Amanda Seales: I Be Knowin'

Now, y'all keep asking me, "Amanda, who is this special for?"

And I keep telling y'all, "It's for my sisters!"

But it's comedy, so it's really for everybody.

Okay, maybe not for everybody. Everybody except for racists,

rapists, sexists, misogynists, narcissists.

You know, folks that are callin' the cops on black folks just livin' our lives.

Yeah, it ain't for you. It ain't for fuck boys, or trife gals,

or that one ex, who still ain't paid you that money back he owes you. Uh-huh.

No laughs for them.

It ain't for Trump voters, or coons, or...

people who don't believe that white men can be terrorists.

It ain't for homophobes, or transphobes,

or xenophobes. You know that wall is some bullshit.

Hmm. It ain't for bullies, it ain't for poachers, it ain't for abusers.

It ain't for people who keep asking me,

"Amanda, can I pick your brain?" No!

It ain't for dudes who want head

but don't wanna eat no pussy!

It ain't for you!

It also is not for people who don't take care of their kids.

It ain't for people who take their shoes and socks off on planes.

Who raised you?

It ain't for fronters. It ain't for fakers.

It ain't for the phonies. It ain't for haters.

Nah, I'm frontin'! It is for the haters.

'Cause, you know, y'all be tryin' to stop me from gettin' my shine.

But guess what? I can't stop.

Won't stop. You know why? 'Cause...

Announcer: Give it up for phat girl, a young girl...

Amanda Seales!

-(audience cheering) -(hip-hop music playing)

-Seales: I be... -Audience: Knowin'.

New York!

We did it.

We here.

My people.

-(cheering) -Seales: Ah!

The real ones.

The truth-tellers.

The responsible hoes.

I see you, boos.

I always say, we "responsible hoes" 'cause we got levels.

We know our credit score.

All right.

We get annual pap smears.

Keep it tight.

But when we hear...

We know the proper protocol!

Women got levels.

Anyone who identifies as a woman understands, it's a journey.

Right? Being a woman is a journey. Lots of twists and turns.

We dealin' with things that people don't even...

know that we're dealing with.

Titties. Okay?

It don't matter what size your titties is.

At the end of the day, when you take your bra off,

they audibly sigh.

You goin' back to the motherland in your living room.

Okay? There's a crowd outside chanting, "Free the titties! Free the titties!"

There's a reporter in your room, interviewing your nipples, like,

"How does it feel to be free from that padded cell?"

"My God, it feels so good to feel the wind in my hair."

"There's hair on nipples?" "Yes."

Then we have these periods.

Right?

I thought by now, I'd be used to it.

I really did. But still it be like, ta-da!

I'm like, where did you come from?

And so I find myself, more often than I'd like to...

in a public restroom, doing this.

Wrapping toilet paper around a crotch.

Because by 37, I've become a menstrual MacGyver.

Then there's the whole...

There's a whole thing about going out.

Okay. Some of y'all barely made it here tonight.

I be havin' to cheer myself on.

Like really, in the house, like, "Okay, okay, okay, okay."

Like, really.

It's real.

You do all of that and you're like, "Okay, okay."

You get dressed.

I don't know about y'all, but I be havin' theoretical outfits.

That only really live in theory.

My hypothesis sometimes fails.

'Cause then I put it on and I'm, like, "Oh."

"Look at that."

Hit and a miss.

But you're not gonna change.

'Cause if I change, I'm going to sleep.

If I take the clothes off, I'm going to sleep.

Okay? It's gonna be me and Lando.

In the crib.

So...

you have to find another source of confidence

to be like, "This works."

For me, that is the, uh, gay black man that lives within me.

LaTravious-s-s-s...

I consult with LaTravious in the mirror,

because LaTravious is a gay black man,

and gay black men have more confidence

than anybody on the planet.

They have to

'cause they're dealing with oppression from multiple sides.

They got racism over here. They got homophobia over here.

That's why the walk is so mean.

'Cause they be like, "No, bitch. No, bitch. No bitch. No bitch.

"Come for me. Come for me. Come for me. Come for me.

Beyoncé."

"Wear that. That's cute."

I'm like, "Okay, he fuck with it."

I'm ready to go.

So, then you head out. Right?

You hit that threshold and you're like, skrrt.

'Cause you realize...

you did not paint your toenails.

And you have an inner conflict because one part of you is like,

"I am not hampered by society's limitations of femininity.

"I am my personality, not my appearance.

For colored girls who considered suicide when the rainbow is enough."

The other part of you is like, "Mmm..."

"These shits look pre-historic."

So you've got to come to a compromise within yourself.

And that compromise is

to just paint the two that are showing.

He got to earn that pinky toe!

He got to earn that pinky toe!

We're dealing with real things.

Women are still dealing with cat-calling.

Why?

Has it ever been proven effective?

No!

I was on a show on CNN...

where I had to discuss cat-calling

with the whitest white man of whitery.

You know, like the kind of white man that wears two polos at the same damn time.

One, a-two.

So...

He comes on the screen and he's like, "Ah-ah-ah-ah.

I think we can all agree..." Okay.

Uh-uh.

The minute I hear a straight white man say, "I think we can all agree,"

I know, we do not agree.

-(laughter, applause) -We don't.

So, this man is on TV, and he has the caucasity...

...to say,

"Eh, I think we can all agree that all women

love getting compliments from men in the street."

Whom?

When I hear such foolery, it makes me...

first, just, go to the root.

And I say, "Okay.

This is somebody who doesn't know what a compliment is."

And, you know, black women...

...we are the masters at compliments.

We... We have taken compliments down

to a precise science of conciseness,

where we don't even say a full sentence.

We just say at you...

what we're looking at on you.

"Okay, polka-dots!"

When it's that easy, you gotta hand 'em out all the time.

'Cause you gotta remember, it doesn't diminish you any

to pick another sister up.

Compliments.

How could he not know? For clarification...

If I'm in Brooklyn...

at midnight...

and a Jamaican man...

...appears from the shadows.

: Sweetness-s-s-s...