I'm going to go into my room.

Ziwe: Oh my goodness. Now, Yassir, you identify as light-skinned. On Another Round, a year ago, you said that “dark-skinned dudes are muscular and can show up in t-shirts to events.”

Yassir Lester: Yes.

Ziwe: Why would you say that?

Yassir Lester: Because I, my theory is that light plays better off darker skin so there's more muscle definition, but like the lighter you get, that's why white dudes don't look as muscular as black people, like no matter how buff they are, because like the light doesn't show enough definition, and light-skinned dudes, we don't have as much color so it doesn't look as good like…like the best you can look as a muscular light skin dude is like Drake. Like it's like big, but it ain't like…maybe Boris Kodjoe.

Ziwe: Have you ever worn colored contacts before?

Yassir Lester: I, I mean this sincerely, that is a very light skin question, and I never have. Like but see the fact that you asked me means that you know light-skinned dudes are a problem.

Ziwe: I don't, I don't discriminate. I will, I support people of all colors. Now, here's a question for you. Oh, you described yourself as “the wokest male intersectional feminist of all time.”

Yassir Lester: Yeah.

Ziwe: How, how do you exemplify that in your day-to-day life?

Yassir Lester: This is actually, now it was taken a little bit out of context, but I'll also say that like so much of being an intersectional male feminist or anything is just recognizing the humanity and people. Like, I don't know, I don't know any Sri Lankans but I know that they're human beings, and I will treat them as such. I like, this idea that we all, like this idea that it's so hard to, to recognize the differences that have another…

Yassir Lester moves the camera, and Ziwe spots another printed out “piece of artwork.”

Ziwe: Does that say “Tory Lanez is innocent”?

Yassir Lester: Like yeah, that's another piece of art that I have. I just like art. But I say all that to say, that like, you know all these people being like I'm doing the reading and blah blah blah, it's just like yes, but also like if you recognize the humanity in anyone, you will want to fight for them because you see yourself in that person knowing that your struggles are different and knowing that your, your circumstances are different, shouldn't matter. You should recognize that they are different, and in that you should want to help them knowing that things are a problem for them.

Ziwe: Would you, would you agree to paying every Sri Lankan in the comment section money since you're rich and reparations?

Yassir Lester: [laughs] Look if any Sri Lankans show up in here, hit me up. Literally hit my Instagram, and I'll see what I can do. I don't know what the conversion rate is. Oh, yeah, you have to be in Sri Lanka, you can’t be getting American money cause I’ll go broke.

Ziwe: Wow. Okay, so Yassir so, you were a black writer on the HBO’s TV show, Girls –

Yassir Lester: Yeah.

Ziwe: Are you responsible for the black boyfriend story line?

Yassir Lester: Uh, was that with Donald Glover?

Ziwe nods.

Yassir Lester: I was not. I wasn’t on the show yet. I didn’t come until seasons four and five. Five and six, sorry.

Ziwe: Okay, cool. I actually didn’t know you were a writer on that show.

Yassir Lester: Ye-ah-p.

Ziwe: Nice.

Yassir Lester: Yeah.

Ziwe: I would consider you a very successful actor, writer, producer. You’re actually really flashy with like the clothes that you wear. You rock a lot of designer. You have maybe four or five gold chains on this very moment.

Yassir Lester: Yeah.

Ziwe: My question for you is are you a class traitor?

Yassir Lester: Am I a class traitor? I think a little bit everyone kind of is who reaches a certain level of success because at the end of the day like, I mean it sincerely, I was homeless-homeless. Homeless growing up. I was homeless when I got to LA. Slept in my car. I've done all of it. Like there was full months where all I ate were tortilla chips for breakfast, lunch, and dinner because I was stealing him from the job that I had. And to say that like I would be willing to give that all up is a little, err to give all this up, which isn't a lot, but like to, to ensure everyone is okay, I don't know if I would, and I know that's bad. I know it's bad, but I also don't think everyone deserves not to struggle. They’re, like you think, not everyone is good, and so for me to be like, oh, yeah that person who, you know, called me a n-word [Yassir actually says it – JG] in 7th grade also deserves the same things I have is a lie, and I do not, and I will not allow them to relish in my successes.

Ziwe: Wow. Wow! Okay, you got in trouble for a fake tweet about Jersey Mike's where you said that they changed the BLT to bacon, lettuce, and ‘mato. What about Black Lives Matter is funny to you?

Yassir Lester: Nothing about Black Lives Matter is funny to me, and I'll say that as a matter of fact, I did it more as a call-out to corporations, as a call-out to white liberals who –

Ziwe: Sure.

Yassir Lester: -- easily fall into these traps of being like I'll post the black square, I'll do that. They’re always looking for the easy way out and so all these companies came out and said like we're going to do what it takes, and we're going to do this, and no one did anything. And more so, and even scarier, is the fact that something so ridiculous could take off because people believed it. It means that we are in such a bad way with these companies and corporations and with faux liberalism that people were like, “oh, yeah, this has to be real.” That's scary. I would say two years ago, if you posted something like that people would automatically go “this is a joke,” right, but now we live in such an era of everyone racing to be, again, the faux-wokest that something like that doesn't even register as humor anymore.

Ziwe: Okay. Two years ago, you said that “it was easier to talk about Cecil the lion versus Black Lives Matter.” Do you think that's still the case?

Yassir Lester: It was easier for white people to talk about it.

Ziwe: Do you think that's still the case?

Yassir Lester: Yes, absolutely. Because like, here's the thing, because as a country everyone agrees that killing a lion for no reason is bad, right? Everyone from coast to coast, you know, you got people in Oklahoma bawling their eyes out for an African lion they've never met, but if you mentioned Tamir Rice, if you mentioned Trayvon Martin, if you mentioned Rekia Boyd, all these kids, there’s still a level of what did they do? And so that in and of itself proves that it's much harder to have those conversations because they don't recognize their humanity.

Ziwe: Yeah, I agree with you on that. So one last question is why did you decide to come onto the show?

Yassir Lester: You are my friend, and I think you're hilarious, and I love the show, and I think so much of what the public perception of what people are is so like so sanitized and like here’s the thing, realistically I get in trouble for things that I say all the time –

Ziwe: Yes.

Yassir Lester: And I would rather, I would rather it be with you and you know, at least, at least it’s a black hand nailing my final hand to the cross then a buncha, you know, bunch of weird Rick and Morty nerds.

Ziwe: Okay, wow, well that’s Yassir Lester. Everyone please go follow this hilarious, hilarious man. Bye, Yassir!

Yassir Lester: Bye!