The Hardest Part (Transcript)

MUSIC IN

DYLAN (Narration):
Ahmed was weathering the storm of hate from anti-Jar Jar websites and the boost those websites received from traditional media turned that online hate into a national story. But he told me that what hurt the most was criticism from his own community.

AHMED:
I'm very conscious about who I am as a Black man in this country. Very conscious of my history, very conscious of my very, you know, Afrocentric Black parents. My mom teaching African percussion, my father getting a job where he got a job because he's a Black man.

DYLAN:
Mm-hmm.

AHMED:
And brought that excellence to his job. Right?


MUSIC OUT

AHMED:
When my neighborhood in Brooklyn—and at the time there were Black people in Fort Greene.

DYLAN:
(laughs)

AHMED:
But when my neighborhood in Brooklyn started repeating the “Uncle Tom,” “sellout,” racial epithets... When that got to me, that's what broke me.

DYLAN:
Yeah.

AHMED:
That was the hardest part about all of this, 'cause all I've ever wanted to do was be Black and excellent in this country.

THEME IN

DYLAN (Narration):
Welcome back to The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks. Today we’re going to explore a, um, a candidly, more challenging element of this story.

Jar Jar Binks wasn’t just criticized for being quote-unquote “annoying” or “the reason” that Star Wars was turning into a kids' movie. There was an entirely different branch of the backlash, too.

Some people saw—and still see—Jar Jar Binks as a racial stereotype.

And so begins my precarious tightrope walk in which I attempt to balance my duty to my guest, whom I really care about, and my duty to a story that deserves to be told completely.

MUSIC OUT

AMY:
So, how do you want to do this today? What do you, what do you…

DYLAN:
Well, I was thinking that you just share with me all of the articles you found.

DYLAN (Narration):
As I begin to inch my way onto this tightrope, I figure I should at least start by steadying myself with research. So, I asked my producer Amy to pull some media clippings to get a sense for how this take was articulated nearly 25 years ago.

MUSIC IN

AMY:
Uh, this is from Salon.

DYLAN:
Okay.

AMY:
The headline is “Star Wars Lovers…” (reading begins to overlap) / I found a lot of coverage in The Los Angeles Times… / “A Galaxy Far, Far Off Racial Mark”... / “Star Wars & Stereotypes. Is Jar Jar Binks a Racist Character?”... / This was syndicated in a lot of stories so… / “Jar Jar is no Star Star” is the headline.

MUSIC OUT

DYLAN (Narration):
She pulled a lot of articles. All from the summer of 1999, right after The Phantom Menace was released. And these articles include takes from film critics, professors, and media scholars, all of whom express some version of the idea: that Jar Jar Binks was an offensive racial stereotype.

In the Wall Street Journal’s review of The Phantom Menace, critic Joe Morgenstern referred to Jar Jar as, quote, “a Rastafarian Stepin Fetchit on platform hoofs, crossed annoyingly with Butterfly McQueen.” End quote.

By invoking these two popular Black performers from the early twentieth century, Morgenstern is tying Jar Jar to a pretty complicated legacy.

MUSIC IN

Both Stepin Fetchit and Butterfly McQueen became controversial figures for Black audiences. Simultaneously acknowledged for their unmistakable talent and success, while also derided for the tropes that they projected to white audiences.

This line from Joe Morgenstern’s review, it clearly struck a chord, because it was re-quoted in a number of these articles that Amy and I were looking through.

Some other things that came up frequently in this branch of media coverage were Jar Jar’s subservience to white characters, the interpretation of his long ears as dreads, and many alluded to minstrelsy—the old, racist, theatrical genre where, for the most part, white actors would don blackface to play caricatures of Black people.

MUSIC OUT
But the read of Jar Jar as a racial stereotype ultimately hinged on two main elements: The first element? His pattern of speech.

MUSIC IN

AMY (Reading):
“Jar Jar speaks in demeaning pidgin English that will give many older viewers an unfortunate reminder of Hollywood’s more blatant racial stereotypes.”

“The anti-Binks backlash stems from the way how his speech pattern sounds like Caribbean-accented pidgin English to some.”

“Flop-eared amphibian who resembles a mutant bunny slash camel speaks in an often unintelligible Jamaican patois.”

DYLAN (Narration):
The second element that was most frequently cited was his mannerisms.

AMY (Reading):
“And he seems to shuffle when he walks.”

“To me he’s obviously racist in everything from his mannerisms to his manner.”

“His loose-limb gait has been one target of criticism, with some people calling him an intergalactic Stepin Fetchit.”

MUSIC OUT

DYLAN (Narration):
Now, I should quickly just note here that Lucasfilm’s spokeswoman Lynn Hale is quoted in a number of these stories saying, quote, “There is nothing in ‘Star Wars’ that is racially motivated. Star Wars is a fantasy movie set in a galaxy far, far away … To dissect this movie as if it has a direct reference to the world that we know today is absurd.” End quote.

Similarly, Ahmed was quoted at the time as saying, quote, “Jar Jar is not African, not an African American. He’s a reptile from the planet Naboo. If people don’t understand that, they’re going too far.”

MUSIC IN

I have to admit that these articles are really tough to read because they express the kind of takes I could see myself having. Takes that I’ve had about other movies. Because I do think quite a lot about racial representation on screen.

Also, these articles all complicate the story I thought I was telling. A much simpler story where a character was hated by some disgruntled fans, the actor who played that character paid the price, and now, we now owe him an apology. Boom. Done.

That story is tidy because I can quite easily distance myself from the people who were so annoyed by a fictional character that they created violent images to prove their point.

This part of the story? The part where people were so offended by a fictional character that they… wrote critiques about it? That’s a little harder to distance myself from.

I don’t know, it’s just complicated.

MUSIC OUT

I suppose that this part of the story would be so much more cut-and-dry if Ahmed had come out and disavowed the character, right? Like, if he disavowed the whole creative process. Revealed that he was never listened to, that all of these creative ideas, they were just thrust upon him. But he hasn’t.

If you recall, Ahmed told me how exactly he created the voice for Jar Jar.

AHMED:
It's a voice that I used to do for my little cousins. So...

DYLAN:
Organically made voice.

AHMED:
Totally organically.

DYLAN:
Yeah.

AHMED:
Nothing, There was no thought processing, no nothing to it. It was just like, “Oh, this is the voice that I use with, you know, little kids.”

DYLAN (Narration):
And he also walked me through his inspirations for the physical performance…

AHMED:
Jar Jar is more Buster Keaton and Jackie Chan.

DYLAN:
Mm-hm. Yeah.

AHMED:
Those were my two biggest influences on Jar Jar: Buster Keaton and Jackie Chan.

DYLAN (Narration):
As an artist drawing inspiration from cinema history, Ahmed clearly had a hand in the creation of Jar Jar Binks.

But this all makes me feel a little more wobbly. How can I best honor Ahmed, the person who not only played Jar Jar, but co-created him, while still holding space for those who read the character as a racial stereotype?

Over and over again, I find myself wishing for a cleaner story.

AISHA:
Yeah. I mean, uh, I think it would be less interesting if it was so clean.

DYLAN (Narration):
This is Aisha Harris. I’ve reached out to her because I really trust her to help me navigate this. She’s a journalist, an NPR host, and an author. Her debut book is called Wannabe: Reckonings with the Pop Culture That Shapes Me.

DYLAN:
I, I think just to start off, what was your take on the character when you first saw it?

AISHA:
Um, I mean, he definitely seemed like a stereotype. He seemed like the noble savage that, you know, that is a trope within, not just movies and pop culture, but throughout literary history.

MUSIC IN

So this is a, a, a trope that goes way back. And it doesn't always have to be a Black character. It's often just a non-white character who is usually part of a tribe of some sort or a different species or whatever. And they sometimes guide the white lead protagonist along. They help them figure things out.

Um, but they're also—for all of their savviness in terms of helping that character on whatever journey they're on, they're also sh--uh, you know, depicted as being feeble-minded, uh, as being, again, sa- it's right there in the name “savage”. Of being, uh, lesser than of being uncivilized.

And I definitely got that vibe, just like the fact that, not that the movie (laughs), the whole concept of Star Wars is generally goofy, but he takes goof to like a whole nother level. It's like he's in a very different movie from most of the other characters in this film. And so it really stands out. And then on top of that, you also have this sort of, like, barely comprehensible sounds, kind of like patois, dialect that just kind of makes my antenna go up and be like, “hmm.”

MUSIC OUT

DYLAN (Narration):
Jar Jar Binks, it should be noted, is not the first “ding” that Star Wars had gotten in this department.
AISHA:
There's this sense that Star Wars has not been kind to its, uh, non-white characters or those who seemed like they might be coded as non-white. And it feels, in many ways, kind of stuck in the past.

DYLAN (Narration):
Before The Phantom Menace, the only significant Black character to exist in the original Star Wars universe, in those movies that were released in the 70s and 80s, was Lando Calrissian played by Billy Dee Williams. Lando was a hustler and a smuggler, which also drew criticism.

Additionally, Yoda has been read as an Asian stereotype.

But back to Jar Jar: I keep seeking some simple answer of what led to this. And then, I think back to Ahmed’s inspiration for the character.

DYLAN:
Ahmed did explicitly base his performance off of Buster Keaton, who is a famous clown.

AISHA:
Yeah.

DYLAN:
Do you think that by invoking clowning that he unintentionally evoked images of minstrelsy?

AISHA:
Yes. Oftentimes when Black characters are accepted in narrative spaces, it is often to serve as the clown. It is to not be the center of the, the narrative, to move the narrative forward, but to, to be sort of like the entertainment in a way. To counter the more quote-unquote “serious things” that might be happening in the rest of the story. So I think that him being the clown on top of the way he looks and the way he talks, just makes this very potent combination that does not do itself any favors.

MUSIC IN

DYLAN (Narration):
The more Aisha breaks this down for me, the more complicated I feel. It’s so clear to me that Ahmed and the other creators who had a hand in making Jar Jar had absolutely no intention of creating an offensive character. And yet, that’s so clearly how some read it.

So is this just a classic example of intent versus impact? That strange conundrum where how something was intended to land is totally different from how it does land? I don’t know.

Stay right there. We will be right back.

MUSIC OUT

[AD BREAK]

DYLAN:
I wonder what you make of the fact that the pieces, the elements that led to these accusations were kind of developed in this organic way…

AISHA:
Hm.

DYLAN:
… and yet came together to form something that was read as totally different…

AISHA:
Yeah.

DYLAN:
… than what it was intended to be.

AISHA:
That is such a conundrum that I think a lot of artists have to deal with. Even beloved animated characters have been coded as Black.

MUSIC IN

DYLAN:
Hm.

AISHA:
Mickey Mouse, uh, it has been said. And if you look at him, especially the early versions of him, he does kind of resemble a minstrelsy character.

DYLAN:
Hm.

AISHA:
The white gloves, the mostly Black face, uh, with just like the kind of the white eyes, like the earliest versions of him.

DYLAN:
Mm-hmm. (affirmative)

AISHA:
Um, Goofy, in fact. So (laughs) Set aside the fact that A Goofy Movie, the 1995 film, is largely considered by Black, especially Black millennials, to be, like, the Blackest Disney movie ever

DYLAN:
(laughs)

AISHA:
Um, seriously, but also, like, in a joking way. But the original Goofy, um, in the 1930s, one, uh, Disney animator Art Babbitt wrote in a memo, uh, he described what Goofy should be like, and part of his description of Goofy was, uh, and I'm quoting him here, “a gullible good Samaritan, a half-wit, a shiftless, good-natured colored boy, and a hick.” So…

DYLAN:
Huh.

AISHA:
Seeped into that...

DYLAN:
(laughs) Yeah.

AISHA:
(laughs) Seeped into the way Goofy was animated, and the way Goofy was kind of like—and Goofy kind of has a similar gait in many ways to Jar Jar Binks. And so I think that, that's like an example of it being intentional at least, um, to some extent on the part of the people who created Goofy. But even if it's not intentional, it still can show up in many ways, um, in our popular culture. And I think that's part of what is so both engrossing and enticing about popular culture in Hollywood.

DYLAN:
Mm.

AISHA:
Is that they create dreams, they create imagery, and so often it's just in the subconscious, and it doesn't, um, it's not all going to be very obvious.

DYLAN:
You bring up Goofy, and I believe that George Lucas did even intend for Jar Jar to be a Goofy-like character.

AISHA:
Mm.

DYLAN (Narration):
A few moments later, a message pops up on my screen in the window where I’m video chatting with Aisha.

DYLAN:
I just got confirmation from Amy, my producer, um, that George said quote, “I will say one secret that nobody knows: not many people realize that Goofy was the inspiration for Jar Jar Binks.” End quote.

AISHA:
Yeah. Well, Lucas is a huge Disney fan, so I, I totally… I get that (laughs), I could see that, yeah.

DYLAN:
I just think that's interesting because, it, it's kind of like a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox, right? Like...

AISHA:
Yeah.

DYLAN:
You, you are not, you don't have ill intent by basing a character you're creating off of a character you love, but that character that you're basing it off of has, like, racist roots.

AISHA:
Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I don't think that most people, even the critics of that performance as a racial stereotype, in the articles that I've read from that time, it doesn't sound like they think that it was intentional. Um, I think it's just, again, these things slip in.

MUSIC IN

DYLAN (Narration):
Maybe as I try to walk this tightrope, I'm thinking way too much about intention. Maybe we're all in agreement that there was no intention to evoke images of racial stereotypes—maybe, as Aisha said, those things just slip in.

MUSIC OUT

AISHA:
Like, can you acknowledge that you may have… these, these things may have sunk in and that there, if, if a lot of people are calling these things out, maybe that is something you need to acknowledge?

DYLAN:
Mm.

AISHA:
Because I mean, this is my, my (laugh), I feel like I should just have this stamped on my forehead. But like, my, my, my motto or like my, my way of approaching pop culture is that it affects us in ways we often are not even at all aware of.

DYLAN:
Yeah.

AISHA:
Or it takes us a very long time before we recognize how, like, deeply ingrained our opinions are, our thoughts are, how we treat people, how that comes out of what we watch and what we consume as, as lovers and fans. And, um, let's face it, Hollywood is, is has a history of racism.

DYLAN:
Yeah.

AISHA:
And anytime you are, are playing with those old genres and those old ways of doing things, you're gonna butt up against that in some way.

MUSIC IN

DYLAN (Narration):
The problem seems to have stemmed from the ingredients and not the recipe. Ingredients that neither Ahmed nor George Lucas invented.

I’d use this opportunity to keep tiptoeing forward on my tightrope, but I think it’s time for me to dismount. Because this whole time I have been so hyper-focused on the tightrope I’m walking as I re-tell this story, but my highwire act does not hold a candle to the far more precarious tightrope that Ahmed had to walk.

MUSIC OUT

Ahmed told me he was called an “Uncle Tom” and a “sellout” by people in his own neighborhood. And Aisha saw parallels in film history.

AISHA:
Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte had to deal with their own people, Black people, being very critical of the roles they took in the 1950s and 1960s, especially Sidney Poitier because he was, like, the one at the top. He was the one who, he was the first Black actor to win Best Actor, um, at the Oscars. He was a major box-office success. Um, in ‘67, I think he was the top box office grossing actor of, of any race, um, for three movies, uh, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, In the Heat of the Night, and, uh, To Sir with Love. And he was criticized for taking those roles because, you know, Black Americans especially, were kind of moving to, toward being more radical. And those roles were seen in many ways as sort of “the good Negro”, the sort of complacent, doesn't-really-show-any-anger kind of character. 


DYLAN (Narration):
Aisha appreciates how challenging this sort of experience must have been for Ahmed. To be catapulted into mainstream culture, and therefore mainstream critique, basically overnight. And how this particular kind of criticism can really sting hard.

AISHA:
You know, it, it, it hurts you when your own call you a “sellout”, when they call you an “Uncle Tom,” or when they say like, “How are you trying to help us?” “How are you trying to, to make things better?” And so I think that it's just a very unique space that Black people especially have to deal with, which is trying to rise in the ranks of whatever profession they're in, but also making sure that they're in some way, still staying true to themselves, whatever that means, being quote-unquote “authentic.”

I can just list various Black performers who have talked about this in their art, who have talked about this in interviews. They will often say, “this hurts,” like, “when I'm criticized by my own, it hurts more than hearing it from other people.”

MUSIC IN

DYLAN (Narration):
When I take a step back and I look at all that Ahmed was shouldering—both the hate from the websites and the criticism of Jar Jar as a racial stereotype—I see that he was receiving pushback from two different camps. And this has helped me develop what I’m calling The Two Camps Theory.

These two camps are mostly distinct from each other. On the hate websites, there don’t seem to be many complaints about his offensiveness. And in the op-eds, there don’t seem to be claims that he’s ruining the Star Wars franchise. In fact, those articles point to the fact that other characters have also been read as offensive racial stereotypes.

In short: there seem to be two distinct reasons to dislike Jar Jar from two distinct groups of people:

Devoted fans who think he’s annoying.

And scholarly critics who think he’s offensive.

And yes, of course, there is a center of every Venn diagram, and there are some people who thought both. But in general, it's two distinct groups.

And I think what happened is that these two camps formed an alliance in the public square, and unknowingly supported each other to create something much bigger.

MUSIC OUT

So, the question then is "How?" How did it happen? How did these two separate takes fuse together to create one Big Take that Jar Jar Is Bad?

Well, we know how it happens on today’s social media: It happens through the scroll. An endless sea of people—or, more accurately, what seems like an endless sea of people—start talking about it online. Some have one take, others have another take, but then we, as onlookers, are scrolling past these various takes so quickly that we aren’t able to thoughtfully separate them so we just say to ourselves, “Man, everyone really hates that guy,” and then we just go about our days.

MUSIC IN

But that’s today. On today’s social media. How did it happen then?

Remember those aggregator articles that compiled all of the Jar Jar hate that was coming from websites? Well, we found that some of those articles also quoted the film scholars and academics explaining why they saw Jar Jar as a racial stereotype.

And I think that’s what fused these two separate camps together. That simply by including the two different takes on Jar Jar together in their reports, they fused the two takes to each other, essentially giving readers a “choose your fighter” option.

As if to say “Everyone hates Jar Jar. What’s your reason?”

MUSIC OUT

And I just want to be clear, I'm not saying that these takes are equal. Right? Someone creating a website with a mock-up of Jar Jar's severed head is not the same as someone writing a thoughtful op-ed about how Jar Jar may evoke images of harmful racist tropes.

But whether it's actual hate or constructive criticism, we receive it at the same volume.

AISHA:
I can understand how any critique coming your way, regardless of how nuanced or not nuanced it is, can feel like a personal attack. Like, you can have the toughest skin, but it's all still going to get to you. If enough, if enough of it accumulates. And I'm, I can only imagine how much that sucked and how much that hurt.

MUSIC IN

DYLAN (Narration):
I can theorize all I want. I can draw out an extended metaphor to share how difficult this part of the story is to tell. I can come up with pithy terms to describe my little sociological musings. But, I am simply revisiting this story. Safely tucked away in the observation deck of the future.

I didn’t have to live it.

AHMED:
It was everywhere I went. And I was the reason? Right. It wasn't the writing, it wasn't the direction, it wasn't anybody else. Like, George is fine, everybody's fine. I'm still in my one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn trying to be an actor, and everybody's like, “You ruin movies.”

DYLAN (Narration):
Stay right there, we’ll be right back.

MUSIC OUT

[AD BREAK]

DYLAN (Narration):
Hey, just wanna give you a heads up that in this final section of this episode, there is a discussion of suicide. And if that's not something you need to be listening to right now, or want to be listening to right now, go ahead and skip.

DYLAN:
So I think you know where I'm going here. I mean, there's no blueprint for this. You're kind of patient zero for a mass pop culture hate campaign.

AHMED:
Yeah.

DYLAN:
And so I wanna know what your mental health is like when you're in the middle of this storm.

AHMED:
You know, um, at that time, mental health wasn't really discussed.

DYLAN:
Mm-hmm.

AHMED:
Especially as openly as it is right now.

DYLAN:
Mm-hmm.

AHMED:
Which, you know, I'm very happy about that it's so openly discussed right now as this real thing. But, you know, culturally speaking as a, as a Black man in this country, we're not supposed to feel pain. We're not supposed to be hurt. We're especially not supposed to be hurt emotionally and mentally. We're supposed to be strong enough to take it all. Right? The Strong Black Man, Strong Black Woman trope is weaved throughout our existence, even in the Black communities. Right? You know, it's, it's quite a popular thought that Black folks don't need therapy, they just need a little bit of Jesus!

DYLAN:
(laughs)

AHMED:
… and you're happening. Right? And you know, I didn't have either.

DYLAN:
Mm-hmm.

AHMED:
I'm not religious by any means. But I never really thought I was depressed. It didn't cross my mind because I didn't feel like I had a right to be depressed.

DYLAN:
Hmm.

AHMED:
That's the thinking. You know?

DYLAN:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

AHMED:
That's the thinking. There are starving people in parts of the world and here I am in Fort Greene…

DYLAN:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

AHMED:
… having a cappuccino…

DYLAN:
(giggles)

AHMED:
You know, feeling bad.

DYLAN:
Yeah.

AHMED:
So I didn't feel like I had the right to be depressed, but I was destroyed.

DYLAN (Narration):
Ahmed retreated further and further away from society and sequestered himself in his apartment.
AHMED:
I didn't have the tools or the skills to deal with this.

DYLAN:
Hm.

AHMED:
Um, I just stayed inside. I, I went back to STOMP, which helped. But it was like ninety minutes where I could breathe. Being on stage, you know, the stage was always home for me. Still is, still is my home. And it's the place that I feel the most comfortable. You know, but then before the show and after the show, I was just not good.

DYLAN:
Hmm.

AHMED:
I just wanted to go home.

DYLAN:
Hmm.

AHMED:
You know, I just wanted to go home and sleep and that's all I did. And I didn't want to answer any questions. I didn't wanna talk to anybody. I was just very tired.

DYLAN:
Yeah.

AHMED:
All the time. I was just very tired.

DYLAN (Narration):
By the end of 1999, Ahmed reached a breaking point.

AHMED:
I think at the, at that time, I felt so out of control.

DYLAN:
Hm.

AHMED:
You know? And, you know, as I said earlier, choosing to be an artist, especially as a Black person in this country, takes incredible amount of courage. And I, I recognized that at that time. And here I am at this supposedly, supposed to be high point in my life, and I can't see a future.

DYLAN:
Hmm.

AHMED:
I can't see anything. I feel like I'm done. I'm destroyed. There's no coming back from this. There's no point. I gave my life to this thing, and here I am: I'm done at 26 years old.

DYLAN:
Hmm.

AHMED:
You know, and I didn't see a way out. I didn't see any empathy coming from anybody. I felt completely unsupported and alone, you know? So one night at three in the morning…

SFX: SOUNDS OF NEW YORK CITY

AHMED:
… I took a walk on the Brooklyn Bridge. And even still to this day, I don't know how I got to the edge. Because the Brooklyn Bridge has these iron girders between the walkway and the edge.

DYLAN:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

AHMED:
Right? And they're like a balance beam. It felt like I was awake on the walkway and I was awake on the edge.

DYLAN:
Hmm.

AHMED:
That middle walk, I don't know how I got across there. Like, I don't even remember walking across there. I don't even remember it. I just remember just being on the edge.

New York is very much my city.

DYLAN:
Mm-hmm.

AHMED:
It's the only city in the world where I feel at home.

DYLAN:
Mm.

AHMED:
And walking across that bridge I could see home. And that night I didn't see anything. You know?

SFX: A LIGHT WIND

AHMED:
It felt like it was a foggy night. I don't remember.

DYLAN:
Yeah.

AHMED:
But I remember walking across the bridge and not seeing the city. You know, I didn't see any lights, I didn't see anything.

DYLAN:
Hmm.

AHMED:
It's just blank. And then I'm on the edge and I see the Statue of Liberty and I see the East River and the only thought in my head is, “I'll show all of you.”

DYLAN:
Mm.

AHMED:
"I'll show you, I'll show you what you are doing to me."

DYLAN:
Mm.

AHMED:
"And when I'm gone, then you'll feel it."

DYLAN:
Mm…

AHMED:
"You'll feel exactly what I went through. You'll get it finally. You'll get it. I'll show you."

SFX: WIND

AHMED:
A breeze blows by. Like this really, like heavy, like, gust of wind in my memory.

DYLAN:
Mm-hmm.

AHMED:
At the time. It might have not. (laughs) You know what I’m saying?

DYLAN:
Yeah. Yeah.

AHMED:
Everything was really hazy. Um, but this breeze blows by and it knocks me off balance. And I grab, like I hold onto the side of the bridge, like to hold myself up. And then I start, like, going this thought: “If you really wanted to do this, that breeze wouldn't have let you hold onto the bridge. You would've just let it go. You don't wanna do this. It's not what you want.” You know? Then my logic brain took over, and it's just like, “Wake up. You know, you're not gonna show anybody.” And then it's like my mom and my brother all these people that would be gone. I started thinking about them. You know? That was hard. Oh, it was hard.

And then I woke up.

SFX: THE SOUNDS OF NEW YORK CITY RETURN

DYLAN:
Hmm.

AHMED:
I was on the side of the bridge, and I woke up and then I was like, “how the fuck am I gonna get back to that walkway? Those girders are so goddamn small. How did I get out here?” (laughs) And that's when I got scared. I was like, “holy shit.”

DYLAN:
Like my body took me out here.

AHMED:
Yeah. How am I gonna get back to the—? (small laugh) So I kind of like crawled. It was like hand-over-hand, like really slowly crawled. I don't know why there was no one on the bridge that night. There must have been cars going, seeing me. Nobody stopped. (laughs) You know what I'm saying? Like, there must have been somebody who saw me, you know? I finally got back to the walkway and I was like, “Oh, I'm gonna run back to my place.” And I jogged. Jogged all the way back to Fort Greene, to my apartment. And um, I was like, "I gotta change. Something's gotta change."

THEME IN

AHMED:
This world is not going to change and I have no control over that. So I have to change. And I left New York, came out here

DYLAN:
Came out to LA.

AHMED:
Came out to LA.

DYLAN (Narration):
The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks is a part of the TED Audio Collective.

It’s produced by Amy Gaines McQuade, Jacob Smith, Nisha Venkat, and me, Dylan Marron.

Our editors are Banban Cheng and Michelle Quint.

Additional editing by Jimmy Gutierrez and Alejandra Salazar.

Production support from Roxanne Hai Lash.

Mastering by Ben Tolliday, who also made our theme with help from Jason Gambrell.

Fact-checking by Kate Williams with Julia Dickerson.

Special thanks to Gretta Cohn and Dan O'Donnell.

THEME OUT

Next time on The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks…

DYLAN:
Um, so before we begin, would you mind introducing yourself and identifying your relationship to this story?

ADAM:
Um, I'm Adam Gardner and in 1999 when I watched Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, I hated Jar Jar so much that I made The Jar Jar Hate Page.