Speaker 1: Hey, hey, hey, I'm back. I'm blacker than ever because
Speaker 1: I was in Africa. I'm brown and this should and
Speaker 1: this should and this ambition. We're extra black in the
Speaker 1: studio today, Mandy.
Speaker 2: I know not only that blacker, but more. Tiffany girlsivity
Speaker 2: times too.
Speaker 3: Beautiful.
Speaker 2: We call you adult Chase since you just got back
Speaker 2: from Africa, and.
Speaker 1: By my African name. Yes I know. So I was like, so,
Speaker 1: because we're gonna throw Tiffany right into the cross here
Speaker 1: is because Tiffany Cross is her name. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: introduce her really quickly because we got to talk. I
Speaker 1: actually will so I think, Mandy, next time it's just
Speaker 1: me and you, I'll talk about the trip because we
Speaker 1: have no to talk about.
Speaker 3: Tell me a little bit about the trip if I may,
Speaker 3: but follow your ladies lead. I'm obsessed with all things African.
Speaker 3: I have an African name, so I'm I'm na tiffanyin.
Speaker 1: I went.
Speaker 3: I went to Ghana like a name. Okay, well I
Speaker 3: did African ancestry. I have my lineage straight, so I
Speaker 3: literally my matrilineal DNA connects all the way back to Ghana.
Speaker 3: And so I went to Gana and had a naming ceremony,
Speaker 3: and that's my name, and tell me yours again. Adulci
Speaker 3: adulte okay, so a Beena Adoche and Mandy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like the Peggy and I'll be Nandy Africa,
Speaker 2: although I am mostly Nigerians of Tiffany. I'm coming.
Speaker 1: Hustle. I said you could, all right, so we are
Speaker 1: welcoming to the show. Tiffany de Cross most recently hosted
Speaker 1: The Cross Connection on MSNBC Get Into It. She's the
Speaker 1: author of Saying Louder Black Voters White Narratives and Saving
Speaker 1: Our Democracy and previously served as a Resident Fellow at
Speaker 1: Harvard Kennedy Schools Institute of Politics. Her broad experience across media, politics,
Speaker 1: and policy include more than two decades of navigating newsrooms
Speaker 1: and campaigns while engaging different constituencies on the ground. She
Speaker 1: is a former DC Bureau Chief of b E T
Speaker 1: News Okay, and cut her teeth in media at CNN,
Speaker 1: where she worked as an associate producer covering.
Speaker 3: This is an old bio, this is it? Oh, you
Speaker 3: got all the important stuff, but this is I mean.
Speaker 3: I didn't mean. I'm sorry, I'm rude, girl.
Speaker 1: I know I felt that when who read my bio. Anyway,
Speaker 1: she's the girl when it comes to like all things media,
Speaker 1: politics and right, and so we welcome her to the podcast.
Speaker 3: Hey tippin it. Hey ladies, I'm so happy to be here,
Speaker 3: and can I just first face congratulations, see you ladies,
Speaker 3: because as I'm navigating the podcast world, it is really
Speaker 3: building brick by brick, and you guys have built quite
Speaker 3: an audience and a platform. And I'm always happy to
Speaker 3: be one most importantly happy to be in the company
Speaker 3: of my sisters. But y'all are my sisters in many ways,
Speaker 3: including in journalism. So thank you for posting me, having
Speaker 3: me on your amazing platform today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so excited to have you.
Speaker 1: So we have you in here. But like I said,
Speaker 1: so just really briefly, y'all. I came back from Africa.
Speaker 1: I went to four different countries. I want to shout
Speaker 1: out the amazing tour. I guess you could say group
Speaker 1: that I went with it's called Black Girls Travel Too.
Speaker 1: I encourage if you a sister who wants to travel
Speaker 1: the world and you're like ooh, a little nervous, and
Speaker 1: whether you have someone to go with or not, it
Speaker 1: was amazing. I think the woman whor name is Danielle,
Speaker 1: who started in Girl and Yell wasn't on the trip
Speaker 1: with us, but she had Renee, who's a friend of mine.
Speaker 1: That's how I found out about it, and a woman
Speaker 1: named Zama. They were our two guides, if you will
Speaker 1: of this this like. It was two weeks, almost two
Speaker 1: full weeks, and we landed in South Africa. We did
Speaker 1: Johannesburg in Cape Town. Then we flew to Zimbabwe. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: we flew to Zimbabwe and from Zimbabwe we went to
Speaker 1: Botswana for a safari on land at Safari by Water
Speaker 1: and then we had dinner in Zambia. So four countries,
Speaker 1: two weeks. Every every hotel was better than the rest.
Speaker 1: The last hotel was my favorite, was owned by a
Speaker 1: Zambian woman. Oh, I'm gonna it's called Bono m A
Speaker 1: m A b oh. I don't want to get it wrong,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna give her tenerary.
Speaker 2: I read it yesterday, cool copy and pastes. I'm going
Speaker 2: to do the same thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was so I like, when we go,
Speaker 1: I'll do Look, We'll do a whole episode talking through
Speaker 1: it because I think it's so important for to see
Speaker 1: the level of black women excellence. It was. I mean,
Speaker 1: y'all do not have traveled. It traveled and I have
Speaker 1: done group travel, I have done travel by myself, I
Speaker 1: have done family travel, and hands down, this was the smoothest,
Speaker 1: most organized. Like I shared the itinerary of Mandy. It's like, girl,
Speaker 1: there's nothing they didn't think of. Yeah, I mean down
Speaker 1: to sometimes the day like hey, on this day, you
Speaker 1: could wear bright colors. South Africa women tend to wear
Speaker 1: these type you know, like everything you could think of
Speaker 1: it was excellent.
Speaker 2: I mean on a What got me is they bring
Speaker 2: a photographer Tiffany to love it, so that you don't
Speaker 2: have to worry about all that and it's not in
Speaker 2: like they're there with you the whole trip.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So not the same one, but every country they
Speaker 1: would have And that's what I really love too, is
Speaker 1: that every country they really leaned into working with the
Speaker 1: people of that country. So your driving would be from
Speaker 1: like Zimbabwe when we were in Zimbabwe, and then when
Speaker 1: we were in South Africa, somebody else in Azama, who
Speaker 1: was amazing. This is a testament to just the magical
Speaker 1: proper is of black women, especially African women. Zama on
Speaker 1: our trip spoke like six languages and she was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: everybody speaks about four or five. I'm like, not me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean she would even across the globe.
Speaker 1: Five languages. She would switch between Zulu Tosa. It's like
Speaker 1: like that, you know, Yes, we were in the zam
Speaker 1: We're in the Zimbabwe. She was speaking a language there.
Speaker 1: I mean, just switching interchangeably in and out. Her angles
Speaker 1: was better than mine. It was excellent. And like I said,
Speaker 1: I'll share that hotel later. But have you ever read
Speaker 1: Born a Crime?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were saying the languages because he said, like
Speaker 3: that was such credo in his development, because he was
Speaker 3: able to go to school and make friends because he
Speaker 3: spoke all the different so languages, but the dialects and
Speaker 3: these languages that is communication. It's really like kind of
Speaker 3: like stupid ignorant that we don't that conservative sect of
Speaker 3: America that is like English only. You know, it's the
Speaker 3: same sect of people who are like, no, you know,
Speaker 3: we don't want any diversity or culture taught in schools.
Speaker 3: You know, we only want this fictionalized version of America
Speaker 3: taught in schools. And it's just baffling because it's like,
Speaker 3: why do you want your kids to be dumbered in mine.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not giving what you think it's giving.
Speaker 1: As the kids would say, right.
Speaker 2: The consortative argument is paper thin and it's so easily
Speaker 2: blown away by like the tinest, tiniest gust effect. It's
Speaker 2: just the fact that we're born from immigrants this country,
Speaker 2: like none of us is from here. We're but the
Speaker 2: English language itself is like a complete mil to be
Speaker 2: so much do the bare minimum, like lagnostic education. I
Speaker 2: know it's not about that, it's about yes, but yeah,
Speaker 2: but I.
Speaker 1: Just want to, like before like I wrap up this
Speaker 1: because I we'll do a whole trip discussion another time,
Speaker 1: but I really do want to shout out black girls
Speaker 1: travel to please follow them if you're T O or
Speaker 1: the T two oh as well to O o oh
Speaker 1: too oh as well, yeah that girl's travel too, and
Speaker 1: then also too. I really wanted to shout out Bino
Speaker 1: Manor Hotel, a m M M b A n O
Speaker 1: Mba and O Manor Hotel and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe,
Speaker 1: that's where they don't even have rooms. You get a
Speaker 1: and I'm using the word humbly cottage cottage like so
Speaker 1: you get your own home that you live in. That
Speaker 1: is like I mean a claw foot tub in the
Speaker 1: middle of the bathroom. It looks like straight out of
Speaker 1: a magazine. And they have been featured in so many magazines.
Speaker 1: And the fact that it's own and run by this
Speaker 1: woman from Zimbabwe, this black African woman from Zimbabwe. The
Speaker 1: experience like was, it just was top tier. And I
Speaker 1: just so I told her, I was like, girl, why
Speaker 1: are not the why the girl is not coming here?
Speaker 1: Victoria Falls, which is one of the Seven Wonders of
Speaker 1: the Natural World.
Speaker 2: I'm a book a trip before with this episode airs
Speaker 2: because I feel like no one does a testimonial like
Speaker 2: Tiffany what.
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm like, it was they only had
Speaker 1: a eighteen she had eighteen college cottages and we took
Speaker 1: up ten of them. And so it is it is.
Speaker 1: I just I never say anything like it. We were
Speaker 1: just like mouth open, like what And I just end
Speaker 1: with this. You know, the very people that tell you
Speaker 1: not to go to Africa because so Dangerous's who's filling
Speaker 1: up these beautiful places when you go to Africa, Hoppy,
Speaker 1: you said that. I thought you saying come here, but
Speaker 1: here you are with all the children and your Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so I just encourage, like, you know, to to
Speaker 1: when you're thinking about travel to include Africa. I have
Speaker 1: been all around the world and I have felt unsafe
Speaker 1: in some places and this was not one of them.
Speaker 1: This trip was not one of them. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just excellent. But like I said, we'll do
Speaker 1: a breakdown because we got a guest in the house.
Speaker 1: We have some mess to talk.
Speaker 3: Child really quickly, though, did you got me excited talking
Speaker 3: about Africa? I think it's so important what you say.
Speaker 3: But I think the other reason why it's important for
Speaker 3: us to travel to Africa because I hear people in
Speaker 3: the hosts on the ground they pictures in you know,
Speaker 3: Greece and Italy, and it's like they all know to
Speaker 3: role these countries played in the slave trade, what they
Speaker 3: did to black folks, and how they pill its Africa. Like,
Speaker 3: I'll be damn if I give my money there before
Speaker 3: I go to the continent and spend some money. But
Speaker 3: going to Africa reminds us that our stories do not
Speaker 3: begin when they say so. Our stories do not begin
Speaker 3: when we were kidnapped and raped and had the humanity
Speaker 3: beat out of us. In this country, we had a strong,
Speaker 3: rich tradition of spirituality, religion, fashion, upward mobility. Imagine what Africa,
Speaker 3: the continent would be had it never been pillaged by Europe,
Speaker 3: you know, and what we would be right exactly exactly
Speaker 3: Africa is continuously when you go over there, you see
Speaker 3: a heavy presence by the Russians, by the Chinese president.
Speaker 3: She is like all over Africa, and they are making friends.
Speaker 3: Beyond investing in the continent, They're making friends with their leaders.
Speaker 3: That's why when the whole Russian Ukraine conflict started getting
Speaker 3: more coverage, you saw some strange bedfellows. It was like, oh,
Speaker 3: the President's south there, evan food and we're kind of
Speaker 3: cozy there for a minute. And that's why. So the
Speaker 3: United States has not only step up their investment, but
Speaker 3: the United States citizens have to step up their intellectual
Speaker 3: curiosity and go go visit Africa. So I love that
Speaker 3: you went there, Tiffany. That's I'm excited that Myerian so like,
Speaker 3: hey went.
Speaker 1: In their background.
Speaker 3: I'm like, she go back, she stay.
Speaker 1: With that movie.
Speaker 2: Have you seen the Netflix with Regina King?
Speaker 3: I had seen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really.
Speaker 3: I was happy to see Regina King.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, yes, hey ba fan, We're gonna take
Speaker 1: a quick break and we'll be right back. So can
Speaker 1: we talk about the elephant and the room?
Speaker 3: Which one girl?
Speaker 2: Which one?
Speaker 3: Is a lot going on?
Speaker 2: Well, let's start with the worst of the worst.
Speaker 3: Which one?
Speaker 1: But I would say the worst of the worst, but
Speaker 1: the most jarring when I first saw it. So we've
Speaker 1: all heard, Well, let's let's even take a step back.
Speaker 1: I think that we were kind of all. If you
Speaker 1: grew up in hip hop culture, had all heard the
Speaker 1: whisperings that he wasn't the greatest of people, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's Wendy Williams or whatever, that you would just
Speaker 1: hear like that's all great things about Shawcombs. Certainly you
Speaker 1: would see none of his artists flourish beyond giving him,
Speaker 1: you know, their fame, fortune, money, time, energy, youth. You know,
Speaker 1: he always did well, And so you were like that
Speaker 1: seems odd as someone who was have all has all
Speaker 1: the success. How come no one else get success but you?
Speaker 1: And so when Cassie came out with her lawsuit, and
Speaker 1: then the following other lawsuits they came out, I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone I never heard. I didn't hear anyone gasp
Speaker 1: in surprise. Everyone's like, hmm, sounds about what I've heard
Speaker 1: and I didn't read the details. Certainly some of them
Speaker 1: were shared on on social but it just sated horrific.
Speaker 1: The parts that did get kind of like shared.
Speaker 2: I read that the one from his not from Cassie,
Speaker 2: but the one where it was like what was it
Speaker 2: his his assistant or there was some a woman or
Speaker 2: a man it was a man.
Speaker 1: Rob something yet he it was a producer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he came out with his allegations and you know,
Speaker 2: but Cassie so they settled that lawsuit, right, so she
Speaker 2: won she won that or ended in unsettlement of some kind.
Speaker 2: And at the time, I'll never forget, like you know,
Speaker 2: did he put on Instagram? He posted this statement like
Speaker 2: people are assassinating my character. I won't stand for this.
Speaker 2: And I feel like there wasn't I mean, I think
Speaker 2: you've heard about some of his like his brand partnerships
Speaker 2: had like you know, kind of folded as a result.
Speaker 2: But it didn't feel like he fully got the like
Speaker 2: the social reckoning, like the consumer reckoning that some of
Speaker 2: the some other people in media or entertainment have as
Speaker 2: a result. But this past week, what it started with
Speaker 2: the CNN video CNN got ahold of a video maybe
Speaker 2: you have some insight Tiffany into.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me say, first of all, this story New
Speaker 3: York Times is the original outlet that broke this story. Yes,
Speaker 3: and so you know, it was clear from the reporting
Speaker 3: of the New York Times that there had been some
Speaker 3: engagement between the singer, Cassie's legal team and the legal
Speaker 3: team of mister Colmbs. And this is me ascertaining based
Speaker 3: on what I read that Seawan Colmes was like, I'm
Speaker 3: not paying you anything. And then when the New York
Speaker 3: Times story broke, if you go back and read because
Speaker 3: this is the first time that we heard about this
Speaker 3: publicly in a public setting, if you go back and
Speaker 3: read that New York Times article, it is line for line,
Speaker 3: like a transcript of what you see in the video
Speaker 3: that CNN later obtained. Here's the thing that I'll about this.
Speaker 3: It did not take the video for me to believe
Speaker 3: what happened. I read the Times piece and it was
Speaker 3: clear I believe that this happened to this woman. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: a lot of the social commentary is consistent with what
Speaker 3: it is so many other times, with it's a money grab,
Speaker 3: or if it was all that, then why didn't she leave?
Speaker 3: Or you know, they're trying to attack Sean Colmbs. And
Speaker 3: then you have that, you know, motip man of s fear,
Speaker 3: ignorant ass you know, foolish sect of society of people
Speaker 3: saying all their conspiracy theories because he had sued Diagio
Speaker 3: as the parent company of his liquor brand, and so
Speaker 3: they're trying to take down this black man. The danger
Speaker 3: in that is we, as black women, are so often
Speaker 3: expected to hold not only our pain from these types
Speaker 3: of incidents, but hold the pain of our counterparts, hold
Speaker 3: the pain of our brethren. We ask young girls, you know,
Speaker 3: for generations, young girls, hold the secret of this adult
Speaker 3: man who touched to who violated you, because even we
Speaker 3: know how cruel and unforgiving the white man's criminal justice
Speaker 3: system is. And so immediately I admit, as black women
Speaker 3: are sometimes in a compromising situation. I don't support believe
Speaker 3: all women. I believe listen to all women. But because
Speaker 3: of the racial, the ugly racial history in this country,
Speaker 3: when it comes to white women making false allegations against
Speaker 3: black men, I certainly understand hesitancy. What I don't understand
Speaker 3: is this immediate move to completely discard this woman's testimony
Speaker 3: of what happened to her. So now that the video
Speaker 3: is out, there has been some shift in the public
Speaker 3: narrative of you know, people saying, oh, this is horrific.
Speaker 3: But the sad part is, why did you need that video?
Speaker 3: Why was her testimony not enough? Why was him paying
Speaker 3: her not enough? And I really can't put a lot
Speaker 3: of credibility in shan Colm's pseudo apology. I say apology
Speaker 3: and quotes because it was not exactly an apology. And
Speaker 3: how seriously can we take you in just one month
Speaker 3: ago you were calling her a liar. Here's the sad fact.
Speaker 3: One in four women will face some sort of domestic
Speaker 3: violence in their lives from a partner. And this is
Speaker 3: something It can be mental abuse, physical abuse, stalking, any
Speaker 3: kind of thing. And sometimes, you know, we it's normalized
Speaker 3: in society with couples like you know, Blue Space and
Speaker 3: Chris Sean and you know, even Whitney and Bobby. You know,
Speaker 3: we kind of look at this train wreck of a
Speaker 3: couple and laugh at it. And you know, it was
Speaker 3: like these cultural touchstones and in our feed and in
Speaker 3: our you know, conversation at brunch, and we have to
Speaker 3: stop normalizing these kind of toxic interactions because it starts
Speaker 3: out as verbal toxicity and eventually it will end up
Speaker 3: as physical toxicity. And so there's a divide happening in
Speaker 3: our community between black men and black women that I
Speaker 3: think we have to address. But the most important thing
Speaker 3: is the domestic violence component. It is heartbreaking, and Cassie
Speaker 3: is re traumatized every time we watch this video. I
Speaker 3: haven't posted it, I haven't shared it. I invite other
Speaker 3: people not to post it or share it either, but
Speaker 3: it's heartbreaking to see what happened, and I hope that
Speaker 3: she's doing well.
Speaker 2: I feel so deeply for Cassie, and I have but
Speaker 2: I you know, on the one hand, and I agree
Speaker 2: like with the video not sharing it or like continuing
Speaker 2: to proliferate it, which of course we know it's going
Speaker 2: to happen anyway. But for Cassie and for other women
Speaker 2: like Cassie, you know, it's hard enough when speaking your
Speaker 2: truth is instantly like. It's that risk and reward of
Speaker 2: speaking out as a victim that I feel like, especially
Speaker 2: public women who are public figures like Cassie. I see
Speaker 2: why she wait until the deadline, you know, for that
Speaker 2: lawsuit to go for it, and I just think it
Speaker 2: takes so much bravery for her to come forward and
Speaker 2: then to endure you know, the the you know, the
Speaker 2: statements that Diddie has put out it. I don't know obviously,
Speaker 2: I don't know her, but to see him do these
Speaker 2: like half ass you know, defense and apologies and to
Speaker 2: see him come out this week post video and try
Speaker 2: to play the born again man like I have been
Speaker 2: seeking help. Why did you say that before? I don't
Speaker 2: know why the apology didn't come out before, like you said, well,
Speaker 2: the facts were there though, but something about the video,
Speaker 2: It's like people don't want to read and you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, the facts have been there, as Tiffany
Speaker 2: C said, but like he waited and I mean it completely.
Speaker 2: Like when I saw it pop up on my feed,
Speaker 2: I was so jarred and so angry. I was like,
Speaker 2: how do I block this man from anything else? And
Speaker 2: you know, ever, and at the same time, it's like,
Speaker 2: what what are the next steps? Like what do you
Speaker 2: think Tiffany C. But I mean, like you said, this
Speaker 2: is not the first black man to be found. We
Speaker 2: have r Kelly, we have Chris Brown. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: probably you know, and even now Drake is being accused
Speaker 2: in all this, Like obsession over this, These.
Speaker 3: Distracts feel well, yeah, Kendrick. So Drake accused Kendrick of
Speaker 3: beating his wife, Can is accusing of Drake of pedophilia,
Speaker 3: and you know, and you mentioned Tiffany r. Kelly and
Speaker 3: Bill Cosby, and you know it's like, look, black women
Speaker 3: aren't the butt of your jokes, you know. And I
Speaker 3: think we are more than a punchline and a rat beef.
Speaker 3: And so I would challenge both Drake and Kendrick if
Speaker 3: you knew about this, you know, why is it came
Speaker 3: out in a rap beef? Not that you know. Kendrick
Speaker 3: is you know, supposed to police Drake, but it's like
Speaker 3: anybody who bore witness to this kind of violence. Because
Speaker 3: what struck me about this video is Diddy did it
Speaker 3: with such ease and barbarism that it was not the
Speaker 3: first time. You know, he did that with impunity, like
Speaker 3: he knew he would not get caught. So I this
Speaker 3: is my speculation. I don't have any reporting on this.
Speaker 3: That's just you know that he's done it again. But
Speaker 3: when you watch it, it was done with familiarity. And so
Speaker 3: it makes me question when we're you know, out bobbing
Speaker 3: our heads and having a good time, and everybody's writing
Speaker 3: thirty different think pieces on Drake and Kendrick that nobody
Speaker 3: made the point about, Well, wait a second, if y'all
Speaker 3: knew about women being mistreated, why didn't anybody say anything?
Speaker 3: Be it someone in your entourage, their entourage? What have
Speaker 3: you bore witness to? And what are we not hearing
Speaker 3: right now as we three ladies sit here and talk.
Speaker 3: Someone is not safe right now. And it could be
Speaker 3: someone who doesn't have agency over their own life, a
Speaker 3: child and a home. And if that's the case, and
Speaker 3: if you're listening, tell and tell and tell and tell
Speaker 3: and tell until somebody hears you and believes you and
Speaker 3: gets you safe, keep telling. It could be a grown
Speaker 3: adult woman who does have agency but has fear or
Speaker 3: over leaving. And so you know, to those people, we say,
Speaker 3: you are brave enough to stay, because if you're staying
Speaker 3: in an environment where you're getting hit, that's it's some bravery.
Speaker 3: So if you're brave enough to stay in that in
Speaker 3: dangerous environment, leaving is the easier part. Staying is the
Speaker 3: hard part. I can't imagine somebody putting their hands on
Speaker 3: me in such a violent way and a lot of
Speaker 3: us can easily saying, well, it had it been me,
Speaker 3: I would have Look, the truth is, more often than not,
Speaker 3: we're not going to be able to physically overpower a man,
Speaker 3: and we don't know what we would do in that situation.
Speaker 1: So everyone has a plan until they get punched in
Speaker 1: the face.
Speaker 3: That is really you know, yeah, I think no, I
Speaker 3: think that's very true. You know that. I think it's.
Speaker 1: Also to statistics show that when we do see women
Speaker 1: whose lives have been taken due to domestic violence, that
Speaker 1: oftentimes it's in the leaving that that happens. So you say,
Speaker 1: just leave, but the likelihood of your life being ended
Speaker 1: increases exponentially when you are leaving, and so it's not
Speaker 1: just like, oh, I'm just.
Speaker 3: Going to leave.
Speaker 1: Remember this is a man who this is? This is
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously this is alleged. But Kid Cutty, who
Speaker 1: was dating Cassie afterwards said this man blew up my car. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: he blew up his car.
Speaker 3: Reference in New York Times are Yes.
Speaker 1: He said, yes he blew up my car. Because I
Speaker 1: was dating Cassie when she left him. So this is
Speaker 1: not someone she's not thinking, oh will he harm people.
Speaker 1: He's showing her I can do whatever because this is
Speaker 1: a friend of mine to meet her. She has a
Speaker 1: podcast called Ratchet and Respectable, and she talked about obviously
Speaker 1: this is a legit as well. She talked about a
Speaker 1: friend of hers who worked for bad Boy at some
Speaker 1: point and told just a really violent story and how
Speaker 1: he had Cassie come into the room he was having
Speaker 1: like a meeting like with his executives or you know,
Speaker 1: have her cat her come into the room and punched
Speaker 1: her or hit her until she fell to the ground
Speaker 1: and when they got up, you know, the people in
Speaker 1: the room gasping like what to help her? He told
Speaker 1: everybody to sit down and cursed everyone out and said
Speaker 1: manja business, and she laid on the floor and cried
Speaker 1: while he continued the meeting. Where's a girl like that
Speaker 1: supposed to go?
Speaker 3: Yeah, she said, I do just want to say, Tiffany,
Speaker 3: there are reasoor I hear you.
Speaker 1: You know, but I'm just saying that because this is
Speaker 1: for the people who I'm not saying. I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that she shouldn't have. What I'm saying is
Speaker 1: people are saying as if like it's just so easy.
Speaker 1: It's like she's looking around to say, I feel alone.
Speaker 1: I'm in a world people, and nothing's happened. We saw
Speaker 1: what he tell She told her just go home, we'll
Speaker 1: take care of it, and he bought it. She's looking like,
Speaker 1: there's no place where I'm safe. The hotel won't protect me.
Speaker 1: His bodyguards are not going to protect me, His executives
Speaker 1: are not going to protect me. He's already proven to
Speaker 1: be so violent. Like, so I can understand her reasoning.
Speaker 1: Of course there are, but I can understand her reasoning
Speaker 1: of like, I don't know that there's a place safe
Speaker 1: for me to go. And I've heard from so many
Speaker 1: women who have been in situations like that that they
Speaker 1: didn't feel they didn't know that they had a safe
Speaker 1: place to go because he made it very clear that
Speaker 1: he would harm anyone in in that woman's life. So
Speaker 1: that's not the truth that there is no safe place.
Speaker 1: But I can understand the thinking because people think, like,
Speaker 1: why do you stay? Because it feels and you have
Speaker 1: empathy for this symphony as people.
Speaker 3: You know, I think what you're saying is very different
Speaker 3: from what a lot of the people online and say.
Speaker 3: You know, it's almost like blame and you're saying no,
Speaker 3: I empathize with that. I mean petrified. You are petrified,
Speaker 3: You're literally frozen. I this is, this is and is
Speaker 3: not a shameless plug. But I do want to say
Speaker 3: we have. When I saw this video, I was so
Speaker 3: moved and triggered by it, I disrupted our schedule on
Speaker 3: Across Generations. We have a special episode that comes out
Speaker 3: on domestic violence and I speak with across generations each week.
Speaker 3: It's an elder, a younger, and me. Yet it Tiffany
Speaker 3: cross across generations.
Speaker 1: I like that. Okay.
Speaker 3: So, so I have an elder, a seasoned woman in
Speaker 3: her sixties, and a younger woman who's in her twenties,
Speaker 3: and they're both survivors of domestic violence. And one of
Speaker 3: the women killed her husband served twelve years in prison.
Speaker 3: Another woman, her husband is an ex husband now is
Speaker 3: still in prison because he almost ended her life. And
Speaker 3: we hear the harrowing testimony. But what striking ladies is
Speaker 3: these women are decades apart. So the amount of resources
Speaker 3: that was available to one that was not available to
Speaker 3: the other. Uh, and yet both of their testimonies are
Speaker 3: very much the same. And it was I was bawling
Speaker 3: during this episode, like you just want to hold hold
Speaker 3: these women and hug them. So I distress to anybody
Speaker 3: if you're in that situation, please seek help, call somebody
Speaker 3: the Domestic Violence Hotline. I don't know what off the
Speaker 3: top of my head, but I got it right here
Speaker 3: for you.
Speaker 2: Go Okay, goog one eight hundred seven ninety nine seven
Speaker 2: two three three one eight hundred seven niney nine safe.
Speaker 2: You can also chat with them live. If you go
Speaker 2: to thethhotline dot org you can do a live chat.
Speaker 2: You can also text them at eight eight seven eight eight. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And we'll put that in the show notes for y'all.
Speaker 1: And so just so for those of you who didn't
Speaker 1: catch it, So Tiffany Tiffany C has a podcast called
Speaker 1: Cross Generation Across Generations or.
Speaker 3: Just cross Across Generations, Across Generations. She was across Generations.
Speaker 1: I got her most episode where she addressed this is horrific.
Speaker 2: We got to stop using black women as like one
Speaker 2: like to see him post Mother's Day was just passing
Speaker 2: away and to see him because that would pop up
Speaker 2: on my feet and I'm like, why the fuck am
Speaker 2: I still following him? But anyway, post about his ex
Speaker 2: Kim who passed away to I don't know, several years
Speaker 2: ago she died to post like a beautiful tribute to
Speaker 2: her as a mother, you know, and to post all all.
Speaker 3: The mothers, all the mothers, and it's just back to
Speaker 3: back to back.
Speaker 2: He did all the moms.
Speaker 3: It was his mom, and then it was first baby Mama,
Speaker 3: second baby baby Mama. The Irish twins were all the
Speaker 3: baby mamas who were pregnant at the same time it was.
Speaker 3: And you know, I really don't. I try to reserve
Speaker 3: my judgment on how people live their life, have at it, whatever,
Speaker 3: do you, But I do think there's something it's just
Speaker 3: tacky about the way that he conducted his affairs.
Speaker 2: It's disgusting, it is, and I hope that he is
Speaker 2: rightfully he gets his just desserts, and it has to be.
Speaker 2: We cannot ignore it just because he's a black man
Speaker 2: in power. That whole excuse has to die. It's disgusting
Speaker 2: that we should diminish our pain and diminish a suffering
Speaker 2: to protect someone who's not protecting us. It's absolutely outrageous.
Speaker 3: And women safe to stop doing that. Sometimes we contributed
Speaker 3: that misogyny as.
Speaker 2: Well and telling the women to start.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's a weird Stockholm syndrome where when I read
Speaker 3: or somebody post something about a woman done wrong, some
Speaker 3: of the loudest, harshest critics sometimes are other women instead
Speaker 3: of expressing empathy for the woman. So I hope that
Speaker 3: we can challenge ourselves to not have that outlook too.
Speaker 2: Should we take a little woosaw take a break.
Speaker 3: I only bring this up because I know you guys
Speaker 3: wanted to talk about this, and I did wuz, but
Speaker 3: I'm also kind of pissed off like you guys about
Speaker 3: something else too, And Tiffany brought it up.
Speaker 1: We're gonna, We're gonna, We're gonna bring but we're like
Speaker 1: I do. We had to. There's just no way we
Speaker 1: could have had this episode or now.
Speaker 2: This is just a small example of why I got
Speaker 2: out of Daily News, and I commend you, Tiffany for
Speaker 2: still staying in that field. It is trying. We gotta
Speaker 2: talk about how you do self care. We did a
Speaker 2: kick creaky break though, won't be right back, Dan Fan
Speaker 2: with more with our incredible guest Tiffany Cross.
Speaker 1: And we want to talk about being bad built. That's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite insults. You bad built bitch, so.
Speaker 3: Like a thing. Yeah, is that. Yes, it was Leach
Speaker 3: bad butch body it was beautiful alliteration by Congressman jas
Speaker 3: and Crockett. So okay, the I believe it was. The
Speaker 3: Oversight Committee was reading in the House of Representative is
Speaker 3: in Congress, and the House is the lower chamber under
Speaker 3: the Senate, and the committee hearing was all about Merrick Garland,
Speaker 3: the Attorney General of the United States. And so Marjorie
Speaker 3: Taylor Green Trump maga right wing extremists, zealots and a halfway,
Speaker 3: if I may. She is constantly being disruptive in this
Speaker 3: committee hearing and really in life like she is, you know,
Speaker 3: disruptive and desperately seeking attention. And she asked a question,
Speaker 3: does anybody on this committee employee some judge's son and
Speaker 3: Congressoman Jazz and Crockett, congressman from Texas UH said what
Speaker 3: does that have to do with anything? And Marjorie Taylor
Speaker 3: Green responded with some nonsense, and she said, maybe your
Speaker 3: fake eyelashes are getting in the way. And you know,
Speaker 3: for all the non melanated people who might be tuning
Speaker 3: in and you hear somebody say, oh, you picked the
Speaker 3: right one today. When someone says that you have indeed
Speaker 3: picked the wrong one, and Marjorie Taylor Green that day
Speaker 3: had indeed picked the wrong one, and so they were
Speaker 3: trying to admonish her. Congressman Alexandria Ocascio Cortes AOC was
Speaker 3: trying to get her words uh stricken, and they wanted
Speaker 3: her to apologize, and Marjorie Taylor Green said she's not apologizing,
Speaker 3: and so they were asking the committee chair.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: Congressman Jazmon Crockett so beautifully asked the committee chair, So,
Speaker 3: mister chairman, if I start talking about someone's uh beach
Speaker 3: bleached but badly built butch body, is that talking about
Speaker 3: someone's personality? And the chair.
Speaker 2: Yes, I googled it to make sure we get it right.
Speaker 2: Bleach blonde, bad built, butch body. Man is some guy.
Speaker 1: Who created cocktail.
Speaker 2: I mean, but the pale blonde, I mean, come on, it's.
Speaker 3: Too perfect accuracy in her description as well. If you
Speaker 3: don't know Marjorie Taylor Green, congratulations, but if you're still
Speaker 3: inclined if you google her, I mean it really not
Speaker 3: only was the alliteration beautifully and well timed, but the
Speaker 3: descriptor was I would say pretty accurate. But here's look,
Speaker 3: I applaud Congress from a Jasmin Crockett. I think there
Speaker 3: is something to be said. You know, we all remember
Speaker 3: Forever flowtus Michelle Obama saying when they go low, we
Speaker 3: go high. But there is something to saying I will
Speaker 3: meet you where you are. If you come at me
Speaker 3: with this energy, I will meet you exactly there. And
Speaker 3: I think sometimes to get into the political spectrum, Democrats
Speaker 3: do have a habit of being very highbrow and we're
Speaker 3: above it. And that political playbook was ripped up in
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, and so for me, some people they think
Speaker 3: there's some reward in abiding by this structure that you know,
Speaker 3: mostly white men build and create and many white women
Speaker 3: help uphold. And I think there is something, and you
Speaker 3: have to be ready to face the consequences. Some people
Speaker 3: want to mumble and walk away, like you know, you know,
Speaker 3: forget them. Let's have the discussion right here, right now,
Speaker 3: and maybe next time you'll think twice. Because they only
Speaker 3: act a full like that when they are not outnumbered,
Speaker 3: when they're the majority. That's why you don't see MAGA
Speaker 3: rallies on campus as the HBCUs. You did not see
Speaker 3: January sixth march through southeast DC because because the pre
Speaker 3: gentrified neighborhood was going to have a response for all
Speaker 3: those Trump supporters and Martie Taylor Green should Donald Trump
Speaker 3: be re elected. I mean, she stands positioned. She could
Speaker 3: be a committee chair, she could be Speaker of the House.
Speaker 3: She could have outsized power when it comes to our
Speaker 3: foreign policy domestic policy. Jasmine Crockett is an educated woman.
Speaker 3: She's an attorney. She was a very instrumental figure in
Speaker 3: the Texas State Legislature. She replaced a Congressman, Eddie Bernice
Speaker 3: Johnson in Congress. She's an active member of the Congressional
Speaker 3: Black Caucus. She's a talented woman, and she has to
Speaker 3: square off with this ignorant, batshit crazy banjo picking cousin Dayton,
Speaker 3: half witted idiot from the Red Hills of Georgia who
Speaker 3: stumbled her way into Congress by dat writing Donald Trump being.
Speaker 2: From Georgia, I don't claim her.
Speaker 3: I'm from the AA, I am from Are you from Mandy?
Speaker 2: I'm from all over Atlanta? But yeah, I'm County.
Speaker 3: Okay, and I grew up in Cobb County. Oh nice,
Speaker 3: I went to high school.
Speaker 2: All right, so we can come. I mean, it's fine,
Speaker 2: but we must I agree like and if if you
Speaker 2: have ever had an argument where you didn't think of
Speaker 2: the right thing to say in that moment, like she
Speaker 2: and she must that's a smart woman right there, But
Speaker 2: like to pull that out, I'm like, forget the consequences.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure there's lots of thought pieces on whether
Speaker 2: or not we should be lobbing insults based on physical appearance.
Speaker 2: But like the fact that she said what she wanted
Speaker 2: to say in the moment when she needed to say it.
Speaker 2: I just feel like she slept so good that night.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, shout out to Congressman Jazz and cracking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and hey, everyone knows her name now. I feel like, right, that's.
Speaker 3: Not her first moment. She's had several moments on the
Speaker 3: Hill where she has been ready, whether she's questioning a
Speaker 3: witness who has come to testify before Congress, or back
Speaker 3: and forth with her Republican counterparts. She is consistently ready.
Speaker 3: So this one happened to go more viral, but she's
Speaker 3: had a few viral moments, So I hope to see
Speaker 3: her in the sentence. It'd be hard because Texas, you know,
Speaker 3: has very we keep saying that is the purple state.
Speaker 3: We have yet to see it, but it could be
Speaker 3: a battle ground if folks down there did the right thing.
Speaker 2: Imagine Texas selecting that would be that would be wild Georgia.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's a lot more purple than Texas.
Speaker 3: Well, george is officially purple. Now Georgia is officially a
Speaker 3: battleground Texas, they keep saying, because it's one of the
Speaker 3: first that will be a majority minority state. And so
Speaker 3: the Latino population is the largest ethnic group in Texas,
Speaker 3: and it's a huge black population there as well. So collectively,
Speaker 3: I think those demographics are gonna flip. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't think they flipped already, but before the next
Speaker 3: census they'll they'll flip. But every time, like Bett wal
Speaker 3: Work ran for Senate there, I mean, there have been
Speaker 3: people trying to disrupt the political infrastructure of Texas and
Speaker 3: it's been a challenge. So I hope they do. Georgia
Speaker 3: did it, and so I think, you know, everybody says
Speaker 3: the South, you.
Speaker 2: Know, is pred I'm waiting for the governor, Like that's
Speaker 2: what I'm like, Stacy no oh in Georgia.
Speaker 3: Well no, but Georgia flipped down ballot. But Georgia flipped.
Speaker 3: They they flipped the whole state. They won the presidential
Speaker 3: they won the Senate, they won some of the ballot initiatives.
Speaker 3: But yes, but that's something to talk about, honestly, Mandy,
Speaker 3: because Brian Kemp an expert in voter suppression, Republican governor.
Speaker 3: He ran on anti choice rhetoric in twenty sixteen, so
Speaker 3: you know, the abortion fight came later, but a lot
Speaker 3: of that shitty policy bubbles up from the state legislature
Speaker 3: and he was one of the first people to do it.
Speaker 3: In twenty sixteen, white women outpaced white men in voting
Speaker 3: for him, So we'll see what happens when he's up
Speaker 3: for reelection. But there was something about that split ticket
Speaker 3: where people were voting for Senators Ossif and Warnock but
Speaker 3: not Stacy Abrams.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I don't know what doesn't for me. I
Speaker 2: struggle with it.
Speaker 3: I do them.
Speaker 2: I don't want to. Yeah, I do want to, like
Speaker 2: an you know, Stacy Abrams, she was like criticized for
Speaker 2: the black men not liking her enough and like really
Speaker 2: struggling with the blackmail audience, which is, I feel like
Speaker 2: the opposite of our conversation about Diddy earlier. We protect them,
Speaker 2: but they don't have our backs, so okay, yeah, but
Speaker 2: it's just it's I don't want to focus on the
Speaker 2: negative so much, but when it comes to Georgia, I'm
Speaker 2: just like, come on it because for me, state politics,
Speaker 2: I just wish it was so much more important to
Speaker 2: people and the local state, county level like all those
Speaker 2: it all bubbles up, you know. Can I ask you
Speaker 2: a bit about your career though? Because I went to
Speaker 2: the where'd you go to school? I went to Uga
Speaker 2: oh Clark, Okay, cause I studied journalism at at the
Speaker 2: Journalism College. We're not trying to call it grady anymore
Speaker 2: because racist slave owner. But if you throw a rock
Speaker 2: in Athens, Georgia, you're gonna pay a name of someone
Speaker 2: who was a slave owner. But anyway, I want to
Speaker 2: hear about, you know, your career and how do you
Speaker 2: come to you know, be this incredible like speaker and
Speaker 2: have your own podcast and be your own media brand
Speaker 2: unto itself and how does it well? I asked so
Speaker 2: many questions at once, but my second question is like
Speaker 2: self care because it's tough. I did start in traditional journalism.
Speaker 2: I you know, my niche was business and finance and
Speaker 2: I you know, there's a lot of crossover into politics,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't in it. In it, in it you
Speaker 2: have been through so many you know, huge like flash
Speaker 2: points in our history and having to cover that, like
Speaker 2: how how do you manage that? How do you take
Speaker 2: care of yourself so that doesn't start quickly?
Speaker 3: And the talk about my career briefly, I have always
Speaker 3: wanted to work in journalism. I always tell people I
Speaker 3: wanted to be the Brown Murphy Brown. I say that
Speaker 3: and some people look at me and say, who Mrvey Brown?
Speaker 3: So I'm aging myself. Yes, I'm that age now where
Speaker 3: people ask, But anyway, I yeah, that was my goal
Speaker 3: in life because if you can't see yourself, you don't
Speaker 3: even know what to aspire to be. And there was
Speaker 3: nobody who looked like me doing news as I wanted
Speaker 3: to do it, except for Murphy Brown. I was, you know,
Speaker 3: young during the dawn of OPRAH, but she was more
Speaker 3: talk show and not news at the point that she
Speaker 3: came on the national scene. So my entire life was
Speaker 3: geared towards that. I knew this is what I wanted
Speaker 3: to do. And even before I knew the nation's capital
Speaker 3: was a thing I envisioned I would live there at
Speaker 3: some point, and so I got a job in radio.
Speaker 3: First that you'll appreciate this, Mandy being from Atlanta V
Speaker 3: one O three doing the morning news. Yes, I did
Speaker 3: the morning news, honey, I'm sure learning show. Yes, well,
Speaker 3: shout out to Frankskie. He lost his son recently, so
Speaker 3: I wanted to send thoughts and prayers to him. But yeah,
Speaker 3: the franks Ski Morning Show. And listen, when I started
Speaker 3: doing news, you couldn't have told me I wasn't Barbara
Speaker 3: Walters because I was treating those low news cut in
Speaker 3: like it was the biggest thing.
Speaker 2: And you're I was super family, thought you were famous.
Speaker 2: I bet.
Speaker 3: I was praying to the Lord, like, thank you, Lord,
Speaker 3: if you won't do nothing else for me, I'm working
Speaker 3: at you we know three. I'm about to be able
Speaker 3: to go into Banana Republic and make it rain. I
Speaker 3: might even give me a little Honda sivingubling on mene me.
Speaker 3: That was mine, that was my ambition, and thank God
Speaker 3: the Lord had a bigger vision on my life than
Speaker 3: I did. Not that there's anything wrong with doing that,
Speaker 3: but that you know, I look back and it's like
Speaker 3: my my dreams, my future put my dreams to shame,
Speaker 3: you know where where I would later go, because I
Speaker 3: thought that was my peak. And so after that job,
Speaker 3: I landed at CNN. I was at the TSU Classic
Speaker 3: and I met somebody who was a hiring manager at CNN.
Speaker 3: He was an executive and this was before the internet
Speaker 3: and everybody had smartphones, and I used to carry around
Speaker 3: hard copies of my resume and I gave him a
Speaker 3: copy of my resume and just said, I just give
Speaker 3: me a chance. And he said, all I can do
Speaker 3: is get you an interview. That's all I need. And
Speaker 3: so I eventually started working at CNN. They relocated me
Speaker 3: to Washington, d C. To cover Capitol Hills. I did
Speaker 3: all the weekend shows, and I bounced around from different
Speaker 3: newsrooms and Mandy, you'll be able to appreciate this. I
Speaker 3: never felt welcome in any of them. I always felt
Speaker 3: like an interloper. I always felt like an outsider, and certainly,
Speaker 3: as a young person entering the business, I made mistakes,
Speaker 3: but so the fuck did everybody else, you know. But
Speaker 3: as a black woman, I had no godfather. I had
Speaker 3: nobody there to, you know, protect me from myself or
Speaker 3: protect me from other people. It seemed like this effort
Speaker 3: to get rid of me, you know, and make me
Speaker 3: feel as unwelcome as possible. I remember Bob Novak, he
Speaker 3: was a famed, infamous Chicago sometimes columnist, right wing conservative,
Speaker 3: and I remember him saying to me one day, do
Speaker 3: you have asked me who was which administration invented Social Security?
Speaker 3: And I did not know the answer, and I was,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of shamed in front of my colleagues,
Speaker 3: and I apologize for this Iron's guy. Every They're coming
Speaker 3: to get me because they hear me about this season. True,
Speaker 3: now I lived downtowns, they're always Syrons. But anyway, I
Speaker 3: didn't know. I felt shamed, and I just something in me,
Speaker 3: the inner voice in us that we need to listen
Speaker 3: to all the time. I thought if I asked him
Speaker 3: juxtaposed for me, the difference in the economic beliefs of W. E. B.
Speaker 3: Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, he would not be
Speaker 3: able to answer that question. And yet these were two
Speaker 3: people from the same time period, same you know, outlook,
Speaker 3: And somehow the history that he knew seemed more important
Speaker 3: to him and everyone else, and the history that where
Speaker 3: I was better versed was not as important. And I
Speaker 3: had to decide for myself that their perspective didn't matter.
Speaker 3: I they would talk about Friends, you know, everybody would
Speaker 3: come in the office and talk about the episode of
Speaker 3: Friends they came on last night, how much they loved it.
Speaker 3: And I watched Friends, but I also watched Martin, I
Speaker 3: watched The Different World.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: They would talk about movies. They would talk about there's
Speaker 3: something about Mary and drop these classic lines from those movies. Well,
Speaker 3: I watched something about Mary, but I also watched Coming
Speaker 3: to America and Boomerang, and it's like I dropped those
Speaker 3: classic lines right back at them, because, guess what, my
Speaker 3: lived experience count just as much as yours. But these
Speaker 3: are the things that can happen in the private sector,
Speaker 3: in corporate America, in the public sector, where you feel
Speaker 3: so isolated, you feel like the only and I was
Speaker 3: the only and there wasn't anybody around who could identify
Speaker 3: with me culturally or even professionally. What they thought was news,
Speaker 3: I did not think was news. And so after navigating
Speaker 3: different newsrooms, I was going in and out of news,
Speaker 3: and I got enough and I started my own business.
Speaker 3: I raised seven figures in seed funding, and this was
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen. Seventeen eighteen nineteen, I had a platform called
Speaker 3: The Beat DC and it was this is when all
Speaker 3: the newsletters were launching, and there was nothing that identify
Speaker 3: five black people, brown people, api people with you know
Speaker 3: people in politics. It was all very white centered. And
Speaker 3: I was just so tired of that because even in
Speaker 3: news and they would tell me what's appropriate. Again, Mandy,
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm preca acquired here, but what's considered
Speaker 3: unbiased and appropriate is often rooted in what's white and male.
Speaker 3: Everywhere I was these these ideas and ideologies were just,
Speaker 3: you know, a white structure, and it was exhausting, and
Speaker 3: so I wanted to build something that highlighted the rising
Speaker 3: majority of this country, the people of color in this country.
Speaker 3: And that is when I made the transition from the
Speaker 3: control room to the green room and I started appearing
Speaker 3: on camera. Even though I had worked in news and
Speaker 3: in cable news for like twenty years, at that point,
Speaker 3: I was just starting to be on camera. And so
Speaker 3: when I started doing on camera commentary, my sister, my
Speaker 3: dear friend, Joy Reid was transitioning from her show on
Speaker 3: the weekends Am Joy on MSNBC, and she was moving
Speaker 3: to primetime. First black woman to host primetime show and
Speaker 3: cable news Yes, and they reached out to me to
Speaker 3: audition to be her replacement, and eventually I got that show.
Speaker 3: We were extremely successful. We were averaging four point six
Speaker 3: million viewers a month, and everything on my show centered
Speaker 3: us in the rising majority. I stayed mission driven. When
Speaker 3: I was very young. My mission was always to live
Speaker 3: in service to black folks, and so no matter what
Speaker 3: I was doing or where I was doing it, I
Speaker 3: was true to that mission and that didn't change here.
Speaker 3: I wanted to fight for the equality and liberation of
Speaker 3: black folks and all people of color, which benefits everyone
Speaker 3: white folks too, And so on my show, every expert,
Speaker 3: every person you heard from was black, Asian, American, Pacific Islander, Latino,
Speaker 3: or Indigenous. How often do you see indigenous people on
Speaker 3: television talking about these issues that were not necessarily related
Speaker 3: to anything indigenous. So we would talk about issues relevant
Speaker 3: to the community, but we'd also talk about Ukraine. We'd
Speaker 3: also talk about our foreign policy, the rise of the
Speaker 3: Global South, all these things that we'd have discussion on
Speaker 3: with experts who just happened to look like you. When
Speaker 3: we had white people on, they were going to be
Speaker 3: talking about issues relevant to the community. When we talked
Speaker 3: about white women voting against their own interests, I don't
Speaker 3: need to hear from a bunch of black folks about that.
Speaker 3: Bring me some white women on this set. Give me
Speaker 3: four white women, and let's talk about why they vote
Speaker 3: on their interests. When we talk about welfare, give me
Speaker 3: the phase of welfare, because proportionately it is not black women.
Speaker 3: That was a Ronald Reagan trope, but it is not.
Speaker 3: The face of welfare was a college educated white woman.
Speaker 3: So give me a college educated white woman on this set.
Speaker 3: And so in doing that, I made enemies. I disrupted
Speaker 3: a structure, and I committed the cardinal sin of making
Speaker 3: white folks uncomfortable. And so Fox News took notice. All
Speaker 3: the right wing took notice. I was getting threats, I
Speaker 3: was getting hate mail, hate speech, all of it. The
Speaker 3: network set nothing. They unceremoniously canceled my show four days
Speaker 3: before midterms. We had exclusive interview booked with Stacy Abrams.
Speaker 3: It was awful. I mean, the ground dropped from anner me.
Speaker 3: And so after that, I, you know, all these people
Speaker 3: who I didn't realize what the show meant to people
Speaker 3: because I was in it. I was doing the work
Speaker 3: every week, and so it was such an outcry. And
Speaker 3: one of the first emails I got was from Will
Speaker 3: Packer who said Will Packer Media would love to be
Speaker 3: in business with Tiffany Cross.
Speaker 2: Oh and yeah, I remember the outcry. You know, I
Speaker 2: was you didn't mention, but I know NABJ must be
Speaker 2: a part of your journey, is it.
Speaker 3: No, they are a part of my journey. They were
Speaker 3: not a part of the chorus of people expressing outreachings. Unfunnyly,
Speaker 3: I have some issues with an ABJ, but I will
Speaker 3: give NAP a shout out because that's where I learned
Speaker 3: to cut a package, the NABJ Urban Journalism Workshop when
Speaker 3: I was just fifteen years old. I mean, they do
Speaker 3: amazing work. I think it gets complicated at the national
Speaker 3: level because they take money from NBC Universal and all
Speaker 3: the networks, and so when these networks do something shitty
Speaker 3: there often and like a lot of the civil rights organizations,
Speaker 3: quite frankly, same thing, and so there really is no accountability.
Speaker 3: And so at this point, I think NABJ is an
Speaker 3: amazing organization for younger people, for students. It's great resource.
Speaker 3: I think when you get to my level. I am
Speaker 3: starting to question, what the fuck are you guys there
Speaker 3: for if you're not going to ally for people, if
Speaker 3: you're taking money from Disney, and an ESPN or ABC
Speaker 3: reporter is saying, hey, I'm having this issue. If you're gonna,
Speaker 3: you know, favor profit and money, which you know it
Speaker 3: takes that kind of money the organization run, then I
Speaker 3: just have some questions about that with NABJ. So, unfortunately
Speaker 3: I am not affiliated with NABJ anymore. I don't anticipate
Speaker 3: that changing in the future, but I do encourage young
Speaker 3: people to definitely the conferences at all of it's it's
Speaker 3: it's crucially important. But yes, the outcome.
Speaker 2: I brought it up only because you did.
Speaker 3: I'm happy you did.
Speaker 2: Nobody because black media elites. I feel like we're really
Speaker 2: like spreading the word about what happened to you with
Speaker 2: MSNBC and that outpouring of love. And I always wondered, like, okay,
Speaker 2: so what's next, like where you know who? And I'm
Speaker 2: so happy to hear that you got that email and
Speaker 2: so is that how long has it been? That was
Speaker 2: twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: That was twenty twenty two when it happened, and then
Speaker 3: afterwards I went to Ghana. Like Tiffany, I found solace
Speaker 3: in the continent and it was just an amazing time.
Speaker 3: I went with my friend Sunny Houston, who's the co
Speaker 3: host at the View, my sister Angela Rye, my sister
Speaker 3: Licia Garz is the founder of Black Lives Matter, a
Speaker 3: collection of our our girl group uh When, and we
Speaker 3: just had an amazing time and got centered, and I
Speaker 3: came back and I got to work. I had show treatments.
Speaker 3: Angela also wanted to do a podcast together, so she
Speaker 3: and I and our brother Andrew Gillam launched one where
Speaker 3: we can talk about politics. But I honestly needed a break,
Speaker 3: you guys, Like, I was so tired upholding the white
Speaker 3: man's democracy and talking about this and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: i all want to turn this bitch over to Trump,
Speaker 3: and I'm fucking tired of trying to talk you out
Speaker 3: of it. You know. I needed a place. I needed
Speaker 3: an outlet and across generations. Was really that. I'm so
Speaker 3: grateful to Will Black Women's Center, Will Success. He and
Speaker 3: I had known each other for some years, so he
Speaker 3: was familiar with my work, my show, me as a person,
Speaker 3: and we work really really well together. And it makes
Speaker 3: such a difference to work with someone where you don't
Speaker 3: have to defend and define your humanity every five seconds.
Speaker 3: Because on my show, I mean imagine the things I
Speaker 3: was talking about every week, there was a fight every
Speaker 3: week with the executives and it's like, no, do this
Speaker 3: Trump segment or do cover some bullshit minutia that happened
Speaker 3: on Capitol Hill. And we were the highest rated show
Speaker 3: on the weekend, So it was really weird. I'm like,
Speaker 3: go talk to some of these other shows that are
Speaker 3: doing fucked up ass ratings, like why are you staying
Speaker 3: in my show? And we far outperform everybody else, even
Speaker 3: Morning Joe. We're getting more ratings than your favorite ass
Speaker 3: white boy and you still fucking with my show. It
Speaker 3: was frustrating, and as a black person in that space,
Speaker 3: you can start to think, am.
Speaker 1: I fucking crazy?
Speaker 3: Like I don't understand what is happening. So I'm happy
Speaker 3: to be in partnership with Will and his incredible team.
Speaker 3: We work very well together, and so the show that
Speaker 3: I wanted to do, I like you all. I imagine.
Speaker 3: I used to sit at the table with my grandmother
Speaker 3: when I was real little, just a baby, and we
Speaker 3: used to sit in the kitchen table in the morning.
Speaker 3: She would be having her coffee and making you know,
Speaker 3: fishing grits and all that pimpshit and we would sit
Speaker 3: there and she I was so curious about her. I
Speaker 3: was being her soux chef, but I was curious, and
Speaker 3: I'd ask her questions and we'd have conversations about life
Speaker 3: and love and joy and grief and pain and happiness
Speaker 3: and how to harness some of these positives and how
Speaker 3: to navigate some of these negatives. And while I was
Speaker 3: being her sooux chef, she was teaching me about life.
Speaker 3: And she would let me get through three or four
Speaker 3: questions before she would just lose it on my ass.
Speaker 3: I was like, like, Grandma, why did you move to Chicago?
Speaker 3: How old was Uncle Charles when this happened? How'd you
Speaker 3: hit that car? And finally she'd say, okay, child, enough
Speaker 3: come of these onions, or you know, let me show
Speaker 3: you this maca cheese goose was like where you put
Speaker 3: in the oven? So but I miss her so much,
Speaker 3: and I lost her in twenty fourteen. And so when
Speaker 3: I look at the younger landscape of women, I think
Speaker 3: y'all got to need some gladys read in your life
Speaker 3: that was my grandmother, and young women reach out to
Speaker 3: me like I need a mentor and can we talk?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, you a full grown ass when you're
Speaker 3: twenty eight, Like I'm still trying to get my shit together.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but you know, when you talk to
Speaker 3: somebody twenty eight, it's like, yes, ma'am, I am almost
Speaker 3: pleasure age, and yes I do have wisdom because in
Speaker 3: my mind I'm twenty eight. But then when I'm confronted
Speaker 3: with somebody's They're like, novis you are not twenty eight
Speaker 3: when you are as middle aged woman. And so I
Speaker 3: wanted to I was like, how can I satisfy my
Speaker 3: own desire for nourishment from the oracle and stage that
Speaker 3: is black women while also sharing wisdom with younger women.
Speaker 3: And so just the magic that happens, you guys, when
Speaker 3: we come together, the three of us here right now,
Speaker 3: three black women. If you by even one person, even
Speaker 3: one person who don't look like us, our entire dynamic changes.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Mandy and Tiffany, I don't know y'all, but I know y'all.
Speaker 3: Y'all don't know me, but you know me immediately. I
Speaker 3: know who you are. Y'all know who I am. You know,
Speaker 3: and there's something there is no other group where that exists.
Speaker 3: I think it's something magical about black people. But Black
Speaker 3: womanhood is amazing. And so I'm sitting across from people
Speaker 3: who I don't know on set and we get so
Speaker 3: deep into our lives where we shed tears, we laugh hysterically,
Speaker 3: we finish each other's sentences. It's not Tiffany the journalist
Speaker 3: interviewing them. It is Tiffany the person engaging in deep, intimate,
Speaker 3: emotional conversation about life, love, grief, loss, loss of a child,
Speaker 3: loss of a husband, about sex, even even lighthearted topics.
Speaker 3: Somebody in their twenties has a very different attitude from
Speaker 3: somebody in there. Listen. So on that episode, we have
Speaker 3: an eighty five year old woman on that yeah, across
Speaker 3: from a twenty something, And let me tell you, the
Speaker 3: eighty five year old had the most exciting life of
Speaker 3: all of us. She taught me a new curse word,
Speaker 3: I'd be missus Teeny was her name, and Miss Teeny,
Speaker 3: miss Teenie is. We have celebrities on the show, but
Speaker 3: it's not celebrity driven, like miss Teenie is that old
Speaker 3: woman and the boogie down, you know, take care of
Speaker 3: people's kids. Community, right, the community. Honey. Miss Teenie was like,
Speaker 3: let me tell you about these men.
Speaker 2: I'll be right back.
Speaker 3: What that's just saying? These are the conversations I just
Speaker 3: had a conversation with sex workers. I mean, do you
Speaker 3: think about I think about that a lot. If you
Speaker 3: were doing sex work in your twenties, what is life
Speaker 3: like for you in your fifties or sixties or seventies,
Speaker 3: and so especially now because the way sex work has changed.
Speaker 3: And so you have someone we had Cinnamon Life who's
Speaker 3: in her fifties and she did it all, like from
Speaker 3: the corner to porn, to camming to all the things.
Speaker 3: Where then you had somebody younger, we have this woman
Speaker 3: is being nasty who was the only fan superstar and
Speaker 3: she's making like forty to fifty grand a month and
Speaker 3: nobody touches her. And so these two women across generations
Speaker 3: where the money looks different. And they told me some
Speaker 3: wild shit about racism and porn industry, crazy things. So
Speaker 3: we have a conversation about church. Y'all know, old people
Speaker 3: like you better go to turk and pray, and young
Speaker 3: people like we ain't messing with church said much like that.
Speaker 3: And so we have these two women, and the older
Speaker 3: woman happened to be the atheist, and we have v
Speaker 3: simone On who was deep in her walk in faith.
Speaker 3: So we I'm telling whatever y'all talk about, we talking
Speaker 3: about it. Whatever you talk about around with your grandmama,
Speaker 3: your mama's we talk about it. We talked about having
Speaker 3: complicated relationships with our mom and mama trauma. That was
Speaker 3: probably the most emotional episode. I got like three words in.
Speaker 3: I was like, guys, I talk about my mom all
Speaker 3: the time. It's fine. I'm ready to go. And I
Speaker 3: got three words in. I was like, I was the
Speaker 3: ugly cry of that show. So yeah, we run the gambit.
Speaker 3: We run the gambit, and we're building brick by brick.
Speaker 3: So podcasting is definitely different. But I'm used to like
Speaker 3: four point six, you know, billion viewers a month, and
Speaker 3: so sometimes the podcast numbers, I have to remember it's
Speaker 3: a slow process.
Speaker 2: You launched in a hell of a year because Apple's
Speaker 2: been effing with its algorithm.
Speaker 3: Yes, what is up with what they have y'all found
Speaker 3: in building and having your brown girl ambition? What has
Speaker 3: been the the keys to success for this pod and
Speaker 3: what has been some of the more challenging parts of
Speaker 3: building what you all would build.
Speaker 2: You're making me get emotional because I'm just looking at Tiffany, Like, Tiffany.
Speaker 3: I love how y'all met. Y'all met organically. I was like,
Speaker 3: let's do this.
Speaker 1: I so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like no expectations for like five years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just showing up and just like I didn't realize
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: Twenty six, you know, no stakes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Also too, It's like.
Speaker 1: I think the vast majority of podcasts just were not consistent.
Speaker 1: Especially when we came out. People were like, oh, now
Speaker 1: I'm busy next week. But me and Mandy literally every week,
Speaker 1: whether we used to do it in person and then online,
Speaker 1: and even if we switched the day, we really have
Speaker 1: not missed like a week, or if we did, it
Speaker 1: was really intentional, like when Mandy had her baby and
Speaker 1: so like you know so, but there was always a podcast,
Speaker 1: and I think people just came to say, like, we
Speaker 1: know that Branna Bishen is going to be here, and
Speaker 1: so that helped a lot. And also too vulnerability, like
Speaker 1: you know, Mandy's my friend in real life, and so
Speaker 1: sometimes I'll forget because we'll be talking and then I'll
Speaker 1: see someone now and someone's like, oh, my gosh, you know,
Speaker 1: how was whatever? I'm like, how you?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: Oh, doesn't you know? There is just this openness in
Speaker 1: this vulnerability plus too, I mean, it's been so long
Speaker 1: people have grown up with this. I mean they have
Speaker 1: seen marriage, they have seen that, they have seen babies wow.
Speaker 1: They have seen loss of job, they have seen starting
Speaker 1: up businesses. They have seen everything through with us because
Speaker 1: we discussed mental health issues, everything. And you know what,
Speaker 1: it's like your favorite TV show that's been my favorite one.
Speaker 2: I'm like yours. You don't know A Grey's Anatomy. Like
Speaker 2: these shows that have been around for seasons after season
Speaker 2: after season, they keep the emotional like there's a there's
Speaker 2: a love story at the heart of Brown Ambition, which
Speaker 2: is me and Tiffany, and I feel like we can
Speaker 2: bring in different guests, but at the heart of our
Speaker 2: podcast is the relationship between the two of us, and
Speaker 2: we're like the two characters that you want to root for.
Speaker 2: It's like seeing Doctor Weber and Miranda Bailey and Grey's
Speaker 2: Anatomy like the last two other than Ellen Pompeimo Pompeo,
Speaker 2: who's already left the last two like original cast members
Speaker 2: that I love to see them, and I think that's
Speaker 2: what it is. Tiff I don't know if I said
Speaker 2: that out loud before, but I think that connection, which
Speaker 2: in a chat show where you're interviewing guests, we don't
Speaker 2: do that all the time. A lot of the time
Speaker 2: it's just Tiffany and I. Sometimes we just prefer it.
Speaker 2: We're like, well, talk about but with you, and it
Speaker 2: just feels like we have a third co host.
Speaker 3: But I love it. Thank you guys, I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: I love your chemistry together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah you really like personalities, yeah, and you can. I
Speaker 3: think that makes a difference, like when people try to
Speaker 3: force you know, like it has to be organic and
Speaker 3: when people like try to bullshit people, you know, when
Speaker 3: you're not vulnerable, when you're putting only your best self,
Speaker 3: you know, like I can tell you guys, it's no filter,
Speaker 3: you know, it's like, no, this is what it is.
Speaker 3: Even how we started it was like I tell you
Speaker 3: about Africa firs. You know, like I just I love
Speaker 3: the whole is very organic. You get to get a
Speaker 3: peek into two girlfriends talking. That's what it feels like.
Speaker 3: That's what it really is.
Speaker 2: It's like if we like some value, yes, obviously take
Speaker 2: your gems. We get some gems.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes. I think that people really like that part
Speaker 1: where it's just like, oh, this is how me and
Speaker 1: my friend talk. It's like, yeah, friends, was there a
Speaker 1: turning point for you guys where it went from where
Speaker 1: we're building to oh, no, we're built, and now we're
Speaker 1: building bigger.
Speaker 2: Well, now we can cash checks that we like. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I don't know, it's hard. I feel like
Speaker 2: you asked that. No one's ever it's it's it's cool
Speaker 2: to be seen as a success by you. I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm just like, you know, I think Tiffany and I
Speaker 2: are always wanting to do more, and I think we
Speaker 2: both feel like we're still on the cusp of the
Speaker 2: really blowing up, you know what I mean. But I
Speaker 2: don't know. Yeah, Tiffany, what what do you think? Has
Speaker 2: there been a turning point? You know what?
Speaker 1: It is that like Nandy and I have always just
Speaker 1: been committed to being like well because Mandy when she
Speaker 1: was an editor, it was just like we had other
Speaker 1: sources of income, so it was like, oh, if it
Speaker 1: makes money, great, But it wasn't like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: like so us to just organically kind of find our way.
Speaker 1: And so now that it is, you know, we're getting
Speaker 1: more and more serious, but it just for the first like,
Speaker 1: you know, five years, we really were just like, I mean,
Speaker 1: if it makes money, that's cool, but ultimately we're doing
Speaker 1: a thing that we enjoy doing because we're friends. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't know about that luxury, Yes, I know, I know.
Speaker 3: I mean we have like investors, you know, will put
Speaker 3: money in. To be honest with you, guys, we treat
Speaker 3: across generations like a television show. Okay, so our audio
Speaker 3: drops every Tuesday and video drops every Wednesday, but like
Speaker 3: we build a set, you know, we are people come
Speaker 3: join us on set, and it's like a beautifully deck
Speaker 3: because Will and I are both visual people. We're TV people,
Speaker 3: you know, and film people, and so we're both you know,
Speaker 3: kind of novices at podcasting. And I what I found
Speaker 3: is there are people who are definitely podcasters, who like,
Speaker 3: I want to listen to this while I'm cleaning, while
Speaker 3: I'm doing whatever, but I'm building community through audio. And
Speaker 3: then there are people who are strictly like no, I
Speaker 3: want to see I want to you know, see who
Speaker 3: who's talking. I want to see what you're wearing. I
Speaker 3: want to see your facial expression, which helps on a
Speaker 3: show like this because you know, I can give you
Speaker 3: guys a look now that we will all know what
Speaker 3: it means, but if you're listening, you might not catch it.
Speaker 2: You know, well you got You're gonna be on YouTube, right.
Speaker 3: We're on YouTube because.
Speaker 2: YouTube has been great for us, and you know, Tiffany,
Speaker 2: we get so much engagement in our comments on YouTube too.
Speaker 2: Go over and read them because it is it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I love your outfit, it's cute. Are they really? I
Speaker 2: think there are people who like to just turn on
Speaker 2: YouTube and maybe they will clean the house.
Speaker 3: So I think you've got next. Like I'm telling you,
Speaker 3: there is more people.
Speaker 2: You have been that girl TikTok took the shine, but
Speaker 2: I think YouTube is still that girl.
Speaker 3: But I even mean in terms of in terms of
Speaker 3: broadcast provider. You know, linear television is a dying beast.
Speaker 3: I think we all know that in cord cutting. This
Speaker 3: is in December, so I imagine the scales have tipped now.
Speaker 3: But in December, the same amount of people had cable
Speaker 3: as amount of people who didn't like The numbers were
Speaker 3: even this was in December and it was averaging something
Speaker 3: like one hundred thousand a month or something. So you
Speaker 3: imagine now that we're going into Q three twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: for sure that number hits they like, not less and less.
Speaker 3: Few or fewer people have cable now and YouTube has
Speaker 3: now surpassed all other providers in terms of being an
Speaker 3: outlet for how people watch TV. I did that baffle
Speaker 3: by mind. I itches TV.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sixty bucks a month, it's like having cable.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but also just like I get a lot
Speaker 1: of my stuff on YouTube because I can get directly
Speaker 1: to where I want, I can rewatch it, I can
Speaker 1: watch it.
Speaker 3: When you want your fingertips and transit on the fly
Speaker 3: any at any point.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so the SEO is important for YouTube, and
Speaker 2: like if your videos I would just say, like technically
Speaker 2: make sure their SEO is on point so that when
Speaker 2: people are searching, they can find your show and that'll
Speaker 2: pop up. And coming on a show like ours is
Speaker 2: so crucial, like doing a cross promotion to be doing
Speaker 2: a better job of that tip going on other shows
Speaker 2: that have a similar audience.
Speaker 1: And one of the number one manager you can do
Speaker 1: is to go another podcast because podcasts. People are podcast listeners,
Speaker 1: so I'm always on the hunt for a good podcast.
Speaker 1: So when I'm listening to a podcast I like, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I like her, And that's usually how I find most podcasts.
Speaker 1: People find podcasts from other podcasts.
Speaker 3: Okay, you know, and to this this didn't feel like work.
Speaker 1: Yes, well I'm going to have these two ladies, So
Speaker 1: finding other podcasts that you're like, oh, that's like my
Speaker 1: type of listener and being like, okay, let me see
Speaker 1: if I can go on and we can swap, because
Speaker 1: you know, people come fluct like I was on a
Speaker 1: Mel Robins show, which is not necessarily my podcast listener,
Speaker 1: but I got my website like Spiked, you know, because
Speaker 1: when you're on these shows and things like that, you know,
Speaker 1: then it just sends all this traffic to whatever it
Speaker 1: is that you're promoting or whatever it is that you're doing.
Speaker 1: But also too, I think to me, the number one
Speaker 1: thing I see just see overall brand building is building
Speaker 1: community around the brand, you know, like, where's there place
Speaker 1: where your community can discuss the show together? You know,
Speaker 1: like you know, like I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: have like Patreons. Do you guys have Patreon?
Speaker 2: No patres on the show.
Speaker 1: Okay, I have Patreon. It's about maybe like four thousand
Speaker 1: patrons and they pay like ten twenty bucks a month.
Speaker 1: But I teach business like mentorship.
Speaker 3: There what kind of business?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, what kind of business do I have?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: You said you teach business stuff? What kind of business?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm well, well no, just mentorship. So like, how
Speaker 1: do you start a business? How do you scale? How
Speaker 1: do you like? All the stuff that people ask me?
Speaker 1: Can you be my mentor?
Speaker 3: I'm like, yes, where were you in twenty sixteen when
Speaker 3: I'm starting to.
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: And so like that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just but but like building community. One
Speaker 1: of my favorite, all time favorite communities. It's like such
Speaker 1: a sleeper. Is this brand called Girl Trek.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not familiar Girl Trien, you know, so I.
Speaker 1: Love but if you Girl Trek is that they are?
Speaker 1: I mean, if I could swap communities with them? They
Speaker 1: are a powerhouse. A Girl Trek drops a T shirt
Speaker 1: expecting thirty seconds more T shirts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, every I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's every few years or so they fly
Speaker 1: to Colorado and have all these black women come and
Speaker 1: they do summer camp for black women. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: down to matching tube socks T shirts like grown forty
Speaker 1: thirty year old women like it is like this like
Speaker 1: release that you could be to get to be your
Speaker 1: little girl stuff, You get to jump, you get to
Speaker 1: double Dutch sound bath, some'mores. It's incredible And like I
Speaker 1: whenever I walk in my park, I mean I will
Speaker 1: see somebody with an electric blue Girl Trak t shirt on.
Speaker 1: I mean the Girl Trek community reps hard because they
Speaker 1: have they have done a really good job of taking
Speaker 1: community from offline to in person as well. And I
Speaker 1: think it is like to me, that's something I'm working
Speaker 1: on on the budget east side that that is it's
Speaker 1: like this. More and more people are not realizing that
Speaker 1: people are wanting true connection and Girl Trek helps to
Speaker 1: create and foster connection. So just considering that, like how
Speaker 1: can I like, can you do pop ups in person?
Speaker 3: Like where are some things you can do so your community?
Speaker 1: Because for when it comes to building great community, you
Speaker 1: have to remember that people come for you, but they
Speaker 1: stay for each other. So how do you create this
Speaker 1: stay for each other part? So how could they talk
Speaker 1: about cross connection? Like did you see Vincent? What about this?
Speaker 3: And do you have text Messa, I had that community,
Speaker 3: but Cross Connection I had that community. Like we there
Speaker 3: were diehards, you know, and the bulk of my audience
Speaker 3: was white, you know, like there were definitely people. When
Speaker 3: I left, I was off air for a year. I
Speaker 3: just needed that time to myself, to you know, to
Speaker 3: cook these projects that I wanted to do, but also
Speaker 3: to relax, to breed, to explore. The ground had just
Speaker 3: dropped from under me, so I needed to study myself
Speaker 3: and my finances together all those things. So Across Generations
Speaker 3: I do want to build. Well, no, you were right,
Speaker 3: because Cross Connection was my show. Across Generations is the
Speaker 3: new show in the podcast space. And so I've been
Speaker 3: looking at women like you guys, and what other black
Speaker 3: women are doing. And one thing I find interesting is
Speaker 3: that more Black women are become podcast listeners with the
Speaker 3: more black content content creators there are. And it just showed, like,
Speaker 3: I don't understand what people are resistant to it. It's
Speaker 3: like we we make dollars and we make sense. We hope,
Speaker 3: you know, bottom line. So I it's definitely been a journey,
Speaker 3: but I love your Both of you guys have a
Speaker 3: background in business and I can talk about anything. Had
Speaker 3: you guys said, hey, we're going to talk about whatever.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm game, let's do it. The one thing
Speaker 3: I cannot talk about with intelligence or expertise is like
Speaker 3: the markets, you know, like finance.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, markets, Okay, So.
Speaker 3: Mandy, I love when you're like I was in business
Speaker 3: and finance. I'm like, that is something and I try,
Speaker 3: like I, you know, have a subscription to the journal.
Speaker 3: I'll read the Financial Times. I mostly read the op
Speaker 3: ed pages in the journal. But even when I try
Speaker 3: to read like the business section, it's more like I'm
Speaker 3: looking for the personality and like the big business stories.
Speaker 3: When I try to read like something that is strictly
Speaker 3: on the economy, like you know, Paul Krugman column or something,
Speaker 3: you know, it's like I'm struggling a little bit, like
Speaker 3: I'm googling a lot. So I really admire and respect
Speaker 3: both you guys that you have a background, and I
Speaker 3: imagined that those transferable skills and now it's that helped
Speaker 3: build your platform as well. Well.
Speaker 2: Our focus is broad an ambitions career in finance, you know,
Speaker 2: and it was finance first, like I was at Yahoo
Speaker 2: Finance at the time. Tiffany with the budget needs to
Speaker 2: starting out, and I think the fact that we have
Speaker 2: a recurring theme, so you know you're coming here and
Speaker 2: you're gonna get It's unusual for us to spend a
Speaker 2: lot of time talking politics unless there's like a personal,
Speaker 2: finance or career connection at all.
Speaker 3: That political stuff means no, no, no no.
Speaker 2: Because no no no no no no no, because that's relevant.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: We talk about pop culture touchdowns when they are like, okay,
Speaker 2: black people are rock and people are talking about this everywhere,
Speaker 2: no matter what your background is today which Diddy and Jasmine?
Speaker 2: What was it pop? Crockett?
Speaker 3: Crockett, Yeah, Crackett.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Those are two water cooler conversations, right, But.
Speaker 3: How is your audience though when you talk, like do
Speaker 3: you notice it dip in your numbers when you're talking politics,
Speaker 3: or like do people come here like we want to
Speaker 3: hear Your business is input and advice.
Speaker 2: The algorithm, Tiffany doesn't real look at the numbers like
Speaker 2: I do. I'm the numbers girl. Okay, but the consistency,
Speaker 2: you know, and what has caused so there has been
Speaker 2: anxiety among so many podcasts this year because of the
Speaker 2: Algo shift on Apple and how we most shows, especially
Speaker 2: older shows who have lots of a back catalog were
Speaker 2: hit and like it led to like a twenty to
Speaker 2: twenty five percent drop in downloads, which are crucial right
Speaker 2: now with our show. What I've noticed is, yes, there
Speaker 2: has been that drop, but the consistency has stayed the same.
Speaker 2: So like the number of once we sort of like
Speaker 2: evened out, and this algorithm shift happened last fall. I
Speaker 2: was super busy in the winter, but like in the
Speaker 2: spring checking out. I'm like, hey, we've like leveled out.
Speaker 2: We've we've leveled out. We're seeing our normal numbers. That
Speaker 2: has remained consistent. So I think our our audience is
Speaker 2: very loyal and all of the email and dms that
Speaker 2: we get to, if it's often, I've been listening for years,
Speaker 2: I've been listening for you know, since this, I went
Speaker 2: back and listened to all year old episodes and they
Speaker 2: you build that loyalty in that community. And I agree
Speaker 2: with what tiff said about, you know, with BA Fam,
Speaker 2: even just calling them BA Fam, it feels like in
Speaker 2: on it. You know, we could maybe do a little
Speaker 2: bit more on the community side, but both of us
Speaker 2: individually have strong communities which helps support. So Tiffany, you
Speaker 2: have your Dream Catchers, which is this huge community, and
Speaker 2: I started Mandy money Makers in twenty twenty one, which
Speaker 2: is my career coaching community. And I think together we
Speaker 2: are Captain Planet now are.
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, she's in Newark. Yeah, I'm in Newark and I'm
Speaker 2: in the burbs of a New York.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, so you're close so you see each other?
Speaker 3: Is my point?
Speaker 2: Not enough?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Now, I thought you'd mentioned like being in person. I
Speaker 2: love and maybe it's my journalis and background. I love
Speaker 2: when I see shows and it's all nicely produced and
Speaker 2: there's mics and stuff, and I'm like, Tiffany, let's go
Speaker 2: to Cumulus's our network's office in New York. Because she's like, girl,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to New York. Let's just keep if
Speaker 2: it ain't.
Speaker 3: Broken me a person. But I think I do think
Speaker 3: there's something about being in person. And since you guys
Speaker 3: have such a community, like are you doing live engagement?
Speaker 3: Are you going on the tour?
Speaker 1: You would love to do like engage that we want
Speaker 1: to honestly schedule Okay, lately it's been really like crazy
Speaker 1: our schedule.
Speaker 2: You need you need an event producer.
Speaker 3: That's why.
Speaker 1: No, but just even like, yeah, I mean last year
Speaker 1: was a little bit crazy just in general because it
Speaker 1: was a bad business here for so many people.
Speaker 2: I had a baby a year ago.
Speaker 3: It's a congratulation.
Speaker 2: Thanks, it's been a hell of a year. But live show.
Speaker 2: If we don't do a live show by our tenth anniversary,
Speaker 2: which is coming up in a year, we.
Speaker 3: Will do attend anniversary something you finance. Somebody will pay
Speaker 3: for that.
Speaker 2: I know if you listen to the show and you know,
Speaker 2: like a good event producer, like, we just need someone
Speaker 2: to put it on because no one doesn't have that
Speaker 2: kind of tall.
Speaker 3: We're doing my other pot that I host with Angela
Speaker 3: and Andrew. We're doing We're kicking off our live tour
Speaker 3: this week and I AMMI actually I'm going to this conference.
Speaker 3: You ladies will appreciate it. It's for like women in
Speaker 3: the C suite or CEO positions who want to join
Speaker 3: corporate boards. I don't have to tell you all the
Speaker 3: Black women representation and corporate boards is visimal. So but
Speaker 3: all the like executive search committees come. It's an amazing conference.
Speaker 3: And so it's a private conference, so we couldn't like
Speaker 3: tell everybody to come through and hear us, But all
Speaker 3: the women at that conference will be our live audience
Speaker 3: for our live Chickoff tour. And then we're also doing
Speaker 3: essence like we're going to be all over So I
Speaker 3: know somebody is my point and I'm happy to put
Speaker 3: you all in touch with the person and a live tour. Well,
Speaker 3: this is what Brown Brown and Ambition is about.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 3: Yes alone, Brown Girls helping Brown Ambitions.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being on the show. This
Speaker 2: was such amazing.
Speaker 3: I'm like, am I here working? Am I just on
Speaker 3: the zoom with these ladies catching up all life from
Speaker 3: originally well no, I.
Speaker 1: Was born in Newrth, New Jersey, but I was raised
Speaker 1: like all over New Jersey.
Speaker 3: Okay, because your accent is like I hear a New
Speaker 3: York accent and so yeah, yeah, and you it's a
Speaker 3: very deliberate way of speaking. And Mandy, you neither one
Speaker 3: of us I think have a Georgia accent. I can
Speaker 3: when I talk to if you start talking with accent,
Speaker 3: I'll slip into it.
Speaker 2: Because of your background on broadcast, you have to neutralize it.
Speaker 2: And my mom's from Wisconsin. And plus I moved to
Speaker 2: New York at twenty when I when I hear myself
Speaker 2: on video from like pre New York, pre twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: pre twenty ten, I'm like, oh my god, I sound
Speaker 2: like such a bumpkin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, I got in New York. Oh my gosh, No, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think you do.
Speaker 1: Jersey. I hear Jersey Jersey.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I don't know that there's between New
Speaker 3: York and Jersey.
Speaker 1: Say like very Jersey. I used to sound very very
Speaker 1: very suburban Jersey. Yeah, my name is Tiffany, and but
Speaker 1: then she just choose her name.
Speaker 2: We'll just leave it there to live it.
Speaker 1: In New for the last, like you know, ten years,
Speaker 1: Like this is this is the effect of that.
Speaker 2: You think a little bit too. I feel like Drell
Speaker 2: gave a little bit of edge.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I think what y'all are doing is amazing
Speaker 3: and fabulous and I'm so honored that y'all would share
Speaker 3: your platform with me, and I'm happy to share whatever
Speaker 3: contacts I have to help you guys, and I hope
Speaker 3: to connect with you in person one day and just
Speaker 3: congratulations on all your success. And as we grow, I
Speaker 3: will definitely reach back out for input and as I
Speaker 3: grow my own personal businesses, expect for me to stalk
Speaker 3: you all a little bit.
Speaker 2: DM email. Yeah, I want to.
Speaker 3: I want to at some point join the corporate board too,
Speaker 3: so I I definitely will be reaching out.
Speaker 2: So incredible.
Speaker 1: Are listening, Tiffany.
Speaker 3: Yes, you can follow me on Instagram at Tiffany d
Speaker 3: Cross on all the platforms that's my name at Tiffany
Speaker 3: d Cross, and you can follow Across Generations. We are
Speaker 3: Across Gen podcast on YouTube, please please please subscribe, and
Speaker 3: you can follow us on Instagram at across gen podcast
Speaker 3: or Across Generations one of them you'll find them. But
Speaker 3: if you follow me you can go see who I
Speaker 3: follow and get the right handle. But yeah, please share
Speaker 3: our content. Tell a friend, Tell people.
Speaker 2: Hello, I just started watching your podcast.
Speaker 3: Say it's so weird because I hear my voice in
Speaker 3: my head you guys, Yes, please, and I would love
Speaker 3: any thoughts ideas feedback. You guys have as two people
Speaker 3: successful in the space. But yes, please tell a friend,
Speaker 3: share a friend. We've actually launched what I would say
Speaker 3: some success.
Speaker 2: I mean, you already have ten k followers on YouTube.
Speaker 2: I think the bar is raised even for us. But
Speaker 2: I'm I would love to connect and just talk about
Speaker 2: your experience on the with with Packer's production team being
Speaker 2: behind it, you know, and like how that is how
Speaker 2: all that.
Speaker 3: Is coming and it's a big help. I mean, they
Speaker 3: keep telling me like, what are you We're successful, you know,
Speaker 3: in the top one percent, and you're crazy. I'm just
Speaker 3: I'm comparing it to television and I have to stop
Speaker 3: doing that. Yeah yeah, I'm like, what we don't even
Speaker 3: have a million viewers yet, you know, and they're like, girl,
Speaker 3: you better adjust.
Speaker 2: So yeah, but you'll have so much more of the
Speaker 2: podcast audience though, to me, like we are like dedicated,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. I don't know. I never
Speaker 2: had my own show and MSNBC, but I just feel
Speaker 2: like the audience we just like, I don't know, we're
Speaker 2: very loyal, very dedicated, and we love love, love and
Speaker 2: coming back. And I think your show sounds incredible. I've
Speaker 2: already listened to a couple of episodes coming on and
Speaker 2: I can't wait to listen to more. Across everybody, Thank.
Speaker 1: You, d.
Speaker 3: Is in Dying Peace.
Speaker 1: Cross cross d you.
Speaker 2: Will not find me and then we enjoyed having you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Thank you lady.
Speaker 2: Signs of Name
Speaker 1: MHM