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Speaker 1: Right now. And this is a joy in this time

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Speaker 1: of America when we talk about all these different themes

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Speaker 1: of diversity in the woke wars, the culture wars, than that,

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Speaker 1: there is a breath, a breath of clarity coming out.

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Speaker 1: Sheila Johnson met co founder. She's author of Watcher Fire,

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Speaker 1: a memoir of picking herself up from her childhood, getting

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Speaker 1: it done, getting totally slammed by a divorce, and keeping

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Speaker 1: it going. She's of course done better than good over

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Speaker 1: the years. In Washington, as Mike McKee and I were

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Speaker 1: talking about a modest acquaintance with the ice hockey capitals,

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Speaker 1: with women's basketball and a source and she has written

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Speaker 1: an exceptionally terse mustard And I love how you end it.

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Speaker 1: Nice Granola guys out in Utah and you show up

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Speaker 1: to pick up Robert Redford in a humvey.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, and he gave you a lecture. Oh.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: I got to know him because I was on the

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Speaker 2: board of Sun Dance. Yeah, and I have everything that

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Speaker 2: he's done for the film industry, and we just got

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Speaker 2: to know each other. And he came all the way

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Speaker 2: to Middleburg, Virginia as I was getting ready to start construction.

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Speaker 2: Look down on the town and he says, you got

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Speaker 2: to put a film festival here. We are now into

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Speaker 2: our eleventh year.

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Speaker 1: Of doing that. Yes, I like that you showed up

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Speaker 1: in a humbie which speaks volumes about Sheila Johnson. I

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Speaker 1: want to go back to the emotion of the beginning

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Speaker 1: of the book, which people you know, you didn't come

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Speaker 1: out of some fancy prep school and got it going

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Speaker 1: with the first million or two million. Now take us

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Speaker 1: before the first million. What was the catalyst to pick

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Speaker 1: the pieces up from your childhood?

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Speaker 2: Well, first of all, it was a learning area where I,

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Speaker 2: for the first time in my life, had to grow

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Speaker 2: up very fast. At the age of sixteen, my father

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Speaker 2: suddenly left. We were a middle class family of the

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Speaker 2: first African American not the first, but one of eight

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Speaker 2: African American neurosurgeons in the country, and so we had

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Speaker 2: some sort of status in society, and for him to

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Speaker 2: suddenly leave, it just left my mother broke. Women did

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Speaker 2: not have the wherewithal to have our own bank account

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Speaker 2: or anything. So that is stuck with me forever, and

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Speaker 2: that has been the impetus in which I have decided

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Speaker 2: to lead my life and take charge of it.

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Speaker 1: What people want to know from me, I'm going to

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Speaker 1: slam it forward to the present list. It's got a

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Speaker 1: bunch of insight as well. What do you think of

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Speaker 1: the expression of our culture war now is witnessed by

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Speaker 1: a corporate effort of diversity which seems to stumble on itself.

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Speaker 1: Was it witness Hollywood and mistakes made or just the

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Speaker 1: general debate over this word woke? You're about as anti

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Speaker 1: woke as I've ever seen. How do you synthesize that?

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Speaker 2: Well, I don't quite understand woke. I just know hard

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Speaker 2: work is at the bottom of everything I do. My

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Speaker 2: value systems are there, and it's really really important that

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Speaker 2: I continue to push on and not really you know,

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Speaker 2: focus so much on race. But I am very aware

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Speaker 2: of it and the pitfalls, but I just try to

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Speaker 2: fight through it and I deal with the people that

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Speaker 2: want to challenge me on it.

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Speaker 3: What do you make of some of the recent striking activity,

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Speaker 3: particularly with Hollywood, given your intimacy with that at a

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Speaker 3: time where people are trying to take charge of their

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Speaker 3: life and don't know what the future landscape will look

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Speaker 3: like with artificial intelligence and streaming, and don't have those guarantees.

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Speaker 3: Do you think that there are legitimate issues that are

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Speaker 3: not being dealt with responsibly in the public eye from

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Speaker 3: some of these companies.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think what's happening is it's all media is

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Speaker 2: transitioning so fast, and even in the film industry, and

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Speaker 2: I know people in the film industry, they're seriously concerned

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Speaker 2: about what their future is going to look like. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I deal with the film festival. I have a LA

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Speaker 2: Film Advisory Board, and they're talking to me all the

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Speaker 2: time about are we going to get films this year?

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Speaker 2: Are there still films being shot? Are there in the can?

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Speaker 2: But I think this is something that we've got to

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Speaker 2: watch and we've got to be careful about because the

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Speaker 2: landscape is changing quickly.

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Speaker 1: You've got these great vignettes. I want to take a

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Speaker 1: vignette and take it to business as well. You're sitting

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Speaker 1: there one day, you're over your Sayanka coffee, you know,

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Speaker 1: you're hanging out, You've probably you know, you're going Ben's

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Speaker 1: Chili bowl, U Street lunch. I think we can do that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And Whitney Houston wonders it. What's it like when Whitney

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Speaker 1: Houston comes in the door.

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Speaker 2: Well, first of all, she's one of the most beautiful

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Speaker 2: women i'd ever seen. She's very thin, very talented, but

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Speaker 2: I also could just sense a little bit troubled. But

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Speaker 2: I admired her. She's a great talent. And you know,

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Speaker 2: that was some of the fun things about BET. You

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Speaker 2: would see all these celebrities that you've heard about, talked about,

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Speaker 2: and they're coming into your studio. So, I mean, we

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Speaker 2: really were the core of black media back well, you

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Speaker 2: were the core of it.

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Speaker 1: And you know, like you said, you wanted to be

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Speaker 1: Abny magazine, really high end in academic and then boom,

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Speaker 1: it all changed in and you know, in some ways

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Speaker 1: it blew up in that, but I got to drag

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Speaker 1: it forward now. Sheila Johnson, another cup of coffee, except

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Speaker 1: it's a fancy cup at the Sunset Tarer Hotel. Is you,

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Speaker 1: and mister Iger, what's your advice to the modern train

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Speaker 1: wreck known as Disney?

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Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, that's something I really can't answer, but

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Speaker 2: I will tell you Disney has always been a force.

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Speaker 2: It's a course in media, in entertainment, and I'm just

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Speaker 2: terrified about what's going on in Florida right now. I

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Speaker 2: really am.

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Speaker 3: Well, if you push it forward from your BET experience,

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Speaker 3: would you be able to found that company today in

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Speaker 3: today's world.

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Speaker 2: You know, this question has been asked of me many times.

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Speaker 2: I'm really concerned about where BT is now. I think

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Speaker 2: we need to look at it. I have not been

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Speaker 2: happy with it for years and years and years. It's

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Speaker 2: not enough balance programming. And I just think that the

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Speaker 2: landscape and the racial landscape of what African Americans are

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Speaker 2: watching his changing. And I just think that we have

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Speaker 2: got such a broad perspective of people out there that

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Speaker 2: want something different, especially this younger generation. So we need

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Speaker 2: to reevaluate what are the goals of black media and

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Speaker 2: what are answers? What is it out there that we

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Speaker 2: need to answer.

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Speaker 1: The heart and soul your voice. You got to wrap

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Speaker 1: it up here Sheila and celebration of walk through Fire.

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Speaker 1: But the heart and soul of your work is to

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Speaker 1: find a middle ground. And in these culture wars, I

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Speaker 1: was weaned on Edmund Burke, Senator from Massachusetts. This is

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Speaker 1: a long time ago. How do we get a fractured

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Speaker 1: America back to a middle ground.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think what we're doing through the Salamander, through

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Speaker 2: my company is we're bringing in programming. I've kind of

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Speaker 2: taken it from BT and into the hospitality business with

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Speaker 2: the film festival. Also, I've been able to check the

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Speaker 2: box on the diversity is where I bring in forty

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Speaker 2: one of the top black chefs from all over the

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Speaker 2: country to really celebrate food from the African diaspora. We

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Speaker 2: talk about these issues and panel discussions. I'm doing it

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Speaker 2: in a fun way, bringing the American Ballet Theater in.

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Speaker 2: I like to continue the entertainment part of it into

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Speaker 2: my hospitality company, and that's where we're answering a lot

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Speaker 2: of the questions.

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Speaker 1: Sheila, thank you so much for joining me. So welcome today.

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Speaker 1: Sheila Johnson of Course of Beet Walk Through Fire, a

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Speaker 1: memoir of love, loss and tryumph. Deeply personal and courageous

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Speaker 1: book