Meet My Imaginary Friend

Actor Jay Ellis takes us back to his childhood – moving all around the country, going on adventures with his imaginary friend, and dreaming of being an FBI agent/karate master/football champion one day. He tells the story of one of his first interactions with the police, when, after toilet-papering a classmate’s house with best friend Joe, the pair are detained and berated by cops for more than 30 minutes, “as if we had just robbed a store.” Jay says the experience forever changed his relationship with law enforcement. “I didn't get to have those teenage years in the same way that some of my non-Black peers and friends got to have. I was looked at as a man and thought to be dangerous, even though I was a boy.”    Support the show by checking out our sponsors! Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NEJFhcReE4ejw2Kw7ba8DVJ1xQLogPwA/view    Interested in learning more about Jay? Check out the links below:  Listen to Jay’s Lemonada Media podcast The Untold Story: Policing: http://smarturl.it/untoldstory  Watch Jay as Lawrence on HBO’s Insecure: https://www.hbo.com/insecure  Catch Jay in the long-awaited Top Gun sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, out this summer: https://www.topgunmovie.com/    To follow along with a transcript and/or take notes for friends and family, go to https://www.lemonadamedia.com/show/good-kids/ shortly after the air date.   Stay up to date with Good Kids and everything from Lemonada on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @LemonadaMedia. For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com.   If you want to submit a show idea, email us at [email protected].  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.