September 22, 2020 • 42 mins
In this episode, we sit down with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery. Wesley is an Ohio native and talks to us about joining the trade of journalism in the 8th grade and the heroes that inspired him to blaze his trail in an evolving field with little representation.
He was a lead on the Washington Post's "Fatal Force" project that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2016 as well as the author of They Can't Kill Us All: Ferguson, Baltimore, and a New Era in America's Racial Justice Movement.
Wesley's work focuses on issues of policing, justice, and race relations, and can be found in the Washington Post, Boston Globe, CBS News, The Atlantic, the cover of Newsweek, and now on 60 Minutes. His groundbreaking work on the frontlines of Ferguson to George Floyd gives him a unique perspective regarding the narratives told around police brutality. When asked, “Where do we go from here?” he speaks earnestly about the power we have as individuals and as a collective and how he believes that there is no better time like the present for us to rise.
Check one of his most recent articles here: https://www.newsweek.com/police-reform-alone-wont-stop-another-george-floyd-being-murdered-1512023
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Alright, kinfolk, come here with Wesley Lowery,
Pulitzer prize, winningjournalists, young black savant,
man, just somebody I admire.
I recently got a chance to sitwith him in the days after
George Floyd.
And man just thought that man,this man singularly with his
(00:29):
gift, his experience, and justhis ability to analyze the
problem could speak a lot tothis question of where do we go
from here?
So Wesley, go ahead andintroduce yourself.
I don't know if I could dobetter,
Speaker 2 (00:43):
But no, of course.
I appreciate it.
PTM.
I'm glad to be here with you.
And I appreciate theintroduction and the kind
introduction.
Yeah.
You know, I'm a writer, areporter, a journalist.
I do a little bit of everything.
This meant six years of theWashington post covering issues
of policing and race and justiceacross the country.
And then earlier this year Imoved over to 60 minutes.
So I work with them on anoffshoot show called 60 and six.
(01:07):
So basically the same show, onlya little bit shorter, but I also
still write.
And so I've written pieces thisyear and put the Newsweek cover
in the Atlantic, kind of allover the place.
And again, primarily focused onissues of race and justice and
what that means in our countryand in this world,
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Man, good stuff.
I want to get right to it.
So tell me, how did you decideon a career in journalism?
You're from my wife's herfamily's from shaker Heights.
She has some family in shakerHeights and she tells me about
the neighborhood.
I was like, okay, I got to askhim, how did he decide he wanted
(01:47):
to be a journalist from where hecame from?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And so for folks who might not know, shaker Heights
is East side of Cleveland.
So it's an Ohio.
I moved there when I was ineighth grade, my family moved
there.
And so I spent all of highschool there.
My parents were still there forme.
I don't even know if I everreally made a choice.
You know, it was one of thosethings where, you know, like I
was always good at writing.
I love reading.
Like that was always, I wasnever a math science brain.
(02:12):
I was always a history Englishkind of space.
And I remember when I got toshaker, got to Cleveland in
eighth grade and I was justlooking for frankly, I was
looking for like clubs, thejoint, or like ways to make
friends.
I was a new kid in eighth gradeis kind of a weird time to join
a new school because likeeveryone's already kind of
clicked up for me.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
They're friends.
Yeah, exactly.
Going into high school.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah.
It's a real awkward time to likepop in.
And so I was the new kid and Iremember seeing an announcement
in the cafeteria that thenewspaper club was meeting.
Right.
And I was like, Oh, I know howto do that.
And so I showed up and workedfor the newspaper and some of my
friends throughout all of highschool afterwards were people
(02:56):
who I met working first for themiddle school newspaper, and
then from my high schoolnewspaper.
And so I was blessed to even goto a school that had, you know,
a full journalism class and, anda newspaper.
And, you know, I made friendsthrough that way.
I learned some of the basicsthat way.
I was skipping my other classesto go hang out in the journalism
department.
Right.
(03:16):
So I kinda knew that this wasgoing to be it for me.
Um, pretty early on.
And one of the things I figuredout pretty early on was that
journalism is in a lot of ways,it's a trade.
It's a little less of a, it'snot like an academic profession
in a lot of ways.
It's trade.
It's like fixing cars, right.
You can follow the instructionsand figure it out, but the more
(03:37):
you do it, the more reps you putit in, the more time you put
into it, the better you're goingto be, the more expertise you
have.
And so for me, I just kind oftried to dive in as quickly as
possible, as early as possible.
How much can I write?
Right.
And so when I got to college, Iwent to Ohio university in
Athens, Ohio.
It was the sense of like howmuch time I spent writing while
I'm here so I can get as good aspossible.
(03:59):
So I worked for the collegenewspaper, every single day of
college, I was hustling.
I was working hard, trying towrite as much as possible.
I was taking internships duringthe summer to try to get more
experience working, professionalspaces, start building a
network.
And so for me, it's been, youknow, I've been working for a
newspaper in some capacity,basically every day of my life,
(04:22):
since eighth grade, you know,and like, and for a lot of that
time, thinking about new ways towrite, thinking about new ways
to tell stories and then gettinga little bit better throughout
all of that.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
What were some of the influences?
It said, Hey, this is possiblefor me.
This is something I could do.
Not just as a hobby, but man,I'm confident that this is the
way that I can make it doingthis, you know?
Cause I know you come from aneighborhood like mine or where
I come from, where it's Oh, am Iplaying basketball?
(04:55):
No.
Okay.
You know, maybe I can sell dope.
No.
Okay.
So then what are the otheroptions?
I mean, I don't know many blackjournalists and definitely not
of your caliber.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah.
I, you know, and it'sunfortunate because there aren't
that many black journalists andit's tough because I think a big
part of achieving do you have tosee, you have to be able to see
yourself doing something to godo it.
Right.
You'd have to be able toenvision it.
You got to be able to fantasizeabout it.
And unfortunately there aren't alot of people who look like us
who are in these newsrooms, inthese spaces.
And so for a lot of peoplegrowing up, they didn't even
(05:31):
necessarily see it as an option.
And so I think that's a big partof it.
And if they do see it as anoption, they only see it in like
very limited roles.
Like, all right, maybe I can bethe weatherman.
Maybe I can be Stephen A.
Smith.
I can go do sports, but I don'tnecessarily see people who look
like us in all of the differentroles as writers, as authors, as
the news guy, as theinvestigative reporter, as you
know.
And so I think that's reallyimportant, you know, for me, I
(05:52):
was really fortunate.
You know, I grew up with both myparents, my dad, my dad was a,
for a long time.
And so I kind of grew up in ahousehold where, when we woke
up, like the first person up,went and got the newspaper and
brought it in and then like theywould, you know, we would watch
the news and then we watchedjeopardy like every day after
dinner.
And so there was just this senseof like in my household, the
(06:14):
idea of journalism as like anoble profession or thing that
people it's just like a normalpart of life is something I grew
up with.
And that's not necessarily truefor everyone.
Right.
That we live in a plate.
We live in a time where peoplearen't consuming the newspaper
everyday like that they're notnecessarily sitting down and
watching the local news.
Right.
Or that's what your grandmotherdoes.
That's where your aunts anduncles, you know, but like the
average person doesn'tnecessarily sit down at the end
(06:36):
of the day and watch the newslike appointment viewing
anymore.
And so, you know, I was kind oflucky in that space.
You know, my parents, my dad,particularly, it was always
really particular as well.
He always wanted me and my twoyounger brothers to be in spaces
where we saw black achievement,where we knew black doctors and
black lawyers and blackbusinessmen, the black council
(06:57):
man.
And that the sense was that wecould see with our own eyes that
we could do basically anything.
Right.
I think that was reallyimportant.
It was also interesting.
Cause my dad had worked injournalism was that he really
didn't want me to go intojournalism at all.
He was like real passiveaggressive about it.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah.
You know, that's funny that yousay that because uh, my mother
and father were teachers, butthat's the last thing they
wanted us to do.
It's almost like they becomeprofessionals and they're like,
well, I don't know if it's likethe desire to make more money
and they feel like you should dobetter or whatever they
characterize as better, butthey're like shoo, you away from
(07:35):
what they do.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Exactly.
And I think for my dad too, youknow, part of it was that, you
know, it's a profession thatdoesn't have a ton of black
people in it.
There's racism inside thenewsroom still there's, you
know, sometimes we don't coverthings the right way.
You know, there's, there's a lotof frustration as a black
journalist when you're workingin mainstream media.
And I think that for him, he hadexperienced a lot of that and
his dream, you know, he grew upin kind of all over his father
(07:59):
was a minister or a pastor, butspent a lot of time in South
Jersey and in New York and somein rougher neighborhoods, right.
And public housing.
And he and his dream was to gethis kids out to the burbs.
And now he was like, why wouldyou go back and do what I did
again, you should be a doctor ora lawyer or an accountant, you
know?
And there was that kind of senseof building generation to
generation.
(08:20):
I kind of couldn't be shakenfrom this, you know, and I had a
great high school journalismteacher and Annalisa Kiski and
she was just like the journalismteacher, my freshman year, first
period class was journalism.
So she was the first teacher Ihad in high school.
And this lady was crazy.
Just this crazy survey lady whowas like a total character.
We get arguments in class.
(08:41):
We would debate things, but shereally taught me to love the
craft.
Right.
And, and to love the idea thatlike I'd come to work every day
and get in arguments withpeople.
Like we can just sit down and wecan talk about the things that
matter.
We could pick up the newspaperand say, what was in newspaper
today?
What did they get wrong?
What did they get?
Right.
How do we push the storyforward?
How do we go tell people'sstories?
Right.
(09:01):
And that kind of opportunity isreally, really important to me.
You know, it was a kind of thingwhere it really, for me, I felt
like I had kind of found myspace and my voice right.
Where I can now it was justlike, it was like a puzzle piece
that fit for me.
Right then I was in that spaceand I just knew, this is what I
want to do.
This is how I want to keep doingit.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
The, would you considered the bellwethers of
journalism for you?
People who who've come beforeyou, that you kind of say, okay,
I'm I feel like I'm going in theright direction.
I see where their path, I seetheir trajectory.
And I'm kind of following that.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
You know, it's an interesting, because that's
shifted and changed a little bitover my career and part has not
reached new milestones oraccomplished new goals.
Right.
It also, you know, I've had thebenefit of, because I've known,
I wanted to do this, you know,I've been thinking about who I
would aspire to be like foralmost 20 years.
(09:59):
Right.
Like, and I'm 30, so it's notlike, you know, so there's been
a lot of time to like grow anddevelop and think and admire
this person.
Then, you know, I remember whenI was growing up the local
columnist, the black columnistin the Cleveland, plain dealer,
like Phillip Morris, and that'sanother guy Sanford like, and
they were the black guy who,that they're facing the
(10:20):
newspaper was Chris Broussardthere.
So he came late.
He came a little later, butyeah, exactly.
That's one of my brothers too.
Yeah, no, exactly.
So, you know, but it was an ideathat like the word, like there
are two or three black peopleget their face in the newspaper
and they're so smart that allthese people have to listen to
them.
Right.
They get to write where they'regoing to write.
They get to say what they'regoing to say.
They get to do their reporting.
(10:41):
And unfortunately it was just ahandful of black people at a
columnist level.
Certainly.
Right.
And so they stuck out in thatway, like, all right, if I show
up and like work hard,everyone's going to have to
listen to me.
And so this one, there was stufflike that, you know?
And then there was, but then asI got into my career, I started
looking up to an admiring, a lotof different people.
(11:01):
So I remember there was a dudenamed Corey date.
He's one of my best friends andmentors.
He was a political reporter fora long time.
He was the wall street journal.
And then he moved over to NPRfor a minute.
And he was like this light skinbrother.
Right?
Like we, we look a little bitalike and the heat has so much
(11:21):
of the career that I wanted tohave.
He'd worked at the Boston globeand covered local politics.
He'd done a national campaign.
That was my dream.
Like I don't want to go be anational correspondent, travel
the country.
Right.
And then he'd moved.
And so I was very taken by how Iwanted to kind of mimic some of
his career steps.
And it was interesting becausewhen my first full time jobs out
(11:43):
of college who was at the Bostonglobe covering local politics,
and I had the phone that used tobe his phone, like it still had
his like voicemail thing wherelike I found myself actually
like following in the footstepsof folks like that.
And then one is also true islike, I think about people who I
admire.
Right.
Cause there's one thing to thinkabout people whose footsteps
(12:04):
you're trying to follow in.
And I think that's reallyimportant and also was true in
any career in any profession isthat the pathway looks a little
bit different for everyone.
Right.
And the work looks a little bitdifferent.
And so I also try to thinkabout,
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Cause you're a man of your times,
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Right.
And any of the differentopportunities, different things
pop up.
We're also, we're alsodifferent.
My writing is different than,you know, other folks.
Right.
And so like it, and so we haveour own individual voices, our
own styles, the different newsstories pop up.
Right.
And one of my good friends, aguy look up to a lot to remain
lead MSNBC.
One of his big ComOps was, wasworking on hurricane Katrina in
(12:40):
new Orleans.
Like I couldn't plan to try todo something like that.
Right.
Because that's just the way thenews works.
It happened it's happeningstance.
Right.
And he was ready and prepared inthat moment to do it.
Right.
And so a lot of it has alwaysbeen like trying to be prepared
and ready in these moments tojump in and to contribute.
But I also just think aboutlike, who are people whose work
(13:02):
I really admire, right.
Who am I going to try?
And in some ways be becausethere are so few black
journalists in some ways be veryfluid and kind of the classics,
right?
Like, so there's a guy he'spassed now, but who I had the
pleasure of meeting when I wasyounger and it was wife, I still
know Angela Anderson.
And he was, I think only thesecond black person to ever win
(13:22):
a Pulitzer.
And he was like the first blackman.
I think everyone in the featurewriting Pulitzer, which is like
among the writers, that's likethe big one because it's about
feature writing.
And he done, he was this longtime journalist pastor in
Detroit and an activist too.
And he, he wrote this piece whenhe was a fuse at the wall street
(13:43):
journal and he wrote this pieceabout a pharmacy robbery.
And he went back and traced,like the immigrant family who
had committed the robbery or whohad been the victims and they
hit it.
So what happened was, uh, ayoung black man broken this
pharmacy, stuck it up and theowner shot and killed him.
And then he traced back bothfamilies and looked at like what
was happening and how, you know,and it was just fascinating.
(14:05):
It was beautiful.
It was nuanced.
It was smart.
Right.
And I've read that piece amillion times.
Right.
And like, and I think thatthat's, it's, what's people like
that who you kind of feel likeyou're building on top of, or
you're aspiring in some ways tobe like, you know, like you're,
you're trying to think like,alright, these are the classics.
This is the people who kind ofbuilt this.
How do I match them?
How do I meet them?
How do I build on top?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Hmm.
So now it seems like your goalshave evolved.
So I want to talk about yourshift going from politics to now
what you political writing towhat you do now, but just to
comment on what you just said.
So it seems like you've evolvedfrom 20 years to now.
It seems like you, you know,you've almost shifted back in
(14:49):
time to look for the people thatyou aspire to be because of the,
the achievements that you've,you've achieved along the way.
So what does it look like on,why did you make that shift from
since Corey was the bellwetherfor you at one point to go from
political reporting to what youdo?
I mean, cause I don't think whatyou do now can be encapsulated
(15:12):
in political reporting.
It's so much broader.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah.
I mean, I think that for me,part of it was, you know,
because there is such a smallnumber of black journalists,
it's really a family, right.
It's like, I always say we'reall like a degree and a half
separated from each other.
The joke I always say is thereare seven black journalists and
we've all dated each other.
Right.
Like we literally, everyoneknows everyone, right.
Like if I had to, you know, likeif you were like gun to my head,
(15:38):
you got to get to Oprah in thenext 25 minutes.
Like it's like three textmessages, right.
Because like I know, I knowsomeone who knows someone who
it's just a really, really smallworld.
Right.
And because of that, there's alot of effort that goes into,
especially with young blackjournalist mentorship guidance
advice.
And I was someone because I knewI wanted to do this early, who
(16:00):
had a lot of people who kind oflooked out for me and gave me
advice who tried to help guideme in one direction or the
other.
And one thing that they drilledinto my head from a really early
age, whether that was one thingthat's really important for
black journalists is to makesure that we're telling our
stories that unfortunately somuch of the media is run by
white corporate insuranceoperated by white editors and
(16:24):
white reporters that to havethat one of the reasons or one
of the things that's importantabout having black journalists.
So you have people who can tellblack stories.
And so for me, I always knewthat I wanted to be someone who
told stories.
Right.
And who told stories of blackand Brown people who told
stories that weren't otherwisebeing covered.
That because that lane isunfortunately so open, right?
(16:47):
So I started, I was doing purepolitics.
I covered city hall in LosAngeles for a little bit.
I covered city hall and localpolitics in Boston for a year
and then came to the Washingtonpost to cover Congress.
Right.
And so it's like meat andpotatoes politics every day.
I'm on Capitol Hill talking tosenators, talking to members of
Congress about whatever'shappening.
(17:09):
And, but even in that job,right, there were always little
ways you can try to bite offparts of, you know, race and
justice.
And because what we know is thatthese issues touch everything
right.
And so one of the first frontpage story I ever had, the
Washington post was Brock Obamahad nominated a guy to be one of
(17:32):
the assistant attorney generalsto oversee the civil rights
division of the justicedepartment.
And the Republicans blocked thenomination because he, because
this lawyer had once signed abrief on behalf of Mumia blue
Jamal in Philadelphia.
Oh man.
And they're going to sign thebrief
Speaker 3 (17:50):
And you know, who, how those briefs get put
together.
Literally, probably he might'vejust signed the race.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
If I remember correctly, he had been working
for the NAACP legal defense fundand they were offering me as
some like pro bono, you know,like, so it wasn't even, so I
think he actually, might've beendoing it in his capacity at like
for the organization, not evenlike individually, but anyway,
so the Republicans demagogue,you know, they were like, Obama
(18:17):
Shiner nominated a cop killer.
He can't like, he can't do it orlike a guy who sympathizes with
cop killers.
So he can't.
And so the first story that Ihit the front page for me as a
congressional reporter was astory that was about race and
police.
Right?
Like it was a story that wasabout these issues.
Right.
I remember doing covers at thetime of the push on the Hill to
(18:39):
try to get the voting rights actrenewed.
And so there was always things,I mean, immigration is an issue
of race, right?
Like it's issue of ethnicity.
And so, so there was this, like,it was always kind of there.
And so I was always looking forexcuses to raise my hand or chip
in or be helpful.
However, and then in early 2014,uh, when Ferguson happened,
(19:03):
Michael Brown was killed.
I happen to have a backpack.
I had just gotten back from atrip and they needed someone to
get on the airplane that day.
I was like, yeah, I can go.
And I ended up going toFerguson.
I remember texting my buddies,like my main group chat with my
boys.
Right.
And saying, I go, I gotta go outof town.
I'll be in Missouri for a fewdays.
I should be back.
Like I was leaving.
I'm like, uh, I think I was lefton Monday and I was expected to
(19:24):
be back that weekend for likeour sports, like, you know, like
to beat me up at the sports baror whatever.
I ended up staying down therefor about three months and you
know, was one of the lastnational reporters to leave for
after the decision not to charge, uh, Darren Wilson, the officer
, uh, but then there was a roundof riding and then I stayed and
(19:45):
helped cover some of therebuilding as well.
And so it was just a total, um,you know, life changing
experience for me, which is tobe honest, it's like bittersweet
and weird, right?
Like it's like one of these likecentralized things that in a lot
of ways change changed my lifeand the trajectory of my career.
And it was born out of trash,you know, someone being killed
(20:07):
out of the police, killingsomeone.
Right.
And like, it's just a very oddthing to sit with in that way.
Right.
Like you don't want to,
Speaker 3 (20:13):
I understand that, that I've quite recently had the
same experience.
I mean, last month, basicallywhen you see, you know, all the
events surrounding Georgia,Florida have kind of changed the
trajectory of some of the thingsthat myself and some of the
others that were involved donow.
So yeah, it is kind of a lonelyfeeling, but I now feel, I don't
(20:35):
feel alone anymore,
Speaker 4 (20:37):
You know, but it's, it is a little strange, you
know, so at the time I was stillso young, I was like, I was 24
and I was at 24.
I spent three months onFerguson.
It had been a best, like it hadjust been crazy.
No one knew what was happening.
It was the first, one of thesethat got covered like that.
You know, it was hundreds ofdays of protesters in the
(20:57):
streets.
Police are like hitting us withtear gas all the time.
It was hyper politicized.
And so we were all, even thereporters who were covering it
much less activists, but likethe reporters we were getting,
like our addresses published andpeople were sending us threats.
So it was like, he was like acrazy environment.
The activists all had it worse,they're all getting followed
around.
(21:18):
And so we come out of that and Ifly back.
I flew back to Washington firstweek of December and I land.
It's been like three months.
This story is finally over.
I'm like exhaling.
I'm trying to dislike, collectmy thoughts a little bit.
And I turned my phone back on aswe land.
And there's many announcement inNew York city.
If the officer who killed hergardener, isn't going to get
(21:39):
charged.
And there's like massiveprotests going up.
And like, it was just like thenext one.
So the next one, once thoseprotests pawn down, they sent me
home to you in on Tamir ricebecause the video of him being
killed.
Right.
And so it just went from one tothe next, to the next and the
net.
And I just made this decision.
I remember having thisconversation with the one of my
(22:00):
editors at the time.
And he said to me, he said,well, what do you want to do
next year?
Right.
We've argued, went intocorporate politics.
Our promise to you is that ifyou want them to go on a
campaign trail, you know, wewill help you do that.
You gotta think now it was 2015a place the Washington post is
staffing up for the presidentialelection, 16 elections.
And so they're saying, well, youknow, that's still what you want
to do.
(22:21):
The floor is yours for that.
Or do you want to, you know, ordo you want us to try to stick
on this policing stuff you want?
Do we want to craft out a B,find out, find a way for you to
cover this?
And I was like, forget theelection.
This is the story, right.
There is times where likesomething reaches out to you and
pulls you in.
And this was a case where Ijust, I was just fascinated by
(22:41):
the story.
I thought there was so much morewriting going to do with, there
were some questions to ask it.
Clearly wasn't resolved.
I wouldn't have felt right.
Covering furnace in three monthsand then just walking away.
Right.
Because it didn't feel like thestory.
And that's, so that's how Imoved into the position.
I ended up in kind of as anational correspondent covering
(23:02):
bond enforcement, justice, andthen how it relates to police
interactions with ourcommunities.
Um, and then we launched thatnext year, the fatal force
project.
And that was a project where wetry to figure out exactly how
many people, the police werekilling, how many people are
shooting and killing.
Um, and that was, uh, a projectthat went back to the streets of
(23:23):
Ferguson, right?
Where the, one of the maindebates at the time was, do
police killings even happen atall?
How often is it someone who'sblack or unarmed black?
And when we, as journalistsstart trying to answer that
question, we figured out when wefound out that there was no
accurate data, that the fencedidn't keep it.
A lot of the local policedepartments wouldn't release it.
(23:45):
And so a team at the post setout to try to answer this
question and built a database ofevery police shooting, just to
even just trying to figure outhow often, like, we're not
saying these are all bad.
We're not saying they're all,it's purely, how often does this
happen?
How can we have thisconversation without facts
without him?
And so that, wasn't how I spentmost of 2015.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
So I've been fascinated as a lay person, no
real knowledge of journalism onthe consumer, in black people
who told black stories or tellblack stories.
And I think for me, my journey,and like even trying to find
those voices started with Tavissmiley and, you know, with the
(24:31):
state of the black union, thosethings that he was doing.
And then it was like rollingMartin.
And then there was this gap forme.
This is me as an individual.
And you know, who feels that gapfor me now is you.
And I wonder that, I wonder ifyou see how the consumer sees
(24:55):
the work that you're doing andthe importance of it, and the
fact that there's probablysingle voices in the media that
say, I care about telling blackstories at whatever expense.
And I just wonder if you justkind of see almost like you're
like, I mean, of course you're aunicorn, but for those of us who
(25:16):
are consumers like me, I'mlooking for black people who are
looking to tell black stories.
And just that trajectory that Ithink that you're like the
millennial version of what thoseguys were doing way back when,
Speaker 4 (25:30):
You know, trying to, you know, I think that telling
those stories is so important.
People like Roland and I are agroup chat together.
So I hear from him every day,he's a whole character.
Well, that's awful rolling, youknow, but he, you know, but it
was one of those things wherethere are so few people in that
space, right.
Again, going back to what we'retalking about before there are
so few black people in mediaperiod.
(25:52):
And then when you're talkingabout people who are explicitly
covering black stories, that's atotally different subsection.
And then black people who aretelling black stories and able
to do it outside of like whitecontrol.
Right?
So like even, you know, so thereality is right.
If it can, even me, I can be ablack journalist trying to tell
black stories with someexpertise, but I still got to
(26:13):
get that work through a whiteeditor through another white
editor, publish it, a whitepublic, you know, like that
there is, there are layers,right?
And sometimes that's as simpleas the language we use and how
we talk, what references we haveto explain versus what we can
just put in there.
There's a lot of that that comesinto it.
And like I said, I think thatfor me, I've always wanted to
(26:35):
tell black stories.
Now I think that I've alwaysbeen kind of torn or maybe not
settled on exactly what medium Iwant to do.
One of my goals is always beento do as much as possible and do
that, the things in a lot ofdifferent spaces.
And so I want to be able towrite stories, whether it be in
a newspaper, whether it be in amagazine, I want to be able to
do on camera.
Like I'm doing the 60 minutes.
(26:55):
I want to be able to producestories.
Right.
And like, you know, step out ofit a little bit, but push it out
into the world.
Right.
And so I'm always trying tothink about how do I, you know,
how do I do storytelling?
And storytelling can lookdifferent.
It doesn't always have to lookthe same way.
It can look there, but how so?
How do I do that?
But then also, how do I makesure, as I'm telling the stories
(27:19):
that I'm telling you, why,again, I guess for me, it's not
that I'm not interested in otherstories.
I'm really interested about thestories.
And you know, a lot of my infact, favorite storytellers are
people who themselves aren'tblack and aren't even
necessarily are specificallyfocused on good writing, good
reporting is good writing.
But one of the things I know isthat a lot of those other wings
(27:39):
are overflowing with people.
And here you got a whole segmentof the population that no one
was paying attention to.
I always tell them their storiesand I'm like, I'm okay.
And by the way, like it's peoplewho are my friends and family
who I like who I'm interestedin.
And I'm like, of course, I'mgonna go tell the black story.
It's like, none of y'all want todo it.
(28:00):
I'll go do it.
That's fine.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Alright, man.
So shifting gears here with theweight of your experience and in
light of what happened withGeorge Floyd, just bringing the
weight of what, you know, I knowfor me, I, I struggle with this
question cause I don't reallyknow.
I've heard from different peopleand her different ideas of where
(28:24):
we should go.
But in this particular case,man, I just want to get the
weight of your experience.
Where do you think we go fromhere in the aftermath of George
for his death?
Speaker 4 (28:34):
You know, I think it's, this is such an
interesting bump because I thinkthere are two different
populations of people in thisconference, right?
You have black Americans andblack Americans have been saying
for heaven that the policearen't treating this fair, that
over police and underserved,that there's no accountability
when the police use excessiveforce or engage a brutality.
(28:57):
And a lot of black Americans arekind of start up, they're over
it.
They're tired of talking aboutit.
They're tired of it.
Like being on panel discussionsare like, and then meanwhile,
you know, and there's like acynicism moment where like, you
know, okay.
Yeah.
Y'all think George, boy's goingto be the one that changes this.
Okay.
Well, you know, like, can I getit because they've seen this
(29:18):
over and over and over again,and then you have a lot of white
Americans.
We're like, no, no, no, we'retaking it seriously this time.
This is real.
Can you believe?
You know?
And so you have like twopopulations in some ways they're
going in different directions onit.
And it's interesting.
I think one of the other thingsthat's true though, is I can't
tell how much of this moment ispeople who are caught up around
(29:40):
George Floyd in policing.
And how much of it is residualenergy.
A lot of other things from thispresidential administration,
right?
This is a very polarizing time,right?
No matter your politics, right?
Everyone's upset.
Everyone thinks the world'sending everyone like, you know,
and what I was saying is that alot of people who are now
(30:01):
supportive of black lives matterand policing reform funding are
people who've also been, whospent the last few years upset
in general and ready to protestin general, they've been upset
about Parkland and climatechange and the kids in the cages
on the border and the like, andRussia.
And so this became the nextthing, you know, and I'm not
(30:23):
saying that that's not sincere.
Like I'm not saying that thosefolks don't actually care that
they're not actually trying todo the readings, but I just do
wonder, I'm really interested tosee what happens, come this
election, um, the next year tosee how much of that energy
teams or how much of that isenergy for this moment that like
lurches things forward.
(30:45):
But then, you know, so it'sgoing to be really interesting.
You know, I think that we'vebeen in this period of time,
that in some ways it's kind ofeducation, right?
And for folks who don'texperience the police, the way
that many black communitiesexperienced police, they
genuinely didn't believe thatthings like what happened to
George Ford happened.
They didn't believe it.
That's not who the police are tothem.
(31:05):
That's not how the police showup and what we've seen in the
years since Eric Garner.
So 14 to 26 years is we've seenvideo after video, after video.
We're like every American, nomatter their race, no matter
their comp I've seen one videowhere they were like, all right,
that shit, right.
I used to have, I called them myregular Washington post.
And we'd be like, our it'd belike white subscribers who would
(31:27):
angrily email me after everyorder.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Cool.
Right.
And like every time it would bethis long email,
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Well, about how that black, I actually deserved to
die.
Cause here's the reasons right?
Tamir rice was actually sevenfoot tall and like, looked like
a man.
So it's so you're bias.
Cause you're saying he was achild.
They're like, you know, it'sjust like each time every email
was why the black guy deserved.
Right.
I guess what it was that was theupshot or black woman.
(31:52):
And I remember there was aturning point.
I don't know if it was onFreddie gray in Baltimore and
Walter Scott, there's thisturning point where suddenly
some of those writers werewriting in to be like, all right
.
That one was kind of crazy, youknow, did you see this?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah.
I saw that wherever you bid, itlooks like the other 20 videos I
tried to show was this momentwhere like suddenly for a lot of
people, they previously, theywere looking for whatever reason
Speaker 4 (32:22):
They argue that this one isn't in a suddenly for a
lot of people that are like, allright, now I'm getting tired of
this.
Like they had to kill that guytoo.
That's you know, like where in?
So suddenly like some of thatlike belief that the police
could never be wrong, they couldnever be, it was a lot of people
genuinely believe this was madeup, but then it wasn't.
And in that took a while forfolks to start to be like, Oh,
(32:46):
Oh, okay.
It's cops can do some stuff thatmaybe they shouldn't be doing.
Oh, word, alright.
Oh, another video.
Right.
And that was a thing.
And then like they openedTwitter.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
So do you think the energy is around policing in
general?
Or do you think people get andunderstand systemic racism as a
whole?
Speaker 4 (33:07):
I don't think people understand is something very, I
mean, I think that there'senergy around policing.
I think that the averageAmerican agree understands that
like, something's up, we gottado something about it, but you
know, like they can't tell youwhat the answers are, but the
average American is like, nomatter, yeah, no matter about
you, no matter what they'relike, all right, something's
going on.
We need to do something where Ithink that there still is some
(33:31):
push and pull between people whothink this is about policies and
people write a few bad cops.
And well, if we man, the chokehold in, the cops would never
Trump, but there's a significantchunk of people.
That's what they believe isstill about that policies at
that.
Right.
And then there's another set offolks and it's growing
(33:51):
significant.
There's another set of folksthat goes clearly, there's
something systemically, screwedup.
Right.
And when we see that argumentbeing made over the last 20, 25
years with the new Jim Crow,Michelle Alexander, and what we
understand now about massincarceration and what that
looks like, our understandingnow, rug, war, and what that
looked like and who got lockedup and whose lives got ruined.
(34:14):
And who did you know that thereis a growing section of people
instead of people who go, allright, there's something wrong
about this whole system andwe've got to undo.
And one of the big questionsbecomes, is one, does that
actually hit a tip?
When does that actually hit apoint where it's so widely
understood and accepted, thereare systemic problems that the
(34:36):
only thing to do with systemicsolution.
And I don't necessarily thinkwe're there.
Um, you see this, you know,look, George Boyd felt like a
moment, like none other inrecent history.
And yet suddenly at a federallevel, we saw very little actual
move right there in either at alot of the local levels where
there was movement stuff washappening, right.
(34:58):
With a handful of exceptions,these weren't radical changes.
Right.
And so unfortunately it feelslike in terms of this
conversation, we're still a waysaway actually seeing the type of
systemic shift that might meanthat there are no more George
Bush.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
And so what do you think advocacy means?
I guess what you're saying is itmeant what it meant before
George Florida.
And it means what it means now.
We've still got to do the work.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
I think so.
You know, and I think thatthere's still the educational
work.
There's that storytelling work.
I think that there's a, youknow, I think there's a
component of exploration, right.
Um, where we don't necessarilyknow all the answers and we have
to figure that out.
Right.
What does that mean?
I think that there's, uh, youknow, things about policing,
like a lot of our stuff is thatit's a local government issue.
(35:49):
And so there's actually a lot ofpower though.
Right?
And so a handful of people candecide, they want to see a
change and they can make thechange.
They can talk to their councilmembers that probably safety
directors that right consider isI think a lot of opportunity for
an individual person out thereto put their foot down on the
scale issue.
And that was true before itsworst point.
(36:10):
I think that's especially true.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Do you think people have, it's almost like we've put
up all our energy and effortinto this election that if we
get president Donald Trump outthe white house and put
president Joseph body in all ofour problems would be solved.
I mean, what do you say to that?
Speaker 4 (36:33):
I mean, I would remind people that black lives
matter damn under presidentBarack Obama, right?
Trayvon Martin was killed underpresident Barack Obama, like the
Brown Eric Garner and your riceand Sandra bland line up with
steel.
And there was that these issueslike two things can be true.
Right?
I think most people who supportthe black lives matter do not
(36:57):
support president Donald Trumpare people who hope that
president by him is elected orsomeone, you know, that they're,
they're certainly on the left ofthe spectrum, even if they don't
love drumline.
But I do think it would be alittle foolhardy to think that
that's bitch, even though, Imean, be clear, Joe Biden says a
lot of things that areinfluenced by what activists and
(37:18):
protesters said.
He's far to the left whereBarack Obama was on these issues
and part because the wholecountry has moved down these
issues right over these years.
But these aren't things that anindividual person, uh, that an
individual, these aren't things,that individual person or an
individual president has thepower to kind of in one change,
(37:39):
we're talking about systems thatare embedded in our society, you
know, culture and country.
And so I think that, you know,for folks who care about this
work care about these types ofreforms and changes, I would
warn against thinking that like,okay, president Trump's gone.
We're good.
Cause again, this stuff washappening before president Trump
(38:01):
and it will be happening after.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Do you sense in the country?
I know we've had syncingpolarization and that's been
years in the making.
I don't know if you've sincethis, uh, almost, uh, a
hostility like before GeorgeFlorida, I would never think we
could ever be, even beapproaching a civil war after
(38:24):
I'm like, well, what interveningfor us could stop us from
continuing on this path.
If there's no movement towardsunderstanding systemic racism, I
don't know what kind ofemotional pulse do you feel that
the country has right now?
Speaker 4 (38:41):
I do think there is a pretty remarkable divide in the
nation and then level ofpolarization that everyone
believes we're stuck in anemergency.
You know, they believe theemergency is the opposite of the
other.
Right.
And I think that that is, andit's different, you know,
generally or historically halfof the country is happy because
(39:05):
they're guys, the president andthe other half of the country
thinks it's the end of the worldbecause the other guy's the
president.
Right.
And then it switches every fewyears.
And like you don't like, and Iwasn't different in this case.
I'm part of that is politics.
And the rhetoric of thepresident is that he wants his
people will be scared.
He wants them thinking theworld's end and they're coming
(39:26):
for you and I'm going to saveyou.
And I'm going to protect, youknow, that he leans so much into
these kinds of divisiblecultural war where they're the
right is still thinks the worldis that even though they run, I
have to go, you've got thepower.
And the left definitely thinksthe world is right.
Like, so there is this we feel,but what's also true though.
(39:48):
Like separate from our partisanpolitics is that our country is
at, is dealing with a massiveeconomic downturn, global
pandemic.
People are dying.
We're all stuck in our houseswith our families and we're
going crazy.
Like people are losing jobs,losing businesses.
And by the way, the country'schanged it to changing
(40:10):
demographics in moments ofchange are kind of jarring for
people.
It's scary for folks when itused to be this way.
And now it's this way.
And so it's unsurprising to methat there would be some
thrashing, right?
It's not surprising to me thatthere would be some backlash to
that and some discomfort.
Well,
Speaker 3 (40:27):
I want to give you the last word.
There's some guys, like some ofthe guys you've interviewed in
Houston, they're like, man, Iwant to see something different.
I want to organize a, I justwant some type of guidance and
wisdom as to what do I do fromhere?
What would you say to,
Speaker 4 (40:45):
You know, I think that one of the lessons of the
last few years is how much adevoted set of individuals can
change that.
Right?
We all know the phrase blacklives matter.
And that was three women who gotthat together.
We all know the nicknames likeMichael Steele, often Sterling.
(41:05):
And we know those names becausepeople want out of their house
and they protest.
And they demonstrate that welive in a time and social media
with the internet where a goodidea and compelling argument can
change the world.
And we also have more access tonation.
We can get together, we canfigure out the answers to our
questions.
(41:26):
We can figure out how topetition our government.
We can figure out how to startsomething national.
You know, that we have a poweras individuals that we didn't
before.
And so I think that shouldencourage people of all stripes,
including people who otherwisemight not get a platform, right.
It might not otherwise havetheir voices heard.
Right.
(41:46):
There are ways to get our voicesheard now totally different.
And I think that that should beencouraging that like we
shouldn't step back and we canset up what we should step
forward and put our foot on thescale.
Because I think now a committed,a dedicated, a smart person can
make more change perhaps thanthey ever could.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Wesley, thank you for joining me during this time.
I know you are going fromproject to project, but you've
really blessed us and sittingwith us and helping us frame the
debate about where should.
And I just, you know, say whereshould black people, who in
light of what happened withGeorge Floyd?
(42:27):
Where should we go from here?
Speaker 4 (42:29):
Of course, brother, appreciate you.
Alright, kinfolk, come here with Wesley Lowery,
Pulitzer prize, winningjournalists, young black savant,
man, just somebody I admire.
I recently got a chance to sitwith him in the days after
George Floyd.
And man just thought that man,this man singularly with his
(00:29):
gift, his experience, and justhis ability to analyze the
problem could speak a lot tothis question of where do we go
from here?
So Wesley, go ahead andintroduce yourself.
I don't know if I could dobetter,
Speaker 2 (00:43):
But no, of course.
I appreciate it.
PTM.
I'm glad to be here with you.
And I appreciate theintroduction and the kind
introduction.
Yeah.
You know, I'm a writer, areporter, a journalist.
I do a little bit of everything.
This meant six years of theWashington post covering issues
of policing and race and justiceacross the country.
And then earlier this year Imoved over to 60 minutes.
So I work with them on anoffshoot show called 60 and six.
(01:07):
So basically the same show, onlya little bit shorter, but I also
still write.
And so I've written pieces thisyear and put the Newsweek cover
in the Atlantic, kind of allover the place.
And again, primarily focused onissues of race and justice and
what that means in our countryand in this world,
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Man, good stuff.
I want to get right to it.
So tell me, how did you decideon a career in journalism?
You're from my wife's herfamily's from shaker Heights.
She has some family in shakerHeights and she tells me about
the neighborhood.
I was like, okay, I got to askhim, how did he decide he wanted
(01:47):
to be a journalist from where hecame from?
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And so for folks who might not know, shaker Heights
is East side of Cleveland.
So it's an Ohio.
I moved there when I was ineighth grade, my family moved
there.
And so I spent all of highschool there.
My parents were still there forme.
I don't even know if I everreally made a choice.
You know, it was one of thosethings where, you know, like I
was always good at writing.
I love reading.
Like that was always, I wasnever a math science brain.
(02:12):
I was always a history Englishkind of space.
And I remember when I got toshaker, got to Cleveland in
eighth grade and I was justlooking for frankly, I was
looking for like clubs, thejoint, or like ways to make
friends.
I was a new kid in eighth gradeis kind of a weird time to join
a new school because likeeveryone's already kind of
clicked up for me.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
They're friends.
Yeah, exactly.
Going into high school.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah.
It's a real awkward time to likepop in.
And so I was the new kid and Iremember seeing an announcement
in the cafeteria that thenewspaper club was meeting.
Right.
And I was like, Oh, I know howto do that.
And so I showed up and workedfor the newspaper and some of my
friends throughout all of highschool afterwards were people
(02:56):
who I met working first for themiddle school newspaper, and
then from my high schoolnewspaper.
And so I was blessed to even goto a school that had, you know,
a full journalism class and, anda newspaper.
And, you know, I made friendsthrough that way.
I learned some of the basicsthat way.
I was skipping my other classesto go hang out in the journalism
department.
Right.
(03:16):
So I kinda knew that this wasgoing to be it for me.
Um, pretty early on.
And one of the things I figuredout pretty early on was that
journalism is in a lot of ways,it's a trade.
It's a little less of a, it'snot like an academic profession
in a lot of ways.
It's trade.
It's like fixing cars, right.
You can follow the instructionsand figure it out, but the more
(03:37):
you do it, the more reps you putit in, the more time you put
into it, the better you're goingto be, the more expertise you
have.
And so for me, I just kind oftried to dive in as quickly as
possible, as early as possible.
How much can I write?
Right.
And so when I got to college, Iwent to Ohio university in
Athens, Ohio.
It was the sense of like howmuch time I spent writing while
I'm here so I can get as good aspossible.
(03:59):
So I worked for the collegenewspaper, every single day of
college, I was hustling.
I was working hard, trying towrite as much as possible.
I was taking internships duringthe summer to try to get more
experience working, professionalspaces, start building a
network.
And so for me, it's been, youknow, I've been working for a
newspaper in some capacity,basically every day of my life,
(04:22):
since eighth grade, you know,and like, and for a lot of that
time, thinking about new ways towrite, thinking about new ways
to tell stories and then gettinga little bit better throughout
all of that.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
What were some of the influences?
It said, Hey, this is possiblefor me.
This is something I could do.
Not just as a hobby, but man,I'm confident that this is the
way that I can make it doingthis, you know?
Cause I know you come from aneighborhood like mine or where
I come from, where it's Oh, am Iplaying basketball?
(04:55):
No.
Okay.
You know, maybe I can sell dope.
No.
Okay.
So then what are the otheroptions?
I mean, I don't know many blackjournalists and definitely not
of your caliber.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah.
I, you know, and it'sunfortunate because there aren't
that many black journalists andit's tough because I think a big
part of achieving do you have tosee, you have to be able to see
yourself doing something to godo it.
Right.
You'd have to be able toenvision it.
You got to be able to fantasizeabout it.
And unfortunately there aren't alot of people who look like us
who are in these newsrooms, inthese spaces.
And so for a lot of peoplegrowing up, they didn't even
(05:31):
necessarily see it as an option.
And so I think that's a big partof it.
And if they do see it as anoption, they only see it in like
very limited roles.
Like, all right, maybe I can bethe weatherman.
Maybe I can be Stephen A.
Smith.
I can go do sports, but I don'tnecessarily see people who look
like us in all of the differentroles as writers, as authors, as
the news guy, as theinvestigative reporter, as you
know.
And so I think that's reallyimportant, you know, for me, I
(05:52):
was really fortunate.
You know, I grew up with both myparents, my dad, my dad was a,
for a long time.
And so I kind of grew up in ahousehold where, when we woke
up, like the first person up,went and got the newspaper and
brought it in and then like theywould, you know, we would watch
the news and then we watchedjeopardy like every day after
dinner.
And so there was just this senseof like in my household, the
(06:14):
idea of journalism as like anoble profession or thing that
people it's just like a normalpart of life is something I grew
up with.
And that's not necessarily truefor everyone.
Right.
That we live in a plate.
We live in a time where peoplearen't consuming the newspaper
everyday like that they're notnecessarily sitting down and
watching the local news.
Right.
Or that's what your grandmotherdoes.
That's where your aunts anduncles, you know, but like the
average person doesn'tnecessarily sit down at the end
(06:36):
of the day and watch the newslike appointment viewing
anymore.
And so, you know, I was kind oflucky in that space.
You know, my parents, my dad,particularly, it was always
really particular as well.
He always wanted me and my twoyounger brothers to be in spaces
where we saw black achievement,where we knew black doctors and
black lawyers and blackbusinessmen, the black council
(06:57):
man.
And that the sense was that wecould see with our own eyes that
we could do basically anything.
Right.
I think that was reallyimportant.
It was also interesting.
Cause my dad had worked injournalism was that he really
didn't want me to go intojournalism at all.
He was like real passiveaggressive about it.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah.
You know, that's funny that yousay that because uh, my mother
and father were teachers, butthat's the last thing they
wanted us to do.
It's almost like they becomeprofessionals and they're like,
well, I don't know if it's likethe desire to make more money
and they feel like you should dobetter or whatever they
characterize as better, butthey're like shoo, you away from
(07:35):
what they do.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Exactly.
And I think for my dad too, youknow, part of it was that, you
know, it's a profession thatdoesn't have a ton of black
people in it.
There's racism inside thenewsroom still there's, you
know, sometimes we don't coverthings the right way.
You know, there's, there's a lotof frustration as a black
journalist when you're workingin mainstream media.
And I think that for him, he hadexperienced a lot of that and
his dream, you know, he grew upin kind of all over his father
(07:59):
was a minister or a pastor, butspent a lot of time in South
Jersey and in New York and somein rougher neighborhoods, right.
And public housing.
And he and his dream was to gethis kids out to the burbs.
And now he was like, why wouldyou go back and do what I did
again, you should be a doctor ora lawyer or an accountant, you
know?
And there was that kind of senseof building generation to
generation.
(08:20):
I kind of couldn't be shakenfrom this, you know, and I had a
great high school journalismteacher and Annalisa Kiski and
she was just like the journalismteacher, my freshman year, first
period class was journalism.
So she was the first teacher Ihad in high school.
And this lady was crazy.
Just this crazy survey lady whowas like a total character.
We get arguments in class.
(08:41):
We would debate things, but shereally taught me to love the
craft.
Right.
And, and to love the idea thatlike I'd come to work every day
and get in arguments withpeople.
Like we can just sit down and wecan talk about the things that
matter.
We could pick up the newspaperand say, what was in newspaper
today?
What did they get wrong?
What did they get?
Right.
How do we push the storyforward?
How do we go tell people'sstories?
Right.
(09:01):
And that kind of opportunity isreally, really important to me.
You know, it was a kind of thingwhere it really, for me, I felt
like I had kind of found myspace and my voice right.
Where I can now it was justlike, it was like a puzzle piece
that fit for me.
Right then I was in that spaceand I just knew, this is what I
want to do.
This is how I want to keep doingit.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
The, would you considered the bellwethers of
journalism for you?
People who who've come beforeyou, that you kind of say, okay,
I'm I feel like I'm going in theright direction.
I see where their path, I seetheir trajectory.
And I'm kind of following that.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
You know, it's an interesting, because that's
shifted and changed a little bitover my career and part has not
reached new milestones oraccomplished new goals.
Right.
It also, you know, I've had thebenefit of, because I've known,
I wanted to do this, you know,I've been thinking about who I
would aspire to be like foralmost 20 years.
(09:59):
Right.
Like, and I'm 30, so it's notlike, you know, so there's been
a lot of time to like grow anddevelop and think and admire
this person.
Then, you know, I remember whenI was growing up the local
columnist, the black columnistin the Cleveland, plain dealer,
like Phillip Morris, and that'sanother guy Sanford like, and
they were the black guy who,that they're facing the
(10:20):
newspaper was Chris Broussardthere.
So he came late.
He came a little later, butyeah, exactly.
That's one of my brothers too.
Yeah, no, exactly.
So, you know, but it was an ideathat like the word, like there
are two or three black peopleget their face in the newspaper
and they're so smart that allthese people have to listen to
them.
Right.
They get to write where they'regoing to write.
They get to say what they'regoing to say.
They get to do their reporting.
(10:41):
And unfortunately it was just ahandful of black people at a
columnist level.
Certainly.
Right.
And so they stuck out in thatway, like, all right, if I show
up and like work hard,everyone's going to have to
listen to me.
And so this one, there was stufflike that, you know?
And then there was, but then asI got into my career, I started
looking up to an admiring, a lotof different people.
(11:01):
So I remember there was a dudenamed Corey date.
He's one of my best friends andmentors.
He was a political reporter fora long time.
He was the wall street journal.
And then he moved over to NPRfor a minute.
And he was like this light skinbrother.
Right?
Like we, we look a little bitalike and the heat has so much
(11:21):
of the career that I wanted tohave.
He'd worked at the Boston globeand covered local politics.
He'd done a national campaign.
That was my dream.
Like I don't want to go be anational correspondent, travel
the country.
Right.
And then he'd moved.
And so I was very taken by how Iwanted to kind of mimic some of
his career steps.
And it was interesting becausewhen my first full time jobs out
(11:43):
of college who was at the Bostonglobe covering local politics,
and I had the phone that used tobe his phone, like it still had
his like voicemail thing wherelike I found myself actually
like following in the footstepsof folks like that.
And then one is also true islike, I think about people who I
admire.
Right.
Cause there's one thing to thinkabout people whose footsteps
(12:04):
you're trying to follow in.
And I think that's reallyimportant and also was true in
any career in any profession isthat the pathway looks a little
bit different for everyone.
Right.
And the work looks a little bitdifferent.
And so I also try to thinkabout,
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Cause you're a man of your times,
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Right.
And any of the differentopportunities, different things
pop up.
We're also, we're alsodifferent.
My writing is different than,you know, other folks.
Right.
And so like it, and so we haveour own individual voices, our
own styles, the different newsstories pop up.
Right.
And one of my good friends, aguy look up to a lot to remain
lead MSNBC.
One of his big ComOps was, wasworking on hurricane Katrina in
(12:40):
new Orleans.
Like I couldn't plan to try todo something like that.
Right.
Because that's just the way thenews works.
It happened it's happeningstance.
Right.
And he was ready and prepared inthat moment to do it.
Right.
And so a lot of it has alwaysbeen like trying to be prepared
and ready in these moments tojump in and to contribute.
But I also just think aboutlike, who are people whose work
(13:02):
I really admire, right.
Who am I going to try?
And in some ways be becausethere are so few black
journalists in some ways be veryfluid and kind of the classics,
right?
Like, so there's a guy he'spassed now, but who I had the
pleasure of meeting when I wasyounger and it was wife, I still
know Angela Anderson.
And he was, I think only thesecond black person to ever win
(13:22):
a Pulitzer.
And he was like the first blackman.
I think everyone in the featurewriting Pulitzer, which is like
among the writers, that's likethe big one because it's about
feature writing.
And he done, he was this longtime journalist pastor in
Detroit and an activist too.
And he, he wrote this piece whenhe was a fuse at the wall street
(13:43):
journal and he wrote this pieceabout a pharmacy robbery.
And he went back and traced,like the immigrant family who
had committed the robbery or whohad been the victims and they
hit it.
So what happened was, uh, ayoung black man broken this
pharmacy, stuck it up and theowner shot and killed him.
And then he traced back bothfamilies and looked at like what
was happening and how, you know,and it was just fascinating.
(14:05):
It was beautiful.
It was nuanced.
It was smart.
Right.
And I've read that piece amillion times.
Right.
And like, and I think thatthat's, it's, what's people like
that who you kind of feel likeyou're building on top of, or
you're aspiring in some ways tobe like, you know, like you're,
you're trying to think like,alright, these are the classics.
This is the people who kind ofbuilt this.
How do I match them?
How do I meet them?
How do I build on top?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Hmm.
So now it seems like your goalshave evolved.
So I want to talk about yourshift going from politics to now
what you political writing towhat you do now, but just to
comment on what you just said.
So it seems like you've evolvedfrom 20 years to now.
It seems like you, you know,you've almost shifted back in
(14:49):
time to look for the people thatyou aspire to be because of the,
the achievements that you've,you've achieved along the way.
So what does it look like on,why did you make that shift from
since Corey was the bellwetherfor you at one point to go from
political reporting to what youdo?
I mean, cause I don't think whatyou do now can be encapsulated
(15:12):
in political reporting.
It's so much broader.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah.
I mean, I think that for me,part of it was, you know,
because there is such a smallnumber of black journalists,
it's really a family, right.
It's like, I always say we'reall like a degree and a half
separated from each other.
The joke I always say is thereare seven black journalists and
we've all dated each other.
Right.
Like we literally, everyoneknows everyone, right.
Like if I had to, you know, likeif you were like gun to my head,
(15:38):
you got to get to Oprah in thenext 25 minutes.
Like it's like three textmessages, right.
Because like I know, I knowsomeone who knows someone who
it's just a really, really smallworld.
Right.
And because of that, there's alot of effort that goes into,
especially with young blackjournalist mentorship guidance
advice.
And I was someone because I knewI wanted to do this early, who
(16:00):
had a lot of people who kind oflooked out for me and gave me
advice who tried to help guideme in one direction or the
other.
And one thing that they drilledinto my head from a really early
age, whether that was one thingthat's really important for
black journalists is to makesure that we're telling our
stories that unfortunately somuch of the media is run by
white corporate insuranceoperated by white editors and
(16:24):
white reporters that to havethat one of the reasons or one
of the things that's importantabout having black journalists.
So you have people who can tellblack stories.
And so for me, I always knewthat I wanted to be someone who
told stories.
Right.
And who told stories of blackand Brown people who told
stories that weren't otherwisebeing covered.
That because that lane isunfortunately so open, right?
(16:47):
So I started, I was doing purepolitics.
I covered city hall in LosAngeles for a little bit.
I covered city hall and localpolitics in Boston for a year
and then came to the Washingtonpost to cover Congress.
Right.
And so it's like meat andpotatoes politics every day.
I'm on Capitol Hill talking tosenators, talking to members of
Congress about whatever'shappening.
(17:09):
And, but even in that job,right, there were always little
ways you can try to bite offparts of, you know, race and
justice.
And because what we know is thatthese issues touch everything
right.
And so one of the first frontpage story I ever had, the
Washington post was Brock Obamahad nominated a guy to be one of
(17:32):
the assistant attorney generalsto oversee the civil rights
division of the justicedepartment.
And the Republicans blocked thenomination because he, because
this lawyer had once signed abrief on behalf of Mumia blue
Jamal in Philadelphia.
Oh man.
And they're going to sign thebrief
Speaker 3 (17:50):
And you know, who, how those briefs get put
together.
Literally, probably he might'vejust signed the race.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
If I remember correctly, he had been working
for the NAACP legal defense fundand they were offering me as
some like pro bono, you know,like, so it wasn't even, so I
think he actually, might've beendoing it in his capacity at like
for the organization, not evenlike individually, but anyway,
so the Republicans demagogue,you know, they were like, Obama
(18:17):
Shiner nominated a cop killer.
He can't like, he can't do it orlike a guy who sympathizes with
cop killers.
So he can't.
And so the first story that Ihit the front page for me as a
congressional reporter was astory that was about race and
police.
Right?
Like it was a story that wasabout these issues.
Right.
I remember doing covers at thetime of the push on the Hill to
(18:39):
try to get the voting rights actrenewed.
And so there was always things,I mean, immigration is an issue
of race, right?
Like it's issue of ethnicity.
And so, so there was this, like,it was always kind of there.
And so I was always looking forexcuses to raise my hand or chip
in or be helpful.
However, and then in early 2014,uh, when Ferguson happened,
(19:03):
Michael Brown was killed.
I happen to have a backpack.
I had just gotten back from atrip and they needed someone to
get on the airplane that day.
I was like, yeah, I can go.
And I ended up going toFerguson.
I remember texting my buddies,like my main group chat with my
boys.
Right.
And saying, I go, I gotta go outof town.
I'll be in Missouri for a fewdays.
I should be back.
Like I was leaving.
I'm like, uh, I think I was lefton Monday and I was expected to
(19:24):
be back that weekend for likeour sports, like, you know, like
to beat me up at the sports baror whatever.
I ended up staying down therefor about three months and you
know, was one of the lastnational reporters to leave for
after the decision not to charge, uh, Darren Wilson, the officer
, uh, but then there was a roundof riding and then I stayed and
(19:45):
helped cover some of therebuilding as well.
And so it was just a total, um,you know, life changing
experience for me, which is tobe honest, it's like bittersweet
and weird, right?
Like it's like one of these likecentralized things that in a lot
of ways change changed my lifeand the trajectory of my career.
And it was born out of trash,you know, someone being killed
(20:07):
out of the police, killingsomeone.
Right.
And like, it's just a very oddthing to sit with in that way.
Right.
Like you don't want to,
Speaker 3 (20:13):
I understand that, that I've quite recently had the
same experience.
I mean, last month, basicallywhen you see, you know, all the
events surrounding Georgia,Florida have kind of changed the
trajectory of some of the thingsthat myself and some of the
others that were involved donow.
So yeah, it is kind of a lonelyfeeling, but I now feel, I don't
(20:35):
feel alone anymore,
Speaker 4 (20:37):
You know, but it's, it is a little strange, you
know, so at the time I was stillso young, I was like, I was 24
and I was at 24.
I spent three months onFerguson.
It had been a best, like it hadjust been crazy.
No one knew what was happening.
It was the first, one of thesethat got covered like that.
You know, it was hundreds ofdays of protesters in the
(20:57):
streets.
Police are like hitting us withtear gas all the time.
It was hyper politicized.
And so we were all, even thereporters who were covering it
much less activists, but likethe reporters we were getting,
like our addresses published andpeople were sending us threats.
So it was like, he was like acrazy environment.
The activists all had it worse,they're all getting followed
around.
(21:18):
And so we come out of that and Ifly back.
I flew back to Washington firstweek of December and I land.
It's been like three months.
This story is finally over.
I'm like exhaling.
I'm trying to dislike, collectmy thoughts a little bit.
And I turned my phone back on aswe land.
And there's many announcement inNew York city.
If the officer who killed hergardener, isn't going to get
(21:39):
charged.
And there's like massiveprotests going up.
And like, it was just like thenext one.
So the next one, once thoseprotests pawn down, they sent me
home to you in on Tamir ricebecause the video of him being
killed.
Right.
And so it just went from one tothe next, to the next and the
net.
And I just made this decision.
I remember having thisconversation with the one of my
(22:00):
editors at the time.
And he said to me, he said,well, what do you want to do
next year?
Right.
We've argued, went intocorporate politics.
Our promise to you is that ifyou want them to go on a
campaign trail, you know, wewill help you do that.
You gotta think now it was 2015a place the Washington post is
staffing up for the presidentialelection, 16 elections.
And so they're saying, well, youknow, that's still what you want
to do.
(22:21):
The floor is yours for that.
Or do you want to, you know, ordo you want us to try to stick
on this policing stuff you want?
Do we want to craft out a B,find out, find a way for you to
cover this?
And I was like, forget theelection.
This is the story, right.
There is times where likesomething reaches out to you and
pulls you in.
And this was a case where Ijust, I was just fascinated by
(22:41):
the story.
I thought there was so much morewriting going to do with, there
were some questions to ask it.
Clearly wasn't resolved.
I wouldn't have felt right.
Covering furnace in three monthsand then just walking away.
Right.
Because it didn't feel like thestory.
And that's, so that's how Imoved into the position.
I ended up in kind of as anational correspondent covering
(23:02):
bond enforcement, justice, andthen how it relates to police
interactions with ourcommunities.
Um, and then we launched thatnext year, the fatal force
project.
And that was a project where wetry to figure out exactly how
many people, the police werekilling, how many people are
shooting and killing.
Um, and that was, uh, a projectthat went back to the streets of
(23:23):
Ferguson, right?
Where the, one of the maindebates at the time was, do
police killings even happen atall?
How often is it someone who'sblack or unarmed black?
And when we, as journalistsstart trying to answer that
question, we figured out when wefound out that there was no
accurate data, that the fencedidn't keep it.
A lot of the local policedepartments wouldn't release it.
(23:45):
And so a team at the post setout to try to answer this
question and built a database ofevery police shooting, just to
even just trying to figure outhow often, like, we're not
saying these are all bad.
We're not saying they're all,it's purely, how often does this
happen?
How can we have thisconversation without facts
without him?
And so that, wasn't how I spentmost of 2015.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
So I've been fascinated as a lay person, no
real knowledge of journalism onthe consumer, in black people
who told black stories or tellblack stories.
And I think for me, my journey,and like even trying to find
those voices started with Tavissmiley and, you know, with the
(24:31):
state of the black union, thosethings that he was doing.
And then it was like rollingMartin.
And then there was this gap forme.
This is me as an individual.
And you know, who feels that gapfor me now is you.
And I wonder that, I wonder ifyou see how the consumer sees
(24:55):
the work that you're doing andthe importance of it, and the
fact that there's probablysingle voices in the media that
say, I care about telling blackstories at whatever expense.
And I just wonder if you justkind of see almost like you're
like, I mean, of course you're aunicorn, but for those of us who
(25:16):
are consumers like me, I'mlooking for black people who are
looking to tell black stories.
And just that trajectory that Ithink that you're like the
millennial version of what thoseguys were doing way back when,
Speaker 4 (25:30):
You know, trying to, you know, I think that telling
those stories is so important.
People like Roland and I are agroup chat together.
So I hear from him every day,he's a whole character.
Well, that's awful rolling, youknow, but he, you know, but it
was one of those things wherethere are so few people in that
space, right.
Again, going back to what we'retalking about before there are
so few black people in mediaperiod.
(25:52):
And then when you're talkingabout people who are explicitly
covering black stories, that's atotally different subsection.
And then black people who aretelling black stories and able
to do it outside of like whitecontrol.
Right?
So like even, you know, so thereality is right.
If it can, even me, I can be ablack journalist trying to tell
black stories with someexpertise, but I still got to
(26:13):
get that work through a whiteeditor through another white
editor, publish it, a whitepublic, you know, like that
there is, there are layers,right?
And sometimes that's as simpleas the language we use and how
we talk, what references we haveto explain versus what we can
just put in there.
There's a lot of that that comesinto it.
And like I said, I think thatfor me, I've always wanted to
(26:35):
tell black stories.
Now I think that I've alwaysbeen kind of torn or maybe not
settled on exactly what medium Iwant to do.
One of my goals is always beento do as much as possible and do
that, the things in a lot ofdifferent spaces.
And so I want to be able towrite stories, whether it be in
a newspaper, whether it be in amagazine, I want to be able to
do on camera.
Like I'm doing the 60 minutes.
(26:55):
I want to be able to producestories.
Right.
And like, you know, step out ofit a little bit, but push it out
into the world.
Right.
And so I'm always trying tothink about how do I, you know,
how do I do storytelling?
And storytelling can lookdifferent.
It doesn't always have to lookthe same way.
It can look there, but how so?
How do I do that?
But then also, how do I makesure, as I'm telling the stories
(27:19):
that I'm telling you, why,again, I guess for me, it's not
that I'm not interested in otherstories.
I'm really interested about thestories.
And you know, a lot of my infact, favorite storytellers are
people who themselves aren'tblack and aren't even
necessarily are specificallyfocused on good writing, good
reporting is good writing.
But one of the things I know isthat a lot of those other wings
(27:39):
are overflowing with people.
And here you got a whole segmentof the population that no one
was paying attention to.
I always tell them their storiesand I'm like, I'm okay.
And by the way, like it's peoplewho are my friends and family
who I like who I'm interestedin.
And I'm like, of course, I'mgonna go tell the black story.
It's like, none of y'all want todo it.
(28:00):
I'll go do it.
That's fine.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Alright, man.
So shifting gears here with theweight of your experience and in
light of what happened withGeorge Floyd, just bringing the
weight of what, you know, I knowfor me, I, I struggle with this
question cause I don't reallyknow.
I've heard from different peopleand her different ideas of where
(28:24):
we should go.
But in this particular case,man, I just want to get the
weight of your experience.
Where do you think we go fromhere in the aftermath of George
for his death?
Speaker 4 (28:34):
You know, I think it's, this is such an
interesting bump because I thinkthere are two different
populations of people in thisconference, right?
You have black Americans andblack Americans have been saying
for heaven that the policearen't treating this fair, that
over police and underserved,that there's no accountability
when the police use excessiveforce or engage a brutality.
(28:57):
And a lot of black Americans arekind of start up, they're over
it.
They're tired of talking aboutit.
They're tired of it.
Like being on panel discussionsare like, and then meanwhile,
you know, and there's like acynicism moment where like, you
know, okay.
Yeah.
Y'all think George, boy's goingto be the one that changes this.
Okay.
Well, you know, like, can I getit because they've seen this
(29:18):
over and over and over again,and then you have a lot of white
Americans.
We're like, no, no, no, we'retaking it seriously this time.
This is real.
Can you believe?
You know?
And so you have like twopopulations in some ways they're
going in different directions onit.
And it's interesting.
I think one of the other thingsthat's true though, is I can't
tell how much of this moment ispeople who are caught up around
(29:40):
George Floyd in policing.
And how much of it is residualenergy.
A lot of other things from thispresidential administration,
right?
This is a very polarizing time,right?
No matter your politics, right?
Everyone's upset.
Everyone thinks the world'sending everyone like, you know,
and what I was saying is that alot of people who are now
(30:01):
supportive of black lives matterand policing reform funding are
people who've also been, whospent the last few years upset
in general and ready to protestin general, they've been upset
about Parkland and climatechange and the kids in the cages
on the border and the like, andRussia.
And so this became the nextthing, you know, and I'm not
(30:23):
saying that that's not sincere.
Like I'm not saying that thosefolks don't actually care that
they're not actually trying todo the readings, but I just do
wonder, I'm really interested tosee what happens, come this
election, um, the next year tosee how much of that energy
teams or how much of that isenergy for this moment that like
lurches things forward.
(30:45):
But then, you know, so it'sgoing to be really interesting.
You know, I think that we'vebeen in this period of time,
that in some ways it's kind ofeducation, right?
And for folks who don'texperience the police, the way
that many black communitiesexperienced police, they
genuinely didn't believe thatthings like what happened to
George Ford happened.
They didn't believe it.
That's not who the police are tothem.
(31:05):
That's not how the police showup and what we've seen in the
years since Eric Garner.
So 14 to 26 years is we've seenvideo after video, after video.
We're like every American, nomatter their race, no matter
their comp I've seen one videowhere they were like, all right,
that shit, right.
I used to have, I called them myregular Washington post.
And we'd be like, our it'd belike white subscribers who would
(31:27):
angrily email me after everyorder.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Cool.
Right.
And like every time it would bethis long email,
Speaker 4 (31:32):
Well, about how that black, I actually deserved to
die.
Cause here's the reasons right?
Tamir rice was actually sevenfoot tall and like, looked like
a man.
So it's so you're bias.
Cause you're saying he was achild.
They're like, you know, it'sjust like each time every email
was why the black guy deserved.
Right.
I guess what it was that was theupshot or black woman.
(31:52):
And I remember there was aturning point.
I don't know if it was onFreddie gray in Baltimore and
Walter Scott, there's thisturning point where suddenly
some of those writers werewriting in to be like, all right
.
That one was kind of crazy, youknow, did you see this?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah.
I saw that wherever you bid, itlooks like the other 20 videos I
tried to show was this momentwhere like suddenly for a lot of
people, they previously, theywere looking for whatever reason
Speaker 4 (32:22):
They argue that this one isn't in a suddenly for a
lot of people that are like, allright, now I'm getting tired of
this.
Like they had to kill that guytoo.
That's you know, like where in?
So suddenly like some of thatlike belief that the police
could never be wrong, they couldnever be, it was a lot of people
genuinely believe this was madeup, but then it wasn't.
And in that took a while forfolks to start to be like, Oh,
(32:46):
Oh, okay.
It's cops can do some stuff thatmaybe they shouldn't be doing.
Oh, word, alright.
Oh, another video.
Right.
And that was a thing.
And then like they openedTwitter.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
So do you think the energy is around policing in
general?
Or do you think people get andunderstand systemic racism as a
whole?
Speaker 4 (33:07):
I don't think people understand is something very, I
mean, I think that there'senergy around policing.
I think that the averageAmerican agree understands that
like, something's up, we gottado something about it, but you
know, like they can't tell youwhat the answers are, but the
average American is like, nomatter, yeah, no matter about
you, no matter what they'relike, all right, something's
going on.
We need to do something where Ithink that there still is some
(33:31):
push and pull between people whothink this is about policies and
people write a few bad cops.
And well, if we man, the chokehold in, the cops would never
Trump, but there's a significantchunk of people.
That's what they believe isstill about that policies at
that.
Right.
And then there's another set offolks and it's growing
(33:51):
significant.
There's another set of folksthat goes clearly, there's
something systemically, screwedup.
Right.
And when we see that argumentbeing made over the last 20, 25
years with the new Jim Crow,Michelle Alexander, and what we
understand now about massincarceration and what that
looks like, our understandingnow, rug, war, and what that
looked like and who got lockedup and whose lives got ruined.
(34:14):
And who did you know that thereis a growing section of people
instead of people who go, allright, there's something wrong
about this whole system andwe've got to undo.
And one of the big questionsbecomes, is one, does that
actually hit a tip?
When does that actually hit apoint where it's so widely
understood and accepted, thereare systemic problems that the
(34:36):
only thing to do with systemicsolution.
And I don't necessarily thinkwe're there.
Um, you see this, you know,look, George Boyd felt like a
moment, like none other inrecent history.
And yet suddenly at a federallevel, we saw very little actual
move right there in either at alot of the local levels where
there was movement stuff washappening, right.
(34:58):
With a handful of exceptions,these weren't radical changes.
Right.
And so unfortunately it feelslike in terms of this
conversation, we're still a waysaway actually seeing the type of
systemic shift that might meanthat there are no more George
Bush.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
And so what do you think advocacy means?
I guess what you're saying is itmeant what it meant before
George Florida.
And it means what it means now.
We've still got to do the work.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
I think so.
You know, and I think thatthere's still the educational
work.
There's that storytelling work.
I think that there's a, youknow, I think there's a
component of exploration, right.
Um, where we don't necessarilyknow all the answers and we have
to figure that out.
Right.
What does that mean?
I think that there's, uh, youknow, things about policing,
like a lot of our stuff is thatit's a local government issue.
(35:49):
And so there's actually a lot ofpower though.
Right?
And so a handful of people candecide, they want to see a
change and they can make thechange.
They can talk to their councilmembers that probably safety
directors that right consider isI think a lot of opportunity for
an individual person out thereto put their foot down on the
scale issue.
And that was true before itsworst point.
(36:10):
I think that's especially true.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
Do you think people have, it's almost like we've put
up all our energy and effortinto this election that if we
get president Donald Trump outthe white house and put
president Joseph body in all ofour problems would be solved.
I mean, what do you say to that?
Speaker 4 (36:33):
I mean, I would remind people that black lives
matter damn under presidentBarack Obama, right?
Trayvon Martin was killed underpresident Barack Obama, like the
Brown Eric Garner and your riceand Sandra bland line up with
steel.
And there was that these issueslike two things can be true.
Right?
I think most people who supportthe black lives matter do not
(36:57):
support president Donald Trumpare people who hope that
president by him is elected orsomeone, you know, that they're,
they're certainly on the left ofthe spectrum, even if they don't
love drumline.
But I do think it would be alittle foolhardy to think that
that's bitch, even though, Imean, be clear, Joe Biden says a
lot of things that areinfluenced by what activists and
(37:18):
protesters said.
He's far to the left whereBarack Obama was on these issues
and part because the wholecountry has moved down these
issues right over these years.
But these aren't things that anindividual person, uh, that an
individual, these aren't things,that individual person or an
individual president has thepower to kind of in one change,
(37:39):
we're talking about systems thatare embedded in our society, you
know, culture and country.
And so I think that, you know,for folks who care about this
work care about these types ofreforms and changes, I would
warn against thinking that like,okay, president Trump's gone.
We're good.
Cause again, this stuff washappening before president Trump
(38:01):
and it will be happening after.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Do you sense in the country?
I know we've had syncingpolarization and that's been
years in the making.
I don't know if you've sincethis, uh, almost, uh, a
hostility like before GeorgeFlorida, I would never think we
could ever be, even beapproaching a civil war after
(38:24):
I'm like, well, what interveningfor us could stop us from
continuing on this path.
If there's no movement towardsunderstanding systemic racism, I
don't know what kind ofemotional pulse do you feel that
the country has right now?
Speaker 4 (38:41):
I do think there is a pretty remarkable divide in the
nation and then level ofpolarization that everyone
believes we're stuck in anemergency.
You know, they believe theemergency is the opposite of the
other.
Right.
And I think that that is, andit's different, you know,
generally or historically halfof the country is happy because
(39:05):
they're guys, the president andthe other half of the country
thinks it's the end of the worldbecause the other guy's the
president.
Right.
And then it switches every fewyears.
And like you don't like, and Iwasn't different in this case.
I'm part of that is politics.
And the rhetoric of thepresident is that he wants his
people will be scared.
He wants them thinking theworld's end and they're coming
(39:26):
for you and I'm going to saveyou.
And I'm going to protect, youknow, that he leans so much into
these kinds of divisiblecultural war where they're the
right is still thinks the worldis that even though they run, I
have to go, you've got thepower.
And the left definitely thinksthe world is right.
Like, so there is this we feel,but what's also true though.
(39:48):
Like separate from our partisanpolitics is that our country is
at, is dealing with a massiveeconomic downturn, global
pandemic.
People are dying.
We're all stuck in our houseswith our families and we're
going crazy.
Like people are losing jobs,losing businesses.
And by the way, the country'schanged it to changing
(40:10):
demographics in moments ofchange are kind of jarring for
people.
It's scary for folks when itused to be this way.
And now it's this way.
And so it's unsurprising to methat there would be some
thrashing, right?
It's not surprising to me thatthere would be some backlash to
that and some discomfort.
Well,
Speaker 3 (40:27):
I want to give you the last word.
There's some guys, like some ofthe guys you've interviewed in
Houston, they're like, man, Iwant to see something different.
I want to organize a, I justwant some type of guidance and
wisdom as to what do I do fromhere?
What would you say to,
Speaker 4 (40:45):
You know, I think that one of the lessons of the
last few years is how much adevoted set of individuals can
change that.
Right?
We all know the phrase blacklives matter.
And that was three women who gotthat together.
We all know the nicknames likeMichael Steele, often Sterling.
(41:05):
And we know those names becausepeople want out of their house
and they protest.
And they demonstrate that welive in a time and social media
with the internet where a goodidea and compelling argument can
change the world.
And we also have more access tonation.
We can get together, we canfigure out the answers to our
questions.
(41:26):
We can figure out how topetition our government.
We can figure out how to startsomething national.
You know, that we have a poweras individuals that we didn't
before.
And so I think that shouldencourage people of all stripes,
including people who otherwisemight not get a platform, right.
It might not otherwise havetheir voices heard.
Right.
(41:46):
There are ways to get our voicesheard now totally different.
And I think that that should beencouraging that like we
shouldn't step back and we canset up what we should step
forward and put our foot on thescale.
Because I think now a committed,a dedicated, a smart person can
make more change perhaps thanthey ever could.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Wesley, thank you for joining me during this time.
I know you are going fromproject to project, but you've
really blessed us and sittingwith us and helping us frame the
debate about where should.
And I just, you know, say whereshould black people, who in
light of what happened withGeorge Floyd?
(42:27):
Where should we go from here?
Speaker 4 (42:29):
Of course, brother, appreciate you.
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