Latest / The Breakfast Club / Jemele Hill Speaks On Her Memoir, Forgiveness, Career Risks, Breaking Generational Curses + More

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Jemele Hill Speaks On Her Memoir, Forgiveness, Career Risks, Breaking Generational Curses + More · The Breakfast Club

0:00
Speaker 1: I was like everybody at this point, I was like
0:03
Speaker 1: that man losing bags quick for no reason. Just self
0:09
Speaker 1: inflicted man, self inflicted. Okay, thank you. It's really been
0:17
Speaker 1: the year self sabotage. I think he's the leader in
0:24
Speaker 1: the clubhouse though her self Sabota is yeah, yeah, if
0:28
Speaker 1: you look it up in the dictionary, absolutely absolutely. Here
0:32
Speaker 1: we go, y'all, morning, everybody in DJ Envy Angela yee
0:36
Speaker 1: charlote and the guy. We are to breakfast club. We
0:38
Speaker 1: got a special guests in the building. She's got a
0:43
Speaker 1: new book out her uphill, her memoir. That's right. Great picture,
0:46
Speaker 1: by the way, thank you. How many of these did
0:48
Speaker 1: you have to pick through before you landed on this week?
0:50
Speaker 1: You know what? And this is gonna sound far more
0:52
Speaker 1: delicious than I actually mean it, But that was from
0:55
Speaker 1: a Playboy shoot. I did what Yeah, So how did
0:59
Speaker 1: you Playboy? Yeah? Because Playboy, um reading for the articles
1:02
Speaker 1: is good writing, it's very good writing. And Playboy every
1:06
Speaker 1: let me see with pictures on the back. But they
1:10
Speaker 1: did a feature on me um at some point. I
1:12
Speaker 1: think it was earlier this year. And so the photo shoot, Uh,
1:16
Speaker 1: the photographer I think believe his name is Eric Carter.
1:18
Speaker 1: He's based out of la He took some phenomenal photos.
1:21
Speaker 1: So because during covid um, you know, we couldn't really
1:25
Speaker 1: work out how to you know, get new photos taken.
1:28
Speaker 1: So I was like, I love these from the Playboy shoot.
1:30
Speaker 1: I play a joke on the husband and be like, hey,
1:32
Speaker 1: I'm doing a shoot with Playboy. Oh I totally did.
1:34
Speaker 1: Like that was just like I'm gonna being Playboy. He
1:36
Speaker 1: was like, what anymore? No, I don't think so. I
1:40
Speaker 1: think it's like a more of a you know, content
1:43
Speaker 1: or they've always had good articles and player I'm serious. Listen,
1:46
Speaker 1: Alex Hayley wrote for Playboy. Okay, so like, I don't
1:50
Speaker 1: think anybody ever went to Playboy for the articles you're
1:55
Speaker 1: telling on yourself right now. But that's okay. I love
1:57
Speaker 1: to tite a little book to uphill and I'm is
2:00
Speaker 1: a play on your last name, of course, but I
2:01
Speaker 1: mean it actually isn't. It's not And it was not
2:05
Speaker 1: my title idea. This was not the original title that
2:08
Speaker 1: I wanted that came in third uh. No, the original
2:15
Speaker 1: title I wanted was Broken Curses because I talked a
2:17
Speaker 1: lot about my family history, family trauma and all of
2:20
Speaker 1: that and my mother. And I'm sure you know, you
2:23
Speaker 1: guys have heard this before from elders or from your
2:25
Speaker 1: parents or uncles or whatever. But the fact that there
2:28
Speaker 1: are generational curses and my mother used to talk about,
2:31
Speaker 1: you know, breaking those in our family. And so that's
2:33
Speaker 1: why I wanted to name in Broken Curses. But my
2:36
Speaker 1: publisher they thought it was a little too negative, that
2:40
Speaker 1: it wasn't uplifting enough. And my book editor, Shannon shout
2:43
Speaker 1: out to you, Shannon, she came up with that title.
2:45
Speaker 1: Up you okay, And I said, to you, the chosen
2:48
Speaker 1: one said it because honestly, you talk about your mom
2:52
Speaker 1: and the things that she's been through and your whole family,
2:55
Speaker 1: and it's a lot, and so how did she feel about,
2:59
Speaker 1: you know, these stories being told. So I talked to
3:02
Speaker 1: my mother, but we had numerous conversations about what was
3:07
Speaker 1: going to be in this book, and she knew what
3:09
Speaker 1: I was doing in the journey that I was on
3:10
Speaker 1: and writing it, and knew that I wanted to write
3:12
Speaker 1: it transparently. But honestly, Angel, that was probably the most
3:16
Speaker 1: difficult part because I was I was in the unfortunate
3:21
Speaker 1: position of asking my mother about the worst moments of
3:24
Speaker 1: her life, and I tried to save those conversations for last,
3:29
Speaker 1: if you will, so that we could talk about maybe
3:31
Speaker 1: happier things and fund memories, just to kind of not
3:36
Speaker 1: come from a traumatic, you know, perspective. And so it
3:39
Speaker 1: was tough. I mean, my mother told me some stories
3:41
Speaker 1: I did not even know. You know, the story that
3:44
Speaker 1: I tell in the book about her, Okay, but you know,
3:49
Speaker 1: I guess it's an example of a story. But the
3:50
Speaker 1: story I tell them the book about how one of
3:53
Speaker 1: her low points during her addiction was being, you know,
3:56
Speaker 1: caught in this drug house and having to hide out
3:59
Speaker 1: from drug dealers in that house on the floor, on
4:03
Speaker 1: a rat infestive floor. I didn't even know that story
4:05
Speaker 1: until she told me, because that happened when I was
4:07
Speaker 1: in college. I was so scared with that part. It
4:09
Speaker 1: was underneath those dirty clothes, rats running around, yep, Andy,
4:14
Speaker 1: and I thought they was gonna steal her car while
4:16
Speaker 1: she was inside. Uh well, her her car, as I
4:19
Speaker 1: tell did eventually get stolen, you know, um and uh
4:24
Speaker 1: it was nothing she could do about it, but it
4:25
Speaker 1: was where she was at the time that was stolen,
4:27
Speaker 1: at what she was doing. How did you feel having
4:29
Speaker 1: those conversations with your mom because I had to be emotional.
4:32
Speaker 1: I was reading some of that stuff that she went through,
4:35
Speaker 1: and I was like in tears, Um it was. It
4:38
Speaker 1: was difficult, and but I think for her it was
4:41
Speaker 1: cathartic because these are traumatic incidents that you know, during
4:46
Speaker 1: the time after she was you know, sexually abused, and
4:50
Speaker 1: as I telling the book, she was the victim of
4:52
Speaker 1: a violent rape. You know, people weren't going to therapy then,
4:56
Speaker 1: like that wasn't suggested and as you know, Charlemagne from
4:59
Speaker 1: your working mental health in our community, that was something
5:03
Speaker 1: we didn't do. So imagine going through all of that
5:05
Speaker 1: with no therapy. And that's why, as I discussed in
5:09
Speaker 1: the book, she was going through very severe PTSD and
5:12
Speaker 1: did not know it because that wasn't a term then
5:14
Speaker 1: that we even were familiar with. And so, yeah, those
5:18
Speaker 1: are those are difficult conversations, but I think at the
5:23
Speaker 1: end of them, it was really healing for both of us.
5:26
Speaker 1: You know, to be honest, like I certainly knew about
5:29
Speaker 1: the trauma she experienced, but her going into detail it
5:33
Speaker 1: gives me a better and more enriched perspective about who
5:37
Speaker 1: she is. Yeah, I feel like it allowed I feel
5:38
Speaker 1: like it allowed you to give her more grace. Yeah,
5:41
Speaker 1: and listen, people have been asking me about what I
5:44
Speaker 1: want people to take away from this book. It's a
5:46
Speaker 1: few things, but one of the most important things is
5:48
Speaker 1: that I want I want people to know you should
5:52
Speaker 1: talk to your people while they're here, right like your mother's,
5:55
Speaker 1: your auntie's, your father, whoever in your family, find out
5:59
Speaker 1: about them because as usually, like especially your relatives and
6:02
Speaker 1: especially your parents, they lived the whole life before you
6:05
Speaker 1: even got here. And writing this book it really made
6:10
Speaker 1: me miss my grandmother who died in twenty and ten,
6:12
Speaker 1: because I realized I didn't ask her nearly as much
6:15
Speaker 1: about her life as I should have. You know, even
6:18
Speaker 1: I know it's hard sometimes for parents and grandparents to share,
6:21
Speaker 1: you know, traumatic moments or their failures or disappointments, but
6:26
Speaker 1: it helps you see them as full of people, and
6:28
Speaker 1: maybe that does allow you to give them more grace
6:30
Speaker 1: with some of the decisions they made and even in
6:33
Speaker 1: some respects to how they've treated you. I was gonna ask,
6:35
Speaker 1: did you understand more after talking to your mom and
6:38
Speaker 1: writing this book, because you know, even for myself, I
6:40
Speaker 1: didn't really understand until I had kids, and then when
6:44
Speaker 1: I had kids and I'm living my own life. I'm like,
6:46
Speaker 1: that's why my dad did that, That's why my mom
6:48
Speaker 1: acted that way. But you know, during the time, I
6:51
Speaker 1: don't want to say I hated them, what you hated
6:53
Speaker 1: what they were doing, right, But now I was like, damn,
6:55
Speaker 1: I understand. So did you understand more and were able
6:57
Speaker 1: to I'm you know, what I understood more is why
7:01
Speaker 1: even in present day she lives with so much regret.
7:04
Speaker 1: We had an interesting conversation recently about that because I
7:08
Speaker 1: forgave my mother for this a long time ago. I've
7:13
Speaker 1: let this go because I think as a kid, you know,
7:16
Speaker 1: it was it was different because her trauma was something
7:20
Speaker 1: I had to navigate around. So it felt like my
7:22
Speaker 1: childhood was being stolen from me. And so you know,
7:26
Speaker 1: you carry some resentment for that, and so I let
7:29
Speaker 1: that go. I forgave her, encouraged her as she was
7:33
Speaker 1: turning her life around. You know my mother, I mean,
7:35
Speaker 1: she's got her masters now, you know, she got her
7:37
Speaker 1: bachelor masters. You know, she outeducated me, which I'm very
7:40
Speaker 1: very proud that she did that, and she went back
7:42
Speaker 1: to school in her fifties. Okay, and so you know,
7:46
Speaker 1: this has really been a remarkable turn amount for her.
7:48
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, you know, once I let all
7:52
Speaker 1: of that stuff, you know, go, I think I was
7:55
Speaker 1: good with it. But she I think she still struggles
7:58
Speaker 1: to forgive herself because she feels like she missed so much.
8:03
Speaker 1: And but the thing isn't It's something I wrote in
8:05
Speaker 1: the book. It's like my mother was there for everything,
8:08
Speaker 1: Like even though you know she had a severe addiction.
8:12
Speaker 1: I didn't have one of those stories where my mom
8:15
Speaker 1: was missing for days, like or didn't feed me, or
8:17
Speaker 1: the lights was cut off, and she was very protective
8:20
Speaker 1: of it no matter what. So like I didn't that
8:23
Speaker 1: wasn't my story necessarily, because I know some people who
8:25
Speaker 1: are the child the child of addicts, they do have
8:28
Speaker 1: that story. But she was there, but she wasn't always present,
8:32
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And so I think because
8:34
Speaker 1: she was trying to um, you know, figure out how
8:37
Speaker 1: to come out of all the darkness she was in.
8:40
Speaker 1: I had to figure out ways to navigate around her abuse,
8:45
Speaker 1: her drug abuse. You know what I'm saying. It's like
8:47
Speaker 1: I don't know what mood you're gonna be, and I
8:48
Speaker 1: don't know what person I'm getting today. I don't know
8:51
Speaker 1: when I come home, what dynamic I'm going to find?
8:53
Speaker 1: And so that for me was where the resentment was
8:56
Speaker 1: coming from, is feeling like, man, I got to do
8:58
Speaker 1: all this, you know, I'm trying to be a kid,
9:01
Speaker 1: and it's all this seriousness and darkness kind of around us,
9:05
Speaker 1: and so, um, I think once I really talk to
9:09
Speaker 1: her about it, and we've talked throughout the years, but
9:11
Speaker 1: it definitely helped me to understand a lot of the
9:15
Speaker 1: decisions she made. Well, watching what she went through, did
9:18
Speaker 1: it like scale you away from drugs and alcohol? Oh?
9:20
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, like I've never ever tried hard
9:24
Speaker 1: drugs in my life. I don't know anybody who's done
9:27
Speaker 1: any of that. I mean that, I know I don't.
9:29
Speaker 1: I'm not on that scene. I'm not about that. I
9:31
Speaker 1: mean I smoked a little weed like here and there. Um,
9:33
Speaker 1: they had taken an edible or two like like, that's
9:36
Speaker 1: about it. Um, And I do like tequila. But knowing
9:39
Speaker 1: the history of addiction in my family has definitely made
9:43
Speaker 1: me more cognizant of some things. Did your mom forgive
9:45
Speaker 1: her mother? Did she have that opportunity to have those conversations?
9:49
Speaker 1: So they didn't They didn't get to the best place
9:54
Speaker 1: they were. There was always unconditional love. My mother loved
9:57
Speaker 1: my grandmother fiercely. But when my grandmother made the decision
10:02
Speaker 1: not to believe her about the abuse my mother suffered
10:05
Speaker 1: at the hands of her brother, it was a fracture
10:09
Speaker 1: in their relationship that never healed. And unfortunately, even when
10:14
Speaker 1: my grandmother died, like my mother was her caretaker, you know,
10:18
Speaker 1: like she regardless of whatever state their relationship was in
10:23
Speaker 1: in the moment, my mother was never going to abandon
10:25
Speaker 1: and stop loving my grandmother. And my grandmother definitely loved her,
10:29
Speaker 1: but she herself was somebody who you know, we used
10:33
Speaker 1: to have conversations about this, Like she used to tell me,
10:36
Speaker 1: like she didn't really want kids, and she felt she
10:39
Speaker 1: was a very smart woman, you know, and she was
10:42
Speaker 1: really she really wanted a career, like the kind of
10:45
Speaker 1: career I had, not necessarily a journalist, but she wanted
10:47
Speaker 1: a career. She wanted to travel the world, all these things.
10:50
Speaker 1: And she was born in nineteen twenty five, and so
10:53
Speaker 1: education for black women was not a thing in terms
10:56
Speaker 1: of people thinking that they should be educated or that
10:59
Speaker 1: there was value that as you know, during those times,
11:02
Speaker 1: I mean everything that a woman wanted to get financially
11:05
Speaker 1: or any upward mobility came through marriage. And so she
11:08
Speaker 1: was married three times and you know, she she had
11:11
Speaker 1: her three kids, but she was just in many ways
11:15
Speaker 1: trapped in a life she didn't feel like she chose.
11:18
Speaker 1: And UM, I think because of that, she wasn't the
11:22
Speaker 1: best parent to UM my mother and to um you know,
11:27
Speaker 1: my uncle that she she could have been. She struggled
11:29
Speaker 1: a lot that they got evicted a lot. My grandmother
11:31
Speaker 1: was a functional alcoholic. Like they they had some they
11:34
Speaker 1: had some trauma, some real issues. And so um she
11:38
Speaker 1: was a great grandmother to me and my mother would
11:40
Speaker 1: would still call her a great mother despite all the
11:43
Speaker 1: all the you know, troubles that they went through. But
11:45
Speaker 1: I just think that um my mother never got the
11:49
Speaker 1: grandparent I got right, you know. And I was asking,
11:52
Speaker 1: is there anything that you decided not to put in
11:54
Speaker 1: a book that she was like, you know, let's leave
11:55
Speaker 1: this out or I'm gonna take this out. Other family
11:57
Speaker 1: members are not gonna like this. I know, y'all like
12:00
Speaker 1: to hear the inside, y'all know, I know, people keep
12:02
Speaker 1: it real on here and the tea. There was one
12:05
Speaker 1: thing I cannot tell y'all. What it was. Me and
12:07
Speaker 1: my mother got into an enormous argument about this, and
12:12
Speaker 1: the thing is is that it was the only thing
12:17
Speaker 1: in the book. She was because she got an early copy,
12:20
Speaker 1: like an advanced reader copy where you can still edit
12:22
Speaker 1: and change things, and she was hot about it and
12:26
Speaker 1: we had it out. But the funny thing was, after
12:30
Speaker 1: our argument, she told, you know, some of her friends
12:33
Speaker 1: about it, and they told her she was tripping. And
12:36
Speaker 1: I had a time to think about it, reflect on it.
12:39
Speaker 1: I talked to my husband about it. And you know,
12:43
Speaker 1: the thing, when you write a memoir, you're writing about
12:44
Speaker 1: people who really exist, and so you have to be careful, truthful,
12:49
Speaker 1: but careful, you know what I'm saying. So that's why
12:51
Speaker 1: when I talk about the abortion I had used, I
12:55
Speaker 1: did not use the person's real name because I don't
12:57
Speaker 1: know if they've told that story. I don't know if
12:59
Speaker 1: his people know or what state that's in, and I
13:02
Speaker 1: didn't want to take away that opportunity from him to
13:05
Speaker 1: tell his story his own way. So with my mother,
13:09
Speaker 1: I had to think about the fact that what is
13:11
Speaker 1: this relationship going to look like after this book? And
13:14
Speaker 1: while I didn't anticipate my mother would stopped talking to
13:17
Speaker 1: me or that. But it could be a wage issue.
13:20
Speaker 1: And this is in print, you know what I'm saying,
13:23
Speaker 1: It's forever, right, So I had to really think about
13:26
Speaker 1: do I really want to do this. I can't imagine
13:28
Speaker 1: what it could be because there's so much. I tell y'all,
13:33
Speaker 1: even look your journal, you discuss that. Yeah, oh gee man?
13:36
Speaker 1: And for parents, let me ask the guys in the room,
13:38
Speaker 1: because y'all have kids. Would you read your daughter's journal
13:41
Speaker 1: if you saw it laying around? I would tell my
13:43
Speaker 1: wife you would, really because you don't want to read it. Yeah, yeah,
13:46
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want to read it, but I
13:48
Speaker 1: do think I probably would read it, only because I
13:50
Speaker 1: just feel like there's certain things that we should know
13:53
Speaker 1: as parents, You know what I mean. I would definitely
13:55
Speaker 1: read it. You would definitely read it because and I would.
13:58
Speaker 1: The only reason I say yes because I've gone through
13:59
Speaker 1: the phone. Oh but that's not the same though, Yes
14:02
Speaker 1: it is. I think they could not beat you some things.
14:08
Speaker 1: It could be just you. It could be just like
14:10
Speaker 1: venting something with you know, something's bothering you that you
14:15
Speaker 1: don't talk about, and you're thinking about committing suicide or
14:17
Speaker 1: hurting yourself or hurting somebody. So if I can stop that,
14:21
Speaker 1: and maybe you hate me, but hopefully you love me
14:23
Speaker 1: later because I was able to stop that. Now, if
14:24
Speaker 1: it's something else, I mind my business and act like
14:27
Speaker 1: I didn't read it. But if it's something then you
14:28
Speaker 1: could have, you know, hurt yourself or somebody else, hurt
14:31
Speaker 1: a classmate. Well, how do you look at that, Jamil?
14:33
Speaker 1: Obviously I disagree and I got my asswhoop because of it, Okay.
14:37
Speaker 1: And And that was the thing, is that because of
14:40
Speaker 1: all the you know, tumultuousness in our life, that I
14:44
Speaker 1: needed someplace to vent. You know, I couldn't vent to
14:47
Speaker 1: my grandmother because my grandmother then that causes friction between
14:50
Speaker 1: her and my mother. I was too embarrassed to vent
14:52
Speaker 1: to my friends and let them in on the issues.
14:55
Speaker 1: Not like I could pick a teacher, because that's a
14:57
Speaker 1: double ass whooping coming right. He didn't have therapy back then,
15:00
Speaker 1: didn't have therapy. So my journal was literally that, And
15:03
Speaker 1: so there is I think that might be. That might
15:07
Speaker 1: be that's the top three frightening moment of my life.
15:09
Speaker 1: When you come home and your mother is sitting there
15:11
Speaker 1: with your journal, opening it, reading it exactly. I mean
15:17
Speaker 1: that woman. I was like, I was like, you try
15:19
Speaker 1: to kill me my strap. When she read the advanced
15:21
Speaker 1: copy of the book, did it bring you back to
15:23
Speaker 1: that moment? Oh? Like it was triggering writing it. I
15:26
Speaker 1: was just like, okay, because that's that's the worst assholee
15:28
Speaker 1: but she ever gave me in my life, like, there's
15:31
Speaker 1: nothing that comes to it was and then she, you know,
15:34
Speaker 1: years later, she was like, you know you didn't deserve them,
15:37
Speaker 1: Well can you go back in time and can you
15:40
Speaker 1: do this? But you know it was, but she it was.
15:44
Speaker 1: It was. That was one of our actually most fun
15:46
Speaker 1: conversations because there were details of that I did not remember.
15:50
Speaker 1: And I was like, that don't really sound liking me
15:53
Speaker 1: because she told me that. Um well, one she was
15:56
Speaker 1: sitting there with my journal and then she was like,
15:58
Speaker 1: let's talk about this in a I was like, oh shit,
16:01
Speaker 1: I'm never coming back smith and she said that's when
16:05
Speaker 1: I told her that I wanted to go live with
16:07
Speaker 1: my father. I was like, what would possess me to
16:09
Speaker 1: say that? You was about to get and that's why
16:13
Speaker 1: she bagged up all my ship, put it in there
16:16
Speaker 1: and took me right to his job and was like,
16:18
Speaker 1: she's all yours now, and I was like, this was
16:21
Speaker 1: a grave mistake on my part, this man. Yeah, but
16:24
Speaker 1: you know, I was able to keep a journal later
16:27
Speaker 1: as an adult, and I actually had an ex who
16:30
Speaker 1: read my journal too, And who I mean, people need
16:36
Speaker 1: to not be nosy. And I guess it's your child.
16:40
Speaker 1: I understand what they said as far as man. You
16:45
Speaker 1: know what, man, and what's your book? Um sparked a
16:48
Speaker 1: conversation that I had recently. Somebody told me a man
16:51
Speaker 1: and I was thinking about survival and like for women,
16:53
Speaker 1: and I saw like with your mom's stories of just
16:56
Speaker 1: who she was with was sometimes just for survival. You
17:00
Speaker 1: can financially correct, provide and take care of things. Somebody
17:03
Speaker 1: said to me the other day, Man, I wish I
17:05
Speaker 1: had money and could handle my business. I could date
17:07
Speaker 1: who I want to date. And I thought about that
17:10
Speaker 1: because you know, you're but there's people who end up
17:13
Speaker 1: in situations where it's like, this is a good provider.
17:17
Speaker 1: I have a family, I have children, and therefore this
17:19
Speaker 1: is a smart decision for me to be with this person.
17:22
Speaker 1: And that's something your mom actually had to do also, Yeah,
17:25
Speaker 1: I mean, and she's very practical and so to her,
17:29
Speaker 1: those were the qualifications she was looking for in the
17:32
Speaker 1: being with somebody, especially at a certain stage in life,
17:36
Speaker 1: like her first marriage. My first stepfather, as I'd love
17:40
Speaker 1: to say to my mother, just rested her like step
17:43
Speaker 1: from the number one. But no, she did that one
17:48
Speaker 1: for love, right, that was like purely for love. And
17:51
Speaker 1: but I think after that, and certainly with some of
17:53
Speaker 1: the circumstances in our life, there was a practicality that
17:58
Speaker 1: she thought, you know, it didn't make sense to her
18:01
Speaker 1: to be with a man who could not provide for
18:03
Speaker 1: you financially. I mean, she's very old school in that way.
18:06
Speaker 1: And you know, even as my profile expanded, and you know,
18:11
Speaker 1: she would give me dating advice, like I understand that
18:15
Speaker 1: you know, your salaries published, whether true or not. And
18:17
Speaker 1: so she was one of her biggest concerns is that
18:20
Speaker 1: some man would want to be with me just because
18:23
Speaker 1: you know of my money. And you know, I told her, like,
18:28
Speaker 1: we have a totally different kind of viewpoint of those things.
18:30
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, when I get married, I
18:31
Speaker 1: want to I want to do it for love. Right.
18:33
Speaker 1: That's not to say that financial considerations are not a
18:37
Speaker 1: part of this. You know, you do have to have
18:39
Speaker 1: some common sense with it, but that can't be the provision,
18:43
Speaker 1: can't be the basis necessarily of our marriage, if that
18:46
Speaker 1: makes sense, because it's more than just financial things that
18:48
Speaker 1: you need from a person, and you know, there's emotional
18:52
Speaker 1: security that you need from that person as well, trust, nurturing, commitment,
18:56
Speaker 1: like all those other things that really don't have anything,
18:59
Speaker 1: you know, to do with money. That's what I'm always like.
19:01
Speaker 1: I always laugh because people, Um, this is obviously before
19:03
Speaker 1: I got married. They're always surprised. They were always surprised,
19:06
Speaker 1: and I wasn't, you know, dating like some athlete or
19:08
Speaker 1: somebody else. I was like, that has never been That's
19:12
Speaker 1: never been my style. But that's the point, is that
19:14
Speaker 1: you are financially able to be in love because for
19:17
Speaker 1: some women, they're like, I gotta be practical, Yeah no,
19:20
Speaker 1: and get to a space financially where you're like, I
19:22
Speaker 1: could do what I want. What. It's funny though, because
19:24
Speaker 1: I wish you know, from my mother that like she
19:26
Speaker 1: was a little less practical and was more you know.
19:30
Speaker 1: That's not to say that she was incapable of the
19:33
Speaker 1: loving aspect of a relationship, but it is to say
19:36
Speaker 1: that I think, um, you know, because of so much
19:40
Speaker 1: was robbed from her. You know, from a physical standpoint,
19:43
Speaker 1: I do think it was much harder for her to
19:46
Speaker 1: really trust any man, and so to her the provision
19:51
Speaker 1: part like, Okay, this is a tangible that I can see,
19:53
Speaker 1: that I can rely on. That's why I think that
19:56
Speaker 1: had such a high importance for her. How important I
20:00
Speaker 1: think we talked about this enough. How important is picking
20:01
Speaker 1: the right partner the right meat. How important is that
20:06
Speaker 1: into breaking generational crisis? Oh? I think it's a huge
20:08
Speaker 1: part of it. I mean, listen, between my mother, my grandmother,
20:12
Speaker 1: and my great aunt who also was no longer, no
20:14
Speaker 1: longer living, they were married eight times, eight times. And
20:19
Speaker 1: you know, there were certainly some successful marriages in my family.
20:22
Speaker 1: I did not see a lot of them growing up
20:24
Speaker 1: because even the people that were together, you know, it
20:28
Speaker 1: was like okay, come on, you know, like it was.
20:31
Speaker 1: It was definitely some turbulence that was there. And for
20:34
Speaker 1: a long time I did not want to get married.
20:36
Speaker 1: And that was because seeing how those relationships created some
20:42
Speaker 1: brokenness in them, and I was like, I don't want
20:45
Speaker 1: any part of that. If that's what that's supposed to
20:46
Speaker 1: look like, I'm good, And that's why I'm so thankful
20:50
Speaker 1: that I got married when I did, like when I
20:52
Speaker 1: was into my forties already, because by that time, having
20:56
Speaker 1: some lived experience, being at a point where I didn't
21:00
Speaker 1: need to get married certainly, Um, the only way I
21:03
Speaker 1: was going to get married if I truly wanted to
21:05
Speaker 1: be with that person. And so when I met my
21:07
Speaker 1: husband in twenty and fourteen, um, you know I wasn't looking.
21:14
Speaker 1: We met at homecoming at at Michigan State. You know,
21:17
Speaker 1: I know that. Uh of course, now we're in like
21:19
Speaker 1: HPCU homecoming sea season right now, and it's like, look
21:23
Speaker 1: at p wis with the black people? Do I say too?
21:25
Speaker 1: All right? You know, I'm not saying this as lit
21:28
Speaker 1: as Hampton. I'm not saying that n B. All Right,
21:31
Speaker 1: I get it. It is a little different, all right,
21:33
Speaker 1: but we we get we do, all right. And so
21:36
Speaker 1: I was there at Michigan State UM as the grandmar
21:38
Speaker 1: show of the homecoming parade, and I was at the
21:41
Speaker 1: Black alumni tailgate. Okay MS black alumni, ms U B
21:44
Speaker 1: a shout out. Um, I was there, and I was
21:47
Speaker 1: actually talking to a former student of mine because when
21:51
Speaker 1: I worked in Detroit at the at the Free Press,
21:53
Speaker 1: I co taught a sports writing class at Michigan State
21:56
Speaker 1: and this he was one of the students that was
21:58
Speaker 1: in my class, and so I'm talking to him and
22:01
Speaker 1: I see this like fine dude, like kind of roll up.
22:03
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, it's like I don't know what's
22:06
Speaker 1: happening there, but I'm liking the energy. And we were
22:09
Speaker 1: just like flirting and going back and forth. But we
22:11
Speaker 1: never exchanged numbers because you know, the student I was
22:15
Speaker 1: talking to knew my husband. They were good friends. And
22:17
Speaker 1: later on that night, at the Black alumni party that
22:21
Speaker 1: they have during homecoming weekend, DJ by mc light like,
22:25
Speaker 1: I'll never forget I saw. I saw him at the party,
22:28
Speaker 1: and I was like, what are the odds that you
22:30
Speaker 1: see the fine guy that you've never seen before? And
22:32
Speaker 1: I've been coming to homecoming for a couple of years
22:34
Speaker 1: that you see him again, must be a side party. Well,
22:41
Speaker 1: but I hadn't been going to homecoming for the last
22:43
Speaker 1: couple of years, going to all the black events. I'd
22:46
Speaker 1: never seen a right and once we got to talk,
22:49
Speaker 1: and I mean, like he my home church growing up
22:52
Speaker 1: is right in his neighborhood. All my people lived in
22:55
Speaker 1: the side of Detroit that he lived on and it
22:58
Speaker 1: was a miracle. We have never run into each other,
23:00
Speaker 1: and even though he went to Michigan State, he would
23:03
Speaker 1: He's five years younger than me, so we weren't there
23:05
Speaker 1: at the same time, but we had a lot of
23:07
Speaker 1: like connections. So he came over to talk to me.
23:11
Speaker 1: He got my number, and he called me the next day,
23:15
Speaker 1: which a lot of dudes don't do anymore. You know
23:17
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, like calling you right away. But the
23:20
Speaker 1: phone call, a phone call, that was the other thing
23:22
Speaker 1: that was impressive. Also impressive. I actually answered it right
23:26
Speaker 1: I was like hello, you know, and so um so
23:29
Speaker 1: yeah that and the rest was kind of history, as
23:31
Speaker 1: they say, and we had our first date a couple
23:34
Speaker 1: of weeks later. Just so happened. I was going to
23:37
Speaker 1: um Orange County in California for a work conference for
23:42
Speaker 1: ESPN and then his company happens to be headquartered in
23:46
Speaker 1: Orange County and he was going to be there for business.
23:51
Speaker 1: God did and just so, what you're going there too? No,
23:57
Speaker 1: we were just talking on the phone and he was like,
23:59
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I'm gonna be there too, and so
24:02
Speaker 1: uh he he came over to my hotel and um,
24:05
Speaker 1: we hung out, had some drinks and uh, you know,
24:09
Speaker 1: he uh stayed overnight. Nothing happened. Let me just say
24:12
Speaker 1: this because I see where y'all mind is going. Nothing happened,
24:16
Speaker 1: And I thought, like when he didn't, even when I did,
24:23
Speaker 1: nothing happened. Well, you're right, let me let me work,
24:26
Speaker 1: let me let me clarify. No sex happened, Okay, right,
24:30
Speaker 1: and yeah we did kiss, but you know, we just slept.
24:33
Speaker 1: And uh. The next day, I thought, man, as soon
24:36
Speaker 1: as daylight here, this dude's gonna be out of here.
24:38
Speaker 1: And but he wasn't. He was like, he was like,
24:41
Speaker 1: let's go to breakfast. I finding a liar that he's
24:43
Speaker 1: out there recording it. But you han't heard your story.
24:47
Speaker 1: You haven't read the move, like you haven't heard the
24:53
Speaker 1: old I know, right, I think he went to breakfast.
24:57
Speaker 1: I think he just want to see if if I
24:58
Speaker 1: if I tell some various you know, some different versions details,
25:02
Speaker 1: you know, or whatever, he puts a little more sauce
25:05
Speaker 1: on when we first met than I do. But that
25:07
Speaker 1: is the truthful version of what happened. Now. You talk
25:10
Speaker 1: about in the book about your experiences growing up in Detroit.
25:13
Speaker 1: But what I want to know is how hard is
25:15
Speaker 1: it to let go of the Detroit in you when
25:19
Speaker 1: you're in these corporate environments. How much Detroit do you need? Well?
25:26
Speaker 1: Of course, when I see somebody from Detroit, you knows,
25:28
Speaker 1: you know, Jayleen Rose worked at ESPN. We see each other,
25:30
Speaker 1: we're like, what up? Th right? Okay? Um, you know what,
25:34
Speaker 1: the Detroit of me will never leave. And I don't
25:37
Speaker 1: think that's a bad thing. That doesn't mean that you're
25:40
Speaker 1: in meetings and corporate environments having to cuss people out
25:43
Speaker 1: or do anything like that. But you know, you let
25:45
Speaker 1: people know you have a boundary and that you expect
25:48
Speaker 1: to be respected. And I think the parts of Detroit
25:52
Speaker 1: that are in me are parts that are that have
25:55
Speaker 1: just done wondrous things for my life. You know, Detroit,
25:58
Speaker 1: Angel knows this. Detroit is is a tough city. It's
26:01
Speaker 1: a resilience city. It's also a city where you know,
26:04
Speaker 1: we take a lot of pride and being from there.
26:06
Speaker 1: Don't nobody put off for Detroit like people from Detroit
26:11
Speaker 1: exactly like all of that. Yeah, that's that's a part
26:17
Speaker 1: of who we are. And so that's why in my
26:20
Speaker 1: social media bio, I say that you know, I was
26:23
Speaker 1: raised in Detroit. Grew up at Michigan State, Like Detroit
26:26
Speaker 1: is going to always run hot and heavy through my blood.
26:29
Speaker 1: And also a little philosophy aspect the fact that we
26:34
Speaker 1: wear meat coachs to the movies like now you never
26:37
Speaker 1: take the Detroit and the education that you got there,
26:39
Speaker 1: I think was incredible just to hear, because I feel
26:43
Speaker 1: like that shaped a lot of who you are today
26:46
Speaker 1: just being from there, but also the school that you
26:48
Speaker 1: went to, and then the mentor is not or people
26:51
Speaker 1: that actually encouraged you to try different things because a
26:54
Speaker 1: lot of kids don't have that. Yeah, I mean, listen,
26:56
Speaker 1: there were so many pivotal points in my life where
27:00
Speaker 1: just a seed planted by somebody, just the word that
27:04
Speaker 1: got me to the next step that I was supposed
27:06
Speaker 1: to get to, that encouraged me to kind of keep going.
27:09
Speaker 1: And you know, Detroit I was. I was largely with
27:12
Speaker 1: the exception of two or three years, a public high school,
27:14
Speaker 1: a public education student. You know, I went to public
27:17
Speaker 1: elementary school. I went to a public middle school. You know,
27:20
Speaker 1: both mean middle school, went to Mumford. So I graduated
27:22
Speaker 1: from high school. And it's another reason why public education
27:26
Speaker 1: is very important to me. I was lucky because Detroit
27:29
Speaker 1: gave me a firm sense of my identity. You know,
27:32
Speaker 1: it was a city I think now it might currently
27:35
Speaker 1: be the blackest city in America because it's eighty five
27:38
Speaker 1: percent black. When I was growing up, it was over
27:40
Speaker 1: a million people lived in Detroit. It was like ninety
27:42
Speaker 1: percent black. You know, you don't have to have first
27:45
Speaker 1: Fridays in Detroit. It was called going to the grocery store.
27:47
Speaker 1: You know, you will sound a little different, you know, yeah,
27:52
Speaker 1: now it isn't, but back then it wasn't. It wasn't
27:54
Speaker 1: like that. It was still ours, if you know what
27:56
Speaker 1: I mean. And so having black teachers, having black teachers
28:00
Speaker 1: throughout my entire you know, schooling, like those were important
28:05
Speaker 1: identity moments. You know. I didn't have to go out
28:09
Speaker 1: of my way to learn about black history. My teachers
28:12
Speaker 1: just taught it. It was just a part of the curriculum.
28:15
Speaker 1: You know. I took African American history classes at Mumford,
28:18
Speaker 1: So it was just like that was nothing new. And
28:21
Speaker 1: so to go from that environment and then to go
28:23
Speaker 1: to Michigan State, you know, forty thousand students, eighty percent
28:27
Speaker 1: of them white, probably more than that, it was like
28:30
Speaker 1: quite a culture shock for me. But I was so
28:34
Speaker 1: glad to have had that experience of growing up in
28:36
Speaker 1: Detroit because that allowed me to always have pride in
28:40
Speaker 1: my identity and you know, to kind of carry that
28:43
Speaker 1: with me wherever I went. You know That's why I laugh.
28:45
Speaker 1: And I'm sure V you probably get this when people
28:47
Speaker 1: say going to a HBCU is not the real world.
28:50
Speaker 1: I was like, no, you need to be rooted in
28:52
Speaker 1: who you are because whatever environment you step into, you
28:56
Speaker 1: cannot let it change who you are or let them
28:58
Speaker 1: tell you who you are. And even going to Michigan State,
29:04
Speaker 1: you weren't even fathoming that you could have white roommates. Nah,
29:07
Speaker 1: I mean it was. It was wild because but it
29:10
Speaker 1: was some of the racial conversations we used to have them.
29:12
Speaker 1: Good God, thank god nobody had a phone because they
29:15
Speaker 1: would be like what but you know, my my suite
29:19
Speaker 1: mates at the time they were they were from Sterling Heights, Michigan,
29:22
Speaker 1: and we used to call it growing up Sterling whites
29:25
Speaker 1: right because it was because it was it was that
29:27
Speaker 1: white right, And um, you know they didn't even they
29:30
Speaker 1: didn't they had no idea who Malcolm X was. Wow.
29:33
Speaker 1: They they were like we we get Martin Luther King juniors. Uh,
29:37
Speaker 1: we get a day off of that. They had no idea,
29:39
Speaker 1: Like they were like, nah, I think we were at school.
29:41
Speaker 1: I was like, that can't be the case. It's a
29:42
Speaker 1: natural all the day. They just didn't know. They didn't
29:46
Speaker 1: have any exposure to black people outside of listening to
29:49
Speaker 1: the chronic Like they really didn't like they didn't know
29:52
Speaker 1: anything and so, um, But in fairness, I didn't know
29:55
Speaker 1: a whole lot about white people there, so other you know,
29:58
Speaker 1: obviously I knew way more history about white people than
30:01
Speaker 1: they knew about you know, black people. But in terms
30:04
Speaker 1: of just being around white people, Um, I didn't have
30:07
Speaker 1: that much experience with that. So it was great and
30:10
Speaker 1: we're still friends of this day that we were able to, um,
30:13
Speaker 1: you know, learn from each other. But you know, there
30:15
Speaker 1: was some Michigan State, like I mean that was a
30:19
Speaker 1: place where you know, I really came into my own
30:21
Speaker 1: and grew up. But in terms of you know, having
30:25
Speaker 1: just real up close experiences with racism that all, you know,
30:28
Speaker 1: a lot of that started and happened there. Can you
30:30
Speaker 1: talk about you know, you talk about how what your
30:32
Speaker 1: mother taught you about black conservatives? About my article in
30:36
Speaker 1: the Atlantic. So you know, my mother is she is
30:40
Speaker 1: a deep sense of her faith. Um, she's a Christian
30:43
Speaker 1: and or a believer, you know, as she likes to
30:46
Speaker 1: put it. And because of her religious background or because
30:53
Speaker 1: of her faith, I'm gonna use a term religion. Um,
30:56
Speaker 1: you know, she is certain conservative principles that she has. Now,
30:59
Speaker 1: some of these principles are outside of faith, because you know,
31:03
Speaker 1: the one thing that's hilarious to me about you know, Republicans,
31:06
Speaker 1: is that they want to always label black people liberal,
31:09
Speaker 1: and y'all know, and having conversations, especially with some elders,
31:12
Speaker 1: the black people like the conservative as hell from the
31:15
Speaker 1: South exactly, especially those from from the South. And so
31:19
Speaker 1: the black people don't have a problem with conservatives, We
31:22
Speaker 1: got a problem with racism. That's those are totally you know,
31:25
Speaker 1: different things. And so my mother, you know, she's old school,
31:28
Speaker 1: and especially you know, with her being a believer, she
31:32
Speaker 1: does not believe in abortion, and there's other ideals that
31:36
Speaker 1: she has that we clash on because clearly that's not
31:40
Speaker 1: where I'm coming from. And but I think her her
31:44
Speaker 1: being that way has really given me insight about conservatives too.
31:49
Speaker 1: It's particularly those that tie it to their Christian faith,
31:52
Speaker 1: and so that's informed a lot of my opinions and
31:55
Speaker 1: even how I write about those issues when I'm attacking
32:00
Speaker 1: conservative suitially, this era, this Trump conservative, it is totally
32:05
Speaker 1: different than the ones from back in the day. I
32:08
Speaker 1: think they it's definitely different. But you know, as I
32:12
Speaker 1: write about it in the book, there were things about
32:13
Speaker 1: Trump that appealed to my mother definitely. And I know
32:16
Speaker 1: that seems strange to say about, you know, a sixty something,
32:19
Speaker 1: your whole black woman from Detroit, but she she liked
32:23
Speaker 1: the macho shit. I mean, she liked the tough talk
32:26
Speaker 1: and the whole generation is soft like that fed right
32:29
Speaker 1: into a lot of the things that she believes, you know.
32:33
Speaker 1: And um, and she also watched him on The Apprentice.
32:38
Speaker 1: So yeah, but yeah, I mean so I think while
32:41
Speaker 1: these Trump Conservatives are markedly different, markedly more dangerous, Um,
32:47
Speaker 1: there are some core principles they have that frankly, Republicans
32:51
Speaker 1: have always had. He didn't invent a lot of the
32:55
Speaker 1: things that he's done. He perfected some of them. But
32:59
Speaker 1: you know, when you look back at Ronald Reagan's presidency,
33:02
Speaker 1: you see a lot a lot of similarities. He evokes
33:04
Speaker 1: a lot of those talking plans, he totally does. Well,
33:07
Speaker 1: I'm gonna touch on a few things without telling everything,
33:09
Speaker 1: but chapter eight, Free Press Don't Raise No Punks a
33:13
Speaker 1: little bit. So that m title came from a very
33:18
Speaker 1: fun night that I had when I was covering Michigan
33:21
Speaker 1: State basketball. They had just beaten Kentucky in the Elite
33:24
Speaker 1: Eight and we're on their way to their first Final
33:26
Speaker 1: Four since Magic took them in seventy nine. So this
33:28
Speaker 1: is back in nineteen ninety nine, and you know, I
33:32
Speaker 1: mean Michigan State because they were good. They had a
33:33
Speaker 1: lot of media coverage, a lot of Detroit media outlets
33:36
Speaker 1: and Michigan media outlets that were following them. And so
33:39
Speaker 1: after the game, you know, we know we headed to
33:41
Speaker 1: the Final four, so we all went out to just
33:44
Speaker 1: hang out, get some drinks, and somehow we just started
33:47
Speaker 1: doing tequila shot after tequila shot after tequila shot, and
33:51
Speaker 1: I might have been four or five in easy and
33:54
Speaker 1: somebody was like, oh, we doing one more round, and
33:56
Speaker 1: most people tapped out. I was like, I ain't tapping out.
33:58
Speaker 1: Free Press don't raise no Punks, and they never let
34:01
Speaker 1: me forget that. So so for years, when I was
34:05
Speaker 1: on the beat, every time I ran into another reporter
34:08
Speaker 1: who was there that night. They'd be like Free Press
34:10
Speaker 1: raised bunks like y'all. So that is where that title
34:15
Speaker 1: came from. Interesting that you didn't realize your voice, how
34:19
Speaker 1: it could be so polarizing for certain people, right to
34:22
Speaker 1: write an article and then to get responses where people
34:25
Speaker 1: are even threatening you. Yeah, and at such a young
34:27
Speaker 1: age too, No, I mean that started like I started
34:31
Speaker 1: getting hate nailed back at Michigan State. I mean the
34:33
Speaker 1: first time I was called a nigger was at Michigan State, right,
34:36
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, because I did have that experience there, had
34:41
Speaker 1: it at the Free Press. Every place I worked, Orlando Riley,
34:44
Speaker 1: I was called a racial slur. Every place I was
34:46
Speaker 1: either told to um, you know, I was either called
34:49
Speaker 1: a racial slur, told to go back to Africa or
34:51
Speaker 1: go right for Cosmo. It was gonna be one of
34:53
Speaker 1: those three. And so Woman's Magazine. Yeah, you don't even
35:02
Speaker 1: think about the gender. No, So every every time I
35:07
Speaker 1: had been told that, and so by the time it
35:09
Speaker 1: started happening at ESPN, and especially after um what I
35:13
Speaker 1: said about Donald Trump, I was I had already been
35:16
Speaker 1: through it. So it wasn't nearly effective. The problem is
35:21
Speaker 1: with the Trump thing, like that took it to a
35:23
Speaker 1: whole new level. You know. I had certainly faced hate
35:26
Speaker 1: before my career and even gotten a couple of death threats.
35:30
Speaker 1: That was different, you know, And when I was at
35:33
Speaker 1: ESPN and that happened, it was just like, um, the
35:36
Speaker 1: mobs of mail, like, you know, you real racist when
35:39
Speaker 1: you take the time out to write somebody a letter
35:41
Speaker 1: calling them a nigger, among many other things. I was like,
35:44
Speaker 1: damn that too. You had to put a stamp on
35:45
Speaker 1: this Facebook message, Like that's fast, Like you know what
35:52
Speaker 1: I'm saying, that's that old school racism. They like they
35:58
Speaker 1: took time out of their day to make sure you
36:01
Speaker 1: have to hold back talking about everything at ESPN too.
36:04
Speaker 1: But in the book, yeah, um, you know what there was.
36:07
Speaker 1: I don't think I held back, but I think there
36:11
Speaker 1: are parts of that story that, you know, frankly, didn't
36:14
Speaker 1: really go with the whole narrative of what There's a
36:17
Speaker 1: whole lot of incidents I could have certainly talked about,
36:19
Speaker 1: but it's like it just didn't make sense in terms
36:21
Speaker 1: of the storytelling rhythm. I wanted to go. Plus, you know,
36:24
Speaker 1: ESPN was a chapter in my life. It wasn't my
36:26
Speaker 1: whole life, and I realized that a lot of people
36:30
Speaker 1: made buy this memoir because they're looking for the ESPN
36:33
Speaker 1: dirt and gossip. I was honest. I'm sure there are
36:35
Speaker 1: some people at ESPN that probably don't like some of
36:37
Speaker 1: the things that I put in there, but it is
36:41
Speaker 1: what it is. He were very honest. You said you
36:43
Speaker 1: were embarrassed it in there while they were he was
36:45
Speaker 1: reading verbatim what you see, oh Man talking about the
36:48
Speaker 1: former president of ESPN, John Skipper, who is still a
36:51
Speaker 1: friend of mine. You know, we went through a rough
36:53
Speaker 1: period after the Donald Trump incident, and you know, as
36:58
Speaker 1: I write about, the most disappointing part about all of that,
37:02
Speaker 1: it wasn't what the president said. It wasn't the reaction,
37:04
Speaker 1: it wasn't the death threat. The most disappointing part of
37:06
Speaker 1: that was that when he called me out, when the
37:08
Speaker 1: White House said that I should be fired, ESPN did
37:11
Speaker 1: not have my back. That was it. Because there's a
37:14
Speaker 1: code in journalism, for sure, and every newspaper I ever
37:19
Speaker 1: worked for it. I fully believe that that happened while
37:22
Speaker 1: I was at that paper. They would have put out
37:24
Speaker 1: a statement right away saying, now, you may not like
37:27
Speaker 1: what she said, but she wanted to us because that's
37:29
Speaker 1: the whole that's the whole tenet of a free press, right.
37:33
Speaker 1: It's like, you're supposed to be protected from government, you know, persecution.
37:39
Speaker 1: And there's so many examples in the history of journalism
37:43
Speaker 1: of where newspapers and out let's have done exactly that,
37:46
Speaker 1: Like when city Hall comes after your reporter, it's understood,
37:49
Speaker 1: you got your reporters back. And when ESPN didn't do
37:52
Speaker 1: that and just let me twist and let me fry,
37:56
Speaker 1: I I was mad. I was disappointed. Honestly, I was hurt.
37:59
Speaker 1: I had been there eleven years at that point. I'm like,
38:02
Speaker 1: we got to be better than this. And one of
38:05
Speaker 1: the you know, one of the healing aspects of my
38:08
Speaker 1: relationship with Skipper, like when we met the day before
38:11
Speaker 1: I was coming off suspension and we went to have breakfast.
38:14
Speaker 1: He apologized to me then and said he was sorry.
38:16
Speaker 1: He said if there was one regret he had, it
38:18
Speaker 1: was that he should have said something after Trump or
38:22
Speaker 1: former Press Secretary Sarah Huckaby Sanders said something about me.
38:25
Speaker 1: Did he tell you the truth too? About how you
38:27
Speaker 1: know a lot of those networker jets were afraid that
38:29
Speaker 1: Trump wouldn't clear the Fox Disney merger. No, he actually didn't.
38:33
Speaker 1: He didn't tell me that is that, like the equivalent
38:36
Speaker 1: of Bill Cosby was by NBC, or that was actually true,
38:40
Speaker 1: Like people were afraid that he wasn't going to approve
38:42
Speaker 1: the merger between Fox Disney. I forgot who else it was. Well,
38:45
Speaker 1: I think a part of it, you know, at that point,
38:48
Speaker 1: if y'all remember in twenty seventeen, when you know, those
38:52
Speaker 1: tweets happened and I got in the crosshairs at the president.
38:55
Speaker 1: At ESPN was at a very interesting juncture, like they
38:58
Speaker 1: were being called too political, two left, liberal leaning and
39:04
Speaker 1: you know, which I thought in many ways was just
39:06
Speaker 1: coded racism, because suddenly you see a new emergence of
39:10
Speaker 1: faces at ESPN. You know, you had Stephen A. Smith
39:12
Speaker 1: becoming the face of the network. You had Me, you
39:14
Speaker 1: had Michael Smith, you had Bamonte Jones, all these Sarah Spain,
39:18
Speaker 1: Kate Fagan, like all these different new diverse voices that
39:22
Speaker 1: were that had major platforms, you know, Dan Lebotard. So
39:25
Speaker 1: suddenly you see a mix up in terms of what
39:29
Speaker 1: the talent looks like at ESPN, and then all of
39:30
Speaker 1: a sudden, they too political and too liberal, you know,
39:33
Speaker 1: because people often white America, just our presence to them
39:37
Speaker 1: is political. Our presence to them is liberal. We're reminding
39:40
Speaker 1: them of something just by sitting here. We could say
39:42
Speaker 1: nothing political at all, and they was where we were political.
39:46
Speaker 1: So that's why I used to get so pissed when
39:49
Speaker 1: Mike and I were doing Sports Center and they used
39:50
Speaker 1: to call our show political. We never talked about politics.
39:53
Speaker 1: They acted like when they turned to Sports Center, we
39:55
Speaker 1: were breaking down immigration reform that like never happened. And
39:59
Speaker 1: we got sick of talking about Colin Kaepernick, not because
40:02
Speaker 1: his story was important, but we had producers that every
40:05
Speaker 1: time a quarterback was signed would come runner that's like,
40:07
Speaker 1: yall want to talk about Colin Kaepernick. I was like, no,
40:10
Speaker 1: we don't. Like we said what we said, Like it's
40:12
Speaker 1: already been established that the NFL is not going to
40:14
Speaker 1: let him back into playing football. And so people were
40:17
Speaker 1: trying to create a narrative around our show just because
40:21
Speaker 1: we were are black as ourselves on TV. And that was,
40:25
Speaker 1: you know, really a difficult period to go through as
40:28
Speaker 1: you're trying to get a new show off the ground,
40:29
Speaker 1: trying to find your footing and all of this noise
40:33
Speaker 1: and narrative is around the show about it not being
40:35
Speaker 1: too political and Mike and I are racists, and they
40:38
Speaker 1: started calling us Wolke Center like that was some that
40:40
Speaker 1: was something that was some bullshit, Like it really was.
40:43
Speaker 1: I finally hilarious that ESPN had to turn right back around, though,
40:45
Speaker 1: and they had. They couldn't run from the fact that
40:47
Speaker 1: there was an intersectionality between politics, social issues and sports. Yeah.
40:52
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just I think they went through a
40:55
Speaker 1: period of time where they just didn't have the stomach
40:57
Speaker 1: for the fight, and especially when it came to me
41:01
Speaker 1: and our show, that when you had all these right
41:04
Speaker 1: wing publications, media outlets writing about us all the time,
41:09
Speaker 1: you know, whenever we discussed anything that was you know,
41:12
Speaker 1: remotely close to race or you know, anything that came
41:14
Speaker 1: up within the you know, the realm of sports, they
41:17
Speaker 1: just didn't want any part of that. And um, you know,
41:22
Speaker 1: their relationship with the NFL was a little tenuous, and
41:25
Speaker 1: so I think they kind of took a cowardly way
41:29
Speaker 1: out for a little while. And so when they hired
41:32
Speaker 1: you know, our friend Angela Rye, and they seemed to
41:34
Speaker 1: be ready to re engage in those conversations particularly after
41:38
Speaker 1: George Floyd. I was. I was mostly happy for my
41:41
Speaker 1: former colleagues because I know that a lot of them
41:43
Speaker 1: had a lot of things they wanted to say and
41:45
Speaker 1: didn't feel the comfort or safety to say them. And um,
41:49
Speaker 1: seeing the company gonna reverse course a little bit, I
41:52
Speaker 1: think was helpful for them so that they could join
41:54
Speaker 1: the dialogue before we got to ask a couple of
41:57
Speaker 1: sports questions. One more thing about the book. Then chapter
42:00
Speaker 1: five you pay homage to Judy Bloom with that title
42:02
Speaker 1: you did go it's me you gotta see you know,
42:06
Speaker 1: man Beverley clearly and Judi Judy Blue got me through. Man.
42:11
Speaker 1: I don't know Dan Danie right, you know? But shoot,
42:18
Speaker 1: the way people are acting about this book, Man and
42:20
Speaker 1: Judie Bloom might be bad right now. I have no idea.
42:23
Speaker 1: Are you never? God is me? Margaret might not be anymore?
42:27
Speaker 1: You know? It feel like young adult novels are so
42:30
Speaker 1: important too. Yeah, no, because I think about all the things.
42:32
Speaker 1: I even used to read them, Sweet Valley High books.
42:34
Speaker 1: I used to read Sweet Valley High, to Choose your
42:36
Speaker 1: Own Adventure, like to Love Choose Aventure like those are.
42:41
Speaker 1: Remember when Netflix did that Black Mirror episode, It choose
42:43
Speaker 1: you on adventure. I have never seen black Mirror. Really no,
42:46
Speaker 1: they got to choose your own adventure black Mirror Interactive.
42:50
Speaker 1: Like that's is great, all right, I gotta peep that
42:53
Speaker 1: my sports question. Oh got Draymond Green Jordan Pool? Draymond
42:57
Speaker 1: Greens punches him in the face? Can Jordan pools? They
43:00
Speaker 1: did and play comfortably there? Well, And I think this
43:04
Speaker 1: is this was evident before this m incident, just because
43:07
Speaker 1: the state that they, you know, go to state is
43:10
Speaker 1: in in terms of their finances. I mean, that's a
43:12
Speaker 1: hell of check that don't have to write in luxury
43:14
Speaker 1: taxes alone. If they decide to resign Draymond, give him
43:18
Speaker 1: a new deal rather, and so I think it was
43:21
Speaker 1: probably trending toward him not being there anyway. And you know,
43:26
Speaker 1: I know Draymond um good dude. I know people have
43:29
Speaker 1: polarizing opinions about him. That was a bad moment obviously. Now.
43:34
Speaker 1: The only thing I debated with people who called it
43:37
Speaker 1: a sucker punch. That was not a sucker punch, right, Like,
43:41
Speaker 1: it's just there's an aggressive moment that's happening. And I
43:44
Speaker 1: know that's your teammate, and people are like, oh, but
43:47
Speaker 1: you know he should have recognized as his teammate and
43:49
Speaker 1: he wasn't expecting to punch. Have you seen family members fight? Yes,
43:53
Speaker 1: I certainly have, right, So, Um, I just think that
43:56
Speaker 1: was a really bad moment for him. I think he
43:58
Speaker 1: recognizes that. I think he is honestly remorseful. But I
44:01
Speaker 1: don't see them coexisting. Jordan Pools should aduct because here's
44:04
Speaker 1: the thing. If you push somebody that hard, you gotta
44:07
Speaker 1: expect something is coming back, right Yeah, Um, I mean
44:11
Speaker 1: this is this is not Jordan's Poole's fault at all,
44:14
Speaker 1: but I think because of the finances, he won't be there. Yeah.
44:20
Speaker 1: You know, I was on the fence at first because
44:22
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know, because this might be
44:24
Speaker 1: one of those oh no, because of this incident, because
44:26
Speaker 1: this might want to be one of those things that
44:28
Speaker 1: like early in the season, there's certainly, you know, some
44:31
Speaker 1: momentum that you have now, but the season drags on,
44:34
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I don't know how they
44:37
Speaker 1: respond and are able to play when you have that
44:40
Speaker 1: big of a issue. That's kind of right there. But
44:43
Speaker 1: these guys are veterans. I think they're hungry. I think
44:45
Speaker 1: they kind of know it's their last stand, so I
44:48
Speaker 1: do I expect them to repeat as well. Ben Simmons
44:51
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook. What's the question? I mean, who's better? You know,
45:04
Speaker 1: it's the one word that comes to your mind. Do
45:05
Speaker 1: you think Ben sim miss But you know, honestly, I
45:12
Speaker 1: feel really bad for Russell Westbrook because you know, especially no, no, no,
45:19
Speaker 1: I mean Ben Simmons. I think he's not as bad
45:22
Speaker 1: as people think, you know. And and what you hate
45:26
Speaker 1: to see is when you look at an athlete and
45:28
Speaker 1: you could tell psychologically something's going on, you know what
45:31
Speaker 1: I'm saying, And it's just it feels like criticizing him.
45:35
Speaker 1: And this is not to say that he doesn't deserve,
45:37
Speaker 1: you know, some criticism, but it just feels like he's
45:40
Speaker 1: mentally worn out. That's what he seems like to me.
45:43
Speaker 1: Russell Westbrook is the same thing is that because Russell
45:47
Speaker 1: it's clearly frustrated. I don't Russell doesn't want to play
45:49
Speaker 1: this shitty like he doesn't want to do that. But now,
45:53
Speaker 1: and this is the gift and curse of playing with Lebron.
45:56
Speaker 1: It's never gonna be Lebron's fault. I'm not saying it is,
45:58
Speaker 1: but the people that play around Lebron. Remember how the
46:02
Speaker 1: people used to be on Chris Bosh all the time,
46:04
Speaker 1: like it's always somebody that when they play with them,
46:07
Speaker 1: that becomes the target for all the frustration over you know, losing,
46:11
Speaker 1: over all of this. And it's Russell Westbrook. They have
46:14
Speaker 1: made him the villain of the team. And I'm not
46:16
Speaker 1: talking about the organization itself, but fans, you know, and
46:19
Speaker 1: he's clearly struggling. I kind of agree with what Charles
46:22
Speaker 1: Barkley said. I don't really see the joy in his
46:25
Speaker 1: game like I used to. Like, he's certainly still a
46:27
Speaker 1: great athlete, but you'd be crazy not to think it's
46:30
Speaker 1: not mentally wearing on him that he's not thinking about
46:33
Speaker 1: this every time he takes a shot. The fact that
46:35
Speaker 1: the fans are boring him. It reminds me of when
46:37
Speaker 1: Josh Smith played in Atlanta and every time he took
46:39
Speaker 1: up three point in the crowd be like no, it's
46:41
Speaker 1: like I feel like I hear that. And every time
46:42
Speaker 1: Russell like takes a shot, like people are mad, right,
46:46
Speaker 1: And so to play like that in your hometown, right,
46:49
Speaker 1: and that's that's the vibe. You can't tell me that
46:53
Speaker 1: that mentally that wouldn't break you a little bit. That's
46:55
Speaker 1: interesting because I feel like Ben is mental and Russ
46:57
Speaker 1: is just physical like us. Because Rust still out that
47:00
Speaker 1: energy and my confidence. I just don't know if he's
47:02
Speaker 1: physically able to play the way he used to. I
47:04
Speaker 1: mean I sensed the I sense certainly the energy. I
47:06
Speaker 1: don't mean to make it sound like he's mailed an
47:08
Speaker 1: innard like that, but it's like a joy that comes
47:10
Speaker 1: to playing with basketball, and it doesn't feel like he's
47:13
Speaker 1: playing with a lot of joy. That's how no cowboy questions.
47:18
Speaker 1: I thought I was gonna get some New York Giants.
47:25
Speaker 1: I think the Giants look good, you know. I mean,
47:28
Speaker 1: I'm sure Daniel Jones is thinking about how he got
47:30
Speaker 1: slandered when they made that pick, and definitely the last
47:36
Speaker 1: couple of years, but they didn't have as good of
47:38
Speaker 1: a team, I think because they have now love Brian
47:40
Speaker 1: day Ball, like you know it definitely one of those
47:42
Speaker 1: coaches I've been watching for a while, and so he
47:45
Speaker 1: felt he felt like he would be a good fit
47:47
Speaker 1: for this team. So look New York Football Jet saying Giants.
47:52
Speaker 1: You know Robert Salat like he was, I'm forty nine
47:54
Speaker 1: Ers fan. He was happening. By the way, I always
47:57
Speaker 1: wonder about as as she's gonna be Allians fan. Yeah,
48:03
Speaker 1: I listen, I value my mental health and that was
48:08
Speaker 1: That's what you're talking about all the time, right, It's
48:10
Speaker 1: like mental health as wealth. For my mental health. I
48:15
Speaker 1: was never Alliance fan. And it's crazy because my husband's
48:18
Speaker 1: a huge Lions fan. He was at the Cowboys game.
48:25
Speaker 1: And uh no, I mean so my mother, as y'all
48:29
Speaker 1: know from being the book, you know, she spent some
48:31
Speaker 1: time in Oakland, um, you know, and that's where I
48:34
Speaker 1: was I think conceived, okay, and so because of that,
48:38
Speaker 1: she liked the forty nine ers, and so you know,
48:40
Speaker 1: she would root for the Lions and for the forty
48:42
Speaker 1: nine ers. She really liked Joe Montana. That was like
48:44
Speaker 1: one of her favorite players. And so I just you know,
48:47
Speaker 1: they were winning and went with that team. Why would
48:50
Speaker 1: you not go with the winning team? Right? So it's like, well, greted.
48:53
Speaker 1: You grew up in South Carolina, so y'all didn't have
48:55
Speaker 1: your own NFL team, and a lot of a lot
48:57
Speaker 1: of black fans that were not in um NFL cities
49:01
Speaker 1: were Cowboys fan. Even something that words like in DC
49:04
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of a not so quiet secret.
49:07
Speaker 1: There's a lot of Cowboys fans in DC, right and
49:10
Speaker 1: so at any rate, so I just became a fortey
49:13
Speaker 1: nine Ers fan. I've been with him, um, you know,
49:15
Speaker 1: ever since. But Robert Sali was like a great coach
49:17
Speaker 1: for US. So I when he was going through that
49:19
Speaker 1: last year with the Jets, I was like, this dude
49:21
Speaker 1: about to shout. He about to show them because he's
49:23
Speaker 1: got the he gets players to buy in, certainly from
49:26
Speaker 1: a schematic standpoint, like he's a really good coach. What
49:30
Speaker 1: about the cow Girls. I mean, offense still look a
49:34
Speaker 1: little rough, Shore do look a little rough. But that defense,
49:37
Speaker 1: it's a championship level defense. And this was the kind
49:40
Speaker 1: of defense I wish Tony Romo would have had. You know,
49:43
Speaker 1: that's that that's no, in no way a shot at
49:45
Speaker 1: Dak Prescott. But people like to as you know, um,
49:49
Speaker 1: they like to hate on Tony Robo, but they forget
49:51
Speaker 1: that he had categorically some of the worst defenses in
49:54
Speaker 1: NFL history. And I was like, damn, if they've had
49:56
Speaker 1: this defense with him, y'all might have won it. Y'all
49:58
Speaker 1: might have won a couple, but it didn't Giants got
50:01
Speaker 1: the second best record in the league. You know who
50:03
Speaker 1: beat them? No, here we go, y'all go through this
50:07
Speaker 1: on the Daily Show. You know we beat the Giants, right,
50:10
Speaker 1: the third best thing. But I like the Cowboys, but
50:15
Speaker 1: you know I'm picking them over the forty n Right.
50:18
Speaker 1: You know we're going to bowl the shit when championships.
50:21
Speaker 1: We know, we know that in San Francisco. That's why
50:24
Speaker 1: we had to come to Dallas last year. Give y'all
50:26
Speaker 1: a peace. Okay, we appreciate you for you go get
50:30
Speaker 1: up Hills all right now much. I appreciate y'all. Oh,
50:34
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to say one last thing about
50:35
Speaker 1: Jamil Hill. When I announced my show, she called me
50:38
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night from Portugal. You're in Portugal. No,
50:40
Speaker 1: I wasn't in Portugal, but I was. I was somewhere
50:42
Speaker 1: out of the country. Was I in France? Maybe I
50:44
Speaker 1: was in south of France hanging with this dude said remember, oh, yeah,
50:51
Speaker 1: you were here. Okay, so maybe I was, but I
50:52
Speaker 1: was gone. She was gone. I went on the night.
50:55
Speaker 1: She was like, I just want to say congratulations. I
50:57
Speaker 1: was like that, it's so nice. Yeah, No, July, I'm
51:01
Speaker 1: really proud of you for doing your thing. And as
51:03
Speaker 1: I wrote in the note to you in the in
51:04
Speaker 1: the book, is that you um you know the agency
51:08
Speaker 1: you betting on yourself. Like that's very not just admirable,
51:12
Speaker 1: but it's very inspiring for somebody like me who throughout
51:15
Speaker 1: this this season of my career, that's what I've done.
51:17
Speaker 1: It's like better myself. So I love seeing other women
51:20
Speaker 1: do um. You know the same thing, y'all. Get on,
51:27
Speaker 1: my girl. Let me tell you something. I was late.
51:29
Speaker 1: They were v with stressed because he had to do
51:31
Speaker 1: my job. Because you want me to leave. Thank you.
51:40
Speaker 1: Get up Hill, Jamal Hill her memoirs out right now.
51:43
Speaker 1: It's right. I'm trying to be a best seller, y'all. Oh,