Performer and activist Sarah Jones explores how the personal affects the political in her debut podcast, America, Who Hurt You?
Sarah Jones—the face of Ms. magazine’s October 2000 issue—is using storytelling to teach us how to heal. Tony Award-winning performer, activist and comedian, Jones brings her multicultural characters to life to examine our country’s myth of resilience in her debut podcast America, Who Hurt You?
The first season of the podcast, released last month, combines storytelling and interviews with guests such as Laverne Cox, Jane Fonda, Ai-jen Poo and Krista Tippett. She explores the personal and the political, both critiquing the systems in power while revealing our universal connections that are often overlooked. In doing so, America, Who Hurt You? provides renewed hope and optimism for our future.
This interview has been edited lightly for clarity.
Clara Scholl: You have an esteemed career in performance and art. Why start a podcast?
Sarah Jones: There were so many marginalized voices that deserved more attention. I am a Black woman with a mixed race experience. I wanted to hear the voices of the Caribbean relatives and Latin neighbors I grew up with, along with my white relatives, some of whom were Christian, some of whom were Jewish. I wanted to see a family like mine, a microcosm of this diverse country we’re in, not just as a side dish to the idea of American mainstream culture.
But the core idea of the podcast came from the fact that this country needs to reckon with the trauma that is our truth, including global conflict, racism, mass shootings, climate-related disasters and a turbulent economy. Instead of feeling and processing our human experiences, America tells us to buy or eat something. We don’t feel or deal with anything. The podcast is a response to that.
Scholl: America, Who Hurt You? explores how the personal impacts the political. How can listeners start processing and healing themselves?
Jones: I want to be clear, this is not me saying that I am healed. I’m not an Instagram influencer claiming I’ve found the magic. But all of us, whether it’s the pandemic we all just lived through or something else, have stuff to work through.
But when we live in an injustice-ridden society, it is ridiculous to expect to function well. When you have low quality education, housing or employment without paid leave and health care, you can’t function well. When these things are set up with a capitalist motive to devalue people, and value profit over people, you guarantee people are going to feel crazy while also not being allowed to heal. People will think, ‘It’s just me, I need to get on my peloton and lose some more weight’ or ‘I’m not enough of a boss bitch and I just need to grind harder.’ These are insane ideas, but they get installed in us through a competitive model that says we have to be superwomen.
If I could leave readers with one thing, remember that you are doing the best you can with what you have. If you’re feeling insane, you are having a normal response to an abnormal situation. We have to heal but also run for office, vote, tell the truth and flood our lawmaker’s phone lines. It’s a big job, but one of the first things we have to do is look inward to understand where we have internalized all of the myths that this culture has tried to put on us.
Instead of feeling and processing our human experiences, America tells us to buy or eat something. We don’t feel or deal with anything. The podcast is a response to that.
Scholl: If you could have one person on the podcast right now, who would it be?
Jones: At this moment, Mr. Rogers. Mr. Rogers was one of the few examples of non-toxic masculinity when I grew up, and in our culture right now, I know if white guys don’t do their work, we’re all screwed. Mr. Rogers, please come get your people.
Scholl: You’ve said some of the characters on your debut podcast are inspired by your latest film Sell/Buy/Date. How does your work and your characters change depending on the medium you use?
Jones: It’s really all the same. We’re telling stories. The medium changes, but what you focus on and how you help people see themselves represented accurately doesn’t.
Scholl: How can fiction and storytelling drive political change?
Jones: When I was directing my first movie, I heard this great thing that the best narrative films feel like documentaries, and the best documentaries feel like narrative films. I love that because all it’s saying is that you want a story that feels real and true. You want a story that reminds you of your own humanity and connects to your soul. I hope to always do that in my work.
Scholl: What advice do you have for young people right now?
Jones: Get off your phone and get into your community.
Part of what’s happening in this moment is that we are all so over-saturated. Our brains weren’t wired to tolerate this kind of constant borage of images of people dying, mass shootings and climate crises. In a time where there is so much at stake we can do a lot, we just can’t numb it out or do it alone. Whether it’s wine o’clock all day or taking gummies or whatever. I’m not saying it’s not okay to relax and take the edge off, but when your whole life is nothing but edge, what happens?
Americans are obsessed with being comfortable, but it’s important to cure the problem, not the symptom. How can we start to face what’s here as much as we can? Trauma breaks us down, but facing our trauma puts us back together. I hope this podcast can be even a small part of a movement that helps people look at their stuff and move through it. When we heal as individuals, we inevitably heal our culture. As we each keep healing ourselves, we’ll heal our politics too.
Also, if you have privilege, use your privilege. I want to keep encouraging people to look at where your power is in society. Most of the country does not have these extreme Project 2025 values at all. Most of the country, even those on the right, share our values of freedom and basic rights.
Americans are obsessed with being comfortable, but it’s important to cure the problem, not the symptom.
Scholl: Thank you so much for speaking with me today. What advice do you have for those who are starting out in your industry?
Jones: As I move through the Hollywood industry, I realize all of those people are fearful too. I’ve never met so many insecure people as the people supposedly on top.
I want to remind people that fame and power will not heal us. What heals us is coming home to ourselves, instead of thinking that our worth and value is outside us. As America wakes up from the illusion that capitalism is the same thing as happiness, hopefully all of us will start to see changes within all of our industries. We will start to see more liberation and truth.
Everybody doesn’t have to know your name for you to be a freedom fighter. There are many episodes of the podcasts where different guests come back to the same idea that you are already worthy as you are.
Listen to America, Who Hurt You? here.
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