Speaker 1: Question Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to another episode of Questlove Supreme.
Speaker 1: Quess Love. What is up? Crew? Uh see, we have
Speaker 1: a may bill. How are you? Everything? Everything's good, left
Speaker 1: on the street, remains on the street. Everything's good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was about to say, I commend you. I haven't
Speaker 1: told you yet, but you guys handled that. Uh. Elmo
Speaker 1: discovers racism like autum's been working real hard on that,
Speaker 1: and we did some COVID town halls. We did we
Speaker 1: did race town halls and it's been going pretty well,
Speaker 1: this partnership of CNN. Yeah, it's cool, alright, alright, So
Speaker 1: we also got a fine tacolo in the house. What up?
Speaker 1: What's going on? New smoke coming out? Anything? Anything coming up?
Speaker 1: For UM? I mean I've been working on a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff that's about to come out. Mainly I just
Speaker 1: been bumping the cardio MiG joint. That's been my text. Thanks,
Speaker 1: I gotta admit. Yeah. Yeah, and uh, Steve, you're doing
Speaker 1: all right? I mean sugar Steve. Yeah, I thought we
Speaker 1: were friends now so I can dress you by your
Speaker 1: Christian name. Christian were you and I are back at work. Now,
Speaker 1: how does it feel? We get tested every day, so
Speaker 1: we're safe. Yea rabbit test, y'all trump? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: how y'all rabbit test? I got tested? We get tested
Speaker 1: every day, you know, and you get your results and
Speaker 1: how how short time yet your brain? No one, I
Speaker 1: gotta admit, I gotta admit. Okay. So there's like four
Speaker 1: different nurses that do it. Um the idea of the
Speaker 1: sexy nurse, who are called the S and M nurse
Speaker 1: because she wears these like really weird STI little heels.
Speaker 1: Like everyone everyone fights to be in her room. He's
Speaker 1: also the person and like, god damn, she damn nearly
Speaker 1: cleans your brain out like she her bedside manner is
Speaker 1: too rough. So I like the the other gentle nasal tester.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we get tested every day. Like to answer
Speaker 1: your question, yes, I asked. Our guests get tested. It's
Speaker 1: always listen, it's always it's always customary that we say
Speaker 1: hello to each other first, so that people know that,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't picker. How how are you like?
Speaker 1: I'm good? Ebody should know that I am sweating because
Speaker 1: I am very excited about our guests, and that's why
Speaker 1: I'm sweating. But that's good. Well, yes, let's get to
Speaker 1: our guests. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome our guest today. She
Speaker 1: is a four time Daytime Emmy Award winner. Yes, is
Speaker 1: a lawyer, a journalist of course. She is host of
Speaker 1: her own true crime series and called Investigation Discovery UH.
Speaker 1: Future bestselling author uh this fall. She has a book
Speaker 1: called I AMBS Truths, a memoir of identity, justice and
Speaker 1: living between two worlds. That is extreme. We're all excited,
Speaker 1: but is mega excited about this? Now to be outdone?
Speaker 1: Your first uh s, I'll say fiction or your first
Speaker 1: UM novel will also beyond one entitled uh Summer on
Speaker 1: the Bluffs, which has nothing to do with Curtis Snow.
Speaker 1: But I saw that. I was like a minute that
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with Curtis Snow Snow on the bluff.
Speaker 1: She is also I like to think of myself as
Speaker 1: a chicken farmer as well because of where I'm quarantining.
Speaker 1: She's a fellow chicken farmer uh from the Bookie down Bronx.
Speaker 1: But she's based lead you know, well known and loved
Speaker 1: as a member one fifth of the fiery, passionate, informed,
Speaker 1: and opinionated ladies uh known as the crew from the view.
Speaker 1: Let my fellow cue all unlesson's also know that the
Speaker 1: five of us have very good for We generally agree
Speaker 1: on most things around here. Can you guys imagine if
Speaker 1: like me, Stephen Layer were kind of like Megan, Abby
Speaker 1: will be into it anyway, Please welcome to you all
Speaker 1: that sunny hostin Please thank Yeah. Okay, I have one
Speaker 1: question for I want to get the first question out
Speaker 1: before right now. No not does it get exhausting if
Speaker 1: I'm being honest, you know, um, it gets exhausting for
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons. But I think it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to maintain um, your composure when you're talking about things
Speaker 1: that people generally feel uncomfortable talking about, and you know
Speaker 1: you're talking about them in front of three million people,
Speaker 1: and you know you have to come back and talk
Speaker 1: about them again. So you can't burn bridges, but sometimes
Speaker 1: you want to. You kind of want to not only
Speaker 1: burn them, you want to blow them up. And it's
Speaker 1: also hard as a woman and a woman of color
Speaker 1: when I know that there are all these tropes out
Speaker 1: there all the time, angry black woman, two emotional, irrational
Speaker 1: um and I know because I hear from our viewers
Speaker 1: that they feel that I represent them, um, and so
Speaker 1: I do not want to be a poor representation of
Speaker 1: the people, So I have to think about all that
Speaker 1: when I'm there. Yeah, I feel like for a lot
Speaker 1: of viewers of the show, especially pre COVID, I will
Speaker 1: say that there's a majority of the people that I know,
Speaker 1: especially like where Steve and I work. Steve and I
Speaker 1: work at thirty Rockefeller Plaza. So I think oftentimes people
Speaker 1: think like, oh, well, I'm cool roots, uh the roots
Speaker 1: in a mirror, so I'm not racist, or I'm not
Speaker 1: you know, or those things where it's like, well, your
Speaker 1: friends with your coworkers, so thus you're on the right
Speaker 1: side of history. I often feel as though I feel
Speaker 1: like you and Whoopee might be the only point of
Speaker 1: view of a person of color or a woman that
Speaker 1: most of Middle America or I want and I don't
Speaker 1: want to just say like only housewives watch the view,
Speaker 1: like anyone who's home during those morning the afternoon hours
Speaker 1: watches it. But yeah, yeah, I was gonna say that.
Speaker 1: I often feel as though people channel into YouTube for
Speaker 1: opinions that they might otherwise not know about because they
Speaker 1: don't have friends that they're close to, so I feel
Speaker 1: like there's an added pressure on you. But when the
Speaker 1: when the cameras are off and the show is done,
Speaker 1: how awkward is that walk back to the dressing room
Speaker 1: for the five of you, especially if it's unsettled. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it depends on the day, you know, in all honesty,
Speaker 1: because we know we have to Yeah, I mean, we know,
Speaker 1: we know we're going to uh work together the next day.
Speaker 1: Um and we may have had a really uncomfortable conversation.
Speaker 1: And what a lot of people don't know is, you know,
Speaker 1: we're totally unscripted. We don't know when anyone is going
Speaker 1: to say, we know the topics, we don't even know
Speaker 1: the questions that are coming at us. So after it
Speaker 1: blows up and we're giving our honest feedback, especially during
Speaker 1: these times at COVID and the pandemic and this presidency
Speaker 1: and you know, this administration, and I think what's become
Speaker 1: a racial reckoning, tempers are flaring, um and and sometimes
Speaker 1: it's hard to you know, look at your colleague and
Speaker 1: not be emotional and upset and wondering where where where
Speaker 1: did that come from? Most times, though, I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: we we reach back out to each other. It may
Speaker 1: take a day, it may take two days, but um,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's immediate. We will text each other, we
Speaker 1: will call each other, UM and say what was that. Um.
Speaker 1: We we have that relationship with each other. Now we've
Speaker 1: done that, guys. Yeah, yeah, not which we've done. We've
Speaker 1: we've done that happens. You have to because at the
Speaker 1: end of the day. It's kind of like another family too.
Speaker 1: So you know this. You always like each other, you
Speaker 1: do love each other, and you you know, want to
Speaker 1: make sure that you know that right. Yeah. And we're
Speaker 1: dysfunctional like every other family you know. So there it
Speaker 1: is what it is. And imagine a family that you
Speaker 1: didn't choose, um, and a family that is we're all
Speaker 1: very different, different ages, different backgrounds. We we are as
Speaker 1: different as you could be, all thrown together. I watch
Speaker 1: you maneuver with the age thing, and that's why I
Speaker 1: see you and to see you and whoopy, because that's
Speaker 1: the interested in area, because you'll have very different backgrounds
Speaker 1: and very different views at times. A lot of times
Speaker 1: you get this the same, but sometimes your experiences and
Speaker 1: her experience is coming to and I watch you, you know,
Speaker 1: gracefully go in your mind to me, I go, you go,
Speaker 1: that's my elder. Let me listen to her. And absolutely, absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know, I think at least that's how I was raised. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you're speaking to someone of a different generation.
Speaker 1: You do that with respect. Even if you disagree, you
Speaker 1: just disagree respectfully. Not everyone was raised that way, but
Speaker 1: that's how I was raised. So that's how I comport myself.
Speaker 1: How how hard is it, especially when you have to
Speaker 1: give so many teachable moments in sound bites within these
Speaker 1: like eight to nine minute increments, and the five of
Speaker 1: you have the platform, Like I will say right now,
Speaker 1: the five of us have a rhythm or energy that
Speaker 1: we didn't have maybe the first twenty episodes where we
Speaker 1: were talking on top of each other that sort of yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't say anymore, that's my rhythms. But oftentimes, uh, well,
Speaker 1: you've been there for two years now, correct, four four okay,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, has been two years long, so
Speaker 1: even in being there were four years and new blood
Speaker 1: comes in, um, you know, and oftentimes, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that often when producers or executive producers are looking
Speaker 1: for someone to fit in, they're thinking about ratings, they're
Speaker 1: thinking about who who's controversial, who's rebel rousers? So you
Speaker 1: kind of you kind of have to wonder like who's
Speaker 1: there just to be the sound bite of the moment
Speaker 1: on social media or who's there to really make a
Speaker 1: teachable moment to teach America and teach each other about
Speaker 1: how you feel as a human, Like how hard is
Speaker 1: it to talking sound bites that are sustinct and and
Speaker 1: to the point, and also trying to make a teachable moment?
Speaker 1: Like do you ever feel as though, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously I'm trying not to make this about Megan, but
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, like, do you ever that there will
Speaker 1: be a teachable moment for her? Where sorry? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there have been some, but I almost feel like
Speaker 1: sometimes it's nine steps for it and then backwards. M hm.
Speaker 1: As as far as like, how concerned are you about
Speaker 1: making a teachable moment in which the person really understands
Speaker 1: and not in that way where it's just like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're an exception to the rule, you're the good one.
Speaker 1: But yeah, well, you know, I think when I when
Speaker 1: I am um thinking in the moment, I'm a quick thinker.
Speaker 1: I think pretty quickly on my feet. I think it's
Speaker 1: my training as a lawyer. UM. But I know what
Speaker 1: my job is, UM. And I know my job is
Speaker 1: to teach. My job, you know, when you have that
Speaker 1: kind of platform, you have to teach. And I'm not
Speaker 1: only trying to teach or inform my colleagues, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to inform someone in you know, somewhere someplace in the
Speaker 1: country that hasn't heard that kind of point of view.
Speaker 1: Like you mentioned earlier that I'm sometimes the only person
Speaker 1: of color that they that they've seen, that they that
Speaker 1: that they can engage with. Um. And people do engage
Speaker 1: on social media, that's absolutely sure. UM, And so I
Speaker 1: I I try to do that. I will tell you
Speaker 1: that it's pretty difficult, especially when it's a topic that
Speaker 1: I know is of great import right. UM. And I
Speaker 1: know what I say is gonna be all over the media. UM.
Speaker 1: I know people are gonna interpret it and misinterpret it.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty difficult. Our show does a really
Speaker 1: good job of at a break saying, Sonny, did you
Speaker 1: say what you needed to say? Megan, did you say
Speaker 1: what you need to say? What did you say what
Speaker 1: you need to say? And if you're watching, oftentimes what
Speaker 1: we will continue the conversation and that's because during the
Speaker 1: break we've said we didn't get that out, we didn't
Speaker 1: get that straight. I need to correct myself. UM, But
Speaker 1: it's it's waiting. Why is she always last? I'm like Megan,
Speaker 1: if you don't get in there in the second, I
Speaker 1: think she feels I think she feels most comfortable, um,
Speaker 1: waiting to hear what everyone is saying, because she really is. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, she's the youngest on our on our show.
Speaker 1: And I really believe quest to your initial question, that
Speaker 1: she is a work in progress, Like she is really
Speaker 1: thinking things through. She's going through a lot of changes.
Speaker 1: We're talking about, you know, the death of her father,
Speaker 1: her hero, being pregnant for the first time, married, newly married,
Speaker 1: having you in her life, having like me um, it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know those who are a lot of changes, with
Speaker 1: a lot of um in front of the public, um
Speaker 1: at that age, in your early thirties. And and she's
Speaker 1: really um, she's learning a lot of a lot of things.
Speaker 1: I think she's questioning a lot of a lot of things.
Speaker 1: While she's formed some opinions, they change my change. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I hear things and I think, okay, you know, I
Speaker 1: may I've never agree with that, but I can understand
Speaker 1: where you're coming from, and that's what our show is about. UM, well,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's changed all of us. Joy will
Speaker 1: tell you that all the time she's been on the show,
Speaker 1: from the very beginning, except of a couple of years
Speaker 1: she got fired, and she she's a changed person because
Speaker 1: of it. She's a changed person. And each host does
Speaker 1: change you in ways that is very surprising. It's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I I understand more about conservative women than
Speaker 1: than I ever have or even cared to. Really, what
Speaker 1: is it that you think you understand? Now? What is
Speaker 1: the show helped you understand that you didn't before? You know?
Speaker 1: One of the things that I grew up in the
Speaker 1: South Bronx, right, so, UM, and I grew up with
Speaker 1: a certain group of people. I didn't grow up in
Speaker 1: the middle of the country, although I did go to
Speaker 1: law school in the middle of the country. So my
Speaker 1: experience is more varied than most people. But my close
Speaker 1: friends UM tend to mirror my opinions. We we we
Speaker 1: agree with each other most of the time. Now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I'm learning Okay, Well, if you have never,
Speaker 1: let's say, experience the kind of poverty I experienced. You
Speaker 1: take for granted a lot of things, and it takes
Speaker 1: someone to say, you know what, not everybody has health care,
Speaker 1: so you feel sick, you immediately get to go to
Speaker 1: the doctor. I've had the occasion in my family someone sick.
Speaker 1: We don't have health insurance, we don't have the ability
Speaker 1: to go to the doctors. So we're sick and we
Speaker 1: go to work and we get other people sick. So
Speaker 1: we're not being reckless, so to speak, because we want
Speaker 1: to be We need to feed our families, and that's
Speaker 1: Those are the kinds of exchanges that we've had backstage,
Speaker 1: you know, where people are like, that's reckless, that's reckless.
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, that's poverty. And and I can understand
Speaker 1: why she may feel that way. Someone one of the
Speaker 1: hosts may feel that way because it's just not in
Speaker 1: her experience. She doesn't have the bandwidth. She's learning it,
Speaker 1: you know, and learn how great America isn't like three
Speaker 1: you guys. She's she's she's really she's learning things and
Speaker 1: we're learning from her as well. So it's it's good
Speaker 1: to have have um someone who just has a different opinion.
Speaker 1: It's it's funny you say that because, um, I think
Speaker 1: in my second year thirty rock, like I think like
Speaker 1: maybe one death and one major sickness. I had to
Speaker 1: like sit out for like more than a day, and
Speaker 1: the first time I was like really really sick, like
Speaker 1: with the flu, they were kind of like, you know, well,
Speaker 1: why the hell are you are you in? Like you
Speaker 1: could have got a sub to sit in for you.
Speaker 1: And you know, I came from an upbringing where like
Speaker 1: I mean, your limbs could be hanging off, yep, you
Speaker 1: still like you still work worked it, and they couldn't
Speaker 1: understand that mentality, you know. And meanwhile, like you know,
Speaker 1: one of them will have the sniffles and then like
Speaker 1: run immediately to the ninth floor to like the nurses office.
Speaker 1: I'm like, just get a Kleenex. Like I'm learning the
Speaker 1: cultural different and whatnot. Well, you mentioned the South Bronx.
Speaker 1: That's I know, that's where you were born. Could you
Speaker 1: give us a brief synopsis of what, like you your
Speaker 1: formative childhood was, like like the type of household you
Speaker 1: you know, I think my my my childhood was a
Speaker 1: lot like so many of us. My parents were teenagers.
Speaker 1: My mom was seventeen when she got pregnant, my dad
Speaker 1: was eighteen. They got married. Um, but she had to
Speaker 1: get a g D. You know, she had all these
Speaker 1: dreams of of going along school. Actually my father want
Speaker 1: to go to medical school. It didn't happen for them.
Speaker 1: He had to find a job. She got married, they
Speaker 1: got married, she stayed at home with me, and you know,
Speaker 1: there were plenty of days with no My father actually
Speaker 1: is here visiting me from North Carolina because my son
Speaker 1: just graduated high school. He said, he said to North Carolina.
Speaker 1: I'm gawn. That's why I was. Really, he's right here.
Speaker 1: He drove ten hours because he can't get on a plane.
Speaker 1: He's in the seventies. Wasn't gonna miss his grandson's graduation
Speaker 1: even though it was virtual. Um, we couldn't go with
Speaker 1: New York. Huh yeah, and he um, he said to
Speaker 1: me yesterday, he said, uh, we were worried about the
Speaker 1: power going out. And I said, that's okay. I just
Speaker 1: I'll just put some hot water on the stove. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, if it gets cold, and I'll heat up
Speaker 1: the room. And he was like, you remember that. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that because there were a lot of days
Speaker 1: when we didn't have he didn't have water. We didn't
Speaker 1: have food, open up the oven that that you know
Speaker 1: that My cho was like, there's a lot of days.
Speaker 1: But we always had love. That was the inch instinct
Speaker 1: thing like we we we always had loved. My parents worked.
Speaker 1: It was hard for them to get a job. Um,
Speaker 1: and I will say for us, education was really important.
Speaker 1: For them. It was it was the game changer. They
Speaker 1: felt that that was a game changer. So we didn't
Speaker 1: watch a lot of TV in our house, but there
Speaker 1: were a lot of books and it was sort of
Speaker 1: you know, my mom's from Puerto Rico, so I think, um,
Speaker 1: a part of it was and so Spanish is my
Speaker 1: first language, but it was Spanish and English, same household
Speaker 1: books and work hard even though we don't have a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, she would make my clothes, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But we had love and we worked hard and things
Speaker 1: would get better. That was sort of the the vibe
Speaker 1: um growing up. And I didn't even realize we were
Speaker 1: that poor. Are they still married? They're still alive. Um,
Speaker 1: they're not married, but they date, which is really awkward word.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, Sunny, I didnt get to that part
Speaker 1: of the book. I'm just at the part when a divorce.
Speaker 1: That was shocking. Yeah, it's so awkward. He's at the
Speaker 1: house now she lives here. So how long have they
Speaker 1: been seeing each other? Yeah? I would not like that.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't like where, how what? I have so many questions,
Speaker 1: how do you do that? So ridiculous? Didn't really feel man,
Speaker 1: he want that old thing back? Can I just tell
Speaker 1: you though, it's funny in reading your story, Sunny, so
Speaker 1: many parallels in that way. My parents are the same way.
Speaker 1: They don't go together, but they're best friends even though
Speaker 1: they've been divorced for thirty years. Like it's just funny.
Speaker 1: And reading your story because you're an only child too,
Speaker 1: so it just affects you really differently, differently. I was
Speaker 1: devastating when they got divorced. I was upset for like,
Speaker 1: my whole world blew up, you know, they blew up
Speaker 1: my world and now they have the nerve to be
Speaker 1: at my house in the kitchen. It pisses me off.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you. It was a break. It
Speaker 1: was a great so during the time period that you
Speaker 1: grew up in the South bronx Um, what were your
Speaker 1: teen years into of course? I mean our our our
Speaker 1: podcast is music heavy Um, I'd be remiss it if
Speaker 1: I didn't ask about I mean, he grew up in
Speaker 1: the birthplace for where hip hop was actually born. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In memoir like huh like man party jams and those things,
Speaker 1: and I really did, I really did. I mean break
Speaker 1: dancing was kind of big back then. Um as well,
Speaker 1: Crazy Legs was out there. I remember going to the
Speaker 1: Tunnel and seeing Slick rick Um performed with Douggie Fresh.
Speaker 1: I was I just I loved music. I loved loved music. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess you go out because I was warn't because
Speaker 1: I wasn't necessarily allowed to go out, but I went out.
Speaker 1: I snuck out sometimes, you know, as a little bit
Speaker 1: of a rule breaker. I wasn't really allowed to go
Speaker 1: out because also, you know, I was I was young.
Speaker 1: I was twelve in high school and sixteen in college.
Speaker 1: I was like, yo and so, but your parents, My
Speaker 1: parents are more like you know, my mom was kind
Speaker 1: of like straight, but at the same time she's like, damn,
Speaker 1: your friends are going out, so maybe you could spend
Speaker 1: the night out and that's when you spend the night
Speaker 1: at the house, but then you go to the club,
Speaker 1: right mys. My parents, um no, they were like you're
Speaker 1: too young. And I looked young too. I looked as
Speaker 1: bad young. So it was kind of, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a sneaking out type of thing, trying to make myself
Speaker 1: look older. Bounces inn't like, you know, they said, bounces
Speaker 1: back the day, picking people to get in. Um, they
Speaker 1: knew what I looked like. Probably sure I looked sixteen, Um,
Speaker 1: but it was it was you know, I I loved music,
Speaker 1: I loved hanging out with my friends, breaking night, you know,
Speaker 1: that kind of that kind of thing. But I will
Speaker 1: tell you when my parents, um, after my uncle, Um,
Speaker 1: my uncle got stabbed during an altercation and I saw it.
Speaker 1: I was with him when it happened, and my mother
Speaker 1: said he was almost killed. Um he laidter died as
Speaker 1: a competent. I did, yeah, and it was it was horrible.
Speaker 1: My family decided, you know, we can't live with this
Speaker 1: kind of violence around us all the time. So they
Speaker 1: kept on trying to get an apartment in Manhattan. But
Speaker 1: because they're an interracial couple, they couldn't get an apartment.
Speaker 1: They would go together, and you think about it, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, redline is such a problem, and racial bias
Speaker 1: and housing is such a problem. But this is the seventies,
Speaker 1: and they could not get a place to live together.
Speaker 1: But interracial marriages had just been sanctioned by the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court in sixty seven. They got married sixty eight, So
Speaker 1: you know, seventies, there weren't that many people that that
Speaker 1: were married from different races then. So my mother went
Speaker 1: on her own and filled out an application in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: and she changed her name from Rosa to Rose, and
Speaker 1: she changed She used to go by her maiden name,
Speaker 1: which is Beza, her father's a Spanish Jew, and she
Speaker 1: changed it to Come. She used my father's last name Coming,
Speaker 1: so she became Rose Comings. And if you look at her,
Speaker 1: she she doesn't look of color. And she got an
Speaker 1: apartment in Manhattan and we moved Dald Bronx, and when
Speaker 1: my dad and I showed up, you could imagine the shock.
Speaker 1: So I got the opportunity when I was um going
Speaker 1: to high school. I I lived in Manhattan in a
Speaker 1: better neighborhood and was able to hang out at the
Speaker 1: clubs in Manhattan too, So that was that was the upshot.
Speaker 1: But I split my time because my Fami, most of
Speaker 1: my family was still the Bronx I mentioned after in
Speaker 1: the book, and the memoir you when you tell that
Speaker 1: story about your uncle, because sorry, it was still good.
Speaker 1: I made a couple of notes, and he said, you
Speaker 1: said that it marked the beginning of having to straddle
Speaker 1: multiple worlds, which to me started to make sense as
Speaker 1: a viewer of the view and the way you handle things.
Speaker 1: And you just talked about how it becomes natural and
Speaker 1: necessary to juggle motherhood, career, loving and knew and old friends,
Speaker 1: and how when you moved to Manhattan your old friends
Speaker 1: and the Bronx was like, oh, you knew right. They
Speaker 1: still trip on me. It's so funny. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you fancy now still this day because I have the
Speaker 1: same friends I have any friends. Getting jumped on the subway,
Speaker 1: I was like, sunny, I got just I did. I
Speaker 1: got jumped on the subway. Can you tell the guys
Speaker 1: the story please? Because I did, you did. It's horrible,
Speaker 1: So it's horrible. I um. I used to have to
Speaker 1: take the subway to subways, two trains um from where
Speaker 1: I lived to this private school my father insisted on
Speaker 1: sending me to on Park Avenue. And it's like I
Speaker 1: had never experienced anything like that. You know, it was
Speaker 1: certainly not my world and but he wanted a better
Speaker 1: life for me. So they enrolled me in this this
Speaker 1: private school with these fancy uniforms. But everybody else getting
Speaker 1: dropped off, you know, being driven there and I'm taking
Speaker 1: the subway and I got the outfit on, and you
Speaker 1: become a target immediately. You're you're just a target, so
Speaker 1: like I know, street ways, but they knew that I
Speaker 1: was somehow different. And this group of girls would always
Speaker 1: get on the six train, always gone six train, and
Speaker 1: it was about six of them, and they would just
Speaker 1: taunt me. Oh you this us that. Look at where
Speaker 1: you get those shoes, Look at that uniform when you
Speaker 1: go to school. It was just oh, that was constant,
Speaker 1: you know. And I have very long hair. My hair
Speaker 1: was like waist length, and they would say, um, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: look at that hair, that's why you think you're cute.
Speaker 1: And it was it was constant. It was workout three
Speaker 1: or four months, and I realized we must all go
Speaker 1: in to school in the same area because we were
Speaker 1: on the same train at the same time trying to
Speaker 1: get to school, and I would try different cars and
Speaker 1: they would just find mem and they find me, and
Speaker 1: I think it was just like they're they're you know,
Speaker 1: their morning fun quite frankly. And then one day they
Speaker 1: were quiet, and I was like, oh, maybe it's over.
Speaker 1: I literally they literally we get off of this at
Speaker 1: this at the stop there's a six street Manhattan, and
Speaker 1: they unp me. They take one of my like my grade,
Speaker 1: and just cut it off, just one. So I got
Speaker 1: one long grade and just nothing, I mean. And I
Speaker 1: was so traumatized. And and I had never really looked
Speaker 1: them in the face, because that's New York real. You
Speaker 1: don't look at the people in the face because because
Speaker 1: now you're challenging someone. So I would hear them and say,
Speaker 1: but I would just just cursory glance. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I ran to the school. The school called the police,
Speaker 1: and they kept on saying, do you want to identify them?
Speaker 1: I was like, one, I don't really I didn't look
Speaker 1: them in the face. And two can you imagine if
Speaker 1: I identified them, you know, then I gotta get on
Speaker 1: the train again. I just it's just not a good
Speaker 1: right um. And so I spent the next you know,
Speaker 1: I would say, six months, avoiding taking the train, walking
Speaker 1: to school, you know, walking miles to school, taking a
Speaker 1: buzz pretending to be ill. I have to. You know,
Speaker 1: my cousins were like, you know, trying to take me
Speaker 1: to school. Um, it was, it was. It was an
Speaker 1: interesting you know, you're straddling two worlds, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's I think so many of us we call
Speaker 1: it code switching now, but um, I think many of
Speaker 1: us are are sort of used to doing that. And
Speaker 1: I'm used to doing that on the view too. I Mean,
Speaker 1: there are times I gotta tell you, I feel like
Speaker 1: my head's gonna explode, explode, and I can Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel like falling back into a certain code, but I
Speaker 1: just know that it's not It won't serve anybody well
Speaker 1: to do that. But the theme is is that you
Speaker 1: constantly do this. And even when you were describing the
Speaker 1: intricacies of being from a Puerto Rican side of the
Speaker 1: family and a family who is from the South, and
Speaker 1: the difference between being the light skinned cousin and the nigrita,
Speaker 1: like the way you broke down and understood early your
Speaker 1: your position and even though it upsets you, but you
Speaker 1: were like, I get it, Yeah, I get it. It's
Speaker 1: interesting when you, I think, when you live between worlds
Speaker 1: like that, you know, like my father's family, he was
Speaker 1: the first one that didn't marry a black woman, and
Speaker 1: I'm my mother's and my mother's family, she was the
Speaker 1: first one that didn't marry somebody that was either Latino
Speaker 1: or white quite frankly, so they were you know, so
Speaker 1: I was in unicorn. And on my father's side, they
Speaker 1: never accepted my mother. They didn't really like it, and
Speaker 1: because he was like, you know, cream of the crop
Speaker 1: and why he had to marry her. And I think
Speaker 1: that happens with some southern families and it's understandable giving
Speaker 1: our history. And on my mother's side of the family,
Speaker 1: they they accepted him, but it was more like for me,
Speaker 1: I was always negrita, negrita, negrita. Even in Puerto Rico
Speaker 1: negrita and Spanish people will tell you that that's a
Speaker 1: term of endearment, but I don't think it is a
Speaker 1: little bit about all. That's what it sounds like to me.
Speaker 1: And it always felt like that, and they were like,
Speaker 1: it's a term of endearment. I'm like, but it's phrase.
Speaker 1: Base is colored base. I don't like it. And I
Speaker 1: would say all the time, don't call me that, you know,
Speaker 1: but they um, but they would ever stop when you said,
Speaker 1: just um, No, not when I was a kid. They
Speaker 1: don't dare now, but you know, no, when I was
Speaker 1: a kid. No, it's like that's a term of endearment.
Speaker 1: Just take it, just take it. And then you still
Speaker 1: hear it in the Latino community, you know, Nagaragara. And
Speaker 1: then on my father's side, it was always like, you know,
Speaker 1: they hated my mom or didn't like my mom. Hate it.
Speaker 1: It's strong work, but it was like, um, you know
Speaker 1: most little girl, the pretty little girl, pretty light skinned girl,
Speaker 1: the girl with the good hair. And it's like, so
Speaker 1: you don't like the marriage, but you are exalting the
Speaker 1: product of the marriage, product of right. That doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense. So it was it was sort of I was.
Speaker 1: I grappled with that my whole life. I didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't quite understand it. And even today I write in
Speaker 1: the book about um I was with Anna Navarro, Don Lemon,
Speaker 1: I was with Anna Navarro, I was the Don Lemon
Speaker 1: um Candy Carter and I think just yeah, we were
Speaker 1: eating lunch to get a candy used to be. She's
Speaker 1: now the executive producer at Tamrin Show, but she was
Speaker 1: my executive producer at the View and Candy's African American.
Speaker 1: Y'all know Anna Navarro, um, and y'all know don No
Speaker 1: he'd been treated lately. He'd been he didn't turn into
Speaker 1: Don Lemon Pepper as of late. I was real black
Speaker 1: now I was away. I'm always grouping on him. I
Speaker 1: think he had a transformation in Ferguson when we were
Speaker 1: there and he got too dog. We were both there,
Speaker 1: but he uh, you know, we were talking and Anna
Speaker 1: was like, my real name is assun un and um
Speaker 1: and it was kind of like, you know, I find
Speaker 1: not the thought you Spanish, I was really and and
Speaker 1: she only seemed to figure it out when j Lo's
Speaker 1: mom and I were talking speaking in Spanish. And I
Speaker 1: should know that your viewers we have we observed that
Speaker 1: as well. I'm glad you did. I was like, what
Speaker 1: how how how would you not know that you were
Speaker 1: with me at CNN. I mean, I've done hits for
Speaker 1: CNN Espanolan. I don't I don't understand that. And I
Speaker 1: think for her it was more like because I was
Speaker 1: always so vocal about the black community and trey Von,
Speaker 1: and she kind of thought, well, she's just black, like
Speaker 1: she couldn't be anything else. And then so we we
Speaker 1: kind of got over that, and she said, but I
Speaker 1: apologize to you because I don't know. I just I
Speaker 1: didn't see you as a multi dimensional person. And then
Speaker 1: Candy said the same thing. Candy was like, well, I
Speaker 1: owe you an apology too, because she told me one day.
Speaker 1: I kept on wondering why when we were booking shows
Speaker 1: like m O K shows, um and you know other
Speaker 1: other shows, they never asked me for my connects. I
Speaker 1: was like, why don't the books come to me? I mean,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of black people. It was like,
Speaker 1: y'all can't find anybody, why don't you come to me?
Speaker 1: Let me open up my rollo dex. And she kind
Speaker 1: of mentioned to me one day she was like, well,
Speaker 1: you're not really black. I was like, so, Whoopie's the
Speaker 1: only black person on the side. I was like, it
Speaker 1: was just very surprising to me. And her opinion was
Speaker 1: she saw me as more Latina. And so you have
Speaker 1: these two women, one ones black ones Latina. I'm both
Speaker 1: and they are sort of erasing me from both communities,
Speaker 1: from from both sides. And then Don Lemon. Don and
Speaker 1: I've been friends of a really long time, probably maybe
Speaker 1: twenty years or so, and He's just he was like,
Speaker 1: welcome to Sonny's world, because I mean that's you know,
Speaker 1: he's dealt with his own issues, I think, being a
Speaker 1: black man from the South and a gay man, so
Speaker 1: he's he's traversing very his world and his fiance is white,
Speaker 1: so he certainly has to deal with um a lot
Speaker 1: of different different issues. Well, once again, how exhausting? Is it?
Speaker 1: Very very exhausting? So what are what are family gatherings
Speaker 1: like now for you? Because make it out in the
Speaker 1: kitchen already told that the kitchen. No, no, no, I
Speaker 1: just mean, you know, there's a point where if a
Speaker 1: light shines with you, or if there's a success in
Speaker 1: your life, then you'll see a lot of people's tunes
Speaker 1: start to change. Um. And I guess maybe I've just
Speaker 1: started to come to grips with how to you even
Speaker 1: deal with that? Um? I mean no, I was always
Speaker 1: like a family black sheep, and then I don't like
Speaker 1: it once Once you make it, then it's like cousin
Speaker 1: Ami jay Z has come to do you can get
Speaker 1: those calls? Yeah, I was gonna say, like with those
Speaker 1: do you attend you know, family reunions and those things
Speaker 1: or yeah, I didn't for a while. Um, I didn't
Speaker 1: for a while, and then um My, my father's mother
Speaker 1: passed and I saw everyone for the first time at
Speaker 1: her funeral in a long time, and I missed them very,
Speaker 1: very very much. When my mother's mother passed, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: unfortunately we get together what weddings and funerals a lot
Speaker 1: of families. And when my mother's mother passed, I realized
Speaker 1: how far apart I had started become from, you know,
Speaker 1: both sides of my family, just in terms of trying
Speaker 1: to work hard and like you said, kind of being
Speaker 1: the black sheet you know, um, the other I think
Speaker 1: it's brought us closer. Um. Now, I think they're passing
Speaker 1: has brought us closer, because now more than ever, I
Speaker 1: think we need our families. I think we need our
Speaker 1: support systems. Um. And when you are the one that
Speaker 1: makes it, I feel a certain sense of responsibility, um
Speaker 1: to help the others in my family that just haven't
Speaker 1: been able to do as well. You know, I got
Speaker 1: cousins in prison, I've got you know, other cousins that
Speaker 1: just can't afford to put their kids through school. And
Speaker 1: so I've stepped in the gap in the in those
Speaker 1: places because I just I think when one of us
Speaker 1: makes it, we can really make a change for our families.
Speaker 1: So I I have done that. I've taken it upon
Speaker 1: myself to make sure that that I do that. So
Speaker 1: how is all thing? Is that? Because as a black
Speaker 1: person to be the one who made it, like a
Speaker 1: lot of people, what is your relationship with the word no?
Speaker 1: And I'm not asking as the host of this podcast,
Speaker 1: I'm I need life less. Uh you know I am.
Speaker 1: I am not great at it. I've become better at no.
Speaker 1: I'm certainly good at no when I think that it
Speaker 1: isn't good for the person asking. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to help you if if it's going to help
Speaker 1: you destroy yourself. Um, you need you need money for
Speaker 1: your next fix, You're not gonna get it from me.
Speaker 1: But I do have trouble saying no when I know
Speaker 1: I really shouldn't pile one more thing on my plate.
Speaker 1: I try to make the time and self care I
Speaker 1: think is really important, and um, I don't I know
Speaker 1: realize that I don't spend enough time doing that because
Speaker 1: you know, if mommy unravels um or your wife, you
Speaker 1: on novels, everything on rabbles, the thing falls apart and
Speaker 1: I start start things. What is your self care thing, sonny,
Speaker 1: because you do yours all day a whole mom. And
Speaker 1: then you go and then you got my chickens. I
Speaker 1: got fifteen and I stared a place that once had seven. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then raccoons. I didn't know how like vile foxes
Speaker 1: and records are like they've done. They go, they go,
Speaker 1: they come right underneath. They even have things called chicken
Speaker 1: moles that just they just like to eat chicken and
Speaker 1: like you know, attack chickens. Well we have, we've we
Speaker 1: lost a few at first. Um. And then my husband
Speaker 1: he's really handy and can fix anything. He put like
Speaker 1: the steel gauge mesh underneath the coop underneath the chicken run. Um.
Speaker 1: And so we were good for a while. And then
Speaker 1: we decided they should free range because we live we
Speaker 1: live outside the city. Uh. We were letting the free
Speaker 1: range and then we had a hawk attack. We had
Speaker 1: a hawk incident. Chickens, chickens were flying everywhere. I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it. I was screaming, that's everywhere, like ridiculousness. Man,
Speaker 1: chickens got chickens got coming from above from underneath. They
Speaker 1: say hawks were supposed to be hunt. They supposedly hunt
Speaker 1: and uh that solitary hunters. But there we was there
Speaker 1: was more than one hawk. Um My vet said, it's
Speaker 1: um possible that there was like a mother hawk teaching
Speaker 1: a baby hawk. But anyway, no, I mean, but I'm
Speaker 1: in Westchester County. That's by you, right A mirror is
Speaker 1: that that's you out here? They've been doing that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can I just say, speaking of hawks, Sonny, I want
Speaker 1: to you to share with the guys um your initial
Speaker 1: list for a mate. Um uh. And I know that
Speaker 1: because Sunny hawk down, she hawked down on her husband.
Speaker 1: Manny Um, I know that. Bill, if if I tell
Speaker 1: you will find this fast? Did I did? I found
Speaker 1: him in church? I say we met in church? In church?
Speaker 1: You did him? Didn't meet a church? No? You know
Speaker 1: you saw him in church there? Okay, our souls met there.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying. Well, well, what had happened.
Speaker 1: What happened was that my mother said that my problem
Speaker 1: was that I didn't go to church enough. That's why
Speaker 1: I couldn't meet any good men because I was a
Speaker 1: serial dater. I was. I was dating a lot of
Speaker 1: athletes and musicians and stuff like that. I won't tell
Speaker 1: you musicians. I won't tell you which one. But here
Speaker 1: goes my husband peeking, poking in his head, Hey, any church,
Speaker 1: didn't meet a church? He just said, that's right, sweetheart. Man,
Speaker 1: he knows. So I decided I was training for a marathon,
Speaker 1: and I was in my sweats, like you know, training outfit,
Speaker 1: and I ran into a church just to kind of
Speaker 1: just jones and my mother just to you know, goofind
Speaker 1: her and calling back and say, yeah, I met the
Speaker 1: priests in the church. And I sat in the back
Speaker 1: and and these two fine men walk in and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, they're nice looking men in the church.
Speaker 1: And my husband goes to church every Sunday, but he
Speaker 1: goes to church in a suit and said he had
Speaker 1: a suit on. And it turns out that the church
Speaker 1: was across the street from Johns Hopkins University, where he
Speaker 1: was in medical school. But I didn't. I didn't know that,
Speaker 1: you know, because I was kind of new in town
Speaker 1: in Baltimore, and uh. I did stay at the church
Speaker 1: and I went, you know, listen to everything, and then
Speaker 1: I followed him outside of the church. Of course, did
Speaker 1: she meet him at y'all? Did she meet him yet?
Speaker 1: Met him? The process. I met him in the church,
Speaker 1: so then I I After we met in the church,
Speaker 1: then I followed him to the bagel shop and I
Speaker 1: approached him and uh, I said, Hi, I'm new in town.
Speaker 1: And I said, wasn't that she wasn't this discernment to
Speaker 1: the homily so beautiful in the church? And he was, like,
Speaker 1: you were in the church? I said, I I was,
Speaker 1: But he just kept on looking at me because I
Speaker 1: had a ridiculous outfit on. I mean I had, I
Speaker 1: was sweaty, I mean, I looked crazy, but I was
Speaker 1: in the church. And he was a little bit dismissive.
Speaker 1: But he had everything I wanted because I always wanted
Speaker 1: a man of faith. I found out at the bagel
Speaker 1: shop that he was in medical school, so he had
Speaker 1: something he wanted to do. You know, he was he
Speaker 1: was on a track of um having a career. I
Speaker 1: wanted someone to smoke spoke more than one language. That
Speaker 1: was important to me. I found out that he was
Speaker 1: born in Spain. His mother's from Spain, his father's from Haiti,
Speaker 1: so he spoke Spanish. Spanish was his first language. Then
Speaker 1: check then, so I got three checks. Now, then I said,
Speaker 1: well where are you from? Because I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe he's from a corny place and maybe he won't
Speaker 1: have like a vibe. He was like, I'm I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I was born in Spain, but then we moved to
Speaker 1: New York. So I was like check check shack, you know,
Speaker 1: the same day. I mean, it's so good. Then he said, uh.
Speaker 1: We started talking about where he was, you know, went
Speaker 1: to school where. Then I he pledged, he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a member of Camp Alpha Saternity. I was like,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh okay. I was like, it's just
Speaker 1: so good, and um I did well, we'll say I.
Speaker 1: I always said that my husband had to be over
Speaker 1: six feet tall because I'm not short. Uh. He did
Speaker 1: not meet that that that one qualification, but I didn't
Speaker 1: really notice it then because I was all I saw
Speaker 1: was shininess because he's very good looking in the face,
Speaker 1: and he walks real tall and he's real muscular. So
Speaker 1: I really didn't notice the height until later. So I
Speaker 1: had to give that up. Right, I'm taller than him
Speaker 1: if I have heels on, yes, I am. I never noticed.
Speaker 1: I never noticed, but I called my friend and I
Speaker 1: was like, I met my husband. He don't know it yet,
Speaker 1: and She was like, oh, so he must do this.
Speaker 1: He speaks Spanish, he's from New York, he's this, and
Speaker 1: he's what is he six four? I was like, you
Speaker 1: like you in the face. I was like, he's real
Speaker 1: good in the face. The grill is working. I was like,
Speaker 1: everything is good. But I don't think he's over six
Speaker 1: ft so, but we did meet in church. This sounds
Speaker 1: one of those rudy but this is one of those
Speaker 1: Rudy budd moments. Yes, of course. I guess your entry
Speaker 1: to where you are now starts with law school. Will
Speaker 1: you can you say that is it that you're that
Speaker 1: you're the manifestation of your parents uh dream to become
Speaker 1: that professional? Like are you the result of that? How
Speaker 1: did you even get how did you have interest in injustice?
Speaker 1: And is my mother? I actually wanted to be a
Speaker 1: broadcast journalist and my mother freaked out. She was like,
Speaker 1: what is that gas? So gay? So? And I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, you you put the news on TV. But
Speaker 1: you gotta think in the eighties there weren't you know,
Speaker 1: this wasn't like Oprah. You know, Oprah wasn't who she became.
Speaker 1: And um, I think in New York there was like
Speaker 1: Carol Jenkins. But there there just wasn't a lot of representation.
Speaker 1: I mean there still isn't, but there just wasn't a
Speaker 1: lot of representation and media. And she she thought that
Speaker 1: the best way to financial security, especially for a woman,
Speaker 1: law medicine, law medicine. She became a teacher, and she
Speaker 1: was like, you gotta you need to become a lawyer.
Speaker 1: She's like, you like to talk a lot, you like
Speaker 1: to argue a lot. You got allays, that's what you
Speaker 1: gotta do. And so I took the ls as. What
Speaker 1: was fascinating was I loved law school. But I would
Speaker 1: not have thought of it if not for my mother,
Speaker 1: because I did argue all the time, and I felt terrible,
Speaker 1: like when I saw the inequity, it bothered me. It
Speaker 1: bothered me, But I wanted to tell those stories as
Speaker 1: opposed to fighting for it in the courtroom. And I
Speaker 1: think it was certainly my mother because she lived a
Speaker 1: dream deferred because that's what she wanted to do. Right
Speaker 1: Is that just a myth our parents sold us? Because
Speaker 1: now there are I have I have to say that
Speaker 1: outside of the entertainment profession, a lot of my friends
Speaker 1: are those medical students and those law students either I
Speaker 1: played a spring fling twenty years ago, like the roots
Speaker 1: did something, and then I got to know them professionally whatever,
Speaker 1: and none of them seemed to be living. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about is that a lie that America has taught us?
Speaker 1: Because what's weird is when I last went to Cuba,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, we're not last Cuba. Uh my connect there
Speaker 1: told me that parents grew their kids to be in
Speaker 1: the hospitality. Because when you're a driver, when you're a
Speaker 1: taxi driver, especially the way that the economy is there,
Speaker 1: you can you can you're rich like me as a
Speaker 1: Cuba and rent a driver for a week and that's
Speaker 1: damn near like a year's worth of pay for it.
Speaker 1: Where doctors, none of the doctors, because they get paid
Speaker 1: the same thing as socialized medicine. Right, Yeah, Like is
Speaker 1: do lawyers kicking the dough as we've been holding fed
Speaker 1: this point? You can make a significant amount of money
Speaker 1: as a lawyer. Um. I know when I first got
Speaker 1: to a law school, I went to a law firm,
Speaker 1: and I mean I was making a ton of money.
Speaker 1: I hated working there. I didn't like it. I was practiced,
Speaker 1: I was practicing litigation, medical malpractice insurance defense, um. And
Speaker 1: so it wasn't necessarily boring, but you're basic. We sold
Speaker 1: to the highest bidder, right, so you've got these corporations
Speaker 1: that can pay you to defend their their maldis, their
Speaker 1: their misdeeds. And I just felt like I didn't go
Speaker 1: to law school and do as well as I did
Speaker 1: to defend this. I just I didn't feel good. It
Speaker 1: didn't It didn't feel right. But you can't you can't
Speaker 1: do quite well. Um. And I think we we have been.
Speaker 1: And you know, medical doctors they don't do as well
Speaker 1: as they used to do because of insurance companies. But
Speaker 1: it's it was it's sort of a solid living, right,
Speaker 1: It's like a safe it's it's it's a safe job.
Speaker 1: It's a safe job. And I mean, my husband is
Speaker 1: a surgeon. He loves it. But both of his parents
Speaker 1: and doctors as well sisters a doctor. You know, it's
Speaker 1: sort of the family business in a sense. But his
Speaker 1: his parents are immigrants, and that was the dream, you know,
Speaker 1: you go, you become a doctor, You're gonna and go
Speaker 1: to America. You're gonna do really well. And they did.
Speaker 1: But I think I don't think that as people of
Speaker 1: color we had. We had them my parents at least
Speaker 1: felt as people of color. We didn't have the ability
Speaker 1: to dream like that, Like, you're you're gonna try to
Speaker 1: do what after we've struggled and skimped and you know,
Speaker 1: saved to put you through school, that's what you're gonna do?
Speaker 1: You want to be on TV? It just it made
Speaker 1: no sense to them that that that's like a recipe
Speaker 1: for failure. You could fail doing that, but if you
Speaker 1: go to law school and and and do well, you
Speaker 1: can get a job. It's like punching a ticket. It's
Speaker 1: it seemed that's the safe way to do it. Sounds
Speaker 1: like somebody out now but in in a remix though now, Sonny,
Speaker 1: it's funny. I was listening. I was talking to a
Speaker 1: girlfriend whose whose son is in college, and she was
Speaker 1: kind of a conversation with him about how we were
Speaker 1: Traditionally we are told to go to college and out.
Speaker 1: These kids these days are like, no, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily have to go to college because I can't.
Speaker 1: I learned how to code to do this. I can
Speaker 1: do this. So do you feel like it's at the
Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah, we're all being It's like now it's
Speaker 1: another era of reprogramming, right, it definitely is another error.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm raising these generations z kids, um,
Speaker 1: seventeen and fourteen mina night. Yeah right, they're you know,
Speaker 1: they are different because they have so much information at
Speaker 1: their fingertips. Um They're not looking through encyclopedias. And I
Speaker 1: feel it's double edged sword because my son, who's very bright,
Speaker 1: will like say something and I'm like, where did you
Speaker 1: get that? And he thinks like he he thinks he can.
Speaker 1: He knows more about, you know, an orthopedic injury than
Speaker 1: his father because he googles something, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like he knows a little better than I do because
Speaker 1: he googles something. So they have they have this cavalier
Speaker 1: attitude I think sometimes for its information. But I do
Speaker 1: think that they realized that the world is pretty broad
Speaker 1: and you know that they can there are a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunities for them. He even mentioned at one point,
Speaker 1: you know, not everybody needs to go to college. But
Speaker 1: I will tell you my reaction was, you need to
Speaker 1: go to college because I still think that if you can,
Speaker 1: and not everyone can because it's too it's overpriced, and um,
Speaker 1: it's not accessible to everyone. And I don't think everyone
Speaker 1: was meant to go to school, you know, to go
Speaker 1: to college. You don't necessarily need it, but I think
Speaker 1: if you can, it's education can still be um an equalizer.
Speaker 1: I do believe that it can still be an equalizer.
Speaker 1: At least it was for me. And it can provide
Speaker 1: tremendous opportunity. And a lot of it is socialization the
Speaker 1: people that you meet there. Yeah, it really is a network.
Speaker 1: But now even that's being redefined that now that everyone
Speaker 1: is doing we're all doing it from home him now,
Speaker 1: So yes, you know, what is college in one? You
Speaker 1: know what I mean, it's it's a different thing. It's
Speaker 1: a different thing. Well, i'll tell you. My son decided
Speaker 1: to take a gap here instead of starting college because
Speaker 1: he was, like my husband was dancing up, jumping up
Speaker 1: and down, because he didn't want to pay the money anyway.
Speaker 1: But it's like for virtual and for us, you know,
Speaker 1: I thought, well, why should he go to a college
Speaker 1: and sit in the dorm room and you know not
Speaker 1: and be alone in the dorm room and then all
Speaker 1: the classes were going to be virtual and he was
Speaker 1: gonna eat in his dorm room. There was really not
Speaker 1: the real college experience. So he decided to take a
Speaker 1: gap here because of everybody's gap here, this is all
Speaker 1: of us. Did you see that episode of black Is
Speaker 1: that's like a whole thing for black people. Now we're
Speaker 1: doing that. Yeah, yeah, it's the gap here. Yeah. When
Speaker 1: he first mentioned it to us, we were like, you
Speaker 1: are nominally Obama, You're not going to do Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was a little I was a little uncomfortable with it,
Speaker 1: but it made sense after a while. It's like high
Speaker 1: school extended. But also I think I think, I think
Speaker 1: gen Z is also the first generation that you know,
Speaker 1: my parents were definitely the product of you know, safety
Speaker 1: and security and getting good job and uh back on
Speaker 1: that sort of. I think that gen z on will
Speaker 1: go with their first instincts, their first passions, and yes,
Speaker 1: roll with it, because yeah, you and I basically like
Speaker 1: the same thing. Like my dad had plans for me
Speaker 1: to do something way different and you know, I had
Speaker 1: to hide for a long time that I was in
Speaker 1: the rap group and all this other stuff. Zy about it.
Speaker 1: They about it. They've been gen Z. They've been watching
Speaker 1: police snuff videos since they was twelve, so you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Like, so they know me, So wait,
Speaker 1: so let me ask you all the question on the
Speaker 1: sense of that, because since they are reprogramming, reprogramming the
Speaker 1: whole way we're supposed to think now, even on the
Speaker 1: subject of like race and sex. And I was gonna
Speaker 1: ask Sonny how you feel about that, because it's interested.
Speaker 1: I was just I was watching, Um, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you'll watched this show, I may destroy you or
Speaker 1: whatever it said. I'm waiting for the finish. I was
Speaker 1: gonna just take them all. They okay, well, there's just
Speaker 1: an episode. It's just interesting the way that they're redefining uh, sex,
Speaker 1: sexual assault things at these nature and they were talking.
Speaker 1: It was an episode where the girl was having sex
Speaker 1: with someone willingly and he took the condom off right,
Speaker 1: and know she was like, you assaulted me right now.
Speaker 1: Rewind ten fift years ago, we would just be like
Speaker 1: that motherfucker's an asshole, fuck you, right. But now these
Speaker 1: kids are like, no, that's assault, and it's just everything
Speaker 1: is different, like this language from sex, race, everything is
Speaker 1: just do you find yourself since you're on TV every
Speaker 1: day playing this catchup game of trying to absolutely absolutely
Speaker 1: to think you think, you know, I try to remain enlightened.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm trying. I'm trying to plug in all
Speaker 1: the time and get the information and make sure that
Speaker 1: um that I'm growing along with with every movement. UM.
Speaker 1: I will say, you know, I think it's really difficult
Speaker 1: to parents during these times because you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: your it's your worst nightmare. The boy. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: some of you know your your your child's accused of
Speaker 1: assaults or your child is assaulted or um, not understanding
Speaker 1: you know, the new societal norms. UM. I spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time talking about consent, talking about what assault is,
Speaker 1: talking about respect, talking about you know, they go to
Speaker 1: very progressive school though, so UM the school covers a
Speaker 1: lot of those issues, which is which is good. But
Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time trying to be informed
Speaker 1: and trying to and making sure that they are informed
Speaker 1: because I think people are very awake to their rights,
Speaker 1: which is a good thing, UM, and to to be
Speaker 1: ever changing. You know, we got into an argument like
Speaker 1: this on the show, but like what is PC I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, in my view, you know, people used to
Speaker 1: be able to say whatever they wanted uh to other people,
Speaker 1: and now people are like, no, don't say that to me,
Speaker 1: and I think respect is at the core of so
Speaker 1: many things, and I've been making sure that my kids
Speaker 1: really fundamentally understand other people's rights and respect that because
Speaker 1: that's where I think we were We're just missing. We're
Speaker 1: we're losing a lot in terms of our respect for
Speaker 1: each other. And we know it comes from the top.
Speaker 1: We know what we're seeing lately, but that's a fundamental problem.
Speaker 1: If I heard correctly, you said that your kids are
Speaker 1: seventeen and fourteen, Yeah, it might be the norm right now,
Speaker 1: but if you can go back to like two thousand
Speaker 1: and sixteen, November of two thousand six mm hm, how
Speaker 1: did you explain to them suddenly what was happening? Like
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine viewing the world, especially coming from
Speaker 1: where they came, where they were formative age, coming up
Speaker 1: in the Obama years. No way am I ever saying
Speaker 1: that that was a rosy time either. But it seemed
Speaker 1: like a more manageable time, and it seemed like we
Speaker 1: were headed in the right direction. Yeah, And I mean,
Speaker 1: it's what was wonderful. Wasn't it that that that I
Speaker 1: felt it was wonderful that my children had for their
Speaker 1: first for their cognitive years. They sold black President. I
Speaker 1: thought it was wonderful. You know, how do you explain
Speaker 1: in life to them now that the rug is seemingly
Speaker 1: been pulled from underneath them or even not even two
Speaker 1: like the idea of the riots, and how do you
Speaker 1: how do you explain that to them? Well, my children, UM,
Speaker 1: probably because of their mommy UM are are very our
Speaker 1: social um activists UM and their advocates. You know, my
Speaker 1: son was involved in a sitting at his school a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. UM, they're very well read. In fact,
Speaker 1: it was part of his It got so much press
Speaker 1: that it had to become part of his college essay.
Speaker 1: And when he was interviewed, almost every college interview brought
Speaker 1: brought it up and brought up this this question, you know,
Speaker 1: like what what made you want to become an activist?
Speaker 1: And and his his answer really was that he felt
Speaker 1: that there was a backlash to the fact that there
Speaker 1: was a black president. And my kids were very very
Speaker 1: noticeably shaken by the back what they perceived as a backlash.
Speaker 1: And and my my daughter, who she's only fourteen, UM,
Speaker 1: but she said she feels that this sort of you know,
Speaker 1: there's like a pendulum that swings, and that there were
Speaker 1: people in our country that felt that Obama being president
Speaker 1: for eight years took the pendulum too far and they
Speaker 1: wanted to bring it all the way back. And that
Speaker 1: was a really interesting perspective that I hadn't even thought
Speaker 1: of that way, that that's why we're seeing these extremes,
Speaker 1: because they thought that that was that extreme. Um So
Speaker 1: so I will say, I don't even know that I
Speaker 1: had to reconcile it for them. I think because they
Speaker 1: have so much information and they're so interested in the information,
Speaker 1: at least my children, they formulated their own opinions early,
Speaker 1: very early. I remember in in November two thousand and sixteen,
Speaker 1: I was bereft is very upset, and you know, they
Speaker 1: were like, how could this happen? He's such a joke,
Speaker 1: he said horrible things. Who would vote for him? There
Speaker 1: were things like that. You know, they were like, but
Speaker 1: he didn't, he didn't really win that. They were trying
Speaker 1: to really make sense of the process. Um. Even then,
Speaker 1: even in two thousand and sixteen, um M, well, it
Speaker 1: should be noted that you at least had your parents
Speaker 1: cake and you ate it too. Um. By stepping into
Speaker 1: the television journalism world, starting with Court TV and oh yeah,
Speaker 1: like okay, so what you should take this too higher
Speaker 1: level and kind of get to your dreams, like what
Speaker 1: was the what was that moment where you were where
Speaker 1: I obviously you were like, you know, well, I am
Speaker 1: going to pursue the journalism and it was. And I
Speaker 1: write in the book that, UM, I always know when
Speaker 1: I'm in the right place, when it feels like home,
Speaker 1: when it feels right, when I'm comfortable, it feels good. Um,
Speaker 1: the law firms didn't feel good. The Justice Department felt good.
Speaker 1: It felt like I was doing the good work, making
Speaker 1: good trouble. But then after I had my first child,
Speaker 1: I was really blowing in the wind, and I went
Speaker 1: back and went to a not a law firm making
Speaker 1: a lot of money, which was stupid to go back
Speaker 1: to a place I knew I wouldn't feel like home,
Speaker 1: and I was searching. But in the back of my mind,
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, I knew that I needed
Speaker 1: to follow my passion. And UM. I went to a
Speaker 1: meeting of lawyers and had the good fortune of meeting
Speaker 1: a television producer there from Court TV, who said, You've
Speaker 1: got to um, you know, you should be on television
Speaker 1: and I took that opportunity and I seized it and
Speaker 1: I really never let it go. I just I just
Speaker 1: never let it go, and I just kept on doing it.
Speaker 1: And I kind of got discovered that way, which is unusual, right.
Speaker 1: You know, you meet you meet a television producer, and
Speaker 1: you're on TV the next week, and then it never
Speaker 1: it never goes away. Um. And I feel like that's
Speaker 1: because it was my true calling and it was something
Speaker 1: that I was supposed to do. But I also had
Speaker 1: the benefit of being married to an orthopedic surgeon who
Speaker 1: could pay the bills and who could hold it down
Speaker 1: for me, and who was willing to do that because
Speaker 1: he basically had a talk and I was like, I
Speaker 1: think I'm leaving this law firm and this has been
Speaker 1: a dream of mine and I want to do it.
Speaker 1: And he basically said, all right, let's talk tonight. Got home,
Speaker 1: pulled up budgets and pulled up savings accounts and he
Speaker 1: was like okay. And he had just started his own
Speaker 1: practice and he was like, well, you know, and we
Speaker 1: had just bought a house and we just had a baby,
Speaker 1: two babies at that point, and he said I could
Speaker 1: hold it down for about three years. You think you could,
Speaker 1: You think you could make it in three years? Now,
Speaker 1: three years? And I said, yeah, I think I can.
Speaker 1: He said, they're doing That's significant, right, that's significant. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know that a lot of people with you know,
Speaker 1: he may have been he may have been short, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't short on cash. And the moral to this
Speaker 1: story to the baby journalists out there too, Sonny, not
Speaker 1: to say that you were also like still doing the work,
Speaker 1: like you were going to n A b J. You
Speaker 1: was doing some of the stuff that to say, all
Speaker 1: these other babies journalists are doing too. Yes, you gotta
Speaker 1: do it, you gotta do it. And I continue to
Speaker 1: do it. I continue to go to n I go
Speaker 1: to n H n h J, I do. I continue
Speaker 1: to go to I go to local meetings. I go.
Speaker 1: You got you have to you have to do it.
Speaker 1: You have to do the work, you know. I I
Speaker 1: text people, what do you think about this? What do
Speaker 1: you think about that? You know? I mean now I
Speaker 1: have it just a wonderful circle of of you know,
Speaker 1: other sister girl journalists who you know, we're we're actually
Speaker 1: on this text chain and we go back and put
Speaker 1: political um journalists as well. We go back and forth.
Speaker 1: You know, can you review this for me? What do
Speaker 1: you think about this position? What do you think about that?
Speaker 1: And it's uh, you know, Joy Reid has been Uh.
Speaker 1: I was just about to ask you how that. I
Speaker 1: was about to say, how how was that Zoe party?
Speaker 1: First week? The records? I just so good, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: And then and then Sunny too. It had a good time.
Speaker 1: The first show that she did with all the Black
Speaker 1: Mayor's I was like, Oh, they couldn't wait to do
Speaker 1: her episode. They was like watching together. It was so amazing.
Speaker 1: You know, we popped champagne with Joy after Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: And she's been She's been great. She's not only a
Speaker 1: friend but an inspiration. You know, she gave such amazing things,
Speaker 1: amazing work. But I have that circle that I can
Speaker 1: still depend on and count on. Um. And I say,
Speaker 1: young journalists, you've got to keep that network tight and
Speaker 1: and and help each other. Um. It's it's important. Yeah,
Speaker 1: since you're probably the only person that I know of
Speaker 1: that I'm in conversation with that is any proximity towards
Speaker 1: the Fox building? Yeah, I have to ask, all right,
Speaker 1: in general, is it is there general modus operandi that
Speaker 1: they believe what they're saying, or they know better what
Speaker 1: will still say toxic talking points for the sake of
Speaker 1: their bottom line, which is specifically you know, I know
Speaker 1: that you were a pundit. I don't even want to
Speaker 1: paint that you were oftentimes you were debating against Yeah
Speaker 1: what you know? First of all, how do they find
Speaker 1: do they find legitimate people that have like, how do backgrounds? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they found they found me on court tv UM. They
Speaker 1: saw me on courtv UM. Yes, there are some legitimate people.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean Chris Wallace is there. I actually
Speaker 1: think he's one of the finest journalists out there today.
Speaker 1: I thought Chef Smith was great as well, and I
Speaker 1: worked with him. I thought he was he was excellent.
Speaker 1: I think it's a mixed bag over there. I think
Speaker 1: there are some people who are saying these irresponsible things, UM,
Speaker 1: that aren't as talented as they should be, and they're
Speaker 1: doing it for ratings and um for their bottom line. UM.
Speaker 1: I also think there are some that really believe that,
Speaker 1: that are indoctrinated and truly truly believe it. My experience
Speaker 1: there was that you'd walk in the building and there
Speaker 1: was a collective there were collective points that they wanted
Speaker 1: to make that day collective points like on white boards.
Speaker 1: These are the three points and themes that everyone is
Speaker 1: going to um cover in their shows in various ways.
Speaker 1: Pundits are going to talk to it, Guests are going
Speaker 1: to speak to it, the anchors are going to pontificate
Speaker 1: about it. And they were marching orders. That's when Ailes
Speaker 1: was there. May be different now, but those were the
Speaker 1: marching orders, and everybody marched to those orders. It was
Speaker 1: it was like sort of a monolithic view and that
Speaker 1: was Roger Ailes's view. And then they would have a
Speaker 1: couple of people like me, maybe one Williams to kind
Speaker 1: of mix it up a little bit. Yeah, but by
Speaker 1: and large, UM, I think it's a mixed bag, and
Speaker 1: that some people just do it for ratings, but they
Speaker 1: all and and if you're doing it, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: for just ratings, you've sold your soul. You know, you're
Speaker 1: just you're just inauthentic. Um, You're you're even worse than
Speaker 1: the people that really believe it, right um. And and
Speaker 1: then there are people that I believe, really believe it.
Speaker 1: I do so knowing the fight and the struggle that
Speaker 1: we have UH in the next four months and what's
Speaker 1: working against the fight and whatnot. Um, you know, how
Speaker 1: do you see where journalism, be it news sources, be
Speaker 1: it the blackosphere, be it podcast be it uh talk shows,
Speaker 1: discussion shows, which there are plenty of now on television. UM,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you feel as though how
Speaker 1: effective that they will be? Oh? Well, very effective. We
Speaker 1: know that. Um, we know Fox has been extraordinarily effective,
Speaker 1: and we know, um, there are other programs that are
Speaker 1: extraordinarily effective. I will say this. I think that, um,
Speaker 1: there's a difference between journalists and punditry, right, journalism and commentators,
Speaker 1: journalists and commentators, and um, it's the line is so
Speaker 1: blurry for people intentionally so that UM, the media and
Speaker 1: network news and cable news, we all have to be
Speaker 1: very careful, um, I think and letting people know that
Speaker 1: this is a piece of commentary, This is an opinion piece,
Speaker 1: This is an op ed as opposed to these are
Speaker 1: the facts, Yes, these are the facts. Networks. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: finding you know, by and large. And I was talking
Speaker 1: to a couple of my journalist friends, t J. Holmes,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know him, Roberts and Pierre Thomas. Um,
Speaker 1: you know these are journalists and they're really concerned about
Speaker 1: that too. Lindsay Javis, who who moderated one of the debates,
Speaker 1: I think she was really our best moderator um that
Speaker 1: we've seen in the debates. Check that fly white suit.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, journalists need to continue doing that job.
Speaker 1: Just the facts, ma'am. And I also think there is
Speaker 1: an important space, um for shows like my show. I mean,
Speaker 1: when I'm not reporting on something, I am giving my opinion.
Speaker 1: The view is an opinion show, and we make it
Speaker 1: clear that these are our opinions, these are our views.
Speaker 1: There's a really important place for that to have that
Speaker 1: lively discussion so that you can hear those views but
Speaker 1: then make your mind up yourself. I tried to be
Speaker 1: very fact based in my arguments, not emotion right, because
Speaker 1: facts trump emotion no pun intended. Every single time, every
Speaker 1: single time you come at me with your emotional argument,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you, but these are the facts.
Speaker 1: Boom boom boom book. And the best example I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I I mean, I'm just gonna tell you that. This
Speaker 1: example of that was that conversation between Tips. I want
Speaker 1: to say Tiffany Cross is Tips Cross and Whoopi Goldberg
Speaker 1: about why we need and I know you've been very
Speaker 1: vocal on their needs to have black female VP and
Speaker 1: the woman of color black. Yeah, yes, because of course
Speaker 1: Miss duck Water will make a great Secretary of Defense
Speaker 1: and she would excellent and she would. But we need
Speaker 1: a black agenda. We need a reconciliation for the black community.
Speaker 1: You know one thing that's really fascinating to me about this,
Speaker 1: this discussion of black VP, and I have been very vocal.
Speaker 1: I was we were the first group UM to write
Speaker 1: an op ed in the Washington Post about the need
Speaker 1: for UM. We started that conversation. It was I wrote
Speaker 1: it with Tiffany. I wrote it with Angela Ry, Amanda Seals,
Speaker 1: Brittany Packet Cunningham, who's brilliant. UM. Latasha Brown was one
Speaker 1: of the co founders of Black Lives Matter, and we
Speaker 1: got together. We're on a thread talking, gad we got
Speaker 1: to make this happen UM, and we all agreed UM.
Speaker 1: And I've reached out to you know, Donna, Brazil, minyet more,
Speaker 1: all these people, and we you know, we have a
Speaker 1: we have a Black women think tank, we really do.
Speaker 1: And it was we need He's promised his black Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justice. That's great, but you're not getting the black
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justice unless you have the Senate. Okay. So
Speaker 1: so that's that's an elusively promise. What we need is
Speaker 1: representation at the table, at the table in the White House.
Speaker 1: And because black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: brought Joe Biden to the barbecue, resurrected his campaign in
Speaker 1: South Carolina. So I've spoken to her as well. We
Speaker 1: deserve that seat at the table. And for people to
Speaker 1: say somehow that it's not about race and it's about
Speaker 1: the most qualified. We've been hearing that argument all the time.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is every single voting block with
Speaker 1: power has a lobby and makes demands before they will
Speaker 1: provide their vote. Right, So you've got the gun lobby,
Speaker 1: you've got the evangelicals, all those groups will say we
Speaker 1: will support you, not maybe not gun lobby now, but
Speaker 1: we will support you if you give me this. Why
Speaker 1: is it when black women say we will support you,
Speaker 1: We will organize, we will bring our husbands and our children,
Speaker 1: and our sisters and our parents to vote during a
Speaker 1: global pandemic risking our lives. But you must give us
Speaker 1: this representative in the White House, we are somehow asking
Speaker 1: for too much. We're not doing anything else that any
Speaker 1: other voting block with power does. So I just I
Speaker 1: don't understand why there's been such pushback with that demand,
Speaker 1: because it's not a request, it's not a request, it's
Speaker 1: a demand, um that any other strong voting block makes.
Speaker 1: And now is the time because once he's in the
Speaker 1: White House, I mean the black agenda, what is really
Speaker 1: the black agenda? And if you've read Joe Biden's agenda,
Speaker 1: it's okay, it's a little squishy, it's not as specific
Speaker 1: as it should be. And you know he has he's
Speaker 1: an imperfect candidate and he has a lot to atone
Speaker 1: for when it comes to the treatment of Anita Hill
Speaker 1: and it comes to the crime bill and coration, because
Speaker 1: it has a lot to atone for. And I think
Speaker 1: because you know, no other candidate in the past fifty
Speaker 1: years Democratic Candida is one without the black vote. He
Speaker 1: needs to win over whelmingly because if not, the current
Speaker 1: occupant in the White House is going to have to
Speaker 1: be you know, it's not gonna want to get out.
Speaker 1: Black people got to risk their lives to vote now,
Speaker 1: got to stand in line because of COVID because of
Speaker 1: all the attack on mail and voting and where I
Speaker 1: don't think people are going to be as energized with
Speaker 1: Tammy dug Ward with you know, Kamala in the Senate. Concerned,
Speaker 1: I think, what do you think about vice president either
Speaker 1: in the Senate or as attorney general or you know?
Speaker 1: You know, I think that um Kamala, We've seen her.
Speaker 1: She is certainly the prosecutor in chief. UM. I know her.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, California is a lock for democratic senator.
Speaker 1: I'm not concerned about Kamala being in the Senate. I
Speaker 1: think she can be much more effective um as vice
Speaker 1: president and I'd like to see her debate Vice President Pence. UM.
Speaker 1: I think she's a really strong candidate in terms of
Speaker 1: being ready to occupie occupy the oval, because not everyone
Speaker 1: you know is Joe Biden is not immortal, and I'm
Speaker 1: not an agist, but he is going to be seventy
Speaker 1: eight and what he needs to think about is not
Speaker 1: the next four years. He needs to think about the
Speaker 1: next eight and the next twelve, because in three and
Speaker 1: a half years, the Trump administration has undone eight years
Speaker 1: of what the Obama administration did or was allowed to do. So,
Speaker 1: you know, you need someone that's able to kind of
Speaker 1: step in and I just don't know that, you know,
Speaker 1: and stepping and run because she has run the A G.
Speaker 1: S office. Um, you know she she she has the
Speaker 1: experience to run out of all the candidates that I've seen. Um,
Speaker 1: I think she has she has the experience to run
Speaker 1: a country. That That's just my take. What are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on Val Demons? I thought she was I was
Speaker 1: like that, I've interviewed Val. I think she's great. Um.
Speaker 1: I think if you look at at else um law
Speaker 1: enforcement record, it's a little problematic, it's a little problems
Speaker 1: It can be promited. Yeah, more than who's yes, yes, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean if you if you look at Kamula's I've
Speaker 1: read Kmula's book, and the thing is, you know, you
Speaker 1: get the black prosecutors get a certain wrap. Yeah, black
Speaker 1: prosecutors get a certain rap, right because unfortunately, there is
Speaker 1: the problem of mass incarceration. We know that black men
Speaker 1: are twice as likely as white men to get arrested.
Speaker 1: We know about broken window policing, and so that's a
Speaker 1: systemic problem. And when your prosecutor, you have to enforce
Speaker 1: the law. Laws are changed through legislation. Prosecutors don't get
Speaker 1: to change the law. What you do get to do
Speaker 1: is you get to make you have prosecutorial discussion. So
Speaker 1: you know, when I was a prose cuter, there were
Speaker 1: if I saw some uh, someone, the cop comes to
Speaker 1: me and he's got a confession, but the mug shot
Speaker 1: shows that the guy has two black eyes. I'm not
Speaker 1: taking that case to trial. Even if I think, huh,
Speaker 1: you know, he probably did it. If I only have
Speaker 1: that confession and he's been beaten up to get it,
Speaker 1: I have the discretion to say, this is not how
Speaker 1: you get to police. If you look at what Kamala did,
Speaker 1: she um really was instrumental in changing the way things
Speaker 1: were done in California, to her credit, working within that system,
Speaker 1: because sometimes you can't just blow up systems, you have
Speaker 1: to work within it. So I often say, you know,
Speaker 1: the black prosecutor. Prosecutors the person with the most power
Speaker 1: in the room. People think it's the judge. He the judge.
Speaker 1: People think, oh, I gotta get a good defense attorney.
Speaker 1: You need a prosecutor on that side of the table
Speaker 1: in that courtroom to make the right charging decisions, to
Speaker 1: the right recommend you know, sentencing recommendation, that's who you need.
Speaker 1: I will tell you that in my time as a prosecutor,
Speaker 1: I didn't charge people who um you know, I put
Speaker 1: people in drug diversion programs. I looked at the whole person.
Speaker 1: Because I'm from those neighborhoods. I know the decisions that
Speaker 1: people make, um are not just because they're inherently bad. Um.
Speaker 1: I know you know some of them are born in poverty.
Speaker 1: I I know what goes into all of this. So UM,
Speaker 1: I think that, However, when you look at val Demming's record, UM,
Speaker 1: there were um a lot of problems in her police department,
Speaker 1: but she had the ability to change that and a
Speaker 1: lot of those changes didn't necessarily happen. UM. So I
Speaker 1: think she's a great candidate. UM, but she's you know,
Speaker 1: she's going to come up if he chooses her, that
Speaker 1: it's going to be a little problematic when it comes
Speaker 1: to her history, UM with law enforcement, considering the reckoning
Speaker 1: that's going on now in our country. For that's sunny,
Speaker 1: you did the same thing for me. For with Amylo.
Speaker 1: You just like but but that's interesting. Do you know
Speaker 1: that before I interviewed her, people say it was a
Speaker 1: cross examination. I single handedly undid her campaign, and her
Speaker 1: campaign was very set after her appearance on our show.
Speaker 1: I mean, she was never questioned about her prosecutorial background
Speaker 1: in the way that Kamala was. She was never questioned
Speaker 1: about it until she came on the show. And do
Speaker 1: you know how I found out about it. They buried
Speaker 1: her team had buried that case. Um My on Burrell's case.
Speaker 1: Black activists d m me dm me on social media
Speaker 1: and said, we hear that Amy's going on the show.
Speaker 1: Can I send you some documents about the case? I said, sure,
Speaker 1: And sometimes I don't even look at Twitter. I don't
Speaker 1: even look at everything, you know, I just happened to
Speaker 1: be looking at it, and I read my husband will
Speaker 1: tell you. I mean, I was up all night. I
Speaker 1: couldn't I couldn't believe it. I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think her campaign felt that I
Speaker 1: ambushed them. And I heard there's a CNN document or
Speaker 1: HBO Max documentary now and CNN told some of the
Speaker 1: reporters that they can't believe they got scooped by a
Speaker 1: talk show host, which was kind of infuriating because I
Speaker 1: am a legal journalist, federal prosecutor, so I was like,
Speaker 1: what are they talking about? Yeah, come on now, and
Speaker 1: you worked on and I worked there, and you know
Speaker 1: it is the number one talk show in the country. UM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that part. But UM, I was surprised that I was
Speaker 1: the first journalist to bring it up, But everybody was
Speaker 1: bringing up commla's record. So black women do get examined
Speaker 1: in a in a way that's very different than white women,
Speaker 1: especially during this time when vetting and UM. I think
Speaker 1: Valerie Jarrett just came out with an initiative for the
Speaker 1: media called something like we have we have her back,
Speaker 1: and they're saying, if he picks a woman, especially a
Speaker 1: woman of color, media, you are to UM profile and
Speaker 1: report accordingly. Yeah, you are to do UM your jobs
Speaker 1: professionally and ethically. And I think it was really important
Speaker 1: for her to say that because I do not think
Speaker 1: that Kamala I don't think that UM representative BASS. I
Speaker 1: don't think that Stacy Abrams UM got got about demmings
Speaker 1: got appropriate treatment in the media. I really don't believe
Speaker 1: they did. Can I can I ask UM Oftentimes when
Speaker 1: I do watch news programs, sometimes I just wish that
Speaker 1: and I know that we're supposed to you know when
Speaker 1: they go low, we go high and quote, but I'm
Speaker 1: just saying that, you know, can't we and we as
Speaker 1: in whoever we we as in? Why are we playing
Speaker 1: as dirty or as devious? And I don't mean that's
Speaker 1: effective even yeah, as effective and as effective as it's
Speaker 1: almost like we already know that, we already know what's
Speaker 1: in line to your another four years in November. And
Speaker 1: it's kind like watching those old you know, Dolly do
Speaker 1: right snuff with you know, our futures on this uh
Speaker 1: conveyor belt headed towards a mule saw thing. And it's
Speaker 1: it's why can't we play as dirty? Why can't we?
Speaker 1: You know that's too loaded of No, it's not for me.
Speaker 1: You know. Joe Behard and I talked about this all
Speaker 1: the time. She's like, when they go low, we need
Speaker 1: to go low. She's putilistic, right, Um, I tend to disagree.
Speaker 1: I I just think it's it's I do I think
Speaker 1: that with facts on your side, with the law on
Speaker 1: your side, um, you don't have to play dirty. But
Speaker 1: it's like truth, yea like on like truth now is
Speaker 1: everyone you know the dangerous thing, like everyone picks their
Speaker 1: own facts now, Like it's not even is the winner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and even kind of to your point earlier sunny about um,
Speaker 1: you know you were talking about, you know, the difference
Speaker 1: between journalism and entertainment. I think that's kind of a big,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of problem because you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I was a journalis as a major, like in college,
Speaker 1: and you know, one of the things I see now
Speaker 1: and a lot of other like writers are talked about
Speaker 1: it of just kind of you have the conflation of
Speaker 1: journalism versus entertainment, where one is often masquerading as the other,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like we don't have a
Speaker 1: twenty four hour news cycle because of journalism. That ship
Speaker 1: is entertainment, you know what I mean, it's not you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So I think that is where
Speaker 1: the kind of going a lower thing comes in because
Speaker 1: it's like you kind of have to use we're not
Speaker 1: playing the same rules don't apply anymore like as they
Speaker 1: as they used to it. The aim has changed, that
Speaker 1: is true, But I just don't I think that if
Speaker 1: everyone is cheating, then you truly have the devolution of society,
Speaker 1: Like there has to be the standards, um and and
Speaker 1: and that's the that's the problem, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: think we can. I certainly think we can combat. Like,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna go low, I can be pugilistic and
Speaker 1: hit you back. I don't know that I need to
Speaker 1: go lower, you know, I just I I believe that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can hit back. UM, but I agree, I don't
Speaker 1: agree that you need to um resort to trickery. I
Speaker 1: don't think you need to then the rules. Um. I
Speaker 1: don't like that. I just um is not scaring you
Speaker 1: right now. For Kanye, I mean, from God, he has,
Speaker 1: but he hasn't. Can't do that with somebody with mental illness,
Speaker 1: Like that's okay, good nothing, Come on, black people, be
Speaker 1: true true suffering that yeah, really really suffering. He's really suffering.
Speaker 1: And I think what's important, what's really unfortunate is that
Speaker 1: you know, he's not getting the help he needs, right
Speaker 1: and he can't. He's not getting it. I mean it's
Speaker 1: hard to help a grown person with a lot of
Speaker 1: money and power to like that's the whole thing. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: what you're gonna gonna do institutionalize stuff has to hurt
Speaker 1: somebody like Sonny, you can, you can clear this up,
Speaker 1: but he literally has to physically hurt himself or somebody
Speaker 1: for him to be forcibly hospitalized. Correct, Yes, he has
Speaker 1: to be a dangerou to himself for others in California.
Speaker 1: Rob robbed, I don't know suffering he is. He is
Speaker 1: just I mean it is. And think about his old music, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I you know I could listen
Speaker 1: to it. I thought I thought it was like masterful.
Speaker 1: Some of it was masterful. And now you look at
Speaker 1: him and you're like, he is really suffering. My son
Speaker 1: was upstairs, he was working out, and he was listening
Speaker 1: to I can't remember. The song was like they're building
Speaker 1: tunnels up underwall me and I knowed then out of
Speaker 1: here with that ship like way sick. He's sick. I
Speaker 1: think he. I think he is who exactly who he
Speaker 1: has always been. But I think so, I think he'll
Speaker 1: like that. I'm not saying that. I'm not negating any
Speaker 1: of that. I'm not I'm not I'm not negating any
Speaker 1: of that. I'm just saying just in my very limited
Speaker 1: view of him. And as I've always said this, even
Speaker 1: before he started all this stupid Trump ship. You know
Speaker 1: when people always ask me, because you know, we work
Speaker 1: with each other very early, you know, on in his
Speaker 1: career before you know, he was Kanye Kanye. And the
Speaker 1: thing that I've been always telling people for years, you know,
Speaker 1: when people talk about the old Kanye versus the new Kanye,
Speaker 1: the thing I would always say it is like, listen, man,
Speaker 1: Kanye is the same dude he has always been. It's
Speaker 1: just now he has much more power, influence, and a
Speaker 1: bigger platform to be who he is. He's just become
Speaker 1: more of who we already was. So by my estimation,
Speaker 1: there is no old Kanye, new Kanye. It's the same dude,
Speaker 1: just with much more resources. You know, at his disposal,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Well, yeah, facts, Yeah, he's got to
Speaker 1: be sick. I mean if you saw that that I
Speaker 1: don't know what campaign speech or whatever was, I mean
Speaker 1: someone in such Yeah, he was in such pain. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my gosh, it just in the way
Speaker 1: it's resulting in this this racial thing. Because even in
Speaker 1: that speech, the way he was treating that black girl
Speaker 1: versus that it was, I just cannot believe that he's well,
Speaker 1: let's not. I don't, Yeah, I believe he's I don't
Speaker 1: think it. Just don't believe. I don't get into it.
Speaker 1: Is it? Well sick you don't have to believe that
Speaker 1: he's well, just believe that he's Kanye. I believe that
Speaker 1: that's Yeah, that's what the funk it is. And like,
Speaker 1: we ain't got time for this silly ship now, bro, Like,
Speaker 1: come on, man, we are we are less than a
Speaker 1: hundred days from the election, and and and we we
Speaker 1: I think as a community desperately need Joe Biden, even
Speaker 1: though he may be an imperfect candidate, we need him
Speaker 1: to win. And someone even you know, working against that,
Speaker 1: even sick is problematic. Well, look at the way we
Speaker 1: came together on that. That was beautiful. Yeah, we talk
Speaker 1: against Yeah, I ain't about to get here and argue
Speaker 1: with my people. No, that's wet. That's how funny be
Speaker 1: on the view. I ain't gonna argue with We'll be
Speaker 1: on TV, I know. Take it to the group chat.
Speaker 1: I will say that it's it's before we let you go.
Speaker 1: It's really endearing to watch you guys via your social
Speaker 1: media platforms during game night. I'm very envious these monopoly
Speaker 1: games like for real, Like it's my dream. I live
Speaker 1: with a bunch of people who believe in going to
Speaker 1: bed at like nine pm. They go they go to
Speaker 1: bed early they wake up at five in the morning
Speaker 1: and meditating all that stuff, and you know, like, I
Speaker 1: just want one. I want one good game night where
Speaker 1: I can flip over the monopoly table if I'm losing. Like,
Speaker 1: is that what the family is? Yeah? Whatever? I mean,
Speaker 1: we tried game nights, but you know everyone's I'm talking Tony,
Speaker 1: go no more team at your house. You know, we
Speaker 1: we get we get a little crazy. We're competitive by nature.
Speaker 1: Were competitive everybody. My father I posted yesterday we had
Speaker 1: a game night with my father. He started trash talking
Speaker 1: about ten minutes is a game? I think you haven't
Speaker 1: played Clue in a minute? Can you trash jockey? He's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: keep on playing, keep on playing. It's just it's just
Speaker 1: kind of a family dynamic that we have. Oh we
Speaker 1: played Clue. Just just ignorant. But it's been such a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing for us because you know, Manny usually leaves
Speaker 1: very early in the morning, Um to see patients. I
Speaker 1: usually leave early. The kids are you know, their athletes,
Speaker 1: so they're they're constantly running. This has been the first
Speaker 1: time in years. The one silver lining for us is that, um,
Speaker 1: we're home together, and we've been home together for months
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry, thank you. He's cute and he's cute.
Speaker 1: I know it's so ridiculous, those two, but I I
Speaker 1: love that we you know, we've all been able to
Speaker 1: spend that time together. And like the kids are serious
Speaker 1: about family game night. They're like, um, Thursday night, he's
Speaker 1: gonna get like they decide when we're gonna play, and
Speaker 1: they're just like, what, we're gonna play the top three
Speaker 1: games because we needed some new such suggestions for this point. Monopoly,
Speaker 1: and I would say probably it's a toss up between
Speaker 1: Pictionary and you know that, don't believe. Only thing is
Speaker 1: you gotta stack. The only thing is you stack with
Speaker 1: the same suite. So if it's a draw too, I
Speaker 1: can stack a draw too. But you can't put a
Speaker 1: draw four on top of a draw to like I
Speaker 1: go get it with it. Ye draws an't do that.
Speaker 1: Un that used to read with their fingers under the
Speaker 1: word game night. That's good for the coffee table book.
Speaker 1: What is the one thing that you've adjusted to since
Speaker 1: March or during the quarantine that you haven't before that
Speaker 1: you're that's now part of your regular repertoire. I've started,
Speaker 1: I've always cooked it, but I coockle up more, and
Speaker 1: I will say I started walking and running again. You know,
Speaker 1: remember I said I used was training for a marathon
Speaker 1: when I when I met my husband and church. It's
Speaker 1: been a long time since I have done it consistently,
Speaker 1: and I find that, you know, the one thing that
Speaker 1: kind of does give me a little self care is
Speaker 1: to try to exercise a little bit, a little. I
Speaker 1: don't like to sweat that much, honestly, but running or
Speaker 1: walking a couple of miles a day, it's, uh, it
Speaker 1: feels that feels good, and it's something that I just
Speaker 1: almost didn't make the time for before. I didn't just
Speaker 1: I don't know, I didn't I stopped doing that. So
Speaker 1: I would say that that's different for me. A little
Speaker 1: bit of what's your what's your fantastic it's probably award
Speaker 1: winning if I entered it into something, well let's talk
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah what shoulder? Yeah you can and I
Speaker 1: don't eat, but I certainly can make that everybody. That's
Speaker 1: my usually Thanksgiving and Christmas, I throw that, you know
Speaker 1: into the mix, but I would make it especially for you. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll be over. Ask you a quick technical question. Way
Speaker 1: y'all are taping the view, So are you you're still
Speaker 1: at home? They just gave y'all one background. Looked it up,
Speaker 1: didn't they, Because it wasn't always like that, like y'all good,
Speaker 1: we're still at home. What they did was when they
Speaker 1: realized that we would we would be doing this all
Speaker 1: season and probably likely into next season as well, they
Speaker 1: brought equipment into our homes. I mean, people had has
Speaker 1: mat suits on. It was really impressive. And ABC basically
Speaker 1: set trucks with equipment and people and has Matt suits
Speaker 1: to everyone's home and um, your driveway. No, they put
Speaker 1: them in like they built these kind of mini studios
Speaker 1: and each host home and so we have a big
Speaker 1: screen behind us. It's not a green screen. It's actually
Speaker 1: a huge monitor that pope that we have a picture
Speaker 1: um of where we generally the background of where we
Speaker 1: generally sit on the shade. That's what I was trying
Speaker 1: to I was like, yeah, and then we have our
Speaker 1: our lighting, and I mean they basically made sure that
Speaker 1: we could continue doing the show remotely. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's been a couple of little glitches because it's hard
Speaker 1: because you don't want to speak over each other, and
Speaker 1: so it's it's a little bit difficult, um, but we
Speaker 1: we don't have monitors, we have prompter. Now we have
Speaker 1: feedback where we can see each other. The first month
Speaker 1: we didn't have that and then it just they came
Speaker 1: in fixed it and you know, we interestingly enough, we
Speaker 1: used to be you know, sort of like number one,
Speaker 1: but they would break out syndicated and non syndicated, and
Speaker 1: now we're number one across the board, UM and all
Speaker 1: of State TV and Imagination this week. I know everyone's like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe you on vacation, but I think it's
Speaker 1: because we're we are at our best when we are
Speaker 1: just talking about the issues, even the uncomfortable ones. That's
Speaker 1: where we're at our best. So that's when people are
Speaker 1: at their best when they when they talk Sunny. I
Speaker 1: have to thank you because and I'm gonna thank you
Speaker 1: from all the people that I know that watch every day,
Speaker 1: from my dad to my best friend Khadijja, because although
Speaker 1: I know it's a heavy weight, you carry it so
Speaker 1: classy and so beautifully. And I just really saying that
Speaker 1: as I really appreciate you. I told you this at
Speaker 1: a mirror to Oscar party ones and I wanted to
Speaker 1: say something to you and I walked up to you
Speaker 1: and I was like, I want you to know I
Speaker 1: you and I appreciate you because we do. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. One quick thing I will tell you is
Speaker 1: that I was diagnosed with diverticulitis stress induced diverticulitis um,
Speaker 1: which is like an information of the intestines and stuff.
Speaker 1: And uh, yeah, I was. I was. I got really
Speaker 1: sick last last season, and and last season was a
Speaker 1: tumultuous season for us. I look like twenty pounds. I
Speaker 1: couldn't eat everything I ate bother my stomach. So I
Speaker 1: went to the g I doctor and he said he
Speaker 1: usually sees that in what I have in seventy plus
Speaker 1: year old women. Uh and then seventy plus And he said,
Speaker 1: but it's stress induced. Are you under an extraordinary amount
Speaker 1: of stress? And I was like, no, I'm not. I'm fine,
Speaker 1: I'm only the number one talk shows. Yes, no stress. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I realized that it is a heavy weight because I
Speaker 1: attribute that to the fact that there are things sometimes
Speaker 1: that I would like to say, um, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: all of you understand this. There are things that I
Speaker 1: would sometimes like to say that will result in my
Speaker 1: losing that platform. And I think it's too important of
Speaker 1: a platform to lose for our community. And so I
Speaker 1: do not say those things. But when you internalize and internalize, UM,
Speaker 1: you could end up with stress induced but diverticulitis. So
Speaker 1: I say that as an example because I really think
Speaker 1: it's important. If you're not on television talking to three
Speaker 1: million people, UM, you really have to talk it out right.
Speaker 1: You've gotta get all of that stuff out. And I
Speaker 1: think now it's more important than ever UM to do that.
Speaker 1: Not censoring. I'm not censoring myself, but I'm I'm trying
Speaker 1: to keep it classy at all times. Well, Sunny, I
Speaker 1: will cordially invite you to the quest Lot Supreme group chat,
Speaker 1: where you can say all the problematics you want to
Speaker 1: say all you can't say for the white people. It's
Speaker 1: like therapy from the It's like therapy. It's like therapy
Speaker 1: fruit Black group. Hey, group chat is the new social media.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna need to do a trade. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: need to get into that good light skin alloud group chat.
Speaker 1: She in with all her flat that's it going light
Speaker 1: skin and loud, get all the women she names. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, you know, I forgot to say Jamal
Speaker 1: Jamal Hills aloud. She don't know you're about the same
Speaker 1: complain y'all got the paper bag, Yeah we can wet.
Speaker 1: It was Geoyemal Alicia, Alicia Garza, my girl from CBS.
Speaker 1: A'ssisting for a girl sometimes that oh what's her name?
Speaker 1: She is so sharp with the short haircut. Oh my god. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We we do, we do, we keep. And what's great
Speaker 1: is sometimes when they see me on the show and
Speaker 1: they see that, I'm really, you know, drinking my teeth
Speaker 1: because I'm like, if I get in to this the
Speaker 1: last week. This last week, it was like, yeah, job,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna lose my job. I can't lose your job
Speaker 1: right there? Can? I ask? Is it possible? Is there
Speaker 1: a line to be cross on the view? Roseye O'Donnell
Speaker 1: said directly on the show, not like things discovered. I
Speaker 1: believe there are lines, and I always black people well anyways,
Speaker 1: but there's a line for everybody. I don't have a question.
Speaker 1: Since we're talking about this and in this time that
Speaker 1: we're in right now where seemingly everybody has an opinion,
Speaker 1: we're all encouraged to speak, speak up and speak out.
Speaker 1: At this point, certainly. And but on the other side
Speaker 1: of the coin, you say the smallest thing wrong, your
Speaker 1: job is at risk, your life is at risk, everything.
Speaker 1: So how do you navigate that, especially since it's your
Speaker 1: job to speak your mind in front of so many
Speaker 1: people every day. Yeah, well I I try to navigate
Speaker 1: it very carefully, um, while being authentic. But see, I
Speaker 1: don't really believe in what people are calling cancel culture.
Speaker 1: I don't really believe that that is that. I think
Speaker 1: it's accountability culture. You don't get canceled just for giving
Speaker 1: your opinion. You don't get canceled for you know, um,
Speaker 1: having an opinion that is different. You get held accountable though,
Speaker 1: for saying things that are racist, for saying things that
Speaker 1: are misogynistic you could get and and doubling down on
Speaker 1: them and not apologizing. You can get held accountable for
Speaker 1: those things. So I I kind of disagree with this.
Speaker 1: There is oh, there's a cancel culture for giving your opinion. No,
Speaker 1: I think people are for the first time in a
Speaker 1: long time being held accountable for their actions. But I,
Speaker 1: because of my platform, UM, I am very careful um
Speaker 1: about what I say, making sure this is fact based
Speaker 1: and how I say it, because I also think there's
Speaker 1: something to be said about dealing with your colleagues gracefully
Speaker 1: and respectfully so that you can go to battle with
Speaker 1: those same people the next day without hurt feelings and
Speaker 1: things like that, and without people feeling personally attacked, feeling
Speaker 1: like they've been disrespected just because of their view. Right. So,
Speaker 1: I I think it's more that it's that people are
Speaker 1: now finally being held accountable for saying the quiet part
Speaker 1: out loud and other people saying I don't like that.
Speaker 1: You know that that's racist or that's sexist, or that's this,
Speaker 1: and if the person, rather than say, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's teach me, what do you mean by that? Why
Speaker 1: do you take it that way, the person is like, no,
Speaker 1: it's not and yeah, blah blah blah, that's different. I
Speaker 1: think that's I think that's someone that can't learn. That's
Speaker 1: just my take. I don't know, okay, uh, I don't
Speaker 1: know what you disagree and fine you disagree? No no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no, I don't I don't think I necessarily
Speaker 1: disagree with you. I just think it's you know, when
Speaker 1: we talk about like, you know what cancel culture is,
Speaker 1: because I mean because right, I mean Essentially, what you're
Speaker 1: saying is like, well, yeah, I mean, no one gets canceled.
Speaker 1: They just you know, you might lose some money and
Speaker 1: you go away for a little while and then you
Speaker 1: just come back and rebrand, right, But you're being held
Speaker 1: accountable on that particular thing that you did. You're being
Speaker 1: held accountable. But I guess the part for me is that,
Speaker 1: you know, a big part for me is like there's
Speaker 1: never like when we're like now in the area that
Speaker 1: we're in where we're talking to out just rebuilding everything,
Speaker 1: like we're talking about, you know, defunding the police and
Speaker 1: abolishing prison like all these programming, right, so there's always
Speaker 1: I'm I'm like, I'm with it, like we can, let's
Speaker 1: abodi police, let's get it on. But there's always there's
Speaker 1: never a discussion about what redemption looks like. And so
Speaker 1: my thing is that, you know what I mean, like,
Speaker 1: so at what point, you know my problem with you
Speaker 1: know what people call its council culture. If you cancel someone,
Speaker 1: they no longer have an incentive to change if you
Speaker 1: if cancel culture, or if holding someone accountable means were
Speaker 1: like we're just joking about you losing your job if
Speaker 1: you've lost your job. Then at that point it's like,
Speaker 1: well fuck it, Like, yeah, I don't already lost my job,
Speaker 1: lost my name, my Google you Google searching me, and
Speaker 1: everybody talks this is what defines me now, so hell,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I think that's the
Speaker 1: part that I think that I think gets missed, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? And particularly now, you know, I
Speaker 1: think a big problem that, a point that I think
Speaker 1: is missed is that the audience today versus someone you know,
Speaker 1: twenty years ago whatever. We have the hive mind of
Speaker 1: social media at our disposal to help us break down
Speaker 1: very very complex concepts. So you know, if you were,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty years ago, right, if you were a
Speaker 1: person that was assaulted or you you know, had questions
Speaker 1: about your sexuality or like how we were talking earlier
Speaker 1: about consent or whatever. I mean, who could you really
Speaker 1: talk to? I mean, you could maybe talk to your parents,
Speaker 1: You can maybe talk to you know, a friend maybe
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying right now, Like now, if
Speaker 1: you have questions, but whatever, you have world class counselors, psychologists, teachers,
Speaker 1: uh you know, pep at your disposal. Who have you know,
Speaker 1: who create and release content on their platforms daily to
Speaker 1: help you parse all of this information. So I think
Speaker 1: it's unfair to like judge people now too. I think
Speaker 1: it's unfair to litigate the present or litigate the past
Speaker 1: current understanding of the present, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And so when I see a lot of these things,
Speaker 1: uh that happened when people do you know, when people
Speaker 1: just be saying some little dumb ship and they whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, to your point about educating, I don't ever
Speaker 1: see like education happen. It's always the first the first
Speaker 1: thing I see is always yeah, it's like get this now,
Speaker 1: they gotta go, they counsel, they're done. They did say that,
Speaker 1: and there's never any room for education. Well, and that's
Speaker 1: why I refer to those that double down because I
Speaker 1: I've seen situations where someone's held accountable and say, ah,
Speaker 1: that was wrong, and and then you have someone that says,
Speaker 1: you know what, I've met with this person and that
Speaker 1: person and I was wrong And I get it now.
Speaker 1: See I believe in reject shin um. So I don't
Speaker 1: I don't think that person loses their job. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't agree with that. But the person that doubles
Speaker 1: down and it's like whatever, right, I mean, what do
Speaker 1: you do with that? Not gonna well you do yea Griselda? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean downtown. Yeah, I like that. I think he's
Speaker 1: doubled down. And I was just like, wow, Triple we
Speaker 1: we thank you for doing the show, um and and
Speaker 1: thank you for fighting a good fight. And you know
Speaker 1: we we feel your stress every episode. Thank you for
Speaker 1: thank you for feeling with me and having me. Y'all
Speaker 1: are great. This was wonderful and everybody get but I
Speaker 1: am these truth and when the world open back up,
Speaker 1: when the world opened back up, I'm coming towards a
Speaker 1: nice slice of that mohole. I need that. Uh what's
Speaker 1: the tut I need that? Come on, brings right. I
Speaker 1: hate to over I hate to mention this in the slab,
Speaker 1: but can you also find out why black women get fibrrois.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it's in the book. Everybody read the books.
Speaker 1: She had them. But I'm just saying, yes, there were
Speaker 1: studies being done, but we're gonna talk about that. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. How about you in the struggle? Yeah, sugar Steve,
Speaker 1: I'm paid bill and find take a little This is
Speaker 1: question love, This is question love supreme, and we will
Speaker 1: see you on the next Girlground. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Oslave Supreme is a production of I heart Radio. For
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