A Case for Ziwe Fumudoh as the Most Famous Person From Lawrence, MA.

Ziwe is arguably the most famous Lawrence person alive right now, even more famous than the dead Robert Frost. So how come Lawrence people have no idea who she is? 

You’ve probably seen viral clips of Ziwe Fumudoh, a famous Nigerian-American entertainer and social critic, on an all pink set roasting your faves. Her brilliant brand of race baiting comedy articulates the things that those of us without white privilege cannot say. Her titular show, “Ziwe” on Showtime where she interviews liberal sweethearts (including the Black Bourgeoisie) about their social and political blind spots, has kept us entertained in a time where it seems easier to turn our brains off. She has written for popular satirical publications and shows like the Onion, Reductress. She was a writer on the Desus and Mero show on Showtime and The Stephen Colbert show, she voiced Kamala Harris on My Cartoon President and she was in a movie on Amazon with other female comedy greats.

Ziwe is from Lawrence, MA. I know this because I went to high school with her younger brother. Two years ahead of me, she didn’t go to Lawrence High with us (she went to Phillips Academy, the alma mater of various war criminals) but she did go to a local middle school here. 

Because I am also an African girl who grew up in Lawrence interested in writing, performing and social critiques, I worship Ziwe, from her astute mind and whimsical way of naming the Truth to her outfits and eye liner choices. But whenever I tell other Lawrence people about her, they have no idea who she is. It boggles my mind every time. 

The problem is not on Ziwe’s end. She always claims Lawrence, in her interviews, on TV, on her wiki. I can only imagine her experience growing up here helped when writing on Desus And Mero, a show based on two personalities from the Bronx that I identified with when I was on the west coast due to the way it canonized Caribbean Hood Culture, definitely Lawrence culture adjacent.

So why don’t more Lawrence people claim Ziwe? I will be the first to call foul play.  The answer is misogynoir, or discrimination against Black women. Ziwe is a dark skin African woman. She is Nigerian, not Latina, not from the Caribbean. As someone who grew up Lawrence myself as a Kenyan immigrant, and who lives and works, and makes art in the city now, I understand. I teach in the middle school I went to. I live in the same neighborhood i grew up. I’ve been engaged in dozens of community service projects. And I always claim Lawrence. Even when I was across the country for college, I would claim Lawrence. But still, people do not believe that I am from here. They look at my dark skin and assume I am a visitor. I’m used to that question when I’m with white people. But in Lawrence? The City of Immigrants? Where I'm from? Where I am every day? I guess Ziwe is not here everyday like me, but she’s still very famous. Sitting front row at Fashion Week next to Emrata famous. People all over the world know who she is. Someone told me the other day that I was the first African they had ever met from this city. You would think that with how global Ziwe’s image is, people who know at least one famous African Lawrencian before me. So why don’t I benefit from all Ziwe’s visibility? 

There is an emerging conversation about antiblackness within Latinidad that can answer some of those questions. Many of us dark skin, African diaspora Lawrencians experience this strange lack of momentum even though we pour so much into the city. The naming of that invisibilized cultural labor Black women do wasn’t even a real conversation until after the Black Lives Matter shifted that discourse in the last decade. And in my opinion, it led to more people claiming their Black heritage, but not necessarily giving credit to those Black women who created those spaces in the first place. But still, there are other dynamics at play. 

White people, on the other hand,  love claiming Ziwe. They say to me,  “OMG we went to Phillips together” or “I saw her once in Tribeca.” or “OMG did you watch her episode  last night with EmRata? I love their friendship”, their tone suggesting that they are trying to nudge me into a Ziwe X Emrata-esque bestieship with them (issa dub for me, Jenna. Respectfully). When I tell them she’s from Lawrence I get one of three responses: they don’t know where that is, they know where that is and would never step foot in Lawrence, or are in Lawrence for some insidious reason atoning for their white guilt and do not believe this city could produce such an irreverent witty celebrity that THEY love. 

My hood friends say they don’t know who her guests are. “She’s always talking to white people I don’t know.” Sure. One time, I was explaining her hilarious interview with Adam Pally during pride month. My hood ass friends had no idea who Pally was. “Peter from the Mindy Project!” I said which changed nothing about that exchange. They have no idea who that is. Nor do they care. 

I get it. There is a very specific, trauma-infused catharsis to Ziwe’s jokes. She reminds me of the “jokes” I used to make in college in order to resist parasitic relationships with white kids who needed a token Black friend. Like Ziwe, I would ask inquiring white minds, “Do you have Black friends?” a filtering question Ziwe is not afraid to wield with her guests. I even made “white guilt is a renewable resource” shirts and sold them to my white peers. They sold well among guilty white people and People of Color who know guilty white people (still available on my website gladyswangeci.com). That’s what Ziwe does best, she exploits white guilt as a politic, an aesthetic and a hustle, like our ancestors intended. But hood people, especially those lucky enough not to personally know a guilty white person (like my parents who, bless their heart, thought that shirt was unnecessarily mean to white people ), don’t have use for that humor. That’s a good thing, right? 

Either way, more Lawrence people should know who Ziwe is, regardless of her work’s relevance to their daily lives. But I won’t sit here and act like all my reasons for writing this article are righteous. Like I said, I am an aspiring writer, artist, model, and poet. The rise of Black girls with power and influence in Hollywood gives me courage to make my work boldly, knowing there is a greater chance they might land in the right places where I do not have to give context for my jokes or apologize for my racial commentary. With quirky smart Black girls like Issa Rae, Keke Palmer and Ziwe not just getting screen time but making decisions on who is writing behind the scenes and which narratives they showcase, I have hope that my work has a lane where it can thrive. Part of me shamelessly wants Ziwe to come to Lawrence, get a honey habanero torta with me at El Taller and offer me a job writing on her show. 

It was Jesus himself who said, “it be your own hometown.” So if she never sees this, and no one who reads this knows who Ziwe is, or it only reaches self deprecating libbies who guilt their Black friends by saying “you haven’t seen “Nope” yet? I would see it a third time if I could '' then I will use this space to say: Ziwe Fumudoh, an African woman, is arguably the most famous Lawrence person ever. Y’all better put some respect on her name.