Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

I'm your host, doctor Joy Hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia.

For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com.

While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional.

Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me.

From session four thirty of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast.

We'll get right into our conversation after a word from our sponsors.

It's no longer a nineties kind of world, but I'm so glad we got these girls.

This week on Therapy for Black Girls, we're joined by cultural icons Erica Alexander and Kim Coles, two of the stars of the beloved ninety sitcom Living Single.

Now co hosts of the Reliving Single podcast, Erica and Kim are taking a walk down memory lane, revisiting the episodes that made us laugh, cry, and feel seen.

In this conversation, they share what it's been like to reconnect with their characters and each other, unpacking the hides and loads of fame, the challenges they faced as black women in the entertainment industry, and the mental health journeys that shape them both on and off screen, From navigating rejection and typecasting to learning how to prioritize their healing.

Erica and Kim offer a vulnerable, powerful reflection on sisterhood, creativity, and the importance of telling our own stories.

If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media using the hashtag TVG in Session, or join us over on our Patreon channel to talk more about the episode.

You can join us at community dot therapy for Blackgirls dot Com.

Here's our conversation.

Thank you so much for joining us, Erica and Kim, Thank you.

Doctor Joy.

Thank you for having Thank you, doctor Joy.

I'm very excited.

I've been in anticipating chatting with you all.

So when you were joining Living Single, did you have any idea of the legacy that it would leave behind.

Eric is looking at me because she knows that I always say that I knew the moment the six of us got into a room together we had our first table read.

I felt the magic immediately, and I couldn't have known how long it would go and what it would mean, but it felt like magic and I felt like it was gonna absolutely work.

Yeah, he was the one who knew.

It was twenty three coming into this, and we all were young cooking into this, so legacy no.

I was thinking about pregnancy, like, don't get pregnant that kind.

Then you don't even have an idea of what legacy is.

You get hired to do things and you're hoping that it does well and that you could do your job.

But at the time Kim, they were building the show around Kim and Queen Latifa, so they had already created a significant footprint in the industry enough to get a deal and be popular enough to have a studio create a show for Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I'm doing the work, you know, still still out there.

So that was different, and you come in with different mindsets.

I had come off of in Living Color, like about a year and a half or so prior, and the energy for me on that show was completely different from the energy that I was feeling in this room.

So maybe I was hoping that it would be a great experience because it felt from the beginning that it would be a ring experience, and that other show for me was not that.

I think I put my expectations on this being great because there was such a collaborative experience from the very beginning.

In addition to it being collaborative, what else about the energy felt very different about this project.

I would say that we were all coming from different worlds and different disciplines.

You have Kim Field, who was already a legend and a legacy.

You know, we all grew up wanting to be that little girl who always say with a little fluffy bag, This little black girl was excellent.

We had John Hinton come from the world of stand up, which was my world too.

You had TC Carson, who I didn't know the time, had been singing and dancing and for years and years we'd seen him in that movie Living at Large.

And of course Queen Latifa is Queen Lativa, and Erica Alexander I knew his cousin Pam, and it just felt like we were coming from different worlds, all coming in this intersect action of black Joy.

I love that.

So we've seen other shows like Golden Girls and two two seven kind of play with this idea of the trope of four best friends, but it feels like Living Single really popularized that trope, at least for me.

What would you say about some of the shows that have followed and kind of followed in those footsteps of the four best friends trope.

Well, it kind of seems to be a formula in the recipe that works.

Obviously, there are archetypes built into that.

You can have the friend who's more lusty, you can have the one who's anchored.

If you're looking at our show, we have these archetypes.

Certainly Golden Girls does Sex and the City.

You have one that's also more about money and materialism, and then you also have the one who's more simplistic and innocent and maybe more vulnerable, and that works.

So it's not created by anybody, it's just how some of these things.

The fact that there are other shows, and there are other shows that we're certainly glad that they were successful did so well is the testimony to the show runners who understood that recipe was strong, and then they just put different people in them.

And Erica, you recently had the chance to be on Run the World, which was I think another show that kind of followed in some of that recipe.

What was that like for you?

That was great?

You know, part of that recipe was down to event Lee Bowser being a part of the stew there too, So yeah, it's gone on.

And then there's Harlem too.

Those young women are wonderful performers and actresses.

I think anytime you can create a female centric world, it's good for everyone because for so many centuries and years it was done with a male point of view, certainly a white male point of view.

Most of Hollywood has built their whole library on that.

Those shows often don't hold up as well.

They're not sustainable, they're not organically sustainable.

But where there are women, I just think the nurturing and the long term growth that you need.

Yeah, that was great.

I still am in fringed with those young women.

They're wonderful.

I love that.

So continue a conversation about legacy.

What does legacy mean to you now?

As you are reliving living thingle through the Reliving Single podcast.

We've had thirty plus years of living inside of these characters and having people on the street and people in the bank and people on the client you know, everywhere telling us how much they love the show and how it affected them or how they may have become an attorney because Maxine shaw At turning at Law made it possible, or witnessing the innocent love between Overton and Sinclair was possible.

And so we've heard it for years and years and years and years, right and now to have this beautiful vessel that has been created for us to do this love letter to the fans and to relive the show piece by piece.

You know, we're going step by steck through every aspect of the show and reliving things that we didn't know about each other, that we didn't know about the show, and digging into the culture and the meaning of all of it and the meaningfulness of all of it.

I think that it makes the legacy feel even richer.

I knew it was gonna be there from the beginning.

We get to see it all the time.

Now we've created a home where people new people can even come in, and it's witness the depth.

Of the legacy.

So who knows where it's how far it will go.

I think it's rich and it's real.

Yeah.

I also believe and I agree that.

Excuse me, do we both need to claricro quite?

Let us do it?

You know what?

Earth okay?

Keep that in the show.

You know, there's the show and then there's show within the show.

In the show, it's whatever we'd like it to be and what we'd like it to be.

As well as a love letter is a masterclass, you know, where we get to tell everybody what we've learned.

But also, you know, talk about comedy.

Kim Coles is a comedy genius and where else can she just beat herself?

And just by watching you can see how she lays things out, how she's able to balance interviews in the room, how she's able to move back and forth between us, the chemistry.

That's something that young people need to see.

But also we can explain things we've had forty years, how many years?

And this morty years?

Forty years, that's eighty years of experience.

Eighty years of experience.

And how many times do we get to see people actually leave a blueprint or a template for other people.

Usually people pass away, they die, to be clear, they don't get a chance to tell their story and have that conversation.

And I think it's a wonderful thing to do, but it's also brave because we're having fun, but we're also often talking about things that are very difficult to talk about, but in a safe space.

And when I say safe, because we know that we can talk afterwards when we disagree.

We also know we're in growth.

We've been in growth for a long time and in conversation for a long time and will continue to be So I'm many excited about that part of it.

Can you share maybe what's been the most difficult thing to talk about on the show?

No, but.

You go for Aserica.

It's difficult to talk about things that we had very little control over and we're still trying to process and manage and are frustrated with.

So I'll just speak about myself.

You can go through and have a career and be very blessed than highly favored, as people say, but still have your own disappointments and they can be connected to any show.

But inside of this, we did five years.

It's a long time to be in a place where you can have a connection with people for good, bad or ugly that you may not have been able to speak about while the show was happening, may not have the maturity the time and may not have made the effort because you didn't know how that's not resolved just because we show up.

So I think that personal things are hard, but also the things that the studio and or the network, any of those things that we didn't understand we are working around as the apparatus.

That's hard to talk about because it affected people's lives.

So I'd like to say that if we knew better, it didn't mean that we could do more.

But now that we know, we are able to sort of understand why it's still so painful and frustrating.

Did know?

I would say learning that I think, well, Eric and I talked a lot back then.

We haven't talked as much in the past few years as we did at that time.

And to know that she was going through difficulties that I was like, why didn't you tell me?

I didn't know that her father had just passed away.

She kept that away And so it's been difficult but very revealing about her work, ethic, her integrity, her character, and it would have been nothing wrong with her actually explaining this is what I'm going through.

These are the difficulties I'm going through Behind the scenes.

It would have been fine, as she would have been held.

By all of us.

So to learn that it feels challenging because I would have loved to have been able to be there for her and she didn't allow me to be.

So anything that gets revealed on our podcast that has to do with something we didn't know, or something that we couldn't have changed, or something we didn't know how to change is challenging because in this you know, this agent stage, I'm older than Erra, compan in this age and stage, i'mn't have known what to say and what to do, I think, and to know that the growth was available and I wish I had done it then.

Yeah, And we are struggles now, like we're always sort of finding where the balance is between who we are now.

And I'm glad to say that that right there is an ongoing process that you can only do with a friend and only do with a sister.

And we have more time on the books than most, So it's an investment to make that investment and know that it's important to be a healthy human for you to come together so you can be tested by pressure but also polished like a diamond because of it.

I would imagine that that has felt incredibly healing, right, Like, it's not often that we get chances to process things maybe that happened in the past, and I would imagine you didn't necessarily know that this podcast would bring some of those things out.

I'm guessing you're kind of doing this in real time, figuring like, Oh, I didn't even know that this was a thing we needed to talk about.

I feel that way.

Did you know that this was Yeah?

I knew, see this time, she now, I knew.

I think Erica, you created this specially.

This podcast started because of a relationship that she had with Kevin's company, being a documentarian and being a podcaster and doing this.

So this is a world that you've already been in and when it was asked, would you do a rewatch show, and she'll tell you her journey and are coming to that decision.

So she was there first.

So it's interesting living single.

I was there first, this is something she was there first, so she had a chance to create this container.

And to be honest, there are times that we have clashes, but we made a pant to always return to love and that's what grounds it for me no matter what.

And so I'll let her tell you how she knew that this would be I think there were things you needed to say, it needed to have come out that I'm absolutely I feel it.

I feel like you created the container so that this.

Could That's exactly it.

That's exactly it.

Because I think that you can't satisfy everyone all the time.

But after why you do have to start having some goals set for yourself.

Our parents are educators.

My mom was right here, she is right there, and your mother is an education.

Ninety five years old and taught for one thousand bernies.

And my mom was saying power to her and both you know our parents.

Education is important.

And I kept thinking that.

Everyone kept asking me as I went through life, even when I was a very young actress, and I started when I was fourteen, back in the day, you really did need your picture and resume, you need this that I would say it a thousand times.

I said, I got to do this in one space so I can say go look at this tape.

No, I'll do it.

So for a long time I've been wanting to put in a space and how to guide of how to be in this business.

But from my point of view, which is different from say one of those books you might find in Barnes and Noble from a person that may not even have your burdens or understand how you're you might be affected by social and racial and systemic injustice and inequities.

We are now living in the world where you have internet, you have everybody having a say.

Everybody thinks it's their oprah, whether they are or not.

They can be like Andy Warhol kind of says famous for fifteen minutes.

Everybody's going to get fifteen minutes right exactly on their sixteenth minute.

But that's number.

But we've had more than our fifteen minutes.

So what do you do with that?

You start to think about, I need to say something in life because this can't just sit here.

And so when I think about what I learned in doing other podcasts that had different goals, that you can go long and deep in a long conversation.

So we've got, just like you, doctor Joy, an opportunity to go into nuance, but also for people who are watching for them to see us go up and down and find our way and then come back to things, come back around, give more context, or you know, just lay that there and then it comes back.

I'm sorry, there's no place else you can do this for this amount of money, you know, and when I mean it's like a dey thing, do it yourself.

And yet in partnership with someone like Kevin Hard who has the expands and the resources, we can do it.

And that's what people are saying.

They like, they say, we feel like y'all are trying to really make say that your time is valuable.

We don't want to waste it and we don't.

But finding that balance it's tough because we also have to be free to create in the moment.

So there you go, and we get to be ourselves.

And I'm grateful for that because so many people who want to reboot, they.

Want to beat reboot, Please do a reboot.

And for years and years and years, I was like, let's do a reboot, and this is better than a reboot.

I am certain of it because we get to be ourselves and talk about the thing that you love, and I think it's better than the reboot.

That's what I'm calling.

We are not our characters, and most people don't get to meet us.

And even in this we are a version of ourselves, you know, we are curated but also polished version of ourselves because we are in entertainment and you're polished by You know your job, you know how to do it.

But most people are meeting something that they have no control over because they are a tool in someone else's toolbox.

You're playing your character, those are not your words, and people start saying are using Claire or is Kim Sinclair?

And I say, well, they're both, But I can assure you that Kim is Kim, and Sinclair would be a totally different person if you just in your mind cast someone else.

You can see how different people need to see that they're real human beings behind this, But they also need to see that black women do have agency and that we can speak for ourselves and we are a very complex center of what culture is.

But also that we deserve the dignity of making our mistakes out loud, but also showing you just how good we are and owning that because we are good at our jobs and you need to know how we got here.

Yeah, I appreciate you saying that, Erica, and I would love to hear about any mental health impact our challenges.

You've had to like your personal identity after playing such an kind of character, can you talk about any of that.

A lot of what I think is just in my head because I've had to live in an isolated space in my head for a long time.

It's not necessarily healthy.

So I'm actually trying to say more of what I mean and what I want and taking the chance that you could lose people.

But the people who stay and understand you, who know who you really are, those are your tribe.

That's the people that just because you need to have that kind of outlet, won't abandon you.

And so maybe abandonment is an issue for me, and it made me be very self sufficient.

It made me also have to be very pragmatic.

I don't necessarily have reps who are coming to my aid, and I don't really like to tell people what I'm going through.

That comes from having a mother and a father who were both orphans, and we were alone on that mountain in Arizona and in New Mexico, and so everything just got folded into what could be done today.

You know, let's get over this hump.

And so after a while you live your life that way, but you do have a right to start to work these things out.

And as you say, people say, oh, let's unpack that.

I used to hate that phrase.

I was like, that's so stupid, and I said, you know, you have a lot to unpack.

So I think that's tough and I try not to go too much into it because I always cry.

But the truth is I also know that my tears are just as important, if not more important, than my laughter.

And that's the other thing.

We suppress our tears but not our laughter.

That is wrong.

Every time you feel the urge to cry, you should cry.

Because I'm teaching myself as an actress how to stop myself from emoting in front of people, and I can't because when I leave that skill set and they say action and I hit the mark, I might have to have a very fluid conversation with my emotions and so I don't do that.

I could say, oh, I don't want to cry my makeup.

The truth is I do cry.

I do show people I heard, I do talk about things, and I may get it wrong, but you're going to see it wrong, and I think it's important.

But it's also you're seeing me manage being an actor who must engage with my facilities, and I can't play games with it just because I think other people will be uncomfortable.

Oh, I'm perfectly saying all as well, but it does nothing wrong.

Why would they just be wrong?

I heard mental health, it's you God, I am and will always be a little bit cooking cocoa puffs, and that's okay too, I would say.

So.

The mental health journey for me is after living single ended, I went into depression.

And that's something that we're all discovering.

As we talked to our cast wets, we all had our moment of separation because the show ended so quickly and so abruptly.

For me, I went through a very intense time of overshopping.

That was my vice of choice, and I realized through therapy that it was that I didn't feel worthy to have money and success, particularly because I'm the first generation that didn't finish college.

My grandmother went back to college in the fifties, in her fifties when black woman only got to do that.

And understood that my father has this doctorate in education.

I felt guilty that I was making this money and had dropped out of college one hundred times.

And so then I shopped in my money and then I got help.

I got, you know, grateful for what I had and you know there's a and behind that.

I am now fierce advocate for really unpacking all the things.

And it's ugly and it's awful, but on the other side is truth and understanding and grace, Oh my goodness, grace and compassion and discovering that has opened up so much for me, so that now I actually have been able to delve into this spiritual quest.

You know, I study all different kinds of religions and quests and to find that they were all more alike than we're different, and sort of the meaning behind a lot of all that.

And I love exploring and unpacking, even if it's ugly.

What's on the other side is so much more beautiful and more understanding of myself and more understanding of my fellow travelers.

Like it gives me the perspective of more compassion.

You never know what somebody is dealing with, and that feels healthy and wonderful.

And I'm also you know, you talk about mentality creating such iconic characters.

It can be problematic because you're so identified as that character, but I come to embrace it and love it and go, hey, Sinclair, yes I am clear, but my name is really Kim Kles, I'm know your real name, but you say clear to me, and I go, okay, that's all right too.

That something lives for this person in that space where they resonated and they felt that this girl was relatable, and I can only embrace that as I go explore so much more.

We both have done a good job of exploring other gifts and talents and allowing ourselves to I don't know.

It's actually a requirement to keep growing.

Got to you got to And I think that's why.

This masterclass is so important, because there are plenty of folks that would be happy to rest in their laurels of the Great Maxine shaw a tournament law or we're happy like I did that.

It was great.

It's like there's talk about it that much.

You too, I mean when you outside it, I don't even talk about the things I do because to me, once they're done, I'm not saying I don't it does.

It hasn't affected me, but I'm already beyond it once I'm even in it.

Like them you saw me do that?

Yeah?

You who?

She used to say, I'm going to I'm going to my trailer to create my comeback piece.

She's gonna need to come back where you're going.

No, I in common that you both have all these gifts and towers and we're unlocking all of them.

I have everything in a big, giant soup and a big particle.

This gift will be useful here.

I take my comedy and I infuse that in my speaking, and you know, it's a great, big suit.

I wonder doctor joy might see that as me also not allowing myself to be worthy and in mask and yes, some of the accomplishments, Yeah, my mom messed me up there, humble mund, But.

That doesn't mean to know I'm humble.

If you don't bring listen, everything you do, you bring it with you.

I think it's all a beautiful stew or suit.

To use your words of who you are.

It doesn't mean I think you're very humble.

Or if the Jamaicans say very.

Eric, if you take out the h you know that's the black woman you're.

So what what would doctor Joyce saying, no, I'm not going to diagnose you diagnosis.

No, I would have to take a longer time to work with you to be able to.

Okay, you don't want there's a whole lot of folks that will peg you, like, let me tell you about you.

Yeah, okay, if you watch our characters for a long time, have you diagnosed them?

Oh?

I would have to do a rewatch to do more in depth.

Differently, that's how we get a second episode with exact.

I would love to delve, especially more into the commitment issues that Max's character had.

For sure, Boom interesting exactly exactly.

More from our conversation after the break, So, can you talk about your career trajectory following Living Single?

Maybe specifically for you, Erica, because you didn't necessarily know it.

Sounds like Kim knew it was going to be a success, but you didn't necessarily go into it thinking it would be what it was.

So what was it like to kind of continue your career after such a generational show.

Yeah, it was rough to continue my career after that.

It was rough for everyone.

So we're going into a period where we had TV shows with black casts on it all over the place, from NBCDABC on NM Fox built its entire network with black talent, and then suddenly everything changed almost overnight.

That affected everybody, not just me.

If you go in and people are saying, oh, you're great, at this, we love you, and then nothing happens, no offers, no nothing, And you go to auditions and suddenly you're sitting with people who are coming from college and they're going, what are you doing here?

I'm like, I guess I'm auditioning with you for the same thing would see weird And you have a step off the lip and you do it, but you also start to wear on you because you go, wait a minute, I know, I just climbed a mountain and I got to Everest.

Why am I climbing the same mountain?

So Taraji talks about it.

Certainly, Monique has talked about it.

It has to do with the inequities that are inherent in this business, have to do with not only the disparity of roles, but for the fact that they actually segregated television after our shows and even ended many of our shows on the premise that it was time just sort of switch and do more mainstream shows.

They'd say that and then put us to networks that were building themselves on cable, and that's a CW and WB and all those other things.

You don't want to be in that position and thinking that you're starting from the beginning but you always seem to be doing that.

That's frustrating.

You think I'm in my prime on twenty eight, let's go, and they're like when I was on The Cosby Show, I immediately saw that there were writers who were black.

But also I knew that I didn't have power.

I never am a person who doesn't want to power.

I've gone through life in unpowerful positions and it's not good.

So you want to have more collaboration and more say so.

I thought I teach myself writing, but I didn't have the discipline and I didn't have the skill set the craft.

I had the ideas.

You have to sit in a chair and they come back and rewrite and put something down in paper.

It's a very brave thing to do, and you do it over a long long time.

I ended up marrying a writer, and he was the one who really locked it in and said, Eric, you're never going to be good at that unless you do it.

And then I started to do it and my life started to change.

Got more opportunities as a comic book writer, as a screenplay writer, as more texts pros.

Then I became a surrogate inside the political sphere, where you're always writing, but through a different pov.

I'm a surrogate for Hillary, I'm for Kamala, I'm a surroga for the Senator.

I'm a surrogate for Stacy Abrams, all these people.

How do I speak about myself?

But through the policy and lens of legislation and legislators, that's also making you have to refine your thoughts and so years and years of that, and then also just doing the damn thing created opportunities, and then people started coming to me.

Josh Whedon said, hey, we spend that off for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and you'll give me a group of here's what I need from moreh and then goes away.

John Lewis's office say hey, here you have a production company.

It started with Ben Arnon, who's my partner.

Hey are you interested in the documentary about the Congressman?

Sure?

And something you're doing John Lewis, good trouble because someone's giving you a shot, and that leads to a reparations documentary.

Now you're directing, and you're in the DGA and you're learning things.

So all these things that you think don't matter, it adds up to a life and a career that you can be proud of, but you must do the foundational work.

And the foundation of work I needed was to know that one monkey, don't stop, no show actress, but also an intelligent person.

And I knew I couldn't make a living waiting for the next job.

I would have to grow, I would have to expand more important, that had to be just as good there, hopefully as I wasn't acting.

I do think that's my core skill set.

But now I feel more confident as a creator and a performer and also a producer.

But it's a hard thing and you do it every day, and you sometime miss and sometime you hit.

But at least I'm there and a new thing comes around and you find out that what you didn't know, then you can apply and next thing you know, bull you've locked in.

I know how to do that.

So I'm grateful, And that's what I think is the next few decades for me is going to hopefully me doubling down on that and expanding and growing and building an empire.

Oh we love it.

What about you, Kim?

What has both living single career pursuits been like for you?

Building a kimpire?

Who calling the same thing.

You know.

While Erica said I'm going to my trailer to create a comeback piece, I was doing my version of that too, And so I wrote my first book in my trailer at living single and that time that I was struggling with shopping and not working because I wasn't getting the auditions either.

The same boat.

But we didn't talk about this at the time.

I thought that I would go into the next height and heights and height don't true love people who say height and not height hype to the hype, the venith.

None of that was happening, and so I figured out, just as Erica did, I needed to hone my gifts and talents in all these other areas.

And so I took my knowledge and mastery whatever mystery as a stand up comedian and moved it into the world of speaking, because I didn't want to go on the road as a stand up comedian week after week after week.

People don't know that that's the unglamorous.

That's what most comics do.

You go on the road to make your money.

And I knew that would age me and tire me out.

But I could do it as a speaker.

I can go and make one talk and make as much as I could on six shows on our weekend in Albuquerque or whatever.

So I built out my speaker business.

I started writing more books and writing more programs.

I have an online academy.

I started building that in the realm of speaking and using humor and heart and infusing that you speaking.

Then fell in love with being an entrepreneur, which I just don't talk about this much, but we are entrepreneurs for sure.

Or I took whatever I learned and developed this love really of entrepreneurs, and now I teach entrepreneurs how to be better speakers, how to write their books.

I have my own publishing company called Hopped Coals Publishing.

I use my knowledge and my platform to help teach others how to lift and have their own empires.

And so now what's happened is if Hollywood doesn't call, I go like, okay, that's all right, But to me, I'm gonna be over here doing what I can do.

And this nothing better than taking your gifts and talents and abilities directly to the people.

There's no guy in a suit in an ivory tower going she's the one, or she's not the one, or she's getting too much weight.

Or she's to this or not enough that, like, the people get to decide.

And once I realized that the power was in the people's hands, and I always felt that as a comedian menace, it's about the audience.

If I can please the audience, if I can bring them along on our journey, then I will have decades and decades of work that I got to generate and I get to be in control of, and the jobs come.

We both have shows that we're working on.

It's like, oh, you want me to become an e free food, thank you?

You want to stand front of our camera.

The free food is the best part I had to you know, be able to continue to contribute it to my sag health.

Sure, I'll do that.

And I get to do this other thing that is fulfilling and that I get.

To take directly to the people.

And that's what we have in common.

We've done it in different ways, but it's the thing that we have in common.

More from our conversation after the break and what would you say about the lasting impact that living single has had in terms of how black women are portrayed in the media.

I can't even speak.

To how proud I am of these four women.

You know, we looked different, we had different qualities, and yet we have this sisterhood that I think resonated with others.

Others saw their aunties, their cousins, their little sister, their big sister in us, and I loved that we loved each other.

You know, it's a sitcom.

Of course, there's jokes.

Of course, there was always a coming together, both behind the scenes and on camera.

And I'm really proud that we represented the antithesis of what they say about black women.

We were professional and funny and vulnerable and kind and sometimes angry and sometimes all the things.

We were, all the things done in a very classy, fun, experiential way.

And I love that people love that about us.

I love that they resonate with us.

Did I answer the question, Yeah, absolutely you did.

Was there anything you would add?

I'm proud of that.

This is our negative race, this is what we were born for.

We were made for this mission.

And as black women.

If you see the people who've come before us, from Shirley Chisholm to id B.

Wells to Great Harriet Tubman, they talk about what they did so we could be here and have this privilege of telling our stories.

It's huge, but it's what's suspected of us, and I think that I want to just always remember that they had it harder than we did.

Certainly had a McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen did and Ceesey Tie and you know, Regina Taylor, Diner, Carol.

These amazing things you know that they've done.

They never got a chance to talk about, but we are talking about it.

So I'm grateful for this.

But I also remember that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, and that's a gift because there's so many people out here that don't.

I was with Kyle Bowser, who's head of the NAACP Hollywood chapter.

He's the husband of Yvette Lee Bowser.

By the way, props to her for creating the Road and doing so much of that her whole life.

But he said that if there's maybe a million creators of color, when there's forty three million black people, we are the vessel that is used to tell their stories.

So we need to remember it's something that we need to be mindful of and how we move the world, and not to make it any more precious than it needs to be, that we are culture makers of extraordinary gifts, the biggest culture makers in world history, there's no doubt.

But we were chosen of a small set to do it, and so we should remember that.

And so thanks to Kyle for minding everyone should know out there, if you choose to do this now, everybody will be able to make it.

Ain't pacify child.

My goodness and the mental toughness you have to have, and you have to work when no one's looking.

If you can work when no one's looking at do the work will be rewarded once the light shines, and it will come.

But we need to see all that work once it shines again, and then it comes faster, because then people see what you're about and the lean moments, that's where you're supposed to grow and live life, and you're supposed to bring that to bear for your people, for the culture, but also for the world.

If we do that, then nothing can destroy us.

And I'm saying as human beings.

But if we stop doing that, if we continue to regurgitate other people's ideas and not take chances and not make mistakes and not live out loud, then we are being just a piece of ourselves and asking for permission to be here, but we've earned it there.

They made sure that they sacrifice so much so we knew that we earn it, and we know that we earn it every day by showing up and doing our best.

I feel like we've already gotten a masterclass.

But as we close up, is there any additional advice that you might give to a young black woman in the entertainment industry or making her way in entertainment about how to create work that is both authentic and healing.

Well, you already are authentic.

You have to own it own yourself.

But just because it's there doesn't mean that you don't have to nurture it and do the work.

You have to go outside of your borders.

You can't just continue to do the same thing.

You must go and sit in different churches, sit in different corridors, ask people different questions, but mostly listen.

And he listened to an off the noise, turn off the TV, the games, all of that.

You know what you think until you allow your brain to even process what it's seemed.

And so I think we don't often give ourselves a chance to sit there and just let the breeze go by while are we download so we can have our own ideas, So you are authentic.

You do have your own ideas.

You should matriculate and make sure that you do the work.

But you shay hall ass, everything takes much more time than you think everything, and so don't get caught up in the little minutia.

You've got other things to do, and your biggest thing hasn't appeared yet, and you'll probably be saying that to the day you die.

So I'm just going to give you love and make sure that you know that, even though you think you aren't seeing, we're doing our best to project a version of ourselves that includes you.

But that doesn't dismiss that your work here isn't important.

You must come and do the work.

That's your job.

I always find myself going, how do I follow that?

No?

See, just so I'll follow that by saying giving a gift that was given to me, and I wish I could remember who it was.

It was a female actress who was older, and it was early in my career, and she said, this is how your career is going to to go, and it helped me so much.

I'm gonna use my own name, but insert your name and whether it's show VI says or anything you choose to do.

This is how your life is gonna go.

Who is Kim Coles?

Introducing Kim Coles?

Get me Kim Coles?

Get me a Kim Coles type?

Can you get me a cheaper Kim Coles?

Can you get me a younger Kim Coles?

Who is Kim Coles?

And she gave me I wish I couldn't it isn't that good?

She said, You're gonna have pages and stages and they may come and they may repeat again and they I remember the day I auditioned for something against the younger version of me.

I was like, I've reached that stage, but I was prepared for it.

I was ready for it.

And so for you to know that there will be ups and downs.

There will be stage looking moments that you feel that you've arrived in, moments that go, no, it's not your term this time, and so prepare for all that.

Do what Erica just said, study, learn, go places you've never been before, explore, challenge yourself so you get to decide what your yeses and nos are.

Be very clear what your yeses and no's are being guided by that, be guide it by your instinct.

Have a spiritual life.

Whoever the god of your understanding is, go on and get that, so that you have an understanding and unknowing when you walk into a room, whether or not you're really meant to be there.

You're meant to be in every room.

I don't mean in that way, but I mean and you're meant to say yes and notice things.

Saying no can actually be one of.

The most moral foundations, moral integritous integrity.

Yes.

And so I was given that gift to be prepared for all the ages of stages, so I don't get scared at any of it anymore.

I go, Oh, that's what that is?

What does that mean?

Maybe I need to retreat and take this time off to be quiet and learn, or to be quiet and do nothing and wait for divine you know, interaction, and that all of the journey is beautiful, even when it's ugly, and to accept all of it is part of your growth and what you're meant to leave for the next generation.

You're gonna sit and do an interview just like this one day, and you're gonna marvel all right, your comings and goings and the ups and downs of all of it, and to really be grateful for every single piece of it will help ground it for you.

So that's what I would say.

I love it.

I love it.

You know it's funny.

I just want to say one thing about being well at say.

I was going to say that people think that being in comedy or having comedy means it's you know that you're not serious.

But I find the comedians and people are funny.

That are most people with more serious as a heart attack, ye go to be.

We were talking about this the other day that there's a you know, there's a comedy mask, but there's also the tragedy mask, and they they live, they live together, and they live in the same space.

Welcome, well, the comedy and the tragedy mask.

There's a little well, one more, one more.

I was like warmth, there was it.

The coveredy and tragedy masks live fur.

You know, those are the symbols in the ying and the yang.

It's it's all divine.

So if you want to be funny, but get serious.

We love it.

The joy, the joy right back, the joy.

I love it absolutely, absolutely well.

This has been so wonderful to chat with you.

Please let us know where can we stay connected with your work?

Where can we check out the podcast.

We can go to at Reliving Single podcast.

On all the Spotify.

I highly recommend you too because we look so good my Spotify in all places and you can follow Eric Alexander the Great and I am Kim Coles at.

Kim Coles not Kim Coles and we're out there.

Doing a thing.

Yes, and thank you by the way for the support over the years.

It's been phenomenal.

We were just hanging out and an event, a big event and it was no It was the standing room only and filled the place and was one of the biggest events.

So we really feel the love after all these years.

We would not be here without you.

You're creating this.

The success of the show is only because our fans will demand it.

It's not because we earned it or deserve it.

That's not how this works.

It's because we demanded.

Those numbers matter.

So anybody that's already liked, followed and watched the whole episodes through.

You're creating the space.

But you're also it's a long marathon and not just us, other people are coming to do it, and so we need to set the stage for how we need to not only be taken seriously but also how we're promoted and marketed and that builds the case.

So thank you so much for our friends.

We saw our friends.

Created as one part fan, one part friends, and thank you doctor Joy for creating a platform to have deep, rich conversations about mental wellness and mental health.

The buzzy thing is self care Saturday.

The it's mental wellness every day having that perspective, and we're inviting ourselves to come back on our show after you've analyzed us.

Yes, anytime you have an open invitation.

Therapy won't don't hurt anybody, right.

Thank you.

Thanks to analyze me as a free d see.

Thank you.

A huge thank you to Erica Alexander and Kim Coles for joining you for this conversation.

Don't forget to check out the Reliving Single podcast, and don't forget to take this episode or two of your girls right now and tell them to check it out.

Did you know that you could leave us a voicemail with your questions for the podcast.

If you have books and movies you'd like us to review, or have thoughts about topics you'd like to hear us discuss.

Drop us a message at Memo dot fm, slash Therapy for Black Girls and let us know what's on your mind.

We just might feature it on the podcast.

If you're looking for a therapist in your area, visit our therapist directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory, and don't forget to follow us over on Instagram at Therapy for Black Girls or join us over in our Patreon channel to talk more about the episodes and get more behind the scenes content.

You can join us at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls dot com.

This episode was produced by Elise Ellis, Indechubu and Tyree Rush.

Editing was done by Dennison Bradford.

Thank y'all so much for joining me again this week.

I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon.

Take good care.