The Study of Racialism

zsana · Moderator Joined: 05 Feb 2005 {Posts: 1032 }

I found some really nice articles about CNN's American Morning anchor Soledad O'brien and wanted to share...

She is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. O'Brien also serves on the board of directors for The Harlem School for the Arts.
She is a graduate of Harvard University with a degree in English and American literature.

http://www.kidsrunning.com/news/rwhalf03.html

http://www.modernmom.com/content/1915

http://www.pajamaprogram.org/events/luncheon2005.html

Read an article from GUIDEPOSTS magazine, April 2004 entitled " The Church Across the Street" which was written by Soledad.
http://web.njit.edu/~ronkowit/Soledad/articles/guideposts4-04.htm

"IN HER OWN WORDS"

On September 11, 2001
She saw the first plane hit the first tower.
" I was walking down the street running some errands and I ran home a few blocks and turned on the TV My husband called me, and we watched the second plane hit. I'm one of the fortunate ones. I really didn't know anyone that worked in the World Trade Towers … I didn't lose anybody close to me, so I'm sure there are thousands of people who are hurting much more than I am."

ON REPORTING
"I've been doing this a while now, so I think I've gotten just much more comfortable. To me it's really about comfort, when you feel comfortable and confident in the show that you're doing. When you're not brand new you don't hesitate because you're not nervous. I think that it just tends to be a matter of time. I think that it comes with knowing what your talking and covering a story about, and doing some of them not well, but doing some of them well and growing as a journalist. I started working in Boston and went out to San Francisco. So I really spent a lot of time in the field and a lot of time in the trenches and made my mistakes in smaller markets and got good, and then came here where I sort of already had a decent resume behind me.

I wouldn't want to start off here and learn my lessons on the air at 'the Today Show'…. You know it reminds me a lot of sports. You just kind of prepare. I remember when I used to play sports in college. Sometimes you're nervous for a gam,e but really right when you get into it, you kind of just focus. You really don't have time to be nervous. You sort of just need to focus.

So, I would have to say when I first started out years and years ago I was very nervous. But now if you have you're research, you've done you're homework, and you've spent a lot of time and you're really listening during you're interview, you don't really have a lot of time to be nervous because you have to focus on listening to your guest, and coming back with a really good question.

Her mom just retired. She was a public school teacher at her high school and then at the A. Philip Randolph School in Harlem. Soledad grew up in Smithtown, a lovely small town suburb in Long Island, New York. She attended Smithtown High School where her mother had also taught. Her Australian-born father of Irish ethnicity, was a physicist and mechanical engineer who early on had gotten Soledad and her other brothers and sisters interested in science.

"You know, I've always loved science. I went to college and was pre-med which got me into science and journalism. When I decided that medical school wouldn't really be for me one of my first jobs was working with a medical reporter. Besides interesting me, it gave an air of credibility to the journalism. I've never wanted to cover entertainment or anything like that. I've always been kind of drawn to the sciences. I think in my family it was pretty natural to have an interest in the sciences. I will say my father every so often would show us how when you flush the toilet the centrifugal force would pull down. He would say 'if we were in Australia it would be in the opposite direction'."

ON HER PARENTS
"They were both students at John Hopkins University in the late 1950s. They both went to mass every day. They would see each other in church and they started dating, and they got married in 1959. Actually they were in Baltimore…Both my parents were foreigners, which I think really did make a difference there…when they got married in Baltimore interracial marriage was illegal. I know. It's so weird. You think of that being so long ago, and of course, it was not. So when they wanted to get married in the '50s they had to go to Washington D.C. In fact they wouldn't even get served in restaurants together in Baltimore.

My mother would tell a story about how my father tried to take her out on a date and they would go places but no one would serve them together. So finally she brought him back to her place and kind of whipped up dinner for him. But the moral of the story was, you know - you can nab a man if you can cook. They are the most laid-back people in the world," but none of their children inherited that gene. They're all as hyper as I am. We're crazy. "

ON BEING MULTIRACIAL
"I define myself as multiracial. Definitions are important to other people. They make no difference to my life. I think my parents were sort of like. You're a black girl. You're a light skinned black girl - that's what you are, and I don't know if it was ever a really big issue, and maybe in some ways - being 35, I kind of missed the debate of, you know, 'what are you?'. "I do remember being very surprised when I went to college, and I'd meet girls who looked just like me who would insist they were white, and I just thought that was odd. There were a couple of girls I knew at Harvard like that. But I also was sort of at the mindset of 'hey, this is your life and you are free to do whatever you want with it'.

I think it's strange, but I also have 5 brothers and sisters, and I think that when you come from a big family where everyone is very comfortable with their racial identity, 'we're bi-racial'. It's not really a big deal, and it really wasn't. But, I also think that's a debate that kind of just started in the last ten, fifteen years, as opposed to when I was really growing up.

I wouldn't say there was overt hostility. I would say I grew up knowing very clearly that I wouldn't date anybody in my town. You know the white people in town were not going to date kids from a black family…Yeah, I had lots of friends. I was pretty popular, but it was kind a' just the way it was. At the same time I came from a very smart family and I'm not sure people just didn't want to date me because I was kind of nerdy.

But you know, I think I certainly had this sense and I think everyone in my family did, we were kind of different... Just like there were very few Asian families in my neighborhood. Maybe one Chinese family, one Korean family and I think they all grew up with the same sense of - there are no other Koreans here. This is just the way it is. And no one is going to come and terrorize you certainly. We grew up in a really nice environment, lots of friends and good neighbors. But, you were not ever going to have the standard high school existence that I think most people have.

I guess what made it for me is that I am the fifth child. I have four older brothers and sisters who really went through everything before I did. And then I saw them all go off to college and immediately start dating interesting people and having a really wide variety of friends in their lives. So, I think between the ages of 15 and 17 when you go off to school you kind of realize there's this other world out there and you have to wait 'til you go away"

ON GROWING UP ON LONG ISLAND
"I liked growing up on Long Island. It was very beautiful, but I was clearly going to leave. Where I was growing up it was a beautiful rural area, very small and I enjoyed my childhood certainly there. But, at the same time it was very clear to me from the time I was 12 years old that I wasn't going to stay in Long Island. I planned to go to the city. My parents spent a lot of time there. You know, if you jump on the subway and everyone kind of looks like you… I just saw my brothers and sisters successfully living great lives so it just wasn't a big deal to me."

ON HER CUBAN ROOTS
"I'm not quite fluent, [in Spanish] but I've taken it for years. When I was out in California I spoke it much more than I do now. I've sort of lost my ability and fluidity with the language, but I e-mail my cousins in Cuba all the time. My relatives in Cuba are black and there's lots of racism in Cuba - even though I think the government would deny that."

RANDOM THOUGHTS
Hard work will win out every time. Ignore most of the advice that people give you; listen to a handful of trusted mentors. Give a lot of your time and money--I think you pay in the end if you do people wrong along the way.

ON HER MOTHER & BEING A MOTHER
When my daughter was born last October, I never felt like I had to choose between child and career. I knew I could do both: I'd watched my own mother raise six kids while working full-time as a high school French and Spanish teacher.
Mom wasn't Superwoman - she just knew how to prioritize. Family came first, but it was important to her to have a life outside that. Her job wasn't just a paycheck, but a source of self-esteem and accomplishment.
I've always used Mom as a guide when making decisions in my life. She told me to love both my job and my child and not to feel guilty about it - she never did. Now, I hope my daughter will see me the same way I see my mother: as someone who's successful and happy at work and at home.

ON HER LIKES
"I have really eclectic tastes-- I like everything... SOME country, Reba McEntire, lots of R&B. I love Luther Vandross, old Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye; not a big fan of heavy metal, or easy listening, or hard core rap. Like 2Pac, but not Whitney Houston; like Toni Braxton, but definitely not Madonna and anything I can sing along with really loud. I love movies. I'll watch anything with Halle Berry. I cook, I bake, I write and I read a ton.
I try to exercise a lot-- running, swimming, snorkeling, occasional hikes. I like horseback riding. I am actually a decent flutist. I'm sure if pressed I could make a macramé handbag, which I once knew how to do."

ON READING
"I studied English and American Lit. at Harvard. I read a ton. I read everything. Right now I'm reading Prime Time, Bad Time by Ed Joyce about the fall of CBS News in the mid-80's. I'm in the middle of Paris Trout and Getting A Financial Life by Beth Kobliner. I love to read everything and am such a fast reader that I can often get through a book in a day or two.
Your class has some great instincts. When I was their age [grade 7] I wrote to my favorite author, Natalie Babbitt - she wrote The Search for Delicious - and she wrote back!"

A GRIPE ABOUT BEING ON TELEVISION
"One thing I hate about television, especially as a woman: Everyone feels compelled to rate your appearance, your hair, your clothes. Viewers don't seem to care about what Craig wears, or what Leo wears. Or what any guy on television wears. Just the women."

ON DATING PROTOCOL
"Several people (who shall remain nameless) dropped me a line to ask me out on a date. As I am married, I declined. For those who are considering something similar, here's some free advice to men (and women): I find the concept of e-mail for the purpose of requesting a date devoid of romance, and definitely lacking charm. Especially a blind date. I mean, come on! A single gal (again, NOT me) would like to at least hear a nervous voice on the phone. Don't use e-mail to ask someone out!"

ON LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
"What exactly is 'first sight'? Today it's easy to have meaningful relationships with like-minded people without ever seeing their faces. How you want to be perceived is more telling than a face-to-face encounter anyway. With the Internet it's much faster to have an online relationship, and on your terms. No need to dress up and waste time kissing frogs at a club - join an online dating service! Meet someone in a chat room! You have to schlep that laptop everywhere anyway; you might as well work on your personal life while you're conducting company business. I met my husband, though, the old-fashioned way: in college." from USA WEEKEND

ON TECHNOLOGY
I think the challenge of making what is a potentially visually deadly subject interesting is our biggest challenge, as a group. What I find most interesting, personally, is the opportunity to meet and interview some of the industry's biggest players. Keeping up with the technology requires constant work on my part.

Technology (like calculus) is scary and often confusing. Technology doesn't have to be dry and boring.

I think the rules of traditional reporting hold true, but I personally have found that I enjoy telling a story from my personal perspective. When I wrote my column about our shark dive, I was able to incorporate my own voice. The piece that airs on television, on the other hand, will be the specifics of the technology about which we're reporting.

Often viewers will tell me "you ask the questions that I would ask." I am not a technologist. I am a journalist first and foremost, and secondly a person who is trying to figure out this new technology, along with our viewers. I think we're successful because we are always exploring the relevance of technology in people's lives. Wiring schools in the inner city is honorable, but not if it comes at the cost of school books. ( from an E Business interview when she was the host of The Site)

ON THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT
I do not support censorship in any form.