MAKERS@ Community Conversation with Maysoon Zayid and Ije-Enu U. Nwosu

Maysoon Zayid, Comedian, Actress and Writer, sits down with Ije-Enu U. Nwosu, Executive Director of Impact Spending at Kaiser Permanente, to discuss how comedy and storytelling has shaped Zayid's life, where she fights light in the darkness, and the impact she hopes to have with her upcoming comic book.

Video transcript

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: Good morning. How are you?

MAYSOON ZAYID: Good morning. I am so thrilled to be here! This is literally one of my favorite organizations. And I never say that, I genuinely, genuinely mean it. I'm excited to be here.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: Well, we are absolutely, I said giddy to have you here. Chatting with you earlier, I was like, OK, how much trouble can we get into in the next 25 minutes.

MAYSOON ZAYID: Good trouble.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: Always good trouble, always good trouble, but let's get it in. So I'm fan girling already. And you have a whole bunch of fan girls-- and some fan boys, but we're not talking about them today-- in the audience. So tell us a little bit. You know, we got the clip and the, oh, the power story about you. But who is Maysoon? Tell us a little bit about you, and how you mastered the art of storytelling.

MAYSOON ZAYID: I'm a Jersey girl. I'm literally a Jersey girl first. And I think that shocks a lot of people because you know-- the video was quite the trip down memory lane. I'm a Jersey girl. I joke on stage, but it's totally true that in the oppression Olympics, I'd win a gold medal. Because I'm Palestinian, I'm Muslim, I'm a woman of color, I'm divorced, I'm disabled, I live in Jersey! So if you don't feel better about yourself, maybe you should. And I'm childless, which I think is like a huge deal in America. I'm a person with no children. And then I'm a comedian, I'm an actress, I'm a dancer, I'm an entertainer.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: And a daughter, and a sister--

MAYSOON ZAYID: I'm an entertainer.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: --and an auntie and all of those other pieces.

MAYSOON ZAYID: Yeah, I don't think I'm really great at the family stuff. But I am someone's daughter, and he's in heaven, but I do have a cat. I'm definitely a cat lady. And I do believe in justice. You know, they use the term like Social Justice Warrior, and it's like this insult. But I am like the person who takes the punches so that the person after me doesn't have to.

A lot of my work that I do in disability is not for me. It's for the kids that are coming up after me, so that they don't have to go through the stuff that I have to go through. And kind of making sure that when I'm the only person in the room, which is horrible and lonely-- like, so many times you're the only person of color in the room, you're the only woman in the room, you're the only disabled person in the room-- you have to become the person who educates everybody else. And it can be extremely exhausting. I love it! I'm that person, throw me in with the sharks and I'll have them you know, dancing like it's a Super Bowl intermission. Halftime.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: I love it.

MAYSOON ZAYID: It's like a little intermission.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: So where do you get the energy from? Where is that source for you?

MAYSOON ZAYID: I shake all the time from my palsy. So I think I'm just like, I got to do stuff. It helps! My dad was like the ultimate cheerleader. He was the dude who was like dream big, fight hard. Like Elizabeth Warren says. My mom-- I say my dad's a teddy bear, my mom's a tyrant. My mom is a classic immigrant mother. You didn't get to come home with B's, you came home with A's. And if you didn't come home with A's, you didn't leave the house from say, Halloween to Christmas. You were just like you know, in prison. So with my mother, failure is not an option. My father believed I could do anything. And that dynamic duo created someone who did not know how to stop. You know?

I also-- I'm not humble. I also believe very strongly and deeply in my talent. And I'm fully aware that as a woman, I have to work harder. But I'm also aware that disabled people are 20% of the population, we're only 2% of the images you see on TV. 95% are played by non-disabled people. So that's what I'm up against. And if I don't put my back into it, if I don't just like hustle, hustle, and grind, and do everything, I'm not going to make it. And I have to make it, because I believe that positive images of disability can save lives.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: So talk-- because you went there already.

MAYSOON ZAYID: [LAUGHING]

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: So it's like, go in and go in hard.

MAYSOON ZAYID: I'm all over the place!

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: You know, what's up? Representation. Representation, right? You talked about, there's so many different things and bodies that you represent, and they don't show up. How do you advocate for that? Because I will tell you, what resonated when you were talking about, you know, there will be a character that's portrayed by a non-disabled person, and that's who they'll cast in the character. That's like you go on TV-- I'm Nigerian, they'll have the Nigerian actress come in and I was like, where did you find that accent from? So talk to me, right? So talk to me about representation. And how do you go out and advocate for more representation for all.

MAYSOON ZAYID: Three different things are really important to keep in mind with representation. One, you have to have the talent or the experience first. So like, you can't go in there and be like, hey, I need disabled people at the table. And then sing like someone stepping on your toe. Please make sure that you're really good at what you're trying to represent. Don't just-- too, I cannot represent everyone. I can't.

I joked about the oppression Olympics, but I have extreme privilege as a disabled person. The majority of disabled people are forced to live in poverty. I've been blessed and lucky to have an extremely successful career, and be able to afford the best yoga instructor, someone-- the best personal care assistants, things that other people are not able to access. So I never speak for the whole community. I speak for myself and I amplify the messages of those who are not given the platform that I'm given. So I make sure to always include invisible disabilities, even though my disability is visible, because that community doesn't necessarily have the opportunity that I do. When people are looking for a disabled person, then they're going to pick someone who looks, you know, like that.

And three, is being able to draw the line. And it's very hard to draw the line when the people in power want you to be what's called, the model minority. So like I'm supposed to come in and be like, I'm disabled, but I can do anything! No I can't do anything, I can't perform cardiac surgery. There's a bunch of stuff I can't do, you know? I can't climb a mountain. And I think that we need to know what our limits are and be OK with saying to people, no, I'm not going to be your puppy in this moment. I understand that you need a token, I'm not going to be that person.

And if you can-- I said three-- if you can, always raise up other people with you. So I'm working on a docuseries right now, and I made sure to include three other disabled women. Because I knew that a Black disabled deaf woman's experience is completely different than mine. So having the power and having the ability to amplify other voices, when I do see I'm the only one in the room. If I have the power to bring more people in, I do.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: That's so transferable to any situation, to the work situation, to-- to the-- your personal life situation, all of those pieces. So I wasn't going to go here next, but since you started-- tell me about projects coming up for you.

MAYSOON ZAYID: Yeah. This child of color in my new upcoming scholastic project spends time in both the real world and the dream world. And in the dream world, she's not healed. And that was so important for me, because like I see all these movies and TV shows where like, in their dream The wheelchair user gets up and dances and, you know, the amputee grows back their limbs like an octopus. And so it was really important for me to have a magical creature who was also disabled.

And I'm working on a docuseries with Film 45, they did Stephen Curry's docuseries, Serena Williams, and now they're doing mine, and it's called Welcome to the Disco. And it's kind of like Anthony Bourdain No Reservations, but instead of eating food, we eat disabled people. No! We go, we meet with disabled people, and we're going to hang out and we're going to tell really cool disability stories all across America, that are not inspiring. Because disabled people are not here to inspire you by merely existing. I'm OK if people are inspired by me, and say, hey you know what, I'm going to take a risk, do an open mic and become a comic. That's fantastic.

But when people come up to me and are like, I would totally kill myself if I had to live like you, you are so brave and so inspiring. That's not my goal. So we're not going to be telling stories about like, football player asks wheelchair user to the prom. It's going to be like, hey did you know in 30 states, disabled people can't get married without parental permission. And then me trying to--

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: Real talk.

MAYSOON ZAYID: Yeah, and then me trying to convince these same people, that they do not want to get married because marriage is a racket. And married people are just trying to drag us down into their hell. So we'll have a little combination of both reality and comedy.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: Love it. So since we're talking real talk, and--

MAYSOON ZAYID: Oh, I have one other thing!

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: OK, go ahead, go ahead.

MAYSOON ZAYID: It's really big! I'm apparently teaching at Princeton in the fall.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: Oh I'm sorry, you just--

MAYSOON ZAYID: Because--

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: --drop that, drop that out there.

MAYSOON ZAYID: I know! This one's really funny. I applied to it at the beginning of the pandemic because I thought we were never ever go back to live events. And now I'm way too busy but I can't say no, because now I teach at Princeton.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: So that would be the immigrant parent's dream, my daughter teaches at Princeton.

MAYSOON ZAYID: It's the only thing my mother's ever mentioned to people. It's like, most viewed Ted Talk doesn't work. She's like, who is Ted? Is Ted a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer? No? Now she can be like my daughter teaches at Princeton. And when they ask her what, she'll be like, something.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: Exactly!

MAYSOON ZAYID: Because it's comedy. Because it's comedy.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: Love it. So I'm gonna switch gears a little bit. We are-- we are in very interesting times right now. Right? The world is a little dark. There's a lot going on, you know. So I say a little dark because there is hope, there is hope in pockets. But we're in a dark place and people are struggling and hurting. Look at Haiti, look at COVID, look at Afghanistan, look at floods, look at-- I mean just, the list could go on and on and on. And let's not talk about, oh maybe women losing, taking five jumps-- steps back as a result of everything that's happened over the last few years. Tell me how you deal with-- how do you encourage yourself and others? How do you stay in the light? Because I'm telling you this darkness-- and we're enjoying this right now, but we're all going to go back to our own individual places, and it's dark.

MAYSOON ZAYID: It's dark. OK. So it's been dark for me for a really long time. So it got extremely dark in my life on 9/11 20 years ago. I had been doing stand-up comedy for one year. I was a Jersey girl who visibly, visibly witnessed the towers falling. And I, overnight, went from being a Jersey girl to public enemy number one. And in that moment I learned a lot. And one of the things I learned is that comedy is such an incredible tool for dealing with darkness and difficult situations. I think what makes it easier for me, is that I can take something terrifying-- terrifying-- like a terrorist attack happening midday in the United States of America on the US Capitol.

I'm Palestinian. I'm used to children being massacred and carpet-bombed. I'm used to women fighting for their rights. But the visual image of watching the Capitol be attacked, that to me was one of the darkest moments I've ever witnessed in history. But I was immediately able to start telling jokes. And I had to start telling jokes, because it's therapy for me to deal with something that really terrifies me in a comedic way. But I also really think it gets people to listen to what I'm saying when they don't want to.

I think the biggest issue that we're facing right now is, somewhere-- and I really think that the former president of the United States had a lot to do with this-- we taught people that it was OK to just wild out, to be mean, to be a bully, to say things that for years they didn't say in public. We say, saying the quiet part out loud. They got the license to say the quiet part out loud, and instead of looking at that as dark, I want to see that as light. Because now we know the people who want to harm us. Now we know the people who are working against us. Now we know the people who are not on our side.

But Star Wars and Yoda taught me one thing, and that's light always expunges darkness. What gives me energy, what keeps me going, is like watching Ayanna Pressley like get up with no hair, and be like, hey guess what, I'm not wearing a heavy wig that hurts my scalp anymore. This is who I'm going to do. I'm going to fight for rights and I'm going to do it my way. Watching so many people sending charter planes to Afghanistan, to evacuate the women that they work for, watching the Afghanistan robotics team be evacuated, gave me hope. Being invited to Makers today, so that I could be like, the Taliban's not Muslim. The Ku Klux Klan is not Christianity. These people do not represent our faith. My faith says one thing very clearly, never kill an innocent human being. So you can't go around killing people willy-nilly and call yourself religious. You can't use my faith to cause harm to women or deprive them of equality.

So while it tears my soul up to watch women be oppressed in the name of my faith, to live in a world where we arm and send money to Saudi Arabia, as they deny women the right to leave their house without a man's permission-- you know, as that stuff pushes me down, I think of Kamala Harris being VP of the United States of America. I think of the fact that for 20 years I've fought, and I'm going to create a comic book where a child of color is not bullied, and is not shunned because she's disabled. But she's the cool kid that everyone wants to hang out with.

You know, 50% of all Americans killed by law enforcement are disabled, 50%. So when I leave my house and I get in my car, I live with that fear. But when I leave my house, I get in my car and I'm like, I do that! I learned how to drive, I can pay for my car, I'm on an open road! You have to look at the light but not ignore the dark. Do everything you can to expunge the darkness, but accept that you can only do what you can do.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: You know I could sit here and talk to you all day. I have one more question for you and then we'll go to--

MAYSOON ZAYID: So you feel like I should probably be a host on The View?

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: Oh my God, I--

MAYSOON ZAYID: Which, we've all heard this opinion.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: If you would let me-- you know, I was going to go there. I was going to go there and say you should actually be the lead host on The View, not that I'm biased, but you know, I'm just putting it out there. So I am a daddy's girl tried and true. And so you talked about your dad, and sort of the can-can that your father instilled in you. I love it, I love it!

MAYSOON ZAYID: Get a better shot, there it is.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: There you go! Hi, daddy! What is your, yes you can can, that gets you through the day?

MAYSOON ZAYID: Him, it was him. It was him. It was him. I said that like 18 times, the pandemic without my father was so difficult. Every morning I wake up and I think, ooh, it's so boring without my dad. What makes me can-can-- and it really was a transformative moment in 2014. When I did my Ted Talk, I ended my Ted Talk by saying, [SPEAKING ARABIC], which is, God rest your soul in Arabic. I didn't know that the Ted Talk was going to go viral, like at all. I didn't know. All I knew was that they weren't paying me, and I couldn't figure out why I was on that stage. And I just wanted to be done. And it went viral, and what happened was millions of people started saying prayers for my dad. And like in my faith, that calms the soul.

And so I am his legacy. I'm the person that gets to say, this Arab man, who lacked an education, had a disabled daughter, and fought his entire life for my equality, for my independence, and my functionality-- He has become a model for other parents, regardless of gender, of disabled kids. To not look at this as mourning the healthy child they lost, but instead exalting the child they have. And that's what gets me to can-can. Also I am extremely shallow. I love money, clothes, hair, cars, vacations, you know-- Everything except blood diamonds, give it to me. And so the dollar bill makes me really can-can.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: I love it! I want to try to get at least one community-- one question from the community--

MAYSOON ZAYID: Liz Rodriguez got chills, and they are multiplying. You see?

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: So here is one question that came in. What is something you wish your younger self would have known, positive or negative, about being a comedian?

MAYSOON ZAYID: Oh well, just, I wish my younger self had known that credit cards are the death of me, and had not signed up for a credit card every time they offered me a slinky on Arizona State University's campus. Because I graduated with $24,000 in debt, and never had another credit card. I'm just a debit card girl now. What I wish people knew is that comedians have to write their jokes. That you don't just get on stage and are like, yuk yuk, I'm funny. Being a comedian is being a writer. You have to write jokes every day, all the time, impressions-- I freestyle. I'm a freestyle comic so I don't memorize anything, but every single day I write pages and pages and pages of jokes and comedy. And then socially, I really want people to know that it's better to be single than to be miserable. I think that we have convinced ourselves--

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: Say it again, say it again.

MAYSOON ZAYID: --being in a horrifying relationship is better than being in no relationship. And I wish younger me had not, you know, bought Chris Johnson a car so he would like me. And realized there's six billion people in the world. If I can't find one of them to like me, I'll like myself. You know what I mean? It really is not better to be in a relationship that harms you, than to be alone. Alone is not lonely.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: I love it. OK, last one. And this one is for me, and then I promise I'm going to free you. But I need you to conjure your-- get in your View mode, get in your View mode. I need you to-- Yes, you're in The View, are you-- Channel it, channel it, are you there? Are you there? OK. Tell me, what is one thing you want to leave people with? What's that legacy moment-- if people hear one thing from you, what is that one thing?

MAYSOON ZAYID: It is not better to be dead than disabled.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: Mic drop, mic drop. You my friend, and I'm calling you my friend, my sister from another mother--

MAYSOON ZAYID: Yes.

IJE-ENU U. NWOSU: You have gifted us all today. And my heart is so full, and my belly is full, and you know-- I was checking my activity points. You know, my shimmy got me a couple of extra activity points, so bless you for that today. So I just-- a heartfelt thanks from the entire Makers community. You have brought light to us today. And you do it in everything you do and we are so blessed to have you--

MAYSOON ZAYID: And I thank you all for giving me the platform to be a spark in the darkness. And I thank Kennedy and everyone else for the lovely comments about my father in the chat. And fight the good fight, yes you can can. Thank you everybody.