Speaker 1: Pushkin. I'm justin Richmond, and this is Started from the bottom.
Speaker 1: A show about outsiders, A show about ordinary people who
Speaker 1: achieved something extraordinary, about people who come from humble beginnings,
Speaker 1: who scraped and struggled and didn't quit until one day
Speaker 1: they found themselves at the summit of success. These conversations
Speaker 1: with everyone from media icons to entrepreneurs, to champion fighters
Speaker 1: to inventors have been amazing. I've learned tons and can't
Speaker 1: wait for you to hear them. But today, for the
Speaker 1: first episode, we're doing something a little different. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about my own story, the story that led me to
Speaker 1: start this show. It's a story that's probably familiar to
Speaker 1: a lot of you listening. It's about figuring out my
Speaker 1: identity and about finding my place in professional and academic
Speaker 1: worlds where not many people look like me. I have
Speaker 1: the honor of having this conversation in front of a
Speaker 1: live audience with my mentor, close friend and colleague Herera Pushkin,
Speaker 1: Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm wanted to have a conversation that would
Speaker 1: introduce me to his podcast audience on revisionist history, and
Speaker 1: after hearing it, I thought it'd be a great way
Speaker 1: to introduce myself to the audience here see you. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play the conversation as it appeared on a
Speaker 1: Visioness History I. Once you listen to that, you can
Speaker 1: check out episode two, which came out simultaneously, my conversation
Speaker 1: with Charlemagne the God. Now here's my conversation with Malcolm Gladwell.
Speaker 1: I'm going to play for you an interview I did
Speaker 1: with an old friend and Pushkin co conspirator, Justin Richmond,
Speaker 1: who you may know from our music show Broken Record,
Speaker 1: which Justin has made happen since the beginning. But now
Speaker 1: Justin has his own gig. He's the creator and host
Speaker 1: of a new podcast called Started from the Bottom. It's
Speaker 1: a show about origin stories, particularly the origin stories of
Speaker 1: men and women of color, how they climbed their way
Speaker 1: up the ladder, the obstacles they overcame along the way.
Speaker 1: And for this episode that I'm about to play for you,
Speaker 1: I turned the tables on Justin and I interviewed him.
Speaker 1: We did it in front of a group of students
Speaker 1: and faculty at MEDGA Evers College on the side of
Speaker 1: the old Ebbotts Field in Brooklyn, New York. As someone
Speaker 1: of West Indian heritage, let me just say how gratified
Speaker 1: I was at the heavy West Indian turnout for this,
Speaker 1: and in good West Indian fashion, they asked some pretty
Speaker 1: good questions at the end too. So here we go
Speaker 1: my conversation with my good friend Justin Richmond. Hello, Hello,
Speaker 1: is this on Check Check a single race? So welcome.
Speaker 1: This is the first time I've ever done anything like this,
Speaker 1: and it is certainly the first live taping of Starter
Speaker 1: from the Bottom. So thank you so much for coming, Malcolm,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for doing this. Not at all,
Speaker 1: it's my pleasure. Justin. I've long dreamed of being on
Speaker 1: a stage with you. I can't imagine that's true, but
Speaker 1: it's very nice of you to say no. I think, well,
Speaker 1: I hope this is the start of many of these, Justin,
Speaker 1: But I think premise of today's is that I'm interviewing you, right,
Speaker 1: That's not our plan. Yeah, a little. We want to
Speaker 1: get the Justin. We want to get the Justin Richmond
Speaker 1: origin stories. It's a little introduction in me, I guess, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the which I you know, I love these things because
Speaker 1: I've often I'm a firm believer that if you want
Speaker 1: to get to know somebody, even if They've done a
Speaker 1: lifetime of interesting things. If you just do the first
Speaker 1: twenty years, you get most of what you need. Right that.
Speaker 1: It's a surprising how much you can lean from. So
Speaker 1: let's start. Let's do the Justin Richmond analysis. And I
Speaker 1: wanted to start with the thing we have in common.
Speaker 1: Now you might look at us and say, what on
Speaker 1: earth do they have in common? But we do have
Speaker 1: one very significant fact in common, which is we're both
Speaker 1: the product of by racial marriages. Yeah, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to start with that. First of all, you're more obviously
Speaker 1: by racial than me. I don't know how that happened you.
Speaker 1: I'm a little more subtle yours. Your dad would say
Speaker 1: it's his jeans. So you're tell me about your parents.
Speaker 1: Let's start with those two. How did they meet? Justin
Speaker 1: start with that. They met at Compton Community College. So
Speaker 1: he grew up in Compton, and uh, and my mom
Speaker 1: was there for I don't even know why she was there,
Speaker 1: but she was. She was there. She was friends with
Speaker 1: someone there, and so she was there. They met. Where
Speaker 1: did your mom grow up? My mom grew up in
Speaker 1: a city called El Monte, which is by Pasadena. My
Speaker 1: mom grew up on the racetrack or dad was a
Speaker 1: racehorse trainer, so if she we were up on the racetrack.
Speaker 1: And yeah, they're they're very different people even to this day.
Speaker 1: And it might be because they've never seen them together.
Speaker 1: But my kids still cannot wrap their heads around that.
Speaker 1: My parents. It might be like, you know that there's
Speaker 1: any relationship between them, who ever was you know, Uh,
Speaker 1: they were never together. They were never married, but yeah,
Speaker 1: like they liked they just liked each other, you know.
Speaker 1: So how long were they together off and on? About
Speaker 1: five years? Four years? So you have very few memories
Speaker 1: of the two of them, is in a couple, very
Speaker 1: few early on, Like I remember being over at his
Speaker 1: house because I have two half brothers, so early on
Speaker 1: I remember being over there with them, going to Disneyland
Speaker 1: on occasion. Well, yeah, the memories are very sporadic. Early on,
Speaker 1: you know of them, and you're you're raised by your mom,
Speaker 1: raised a bit by both, but primarily by my mom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And where are you grow in Long Beach? Or yes,
Speaker 1: in Long Beach And then at five, my mom moved
Speaker 1: to the city of Orange, which is in Orange County,
Speaker 1: which is about twenty minutes south of Long Beach. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: what is Orange like Orange? As far as places in
Speaker 1: Orange County go, it's pretty diverse. There's a large Latino
Speaker 1: community there, but aside from the Latino population, it's overwhelmingly white.
Speaker 1: And that was a that was a change from even
Speaker 1: even having white parents, like even having like my mom
Speaker 1: being white, and having that whole side of my family
Speaker 1: be white. I'd never thought of it that way until
Speaker 1: I showed up. You know. She moved there right before
Speaker 1: I started, a month before I started kindergarten. And I
Speaker 1: remember my first day at kindergarten. I rolled up and
Speaker 1: I had a ninety four, so I had a Power
Speaker 1: Ranger shirt on. I thought it was real cool, Power
Speaker 1: Rangers lunchbox. I really thought I was nervous, but I
Speaker 1: thought I was fresh. I thought it was good, right,
Speaker 1: And I'll never forget this kid who was in line
Speaker 1: in front of me, like looked back at me, and
Speaker 1: this is the first time, like again, I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: not really realizing the differences between us yet. But he
Speaker 1: turns around and looks at me goes, are you poor?
Speaker 1: Are you poor? Yeah? Yeah yeah, And I was like
Speaker 1: like what do you what do you mean? And he's like,
Speaker 1: you look poor. Are you poor? And I was like, what,
Speaker 1: you know, I was just deflated. I didn't know exactly
Speaker 1: what to think about it at the moment. I was.
Speaker 1: I was just deflated just because you know, you're five
Speaker 1: year old, you're going into kindergarten and you're trying to
Speaker 1: We had just moved and I thought it looked good,
Speaker 1: but apparently I looked poor. That's to remember his name,
Speaker 1: and should you tell your mom? Yes, I did that.
Speaker 1: I remember that. I remember I remember going home and
Speaker 1: and talking to my mom and uh yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: that's when I think her hope was that it would
Speaker 1: take a little bit long from for those dynamic for
Speaker 1: that dynamic to set in, right. But that's when we
Speaker 1: we had, like you know, when she started talking to
Speaker 1: me about the fact that I am now at this
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly white place, and many of the people I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be around are likely growing up, if not out now
Speaker 1: racist racist things being said in their household, they're going
Speaker 1: to be parodying those things back at that. So if
Speaker 1: I asked you, in saying middle school to how you
Speaker 1: would describe yourself racially, what would you have said? Black?
Speaker 1: I knew I was black, you just because because of
Speaker 1: my experience because of that experience going to the so
Speaker 1: you know, off, I would say, off and on. Between
Speaker 1: kindergarten and ninth grade, I was going to overwhelmingly white schools,
Speaker 1: and you know, these are places where I would get
Speaker 1: called nigger. You know. So when you getting called nigger,
Speaker 1: you know what you are, you know, and then I
Speaker 1: go talk to my dad about it, go wheah, well
Speaker 1: you are niggas. So but you know that was like
Speaker 1: his way of trying to be like, yeah, you are niggas,
Speaker 1: so yeah, you know. So I definitely knew what I was.
Speaker 1: I knew I was black. And where it got well,
Speaker 1: I see where it got difficult was when probably in
Speaker 1: junior high, when it was teachers who I think sort
Speaker 1: of interacting with me different because of my color, you know,
Speaker 1: like I had. I got in a lot of trouble
Speaker 1: because I grew locks, and I remember they wanted to
Speaker 1: kick me out of school. There was a there was
Speaker 1: a neo Nazi kid named name your name, and all
Speaker 1: these people like on the bulletin board, where are you man? Right?
Speaker 1: And every day with him go you know, it was
Speaker 1: go back to Africa. And it got to the point
Speaker 1: police got involved, you know, and um, he never got
Speaker 1: kicked out of school somehow, but um, but I would
Speaker 1: say the point in junior high as when teachers I
Speaker 1: started getting just weird comments from teachers, and weird nothing
Speaker 1: I did was ever good enough. There's always a perception
Speaker 1: that I was lazy. And that's why when I think
Speaker 1: because I was I was always a smart kid, and
Speaker 1: because my dad played football, because I was so tall,
Speaker 1: I was always tall, the perception was always that I
Speaker 1: was gonna go and be an athlete. But from an
Speaker 1: early age, I realized I wanted to cut against that.
Speaker 1: Like I didn't want okay, cool, Yeah I can I
Speaker 1: can play ball, I can do that. But what I
Speaker 1: realized I really wanted was to show people. Like early on,
Speaker 1: I kind of got this um need to prove people
Speaker 1: wrong in me, and so I felt like I always
Speaker 1: wanted to be I always wanted to be the smartest
Speaker 1: person in the room at that point as a young kid,
Speaker 1: and I didn't always have the confidence that I was,
Speaker 1: but I deep deep down somewhere I wanted to be.
Speaker 1: And by the time I got to junior high and
Speaker 1: the teachers were sort of I had these these odd interactions.
Speaker 1: I think that's when I started to That's when my
Speaker 1: my interest in education started to wane and my I
Speaker 1: would say, my pride and myself started to win. How
Speaker 1: many black teachers did you have in your public school experience? Zero? Zero?
Speaker 1: Taking something to do with it, I think that's a
Speaker 1: big thing. Has a big part to do with that. Absolutely, Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: you got it. And that's the premise of my show.
Speaker 1: If you're not around, if you're not around people who
Speaker 1: look like you, who are successful, you know, and my dad,
Speaker 1: God bless them, you know, who was in the NFL
Speaker 1: so to degree was a success. But my dad and
Speaker 1: I love him, but you know, he also like has
Speaker 1: a very small way of thinking, you know, and so
Speaker 1: I never really felt like I had someone what do
Speaker 1: you mean by a small way of thinking? For him,
Speaker 1: it was always like, yeah, just go be a cop,
Speaker 1: you know, like that's sure money. Like you can go
Speaker 1: be a cop. You can get one hundred grand a
Speaker 1: year with over time, you can make like one twenty.
Speaker 1: Like what are you doing with this college thing? What
Speaker 1: are you doing with school? You know, like they didn't
Speaker 1: he couldn't get that I wanted to be that. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be an educated brother. You know. He couldn't
Speaker 1: get it, I'd say, and a lot of my family didn't.
Speaker 1: It's difficult to talk about because I like, in so
Speaker 1: many ways they were successful, you know, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, I knew there was a level of life
Speaker 1: that I wanted to achieve that no one in my
Speaker 1: family had achieved. You know, my dad wanted me to
Speaker 1: go be a cop because he's like, that's guaranteed income,
Speaker 1: you can and you can do it. But I just
Speaker 1: had other aspirations. So it was a weird thing between
Speaker 1: growing up in a white world that didn't necessarily believe
Speaker 1: in me and growing up in you know, my black
Speaker 1: family and a black world that kind of had a
Speaker 1: way of thinking that wasn't They didn't understand what I
Speaker 1: was trying to do. Yeah, yeah, your dad's not He's
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent wrong being a police officer. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying you should have done it. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: from his position being an LAPD officer, assuming that's what
Speaker 1: he's talking about, that is a good job. It's a
Speaker 1: great job. I mean in terms of like if you
Speaker 1: look at just like income and like what you could
Speaker 1: provide for your family, Like, it's a great job. But
Speaker 1: it's the means of there's all an entire generation of
Speaker 1: largely black men who grew up in LA for whom
Speaker 1: the LAPD was the stepping stone. I mean, you got
Speaker 1: a job in the lapd and then your kids got
Speaker 1: to go to college. I mean that was like he's
Speaker 1: reflecting something that was real, right, No, it was a
Speaker 1: real thing, and I don't at the time, I was
Speaker 1: very I was always upset when you bring it up.
Speaker 1: You know, now I understand why he did. But you know,
Speaker 1: when you have a dream and something you want to accomplish,
Speaker 1: hearing things like that, don't and still confidence in you.
Speaker 1: Because I always have to hear these quess like well,
Speaker 1: what a school doesn't work out? It's like, well, what
Speaker 1: do you mean? Was like, you know what, Like by
Speaker 1: the time I get to college and I'm meeting people,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I can very much tell that this isn't
Speaker 1: their experience that they had, like what a school doesn't
Speaker 1: work out? It was this expected? You know? Is it
Speaker 1: your dad? Does he not think you're smart enough for college?
Speaker 1: Or does he think the obstacles facing a young black
Speaker 1: man are two high? What's his what's his theory? I
Speaker 1: don't know my dad thinks he's the smartest man in
Speaker 1: the world, so and I think based he also thinks
Speaker 1: he has the greatest green pool in the world, so
Speaker 1: I think so. I think based on that he knew
Speaker 1: I was very smart. That was his belief at least.
Speaker 1: But with my dad, I think it very much had
Speaker 1: to do again with like his perception of what was
Speaker 1: possible in the world. You know, he grew up in
Speaker 1: a place called You dream Of Village and which was
Speaker 1: a housing project that closed down because the soil was toxic.
Speaker 1: Like they didn't know it at the time, but the
Speaker 1: soil was toxic. So people were getting sick and cancer
Speaker 1: and dying, babies being born deformed. And I think it
Speaker 1: was also a sense of maybe his dreams were limited
Speaker 1: to or not his dreams were big, but I would
Speaker 1: say his dreams were at some point, I say his
Speaker 1: dreams were crushed as well. You know, my dad did
Speaker 1: get kicked out of the NFL. The story as it's
Speaker 1: been told to me, So my dad got drafted by
Speaker 1: the Colts and eighty four, I want to say eighty five,
Speaker 1: and the team captain, a white dude, called my grandmother
Speaker 1: a nigger, and so my dad whipped his ass. They
Speaker 1: had it, he got reprimanded, that had a team dinner.
Speaker 1: It happened again. My dad whipped his ass and he
Speaker 1: was kicked off the team. Yeah. And I think when
Speaker 1: that is, when that's what happens to your dream, I
Speaker 1: think you start to worry in some way or was
Speaker 1: it his dream? Absolutely? Yeah, yeah. Does he still have
Speaker 1: regrets today? I'm sure he does. I don't think he
Speaker 1: regrets that, like, I don't think he regrets open the
Speaker 1: team captain's ass or anything, but um, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: he wishes it turned out different. Absolutely, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Does he understand what you're doing now? Yeah? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know the first time, the first time he really got it. Well,
Speaker 1: he got it when I went to when I got
Speaker 1: into Berkeley, he was kind of he was shocked. I
Speaker 1: was shocked. My whole family was shocked. I couldn't believe
Speaker 1: it too, so much so that I remember I drove up.
Speaker 1: I drove up, I wrote the counselor. I was like, listen,
Speaker 1: like I got some I gotta I gotta talk to you.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do it over email. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to do it over phone, Like I needed to
Speaker 1: look this lady in the eye. So I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: can I meet you? And she's like, yeah, sure, sure
Speaker 1: to come down this date this time drove up to
Speaker 1: Berkeley and yes I would. I was like, look, I
Speaker 1: got this deferred a mission. This is real. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: living in Orange County at the time. I'm living in
Speaker 1: the Laya. Yeah. So you drove six hours yeah to Berkeley, yes,
Speaker 1: six seven eight to ask official of Berkeley whether your
Speaker 1: acceptance that it was real. I came that far. I
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna like and then also like trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how to run a place up there and pay
Speaker 1: admission just to not so I drove up there, and
Speaker 1: you know, so I'm is this real? And she goes, yes,
Speaker 1: this is real. So I goes, so I can start
Speaker 1: January fifteen, Yes you can as a philosophy major. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: and I can switch my major if I want once
Speaker 1: I get in. Yes, right, you know. And then and
Speaker 1: then and I'm kind of trying to work up to
Speaker 1: also like so I asked, I say, listen, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be honest with you, Okay, Like I don't have a
Speaker 1: high school diploma, I don't have a GED, I don't
Speaker 1: have an equivalency. So you should like, so based on
Speaker 1: that now you say already said this was real, but
Speaker 1: based on it now with this new information, based on that,
Speaker 1: is this really? Is this? Can I really come here?
Speaker 1: We skip the st Yeah. The step we skipped was
Speaker 1: you didn't graduate from high school? No, I left at fourteen?
Speaker 1: At fourteen? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I left at fourteen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also didn't graduate from high school. But that's because
Speaker 1: my mom called the principle and said, Malcolm won't be
Speaker 1: coming in. He's more productive at home. That was Everyone
Speaker 1: was like, okay, fine, Like that's you know, that's a
Speaker 1: very that's the world I grew up, and it was
Speaker 1: a forgiving, understanding, do what you want kind of world.
Speaker 1: Um wait, you left high school at fourteen to do what? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Nothing good? Uh yeah, nothing good. I would say I
Speaker 1: was pretty beat down by that point, you know, like
Speaker 1: confidence wise, I didn't know what I was doing. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I left and I was I was just doing my
Speaker 1: own thing. What's your mom doing when you're doing this?
Speaker 1: So here's so what happened was so like basically my
Speaker 1: freshman year of high school, I was so rock bottom
Speaker 1: with my confidence, Like I had basically like a zero
Speaker 1: point something GPA. I had like no GPAs. It was
Speaker 1: literally zero points something and the only the highest grade
Speaker 1: I got was I thought it was a C, but
Speaker 1: it turns out it was a D. I got a
Speaker 1: D in journalism. Yeah, and the teacher pull me aside.
Speaker 1: He's like, justin, you're too smart to fail. You deserve
Speaker 1: a F. I'm not gonna give you a F. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give you a D. I was like, oh, thank you,
Speaker 1: mister Muller. But it was like at zero point something.
Speaker 1: So they said you're gonna have to go to continuation school,
Speaker 1: which was just like a school like, you know, for
Speaker 1: for fuck ups. And my mom was like, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: not a fuck up, so you're not gonna You're not
Speaker 1: gonna go there. I go, okay. She's like, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna have you stay home, and uh this it sounds crazy,
Speaker 1: but I gotta give her credit because it didn't work
Speaker 1: for a bit, but then it really worked. Um, She's like,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna stay home. You're gonna read the paper
Speaker 1: every day while I'm at work. I'm gonna come home.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have a little report on a couple of
Speaker 1: items you read. And of course, you know for the longest,
Speaker 1: Like I just took advantage. I didn't do it, you know,
Speaker 1: Like I just didn't. She didn't want me being with
Speaker 1: fuck ups because she did she already could see I
Speaker 1: think that my confidence was shot and that it was
Speaker 1: just gonna be worse, so she pulled me out. I
Speaker 1: took advantage of it. I didn't do much until I
Speaker 1: was like almost sixteen. Common story, I feel like for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I got a copy of the
Speaker 1: autobiography of Malcolm X, and it really reignited my ambition.
Speaker 1: So then at that point, I enroll in community college
Speaker 1: because I didn't really want to deal with like trying
Speaker 1: to start over from my freshman year of high school.
Speaker 1: So I rolled in community college and just did that
Speaker 1: for about four or five years and until I could transfer.
Speaker 1: I transference. I started that at like just before I
Speaker 1: turned sixteen, and I transferred to Berkeley at twenty one.
Speaker 1: Let me see, we're gonna take a quick break. But
Speaker 1: when we come back, Malcolm and I get into what
Speaker 1: it was like being a black student at you see, Berkeley,
Speaker 1: and I share a story with them about randomly meeting
Speaker 1: my other mentor Quincy Jones and Havana Cuba so you
Speaker 1: have a kind of loss of confidence and do you
Speaker 1: get it back in Berkeley? At Berkeley, Yeah, Gabrielle Williams
Speaker 1: right here. I met Gabrielle at Berkeley. She was doing
Speaker 1: her PhD. We met at the Black Student Lounge or
Speaker 1: was that the that was like her her student job thing,
Speaker 1: and she was listening to music and I heard so
Speaker 1: we connected, and um, there was a professor there by
Speaker 1: the name of Ricky Vincent. He was like the pre
Speaker 1: eminent funk music scholar and was writing in a book
Speaker 1: on the Black Panthers. And I had a strong interest
Speaker 1: in the Panthers. So like between like Gabrielle and Ricky
Speaker 1: Vincent and and all these other black folk that looked
Speaker 1: like me that I could relate to. And for Gabrielle
Speaker 1: coming from from La southn California, like there was just
Speaker 1: a lot in common. It definitely a hundred percent helped me.
Speaker 1: But but she also helped me to a lot because
Speaker 1: there's many times I've called Gabrielle, including when I took
Speaker 1: this job at Pushkin, like, I really do this, it's
Speaker 1: a smart move, and she'll have to talk, you know.
Speaker 1: When I got into grad school, man, I really take
Speaker 1: out these loans, Gabrielle, I don't know, it's a lot
Speaker 1: of money, Like, I don't want to be in debt,
Speaker 1: and gabriel was like, justin, just come ons are you
Speaker 1: supposed to do? You're going to school, you gotta pay
Speaker 1: you unless you can afford it, take the loan out
Speaker 1: and go so um yeah. I definitely got a ton
Speaker 1: of confidence back there, not that I'm you know. And
Speaker 1: then slowly along the way ebbed and flow like as
Speaker 1: new situations arose and I sort of fell into journalism
Speaker 1: because I couldn't really, I couldn't get a job after college,
Speaker 1: and I knew I kind of went in wanting to
Speaker 1: be a professor by the time I got to Berkeley's
Speaker 1: like I kind of want to do my bachelor's, get
Speaker 1: a PhD, then teach. But then I sort of fell
Speaker 1: out of love with with higher education just because of
Speaker 1: the bureaucracy element. Sorry together, wonderful to have us here.
Speaker 1: But I would talk to Gabrielle, I would talk to
Speaker 1: my guy Ricky Vincent and sort of be like, well,
Speaker 1: what is it that I like to do well. I
Speaker 1: like the idea of writing and connecting with people, communicating people.
Speaker 1: I like the idea of researching, and so that's when
Speaker 1: like the idea struck to do journalism. I started getting
Speaker 1: involved with radio around town KPFA, which was the PACIFICA
Speaker 1: station in Berkeley, the campus station. I took a journalism
Speaker 1: in class, so I kind of and it's just snowball
Speaker 1: from there where I fell into journalism. But by the
Speaker 1: time I like, I get a job, I'm twenty five,
Speaker 1: I'm at MPR, and my girlfriend got pregnant, who's now
Speaker 1: my beautiful wife, Danielle who we got two beautiful kids, Crinanella,
Speaker 1: and I was making like thirty thousand dollars a year MPR,
Speaker 1: paying back loans and about to have a kid. My confidence,
Speaker 1: I say, at that point sinks back to all time low.
Speaker 1: And I have a friend named Drew who took me
Speaker 1: to Cuba. It was just like I sensed you're kind
Speaker 1: of going through it. Let me let me take you
Speaker 1: to Cuba. This is when Cuba opened up. I was like,
Speaker 1: I can't really fort these I'm gonna pay for you
Speaker 1: me back whenever. So me and Drew went down and
Speaker 1: this is the most random incident in my life. This
Speaker 1: is most random thing that ever happened in my life is.
Speaker 1: We're in Cuba in Havana. I've driven to Mexico twice,
Speaker 1: but other than that, I've never left the country. And
Speaker 1: I run into Quincy Jones in Havana and Quincy Jones like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, damn, that's Quincy Jones. I want to I go, hey, Quincy,
Speaker 1: can I can I get a picture? And he goes yeah,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't get up. So I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sit down and take a picture of Quincy.
Speaker 1: And he started asking me what's your sign? I go Leah,
Speaker 1: I go Leo. He goes, oh, I'm Leo rising cool.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. He just starts talking
Speaker 1: to me and we have like a three hour conversation.
Speaker 1: We have dinner. He never told me because you and
Speaker 1: I met Quincy like five years ago. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a full circle moment for me because we ended up
Speaker 1: going to Quincy's house. But I had like a three
Speaker 1: hour dinner with Quincy Jones in Havana. I'm my lowest point.
Speaker 1: I'm making like no money, I'm broke. My wife is
Speaker 1: looking at me crazy because it's like, why are you
Speaker 1: in Cuba or running around like she didn't know if
Speaker 1: I was maybe gonna not gonna come back or what um,
Speaker 1: but I'm at Quincy and from that he was like,
Speaker 1: oh you're you're a cool brother. Man gave me, gave
Speaker 1: me his card, and normally I wouldn't have reached out,
Speaker 1: but I felt I was like, okay, this man discovered
Speaker 1: Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Ray Charles. So I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what am I gonna do? Not reach out?
Speaker 1: So I could use all the help I could get.
Speaker 1: So I reached out to Quincy and was like, look,
Speaker 1: look Quincy, like I realized didn't want to reach out
Speaker 1: with nothing. So me and my friend Sinari Glinton, one
Speaker 1: of the few black men at MPR that sort of
Speaker 1: took interesting me right away, sort of notice when I
Speaker 1: was there that I needed I needed his his guidance.
Speaker 1: We decided I shouldn't just go to him with nothing
Speaker 1: to offer. So I was like, look, I'm a journalist,
Speaker 1: I work in a PR, working audio everyone. You know,
Speaker 1: it's twenty sixteen. Podcasting is sort of new, but people
Speaker 1: are starting to have him. You've done everything from you know,
Speaker 1: everything across media that you could possibly do except for podcasting,
Speaker 1: Like we can make you a podcast and it was
Speaker 1: like great, So you know, it wasn't that easy, but
Speaker 1: was a couple of meetings, finally got into a great
Speaker 1: got to sign some paperwork. I still have it framed.
Speaker 1: It's like me and Quincy Jones. Signature is the craziest
Speaker 1: thing in the world to me. But what happened was
Speaker 1: I couldn't. I couldn't I couldn't sell the thing. I
Speaker 1: realized I didn't know the first thing about business. I've
Speaker 1: been flying blind my whole life, just trying to figure
Speaker 1: things out. I'm taking out loans, I don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. And that's when the idea for this show
Speaker 1: occurred to me. It's like, if I could just talk
Speaker 1: to if I could talk to someone else, some other
Speaker 1: black man who I was like money, Magic Johnson, by
Speaker 1: ronaland who at that times about the Weather Channel. I
Speaker 1: was like, I bet they could tell me what to
Speaker 1: do because I was in these rooms just like realizing
Speaker 1: like I don't understand this jargon, I don't understand the speak,
Speaker 1: and I'm failing, you know. And so it really occurred
Speaker 1: to me at that moment, how important having people who
Speaker 1: look like you, who you can point to in your life,
Speaker 1: you can point toward successful at this particular thing. How
Speaker 1: that can really be? Um, it's not the only way
Speaker 1: to figure things out, but it's man, it makes things
Speaker 1: so much easier. You know, Let's go back a moment
Speaker 1: and say, what's the version of your life where you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have suffered that kind of crisis of confidence. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine. Give me a version, give me a version
Speaker 1: where it's where it's easy. In the United States. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't think. I don't think you can't
Speaker 1: have it easy being born black in the United States.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's I don't think it's possible. I
Speaker 1: would say best case scenario is you're like a Carlton
Speaker 1: type or something from Fresh Prince or something. You know,
Speaker 1: We're like, okay, you succept but like, are you really
Speaker 1: how successful are you if you're not acknowledging the whole
Speaker 1: part of yourself. So it's hard for me to answer,
Speaker 1: but I guess in the scenario where there is no
Speaker 1: And this is interesting because I'm also thinking about this
Speaker 1: from from my kids now, like they're getting a much
Speaker 1: different life than I had, access to different kinds of
Speaker 1: people and education and two parents who are supportive of
Speaker 1: each other and supportive of them together. So I think.
Speaker 1: But but but I mean, I guess, like for me, it's
Speaker 1: hard for it really is hard for me to imagine.
Speaker 1: But but maybe I guess the best case. You know.
Speaker 1: It's funny I used to I used to dream that
Speaker 1: I was like a as a kid, that like like
Speaker 1: I was like a Huxtable, you know, which is maybe
Speaker 1: a little controversial now, but like maybe that would have
Speaker 1: been a best case scenario. You know, that was a doctor,
Speaker 1: mom was you know whatever in a Brownstone, And give
Speaker 1: me the worst case scenario so you don't get into Berkeley.
Speaker 1: What happens is that the key moment, No, I probably
Speaker 1: getting probably getting the Malcolm X autobiography because that was
Speaker 1: I was in a pretty bad spot there. But um,
Speaker 1: I'll say, before it came to Pushkin, I almost gave
Speaker 1: up again, Like when you don't have examples of success
Speaker 1: around fund you and you don't have people who can
Speaker 1: teach you about money and how to um not even
Speaker 1: look in a gross like uber capitalist way, but just
Speaker 1: like how to accumulate it so that you can't have
Speaker 1: the things you want and need in life. Like I
Speaker 1: didn't have that, So I almost left journalism even though
Speaker 1: you know, I love it and I wanted to be
Speaker 1: in it, almost left it. I had a job offer
Speaker 1: with ADP, the Hay Road Processing to do outdoor sales
Speaker 1: with ADP, because I was like, well, I'll just go
Speaker 1: do sales, you know, like I'll just I'll make some
Speaker 1: money doing sales. And I almost took that offer, you know,
Speaker 1: And that was maybe six months before for I got
Speaker 1: an email from from you, from me, LaBelle and from
Speaker 1: you to come or from Pushkin, which which I would
Speaker 1: say changed again my trajectory thanks to you, Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: you know, me and Labellum. Yeah, man, because because it
Speaker 1: was also bleak then a little bit, you know, it
Speaker 1: was also it was tough then, man. After the break,
Speaker 1: Malcolm and I talked about the difference between getting second
Speaker 1: chances when you're black versus when you're white. And then
Speaker 1: the audience gets to ask some questions stick around in
Speaker 1: making sense of people's life stories and trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what's the difference between a in America, between a
Speaker 1: black life story and a white life story. One of
Speaker 1: the things, and it's very very difficult to convince persuade
Speaker 1: white people of this fact is it's how many strikes
Speaker 1: you get, or how many chances you get. If you
Speaker 1: are an upper middle class, well educated white person, you
Speaker 1: get like ten chances. You can scrupt nine times, and
Speaker 1: the system will catch you every time and start you
Speaker 1: over again. And if you're in the same position as
Speaker 1: a young black person, you maybe get two. And I
Speaker 1: remember this is a weird example of this, but the
Speaker 1: incredibly interesting book that was written about a suburb of Buffalo,
Speaker 1: a wealthy suburb of Buffalo. I think it's Williamsville. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, Amorist. The book I think is called the
Speaker 1: Safest City in America. It was about how there's no
Speaker 1: juvenile delinquency and Williamsville. And the reason is not that
Speaker 1: there's no misbehavior among juveniles. It's that they just call
Speaker 1: us something different. Right, it's high jinks, it's sowing no
Speaker 1: wild oats, it's it's oh so and so it just
Speaker 1: has to learn to be. It's everything is getting. Everyone
Speaker 1: gets so many different chances that no one ever looks
Speaker 1: never comes to the definition of juvenile delinquency. And like that,
Speaker 1: that thing, this question of how many chances you get?
Speaker 1: Is it sounds listening to your story that you are
Speaker 1: very close to running out of chances. It's even like
Speaker 1: more than that. It's just it's like I didn't even
Speaker 1: know that I had chances, you know, and maybe I didn't.
Speaker 1: I never knew I had chances. You know. There's a
Speaker 1: point where, you know, I guess in your example, the
Speaker 1: difference would be in those instances, those kids in Buffalo
Speaker 1: their thought to be behaving badly, Whereas when you're a
Speaker 1: black kid misbehaving, you're bad. You know, you yourself your
Speaker 1: mind absolutely defined differently. You're a terrible person. You can't
Speaker 1: you can't succeed, you can't do it's none of this
Speaker 1: is for you, you know. Yeah, and so that's where
Speaker 1: I was at, which is a pretty bleak place. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My speaking of father, So my father who passed away
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, but actually today, weirdly is
Speaker 1: his birthday. Um My mom always says that my dad
Speaker 1: that that his motto was nothing bad will ever happen,
Speaker 1: which I thought about a lot. Partly that's the function
Speaker 1: of his personality. Had this kind of unstoppable and thoughtful 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 sister
Speaker 1: him always worked from my dad. He was a nice person,
Speaker 1: he was depending when 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 happened. My mother who
Speaker 1: would imagine, know, if 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. I was like, no, no no, no, no, basically,
Speaker 1: nothing ever bad's gonna happen, right, And it was essentially
Speaker 1: true of like in that message. I was just thinking,
Speaker 1: as you were talking about your dad, the difference in
Speaker 1: messages sent to the two of us at a young age.
Speaker 1: I have this dad who just thinks it didn't even
Speaker 1: occur to him that there's ever going to be any
Speaker 1: you know, detour of it's a runaway yeah, man, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Something about opportunity, And there's something about the way in
Speaker 1: which society asks you or demands that you think about yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like sometimes don't get an option, and
Speaker 1: how you want to think about yourself. I feel like
Speaker 1: the one thing that I don't Maybe it's fine this way,
Speaker 1: but the the transition is still really the way that
Speaker 1: your life kind of turns around. I don't even turns around.
Speaker 1: It's not like people were living a life of crime.
Speaker 1: But you know what I mean, Like, I'm not hammitting
Speaker 1: myself on this. Something happens. It's really kind of interesting
Speaker 1: and mysterious to you in your twenties. It was a bride.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, between it was just building up
Speaker 1: my confidence. I guess between fifteen and now, I'm still trying,
Speaker 1: you know, like, um, from that time I did drop
Speaker 1: out of high school to like just getting through college.
Speaker 1: Like what motivated me was a sense of failure. I
Speaker 1: was like, man, if I don't get a high school,
Speaker 1: if I don't get a college diploma, like what I
Speaker 1: have an eighth grade certificate? Like what is that going
Speaker 1: to do for me? You know? So that was kind
Speaker 1: of like this real like it wasn't like a Carrott
Speaker 1: type of motivation. Was like you know, and and then
Speaker 1: and I was like, well then I couldn't get a job.
Speaker 1: And then I went started interning, and I've got into
Speaker 1: grad school, and then that gave me another Okay, now
Speaker 1: it's grads. When I got to figure out grad school
Speaker 1: is a big scary thing and do that and then
Speaker 1: I get out of there. I get right into this
Speaker 1: job at NPR and within them two months, like my
Speaker 1: girlfriend's pregnant, you know, and it's like now it's like, well,
Speaker 1: I gotta figure out how to provide. So like my
Speaker 1: whole I feel like every step of my life up
Speaker 1: until recently has been about how do I just how
Speaker 1: do I not how do I not fail? And that's
Speaker 1: sort of been my motivation to succeed. And I'm trying
Speaker 1: to figure out a way now to be motivated now
Speaker 1: the debt, Like that's why I'm on this journey. If
Speaker 1: I just trying to talk to successful people, I've I've
Speaker 1: been lucky enough to be. You know, first time we
Speaker 1: met in Santa Monica, I was like, bah, I can't
Speaker 1: gonna go meet Malcolm glad Well, that's crazy. And you know,
Speaker 1: we had a very lovely conversation. I just remember I like,
Speaker 1: I can't get out of here without asking like, like,
Speaker 1: how did you get comfortable having money? And I asked
Speaker 1: you that, what did they say? You're like, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to build, to do my own thing. I wanted
Speaker 1: to have my freedom. I wanted to build. I never
Speaker 1: wanted people to sign things to me or to be
Speaker 1: told what to do and so, and I was like, damn,
Speaker 1: that's a great answer, you know. And but that's why,
Speaker 1: that's largely why I'm I'm still you know, I'm still
Speaker 1: trying to figure out this this this world and this
Speaker 1: life and navigating different things. So that's why I'm out.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm doing this and talking to people like
Speaker 1: Charlemagne the God and people like uh, Susie Orman and
Speaker 1: just different people who you know, against the odds, against
Speaker 1: all odds, like figured this thing out, you know. And
Speaker 1: and my hope is that people listening to it it
Speaker 1: inspires them not only to take big swings, but also
Speaker 1: to seek out real world, real life mentorship, you know,
Speaker 1: Like obviously I want this to be a platform of
Speaker 1: mentorship for people. So hopefully you walk away having learned
Speaker 1: a lot and feeling boosted. But also like I think,
Speaker 1: you know, you need to have real life mentors, and
Speaker 1: I've been lucky enough to have so many, Gabrielle, you, Jacob,
Speaker 1: all kinds of different people. I'm hoping that I try
Speaker 1: to figure this out, people will figure out alone along
Speaker 1: with me. Yeah, that's well, thank you will. Let's do
Speaker 1: some audience questions, funny, if there are any questions they
Speaker 1: could be for me or Malcolm, here comes one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. My name is Kevin Nesbitt. I'm an educator,
Speaker 1: one of the administrators that create the blockags you talked about,
Speaker 1: NOUM but um, thank you so much for the way
Speaker 1: you present yours goodacracy, a good VP, as I call myself. UM.
Speaker 1: I've had many friends that come from biracial families, and
Speaker 1: I think as someone that does not come from a
Speaker 1: biracial family, there's always this belief that there's some sort
Speaker 1: of protection that you might receive from your whiteness if
Speaker 1: you choose to adopt it or if you choose to
Speaker 1: embrace it. And because I appreciate the way that you
Speaker 1: said you understood immediately you were a black man and
Speaker 1: that you had no choice because even if you wanted
Speaker 1: to imagine something other society told you know, you're a
Speaker 1: black man, right, and you gave many examples for that.
Speaker 1: But I have other friends that, throughout their journey, they've
Speaker 1: been able to say, well, it's it's not that it's
Speaker 1: a choice, but it's a little messier than that for
Speaker 1: them because they were both black, they're both white, and
Speaker 1: they grapple with what that means did you have any
Speaker 1: moments where you felt that having a parent that was
Speaker 1: white actually enabled some moments of protection or other As
Speaker 1: Malcolm described it, maybe one more choice, right, one more
Speaker 1: set of options. That's my question. Yeah, hard, I guess.
Speaker 1: I don't want to speak for other people, but my
Speaker 1: belief is when I talk to when I hear these stories,
Speaker 1: it's just that there's a bit of them deluding themselves. Perhaps,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't but hard to say. I don't
Speaker 1: want to speak for anyone else, but I didn't feel
Speaker 1: that maybe if i'd had a different mom, maybe it
Speaker 1: would have been different, but I was never allowed to
Speaker 1: think that anything different. You know, good, thank you? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there a This is my grand theory of biracial marriages.
Speaker 1: There's a big difference between black father, white mother, and
Speaker 1: white father black mother, which would be here. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: are actually very different kinds. The Historically, what a biracial
Speaker 1: 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. And I decided to
Speaker 1: look on the cases I'm thinking about my friendships where
Speaker 1: it was largely the what you describe where tradition, the
Speaker 1: traditional and maybe the household of the fathers, whether separated
Speaker 1: or not, later on, there was some sort of protection
Speaker 1: that dad would You'd have another outcome, right, you have
Speaker 1: another choice. So I just wanted to hear a bit
Speaker 1: about that. I think society views a black man white
Speaker 1: woman as as being subversive and in a way that
Speaker 1: they don't view the reverses being subversive. Thank you, that's true. Hello. Firstly,
Speaker 1: thank you Malcolm and justin you guys are It's just
Speaker 1: been on joy to have you here and I've just
Speaker 1: enjoyed this whole conversation. I just wanted from you, just
Speaker 1: in like a sound bite or maybe just like a
Speaker 1: quick statement, like words of advice from one biracial man
Speaker 1: to another biracial man, just how to like navigate the
Speaker 1: professional world and how to just keep your bearings and
Speaker 1: keep yourself grounded. Man, I am not listen to my
Speaker 1: show because I think there's people far greater than me
Speaker 1: that are going to be given advice. But I would
Speaker 1: say it's to this point in the instances where I
Speaker 1: haven't code switched, I've always been much more successful. You know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's because I've been lucky, but
Speaker 1: also some of it comes down to my Like I
Speaker 1: also think you shouldn't capitulate. So also like if someone
Speaker 1: doesn't want you, like I do have impositive syndrome yet
Speaker 1: and still it's like I do somewhere in me have
Speaker 1: this belief that like I can't help but be myself,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think if songs, you just are
Speaker 1: true to yourself, whatever that is, however you view yourself,
Speaker 1: identify yourself, behave like yourself, Like I think that's all
Speaker 1: you can do. And I think in those instances like
Speaker 1: just knowing that you bring a lot to the table
Speaker 1: being you, then you do you being someone else, and
Speaker 1: if you don't, you'll find out, right, Like sometimes it
Speaker 1: doesn't pay to be me in certain situations, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I found out, but okay, then find that
Speaker 1: one's not for me. Let me go to the next
Speaker 1: situation where it is good for me to be there.
Speaker 1: You know, I was at NPR before I was at
Speaker 1: push game with Malcolm and that was a place that
Speaker 1: I was authentic to myself. But it didn't feel like
Speaker 1: that was It wasn't appreciated, and you know, so I
Speaker 1: got out to go where you're appreciated, and go where
Speaker 1: you're appreciated. Yeah, yeah, thank you, yeah yeah. Oh welcome gentlemen,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. So you both span a buy ratio.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask miss to God, well, Justin
Speaker 1: identifies as black and yourself I don't think about it.
Speaker 1: I think that's the difference between having I have a
Speaker 1: West Indian mom Justin as an African American father. If
Speaker 1: you're a West Indian, you don't think about race in
Speaker 1: the same way. It's not this omnipresent thing in your life.
Speaker 1: So I was I just think of myself as I
Speaker 1: don't know. When I grew up. It was never forced.
Speaker 1: I mean it was never I was never forced to
Speaker 1: answer that question. My mom thought of herself as a Jamaican,
Speaker 1: not as a white person or a black person or
Speaker 1: so I don't have a I don't have a a
Speaker 1: kind of easy answer that you had a couple of
Speaker 1: layers because Jamaican and then growing up in Canada, which
Speaker 1: I feel like it was probably very different than Yes, Canada. Again,
Speaker 1: I never I never got the the racial experience of
Speaker 1: as all of you, everyone in this room knows, the
Speaker 1: racial experience of living in this country is just profoundly
Speaker 1: different from the racial experience almost anywhere else. Would life
Speaker 1: have been different if you are darker complexion? Probably, I guess,
Speaker 1: although well black not black people always know that I'm
Speaker 1: by racial White people don't necessarily know, so it would
Speaker 1: have made my h I have to tell my favorite
Speaker 1: story ever along his grounds is as running down went
Speaker 1: for a run one day in LA and running down
Speaker 1: Ocean Boulevard, and this black guy in a gorgeous open
Speaker 1: portion eleven like one of those tricked out ones, like
Speaker 1: one of these incredibly handsome black mines, looks at me,
Speaker 1: sees me running, stands up, so he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: he's through the roof of his car, raises his handling
Speaker 1: as he says, I love what you do. Row so
Speaker 1: like I get a lot of love and that so
Speaker 1: if I was darker, when I get more love, I
Speaker 1: mean maybe, but I I can't see how it get
Speaker 1: even more than I already get. Yeah, thank you very much. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, thank you so much, guys, and thank you
Speaker 1: to Mega Evers College. You know, higher education is wonderful.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much to the amazing audience at Mega Evers College,
Speaker 1: which was full of teachers and students from that college
Speaker 1: and also community members from around Brooklyn and elsewhere in
Speaker 1: New York. I also want to thank my guy, Malcolm Gladwell,
Speaker 1: who's having my back from day one and always treated
Speaker 1: me like a whole human being, one of the most
Speaker 1: smart and fantastic people I've ever met in my life.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be kicking
Speaker 1: off this podcast as a part of Pushkin Industries and
Speaker 1: to be due on my first episode with you. Started
Speaker 1: from the Bottom is produced by David Jaw, edited by
Speaker 1: Keishaw Williams, Engineered by Ben Holliday, booked by Laura Morgan
Speaker 1: with production help from Lea Rose. The show's executive produced
Speaker 1: by Jacob Goldstein, who's not all up in the videos
Speaker 1: for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music is by Ben Holliday
Speaker 1: and David Jaw, featuring Anthony Jaggs and Savannah Joe Lack.
Speaker 1: Listen to start it from the bottom. Wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts and if you want, ad free episodes available
Speaker 1: one week early sign up for Pushkin Plus. Check out
Speaker 1: pushkin dot fm or the Apple Show page for more information.
Speaker 1: If you like our show, please remember to share, rate,
Speaker 1: and review us on your podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.