December 4, 2024 • 45 mins
Parenting, mental health, and finding your way in a complicated world—Emmy and Tony-winning actor Courtney B. Vance covers it all in this powerful conversation with Carol.
Courtney reflects on his Detroit upbringing, the sacrifices his parents made for his education, and how those lessons shape how he and his wife, (the one and only Angela Bassett), have raised their twins who are now off at college. He shares how they’ve kept their kids grounded despite growing up in the spotlight, and how he’s navigating the balance of letting go while still being there to support them.
Courtney talks with Carol about his new book, The Invisible Ache: Black Men Identifying Their Pain and Reclaiming Their Power, co-written with Dr. Robin Smith. He reveals the devastating impact of his father’s death, how therapy helped him heal, and why breaking the stigma around mental health in the Black community is so critical.
Whether you’ve long admired Courtney on stage and screen or are meeting him here for the first time, this conversation is packed with relatable parenting moments, inspiring stories, and advice you can use. Tune in for his reflections on finding purpose, staying open to life’s possibilities, and helping kids thrive.
Follow us at @GroundControlParenting and on groundcontrolparenting.com!
And don’t forget to subscribe to the Substack newsletter for behind-the-scenes info, bonus parenting tips, and more!.
Courtney reflects on his Detroit upbringing, the sacrifices his parents made for his education, and how those lessons shape how he and his wife, (the one and only Angela Bassett), have raised their twins who are now off at college. He shares how they’ve kept their kids grounded despite growing up in the spotlight, and how he’s navigating the balance of letting go while still being there to support them.
Courtney talks with Carol about his new book, The Invisible Ache: Black Men Identifying Their Pain and Reclaiming Their Power, co-written with Dr. Robin Smith. He reveals the devastating impact of his father’s death, how therapy helped him heal, and why breaking the stigma around mental health in the Black community is so critical.
Whether you’ve long admired Courtney on stage and screen or are meeting him here for the first time, this conversation is packed with relatable parenting moments, inspiring stories, and advice you can use. Tune in for his reflections on finding purpose, staying open to life’s possibilities, and helping kids thrive.
Follow us at @GroundControlParenting and on groundcontrolparenting.com!
And don’t forget to subscribe to the Substack newsletter for behind-the-scenes info, bonus parenting tips, and more!.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to Ground Control Parenting, a blog and
now a podcast creative for parents raising black and brown children.
I'm the creator and your host, Carol Sutton Lewis. In
this podcast series, I talk with some really interesting people
about the joy and the job of parenting. Today, I
am so excited to welcome actor, producer, and author Courtney
Vance to the podcast. Courtney's extensive and storied work on
(00:28):
stage and film and on television has earned him so
many awards, including a tony two Emmy's, a Critics Choice Award,
multiple NAACP Image Awards, and loads more nominations. So whether
we know him from his five year run as Adya
Ron Carver on Law and Order Criminal Intent, or his
Emmy winning portrayal of Johnny Cochrane and the People versus O. J.
(00:48):
Simpson American Crime Story, his star turn as Aretha Franklin's
father in Genius Aretha, or any of his many, many
other memorable roles, we know that he continues to have
an exceptional He's also the co founder of Bassett Vance
Productions with his wife, the wonderful actress Angela Bassett, and
he's currently president of the sag After Foundation. Courtney's creative
(01:09):
talents also include the written word, as he's co authored Friends,
a love Story along with his wife Angela, and he's
written a recent book with doctor Robin Smith called The
Invisible Ache Black Men, identifying their Pain and Reclaiming their Power,
which we're going to talk about more today. Courtney is
a graduate of Harvard College and received his Master of
Fine Arts from Yale University. He and angel are the
(01:31):
proud parents of twins Bronwin and Slater, who are now
college freshmen. Welcome to Ground Control Parenting, Courtney, b Vance.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Thank you so good to be with you, Ken, very.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Very happy to see you, and thank you so much
for joining me. So I last saw you at a
college graduation a few years ago, and now you've just
sent your twins off to college, and I want to
talk about that and your parenting life along with your
new book. So let's get started. So first, I always
like to ask my guests about out how they grew up,
and thanks to your wonderful book, I know a little bit.
(02:04):
So I know that you were born in Inkster, Michigan,
but you moved to Detroit, you and your sister and
your family moved and you have had some pretty incredible
educational opportunities. So I want to back up and ask
about how your parents raised you to have this incredible
academic life, and were you spotted early on as someone
(02:27):
who loved learning, and did they encourage that or were
they really focused on making sure you and your sister
were focused on your academics.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
They were Carol. They were my father Conroy and our
mother Leslie. We knew from early on that the education
was the key and the focus, and we loved school.
We grew up in an African American environment in Detroit,
(02:57):
and we were we were loved and encouraged, and my
sister and I were in the same school and schools
and we grew up during the sixties. We eventually moved
to a neighborhood called off West Groand Boulevard where the
tanks came down the street during the sixty seven riots.
(03:21):
And they were, you know, huge homes that were split
up into four plexes and eight plexes. They were mansions
and eight houses. Down from Us Carroll was Hitsville, which
is where the museum is now, but that was the
beginnings of Motown. So we used to go down there
(03:44):
and sit on these steps and watch the watch the
people come and go. We didn't know who, you know,
Marvin Gaye Man come in and you know, Smokey Robinson
or whoever, the Chirells. So we were just it was
a very closed and tight knit environment. So we were
(04:04):
very very loved and appreciated and not you know, we
were didn't have a lot of money, but we didn't
know that. My sister and I stayed in the same room.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
It sounds like so both you and your sister sort
of picked up books, picked up schooling pretty easily, were
encouraged to pursue your academics. In fact, they took you
out of the local school and put you in the
Catholic school why, in an effort to give you sort
of a more rigorous stranger.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Over the summer of sixty nine, Coleman Young the first
black mayor of Detroit, and I mean black power was
all the rage, and so you can't judge it by today,
but the first time that we had as a people
were running cities. You know, the gentlemen in New Jersey
(04:54):
and Cleveland, the major cities were the mayors were black.
And so the mayor and Young god risk it. So
he told the white people, we don't need you anymore,
and for them to get out, and over that summer
they did, Yes, they did. We had just bought a
home in an all white with smattering a black neighborhood,
(05:15):
and over that summer it flipped. Wow, we moved in,
all us, all other black families moved in, and the
white folks moved out. And our parents knew at that
moment that they would never get their money out of
their house and we and then the neighborhood changed, of course,
the you know, we it went. It went from being
(05:37):
a because the public school was directly across, you know,
across the two blocks away from us, and so we
would be there, and it flipped from from being completely
about the academics and everything to what you're wearing and
whether you can fight or not. And we started to
fight because we had to. We still got a's, but
(06:00):
we had to fight. And I remember getting suspended from school.
My teacher said, Courtney, don't you get somebody challenged me.
I said, Courtney. Teacher said, don't you get up, courtey, Courtney,
don't you And I of course got suspended and our
parents in the middle of this school year, like in February,
the middle of semester, they took us out and put us.
(06:21):
My mother was a librarian and she had a librarian
friend who taught at this Catholic school, Mother of Our Savior,
And overnight we went from an all black world to
an all white world with no instruction. And that began
my journey. And by eighth grade, I had gotten a
scholarship to go to Country Day and my sister went
(06:43):
to cast Tech. Stayed in the all black environment, the
top public school in the city, and that was it.
I spent the next four years doing playing three sports
for four years and being in every club because I
I loved that school and it was my dream. And
(07:03):
I was there sixteen seventeen hours a day, wow, and
on weekends we had games on Saturday, of course, and
on Sunday I had to study. So I was literally
gone after eighth grade. So that was a sacrifice the
family made.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
It was sort of sounds like a day school boarding
school experience. I mean, you came home to go to
bed and then back the next day.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Because I recognized, I knew what they had sacrificed to
send me there. So I was taking advantage of every
little club and everything I could get involved in as
opposed to some of my classmates which did not. And
I knew I had a responsibility to uphold what my
parents had sacrificed for me to do, So that was
(07:49):
ingrained in me.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So I want to again mention your book, The Invisible Ache.
It is part memoir, part resource manual. And the reason
I mentioned it now is because in this book you
talk about your life at Detroit Country Day School, and
you mentioned something that so resonated with me. I just
had to pick up on it, your experience with code switching.
(08:11):
That is, you know, the experience of being this being
in this predominantly almost almost exclusively white environment and coming
back home and just holding all these different cultures in
your high school experience. And you mentioned that you could
like Peter Frampton live and you could like, you know,
(08:32):
somebody from Motown. You could like Marvin Gay. Okay, I
had a brother who would blast jethrow tongue aqualungue every morning,
and so he went to a white private school and
so he brought home with the culture. So this, you know,
we talk a lot about code switching in our language.
We don't talk that much about code switching in our music.
(08:53):
So I just have to say I could really relate
to the code switching in the musical front.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah. It was because yea, our friends had you know,
when we would go to parties at our school, they
would that would be the music they played. So I
learned to appreciate it and then would get the the
the phrase from folks you talk white? Why do you
talk white? You know, because there were no therapists to
(09:21):
help us with the transition, you know, from going from
overnight from an all black school, that all black environment
that we had been up until the fourth grade. For
me sixth grade, from my sister to an all white environment.
There was no There was nobody to help me us
with the transition. My sister eventually by ninth grade was
(09:42):
back in an all black environment, but I stayed and
then a predominantly white environment. And when I did people
versus Oja and play Johnny Cochrane, I read that Johnny
Cochrane's mother she recognized he would be able to handle
an all white environment, and so she put him in
the school and he thrived. And I was feeling overwhelmed
(10:05):
by the largeness of his life. But I recognized that
little Colonel that we had both gone to all white
schools and had thrived in them. So I said that
I know him, I'm not overwhelmed by him. Now we
had the same trajectory, different generations, but same trajectory. So
I said, that's gone.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. And I'm sure your parents were
principally and almost exclusively focused on getting you, guys, two
environments in which you were going to thrive and for
them and for them the privilege, the advantage, what they
could sacrifice to give you this education was what was
the important thing.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Smaller class sizes.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
You were there to get the education.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, And we had to figure it out because coming
from a Catholic school, the work was very, very rigorous.
And I learned because I didn't have any free time
because I'm doing three sports for four years. I'm always
in practice. I'm always in in games on Fridays and
Saturday nights. So you know, there is no breaks for me.
(11:12):
Whenever I have a free moment, i'm studying. So when
I go home at night, I can go to bed.
Oh boy, So that was the object for me. So
when I got home, I could eat, Hey, Mom, maybe
glands at what's happening? Tomorrow, and then because I got
to get up at six, we couldn't afford the bus,
so my parents arranged with upperclassmen to come pick me up.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
At this point, in these kinds of conversations, I generally
would segue to how the way that you were influenced
parents you are the way that you were parented influences
your parenting. But and I will get there, But before
I get there, I want to talk about the wonderful
message of your book, which relates to therapy. And you
(11:54):
are definitely preaching to the choir here because on this podcast,
on many, many many occasions, I've talked with my guests
about the critical importance of therapy. I just want to
move into the discussion of therapy by talking about something
that you begin the book with, a tragic family circumstance
that really changed the course of your inner life, and
(12:16):
that it's at the center of your book, which is
your father's death by suicide. So he was fifty seven
years old and you were thirty, and you revered your father,
and you were clearly and obviously stunned by this. It
was whtally unexpected, and you turned to therapy to help
you manage his grief. In fact, your entire family did.
So this is a while ago, thirty four years ago.
(12:38):
Can you talk about how you came to therapy, how
you came and your family came to view therapy as
a way through. I mean, that's a little that's a
little revolutionary for even that time in a black family.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
In a black family, I knew nothing. I knew nothing
about it. And my sister and I had gone home
and we were there for a month uping our mother
with all the our father's affairs, handling his affairs, the
the you know, suicide. They had to determine whether or
not the insurance was going to be allowed to come
(13:14):
to my mother because it was a suicide. And our
dear family friend, the Youngs Michael Young was a senior
when I was a freshman a country day and then
he went to Harvard and then I followed in Harvard,
and so his brother, Skit was an attorney and he
walked our mother through and around probate. So she got
(13:39):
our father's insurance, which you know, just saved us. My
sister and I were about to leave and my mother
turns to us as we were getting ready to leave. Okay, Mom,
she said, Courtney says, I'd like to talk to you,
and she said, I'd like you when you go to
back to your respective cities, I'd like you all to
find therapists, and I will do the same here in Detroit.
(14:05):
And so we were. I was, I was in shock
because I mean, I didn't know what I was going
to do, but I definitely know that therapy wasn't a
part of it. And because my mother asked me, asked us,
we both knew we had to do it. So, I mean, again,
there was no she didn't tell us how, she didn't
tell us where, she didn't tell us who. She said,
(14:28):
find a therapist. So I went back to you know,
cried my way back to New York with the U
Haul with all my dad's stuff that I wanted. And
my sister did the same, and we went through the
process of you know, it's that thing that once people
know what you're doing and that you're interested in finding
some therapy, therapists are coming out of the woodworks were
(14:51):
everybody had a therapists. How unbeknownst to me, everybody had
a therapists. And there, according Accord and Laura Lenny God
bless her, I was doing sixth Geode Steve operation at
the time on Broadway. I've done it for a year
and a half. I came back to the show and
everybody you know, embraced me and they and I said,
tell them my mom has told me we got to
we gotta find a therapist. Oh I know, so, Laura
Lenny said, and she said, I'm gonna gift you a massage.
(15:15):
This young this lady that that I know. Her name
is Guanilla As. So I laid on the table ship
and Gunila said, court Me, what is there? Is there
anything I need to know before I begin? I said, oh, well, Grunela,
my father just died of suicide. And we both broke
(15:37):
and she said that day, she said, court me, I
know somebody perfect from you. I said, oh wow, Gounela,
thank you so much. That night, or the night a
couple of nights after that, I had a dream. I
didn't dream, but that night I had a dream and
that was a pattern on some pillow or something in
my dream. I was like, oh, that's strange. And so
I went to meet doctor Cornfeld. That was her name
(15:59):
that Grunella gave me. And she was this Jewish lady
about five feet from the ground. And when I shook
her hand, I knew that was my person, and I
looked to them. She had two parts to her office.
I looked at the right and it was very cold
and sterile as ill, and I'm gonna go there. And
to the left there was an office with a couch
(16:21):
and on the couch was a pillow, and on the
pillow was the pattern that was in my dream.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Oh okay, so that was that was the universe just
yelling at you.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I'm in the right place. But I had already known
that when I shook her hand. So I sat down
and I talked to myle a minute and you know, uh,
and she said, you know, at the end of it,
you don't need to tell me everything today. And I said, oh, okay,
doctor kay Carol. I had this is a culmination of
(16:54):
me sitting down with six or seven therapists and you know,
you think that, you know, I'm I want an African
American therapist. And I sat down with African American therapists,
and I said, oh, this is it. This is my person.
I know this is it. And I sat there and
we stared at each other for an hour.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
We literally stared at each other, and she finally said
something to me, because I by this time my head
was in my hands, and she said, Courtney, do you
have a headache.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I said, I don't have a headache. I just don't
know how to do this. Help me and she, you know,
she wasn't my person, so and.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
She said, I'm sorry, it's time.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
It's time. Right, fifty minutes is out. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
We'll be right back after these messages. Welcome back to
the show. I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but one
of the factors that I found so valuable in the
book is that the book is your thoughts, your memoir,
your story of this part of your life. It's actually
so interesting because you begin with this tragedy, but you
(17:57):
go backwards into your history and then you go forward.
So there's your story. And then doctor Robin Smith very
helpfully talks very specifically about black people, black men and
therapy and the concept of therapy and what the value
of therapy is and why we as a people have
not taken to therapy and why it's vital that we do.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
So.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I will continue to rap about this book, but I
have to say that both you and doctor Smith write
with such compassion and understanding about why black folks, especially
black men, may have no interest in therapy. I mean you,
as you said, you came to it, your mom suggested it,
but you got there and didn't know what to do.
And the disdain and the distrust that so many of
(18:41):
us have about talking about our issues, particularly with a stranger.
And yet both of you, in your separate writings encourage
us all to view therapy as and I'm quoting the
opportunity to be vulnerable. Why, especially for the men in
our community. Why is vulnerability so hard? And then also so,
how does exploring that vulnerability through therapy help?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
You know? I think the one of the hardest things
is people we don't know how to be vulnerable, you know.
I mean, I think I came to my vulnerability because
of the profession that chose me, Carol. I was on
track to go to B school. So I end up
at the General Motors. I think my dad knew someone
(19:25):
or because it was late in the game and I
was so panicked I wouldn't be able to contribute. And somehow,
you know, I ended up over at at a General
Motors World headquarters on the West Gon Boulevard, and I realized.
I said, I'm in the World Headquarters. Wow, I'm I mean,
(19:45):
I can look on the thing where everybody's names are,
and the different divisions and the vice presidents. I have
everybody's name and phone number. I think I'm going to
call all the major offices, the diffendivisions and let them
know this is a Harvard student, right, I'm gonna let
(20:08):
them know I'm a rising sophomore at Harvard University. And
I really just wanted to know what you do in
your office. They were like, what you come on in here,
young black man, come on in here. And so on
my lunch breaks, I had all these meetings. My boss
was like, we hear you're going to meet the vice
president and chairman of the board, and you're you're gonna
(20:30):
talk about I said, yeah, I don't know. I guess
so I see you after lunch, boss. And so I
was going to meet all these people. And this gentleman,
the Robert Stone, he was the head of worldwide purchasing
for General Motors. He took me under his wing and
he said, Courtney, I want you to meet my boss.
(20:52):
And he said he's going to meet you at the
at the rich Carlton in Boston when you go back
to school. And so I said, okay, because I think
he I think he went there or whatever, and I said, okay,
I'll see, thank you, sir, and I finished, you know,
and I'm I'm When I went back to where I
met with, mister fully said, mister Courtney, we really like
(21:16):
you and we want you to come work with us.
We're going to put you through business school and you'll
work for us for a period of time and we're
going to do this. And I was like, wow, but
it just so happened, Carol. Happened just as in my
sophomore year, I had stopped running track and realized I
(21:36):
was going to do shows in order to meet people.
After my second show, my aunt said, Courtney, you're really
good at this. You should do this. So mister Stone
on that summer offered me a job going around basically
and touring all the plants in Michigan so I can
start to get a sense of what the company does.
(21:58):
So they had me going out here, had me going
out there, and every time I went to a different
city in Michigan, I would stop and find out where
the theater was in there and stop in and go
on and do my tour. And so that next summer
they were going to start to do this whole thing
with me, and I turned it down because I was
(22:23):
gonna I was gonna do a workshop. I turned it down,
and then I called my parents, and my parents said,
you better call that white man up and get that job.
I said, but Daddy, he already. My mother said, you
better call that man up and get that job back. Click.
And so I called up mister Stone and said, mister Stone,
(22:45):
you know, can you He said, Courtney, I don't know.
I don't know if I can. It's oh, let me,
let me try. So I went through my exams, not
knowing whether I had a summer job, and I was
so straw and I said, what am I gonna do?
My parents are gonna kill me. And so he got
me that job back, knowing I did not want to
(23:07):
work there, knowing that I wanted to go in theater.
Fast forward ten years or so, I'm on Broadway in
fences and on the intercom somebody I hear the stage door, presence, Courtney,
you've got somebody here to see. Nobody came and saw me.
I was nobody. I was a little young whipper snapper.
Nobody came to see me in the play. I ran downstairs.
(23:29):
Mister Robert Stone, oh my goodness, and his wife from Switzerland.
He was ahead of worldwide purchasing in Europe now, and
he came and saw the show and we just burst
into tears. Oh you just said, Courtney, look at you,
Look at you. Court I said, mister Stone, you did it.
You got me that job even though you knew, and
(23:52):
we just were crying on each other's shoulder and his
wife was like, what's wrong with you? Tell me? So
it was. It was so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Okay, that is such a great parenting lesson. I just
have to stop for a second because okay, every parent
listening was like, yeah, boy, that what you got to
get that job back? And here you were. I see
the universe does really work well because you were the
dutiful son. Even though you knew that you didn't want
(24:21):
to do this, you did recognize that your parents you
were letting them down. And you know that could have
had a very different ending if the guy had said sorry,
no job, and then you would have had to sort
of suffer under that guilt, but also they if you
had had to continue pleasing your parents and continue in that.
(24:42):
But you had the strength and your parents gave you
the grace to take the job, get the job done,
and then just go off in the way that you
wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
You know, I didn't know what I wanted to do.
And I went home for one Christmas Christmas of my
sophomore year, and and I just started to get a
sense of that I wanted to do theater. And I said,
I wanted to theater. And so I recognized because I
wanted to take a year off and go to bamp Canada,
(25:12):
and they had a huge theater, you know, school and center,
and I wanted to go explore. And they said, Courtney, please, no,
you're going to extend our payments and we're barely barely
able to do this, so please, And so then they
forced me to come up with a plan d They said, Courtney,
we can't do that. So I said, hmm, this is
(25:34):
what I'm gonna do. And my work's I'm going to
work all year doing the schools, get any all the
money and my work study job. I'm gonna at the
end of the year, I'm going to give it all
to you guys. And then if I do that, then
I can do in the summers. I can do what
I want to do. And they said, that's a bet,
let's do that. So that's what I did. And then
I recognized I don't need to go to to BAMF
(25:57):
during the school year. I'll go to drama school after
I graduate. So they forced me to come up with
by saying, no exercising, there are no option. They forced
me to come up with a plan B. And and
when I did that, they said, and now look, we're
doing Harvard, We're not doing Yale. If you get to Yale,
(26:19):
you got to do that yourself. I said, I got it.
So I ended up, you know, having you know, two
years worth of loans. But again that was that was
that was me going, you know, I'm at General Motors.
While I'm here, why don't I go around? And from
that the whole thing just became two amazing options, Carol.
(26:42):
I could have ended up at Harvard Business School, you know,
you know, being a big wig at General Motors and
going down this whole other path. You know. It was
it was, there were two paths laid out for me
based on me being who I am. I'm a people person.
How nice to meet you, what's hey, gosh nice to Yeah, wow,
(27:02):
Oh we like this guy. Who is this kid? And
you know I want to put him through business school?
Oh he doesn't want to go? What what you know?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Well, again, I'm always looking for the parenting angles, and
you know you're right. Sometimes parents are afraid to exercise
that option to say no, and sometimes the option to
say no can be squashing their child's ambitions and dreams.
But what I very much like about this story is
that your parents they were honest about the spectrum of
(27:37):
financial help they could give you. I always think parents
need to be really honest with your kids about what
you can afford, because in this instance it made all difference.
You figured out a way to help them cover the
cost of you being in school, which is their concern.
That is a great story of your parents communicating well
enough and being candid enough to tell you what the
problem was, and you figuring out a solution to the problem.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
And it was a different time too. You know, I
knew that my father and mother did not have the
option to be able to do what made them happy.
They had to take whatever job presented itself to them
for their family, so they weren't able to do. But
they they sacrificed allowed me to go to Country Day.
But at first they put me in the boys clubs
and now the Boys and Girls Club. My cap counselor
(28:23):
was mister George Brown got rested so and he was
a teacher at Country Day, and he told my dad
and mom about that Courtney's great, he should apply for
scholarship the Country Day. So from them putting me in
a place so that that I that was safe, the
Boy's club, the whole rest of my life was laid
out from them making that decision to put me in
(28:43):
a safe place based on who I am. That safe
place made it possible for me to the world just
opened up to me slowly. Now it's on me. I'm
at I'm at the General Motors World headquarters. I could
have very easy just done my job right. I made
a decision. I made a promise to myself to do
something that don't don't choose a job just because, you know,
(29:06):
because and all my friends were you know, I'm gonna
work for General Morris, I'm gonna work for IBM, I'm
gonna work for zero. And when I said I'm going
to be an actor, they were like, let me tell you, Carol,
they all made fun of me, and and you know,
I felt less than. They made me feel less than.
I went to the career services and because I couldn't
figure out what I wanted to do. And then ten
(29:27):
years after at our tenth reunion, I went to the
reunion and some of my classmates were like, you're so
You're so lucky that you stuck with what you want.
I said, what are you talking about? You made fun
of me, You stuck what I wanted to do. You
were so sure about what you wanted to do. What
the heck happened? I know, Court, I really wanted to
(29:48):
be a writer, and I just I was afraid to.
I mean, that's the message for our children, is that
you can afford now after what I mean, we're both artists,
your mother and father both artists. For us to tell
you that you've got to do something practical, forget about
you have to find out what you're at a liberal
(30:08):
arts to liberal arts schools. It doesn't matter what you
take there. You can go to law school, a business school,
the architecture school. My son is a potentially interested in architecture,
and that the professor told them, say to study what
you want. Architecture is a graduate school peak thing. So
you got to go to grad school anyway. So take
the history of fine arts, Take history and live, take
(30:31):
you know, take whatever you know, but enjoy your the
exploration and then you'll talk about, you know whatever the
law school, business school, architecture school, whatever you know. Maybe
you want to be a curator at a museum. I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
See see that that also is the valuable lesson. A
lot of parents send their kids off to college and
they're hell bent on whatever is supposed to happen after that,
the career that comes after that. But I had a
great liberal arts education. All of my three have had
great liberal arts educations. College is are really the last
place where you get intense opportunities to just learn whatever,
to just learn. There's no other I mean, maybe you
(31:08):
got a work study job, but you are really just
there to fill up your brain.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
You come to these schools and you can determine what
you want to do, and so you know, getting out
of your that mindset. If I got to come and
I'm going to be a govern major and the major.
You know, when you first get in, you go to
these events and you know in your town where all
the grad they accepted, all the people and all the
students got up and they were saying, I want to
do this, I want to major in this one this.
(31:34):
Our daughter got into one of the two people that
I don't know what I want to do. I'll figured
I want to get there, and and everyone else right,
And so the whole exactly, the whole said, you know, guys,
it's wonderful that you think you know what you want
to major in, but you know there are majors there
that you don't even know about yet. So I would
encourage all of you just to remain open, just just
(31:58):
stay open to the possible of majoring in something that
you don't know about yet. So, yeah, that's fascinating to me.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Oh absolutely. So now you guys are empty nesters. Like
the thing about twins is your empty nesters all at once.
So here's the thing. Are your kids actually grown and
flown or are you still holding on to the kite strings?
And I say this as somebody who has tugged on
a string of two so they're gone.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Our son really seems to at Yale, has has really
seemed to. He loves his roommates, he's you know, they're
doing things. He's you know, he's you know, he's going
trying to find places. He's finding place to go get
his hair cut, you know.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
And New Haven they got places. I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Yeah, oh yeah, so you know, we and now we're
just in prayer just to you know that they find
their way, you know, as the as the classmate of
Browin says, she said, mister Courtney, freshman year, as you recall,
is very difficult. It can be very challenging for you know, students,
(33:04):
and as I know, it was challenging for me, so
I know how it can be. So when you're well.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
You know the thing about a rigorous high school. And
I say this because all three of my children went
to really rigorous high schools. The lesson that they got
out of this, and I'm sure your children did as well.
You may be smart, but you're not the smartest person
in the room. And it's really important to understand when
you are young that a lot of people can be smart.
(33:31):
I mean, you can be smart in one area and
you can be proud of yourself and confident in that.
And I say this to parents as well, because you
don't want to make your child think they're the smartest
person in the universe, because even if they knock the
ball out the park in high school, you get to
college and then you're with all these people. It is
really daunting to find out that somebody is smarter than
(33:52):
you are. And that doesn't matter. That's not important. It's
only important what you can do with what you've got.
But I do think and so I say that to
say that with your kids having had this rigorous high school,
they've learned the structure of it. But also they're not
intimidated by people who are smart, because even the smartest
(34:13):
person doesn't do something well. And hopefully part of I
think what makes freshman year so hard is that that's
a hard lesson to learn, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I think, I think, you know, the having a famous
mommy like they do, that can be very challenging for
young people, not.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
To mention a famous daddy, sir.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah, yes, but but their mommy is you know, Queen Ramanda.
You know. So it's it's a thing, you know that
our family is unique and they've had a unique childhood.
It's wonderful when your mother is dead and your father
is that and you know, and we didn't we didn't
let our children go to red carpets, and you know,
(34:57):
we said, our life is not their life. They need
to be children and enjoy their childhood. And you know,
gradually the world's you know connected. And Black Panther was
the first one where they really we said, come on,
let's do the whole thing with them, and you know,
they really were just you know, with the braces and all,
(35:19):
just just cheesing from ear to ear, you know. So
it's just you know, that's wonderful. But then when you
get to school and you know, you meet people who
you know, potend sometimes they don't want to know you
for you. They want to know you for your mother
and father, right, and so they've got to get learn
how to deal with that. And that's there's no reflection
(35:43):
on you. It's just if you find people who just
don't want to really know you, discover they just want
to know your mom and dad, then you go, hey,
that's not happening, and you know, come on, now you
know better, you know, and so she'll get they'll get better,
you know, with being a hey mom, yes that's my mom. Yeah, yeah,
(36:04):
come down, come down. That's why college is important for
you to learn the good, the bad, and the ugly
about human beings. One of my phrases is, you know,
if it wasn't for the people, this would be a
wonderful world. You know, you got to be able to
learn how you have to deal with the people. And
you can't just deal with people who like you or
(36:27):
who are like you. You know, that's the journey. They're
in the middle of that journey, which you know better
than we do. With you know, with your three grown churn.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yes, absolutely grown, but listen, you you are you are
on the right track completely because what you know, just
as we said that college is the only place where
you really get to learn for its own sake, and
they should cherish that. It's really a microcosm of the world.
In the world, your children will forever have people that
will want to know them because of who they think
(36:57):
your children are and who they think your children can
help them us associate with in the college setting. I mean,
I'm sure they've had this for other parts of their lives,
but as they get older, their detectors will become sharper.
And I say this having watched children of well known
people go through this process. It really is. It's a
safe haven sort of. It's sort of a safe haven
(37:18):
for them to find their tribe, find their people, but
also be exposed to people who want to be in
their tribe and to know how to deal with it.
So this is all good. They'll get it. I mean,
they will get it. So Courtney, I could talk to
you forever, and I would like to, but I'm going
to wrap it up here. I just want to say
one more thing about this amazing book. Well, first, I
(37:43):
want to wrap up the grown and flown part of
this by saying that congratulations to you and Angela treasure
your empty nest. All the best to your kids as
they get to really soar into this new world and
you guys get to watch and be proud of what
you've done. But I want to just again say how
how wonderful your book is, The Invisible Ache, and and
(38:06):
how much I want to encourage parents to get this book, because,
as I said, it's a memoir and it's a resource
if anyone has any childhood they thinks may be struggling this.
There's so much in this book which is both empathetic, compassionate,
and useful. So I'm not both. That's three things. Empathetic, compassionate,
and useful, and so it needs just to be on
(38:28):
everybody's shelf. So now there's just one more thing before
we go, and that is you have to play the
GCP Lightning Round. I have four quick questions and you're ready.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
You're ready.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Okay, let's go. What is your favorite poem or saying?
Speaker 2 (38:42):
I said, one of them you if one't for the people,
be a wonderful world. But the other one is I
do the best I can and I go to bed.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
I love that, simple, simple, I love that. Okay, Okay,
your favorite two children's books, and they can be ones
you grew up with and loved, or kids that your
books that your kids loved then you read to them,
or any children's books.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
That you like. I got the two Henry books my
mother read to me, Henry the Explorer. I don't know
the author, I've got it in here somewhere. And then
the Kadeer Nelson's illustrated He's my favorite illustrated on his
(39:30):
book by Ellen Levine wrote it and he illustrated called
Henry's Freedom Box about Henry Box Brown, the young gentleman
Henry Brown sent himself as a grown man to Philadelphia
in a box. It's about about that story. It's called
Henry's Freedom Box.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
And now Henry the Explorer was that by Mark Taylor.
Isn't a book? Does that ring a bell at a blizzard?
It's a boo about explo Yes, okay, Henry the Exploring
the author is Mark.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
My mother read me that book. And then in the
wintertime when there was a bank at the end of
our block, to three four houses from us, there was
a bank, and I used to ask my mom. I
was little, I was in six five or six, and
I would say, Mommy, I want to go exploring. And
she would make me a lunch and put it on
(40:27):
a pole with a little, you know, a do rag
that wrapped up in at the end of the judge
down the street with all my my mittens and my gun,
and I would be in there. There'd be the snow
would be piled up and a mound. And I was
exploring on that, on that big mound of snow, and
I said to myself, my mother put her coat on,
(40:47):
walked out that that house, and was sitting hiding somewhere
watching me. That whole time I was on that that
that that you know, snow, snow.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Man, I'm sure that's right.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I'm sure there's no way she would let me out
of her sight.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Okay, two more quick questions. Give me a dad moment
that you'd like to be able to do over, one
that you wish you had to do over for.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
You know, I thought about that, and I really can't
think of one. I really can't think of because anything
that that that I did that I shouldn't have done,
my wife would at court. You gotta go back and
do that, and so I would go back and apologize.
I mean, so you know, that's another lesson for them
(41:32):
to see me apologize to them. I shouldn't have done that.
I was wrong that, you know, do you forgive me?
And you know no, Dad, it's okay, it's okay, daddy. Daddy,
you did good. Dad, you did good. I mean to
be able to see your father not be you know, infallible,
you know right.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
No, absolutely, I love that answer. Okay, But there must
be a moment where you knew you nailed it as
a dad. What's one of your favorite dad moments?
Speaker 2 (41:59):
My son was all always into something, and there's an
incident that happens where that he and this other boy
are are are tussling, and you know, playing, playing soccer
or whatever. My son gets the better the little uh
white child, and the little white child calls him the
N word. And we've been telling him from you know,
(42:19):
from time he was little. If somebody something happens and
they push you or whatever, don't push him back. Go
to the teacher, because then it becomes your word versus
their word. So the little boy didn't call him. He said,
you can't call me that. He said, I'm going to
tell the principal. So he went the guys and the
little boy said, don't do that. I didn't say anything.
I didn't say. He said, yes, she did. So he
(42:40):
went and tell the principal and the principal said, Courtney,
don't call the parent because I knew the mother said
don't call the mother. This is a district issue now,
and so the district dealt with and she said you can.
The principal said you can call her now, and so
I called him and I said, look, you know you're
a child, and our families are pretty close. You know,
(43:01):
you know on this question, I'm gonna ask you, our
relationship will spend. So did your son call s Slater
the N word? And she said, Courtney, you know our
child doesn't even know that word. I said, Okay, that's it,
because you know, I said, uh, every that's the one
word everybody in this world knows. So so no, that's
(43:22):
not wrong answer. So you know, but I was proud
of our of Slater because he did what we were
what we asked him to do, which is, look, look no, no, no,
no good, don't good. I'm going to the office. It's
off me now right, and you know he is now
ready to go deal with whatever comes up, you know,
(43:43):
in school. And anyway, that's it.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
You squashed down whatever you might have won him to
do in that moment, but you did teach him to
do the right thing, which was get the authorities involved.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Because he was at a there at a mostly white school,
and I was up at that school every day because
I number one, I was. I wasn't working at that time,
and thank god, because I was able to be involved,
and the teachers saw me, and Slater saw me, and
Browin saw me up, you know, representing the house absolutely,
(44:17):
and so the teachers would say that we would We
did our evaluations and we sat down with the director
and the director because we were up at the school
and we were in communication with them. Whenever something would
go down, they would go, the director would go, mister Vance,
missus Avance, don't worry, he'll turn around. You're you know,
we're we're all in communication. We're going to help each
(44:37):
other because we were in.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
There, Courtney. Those are great answers for the Lightning Round.
Thank you so much. Thank you again for this amazing book,
and thank you so much for being with us today.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Having me back here. We got more to talk about.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
We absolutely do. I will we need a part too done.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
I hope everyone listening enjoyed this conversation that you'll come
back for more. Please subscribe, rate and review where you
find your podcasts and tell your friends. For more parenting
info and advice, please check out the Ground Control Parenting
website at wwwgroundcontrol Parenting dot com. You can also find
us on Facebook and Instagram at ground Control Parenting and
on LinkedIn under Carol Sutton Lewis. Until the next time,
(45:23):
take care and thanks for listening.
Hello, and welcome to Ground Control Parenting, a blog and
now a podcast creative for parents raising black and brown children.
I'm the creator and your host, Carol Sutton Lewis. In
this podcast series, I talk with some really interesting people
about the joy and the job of parenting. Today, I
am so excited to welcome actor, producer, and author Courtney
Vance to the podcast. Courtney's extensive and storied work on
(00:28):
stage and film and on television has earned him so
many awards, including a tony two Emmy's, a Critics Choice Award,
multiple NAACP Image Awards, and loads more nominations. So whether
we know him from his five year run as Adya
Ron Carver on Law and Order Criminal Intent, or his
Emmy winning portrayal of Johnny Cochrane and the People versus O. J.
(00:48):
Simpson American Crime Story, his star turn as Aretha Franklin's
father in Genius Aretha, or any of his many, many
other memorable roles, we know that he continues to have
an exceptional He's also the co founder of Bassett Vance
Productions with his wife, the wonderful actress Angela Bassett, and
he's currently president of the sag After Foundation. Courtney's creative
(01:09):
talents also include the written word, as he's co authored Friends,
a love Story along with his wife Angela, and he's
written a recent book with doctor Robin Smith called The
Invisible Ache Black Men, identifying their Pain and Reclaiming their Power,
which we're going to talk about more today. Courtney is
a graduate of Harvard College and received his Master of
Fine Arts from Yale University. He and angel are the
(01:31):
proud parents of twins Bronwin and Slater, who are now
college freshmen. Welcome to Ground Control Parenting, Courtney, b Vance.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Thank you so good to be with you, Ken, very.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Very happy to see you, and thank you so much
for joining me. So I last saw you at a
college graduation a few years ago, and now you've just
sent your twins off to college, and I want to
talk about that and your parenting life along with your
new book. So let's get started. So first, I always
like to ask my guests about out how they grew up,
and thanks to your wonderful book, I know a little bit.
(02:04):
So I know that you were born in Inkster, Michigan,
but you moved to Detroit, you and your sister and
your family moved and you have had some pretty incredible
educational opportunities. So I want to back up and ask
about how your parents raised you to have this incredible
academic life, and were you spotted early on as someone
(02:27):
who loved learning, and did they encourage that or were
they really focused on making sure you and your sister
were focused on your academics.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
They were Carol. They were my father Conroy and our
mother Leslie. We knew from early on that the education
was the key and the focus, and we loved school.
We grew up in an African American environment in Detroit,
(02:57):
and we were we were loved and encouraged, and my
sister and I were in the same school and schools
and we grew up during the sixties. We eventually moved
to a neighborhood called off West Groand Boulevard where the
tanks came down the street during the sixty seven riots.
(03:21):
And they were, you know, huge homes that were split
up into four plexes and eight plexes. They were mansions
and eight houses. Down from Us Carroll was Hitsville, which
is where the museum is now, but that was the
beginnings of Motown. So we used to go down there
(03:44):
and sit on these steps and watch the watch the
people come and go. We didn't know who, you know,
Marvin Gaye Man come in and you know, Smokey Robinson
or whoever, the Chirells. So we were just it was
a very closed and tight knit environment. So we were
(04:04):
very very loved and appreciated and not you know, we
were didn't have a lot of money, but we didn't
know that. My sister and I stayed in the same room.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
It sounds like so both you and your sister sort
of picked up books, picked up schooling pretty easily, were
encouraged to pursue your academics. In fact, they took you
out of the local school and put you in the
Catholic school why, in an effort to give you sort
of a more rigorous stranger.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Over the summer of sixty nine, Coleman Young the first
black mayor of Detroit, and I mean black power was
all the rage, and so you can't judge it by today,
but the first time that we had as a people
were running cities. You know, the gentlemen in New Jersey
(04:54):
and Cleveland, the major cities were the mayors were black.
And so the mayor and Young god risk it. So
he told the white people, we don't need you anymore,
and for them to get out, and over that summer
they did, Yes, they did. We had just bought a
home in an all white with smattering a black neighborhood,
(05:15):
and over that summer it flipped. Wow, we moved in,
all us, all other black families moved in, and the
white folks moved out. And our parents knew at that
moment that they would never get their money out of
their house and we and then the neighborhood changed, of course,
the you know, we it went. It went from being
(05:37):
a because the public school was directly across, you know,
across the two blocks away from us, and so we
would be there, and it flipped from from being completely
about the academics and everything to what you're wearing and
whether you can fight or not. And we started to
fight because we had to. We still got a's, but
(06:00):
we had to fight. And I remember getting suspended from school.
My teacher said, Courtney, don't you get somebody challenged me.
I said, Courtney. Teacher said, don't you get up, courtey, Courtney,
don't you And I of course got suspended and our
parents in the middle of this school year, like in February,
the middle of semester, they took us out and put us.
(06:21):
My mother was a librarian and she had a librarian
friend who taught at this Catholic school, Mother of Our Savior,
And overnight we went from an all black world to
an all white world with no instruction. And that began
my journey. And by eighth grade, I had gotten a
scholarship to go to Country Day and my sister went
(06:43):
to cast Tech. Stayed in the all black environment, the
top public school in the city, and that was it.
I spent the next four years doing playing three sports
for four years and being in every club because I
I loved that school and it was my dream. And
(07:03):
I was there sixteen seventeen hours a day, wow, and
on weekends we had games on Saturday, of course, and
on Sunday I had to study. So I was literally
gone after eighth grade. So that was a sacrifice the
family made.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
It was sort of sounds like a day school boarding
school experience. I mean, you came home to go to
bed and then back the next day.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Because I recognized, I knew what they had sacrificed to
send me there. So I was taking advantage of every
little club and everything I could get involved in as
opposed to some of my classmates which did not. And
I knew I had a responsibility to uphold what my
parents had sacrificed for me to do, So that was
(07:49):
ingrained in me.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
So I want to again mention your book, The Invisible Ache.
It is part memoir, part resource manual. And the reason
I mentioned it now is because in this book you
talk about your life at Detroit Country Day School, and
you mentioned something that so resonated with me. I just
had to pick up on it, your experience with code switching.
(08:11):
That is, you know, the experience of being this being
in this predominantly almost almost exclusively white environment and coming
back home and just holding all these different cultures in
your high school experience. And you mentioned that you could
like Peter Frampton live and you could like, you know,
(08:32):
somebody from Motown. You could like Marvin Gay. Okay, I
had a brother who would blast jethrow tongue aqualungue every morning,
and so he went to a white private school and
so he brought home with the culture. So this, you know,
we talk a lot about code switching in our language.
We don't talk that much about code switching in our music.
(08:53):
So I just have to say I could really relate
to the code switching in the musical front.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah. It was because yea, our friends had you know,
when we would go to parties at our school, they
would that would be the music they played. So I
learned to appreciate it and then would get the the
the phrase from folks you talk white? Why do you
talk white? You know, because there were no therapists to
(09:21):
help us with the transition, you know, from going from
overnight from an all black school, that all black environment
that we had been up until the fourth grade. For
me sixth grade, from my sister to an all white environment.
There was no There was nobody to help me us
with the transition. My sister eventually by ninth grade was
(09:42):
back in an all black environment, but I stayed and
then a predominantly white environment. And when I did people
versus Oja and play Johnny Cochrane, I read that Johnny
Cochrane's mother she recognized he would be able to handle
an all white environment, and so she put him in
the school and he thrived. And I was feeling overwhelmed
(10:05):
by the largeness of his life. But I recognized that
little Colonel that we had both gone to all white
schools and had thrived in them. So I said that
I know him, I'm not overwhelmed by him. Now we
had the same trajectory, different generations, but same trajectory. So
I said, that's gone.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. And I'm sure your parents were
principally and almost exclusively focused on getting you, guys, two
environments in which you were going to thrive and for
them and for them the privilege, the advantage, what they
could sacrifice to give you this education was what was
the important thing.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Smaller class sizes.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
You were there to get the education.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Yeah, And we had to figure it out because coming
from a Catholic school, the work was very, very rigorous.
And I learned because I didn't have any free time
because I'm doing three sports for four years. I'm always
in practice. I'm always in in games on Fridays and
Saturday nights. So you know, there is no breaks for me.
(11:12):
Whenever I have a free moment, i'm studying. So when
I go home at night, I can go to bed.
Oh boy, So that was the object for me. So
when I got home, I could eat, Hey, Mom, maybe
glands at what's happening? Tomorrow, and then because I got
to get up at six, we couldn't afford the bus,
so my parents arranged with upperclassmen to come pick me up.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
At this point, in these kinds of conversations, I generally
would segue to how the way that you were influenced
parents you are the way that you were parented influences
your parenting. But and I will get there, But before
I get there, I want to talk about the wonderful
message of your book, which relates to therapy. And you
(11:54):
are definitely preaching to the choir here because on this podcast,
on many, many many occasions, I've talked with my guests
about the critical importance of therapy. I just want to
move into the discussion of therapy by talking about something
that you begin the book with, a tragic family circumstance
that really changed the course of your inner life, and
(12:16):
that it's at the center of your book, which is
your father's death by suicide. So he was fifty seven
years old and you were thirty, and you revered your father,
and you were clearly and obviously stunned by this. It
was whtally unexpected, and you turned to therapy to help
you manage his grief. In fact, your entire family did.
So this is a while ago, thirty four years ago.
(12:38):
Can you talk about how you came to therapy, how
you came and your family came to view therapy as
a way through. I mean, that's a little that's a
little revolutionary for even that time in a black family.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
In a black family, I knew nothing. I knew nothing
about it. And my sister and I had gone home
and we were there for a month uping our mother
with all the our father's affairs, handling his affairs, the
the you know, suicide. They had to determine whether or
not the insurance was going to be allowed to come
(13:14):
to my mother because it was a suicide. And our
dear family friend, the Youngs Michael Young was a senior
when I was a freshman a country day and then
he went to Harvard and then I followed in Harvard,
and so his brother, Skit was an attorney and he
walked our mother through and around probate. So she got
(13:39):
our father's insurance, which you know, just saved us. My
sister and I were about to leave and my mother
turns to us as we were getting ready to leave. Okay, Mom,
she said, Courtney says, I'd like to talk to you,
and she said, I'd like you when you go to
back to your respective cities, I'd like you all to
find therapists, and I will do the same here in Detroit.
(14:05):
And so we were. I was, I was in shock
because I mean, I didn't know what I was going
to do, but I definitely know that therapy wasn't a
part of it. And because my mother asked me, asked us,
we both knew we had to do it. So, I mean, again,
there was no she didn't tell us how, she didn't
tell us where, she didn't tell us who. She said,
(14:28):
find a therapist. So I went back to you know,
cried my way back to New York with the U
Haul with all my dad's stuff that I wanted. And
my sister did the same, and we went through the
process of you know, it's that thing that once people
know what you're doing and that you're interested in finding
some therapy, therapists are coming out of the woodworks were
(14:51):
everybody had a therapists. How unbeknownst to me, everybody had
a therapists. And there, according Accord and Laura Lenny God
bless her, I was doing sixth Geode Steve operation at
the time on Broadway. I've done it for a year
and a half. I came back to the show and
everybody you know, embraced me and they and I said,
tell them my mom has told me we got to
we gotta find a therapist. Oh I know, so, Laura
Lenny said, and she said, I'm gonna gift you a massage.
(15:15):
This young this lady that that I know. Her name
is Guanilla As. So I laid on the table ship
and Gunila said, court Me, what is there? Is there
anything I need to know before I begin? I said, oh, well, Grunela,
my father just died of suicide. And we both broke
(15:37):
and she said that day, she said, court me, I
know somebody perfect from you. I said, oh wow, Gounela,
thank you so much. That night, or the night a
couple of nights after that, I had a dream. I
didn't dream, but that night I had a dream and
that was a pattern on some pillow or something in
my dream. I was like, oh, that's strange. And so
I went to meet doctor Cornfeld. That was her name
(15:59):
that Grunella gave me. And she was this Jewish lady
about five feet from the ground. And when I shook
her hand, I knew that was my person, and I
looked to them. She had two parts to her office.
I looked at the right and it was very cold
and sterile as ill, and I'm gonna go there. And
to the left there was an office with a couch
(16:21):
and on the couch was a pillow, and on the
pillow was the pattern that was in my dream.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Oh okay, so that was that was the universe just
yelling at you.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
I'm in the right place. But I had already known
that when I shook her hand. So I sat down
and I talked to myle a minute and you know, uh,
and she said, you know, at the end of it,
you don't need to tell me everything today. And I said, oh, okay,
doctor kay Carol. I had this is a culmination of
(16:54):
me sitting down with six or seven therapists and you know,
you think that, you know, I'm I want an African
American therapist. And I sat down with African American therapists,
and I said, oh, this is it. This is my person.
I know this is it. And I sat there and
we stared at each other for an hour.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
We literally stared at each other, and she finally said
something to me, because I by this time my head
was in my hands, and she said, Courtney, do you
have a headache.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
I said, I don't have a headache. I just don't
know how to do this. Help me and she, you know,
she wasn't my person, so and.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
She said, I'm sorry, it's time.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
It's time. Right, fifty minutes is out. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
We'll be right back after these messages. Welcome back to
the show. I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but one
of the factors that I found so valuable in the
book is that the book is your thoughts, your memoir,
your story of this part of your life. It's actually
so interesting because you begin with this tragedy, but you
(17:57):
go backwards into your history and then you go forward.
So there's your story. And then doctor Robin Smith very
helpfully talks very specifically about black people, black men and
therapy and the concept of therapy and what the value
of therapy is and why we as a people have
not taken to therapy and why it's vital that we do.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
So.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I will continue to rap about this book, but I
have to say that both you and doctor Smith write
with such compassion and understanding about why black folks, especially
black men, may have no interest in therapy. I mean you,
as you said, you came to it, your mom suggested it,
but you got there and didn't know what to do.
And the disdain and the distrust that so many of
(18:41):
us have about talking about our issues, particularly with a stranger.
And yet both of you, in your separate writings encourage
us all to view therapy as and I'm quoting the
opportunity to be vulnerable. Why, especially for the men in
our community. Why is vulnerability so hard? And then also so,
how does exploring that vulnerability through therapy help?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
You know? I think the one of the hardest things
is people we don't know how to be vulnerable, you know.
I mean, I think I came to my vulnerability because
of the profession that chose me, Carol. I was on
track to go to B school. So I end up
at the General Motors. I think my dad knew someone
(19:25):
or because it was late in the game and I
was so panicked I wouldn't be able to contribute. And somehow,
you know, I ended up over at at a General
Motors World headquarters on the West Gon Boulevard, and I realized.
I said, I'm in the World Headquarters. Wow, I'm I mean,
(19:45):
I can look on the thing where everybody's names are,
and the different divisions and the vice presidents. I have
everybody's name and phone number. I think I'm going to
call all the major offices, the diffendivisions and let them
know this is a Harvard student, right, I'm gonna let
(20:08):
them know I'm a rising sophomore at Harvard University. And
I really just wanted to know what you do in
your office. They were like, what you come on in here,
young black man, come on in here. And so on
my lunch breaks, I had all these meetings. My boss
was like, we hear you're going to meet the vice
president and chairman of the board, and you're you're gonna
(20:30):
talk about I said, yeah, I don't know. I guess
so I see you after lunch, boss. And so I
was going to meet all these people. And this gentleman,
the Robert Stone, he was the head of worldwide purchasing
for General Motors. He took me under his wing and
he said, Courtney, I want you to meet my boss.
(20:52):
And he said he's going to meet you at the
at the rich Carlton in Boston when you go back
to school. And so I said, okay, because I think
he I think he went there or whatever, and I said, okay,
I'll see, thank you, sir, and I finished, you know,
and I'm I'm When I went back to where I
met with, mister fully said, mister Courtney, we really like
(21:16):
you and we want you to come work with us.
We're going to put you through business school and you'll
work for us for a period of time and we're
going to do this. And I was like, wow, but
it just so happened, Carol. Happened just as in my
sophomore year, I had stopped running track and realized I
(21:36):
was going to do shows in order to meet people.
After my second show, my aunt said, Courtney, you're really
good at this. You should do this. So mister Stone
on that summer offered me a job going around basically
and touring all the plants in Michigan so I can
start to get a sense of what the company does.
(21:58):
So they had me going out here, had me going
out there, and every time I went to a different
city in Michigan, I would stop and find out where
the theater was in there and stop in and go
on and do my tour. And so that next summer
they were going to start to do this whole thing
with me, and I turned it down because I was
(22:23):
gonna I was gonna do a workshop. I turned it down,
and then I called my parents, and my parents said,
you better call that white man up and get that job.
I said, but Daddy, he already. My mother said, you
better call that man up and get that job back. Click.
And so I called up mister Stone and said, mister Stone,
(22:45):
you know, can you He said, Courtney, I don't know.
I don't know if I can. It's oh, let me,
let me try. So I went through my exams, not
knowing whether I had a summer job, and I was
so straw and I said, what am I gonna do?
My parents are gonna kill me. And so he got
me that job back, knowing I did not want to
(23:07):
work there, knowing that I wanted to go in theater.
Fast forward ten years or so, I'm on Broadway in
fences and on the intercom somebody I hear the stage door, presence, Courtney,
you've got somebody here to see. Nobody came and saw me.
I was nobody. I was a little young whipper snapper.
Nobody came to see me in the play. I ran downstairs.
(23:29):
Mister Robert Stone, oh my goodness, and his wife from Switzerland.
He was ahead of worldwide purchasing in Europe now, and
he came and saw the show and we just burst
into tears. Oh you just said, Courtney, look at you,
Look at you. Court I said, mister Stone, you did it.
You got me that job even though you knew, and
(23:52):
we just were crying on each other's shoulder and his
wife was like, what's wrong with you? Tell me? So
it was. It was so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Okay, that is such a great parenting lesson. I just
have to stop for a second because okay, every parent
listening was like, yeah, boy, that what you got to
get that job back? And here you were. I see
the universe does really work well because you were the
dutiful son. Even though you knew that you didn't want
(24:21):
to do this, you did recognize that your parents you
were letting them down. And you know that could have
had a very different ending if the guy had said sorry,
no job, and then you would have had to sort
of suffer under that guilt, but also they if you
had had to continue pleasing your parents and continue in that.
(24:42):
But you had the strength and your parents gave you
the grace to take the job, get the job done,
and then just go off in the way that you
wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
You know, I didn't know what I wanted to do.
And I went home for one Christmas Christmas of my
sophomore year, and and I just started to get a
sense of that I wanted to do theater. And I said,
I wanted to theater. And so I recognized because I
wanted to take a year off and go to bamp Canada,
(25:12):
and they had a huge theater, you know, school and center,
and I wanted to go explore. And they said, Courtney, please, no,
you're going to extend our payments and we're barely barely
able to do this, so please, And so then they
forced me to come up with a plan d They said, Courtney,
we can't do that. So I said, hmm, this is
(25:34):
what I'm gonna do. And my work's I'm going to
work all year doing the schools, get any all the
money and my work study job. I'm gonna at the
end of the year, I'm going to give it all
to you guys. And then if I do that, then
I can do in the summers. I can do what
I want to do. And they said, that's a bet,
let's do that. So that's what I did. And then
I recognized I don't need to go to to BAMF
(25:57):
during the school year. I'll go to drama school after
I graduate. So they forced me to come up with
by saying, no exercising, there are no option. They forced
me to come up with a plan B. And and
when I did that, they said, and now look, we're
doing Harvard, We're not doing Yale. If you get to Yale,
(26:19):
you got to do that yourself. I said, I got it.
So I ended up, you know, having you know, two
years worth of loans. But again that was that was
that was me going, you know, I'm at General Motors.
While I'm here, why don't I go around? And from
that the whole thing just became two amazing options, Carol.
(26:42):
I could have ended up at Harvard Business School, you know,
you know, being a big wig at General Motors and
going down this whole other path. You know. It was
it was, there were two paths laid out for me
based on me being who I am. I'm a people person.
How nice to meet you, what's hey, gosh nice to Yeah, wow,
(27:02):
Oh we like this guy. Who is this kid? And
you know I want to put him through business school?
Oh he doesn't want to go? What what you know?
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Well, again, I'm always looking for the parenting angles, and
you know you're right. Sometimes parents are afraid to exercise
that option to say no, and sometimes the option to
say no can be squashing their child's ambitions and dreams.
But what I very much like about this story is
that your parents they were honest about the spectrum of
(27:37):
financial help they could give you. I always think parents
need to be really honest with your kids about what
you can afford, because in this instance it made all difference.
You figured out a way to help them cover the
cost of you being in school, which is their concern.
That is a great story of your parents communicating well
enough and being candid enough to tell you what the
problem was, and you figuring out a solution to the problem.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
And it was a different time too. You know, I
knew that my father and mother did not have the
option to be able to do what made them happy.
They had to take whatever job presented itself to them
for their family, so they weren't able to do. But
they they sacrificed allowed me to go to Country Day.
But at first they put me in the boys clubs
and now the Boys and Girls Club. My cap counselor
(28:23):
was mister George Brown got rested so and he was
a teacher at Country Day, and he told my dad
and mom about that Courtney's great, he should apply for
scholarship the Country Day. So from them putting me in
a place so that that I that was safe, the
Boy's club, the whole rest of my life was laid
out from them making that decision to put me in
(28:43):
a safe place based on who I am. That safe
place made it possible for me to the world just
opened up to me slowly. Now it's on me. I'm
at I'm at the General Motors World headquarters. I could
have very easy just done my job right. I made
a decision. I made a promise to myself to do
something that don't don't choose a job just because, you know,
(29:06):
because and all my friends were you know, I'm gonna
work for General Morris, I'm gonna work for IBM, I'm
gonna work for zero. And when I said I'm going
to be an actor, they were like, let me tell you, Carol,
they all made fun of me, and and you know,
I felt less than. They made me feel less than.
I went to the career services and because I couldn't
figure out what I wanted to do. And then ten
(29:27):
years after at our tenth reunion, I went to the
reunion and some of my classmates were like, you're so
You're so lucky that you stuck with what you want.
I said, what are you talking about? You made fun
of me, You stuck what I wanted to do. You
were so sure about what you wanted to do. What
the heck happened? I know, Court, I really wanted to
(29:48):
be a writer, and I just I was afraid to.
I mean, that's the message for our children, is that
you can afford now after what I mean, we're both artists,
your mother and father both artists. For us to tell
you that you've got to do something practical, forget about
you have to find out what you're at a liberal
(30:08):
arts to liberal arts schools. It doesn't matter what you
take there. You can go to law school, a business school,
the architecture school. My son is a potentially interested in architecture,
and that the professor told them, say to study what
you want. Architecture is a graduate school peak thing. So
you got to go to grad school anyway. So take
the history of fine arts, Take history and live, take
(30:31):
you know, take whatever you know, but enjoy your the
exploration and then you'll talk about, you know whatever the
law school, business school, architecture school, whatever you know. Maybe
you want to be a curator at a museum. I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
See see that that also is the valuable lesson. A
lot of parents send their kids off to college and
they're hell bent on whatever is supposed to happen after that,
the career that comes after that. But I had a
great liberal arts education. All of my three have had
great liberal arts educations. College is are really the last
place where you get intense opportunities to just learn whatever,
to just learn. There's no other I mean, maybe you
(31:08):
got a work study job, but you are really just
there to fill up your brain.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
You come to these schools and you can determine what
you want to do, and so you know, getting out
of your that mindset. If I got to come and
I'm going to be a govern major and the major.
You know, when you first get in, you go to
these events and you know in your town where all
the grad they accepted, all the people and all the
students got up and they were saying, I want to
do this, I want to major in this one this.
(31:34):
Our daughter got into one of the two people that
I don't know what I want to do. I'll figured
I want to get there, and and everyone else right,
And so the whole exactly, the whole said, you know, guys,
it's wonderful that you think you know what you want
to major in, but you know there are majors there
that you don't even know about yet. So I would
encourage all of you just to remain open, just just
(31:58):
stay open to the possible of majoring in something that
you don't know about yet. So, yeah, that's fascinating to me.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Oh absolutely. So now you guys are empty nesters. Like
the thing about twins is your empty nesters all at once.
So here's the thing. Are your kids actually grown and
flown or are you still holding on to the kite strings?
And I say this as somebody who has tugged on
a string of two so they're gone.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Our son really seems to at Yale, has has really
seemed to. He loves his roommates, he's you know, they're
doing things. He's you know, he's you know, he's going
trying to find places. He's finding place to go get
his hair cut, you know.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
And New Haven they got places. I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Yeah, oh yeah, so you know, we and now we're
just in prayer just to you know that they find
their way, you know, as the as the classmate of
Browin says, she said, mister Courtney, freshman year, as you recall,
is very difficult. It can be very challenging for you know, students,
(33:04):
and as I know, it was challenging for me, so
I know how it can be. So when you're well.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
You know the thing about a rigorous high school. And
I say this because all three of my children went
to really rigorous high schools. The lesson that they got
out of this, and I'm sure your children did as well.
You may be smart, but you're not the smartest person
in the room. And it's really important to understand when
you are young that a lot of people can be smart.
(33:31):
I mean, you can be smart in one area and
you can be proud of yourself and confident in that.
And I say this to parents as well, because you
don't want to make your child think they're the smartest
person in the universe, because even if they knock the
ball out the park in high school, you get to
college and then you're with all these people. It is
really daunting to find out that somebody is smarter than
(33:52):
you are. And that doesn't matter. That's not important. It's
only important what you can do with what you've got.
But I do think and so I say that to
say that with your kids having had this rigorous high school,
they've learned the structure of it. But also they're not
intimidated by people who are smart, because even the smartest
(34:13):
person doesn't do something well. And hopefully part of I
think what makes freshman year so hard is that that's
a hard lesson to learn, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I think, I think, you know, the having a famous
mommy like they do, that can be very challenging for
young people, not.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
To mention a famous daddy, sir.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Yeah, yes, but but their mommy is you know, Queen Ramanda.
You know. So it's it's a thing, you know that
our family is unique and they've had a unique childhood.
It's wonderful when your mother is dead and your father
is that and you know, and we didn't we didn't
let our children go to red carpets, and you know,
(34:57):
we said, our life is not their life. They need
to be children and enjoy their childhood. And you know,
gradually the world's you know connected. And Black Panther was
the first one where they really we said, come on,
let's do the whole thing with them, and you know,
they really were just you know, with the braces and all,
(35:19):
just just cheesing from ear to ear, you know. So
it's just you know, that's wonderful. But then when you
get to school and you know, you meet people who
you know, potend sometimes they don't want to know you
for you. They want to know you for your mother
and father, right, and so they've got to get learn
how to deal with that. And that's there's no reflection
(35:43):
on you. It's just if you find people who just
don't want to really know you, discover they just want
to know your mom and dad, then you go, hey,
that's not happening, and you know, come on, now you
know better, you know, and so she'll get they'll get better,
you know, with being a hey mom, yes that's my mom. Yeah, yeah,
(36:04):
come down, come down. That's why college is important for
you to learn the good, the bad, and the ugly
about human beings. One of my phrases is, you know,
if it wasn't for the people, this would be a
wonderful world. You know, you got to be able to
learn how you have to deal with the people. And
you can't just deal with people who like you or
(36:27):
who are like you. You know, that's the journey. They're
in the middle of that journey, which you know better
than we do. With you know, with your three grown churn.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yes, absolutely grown, but listen, you you are you are
on the right track completely because what you know, just
as we said that college is the only place where
you really get to learn for its own sake, and
they should cherish that. It's really a microcosm of the world.
In the world, your children will forever have people that
will want to know them because of who they think
(36:57):
your children are and who they think your children can
help them us associate with in the college setting. I mean,
I'm sure they've had this for other parts of their lives,
but as they get older, their detectors will become sharper.
And I say this having watched children of well known
people go through this process. It really is. It's a
safe haven sort of. It's sort of a safe haven
(37:18):
for them to find their tribe, find their people, but
also be exposed to people who want to be in
their tribe and to know how to deal with it.
So this is all good. They'll get it. I mean,
they will get it. So Courtney, I could talk to
you forever, and I would like to, but I'm going
to wrap it up here. I just want to say
one more thing about this amazing book. Well, first, I
(37:43):
want to wrap up the grown and flown part of
this by saying that congratulations to you and Angela treasure
your empty nest. All the best to your kids as
they get to really soar into this new world and
you guys get to watch and be proud of what
you've done. But I want to just again say how
how wonderful your book is, The Invisible Ache, and and
(38:06):
how much I want to encourage parents to get this book, because,
as I said, it's a memoir and it's a resource
if anyone has any childhood they thinks may be struggling this.
There's so much in this book which is both empathetic, compassionate,
and useful. So I'm not both. That's three things. Empathetic, compassionate,
and useful, and so it needs just to be on
(38:28):
everybody's shelf. So now there's just one more thing before
we go, and that is you have to play the
GCP Lightning Round. I have four quick questions and you're ready.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
You're ready.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Okay, let's go. What is your favorite poem or saying?
Speaker 2 (38:42):
I said, one of them you if one't for the people,
be a wonderful world. But the other one is I
do the best I can and I go to bed.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
I love that, simple, simple, I love that. Okay, Okay,
your favorite two children's books, and they can be ones
you grew up with and loved, or kids that your
books that your kids loved then you read to them,
or any children's books.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
That you like. I got the two Henry books my
mother read to me, Henry the Explorer. I don't know
the author, I've got it in here somewhere. And then
the Kadeer Nelson's illustrated He's my favorite illustrated on his
(39:30):
book by Ellen Levine wrote it and he illustrated called
Henry's Freedom Box about Henry Box Brown, the young gentleman
Henry Brown sent himself as a grown man to Philadelphia
in a box. It's about about that story. It's called
Henry's Freedom Box.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
And now Henry the Explorer was that by Mark Taylor.
Isn't a book? Does that ring a bell at a blizzard?
It's a boo about explo Yes, okay, Henry the Exploring
the author is Mark.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
My mother read me that book. And then in the
wintertime when there was a bank at the end of
our block, to three four houses from us, there was
a bank, and I used to ask my mom. I
was little, I was in six five or six, and
I would say, Mommy, I want to go exploring. And
she would make me a lunch and put it on
(40:27):
a pole with a little, you know, a do rag
that wrapped up in at the end of the judge
down the street with all my my mittens and my gun,
and I would be in there. There'd be the snow
would be piled up and a mound. And I was
exploring on that, on that big mound of snow, and
I said to myself, my mother put her coat on,
(40:47):
walked out that that house, and was sitting hiding somewhere
watching me. That whole time I was on that that
that that you know, snow, snow.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Man, I'm sure that's right.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I'm sure there's no way she would let me out
of her sight.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Okay, two more quick questions. Give me a dad moment
that you'd like to be able to do over, one
that you wish you had to do over for.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
You know, I thought about that, and I really can't
think of one. I really can't think of because anything
that that that I did that I shouldn't have done,
my wife would at court. You gotta go back and
do that, and so I would go back and apologize.
I mean, so you know, that's another lesson for them
(41:32):
to see me apologize to them. I shouldn't have done that.
I was wrong that, you know, do you forgive me?
And you know no, Dad, it's okay, it's okay, daddy. Daddy,
you did good. Dad, you did good. I mean to
be able to see your father not be you know, infallible,
you know right.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
No, absolutely, I love that answer. Okay, But there must
be a moment where you knew you nailed it as
a dad. What's one of your favorite dad moments?
Speaker 2 (41:59):
My son was all always into something, and there's an
incident that happens where that he and this other boy
are are are tussling, and you know, playing, playing soccer
or whatever. My son gets the better the little uh
white child, and the little white child calls him the
N word. And we've been telling him from you know,
(42:19):
from time he was little. If somebody something happens and
they push you or whatever, don't push him back. Go
to the teacher, because then it becomes your word versus
their word. So the little boy didn't call him. He said,
you can't call me that. He said, I'm going to
tell the principal. So he went the guys and the
little boy said, don't do that. I didn't say anything.
I didn't say. He said, yes, she did. So he
(42:40):
went and tell the principal and the principal said, Courtney,
don't call the parent because I knew the mother said
don't call the mother. This is a district issue now,
and so the district dealt with and she said you can.
The principal said you can call her now, and so
I called him and I said, look, you know you're
a child, and our families are pretty close. You know,
(43:01):
you know on this question, I'm gonna ask you, our
relationship will spend. So did your son call s Slater
the N word? And she said, Courtney, you know our
child doesn't even know that word. I said, Okay, that's it,
because you know, I said, uh, every that's the one
word everybody in this world knows. So so no, that's
(43:22):
not wrong answer. So you know, but I was proud
of our of Slater because he did what we were
what we asked him to do, which is, look, look no, no, no,
no good, don't good. I'm going to the office. It's
off me now right, and you know he is now
ready to go deal with whatever comes up, you know,
(43:43):
in school. And anyway, that's it.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
You squashed down whatever you might have won him to
do in that moment, but you did teach him to
do the right thing, which was get the authorities involved.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Because he was at a there at a mostly white school,
and I was up at that school every day because
I number one, I was. I wasn't working at that time,
and thank god, because I was able to be involved,
and the teachers saw me, and Slater saw me, and
Browin saw me up, you know, representing the house absolutely,
(44:17):
and so the teachers would say that we would We
did our evaluations and we sat down with the director
and the director because we were up at the school
and we were in communication with them. Whenever something would
go down, they would go, the director would go, mister Vance,
missus Avance, don't worry, he'll turn around. You're you know,
we're we're all in communication. We're going to help each
(44:37):
other because we were in.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
There, Courtney. Those are great answers for the Lightning Round.
Thank you so much. Thank you again for this amazing book,
and thank you so much for being with us today.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Having me back here. We got more to talk about.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
We absolutely do. I will we need a part too done.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
I hope everyone listening enjoyed this conversation that you'll come
back for more. Please subscribe, rate and review where you
find your podcasts and tell your friends. For more parenting
info and advice, please check out the Ground Control Parenting
website at wwwgroundcontrol Parenting dot com. You can also find
us on Facebook and Instagram at ground Control Parenting and
on LinkedIn under Carol Sutton Lewis. Until the next time,
(45:23):
take care and thanks for listening.
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