BlackCommentator.com Jan 30, 2024 - Issue 1026: “Ain’t No Mo” Is a No-Holds-Barred Tragicomedy About Race - Inclusion By The Reverend Irene Monroe, BC Editorial Board

Numerous Back-to-Africa movements in the U.S. have sought to return enslaved Africans to the Motherland to resolve the problem of racism. Jordan E. Cooper’s tragicomedy “Ain’t No Mo” brilliantly highlights the urgency of the idea, especially in light of this present moment. With the premise that the United States government offers Black Americans who are descended from enslaved people a one-way reparations plane tickets to Africa, Cooper, a young black queer male playwright, unashamedly shows the ongoing struggle with America’s Original Sin.

Cooper grew up during a rash of police killings of black males, which was the impetus for his play, especially the 2016 killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. In a 2023 interview with the Huffington Post, Cooper said he started writing the play “as a cathartic way to deal with the onslaught of police killings of unarmed Black folks.”

As the youngest Black American playwright ever nominated for a Tony Award, Cooper began writing “Ain’t No Mo” while a high schooler. Cooper imagines a place where Blacks live unencumbered from the yoke of racism and police violence. However, before we depart, Cooper’s vignettes of all too familiar scenes in black life highlight why it’s not safe in the U.S. - physically and mentally - to stay. To some, his no-holds-barred approach might appear brash and gratuitous, but Flight 1619, taking the entire African diaspora back to her homeland after 400-plus years, is a glaring reminder of how long the struggle has been.

A precursor to Jordan’s play is Douglas Turner Ward’s 1965 one-act play “Day of Absence.” In Ward’s play, a Southern town awakens to find its African American residents vanished. As the day goes on, the town slowly devolves into chaos, highlighting its white residents’ dependence on black bodies to maintain their norm - whether for exploited labor or state violence.

“Day of Absence” is a “reverse minstrel show” where black actors perform in whiteface. This art form, albeit controversial, has been accused of “reverse racism” and is a scathing critique of racial stereotypes that comfort and entertain whites.

The play begins in 2008, celebrating Obama’s election as the first black president with the hopes of his election ushering in a “post-racial” America. It ends with Flight 1619 taking off in 2016, with Trump and MAGA America storming into power.

Although we’re in 2025, ironically, you’ll feel stuck in a time warp, a continued nightmare that makes the play a profound message about the endurance and persistence of both institutional and individual racism.

There are several vignettes: a funeral inside a Black church with Brother Right-to-Complain, the embodiment of protest and injustice, being eulogized; the home of a wealthy “bougie” Black family whose black servants left to catch Flight 1619; a woman’s abortion clinic (Sister Girl We Slay All Day Cause Beyonce Say Community Center) showing a black woman’s fear of bringing a black male child into the world; a female incarcerated for 15 years realizing the profound loss of time, and a taping of “Real Baby Mamas of the South Side,” an outrageous “Real Housewives”-style reality TV show with a transracial woman named Rachonda in black drag - white woman passing as black (remember Rachel Dolezal?).

The vignettes are disparate but smart, with searing, in-your-face moments that you can’t glance askance at. The undeniable experiences of black life and a drag queen named Peaches tie the disparate vignettes together. Peaches, a flight attendant, is tasked with welcoming and ushering the entire U.S. black population onto Flight 1619. Each vignette concludes with Peaches’s announcement on the airport’s PA system to hurry and board the final flight to Africa. “The powers that be have reassured me there’s room for everyone.” Each character, however, must make their choice to stay or leave.

The humor buffers the blows. The humor keeps you from crying or swelling with anger with its over-the-top satirical dramatizations. “I love finding the humor in those situations because I believe that’s how you get through it,” Cooper told the Boston Globe. “That’s the thing about ‘Ain’t No Mo’. It punches at all sides.”

“Ain’t No Mo” is both “a loathe and a love letter to America,” Cooper reminds his audience. The play’s complexity raises difficult questions for African Americans, especially with the government offering every Black American a one-way free plane ticket to Africa. If we board Flight 1619, are we willing to leave behind the 400-plus years of building and contributing to the DNA of what makes this country the U.S.?

“Ain’t No Mo” director Dawn M. Simmons shared her response: “So much of Black culture is so uniquely American, so uniquely about what happened and was created on this soil - the good, the bad, the ugly about our tragedy and our triumph. If we go somewhere else, it can come with us, but it changes and morphs.”

The show is now in Boston. However, when it comes to your town, rush to see it.