Amanda Seales has never been one to back away from a verbal sparring. Her latest appearance on Jubilee, a popular conversational YouTube show, is no exception. 

The actress, comedian, and cultural commentator recently took part in a debate in which she sat down with 20 Black conservatives, speed dating style, to voice their views on everything from immigration to the makings of Black culture. Unsurprisingly, it made for interesting internet fodder, with social media onlookers voicing their support for Seales’s ability to clearly articulate what many of them think and feel about the topics.  

“Amanda Seals [sic] Calls out Immigrants for undermining #FBA experience” one X user wrote in response to a clip of Seales speaking with an Angolan-American man about the experience of Black Americans in the United States. “She ETHERED every so-called  'black conservative' in that room. Black conservatives of today are not the same from yesteryears.” 

One of the many standout moments included Seales acknowledging the core difference between Black immigrants and Black Americans. 

“As the daughter of an immigrant, it is imperative that Black people from other places understand the disparate difference that they exist from Black people in the United States,” Seales said in the video. “It is not the same, period. And ultimately, the best effort that we can do as a diaspora is to lead in understanding, not in judgment. So when I am talking to somebody from Sudan, from the Congo, from Angola, I am listening to understand their experience, not to undermine and I refuse to allow anybody from Grenada, from Angola, from any other place to come and try to undermine the experience of Black Americans.”  

The conversation also touched on the current state of Black music and how its listeners perpetuate violence. 

“Look at rap. Look at what we're glorifying. We're glorifying violence,” one debater told Seales. 

In response, she explained that music corporations, which are mostly run by white men, curate and distribute the music that is consumed by the masses. 

“Who controls the distribution of these sources of media?” she began. “Let me put it in this context. If I have a company, and you guys are my employees, and I determine what you get to eat every day, that's also going to determine how you exist in this company. If you come to work and I say, ‘The only thing you can eat is processed foods and fried foods, and you're not going to get to have the best vegetables, et cetera. What is that going to affect? Your health. That's going to affect your ability to operate, et cetera. This is how the United States operates. There are a lot of us that don't want to admit that as much as accountable as we want to be, all of our brains also don't operate the same way. Some of us are much more apt to be indoctrinated than others. That's a fact. There is 1% of people that knows this. There's a whole show called Mad Men that's about advertising, et cetera. If we don't acknowledge multiple things at the same time, then we simply cannot stop it.” 

So far, the video has commanded nearly 700k views in one day and more than 16k comments. with many commenters pointing to the hypocrisy of the conservatives’ viewpoints. The conversation ended on a high note with Seales agreeing with the last debater that Black people should work together to effect real change. 

“We’ve [Black Americans] done so much for this country; we built this table that everyone is sitting at, and we deserve rights,” one debater told Seales when sharing his reasons for leaving the Democratic party. 

“I completely agree that we have to act a certain way as Black people, which is problematic because neither the Democratic or Republican party actually cares about Black people,” Seales said. 

In the end, they both agreed that Black communities cannot depend on the government to save them, regardless of which side of the aisle they’re standing on. 

“Let’s think for ourselves.”