Episode 10 - The Rainbow Sign

CLOCK STARTS

HOST

Caller, you’re on the air.

CALLER

I think you’re right. My neighbor just turned  black last week. Now he’s going to these secret  meetings with others of his kind. I don’t trust  them. I wanna know what they’re up to!  

HOST  

See, I miss those days when a man had the common  decency to look you in the eye as he slid the  knife between-  

CUT TO

SHEPHERD

And see, that’s where I have to challenge you Mr. Sailor. If anything, doesn’t the whole American experiment disprove your point? We have many people of different cultures sharing aspects of their culture together. Also, there is no evidence that the Black Friday phenomenon is part of any conspiracy to do anything. More to the point, which culture does it erase?

SAILOR

Look, we don’t know any of that yet. But historically, even in America, have you ever noticed how the Chinese people live in one place and the Ethiopians live in another? There’s nothing wrong with preferring to be among your own people.

SHEPHERD

Again, Mr. Sailor, I have to challenge that point. The reason that American cities had ethnic enclaves wasn’t because people wanted to live next to their own. It was because of rampant housing discrimination. For decades, America literally had a Chinese Exclusion Act in force. Are you saying that you want to return to that era?

SAILOR

I am simply saying that individuals who share a cultural affinity should be able to live with other people who share that cultural affinity. If they want to. They shouldn’t be forced to live next to people with whom they have nothing in co-

CUT to STATIC

STATIC FADES

The room is large, and seats are set in a semi-circle. At one table, MYA (‘maya’), the facilitator is setting up books, pamphlets and resources. ANDREW opens the door and addresses MYA.

ANDREW

Hey I'm looking for the group called the Rainbow Sign. Is this where we meet up?

MYA.

You’ve found it. Hi, my name is Mya.

ANDREW

Hi Mya. I’m Andrew

(beat)

Is it just you and me?

MYA

Usually folks stream in right when we begin. But please, have a seat.

ANDREW finds a seat and places his satchel on the floor.

BRIAN enters

BRIAN

Hey Mya!

MYA

Welcome Brian.

BRIAN

You must be new. I’m Brian.

ANDREW

I’m Andrew.

BRIAN

Nice to meet you. Is this your first support group?

ANDREW

Yup.

BRIAN

Everyone’s pretty cool. I’ve done this group thing for lots of reasons over the years. This is a good one.

ANDREW

(beat) … thanks.

BRIAN

(laughs nervously)

Of course, I’d say that. But hey, I just wanted to make you feel welcome as-

CAMILLE enters.

CAMILLE

Brian, why are you scaring the newbie?

BRIAN

I was not, Camille.

CAMILLE

Hi, I’m Camille.

ANDREW

I’m Andrew. 

CAMILLE

Hey Mya, Dennis and Erica won’t be able to make it tonight. They got caught up in work. I think it will just be us and the newbie.

MYA

I just got their texts. So I suppose we could get started.

(beat)

As you all can see, we clearly have someone new here. I know you introduced yourselves to each other, but I like to start by introducing yourself to the group as a whole.

(very long beat)

BRIAN

I can start. I’m Brian, everyone. I’m 29. I’ve lived in this area my whole life. I changed about a year ago now and I’ve just sort of been working through it ever since.

(beat)

I like to travel, hike, and go rock climbing. I live with my boyfriend. What else is there? I think that’s it.

(long beat)

CAMILLE

Hi, I’m Camille. I changed way back in season one-

ANDREW

Season one?

CAMILLE

(laughs)

Yeah. Sorry, it’s a little inside joke that means “a long time ago.” I changed before Tenebra became a thing. Anyway, I’ve been like this for nearly three years now.

(beat)

I’m 36, a nurse by training, but now I’m back in school to get my masters’ degree. I’m a quiet homebody usually. I try to stay out of trouble. I think that’s it.

MYA

Thank you both for sharing. I’m Mya - I facilitate these groups. I’ve been a person of color all my life, and I believe in creating spaces where anyone can thrive. In my day job, I’m a therapist and I run corporate training sessions for human resource departments. But this is where I feel I do my best work.

 (long beat)

ANDREW

Hi, I’m Andrew. I’m 28. I grew up in Seattle and moved out here for school. I work in media, basically.

(beat)

I changed about eight weeks ago. It was a huge shock. And I guess I’m still trying to figure it out.

(beat)

I don’t know what else to say.

MYA

Welcome to the group Andrew.

CAMILLE and BRIAN

Welcome to the group.

MYA

Does anyone have anything they’d like to share?

CAMILLE

I would.

MYA

Go ahead Camille.

CAMILLE

I recently decided to grow my hair out.

BRIAN

Really? No more head wraps?

CAMILLE

Yes. I think I’m ready.

MYA

That’s a significant step for you Camille.

CAMILLE

I know, right? I was terrified of not being able to handle it. I think a whole lot of my identity used to be in my hair. I was afraid I’d lost it forever when I changed. But that’s not actually true, is it?

MYA

It’s not. You’re still you, and your hair will be beautiful.

BRIAN

Good for you, Camille.

CAMILLE

I guess I just got tired of not accepting myself, you know?

ANDREW

How do you mean?

CAMILLE

I don’t really know if I can explain it, but I just … I just felt that if I let my hair grow out, then I was giving up on myself.

ANDREW

This is going to sound insensitive, but … why is your hair so important?

CAMILLE

(laughs)

I’m not sure if I can explain that very well.

MYA

Would you like me to take a swing at explaining it, Camille?

CAMILLE

Please go ahead.

MYA

Maya Angelou once said that a woman’s hair is her glory, Andrew. For some people, the Black Friday phenomenon completely changes the color and texture of their hair. It can be a jarring experience. In a real sense some women feel robbed of their glory. Camille is choosing to embrace the change. She sees it as progress.

ANDREW

I think I get it.

CAMILLE

Another reason is that there’s just so much more support out there than I realized.

MYA

Black women have been styling hair for thousands of years. You are in good hands.

ANDREW

(beat)

Have any of you thought about … you know. Taking it?

BRIAN

It? You mean Tenebra?

ANDREW

Yeah.

BRIAN

Never. Tenebra is a fucked up thing to begin with, I think.

MYA

Brian, remember what we’ve spoken about?

BRIAN

Right. Focus on my feelings. Sorry.

ANDREW

The phenomenon didn’t faze you when it changed you?

BRIAN

Of course it did. I was terrified. But I was still myself.

ANDREW

Yeah, but wouldn’t it be easier to just change back?

BRIAN

(laughs)

You think it’s that easy? Just change back? Let’s say I could even afford Tenebra, which I can’t. There’s no way you live in this skin for any amount of time and just “go back” to the way things were. No way.

ANDREW

What do you mean?

 (beat)

 CAMILLE

Honestly? For me it started really small. With how patients at work started treating me differently. Coworkers too. Suddenly there were just … more complaints about me even when I hadn’t changed anything about my bedside manner or how I treated anyone. It’s like …

(beat)

It’s like all of a sudden, I wasn’t as competent anymore. Or less trustworthy. It’s why I decided to go back to school, really.

ANDREW

All because you changed?

CAMILLE

I think it’s a big part of it.

ANDREW

But you’re going back to school, so it sounds like you’re making the best of this situation.

CAMILLE

See, that’s the frustrating part though. Was I just happy and naive to coast along as I did before? Was I getting by on just being mediocre without ever knowing it? What kind of person was I before I changed? Just some naive white chick? I don’t want to be the kind of person who just … blindly plods along to the grave, you know? It’s just -

MYA

Camille, if I may interject here.

CAMILLE

Please do. I’m just rambling now.

MYA

Andrew, the Black Friday phenomenon simply changes a person’s skin color. But that change has deep ramifications in our society. That’s what this group is about. Whether or not you decide to take Tenebra is entirely up to you. But this lived experience will be with you forever. How can you come to terms with it? That is what this group is for.

ANDREW

I guess I understand.

ANDREW (cont)

I have to admit, when I first changed I immediately thought about taking Tenebra. But for some reason, I just didn’t.

(beat)

I guess it was shame? Like, how much harder is it to live with this skin, really? I think I wanted to show myself that it wasn’t that bad.

BRIAN

Did your friends give you any grief about virtue signaling?

ANDREW

Yes! It’s so fucking frustrating. “Oh you’re just trying to be PC” or “You just want that affirmative action.” Like fuck that.

CAMILLE

Affirmative action preference? Ha! Gimme a break. They should come to my job. This whole thing is more complicated than anyone wants to admit.

BRIAN

Has anyone followed you through a store yet, Andrew?

ANDREW

Not that I’ve noticed.

BRIAN

Keep an eye out for it. You’ve got the build.  

ANDREW

Why would anyone follow me through-

(beat, realization)

Ohhhh.

MYA

Another challenge we face is when we are unfamiliar with just what it’s like to be a person of color in the world. Sometimes these lessons come in subtle ways, like with Camille at work. Other times it’s much more blunt, and the realization only comes slowly. Sometimes traumas build, and sometimes they are very acute. This group is a place to help you process all that.

CAMILLE

Let’s not forget those whackjobs that want to quarantine us. It’s bad enough I have to carry this stupid ID.

ANDREW

My ID card did just arrive in the mail.

BRIAN

Hurray for the Harris Act and the surveillance state. How long was your quarantine?

ANDREW

Just ten days. But hey, I got off work so I won’t complain.

CAMIllE

I think I’m glad I changed before this totalitarian bullshit started.

ANDREW

I guess I’m conflicted. I’ve never even thought about what kind of ID I carry day-to-day. Now it’s got a picture of me before and after I changed.

CAMILLE

The original justification is that A.I. facial detection algorithms sucked at identifying black people. It’s been nearly two years and they still suck. They will not get any better if you ask me.

ANDREW

The technology is bound to get better in time, isn’t it?

CAMILLE

I’m not holding my breath.

BRIAN

It’s just bullshit, Andrew. It’s all bullshit.

ANDREW

Well, I guess there’s a big incentive to take Tenebra and go back to normal.

(beat)

But if you could afford Tenebra, you’d take it?

BRIAN

I don’t think so. No.

ANDREW

How come though? I mean, yeah this blackness thing is complicated. But if you can get out of it, why not?

BRIAN

The main reason I don’t want to go back is because I don’t have anything or anyone I want to go back to. This group - Mya, and the friends I’ve made since I changed have become my family. There’s nothing wrong with me.

Tenebra isn’t medicine, it’s the sickness itself. The same sickness that says there’s something wrong with being anything other than white.

(beat)

Did you know that in colonial Africa, the Europeans used to give whiteness certificates to Africans who took on European ways? They called them ‘evolues’ [E-vol-u-aze] - like they’d evolved from monkeys to people by learning French and embracing Christianity.

(beat)

BRIAN (cont).

Maybe it’s not a direct parallel. I mean, nobody’s cutting anyone’s hands off.

CAMILLE

It’s a little like we’ve been given a new insight into our lives and our world. We aren’t sure we want to abandon it just because it’s “easier.”

BRIAN

Who’s to say it’s even easier?

(beat)

I mean, now there’s the ID cards and the quarantine. Why would it get any better for anyone? Like that fringe dude from that weird little fascist party.

CAMILLE

United Mankind.

BRIAN

Yeah! Thank God nobody is going to vote for those creepy fucks though.

CAMILLE

Don’t be so sure.

BRIAN

Fascist politicians? In the United States of America? It’ll be a cold day in hell before that happens.

(beat)

MYA

The Black Friday phenomenon has come upon us at an anxious time. In The Fire Next Time James Baldwin directly asks whether white Americans would start systematically murdering Black people. He wasn’t sure it was so farfetch'd.

ANDREW

Whoa. That took a sudden turn.

MYA

I want to encourage you all to speak out your anxieties and share them with the group. Camille, are you anxious about what might happen to you now? Are you anxious about what might happen to Black people in general?

CAMILLE

I guess so. But it’s just so … unthinkable.

BRIAN

We could have said the same thing about acute spontaneous melanization.

ANDREW

Pardon?

BRIAN

It’s the science name for what we’ve got. It just means you got a case of sudden random blackness.

ANDREW

I want to take it up, Camille. Maybe you’re right and we should be planning a way to get out if things get worse. But where would we go? How would we get there?

CAMILLE

(beat)

I don’t think it makes a difference if we plan a way out. When the shit hits the fan, do you know who to trust?

BRIAN

I’ve got my boyfriend, and his family are nothing but welcoming.

CAMILLE

Then they’ll come and round them up too.

ANDREW

Who will come to round up who?

CAMILLE

The government? The National Guard? I dunno. It feels naive to think you’re safe anywhere.  

BRIAN

Even here in this group?

CAMILLE

(long beat)

Maybe.

MYA

Humans have a deep need for safety and connection. The best way for anyone to be safe is when all of us take care of each other. The world is a messy place, and not everyone is worthy of your trust. But that is what this group is for - it’s to help you deal with the anxiety of desiring connection, and the fear that comes up. From here, we can learn to discern when a person is a threat. And I want to thank you, Camille, for bringing that to the group. Hopefully we can continue to talk about it.

ANDREW

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I treated people in the past. I used to be one of those people who “didn’t see color”. But now ...

(beat)

Now I’m not so sure. I’m carrying a card that definitely sees color. I’m talking to people who definitely see my color first. When this Black Friday thing started, I thought it would actually make people more empathetic. I don’t think that’s happening though.

MYA

It’s quite easy to slip into despair, especially once we become aware of how deeply embedded racism is in our society. But at the same time, we have this group. A small number of people who haven’t given into despair and have decided to support each other.

CAMILLE

Yeah, I just realized that, for the most part, Black people have been nothing but welcoming.

BRIAN

(laughs)

Yeah, Black Friday is part of the Black experience, I guess.

MYA

I’m always saying that Blackness is not a monolith. There is no single, quintessential Black experience. And maybe the Black Friday phenomenon is a new addition to the Black experience. The thing to remember is that the Black experience is fundamentally the human experience. Has anything about your change made you reflect on that?

ANDREW

Possibly off topic, but don’t you think it’s unfair though? We come along and just … co-opt your culture, your fashion, your time, and your resources?

MYA

Oh honey, white people do that all the time anyway. But here, in this group, is a place for all of us to support each other. Hopefully what we make here can be applied in a world that is far less tolerant and forgiving.

ANDREW

If I got on Tenebra, would I still be welcome here?

MYA

You can ask the group.

(beat)

CAMILLE

I would welcome you back. You’ve been through the same experience as us, and chose a different path. That’s okay in my book.

BRIAN

I’d … I’d have a harder time. I can’t answer that right now. Mostly because I think Tenebra represents something awful. I don’t know if I can be around people who buy into it.

MYA

And yet, Brian. Many members of our society have taken it. We can’t always tell. Does not knowing whether someone has taken Tenebra make a difference?

BRIAN

I’m still working on it. But yeah. If I find out you took it, I don’t think we could be friends after that. I value honesty and integrity a lot.

MYA

That’s very honest of you Brian, though if I may point out one thing?

BRIAN

Sure.

MYA

If someone is honest with you about taking Tenebra, doesn’t that show they want to stay connected with you? Aren’t they being honest and showing integrity?

BRIAN

Look, I know I’m being weird and inconsistent. That’s just how I feel.

ANDREW

Thank you for sharing how you feel.

MYA

That is what this group is for, Andrew. Sharing our feelings and processing them together.

(beat)

MYA (cont)

We’ll have to stop for tonight, and we can start again next week.  Andrew since this is your first time, we like to end session with an invocation.

(beat)

JAMES BALDWIN (from another dimension)

400 years at least three wars.

CUT TO

MYA (cont)

As always, we part with these words of love, wisdom, and warning.

CUT TO

BALDWIN

By the time you are thirty, you have already been through a certain kind of mill.

CUT TO

MYA

There are only a few of us.

CUT TO

BALDWIN

The American soil is already full of the corpses of my ancestors.

CUT TO

MYA

But if we do not falter in our duty to ourselves and to each other-

CUT TO

BALDWIN

Why is my freedom or my citizenship, or my right to live there-

MYA

We may be able to change the history of the world.

CUT TO

BALDWIN

How is it conceivably a question now?

CUT TO

MYA

God gave Noah the rainbow sign.

BRIAN & CAMILLE

No more water.

MYA

Fire, next time.

CUT TO

 BALDWIN

And the most serious effect of the mill you’ve been through, is again, not the catalogue of disaster.

CREDITS:

• MYA - Angelique Lazarus
• ANDREW - Cornelius Mohr
• BRIAN - A.J Beckles
• CAMILLE - Jordan Cobb

BALDWIN

You are thirty by now, and nothing you have done has helped you to escape the trap.

CLOCK TICKS and STOPS