Speaker 1: But next guest is uh deir friend Um been knowing
Speaker 1: him wow. When I first started managers the way back
Speaker 1: in the radio days in l A. He's to come
Speaker 1: in there man with the camera crew. He's always been
Speaker 1: a go getter, but more importantly, he's one of the
Speaker 1: most widely respected, award winning journalists in the industry today.
Speaker 1: Over the course of his stellar career, he's worked at
Speaker 1: various television networks including b E T, NBC in m S,
Speaker 1: NBC and CBS. Were hosted and contributed to programs including
Speaker 1: Conversations with Ed Gordon b ET Tonight, b E T News,
Speaker 1: Sixty Minutes, NBC Today's Show, and Dateline. He is also
Speaker 1: a former host of Our World with Black Enterprise and
Speaker 1: NPR News. He is a new book, Conversations in Black,
Speaker 1: where he brings some of the today's top leaders and
Speaker 1: influences together to explore new narratives for African American leadership
Speaker 1: and the post Obama era and the Trump Era. The
Speaker 1: book the book were released on Hatbayed by Hatchet Books
Speaker 1: on January fourte of this month is available for pre
Speaker 1: order right now. Please work on the money making Conversation
Speaker 1: my Man, Ed Gordon Man Well First of all, this
Speaker 1: book I kind of you know, I know, this book
Speaker 1: kind of started being developed in twenty twel because we
Speaker 1: should do the neighborhood awards together. So it was always
Speaker 1: talked and so I'm not I'm not shocked by coming out.
Speaker 1: But it's also when we started talking to Obama as president,
Speaker 1: and so it really allows I've read the book, and
Speaker 1: it allows for you to tell a unique story because
Speaker 1: now you have the Obama experience and now you have
Speaker 1: the Trump experience. Yeah, it's interesting, Rashaan. I started in
Speaker 1: at least the idea came to me, and the book
Speaker 1: itself is written as if all forty plus of us
Speaker 1: were in the same room having a conversation. You know,
Speaker 1: often some of the best nuggets come out of interviews,
Speaker 1: when you're talking to the person before or after the interview.
Speaker 1: And I said to myself, with all the great people
Speaker 1: I talked to, uh, it wouldn't be great if I
Speaker 1: could get everybody in the same room. Well, I knew
Speaker 1: I couldn't do that, but I said I could have
Speaker 1: what people would see as a virtual conversation. Now, so
Speaker 1: it's written as if we're all sitting together, and each
Speaker 1: chapter is a different topic. So we talk about Black
Speaker 1: girl magic. We talked about Black Lives Matter, the Black vote,
Speaker 1: the Obama years, Trump images in Black America. We cover
Speaker 1: everything and some of the people we have Maxine Waters,
Speaker 1: Harry Belafani, t I, Jamel Hill, Angela ry uh Stacy Abrams,
Speaker 1: Eric Holder. I mean, the list goes on and on,
Speaker 1: DL Hugh Lee, Charlemagne and God. And what I'm most
Speaker 1: proud of man is I started in two twelve, I
Speaker 1: had to stop it because I got a TV project.
Speaker 1: I picked it back up uh last year in and
Speaker 1: now we've got the culmination of this, and I think
Speaker 1: it's important because our community has kind of been stuck
Speaker 1: in neutral. We need some new narratives because I fight
Speaker 1: for justice and equality, as you and I talked about
Speaker 1: all the time continues. And it's really important that you
Speaker 1: say that because you know at certain points of the
Speaker 1: book that you were pointing out, like in you talked
Speaker 1: about when you was on the Steve Harvey Show and
Speaker 1: there was in November about the voting and you was
Speaker 1: on the phone being interviewed, and you felt the synergy there,
Speaker 1: The energy wasn't there for the Black vote. It felt
Speaker 1: like there was a complacency, and and and because of
Speaker 1: the complacency, we have to believe that may have cost
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton, among other things, the opportunity to be the
Speaker 1: next president of the United States. When you talk about
Speaker 1: that complacency, we're talking about that same complacent thing complacencing today,
Speaker 1: even though we are provided with much more channels of communication,
Speaker 1: especially with social media, right absolutely. And Rashan, you know,
Speaker 1: you brought me on Steve Show and gave me a
Speaker 1: segment because you understood this, making sure that we got
Speaker 1: certain words out and looked at certain ideas and certain issues.
Speaker 1: And you know, Black America has been taken for granted
Speaker 1: for a long time, and because of that, I think
Speaker 1: we have become complacent with you know, I look at
Speaker 1: the the NFL playoffs right now. You know, four black
Speaker 1: quarterbacks when there were years and years and years and
Speaker 1: people believed no black quarterbacks. You know, they talk about
Speaker 1: all these new coaches that they want to hire, but
Speaker 1: tell them, do you hear a black name mentioned? Even
Speaker 1: with the NFL talking about the Rooney rule, And We're
Speaker 1: gonna really look at minorities they don't. We're looking at
Speaker 1: what Trump has done over the course of this next
Speaker 1: four years and I hastened to say, and I hate
Speaker 1: to even admit this, but he could win again in
Speaker 1: eight years of Trump. As Stacy Abram said says in
Speaker 1: the book, if you think this four years has been bad,
Speaker 1: you better strap in if he wins again. Absolutely. So
Speaker 1: when you when we go through the book, you know,
Speaker 1: then you mentioned some of the name Dio, Hughgule, Eric Holder,
Speaker 1: Jamal Hill, all shopped at, Michael Eric Dyson t I
Speaker 1: these are these are the p eighty people. But also
Speaker 1: you have an opinion ed And that's when I was
Speaker 1: when I was reading a book, you kind of took
Speaker 1: a step back and allowed them to tell the delivered
Speaker 1: the narrative. Was that difficult for you or that was
Speaker 1: the whole approach to the book? Now? Really that was
Speaker 1: the approaches you know, uh Rashan, I have been a
Speaker 1: traditional journalist my entire career, so I don't often give
Speaker 1: my opinion, though in this book I get more of
Speaker 1: my opinion than I would normally. But as I said,
Speaker 1: I thought the dynamic of this book was to get
Speaker 1: all of these people to your point. The people that
Speaker 1: you bring in, the people that are go getters, that
Speaker 1: you know, the rule change that the people that make
Speaker 1: a difference. I thought bringing together forty plus of those
Speaker 1: folks would be so dynamic. I mean, we've got April
Speaker 1: Rain who started Oscar so White, Ronna Burke, who started
Speaker 1: the Me Too movement. Uh. You know, they're talking about
Speaker 1: black girl magic um with with the Yamba. Uh you know.
Speaker 1: I mean I just felt like we need to start
Speaker 1: talking and then more importantly, out of those conversations, we
Speaker 1: have to start doing and if not, we're gonna just
Speaker 1: be sitting in this neutral spot. One of the things
Speaker 1: we do on one of the chapters is we look
Speaker 1: at black leadership and ask the question whether or not
Speaker 1: they've been doing enough. And you know, that's really interesting
Speaker 1: thing about him talking to Ed Gordon. His book Conversations
Speaker 1: in Black, Uh, you can pre order it now is
Speaker 1: being presented by Hatchet Books that being stores are January fourteen.
Speaker 1: Conversations in Black with Ed Gordon. He's interviewed forty UM
Speaker 1: industry decision makers. People are talked to them on a
Speaker 1: daily basis about leadership, about what's next, what's next. But
Speaker 1: that leadership I think is, you know, because we always
Speaker 1: go back to what real leadership, you know, we always
Speaker 1: go back to Martin Luther King and you true leaders
Speaker 1: and you go to Malcolm X true leader, and after
Speaker 1: that it kind of gets confusing. Ever since then, who
Speaker 1: do we turn to? You know, entertained Eamon has somehow
Speaker 1: become the leaders of the Voice of Black America music.
Speaker 1: You know, in your book you talk about Marvin Gay,
Speaker 1: you know what's going on that CD that that resonates
Speaker 1: with me, that music steal is relevant today. But I
Speaker 1: feel that when you start talking about leaders, I think
Speaker 1: our leaders are entertainers. I think kill Mike Killer Mike
Speaker 1: and t I both say that in the book. And
Speaker 1: we always had entertainers who were leaders. You know, you
Speaker 1: think about the Civil rights movement. Harry Belafonte was out there,
Speaker 1: and Sammy Davis Jr. And Sydney Partier, but you also
Speaker 1: had those other leaders that you know, we're in the four.
Speaker 1: If I ask you twenty years ago name the top
Speaker 1: ten black leaders, you could do it without even thinking
Speaker 1: boom boom boom, boom boom. Today, you know, if I say, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll give you Al Sharpton, I'll give you you know,
Speaker 1: four or five people after that, name me ten more
Speaker 1: people struggle, And so I don't know that we have
Speaker 1: to have ten black national leaders like we used to.
Speaker 1: But what we do talk about in the book and
Speaker 1: what we need desperately is a black agenda. No people
Speaker 1: move forward without a plan, No, no team wins without
Speaker 1: a game plan, and Black America doesn't have a game
Speaker 1: plan right now. We hope that this book will be
Speaker 1: the start to really move people, uh, to make a
Speaker 1: difference in their communities, because sometimes we're sitting and waiting
Speaker 1: on others to do. Rishan and you've always said, you
Speaker 1: know the idea of getting going, you know, being your
Speaker 1: own spark. And so if you don't see leadership in
Speaker 1: your community, then you need to be the leader. Well
Speaker 1: you know I that you know me ed uh my
Speaker 1: passion about information, about making people aware, being able to
Speaker 1: carve at that segment I wanted on the Steve Harvest
Speaker 1: Show because I thought there was I feel still today
Speaker 1: feel it's very relevant that we have a voice of
Speaker 1: not tied to just music, not tied to what the
Speaker 1: box offering, not tied to a joke about tied the
Speaker 1: community results. Even look at BT and TV one, they
Speaker 1: don't even have shows that the news generated to that
Speaker 1: level that we would want on a regular basis. You
Speaker 1: know they come on, but you don't know when they
Speaker 1: come on, you know, and they become specials and but
Speaker 1: it's still you know, you get a countdown to the
Speaker 1: BT Awards, you get a countdown to the Black Girl
Speaker 1: My Magic Show, you know, but you don't get uh.
Speaker 1: But this is really great because it's about ratings, but
Speaker 1: it's more important to understand that information is key. We'll
Speaker 1: be back with more information from my man Ed Gordon.
Speaker 1: He's on the show talking about Conversations in Black June.
Speaker 1: January fourteenth is when the book will hit the stands,
Speaker 1: but you can order the book now. Would be right
Speaker 1: back with more Ed Gordon, my man long time, but
Speaker 1: he still speaks the truth. Wow, right now, journalists, They're
Speaker 1: going and bring some of today's top leaders and influences
Speaker 1: together in conversation to explore new narratives for African American
Speaker 1: leadership in America today in his new book, Conversations in
Speaker 1: Black on Power, politics and Leadership. The book will be
Speaker 1: released by Hatchet Books on January or team and you
Speaker 1: can order right now. It's a pre ord the book
Speaker 1: and welcome back to the show. And when I look
Speaker 1: at the different chapters, you know what's going on? Obama, Trump,
Speaker 1: stay woke, it's the generations, it's the general war. Stand
Speaker 1: up black men, stand up, black girl's magic, the media. Lemma,
Speaker 1: am I black enough for you? Oh? And much much more?
Speaker 1: What chapter? And it was? You know, because you always
Speaker 1: have something Because let me just tell you about my
Speaker 1: relationship with Ed is that, first of all, I've seen
Speaker 1: him motivate people in the public speaking form, and he's
Speaker 1: a natural individual who it's an educated individual, but when
Speaker 1: you meet him, you read somebody that you can actually
Speaker 1: just sit down and just eat a hamburger with. And
Speaker 1: that's a skill that I always admired about it. He
Speaker 1: knows that I always felt that. That's why I always
Speaker 1: felt that his force needs to stay out there, Lisa,
Speaker 1: stay at the front of communicating our values. That's why
Speaker 1: I felt when I read about your book coming out,
Speaker 1: I said, I got they have on the show because
Speaker 1: conversations is black. It's really about everybody. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not tied to color. Because what people don't understand is
Speaker 1: that if one dominant race sufferers, then it does impact
Speaker 1: other people. And people don't get that. Racism doesn't see that.
Speaker 1: You know, they're just they just sees we're gonna suppress,
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna become the power brokers. But if
Speaker 1: you if you hold back, it creates crime, It creates
Speaker 1: a incarceration, it creates it creates a community, that creates
Speaker 1: lower property taxes. And if people will understand that, that's
Speaker 1: what I when I when reading your book, That's what
Speaker 1: people just the number one thing is that all we
Speaker 1: want is a shot. All we want is an opportunity.
Speaker 1: And that's what kept coming out of the pages and
Speaker 1: pages that I kept reading about from the various decision
Speaker 1: makers that you were speaking with. Yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 1: interesting because, uh, for so long, you know, James Brown
Speaker 1: talked about, you know, kicking the door and you know,
Speaker 1: I'll get it myself. And the idea of what black
Speaker 1: people have wanted for years simply that opportunity. You know,
Speaker 1: they tried to paint us as the welfare queens and
Speaker 1: lazy and the light but we are none of those things.
Speaker 1: And and you know, uh, we are the complete opposite
Speaker 1: of those things. We have fought bled uh and continue
Speaker 1: to do so to be a part of this country
Speaker 1: and to make ourselves great in this country. In spite
Speaker 1: of the odds and so you know, uh, the chapter
Speaker 1: Am I Black enough for you? Because it was interesting
Speaker 1: to me because even within our race, we still to
Speaker 1: this day have this sense of determining, you know, whether
Speaker 1: you can have your black hard and give that out
Speaker 1: and you know, and you can you be a corny, nerdy,
Speaker 1: comic book uh loving person and still be quote unquote black.
Speaker 1: You know, there's still the light versus dark things, um,
Speaker 1: and so you know, these are things that we need
Speaker 1: to to move past and get over. You know, so
Speaker 1: many other people have it out for us. We don't
Speaker 1: need the kind of infighting. We talked seriously about that
Speaker 1: in that chapter and what we need to do to
Speaker 1: move past it. So, you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: that I hope is I say at the end of
Speaker 1: the chapter, there's some questions, and we're hoping that people
Speaker 1: will read this like a book club and ask yourself
Speaker 1: these questions and then come up with your own questions
Speaker 1: about what are you doing to move not only your
Speaker 1: life forward as an individual, um, but to to better
Speaker 1: your community and on a whole you know, your race, Rashan.
Speaker 1: When you and I were growing up, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the elders used to tell us that we were representative
Speaker 1: of all of us. You know, you represented your block,
Speaker 1: your family, your race, and we've kind of gotten away
Speaker 1: from that, and sometimes I think, to our detriment, we
Speaker 1: get away from the things that have kept us from
Speaker 1: the times we were brought here in change. You know,
Speaker 1: that's what kept us alive and moving. I tell my
Speaker 1: daughter all the time, you know, you are a descendant
Speaker 1: of the strongest of the strong because those that didn't
Speaker 1: make it to die on the trip over here, that
Speaker 1: that that killed themselves rather than to be enslaved, couldn't
Speaker 1: carry on that legacy of greatness that we brought from Africa.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, that's our legacy, not not this
Speaker 1: slave what was me people that Hollywood and the news
Speaker 1: tries to portray on us. So you know, I brought
Speaker 1: together forty plus of those, you know, our greatest of
Speaker 1: great uh and and it jumps out of these pages.
Speaker 1: We know the thing about it when he says the
Speaker 1: people of references has some of the names Stacy Abrahams,
Speaker 1: Harry Belafonte, Eric Holder, Charlemagne, the God, Michael, Eric Dyson,
Speaker 1: Jamel Hill, Jana van zand you know uh Al Sharpton
Speaker 1: t I a man being crump. You know what I
Speaker 1: liked about it was that Maxine Waters can't forget about
Speaker 1: her because she talks about you know, Trump and his
Speaker 1: power for you know, not allowing people to show up
Speaker 1: for the man. It almost felt like you this book
Speaker 1: just got got pretty yesterday. It was just so her
Speaker 1: and and so dead on and so relevant. You know.
Speaker 1: Is this book had off the presses in the last
Speaker 1: six months talking to everybody. Wow. And then I just
Speaker 1: locked myself in the house man and put it on together.
Speaker 1: And that was the hardest part, Rashawn, is you know,
Speaker 1: doing all these interviews and then kind of pulling things
Speaker 1: out of interviews and putting it together so it would
Speaker 1: sound like a conversation. Well, you know, because because especially
Speaker 1: when you start talking about with max and Waters, because
Speaker 1: she's talking about, you know, how Trump is denying people
Speaker 1: to come to Congress and to be interviewed for potential
Speaker 1: witnesses and and how he gets to do it that,
Speaker 1: then it becomes you know, unprecedented power and people who
Speaker 1: do that, then everybody who comes in after him is
Speaker 1: going to do it as well, you know. So so
Speaker 1: it becomes the fact that, you know, how, how did
Speaker 1: Obama do enough or did Obama if he did that,
Speaker 1: you know, like like DL said, if if Obama, you
Speaker 1: probably put his on the post the controversy he had
Speaker 1: as president, and you can probably put a volume in volume.
Speaker 1: So it was just it was entertaining. I found humor
Speaker 1: in it because of the fact that I'm a guy
Speaker 1: who who lives in life, who's been exposed to this level.
Speaker 1: But I just felt it was an everyday read for
Speaker 1: just a regular person who needs to be caught up.
Speaker 1: And that's why, and that's why I wanted to write
Speaker 1: it like a conversation. And sometimes these books become too
Speaker 1: high prowed. There two inside baseball they talk about legislation
Speaker 1: that people don't always understand the way it moves through
Speaker 1: Congress and all of that, or you know, they take
Speaker 1: a really academic look at the black mail, and well,
Speaker 1: you know, that's great, and that's fine. But I wanted
Speaker 1: this to be the conversation you have at your dinner
Speaker 1: table and the barbershop and the car ride into the game,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. I wanted it to sound like that,
Speaker 1: but I wanted it rather than with your cousin or
Speaker 1: your neighbor or your barber. I wanted it to be
Speaker 1: um a peek in or listening to the people that
Speaker 1: are making a difference out there, and then to give
Speaker 1: you the the standing that you have the power to
Speaker 1: make a difference. And that's that's right. And I feel
Speaker 1: that let me ask you this, because we talk about
Speaker 1: you know that that black leadership, the black voice, you know,
Speaker 1: because of social media, you know it is always tell
Speaker 1: people what social media has changed how people communicate because
Speaker 1: it's everybody's press conference. You don't need to have to
Speaker 1: call a press conference posted. And I feel that in
Speaker 1: some ways that has diminished exactly who is doing the
Speaker 1: talking because the viral video can do the talking for
Speaker 1: that particular subject matter. So has social media helped us
Speaker 1: or diminished our ability to be organized? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's done both. I mean, let's let's face it. If
Speaker 1: social media had been back in the day, King would
Speaker 1: have had a Twitter page, King would had a Facebook page.
Speaker 1: But what King would have done is he would have
Speaker 1: put it up on Twitter and then hit the streets.
Speaker 1: What we have too many people doing is liking it
Speaker 1: on Twitter, but forgetting to hit the streets, or forgetting
Speaker 1: to stay off that bus, or forgetting to etcetera. Etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: You know, we've got to be honest about black leadership.
Speaker 1: You know, I asked people in one of the chapters
Speaker 1: on black leadership to grade black leadership. And you know,
Speaker 1: when you say the leadership, you gotta put that in quote.
Speaker 1: So an entertainer can be a leadership, someone like Charlemagne
Speaker 1: and God as a leader, he's got such a huge
Speaker 1: platform and he moves forward. But when we look at
Speaker 1: traditional leadership, leaders of civil rights organizations and the like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, some people have been skeptical and not been
Speaker 1: happy with the leadership we've received in the last twenty years.
Speaker 1: I asked some people to give a grade to it,
Speaker 1: and not everyone gave, you know, high marks. I mean,
Speaker 1: this book is very candid too. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: just everybody patting one another on the back. But what
Speaker 1: but what they don't do is they don't beat up
Speaker 1: without offering solutions and without saying, hey, we've got to
Speaker 1: have these people's backs. You know. The interesting thing about
Speaker 1: it is that I'm talking to Edging his book Conversations
Speaker 1: Uh in Black in Regards to History Stan in January fourteen.
Speaker 1: Right now you can pre order it, Uh, can you
Speaker 1: tell us how we can get the book other than
Speaker 1: what I've been saying about it. Yeah, you can go
Speaker 1: to ed Gordon dot net and their links there that
Speaker 1: allow you to uh pre order the book or wherever
Speaker 1: you normally order books, Amazon or Barns and Noble. But
Speaker 1: the easiest way, and you'll learn a little bit more
Speaker 1: about the book, is to go to ed Gordon dot
Speaker 1: net and you can hit the link. It will take
Speaker 1: you right to the page and you can pre order
Speaker 1: the book. If you're too lazy to do that. January fourteen,
Speaker 1: that's the day it hits the stores. If you don't
Speaker 1: like to go on the computer, just wherever you buy
Speaker 1: your books, get your books. It's a great present for
Speaker 1: young people. I mean, we talk about the youth, We
Speaker 1: talk about Nipsey Hustle in the chapter about black men
Speaker 1: and all that. So it's uh, it's a little uh
Speaker 1: something for everybody in this book. But I think and
Speaker 1: hope that at the end of the day it will
Speaker 1: be an important book and get us not only talking
Speaker 1: but moving. Kevin, will you be doing a tour with
Speaker 1: the book autographs? Uh, we'll hit starting uh January four Um,
Speaker 1: I'll do press in New York and uh uh d C.
Speaker 1: And then we head out on the road. Uh. Kansas
Speaker 1: City is our first stop. Um, and then we go
Speaker 1: from there. So if people go to uh ed L.
Speaker 1: Gordon at ed L Gordon on Twitter and Instagram and
Speaker 1: on my face Facebook page, uh, you know, you can
Speaker 1: follow where we're going throughout. So we're excited be heading
Speaker 1: out west as well traveling the country. So we're trying
Speaker 1: to get people to join the conversation, you know, have
Speaker 1: a conversation in black and then get out there. We
Speaker 1: need new narratives, we need everybody involved because at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, particularly if Trump wins again haven forbid. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're putting us all in the same boat, no pun intended. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: Conversations in Black. Ed Gordon book comes out of January.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on the show. Get those banners
Speaker 1: to make I want to promote your book too as well. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. We talked soon.