What is up, everybody. I am Roy Wood Jr. I'm a correspondent for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Welcome to Beyond the Scenes. This is the podcast where re journey deeper into the topics and issues that we've addressed on the show and explore them even more to see where we are today on these same issues. And we're gonna do that with some of the show's writers and producers and special guests. You're not like on the actual Daily Show, we do between the scenes, but see now we're going beyond. I'm gonna say it just like that every time Beyond the Scenes. Today we're gonna be talking about mental health in the Black community. Now, this is a topic that we dealt with on the show back in December of nineteen. There are a few groups who could stand for benefit from therapy more than black people. I mean, think about all the things black people who have been through slavery, segregation, winter, all equally traumatic experiences. But unfortunately, even ou therapy has become more mainstream, the black community has had a tough time getting the help that they need. Now. I don't know if you heard was a crazy year, all right, A little bit off you know, you had the pandemic, we had the election, We had the uprisings that occurred after the murders of George Floyd, Ahmad Aubrey, Brianna Taylor. Needless to say, we were a country that needs in therapy, especially Black people. But seeing the Black community, access to mental health care is lacking. Black and Hispanic children are less likely to get mental health care than white kids, and studies show that irritability and the average white teenager is often labeled as depression. That same behavior is more likely to be seen as disruptive and Black or Latino children and doctors say that can lead to feelings of hopelessness at a very young age. We have a stigma in the Black community when it comes to dealing with mental health. Black students say where they come from a shameful to talk about anxiety, depression, and trauma, making the crisis worse. Not enough African American therapists today only four percent of psychologists are black. It's a serious issue. And then having to talk the therapist who don't understand you, that can make matters even worse. Like imagine wasting half of your session explaining what whiling out means, like you'd have to stop every ten minutes talking to the white therapist to break down some of the damnabonics. Or imagine how awkward it gets telling your white therapist that you're in therapy, because white people like that'd be like the road Runner talking to another coyote about wildly coyote. And I don't have time to break this down the segment that we did on the show that was only six and a half minutes, and there's a lot more to explore with this issue, and that's why we have to go beyond the scenes. So to help me do that, I'd like to bring in two wonderful, wonderful people from The Daily Show. I saw these people in the hallway numerous times before the shutdown. First up, I'd like to introduce Ashton Womac. He is a producer and researcher for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Ashton day to you, sir, from Parts unknown, wherever you are whatever, Roy, It's gonna stay parts unknown because I don't trust nobody on the internet. What up, You're literally on the internet right now talking to me. But that's okay. The last you just heard is that of one of our many Emmy nominated writers on The Daily Show. She is X Mayo X. What is happening? Hello? Roy? Now it's my job to take this topic and kind of merge where YouTube came in, because you both have different entry points, but you all are integral parts and how the show is created on the day to day. The best thing that the best analogy I can give to these two for the listeners. Um, you know you have a producer research and you have a writer. The producer researcher. He goes in shops for the groceries. The writer is the shift. Is that analogy? Does that make sense at all? Does that even? Yeah, that's a great analogy. I bring the popcorn, the apples, the milk, and then I tell her to make me and I say, what the fund is? This as dollars? What am I supposed to do with popcorn, apples and milk? But I okay, yes that sounds wold, but that's literally how the show is made. One person has an idea or an issue or a problem. Ashton will go to Trevor and the producers and go, hey, not only helten to the black people. If we need a hug and nobody's hugging us in the people that can give you a professional hug you can't. And then X goes, Okay, I'll figure out a way to make that funny. You go sit down somewhere and have yourself some milk and apples. So, Ashton, I'll start with you. So, how did you settle on black mental health? And clearly the pitch was so good that we actually put it on the show. So what was what was your entry point into this topic? Uh? The entry point was actually, I wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna submit that idea at all. I had had. My packet was already done. I was at the end of my packet and I was looking at it and it was it was a topic that's been in my head, and I was looking at the topics I was talking about, and I was like, if I'm gonna submit a packet, I'm gonna talk about something. I'm not gonna talk about what everybody is not necessarily what everybody's talking about, but I'm gonna put my flavor on it. What is something that's deeply inside of me that I want to talk about, and that mental health issues is like I don't want to say mental health issues something I had to overcome. I think that's something many people, everyone in this country faces, everybody on the planet faces mental health issues. And that was something for me that kind of really helped define my adulthood. Was battling, um, just battling trying to stay mentally healthy. No one teaches you how to You learn how to do push ups, you learn how to eat right, but no one tells you how to keep your brain your brain right, how to keep positive thoughts, or how to seeing where the source of your problems were. So like, I had a personal, very personal, uh encounter with dealing with running up against the problems of trying to find therapy and mental health. Uh, not just advocates, but someone who could help me get out of the dark hole and beat depression, depression, and uh, you know, I found in when battling my own depression that in our own community we have certain stigmas, we have there's a lot of roadblocks in battling depression. Sometimes, you know, depressed. I grew up. It was a depression as a joke, like depression Black people go through so much, You've got depression, And so it used to be a punch line to me. And now I unfortunately ran into the actual ramifications of actual depression. You have your own journey with this issue, and then you settle on this. You go, you make the decision, all right, I'm gonna pitch as a topic. So now you have to dig and start finding stuff. What was something that you didn't know? Like? What illuminate me if you will on What were some of the things that you discovered as you start going down because you have to, because when you're pitching the segment, it's not just why it's important, it's here's all of the potholes, here's all that is. I like to call it to God damn. Like every story that's in the field department, we don't leave. It's called you don't leave the building unless your story gotta well, God damn. So what was in your research? What did you find? Uh? It was there was a lot of god dams. For real, there's a lot of God damns. One was like when I when I was researching, it was the amount of black therapist that actually existed. It's one thing. It started when I went to go search for my own personal therapy. I went to the church first, but then when it came up to actually trying to find a culturally competent therapist. I found out there's only four of black therapist out here in America. That's a and how many other motherfucker's this in Texas? Uh? Exactly, yeah, exactly, that's a great point, ain't out of him? Only black therapist in Texas? I know? Is come on and so Rida, don't forget first lady, so Rida, Yeah, you know, or listening to a Beyonce album that the only those are the only things I got to cure, cure my soul for right? But yeah, no, that was it was the amount of therapist I think I've I've heard to Roger p Henson in my research finding out people like to Roggi p Henson and her her son was also battling depression, and she realized when she was trying to find um a therapist, culturally competent therapist, like she used the words, it was like finding a unicorn, and it really really is, And it's I think a lot of it has to do with one. You know, it's already hard for black people to get in any kind of medical profession, any any kind of spaces that are like professional in that sense. But to the stigma in our community. It's not you know what I'm saying, it ain't. It ain't something therapy. It's not something that's like widely talked about or like, uh years prior. I think it's becoming more acceptable. But before therapy was a punchline that was some ship white people did. Like we treat therapy like it's white clad or storm in the Capitol. It's not. That's for white people before. Like walking with no shoes on our side, with your feet there in Miami, doing spring break needs to be barefoot in Mississippi. I grew out of it. But I mean that's just more country living. That's a separ Yeah. Yeah, there's there's white in this country. There's two different types of country. You just out in the yard white there for you out running errands. That's a separate conversation. X. Before I come to you lastly, Ashton, talk to me a little bit about the black church and how you said you went to church first. Yeah. Yeah, you know, you sit down with this pastor, walked me through that that conversation, because more often than not a lot of black Jay and I came up, We all all three of us came up in some version of the black church experience, and they usually fast forward it to you need Jesus. So what was the conversation like between you and your pastor when you actually sit down and go, hey, man, something's wrong. It was intense. Uh he he's he brushed me off very, very heavily, and it actually maybe having the past. First off, my mom sent me to the pastor. I told her. I was like, hey Mom, it took me out. It took a lot for me to call my mom because I don't want her to worry. She you know, she's my mom and she loved me. But then I got to call her and tell her I have, like I'm having these really really negative thoughts. She got on the phone, got me a counseling with the pastor. I get in there and I tell them all my problems. I'm twenty three, I graduated two years ago, and I'm struggling. I once I lost my focus at school. I'm just out here. I'm struggling financially, I'm struggling. I'm just I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm having this like deep existential crisis. But after I told him that I graduated school, he looked at me. He was like, you you graduated college? What are you good? What you what you man? If that ain't the classic pastor response, he literally looks like, I don't have I'm talking to you and I don't got no kind of degree and you're talking to me. Yeah, he like I went to type in school and that was that's it. He was like, man, I don't even know why I took this meet And I was like, I don't even I didn't know what to do. Like also, he's like he was hood and Ship. It's just like I grew up third If you ever in Houston, you know what third Ward is, you know you know you know, yeah, you know what you know how it is over there, And like my, uh my pastor was just hood and ship. He was he like I tell us that people all time. He's like one of the pastors that was like they're going in the middle of service. He would just be admitting the crimes and ship like they'd just be like if we've all we've all murdered and stole out of our mama's purse, We've all we've we've committed to larceny, grand theft, auto, we've burned down the building for the insurance policy, and here come and here come to police. You have a right to remain some period, are you playing my pastor? They get arrested. But we've got so many spin offs we need to go beyond the scenes on that right. So ex Ashton puts all of this research into a nice, beautiful document and he's got to chip in there and celebrities, the lack of black uh therapists, the inability of black people even have the healthcare to pay for him, you know, the church polluting the waters to a degree. How do you sift? Well, first off, how did you become a partist project? Let's start with that. And then one B is how do you sift through all of these pieces to decide what puzzled to a symbol? So I got assigned the piece, So I never really pick anything. Um. As a writer, you do what you are told. God blessed, can work with any ingredients. Hello, Hello, and I and I need to work with the ingredients. I get paid on Friday, God Blessed, this is what's on the menu. Cook it period. I got you so um. So yes, I was assigned this piece with myself and Devin dela Quante and I right with Devon and Zach a lot both of them, Um, both of Italian guys. You wrote the State of Black Ship Me and Zach for you, which was one of my favorite pieces. Um. So yeah, So that's how I got brought onto the project because I was assigned it and then once I looked at it because I'm born and raised in church, um like, I have such a connection to this piece. A lot of this stuff I've already laughed at and it's already like been fun to me. So for me, it was just like time to play. Um. And I had to make sure that some of the stuff wasn't too inside baseball as people say, that's the term we use like within comedy and stuff because if it gets like too specific, I want people to know. I want people to get it, especially white people because they are in power and have positions to change this ship. So I need you to get it. So I had to write the piece and stuff with Devon and so once I got that, they were like, hey, the issue is black people don't have access to there are people what they do, and they don't trust therapists right once they get there, so many barriers to entry. But what they do trust is God and the Black Church because it's helped us get through so much job slavery, okay, George Bush. So we were just like, okay, we're trying to help bring that to the forefriends. I was like, okay, so we're trying to like bring these two worlds together. So we just need we need we need passa and we need mental health. Okay, So we just have to like fuse it. Maybe that's one way we could try and help solve this therapy crisis. We need to make therapy a little bit more like Black Church, and I think it would be pretty dope. I don't know. It's just really hard for me to let people in. And I feel like it's probably because every time I show affection, it just feels like weakness. M hm. Did y'all hear that? Did y'all hear what brother Jabuuky just said? Right here, Brother Jabouki said that he can't show affection because it feels like weakness. But before we can understand what hurt us, you gotta understand who hurts us? Who hurt your brother Jabuki? Wow? Wow? I would probably say my my father because he was really emotionally distant. But then so is his father, which is probably where he got it from the sins of the father passed down from generation to generation. And what will break this cycle other than a reflective analysis of the egos? Hold, oh, you'll sych you so after the break, I want to I want to talk a little bit more about what that experience was like for me, because see, y'all can have all that fun, but at the end of the day, I'm the one that's gonna get all the grief if we don't nail this issue the right way. And I'm the one that's gonna get all the grief if the church is mad. And how we came at him, this is beyond the scenes. We'll be right back now. X. When you all are writing this stuff, do you all ever consider at all? Oh my god, will the correspondent even do this? Will Roy agree to wearing a cross and pretend in and to be a pastor? Or does the body of work of the correspondent inform you on what to do before you even start writing, I'm gonna I'm gonna go with b That my final answer. Uh that for me, I was just like Roy's gonna do this ship Roy is from Bama. Please he's gonna do this. He knows what it is. And also Roy knows I'm writing this. He know I'm gonna say no ship that's gonna make him look stupid. And I am a believer like I am, I am, I'm not confused. I love my Jesus, okay. So I wasn't going to write anything also that would be demeaning, disrespectful, or dilute the power that we believe as Christians about God. So I wasn't gonna write anything disrespectful. I wasn't gonna have Roy be out here like looking crazy uh jabuki as well. So I wrote with that in mind, um always, but I knew what you would do and wouldn't do because you're a black man. So I'm not going to have him looking crazy. That was That was always my biggest concern with any issues that are like so with stand Up, I don't know if this is a mission statement or not, but with my comedy, the goal is to show black people that they're not alone and what they're going through, but show everybody else what the hell is going on with black people. Like that's the period, point blank mandate for especially with issues that are concerning black people. Because I'm not trying to make fun of the fact that, because let's be real, a lot of black people go to church because they cannot afford therapy. Talk about it, talk about it. So within that so within that script, I'm scanning it for where the where would I get in trouble whatever I get in trouble with the next time. Okay, you don't want to think, I'll add a pinky ring. And you look good, boy, you look good. You really did the only thing I wanted in addition to the you know, for the people who haven't seen it, Um, I'm in a ridiculously maroon red jacket and I look like a shady Atlantic City casino dealer. M And then I also have the way too much jewelry. You did? You did like he was using that church collection money for something else. Yeah, you look like David Allan Greer and Martin remember when he was at Yeah you did. Yeah, yeah, I just it's just something that I'm very very mindful of. And you know, I came up in the church. And then that's the other thing. I still gotta go back home like my mom was Daily Show, and I don't won't miss turt pulling me to the side at Thanksgiving not seen what you did. He was that pastor you didn't have to that a bad but bad like that that like that's all it. Miss Turk is always in it. Not my mom, my mom's friends. Those are the people that are in the back of my head when I'm running my performance through a behavior filter m and I'm like, will Miss Turk approve it is because if Miss Turk don't approve, my mama gonna be mad because I hadn't made Miss Turk upset and I don't want that drama. So I had the crucifix on. I was just like, don't touch it. Do whatever you do, don't touch it. Don't touch it. It's still comedy. But I think that's like one of the benefits now of having like so many like uh, we have a lot more black people. First off us doing the piece I grew up in. I watched Late Night. I'm a stand up comic. I love I can't wait to be on Late Night. But Late Night is a white or it's a it's a white space. It's like historically been a white space. And so when we did that, when we did that piece, and it was it's my first time at a late night show, late night job, and seeing all these black people, all these black employees, all these people who just it made them It made it feel so right. And the thing that I appreciated was you did have all these black minds in there who if something was wrong, somebody would say something. There's a safety net of like yo that, yeah, let's not let's not we're not trying to tap dance for white people on TV right now now, trying to play on more negative stereotypes. So I think that was one of the coolest benefits of having of having so many uh, this black environment at our show, uh, because it gives us some sort of like more minds to look at something. They'll be like, Yo, let's let's were wilding on that. Let's not do that. Let's let's well that. That goes down to the importance of when we say diversity, it's often a specific black person that echoes whiteness. Right. So that's why it's important to have all different types of black people, right, because there are some black people who don't funk with church. There's some people who weren't born and raised with church. You had a black Christians, you had you had all I'm Black Mormons. I'm right there to everybody. Man. Yeah, everybody was in the building. And it was great too, because I think why it worked is that we were not just making fun of church. This was the juxtaposition with the therapy, with Roy using these technical ass terms for mental health. Was just at at that balance without my God, it was. It was so funny. We self actualized. That's still my favorite, my favorite body. I need you self actualized. You need on self actualized, self actualized, self actual self self, He's plumself deal with his forgotten limery, depression, just this functional abordance of intimacy. He didn't go to prompt goes prompts. So the show is called Beyond the Scenes, and that's what we're gonna do. After the break, after we hear a quick ware from the sponsors, we're gonna talk about what's happening now today with black mental health and the things that are still contributing to a lot of the stresses that black people are going through, and ways that you can get help yourself. We'll be right back. So we've been talking about black mental health as it relates to a segment that we dug into back in ten but I want to kind of come now to today and go beyond the segment and talk a little bit about you know, where we are, you know, as a people when it comes to stress, because that was having ten Tin Tinton guerrillas put on your back and then every month you get another gorilla. Yes, it was executively produced by the devil period. How do we view this sketch now like when you when you have Rihanna Taylor and George Floyd and Albot are Bury and everything that was a lightning rod for a lot of what happened last summer, How do you view this sketch now in the context of that uprising? Part of me feels like we didn't go hard enough. And I'm gonna let y'all continue, But it's like you thought it was an issue in Oh no, but Ashton, I'll start with you. How do you how do you view this? Uh? Well, me personally, I still I'm very proud of what we did. I do of course with new revelations, Yeah, definitely, I definitely agree. I wish we could have gone harder. I wish we could have really told you how dire the situation is, because yeah, we meant we've joked around, we joked about it, We informed people, but the situation is dire, the mental health of especially after last year. It was a point in the summertime where it felt like every day I was waking up checking my phone and there was a new dead black person on my phone. I just woke up, I saw another dead black person, and it it got to me. It was I thought, I literally I've never had this feeling in my life until last summer. I thought I was next. I was, Oh, as soon as I go outside, I'm next. I like legitimately went through the just a whole brand new depression, and I feel like it was a nationwide black depression after made Aubrey George Floyd. Yeah, I do. I agree. I do wish. I wish we kind of would have put more of like, this is a very dire situation and we need so many resources to help out black people in our mental health. You don't have to go down this road if you don't want to, But I'm going to attempt to get you to talk about something that you don't talk about often, you don't tweet about often. You went out to a couple of protests last summer, and you know, as a protester, you got, you know, some firsthand front road treatment. I'm not gonna name cities, but he was out there, and the police was out there too, And what happened to a lot of testers whatever you want to imagine as a listener, happened to my man Ashton. So you come home, right, you come home from this protest? How do you what did you due to deal? Because this is more of a as as we all, especially black people, deal with the stresses of last year. And you don't have access to that type of stuff and the and and at this point this protest, when you was out there protesting, you know, all the therapists was just now figuring out zoom. These motherfucker's didn't know how to underma themselves. It wasn't a lot of good online therapy happening. What were some of your methods of being able to get through that valley during that time as a black person, Because I just think you've had an experience as a black person pre pandemic and during the pandem and that's I think it's one to one. Yeah, no, I guess, I guess yeah. I don't mind talking about it for sure. Uh, it's what happened was I went out to the protests. Uh And as you could see throughout if you paid attention to anything that happened in you know, police were turning up on protesters. Literally, non violent protest became these violent, crazy interactions with the police. Little children, kids out there. They turn it up on kids. And I was I got. I got. I got hit and hit and on the head by a cop for just for following their orders. They told us to turn around. As soon as I turned around, I got clocked on the top of my head, cracked my skull open, and I was bleeding, and it was you know, I'm a com still a comic, so like O, it was very traumatic experience. I'm still a comic. I saw a lot of funny in it, Like when my head cracked open, the first thing I heard was this black girl on the phone. She was like, oh Lord, they're cracking their heads open. It's time to go. And I was like, oh, that's hilarious. She didn't actually feels okay enough, not at all. She was like, they're cracking his heads out and I gotta go, and I was falling down. I was like, that's that's hilarious. And but honestly, at the like the next couple of weeks, it were pretty terrifying. I didn't the protests weren't stopping, and I didn't want that to stop me from this moment, from from standing from from standing up for where something I thought was right. And I felt a fear. I felt a fear of like I don't want to I don't want to go back out there, but I had. I had to overcome it. And the things that got me through it, like you said, I didn't have access to therapy. I wasn't even in therapy at the time, because I should have been in therapy. But what got me through it was I think there's this new wave of people of just people who understand self care and the importance of like taking time for yourself. You gotta you have to take time for your mental your mental health. And I knew that being I'm surrounded by a great set of friends and a great set of people. My surroundings made it a lot easier for me to get through that. And I did a lot of like riding bikes through the parks, I did a lot of things for self care. I did a lot of like meditation, I did a lot of drinking water, just taking I decided to take care of myself and uh and honestly, you know, part of it's probably still compartmentalized. Part of it's probably I don't think about it. I still have, like my shirt, I still have all my I have, I still have like all the items that were like very bloodied up, just as a reminder. But most likely I probably haven't dealt with it the way I should have. I I kind of I kind of just thought I could just meditate it away. I thought I could just you know, but I probably I probably do need to still talk about it. And I probably compartmentalized and didn't healthily take care of it, especially as which is you know, someone who's like an advocate for people taking care of the mental health. You know, you know, no one's perfect. Ain't nobody. Uh, you know, everyone's trying the best I can. I can say, please take care of your mental health while uh I still got some work to do. You know. Sorry, Well, I'll say this, whether the fact that you're aware of it at minimum puts you on first base of dealing with the issue. So you know, you know, me and X got nothing but love for you and That's that's why we're having this conversation, is to help get other people to at least first base X. How do how do you view this sketch now through the context of do you do you feel like the sketch still stands up or is there a need for us to circle back? Do I need to go put on my pastor outfit. I was just about to say, I got I'm about to evail you the second part. It's a part yes. Um, Well, for me, I feel like this sketch holds up because it reflected the times back then. Had what was going on in was going on in nineteen, we would have reflected the times. I think we reflected the time that was nineteen, you know, to be honest, because the thing for me is just kind of like the racism is always here. It's not here, you know, like we're not racist listeners. But what what I'm saying is that if like I feel, we went as hard as we we felt we needed to at that time, Like the people who were a part of this piece and myself and who was in it were very black, you know, like if there was ever a time that we felt like, oh we we could have went harder. Uh, I think we would have right. So I'm I'm I'm very uh satisfied with the work that we did. And I think we reflected the times that we were in. Um so yeah, and I think you know, I I echo Roy for you Ashton. When I saw your post about it, like, I was like full of tears, um because that's just you know, like I have a little brother to air. He was supposed to start learning how to drive last year and I was like, no, the summer is too hot for you, Like we just cannot. So just even things about like him being able to drive a car, like it's always that conversation we have had to have, but he can't. I can't. You can't even learn how to drive right now. So just a natural birthright for a young black man in America. It's like, no, no, Well, first off, I love y'all, Thank y'all everybody. As soon as it happened, I didn't even that's what I like, really love love working at our show doing It's not even it's hard to eve to say work because as soon as it happened, everybody reached out to me. I was like completely unexpected. I was only a daily show for like three months and like five months at that time, and like everybody reached out to me, and I was like, it blew me away that I'm like, you want to talk about something that helped me get through it was the fact that I got to work for this. I worked for this dope ass show that takes it takes my experiences and able to allow me to put it on a bigger platform and possibly relate to more people who've gone through this similar experience and informed people who are blind or who have blinders on, or who just don't know about what black people and minorities are really going through in this country, Like it's I was. I felt literally that was one of the most grateful feelings of seeing how many people reached out to me and knowing that what happened after that was, you know, we made it, We got to make a piece on it, we got to talk about it, we got to talk about go into more in depth. And as soon as I feel like this piece, the Black Therapy piece that we're talking about right now, it kind of it was one of the pieces that like sparked us open to talking about way more stuff in our community that needs to be talked about and so I'm that's why I was like, I'm it's kind of it's kind of hard for me to be like feel sorry for myself when I know I have like I'm surrounded by great people, I have a great job where I get to express all these all this turmoil I get to it's kind of my therapy, to be honest, It's like, where is my therapy? I know I need real therapy, don't get it twisted. I'm you need a Lexa pro my god, but uh, still being able to express in any kind of creative format is a form of therapy. So and and seeing my coworkers expressed like reach out to me, that was that was one of the you know, you know, not a it's a highlight to a terrible situation, but you know made me feel great. Well. I would challenge you, Austin Ashton too, when you said I don't want to feel sorry for myself. I would challenge that language, Like what you went through was a very traumatic, life altering emotional experience. So there is no like feeling sorry quote unquote for yourself. Like I think if you take as much necessary time as you need, because we don't know who's listening, and there could be black people out there listening that have gone through traumatic events a level of violence with the police with white people, whether it be verbal or emotional or physical. So it's not I would challenge that language of you saying I feel sorry for myself. Absolutely not. You are experiencing something life altering and you're doing a great job at it. Well, God, X, I'm too black to blood should kill me. So everyone who just heard that from X, we need you all to venmo us a co pay because that was free therapy that she just gave you. Let's get people some resources. Man. Yeah, that's a great place to end on because we need to give recommendations on you know, places that can aid and spread any more awareness around this issue. Um, actually, act you go first. What's some places people can go? Uh? Well, for starters, check out National counsel dot org. That is a great source of great place for resources for mental health in general, but specifically for culturally competent UH counselors and therapists. There are uh. What I learned in my resource my research was there are a lot more resources springing up for minority communities, Like there's an Iona therapy app it's based out in Los Angeles, but there's an app. It helps you find uh through a questionnaire, helps you find therapists that can help you out because you know that that are that understand where you're coming from culturally. You know it's hard to go to a therapist and you're like, well, like where do you want to unpack? And you're like, where do you want to start? And it's like, black people, we gotta started slavery before we even get to ourselves. We gotta unpack ship for our ancestors and then we can get to ourselves. So it's like you're telling me, I got to deal with Harriet Tubman. Yeah, Harriet Tupman, you need to We love we love talking about our ancestors. Your ancestors need therapy too. Alright there. Hello, Oh Jesus, I wish Harry Tupman would pop up in my in my therapist room during my session. That's our next catch. Hello called those set. There are kinds of people somewhere to go. There are people black girls dot com uh because black women, Lord Jesus, what we've Oh, my Lord, the things we have to manage, my God in the workplace. Holleluja um and uh asked Dr Jes one of my good friends. And she's also a license psychiatrist, beautiful black woman from Alabama, Okay roy and uh Tuskegee alumni. And she she's been on everything. She's been on CBS, she's been on Good Money in America, and she has something called be Well Convo where she interviews black artists. She interviewed Toby, she interviewed Swiss Beats, She's uh interviewed h Kirby, Uh the creator of um damn. What's the name of that clothing line? Oh my god, it's so good and I love it. I'm so sorry it's escaping me. But his name is Kurbido on uh Instagram. But yeah, she's in a lot of dope like tastemakers, trailblazers, artists who are all black and talk to them about them portness of mental health and also I know this may seem kind of like unorthodox, but for me, I really uh learn more about myself watching other people work out their ship. So there's a show called Couples Therapy, and I believe it's on HBO, and it's an actual licensed uh therapist and she's talking to these couples and so much stuff that they were going through. I saw myself so many things was like eye opening. So I think different shows like that. And it's not a reality show, guys, it's a docuseries. Like don't be watching Love Island talking about X said I could watch Love Island, I could work out my daddy and shoes and then what the funk? I said, Okay, And so I think I think those three are because some people are not uh you know, people that want to go to actual therapy, and you know, black people we don't really trust. So if you have to watch a television show to do that to kind of baby your step, baby step your way in to like deal with your ship, then do what you need to do. Well. Look, I can't thank you all enough for taking a little bit of time out of your day to sit down and go beyond the scenes with me. That's all the time we have for to day, and hopefully we've successfully taking you beyond the scenes. I'm Roy Wood Jr. That's Ashton Walmac and that is ex Mayo. That's the only name you get from her because she's hiding from the government. Mayo. Listen to the Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to go even further beyond the Scenes. Check out the video version of Beyond the Scenes on the Daily Show's YouTube page.

What is up, everybody. I am Roy Wood Jr. I'm a correspondent for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Welcome to Beyond the Scenes. This is the podcast where re journey deeper into the topics and issues that we've addressed on the show and explore them even more to see where we are today on these same issues. And we're gonna do that with some of the show's writers and producers and special guests. You're not like on the actual Daily Show, we do between the scenes, but see now we're going beyond. I'm gonna say it just like that every time Beyond the Scenes. Today we're gonna be talking about mental health in the Black community. Now, this is a topic that we dealt with on the show back in December of nineteen. There are a few groups who could stand for benefit from therapy more than black people. I mean, think about all the things black people who have been through slavery, segregation, winter, all equally traumatic experiences. But unfortunately, even ou therapy has become more mainstream, the black community has had a tough time getting the help that they need. Now. I don't know if you heard was a crazy year, all right, A little bit off you know, you had the pandemic, we had the election, We had the uprisings that occurred after the murders of George Floyd, Ahmad Aubrey, Brianna Taylor. Needless to say, we were a country that needs in therapy, especially Black people. But seeing the Black community, access to mental health care is lacking. Black and Hispanic children are less likely to get mental health care than white kids, and studies show that irritability and the average white teenager is often labeled as depression. That same behavior is more likely to be seen as disruptive and Black or Latino children and doctors say that can lead to feelings of hopelessness at a very young age. We have a stigma in the Black community when it comes to dealing with mental health. Black students say where they come from a shameful to talk about anxiety, depression, and trauma, making the crisis worse. Not enough African American therapists today only four percent of psychologists are black. It's a serious issue. And then having to talk the therapist who don't understand you, that can make matters even worse. Like imagine wasting half of your session explaining what whiling out means, like you'd have to stop every ten minutes talking to the white therapist to break down some of the damnabonics. Or imagine how awkward it gets telling your white therapist that you're in therapy, because white people like that'd be like the road Runner talking to another coyote about wildly coyote. And I don't have time to break this down the segment that we did on the show that was only six and a half minutes, and there's a lot more to explore with this issue, and that's why we have to go beyond the scenes. So to help me do that, I'd like to bring in two wonderful, wonderful people from The Daily Show. I saw these people in the hallway numerous times before the shutdown. First up, I'd like to introduce Ashton Womac. He is a producer and researcher for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Ashton day to you, sir, from Parts unknown, wherever you are whatever, Roy, It's gonna stay parts unknown because I don't trust nobody on the internet. What up, You're literally on the internet right now talking to me. But that's okay. The last you just heard is that of one of our many Emmy nominated writers on The Daily Show. She is X Mayo X. What is happening? Hello? Roy? Now it's my job to take this topic and kind of merge where YouTube came in, because you both have different entry points, but you all are integral parts and how the show is created on the day to day. The best thing that the best analogy I can give to these two for the listeners. Um, you know you have a producer research and you have a writer. The producer researcher. He goes in shops for the groceries. The writer is the shift. Is that analogy? Does that make sense at all? Does that even? Yeah, that's a great analogy. I bring the popcorn, the apples, the milk, and then I tell her to make me and I say, what the fund is? This as dollars? What am I supposed to do with popcorn, apples and milk? But I okay, yes that sounds wold, but that's literally how the show is made. One person has an idea or an issue or a problem. Ashton will go to Trevor and the producers and go, hey, not only helten to the black people. If we need a hug and nobody's hugging us in the people that can give you a professional hug you can't. And then X goes, Okay, I'll figure out a way to make that funny. You go sit down somewhere and have yourself some milk and apples. So, Ashton, I'll start with you. So, how did you settle on black mental health? And clearly the pitch was so good that we actually put it on the show. So what was what was your entry point into this topic? Uh? The entry point was actually, I wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna submit that idea at all. I had had. My packet was already done. I was at the end of my packet and I was looking at it and it was it was a topic that's been in my head, and I was looking at the topics I was talking about, and I was like, if I'm gonna submit a packet, I'm gonna talk about something. I'm not gonna talk about what everybody is not necessarily what everybody's talking about, but I'm gonna put my flavor on it. What is something that's deeply inside of me that I want to talk about, and that mental health issues is like I don't want to say mental health issues something I had to overcome. I think that's something many people, everyone in this country faces, everybody on the planet faces mental health issues. And that was something for me that kind of really helped define my adulthood. Was battling, um, just battling trying to stay mentally healthy. No one teaches you how to You learn how to do push ups, you learn how to eat right, but no one tells you how to keep your brain your brain right, how to keep positive thoughts, or how to seeing where the source of your problems were. So like, I had a personal, very personal, uh encounter with dealing with running up against the problems of trying to find therapy and mental health. Uh, not just advocates, but someone who could help me get out of the dark hole and beat depression, depression, and uh, you know, I found in when battling my own depression that in our own community we have certain stigmas, we have there's a lot of roadblocks in battling depression. Sometimes, you know, depressed. I grew up. It was a depression as a joke, like depression Black people go through so much, You've got depression, And so it used to be a punch line to me. And now I unfortunately ran into the actual ramifications of actual depression. You have your own journey with this issue, and then you settle on this. You go, you make the decision, all right, I'm gonna pitch as a topic. So now you have to dig and start finding stuff. What was something that you didn't know? Like? What illuminate me if you will on What were some of the things that you discovered as you start going down because you have to, because when you're pitching the segment, it's not just why it's important, it's here's all of the potholes, here's all that is. I like to call it to God damn. Like every story that's in the field department, we don't leave. It's called you don't leave the building unless your story gotta well, God damn. So what was in your research? What did you find? Uh? It was there was a lot of god dams. For real, there's a lot of God damns. One was like when I when I was researching, it was the amount of black therapist that actually existed. It's one thing. It started when I went to go search for my own personal therapy. I went to the church first, but then when it came up to actually trying to find a culturally competent therapist. I found out there's only four of black therapist out here in America. That's a and how many other motherfucker's this in Texas? Uh? Exactly, yeah, exactly, that's a great point, ain't out of him? Only black therapist in Texas? I know? Is come on and so Rida, don't forget first lady, so Rida, Yeah, you know, or listening to a Beyonce album that the only those are the only things I got to cure, cure my soul for right? But yeah, no, that was it was the amount of therapist I think I've I've heard to Roger p Henson in my research finding out people like to Roggi p Henson and her her son was also battling depression, and she realized when she was trying to find um a therapist, culturally competent therapist, like she used the words, it was like finding a unicorn, and it really really is, And it's I think a lot of it has to do with one. You know, it's already hard for black people to get in any kind of medical profession, any any kind of spaces that are like professional in that sense. But to the stigma in our community. It's not you know what I'm saying, it ain't. It ain't something therapy. It's not something that's like widely talked about or like, uh years prior. I think it's becoming more acceptable. But before therapy was a punchline that was some ship white people did. Like we treat therapy like it's white clad or storm in the Capitol. It's not. That's for white people before. Like walking with no shoes on our side, with your feet there in Miami, doing spring break needs to be barefoot in Mississippi. I grew out of it. But I mean that's just more country living. That's a separ Yeah. Yeah, there's there's white in this country. There's two different types of country. You just out in the yard white there for you out running errands. That's a separate conversation. X. Before I come to you lastly, Ashton, talk to me a little bit about the black church and how you said you went to church first. Yeah. Yeah, you know, you sit down with this pastor, walked me through that that conversation, because more often than not a lot of black Jay and I came up, We all all three of us came up in some version of the black church experience, and they usually fast forward it to you need Jesus. So what was the conversation like between you and your pastor when you actually sit down and go, hey, man, something's wrong. It was intense. Uh he he's he brushed me off very, very heavily, and it actually maybe having the past. First off, my mom sent me to the pastor. I told her. I was like, hey Mom, it took me out. It took a lot for me to call my mom because I don't want her to worry. She you know, she's my mom and she loved me. But then I got to call her and tell her I have, like I'm having these really really negative thoughts. She got on the phone, got me a counseling with the pastor. I get in there and I tell them all my problems. I'm twenty three, I graduated two years ago, and I'm struggling. I once I lost my focus at school. I'm just out here. I'm struggling financially, I'm struggling. I'm just I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm having this like deep existential crisis. But after I told him that I graduated school, he looked at me. He was like, you you graduated college? What are you good? What you what you man? If that ain't the classic pastor response, he literally looks like, I don't have I'm talking to you and I don't got no kind of degree and you're talking to me. Yeah, he like I went to type in school and that was that's it. He was like, man, I don't even know why I took this meet And I was like, I don't even I didn't know what to do. Like also, he's like he was hood and Ship. It's just like I grew up third If you ever in Houston, you know what third Ward is, you know you know you know, yeah, you know what you know how it is over there, And like my, uh my pastor was just hood and ship. He was he like I tell us that people all time. He's like one of the pastors that was like they're going in the middle of service. He would just be admitting the crimes and ship like they'd just be like if we've all we've all murdered and stole out of our mama's purse, We've all we've we've committed to larceny, grand theft, auto, we've burned down the building for the insurance policy, and here come and here come to police. You have a right to remain some period, are you playing my pastor? They get arrested. But we've got so many spin offs we need to go beyond the scenes on that right. So ex Ashton puts all of this research into a nice, beautiful document and he's got to chip in there and celebrities, the lack of black uh therapists, the inability of black people even have the healthcare to pay for him, you know, the church polluting the waters to a degree. How do you sift? Well, first off, how did you become a partist project? Let's start with that. And then one B is how do you sift through all of these pieces to decide what puzzled to a symbol? So I got assigned the piece, So I never really pick anything. Um. As a writer, you do what you are told. God blessed, can work with any ingredients. Hello, Hello, and I and I need to work with the ingredients. I get paid on Friday, God Blessed, this is what's on the menu. Cook it period. I got you so um. So yes, I was assigned this piece with myself and Devin dela Quante and I right with Devon and Zach a lot both of them, Um, both of Italian guys. You wrote the State of Black Ship Me and Zach for you, which was one of my favorite pieces. Um. So yeah, So that's how I got brought onto the project because I was assigned it and then once I looked at it because I'm born and raised in church, um like, I have such a connection to this piece. A lot of this stuff I've already laughed at and it's already like been fun to me. So for me, it was just like time to play. Um. And I had to make sure that some of the stuff wasn't too inside baseball as people say, that's the term we use like within comedy and stuff because if it gets like too specific, I want people to know. I want people to get it, especially white people because they are in power and have positions to change this ship. So I need you to get it. So I had to write the piece and stuff with Devon and so once I got that, they were like, hey, the issue is black people don't have access to there are people what they do, and they don't trust therapists right once they get there, so many barriers to entry. But what they do trust is God and the Black Church because it's helped us get through so much job slavery, okay, George Bush. So we were just like, okay, we're trying to help bring that to the forefriends. I was like, okay, so we're trying to like bring these two worlds together. So we just need we need we need passa and we need mental health. Okay, So we just have to like fuse it. Maybe that's one way we could try and help solve this therapy crisis. We need to make therapy a little bit more like Black Church, and I think it would be pretty dope. I don't know. It's just really hard for me to let people in. And I feel like it's probably because every time I show affection, it just feels like weakness. M hm. Did y'all hear that? Did y'all hear what brother Jabuuky just said? Right here, Brother Jabouki said that he can't show affection because it feels like weakness. But before we can understand what hurt us, you gotta understand who hurts us? Who hurt your brother Jabuki? Wow? Wow? I would probably say my my father because he was really emotionally distant. But then so is his father, which is probably where he got it from the sins of the father passed down from generation to generation. And what will break this cycle other than a reflective analysis of the egos? Hold, oh, you'll sych you so after the break, I want to I want to talk a little bit more about what that experience was like for me, because see, y'all can have all that fun, but at the end of the day, I'm the one that's gonna get all the grief if we don't nail this issue the right way. And I'm the one that's gonna get all the grief if the church is mad. And how we came at him, this is beyond the scenes. We'll be right back now. X. When you all are writing this stuff, do you all ever consider at all? Oh my god, will the correspondent even do this? Will Roy agree to wearing a cross and pretend in and to be a pastor? Or does the body of work of the correspondent inform you on what to do before you even start writing, I'm gonna I'm gonna go with b That my final answer. Uh that for me, I was just like Roy's gonna do this ship Roy is from Bama. Please he's gonna do this. He knows what it is. And also Roy knows I'm writing this. He know I'm gonna say no ship that's gonna make him look stupid. And I am a believer like I am, I am, I'm not confused. I love my Jesus, okay. So I wasn't going to write anything also that would be demeaning, disrespectful, or dilute the power that we believe as Christians about God. So I wasn't gonna write anything disrespectful. I wasn't gonna have Roy be out here like looking crazy uh jabuki as well. So I wrote with that in mind, um always, but I knew what you would do and wouldn't do because you're a black man. So I'm not going to have him looking crazy. That was That was always my biggest concern with any issues that are like so with stand Up, I don't know if this is a mission statement or not, but with my comedy, the goal is to show black people that they're not alone and what they're going through, but show everybody else what the hell is going on with black people. Like that's the period, point blank mandate for especially with issues that are concerning black people. Because I'm not trying to make fun of the fact that, because let's be real, a lot of black people go to church because they cannot afford therapy. Talk about it, talk about it. So within that so within that script, I'm scanning it for where the where would I get in trouble whatever I get in trouble with the next time. Okay, you don't want to think, I'll add a pinky ring. And you look good, boy, you look good. You really did the only thing I wanted in addition to the you know, for the people who haven't seen it, Um, I'm in a ridiculously maroon red jacket and I look like a shady Atlantic City casino dealer. M And then I also have the way too much jewelry. You did? You did like he was using that church collection money for something else. Yeah, you look like David Allan Greer and Martin remember when he was at Yeah you did. Yeah, yeah, I just it's just something that I'm very very mindful of. And you know, I came up in the church. And then that's the other thing. I still gotta go back home like my mom was Daily Show, and I don't won't miss turt pulling me to the side at Thanksgiving not seen what you did. He was that pastor you didn't have to that a bad but bad like that that like that's all it. Miss Turk is always in it. Not my mom, my mom's friends. Those are the people that are in the back of my head when I'm running my performance through a behavior filter m and I'm like, will Miss Turk approve it is because if Miss Turk don't approve, my mama gonna be mad because I hadn't made Miss Turk upset and I don't want that drama. So I had the crucifix on. I was just like, don't touch it. Do whatever you do, don't touch it. Don't touch it. It's still comedy. But I think that's like one of the benefits now of having like so many like uh, we have a lot more black people. First off us doing the piece I grew up in. I watched Late Night. I'm a stand up comic. I love I can't wait to be on Late Night. But Late Night is a white or it's a it's a white space. It's like historically been a white space. And so when we did that, when we did that piece, and it was it's my first time at a late night show, late night job, and seeing all these black people, all these black employees, all these people who just it made them It made it feel so right. And the thing that I appreciated was you did have all these black minds in there who if something was wrong, somebody would say something. There's a safety net of like yo that, yeah, let's not let's not we're not trying to tap dance for white people on TV right now now, trying to play on more negative stereotypes. So I think that was one of the coolest benefits of having of having so many uh, this black environment at our show, uh, because it gives us some sort of like more minds to look at something. They'll be like, Yo, let's let's were wilding on that. Let's not do that. Let's let's well that. That goes down to the importance of when we say diversity, it's often a specific black person that echoes whiteness. Right. So that's why it's important to have all different types of black people, right, because there are some black people who don't funk with church. There's some people who weren't born and raised with church. You had a black Christians, you had you had all I'm Black Mormons. I'm right there to everybody. Man. Yeah, everybody was in the building. And it was great too, because I think why it worked is that we were not just making fun of church. This was the juxtaposition with the therapy, with Roy using these technical ass terms for mental health. Was just at at that balance without my God, it was. It was so funny. We self actualized. That's still my favorite, my favorite body. I need you self actualized. You need on self actualized, self actualized, self actual self self, He's plumself deal with his forgotten limery, depression, just this functional abordance of intimacy. He didn't go to prompt goes prompts. So the show is called Beyond the Scenes, and that's what we're gonna do. After the break, after we hear a quick ware from the sponsors, we're gonna talk about what's happening now today with black mental health and the things that are still contributing to a lot of the stresses that black people are going through, and ways that you can get help yourself. We'll be right back. So we've been talking about black mental health as it relates to a segment that we dug into back in ten but I want to kind of come now to today and go beyond the segment and talk a little bit about you know, where we are, you know, as a people when it comes to stress, because that was having ten Tin Tinton guerrillas put on your back and then every month you get another gorilla. Yes, it was executively produced by the devil period. How do we view this sketch now like when you when you have Rihanna Taylor and George Floyd and Albot are Bury and everything that was a lightning rod for a lot of what happened last summer, How do you view this sketch now in the context of that uprising? Part of me feels like we didn't go hard enough. And I'm gonna let y'all continue, But it's like you thought it was an issue in Oh no, but Ashton, I'll start with you. How do you how do you view this? Uh? Well, me personally, I still I'm very proud of what we did. I do of course with new revelations, Yeah, definitely, I definitely agree. I wish we could have gone harder. I wish we could have really told you how dire the situation is, because yeah, we meant we've joked around, we joked about it, We informed people, but the situation is dire, the mental health of especially after last year. It was a point in the summertime where it felt like every day I was waking up checking my phone and there was a new dead black person on my phone. I just woke up, I saw another dead black person, and it it got to me. It was I thought, I literally I've never had this feeling in my life until last summer. I thought I was next. I was, Oh, as soon as I go outside, I'm next. I like legitimately went through the just a whole brand new depression, and I feel like it was a nationwide black depression after made Aubrey George Floyd. Yeah, I do. I agree. I do wish. I wish we kind of would have put more of like, this is a very dire situation and we need so many resources to help out black people in our mental health. You don't have to go down this road if you don't want to, But I'm going to attempt to get you to talk about something that you don't talk about often, you don't tweet about often. You went out to a couple of protests last summer, and you know, as a protester, you got, you know, some firsthand front road treatment. I'm not gonna name cities, but he was out there, and the police was out there too, And what happened to a lot of testers whatever you want to imagine as a listener, happened to my man Ashton. So you come home, right, you come home from this protest? How do you what did you due to deal? Because this is more of a as as we all, especially black people, deal with the stresses of last year. And you don't have access to that type of stuff and the and and at this point this protest, when you was out there protesting, you know, all the therapists was just now figuring out zoom. These motherfucker's didn't know how to underma themselves. It wasn't a lot of good online therapy happening. What were some of your methods of being able to get through that valley during that time as a black person, Because I just think you've had an experience as a black person pre pandemic and during the pandem and that's I think it's one to one. Yeah, no, I guess, I guess yeah. I don't mind talking about it for sure. Uh, it's what happened was I went out to the protests. Uh And as you could see throughout if you paid attention to anything that happened in you know, police were turning up on protesters. Literally, non violent protest became these violent, crazy interactions with the police. Little children, kids out there. They turn it up on kids. And I was I got. I got. I got hit and hit and on the head by a cop for just for following their orders. They told us to turn around. As soon as I turned around, I got clocked on the top of my head, cracked my skull open, and I was bleeding, and it was you know, I'm a com still a comic, so like O, it was very traumatic experience. I'm still a comic. I saw a lot of funny in it, Like when my head cracked open, the first thing I heard was this black girl on the phone. She was like, oh Lord, they're cracking their heads open. It's time to go. And I was like, oh, that's hilarious. She didn't actually feels okay enough, not at all. She was like, they're cracking his heads out and I gotta go, and I was falling down. I was like, that's that's hilarious. And but honestly, at the like the next couple of weeks, it were pretty terrifying. I didn't the protests weren't stopping, and I didn't want that to stop me from this moment, from from standing from from standing up for where something I thought was right. And I felt a fear. I felt a fear of like I don't want to I don't want to go back out there, but I had. I had to overcome it. And the things that got me through it, like you said, I didn't have access to therapy. I wasn't even in therapy at the time, because I should have been in therapy. But what got me through it was I think there's this new wave of people of just people who understand self care and the importance of like taking time for yourself. You gotta you have to take time for your mental your mental health. And I knew that being I'm surrounded by a great set of friends and a great set of people. My surroundings made it a lot easier for me to get through that. And I did a lot of like riding bikes through the parks, I did a lot of things for self care. I did a lot of like meditation, I did a lot of drinking water, just taking I decided to take care of myself and uh and honestly, you know, part of it's probably still compartmentalized. Part of it's probably I don't think about it. I still have, like my shirt, I still have all my I have, I still have like all the items that were like very bloodied up, just as a reminder. But most likely I probably haven't dealt with it the way I should have. I I kind of I kind of just thought I could just meditate it away. I thought I could just you know, but I probably I probably do need to still talk about it. And I probably compartmentalized and didn't healthily take care of it, especially as which is you know, someone who's like an advocate for people taking care of the mental health. You know, you know, no one's perfect. Ain't nobody. Uh, you know, everyone's trying the best I can. I can say, please take care of your mental health while uh I still got some work to do. You know. Sorry, Well, I'll say this, whether the fact that you're aware of it at minimum puts you on first base of dealing with the issue. So you know, you know, me and X got nothing but love for you and That's that's why we're having this conversation, is to help get other people to at least first base X. How do how do you view this sketch now through the context of do you do you feel like the sketch still stands up or is there a need for us to circle back? Do I need to go put on my pastor outfit. I was just about to say, I got I'm about to evail you the second part. It's a part yes. Um, Well, for me, I feel like this sketch holds up because it reflected the times back then. Had what was going on in was going on in nineteen, we would have reflected the times. I think we reflected the time that was nineteen, you know, to be honest, because the thing for me is just kind of like the racism is always here. It's not here, you know, like we're not racist listeners. But what what I'm saying is that if like I feel, we went as hard as we we felt we needed to at that time, Like the people who were a part of this piece and myself and who was in it were very black, you know, like if there was ever a time that we felt like, oh we we could have went harder. Uh, I think we would have right. So I'm I'm I'm very uh satisfied with the work that we did. And I think we reflected the times that we were in. Um so yeah, and I think you know, I I echo Roy for you Ashton. When I saw your post about it, like, I was like full of tears, um because that's just you know, like I have a little brother to air. He was supposed to start learning how to drive last year and I was like, no, the summer is too hot for you, Like we just cannot. So just even things about like him being able to drive a car, like it's always that conversation we have had to have, but he can't. I can't. You can't even learn how to drive right now. So just a natural birthright for a young black man in America. It's like, no, no, Well, first off, I love y'all, Thank y'all everybody. As soon as it happened, I didn't even that's what I like, really love love working at our show doing It's not even it's hard to eve to say work because as soon as it happened, everybody reached out to me. I was like completely unexpected. I was only a daily show for like three months and like five months at that time, and like everybody reached out to me, and I was like, it blew me away that I'm like, you want to talk about something that helped me get through it was the fact that I got to work for this. I worked for this dope ass show that takes it takes my experiences and able to allow me to put it on a bigger platform and possibly relate to more people who've gone through this similar experience and informed people who are blind or who have blinders on, or who just don't know about what black people and minorities are really going through in this country, Like it's I was. I felt literally that was one of the most grateful feelings of seeing how many people reached out to me and knowing that what happened after that was, you know, we made it, We got to make a piece on it, we got to talk about it, we got to talk about go into more in depth. And as soon as I feel like this piece, the Black Therapy piece that we're talking about right now, it kind of it was one of the pieces that like sparked us open to talking about way more stuff in our community that needs to be talked about and so I'm that's why I was like, I'm it's kind of it's kind of hard for me to be like feel sorry for myself when I know I have like I'm surrounded by great people, I have a great job where I get to express all these all this turmoil I get to it's kind of my therapy, to be honest, It's like, where is my therapy? I know I need real therapy, don't get it twisted. I'm you need a Lexa pro my god, but uh, still being able to express in any kind of creative format is a form of therapy. So and and seeing my coworkers expressed like reach out to me, that was that was one of the you know, you know, not a it's a highlight to a terrible situation, but you know made me feel great. Well. I would challenge you, Austin Ashton too, when you said I don't want to feel sorry for myself. I would challenge that language, Like what you went through was a very traumatic, life altering emotional experience. So there is no like feeling sorry quote unquote for yourself. Like I think if you take as much necessary time as you need, because we don't know who's listening, and there could be black people out there listening that have gone through traumatic events a level of violence with the police with white people, whether it be verbal or emotional or physical. So it's not I would challenge that language of you saying I feel sorry for myself. Absolutely not. You are experiencing something life altering and you're doing a great job at it. Well, God, X, I'm too black to blood should kill me. So everyone who just heard that from X, we need you all to venmo us a co pay because that was free therapy that she just gave you. Let's get people some resources. Man. Yeah, that's a great place to end on because we need to give recommendations on you know, places that can aid and spread any more awareness around this issue. Um, actually, act you go first. What's some places people can go? Uh? Well, for starters, check out National counsel dot org. That is a great source of great place for resources for mental health in general, but specifically for culturally competent UH counselors and therapists. There are uh. What I learned in my resource my research was there are a lot more resources springing up for minority communities, Like there's an Iona therapy app it's based out in Los Angeles, but there's an app. It helps you find uh through a questionnaire, helps you find therapists that can help you out because you know that that are that understand where you're coming from culturally. You know it's hard to go to a therapist and you're like, well, like where do you want to unpack? And you're like, where do you want to start? And it's like, black people, we gotta started slavery before we even get to ourselves. We gotta unpack ship for our ancestors and then we can get to ourselves. So it's like you're telling me, I got to deal with Harriet Tubman. Yeah, Harriet Tupman, you need to We love we love talking about our ancestors. Your ancestors need therapy too. Alright there. Hello, Oh Jesus, I wish Harry Tupman would pop up in my in my therapist room during my session. That's our next catch. Hello called those set. There are kinds of people somewhere to go. There are people black girls dot com uh because black women, Lord Jesus, what we've Oh, my Lord, the things we have to manage, my God in the workplace. Holleluja um and uh asked Dr Jes one of my good friends. And she's also a license psychiatrist, beautiful black woman from Alabama, Okay roy and uh Tuskegee alumni. And she she's been on everything. She's been on CBS, she's been on Good Money in America, and she has something called be Well Convo where she interviews black artists. She interviewed Toby, she interviewed Swiss Beats, She's uh interviewed h Kirby, Uh the creator of um damn. What's the name of that clothing line? Oh my god, it's so good and I love it. I'm so sorry it's escaping me. But his name is Kurbido on uh Instagram. But yeah, she's in a lot of dope like tastemakers, trailblazers, artists who are all black and talk to them about them portness of mental health and also I know this may seem kind of like unorthodox, but for me, I really uh learn more about myself watching other people work out their ship. So there's a show called Couples Therapy, and I believe it's on HBO, and it's an actual licensed uh therapist and she's talking to these couples and so much stuff that they were going through. I saw myself so many things was like eye opening. So I think different shows like that. And it's not a reality show, guys, it's a docuseries. Like don't be watching Love Island talking about X said I could watch Love Island, I could work out my daddy and shoes and then what the funk? I said, Okay, And so I think I think those three are because some people are not uh you know, people that want to go to actual therapy, and you know, black people we don't really trust. So if you have to watch a television show to do that to kind of baby your step, baby step your way in to like deal with your ship, then do what you need to do. Well. Look, I can't thank you all enough for taking a little bit of time out of your day to sit down and go beyond the scenes with me. That's all the time we have for to day, and hopefully we've successfully taking you beyond the scenes. I'm Roy Wood Jr. That's Ashton Walmac and that is ex Mayo. That's the only name you get from her because she's hiding from the government. Mayo. Listen to the Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. I want to go even further beyond the Scenes. Check out the video version of Beyond the Scenes on the Daily Show's YouTube page.