March 3, 2023 • 33 mins
Ed talks with Journalist Michelle Miller. They discuss her book, Belongings. The book explores her dealings with parental abandonment, racial identity and America’s reckoning with race. They also discuss her media career and the broadcast news business.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to the latest edition of one hundred The Ed
Gordon Podcast. Today a conversation with journalist Michelle Miller, the
co host of CBS Saturday Morning. She's been with the
network since twenty four. Miller has written a memoir entitled Belonging.
She says the book is one woman's search for herself.
(00:44):
It explores her dealings with parental abandonment, racial identity, and
America's reckoning with race. Michelle, before we get started, we
should note you and I have known each other forever,
forever three for a long time, long time. So this
brings me to the first question, which is interesting to me.
(01:04):
Why now for the memoir? Quite frankly, because I was
asked and I was. My husband and friends of mine
who know my story have been telling me to write
a book for years. But it was through work a
story that I was asked to do for four days
(01:26):
after the George Floyd murder, encompassing all of the stories
that I'd ever done on social justice and all of
the movements, all the incendiary episodes over the last thirty years.
And there was a turn, a fifteen second turn I
made in that piece directing back to myself on why
(01:49):
racism had such an impact on me, and that turn
was my origin story. And I think for folks who
knew me, for folks who I think who thought they
knew me, it floored them, It resonated with them. It
opened up a side of me that I think gave
(02:09):
them a level of appreciation. Oh, you know, she's not
like this. We put her in a box and maybe
we shouldn't. And thirty seven minutes after that peace aired,
I got a call from a publisher at HarperCollins saying,
you have a book in you which you consider writing it.
(02:31):
Here's what's interesting. The book, just very basic, is a
search for your birth mother and your identity, obviously, but
it's also really, I would suspect, a real search for you.
It's it's a love letter to the people who made me,
my father, my grandmother, the many women in my life
(02:53):
who helped to raise me and who were that maternal
figure to me over the course of my life in
absence of my birth mother, and the question it really
isn't The search came pretty fast. I mean I was
lucky in that, and readers will discover whoa probably the
(03:13):
easiest thing, the easiest search for an absent parent that
ever happened in the history of searching, But it is
the conversation after that in terms of how you as
an individual change your lens, change your perspective, change your
attitude toward who you are, how you want to be seen,
(03:36):
how you see your stuff. And I think for me
that sort of I'm a very different person as a
child adolescent when and then when I actually have a
conversation with my mother than I am today. Very different.
I'm very different on how I see this, and that's okay.
(03:57):
But one thing that I think for a lot of
people is sort of figuring out, like who I was.
I knew I was a black kid. I just all
of those things that we deal with is black people,
the nuances in our community, the colorism, the the the
(04:21):
the all of the all of the the shades of
of of of tropes and shades of like who people
think we are and how we view ourselves based on
the mainstream. All of that impacted me. Um. But you know,
I'm pretty I'm I'm pretty clear in terms of who
(04:43):
I thought I was and who I am. Uh And
and that was a gift because of my father and
my grandmother, and they were extremely proud and extremely fierce
about who they were, where they came from, and what
they hoped to contribute to the world. I want to
get into them in a second, but I do want
to ask you the idea of did you ever do
(05:06):
you ever even still live with the what if? What
if my mom had stayed? What if I had known
her growing up? Or do you just say this is
who I am now based on the road you travel?
So as a child, I think the what ifs. I
wanted to know the what is right. I wanted to
(05:26):
know who she was, why she left, the answers, and
certainly I wanted to have a mother. I don't know
if you know the person that she was the mother
I needed, And in fact, she told me, she said, Michelle,
if I had raised you, you would not be the
woman you are. Your grandmother did a hell of a job.
(05:52):
And I sort of think about that a lot, because
I don't know if I would. I don't I don't
know if I would be the same person. You know,
that's the question, really, the nature versus nurture. It's the
question that we've been throwing out there for at least
(06:13):
a century, and certainly within the communities of that we
cover in our profession. We've seen that question over and
over again. My strengthize in the people who surrounded me
and nurture me. Yes I have gumption, Yes I am
like this adventurer. Yes, all of these things. I don't
(06:36):
know how get out. I would be who I am
without them, but I didn't after knowing her, I'd never
what if it was just can we just like? For me,
it's the acknowledgment phase. And I think you can understand
this acknowledgement from her is what I was looking for.
(07:01):
Tell the world that you had a child. And when
she couldn't do that, it angered me, and I think
it angered me based on all the others refusal to
acknowledge me in the greater sense of community, My community
has not been fully acknowledged. Black people have not been
(07:24):
fully acknowledged. And that is all we are asking for
as a people to be acknowledged, for our contributions to
this country to be acknowledged, for the great history that
we have to be acknowledged, for the people and human
beings that we are. That is what we are seeking.
When we are talking about a number of different things
that are you know, out there and are part of
(07:47):
the news cycle. Right. Now, here's what's interesting. I think
in your story, it tells the story of all of us,
if we're honest. You know, when you peek behind the
family curtain of many people, I'd even venture to say
most people, isn't it isn't the fun with Dick and
Jane that were taught in elementary school, right, It's it's nuanced,
(08:08):
it's layered, it's messy at times. It's all of those things. Um.
And when you look at your parents for who they
are as human beings versus parents, particularly as you get older,
I hope people can find a way to understand in
nuanced that they're they're human and frail and all of
(08:29):
those things. Um. When you look at you know, your dad,
for instance, who is beloved by you, understandably, Um, you
are the product of an extramarital affair. Many people find
these things. Did you have to reconcile? Um? You know
what that was? It takes you know, from from being
a hero to most of us, our parents. So when
(08:52):
you start to see the flawed nature of all of
us being human, how did you how did you have
to deal with that? I always saw my Dan's flaws.
It wasn't like so I never saw him with these
rose colored glasses because he never hid any of that
from me. If that sounds strange and unusual, he lived
(09:13):
because I was this um at first. Certainly I wasn't
like thrown out or cast into the social circles that
he engaged in. But but it was pretty clear to
me that my situation was different from everybody else's, even
the folks in my neighborhood. So I'm from South central
Los Angeles. My community was like I didn't even know
(09:35):
I was from South Central because the South Central that
everybody talked about had a very it was a very
narrow edge to it. And I always tell people that's
not the vast that I mean. Yeah, their pockets of
poverty and their pockets of crime and their pockets. But
I lived in a middle class neighborhood where I had
a white um my. My my grandmother's best friend was
(09:59):
next door at our she was. There were a white
elderly couple and the other best friend was across the street.
There were a creole family and the Tulson so the
holmes Is, the Toulsons, the Cannons, Like it was like
this really wonderful community of people, and the sense that
(10:19):
you know, I was different was clear, but it wasn't
ever U It just was that's just who I was. So,
you know, it might have been more difficult for me
to explain it to my friends like they were. Probably
they A lot of times people don't ask the questions
(10:39):
once you the first well where's your mom? I really
don't know. Why don't you know? Well I never grew
up with her. Well why don't you grow up with her?
Because my mother and father were married, UM, and her friendly?
You know it like there were, There was like a
point at which I could no longer explain, and then
it just became uncomfortable to have that conversation unless you're
(11:04):
like probing right right, you talk about the kind of
nuances and layers, the peeling of the onion of just
being black right in this country, the colorism with not
you know, it's it's strange sometimes outwardly looking in because
we all face certain things. There are certain commonalities to
(11:24):
just being black, Um, but those of us in the
community understand it's class, it's color, it's all of those
kinds of things. As you grew up, did you did
you feel because of your complexion. Um, did you feel
the need to prove blackness? In quote? I put that
in quotes, M. I'm sure I did you know? Um?
(11:48):
I did? Uh? And I remember so as a child,
I don't remember like just so, I was very small
and withdrawn as a kid. As I recall, I mean
up into the age of five, I was like ah,
because I was keeping right and then you start to
grow into that awkwardness as an elementary schooler and I
(12:10):
sort of drew in and and because I was, you know,
at a new school and I really didn't know anybody,
I didn't have like a wealth of friends. I remember
a lot of times being by myself at my elementary
school and just engaging with the teachers, like I had
(12:33):
great relationships with teachers. One of my favorite teachers was
missus Bennett. Ran into her on a flight some twenty
years later and had a wonderful conversation about you know,
me being a child and how she saw me. And
she saw me in such a beautiful way because my
grandmother was such a part of my education and as
a teacher, my grandmother, I'm sure like made sure that
(12:56):
I was getting the best. But it was like through friends,
like I mentioned a woman named Michelle Woods, who, like
I didn't have to be anything but me. By the
fifth grade, we were both bust out to you know,
these white neighborhoods to go to school. And she was
(13:16):
so proud and never like never held her head down
because of anything, and so I emulated her, and she
introduced me to you know, so much in terms of
cultural norms as a young black kid, and so like
then I got excited. And then I started going to
(13:38):
the National Medical Association with my father, and there was
this whole other world of you know, blackness, and so
I was like really engaged then. So then it was
like you start to say, Okay, we are all kinds
of people, and they are all kinds of situations. We
aren't this one thing. And that's what I gained my
strength and pride in. And then when I got to
(14:00):
but you're still being like sort of beaten into this
like as a whole, you know, the media kind of
plays a trick on you, right, or I did. You
don't see yourselves in movies or in the pages of magazines,
and just in the way I was seeing myself through
(14:24):
all these other these other spears, and and it was
that incident in my ninth grade year. There, I just
kind of that's when I just said enough, I'm gonna
be very clear about who I am, because I'm never
gonna be blindsided by an assumption. So I was a
(14:44):
chubby kid in eighth grade. Summer of eighth grade, I
went to a weight loss camp and I lost a
lot of weight and I was fit, and I've gained
all this confidence and I went to the ninth grade.
So I was an excellent student. I had that down
I you know, had my set of friends that had
that town. But I never always liked a boy in
(15:04):
um in junior high, and there was this one boy
who liked me, and I was like, oh, he's cute,
and he would ask me to do all these things
with him in class, and so I did. And then
one day I don't know, do you do? You know?
Otis Livingston. Otis Livingston and I grew up together in
LA He came up to me in the class. So
(15:25):
otis now I work with in the same building, same profession.
He's a sportscast for a w CDs and M. He
then was still this and just crazy like articulately engrossing,
athletic kid and brilliant. We were a super brilliant kid.
(15:46):
And they were in a debate about race, he and
another guy and they said, lets us, let's ask Michelle.
She's black. And this guy heard that and like, have
you ever been in a situation where you feel all
of the air sucked out of the room? Like did you?
(16:07):
I felt the tension in his body. It went cold,
and I looked over at him and his eyes were
like this, and he said, you're black. And I knew
in that moment one I had to be very clear. Two,
this was going to be the defining point. Three he
(16:32):
is going to treat me differently, but that doesn't matter.
That's on him. And like saying that to myself and
a split second and I looked at him and I said,
of course I am. What did you think I was?
And from that day forward he treated me like a pariah.
He did not speak to me, he did not look
(16:53):
at me, and anytime I was in his presence, like
because we have mutual friends, he just and I just
I was bewildered. I was like, oh, this is the
allogic of racism, makes no sense whatsoever. And that was
like kind of like another that was another book into
(17:16):
the the the I want to call it to the
lesson of the in the loss of innocence that you
have as a kid. But I lost that that innocence
I never had like that because like the world was
like so cut and dry to me so early on.
Let me ask you the cliche question that many people
(17:37):
ask authors, but I think in memoirs it's it's more appropriate. Um,
did you find healing in this? Did you? Did you
m explore and find things you didn't know were in you? Well,
that is the beauty of writing a book with someone.
As a journalist, I'm so used to talking to other
(17:58):
people about their lives, so like looking inward isn't necessarily
something that we're trained to do. And so having this
opportunity with Rosemary were brought Robotham, who was written books.
Sheep asked me questions. I was like, world, Mamorry, why
do you need to know this? She's like, because I
(18:18):
need to peel that, I need to kind of that
little threads hanging out and I don't want to talk
about that, or maybe I don't remember that or just
like and it's just like so she really was able
to pull from me stories of interest that maybe I
didn't think were that interesting, that were cosmically cosmically intertwined
(18:46):
with not only how I think, how I learn, and
then also you know how I feel? And therapy was
this book therapy? I don't know. I think I'm reallytively
numb to a lot of things. Everything but a good
movie or a television shiit book, I cry like a
(19:09):
baby to those. But I have never been really good
at looking inside and sort of peeling away. I'm not
that I don't need it. I'm sure I need it,
but the book is definitely an exhale. I've said what
I wanted to say, I've written about what I wanted
(19:32):
to write about. And I was having this conversation with
myself in the shower and I said, you know, our privacy,
because I'm I'm really vulnerable in this book and I'm
putting a lot out there, but you know what I
am sharing exactly what I want to share, and I'm
not going to share anything more. And I was thinking, like,
(19:54):
what do people ask you this that? Or as I
was like, you know, you know, I have a right
to hold back, right and I have a right to
to explore. So I think all of those were questions
that rose Marie captured and um, you know, I always say,
you know, the most frustrating part of this book is
(20:17):
my attempt to write it by myself those first like
five months that I sat down and I got through
about sixty or seventy pages, and then I just I
could not. It was like writer's writer's black and a friend,
uh tipped me off to rose Marie. In the minute
(20:37):
she came on board. It was like a completely different scenario. Yeah,
it's interesting. I think many of us, who tell stories
and who delve into the lives of others, are very
closed when it comes to ourselves. I know, I'm very
you are private, no, ed, Yes, I would love to
(20:58):
dig into you one day, very um, And I don't know.
You know, it's interesting, um, And I wonder often you
look at entertainers or those of us who you know
are in front of the camera and the like, and
I find that, you know, many of those same people
put themselves out publicly. Um, are very very private. Yeah,
(21:20):
and it's it's just interesting. Let's let's turn to your
day job. Yay, news business. If you love my day job,
can you tell I can tell you've been at CBS
since twenty oh four. I started freelancing at CBS the
minute I set foot in New York and even before
because I worked. I I sub anchored um for Jackie
(21:44):
Reid Um in the summer of two thousand and three
for the BT Nightly News, which was produced by CBS
Newspath and so that was a lovely like that's kind
of like one of the ways that I was able
to work my way into CBS because I came to
CBS through the backdoor. I started as a freelancer up
(22:06):
to the minute, which was their overnight show. I started
working as a freelancer for their Saturday and Sunday weekend edition,
which was amazing. An amazing group of people worked there,
and yeah, so that's how I came in. I think
it's interesting because those that don't know, for as much
(22:28):
as this business of news has changed, you see far
more people of color on the air now, and we're
starting to see executives get back into because there was
a wave in the late sixties early seventies of black
executives and then they went away, and then they went
away for decades. We're starting to see that change. But
(22:49):
it has for many years been a male, white dominated industry,
and you know, it's interesting to hear some of the
stories that any of us have faced then share it.
The Minneapolis one. I was a student at Howard University
and interns. You get a chance in the college to
(23:10):
interview with newspapers. And I remember there was this gentleman
was such a nice guy. He said, your broadcast journalism
a major. Why should we hire you? We're print And
I said, because I'm a journalist. Why wouldn't you want
to train the best journalist. There's no there's no certainty
that I'm going to come work in Minneapolis for the
(23:31):
Star to rebune, I said, but you want to have
an impact on me so that I can have an
impact on the profession. And he was so blown away
by like my gumption, that he hired me and I
went to the Star Tribune right after literally I landed
at JFK from my semester abroad and Kenyan Tanzania block
(23:55):
flew flew directly to Minneapolis, which is a very lovely
place with wonderful people. But it's ninety five. At the time,
was was majority white city, and um it was an
engaging place and the people were so welcoming to these
(24:18):
minority interns. They really just were so wonderful to us,
both professionally and and the folks um who like housed
us in and you know, made sure that we felt
it out. But um, one of the initial weeks we
were there, uh, there was a staff meeting where one
(24:42):
of the high ups addressed these minority students, and he
addressed the entire portions of the reporting and editing staff
as well, and he said, I just want you to
after giving a wonderful presentation the end he put noted
it with, I just want to make sure you understand
(25:03):
that you have every opportunity to be great journalists, but
you must put your blackness aside and just be a
great journalist, not a great black journksman. And I was like,
that's interesting how he phrased it like that, you know, Um,
(25:23):
and I just and and and then it was like
he kept talking. I said, wait a minute, and he said, yes, ma'am.
I said, you know, I just I can't. I don't
know how to take that because I wasn't born, you know,
an eight pound nine ounce journalist. I was born a
(25:48):
black woman or black child. Um, and and that counts
and and I don't know how to like erase myself.
And then I looked at him and I said, has
anybody ever told you you had to place your white
maleness aside? And his it was like an epiphany and
an embarrassment all at the same time. And I didn't
(26:10):
mean to embarrass him, but that was I think there
was a bit of ire in me that just kind
of said, wait a minute, here's my opportunity and what
do I have to lose m and what was so
I started to get I was like, oh shucks, and
I put my foot in my mouth. And then after
the meeting, there were all of my fellow you know,
(26:32):
my mentors in the newsroom, white reporters, men, women. There
were so few black editors and reporters that they were.
They said, Michelle, thank you for speaking truth to power.
There are so many other things we'd love to address
with him that he isn't aware of. But they didn't
(26:55):
use the term unconscious biased, but that's what they were saying.
They were saying, yes on race, and yes I'm at
some other things. Thank you for opening the door. And
I was like, whoa wait, there are other things. Yeah,
And it opened my mind a little bit more to
maybe some of the things that they were talking about
that they wanted to resonate in the mind of their
(27:16):
employer as well. Yeah, it's interesting, white seems to be
the default position for me. Normal It's like the normalization
of whiteness and the normalization of nuclear family when across
the globe of a family doesn't look like a mom
and a dad, and it looks like a village or
(27:38):
it looks like what family means to people is it's
it's it's defined differently. It's like a family's not a
family without the grandparents. Yeah, you know, a family's not
the family without the cousins and the aunts. But but
all of that to say, it's like, I think that
for a lot of people. And this is where where
(27:59):
our white brothers and sisters can help in understanding, is
that the whiteness is normalized and everything else is not normal. Yeah.
I had the same I had the same incident when
I did the interview with OJ. Many of the press
kept saying, well, how can a black reporter be fair
(28:22):
in talking to OJ Simpson, a black man accused of
And I said, well, do you ever ask that of
a white reporter who talks to a white person who's
alleged to have killed someone. I said, you never bring
that up, so it's it's it's interesting, it's always a
default position for them. Before I let you go, let's
talk about the thing that you and I are working
(28:42):
on together that is a new joint venture between CBS
News and Black Entertainment Television b ET, New News Magazine
America and Black. Talk to me about what you think
about it and what you're doing, because we should note.
Michelle and I'm just squishing to questions together here. But
the news industry that you and I walked into X
(29:06):
number of years ago has changed tremendously. We are in
a different time and place, stories of stories, but what
is deemed news today is far different than it was
when we started. It's a much wider lens, right, It's
like we look at all sorts of stories that I mean,
there's so many more communities that are being covered, so
(29:29):
many more topics that are being explored. It's it's a
wonderful thing. I am so First of all, what is
so interesting is that the beet that we are seeing
emerged today is much like the beet that initiated in
the early nineties when you were a part of it
(29:51):
because there was such a the newscast and the interview
style that I remember was defined in getting the to
the nitty gritty and we I just I still to
this day think that the BET Nightly News is one
of the best news programs. I came back from hosting
(30:15):
that one show, sitting next to my co anchor and
him saying, whispering in I saw you last night, and
I said, will you see me on on bat And
he was a Norwegian American in New Orleans. I said,
you watch BETS. It's a great show. I mean you know,
I mean, yes, we know these things. And so like
(30:38):
the fact that they're embracing again hard news, hard issues
and the glory of what is in the black community
that is, by the way, impacting all of America is awesome. Awesome.
I always I'm teased all of the stories that have
(31:01):
aired at and that are coming up because I've covered
them all. A crown act I've covered that's coming up
next month or this month, Wait on Sunday, right coming
up on Sunday. We just covered the ap History in
High School issue up covering that. But my story is
(31:23):
and it hasn't I don't know if I can technically
talk about it yet, because I haven't actually started filming it,
you know, I mean, I've pitched it, so I don't
know where I stand on that, but it's something really exciting.
I have engaged because I think it's important for us
(31:44):
to tell the whole story, because it's about an artist
who is like blown up in an era when black
art is not being appropriated, it is being recognized in
and of itself. And also he is taking it upon
himself to help nurture the next generation of artists, and
(32:06):
he's doing it in a place I think we need
to go take pay a visit too, So I'll leave
it at that. Well, we look forward to it. We
should note that American Black will air monthly, every first
Sunday of the month, and we should note that the
book Belonging will drop, as we like to say, March fourteenth.
You can preorder it now wherever books are. So congratulations
(32:29):
to you, young lady, Thank you my friend again. Michelle's
book Belonging comes out March fourteenth. One hundred is produced
by Ed Gordon Media and distributed by iHeartMedia. Carol Johnson
(32:50):
Green and Sharie Weldon are our bookers. Our editor is
Lance Patton Gerald Albright composed and performed our theme. Please
join me on Twitter, Instagram at ed L Gordon and
on Facebook at ed Gordon Media.
Welcome to the latest edition of one hundred The Ed
Gordon Podcast. Today a conversation with journalist Michelle Miller, the
co host of CBS Saturday Morning. She's been with the
network since twenty four. Miller has written a memoir entitled Belonging.
She says the book is one woman's search for herself.
(00:44):
It explores her dealings with parental abandonment, racial identity, and
America's reckoning with race. Michelle, before we get started, we
should note you and I have known each other forever,
forever three for a long time, long time. So this
brings me to the first question, which is interesting to me.
(01:04):
Why now for the memoir? Quite frankly, because I was
asked and I was. My husband and friends of mine
who know my story have been telling me to write
a book for years. But it was through work a
story that I was asked to do for four days
(01:26):
after the George Floyd murder, encompassing all of the stories
that I'd ever done on social justice and all of
the movements, all the incendiary episodes over the last thirty years.
And there was a turn, a fifteen second turn I
made in that piece directing back to myself on why
(01:49):
racism had such an impact on me, and that turn
was my origin story. And I think for folks who
knew me, for folks who I think who thought they
knew me, it floored them, It resonated with them. It
opened up a side of me that I think gave
(02:09):
them a level of appreciation. Oh, you know, she's not
like this. We put her in a box and maybe
we shouldn't. And thirty seven minutes after that peace aired,
I got a call from a publisher at HarperCollins saying,
you have a book in you which you consider writing it.
(02:31):
Here's what's interesting. The book, just very basic, is a
search for your birth mother and your identity, obviously, but
it's also really, I would suspect, a real search for you.
It's it's a love letter to the people who made me,
my father, my grandmother, the many women in my life
(02:53):
who helped to raise me and who were that maternal
figure to me over the course of my life in
absence of my birth mother, and the question it really
isn't The search came pretty fast. I mean I was
lucky in that, and readers will discover whoa probably the
(03:13):
easiest thing, the easiest search for an absent parent that
ever happened in the history of searching, But it is
the conversation after that in terms of how you as
an individual change your lens, change your perspective, change your
attitude toward who you are, how you want to be seen,
(03:36):
how you see your stuff. And I think for me
that sort of I'm a very different person as a
child adolescent when and then when I actually have a
conversation with my mother than I am today. Very different.
I'm very different on how I see this, and that's okay.
(03:57):
But one thing that I think for a lot of
people is sort of figuring out, like who I was.
I knew I was a black kid. I just all
of those things that we deal with is black people,
the nuances in our community, the colorism, the the the
(04:21):
the all of the all of the the shades of
of of of tropes and shades of like who people
think we are and how we view ourselves based on
the mainstream. All of that impacted me. Um. But you know,
I'm pretty I'm I'm pretty clear in terms of who
(04:43):
I thought I was and who I am. Uh And
and that was a gift because of my father and
my grandmother, and they were extremely proud and extremely fierce
about who they were, where they came from, and what
they hoped to contribute to the world. I want to
get into them in a second, but I do want
to ask you the idea of did you ever do
(05:06):
you ever even still live with the what if? What
if my mom had stayed? What if I had known
her growing up? Or do you just say this is
who I am now based on the road you travel?
So as a child, I think the what ifs. I
wanted to know the what is right. I wanted to
(05:26):
know who she was, why she left, the answers, and
certainly I wanted to have a mother. I don't know
if you know the person that she was the mother
I needed, And in fact, she told me, she said, Michelle,
if I had raised you, you would not be the
woman you are. Your grandmother did a hell of a job.
(05:52):
And I sort of think about that a lot, because
I don't know if I would. I don't I don't
know if I would be the same person. You know,
that's the question, really, the nature versus nurture. It's the
question that we've been throwing out there for at least
(06:13):
a century, and certainly within the communities of that we
cover in our profession. We've seen that question over and
over again. My strengthize in the people who surrounded me
and nurture me. Yes I have gumption, Yes I am
like this adventurer. Yes, all of these things. I don't
(06:36):
know how get out. I would be who I am
without them, but I didn't after knowing her, I'd never
what if it was just can we just like? For me,
it's the acknowledgment phase. And I think you can understand
this acknowledgement from her is what I was looking for.
(07:01):
Tell the world that you had a child. And when
she couldn't do that, it angered me, and I think
it angered me based on all the others refusal to
acknowledge me in the greater sense of community, My community
has not been fully acknowledged. Black people have not been
(07:24):
fully acknowledged. And that is all we are asking for
as a people to be acknowledged, for our contributions to
this country to be acknowledged, for the great history that
we have to be acknowledged, for the people and human
beings that we are. That is what we are seeking.
When we are talking about a number of different things
that are you know, out there and are part of
(07:47):
the news cycle. Right. Now, here's what's interesting. I think
in your story, it tells the story of all of us,
if we're honest. You know, when you peek behind the
family curtain of many people, I'd even venture to say
most people, isn't it isn't the fun with Dick and
Jane that were taught in elementary school, right, It's it's nuanced,
(08:08):
it's layered, it's messy at times. It's all of those things. Um.
And when you look at your parents for who they
are as human beings versus parents, particularly as you get older,
I hope people can find a way to understand in
nuanced that they're they're human and frail and all of
(08:29):
those things. Um. When you look at you know, your dad,
for instance, who is beloved by you, understandably, Um, you
are the product of an extramarital affair. Many people find
these things. Did you have to reconcile? Um? You know
what that was? It takes you know, from from being
a hero to most of us, our parents. So when
(08:52):
you start to see the flawed nature of all of
us being human, how did you how did you have
to deal with that? I always saw my Dan's flaws.
It wasn't like so I never saw him with these
rose colored glasses because he never hid any of that
from me. If that sounds strange and unusual, he lived
(09:13):
because I was this um at first. Certainly I wasn't
like thrown out or cast into the social circles that
he engaged in. But but it was pretty clear to
me that my situation was different from everybody else's, even
the folks in my neighborhood. So I'm from South central
Los Angeles. My community was like I didn't even know
(09:35):
I was from South Central because the South Central that
everybody talked about had a very it was a very
narrow edge to it. And I always tell people that's
not the vast that I mean. Yeah, their pockets of
poverty and their pockets of crime and their pockets. But
I lived in a middle class neighborhood where I had
a white um my. My my grandmother's best friend was
(09:59):
next door at our she was. There were a white
elderly couple and the other best friend was across the street.
There were a creole family and the Tulson so the
holmes Is, the Toulsons, the Cannons, Like it was like
this really wonderful community of people, and the sense that
(10:19):
you know, I was different was clear, but it wasn't
ever U It just was that's just who I was. So,
you know, it might have been more difficult for me
to explain it to my friends like they were. Probably
they A lot of times people don't ask the questions
(10:39):
once you the first well where's your mom? I really
don't know. Why don't you know? Well I never grew
up with her. Well why don't you grow up with her?
Because my mother and father were married, UM, and her friendly?
You know it like there were, There was like a
point at which I could no longer explain, and then
it just became uncomfortable to have that conversation unless you're
(11:04):
like probing right right, you talk about the kind of
nuances and layers, the peeling of the onion of just
being black right in this country, the colorism with not
you know, it's it's strange sometimes outwardly looking in because
we all face certain things. There are certain commonalities to
(11:24):
just being black, Um, but those of us in the
community understand it's class, it's color, it's all of those
kinds of things. As you grew up, did you did
you feel because of your complexion. Um, did you feel
the need to prove blackness? In quote? I put that
in quotes, M. I'm sure I did you know? Um?
(11:48):
I did? Uh? And I remember so as a child,
I don't remember like just so, I was very small
and withdrawn as a kid. As I recall, I mean
up into the age of five, I was like ah,
because I was keeping right and then you start to
grow into that awkwardness as an elementary schooler and I
(12:10):
sort of drew in and and because I was, you know,
at a new school and I really didn't know anybody,
I didn't have like a wealth of friends. I remember
a lot of times being by myself at my elementary
school and just engaging with the teachers, like I had
(12:33):
great relationships with teachers. One of my favorite teachers was
missus Bennett. Ran into her on a flight some twenty
years later and had a wonderful conversation about you know,
me being a child and how she saw me. And
she saw me in such a beautiful way because my
grandmother was such a part of my education and as
a teacher, my grandmother, I'm sure like made sure that
(12:56):
I was getting the best. But it was like through friends,
like I mentioned a woman named Michelle Woods, who, like
I didn't have to be anything but me. By the
fifth grade, we were both bust out to you know,
these white neighborhoods to go to school. And she was
(13:16):
so proud and never like never held her head down
because of anything, and so I emulated her, and she
introduced me to you know, so much in terms of
cultural norms as a young black kid, and so like
then I got excited. And then I started going to
(13:38):
the National Medical Association with my father, and there was
this whole other world of you know, blackness, and so
I was like really engaged then. So then it was
like you start to say, Okay, we are all kinds
of people, and they are all kinds of situations. We
aren't this one thing. And that's what I gained my
strength and pride in. And then when I got to
(14:00):
but you're still being like sort of beaten into this
like as a whole, you know, the media kind of
plays a trick on you, right, or I did. You
don't see yourselves in movies or in the pages of magazines,
and just in the way I was seeing myself through
(14:24):
all these other these other spears, and and it was
that incident in my ninth grade year. There, I just
kind of that's when I just said enough, I'm gonna
be very clear about who I am, because I'm never
gonna be blindsided by an assumption. So I was a
(14:44):
chubby kid in eighth grade. Summer of eighth grade, I
went to a weight loss camp and I lost a
lot of weight and I was fit, and I've gained
all this confidence and I went to the ninth grade.
So I was an excellent student. I had that down
I you know, had my set of friends that had
that town. But I never always liked a boy in
(15:04):
um in junior high, and there was this one boy
who liked me, and I was like, oh, he's cute,
and he would ask me to do all these things
with him in class, and so I did. And then
one day I don't know, do you do? You know?
Otis Livingston. Otis Livingston and I grew up together in
LA He came up to me in the class. So
(15:25):
otis now I work with in the same building, same profession.
He's a sportscast for a w CDs and M. He
then was still this and just crazy like articulately engrossing,
athletic kid and brilliant. We were a super brilliant kid.
(15:46):
And they were in a debate about race, he and
another guy and they said, lets us, let's ask Michelle.
She's black. And this guy heard that and like, have
you ever been in a situation where you feel all
of the air sucked out of the room? Like did you?
(16:07):
I felt the tension in his body. It went cold,
and I looked over at him and his eyes were
like this, and he said, you're black. And I knew
in that moment one I had to be very clear. Two,
this was going to be the defining point. Three he
(16:32):
is going to treat me differently, but that doesn't matter.
That's on him. And like saying that to myself and
a split second and I looked at him and I said,
of course I am. What did you think I was?
And from that day forward he treated me like a pariah.
He did not speak to me, he did not look
(16:53):
at me, and anytime I was in his presence, like
because we have mutual friends, he just and I just
I was bewildered. I was like, oh, this is the
allogic of racism, makes no sense whatsoever. And that was
like kind of like another that was another book into
(17:16):
the the the I want to call it to the
lesson of the in the loss of innocence that you
have as a kid. But I lost that that innocence
I never had like that because like the world was
like so cut and dry to me so early on.
Let me ask you the cliche question that many people
(17:37):
ask authors, but I think in memoirs it's it's more appropriate. Um,
did you find healing in this? Did you? Did you
m explore and find things you didn't know were in you? Well,
that is the beauty of writing a book with someone.
As a journalist, I'm so used to talking to other
(17:58):
people about their lives, so like looking inward isn't necessarily
something that we're trained to do. And so having this
opportunity with Rosemary were brought Robotham, who was written books.
Sheep asked me questions. I was like, world, Mamorry, why
do you need to know this? She's like, because I
(18:18):
need to peel that, I need to kind of that
little threads hanging out and I don't want to talk
about that, or maybe I don't remember that or just
like and it's just like so she really was able
to pull from me stories of interest that maybe I
didn't think were that interesting, that were cosmically cosmically intertwined
(18:46):
with not only how I think, how I learn, and
then also you know how I feel? And therapy was
this book therapy? I don't know. I think I'm reallytively
numb to a lot of things. Everything but a good
movie or a television shiit book, I cry like a
(19:09):
baby to those. But I have never been really good
at looking inside and sort of peeling away. I'm not
that I don't need it. I'm sure I need it,
but the book is definitely an exhale. I've said what
I wanted to say, I've written about what I wanted
(19:32):
to write about. And I was having this conversation with
myself in the shower and I said, you know, our privacy,
because I'm I'm really vulnerable in this book and I'm
putting a lot out there, but you know what I
am sharing exactly what I want to share, and I'm
not going to share anything more. And I was thinking, like,
(19:54):
what do people ask you this that? Or as I
was like, you know, you know, I have a right
to hold back, right and I have a right to
to explore. So I think all of those were questions
that rose Marie captured and um, you know, I always say,
you know, the most frustrating part of this book is
(20:17):
my attempt to write it by myself those first like
five months that I sat down and I got through
about sixty or seventy pages, and then I just I
could not. It was like writer's writer's black and a friend,
uh tipped me off to rose Marie. In the minute
(20:37):
she came on board. It was like a completely different scenario. Yeah,
it's interesting. I think many of us, who tell stories
and who delve into the lives of others, are very
closed when it comes to ourselves. I know, I'm very
you are private, no, ed, Yes, I would love to
(20:58):
dig into you one day, very um, And I don't know.
You know, it's interesting, um, And I wonder often you
look at entertainers or those of us who you know
are in front of the camera and the like, and
I find that, you know, many of those same people
put themselves out publicly. Um, are very very private. Yeah,
(21:20):
and it's it's just interesting. Let's let's turn to your
day job. Yay, news business. If you love my day job,
can you tell I can tell you've been at CBS
since twenty oh four. I started freelancing at CBS the
minute I set foot in New York and even before
because I worked. I I sub anchored um for Jackie
(21:44):
Reid Um in the summer of two thousand and three
for the BT Nightly News, which was produced by CBS
Newspath and so that was a lovely like that's kind
of like one of the ways that I was able
to work my way into CBS because I came to
CBS through the backdoor. I started as a freelancer up
(22:06):
to the minute, which was their overnight show. I started
working as a freelancer for their Saturday and Sunday weekend edition,
which was amazing. An amazing group of people worked there,
and yeah, so that's how I came in. I think
it's interesting because those that don't know, for as much
(22:28):
as this business of news has changed, you see far
more people of color on the air now, and we're
starting to see executives get back into because there was
a wave in the late sixties early seventies of black
executives and then they went away, and then they went
away for decades. We're starting to see that change. But
(22:49):
it has for many years been a male, white dominated industry,
and you know, it's interesting to hear some of the
stories that any of us have faced then share it.
The Minneapolis one. I was a student at Howard University
and interns. You get a chance in the college to
(23:10):
interview with newspapers. And I remember there was this gentleman
was such a nice guy. He said, your broadcast journalism
a major. Why should we hire you? We're print And
I said, because I'm a journalist. Why wouldn't you want
to train the best journalist. There's no there's no certainty
that I'm going to come work in Minneapolis for the
(23:31):
Star to rebune, I said, but you want to have
an impact on me so that I can have an
impact on the profession. And he was so blown away
by like my gumption, that he hired me and I
went to the Star Tribune right after literally I landed
at JFK from my semester abroad and Kenyan Tanzania block
(23:55):
flew flew directly to Minneapolis, which is a very lovely
place with wonderful people. But it's ninety five. At the time,
was was majority white city, and um it was an
engaging place and the people were so welcoming to these
(24:18):
minority interns. They really just were so wonderful to us,
both professionally and and the folks um who like housed
us in and you know, made sure that we felt
it out. But um, one of the initial weeks we
were there, uh, there was a staff meeting where one
(24:42):
of the high ups addressed these minority students, and he
addressed the entire portions of the reporting and editing staff
as well, and he said, I just want you to
after giving a wonderful presentation the end he put noted
it with, I just want to make sure you understand
(25:03):
that you have every opportunity to be great journalists, but
you must put your blackness aside and just be a
great journalist, not a great black journksman. And I was like,
that's interesting how he phrased it like that, you know, Um,
(25:23):
and I just and and and then it was like
he kept talking. I said, wait a minute, and he said, yes, ma'am.
I said, you know, I just I can't. I don't
know how to take that because I wasn't born, you know,
an eight pound nine ounce journalist. I was born a
(25:48):
black woman or black child. Um, and and that counts
and and I don't know how to like erase myself.
And then I looked at him and I said, has
anybody ever told you you had to place your white
maleness aside? And his it was like an epiphany and
an embarrassment all at the same time. And I didn't
(26:10):
mean to embarrass him, but that was I think there
was a bit of ire in me that just kind
of said, wait a minute, here's my opportunity and what
do I have to lose m and what was so
I started to get I was like, oh shucks, and
I put my foot in my mouth. And then after
the meeting, there were all of my fellow you know,
(26:32):
my mentors in the newsroom, white reporters, men, women. There
were so few black editors and reporters that they were.
They said, Michelle, thank you for speaking truth to power.
There are so many other things we'd love to address
with him that he isn't aware of. But they didn't
(26:55):
use the term unconscious biased, but that's what they were saying.
They were saying, yes on race, and yes I'm at
some other things. Thank you for opening the door. And
I was like, whoa wait, there are other things. Yeah,
And it opened my mind a little bit more to
maybe some of the things that they were talking about
that they wanted to resonate in the mind of their
(27:16):
employer as well. Yeah, it's interesting, white seems to be
the default position for me. Normal It's like the normalization
of whiteness and the normalization of nuclear family when across
the globe of a family doesn't look like a mom
and a dad, and it looks like a village or
(27:38):
it looks like what family means to people is it's
it's it's defined differently. It's like a family's not a
family without the grandparents. Yeah, you know, a family's not
the family without the cousins and the aunts. But but
all of that to say, it's like, I think that
for a lot of people. And this is where where
(27:59):
our white brothers and sisters can help in understanding, is
that the whiteness is normalized and everything else is not normal. Yeah.
I had the same I had the same incident when
I did the interview with OJ. Many of the press
kept saying, well, how can a black reporter be fair
(28:22):
in talking to OJ Simpson, a black man accused of
And I said, well, do you ever ask that of
a white reporter who talks to a white person who's
alleged to have killed someone. I said, you never bring
that up, so it's it's it's interesting, it's always a
default position for them. Before I let you go, let's
talk about the thing that you and I are working
(28:42):
on together that is a new joint venture between CBS
News and Black Entertainment Television b ET, New News Magazine
America and Black. Talk to me about what you think
about it and what you're doing, because we should note.
Michelle and I'm just squishing to questions together here. But
the news industry that you and I walked into X
(29:06):
number of years ago has changed tremendously. We are in
a different time and place, stories of stories, but what
is deemed news today is far different than it was
when we started. It's a much wider lens, right, It's
like we look at all sorts of stories that I mean,
there's so many more communities that are being covered, so
(29:29):
many more topics that are being explored. It's it's a
wonderful thing. I am so First of all, what is
so interesting is that the beet that we are seeing
emerged today is much like the beet that initiated in
the early nineties when you were a part of it
(29:51):
because there was such a the newscast and the interview
style that I remember was defined in getting the to
the nitty gritty and we I just I still to
this day think that the BET Nightly News is one
of the best news programs. I came back from hosting
(30:15):
that one show, sitting next to my co anchor and
him saying, whispering in I saw you last night, and
I said, will you see me on on bat And
he was a Norwegian American in New Orleans. I said,
you watch BETS. It's a great show. I mean you know,
I mean, yes, we know these things. And so like
(30:38):
the fact that they're embracing again hard news, hard issues
and the glory of what is in the black community
that is, by the way, impacting all of America is awesome. Awesome.
I always I'm teased all of the stories that have
(31:01):
aired at and that are coming up because I've covered
them all. A crown act I've covered that's coming up
next month or this month, Wait on Sunday, right coming
up on Sunday. We just covered the ap History in
High School issue up covering that. But my story is
(31:23):
and it hasn't I don't know if I can technically
talk about it yet, because I haven't actually started filming it,
you know, I mean, I've pitched it, so I don't
know where I stand on that, but it's something really exciting.
I have engaged because I think it's important for us
(31:44):
to tell the whole story, because it's about an artist
who is like blown up in an era when black
art is not being appropriated, it is being recognized in
and of itself. And also he is taking it upon
himself to help nurture the next generation of artists, and
(32:06):
he's doing it in a place I think we need
to go take pay a visit too, So I'll leave
it at that. Well, we look forward to it. We
should note that American Black will air monthly, every first
Sunday of the month, and we should note that the
book Belonging will drop, as we like to say, March fourteenth.
You can preorder it now wherever books are. So congratulations
(32:29):
to you, young lady, Thank you my friend again. Michelle's
book Belonging comes out March fourteenth. One hundred is produced
by Ed Gordon Media and distributed by iHeartMedia. Carol Johnson
(32:50):
Green and Sharie Weldon are our bookers. Our editor is
Lance Patton Gerald Albright composed and performed our theme. Please
join me on Twitter, Instagram at ed L Gordon and
on Facebook at ed Gordon Media.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.