March 13, 2023 • 44 mins
Host Justin Richmond and author Malcolm Gladwell discuss race, identity, and how to succeed in a professional world where not many people look like you.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. I'm justin Richmond, and this is Started from the bottom.
A show about outsiders, A show about ordinary people who
achieved something extraordinary, about people who come from humble beginnings,
who scraped and struggled and didn't quit until one day
(00:38):
they found themselves at the summit of success. These conversations
with everyone from media icons to entrepreneurs, to champion fighters
to inventors have been amazing. I've learned tons and can't
wait for you to hear them. But today, for the
first episode, we're doing something a little different. I'm talking
(00:59):
about my own story, the story that led me to
start this show. It's a story that's probably familiar to
a lot of you listening. It's about figuring out my
identity and about finding my place in professional and academic
worlds where not many people look like me. I have
the honor of having this conversation in front of a
live audience with my mentor, close friend and colleague Herera Pushkin,
(01:21):
Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm wanted to have a conversation that would
introduce me to his podcast audience on revisionist history, and
after hearing it, I thought it'd be a great way
to introduce myself to the audience here see you. So
I'm gonna play the conversation as it appeared on a
Visioness History I. Once you listen to that, you can
check out episode two, which came out simultaneously, my conversation
(01:43):
with Charlemagne the God. Now here's my conversation with Malcolm Gladwell.
I'm going to play for you an interview I did
with an old friend and Pushkin co conspirator, Justin Richmond,
who you may know from our music show Broken Record,
which Justin has made happen since the beginning. But now
Justin has his own gig. He's the creator and host
(02:05):
of a new podcast called Started from the Bottom. It's
a show about origin stories, particularly the origin stories of
men and women of color, how they climbed their way
up the ladder, the obstacles they overcame along the way.
And for this episode that I'm about to play for you,
I turned the tables on Justin and I interviewed him.
We did it in front of a group of students
(02:27):
and faculty at MEDGA Evers College on the side of
the old Ebbotts Field in Brooklyn, New York. As someone
of West Indian heritage, let me just say how gratified
I was at the heavy West Indian turnout for this,
and in good West Indian fashion, they asked some pretty
good questions at the end too. So here we go
my conversation with my good friend Justin Richmond. Hello, Hello,
(02:51):
is this on Check Check a single race? So welcome.
This is the first time I've ever done anything like this,
and it is certainly the first live taping of Starter
from the Bottom. So thank you so much for coming, Malcolm,
(03:22):
Thank you so much for doing this. Not at all,
it's my pleasure. Justin. I've long dreamed of being on
a stage with you. I can't imagine that's true, but
it's very nice of you to say no. I think, well,
I hope this is the start of many of these, Justin,
But I think premise of today's is that I'm interviewing you, right,
That's not our plan. Yeah, a little. We want to
(03:44):
get the Justin. We want to get the Justin Richmond
origin stories. It's a little introduction in me, I guess, yeah, yeah,
the which I you know, I love these things because
I've often I'm a firm believer that if you want
to get to know somebody, even if They've done a
lifetime of interesting things. If you just do the first
twenty years, you get most of what you need. Right that.
(04:07):
It's a surprising how much you can lean from. So
let's start. Let's do the Justin Richmond analysis. And I
wanted to start with the thing we have in common.
Now you might look at us and say, what on
earth do they have in common? But we do have
one very significant fact in common, which is we're both
the product of by racial marriages. Yeah, and I wanted
to start with that. First of all, you're more obviously
(04:29):
by racial than me. I don't know how that happened you.
I'm a little more subtle yours. Your dad would say
it's his jeans. So you're tell me about your parents.
Let's start with those two. How did they meet? Justin
start with that. They met at Compton Community College. So
he grew up in Compton, and uh, and my mom
(04:49):
was there for I don't even know why she was there,
but she was. She was there. She was friends with
someone there, and so she was there. They met. Where
did your mom grow up? My mom grew up in
a city called El Monte, which is by Pasadena. My
mom grew up on the racetrack or dad was a
racehorse trainer, so if she we were up on the racetrack.
(05:11):
And yeah, they're they're very different people even to this day.
And it might be because they've never seen them together.
But my kids still cannot wrap their heads around that.
My parents. It might be like, you know that there's
any relationship between them, who ever was you know, Uh,
they were never together. They were never married, but yeah,
like they liked they just liked each other, you know.
(05:31):
So how long were they together off and on? About
five years? Four years? So you have very few memories
of the two of them, is in a couple, very
few early on, Like I remember being over at his
house because I have two half brothers, so early on
I remember being over there with them, going to Disneyland
on occasion. Well, yeah, the memories are very sporadic. Early on,
(05:54):
you know of them, and you're you're raised by your mom,
raised a bit by both, but primarily by my mom. Yeah,
And where are you grow in Long Beach? Or yes,
in Long Beach And then at five, my mom moved
to the city of Orange, which is in Orange County,
which is about twenty minutes south of Long Beach. Yeah, yeah,
what is Orange like Orange? As far as places in
(06:19):
Orange County go, it's pretty diverse. There's a large Latino
community there, but aside from the Latino population, it's overwhelmingly white.
And that was a that was a change from even
even having white parents, like even having like my mom
being white, and having that whole side of my family
be white. I'd never thought of it that way until
(06:40):
I showed up. You know. She moved there right before
I started, a month before I started kindergarten. And I
remember my first day at kindergarten. I rolled up and
I had a ninety four, so I had a Power
Ranger shirt on. I thought it was real cool, Power
Rangers lunchbox. I really thought I was nervous, but I
thought I was fresh. I thought it was good, right,
And I'll never forget this kid who was in line
(07:01):
in front of me, like looked back at me, and
this is the first time, like again, I'm like, I'm
not really realizing the differences between us yet. But he
turns around and looks at me goes, are you poor?
Are you poor? Yeah? Yeah yeah, And I was like
like what do you what do you mean? And he's like,
you look poor. Are you poor? And I was like, what,
(07:22):
you know, I was just deflated. I didn't know exactly
what to think about it at the moment. I was.
I was just deflated just because you know, you're five
year old, you're going into kindergarten and you're trying to
We had just moved and I thought it looked good,
but apparently I looked poor. That's to remember his name,
and should you tell your mom? Yes, I did that.
I remember that. I remember I remember going home and
and talking to my mom and uh yeah. I mean
(07:45):
that's when I think her hope was that it would
take a little bit long from for those dynamic for
that dynamic to set in, right. But that's when we
we had, like you know, when she started talking to
me about the fact that I am now at this
overwhelmingly white place, and many of the people I'm gonna
be around are likely growing up, if not out now
(08:09):
racist racist things being said in their household, they're going
to be parodying those things back at that. So if
I asked you, in saying middle school to how you
would describe yourself racially, what would you have said? Black?
I knew I was black, you just because because of
my experience because of that experience going to the so
(08:31):
you know, off, I would say, off and on. Between
kindergarten and ninth grade, I was going to overwhelmingly white schools,
and you know, these are places where I would get
called nigger. You know. So when you getting called nigger,
you know what you are, you know, and then I
go talk to my dad about it, go wheah, well
you are niggas. So but you know that was like
his way of trying to be like, yeah, you are niggas,
so yeah, you know. So I definitely knew what I was.
(08:55):
I knew I was black. And where it got well,
I see where it got difficult was when probably in
junior high, when it was teachers who I think sort
of interacting with me different because of my color, you know,
like I had. I got in a lot of trouble
because I grew locks, and I remember they wanted to
(09:16):
kick me out of school. There was a there was
a neo Nazi kid named name your name, and all
these people like on the bulletin board, where are you man? Right?
And every day with him go you know, it was
go back to Africa. And it got to the point
police got involved, you know, and um, he never got
kicked out of school somehow, but um, but I would
(09:39):
say the point in junior high as when teachers I
started getting just weird comments from teachers, and weird nothing
I did was ever good enough. There's always a perception
that I was lazy. And that's why when I think
because I was I was always a smart kid, and
because my dad played football, because I was so tall,
I was always tall, the perception was always that I
was gonna go and be an athlete. But from an
(10:01):
early age, I realized I wanted to cut against that.
Like I didn't want okay, cool, Yeah I can I
can play ball, I can do that. But what I
realized I really wanted was to show people. Like early on,
I kind of got this um need to prove people
wrong in me, and so I felt like I always
wanted to be I always wanted to be the smartest
(10:23):
person in the room at that point as a young kid,
and I didn't always have the confidence that I was,
but I deep deep down somewhere I wanted to be.
And by the time I got to junior high and
the teachers were sort of I had these these odd interactions.
I think that's when I started to That's when my
my interest in education started to wane and my I
would say, my pride and myself started to win. How
(10:44):
many black teachers did you have in your public school experience? Zero? Zero?
Taking something to do with it, I think that's a
big thing. Has a big part to do with that. Absolutely, Yeah, absolutely,
you got it. And that's the premise of my show.
If you're not around, if you're not around people who
look like you, who are successful, you know, and my dad,
(11:08):
God bless them, you know, who was in the NFL
so to degree was a success. But my dad and
I love him, but you know, he also like has
a very small way of thinking, you know, and so
I never really felt like I had someone what do
you mean by a small way of thinking? For him,
it was always like, yeah, just go be a cop,
(11:29):
you know, like that's sure money. Like you can go
be a cop. You can get one hundred grand a
year with over time, you can make like one twenty.
Like what are you doing with this college thing? What
are you doing with school? You know, like they didn't
he couldn't get that I wanted to be that. I
wanted to be an educated brother. You know. He couldn't
get it, I'd say, and a lot of my family didn't.
(11:50):
It's difficult to talk about because I like, in so
many ways they were successful, you know, but at the
same time, I knew there was a level of life
that I wanted to achieve that no one in my
family had achieved. You know, my dad wanted me to
go be a cop because he's like, that's guaranteed income,
you can and you can do it. But I just
had other aspirations. So it was a weird thing between
(12:13):
growing up in a white world that didn't necessarily believe
in me and growing up in you know, my black
family and a black world that kind of had a
way of thinking that wasn't They didn't understand what I
was trying to do. Yeah, yeah, your dad's not He's
not one hundred percent wrong being a police officer. I'm
(12:33):
not saying you should have done it. I'm just saying,
from his position being an LAPD officer, assuming that's what
he's talking about, that is a good job. It's a
great job. I mean in terms of like if you
look at just like income and like what you could
provide for your family, Like, it's a great job. But
it's the means of there's all an entire generation of
(12:54):
largely black men who grew up in LA for whom
the LAPD was the stepping stone. I mean, you got
a job in the lapd and then your kids got
to go to college. I mean that was like he's
reflecting something that was real, right, No, it was a
real thing, and I don't at the time, I was
very I was always upset when you bring it up.
You know, now I understand why he did. But you know,
(13:15):
when you have a dream and something you want to accomplish,
hearing things like that, don't and still confidence in you.
Because I always have to hear these quess like well,
what a school doesn't work out? It's like, well, what
do you mean? Was like, you know what, Like by
the time I get to college and I'm meeting people,
I'm like, I can very much tell that this isn't
their experience that they had, like what a school doesn't
work out? It was this expected? You know? Is it
(13:37):
your dad? Does he not think you're smart enough for college?
Or does he think the obstacles facing a young black
man are two high? What's his what's his theory? I
don't know my dad thinks he's the smartest man in
the world, so and I think based he also thinks
he has the greatest green pool in the world, so
I think so. I think based on that he knew
(13:58):
I was very smart. That was his belief at least.
But with my dad, I think it very much had
to do again with like his perception of what was
possible in the world. You know, he grew up in
a place called You dream Of Village and which was
a housing project that closed down because the soil was toxic.
Like they didn't know it at the time, but the
soil was toxic. So people were getting sick and cancer
(14:19):
and dying, babies being born deformed. And I think it
was also a sense of maybe his dreams were limited
to or not his dreams were big, but I would
say his dreams were at some point, I say his
dreams were crushed as well. You know, my dad did
get kicked out of the NFL. The story as it's
been told to me, So my dad got drafted by
the Colts and eighty four, I want to say eighty five,
(14:41):
and the team captain, a white dude, called my grandmother
a nigger, and so my dad whipped his ass. They
had it, he got reprimanded, that had a team dinner.
It happened again. My dad whipped his ass and he
was kicked off the team. Yeah. And I think when
that is, when that's what happens to your dream, I
(15:01):
think you start to worry in some way or was
it his dream? Absolutely? Yeah, yeah. Does he still have
regrets today? I'm sure he does. I don't think he
regrets that, like, I don't think he regrets open the
team captain's ass or anything, but um, yeah, I think
he wishes it turned out different. Absolutely, you know. Yeah.
(15:24):
Does he understand what you're doing now? Yeah? Yeah, you
know the first time, the first time he really got it. Well,
he got it when I went to when I got
into Berkeley, he was kind of he was shocked. I
was shocked. My whole family was shocked. I couldn't believe
it too, so much so that I remember I drove up.
(15:44):
I drove up, I wrote the counselor. I was like, listen,
like I got some I gotta I gotta talk to you.
I didn't want to do it over email. I didn't
want to do it over phone, Like I needed to
look this lady in the eye. So I was like, hey,
can I meet you? And she's like, yeah, sure, sure
to come down this date this time drove up to
Berkeley and yes I would. I was like, look, I
got this deferred a mission. This is real. Yeah, you're
(16:07):
living in Orange County at the time. I'm living in
the Laya. Yeah. So you drove six hours yeah to Berkeley, yes,
six seven eight to ask official of Berkeley whether your
acceptance that it was real. I came that far. I
wasn't gonna like and then also like trying to figure
out how to run a place up there and pay
admission just to not so I drove up there, and
(16:29):
you know, so I'm is this real? And she goes, yes,
this is real. So I goes, so I can start
January fifteen, Yes you can as a philosophy major. Yes, okay,
and I can switch my major if I want once
I get in. Yes, right, you know. And then and
then and I'm kind of trying to work up to
also like so I asked, I say, listen, I'm gonna
(16:52):
be honest with you, Okay, Like I don't have a
high school diploma, I don't have a GED, I don't
have an equivalency. So you should like, so based on
that now you say already said this was real, but
based on it now with this new information, based on that,
is this really? Is this? Can I really come here?
We skip the st Yeah. The step we skipped was
you didn't graduate from high school? No, I left at fourteen?
(17:14):
At fourteen? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I left at fourteen. Yeah.
I also didn't graduate from high school. But that's because
my mom called the principle and said, Malcolm won't be
coming in. He's more productive at home. That was Everyone
was like, okay, fine, Like that's you know, that's a
very that's the world I grew up, and it was
a forgiving, understanding, do what you want kind of world.
Um wait, you left high school at fourteen to do what? Yeah?
(17:42):
Nothing good? Uh yeah, nothing good. I would say I
was pretty beat down by that point, you know, like
confidence wise, I didn't know what I was doing. So yeah,
I left and I was I was just doing my
own thing. What's your mom doing when you're doing this?
So here's so what happened was so like basically my
(18:03):
freshman year of high school, I was so rock bottom
with my confidence, Like I had basically like a zero
point something GPA. I had like no GPAs. It was
literally zero points something and the only the highest grade
I got was I thought it was a C, but
it turns out it was a D. I got a
D in journalism. Yeah, and the teacher pull me aside.
He's like, justin, you're too smart to fail. You deserve
(18:23):
a F. I'm not gonna give you a F. I'm
gonna give you a D. I was like, oh, thank you,
mister Muller. But it was like at zero point something.
So they said you're gonna have to go to continuation school,
which was just like a school like, you know, for
for fuck ups. And my mom was like, yeah, you're
not a fuck up, so you're not gonna You're not
gonna go there. I go, okay. She's like, I'm just
gonna have you stay home, and uh this it sounds crazy,
(18:45):
but I gotta give her credit because it didn't work
for a bit, but then it really worked. Um, She's like,
I'm just gonna stay home. You're gonna read the paper
every day while I'm at work. I'm gonna come home.
You're gonna have a little report on a couple of
items you read. And of course, you know for the longest,
Like I just took advantage. I didn't do it, you know,
Like I just didn't. She didn't want me being with
(19:07):
fuck ups because she did she already could see I
think that my confidence was shot and that it was
just gonna be worse, so she pulled me out. I
took advantage of it. I didn't do much until I
was like almost sixteen. Common story, I feel like for
a lot of people. I got a copy of the
autobiography of Malcolm X, and it really reignited my ambition.
(19:34):
So then at that point, I enroll in community college
because I didn't really want to deal with like trying
to start over from my freshman year of high school.
So I rolled in community college and just did that
for about four or five years and until I could transfer.
I transference. I started that at like just before I
turned sixteen, and I transferred to Berkeley at twenty one.
Let me see, we're gonna take a quick break. But
(19:56):
when we come back, Malcolm and I get into what
it was like being a black student at you see, Berkeley,
and I share a story with them about randomly meeting
my other mentor Quincy Jones and Havana Cuba so you
have a kind of loss of confidence and do you
(20:21):
get it back in Berkeley? At Berkeley, Yeah, Gabrielle Williams
right here. I met Gabrielle at Berkeley. She was doing
her PhD. We met at the Black Student Lounge or
was that the that was like her her student job thing,
and she was listening to music and I heard so
we connected, and um, there was a professor there by
(20:42):
the name of Ricky Vincent. He was like the pre
eminent funk music scholar and was writing in a book
on the Black Panthers. And I had a strong interest
in the Panthers. So like between like Gabrielle and Ricky
Vincent and and all these other black folk that looked
like me that I could relate to. And for Gabrielle
coming from from La southn California, like there was just
(21:03):
a lot in common. It definitely a hundred percent helped me.
But but she also helped me to a lot because
there's many times I've called Gabrielle, including when I took
this job at Pushkin, like, I really do this, it's
a smart move, and she'll have to talk, you know.
When I got into grad school, man, I really take
out these loans, Gabrielle, I don't know, it's a lot
(21:23):
of money, Like, I don't want to be in debt,
and gabriel was like, justin, just come ons are you
supposed to do? You're going to school, you gotta pay
you unless you can afford it, take the loan out
and go so um yeah. I definitely got a ton
of confidence back there, not that I'm you know. And
then slowly along the way ebbed and flow like as
new situations arose and I sort of fell into journalism
because I couldn't really, I couldn't get a job after college,
(21:46):
and I knew I kind of went in wanting to
be a professor by the time I got to Berkeley's
like I kind of want to do my bachelor's, get
a PhD, then teach. But then I sort of fell
out of love with with higher education just because of
the bureaucracy element. Sorry together, wonderful to have us here.
(22:06):
But I would talk to Gabrielle, I would talk to
my guy Ricky Vincent and sort of be like, well,
what is it that I like to do well. I
like the idea of writing and connecting with people, communicating people.
I like the idea of researching, and so that's when
like the idea struck to do journalism. I started getting
involved with radio around town KPFA, which was the PACIFICA
station in Berkeley, the campus station. I took a journalism
(22:29):
in class, so I kind of and it's just snowball
from there where I fell into journalism. But by the
time I like, I get a job, I'm twenty five,
I'm at MPR, and my girlfriend got pregnant, who's now
my beautiful wife, Danielle who we got two beautiful kids, Crinanella,
and I was making like thirty thousand dollars a year MPR,
paying back loans and about to have a kid. My confidence,
(22:52):
I say, at that point sinks back to all time low.
And I have a friend named Drew who took me
to Cuba. It was just like I sensed you're kind
of going through it. Let me let me take you
to Cuba. This is when Cuba opened up. I was like,
I can't really fort these I'm gonna pay for you
me back whenever. So me and Drew went down and
this is the most random incident in my life. This
(23:14):
is most random thing that ever happened in my life is.
We're in Cuba in Havana. I've driven to Mexico twice,
but other than that, I've never left the country. And
I run into Quincy Jones in Havana and Quincy Jones like,
I'm like, damn, that's Quincy Jones. I want to I go, hey, Quincy,
can I can I get a picture? And he goes yeah,
(23:35):
and he doesn't get up. So I was like, Okay,
I'm gonna sit down and take a picture of Quincy.
And he started asking me what's your sign? I go Leah,
I go Leo. He goes, oh, I'm Leo rising cool.
I don't know what that means. He just starts talking
to me and we have like a three hour conversation.
We have dinner. He never told me because you and
I met Quincy like five years ago. Yeah, that was
(23:56):
a full circle moment for me because we ended up
going to Quincy's house. But I had like a three
hour dinner with Quincy Jones in Havana. I'm my lowest point.
I'm making like no money, I'm broke. My wife is
looking at me crazy because it's like, why are you
in Cuba or running around like she didn't know if
I was maybe gonna not gonna come back or what um,
but I'm at Quincy and from that he was like,
oh you're you're a cool brother. Man gave me, gave
(24:18):
me his card, and normally I wouldn't have reached out,
but I felt I was like, okay, this man discovered
Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Ray Charles. So I was like,
you know what am I gonna do? Not reach out?
So I could use all the help I could get.
So I reached out to Quincy and was like, look,
look Quincy, like I realized didn't want to reach out
(24:40):
with nothing. So me and my friend Sinari Glinton, one
of the few black men at MPR that sort of
took interesting me right away, sort of notice when I
was there that I needed I needed his his guidance.
We decided I shouldn't just go to him with nothing
to offer. So I was like, look, I'm a journalist,
I work in a PR, working audio everyone. You know,
it's twenty sixteen. Podcasting is sort of new, but people
(25:00):
are starting to have him. You've done everything from you know,
everything across media that you could possibly do except for podcasting,
Like we can make you a podcast and it was
like great, So you know, it wasn't that easy, but
was a couple of meetings, finally got into a great
got to sign some paperwork. I still have it framed.
It's like me and Quincy Jones. Signature is the craziest
thing in the world to me. But what happened was
(25:22):
I couldn't. I couldn't I couldn't sell the thing. I
realized I didn't know the first thing about business. I've
been flying blind my whole life, just trying to figure
things out. I'm taking out loans, I don't know what
I'm doing. And that's when the idea for this show
occurred to me. It's like, if I could just talk
to if I could talk to someone else, some other
black man who I was like money, Magic Johnson, by
(25:44):
ronaland who at that times about the Weather Channel. I
was like, I bet they could tell me what to
do because I was in these rooms just like realizing
like I don't understand this jargon, I don't understand the speak,
and I'm failing, you know. And so it really occurred
to me at that moment, how important having people who
look like you, who you can point to in your life,
(26:07):
you can point toward successful at this particular thing. How
that can really be? Um, it's not the only way
to figure things out, but it's man, it makes things
so much easier. You know, Let's go back a moment
and say, what's the version of your life where you
wouldn't have suffered that kind of crisis of confidence. I
(26:29):
can't imagine. Give me a version, give me a version
where it's where it's easy. In the United States. I
don't know. I don't think. I don't think you can't
have it easy being born black in the United States.
I don't think it's I don't think it's possible. I
would say best case scenario is you're like a Carlton
(26:52):
type or something from Fresh Prince or something. You know,
We're like, okay, you succept but like, are you really
how successful are you if you're not acknowledging the whole
part of yourself. So it's hard for me to answer,
but I guess in the scenario where there is no
And this is interesting because I'm also thinking about this
from from my kids now, like they're getting a much
different life than I had, access to different kinds of
(27:13):
people and education and two parents who are supportive of
each other and supportive of them together. So I think.
But but but I mean, I guess, like for me, it's
hard for it really is hard for me to imagine.
But but maybe I guess the best case. You know.
It's funny I used to I used to dream that
I was like a as a kid, that like like
I was like a Huxtable, you know, which is maybe
(27:34):
a little controversial now, but like maybe that would have
been a best case scenario. You know, that was a doctor,
mom was you know whatever in a Brownstone, And give
me the worst case scenario so you don't get into Berkeley.
What happens is that the key moment, No, I probably
getting probably getting the Malcolm X autobiography because that was
(27:56):
I was in a pretty bad spot there. But um,
I'll say, before it came to Pushkin, I almost gave
up again, Like when you don't have examples of success
around fund you and you don't have people who can
teach you about money and how to um not even
look in a gross like uber capitalist way, but just
like how to accumulate it so that you can't have
(28:18):
the things you want and need in life. Like I
didn't have that, So I almost left journalism even though
you know, I love it and I wanted to be
in it, almost left it. I had a job offer
with ADP, the Hay Road Processing to do outdoor sales
with ADP, because I was like, well, I'll just go
do sales, you know, like I'll just I'll make some
money doing sales. And I almost took that offer, you know,
(28:41):
And that was maybe six months before for I got
an email from from you, from me, LaBelle and from
you to come or from Pushkin, which which I would
say changed again my trajectory thanks to you, Jacob Weisberg,
you know, me and Labellum. Yeah, man, because because it
was also bleak then a little bit, you know, it
(29:01):
was also it was tough then, man. After the break,
Malcolm and I talked about the difference between getting second
chances when you're black versus when you're white. And then
the audience gets to ask some questions stick around in
(29:24):
making sense of people's life stories and trying to figure
out what's the difference between a in America, between a
black life story and a white life story. One of
the things, and it's very very difficult to convince persuade
white people of this fact is it's how many strikes
you get, or how many chances you get. If you
(29:47):
are an upper middle class, well educated white person, you
get like ten chances. You can scrupt nine times, and
the system will catch you every time and start you
over again. And if you're in the same position as
a young black person, you maybe get two. And I
remember this is a weird example of this, but the
(30:09):
incredibly interesting book that was written about a suburb of Buffalo,
a wealthy suburb of Buffalo. I think it's Williamsville. I'm
not sure, Amorist. The book I think is called the
Safest City in America. It was about how there's no
juvenile delinquency and Williamsville. And the reason is not that
there's no misbehavior among juveniles. It's that they just call
(30:32):
us something different. Right, it's high jinks, it's sowing no
wild oats, it's it's oh so and so it just
has to learn to be. It's everything is getting. Everyone
gets so many different chances that no one ever looks
never comes to the definition of juvenile delinquency. And like that,
that thing, this question of how many chances you get?
(30:55):
Is it sounds listening to your story that you are
very close to running out of chances. It's even like
more than that. It's just it's like I didn't even
know that I had chances, you know, and maybe I didn't.
I never knew I had chances. You know. There's a
point where, you know, I guess in your example, the
difference would be in those instances, those kids in Buffalo
(31:16):
their thought to be behaving badly, Whereas when you're a
black kid misbehaving, you're bad. You know, you yourself your
mind absolutely defined differently. You're a terrible person. You can't
you can't succeed, you can't do it's none of this
is for you, you know. Yeah, and so that's where
I was at, which is a pretty bleak place. Yeah. Yeah.
(31:38):
My speaking of father, So my father who passed away
a couple of years ago, but actually today, weirdly is
his birthday. Um My mom always says that my dad
that that his motto was nothing bad will ever happen,
which I thought about a lot. Partly that's the function
of his personality. Had this kind of unstoppable and thoughtful personality.
(32:00):
But he was also a came from a stable English family.
He was well educated, he was very intelligent. The sister
him always worked from my dad. He was a nice person,
he was depending when he was charming, he was people
liked him. So it made sense that his theory of
life was nothing bad will ever happened. My mother who
(32:21):
would imagine, know, if she's a mom, she would imagine
all kinds of horrible and he would just he would
look at her uncomprehending me. I was like, no, no no, no, no, basically,
nothing ever bad's gonna happen, right, And it was essentially
true of like in that message. I was just thinking,
as you were talking about your dad, the difference in
messages sent to the two of us at a young age.
(32:43):
I have this dad who just thinks it didn't even
occur to him that there's ever going to be any
you know, detour of it's a runaway yeah, man, Yeah.
Something about opportunity, And there's something about the way in
which society asks you or demands that you think about yourself.
You know, it's like sometimes don't get an option, and
how you want to think about yourself. I feel like
(33:07):
the one thing that I don't Maybe it's fine this way,
but the the transition is still really the way that
your life kind of turns around. I don't even turns around.
It's not like people were living a life of crime.
But you know what I mean, Like, I'm not hammitting
myself on this. Something happens. It's really kind of interesting
(33:30):
and mysterious to you in your twenties. It was a bride.
I was like, yeah, between it was just building up
my confidence. I guess between fifteen and now, I'm still trying,
you know, like, um, from that time I did drop
out of high school to like just getting through college.
(33:51):
Like what motivated me was a sense of failure. I
was like, man, if I don't get a high school,
if I don't get a college diploma, like what I
have an eighth grade certificate? Like what is that going
to do for me? You know? So that was kind
of like this real like it wasn't like a Carrott
type of motivation. Was like you know, and and then
and I was like, well then I couldn't get a job.
And then I went started interning, and I've got into
(34:13):
grad school, and then that gave me another Okay, now
it's grads. When I got to figure out grad school
is a big scary thing and do that and then
I get out of there. I get right into this
job at NPR and within them two months, like my
girlfriend's pregnant, you know, and it's like now it's like, well,
I gotta figure out how to provide. So like my
whole I feel like every step of my life up
until recently has been about how do I just how
(34:34):
do I not how do I not fail? And that's
sort of been my motivation to succeed. And I'm trying
to figure out a way now to be motivated now
the debt, Like that's why I'm on this journey. If
I just trying to talk to successful people, I've I've
been lucky enough to be. You know, first time we
met in Santa Monica, I was like, bah, I can't
gonna go meet Malcolm glad Well, that's crazy. And you know,
(34:56):
we had a very lovely conversation. I just remember I like,
I can't get out of here without asking like, like,
how did you get comfortable having money? And I asked
you that, what did they say? You're like, I just
wanted to build, to do my own thing. I wanted
to have my freedom. I wanted to build. I never
wanted people to sign things to me or to be
told what to do and so, and I was like, damn,
that's a great answer, you know. And but that's why,
that's largely why I'm I'm still you know, I'm still
(35:17):
trying to figure out this this this world and this
life and navigating different things. So that's why I'm out.
That's why I'm doing this and talking to people like
Charlemagne the God and people like uh, Susie Orman and
just different people who you know, against the odds, against
all odds, like figured this thing out, you know. And
and my hope is that people listening to it it
(35:38):
inspires them not only to take big swings, but also
to seek out real world, real life mentorship, you know,
Like obviously I want this to be a platform of
mentorship for people. So hopefully you walk away having learned
a lot and feeling boosted. But also like I think,
you know, you need to have real life mentors, and
I've been lucky enough to have so many, Gabrielle, you, Jacob,
(36:01):
all kinds of different people. I'm hoping that I try
to figure this out, people will figure out alone along
with me. Yeah, that's well, thank you will. Let's do
some audience questions, funny, if there are any questions they
could be for me or Malcolm, here comes one. Yeah,
thank you. My name is Kevin Nesbitt. I'm an educator,
(36:24):
one of the administrators that create the blockags you talked about,
NOUM but um, thank you so much for the way
you present yours goodacracy, a good VP, as I call myself. UM.
I've had many friends that come from biracial families, and
I think as someone that does not come from a
biracial family, there's always this belief that there's some sort
of protection that you might receive from your whiteness if
(36:47):
you choose to adopt it or if you choose to
embrace it. And because I appreciate the way that you
said you understood immediately you were a black man and
that you had no choice because even if you wanted
to imagine something other society told you know, you're a
black man, right, and you gave many examples for that.
But I have other friends that, throughout their journey, they've
been able to say, well, it's it's not that it's
a choice, but it's a little messier than that for
(37:09):
them because they were both black, they're both white, and
they grapple with what that means did you have any
moments where you felt that having a parent that was
white actually enabled some moments of protection or other As
Malcolm described it, maybe one more choice, right, one more
set of options. That's my question. Yeah, hard, I guess.
I don't want to speak for other people, but my
(37:29):
belief is when I talk to when I hear these stories,
it's just that there's a bit of them deluding themselves. Perhaps,
you know, I don't but hard to say. I don't
want to speak for anyone else, but I didn't feel
that maybe if i'd had a different mom, maybe it
would have been different, but I was never allowed to
think that anything different. You know, good, thank you? Yeah, yeah,
(37:49):
there a This is my grand theory of biracial marriages.
There's a big difference between black father, white mother, and
white father black mother, which would be here. Yeah, we
are actually very different kinds. The Historically, what a biracial
marriage was was a white man and a black woman.
That was the acceptable form for society. Goes back hundreds
(38:12):
and hundreds of years. That's what it was. It was
never the reverse. And only really recently have you seen
black men marry white women. And I think the road
is a lot harder both for the for the marriage
and the children. It's a lot harder when your father's
black and your mom is white. And I decided to
look on the cases I'm thinking about my friendships where
(38:34):
it was largely the what you describe where tradition, the
traditional and maybe the household of the fathers, whether separated
or not, later on, there was some sort of protection
that dad would You'd have another outcome, right, you have
another choice. So I just wanted to hear a bit
about that. I think society views a black man white
woman as as being subversive and in a way that
(38:54):
they don't view the reverses being subversive. Thank you, that's true. Hello. Firstly,
thank you Malcolm and justin you guys are It's just
been on joy to have you here and I've just
enjoyed this whole conversation. I just wanted from you, just
in like a sound bite or maybe just like a
(39:16):
quick statement, like words of advice from one biracial man
to another biracial man, just how to like navigate the
professional world and how to just keep your bearings and
keep yourself grounded. Man, I am not listen to my
show because I think there's people far greater than me
that are going to be given advice. But I would
(39:38):
say it's to this point in the instances where I
haven't code switched, I've always been much more successful. You know.
I don't know if that's because I've been lucky, but
also some of it comes down to my Like I
also think you shouldn't capitulate. So also like if someone
(39:58):
doesn't want you, like I do have impositive syndrome yet
and still it's like I do somewhere in me have
this belief that like I can't help but be myself,
you know, And I think if songs, you just are
true to yourself, whatever that is, however you view yourself,
identify yourself, behave like yourself, Like I think that's all
(40:18):
you can do. And I think in those instances like
just knowing that you bring a lot to the table
being you, then you do you being someone else, and
if you don't, you'll find out, right, Like sometimes it
doesn't pay to be me in certain situations, and I,
you know, I found out, but okay, then find that
one's not for me. Let me go to the next
situation where it is good for me to be there.
You know, I was at NPR before I was at
(40:41):
push game with Malcolm and that was a place that
I was authentic to myself. But it didn't feel like
that was It wasn't appreciated, and you know, so I
got out to go where you're appreciated, and go where
you're appreciated. Yeah, yeah, thank you, yeah yeah. Oh welcome gentlemen,
(41:01):
thank you so much. So you both span a buy ratio.
And I wanted to ask miss to God, well, Justin
identifies as black and yourself I don't think about it.
I think that's the difference between having I have a
West Indian mom Justin as an African American father. If
(41:25):
you're a West Indian, you don't think about race in
the same way. It's not this omnipresent thing in your life.
So I was I just think of myself as I
don't know. When I grew up. It was never forced.
I mean it was never I was never forced to
answer that question. My mom thought of herself as a Jamaican,
(41:46):
not as a white person or a black person or
so I don't have a I don't have a a
kind of easy answer that you had a couple of
layers because Jamaican and then growing up in Canada, which
I feel like it was probably very different than Yes, Canada. Again,
I never I never got the the racial experience of
(42:11):
as all of you, everyone in this room knows, the
racial experience of living in this country is just profoundly
different from the racial experience almost anywhere else. Would life
have been different if you are darker complexion? Probably, I guess,
although well black not black people always know that I'm
by racial White people don't necessarily know, so it would
(42:35):
have made my h I have to tell my favorite
story ever along his grounds is as running down went
for a run one day in LA and running down
Ocean Boulevard, and this black guy in a gorgeous open
portion eleven like one of those tricked out ones, like
(42:56):
one of these incredibly handsome black mines, looks at me,
sees me running, stands up, so he's like, you know,
he's through the roof of his car, raises his handling
as he says, I love what you do. Row so
like I get a lot of love and that so
if I was darker, when I get more love, I
(43:17):
mean maybe, but I I can't see how it get
even more than I already get. Yeah, thank you very much. Okay,
all right, thank you so much, guys, and thank you
to Mega Evers College. You know, higher education is wonderful.
(43:42):
Thanks so much to the amazing audience at Mega Evers College,
which was full of teachers and students from that college
and also community members from around Brooklyn and elsewhere in
New York. I also want to thank my guy, Malcolm Gladwell,
who's having my back from day one and always treated
me like a whole human being, one of the most
smart and fantastic people I've ever met in my life.
(44:03):
Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be kicking
off this podcast as a part of Pushkin Industries and
to be due on my first episode with you. Started
from the Bottom is produced by David Jaw, edited by
Keishaw Williams, Engineered by Ben Holliday, booked by Laura Morgan
with production help from Lea Rose. The show's executive produced
by Jacob Goldstein, who's not all up in the videos
(44:26):
for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music is by Ben Holliday
and David Jaw, featuring Anthony Jaggs and Savannah Joe Lack.
Listen to start it from the bottom. Wherever you get
your podcasts and if you want, ad free episodes available
one week early sign up for Pushkin Plus. Check out
pushkin dot fm or the Apple Show page for more information.
(44:47):
If you like our show, please remember to share, rate,
and review us on your podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.
Pushkin. I'm justin Richmond, and this is Started from the bottom.
A show about outsiders, A show about ordinary people who
achieved something extraordinary, about people who come from humble beginnings,
who scraped and struggled and didn't quit until one day
(00:38):
they found themselves at the summit of success. These conversations
with everyone from media icons to entrepreneurs, to champion fighters
to inventors have been amazing. I've learned tons and can't
wait for you to hear them. But today, for the
first episode, we're doing something a little different. I'm talking
(00:59):
about my own story, the story that led me to
start this show. It's a story that's probably familiar to
a lot of you listening. It's about figuring out my
identity and about finding my place in professional and academic
worlds where not many people look like me. I have
the honor of having this conversation in front of a
live audience with my mentor, close friend and colleague Herera Pushkin,
(01:21):
Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm wanted to have a conversation that would
introduce me to his podcast audience on revisionist history, and
after hearing it, I thought it'd be a great way
to introduce myself to the audience here see you. So
I'm gonna play the conversation as it appeared on a
Visioness History I. Once you listen to that, you can
check out episode two, which came out simultaneously, my conversation
(01:43):
with Charlemagne the God. Now here's my conversation with Malcolm Gladwell.
I'm going to play for you an interview I did
with an old friend and Pushkin co conspirator, Justin Richmond,
who you may know from our music show Broken Record,
which Justin has made happen since the beginning. But now
Justin has his own gig. He's the creator and host
(02:05):
of a new podcast called Started from the Bottom. It's
a show about origin stories, particularly the origin stories of
men and women of color, how they climbed their way
up the ladder, the obstacles they overcame along the way.
And for this episode that I'm about to play for you,
I turned the tables on Justin and I interviewed him.
We did it in front of a group of students
(02:27):
and faculty at MEDGA Evers College on the side of
the old Ebbotts Field in Brooklyn, New York. As someone
of West Indian heritage, let me just say how gratified
I was at the heavy West Indian turnout for this,
and in good West Indian fashion, they asked some pretty
good questions at the end too. So here we go
my conversation with my good friend Justin Richmond. Hello, Hello,
(02:51):
is this on Check Check a single race? So welcome.
This is the first time I've ever done anything like this,
and it is certainly the first live taping of Starter
from the Bottom. So thank you so much for coming, Malcolm,
(03:22):
Thank you so much for doing this. Not at all,
it's my pleasure. Justin. I've long dreamed of being on
a stage with you. I can't imagine that's true, but
it's very nice of you to say no. I think, well,
I hope this is the start of many of these, Justin,
But I think premise of today's is that I'm interviewing you, right,
That's not our plan. Yeah, a little. We want to
(03:44):
get the Justin. We want to get the Justin Richmond
origin stories. It's a little introduction in me, I guess, yeah, yeah,
the which I you know, I love these things because
I've often I'm a firm believer that if you want
to get to know somebody, even if They've done a
lifetime of interesting things. If you just do the first
twenty years, you get most of what you need. Right that.
(04:07):
It's a surprising how much you can lean from. So
let's start. Let's do the Justin Richmond analysis. And I
wanted to start with the thing we have in common.
Now you might look at us and say, what on
earth do they have in common? But we do have
one very significant fact in common, which is we're both
the product of by racial marriages. Yeah, and I wanted
to start with that. First of all, you're more obviously
(04:29):
by racial than me. I don't know how that happened you.
I'm a little more subtle yours. Your dad would say
it's his jeans. So you're tell me about your parents.
Let's start with those two. How did they meet? Justin
start with that. They met at Compton Community College. So
he grew up in Compton, and uh, and my mom
(04:49):
was there for I don't even know why she was there,
but she was. She was there. She was friends with
someone there, and so she was there. They met. Where
did your mom grow up? My mom grew up in
a city called El Monte, which is by Pasadena. My
mom grew up on the racetrack or dad was a
racehorse trainer, so if she we were up on the racetrack.
(05:11):
And yeah, they're they're very different people even to this day.
And it might be because they've never seen them together.
But my kids still cannot wrap their heads around that.
My parents. It might be like, you know that there's
any relationship between them, who ever was you know, Uh,
they were never together. They were never married, but yeah,
like they liked they just liked each other, you know.
(05:31):
So how long were they together off and on? About
five years? Four years? So you have very few memories
of the two of them, is in a couple, very
few early on, Like I remember being over at his
house because I have two half brothers, so early on
I remember being over there with them, going to Disneyland
on occasion. Well, yeah, the memories are very sporadic. Early on,
(05:54):
you know of them, and you're you're raised by your mom,
raised a bit by both, but primarily by my mom. Yeah,
And where are you grow in Long Beach? Or yes,
in Long Beach And then at five, my mom moved
to the city of Orange, which is in Orange County,
which is about twenty minutes south of Long Beach. Yeah, yeah,
what is Orange like Orange? As far as places in
(06:19):
Orange County go, it's pretty diverse. There's a large Latino
community there, but aside from the Latino population, it's overwhelmingly white.
And that was a that was a change from even
even having white parents, like even having like my mom
being white, and having that whole side of my family
be white. I'd never thought of it that way until
(06:40):
I showed up. You know. She moved there right before
I started, a month before I started kindergarten. And I
remember my first day at kindergarten. I rolled up and
I had a ninety four, so I had a Power
Ranger shirt on. I thought it was real cool, Power
Rangers lunchbox. I really thought I was nervous, but I
thought I was fresh. I thought it was good, right,
And I'll never forget this kid who was in line
(07:01):
in front of me, like looked back at me, and
this is the first time, like again, I'm like, I'm
not really realizing the differences between us yet. But he
turns around and looks at me goes, are you poor?
Are you poor? Yeah? Yeah yeah, And I was like
like what do you what do you mean? And he's like,
you look poor. Are you poor? And I was like, what,
(07:22):
you know, I was just deflated. I didn't know exactly
what to think about it at the moment. I was.
I was just deflated just because you know, you're five
year old, you're going into kindergarten and you're trying to
We had just moved and I thought it looked good,
but apparently I looked poor. That's to remember his name,
and should you tell your mom? Yes, I did that.
I remember that. I remember I remember going home and
and talking to my mom and uh yeah. I mean
(07:45):
that's when I think her hope was that it would
take a little bit long from for those dynamic for
that dynamic to set in, right. But that's when we
we had, like you know, when she started talking to
me about the fact that I am now at this
overwhelmingly white place, and many of the people I'm gonna
be around are likely growing up, if not out now
(08:09):
racist racist things being said in their household, they're going
to be parodying those things back at that. So if
I asked you, in saying middle school to how you
would describe yourself racially, what would you have said? Black?
I knew I was black, you just because because of
my experience because of that experience going to the so
(08:31):
you know, off, I would say, off and on. Between
kindergarten and ninth grade, I was going to overwhelmingly white schools,
and you know, these are places where I would get
called nigger. You know. So when you getting called nigger,
you know what you are, you know, and then I
go talk to my dad about it, go wheah, well
you are niggas. So but you know that was like
his way of trying to be like, yeah, you are niggas,
so yeah, you know. So I definitely knew what I was.
(08:55):
I knew I was black. And where it got well,
I see where it got difficult was when probably in
junior high, when it was teachers who I think sort
of interacting with me different because of my color, you know,
like I had. I got in a lot of trouble
because I grew locks, and I remember they wanted to
(09:16):
kick me out of school. There was a there was
a neo Nazi kid named name your name, and all
these people like on the bulletin board, where are you man? Right?
And every day with him go you know, it was
go back to Africa. And it got to the point
police got involved, you know, and um, he never got
kicked out of school somehow, but um, but I would
(09:39):
say the point in junior high as when teachers I
started getting just weird comments from teachers, and weird nothing
I did was ever good enough. There's always a perception
that I was lazy. And that's why when I think
because I was I was always a smart kid, and
because my dad played football, because I was so tall,
I was always tall, the perception was always that I
was gonna go and be an athlete. But from an
(10:01):
early age, I realized I wanted to cut against that.
Like I didn't want okay, cool, Yeah I can I
can play ball, I can do that. But what I
realized I really wanted was to show people. Like early on,
I kind of got this um need to prove people
wrong in me, and so I felt like I always
wanted to be I always wanted to be the smartest
(10:23):
person in the room at that point as a young kid,
and I didn't always have the confidence that I was,
but I deep deep down somewhere I wanted to be.
And by the time I got to junior high and
the teachers were sort of I had these these odd interactions.
I think that's when I started to That's when my
my interest in education started to wane and my I
would say, my pride and myself started to win. How
(10:44):
many black teachers did you have in your public school experience? Zero? Zero?
Taking something to do with it, I think that's a
big thing. Has a big part to do with that. Absolutely, Yeah, absolutely,
you got it. And that's the premise of my show.
If you're not around, if you're not around people who
look like you, who are successful, you know, and my dad,
(11:08):
God bless them, you know, who was in the NFL
so to degree was a success. But my dad and
I love him, but you know, he also like has
a very small way of thinking, you know, and so
I never really felt like I had someone what do
you mean by a small way of thinking? For him,
it was always like, yeah, just go be a cop,
(11:29):
you know, like that's sure money. Like you can go
be a cop. You can get one hundred grand a
year with over time, you can make like one twenty.
Like what are you doing with this college thing? What
are you doing with school? You know, like they didn't
he couldn't get that I wanted to be that. I
wanted to be an educated brother. You know. He couldn't
get it, I'd say, and a lot of my family didn't.
(11:50):
It's difficult to talk about because I like, in so
many ways they were successful, you know, but at the
same time, I knew there was a level of life
that I wanted to achieve that no one in my
family had achieved. You know, my dad wanted me to
go be a cop because he's like, that's guaranteed income,
you can and you can do it. But I just
had other aspirations. So it was a weird thing between
(12:13):
growing up in a white world that didn't necessarily believe
in me and growing up in you know, my black
family and a black world that kind of had a
way of thinking that wasn't They didn't understand what I
was trying to do. Yeah, yeah, your dad's not He's
not one hundred percent wrong being a police officer. I'm
(12:33):
not saying you should have done it. I'm just saying,
from his position being an LAPD officer, assuming that's what
he's talking about, that is a good job. It's a
great job. I mean in terms of like if you
look at just like income and like what you could
provide for your family, Like, it's a great job. But
it's the means of there's all an entire generation of
(12:54):
largely black men who grew up in LA for whom
the LAPD was the stepping stone. I mean, you got
a job in the lapd and then your kids got
to go to college. I mean that was like he's
reflecting something that was real, right, No, it was a
real thing, and I don't at the time, I was
very I was always upset when you bring it up.
You know, now I understand why he did. But you know,
(13:15):
when you have a dream and something you want to accomplish,
hearing things like that, don't and still confidence in you.
Because I always have to hear these quess like well,
what a school doesn't work out? It's like, well, what
do you mean? Was like, you know what, Like by
the time I get to college and I'm meeting people,
I'm like, I can very much tell that this isn't
their experience that they had, like what a school doesn't
work out? It was this expected? You know? Is it
(13:37):
your dad? Does he not think you're smart enough for college?
Or does he think the obstacles facing a young black
man are two high? What's his what's his theory? I
don't know my dad thinks he's the smartest man in
the world, so and I think based he also thinks
he has the greatest green pool in the world, so
I think so. I think based on that he knew
(13:58):
I was very smart. That was his belief at least.
But with my dad, I think it very much had
to do again with like his perception of what was
possible in the world. You know, he grew up in
a place called You dream Of Village and which was
a housing project that closed down because the soil was toxic.
Like they didn't know it at the time, but the
soil was toxic. So people were getting sick and cancer
(14:19):
and dying, babies being born deformed. And I think it
was also a sense of maybe his dreams were limited
to or not his dreams were big, but I would
say his dreams were at some point, I say his
dreams were crushed as well. You know, my dad did
get kicked out of the NFL. The story as it's
been told to me, So my dad got drafted by
the Colts and eighty four, I want to say eighty five,
(14:41):
and the team captain, a white dude, called my grandmother
a nigger, and so my dad whipped his ass. They
had it, he got reprimanded, that had a team dinner.
It happened again. My dad whipped his ass and he
was kicked off the team. Yeah. And I think when
that is, when that's what happens to your dream, I
(15:01):
think you start to worry in some way or was
it his dream? Absolutely? Yeah, yeah. Does he still have
regrets today? I'm sure he does. I don't think he
regrets that, like, I don't think he regrets open the
team captain's ass or anything, but um, yeah, I think
he wishes it turned out different. Absolutely, you know. Yeah.
(15:24):
Does he understand what you're doing now? Yeah? Yeah, you
know the first time, the first time he really got it. Well,
he got it when I went to when I got
into Berkeley, he was kind of he was shocked. I
was shocked. My whole family was shocked. I couldn't believe
it too, so much so that I remember I drove up.
(15:44):
I drove up, I wrote the counselor. I was like, listen,
like I got some I gotta I gotta talk to you.
I didn't want to do it over email. I didn't
want to do it over phone, Like I needed to
look this lady in the eye. So I was like, hey,
can I meet you? And she's like, yeah, sure, sure
to come down this date this time drove up to
Berkeley and yes I would. I was like, look, I
got this deferred a mission. This is real. Yeah, you're
(16:07):
living in Orange County at the time. I'm living in
the Laya. Yeah. So you drove six hours yeah to Berkeley, yes,
six seven eight to ask official of Berkeley whether your
acceptance that it was real. I came that far. I
wasn't gonna like and then also like trying to figure
out how to run a place up there and pay
admission just to not so I drove up there, and
(16:29):
you know, so I'm is this real? And she goes, yes,
this is real. So I goes, so I can start
January fifteen, Yes you can as a philosophy major. Yes, okay,
and I can switch my major if I want once
I get in. Yes, right, you know. And then and
then and I'm kind of trying to work up to
also like so I asked, I say, listen, I'm gonna
(16:52):
be honest with you, Okay, Like I don't have a
high school diploma, I don't have a GED, I don't
have an equivalency. So you should like, so based on
that now you say already said this was real, but
based on it now with this new information, based on that,
is this really? Is this? Can I really come here?
We skip the st Yeah. The step we skipped was
you didn't graduate from high school? No, I left at fourteen?
(17:14):
At fourteen? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I left at fourteen. Yeah.
I also didn't graduate from high school. But that's because
my mom called the principle and said, Malcolm won't be
coming in. He's more productive at home. That was Everyone
was like, okay, fine, Like that's you know, that's a
very that's the world I grew up, and it was
a forgiving, understanding, do what you want kind of world.
Um wait, you left high school at fourteen to do what? Yeah?
(17:42):
Nothing good? Uh yeah, nothing good. I would say I
was pretty beat down by that point, you know, like
confidence wise, I didn't know what I was doing. So yeah,
I left and I was I was just doing my
own thing. What's your mom doing when you're doing this?
So here's so what happened was so like basically my
(18:03):
freshman year of high school, I was so rock bottom
with my confidence, Like I had basically like a zero
point something GPA. I had like no GPAs. It was
literally zero points something and the only the highest grade
I got was I thought it was a C, but
it turns out it was a D. I got a
D in journalism. Yeah, and the teacher pull me aside.
He's like, justin, you're too smart to fail. You deserve
(18:23):
a F. I'm not gonna give you a F. I'm
gonna give you a D. I was like, oh, thank you,
mister Muller. But it was like at zero point something.
So they said you're gonna have to go to continuation school,
which was just like a school like, you know, for
for fuck ups. And my mom was like, yeah, you're
not a fuck up, so you're not gonna You're not
gonna go there. I go, okay. She's like, I'm just
gonna have you stay home, and uh this it sounds crazy,
(18:45):
but I gotta give her credit because it didn't work
for a bit, but then it really worked. Um, She's like,
I'm just gonna stay home. You're gonna read the paper
every day while I'm at work. I'm gonna come home.
You're gonna have a little report on a couple of
items you read. And of course, you know for the longest,
Like I just took advantage. I didn't do it, you know,
Like I just didn't. She didn't want me being with
(19:07):
fuck ups because she did she already could see I
think that my confidence was shot and that it was
just gonna be worse, so she pulled me out. I
took advantage of it. I didn't do much until I
was like almost sixteen. Common story, I feel like for
a lot of people. I got a copy of the
autobiography of Malcolm X, and it really reignited my ambition.
(19:34):
So then at that point, I enroll in community college
because I didn't really want to deal with like trying
to start over from my freshman year of high school.
So I rolled in community college and just did that
for about four or five years and until I could transfer.
I transference. I started that at like just before I
turned sixteen, and I transferred to Berkeley at twenty one.
Let me see, we're gonna take a quick break. But
(19:56):
when we come back, Malcolm and I get into what
it was like being a black student at you see, Berkeley,
and I share a story with them about randomly meeting
my other mentor Quincy Jones and Havana Cuba so you
have a kind of loss of confidence and do you
(20:21):
get it back in Berkeley? At Berkeley, Yeah, Gabrielle Williams
right here. I met Gabrielle at Berkeley. She was doing
her PhD. We met at the Black Student Lounge or
was that the that was like her her student job thing,
and she was listening to music and I heard so
we connected, and um, there was a professor there by
(20:42):
the name of Ricky Vincent. He was like the pre
eminent funk music scholar and was writing in a book
on the Black Panthers. And I had a strong interest
in the Panthers. So like between like Gabrielle and Ricky
Vincent and and all these other black folk that looked
like me that I could relate to. And for Gabrielle
coming from from La southn California, like there was just
(21:03):
a lot in common. It definitely a hundred percent helped me.
But but she also helped me to a lot because
there's many times I've called Gabrielle, including when I took
this job at Pushkin, like, I really do this, it's
a smart move, and she'll have to talk, you know.
When I got into grad school, man, I really take
out these loans, Gabrielle, I don't know, it's a lot
(21:23):
of money, Like, I don't want to be in debt,
and gabriel was like, justin, just come ons are you
supposed to do? You're going to school, you gotta pay
you unless you can afford it, take the loan out
and go so um yeah. I definitely got a ton
of confidence back there, not that I'm you know. And
then slowly along the way ebbed and flow like as
new situations arose and I sort of fell into journalism
because I couldn't really, I couldn't get a job after college,
(21:46):
and I knew I kind of went in wanting to
be a professor by the time I got to Berkeley's
like I kind of want to do my bachelor's, get
a PhD, then teach. But then I sort of fell
out of love with with higher education just because of
the bureaucracy element. Sorry together, wonderful to have us here.
(22:06):
But I would talk to Gabrielle, I would talk to
my guy Ricky Vincent and sort of be like, well,
what is it that I like to do well. I
like the idea of writing and connecting with people, communicating people.
I like the idea of researching, and so that's when
like the idea struck to do journalism. I started getting
involved with radio around town KPFA, which was the PACIFICA
station in Berkeley, the campus station. I took a journalism
(22:29):
in class, so I kind of and it's just snowball
from there where I fell into journalism. But by the
time I like, I get a job, I'm twenty five,
I'm at MPR, and my girlfriend got pregnant, who's now
my beautiful wife, Danielle who we got two beautiful kids, Crinanella,
and I was making like thirty thousand dollars a year MPR,
paying back loans and about to have a kid. My confidence,
(22:52):
I say, at that point sinks back to all time low.
And I have a friend named Drew who took me
to Cuba. It was just like I sensed you're kind
of going through it. Let me let me take you
to Cuba. This is when Cuba opened up. I was like,
I can't really fort these I'm gonna pay for you
me back whenever. So me and Drew went down and
this is the most random incident in my life. This
(23:14):
is most random thing that ever happened in my life is.
We're in Cuba in Havana. I've driven to Mexico twice,
but other than that, I've never left the country. And
I run into Quincy Jones in Havana and Quincy Jones like,
I'm like, damn, that's Quincy Jones. I want to I go, hey, Quincy,
can I can I get a picture? And he goes yeah,
(23:35):
and he doesn't get up. So I was like, Okay,
I'm gonna sit down and take a picture of Quincy.
And he started asking me what's your sign? I go Leah,
I go Leo. He goes, oh, I'm Leo rising cool.
I don't know what that means. He just starts talking
to me and we have like a three hour conversation.
We have dinner. He never told me because you and
I met Quincy like five years ago. Yeah, that was
(23:56):
a full circle moment for me because we ended up
going to Quincy's house. But I had like a three
hour dinner with Quincy Jones in Havana. I'm my lowest point.
I'm making like no money, I'm broke. My wife is
looking at me crazy because it's like, why are you
in Cuba or running around like she didn't know if
I was maybe gonna not gonna come back or what um,
but I'm at Quincy and from that he was like,
oh you're you're a cool brother. Man gave me, gave
(24:18):
me his card, and normally I wouldn't have reached out,
but I felt I was like, okay, this man discovered
Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Ray Charles. So I was like,
you know what am I gonna do? Not reach out?
So I could use all the help I could get.
So I reached out to Quincy and was like, look,
look Quincy, like I realized didn't want to reach out
(24:40):
with nothing. So me and my friend Sinari Glinton, one
of the few black men at MPR that sort of
took interesting me right away, sort of notice when I
was there that I needed I needed his his guidance.
We decided I shouldn't just go to him with nothing
to offer. So I was like, look, I'm a journalist,
I work in a PR, working audio everyone. You know,
it's twenty sixteen. Podcasting is sort of new, but people
(25:00):
are starting to have him. You've done everything from you know,
everything across media that you could possibly do except for podcasting,
Like we can make you a podcast and it was
like great, So you know, it wasn't that easy, but
was a couple of meetings, finally got into a great
got to sign some paperwork. I still have it framed.
It's like me and Quincy Jones. Signature is the craziest
thing in the world to me. But what happened was
(25:22):
I couldn't. I couldn't I couldn't sell the thing. I
realized I didn't know the first thing about business. I've
been flying blind my whole life, just trying to figure
things out. I'm taking out loans, I don't know what
I'm doing. And that's when the idea for this show
occurred to me. It's like, if I could just talk
to if I could talk to someone else, some other
black man who I was like money, Magic Johnson, by
(25:44):
ronaland who at that times about the Weather Channel. I
was like, I bet they could tell me what to
do because I was in these rooms just like realizing
like I don't understand this jargon, I don't understand the speak,
and I'm failing, you know. And so it really occurred
to me at that moment, how important having people who
look like you, who you can point to in your life,
(26:07):
you can point toward successful at this particular thing. How
that can really be? Um, it's not the only way
to figure things out, but it's man, it makes things
so much easier. You know, Let's go back a moment
and say, what's the version of your life where you
wouldn't have suffered that kind of crisis of confidence. I
(26:29):
can't imagine. Give me a version, give me a version
where it's where it's easy. In the United States. I
don't know. I don't think. I don't think you can't
have it easy being born black in the United States.
I don't think it's I don't think it's possible. I
would say best case scenario is you're like a Carlton
(26:52):
type or something from Fresh Prince or something. You know,
We're like, okay, you succept but like, are you really
how successful are you if you're not acknowledging the whole
part of yourself. So it's hard for me to answer,
but I guess in the scenario where there is no
And this is interesting because I'm also thinking about this
from from my kids now, like they're getting a much
different life than I had, access to different kinds of
(27:13):
people and education and two parents who are supportive of
each other and supportive of them together. So I think.
But but but I mean, I guess, like for me, it's
hard for it really is hard for me to imagine.
But but maybe I guess the best case. You know.
It's funny I used to I used to dream that
I was like a as a kid, that like like
I was like a Huxtable, you know, which is maybe
(27:34):
a little controversial now, but like maybe that would have
been a best case scenario. You know, that was a doctor,
mom was you know whatever in a Brownstone, And give
me the worst case scenario so you don't get into Berkeley.
What happens is that the key moment, No, I probably
getting probably getting the Malcolm X autobiography because that was
(27:56):
I was in a pretty bad spot there. But um,
I'll say, before it came to Pushkin, I almost gave
up again, Like when you don't have examples of success
around fund you and you don't have people who can
teach you about money and how to um not even
look in a gross like uber capitalist way, but just
like how to accumulate it so that you can't have
(28:18):
the things you want and need in life. Like I
didn't have that, So I almost left journalism even though
you know, I love it and I wanted to be
in it, almost left it. I had a job offer
with ADP, the Hay Road Processing to do outdoor sales
with ADP, because I was like, well, I'll just go
do sales, you know, like I'll just I'll make some
money doing sales. And I almost took that offer, you know,
(28:41):
And that was maybe six months before for I got
an email from from you, from me, LaBelle and from
you to come or from Pushkin, which which I would
say changed again my trajectory thanks to you, Jacob Weisberg,
you know, me and Labellum. Yeah, man, because because it
was also bleak then a little bit, you know, it
(29:01):
was also it was tough then, man. After the break,
Malcolm and I talked about the difference between getting second
chances when you're black versus when you're white. And then
the audience gets to ask some questions stick around in
(29:24):
making sense of people's life stories and trying to figure
out what's the difference between a in America, between a
black life story and a white life story. One of
the things, and it's very very difficult to convince persuade
white people of this fact is it's how many strikes
you get, or how many chances you get. If you
(29:47):
are an upper middle class, well educated white person, you
get like ten chances. You can scrupt nine times, and
the system will catch you every time and start you
over again. And if you're in the same position as
a young black person, you maybe get two. And I
remember this is a weird example of this, but the
(30:09):
incredibly interesting book that was written about a suburb of Buffalo,
a wealthy suburb of Buffalo. I think it's Williamsville. I'm
not sure, Amorist. The book I think is called the
Safest City in America. It was about how there's no
juvenile delinquency and Williamsville. And the reason is not that
there's no misbehavior among juveniles. It's that they just call
(30:32):
us something different. Right, it's high jinks, it's sowing no
wild oats, it's it's oh so and so it just
has to learn to be. It's everything is getting. Everyone
gets so many different chances that no one ever looks
never comes to the definition of juvenile delinquency. And like that,
that thing, this question of how many chances you get?
(30:55):
Is it sounds listening to your story that you are
very close to running out of chances. It's even like
more than that. It's just it's like I didn't even
know that I had chances, you know, and maybe I didn't.
I never knew I had chances. You know. There's a
point where, you know, I guess in your example, the
difference would be in those instances, those kids in Buffalo
(31:16):
their thought to be behaving badly, Whereas when you're a
black kid misbehaving, you're bad. You know, you yourself your
mind absolutely defined differently. You're a terrible person. You can't
you can't succeed, you can't do it's none of this
is for you, you know. Yeah, and so that's where
I was at, which is a pretty bleak place. Yeah. Yeah.
(31:38):
My speaking of father, So my father who passed away
a couple of years ago, but actually today, weirdly is
his birthday. Um My mom always says that my dad
that that his motto was nothing bad will ever happen,
which I thought about a lot. Partly that's the function
of his personality. Had this kind of unstoppable and thoughtful personality.
(32:00):
But he was also a came from a stable English family.
He was well educated, he was very intelligent. The sister
him always worked from my dad. He was a nice person,
he was depending when he was charming, he was people
liked him. So it made sense that his theory of
life was nothing bad will ever happened. My mother who
(32:21):
would imagine, know, if she's a mom, she would imagine
all kinds of horrible and he would just he would
look at her uncomprehending me. I was like, no, no no, no, no, basically,
nothing ever bad's gonna happen, right, And it was essentially
true of like in that message. I was just thinking,
as you were talking about your dad, the difference in
messages sent to the two of us at a young age.
(32:43):
I have this dad who just thinks it didn't even
occur to him that there's ever going to be any
you know, detour of it's a runaway yeah, man, Yeah.
Something about opportunity, And there's something about the way in
which society asks you or demands that you think about yourself.
You know, it's like sometimes don't get an option, and
how you want to think about yourself. I feel like
(33:07):
the one thing that I don't Maybe it's fine this way,
but the the transition is still really the way that
your life kind of turns around. I don't even turns around.
It's not like people were living a life of crime.
But you know what I mean, Like, I'm not hammitting
myself on this. Something happens. It's really kind of interesting
(33:30):
and mysterious to you in your twenties. It was a bride.
I was like, yeah, between it was just building up
my confidence. I guess between fifteen and now, I'm still trying,
you know, like, um, from that time I did drop
out of high school to like just getting through college.
(33:51):
Like what motivated me was a sense of failure. I
was like, man, if I don't get a high school,
if I don't get a college diploma, like what I
have an eighth grade certificate? Like what is that going
to do for me? You know? So that was kind
of like this real like it wasn't like a Carrott
type of motivation. Was like you know, and and then
and I was like, well then I couldn't get a job.
And then I went started interning, and I've got into
(34:13):
grad school, and then that gave me another Okay, now
it's grads. When I got to figure out grad school
is a big scary thing and do that and then
I get out of there. I get right into this
job at NPR and within them two months, like my
girlfriend's pregnant, you know, and it's like now it's like, well,
I gotta figure out how to provide. So like my
whole I feel like every step of my life up
until recently has been about how do I just how
(34:34):
do I not how do I not fail? And that's
sort of been my motivation to succeed. And I'm trying
to figure out a way now to be motivated now
the debt, Like that's why I'm on this journey. If
I just trying to talk to successful people, I've I've
been lucky enough to be. You know, first time we
met in Santa Monica, I was like, bah, I can't
gonna go meet Malcolm glad Well, that's crazy. And you know,
(34:56):
we had a very lovely conversation. I just remember I like,
I can't get out of here without asking like, like,
how did you get comfortable having money? And I asked
you that, what did they say? You're like, I just
wanted to build, to do my own thing. I wanted
to have my freedom. I wanted to build. I never
wanted people to sign things to me or to be
told what to do and so, and I was like, damn,
that's a great answer, you know. And but that's why,
that's largely why I'm I'm still you know, I'm still
(35:17):
trying to figure out this this this world and this
life and navigating different things. So that's why I'm out.
That's why I'm doing this and talking to people like
Charlemagne the God and people like uh, Susie Orman and
just different people who you know, against the odds, against
all odds, like figured this thing out, you know. And
and my hope is that people listening to it it
(35:38):
inspires them not only to take big swings, but also
to seek out real world, real life mentorship, you know,
Like obviously I want this to be a platform of
mentorship for people. So hopefully you walk away having learned
a lot and feeling boosted. But also like I think,
you know, you need to have real life mentors, and
I've been lucky enough to have so many, Gabrielle, you, Jacob,
(36:01):
all kinds of different people. I'm hoping that I try
to figure this out, people will figure out alone along
with me. Yeah, that's well, thank you will. Let's do
some audience questions, funny, if there are any questions they
could be for me or Malcolm, here comes one. Yeah,
thank you. My name is Kevin Nesbitt. I'm an educator,
(36:24):
one of the administrators that create the blockags you talked about,
NOUM but um, thank you so much for the way
you present yours goodacracy, a good VP, as I call myself. UM.
I've had many friends that come from biracial families, and
I think as someone that does not come from a
biracial family, there's always this belief that there's some sort
of protection that you might receive from your whiteness if
(36:47):
you choose to adopt it or if you choose to
embrace it. And because I appreciate the way that you
said you understood immediately you were a black man and
that you had no choice because even if you wanted
to imagine something other society told you know, you're a
black man, right, and you gave many examples for that.
But I have other friends that, throughout their journey, they've
been able to say, well, it's it's not that it's
a choice, but it's a little messier than that for
(37:09):
them because they were both black, they're both white, and
they grapple with what that means did you have any
moments where you felt that having a parent that was
white actually enabled some moments of protection or other As
Malcolm described it, maybe one more choice, right, one more
set of options. That's my question. Yeah, hard, I guess.
I don't want to speak for other people, but my
(37:29):
belief is when I talk to when I hear these stories,
it's just that there's a bit of them deluding themselves. Perhaps,
you know, I don't but hard to say. I don't
want to speak for anyone else, but I didn't feel
that maybe if i'd had a different mom, maybe it
would have been different, but I was never allowed to
think that anything different. You know, good, thank you? Yeah, yeah,
(37:49):
there a This is my grand theory of biracial marriages.
There's a big difference between black father, white mother, and
white father black mother, which would be here. Yeah, we
are actually very different kinds. The Historically, what a biracial
marriage was was a white man and a black woman.
That was the acceptable form for society. Goes back hundreds
(38:12):
and hundreds of years. That's what it was. It was
never the reverse. And only really recently have you seen
black men marry white women. And I think the road
is a lot harder both for the for the marriage
and the children. It's a lot harder when your father's
black and your mom is white. And I decided to
look on the cases I'm thinking about my friendships where
(38:34):
it was largely the what you describe where tradition, the
traditional and maybe the household of the fathers, whether separated
or not, later on, there was some sort of protection
that dad would You'd have another outcome, right, you have
another choice. So I just wanted to hear a bit
about that. I think society views a black man white
woman as as being subversive and in a way that
(38:54):
they don't view the reverses being subversive. Thank you, that's true. Hello. Firstly,
thank you Malcolm and justin you guys are It's just
been on joy to have you here and I've just
enjoyed this whole conversation. I just wanted from you, just
in like a sound bite or maybe just like a
(39:16):
quick statement, like words of advice from one biracial man
to another biracial man, just how to like navigate the
professional world and how to just keep your bearings and
keep yourself grounded. Man, I am not listen to my
show because I think there's people far greater than me
that are going to be given advice. But I would
(39:38):
say it's to this point in the instances where I
haven't code switched, I've always been much more successful. You know.
I don't know if that's because I've been lucky, but
also some of it comes down to my Like I
also think you shouldn't capitulate. So also like if someone
(39:58):
doesn't want you, like I do have impositive syndrome yet
and still it's like I do somewhere in me have
this belief that like I can't help but be myself,
you know, And I think if songs, you just are
true to yourself, whatever that is, however you view yourself,
identify yourself, behave like yourself, Like I think that's all
(40:18):
you can do. And I think in those instances like
just knowing that you bring a lot to the table
being you, then you do you being someone else, and
if you don't, you'll find out, right, Like sometimes it
doesn't pay to be me in certain situations, and I,
you know, I found out, but okay, then find that
one's not for me. Let me go to the next
situation where it is good for me to be there.
You know, I was at NPR before I was at
(40:41):
push game with Malcolm and that was a place that
I was authentic to myself. But it didn't feel like
that was It wasn't appreciated, and you know, so I
got out to go where you're appreciated, and go where
you're appreciated. Yeah, yeah, thank you, yeah yeah. Oh welcome gentlemen,
(41:01):
thank you so much. So you both span a buy ratio.
And I wanted to ask miss to God, well, Justin
identifies as black and yourself I don't think about it.
I think that's the difference between having I have a
West Indian mom Justin as an African American father. If
(41:25):
you're a West Indian, you don't think about race in
the same way. It's not this omnipresent thing in your life.
So I was I just think of myself as I
don't know. When I grew up. It was never forced.
I mean it was never I was never forced to
answer that question. My mom thought of herself as a Jamaican,
(41:46):
not as a white person or a black person or
so I don't have a I don't have a a
kind of easy answer that you had a couple of
layers because Jamaican and then growing up in Canada, which
I feel like it was probably very different than Yes, Canada. Again,
I never I never got the the racial experience of
(42:11):
as all of you, everyone in this room knows, the
racial experience of living in this country is just profoundly
different from the racial experience almost anywhere else. Would life
have been different if you are darker complexion? Probably, I guess,
although well black not black people always know that I'm
by racial White people don't necessarily know, so it would
(42:35):
have made my h I have to tell my favorite
story ever along his grounds is as running down went
for a run one day in LA and running down
Ocean Boulevard, and this black guy in a gorgeous open
portion eleven like one of those tricked out ones, like
(42:56):
one of these incredibly handsome black mines, looks at me,
sees me running, stands up, so he's like, you know,
he's through the roof of his car, raises his handling
as he says, I love what you do. Row so
like I get a lot of love and that so
if I was darker, when I get more love, I
(43:17):
mean maybe, but I I can't see how it get
even more than I already get. Yeah, thank you very much. Okay,
all right, thank you so much, guys, and thank you
to Mega Evers College. You know, higher education is wonderful.
(43:42):
Thanks so much to the amazing audience at Mega Evers College,
which was full of teachers and students from that college
and also community members from around Brooklyn and elsewhere in
New York. I also want to thank my guy, Malcolm Gladwell,
who's having my back from day one and always treated
me like a whole human being, one of the most
smart and fantastic people I've ever met in my life.
(44:03):
Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be kicking
off this podcast as a part of Pushkin Industries and
to be due on my first episode with you. Started
from the Bottom is produced by David Jaw, edited by
Keishaw Williams, Engineered by Ben Holliday, booked by Laura Morgan
with production help from Lea Rose. The show's executive produced
by Jacob Goldstein, who's not all up in the videos
(44:26):
for Pushkin Industries. Our theme music is by Ben Holliday
and David Jaw, featuring Anthony Jaggs and Savannah Joe Lack.
Listen to start it from the bottom. Wherever you get
your podcasts and if you want, ad free episodes available
one week early sign up for Pushkin Plus. Check out
pushkin dot fm or the Apple Show page for more information.
(44:47):
If you like our show, please remember to share, rate,
and review us on your podcast app. I'm justin Richmond.
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