Speaker 1: Hey, hey, ba fam, I have got some really freaking
Speaker 1: incredible news. We have been nominated for a Webby, y'all.
Speaker 1: The Webby is the oscars of the Internet. And the
Speaker 1: fact that Brown Ambition has been recognized with a nomination
Speaker 1: for Best Business Podcast this is incredible. The most incredible
Speaker 1: thing of all about being nominated for a Webby is
Speaker 1: that you, guys can help decide who wins. That means
Speaker 1: you can vote for us. Go to Webby Awards dot com.
Speaker 1: That's we b b y a wa r ds dot com,
Speaker 1: find the Best Business Podcast Award nominees and vote for
Speaker 1: Brown Ambition. You can also check the show notes. We'll
Speaker 1: put a link to where you can vote there for
Speaker 1: easy voting. But tell a friend to tell a friend.
Speaker 1: If we take home this award, it's going to be
Speaker 1: so symbolic of all the hard work we put into
Speaker 1: this show and of how incredible our BA family is.
Speaker 1: So go vote for us. Voting is open now through
Speaker 1: April twenty first. Thank y'all so much for your support.
Speaker 1: Thank you the Webby Awards for nominating us. Now let's
Speaker 1: take this on or home, y'all. Hey, hey, ba fam,
Speaker 1: it's Mandy and I am back with another episode of
Speaker 1: Brown Ambition. I am so excited to introduce you guys
Speaker 1: to today's guest. Her name is Kimberly Atkins Store. She's
Speaker 1: a senior opinion writer and columnist for The Boston Globe.
Speaker 1: She is the inaugural columnist for The Emancipator, which is
Speaker 1: a joint independent, anti racist multimedia project from Globe Opinion
Speaker 1: and the Boston University Center for Anti Racist Research, which
Speaker 1: I am so glad that that is even a thing
Speaker 1: that exists, and the author of the Emancipator's new newsletter
Speaker 1: called Unbound. Now, Kimberly is one of my most illustrious
Speaker 1: guests yet, y'all, so I'm going to continue with her bio.
Speaker 1: She's also an MSNBC contributor and co host. She's our
Speaker 1: podcast sister co host of the Politicon podcast called Hashtag
Speaker 1: Sisters in Law. Previously, Kimberly was the first Washington, DC
Speaker 1: based news correspondent for wbbur So for my NPR Public
Speaker 1: Radio fanatics, we love that. She's also served as the
Speaker 1: Boston heralds Washington Bureau, chief guest host of c SPAN's
Speaker 1: Morning Collins Shows, Washington Journal, and a Supreme Court reporter
Speaker 1: for Massachusetts Lawyer Weekly. So you have a background in
Speaker 1: journalism and law in all these different facets. I love
Speaker 1: a multifaceted woman and I cannot wait to get into
Speaker 1: my conversation. So, without further ado, welcome Kimberly. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining Brown Ambition.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, Mandy. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2: So tell me about the Emancipator. It hasn't launched yet.
Speaker 2: We're kind of a little bit ahead of the curve
Speaker 2: breaking news for y'all. If you haven't heard of the Emancipator,
Speaker 2: what can you tell the audience about this incredible new
Speaker 2: publication and why you decided to be a part of it. Yes,
Speaker 2: So this sprung out of a conversation with Bina Venka Traman,
Speaker 2: who was at the time the editorial page editor at
Speaker 2: the Boston Globe, and doctor Ebram Kendy as he was
Speaker 2: just getting started and ramping up US Center for Anti
Speaker 2: Racist Research, and they had an online zoom chat and
Speaker 2: after that they connected. They started talking about abolitionist newspapers
Speaker 2: at the time, before and during and after the Civil War,
Speaker 2: and these newspapers didn't just call for the emancipation of
Speaker 2: the enslaved population of people in America. They had a
Speaker 2: broader vision, you know. They thought about what it would
Speaker 2: look like, what it would take to make black people
Speaker 2: who had been enslaved full and participating citizens in American society.
Speaker 2: How to get them educated, what they could do, how
Speaker 2: they could start businesses, how they can run for office,
Speaker 2: how they you know, not just vote, but run for office.
Speaker 2: How they can be a full, integrated part of society
Speaker 2: as a whole. What citizenship really meant. They got the
Speaker 2: idea to take that tradition and create a new platform
Speaker 2: to take that same approach and looking at anti racist
Speaker 2: solutions to the issues we have here and now today,
Speaker 2: not just rehashing problems or talking about them, but thinking
Speaker 2: out of the box, thinking about some solutions to the
Speaker 2: racism that's built into all sorts of systems, not just
Speaker 2: criminal justice. This grew, like a lot of things, out
Speaker 2: of the wake of the lynching of George Floyd, but
Speaker 2: beyond that, in all sorts of areas, and that's where
Speaker 2: this project was born. Being it brought me on board
Speaker 2: early on, I was very eager to do so. Since then,
Speaker 2: we have co editors in chief Deborah Douglas and Amber Payne,
Speaker 2: who have been steering this project to its launch and
Speaker 2: it will launch them very excited to say it's launching
Speaker 2: very soon. It's launching this month after a lot, a
Speaker 2: lot of hard work and anticipation. So I'm really excited
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, congratulations. Amber and I go way way back. I
Speaker 1: can't remember. I feel like black women in journalism in
Speaker 1: New York, like you know, you just find your way
Speaker 1: to one another. I'm so glad that you being in Boston.
Speaker 1: I'm getting to get to know you now. But Amber
Speaker 1: and I go but way back when she was the
Speaker 1: first editor in chief of NBC Black, their Black culture
Speaker 1: sort of publication. And I think when I had just
Speaker 1: started Mandy Money. I had just launched my sort of
Speaker 1: independent business, venturing out into my own this past summer,
Speaker 1: and Amber and I reconnected and she had told me
Speaker 1: she had just joined the Emancipator, and I was so
Speaker 1: excited for her, and then so for her a few
Speaker 1: months later, or feels like, I don't know who knows
Speaker 1: what it was sometime last year, but more recently she
Speaker 1: reached out and she's like, Mandy, we're going to be
Speaker 1: launching soon, and she invited me to write a piece
Speaker 1: for the Emancipator as well, which I was so excited
Speaker 1: to do. And I mean it's not every day that
Speaker 1: you get people who are like, hey, can you write
Speaker 1: about inclusive racism in the workplace and the experience of
Speaker 1: women of color, which that's all I love talking about
Speaker 1: all day air day here on Brown Ambition. So I'm
Speaker 1: honored and excited to just be a teeny tiny little
Speaker 1: piece of the launch of the Emancipator. Talk to me
Speaker 1: a little bit about your approach to like, there's not
Speaker 1: a ton I mean, I don't have any stats on this,
Speaker 1: but if I had to hazard a guests, there aren't
Speaker 1: very many opinion writers from women of color. You don't
Speaker 1: see that often in like mainstream publications.
Speaker 2: It must.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you feel a particular you know,
Speaker 1: first only different sort of pressure when it comes to
Speaker 1: your approach as an opinion writer. But can you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about your experience and how you got
Speaker 1: to a place where you're like, Okay, I'm a black woman.
Speaker 1: I'm actually going to write about issues that are important
Speaker 1: to us and say it with my full chest. Like
Speaker 1: you've written about the Crown Act, about Katanji Brown Jackson,
Speaker 1: you know these issues that really affect us.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know, it's interesting. When I met being A,
Speaker 2: when she hired me to be a part of Globe Opinion,
Speaker 2: I had never been on the opinion side of a
Speaker 2: news publication. I had mostly had entirely been on the
Speaker 2: news side, writing news, writing analyzes of the news, but
Speaker 2: still in that grounded fairness based and that I'm the
Speaker 2: things I write now aren't fair, but this idea that
Speaker 2: when you're on the news side of a publication, it's
Speaker 2: not about what you think, it's not about you, it's
Speaker 2: about what you're covering. Whereas on the opinion side you
Speaker 2: bring your full self to bear. It's still journalism, it's
Speaker 2: still deeply reported. You still have to show your work,
Speaker 2: but you bring all parts of view to bear. And
Speaker 2: for me, of course, that includes being a black woman
Speaker 2: in America. Not everything that I write comes from a
Speaker 2: particular that particular part of my perspective. I find it.
Speaker 2: I'm very grateful that the Boston Globe gives me the
Speaker 2: idea that gives me the ability to write not only
Speaker 2: about things that are really important to me, really important
Speaker 2: to the black community, but also write about out you know,
Speaker 2: the Russia invasion, also be able to bring to bear
Speaker 2: my experience covering foreign policy and the law and everything else.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I feel like I can get pigeonholed, like I'm
Speaker 2: always the you know, the black commentator on a panel
Speaker 2: or something like that. Or you can feel when you're
Speaker 2: a part of a discussion and you sense that you
Speaker 2: were added because whoever was moderating it realized at the
Speaker 2: last minute that it's a panel of white men, and
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, that's we need somebody call him. That's
Speaker 2: great that they're doing that, that they're trying to be
Speaker 2: more inclusive, but it should be more organic than that.
Speaker 2: And I feel like that can sometimes make you the
Speaker 2: spokesperson for black America, which I don't enjoy being because
Speaker 2: I'm not. But I also think it is important to
Speaker 2: have more people of color at the table in all
Speaker 2: of these discussions, more women at the table in all
Speaker 2: these discussions. Any discussion that affects US in America affects
Speaker 2: all Americans should have representation of America in that discussion.
Speaker 2: So in that sense, I'm very grateful for this job.
Speaker 2: It is great to be able to write about things
Speaker 2: that people may not think about them. I think the
Speaker 2: Crown Act was an example of that, which is piece
Speaker 2: of legislation that passed the House that prohibits employment discrimination
Speaker 2: based on one's natural hairstyle, and that really impacts black
Speaker 2: and brown women and men in a very specific way,
Speaker 2: because we have long been taught, I know, I've heard
Speaker 2: this that the natural texture of our hair is unprofessional,
Speaker 2: you know, or it's a hazard, it's a risk somehow. Yes,
Speaker 2: we all remember the video of Andrew Johnson, that high
Speaker 2: school wrestler who was on the sidelines and had someone
Speaker 2: cut off his locks because they violated a rule. I
Speaker 2: remember seeing that and crying. But I would see other
Speaker 2: people who I knew and respected on Twitter saying, this
Speaker 2: isn't a big deal, Like why are we even talking
Speaker 2: about this. They just did not have that understanding about
Speaker 2: how that is a form of racism and that impacts people.
Speaker 2: And so being able to talk about that and educate
Speaker 2: people in a real, genuine way is really important to me,
Speaker 2: and I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean you talk about having made the
Speaker 1: decision to go natural ten years ago. I made a
Speaker 1: similar decision. I don't know how many years ago, but
Speaker 1: I was so broke when I moved to New York
Speaker 1: from Georgia that I literally could not afford the creamy crack.
Speaker 1: It was too expensive for me here in New York.
Speaker 1: And I would go longer and longer in between sessions.
Speaker 1: And then I started to see my curls and I
Speaker 1: was like, these look pretty cool. What if I just
Speaker 1: kept growing it out? And at the time, I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to save so much money. That's a joke.
Speaker 1: Correct the number of products it takes, Babe, y'all have
Speaker 1: no idea the financial commitment to natural hair care of
Speaker 1: But anyway, I digress. I was talking to another reporter
Speaker 1: at SENN about a story and they off handedly asked,
Speaker 1: you know, have you ever had any issues with your
Speaker 1: hair going through because my backgrounds and journalism, And I
Speaker 1: was like, no, not really. But then you know how
Speaker 1: you go through something and you just kind of like
Speaker 1: bury it, I guess in a way, or you just
Speaker 1: try to Like I mean, it's what so many of
Speaker 1: us do. You just you don't clock it at the time.
Speaker 1: You're just like, oh, okay, that happened. And I had
Speaker 1: this just this memory come back to me, come rushing
Speaker 1: back from when I was at I was a writer
Speaker 1: and sometimes on air at Yahoo Finance early in my
Speaker 1: journalism career, and they had a man, a white man,
Speaker 1: come in as an image consultant. And it was during
Speaker 1: this period of transition. And I imagine if you were transitioning,
Speaker 1: you know, when you have natural hair, it is a
Speaker 1: whole journey in and of that self. That transition is painful,
Speaker 1: it's janky. You don't feel good about. At least I'll
Speaker 1: speak for myself, it was very hard to be in
Speaker 1: that in between stage, you know, throw it up in
Speaker 1: a bun and try to smooth down the curls and whatever.
Speaker 1: And he was looking at footage of me from earlier
Speaker 1: in my career at Yahoo, and I was straight, you know,
Speaker 1: pin straight, relaxed. I'm not even wearing glasses. I was like,
Speaker 1: very much what I thought the image to be. And
Speaker 1: I was in the middle of this process of transitioning.
Speaker 1: And he looked at me and was like, is that
Speaker 1: you like clearly? You know, He's like, that doesn't look
Speaker 1: like you. You don't look like that anymore. That's a
Speaker 1: great look. And and meanwhile, this guy looked like he
Speaker 1: spent many years living in his mom's basement. I do
Speaker 1: not know how this man became I don't even remember
Speaker 1: his name. I'm just gonna call him Jeff. It's all
Speaker 1: I can think of. How did he get the job
Speaker 1: of a pinion of image consultant? How did he get
Speaker 1: permission to make me feel so shitty about the way,
Speaker 1: you know? And that's just like I don't want that
Speaker 1: for any other black women to go through. Do you
Speaker 1: feel like things have gotten better? I mean, you're on
Speaker 1: TV now, You're not just frightening. Do you feel like
Speaker 1: it's been getting better for us?
Speaker 2: I feel like there has been progress, But like in
Speaker 2: many areas, there is much progress to go, just by
Speaker 2: way of the fact that people didn't even realize. People
Speaker 2: outside of our communities didn't realize that this was even
Speaker 2: a thing. One reason why I have even after I
Speaker 2: chose to go natural, sometimes i'd do a blowout or something.
Speaker 2: I figure, you know, I can do my looks as
Speaker 2: I please. But once I started doing television, I made
Speaker 2: a conscious decision that I would never blow out or
Speaker 2: straighten my hair on TV because I thought especially and
Speaker 2: this really started when I was on guest hosting the
Speaker 2: c SPAN Morning call in show. You get collars from
Speaker 2: all over the country, all over the world, and like
Speaker 2: it's important that the people in Nebraska see what my
Speaker 2: hair looks like. It's important for the people in Boise, Idoh,
Speaker 2: every place to see what natural hair looks like in
Speaker 2: their living rooms as they're having their coffee, so that
Speaker 2: this can stop, so that this idea that that's not
Speaker 2: acceptable in media, in news, it's okay. I'm When I
Speaker 2: was in a journalism school, there were still people telling,
Speaker 2: you know, black women, you need to relax your hair,
Speaker 2: You need to have a look that is acceptable for
Speaker 2: TV news, you need to be accepted in people's living room,
Speaker 2: and that essentially meant doing everything you can to adhere
Speaker 2: to a Eurocentric beauty standard, and that's really appalling. In
Speaker 2: so many spaces, we are forced to assimilate and adhere
Speaker 2: to a standard created by someone else for someone else,
Speaker 2: and we're the ones who are asked to change ourselves
Speaker 2: as opposed to the other way around, other people learning
Speaker 2: to accept us. And I didn't want to be a
Speaker 2: part of that, so that was important to me. I
Speaker 2: think now you see a lot more people wearing their
Speaker 2: hair natural, being themselves, clothing that it fits us better
Speaker 2: because our bodies can be different. I mean, so many
Speaker 2: things are beginning to change. I still think there's a
Speaker 2: way to go.
Speaker 1: I thought about often, how because I was a senior
Speaker 1: director at my company. Yes, sure I wasn't the CEO
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but I was able to set
Speaker 1: a tone and the level of is acceptability the right word,
Speaker 1: but I felt like anyone who joined my team, and
Speaker 1: my team was like nearly half bipock. Intentionally on my part,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm going to be the quiet leper
Speaker 1: sell that's going to be hiring these black and brown
Speaker 1: people and they're not going to know I'm doing it,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna do it that because I was representing
Speaker 1: and I was there my natural hair, that at least
Speaker 1: the signal would be sent that this is okay. I'm
Speaker 1: going to make it okay. And that's why I feel
Speaker 1: like so passionate and dedicated to more women of color
Speaker 1: in positions of power, putting yourself out there and all
Speaker 1: of that. And I don't even know where I'm going
Speaker 1: with this, but just to say thank you, it does matter.
Speaker 1: And I tell you right now, when I drop myself
Speaker 1: off at his daycare, which is mostly white, because this
Speaker 1: is like I'm in the burbs now, the number of
Speaker 1: little boys and girls who come out and stare at
Speaker 1: my hair and point at it. You really like, as
Speaker 1: I'm like one of the only black moms. I think
Speaker 1: I saw a black mom last week. I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: I feel like a zoo animal sometimes.
Speaker 2: Once somebody touched my hair on the subway and I
Speaker 2: was just tripping, you know, like it it's like, this
Speaker 2: is not a petting zoo, Like what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Too short to touch it? But I can. But they're kids,
Speaker 1: you know, too short. But I make sure I smile
Speaker 1: big and I say hello, and I'm like, yep, this
Speaker 1: is what moms look like too. But you never it
Speaker 1: it really is. I mean, I don't, and it sucks
Speaker 1: because you know, you think I may be the only
Speaker 1: black woman they've seen today, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And it's not okay, But that's where we live in
Speaker 1: Okay the a fan. I'll be right back with more
Speaker 1: of my conversation with Kimberly Atkinstore from the Boston Globe.
Speaker 1: All right, Va Fan, I am back, So let's jump
Speaker 1: back into my conversation with Kimberly Atkins Store from the
Speaker 1: Boston Globe. So you write about a lot of what
Speaker 1: you write about is and you also your podcast I'm
Speaker 1: going to talk about that is the intersection of law
Speaker 1: and the news and politics, am I correct? So what is?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: What excites you about that space? Because I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people having come through this election, especially black women,
Speaker 1: are just like tired. But what what drives and motivates
Speaker 1: you to cover this area? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean I was tired too, but that sort of
Speaker 2: reinforces the importance of all of this, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: so I was a lawyer. I was a lawyer before
Speaker 2: I was a journalist, what kind of I mean. I
Speaker 2: wrote for my college newspaper and stuff, and I really
Speaker 2: loved journalism in college. I majored in journalism in college.
Speaker 2: But I knew I was going to law school, and
Speaker 2: I practiced law for a while, and I realized that
Speaker 2: it was not for me for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 2: I just think that was not you know, sometimes you
Speaker 2: were in a career and you realize that that wasn't
Speaker 2: the right choice for you and that there are other options.
Speaker 2: And I was still in my twenties. I thought it
Speaker 2: was a good idea for me to explore other options
Speaker 2: before committing to something that might make me unhappy in
Speaker 2: the long term. It was not specifically race issues that
Speaker 2: chased me away from practicing law, even though I was
Speaker 2: a civil litigation attorney in Boston in which I could
Speaker 2: go weeks without seeing another black person in the legal space.
Speaker 2: I worked for a wonderful employer, but I would go
Speaker 2: to court to argue a case and sometimes be directed
Speaker 2: to the criminal division or asked if I'm represented by counsel,
Speaker 2: or asked if I was a criminal defendant. But that
Speaker 2: wasn't the main reason I stopped. I just knew that
Speaker 2: wasn't my bliss, even though I thought the law was interesting.
Speaker 2: And so my journalism career, as you said, actually ended
Speaker 2: up steering me toward a job covering the US Supreme
Speaker 2: Court for the Lawyer's weekly papers. And I loved that.
Speaker 2: I loved being on that side, the journalism side, covering
Speaker 2: these cases and why they were so important and explaining
Speaker 2: that to people. And I was pretty good at doing
Speaker 2: that as well. And then as I transitioned away from that,
Speaker 2: I got into politics. I never intended to cover politics.
Speaker 2: I was actually afraid of it, and I had an
Speaker 2: editor when I was at the Boston Herald that said, ah,
Speaker 2: I think you'd be good at that. Go you know,
Speaker 2: go to the State House and cover it Romney and
Speaker 2: I was like, do what now? So I did that
Speaker 2: and I really loved it. It was a lot of fun,
Speaker 2: and I've since then been able to sort of keep
Speaker 2: a hand in both of those places, as well as
Speaker 2: covering other national news as well. But that intersection is
Speaker 2: really important in understanding how laws are made, what they cover,
Speaker 2: what they impact. I mean, take the Crown Act. We
Speaker 2: already have a law that prohibits discrimination in workplaces, so
Speaker 2: technically it should already it is already illegal for employers
Speaker 2: to discriminate against people and not promote them or demote
Speaker 2: them or not hire them because of their hair texture.
Speaker 2: But because people are unaware of that, and because an
Speaker 2: employer can just say well, we have the right to
Speaker 2: set standards, you know, dress codes, hair codes, whatever we
Speaker 2: want to do, and judges will say, hey, I think
Speaker 2: that's right. You need an additional law in the Ground
Speaker 2: Act to say no, no, it includes this. That's how
Speaker 2: the legal system works, and explaining to people exactly why
Speaker 2: that is when they would say, well, why is that
Speaker 2: isn't already illegal? Well it is, but sometimes you need
Speaker 2: that extra bit of help. The same way with it
Speaker 2: wasn't the Emancipation Proclamation that required the end of enslaving people.
Speaker 2: It took an amendment to the Constitution, and then it
Speaker 2: took states to actually adhere by that amendment to the Constitution.
Speaker 2: It took much longer and much more, and you need
Speaker 2: people explaining that process and what happens in those early
Speaker 2: emancipation abolitionist newspapers like the First Emancipator, like The Liberator
Speaker 2: and others. You could I have been going back and
Speaker 2: reading them as part of this project, and you actually
Speaker 2: see people like William Lord Garrison writing, you know, what
Speaker 2: Lincoln did is all is nice, but that's not going
Speaker 2: to change anything unless all these other things are done.
Speaker 2: And they understood that. And so that's the kind of
Speaker 2: the kind of approach that we're taking with the Emancipator.
Speaker 2: And having that legal background and having the understanding of
Speaker 2: the political realities is super valuable to be able to
Speaker 2: help bring that to bear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think as excited as I was
Speaker 1: for the possibility of the Crown Act passing, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's gone through the House now, it hasn't been through
Speaker 1: the Senate yet.
Speaker 2: Right, it has not. It faces a tough road there.
Speaker 1: I yes, because the majority is like raiserin right, so
Speaker 1: and probably Joe Manchin's going to screw it up somehow,
Speaker 1: like he has been lately. But one of the things
Speaker 1: about it was I was thinking about it, actually wrote
Speaker 1: about it on LinkedIn because a white colleague of min
Speaker 1: peer of mine had posted it, shared it, and I
Speaker 1: was like, we still got to watch our backs. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously this is a piece of legislation, it does matter symbolically,
Speaker 1: but the burden of proof will still be on us,
Speaker 1: you know, So if you do feel like you are
Speaker 1: being discriminated against because of your hair texture, I know
Speaker 1: in some states it already has allow to be clear,
Speaker 1: it's not federal yet, but in some states it is
Speaker 1: a law. But keeping a record if there's any comments
Speaker 1: or any you know. I think back to that twenty
Speaker 1: something year old me who was being told by Jeff that,
Speaker 1: you know, probably going back to relax would be the
Speaker 1: better move for me. Ah man, if I'd only had
Speaker 1: a record of that conversation. But protecting ourselves and also
Speaker 1: not being complacent because at this at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, even with legislation, the bias is so present.
Speaker 1: People's bias against us, you know, and it doesn't always
Speaker 1: come so wrapped up in a bow, you know, in
Speaker 1: terms of discrimination, like we do not want you for
Speaker 1: this position because we don't think that you're professional enough
Speaker 1: because you're black and your hair is natural. It's it's
Speaker 1: never that easy for us to prove. And that I
Speaker 1: feel like is the is always the exhausting challenge of
Speaker 1: it all it.
Speaker 2: Is, and I think that's why conversations like this are
Speaker 2: so important. I think that's why the Emancipator is so important.
Speaker 2: I don't legislation is not going to save us. Okay,
Speaker 2: legislation is not going to save us. We have to
Speaker 2: get through to people. We have to connect with people
Speaker 2: and let them understand exactly what the impact of things
Speaker 2: like that, something that may seem so innoculous that just
Speaker 2: was brushed off by people who have never been impacted
Speaker 2: by it because I didn't know, they didn't understand, they've
Speaker 2: never experienced that. And I think, you know, conversations like
Speaker 2: this just teaching people, letting them see. I mean, for
Speaker 2: the I don't mean to jump ahead, but the series
Speaker 2: that I'm working on for the Emancipator is addresses built
Speaker 2: in racial bias in financial systems, and I think I
Speaker 2: genuinely believe that the people who will continue to perpetuate it.
Speaker 2: A lot of these things were built by design. They
Speaker 2: did not want black people to own property to get
Speaker 2: wealth to That was by design, going back to antebellum times.
Speaker 2: But what I think perpetuates it are people who think
Speaker 2: they're being reasonable or being fair or doing the right thing,
Speaker 2: or not understanding how that built in bias works. You know,
Speaker 2: people who say, well, well, yes, I want somebody to
Speaker 2: have to prove that they can pay for this house
Speaker 2: if they buy it. That seems fair, right, So they
Speaker 2: put in all of these procedures that are really surgic
Speaker 2: targeted toward black folks to keep them from buying that
Speaker 2: house or starting that business, or you know, they say, well,
Speaker 2: I want my neighborhood to be safe, and there should
Speaker 2: be ways to ensure that, and that gets into redlining
Speaker 2: policies that are designed to keep black people out. It's
Speaker 2: also teaching black people that they're somehow risky. You know,
Speaker 2: so many systems, even more so than the criminal justice
Speaker 2: system perhaps where you have this built in idea that
Speaker 2: black people. You know, if you have something like a
Speaker 2: police shooting, the justification of that is the subjective threat
Speaker 2: that the police officer felt in that situation. So if
Speaker 2: that police officer believes that black people inherently believes that
Speaker 2: black people are more threatening, that's going to justify that
Speaker 2: right Nowhere else is it that clear. As in financial systems,
Speaker 2: where black people are perceived credit risks, Black people are
Speaker 2: perceived security risks when they buy a house in your neighborhood.
Speaker 2: Black people are seeing risky business venture because who's you know,
Speaker 2: who's going to buy that product? Black people seen as
Speaker 2: risk and that's built into the system. And I think
Speaker 2: people don't understand how that plays out. But when you
Speaker 2: explain it in that way, I hope, I hope people
Speaker 2: all people will say, Oh, that isn't fair. That's not
Speaker 2: how it should work. If you work hard, if you
Speaker 2: do what you're supposed to, life, liberty and the pursuit
Speaker 2: of happiness should be yours too. It shouldn't. You shouldn't
Speaker 2: start out at a disadvantage just because of who you are.
Speaker 2: And that's when I'm hoping this series will bring to bear,
Speaker 2: will teach people and hopefully lead to some change.
Speaker 1: Thank you for bringing that up. I didn't know that
Speaker 1: your series was focused on the intersection of Black Americans
Speaker 1: in the financial system. Where do we begin. I'm absolutely
Speaker 1: I'm like panting here. Yes, let's talk about it. I
Speaker 1: remember last summer, or not even last sum was it
Speaker 1: last summer, my co host Tiffany It telling a story
Speaker 1: of how her home was appraised lower. She actually had
Speaker 1: a white friend that she had on tap to appear
Speaker 1: at her home as as Tiffany, in order to get
Speaker 1: a higher appraisal when they were trying to do I
Speaker 1: think a refinance. And now we're starting to see more
Speaker 1: of these really upsetting but important anecdotes from other black
Speaker 1: homeowners who are proving our homes have been undervalued. And
Speaker 1: I just think of and I live now in a
Speaker 1: majority black neighborhood in the suburbs of New York, which
Speaker 1: is just this little gem that I hope no one
Speaker 1: bugs us, ever bothers us. But I have to reckon
Speaker 1: with the fact that my husband and I could afford
Speaker 1: a house here because it's one of the more cheaper
Speaker 1: of areas of our county. And I have to assume
Speaker 1: it's because it's a large it's been a largely black
Speaker 1: middle class neighborhood, you know, since the nineteen forties, but
Speaker 1: talk from of the series where do you even begin? Kim, Like,
Speaker 1: where do you begin?
Speaker 2: Yes? Do you know that point? I mean that point
Speaker 2: in itself that just it resonates so hard. I was
Speaker 2: talking to someone who is very well off, started an
Speaker 2: entrepreneur who is pulling in massive amounts of money, and
Speaker 2: even he had that experience about being quoted a higher
Speaker 2: interest rate on a house that he was buying than
Speaker 2: he was originally given when the transaction was still purely
Speaker 2: online and once they saw him. So that effects that's
Speaker 2: still happening in the realm of funny not funny. I
Speaker 2: got married last year. My husband is white and we
Speaker 2: are thinking about moving. And one of the things I've
Speaker 2: said to him is like, all right, well, you know
Speaker 2: you haven't had this experience before. But when it's time
Speaker 2: to appraise the house, I think we should take the
Speaker 2: picture down. When you know we are. If there is
Speaker 2: a situation where you have to go into the mortgage agent,
Speaker 2: you'll take the tax returns, and I want you to
Speaker 2: go in and it's awful. It's awful too. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was appalled, and I'm appalled to I'm appalled that
Speaker 2: this is the system. I also don't want the sky
Speaker 2: high interest rate, so I'm gonna do what I need
Speaker 2: to do in the meantime to survive. But that's the
Speaker 2: exactly the kind of thing that that we're talking about,
Speaker 2: and it is foundationally, especially when it comes to buying
Speaker 2: home property. I sort of start with explaining how preventing
Speaker 2: black folks from owning land is the foundational part of
Speaker 2: all of this, and then I go off. I go
Speaker 2: in this series to explore four different areas where that's
Speaker 2: just gotten a little bit less attention than housing discrimination
Speaker 2: and redlining. One. This one's getting much more attention now
Speaker 2: thanks to some lawmakers. But one is student loan debt.
Speaker 2: Student loan debt is a massive contributor to the racial
Speaker 2: wealth gap because black parents like mine, teach us got
Speaker 2: to go to school. You got to go to college.
Speaker 2: If you want to succeed, like you got to work
Speaker 2: hard and go to college. Well, college is very expensive.
Speaker 2: And then you know, I went to law school, I
Speaker 2: became a lawyer. I did the things that I thought
Speaker 2: I was supposed to do that landed me six figures
Speaker 2: in debt. And I remembered when I was graduating law
Speaker 2: school and I had my exit interview with the financial
Speaker 2: aid talking to a friend of mine afterwards saying, oh,
Speaker 2: my god, did you have your exit interview and they
Speaker 2: just told you how much money you owe? Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 2: And my friends, who were largely white, almost all white, said,
Speaker 2: what interview? Well, we don't have loans. Our parents paid
Speaker 2: for law school. And I thought, oh, so we graduated.
Speaker 2: I'm seeing them buying cars, buying houses, getting married, moving
Speaker 2: to the suburbs, and I'm still in my rental, you know,
Speaker 2: in jamake a plane Boston, barely making ends meet, trying
Speaker 2: to make those massive student loan payments the best that
Speaker 2: I could. And it's like, Oh, this is what the
Speaker 2: wealth gap means. It doesn't just mean what your parents
Speaker 2: pass on to you. It's what you have in this
Speaker 2: life as you're just trying to get by. And that
Speaker 2: was sort of what made me think of this. And
Speaker 2: I look at credit reporting, the barriers in there access
Speaker 2: to business capital. Black people could be building, could be
Speaker 2: contributing so much more to the economy if you just
Speaker 2: let them start businesses and hire people and put that
Speaker 2: money back into the economy and also invest in investment
Speaker 2: and retirement. The racial wealth gap doesn't just harm black
Speaker 2: and brown people harms everybody. It strips trillions of dollars
Speaker 2: from the gross national product over our lifetimes. It really
Speaker 2: is costing everyone money. And I'm hoping that if I
Speaker 2: put it that way, like it's called you want to
Speaker 2: you want to stop this from costing you money in
Speaker 2: your pocket, then do what you can to be a
Speaker 2: part of the solution here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so grateful that we have that you are
Speaker 1: doing this kind of work. It's so so important, and
Speaker 1: I hope that a lot of non black people read
Speaker 1: it and are moved by it and understand, because I
Speaker 1: bet all those friends from of years from law school
Speaker 1: probably go through the world thinking I worked hard. I
Speaker 1: went to law school. You know people are mad that
Speaker 1: they can't have a house, Well, they should have worked harder.
Speaker 1: But if you don't understand the privilege and that whole
Speaker 1: starting line being so far set back for some people,
Speaker 1: how how can you who? And you know the majority
Speaker 1: is in power, right, so we need we need allyship
Speaker 1: understanding from non black and brown people in positions of power.
Speaker 1: When they start to care, that's when the change happens.
Speaker 1: We saw what happened with George Floyd in the summer
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty, when enough of the majority started to care,
Speaker 1: not just besides us, and it felt extraordinary. But how
Speaker 1: can we bring something like that to the same fever
Speaker 1: point in the financial sector. It's quiet discrimination, it's nefarious,
Speaker 1: It's like a toxic cancer, right, And we understand it,
Speaker 1: especially on brown ambition. We understand why it is that
Speaker 1: we're doing what we're doing. But it doesn't necessarily always
Speaker 1: make headlines. You know, there was that the more recent
Speaker 1: one about Wells Fargo with was it Wells Fargo that
Speaker 1: discriminated or gave so much more mortgage denials to black
Speaker 1: homeowners and any other bank? I think it was recent.
Speaker 1: I'll check the facts on that one. If it was
Speaker 1: Wells Fargo or not. I just feel like they're the
Speaker 1: worst in general, so probably it was them, But it's
Speaker 1: usually Wells Fargo, right. But the attention that article was getting,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, more of this, more data to show
Speaker 1: how racism pops up for us, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And it's also important for us to show solutions. You know,
Speaker 2: these are things that we could be doing instead. These
Speaker 2: are other paths that people have taken that maybe can
Speaker 2: be adapted on a wider scale. These are things that people,
Speaker 2: individuals can do to empower themselves in this system. So
Speaker 2: we don't want it just to be, like I said,
Speaker 2: a regurgitation of the problem. We want this to be
Speaker 2: a playbooks and also start a conversation. Look, I don't
Speaker 2: have all the answers. Even with all the reporting that
Speaker 2: I did, all the people that I've talked to about solutions,
Speaker 2: this is not exhaustive. So I hope once this comes
Speaker 2: out more people will say, hey, you know, we know
Speaker 2: that problem and this is a solution that we've tried,
Speaker 2: or this is a new program that we are taking on,
Speaker 2: so that we can continue this conversation and come up
Speaker 2: with more solutions. It's not a stagnant thing, and so
Speaker 2: that we can not only educate people about these barriers,
Speaker 2: but also empower them, including all stakeholders, everybody from the
Speaker 2: banks of America down to your individual self at your
Speaker 2: kitchen table trying to make ends meet at the end
Speaker 2: of each month. What everybody can do, what is in
Speaker 2: everybody's power, was everybody's responsibility to making sure that that realization,
Speaker 2: that ideal in the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty, and
Speaker 2: the pursuit of happiness is real for everyone.
Speaker 1: That's such a wonderful place to end our conversation. I
Speaker 1: wish we had more time. I want everyone to not walk,
Speaker 1: but run to the show notes right now, because we're
Speaker 1: going to put a link to Kimberly's newsletter Unbound in there,
Speaker 1: and also a link to where you can find out
Speaker 1: more about the Emancipator, which will be launching this month
Speaker 1: in April. Congratulations Kim on the Emancipator, on Unbound, on
Speaker 1: all your success. Thank you so much for joining Brown
Speaker 1: Ambition and spend such a wonderful conversation. I've loved having you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me on. I've loved
Speaker 2: talking to you.
Speaker 1: Hey, ba fan, we could not do this show without
Speaker 1: your support or the support of our team behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: The Brown Emission podcast is produced by Cumulus Podcast Network.
Speaker 1: It's edited by the wonderful Imani Crosby and produced by
Speaker 1: Tanya Bustos. Dennistimplinsky is our in house tech guru, and
Speaker 1: I am Bandy Woodard Santos, your co host, and I
Speaker 1: will see y'all next week.