Speaker 1: Ba Fam, we have another how to throw back for you,
Speaker 1: of course we do all month. We're looking back at
Speaker 1: some of our favorite episodes from days past for memorable
Speaker 1: guests who unforgettable moment. There's still so much to learn
Speaker 1: from the b A Vault. Take a listen, will you?
Speaker 2: Hey? Hey, ba Fam. It's Mandy and I am back
Speaker 2: with another episode of Brown Ambition. I am so excited
Speaker 2: to introduce you guys to today's guest. Her name is
Speaker 2: Kimberly Atkins Store. She's a senior opinion writer and columnist
Speaker 2: for the Boston Globe. She is the inaugural columnist for
Speaker 2: The Emancipator, which is a joint independent, anti racist multimedia
Speaker 2: project from Globe Opinion and the Boston University Center for
Speaker 2: Anti Racist Research, which I am so glad that that
Speaker 2: is even a thing that exists, and the author of
Speaker 2: the Emancipator's new newsletter called Unbound. Now, Kimberly is one
Speaker 2: of my most illustrious guests yet, y'all, so I'm going
Speaker 2: to continue with her bio. She's also an MSNBC contributor
Speaker 2: and co host. She's our podcast sister co host of
Speaker 2: the Politicon podcast called Hashtag sisters in law. Previously, Kimberly
Speaker 2: was the first Washington, DC based news correspondent for wbbur
Speaker 2: So for my NPR Public Radio fanatics, we love that
Speaker 2: She's also served as the Boston heralds Washington Bureau, chief,
Speaker 2: guest host of c SPAN's Morning Collins Shows, Washington Journal,
Speaker 2: and a Supreme Court reporter for Massachusetts Lawyer Weekly. So
Speaker 2: you have a background in journalism, in law, in all
Speaker 2: these different facets. I love a multifaceted woman and I
Speaker 2: cannot wait to get into my conversation. So, without further ado,
Speaker 2: welcome Kimberly. Thank you so much for joining Brown Ambition.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, Mandy. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2: So tell me about the Emancipator. It hasn't launched yet.
Speaker 2: We're kind of a little bit ahead of the curve
Speaker 2: breaking news for y'all. If you haven't heard of the Emancipator,
Speaker 2: what can you tell the audience about this incredible new
Speaker 2: publication and why you decided to be a part of it.
Speaker 3: Yes, So this sprung out of a conversation with Bina Venkatraman,
Speaker 3: who was at the time the editorial page editor at
Speaker 3: The Boston Globe and doctor Ebram Kendy as he was
Speaker 3: just getting started ramping up bus Center for Anti Racist Research,
Speaker 3: and they had an online zoom chat and after that
Speaker 3: they connected. They started talking about abolitionist newspapers at the time,
Speaker 3: before and during and after the Civil War. And these
Speaker 3: newspapers didn't just call for the emancipation of the enslaved
Speaker 3: population of people in America. They had a broader vision,
Speaker 3: you know. They thought about what it would look like,
Speaker 3: what it would take to make black people who had
Speaker 3: been enslaved full and participating citizens in American society, How
Speaker 3: to get them educated, what they could do, they could
Speaker 3: start businesses, how they can run for office, how they
Speaker 3: know not just vote, but run for office. How they
Speaker 3: can be a fully integrated part of society as a whole.
Speaker 3: What citizenship really meant. They got the idea to take
Speaker 3: that tradition and create a new platform to take that
Speaker 3: same approach and looking at anti racist solutions to the
Speaker 3: issues we have here and now today, not just rehashing
Speaker 3: problems or talking about them, but thinking out of the box,
Speaker 3: thinking about some solutions to the racism that's built into
Speaker 3: all sorts of systems, not just criminal justice. This grew
Speaker 3: like a lot of things out of the wake of
Speaker 3: the lynching of George Floyd, but beyond that, in all
Speaker 3: sorts of areas, and that's where this project was born.
Speaker 3: Being brought me on board early on, I was very
Speaker 3: eager to do so. Since then, we have co editors
Speaker 3: in chief Deborah Douglas and Amber Payne, who have been
Speaker 3: steered this project to its launch. And it will launch.
Speaker 3: I'm very excited to say it's launching very soon. It's
Speaker 3: launching this month after a lot, a lot of hard
Speaker 3: work and anticipation, so I'm really excited about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, congratulations. Amber and I go way way back. I
Speaker 2: can't remember. I feel like black women in journalism in
Speaker 2: New York, like you know, you just find your way
Speaker 2: to one another. I'm so glad that you being in Boston.
Speaker 2: I'm getting to get to know you now. But Amber
Speaker 2: and I go but way back when she was the
Speaker 2: first editor in chief of NBC Black, their Black Culture
Speaker 2: sort of publication. And I think when I had just
Speaker 2: started Mandy Money, I had just launched my sort of
Speaker 2: independent business, venturing out into my own this past summer,
Speaker 2: and Amber and I reconnected and she had told me
Speaker 2: she had just joined the Emancipator, and I was so
Speaker 2: excited for her, and then so for her a few
Speaker 2: months later or feels like, I don't know, who knows
Speaker 2: what it was sometime last year, but more recently she
Speaker 2: reached out and she's like, Mandy, we're going to be
Speaker 2: launching soon, and she invited me to write a piece
Speaker 2: for the Amanda to pay her as well, which I
Speaker 2: was so excited to do. And I mean, it's not
Speaker 2: every day that you get people who are like, hey,
Speaker 2: can you write about inclusivity, racism in the workplace and
Speaker 2: the experience of women of color, which that's all I
Speaker 2: love talking about all day air day here on Brown Ambition.
Speaker 2: So I'm honored and excited to just be a teeny
Speaker 2: tiny little piece of the launch of the Emancipator. Talk
Speaker 2: to me a little bit about your approach to like,
Speaker 2: there's not a ton I mean, I don't have any
Speaker 2: stats on this, but if I had to hazard a guests,
Speaker 2: there aren't very many opinion writers from women of color.
Speaker 2: You don't see that often in like mainstream publications. It
Speaker 2: must I don't know if you feel a particular you know,
Speaker 2: first only different sort of pressure when it comes to
Speaker 2: your approach as an opinion writer. But can you talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about your experience and how you got
Speaker 2: to a place where you're like, Okay, I'm a black woman.
Speaker 2: I'm actually going to write about issues that are important
Speaker 2: to us and say it with my full chest, like
Speaker 2: you've written about the crown at Katanji Brown Jackson. You know,
Speaker 2: these issues that really affect us.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know it's interesting. When I met Bina and
Speaker 3: when she hired me to be a part of Globe Opinion,
Speaker 3: I had never been on the opinion side of a
Speaker 3: news publication. I had mostly had entirely been on the
Speaker 3: news side, writing news, writing analyses of the news, but
Speaker 3: still in that you know, grounded, fairness based, and not
Speaker 3: that I'm the things I write now aren't fair, but
Speaker 3: this idea that when you're on the news side of
Speaker 3: a publication, it's not about what you think, it's not
Speaker 3: about you, it's about what you're covering. Whereas on the
Speaker 3: opinion side, you bring your full self to bear. It's
Speaker 3: still journalism, it's still deeply reported. You still have to
Speaker 3: show your work, but you bring all parts of view
Speaker 3: to bear. And for me, of course, that includes being
Speaker 3: a black woman in America, not everything that I write
Speaker 3: comes from a particular that particular part of my perspective.
Speaker 3: I find it. I'm very grateful that the Boston Globe
Speaker 3: gives me the idea that gives me the ability to
Speaker 3: write not only about things that are really important to me,
Speaker 3: really important to the black community, but also write about,
Speaker 3: you know, the Russia invasion, also be able to bring
Speaker 3: to bear my experience covering foreign policy and the law
Speaker 3: and everything else. Sometimes I feel like I can get pigeonholed,
Speaker 3: like I'm always the you know, the black commentator on
Speaker 3: a panel or something like that. Or you can feel
Speaker 3: when you're a part of a discussion and you sense
Speaker 3: that you were added because whoever was moderating it realized
Speaker 3: at the last minute that it's a panel of white men,
Speaker 3: and it's like, oh, that's we.
Speaker 2: Need somebody call gim.
Speaker 3: That's great that they're doing that, that they're trying to
Speaker 3: be more inclusive, but it should be more organic than that.
Speaker 3: And I feel like that can sometimes make you the
Speaker 3: spokesperson for Black America, which I don't enjoy being because
Speaker 3: I'm not. But I also think it is important to
Speaker 3: have more people of color at the table in all
Speaker 3: of these discussions, more women at the table in all
Speaker 3: these discussions. Any discussion that affects US in America effects
Speaker 3: all Americans should have representation of America in that discussion.
Speaker 3: So in that sense, I'm very grateful for this job.
Speaker 3: It is great to be able to write about things
Speaker 3: that people may not think about them. I think the
Speaker 3: Crown Act was an example of that, which is piece
Speaker 3: of legislation that passed the House that prohibits employment discrimination
Speaker 3: based on one's natural hairstyle, and that really impacts black
Speaker 3: and brown women and men in a very specific way,
Speaker 3: because we have long been taught I know, I've heard
Speaker 3: this that the natural texture of our hair is unprofessional,
Speaker 3: you know, or it's a hazard, it's a risk somehow. Yes,
Speaker 3: we all remember the video of Andrew Johnson, that high
Speaker 3: school wrestler who was on the sidelines and had someone
Speaker 3: cut off his locks because they violated a rule. I
Speaker 3: remember seeing that and crying. But I would see other
Speaker 3: people who I knew and respected on Twitter saying this
Speaker 3: is a big deal, like why are we even talking
Speaker 3: about this. They just did not have that understanding about
Speaker 3: how that is a form of racism and how that
Speaker 3: impacts people, and so being able to talk about that
Speaker 3: and educate people in a real, genuine way is really
Speaker 3: important to me, and I'm grateful for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean you talk about having made the
Speaker 2: decision to go natural ten years ago. I made a
Speaker 2: similar decision. I don't know how many years ago. But
Speaker 2: I was so broke when I moved to New York
Speaker 2: from Georgia that I literally could not afford the creamy crack.
Speaker 2: It was too expensive for me here in New York.
Speaker 2: And I would go longer and longer in between sessions,
Speaker 2: and then I started to see my curls and I
Speaker 2: was like, these look pretty cool. What if I just
Speaker 2: kept growing it out? And at the time, I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm going to save so much money. That's a joke.
Speaker 2: Correct the number of products it takes, Babe, y'all have
Speaker 2: no idea the financial commitment to natural hair care of
Speaker 2: But anyway, I digress. I was talking to another reporter
Speaker 2: at CNN about a story and they off handedly asked,
Speaker 2: you know, have you ever had any issues with your
Speaker 2: hair going through because my background's and journalism, and I
Speaker 2: was like, no, not really, But then you know how
Speaker 2: you go through something and you just kind of like
Speaker 2: bury it I guess in a way, or you just
Speaker 2: try to like, I mean, it's what so many of
Speaker 2: us do. You just you don't clock it at the time.
Speaker 2: You're just like, oh, okay, that happened. And I had
Speaker 2: this just this memory come back to me, come rushing
Speaker 2: back from when I was at I was a writer
Speaker 2: and sometimes on air at Yahoo Finance, early in my
Speaker 2: journalism career, and they had a man, a white man,
Speaker 2: come in as an image consultant. And it was during
Speaker 2: this period of transition. And I imagine if you were transitioning,
Speaker 2: you know, when you have natural hair, it is a
Speaker 2: whole journey in and of that self. That transition is painful,
Speaker 2: it's janky. You don't feel good about. At least I'll
Speaker 2: speak for myself. It was very hard to be in
Speaker 2: that in between stage, you know, throw it up in
Speaker 2: a bun and try to smooth down the curls and whatever.
Speaker 2: And he was looking at footage of me from earlier
Speaker 2: in my career at Yahoo, and I was straight, you know, pinned, straight, relaxed.
Speaker 2: I'm not even wearing glasses. I was like very much
Speaker 2: what I thought the image had to be. And I
Speaker 2: was in the middle of this process of transitioning, and
Speaker 2: he looked at me and was like, is that you like? Clearly?
Speaker 2: You know, He's like, that's that doesn't look like you.
Speaker 2: You don't look like that anymore. That's a great look
Speaker 2: and like And meanwhile, this guy looked like he spent
Speaker 2: many years living in his mom's basement. I do not
Speaker 2: know how this man became. I don't even remember his name.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna call him Jeff. It's all I can
Speaker 2: think of. How did he get the job of a
Speaker 2: pin of image consultant? How did he get permission to
Speaker 2: make me feel so shitty about the way? You know?
Speaker 2: And that's just like, I don't want that for any
Speaker 2: other black women to go through. Do you feel like
Speaker 2: things have gotten better? I mean, you're on TV now,
Speaker 2: you're not just frightening. Do you feel like it's been
Speaker 2: getting better for us?
Speaker 3: I feel like there has been progress, But like in
Speaker 3: many areas, there is much progress to go just by
Speaker 3: way of the fact that people didn't even realize. People
Speaker 3: outside of our communities didn't realize that this was even
Speaker 3: a thing. One reason why I have even after I
Speaker 3: chose to go natural, sometimes I'd do a blowout or something.
Speaker 3: I figure you know, I can do my looks as
Speaker 3: I please, But once I started doing television, I made
Speaker 3: a conscious decision that I would never blow out or
Speaker 3: straighten my hair on TV because I thought especially and
Speaker 3: this really started when I was on guest hosting the
Speaker 3: c SPAN Morning Call. In show, you get collars from
Speaker 3: all over the country, all over the world, and like,
Speaker 3: it's important that the people in Nebraska see what my
Speaker 3: hair looks like. It's important for the people in Boise, Idoh,
Speaker 3: every place to see what natural hair looks like in
Speaker 3: their living rooms as they're having their coffee. So that
Speaker 3: this can stop, so that this idea that that's not
Speaker 3: acceptable in media, in news, it's okay. Like when I
Speaker 3: was in a journalism school, there were still people telling,
Speaker 3: you know, black women, you need to relax your hair,
Speaker 3: You need to have a look that is acceptable for
Speaker 3: TV news. You need to be accepted in people's living rooms,
Speaker 3: and that essentially meant doing everything you can to adhere
Speaker 3: to a Eurocentric beauty standard. And that's really appalling. In
Speaker 3: so many spaces, we are forced to assimilate and adhere
Speaker 3: to a standard created by someone else, for someone else,
Speaker 3: and we're the ones who are asked to change ourselves
Speaker 3: as opposed to the other way around, other people learning
Speaker 3: to accept us, and I didn't want to be a
Speaker 3: part of that, so that was important to me. I
Speaker 3: think now you see a lot more people wearing their
Speaker 3: hair natural, being themselves clothing that it fits us better
Speaker 3: because our bodies can be different. I mean, so many
Speaker 3: things are beginning to change. I still think there's.
Speaker 2: A way to go. I thought about often, how because
Speaker 2: I was a senior director at my company. Yes, sure
Speaker 2: I wasn't the CEO or anything like that, but I
Speaker 2: was able to set a tone and the level of
Speaker 2: is acceptability the right word, but I felt like anyone
Speaker 2: who joined my team, and my team was like nearly
Speaker 2: half half bipoc. Intentionally, on my part, I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be the quiet, sleeper cell that's going to
Speaker 2: be hiring these black and brown people and they're not
Speaker 2: gonna know I'm doing it, and I'm gonna do it
Speaker 2: that because I was representing and I was there my
Speaker 2: natural hair, that at least the signal would be sent
Speaker 2: that this is okay. I'm gonna make it okay. And
Speaker 2: that's why I feel like so passionate and dedicated to
Speaker 2: more women of color in positions of power, putting yourself
Speaker 2: out there and all of that. And I don't even
Speaker 2: know where I'm going with this, but just to say
Speaker 2: thank you, it does matter. And I tell you right now.
Speaker 2: When I dropped myself off at his daycare, which is
Speaker 2: mostly white, because this is like I'm in the burbs now,
Speaker 2: the number of little boys and girls who come out
Speaker 2: and stare at my hair and point at it. You
Speaker 2: really like, as I'm like one of the only black moms.
Speaker 2: I think I saw a black mom last week. I'm
Speaker 2: not kidding. I feel like a zoo animal sometimes.
Speaker 3: When somebody touched my hair on the subway and I
Speaker 3: was just tripping, you know, like it it's like, this
Speaker 3: is not a petting zoo, Like what are you doing?
Speaker 2: They're too short to touch it, but I can. But
Speaker 2: they're kids, you know, too short. But I make sure
Speaker 2: I smile big and I say hello, and I'm like, yep,
Speaker 2: this is what moms look like too. But you never
Speaker 2: it it really is. I mean, I don't, and it
Speaker 2: sucks because you know, you think I may be the
Speaker 2: only black woman they've seen today, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And it's not okay. But that's where we live in Okay.
Speaker 2: Be a fan. I'll be right back with more of
Speaker 2: my conversation with Kimberly at Can Store from the Boston Globe.
Speaker 2: All right, be a fan. I am back. So let's
Speaker 2: jump back into my conversation with Kimberly Atkins Store from
Speaker 2: the Boston Globe. So you write about a lot of
Speaker 2: what you write about is and you also your podcast
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about that is the intersection of
Speaker 2: law and the news and politics, Am I correct? So
Speaker 2: what is?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: What cites you about that space? Because I know a
Speaker 2: lot of people having come through this election, especially black women,
Speaker 2: are just like tired. But what drives you and motivates
Speaker 2: you to cover this area? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean I was tired too, but that sort of
Speaker 3: reinforces the importance of all of this, right, I mean,
Speaker 3: So I was a lawyer. I was a lawyer before
Speaker 3: I was a journalist, what kind of I mean. I
Speaker 3: wrote for my college newspaper and stuff, and I really
Speaker 3: loved journalism in college. I majored in journalism in college.
Speaker 3: But I knew I was going to law school. And
Speaker 3: I practiced law for a while, and I realized that
Speaker 3: it was not for me. For a lot of reasons.
Speaker 3: I just think that was not you know, sometimes you
Speaker 3: were in a career and you realize that that wasn't
Speaker 3: the right choice for you and that there are other options.
Speaker 3: And I was still in my twenties. I thought it
Speaker 3: was a good idea for me to explore other options
Speaker 3: before committing to something that might make me unhappy in
Speaker 3: the long term. It was not specifically race issues that
Speaker 3: chased me away from practicing law, even though I was
Speaker 3: a civil litigation attorney in Boston in which I could
Speaker 3: go weeks without seeing another black person in the legal space.
Speaker 3: I worked for a wonderful employer, but I would go
Speaker 3: to court to argue a case and sometimes be directed
Speaker 3: to the criminal division or asked if I'm represented by counsel,
Speaker 3: or asked if I was a criminal defendant. But that
Speaker 3: wasn't the main reason I stopped. I just knew that
Speaker 3: wasn't my bliss, even though I thought the law was interesting.
Speaker 3: And so my journalism career, as you said, actually ended
Speaker 3: up steering me toward a job covering the US Supreme
Speaker 3: Court for the Lawyer's Weekly Papers.
Speaker 2: And I loved that.
Speaker 3: I loved being on that side, the journalism side, covering
Speaker 3: these cases and why they were so important and explaining
Speaker 3: that to people. And I was pretty good at doing
Speaker 3: that as well. And then as I transitioned away from that,
Speaker 3: I got into politics. I never intended to cover politics.
Speaker 3: I was actually afraid of it. And I had an
Speaker 3: editor when I was at the Boston Herald that said, oh,
Speaker 3: I think you'd be good at that. Go, you know,
Speaker 3: go to the State House and cover Mitt Romney. And
Speaker 3: I was like, do what now? So I did that
Speaker 3: and I really loved it. It was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: And I've since then been able to sort of keep
Speaker 3: a hand in both of those places, as well as
Speaker 3: covering other national news as well. But that intersection is
Speaker 3: really important in understanding how laws are made, what they cover,
Speaker 3: what they impact. I mean, take the Crown Act. We
Speaker 3: already have a law that prohibits discrimination in workplaces, so
Speaker 3: technically it should already it is already illegal for employers
Speaker 3: to discriminate against people and not promote them, or demote
Speaker 3: them or not hire them because of their hair texture.
Speaker 3: But because people are unaware of that, and because an
Speaker 3: employer can just say, well, we have the right to
Speaker 3: set standards, you know, dress codes, hair codes, whatever we
Speaker 3: want to do, and judges will say, hey, I think
Speaker 3: that's right. You need an additional law in the ground
Speaker 3: Act to say no, no, it includes this. That's how
Speaker 3: the legal system works, and explaining to people exactly why
Speaker 3: that is when they say, well, why is that isn't
Speaker 3: already illegal? Well it is, but sometimes you need that
Speaker 3: extra bit of help. The same way with it wasn't
Speaker 3: the Emancipation Proclamation that required the end of enslaving people.
Speaker 3: It took an amendment to the Constitution, and then it
Speaker 3: took states to actually adhere by that amendment to the Constitution.
Speaker 3: It took much longer and much more, and you need
Speaker 3: people explaining that process and what happens in those early
Speaker 3: emancipation abolitionist newspapers like the First Emancipator, like The Liberator
Speaker 3: and others. You could I have been going back and
Speaker 3: reading them as part of this project, and you actually
Speaker 3: see people like William Lord Garrison writing, you know, what
Speaker 3: Lincoln did is all is nice, but that's not going
Speaker 3: to change anything unless all these other things are done.
Speaker 3: And they understood that. And so that's the kind of
Speaker 3: the kind of approach that we're taking with the Emancipator
Speaker 3: and having that legal background and having the understanding of
Speaker 3: the political realities is super valuable to be able to
Speaker 3: help bring that to bear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think as excited as I was
Speaker 2: for the possibility of the Crown Act passing, I mean
Speaker 2: it's gone through the House now, it hasn't been through
Speaker 2: the Senate yet, right, It faces a tough road there.
Speaker 2: I yes, because the majority is like razor thin, right, so,
Speaker 2: and probably Joe Manchin's going to screw it up somehow,
Speaker 2: like he has been lately. But one of the things
Speaker 2: about it was I was thinking about it, actually wrote
Speaker 2: about it on LinkedIn because a white colleague of mine,
Speaker 2: peer of mine had posted it, shared it, and I
Speaker 2: was like, we still got to watch our backs. I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously this is a piece of legislation, it does matter symbolically,
Speaker 2: but the burden of proof will still be on us,
Speaker 2: you know, So if you do feel like you are
Speaker 2: being discriminated against because of your hair texture, I know
Speaker 2: in some states it already has a lot to be clear,
Speaker 2: it's not federal yet, but in some states it is
Speaker 2: a law, but keeping a record if there's any comments
Speaker 2: or any you know. I think back to that twenty
Speaker 2: something year old me who was being told by Jeff
Speaker 2: that you know, probably going back to relax would be
Speaker 2: the better, better move for me. Ah man, if I'd
Speaker 2: only had a record of that conversation. But protecting ourselves
Speaker 2: and also not being complacent because at this at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, even with legislation, the bias is
Speaker 2: so present, people's bias against us, you know, and it
Speaker 2: doesn't always come so wrapped up in a bow, you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of discrimination, like we do not want you
Speaker 2: for this position because we don't think that you're professional
Speaker 2: enough because you're black and your hair is natural. It's
Speaker 2: never that easy for us to prove. And that I
Speaker 2: feel like is the is always the exhausting challenge of
Speaker 2: it all.
Speaker 3: It is, and I think that's why conversations like this
Speaker 3: are so important. I think that's why the emancipator is
Speaker 3: so important. I don't legislation is not going to save us. Okay,
Speaker 3: legislation is not going to save us. We have to
Speaker 3: get through to people. We have to connect with people
Speaker 3: and let them understand exactly what the impact of things
Speaker 3: like that, something that may seem so innoculous that just
Speaker 3: was brushed off by people who have never been impacted
Speaker 3: by it because I didn't know, they didn't understand, they've
Speaker 3: never experienced that. And I think, you know, conversations like
Speaker 3: this just teaching people, letting them see. I mean, for
Speaker 3: the I don't mean to jump ahead, but the series
Speaker 3: that I'm working on for the Emancipator is addresses built
Speaker 3: in racial bias in financial systems, and I think I
Speaker 3: genuinely believe that the people who will continue to perpetuate it.
Speaker 3: A lot of these things were built by design. They
Speaker 3: did not want black people to own property to get
Speaker 3: wealth to That was by design, going back to antebellum times.
Speaker 3: But what I think perpetuates it are people who think
Speaker 3: they're being reasonable or being fair or doing the right thing,
Speaker 3: or not understanding how that built in bias works. You know,
Speaker 3: people who say, well, well, yes, I want somebody to
Speaker 3: have to prove that they can pay for this house
Speaker 3: if they buy it. That seems fair, right, So they
Speaker 3: put in all of these procedures that are really surgically
Speaker 3: targeted toward black folks to keep them from buying that
Speaker 3: house or starting that business. Or you know, they say, well,
Speaker 3: I want my neighborhood to be safe, and there should
Speaker 3: be ways to ensure that and that gets into redlining
Speaker 3: policies that are designed to keep black people out. It's
Speaker 3: also teaching black people that they're somehow risky. You know,
Speaker 3: so many systems, even more so than the criminal justice
Speaker 3: system perhaps, where you have this built in idea that
Speaker 3: black people. You know, if you have something like a
Speaker 3: police shooting, the justification of that is the subjective threat
Speaker 3: that the police officer felt in that situation. So if
Speaker 3: that police officer believes that black people inherently believes that
Speaker 3: black people are more threatening, that's going to justify that right.
Speaker 3: Nowhere else is it that clear. As in financial systems,
Speaker 3: where black people are perceived credit risks, Black people are
Speaker 3: perceived security risks when they buy a house in your neighborhood.
Speaker 3: Black people are seeing risky business ventures because who's you know,
Speaker 3: who's going to buy that product? Black people seen as
Speaker 3: risk and that's built into the system. And I think
Speaker 3: people don't understand how that plays out. But when you
Speaker 3: explain it in that way, I hope, I hope people
Speaker 3: all people will say, Oh, that isn't fair. That's not
Speaker 3: how it should work. If you work hard, if you
Speaker 3: do what you're supposed to life, liberty and the pursuit
Speaker 3: of happiness should be yours too. It shouldn't. You shouldn't
Speaker 3: start out at a disadvantage just because of who you are.
Speaker 3: And that's when I'm hoping this series will bring to bear,
Speaker 3: will teach people, and hopefully lead to some change.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that your series was focused on the
Speaker 2: intersection of Black Americans in the financial system. Where do
Speaker 2: we begin? I'm absolutely I'm like panting here. Yes, let's
Speaker 2: talk about it. I remember last summer, or not even
Speaker 2: last sime was it last summer? My co host Tiffany
Speaker 2: telling a story of how her home was appraised lower.
Speaker 2: She actually had a white friend that she had on
Speaker 2: tap to appear at her home as Tiffany in order
Speaker 2: to get a higher appraisal when they were trying to
Speaker 2: do I think a refinance. And now we're starting to
Speaker 2: see more of these really upsetting but important anecdotes from
Speaker 2: other black homeowners who are proving our homes have been undervalued.
Speaker 2: And I just think of and I live now in
Speaker 2: a majority black neighborhood in the suburbs of New York,
Speaker 2: which is just this little gem that I hope no
Speaker 2: one bugs us, ever bothers us, But I have to
Speaker 2: reckon with the fact that my husband and I could
Speaker 2: afford a house here because it's one of the more
Speaker 2: cheaper of areas of our county. And I have to
Speaker 2: assume it's because it's a large it's been a largely black,
Speaker 2: middle class neighborhood, you know, since the nineteen forties. But
Speaker 2: talk from of the series where do you even begin? Kim, Like,
Speaker 2: where do you begin?
Speaker 1: Yes, do you have?
Speaker 3: I mean that point in itself that just it resonates
Speaker 3: so hard. I was talking to someone who is very
Speaker 3: well off, started an entrepreneur who is pulling in massive
Speaker 3: amounts of money, and even he had that experience about
Speaker 3: being quoted a higher interest rate on a house that
Speaker 3: he was buying than he was originally given when the
Speaker 3: transaction was still purely online and once.
Speaker 2: They saw him.
Speaker 3: So that effects that's still happening in the realm of funny,
Speaker 3: not funny. I got married last year. My husband is white,
Speaker 3: and we are thinking about moving. And one of the
Speaker 3: things I've said to him is like, all right, well,
Speaker 3: you know you haven't had this experience before. But when
Speaker 3: it's time to appraise the house, I think we should
Speaker 3: take the pictures down. When you know we are if
Speaker 3: there is a situation where you have to go into
Speaker 3: the mortgage agent, you'll take the tax returns, and I
Speaker 3: want you to go in and it's awful. It's awful too.
Speaker 3: I mean, he was appalled, and I'm appalled to I'm
Speaker 3: appalled that this is the system. I also don't want
Speaker 3: the sky high interest rates, so I'm going to do
Speaker 3: what I need to do in the meantime to survive.
Speaker 3: But that's the exactly the kind of thing that that
Speaker 3: we're talking about, and it is foundationally, especially when it
Speaker 3: comes to buying home property. I sort of start with
Speaker 3: explaining how preventing black folks from owning land is the
Speaker 3: foundational part of all of this, and then I go off.
Speaker 3: I go in this series to explore four different areas
Speaker 3: where that's just gotten a little bit less attention than
Speaker 3: housing discrimination and redlining. One. This one's getting much more
Speaker 3: attention now thanks to some lawmakers. But one is student
Speaker 3: loan debt. Student loan debt is a massive contributor to
Speaker 3: the racial wealth gap because black parents like mine, teach us,
Speaker 3: got to go to school. You gotta go to college
Speaker 3: if you want to succeed, like you got to work
Speaker 3: hard and go to college. Well, college is very expensive.
Speaker 3: And then you know, I went to law school, I
Speaker 3: became a lawyer. I did the things that I thought
Speaker 3: I was supposed to do that landed me six figures
Speaker 3: in debt. And I remembered when I was graduating law
Speaker 3: school and I had my exit interview with a financial aid,
Speaker 3: talking to a friend of mine afterwards, saying, oh my god,
Speaker 3: did you have your exit interview and they just told
Speaker 3: you how much money you owe? Isn't that crazy? And
Speaker 3: my friends, who were largely white, almost all white, said
Speaker 3: what interview? Well, we don't have loans. Our parents paid
Speaker 3: for law school. And I thought, oh, so we graduated.
Speaker 3: I'm seeing them buying cars, buying houses, getting married, moving
Speaker 3: to the suburbs, and I'm still in my rental, you know,
Speaker 3: in Jamaica, plane Boston, barely making ends meet, trying to
Speaker 3: make those massive student loan payments the best that I could.
Speaker 3: And it's like, Oh, this is what the wealth gap means.
Speaker 3: It doesn't just mean what your parents pass on to you.
Speaker 3: It's what you have in this life as you're just
Speaker 3: trying to get by. And that was sort of what
Speaker 3: made me think of this. And I look at credit
Speaker 3: reporting the barriers in there access to business capital. Black
Speaker 3: people could be building, could be contributing so much more
Speaker 3: to the economy if you just let them start businesses
Speaker 3: and hire people and put that money back into the
Speaker 3: economy and also invest in investment and retirement. The racial
Speaker 3: wealth gap doesn't just harm black and brown people, harms everybody.
Speaker 3: It strips trillions of dollars from the gross national product
Speaker 3: over our lifetimes. It really is costing everyone money. And
Speaker 3: I'm hoping that if I put it that way, like
Speaker 3: it's called, you want to stop this from costing you
Speaker 3: money in your pocket, then do what you can to
Speaker 3: be a part of the solution here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so grateful that we have that you are
Speaker 2: doing this kind of work. It's so so important, and
Speaker 2: I hope that a lot of non black people read
Speaker 2: it and are moved by it and understand, because I
Speaker 2: bet all those friends of years from law school probably
Speaker 2: go through the world thinking I worked hard. I went
Speaker 2: to law school. You know, people are mad that they
Speaker 2: can't have a house, Well, they should have worked harder.
Speaker 2: But if you don't understand the privilege and that whole
Speaker 2: starting line being so so far setback for some people,
Speaker 2: how how can you who and you know, the majority
Speaker 2: is in power, right, so we need allyship and understanding
Speaker 2: from non black and brown people in positions of power.
Speaker 2: When they start to care, that's when the change happens.
Speaker 2: We saw what happened with George Floyd in the summer
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty when enough of the majority started to care,
Speaker 2: not just besides us, and it felt extraordinary. But how
Speaker 2: can we bring something like that to the same fever
Speaker 2: point in the financial sector. It's quiet discrimination, it's nefarious.
Speaker 2: It's like a toxic cancer, right, and we understand it,
Speaker 2: especially on brown ambition. We understand why it is that
Speaker 2: we're doing what we're doing. But it doesn't necessarily always
Speaker 2: make headlines. You know. There was that the more recent
Speaker 2: one about Wells Fargo with was it Wells Fargo that
Speaker 2: discriminated or gave so much more mortgage denials to black
Speaker 2: homeowners and any other bank? I think it was recent.
Speaker 2: I'll check the facts on that one, if it's Wells
Speaker 2: Fargo or not. I just feel like they're the worst
Speaker 2: in general, so probably it was them, But it's usually
Speaker 2: Wells Fargo, right, But the attention that article was getting,
Speaker 2: I'm like, yes, more of this more data to show
Speaker 2: how racism pops up for us, absolutely.
Speaker 3: And it's also important for us to show solutions. You know,
Speaker 3: these are things that we could be doing instead. These
Speaker 3: are other paths that people have taken that maybe can
Speaker 3: be adapted on a wider scale. These are things that people,
Speaker 3: individuals can do to empower themselves in this system. So
Speaker 3: we don't want it just to be, like I said,
Speaker 3: a regurgitation of the problem. We want this to be
Speaker 3: a playbooks and also start a conversation. Look, I don't
Speaker 3: have all the answers. Even with all the reporting that
Speaker 3: I did, all the people that I talked to about solutions,
Speaker 3: this is not exhaustive. So I hope once this comes
Speaker 3: out more people will say, hey, you know, we know
Speaker 3: that problem and this is a solution that we've tried,
Speaker 3: or this is a new program that we are taking on.
Speaker 3: So that we can continue this conversation and come up
Speaker 3: with more solutions. It is not a stagnant thing, and
Speaker 3: so that we can not only educate people about these barriers,
Speaker 3: but also empower them, including all stakeholders, everybody from the
Speaker 3: banks of America down to your individual self at your
Speaker 3: kitchen table, trying to make ends meet at the end
Speaker 3: of each month. What everybody can do, what is in
Speaker 3: everybody's power, was everybody's responsibility to making sure that that realization,
Speaker 3: that ideal in the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty, and
Speaker 3: the pursuit of happiness is real for everyone. That's such
Speaker 3: a wonderful place to end our conversation. I wish we
Speaker 3: had more time. I want everyone to not walk, but
Speaker 3: run to the show notes right now, because we're going
Speaker 3: to put a link to Kimberly's newsletter Unbound in there,
Speaker 3: and also a link to where you can find out
Speaker 3: more about the Emancipator, which will be launching this month
Speaker 3: in April. Congrats Kim on the Emancipator, on Unbound and
Speaker 3: all your success. Thank you so much for joining Brown Ambition.
Speaker 3: It's been such a wonderful conversation. I've loved having you on.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me on. I've loved
Speaker 3: talking to you.
Speaker 2: What an amazing throwback episode. I love these little trips
Speaker 2: down memory lane with my bestie Tiffany. Make sure be
Speaker 2: a fan that you check out Brown Ambition Podcast every Monday, Wednesday,
Speaker 2: and Friday until next time. Bye.