#63 Jasmin

0:28Pushkin Oh, that is an emergency. Yeah. Okay, you need my help? No, I actually, I don't need your help. I have a story for you today. So you need my help listening to it. Well, why don't you just ask me to listen to your story? Will you please listen to my story? I'm going to say no. What? Yes, of course. You're going to press the play button? I'm going to start it right now. Okay, there you go. Boom.

1:02From Pushkin Industries, I'm Stevie Lane, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, Jasmine.

1:15Right after the break.

1:24This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. I'm Drew Broussard, host of the Lit Hub podcast. Every Friday, I take you behind the scenes at Literary Hub, chatting with staff, writers, and other literary figures about everything going on in the literary world. Find us now, anywhere you get your podcasts.

2:04There are moments in life that unfold like a movie. Moments we replay over and over in our heads. Hello. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Jasmine has a moment like that. A pivotal scene in the story of her life. And it's a scene that takes place where many pivotal movie moments do. At a high school dance 14 years ago. It isn't as pig-bloody as the prom in Carrie, nor as Teen Wolfie as the one from Teen Wolf, but it's every bit as cinematic. And to fully understand that night of spaghetti-strap dresses and party rock anthem on gymnasium speakers, I have to zoom out and start with the setting where the dance took place, the city where Jasmine grew up, Springfield, Oregon.

2:53There's hardly any Black people, And in like every class I was in, it would be just me and like one or two other girls. Census estimates put the population of Black residents in Springfield at around 1%. Oregon was one of the first states to outlaw slavery. But not because they believed that Black people were worthy of not being slaves, because they didn't want Black people in the state at all. So they outlawed slavery in order to keep Black folks from being there. So there's just this ignorance and this, like, odd energy there. By odd energy, Jasmine is talking about the unapologetic racism she experienced all the time from a very young age.

3:45Like when Jasmine was seven and told by her friend that her friend's dad wouldn't like Jasmine because he, quote, didn't like Black people. or when in a high school drama class, everyone was instructed to write each other nice notes. Jasmine reads me one. I love your positive attitude and I believe it's an exception to your ethnicity. You are a credit to your race. Or when Jasmine was in a school play and had a stage kiss with her scene partner who was white. And we kissed and then he goes, tastes like black cherry. Like that kind of stuff all the time to the point that, you know, you just laugh and you're like, ha ha ha, but don't know why it makes you feel a certain way because everyone is laughing.

4:29Like even your close friends, because they also like do think it's funny. I think we actually sometimes even participated in the jokes at our own expense because it's like, if you can get ahead of it, then it won't hurt as bad. How was it talked about in your family? You know, it just wasn't. And we always, like, prided ourselves on being a family that, like, can talk about things. But race was never brought up. Jasmine's dad is Black, but they didn't have much of a relationship growing up. She was raised by her mom, who was white, among her white aunts and white uncles and white cousins. Jasmine was the only person of color within her family.

5:14I don't think I even heard anyone in my family say the word black. It almost felt like a bad word, kind of. I just always felt so ugly, honestly. Like just ugly and frizzy and not shiny. It was a feeling that followed Jasmine all the way until senior year. All the way until homecoming.

5:46So, you know, it's September and it's time to vote for Homecoming Queen. And it's like such a big deal and a marker of popularity and beauty and worth and importance. So this was like a big deal. Like, did you remember the seniors that were King and Queen in previous years? Well, yeah, I think it was Jessica Rae and James Quinn the year before. Yeah, like, it's a thing. Jasmine was sitting in class when the PA system came on. Everyone was listening for who would be named homecoming royalty. First, the homecoming court was announced. Princes and princesses. And I'm pretty sure they saved the queen for last.

6:32And they said my name.

6:38And I was in shock. Like, not only did they announce me as homecoming queen, but Jacob King, who was like the most popular boy, all-American football player, he was homecoming king. I was like, how is it him and me? And I remember being like, oh my God, like, did they mess up? The homecoming queen was usually someone popular and cool. Two things Jasmine says that she wasn't in high school. She was a self-proclaimed theater nerd from a conservative Christian household who was never invited to a single house party or asked out on a date. But it wasn't a mess-up or a prank. After the announcement, kids came up and congratulated her.

7:17Maybe Jasmine had been wrong about how her classmates saw her. The rest of the day, Jasmine walked through the hallways as though floating through a dream.

7:30A few days later, Jasmine's queendom was announced at the homecoming football game. There, on the field, Jasmine received a sash and a bouquet. The Springfield Times came to take her picture. But the thing Jasmine was most excited for was the homecoming dance. The night of the dance, Jasmine's mom helped her with her hair and makeup. She met up at a friend's house beforehand to have dinner, Martinelli's and mac and cheese, and get ready. Jasmine wore her coolest outfit, a short black strapless dress with lime green feather earrings, lime green half leggings, and lime green fingerless gloves. And in case you're thinking, geez, that's a lot of lime green, I'd like to remind you that this was high school in 2011.

8:15My favorite outfit was a lime green skirt with a lime green tank top. I had a lime green cell phone and lime green floaty flip-flops. Lime green was cool, okay? And Jasmine looked cool on her way to the dance. What were your expectations for the night? What did you think was going to happen? I thought that they would call my name and it would be my movie moment. Like everyone would clap and shout and a spotlight would hit the center of the room and I would make my way toward Jacob King. And maybe he would even whisper in my ear, I've always been in love with you. And then, you know, everyone would slowly like dance around us and it would be like, wow, you've always been so beautiful and cool.

9:05Jasmine, you really had big expectations for the night. I really did. I mean, I grew up watching like a Cinderella story and what a girl wants. And that's how they all end, you know. Yeah. I thought it would change everything. In fact, it did not. And here is the moment that's been plaguing Jasmine for years. I don't know if they cut the music or if they just turned it down. And they announced, now it's time for our homecoming dance. My heart's beating so fast. You know, my stomach is about to fall out of my butt. I'm so excited. And then they go, our homecoming king, Jacob. And everyone's like, woohoo, clapping.

9:48And our homecoming queen, Whitney.

9:55Whitney.

10:02Whitney was one of the few other Black girls in Jasmine's grade. and I thought I misheard, but I was kind of frozen and I'm just looking around and it's like the room is spinning and I'm feeling crazy and I'm like, oh my God, oh, that just happened. Overcome, humiliated, Jasmine ran out of the gym to the courtyard where she collapsed at a table and cried. When eventually she dried her eyes and returned to the dance, no one said anything to her about it. So she just did what everyone else was doing. She danced. She talked to friends. She went home.

10:45I don't know. I don't know what happened. And this is what Jasmine has wondered ever since. Why Whitney's name was called instead of hers. Over the years, she's developed two possible theories. First, was one Black girl mistaken for another? That's what Jasmine's best friend from high school, Danika, has always thought. Danika is also biracial and remembers the moment the wrong name was called. To her, it didn't seem that crazy that, at their high school, one Black girl might be confused for another. I think that we were all a little bit interchangeable, she tells me. But then there's Jasmine's second theory, an even worse possibility.

11:31Could it be, Jasmine wonders, that the announcement had been rigged? Whitney was an athlete. She was well-liked. And she was their senior class president. In other words, Whitney was... The popular Black girl. She was part of the tight-knit group of popular girls in Jasmine's grade. Like, she was considered, like, she was a pretty Black girl. And always straightened her hair. Like, I used to remember thinking, when does that girl sleep? Because she is in every single honors class, and she's always wearing makeup, and she straightens her hair every day. There's no way she gets more than three hours of sleep a night.

12:12Like, it just blew my mind. In many ways, Whitney was the more obvious choice for homecoming queen, which is why it felt to Jasmine like some secret decision had been made. Like, if we're going to have a Black homecoming queen, it's going to be the popular Black girl, not you. After all, it didn't feel like a mistake. In my memory, no one was looking at me like, wait, what? Like, it felt like everyone in the room wasn't on something I wasn't in on. Like, there had been a consensus reached that on the day it would be Whitney and not me because no one else seemed shocked. But Jasmine never found out what happened that night or why.

12:53Was it a mix-up? Or like, is the why that there could only be one Black girl at the top? Is the why that they hated me for some reason? It's like, even in this moment, throughout this conversation, I've oscillated between, okay, yeah, no, of course, it was totally an accident. And fuck that, no, it wasn't. And both of those feel intense. And so it's like, where to land?

13:23It's been 14 years since Homecoming, but Jasmine thinks about it often, like once a week for the last 728 weeks, not that anyone's counting. Jasmine is an actor and a successful one with major roles in Yellow Jackets and The Leftovers. In 2024, she was included in Forbes' 30 Under 30 list for Hollywood and entertainment. She has a partner, a beloved cat and dog, and a news podcast for the queer community. By every metric, she's living a full and happy life. And yet, it's a moment she returns to. I just want to know why. Jasmine says the popular girls ran the homecoming committee. They might have the answer.

14:07And Jasmine is still Facebook friends with a few and can reach out. Sounds easy, right? No, it doesn't. I'm still scared of these girls, you know what I mean? Like, the thought of that makes me feel nauseous. But that's what I'm here for. to walk up to the cool kids at their lunch table so Jasmine doesn't have to. After the break, the popular girls.

14:50I'm Drew Broussard, host of the Lit Hub podcast. Every Friday, I take you behind the scenes at Literary Hub, chatting with staff, writers, and other literary figures about everything going on in the literary world. Find us now, anywhere you get your podcasts.

15:23Popular Girls. When I Google the names Jasmine gives me, I find photos of them from high school. There are a lot of high ponytails and straight-toothed smiles. There are a lot of sports action shots, mid-spike in volleyball or dribbling down the basketball court. There's a lot of eyeliner. These are girls who knew how to dress and would never be caught dead in head-to-toe lime green, which, yeah, fine, I'll admit it, was never that cool. And the names? They just sound like the names of popular girls. Ashley, Bailey, Stephanie, Allie, Caitlin with a Y, Cassidy with a K. But the thing about the popular kids, their power is weakened with time.

16:06Outside of high school, a decade even beyond college, they get much less intimidating. Or this is what I'm telling myself as I clear my throat and make the calls. Hi, I'm calling for Allie. Hi, Stephanie. Hi, Cassidy. My name is... I'm trying to reach Caitlin, who... The story is actually about homecoming. A story I'm working on about homecoming. I'm sure this is sort of a strange message to receive. You're having a good day. Take care. Bye.

16:38Most of my messages aren't returned. The couple of women who do call me back say they remember Jasmine winning and the announcement at the game, but not the incident at the dance. So I phone Jacob King, the homecoming king He's at work and says he can talk later But then texts me minutes after, backing out I text asking if he remembers the mix-up And see the three dots typing Then the three dots stop Haha, you were typing and then stopped typing, I write The three dots reappear And this time he hits send I don't have a memory of that And then, like everyone else, he stops answering me doesn't that point to something?

17:20Like, what are you defensive of if there's nothing to be defensive of? It's true. And maybe they all have something to hide. But maybe they just don't like the implication that a racist mistake was made. Right. Yeah. If only someone would just, like, talk the talk. And one popular girl does. Bailey. And Bailey talks the talk to me about a key piece of information. The popular girls I've been calling they weren't actually part of planning homecoming as Jasmine had thought That job fell to one person the senior class president aka Whitney the very same Whitney who was pronounced queen at the dance that she apparently planned And not only that it turns out Whitney was a princess on the homecoming court the homecoming queen runner-up A lady-in-waiting who dethrones the queen?

18:21Was this an act of regicide? Or at least the high school version of it? At this point, it looks like the only person who might have the answers Jasmine's looking for is Whitney.

18:41Jasmine says asking Whitney feels scary, even scarier in some ways than asking the other popular girls. Because Whitney was a popular Black girl, Jasmine, if only in her own mind, often felt pitted against her, comparing herself to Whitney, coming up short, which the whole homecoming debacle only reinforced. But recently, sitting at home late one night, Jasmine Googled Whitney's name. What popped up was an article from The Guardian that Whitney wrote in 2020, eight years after high school. And the subject of the article, Whitney wrote, was what it was like growing up black in Springfield. The racist jabs at school, the comments about her hair, the jokes she made at her own expense, and how confusing it was to navigate alone.

19:29There were parts that felt lifted out of Jasmine's own life. Like Jasmine, Whitney's family didn't talk about race. Like Jasmine, Whitney had a white mom and a black dad who wasn't home. From the article, Jasmine learned that Whitney's father was incarcerated for most of her childhood. And that she would visit him weekly and was dealing with this very heavy, very adult thing. I had these stories about her and these assumptions. Meanwhile, she was fighting her own battles. How sad that we never, that I never knew that and that we never connected on that. But now, Jasmine wonders, outside of the context of high school and popular groups and Homecoming and Springfield, maybe they can.

20:18Maybe Jasmine can ask her what happened that night, addressing her not as the girl she'd felt pitted against, but as a woman with a shared past. After the break, Whitney.

20:50I'm Drew Broussard, host of the Lit Hub podcast. Every Friday, I take you behind the scenes at Literary Hub, chatting with staff, writers, and other literary figures about everything going on in the literary world. Find us now, anywhere you get your podcasts.

21:23When I reach out to Whitney, I tell her about this homecoming project, how Jasmine has questions about that night. I expect that, like the other popular girls, She won't want to talk. But she wants to help Jasmine, so she agrees. Whitney now lives in Portland, Oregon, where she works as a creative producer. And it just so happens that in about a week, Jasmine will be home for a visit. So we meet up at a small Airbnb I book for the reunion. Hi! Hi. Whitney and Jasmine hug in greeting. Hi, you look great. You do too. You look beautiful. They get settled on two chairs facing each other. Whitney has her feet up on her seat.

22:07Jasmine is smiling. This is crazy. I feel like the last time we saw each other was high school. Probably. Graduation day. Yeah. There was a 10-year reunion, but Jasmine didn't go. Neither did Whitney, even though she was supposed to organize it. Apparently, that's the job of the senior class president, which, if you ask me, falls a little outside the term for an elected high school official. I promised an open bar I ran on that campaign. Who was going to pay for that? Yeah, that's a great question. But like at 17, you don't think about that? But then Whitney spent the next 10 years thinking about it, stressing about disappointing people if she couldn't deliver.

22:49Someone tweeted me five years later and said, we didn't forget. I was like, I'm going to barf. That's really funny. Yeah.

23:00They both seem a little nervous. And so at first, Jasmine tries to make Whitney feel comfortable. She tells Whitney how much she liked her article. They trade horror stories from high school. Sophomore year, two of my friends came into my math class and were like, so we've decided we're going to initiate you as our Black friend. It's literally me, girls. We're going to wrap you in toilet paper and roll you down a hill. What? Yes. It's insane. Crazy. And I'm sure it hurt, but I also, there wasn't even space to allow ourselves to be hurt because it was so constant. And for Whitney, it wasn't just the racism.

23:41Whitney says she came from a poor family. She grew up picking up food boxes, getting her Thanksgiving meals from the school. Whitney had to work hard to fit into that tight-knit group of middle-class white girls when she was going to school every day without breakfast. Whitney says she acted like a happy-go-lucky kid, when in fact, from a really young age, she was in survival mode. Like, I remember being in third grade, being like, I can't even imagine high school because I'll probably die before then. Like, there's no way I'm actually ever going to make it there.