Sara Ramírez Is No Joke

They're back as the brilliantly annoying, much-memed-about Che Diaz on And Just Like That...

-  BROCK COLYAR

I'VE FALLEN IN love here. I've broken up with someone here. The memories, they're everywhere," says Sara Ramírez, looking ravishingly butch in Oakley sunglasses, their salt-and-pepper buzz cut peeking out from under a Yankees cap, as they gesture toward a scene of well-groomed pooches, their well-bred owners, and one not-so-terrible band jamming under a tree. "This is why I love Central Park. You just never know!"¶ In Sex and the City's Manhattan-centric version of New York, Central Park is usually a place the ladies go to bitch about ex-boyfriends or take engagement photos after they've gotten back together with them. It's a bit of a field trip for me, since, like many people of my generation, I mostly hang out and complain about men to my friends in ratty parks in Brooklyn. In any case, it seems somehow fitting that Ramírez, who plays the extensively memed nonbinary stand-up comedian Che Diaz on And Just Like That..., the Sex and the City reboot, suggested we meet up here to talk about the show's new season.

Before we get too lost in the reverie of a pretty spot on a pretty day, Ramírez points out that the patch of grass we're dawdling on was once Seneca Village, a 19th-century enclave of Black New Yorkers that was displaced by the park's construction. ("If folks want to learn more about that, they should look it up," they say.) Ramírez explains they're "holding space" for "these difficult truths" and brings up that George Floyd was murdered three years ago to the day. They later lecture me a bit about "bi antagonism" and how "some people don't even know the history of the word bisexual. To me, it's crystal clear." They add, "I'm very lucky and blessed to have made in-person contact with bi-plus elders." They do not mean Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, or Miranda.