Speaker 1: Pushkin. I'm Malcolm Gladwell and today on Revisionist History, I
Speaker 1: have a special treat I'm going to play for you
Speaker 1: an interview I did with an old friend in Pushkin
Speaker 1: co conspirator Justin Richmond, who you may know from our
Speaker 1: music show Broken Record, which Justin has made happen since
Speaker 1: the beginning. But now Justin has his own gig. He's
Speaker 1: the creator and host of a new podcast called Started
Speaker 1: from the Bottom. It's a show about origin stories, particularly
Speaker 1: the origin stories of men and women of color, how
Speaker 1: they climbed their way up the ladder, the obstacles they
Speaker 1: overcame along the way. And for this episode that I'm
Speaker 1: about to play for you, I turned the tables on
Speaker 1: Justin and I interviewed him. We did it in front
Speaker 1: of a group of students and faculty at Medgar Evers
Speaker 1: College on the side of the old Evie Field in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: New York. As someone of West Indian heritage, let me
Speaker 1: just say how gratified I was at the heavy West
Speaker 1: Indian turnout for this, And in good West Indian fashion,
Speaker 1: they asked some pretty good questions at the end too.
Speaker 1: So here we go my conversation with my good friend
Speaker 1: Justin Richmond.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hello, who is this song? Check? Check ye a
Speaker 2: single race, So welcome. This is the first time I've
Speaker 2: ever done anything like this, and it is certainly the
Speaker 2: first live taping of started from the bottom. So thank
Speaker 2: you so much for coming, Malcolm, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for doing this.
Speaker 1: Not at all, it's my pleasure, Justin. I've long dreamed
Speaker 1: of being on a stage with you.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine that's true, but it's very nice of
Speaker 2: you to say no.
Speaker 1: I think I hope this is the start of many
Speaker 1: of these Justin, But I think premise of today's is
Speaker 1: that I'm interviewing you, right, That's not our plan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, we.
Speaker 1: Want to get the Justin. We want to get the
Speaker 1: Justin Richmond.
Speaker 2: Origin stories, a little introduction in me, I guess, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The which you know. I love these things because I've
Speaker 1: often I'm a firm believer that if you want to
Speaker 1: get to know somebody, even if they've done a lifetime
Speaker 1: of interesting things, if you just do the first twenty years,
Speaker 1: you get most of what you need. Right that it's
Speaker 1: a surprising how much you can glean from. So let's start.
Speaker 1: Let's do the Justin Richmond analysis and I wanted to
Speaker 1: start with a thing we have in common. Now you
Speaker 1: might look at us and say, what on earth do
Speaker 1: they have in common? But we do have one very
Speaker 1: significant fact in common, which is we're both the product
Speaker 1: of biracial marriages. Yeah, and I wanted to start with that.
Speaker 1: First of all, you're more obviously biracial, and me, I
Speaker 1: don't know how that happened. You, I'm a little more
Speaker 1: subtle yours.
Speaker 2: Your dad would say it's his jeans.
Speaker 1: So you're tell me about your parents. Let's start with
Speaker 1: those two. How did they meet?
Speaker 2: Justin to start with that, they met at Compton Community College.
Speaker 2: So he grew up in Compton and and my mom
Speaker 2: was there for I don't even know why she was there,
Speaker 2: but she was there. She was friends with someone there
Speaker 2: and so she was there. They met.
Speaker 1: Where does your mom grow up?
Speaker 2: My mom grew up in a city called Almonte, which
Speaker 2: is by Pasadena. My mom grew up on the racetrack.
Speaker 2: Her dad was a racehorse trainer, so she grew up
Speaker 2: on the racetrack. And Yeah, they're very different people even
Speaker 2: to this day. And it might be because they've never
Speaker 2: seen them together, but my kids still cannot wrap their
Speaker 2: heads around that my parents, like you know that there's
Speaker 2: any relationship between them or ever was you know, they
Speaker 2: were never together, they were never married, but yeah, like
Speaker 2: they liked they just liked each other, you know.
Speaker 1: So how long were they together.
Speaker 2: Off and on? About five years? Four years?
Speaker 1: So you have very few memories of the two of
Speaker 1: them as in a couple.
Speaker 2: Very few early on, Like I remember being over at
Speaker 2: his house because I have two half brothers, so early
Speaker 2: on I remember being over there with them, going to
Speaker 2: Disneyland on occasion. Well, yeah, the memories are very sporadic
Speaker 2: early on.
Speaker 1: You know of them, and you're raised by your mom,
Speaker 1: raised a bit by both, but primarily by my mom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and where you grow in Long Beach or yes.
Speaker 2: In Long Beach. And then at five, my mom moved
Speaker 2: to the city of Orange, which is in Orange County,
Speaker 2: which is about twenty minutes south of Long Beach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what is Orange?
Speaker 2: Like Orange and far as places in Orange County, go
Speaker 2: is pretty diverse. There's a large Latino community there, but
Speaker 2: aside from the Latino population, it's overwhelmingly white. And that
Speaker 2: was it. That was a change from me even having
Speaker 2: white parents, like even having like my mom being white
Speaker 2: and having that whole side of my family be white.
Speaker 2: I never thought of it that way until I showed up.
Speaker 2: You know, she moved there right before I started, a
Speaker 2: month before I started kindergarten. And I remember my first
Speaker 2: day of kindergarten. I rolled up and I had this
Speaker 2: is ninety four, so I had a Power Range of
Speaker 2: shirt on. I thought I was real cool, Power Rangers
Speaker 2: lunch box. I really thought I was nervous, but I
Speaker 2: thought I was fresh. I thought it was good, right,
Speaker 2: And I'll never forget this kid who was in line
Speaker 2: in front of me, like, look back at me, and
Speaker 2: this is the first time. Like again, I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: not really realizing the differences between us yet. But he
Speaker 2: turns dound and looks at me and goes, are you poor?
Speaker 2: Are you poor? Yeah? Yeah yeah? And I was like
Speaker 2: like you what do you mean? And he's like, you
Speaker 2: look poor? Are you poor? And I was like what,
Speaker 2: you know, I was just deflated. I didn't know exactly
Speaker 2: what to think about it at the moment. I was.
Speaker 2: I was just deflated just because you know, your five
Speaker 2: year old you go into kindergarten. Ryna. We had just moved,
Speaker 2: and I thought it looked good, but apparently I looked poor.
Speaker 2: I remember his name?
Speaker 1: Should you tell your mom?
Speaker 2: Yes, I did that. I remember that. I remember, I
Speaker 2: remember going home and talking to my mom and uh yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean that's when I think her hope was that
Speaker 2: it would take a little bit long for those dynamic,
Speaker 2: for that dynamic to set in, right. But that's when
Speaker 2: we had, you know, when she started talking to me
Speaker 2: about the fact that I am now at this overwhelmingly
Speaker 2: white place and many of the people I'm going to
Speaker 2: be around are likely growing up, if not out and
Speaker 2: now racist, racist things being said in their household, They're
Speaker 2: going to be parroting those things back.
Speaker 1: At that. So if I asked you in say, in
Speaker 1: middle school, to how you would describe yourself racially, what
Speaker 1: would you have said?
Speaker 2: Black? I knew I was black, you just because because
Speaker 2: of my experience, Because of that experience going to the
Speaker 2: so you know, off, I would say, off and on.
Speaker 2: Between kindergarten and ninth grade, I was going to overwhelmingly
Speaker 2: white schools, and you know, these are places where I
Speaker 2: would get called nigger. You know. So when you're getting
Speaker 2: called nigger, you know what you are, you know. And
Speaker 2: then I go talk to my dad about it. He goes, well,
Speaker 2: you are niggas, so but you know that was like
Speaker 2: his way of trying to be like, yeah, you are niggas,
Speaker 2: so yeah. You know. So I definitely knew what I was.
Speaker 2: I knew I was black. And where it got well,
Speaker 2: I see where it got difficult was when probably in
Speaker 2: junior high, when it was teachers who I think sort
Speaker 2: of interacting with me differently because of my color, you know,
Speaker 2: like I had. I got in a lot of trouble
Speaker 2: because I grew locks, and I remember they wanted to
Speaker 2: kick me out of school. There was a there was
Speaker 2: a neo Nazi kid named.
Speaker 1: Your name, and all these people like on the bulletin board,
Speaker 1: where are you man?
Speaker 2: Right? And every day with him go you know, it
Speaker 2: was go back to Africa. I mean it got to
Speaker 2: the point police got involved, you know, and he never
Speaker 2: got kicked out of school somehow. But but I would
Speaker 2: say the point in junior high is when teachers I
Speaker 2: started getting just weird comments from teachers and weird nothing
Speaker 2: I did was ever good enough. There's always a perception
Speaker 2: that I was lazy. And that's when I think because
Speaker 2: I was. I was always a smart kid and because
Speaker 2: my dad played football, because I was so tall, I
Speaker 2: was always tall. The perception was always that I was
Speaker 2: going to go and be an athlete. But from early age,
Speaker 2: I realized I wanted to cut against that. Like I
Speaker 2: didn't want okay, cool, Yeah I can I can play ball,
Speaker 2: I can do that. But what I realized I really
Speaker 2: wanted was to show people, Like early on, I kind
Speaker 2: of got this need to prove people wrong in me,
Speaker 2: and so I felt like I always wanted to be.
Speaker 2: I always wanted to be the smartest person in the
Speaker 2: room at that point as a young kid, and I
Speaker 2: didn't always have the confidence that I was, but I deep,
Speaker 2: deep down somewhere I wanted to be. And by the
Speaker 2: time I got to to junior high and the teachers
Speaker 2: were sort of I have these these odd interactions. I
Speaker 2: think that's when I started to That's when my my
Speaker 2: interest in education started to wane and my I would say,
Speaker 2: my pride and myself started to win.
Speaker 1: How many black teachers did you have in your public
Speaker 1: school experience?
Speaker 2: Zero? Zero?
Speaker 1: They got something to do with it.
Speaker 2: I think that's a big thing, has a big part
Speaker 2: to do with it. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely, you got it.
Speaker 2: And that's the premise of my show, if you're not around,
Speaker 2: if you're not around people who look like you, who
Speaker 2: are successful, you know. And my dad, God bless him,
Speaker 2: you know. He was an NFL so to degree was
Speaker 2: a success. But my dad and I love him. But
Speaker 2: you know, he also like has a very small way
Speaker 2: of thinking, you know, and so I never really felt
Speaker 2: like I had someone.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by a small way of thinking?
Speaker 2: For him, it was always like, yeah, just go be
Speaker 2: a cop, you know, Like that's sure money. Like you
Speaker 2: can go be a cop. You can get one hundred
Speaker 2: grand a year. With over time, you can make like
Speaker 2: one twenty Like what are you doing with this college thing?
Speaker 2: What are you doing with school? You know, like they didn't.
Speaker 2: He couldn't get that I wanted to be that. I
Speaker 2: wanted to be an educated brother. You know, he couldn't
Speaker 2: get it. I say, a lot and a lot of
Speaker 2: my family didn't. It's difficult to talk about because I like,
Speaker 2: in so many ways they were successful, you know, But
Speaker 2: at the same time, I knew there was a level
Speaker 2: of life that I wanted to achieve that no one
Speaker 2: in my family had achieved. You know. My dad wanted
Speaker 2: me to go be a cop. Because he's like, that's
Speaker 2: guaranteed income, you can and you can do it. But
Speaker 2: I just had other aspirations. So it was it was
Speaker 2: a weird thing between growing up in a white world
Speaker 2: that didn't necessarily believe in me and growing up in,
Speaker 2: you know, my black family in a black world that
Speaker 2: kind of had a way of thinking that wasn't They
Speaker 2: didn't understand what I was trying to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, your dad's not He's not one hundred percent
Speaker 1: wrong being a police officer. And I'm not saying you
Speaker 1: should have done it. I'm just saying from his position,
Speaker 1: being an LAPD officer is assuming that's what he's talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is a good job.
Speaker 2: It's a great job. I mean in terms of, like
Speaker 2: if you look at just like income and like what
Speaker 2: you could provide for your family, Like, it's a great job.
Speaker 1: But it's the means of there's all an entire generation
Speaker 1: of largely black men who grew up in LA for
Speaker 1: whom the LAPD was the stepping stone. I mean, you
Speaker 1: got a job in the LPD and then your kids
Speaker 1: got to go to college. I mean that was like
Speaker 1: he's reflecting something that was real, right.
Speaker 2: No, it was a real thing, and I don't. At
Speaker 2: the time, I was very I was always upset when
Speaker 2: you bring it up. You know, now I understand why
Speaker 2: he did. But you know, when you have a dream
Speaker 2: and something you want to accomplish, hearing things like that
Speaker 2: don't instill confidence in you. Because I always have to
Speaker 2: hear these quies like well, what a school doesn't work out?
Speaker 2: It's like, well, what do you mean? What was like?
Speaker 2: You know what? Like by the time I get to
Speaker 2: college and I'm meeting people, I'm like, I can very
Speaker 2: much tell that this isn't their experience that they had,
Speaker 2: Like what a school doesn't work out? It was just expected?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Is it your dad? Does he not think you're smart
Speaker 1: enough for college? Or does he think the obstacles facing
Speaker 1: a young black man are too high? What's his what's
Speaker 1: his theory?
Speaker 2: I don't know. My dad thinks he's the smartest man
Speaker 2: in the world, so and I think based he also
Speaker 2: thinks he has the greatest gene pool in the world,
Speaker 2: so I think so, I think based on that he
Speaker 2: knew I was very smart. That was his belief at least.
Speaker 2: But with my dad, I think it very much had
Speaker 2: to do again with like his perception of what was
Speaker 2: possible in the world. You know, he grew up in
Speaker 2: a place called Eudream of Village and Compton, which was
Speaker 2: a housing project that closed down because the soil was toxic.
Speaker 2: Like they didn't know what at the time, but the
Speaker 2: soil was toxic. So people were getting sick and cancer
Speaker 2: and dying, babies being born deformed. And I think it
Speaker 2: was also a sense of maybe his dreams were limited
Speaker 2: to or his not his His dreams were big, but
Speaker 2: I would say his dreams were at some point, I say,
Speaker 2: his dreams are crushed as well. You know, my dad
Speaker 2: did get kicked out of the NFL. The story as
Speaker 2: it's been told to me, So my dad got drafted
Speaker 2: by the Colts in eighty four, I want to say
Speaker 2: eighty five, and the team captain, a white dude, called
Speaker 2: my grandmother a nigger, and so my dad whooped his ass.
Speaker 2: They had it. He got reprimanded, that had a team dinner.
Speaker 2: It happened again, my dad whooped his ass and he
Speaker 2: was kicked off the team. And I think when that is,
Speaker 2: when that's what happens to your dream, I think you
Speaker 2: start to worry in some way.
Speaker 1: Was it his dream?
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah. Yeah. Does he still have regrets today, I'm
Speaker 2: sure he does. I don't think he regrets that, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't think he regrets whooping the team captain's ass
Speaker 2: or anything. But yeah, I think he wishes it turned
Speaker 2: out different. Absolutely, you know, yeah, does.
Speaker 1: He understand what you're doing now?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, you know the first the first time he
Speaker 2: really got it. Well, he got it when I went.
Speaker 2: When I got into Berkeley, he was kind of he
Speaker 2: was shocked. I was shocked. My whole family was shocked.
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe it too, so much so that I
Speaker 2: remember I drove up. I drove up, I wrote the counselor.
Speaker 2: I was like, listen, like, I got some I gotta
Speaker 2: I gotta talk to you. I didn't want to do
Speaker 2: it over email, didn't want to do it over phone.
Speaker 2: Like I needed to look this lady in the eyes.
Speaker 2: So I was like, hey, can I meet you? And
Speaker 2: she's like, yes, sure, sure to come down this date
Speaker 2: this time drove up to Berkeley and yes I was.
Speaker 2: I was like, look, I got this deferred a mission.
Speaker 2: This is real. Yeah, this is real, justin, justin.
Speaker 1: You're living in Orange County at the time.
Speaker 2: I'm living in La in La. You drove six hours yeah,
Speaker 2: to Berkeley, yeah, six seven eight.
Speaker 1: To ask official of Berkeley whether your acceptance that it
Speaker 1: was real.
Speaker 2: I came that far. I wasn't gonna lie. And then
Speaker 2: also like try to figure out how to run a
Speaker 2: place up there and pay a mission just to not
Speaker 2: so I drove up there, and you know, so, I'm
Speaker 2: is this real? And she goes, yes, this is real?
Speaker 2: So I go, so I could start January fifteen, Yes,
Speaker 2: you can as a philosophy major. Yes, okay, and I
Speaker 2: can switch my major if I want once I get in, yes, right,
Speaker 2: you know. And then and then and I'm kind of
Speaker 2: trying to work up to also like so, and I asked,
Speaker 2: I said, listen, I'm gonna be honest with you, Okay,
Speaker 2: Like I don't have a high school diploma, I don't
Speaker 2: have a GED, I don't have an equivalency, so you
Speaker 2: should like so based on that now you said already
Speaker 2: said this was real, but based on now, with this
Speaker 2: new information, based on that, is this really? Is? Can
Speaker 2: I really come here?
Speaker 1: We skipped a step. The step we skipped was you
Speaker 1: didn't graduate from high school?
Speaker 2: Na I left at fourteen?
Speaker 1: At fourteen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I left at fourteen.
Speaker 1: I also didn't graduate from high school, but that's because
Speaker 1: my mom called the principal and said, Malcolm won't be
Speaker 1: coming in. He's more productive at home. That was it.
Speaker 1: So everyone was like, okay, fine, like that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's a very that's the world I grew up, and
Speaker 1: it was forgiving, understanding, do what you want kind of world. Wait,
Speaker 1: you left high school at fourteen to do what?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Nothing good? Yeah, nothing good. I would say I
Speaker 2: was pretty beat down by that point, you know, like
Speaker 2: confidence wise, I didn't know what I was doing. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I left and I was I was just doing my
Speaker 2: own thing.
Speaker 1: What's your mom doing when you're doing this?
Speaker 2: So here's what happened. Was so like basically my freshman
Speaker 2: year high school, I was so rock binding with my confidence,
Speaker 2: Like I had basically like a zero point something GPA,
Speaker 2: like I had like no GPAs. It was literally zero
Speaker 2: point something. And the only the highest grade I got
Speaker 2: was I thought it was a C, but it turns
Speaker 2: out it was a D. I got a D in journalism. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and the teacher pulled me aside. He's like, justin, you're
Speaker 2: too smart to fail. You deserve an F I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna give you a F. I'm gonna give you a D.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, thank you, mister Muller. But it
Speaker 2: was like a zero point something. So they said you're
Speaker 2: gonna have to go to continuation school, which was just
Speaker 2: like a school, like, you know, for for fuck ups.
Speaker 2: And my mom was like, you're not a fuck up,
Speaker 2: so you're not gonna You're not gonna go there. I go, okay.
Speaker 2: She's like, I almost have you stay home, and uh,
Speaker 2: this it sounds crazy, but I got to give her
Speaker 2: credit because it didn't work for a bit, but then
Speaker 2: it really worked. She's like, I'm just going to stay home.
Speaker 2: You're gonna read the paper every day while am at work.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna come home. You're gonna have a little report
Speaker 2: on a couple of items you read. And of course,
Speaker 2: you know, for the longest, like I just took advantage.
Speaker 2: I didn't do it, you know, like I just didn't.
Speaker 2: She didn't want me being with fuck ups because she did.
Speaker 2: She already could see I think that my confidence was
Speaker 2: shot and that was just gonna be worse, so she
Speaker 2: pulled me out. I took advantage of it. I didn't
Speaker 2: do much until I was like almost sixteen. Common story,
Speaker 2: I feel like for a lot of people. I got
Speaker 2: a copy of the autobiography of Malcolm X and it
Speaker 2: really reignited my ambition. So then at that point, I'm
Speaker 2: roll in community college because I didn't really want to
Speaker 2: deal with like trying to start over from my freshman
Speaker 2: year of high school. So I rolled in community college
Speaker 2: and just did that for about four or five years,
Speaker 2: and so I could transfer. I transfer. So I started
Speaker 2: that at like just before I turned sixteen, and I
Speaker 2: transferred to Berkeley at twenty one.
Speaker 1: Let me see, we'll get back to Berkeley and how
Speaker 1: things turned around for Justin in a moment. Back to
Speaker 1: my conversation with Justin Richmond at the Edison O. Jackson
Speaker 1: Auditorium at Medgar Evers College. Justin was finding his place
Speaker 1: at Berkeley. So you have a kind of loss of
Speaker 1: confidence and do you get it back in Burke at Berkeley.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. Gabrielle Williams right here. I met
Speaker 2: Gabrielle at Berkeley. She was doing her PhD. We met
Speaker 2: at the Black Student Lounge or it was the the
Speaker 2: that was like her her student job thing, and she
Speaker 2: was listening to music and I heard, so we connected
Speaker 2: and there was a professor there by the name of
Speaker 2: Ricky Vincent. He was like the pre eminent funk music
Speaker 2: scholar and was writing a book on the Black Panthers,
Speaker 2: and I had a strong interest in the Panthers. So
Speaker 2: like between like Gabrielle and Ricky Vincent and all these
Speaker 2: other black folk that looked like me that I could
Speaker 2: relate to. And for Gabrielle coming from from La southern California,
Speaker 2: like there was just a lot in common. It definitely
Speaker 2: a hundred percent helped me. But but she also helped
Speaker 2: me through a lot because there's many times I've called Gabrielle,
Speaker 2: including when I took this job at Pushkin, like I
Speaker 2: really do this, this is a smart move and shout
Speaker 2: out to talk. You know, when I got into grad school, Man,
Speaker 2: should I really take out these loans, Gabrielle, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of money, Like I don't want to
Speaker 2: be in debt, and Gabria was like, justin, just come on,
Speaker 2: is what you're supposed to do. You're going to school,
Speaker 2: you got to pay you unless you can afford it,
Speaker 2: take the loan out and go. So yeah, I definitely
Speaker 2: got a ton of confidence right there, not that I'm
Speaker 2: you know, and then slowly along the way ebbed and
Speaker 2: flow like as new situations arose, and I sort of
Speaker 2: fell into journalism because I couldn't really, I couldn't get
Speaker 2: a job after college, and I knew I kind of
Speaker 2: went in wanting to be a professor by the time
Speaker 2: I got to Brookley's like, I kind of want to
Speaker 2: do my bachelor's, get a PhD, then teach. But then
Speaker 2: I sort of fell out of love with with higher
Speaker 2: education just because of the bureaucracy element. Sorry, wonderful to
Speaker 2: have us here. But I would talk to Gabrielle, I
Speaker 2: would talk to my guy Ricky Vincent and sort of
Speaker 2: be like, well, what is it that I like to
Speaker 2: do well? I like the idea of writing and connecting
Speaker 2: with people, communicating people. I like the idea of researching.
Speaker 2: And so that's when like the idea struck to do journalism.
Speaker 2: I started get involved with RAO around town KPFA, which
Speaker 2: was the PACIFICA station in Berkeley, the campus station. I
Speaker 2: took a journalism class, so I kind of and it
Speaker 2: just snowball from there where I fell into journalism. But
Speaker 2: by the time I like I get a job. I'm
Speaker 2: twenty five, I'm at NPR and my girlfriend got pregnant,
Speaker 2: who's now my beautiful wife, Danielle. We have two beautiful kids,
Speaker 2: Crin and Ella. And I was making like thirty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a year in PR, paying back loans and bout
Speaker 2: to have a kid. My confidence, I say, at that
Speaker 2: point sinks back to all time low. And I have
Speaker 2: a friend named Drew who took me to Cuba. It
Speaker 2: was just like, I sense you're kind of going through it.
Speaker 2: Let me, let me take you to Cuba. This is
Speaker 2: when Cuba opened up. I was like, I can't really forties,
Speaker 2: like I'm gonna pay for it. You sent me back whenever.
Speaker 2: So me and Drew went down And this is the
Speaker 2: most random incident in my life. This is the most
Speaker 2: random thing that ever happened in my life. Is We're
Speaker 2: in Cuba and Havana. I've driven to Mexico twice, but
Speaker 2: other than that, I've never left the country. And uh,
Speaker 2: I run into Quincy Jones in Havana and Quincy Jones like,
Speaker 2: I'm like, damn, that's Quincy Jones. I want to I go, hey, Quincy,
Speaker 2: can can I get a picture? And he goes yeah,
Speaker 2: and he doesn't get up. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna sit down and take a picture of Quincy.
Speaker 2: And he started asking me, what's your sign? I go Leah,
Speaker 2: I go leo. He goes on leo rising cool. I
Speaker 2: don't know what that means. He just starts talking to
Speaker 2: me and we have like a three hour conversation. We
Speaker 2: have dinner.
Speaker 1: He never told me because you and I met Quincy
Speaker 1: like five years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a full circle moment for me because
Speaker 2: we ended up going to Quincy's house. But I had
Speaker 2: like a three hour dinner with Quincy Jones in Havana.
Speaker 2: At my lowest point, I'm making like no money, I'm broke.
Speaker 2: My wife was looking at me crazy because it's like,
Speaker 2: why are you in Cuba running around like she didn't
Speaker 2: know if I was maybe not gonna come back or what.
Speaker 2: But I met Quincy and from that he was like, oh,
Speaker 2: you're you're a cool brother. Man gave me his gave
Speaker 2: me his card, and normally I wouldn't have, but I
Speaker 2: felt I was like, okay, this man discovered Oprah Winfrey,
Speaker 2: Will Smith, Ray Charles, So I was like, you know
Speaker 2: what am I going to do, not reach out, not
Speaker 2: reach so I could use all the help I could get.
Speaker 2: So I reached out to Quincy and it was like, look,
Speaker 2: look Quincy. Like I realized I didn't want to reach
Speaker 2: out with nothing. So me and my friend Sinari Glinton,
Speaker 2: one of the few black men at MPR that sort
Speaker 2: of took interesting me right away, sort of noticed when
Speaker 2: I was there that I needed I needed his his guidance.
Speaker 2: We decided I shouldn't just go to him with nothing
Speaker 2: to offer. So I was like, look, I'm a journalist,
Speaker 2: I working on a PR, working audio everyone. You know,
Speaker 2: it's twenty sixteen. Podcasting is sort of new, but people
Speaker 2: are starting to have them. You've done everything from you know,
Speaker 2: everything across media that you could possibly do except for podcasting,
Speaker 2: Like we can make you a podcast. And it was
Speaker 2: like great, So you know, it wasn't that easy, but
Speaker 2: it was a couple of meetings, finally got into a
Speaker 2: great got to sign some paperwork. I still have it framed.
Speaker 2: It's like me and Quincy Jones signature, which is the
Speaker 2: craziest thing in the world to me. But what happened
Speaker 2: was I couldn't I couldn't I couldn't sell the thing
Speaker 2: I realized I didn't know the first thing about business.
Speaker 2: I've been flying blind my whole life, just trying to
Speaker 2: figure things out and taking out loans. I don't know
Speaker 2: what I'm doing. And that's one thing I did for
Speaker 2: this show. Occurred to me. It's like, if I could
Speaker 2: just talk to if I could talk to someone else,
Speaker 2: some other black man who has like money, Magic Johnson
Speaker 2: Byron Allen, who at that times about the Weather Channel.
Speaker 2: I was like, I bet they could tell me what
Speaker 2: to do because I was in these rooms just like
Speaker 2: realizing like I don't understand this jargon, I don't understand
Speaker 2: the speak, and I'm failing, you know. And so it
Speaker 2: really occurred to me at that moment, how important having
Speaker 2: people who look like you, who you can point to
Speaker 2: in your life, you can point to a successful at
Speaker 2: this particular thing. How that can really be. It's not
Speaker 2: the only way to figure things out, but it's, man,
Speaker 2: it makes things so much easier. You know.
Speaker 1: Let's go back a moment and say, what's the version
Speaker 1: of your life where you wouldn't have suffered that kind
Speaker 1: of crisis of confidence.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine.
Speaker 1: Give me a version, Give me a version where it's
Speaker 1: where it's easy in the United States.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't think. I don't think you
Speaker 2: can have it easy being born black in the United States.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's I don't think it's possible. I
Speaker 2: would say best case scenario is, you know, like a
Speaker 2: Carlton type or something from Fresh Prince or something. You know,
Speaker 2: we're like, Okay, you succept but like, are you really
Speaker 2: how successful are if you're not acknowledging the whole part
Speaker 2: of yourself. So it's hard for me to answer, but
Speaker 2: I guess in a scenario where there is no And
Speaker 2: this is interesting because I'm also thinking about this from
Speaker 2: my kids now, like they're getting a much different life
Speaker 2: than I had, access to different kinds of people and
Speaker 2: education and two parents who are supportive of each other
Speaker 2: and supportive of them together. Uh so I think. But but
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess, like for me, it's hard for
Speaker 2: it really is hard for me to imagine. But but
Speaker 2: maybe I guess the best case. You know, It's funny
Speaker 2: I used to I used to dream that I was
Speaker 2: like a as a kid, that like like I was
Speaker 2: like a Huxtable, you know, which is maybe a little
Speaker 2: controversial now but like, maybe that would have been a
Speaker 2: best case scenario. You know, Dad was a doctor, Mom
Speaker 2: was you know whatever, in a Brownstone, and.
Speaker 1: Give me the worst case scenario so you don't get
Speaker 1: into Berkeley. What happens is that the key moment.
Speaker 2: Not probably getting probably getting the Malcolm X autobiography, because
Speaker 2: that was I was in a pretty bad spot there.
Speaker 2: But I'll say before I came to Pushkin, I almost
Speaker 2: gave up again, like when you don't have examples of
Speaker 2: success around you and you don't have people who can
Speaker 2: teach you about money and how to not even like
Speaker 2: in a gross like uber capitalist way, but just like
Speaker 2: how to accumulate it so that you can't have the
Speaker 2: things you want and need in life. Like I didn't
Speaker 2: have that. So I almost journalism, even though you know
Speaker 2: I love it and I wanted to be in it,
Speaker 2: almost left it. I had a job offer with ADP,
Speaker 2: the UH Payroad Processing, to do outdoor sales with ADP,
Speaker 2: because I was like, well, I'll just go do sales,
Speaker 2: you know, like I'll just I'll make some money doing sales.
Speaker 2: And I almost took that offer, you know, And that
Speaker 2: was maybe six months before before I got an email
Speaker 2: from from you from me, LaBelle and from you to
Speaker 2: come up for Pushkin, which which I would say changed
Speaker 2: again my trajectory thanks to you, Jacob Weisberg, you know
Speaker 2: me and LaBelle. Yeah, man, because because it was also
Speaker 2: bleaked in a little bit, you know, it was also
Speaker 2: it was tough.
Speaker 1: Then, man, we'll take a quick break and get back
Speaker 1: to Justin's story. We're back with Justin Richmond in making
Speaker 1: sense of people's life stories and trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what's the difference between in America between a black life
Speaker 1: story and a white life story. One of the things,
Speaker 1: and it's very, very difficult to convince persuade white people
Speaker 1: of this fact is it's how many strikes you get,
Speaker 1: or how many chances you get. If you are a
Speaker 1: upper middle class, well educated white person, you get like
Speaker 1: ten chances. You can screw up nine times, and the
Speaker 1: system will catch you every time and start you over again.
Speaker 1: And if you're in the same position as a young
Speaker 1: black person, you maybe get two. And I remember this
Speaker 1: is a weird example of this, but there's an incredibly
Speaker 1: interesting book that was written about a suburb of Buffalo,
Speaker 1: a wealthy suburb of Buffalo. I think it's Williamsville. Not
Speaker 1: Sure Amherst. The book I think is called the Safest
Speaker 1: City in America. It was about how there's no juvenile
Speaker 1: delinquency and Williamsville. And the reason is not that there's
Speaker 1: no misbehavior among juveniles. It's that they just call us
Speaker 1: something different. Right, it's high jinks, it's sewing, no wild oats,
Speaker 1: it's it's oh so and so it just has to
Speaker 1: learn to be. It's everything is getting. Everyone gets so
Speaker 1: many different chances that no one ever looks never comes
Speaker 1: to the definition of juvenile delinquency. And like that that thing,
Speaker 1: this question of how many chances you get? Is it
Speaker 1: sounds listening to your story that you are very close
Speaker 1: to running out of chances.
Speaker 2: It's even like more than that. It's just it's like
Speaker 2: I didn't even know that I had chances, you know,
Speaker 2: and maybe I didn't. I never knew I had chances.
Speaker 2: You know. There's a point where, you know, I guess
Speaker 2: in your example, the difference would be in those instances
Speaker 2: those kids in Buffalo, they're thought to be behaving badly,
Speaker 2: whereas when you're a black kid misbehaving, you're bad. You
Speaker 2: know you yourself.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's absolutely define differently, you're.
Speaker 2: A terrible person. You can't you can't succeed, you can't
Speaker 2: do None of this is for you, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so that's where I was at, which is a
Speaker 2: pretty bleak place.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, my speaking of father, So my father who
Speaker 1: passed away a couple years ago, but actually today, weirdly
Speaker 1: is his birthday. My mom always says to my dad
Speaker 1: that that his motto was nothing bad will ever happen,
Speaker 1: which I've thought about a lot. Partly that's the function
Speaker 1: of his personality. Had this kind of unstoppable, unthoughtful personality.
Speaker 1: But he was also a came from a stable English family.
Speaker 1: He was well educated, he was very intelligent. The system
Speaker 1: always worked for my dad. He was a nice person,
Speaker 1: he was depending on he was charming, he was people
Speaker 1: liked him. So it made sense that his theory of
Speaker 1: life was nothing bad will ever happen. My mother would
Speaker 1: have made you know, she's a mom. She would imagine
Speaker 1: all kinds of horrible and he would just he would
Speaker 1: look at her, uncomprehending me. It was like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: nothing ever bad's gonna happen, right, And it was essentially
Speaker 1: true of like that message, I was just thinking as
Speaker 1: you were talking about your dad, the difference in messages
Speaker 1: sent to the two of us at a young age.
Speaker 1: I have this dad who just thinks it doesn't even
Speaker 1: occur to him that there's ever going to be any
Speaker 1: you know, detour of it's a runway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, Yeah, something about opportunity and something about the
Speaker 2: way in which society asks you or demands that you
Speaker 2: think about yourself. You know, it's like sometimes you don't
Speaker 2: get an option and how you want to think about yourself.
Speaker 1: I feel like the one thing that I don't maybe
Speaker 1: it's fine this way, but the transition is still really
Speaker 1: the way that your life kind of turns around. I
Speaker 1: don't eve turns around. It's not like people were living
Speaker 1: a life of crime, but you know what I mean, Like.
Speaker 2: It's not hamminated myself.
Speaker 1: Something happens. It's really kind of interesting and mysterious to you.
Speaker 1: In your twenties, it was a bride.
Speaker 2: It was like, yeah, between it was just building up
Speaker 2: my confidence. I guess between fifteen and now, I'm still trying,
Speaker 2: you know, like from that time I did drop out
Speaker 2: of high school to like just getting through college, Like
Speaker 2: what motivated me was a sense of failure I was like, man,
Speaker 2: if I don't get a high school, if I don't
Speaker 2: get a college diploma, like what I have an eighth
Speaker 2: grade certificate? Like what is that going to do for me?
Speaker 2: You know? So that was kind of like this real
Speaker 2: like it wasn't like a carrot type of motivation, was
Speaker 2: like you know, and and then I was like, well
Speaker 2: then I couldn't get a job. And then I went
Speaker 2: started interning and I got into grad school, and then
Speaker 2: that gave me another Okay, now it's grads. When I
Speaker 2: got to figure out grad school is a big scary
Speaker 2: thing and do that, and then I get out of there.
Speaker 2: I get right into this job at MPR and within
Speaker 2: them two months, like my girlfriend's pregnant, you know, and
Speaker 2: it's like now it's like, well, I got to figure
Speaker 2: out how to provide. So like my whole I feel
Speaker 2: like every step of my life up until recently has
Speaker 2: been about how do I just how do I not
Speaker 2: how do I not fail? And that's sort of been
Speaker 2: my motivation to succeed. And I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 2: a way now to be motivated now that that like
Speaker 2: that's why I'm on this journey. They just trying to
Speaker 2: talk to successful people. I've been lucky enough to be.
Speaker 2: You know, first time we met in Santa Monica, I
Speaker 2: was like, day, I can't believe I'm gon go meet
Speaker 2: Malcolm glad Well. That's crazy. And you know, we had
Speaker 2: a very lovely conversation. I just remember, like, I can't
Speaker 2: get out of here without asking like, like, how did
Speaker 2: you get comfortable having money? And I asked you that,
Speaker 2: what did I say? You're like, I just wanted to
Speaker 2: be able to do my own thing. I wanted to
Speaker 2: have my freedom. I wanted to be able to I
Speaker 2: never wanted people to sign things to me or to
Speaker 2: be told what to do, and so and I was like, damn,
Speaker 2: that's a great answer, you know. And but that's why
Speaker 2: that's largely why I'm still, you know, I'm still trying
Speaker 2: to figure out this this this world, in this life
Speaker 2: and navigating different things. So that's why I'm that's why
Speaker 2: I'm doing this and talking to people like Charlemagne the
Speaker 2: God and people like Susie Orman and just different people who,
Speaker 2: you know, against the odds, against all odds, like figured
Speaker 2: this thing out, you know. And my hope is that
Speaker 2: people listening to it it inspires them, not only to
Speaker 2: take big swings, but also to seek out real world,
Speaker 2: real life mentorship, you know, like, obviously I want this
Speaker 2: to be a platform of mentorship for people. So hopefully
Speaker 2: you walk away having learned a lot and feeling boosted.
Speaker 2: But also like I think, you know, you need to
Speaker 2: have real life mentors, and I've been lucky enough to
Speaker 2: have so many, Gabrielle, you, Jacob, all kinds of different people.
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that I try to figure this out, people
Speaker 2: will figure it out alone, alone with me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's toughly well, thank you. Justin we'll let's do
Speaker 1: some audience questions funny and if.
Speaker 2: There are any questions, they could be for me or Malcolm.
Speaker 1: It comes on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3: My name is Kevin Nesbit, an educator, one of the
Speaker 3: administrators that create the blockages you talked about now. But
Speaker 3: thank you so much for the way you presented this
Speaker 3: good eurodureaucracy, a good VP, as I call myself. I've
Speaker 3: had many friends that come from biracial families, and I
Speaker 3: think as someone that does not come from a biracial family,
Speaker 3: there's always this belief that there's some sort of protection
Speaker 3: that you might receive from your whiteness if you choose
Speaker 3: to adopt it or if you choose to embrace it.
Speaker 3: And because I appreciate the way that you said you
Speaker 3: understood immediately you were a black man and that you
Speaker 3: had no choice, because even if you wanted to imagine something,
Speaker 3: other society told you, know, you're a black man, right,
Speaker 3: And you gave many examples for that. But I have
Speaker 3: other friends that, throughout their journey, they've been able to say, well,
Speaker 3: it's it's not that it's a choice, but it's a
Speaker 3: little messier than that for them because they're both black,
Speaker 3: they're both white, and they grapple.
Speaker 1: With what that means.
Speaker 3: Did you have any moments where you felt that having
Speaker 3: a parent that was white actually enabled some moments of
Speaker 3: protection or other as Malcolm described it, maybe one more choice, right,
Speaker 3: one more set of options. That's my question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hard for I guess. I don't want to speak
Speaker 2: for other people, but my belief is when I talk
Speaker 2: to when I hear these stories, it's just that there's
Speaker 2: a bit of them deluding themselves. Perhaps you know, I don't,
Speaker 2: but hard to say. I don't want to speak for
Speaker 2: anyone else, but I didn't feel that maybe if i'd
Speaker 2: had a different mom, maybe it would have been different,
Speaker 2: but I was never allowed to think that anything different,
Speaker 2: you know, thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's a this is my grand theory of
Speaker 1: biracial marriages. There's a big difference between black father, white mother,
Speaker 1: and white.
Speaker 2: Father, black mother, which would be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're actually very different kinds the Historically, what a
Speaker 1: biracial marriage was was a white man and a black woman.
Speaker 1: That was the acceptable form for society. Goes back hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds of years. That's what it was. It was
Speaker 1: never the reverse, and only really recently have you seen
Speaker 1: black men marry white women. And I think the road
Speaker 1: is a lot harder both for the for the marriage
Speaker 1: and the children. It's a lot harder when your father's
Speaker 1: black and your mom is white.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I decided it looks like on the cases I'm thinking
Speaker 3: about my friendships with it was largely what you described
Speaker 3: with the traditional and maybe the household of the fathers,
Speaker 3: whether it's separated or not, later on, there was some
Speaker 3: sort of protection that dad would You'd have another outcome, right,
Speaker 3: you have another choice. So I just wanted to hear
Speaker 3: a bit about that.
Speaker 1: I think society views a black man white woman as
Speaker 1: as being subversive and in a way that they don't
Speaker 1: view the reverses being subversive.
Speaker 2: Thank you, that's true.
Speaker 1: Hello.
Speaker 4: Firstly, thank you Malcolm and Justin you guys are It's
Speaker 4: just been a joy to have you here. And I've
Speaker 4: just enjoyed this whole conversation. I just wanted from you,
Speaker 4: just in like a SoundBite or maybe just like a
Speaker 4: quick statement, like words of advice from one biracial man
Speaker 4: to another biracial man and just how to like navigate
Speaker 4: the professional world and how to just keep your bearings
Speaker 4: and keep yourself grounded.
Speaker 2: Man, I'm not listen to my show because I think
Speaker 2: there's people far greater than me that are going to
Speaker 2: be given advice. But I would say to this point,
Speaker 2: in the instances where I haven't code switched, I've always
Speaker 2: been much more successful. You know. I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's because I've been lucky, but also some of it
Speaker 2: comes down to my like I also think you shouldn't capitulate.
Speaker 2: So also like if someone doesn't want you, like I
Speaker 2: do have imposter syndrome yet and still it's like I
Speaker 2: do somewhere in me have this belief that like I
Speaker 2: can't help but be myself, you know, And I think
Speaker 2: as long as you just are true to yourself, whatever
Speaker 2: that is, however you view yourself, identify yourself, behave like yourself,
Speaker 2: like I think that's all you can do. And I
Speaker 2: think in those instances, like just knowing that you bring
Speaker 2: a lot to the table being you, then you do
Speaker 2: you being someone else. And if you don't, you'll find out, right, like,
Speaker 2: sometimes it doesn't pay to be me certain situations and
Speaker 2: I've you know, I've found out. But okay, then find
Speaker 2: that one's not for me. Let me go to the
Speaker 2: next situation where it is good for me to be there.
Speaker 2: You know, I was at MPR before I was at
Speaker 2: Pushkame with Malcolm, and that was a place that I
Speaker 2: was authentic to myself. But it didn't feel like that
Speaker 2: was It wasn't appreciated. And you know, so I got
Speaker 2: out to go where you're appreciated, and go where you're appreciated. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: thank you, Yeah, more question.
Speaker 5: Oh well, gentlemen, thank you so much. So you both
Speaker 5: made a biracial and I wanted to ask mister godwell,
Speaker 5: justin identifies as black and yourself, I.
Speaker 1: Don't think about it. I think that's the difference between
Speaker 1: having I have a West Indian mom justin as an
Speaker 1: African American father. If you're a West Indian, you don't
Speaker 1: think about race in the same way. It's not this
Speaker 1: omnipresent thing in your life. So I was I just
Speaker 1: think of myself as I don't know when I grew up.
Speaker 1: It was never forced. I mean it's never I was
Speaker 1: never forced to answer that question. My mom thought of
Speaker 1: herself as a Jamaican, not as a white person or
Speaker 1: a black personer. So I don't have a I don't
Speaker 1: have a a kind of easy answer that you had
Speaker 1: a couple layers because Jamaican and then growing up in Canada,
Speaker 1: which I feel like this is probably very different then yes, Canada. Again,
Speaker 1: I never I never got the the the racial experience
Speaker 1: of as all of you and everyone in this room knows,
Speaker 1: the racial experience of living in this country is just
Speaker 1: profoundly different from the racial experience almost anywhere else.
Speaker 5: Would life have been different if you were a darker complexion?
Speaker 1: Probably probably, I guess, although well, black people always know
Speaker 1: that I'm biracial. White people don't necessarily know, so it
Speaker 1: would have made my uh. I have to tell my
Speaker 1: favorite story ever along the grounds is as running down.
Speaker 1: I went for a run one day in LA and
Speaker 1: running down Ocean Boulevard and this black guy in a
Speaker 1: gorgeous open portion n at eleven, like one of those
Speaker 1: tricked out ones, like one of these incredibly handsome black ones,
Speaker 1: looks at me, sees me running, stands up, so he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, he's through the roof of his car, raises
Speaker 1: his handling and says, I love what you do, bro.
Speaker 1: So like I get a lot of love.
Speaker 2: And that.
Speaker 1: So if I was darker, when I get more love
Speaker 1: from that, I mean maybe, but I can't see how
Speaker 1: it got even more than I already get.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you very much. Okay, all right, thank you
Speaker 2: so much, guys, and thank you to MegaR Evers College.
Speaker 2: You know, higher education is wonderful.
Speaker 1: This was the perfect way to launch Justin's new show,
Speaker 1: started from the bottom, and I urge all of you
Speaker 1: to subscribe to it right now and never forget. If
Speaker 1: you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber, you hear all story. No ads,
Speaker 1: believe me, it's worth it. Thanks to everyone at Mega
Speaker 1: Evers College for hosting Justin and me, especially Alexis McLean
Speaker 1: and Peter Holloman. Special thanks also to Keishaw Williams, our
Speaker 1: associate editor, who is also a Medgar Evers alum and
Speaker 1: had the wonderful idea of bringing us there. Division's history
Speaker 1: is produced by lem And Gestu, Amy gains Kiara Powell,
Speaker 1: and Jacob Smith. Today's episode was produced by Kishelle Williams,
Speaker 1: David Jaw and Amy Gaines. Our showrunner is Peter Clowney.
Speaker 1: Original scoring by Luis Guerra, mastering by Ben Tolliday and
Speaker 1: engineering by Nina Lawrence. Special thanks to Julia Barton. I'm
Speaker 1: Malcolm Glawell.