- sweetteatvpod
Designing Women S2 E10 - Things Get Screwy OTW to St. Louis
Updated: Aug 14
It’s Design Expo ‘87, baby, and you know what that means: Charlene, Mary Jo and Julia come down with the plague, while a terrible snow storm forces Anthony and Suzanne to cuddle up in a Tennessee motel room. But the most unexpected reveal? Definitely Charlene’s domestic meat allergy that one year in high school.
Stick around for this week’s "Extra Sugar" where we dig into the history of interracial marriage. Check out these reads:
Come on, let’s get into it!
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Transcript
Salina: Hey, Nigel.
Salina: Just kidding. Hey, Nikki.
Nikki: Hey, Salina.
Nikki: I was trying to think of a good name for you.
Salina: Oh, is it hard?
Nikki: Sal.
Salina: Simon sal.
Salina: Oh.
Salina: I just thought Nigel and Simon sound.
Nikki: Like friends, but friends with British accents.
Nikki: So if we're going to pull on the British accent, I could get down.
Salina: I'm glad you said friends with British accents and not friends with benefits, which is what I thought you were about to say.
Salina: Welcome to the Sweet Tea and TV Podcast.
Nikki: Hey, y'all.
Nikki: Welcome.
Nikki: That was an insight into the show.
Salina: Just a day in the life of whatever this is.
Nikki: Do you have some proust questions, Simon?
Nikki: I was going to call you, Nigel.
Salina: I do have some proust questions for you.
Salina: And now everyone knows our British accent.
Salina: Mine's cockney.
Salina: Where would you most like to live?
Nikki: I have two answers.
Nikki: As okay.
Nikki: Santiago.
Nikki: It is the most beautiful place on Earth.
Nikki: The weather was amazing.
Nikki: It's incredible.
Nikki: It's also laid back California, but as I understand it, without the earthquakes, I don't know.
Nikki: I don't live there, so I kind of like that.
Nikki: Or London.
Salina: London.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Very old London.
Nikki: Except I wouldn't talk like that.
Salina: I think you should.
Salina: Are you going to tell us why London?
Nikki: I think I meant to live in London.
Nikki: The only downside would be that it tends to be overcast there.
Nikki: That would be the only downside.
Salina: Can I tell you one other thing that you wouldn't like?
Nikki: What's that, Simon?
Salina: Oh, Nigel.
Salina: It's very expensive.
Nikki: Yes.
Salina: Well, yeah.
Nikki: I thought we were throwing money out.
Salina: The oh, well, that's true, too.
Nikki: Santiago is also very expensive.
Nikki: Oh, right.
Nikki: I can't afford to live there.
Salina: San Diego is like living in McDonough here.
Salina: What are you talking about?
Salina: It's totally fine.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: So we're throwing budget, aren't?
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: If we're not throwing budget out the window, how ridiculous.
Nikki: We'll just be here.
Nikki: A farm in Alabama.
Nikki: I don't know.
Salina: You don't know what those prices look like.
Nikki: That's true.
Nikki: In this afford, I can't afford to move anywhere.
Nikki: So we got to throw money out the window.
Salina: That's right.
Salina: Monopoly money today.
Nikki: Yes.
Salina: That's all we have.
Nikki: What about you?
Salina: Well, I think can I have two also?
Nikki: No.
Nikki: Only I get two.
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: I love how you accepted that, though.
Nikki: You're like.
Nikki: Okay?
Nikki: Sure.
Salina: I'm sorry.
Nikki: Fix yourself.
Salina: I'll stay in Lawrence.
Salina: Well, it's fine.
Salina: Okay, so my first one mine also, is one domestic and one international.
Nikki: Oh, there you go.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: So my domestic one would be somewhere in the Northeast, but probably in the Boston area.
Salina: I want to be Harvard outside of Boston area.
Salina: I can't afford this either, by the and Nikki's face indicates that this is not where she'd want to live.
Salina: But the reason I would want to is because I love fall, and it lasts six weeks, like the basic bee that I am.
Nikki: You really move there for, like, six weeks.
Salina: I really just love the coast vibe.
Salina: I have so many questions about your northeast coast face.
Nikki: I lived in Pennsylvania for a while as a kid.
Salina: It's not Massachusetts.
Nikki: All I remember about it is it's snowing.
Salina: A ah, yes.
Nikki: I've also visited Providence, Rhode Island, in.
Salina: Just bleak.
Nikki: It's bleak.
Salina: It's dark.
Nikki: It's cold.
Nikki: It's dark all day.
Nikki: I don't think the sun came up.
Salina: While I was there.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: I need sunshine, which is it brings me back to London being a challenge for me.
Nikki: I need sunshine.
Salina: That might be a little but I.
Nikki: Didn'T mean to take away your no.
Salina: I'd like to get the insights of why and what will and won't work in this fantasy journey.
Salina: London bringing the so it's not just fall, though.
Salina: It's also some of the vibe I can't explain.
Salina: It's like how you go to New York City, and it just has an energy about it.
Salina: So there's just something that's just, like, very energetic.
Salina: I feel like maybe some like mindedness there they may not like my southern accent.
Salina: They think I'm dumber than a box of rocks.
Nikki: I wonder if Boston feels like a giant coffee shop.
Nikki: You know, like, everybody's kind of smart.
Nikki: They know a lot of things.
Nikki: There's a lot of caffeine.
Nikki: Yeah, it's warm toasty inside, not outside.
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: It just feels like coffee shop.
Salina: So I'm like and this is what I'm saying.
Nikki: I'm trying to meet you where you are.
Nikki: I can't envision that being a dream, but I want to meet you where you are.
Salina: Three years ago, Casey and I went there, and we sort of worked our way.
Salina: We started in Boston, and then we worked our way up the coast, and I just loved every piece of it.
Salina: I mean, we did rural, we did urban.
Salina: We did it all, and I just loved every bit of it.
Salina: And I had a really great experience there where we stayed at a traditional b b, not an airbnb.
Salina: And the hosts came down, and they were just the most amazing people.
Salina: They had their own apple orchard, but he was also a linguistics professor, and they adopted a bunch of children that they took care of.
Salina: They're also, like, cooking us breakfast that morning before they run out to their orchards and their academics.
Nikki: I'm confused.
Nikki: Do you want to move to Boston, or you want these people's lives?
Salina: Well, not in, like, a scary way.
Nikki: You want to wear their skin?
Nikki: Is that what's happening?
Salina: Oh, my God.
Salina: But I was just that kind of life is like a dream for me, I think.
Salina: So that's one international would be Portugal, Lisbon, because that's the only place I've been.
Salina: But what in Portugal?
Salina: I'm saying because there may be other places I would love more.
Salina: So I feel like I can't be like I've been all around Portugal.
Nikki: I want to move to Helen, Georgia, because it's the only place I've ever.
Salina: Been, because I've been there, and have you seen how pretty that Wendy's is?
Nikki: It is a nice Wendy's.
Salina: It's lovely.
Salina: But anyways, when we went to Lisbon, I immediately felt at home.
Salina: I don't know how to explain it.
Salina: It was just magical.
Salina: Incidentally, if you've ever been to San Francisco, they're sister cities.
Salina: And so apparently the two areas are very similar.
Salina: And I have not been to San Francisco.
Nikki: Is Lisbon also cold?
Nikki: San Francisco is very cold.
Salina: Well, we were there no, it wasn't cold.
Salina: And we were there in November, I.
Nikki: Think it's pretty moderate, but someone told me the seasons flip flop in San Francisco.
Nikki: I don't know about Lisbon, but because of the way the water comes in off the bay, what you would expect to be cold is actually warm.
Nikki: Like, New Year's in San Francisco is actually kind of warm.
Nikki: But we were there at the end of May and that would have been sort of like cold.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So, well, what I can tell you is that they do have that same setup, like where you look out over and it's like before I even knew they were sister cities, I was like, is that the San Francisco?
Nikki: Oh, that's funny.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So there's that much in common between the two.
Salina: And then they've got like the cobblestone streets, and I'm talking about almost vertical hills.
Salina: It's nuts, but great for a leg workout.
Salina: Sure.
Salina: Really get your steps in if you make it to the top of the hill is what I'm saying.
Salina: So those are my two places.
Nikki: Is there a Portugal version of the Full House family?
Salina: I want to make a good joke here, but I just got nothing.
Nikki: That's the real test of whether it's the true sister city.
Salina: Let me tell you how good I am the Family Matters song just came into my head.
Salina: It's a rare condition in this day.
Nikki: And age good news on the newspaper page love and tradition of a grand.
Salina: Design, some people say, okay, there's two.
Nikki: Things you shouldn't do on a podcast.
Nikki: One is sing.
Salina: And now we've taken care of that.
Salina: Second question for today.
Salina: What is your most treasured possession?
Nikki: Oh, good Lord.
Salina: That's tough, isn't it?
Nikki: That is tough possession thing.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So not your children.
Nikki: That's my easy answer for everything, man.
Salina: I would use that as a go to all the time.
Salina: Yeah, man, all these I'd be like, my kids.
Nikki: I'm going to say this and then I'm going to think of something later tonight.
Nikki: We're like, oh, my God, I can't live without my nightguard.
Nikki: My engagement ring, probably.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: It is the first piece of fine jewelry I've ever owned.
Nikki: And then, of course, there's just all the I was going to say baggage.
Nikki: That's not the right word.
Nikki: Just all kinds of stuff that comes with it.
Nikki: The memories, the positive baggage.
Nikki: Sure.
Nikki: The really nice suitcase with the wheels and the 360 turns.
Nikki: That kind of baggage.
Salina: A real samsonite, you say?
Nikki: Yeah, I'm going to go with that.
Nikki: That's nice because it feels wrong to say my iPhone.
Salina: Well have you ever misplaced I don't want to get you in trouble.
Salina: Have you ever misplaced your ring before?
Nikki: I've not fortunately, so I have.
Nikki: Oh no.
Salina: And just based on my really crazy meltdown reaction that I had that I've got a handful of friends that can attest to as we tore apart altogether the house to look for it a few years ago, it feels like I have to say that but I'm not going to oh I'm going to say my coffee pot.
Nikki: Well no, took a real uturn there.
Salina: Only because you guys don't want to see me when I don't have my coffee pot.
Nikki: And see I like to think I could live without it because I could just drive somewhere to get coffee.
Nikki: I mean I could live without my engagement ring too.
Salina: Well then there's also these guys.
Salina: Grubby.
Salina: Yeah, Grubby and Teddy Ruxpin.
Salina: I mean so there are some things like because my husband will tell you I'm a thrower if it's been around the house too long, it's out.
Salina: But I do get sentimental about some things that I will treasure and hold on to forever.
Salina: So I think those are tops for me.
Salina: My grandfather who I called Peep, he gave me his parents was very kind of him.
Salina: He gave me a picture of his parents.
Salina: He was going through that stage where he was basically giving away everything because I think he knew that the writing was on the wall and he gave me a picture of his parents and that is very treasured to me as well because it's a connector point and he didn't have this huge list of things.
Salina: So I'm like those 18 things.
Nikki: I know because as you're saying that I'm thinking I do have some other things.
Nikki: Like we've talked I don't think we've talked on here.
Nikki: We've talked off air.
Nikki: My CD collection feels really random and if you look at it it is a mid to late ninety s to early 2000s time capsule but it is also a Nikki time capsule.
Nikki: It is all of this music that has stuck out to me and registers with me for different reasons.
Nikki: Everything from one hit wonders from the late 90s that you're sort of like oh I forgot about them.
Nikki: But all the way up to we've talked about many, many Taylor Swift CDs.
Nikki: The signed, the unsigned, the various but like all of those things that are like me.
Nikki: And at a point so, like probably 2010, I kind of stopped buying CDs.
Nikki: So I don't have anything that talks about this, but I'm starting to buy it again because I got a record player that has a CD player in it.
Nikki: So now I sort of am trying to buy vinyls a little bit more but they're still expensive.
Nikki: You have to be choosy about it.
Nikki: So anyway, I forget about that because Kyle really had me on the ropes.
Nikki: Is that a thing?
Nikki: He had me sort of, like, ready to go to get rid of them because they were sitting in his office and he was like, we don't listen to them.
Nikki: And I was like, I cannot I will not be the one to get rid of those.
Salina: I think I've told you, I have a couple of VHS that I can't part with because it's things that I don't know, I can get a hold of thing.
Salina: Most things are digitized and you can get those, but there are some things that aren't.
Salina: And I'm just not willing to part with them.
Nikki: And even if they were available, they.
Salina: Don'T have the same.
Nikki: They don't have the same like Tommy Boy.
Nikki: I watched my Tommy Boy VHS over and over again with my best friend and my sister.
Nikki: I would love to have that.
Nikki: There are certain Disney movies like The Little Mermaid to have the original Little Mermaid Disney movie.
Nikki: I think my parents have a few of them left, but there's just a few VHS.
Nikki: I don't have a way to play them, but that doesn't mean I don't want them.
Salina: I thought you meant, like, they have a few copies of The Little Mermaid left.
Salina: And I was like, how many copies did they buy?
Nikki: We had one for every day of the week.
Salina: What's going on?
Salina: I want to say that I totally get where you're coming from with the music thing, not the CD collection.
Salina: Mainly because I treated mine like trash.
Nikki: And see, I revered mine.
Nikki: I was very careful with mine.
Salina: I would expect nothing less from you.
Salina: But I say that to say that there is something about music.
Salina: I don't know if you guys know this, but music is special.
Nikki: It is special.
Salina: But it is weird how there are certain songs that it can snap you right back to where you were at a given time.
Salina: And I've got so many like that for like those are high school days.
Salina: And I think that's because in those early college days and I think that's because you were becoming an adult, you were coming into your own.
Salina: And I will pop it on today and still be like, you could just absolutely transport me back to it doesn't matter what year it was.
Salina: Shut up, people.
Salina: And it's as if it was yesterday and time has passed.
Salina: It is so crazy.
Nikki: There's a good Charlote, I think their first CD, anytime it starts playing oh, and there's a newfound glory CD, sticks and Stones.
Nikki: Anytime it starts playing, I am sitting in the silver Honda Civic, driving to school, like, immediately.
Nikki: That is exactly where I am.
Nikki: You cannot convince me.
Nikki: I've aged a day when I put my original Hanson Middle of Nowhere CD on, which I have done recently.
Nikki: And Mbop starts playing.
Nikki: I am, in my mind, recording that from the radio onto my cassette tape because that's what I did the first time that I ever got that song.
Nikki: And I used to just stay up on Friday nights when they did like the request line to see if people would request it.
Nikki: And these are things like they sound silly, but that's totally my life.
Salina: It doesn't sound silly because I think there are things like that.
Salina: I feel like every generation feels that the next generation, the next generation is screwed.
Nikki: They've got nothing good.
Nikki: They weren't listening.
Nikki: They weren't listening.
Salina: I know.
Salina: Nobody even knows what this is.
Nikki: You're going to look back on TikTok?
Salina: Yeah, that'll come to fruition.
Salina: But I feel like the thing that really was special to me is not everything being right at your fingertips.
Salina: That was special.
Salina: Exactly what you're saying.
Salina: Are they going to request it or like, will they play my favorite song on the radio?
Nikki: Oh, that was the biggest gamble of a night.
Nikki: Like when you're doing your homework and you have the radio on and you're wondering, is Star 94 going to play it tonight or not?
Nikki: That's like the biggest exciting gamble.
Nikki: Or like that TV channel, the box, which I feel like only a few people know, but people would request music videos and I used to just wait for my own Worst Enemy by Lit Baby one More Time by Britney Spears.
Nikki: I would just wait for these songs and I think it was here's to the night by Eve six and I just wait for those songs to come on.
Salina: Yeah, somebody else paid to record that song was probably one of my first CDs.
Salina: I listened to it all the time.
Nikki: Such a good song, man.
Nikki: Music it's special.
Salina: Oh, I was like, we're old.
Nikki: Oh, music is special.
Salina: Yeah, just me.
Salina: So speaking of.
Nikki: I don't know, this week's episode is episode ten.
Nikki: Have to keep looking at the number.
Nikki: Episode ten stranded.
Nikki: So our hulu episode description.
Nikki: Suzanne insists on accompanying Anthony to st.
Nikki: Louis in the van when her flight is canceled because of a snowstorm and they wind up sharing the last motel room available for miles.
Nikki: And then IMDb, the ladies are off to St.
Nikki: Louis for design expo where Julia, Mary Jo and Charlene come down with the flu.
Nikki: Back in Atlanta, the airport closes due to snow before suzanne, who is judging a beauty pageant, can leave, so she must ride in the van with Anthony.
Nikki: They stay in a small hotel in Tennessee and end up in the same bed.
Nikki: What gave you the reaction?
Salina: It's just long.
Nikki: It was very long.
Nikki: I felt it as I was reading it.
Nikki: I'm sorry, y'all, well, you didn't write it.
Nikki: I'm sorry.
Salina: I feel like maybe that was a user description.
Nikki: It really does feel like every little bit.
Nikki: I feel like I want to back up and give someone credit for some forethought because this one aired on December 7, which may or may not have been snow season.
Nikki: So it was perfectly timed.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: You don't always get that.
Salina: I know.
Salina: I like it when that happens because it get really upset if there's, like, a Christmas episode in June or something.
Nikki: I don't want to see that.
Salina: I got to wait.
Nikki: Yeah, that's too much.
Nikki: So this one was written by LBT and directed again by David Trainor.
Nikki: So general reactions and stray.
Salina: Know, I think the thing for me, I didn't.
Nikki: Get the laughter I was going for.
Salina: I'll just go right past that.
Salina: I don't know, it just seems normal now.
Salina: So I think I need to train myself on what the difference is between a stray observation and a general reaction, or are these two the same?
Nikki: But whatever the case is, I lump them together.
Salina: You do you whatever the case is.
Salina: This sick subplot really gave me the heebie GB's in a post pandemic world.
Salina: Like, they're all sick.
Salina: But it starts with charlene.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: Because she insists on going to the design expo even though she's running a fever.
Salina: And a tiny panic started to well up in me like she was patient zero or something.
Nikki: I get that.
Nikki: And she was.
Salina: Yeah, she was.
Nikki: That's where it starts, guys.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Please stay home.
Nikki: Just do what I noted was that Julia is sick again and that she was sick in that slumber party episode and moody.
Nikki: She's not a good sick person.
Salina: She's so moody.
Nikki: She is not a good sick person.
Nikki: Yes, I see.
Nikki: General observations.
Nikki: I see these as similar.
Nikki: So this is really stray, and I want to bring it up delicately.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: But I'm going to bring it up.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Julia looks different in this episode.
Nikki: No.
Nikki: We've talked at the beginning of this season that she openly, I think, had some work done between the first season and the second season.
Nikki: I think I said at the time we talked about it, I didn't notice anything obvious.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: She came on screen, and her face looks so different to me in this episode.
Salina: Oh, okay.
Nikki: So you didn't notice it.
Salina: But I've noticed it a few times since after the episode, we've talked about it, where I've gone, but then I'm having that thing where I'm like, am I just seeing a rev Mustang now?
Salina: Because we talked about red Mustangs.
Salina: Now I'm seeing them everywhere.
Salina: Or is this really happening?
Nikki: See, I'm choosing to believe the way we've been recording this season, we're recording a little bit more at one time and then telling you how the sausage is made.
Nikki: This is where it gets exciting.
Nikki: And then we come back together and then we'll take a couple of weeks where I'm watching them slowly between last season was a lot more fast and furious because we didn't know what we were doing this season's.
Nikki: More planned, guys, but so the way we're watching Nikki took over.
Nikki: No, the way we're watching it, my whole point is I feel like I get a good palate cleanser before I come back to the next episode.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: And so I feel like this one turned on and it's just something in my again, gear is shifting in my head.
Nikki: All of a sudden something moved and I was like, she looks different but.
Salina: Her face didn't move is what you're saying.
Nikki: This is what I'm saying.
Salina: Okay, all right.
Nikki: You didn't notice.
Salina: Well, it's something, but I think it's because I'm now questioning myself.
Salina: Like, am I putting this emotion on this?
Salina: Because I have thought a couple of times and I don't even know another way to say it except for right.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: So I'm going to bring up another potentially emotional trigger for you.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: So Anthony people?
Nikki: No.
Salina: Okay, sorry.
Nikki: When Anthony I was going to say something funny and I had nothing.
Nikki: Anthony comes in talking about driving to St.
Nikki: Louis.
Nikki: It's so hard for me to say St.
Nikki: Louis and not St.
Nikki: Louis.
Nikki: Julia told him to be careful.
Nikki: Do you have this written down?
Nikki: I can see it all over your face.
Nikki: And I was good.
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: The things you say to a person that you care about about to get on icy roads and she goes, our showcase is in that.
Nikki: Hmm.
Nikki: That's cold, man.
Salina: I thought that was so rude.
Salina: Holy crap.
Salina: He really kept it together because I would have been like, okay.
Nikki: Wow.
Salina: Yeah, that was just thoughtless.
Nikki: Dang be careful, Anthony, you're the joy of our lives.
Nikki: Careful, Anthony, you're the comic relief this show can't live without.
Salina: Wish you got more lines.
Salina: Why didn't she say you did?
Nikki: I don't know.
Nikki: I don't know.
Salina: Yeah, I thought that was my very second thing, my very number two thing.
Nikki: We also finally got an answer on Anthony's age.
Nikki: He's 28.
Nikki: Yes, I know.
Nikki: We've talked about that a lot.
Salina: Does not look 28.
Salina: Because he wasn't.
Salina: He was like 38.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Oh, well, he didn't have work done.
Salina: We don't know.
Nikki: That's actually my question for you.
Nikki: Is that older or younger than you thought?
Nikki: So look at that.
Salina: Oh, definitely younger than I.
Salina: But I already knew.
Nikki: Is it younger or older than you thought he was and you already knew he was 28?
Salina: Oh, I see what you're saying.
Salina: Younger.
Salina: Older in the course of the show.
Nikki: Based on other implications.
Salina: Older.
Nikki: It's older.
Nikki: That's what I thought.
Salina: I was thinking like 24, 25.
Salina: So we're not talking about eons apart here.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: But I felt much more mature at 28 than I did at 24.
Salina: Although I felt really old at 24.
Salina: So I think I was different in that regard.
Nikki: What else do you have in the old stray?
Nikki: Whatever you have in this category.
Salina: Salina anthony said it.
Salina: This feels super stray.
Salina: Anthony said it'd take twelve to 13 hours to drive to St.
Salina: Louis.
Salina: It's more like eight.
Salina: Even if you went super slow.
Nikki: Lee well, he had the showcase.
Nikki: It would be would have gone.
Salina: But you don't need to go like 6 hours more slowly.
Salina: Just like 2 hours slowly.
Salina: So I'm thinking like nine or 10 hours.
Nikki: Depends.
Salina: How big is your bladder, Nikki?
Nikki: How many buckies do you pass on.
Salina: The way you let me have my stray?
Nikki: Sorry.
Nikki: Mic off.
Salina: We also get a callback to season one.
Salina: This is my final stray and it's BIFF and Blaine in the party barge.
Nikki: Oh, I did catch the party barge.
Nikki: I didn't catch the same two names.
Nikki: That's funny.
Salina: It's hard for me to forget the names.
Nikki: BIFF and Blaine.
Nikki: B and b.
Salina: It's what I'm going to name my.
Nikki: Sons, BIFF and Blaine.
Salina: Beautiful.
Salina: Want to talk about some things we liked about this episode?
Nikki: Let's do it.
Salina: I don't know why I got so high pitched.
Nikki: I don't know either.
Nikki: But I'm going to join you right up there.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: Suzanne and Anthony, they're the Bosom buddy dream team.
Nikki: I think I knew I needed, but I'm going to say I never knew I needed.
Nikki: I'd watch a hundred more episodes with just the two of them.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: It's so good.
Nikki: So good.
Salina: I think we're going to get more of this.
Nikki: I hope so.
Salina: That's not a spoiler, is it?
Nikki: I don't know.
Salina: It's not meant to be.
Salina: I'm just taking your word for it.
Salina: I think this is the kickoff for a very unlikely friendship that's being forged right before our eyes 35 years later.
Nikki: It's unfolding in front of us.
Nikki: We're privy to it.
Salina: It's beautiful.
Nikki: I liked that.
Nikki: We got a reference to Suzanne's pageant, society, life.
Nikki: So the name speaking of names, it's hard to forget the names of all the people she mentioned.
Nikki: Sissy, Midkiff, the person who's going to get married.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: Helen Van Patterson.
Nikki: Patton, the person she wrote the letter to, bobby Faye Bickerstat.
Nikki: The person who tried to mess with Suzanne last time and sells chain leak fence in Santa Fe now.
Nikki: And I also really love the illusion that Suzanne's of Suzanne sort of like exacting revenge on Bobby Faye Bickerstep.
Nikki: The way she just words it is so funny.
Nikki: Like she the last person who got designs on me.
Nikki: We sorted that out and now they sell chain link fence.
Salina: Yeah, she's a hoot.
Salina: What else did you have?
Nikki: I also laughed out loud a few times.
Nikki: I wrote down some examples of times.
Salina: I laughed out loud.
Salina: You lulled.
Nikki: I lulled.
Nikki: And actually it doesn't say lawed for once.
Nikki: It actually says laughed out loud.
Nikki: Look at me.
Nikki: Progress.
Nikki: When Anthony tells the woman at the hotel he's not black, he's just lost track of time out in the sun in Palm Springs.
Nikki: I laughed out loud at that.
Nikki: Like a full on.
Nikki: When Anthony tells Suzanne he thinks she should just say goodnight, Anthony, may God have mercy on your soul.
Nikki: And then the last one that made me really laugh, anthony's diatribe to the hotel manager telling her how ridiculous it is that she would imply, one, that he and Suzanne are married and then, two, care as much as she seems to.
Nikki: I just thought that whole thing was very funny.
Salina: You sum that up with way less curse words than mine.
Salina: Glad.
Salina: Thank you.
Salina: Because I was just looking at my notes and I was like, oh, how am I going to say that out loud?
Nikki: So thank you.
Salina: Any other lines?
Nikki: That was it.
Salina: So I think one thing that stuck out to me that I liked was Charlene's story about the year she was allergic to domestic meat.
Salina: Minus the fact I do not believe that her family could or would order hippopotamus steaks.
Nikki: I've wondered about that.
Salina: I was like, that seems, first of all, horrible, but also very expensive.
Salina: If we're just getting down to like brass tax and like in a pre.
Nikki: Internet world, how do you even access that?
Salina: Hey, this is poplar bluff.
Salina: You don't know what they can do there.
Nikki: True.
Nikki: I don't know what they're capable of.
Salina: So, yeah, I think all the things that you love, I had written down.
Salina: So you know what that means.
Salina: They were really good.
Salina: I do think there's something when you and I both see the same thing.
Salina: But I really liked what he said to her about sleeping out in the cold where he goes, oh, sure, I understand.
Salina: Something like that could get around.
Salina: This is Suzanne talking.
Salina: I could be ruined on the pageant circuit.
Salina: They might even revoke one of my pageant crowns.
Salina: And Anthony says, oh, no, hey, I don't even want to talk about that.
Salina: Let me get out into that truck.
Salina: Hey, it's no big thing.
Salina: In just four more hours and freezing sub zero temperatures, it'll be morning and you'll still be Miss Georgia World.
Nikki: That's all that matters.
Salina: I mean, everything was just beautiful.
Salina: I also really like just the whole subplot.
Salina: We don't always get like and I shouldn't say subplot.
Salina: I should be calling it a B story.
Salina: Which is all of them stuffed in the hotel together.
Nikki: Sick.
Salina: I actually thought that was pretty good.
Nikki: Oh, yeah.
Salina: A lot of times I'm like, why this b plot?
Salina: And that's not just this show.
Salina: That's like a lot of shows.
Salina: Right.
Salina: But Charlene going on about nothing and then Julius and her sniping at each other.
Salina: And I love it when Charlene says, I used to think I'd be interested in you if you were a man, but not anymore.
Nikki: Burn notice.
Salina: I just thought they were so great.
Nikki: This episode was so like manic isn't the right word, but it was just like aggressive, maybe or something like the one liners and like you said, the sniping at one another.
Nikki: It was sharp.
Nikki: There were teeth to those things.
Salina: Well, I think LBT really shines there.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I'm so curious to see more through than just interviews.
Salina: I've seen what she's like in real life because I think she is probably.
Salina: Pretty saucy.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: I like that I didn't put this in my things.
Nikki: I liked but also that final scene where Anthony and Suzanne come, like, barreling into the hotel room.
Nikki: All the other women are sharing, and she's rushing because she's got to get to the pageant, and he's helping her get ready, and oh, my gosh, the hen sort of banter back and forth.
Nikki: Oh, if these wigs could talk.
Nikki: I just love that so much.
Salina: Well, and their reaction in the room is yeah, because up into this point, these two have done nothing except for the one episode earlier this season where Suzanne lets him pretend like they're living together.
Salina: They're like Lucy Ethel moment.
Salina: Right.
Salina: Other than that, she's just been pretty downright rude.
Salina: And what I like so much about Anthony is he just like, point for point is okay.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: And so I liked the fact that we were able to see their reaction, because all they've seen to this point is the rest of that.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: They missed that whole really sweet scene of the two of them sitting on the bed together in the hotel room where they have some conversation about, like, if you were white, would we be friends or something?
Nikki: It was sort of weirdly executed, but I thought it was a really nice conversation they had.
Nikki: And then she shares how she can't just chitchat with other women the way she can with him.
Nikki: And this sort of gets at that thing we keep talking about with her character struggling with other women, and I just thought it was a nice reveal.
Nikki: And also something, when I watch TV shows, I never talk about things like this, but you're teaching me that character growth and that character progression where you're seeing Suzanne deeper, I think, than we've seen her so far.
Nikki: In a lot of ways.
Salina: Yeah, she's struggling, but she's growing, too.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I think looks are just and that was really something that played through this episode, the way that she's perceived by others.
Salina: I think too often the most important thing versus maybe like, hey, maybe you just maybe don't let this guy freeze in the van.
Salina: But she does finally get it.
Salina: So once he forces himself through the.
Nikki: Door, well, she says something about that that I thought was I wish I had written it down.
Nikki: I thought it was really kind of revealing about her.
Nikki: She said, I knew it would be forced on us.
Nikki: I don't like to do things like that until they're forced on me, but I knew eventually it would be forced on me and we would do this.
Nikki: And I just thought, like, that seems harder than it needs to be in life.
Nikki: No, just do the thing, you know, is right from the beginning.
Salina: Sure.
Nikki: But it tells you a lot about.
Salina: Her, and her life has been very easy.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: You want to talk about dislikes?
Nikki: Sure.
Nikki: I got none.
Salina: You got none?
Nikki: Yes.
Salina: Okay, well, I only worry two things, and I don't think they're necessarily about the show itself.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: It's the flip side to the end, because I did love the end, and I love the way that they were playfully bantering with each other, and I love that they were coming together, because that was the sense of that.
Salina: I think where I'm torn is the fact that it took on kind of this role where it was just him helping her, and I almost wish it had been a situation where they could be helping each other.
Salina: And you can see I didn't grab my pantyhose, grab my this, grab my that.
Salina: I would have liked to see them come together in just a little bit of a different way, where it didn't have that connotation of a servantile role.
Nikki: I didn't see it that way.
Nikki: I felt like she treated him way less as a servant in that very brief scene than she has otherwise.
Nikki: I saw something in the tone and something in the language she used made me feel like, no, she just trusts him to help her.
Nikki: I sort of imagine she's not willy nilly about who she lets touch her wigs and her pantyhose, and I felt like something shift, like there was a tectonic shift in their relationship where she was like, oh, I can trust you with these things.
Salina: Well, I don't think that before, she would have put on pantyhose that someone else had worn.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: So, I mean, I got to tell you, I wouldn't be comfortable with that.
Nikki: I'm not sure.
Nikki: It depends how desperate you are.
Nikki: Like, she said she needed the skin tone.
Nikki: It didn't really matter if it had runs in it or not or they were stretched out or whatever.
Salina: Right.
Salina: But I still enjoyed the closeness and everything.
Salina: I think I would have just changed that tone just a little bit.
Salina: Again, I hear myself.
Salina: I'm not a TV show writer.
Salina: That is it, actually.
Salina: Sorry.
Nikki: Are you editing yourself?
Salina: I'm not.
Nikki: Nothing.
Salina: I'm not.
Salina: I'd already said the second thing that was on my list because it was.
Nikki: Part of the oh, okay.
Nikki: All right.
Salina: You want to rate this sucker?
Nikki: Let's do it.
Salina: You want to give us your rating first?
Nikki: Can you guess my don't?
Salina: Oh, gosh, I don't know.
Salina: I can honestly five out of five.
Salina: Oh, the number I thought you meant your rating scale.
Nikki: No.
Nikki: My scale is Anthony and Suzanne's Lumber parties.
Salina: Oh, that's cute.
Salina: I like that.
Nikki: And for that reason alone, five out of five.
Nikki: They were delightful.
Nikki: This actually isn't the episode I thought it was going to be.
Nikki: I think there must be another episode where they end up stranded together.
Nikki: I feel like somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I've seen either, like, a screenshot of them in a van together or something, but I really liked this one.
Salina: Yeah, it was very good.
Salina: I gave it a four out of five pantyhose under jeans.
Nikki: It's very warm.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: Just for the ultimate warmth, you can really just stay outside in sub degree temperatures.
Salina: Sure.
Salina: So, yeah, they're the do.
Salina: I want to see more of Love, the strong B plot.
Salina: And I think it was a pretty good job of showing the hypocrisy of the motel manager or clerk or whoever she was, but also keeping it light enough for a sitcom.
Salina: And I want to call that out specifically because it does play into this week's Extra Sugar.
Salina: And just to say that I think that we got some unsavory attitude from her that was pushed back on really nicely over the course of the episode.
Salina: And how about some combinations in these references?
Nikki: I don't have any combinations.
Salina: Me neither.
Salina: 80s things.
Nikki: I'm not sure this is fair because I think it's 70s, but I put it here.
Nikki: John Ritter and Three's Company.
Nikki: There was a reference somewhere in the.
Salina: Episode to that it's in the but.
Nikki: We didn't have a 70s.
Salina: It may have ended around 80.
Salina: I'm not sure it would have been.
Nikki: Relevant to people in the 80s.
Nikki: In a way.
Nikki: I don't think it's relevant now.
Salina: It was relevant to me in the 90s because it used to play I.
Nikki: Used to watch it.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So I have Vanessa Williams.
Nikki: Oh, right.
Salina: She gets a Miss America.
Nikki: Miss America.
Salina: I don't know why I have Mrs.
Salina: Written down here.
Nikki: Mrs.
Nikki: America.
Salina: I'm like, what show is that?
Nikki: 19 year old Mrs.
Nikki: America.
Salina: You know, I'm not sure.
Salina: That's not because of the show that came out last year.
Salina: It's not worth it.
Salina: Don't worry about it.
Salina: Anyways, number two love connection.
Salina: That was my other one.
Nikki: Oh.
Nikki: Because they were watching it on TV in the hotel room.
Salina: I think that might have been out of a cut line or something.
Nikki: Oh, okay.
Salina: I think I honestly don't remember.
Salina: I just wrote it down.
Salina: Sometimes I'll write little tidbits so I don't forget when you ask me a random question like that.
Salina: But not today.
Nikki: Sorry.
Salina: I think we're both pretty good at the random questions, and I might be the best, so you won't see me complaining.
Salina: Southern things.
Nikki: We had a Graceland reference.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: When Charlene found out they were in Tennessee, there was a tee, tiny Coca Cola reference during the hotel scene.
Nikki: They said the minister was getting a Coke when they ran into him and he decided to marry them.
Nikki: Another deliverance reference.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: That's what she was watching in the hotel room.
Salina: I have Deliverance, dot, dot, dot.
Salina: The 50th mention, a lot of that.
Salina: So I had also oh, in the beginning, we get this thing from Mary Jo while they're getting ready for this design showcase or whatever, and where she's talking about a little speech she's going to do about what is Southern style.
Salina: And she says that unerring attention to detail, quality, warmth, surrounding yourself with things which have been here for a while leaf through photographs of rooms and Southern homes, and you can almost smell the flowers and food.
Salina: In short, Southern homes never look like they were done by a decorator.
Salina: And I don't know, I thought that was a nice little peek into, I guess, however LBT feels about Southern homes.
Nikki: My Southern home doesn't look like it's been done by a decorator.
Salina: My Southern home also doesn't look like it's been done by that would also.
Nikki: Be because it hasn't been done by a decorator.
Salina: Well, you know, but I did think that that whole nostalgia piece was really important, because if there's one thing and it's gotten picked up all over this country, it's the farmhouse style.
Nikki: Oh, yeah.
Salina: Which is, I mean, obviously farms exist outside of the south, but we are definitely playing into some Southern things through that.
Salina: And basically everything that Joanna Gaines made popular all over this country, when it dies, it's going to die a super hard death.
Nikki: Well, especially because they're building houses looking like it now.
Nikki: So it's going to be like the wood paneling.
Nikki: It's going to be like the wood paneling or the houses that you look at now and you just go that are from the 60s, built in the 70s.
Salina: Yeah, absolutely.
Nikki: Brady Bunch looking houses.
Salina: But you could do that with my house.
Salina: I'm like, oh, a 90s house.
Nikki: Well, sure.
Nikki: It's not as egregious quite yet.
Salina: Yeah, it's going to be but they're beautiful.
Salina: Super noticeable.
Nikki: They're super beautiful.
Salina: And it's been in style for a long time.
Nikki: A long time.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: I feel like maybe I shouldn't say this, but I'm going to.
Salina: My other ones were eating squirrels, rabbits and raccoons and then also racist motel clerks.
Salina: Oh, sure.
Salina: But those things also happen.
Nikki: But racism exists.
Salina: Yeah, and that's what I was going to say.
Salina: All of those things also happen all over the country, but I feel like they get associated with us the most.
Salina: References that you either needed to look up or for some reason you want to talk about.
Nikki: I don't have any of those.
Salina: Mine was just Union Station in Missouri.
Salina: Have you ever seen it before?
Salina: Flip's beautiful.
Nikki: What is it?
Nikki: Oh, is it a train station?
Salina: It's just really pretty.
Nikki: Does Missouri take their train stations really seriously?
Nikki: Because that's where my gosh, we just talked about her in Extra Sugar.
Salina: Oh, yeah.
Salina: Bernice.
Nikki: Bernice.
Nikki: She was born in a train station.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I do think it's a really well known landmark.
Salina: It's nothing that I would picture associated with it.
Salina: The only reason I actually know what it looks like is because at the Biltmore, they have this I don't know why, but it's this kind of like art installation where there's train stations from all over the country.
Salina: There's miniatures of them, but they're made out of natural elements and items.
Salina: It's really cool.
Salina: And you can walk around and look at all the different ones.
Salina: And I remember looking at the one for Missouri and not realizing it was there.
Salina: And I thought it was going to be like Grand Central Station or something, which I've been to, but I just didn't remember.
Salina: And I was like, oh, wow.
Salina: So it's just gorgeous.
Salina: But I think train stations are really pretty, too.
Nikki: Train stations are so cool.
Nikki: Union Station.
Nikki: Not Union Station.
Nikki: Grand Central Station is beautiful.
Nikki: King's Cross in London is actually really beautiful.
Nikki: Just when you take it.
Salina: Is that the one that Harry Potter one is based off of?
Salina: Gotta take it to Harry Potter.
Salina: I can't help it.
Nikki: Indeed, it's very beautiful.
Nikki: We took the train to Paris from there, and it's functioning.
Nikki: And like, you go there some people just go there on their daily commute.
Salina: Just blows my I don't there's something romantic about is so and then I had the other reference I had to look up was dread disease.
Salina: That's something that Mary Jo says about whatever they have.
Salina: And a dread disease is really just anything with significant impact on lifestyle longevity that incurs high costs or causes significant and permanent residual morbidity.
Salina: I'm not laughing at the morbidity.
Salina: I'm laughing at me.
Salina: Trying to read over my notes.
Nikki: Was that from a cut line?
Salina: It may be from a cut line.
Nikki: Okay, because I have a cut line where that seems like maybe that's what was cut.
Salina: She says, like, one of these things that comes out of Hong Kong and that got cut.
Nikki: So I said made me think maybe it's because it's Xenophobic adjacent right there.
Salina: So I looked up the Hong Kong flu because I was like, what is this?
Salina: And it's the Hong Kong flu of 1968.
Salina: But from what I read, there's no evidence it actually originated there.
Nikki: That's kind of what I think.
Salina: Good job, guys.
Nikki: Never mind.
Salina: It's like anytime that we're blaming diseases on other places, it actually made me think of syphilis.
Salina: The English called it the French disease, the French called it the German disease, whatever.
Salina: Like, everybody was like, blaming it on somebody else.
Salina: But sometimes you just got to take.
Nikki: A little just own it.
Salina: Yeah, just own it.
Salina: Cut lines.
Salina: Speaking of cut lines, I think the.
Nikki: Only thing I'll mention beyond that one, I just no, okay, I'll mention two.
Nikki: Okay, one, I won't read it word for word, but basically it's along the lines of that Southern Design article that you mentioned.
Nikki: And there was a cut line that specifies what a New York City apartment looks like versus whatever.
Nikki: The reason that stuck out to me is because I had read that LBT just invented a design firm.
Nikki: Like, she was walking into the pitch meeting, I was like, oh, crap, what are these women going to do?
Nikki: Oh, right, they're going to do a design firm.
Nikki: She didn't really have a particular interest in interior design, right?
Nikki: And so it's either a commitment to researching your topic and making sure you really know it.
Nikki: Or maybe she genuinely has an interest in design.
Salina: Yeah, maybe.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: That's a good point.
Nikki: And then the other one I'll mention, it's probably insignificant, but I feel like we keep saying anthony's one liners about race keep getting cut.
Nikki: I think there's something to that because after Suzanne says she can't believe she's in bed with a convict, she also says, you know, I don't know a lot of things.
Nikki: I didn't know a lot of things about you before today.
Nikki: Like I was noticing how organized your little travel kit is and how you even have one of those old fashioned cans of shoe polish in it.
Nikki: Do you actually use that?
Nikki: And Anthony says, no, I just carry that around for white people.
Nikki: Once that stuff gets in your blood, you're hooked.
Nikki: I just meant you never see those anymore.
Nikki: And he says, Well, I guess I'm kind of old fashioned.
Nikki: My grandmama used to make me polish my shoes every day before I went to school.
Nikki: She even made me polish the holes in my shoes.
Nikki: And I feel like one, it's a comment about race, but two, it's kind of an insight into Anthony and his childhood and sort of the person that he is.
Nikki: And I just gosh, darn it, why do we keep cutting him out?
Salina: I also had that note or that line written down as an important one for us to talk about because I do think that insight is important and I think that I kind of think he was taking control of that conversation oh, sure.
Salina: In any kind of connotation that was there.
Salina: There we go.
Nikki: No answers.
Salina: That was it for me.
Nikki: That was it for you.
Nikki: Yes.
Nikki: So our next episode will be episode eleven, howard the Date.
Nikki: But first, hang tight for extra sugar.
Nikki: So again, you're up for extra sugar.
Nikki: What you got for us this go round?
Salina: So this time we're going to discuss the history of interracial marriage in the US.
Salina: And the know light stuff.
Nikki: Perfect.
Nikki: So once you've hung around for that and you've learned everything there is to know about that topic, we'd love for you to follow along with us and engage Instagram and Facebook at sweettv, email sweettvpod@gmail.com and we're online at www.sweettv.com.
Salina: And you know what that means.
Nikki: I don't have any idea.
Nikki: What does that mean?
Salina: We'll see you around the bend.
Salina: Bye.
Salina: Welcome to this edition of Extra Sugar.
Salina: So we had a hefty task this episode.
Salina: I think we were able to really keep it light and talk about the lighter points, but honestly, there was a fairly racist encounter for Anthony.
Salina: And this is this motel clerk who was clearly bothered by a white woman and an African American man sleeping in the same room.
Salina: Because my sense was it's not like she was looking for rings.
Salina: I don't know.
Salina: It was pretty clear that if she had come in with a white man.
Nikki: Oh, she wouldn't have questioned it.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: These conversations wouldn't have taken place.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: The body language and the script made that pretty obvious, I think.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: I just wanted to make sure that.
Nikki: We were I think that's fair.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I didn't get the sense that she was just the most like everyone has to be married before they're in the same regardless, though.
Nikki: That's not cool either.
Nikki: You don't need to gatekeep people's, hotels, business.
Salina: But this does kind of get into that where we use morals, quote unquote, for more devious purposes.
Salina: I feel like anywho, what I am wanting to do, even though this wasn't directly a part of the plot, is it got me thinking about the history of interracial marriage.
Salina: It was only 54 years ago that the Supreme Court struck down states banning interracial marriages.
Salina: So, Nikki, that's something that's occurred in our parents lifetime.
Salina: I mean, that's just not that long ago.
Salina: And these state and local laws enforced racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes even sex between members of different races.
Salina: There were still 16 states at this time who had not repealed such laws.
Salina: And these laws, they're deeply rooted in America.
Salina: So going all the way back to colonial times, and it sounds like this was kind of an American invention because England didn't have laws like this.
Nikki: Oh, interesting.
Salina: At least not then.
Salina: It sounds like maybe that changed, but we didn't bring it over on the boats.
Salina: I don't know why I'm saying we.
Salina: I wasn't so anyways, but you get the idea.
Salina: While it wasn't enforceable, the last law officially prohibiting interracial marriage was repealed in Alabama in our lifetime.
Nikki: Oh, good Lord.
Salina: Would you like to guess the year?
Nikki: 1987.
Salina: 2000.
Salina: What now?
Salina: Again, not enforceable, because we already have the Supreme Court ruling, but they just decided not to take it off the books.
Salina: And I find that telling.
Salina: Just take it off the books.
Salina: Public approval of interracial marriage has also dramatically shifted, and I feel like that's worth mentioning.
Salina: So it's risen from about 5% in the 1950s to around 80% in the 2000s.
Salina: That's huge.
Salina: Quite a change.
Salina: Right.
Salina: In 2015, one in ten married people had a spouse of a different race or ethnicity.
Salina: So about 11 million people, and that's triple what it was in 1980, which is about 3 million people.
Salina: So we're seeing changes.
Salina: I want to share two drastically different example of that change in, like, the environment.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: The first one's, in the mid 1920s, there was a very public and messy divorce that took place in New York between Leonard Kip Reinlander, a white socialite from a prominent family.
Salina: I mean, there's Kip in the name we know.
Salina: Anyways, Alice Jones was his wife and a biracial woman from a working class family.
Salina: So his family was very well known and enough so that the marriage winds up making all the papers.
Salina: When it did, he gave into his family's demand that he divorce her.
Salina: Oh, honey, it gets worse.
Salina: So in the divorce trial proceedings, kip was pushing for an annulment, and he claimed Jones had, quote, unquote, passed herself off as a white woman.
Nikki: Oh, dang.
Salina: In front of an all white, all male jury, she was ordered to strip her clothes so the jury could determine if she was, quote, unquote, considered to be colored.
Nikki: Holy moly.
Salina: I can't even I mean, it's disturbing.
Salina: It's on so many levels.
Salina: That is so degrading, and it doesn't begin to cover it at all.
Nikki: Super dehumanizing.
Salina: Also, what the h*** did they think they were going to find, right?
Salina: So just all in all, it feels like a very shaming moment.
Salina: Like, that was the real goal.
Salina: The only saving grace is the fact that the court sided with her.
Nikki: What did they find?
Salina: I told him, and he had to pay her an annual salary for the rest of their life or her life.
Salina: And they never spoke again.
Salina: Obviously.
Salina: It seems like the least important part.
Salina: So that's the first example.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Nearly 100 years later, former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio was elected in 2013, and he was the first white official to be elected into a major office with an African American spouse by his side.
Salina: So this is, from what I gather, a celebrated and welcomed couple.
Salina: A far cry from the experience of Alice Jones nearly a century earlier.
Salina: But it also kind of surprised me that this was the first time this.
Nikki: Had happened in 2013.
Salina: 2013?
Nikki: Well, one in ten people being in an interracial marriage is kind of a low number if you apply those odds to the number of people who are elected to major offices, it seems to track look for me, but it's kind.
Salina: Of like, I don't know, hearing the US still hasn't had a woman president or something.
Salina: I'll just leave that right there.
Salina: We know it's not all great, though, because that same year, a Cheerios ad featuring a biracial family do you remember this commercial?
Salina: Anyways, it sparked so many racist remarks on YouTube that the comments had to be disabled.
Nikki: Oh, no.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: I thought that was just something and this was 2013, you said.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: It's sort of something you just see in advertising all the time now, is inclusive couple representations of inclusive families and couples.
Salina: I think they may have kicked through the door.
Nikki: Yeah, I feel like I see a lot of interracial couples.
Nikki: I see a lot of same sex couples.
Nikki: I see a lot of even yeah, I just see a lot of super representative families.
Nikki: Oh, that's interesting.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: So, I mean, maybe this was really like, on the former or on the early end, whatever the case is, it just kind of goes to strike that balance.
Salina: But you see what happens with 100 years difference.
Salina: Also, 100 years is a lot of know, so a lot of things change a lot of things don't.
Salina: It's tough all around.
Salina: But nestled in between these two time periods was Loving versus Virginia, which I feel like a lot of people are familiar with.
Salina: We have a feature film that's been made about it within the last two or three years, I think, and this is that landmark case that leads to the end of banning interracial marriage.
Salina: So the story behind that, for folks who aren't aware, is only weeks into their marriage, richard and Mildred Loving were hauled from their beds by armed police officers and thrown into jail.
Salina: Why?
Salina: Because he was white and she was of black and indigenous descent.
Salina: They were actually married in DC.
Salina: Their home state of Virginia was also home to the Racial Integrity Act, which criminalized their marriage, but they still came after them, for lack of a better word.
Salina: What ends up happening is the judge suspends their one year prison sentence for 25 years on the condition that they left Virginia.
Salina: So basically, they were banished from their own home.
Salina: I'd probably go pretty quick.
Salina: They do go, and eventually they return because Virginia is their home.
Salina: And I've read different accounts, like they didn't like it.
Salina: It was just weird.
Salina: They didn't fit in all of these different things that I've read.
Salina: But whatever, they come back, they appeal the decision.
Salina: But the state Supreme Court of Appeals ruled that the state had, I'm getting on my, quote, fingers again, an interest in preserving the racial integrity of its constituents.
Salina: And that because the punishment applied equally to both races, the statute did not violate the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Salina: When this case reaches the Supreme Court, they unanimously reverse the lower court's ruling, basically calling BS on its flawed legal decision and a law that is so clearly rooted in racial discrimination.
Salina: So you think it can't get scarier, but I'm going to go there based on an article that I read.
Salina: Now, this article was in The Atlantic, and it argues the importance of understanding loving versus Virginia is not about the endurance of true love, which I think it's sometimes like that's the way it's framed, but rather it's about stopping something that's insidious and that's eugenics.
Salina: So the Supreme Court was looking specifically at the Racial Integrity Act of 1924 that I'd already mentioned in Virginia.
Salina: Apparently the same day this act was signed, their legislature also passed an act where the state could forcibly sterilize people with disabilities, including those they referred to as feeble minded sidebar.
Salina: This also goes to the Supreme Court separately, and it's upheld with Justice Holmes saying, three generations of imbeciles are mean.
Nikki: I feel like that's something that is still argued that happens today.
Nikki: Not in well, I'm not educated enough to say that for certainty, but like, not providing or forcing birth control on people with disabilities or not providing them the choice whether they want to or not, for those reasons, I think that still happens.
Nikki: The part I'm not educated enough to say is sterilization in the context of physical sterilization.
Nikki: I'm not sure how frequently that happens anymore.
Salina: Well, I think it's also in conjunction with this racial Integrity act.
Salina: So these two coming together, same point.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Raise some eyebrows.
Salina: It feels like we're working towards something.
Nikki: Sure.
Salina: Not you and I.
Nikki: No.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: But what this article and some legal historians have argued is that these legal actions, marriage restrictions, forced sterilizations.
Salina: These were strategies to promote a broader eugenics agenda.
Salina: So for those who aren't aware, eugenics was a social and political standpoint that gained steam in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Salina: From everything I've read, it was kind of popular.
Salina: I'm not saying that like, OOH, it's popular.
Salina: I'm just saying it was more in vogue than one would think, which is scary.
Salina: But it used science, law and medicine to weed out groups who were considered to have got my quote, fingers up again, hereditary defects.
Salina: This could be something like disability, but also poverty, criminality, et cetera.
Salina: So supporters work to encourage the demographic growth of so called superior people of predictable class, race and ethnicity.
Salina: And what it does look like in its most extreme version the Holocaust.
Nikki: So this look you see on my face is the pence of saying, hmm, we just watched an entire episode about World War II where we talked about how there were bad guys and we're hearing now that there were similar minded people in the US.
Salina: I know.
Salina: Well, actually so I'm going to take a break here.
Salina: I couldn't decide whether or not to add this in.
Salina: I've read about some of this in the past and I can't even remember what I was reading about.
Salina: But it did kind of curtail into eugenics.
Salina: And apparently that was so popular here that some of the research being done around it was basically used like Hitler used it as almost a and I can and unfortunately, I didn't want to mention it because I couldn't remember where I read it.
Salina: But I don't mean I can't remember everything I've read everywhere.
Salina: I would prefer to source something like that, but just to say, I don't know.
Salina: We can always say that we were, you know, essentially the article argues, the Atlantic article, that the Supreme Court of this era was able to see the motivation behind these laws, the illegality of them, and do something that really was a huge victory for civil rights.
Salina: And all I can say is thank God for that.
Nikki: Yay.
Salina: This has been this week's edition of Extra Sugar.