♪
(humming)
LATIFAH: Mom, do you make your own chili paste?
PENI: Yup.
LATIFAH: When COVID broke out, obviously, a lot of people were,
"Oh, it's just the flu, whatever the case,"
and it wasn't until, let me see,
with the administration and everything,
that it was this whole "China virus."
Okay, how are we
going to handle this?
All the videos of the elderly Asian people getting attacked.
And I remember when the women in Georgia were killed.
This has gone too far.
Is my mom safe?
(voice trembles): She's been our protector for so long.
And how do you protect that?
So that was tough for me.
DAVID: Hm.
PENI: I was here with my uncle family.
DAVID: Do you go or me?
LATIFAH: They're both different stories.
PENI: You go, how you approach me!
DAVID: Uh, well, why don't you just meet me
down at the courthouse tomorrow, we'll get married?
PENI: No, that's not it, and no. (Latifah laughs)
PENI: He said, "I love to marry you someday.
It's fate bring us together."
I wasn't born and raised here in United States, so I don't...
I know so little about being African American.
One day, she came home and I said, "Latifah, what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
She was really sad.
And then finally, she told me that one of her best friend
who lived down the street,
she called Latifah N-word.
They were in the kindergarten.
I have no clue at that time, and I said,
"What does that mean by that?"
DAVID: I found that
as raising biracial children, I need to be up front,
and be seen, let these people know that I live here
and that I'm raising my children.
(music playing)
(women vocalizing)
♪ Change is coming for us all ♪
PENI: I watch the video the first time.
That was it.
(voice breaking): And that time, I think it can be my son,
you know?
It can be my son, just because he's, he's Black,
he's somewhere in the wrong place at the wrong time.
(voice breaking): When George Floyd call out...
Sorry.
When he call out his mama... DAVID: Hm.
PENI (sniffles): I was, I was really hurt.
♪
DAVID: I remember talking with my son Tony.
He says, "I don't want to live like this."
I talked to Latifah.
"I don't have any children yet,
but I don't want them to go through that."
MAN: Say his name! CROWD: George Floyd!
MAN: Say his name!
CROWD: George Floyd! (chanting continues)
♪
PENI: They both out there,
try to make the world better.
There is hours or, that I don't know where my kids are.
At one time, I mention it,
"Maybe I should go there with you guys."
And Tony say, "No, Mom, you get push."
DAVID: I had not heard from my son,
and I just was scared for my son's life,
because I have experienced this stuff for 50-plus years.
When you're going up against a lot of society issues,
you don't come out...
(sirens blaring, whistles blowing)
...the way you went in.
♪
TONY: You know how they say I look different in every picture?
Dad kind of looks different in every picture.
LATIFAH: Tony's three years younger than I am,
but we get along really well.
Any time we weren't going to Ohio or Virginia,
we'd go to Indonesia.
TONY: Everybody knew our parents.
LATIFAH: Everyone loves our parents,
and I think it's kind of ironic,
because I think a lot of people
see both of our parents as, like, "the good minorities."
TONY (laughing): Why? Dad's face.
He always looks like that.
(both laughing)
TONY: When's the last time you danced?
LATIFAH: Um, probably 2011, 2012?
TONY: Hm...
LATIFAH: People know that we're mixed,
but picking out that we're Black is a lot easier
than picking out that we're Asian.
A lot of it for me comes with, like, fetishizing
that I'm, like, a mixed woman.
Once people learn that
we are Asian, it'd be, like, really weird comments, like,
"Oh, your mom eats bugs."
People used to think my mom was my nanny.
TONY: It had to be rough for Mom.
LATIFAH: Oh, I'm sure it was. TONY: Yeah.
LATIFAH: I know for me, I was, like, I felt like we were
being attacked at, like, all fronts.
Not only is Mom Asian,
but she's also a Muslim.
TONY: Yeah.
LATIFAH: After 9/11, I know my mom wasn't going to,
like, boast around that she was Muslim.
TONY: Mm-hmm.
LATIFAH: People don't know that many are, Indonesia
has, like, the highest Muslim population.
TONY: In Southeast Asia? LATIFAH: No, in the world.
TONY: Wait, really? LATIFAH: Yeah! (laughs)
♪
Dad told me that he was chased by some white man,
like, when he was younger. TONY: Oh.
LATIFAH: And he was coming out of this bike trail,
and this guy, like, chased him, and then started trying to
find him with his car, and then tried to run Dad over
with his car... TONY: What?
LATIFAH: ...while Dad was on his bike.
TONY: Why do they not tell us this?
LATIFAH (laughs): I don't know.
I didn't hear hardly any of these stories
until we were talking about it, and I was, like,
"So it all comes out." TONY: Yeah, exactly.
♪
TONY: Last summer,
I remember the precinct being on fire
and then the liquor store being on fire.
LATIFAH: That was when the, like, white supremacist vans
was, started to make their rounds.
TONY: Mm-hmm.
LATIFAH: I saw people coming in after curfew
with, like, bats and stuff,
wearing, like, steel-toed boots and had, like, these
hiking backpacks, and you're, like, "This isn't good."
TONY: Oh, my gosh. (laughs)
Yeah, I don't know if I ever told you,
but when everything started, I got, like, a gun pulled on me.
By some white dude, yeah. LATIFAH: What?!
TONY: Pulled out his gun, he's, like, "What the...
What are you doing here?"
I was, like, "Holy cow, what is happening?"
Uh, and I was, like, "Hey, man, I'm just going home."
It was, yeah. LATIFAH: That's scary.
No, you've never told me. TONY: Yeah.
(laughing): Yeah. LATIFAH: Sorry.
I'm assuming you've never told Mom that, either.
TONY: No.
LATIFAH: Have you... done anything about that?
Or, like, tried to process it in any type of way?
TONY: Yeah. Yeah.
LATIFAH: Okay. TONY: Yeah.
(laughing): Still processing, I think.
LATIFAH: I know in the last
six to eight months, I've taken a big step back.
I know you've taken a step back and tried to figure out how else
we can continue the fight that's not necessarily
out in the streets.
We've both gone through it
where we've talked to our parents about, like,
wanting to go to therapy
or, like, having depression or anxiety.
I want to get to a point where that's an open conversation
that, that can be had.
TONY: The stories that you told me that Mom and Dad told you
when I wasn't there... (Latifah mumbles)
I've never heard anything like that.
LATIFAH: Yeah. TONY: Like, that's just them
opening up.
♪
PENI: Like Latifah said, we don't talk about
mental issue or anxiety
a lot, because
when I was growing up, I don't remember ever talk
about stuff like that
in my family.
I'm glad right now you and your brother
taking charge for that for yourself.
(sniffles)
(voice breaking): And please do seeking help,
whatever necessary you need.
LATIFAH: And I think in the last couple of years,
it's been better.
Like, I mean, you guys have come outside to get me out of my car.
They had announced that the police that had killed
and shot Breonna Taylor weren't going to be charged.
And that was a really rough day for me.
The last two years, it's almost like one thing after another.
Having that support system...
(sniffles): ...um, that's there to help.
So, like, I thank you both for that.
PENI: You know, I'm always there for you guys.
♪
LATIFAH: Today, we're gonna do a march for Amir Locke,
who was a 22-year-old that was killed by Minneapolis police
just a couple of days ago.
PROTESTER: No good cops in a racist system!
CROWD: No good cops in a racist system!
PROTESTER: Say his name! CROWD: Amir Locke!
PROTESTER: Justice for!
CROWD: Amir Locke! PROTESTER: Justice for!
CROWD: Amir Locke!
Amir Locke! PROTESTER: Amir Locke!
PROTESTER: We have a duty to fight for our freedom!
CROWD: We have a duty to fight for our freedom!
PROTESTER: We have a duty to win!
CROWD: We have a duty to win!
PROTESTER: We must love and support one another!
CROWD: We must love and support one another!
PROTESTER: We have nothing to lose but our chains!
CROWD: We have nothing to lose but our chains!
I know that it's a marathon.
It's not going to be done anytime soon at all.
When things like this happen,
it's important to step up for the families
and show up for other people.
CROWD: Power to the people!
LATIFAH: Everyone that I've grown up with and love
is kind of under fire
or is at risk of being attacked or killed.
♪
I'm someone who believes if you can change
one thing about someone, even if that someone's yourself,
that's a change in the world and that's the world changing.
CROWD (chanting): The people united will never be defeated!
(chanting continues)