Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: me your Girl, Danielle Moody recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: I am really excited to bring you this conversation with
Speaker 1: author and CNN journalist John Blake, who is penned the
Speaker 1: book More Than I Imagined, And I have to tell
Speaker 1: you that this conversation with John was one of the
Speaker 1: most i opening, provocative conversations that I've had in a
Speaker 1: really long time. And in his book, John tells the
Speaker 1: story of hiding the fact being closeted in his terms
Speaker 1: about being biracial and having a white mother that he
Speaker 1: didn't meet until he was about seventeen years old. In
Speaker 1: the essay that he wrote for CNN back in April
Speaker 1: of this year, it's entitled What a Black Man Discovered
Speaker 1: when he Met the White Mother He Never knew. Folks,
Speaker 1: if you don't run out and buy John's book more
Speaker 1: than I imagine, than I plead with you to go over
Speaker 1: to CNN dot com and read What a Black Man
Speaker 1: Discovered when he Met the White Mother He Never Knew.
Speaker 1: The essay is beautiful, the story is beyond compelling, but
Speaker 1: John's story mirrors the kinds of conversations vulnerability and expandiveness
Speaker 1: we need to be having in this moment when the
Speaker 1: Republican white supremacist Party is working over time to push
Speaker 1: us further and further apart as a society. And I
Speaker 1: think now more than ever, that's when you reach your
Speaker 1: arms out for those who are reaching back. And so
Speaker 1: this was a robust conversation. It was one that honestly
Speaker 1: I could have had for hours and hours and hours.
Speaker 1: And so without further ado, I bring you a really
Speaker 1: in depth conversation with author, journalist, writer John Blake. Folks,
Speaker 1: I am very excited to welcome to OKF Daily for
Speaker 1: the very first time award winning CNN journalist and author
Speaker 1: John Blake, whose latest book, More Than I Imagined is Your
Speaker 1: Personal Narrative. His personal narrative about being raised in the
Speaker 1: inner City of Baltimore in the nineteen seventies and being
Speaker 1: I guess, in your words, you say closeted by racial
Speaker 1: man until you, in fact meet your white mother, and John,
Speaker 1: I have to say that your essay, which I want
Speaker 1: to tell folks, the title of your essay at CNN,
Speaker 1: which came out in the spring of this year, What
Speaker 1: a Black Man Discovered when he met the white mother
Speaker 1: he never knew was one of the most captivating essays,
Speaker 1: which I know is the inspiration and is a directly
Speaker 1: taken from your book. Pieces I've read in a long time,
Speaker 1: and I read a lot. I read a lot, and
Speaker 1: one of the things I want to I want to
Speaker 1: jump in with is something that stood out to me
Speaker 1: in the essay that I have personally been grappling with
Speaker 1: probably since I started this show, which is when you
Speaker 1: wrote facts don't change people relationships do?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, John, I'm just going to say, please, please,
Speaker 1: please talk to me so that I can stop looking
Speaker 1: for statistics, that I can stop looking to shove truth
Speaker 1: in people's faces and pray to some God that they
Speaker 1: will wake up from this racist maga coma that they
Speaker 1: have been seduced to be in. But that if we're honest,
Speaker 1: this country has been gripped by since it's creation. But
Speaker 1: reading that in Black and White, facts don't change people
Speaker 1: relationships do, I said, well, God, damn, I have to
Speaker 1: start over.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's funny you mentioned that because so
Speaker 2: many people cite that quote, and it seems like the
Speaker 2: enlarges with people's you know, memories and to me, it's
Speaker 2: kind of a dangerous quote because I don't want to
Speaker 2: imply that facts aren't important. I mean, I'm a journalist
Speaker 2: like you, so I revere facts. I know that facts
Speaker 2: are very important. But that quote comes from twenty five years,
Speaker 2: twenty five plus years of being a journalist writing about
Speaker 2: race and politics. I've covered so many racial reckonings that
Speaker 2: come and go. And to give you an idea about
Speaker 2: how old I am, I wrote about Clarence Thomas' nomination
Speaker 2: to the Supreme Court. I covered the Rodney King protest
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety two. So I've seen these racial awakenings
Speaker 2: come in America and go, and we write these hard
Speaker 2: hitting stories about race. We thought I thought that all
Speaker 2: these videos of people like George Floyd would decisively shift
Speaker 2: racial attitudes. And yet after George Floyd, more white Americans voted.
Speaker 2: More Americans voted for Trump than any other president before
Speaker 2: besides Joe Biden. So I asked myself, as a journalist,
Speaker 2: what shifts racial attitudes? Because it's definitely not facts and information.
Speaker 2: It's helpful, but that's not the decisive thing. And then
Speaker 2: I looked at my family. So you mentioned your question.
Speaker 2: You know, the maga coma, the maga madness. The white
Speaker 2: members of my family were caught up in their own madness,
Speaker 2: their own racism. These were people, you know, brief description,
Speaker 2: who rejected me at birth. My mother disappeared from my
Speaker 2: life right after I was born. There was no explanation.
Speaker 2: Her family wanted nothing to do with me because my
Speaker 2: father is black. These were people who freely used the
Speaker 2: N word, who thought that white and black people should
Speaker 2: be kept apart. And yet today we're family. We have
Speaker 2: this close, close, beautiful relationship. And I asked myself, how
Speaker 2: did that happen? And it came through relationships. It came
Speaker 2: through us getting to know one another year after year,
Speaker 2: time after time. And to me, that's why I said
Speaker 2: that when I looked at me, when I looked at
Speaker 2: when I looked at a lot of social science things
Speaker 2: that really changed people, it's really being in relationships. Those
Speaker 2: are the things that decisively shift racial attitudes. And I
Speaker 2: think we've forgotten that. You know, a long time ago,
Speaker 2: I'm going to mention a word that is so uncool
Speaker 2: that you might boot me off the show for saying it.
Speaker 2: But people used to talk about this thing called integration. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know when King talked about it, I have a dream,
Speaker 2: you know all these when he dreamt of a day
Speaker 2: where white and black people would sit together at the
Speaker 2: table brotherhood. There was an understanding that in the fight
Speaker 2: for racial justice, yes you have to pass the Voting
Speaker 2: Rights Act, Yes you have to do all these things,
Speaker 2: but you also have to put people in situations where
Speaker 2: they will be around people who see the world differently,
Speaker 2: and in doing so, people will see their common humanity
Speaker 2: and change also occurs there. So that's what happened to
Speaker 2: my family, and I begin to see that that's what
Speaker 2: really changed them, not all this knowledge I had about racism.
Speaker 2: So that's why I put that quote in that essay
Speaker 2: that you read.
Speaker 1: And I will say this that it isn't and I
Speaker 1: didn't interpret it as sax don't like that, sex don't
Speaker 1: matter what. But what it like stung was that you
Speaker 1: cannot change people that you are not willing to engage.
Speaker 2: That's a beautiful point. And in my situation, I was
Speaker 2: forced to engage with white family members who were captured
Speaker 2: by racism and didn't want anything to do with me,
Speaker 2: because I had to come together with them to take
Speaker 2: care of my mom. And as I mentioned in the
Speaker 2: estimate essay. I first met my mom at seventeen. It
Speaker 2: was this totally unexpected meeting, and the place where a
Speaker 2: met her was a mental institution. She had been institutionalized
Speaker 2: for schizophrenia. So I had to come together and become
Speaker 2: her caretaker. And to do that successfully, I had to
Speaker 2: work together with my white relatives, the same ones who
Speaker 2: wanted nothing to do with me. Now, I never thought
Speaker 2: that that relationship would change me and change them, but
Speaker 2: it did. So I tried to figure out, like, how
Speaker 2: does this stuff happen? And I read a lot of
Speaker 2: literature about it, and it keeps on going back to
Speaker 2: the same thing, bringing people together. There is a reason
Speaker 2: why racist white Americans have fought through our history so
Speaker 2: much against bringing black and white people together. You know,
Speaker 2: segregation wasn't just created because white people hated black people.
Speaker 2: Segregation was created because white people, white elite people knew
Speaker 2: that if white working class and black and brown working
Speaker 2: class people ever lived together, went to school together, they
Speaker 2: would notice that they had common interest yep. So I
Speaker 2: think it's really important that integration that we see for
Speaker 2: what it is. It's not assimilation, meaning that we learn
Speaker 2: how to be more white and to mean more dulcile
Speaker 2: and just be like them.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: To me, integration is about power. It's about sharing space
Speaker 2: but also sharing power. But in doing so, that's the
Speaker 2: thing that shifts racial attitudes.
Speaker 1: You know, you speak, you know in such a logical
Speaker 1: way and in such an easy way, because I I
Speaker 1: think about your aunt, yeah who you know who we
Speaker 1: write about, and you know said, well, I didn't not
Speaker 1: come to see you because you were black, Like it's
Speaker 1: because you were in Catholic right, Like, let's just live
Speaker 1: in the river of denial, right like it wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: because and you please share the story of your of
Speaker 1: your of your father and your mother, and your father
Speaker 1: going to your mother's neighborhood, going to her home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: please tell tell the listeners what happened in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2: Okay, So when I was born in the mid sixties,
Speaker 2: interracial marriage was illegal in much of the country. It
Speaker 2: wasn't like it is today. There was no Obama or
Speaker 2: Kamala Harris in public, in pop culture, in the public eye.
Speaker 2: Interracial marriages were illegal, and if a black man could
Speaker 2: be seen with a white woman in public, he could
Speaker 2: literally be killed. And yet my father during that time decided,
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, that he was going to date my mom,
Speaker 2: And so when he went to visit her for a
Speaker 2: date in Baltimore, he took a cab there, and first
Speaker 2: a cab driver I didn't even want to take him
Speaker 2: there because black people didn't go there, but he convinced
Speaker 2: him to do so. And when he knocked on my
Speaker 2: mother's door, her father answered the door and he physically
Speaker 2: assaulted my father, called him the inWORD, and had him arrested.
Speaker 2: And yet despite that, my mother decided to date my
Speaker 2: father and to have two black kids with him. And
Speaker 2: that's the world that they lived in. But to give
Speaker 2: you an idea, you know my family, and this is
Speaker 2: part of a strange part of my story. That same
Speaker 2: father that assaulted my father, who called him the inWORD,
Speaker 2: my maternal grandfather, is somebody that I was able to
Speaker 2: reconcile with. But none of this happened unless you'd engage
Speaker 2: with people who see the world differently. And it's very
Speaker 2: difficult to do because you know, Frankly, as a journalist
Speaker 2: who covers race, I get tired of black people. We're
Speaker 2: always trying to understand them, we always have to forgive them.
Speaker 2: It is so tiring, and so I can understand people
Speaker 2: who don't want to do that, but I was forced
Speaker 2: to do it because this is my family and I
Speaker 2: got to take care of my mom, and I have
Speaker 2: to understand these people. But in doing so, I learned
Speaker 2: so much and it changed me. I just didn't change them,
Speaker 2: but they changed me. So I thought it was a
Speaker 2: beautiful story. And we don't really hear those type of
Speaker 2: stories about race right now.
Speaker 1: No, because see, I mean, the only stories that we
Speaker 1: hear right are the story that we just heard recently
Speaker 1: in Texas. Black mother goes to confront her white neighbor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: mother of four, she's dead, yeight ye. Black boy sent
Speaker 1: to go pick up his little brother, knocks on the
Speaker 1: wrong door. Right, who shot in the head?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Do you know what I'm saying. I know you like
Speaker 1: your your father's story. That interaction has been so normalized, yes,
Speaker 1: but the escalation in it is that people are shot
Speaker 1: dead right or harmed in their tracks simply for daring
Speaker 1: to do what your father to do what your father did.
Speaker 1: And so for me, I'm just like laying out just
Speaker 1: those two stories. There are like two thousand more in
Speaker 1: the last two years that sound like nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2: And go ahead. I'm sorry, I don't want to interview.
Speaker 1: No, I was just gonna say that for me, it
Speaker 1: does become I tell people all the time who listen
Speaker 1: to woke a app, I'm exhausted all the goddamn time, right,
Speaker 1: like I am. You know, I tell people to really,
Speaker 1: you know, particularly people of color, he particularly activists who
Speaker 1: are on the front lines, particularly journalists, to take really
Speaker 1: good care of their mental and emotional well being, right
Speaker 1: because this work is designed to wear you down, right,
Speaker 1: And you know, And so I ask you, like you
Speaker 1: made these inroads, did you feel like you had to
Speaker 1: drop your preconceived notions, your anger because you were hiding
Speaker 1: before you said I was closeted as biracial. I'm checking
Speaker 1: other boxes that say that my mom is black. That
Speaker 1: was not the case. So what did you have to
Speaker 1: shift in order to allow for space?
Speaker 2: Well, I want to say two things today. One is
Speaker 2: when you were talking about how this work wears you down,
Speaker 2: and I can totally relate to that. But for all
Speaker 2: those stories that are tragic, the ones you rightly mentioned,
Speaker 2: I think there are other stories out there where people
Speaker 2: find a way to connect. We just don't really hear
Speaker 2: about them. I think it's really important that we tell
Speaker 2: these stories about racism that show people finding a way
Speaker 2: to get past it, because if we keep on telling
Speaker 2: the same story that implies or says that America is
Speaker 2: so racist, it will never change, that white people will
Speaker 2: never change. If that's the only story we're telling, what
Speaker 2: incentive does white America have to change? What hope do
Speaker 2: we have that we can ever make a multiracial democracy work.
Speaker 2: So the stories we tell are incredibly important to give
Speaker 2: people the energy. It was this writer I like, she
Speaker 2: said that action without hope is impossible, and we're telling
Speaker 2: hopeless stories. People aren't going to have hope. They're not
Speaker 2: going to think they can change things. So that's fun.
Speaker 2: But two, you ask me about what did I have
Speaker 2: to do to shift to make these to me that
Speaker 2: the quick answer is I had to get a little humility.
Speaker 2: I had to Like you mentioned my mother's sister. I
Speaker 2: talked about my mother's sister in that essay. He was
Speaker 2: a woman's stone cold racist as far as I was concerned,
Speaker 2: who denied when I met her in my mid twenties
Speaker 2: that race had racism had anything to do with her
Speaker 2: absence from my life. So I was very angry at her,
Speaker 2: and she would try to reach out to me and
Speaker 2: establaghe this relationship. But I tell this story about how
Speaker 2: I went to Lowe's one weekend to buy something for
Speaker 2: my home improvement project, and I could myself racially profiling
Speaker 2: a black man, meaning there was a black man and
Speaker 2: a white man behind the counter. The white man was
Speaker 2: on the phone, but I waited till he was off
Speaker 2: the phone to ask him for help. But I didn't
Speaker 2: ask the black man who was free. And only later
Speaker 2: did I realized that, and that I began to realize,
Speaker 2: you know, racism is so powerful that it can even
Speaker 2: infect black people. And we know what happened with Tyree Nichols.
Speaker 2: He was beating the black out. So I said, let
Speaker 2: me a little grace to my aunt, this woman who denied,
Speaker 2: who denies her own racism because she grew up in
Speaker 2: this all white world. She's not aware of these things.
Speaker 2: And when I did that, our relationship began to shift.
Speaker 2: I didn't preach to her, I didn't condemn her for
Speaker 2: a racism. I started to just try to understand where
Speaker 2: she come and came from to build this common ground.
Speaker 2: And so with a little humility like with in her,
Speaker 2: A little bit of that is in me as well.
Speaker 2: So it's not the sexy thing to say. It's so
Speaker 2: much easier to just condemn, and it feels good and
Speaker 2: we should And I don't get me wrong, I'm not
Speaker 2: saying we shouldn't be angry. Somebody told me once an interview,
Speaker 2: or you're not angry anyone like hell no, it is
Speaker 2: right to be angry when you see black people struck
Speaker 2: down like that. It is healthy, you know. But I'm
Speaker 2: not talking I'm talking about this all consuming anger that
Speaker 2: takes you out where you see all white people this way,
Speaker 2: are any group that way? That's that is not good.
Speaker 2: And so when I saw when I approached my aunt,
Speaker 2: my white aunt, with this kind of humility, that really
Speaker 2: helped our relationship and now we're like this family. She
Speaker 2: maybe the beneficiary in her will. I never would have
Speaker 2: predicted that, but it happened.
Speaker 1: What you're stating, and the story that your book, your
Speaker 1: story unveils for us, is that what we have to
Speaker 1: understand is that there are concerted efforts that are being
Speaker 1: made by people in high up places that see the
Speaker 1: rest of us as pieces on a chessboard that they
Speaker 1: move around, and they keep apart in order to win
Speaker 1: their game. Right, right, there is money made right in
Speaker 1: the dissension. In the dissension, there is money that is
Speaker 1: made in the misery. Right And and I you know,
Speaker 1: and the place that I come to, though, John, is
Speaker 1: that how do you see moving from the place that
Speaker 1: we are in right now in this country, which is
Speaker 1: a tinderbox, back to a place of conversation When your
Speaker 1: book is probably banned in Florida, when your book is
Speaker 1: probably banned in Texas, in Alabama, in all of these places,
Speaker 1: where are the are are the roots of the trees
Speaker 1: are soaked with black people's blood?
Speaker 2: Mm hm.
Speaker 1: So how do we move into the place that we
Speaker 1: need to do, where narrative, where conversation and storytelling is
Speaker 1: so important, when we don't even have those books anymore?
Speaker 2: Well, that's a that's a very good question, and it's tough.
Speaker 2: In I would say two things. One is, I think
Speaker 2: one of the most important things we can do is
Speaker 2: to not lose hope in telling those type of stories.
Speaker 2: And I said earlier that action without hope is impossible.
Speaker 2: And what I sense from people like yourself, people who've
Speaker 2: been writing about race and try to tell these stories
Speaker 2: to change America. I sense exhaustion, you know, like, just
Speaker 2: how do we get past that? And I think when
Speaker 2: we get to that point, it can be easy to
Speaker 2: say nothing's ever going to change. Like I had a
Speaker 2: guy tell me the other day that racism is embedded
Speaker 2: in our DNA, that people can't change. So I think
Speaker 2: one is we can't give into that kind of hopelessness.
Speaker 2: And one of the easier said to done. I know,
Speaker 2: but one of the things that really helped me is
Speaker 2: that I looked at my mom and her life. So
Speaker 2: I'm like, I asked myself, how do people who seem
Speaker 2: like they have no power deal with people who seem
Speaker 2: like they have a lot of power, and how do
Speaker 2: they change things? So when my mother met my father
Speaker 2: in the mid sixties, over ninety percent of Americans opposed
Speaker 2: in a racial marriage. About a year ago pol was taken,
Speaker 2: and now something like ninety four percent approve of interracial marriage.
Speaker 2: And it cuts across all political racial lines. And so
Speaker 2: I asked myself, how did that dramatic shift take place
Speaker 2: in a lifetime. And you know, because a black man
Speaker 2: could be killed, like I said before, just walking in
Speaker 2: public book and now you see biracial children, interracial couples,
Speaker 2: it's no big deal. How did that happen? And I
Speaker 2: think part of the things that happened is that ordinary
Speaker 2: people like my mom and dad, they did not give
Speaker 2: into hopelessness. They saw these all these antimessgenation laws as absurd,
Speaker 2: and they acted. They didn't wait for judges of politicians
Speaker 2: to decide. They said, I'm going to love who I'm
Speaker 2: gonna love, regardless of skin color. And when enough of
Speaker 2: them started doing that, it created a chain effect, a
Speaker 2: ripple effect, until it changed norms, and then the politicians
Speaker 2: and the judges had no choice but to decide. This
Speaker 2: was the same dynamic in gay marriage. If you remember,
Speaker 2: not too long ago, George W. Bush ran against gay
Speaker 2: marriage and ran and won. But all these game less
Speaker 2: people came out to their husband, you know, to their families,
Speaker 2: to their friends and their jobs, and that shifted that
Speaker 2: norm and then the Supreme Court and the politician's followed.
Speaker 2: So one of my favorite writers a guy named Eric
Speaker 2: lou and he says norms changed before policy changes. So
Speaker 2: I think what I've learned from my mom is that
Speaker 2: people who seem like they have that that they have
Speaker 2: no power when they act on their conscience, on their convictions,
Speaker 2: they can have tremendous power. They can change norms. And
Speaker 2: when you change norms, the laws and the policy will
Speaker 2: eventually follow. So to me, that means what we do
Speaker 2: in our private life, what we do in our actions,
Speaker 2: that really matters, and we can't give up hope. So
Speaker 2: that's that's one of the things that gives me hope.
Speaker 2: And two, one of the things that gives me hope,
Speaker 2: and I talk about this in the book, is that
Speaker 2: I think one of the things you get white Americans
Speaker 2: to brace change is to stress that it's in their
Speaker 2: self interest. Okay, if you're going to appeal to a
Speaker 2: group's morality, like do this because it's the right thing,
Speaker 2: that's pretty weak argument. But if you look at some
Speaker 2: of the biggest changes we've had in history, with the
Speaker 2: passage of civil rights laws, white Americans have decided what's
Speaker 2: in their interest. Why did the Voting Rights Act and
Speaker 2: the Civil Rights Act and all those laws passed the
Speaker 2: mid sixties. A huge part, as you probably know, was
Speaker 2: because of the Cold War. We were engaged in this
Speaker 2: big competition with Russia, and we look like hypocrites. We
Speaker 2: are all engaged with another great power competition with China,
Speaker 2: where they say democracy doesn't work. So I believe that
Speaker 2: when White America gets to the point they realize we
Speaker 2: have to make this work if we're going to be vital, prosperous,
Speaker 2: remain a superpower, particularly when we have such a the
Speaker 2: very demographic change in our country. I think when many
Speaker 2: of them start to see it in their self interest,
Speaker 2: that also gives me hope that they will be changed.
Speaker 2: And that was a very long answer, but sorry about that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, not a very long answer. But I
Speaker 1: want to ask you a final question. You know, as
Speaker 1: a journalist, John, what responsibility do you think that journalism
Speaker 1: bears now as we are watching our democracy circle the drain,
Speaker 1: as we are watching race relations disintegrate. And what I
Speaker 1: often say on this show is that mainstream media is
Speaker 1: aiding and abedding in our destruction. And so, as a journalist,
Speaker 1: what responsibility do you see this very powerful industry have
Speaker 1: in our survival?
Speaker 2: Two things come to mind. One is that we I
Speaker 2: think we can't hide behind claims the neutrality to avoid
Speaker 2: calling out things that are anti democratic. So we're training
Speaker 2: and journalists to always show both sides of the story.
Speaker 2: But I think there are certain stories that it would
Speaker 2: be a disservice to our readers to say that there
Speaker 2: are two morally equivalent points of view here. For example,
Speaker 2: you say January sixth was an insurrection. You don't say
Speaker 2: January sixth was an insurrection, but others say it was
Speaker 2: a protest. No, you say it was an insurrection. You say,
Speaker 2: if a politician is saying something racist, you don't use
Speaker 2: a euphanism like racially charged or anything like that. You said, no,
Speaker 2: that was a racist statement. So I think calling out
Speaker 2: things that threaten out democracy is one of the things
Speaker 2: we can do to protect it, and I think that's
Speaker 2: incredibly vital. I think number two is something else. Someone
Speaker 2: that told me when they read my book, they said,
Speaker 2: this is a very subversive story. And I thought that
Speaker 2: was interesting, and I thought it and I kind of
Speaker 2: agree with it now. It's subversive because I'm humanizing people
Speaker 2: that a lot of people think that journalists are opposed to,
Speaker 2: Like I'm humanizing members of my family who are frankly
Speaker 2: who were very racist, and I'm showing him as multidimensional
Speaker 2: human beings and I'm treating them with respect, and I'm
Speaker 2: listening to him. I think when we do that too,
Speaker 2: when we also try to engage people as journalists who
Speaker 2: see the world differently it might be different politics, different
Speaker 2: skin color, that we just don't dismiss him as all,
Speaker 2: you know, beyond redemption, beyond inability to change. I think
Speaker 2: that's really important as well. And I know that's kind
Speaker 2: of some people might say, you know, you're kind of
Speaker 2: being like an ople tom or something like that. But
Speaker 2: for example, if I'm talking to a white conservative who
Speaker 2: might support Trump, I think one of the most effective
Speaker 2: things I can do is treat them with respect and consideration,
Speaker 2: because that defies what people tell them about the media.
Speaker 2: So I think there's something else that we can do.
Speaker 2: So I don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: It does, John, it absolutely does. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: so appreciative of one of your writing, of you sharing
Speaker 1: a story, particularly now that we're not listening right and
Speaker 1: we're not reading right in ways that we could, and
Speaker 1: we're being so overwrought with hopelessness and despair that most
Speaker 1: people are just turning away. And I think a part
Speaker 1: of my job one is to bring the alarm on
Speaker 1: those injustices, but it is also to remind people of
Speaker 1: their personal power regardless of the size of their platform
Speaker 1: or not. That you have voice. And as long as
Speaker 1: you have voice, you can have conversation. And as long
Speaker 1: as we stay in dialogue, then there's hope.
Speaker 2: Where do you get your hope from?
Speaker 1: When you where do I get by home? I like
Speaker 1: how you journal, it's turning the tables at me. Where
Speaker 1: do I get my hope from? You know, people, I
Speaker 1: get my hope from people. I get my hope from,
Speaker 1: you know, the audiences that listen to my show. I
Speaker 1: get my hope from the fact that you know, I
Speaker 1: am have seen so much shift in this country in
Speaker 1: what seems like a short period of time. To your point,
Speaker 1: you know about the shift in interracial My my father,
Speaker 1: my stepfather is white. Right is you know is a
Speaker 1: white man, and you know my cousins are bi racial. Right.
Speaker 1: I am a black queer woman, right, that fought on
Speaker 1: the front lines for marriage equality, right, and that has
Speaker 1: used my voice in so many different ways. And I
Speaker 1: have watched opinions shift. I've watched you know, corporations raise
Speaker 1: rainbow flags that now there's you know they're taking down.
Speaker 1: But I think so long as people keep talking, I
Speaker 1: believe that people can change and That's why that quote
Speaker 1: for me was just like, yeah, this is really about
Speaker 1: connectivity and relationships and dialogue and so so long as
Speaker 1: we are doing that, I believe that there's hope.
Speaker 2: Oh definitely. I mean that's the story of my family.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, we didn't talk as much about it,
Speaker 2: but the neighborhod I come from in West Baltimore is
Speaker 2: a place known for hopelessness. Also the Wire, Yeah, the
Speaker 2: Freddie Gray Uprising rebellion. Uh So it's not a place
Speaker 2: where you can expect this type of story where white
Speaker 2: and black people can come together. Particularly white people wanted
Speaker 2: nothing to do with this black family but that, but
Speaker 2: that happened. So yeah, I think when I use the
Speaker 2: word hope, somebody use the term that I prefer, say
Speaker 2: a muscular type of hope. When I'm saying hope, I'm
Speaker 2: not talking to like a Hallmark card hope, a naive, wishful,
Speaker 2: wishful hope. But I'm talking about a muscular kind of
Speaker 2: hope that acknowledges how difficult it is, but believes that
Speaker 2: we fight together, we can make this happen. And to me,
Speaker 2: it's that kind of hope that's part of black culture.
Speaker 2: To me, you don't survive the Middle Passage. You don't
Speaker 2: survive slavery without having hope and so that you know
Speaker 2: tomorrow can somehow be better. So that's the type of
Speaker 2: hope I'm talking about. And I almost feel like it's
Speaker 2: really uncool if you write about race to tell stories
Speaker 2: like that. I was, I was talking to an editor
Speaker 2: about my book and he said, I can't do anything
Speaker 2: on it. I'm like, why, He said, Well, I can't
Speaker 2: do anything unless it triggers controversy, you know, and I don't.
Speaker 2: I frankly don't know where the Yeah. Yeah, they don't
Speaker 2: frankly know what to do if it's a story that
Speaker 2: shows people coming together. So and I think that's a
Speaker 2: mistake because, like I said, if we're just telling the
Speaker 2: same story of despair and hopelessness, that kind of we're
Speaker 2: really not that different from the MAGA people who say, yeah,
Speaker 2: Trump talked about American carnage, that the country's going to hell.
Speaker 2: You know, people don't get energized by that. People don't
Speaker 2: get inspired to like change.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I know, but it's but it's a it's
Speaker 1: one hundred percent true. And you know what, I will
Speaker 1: add on to the question that you that you asked
Speaker 1: me about where do I find hope? I think that
Speaker 1: to and I joke on this show all the time,
Speaker 1: and I say, I carry around a mustard seed of hope,
Speaker 1: right like that is what is that is what is
Speaker 1: in my pocket on a day to day basis. But
Speaker 1: the fact is that I wouldn't do the work that
Speaker 1: I do if I wasn't hopeful. I wouldn't you know.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't fight for our democracy, if I wasn't a patriot,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't you know I And I think that to
Speaker 1: allow hopelessness to take over is to spit in the
Speaker 1: face of my ancestors, who I mean, had to live
Speaker 1: with so much pain, so much trauma, and had to
Speaker 1: endure it in order for me to be here, right,
Speaker 1: And they endured it because they had hope, because they
Speaker 1: had faith, right, And so to lose hopefulness, to lose,
Speaker 1: to lose, to lose out on that, and to succumb
Speaker 1: to hopefulness, I think would be to make a mockery
Speaker 1: of their pain. And I refuse to do that well.
Speaker 2: As Beautifley said, and that's one of the things I
Speaker 2: wanted to convey with my story. When you write a memoir.
Speaker 2: My first duty is to be honest and take this
Speaker 2: follow the story wherever it goes. But I have to
Speaker 2: meet when I was writing it, and I wrote a
Speaker 2: lot of it, doing the follow up the George Floyd
Speaker 2: in the Pandemic. It really gave me a lot more
Speaker 2: hope than I realized. It really changed the way I
Speaker 2: approached my job, the way I look at the future.
Speaker 2: Just to see how my mom, who this woman who
Speaker 2: seemed like she had no power had nothing, taught me
Speaker 2: so much about resilience and about you know, faith and hopefulness.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I I appreciate this chance to share that
Speaker 2: with you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you so much. Thank you, Thank you John
Speaker 1: for making the time to join woke F and folks,
Speaker 1: don't walk but run to go and get this book
Speaker 1: more than I imagined, And don't walk, but run to
Speaker 1: go and read his essay at CNN dot com What
Speaker 1: a black man discovered when he met the white mother
Speaker 1: he never knew. This was an absolute pleasure, and I
Speaker 1: really do hope that you'll join us again.
Speaker 2: I'm wok honor to thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you. That is it for me today, dear friends
Speaker 1: on woke F. As always power to the people and
Speaker 1: to all the people power. Get woke and stay woke
Speaker 1: as fuck.