Bonus: Don Lemon on his new book and finding grace among the racial tumult

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Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Katie Curic and this is next Question today. I'm really excited to be sitting down with my friend Don Lemon to talk about his new book. It's called This Is the Fire. I'm really glad he wrote it. I learned a lot. It's really a blend of his own life experiences with a look back at both our countries problematic history as well as the racial reckoning we've all witnessed over the past year. There was so much to talk about, so let's just get right to it. I'm really excited about this conversation. And you know, normally I would never ask an author, why did you want to write this book? But for you, I think it's so deeply personal. It's also complex, and I don't think it's a dumb question. So I'm going to start with that, why this book? And why? Now? Okay, two things. There are no dumb question, and that's we have we have to allow each other grace. There are no dumb questions. And um, you can only be offended but to the extent that your own ego allows you to be offended. So we have to get out of our ego. So why did I do it? I did it? Because I thought it was important. I thought that someone like me, Katie, who is as you know, once you get to a certain position in this business, it's rarefied air. Not many people have these opportunities in the whole world to be able to speak to an audience. I get to speak to an international audience. So I'm at the matrix of pretty much every weeknight on television for two hours, every single thing that goes on in this country that that that we're talking about. And race has been a very big issue, as you know. During the Trump administration, you saw all the people who are capitalizing on book deals and writing books. And I've got so many requests every time the President would tweet about me, the former president, write a book, do something right, you know, do notes from a journalist who do that? And I'm like, I'm not doing that. I don't want to do that. So I think, you know, I'd written a book and I said, I'm never gonna do it again. It's so hard, know because especially the promotion. My dog is here whining for attention. Sorry, So this is you know, doing stuff at home, and we're in the middle of a pandemic. So um. Charlotte Ville happened, and I was like, oh my gosh, this guy is making excuses for racists. And then um Ahmad Abrey happened in Georgia when shot with a shotgun, killed in the middle of a street jogging. Then Briana Taylor happened, and then George Floyd happened. And we were all sitting at home, vulnerable on our couches, you know, stuck in our homes, not knowing if we were gonna get COVID, if our loved ones were gonna get COVID. Nothing. We didn't know if the world was going to be the same in the next moment. And so um we all saw it happened on our devices, and there was no denying the experience that some of our fellow countrymen have at the hands of police and also in our society when it comes to discrimination. And I said, I got to say something because people like you, not that you call me, but certainly we had these conversations. Um A lot of people were calling and emailing and rioting and texting Okay Barkley and saying help me, don I love you. I feel like I haven't been you know, a good ally to my friends. You my black friends. I don't want my kids to grow up in a country like this, where a man can be killed in broad daylight like this by the hands of the police officer. I don't have the vocabulary to be able to to speak to my kids or to my friends. I don't have the tools. What what do I do? And after giving some advice telling people to listen, Um, I just I decided I'm going to write this book. And I was um, James Baldwin had had a profound impact on my life as a young man. He's a gay black author who was just an amazing He is my literary hero and I call him a revolutionary a word smith revolutionary. And Um, I was away from my family. I was feeling guilty about the world that I had at somewhat helped shape that I was. That I was handing off to my great nephews that they were inheriting, and I said, the fire next time has had the most impact on my life. I'm going to start by telling my nephew how I feel about him. That I hope he's able to love himself sooner than I was able to love myself, to accept and embrace and love his beautiful blackness. With a grace and an ease that I was not able to as a young man. Um and you know I couldn't. My family comes to visit me in the summer, and I think you you met them at the at theater I met I met your sweet mom my mom. I met her in another party and it was so fun. Yeah, and she was so so dear. But anyway, go ahead, usually come to visit me. And that's how I showed my love spending time with him and with you, as you know with daughters thirteen and fourtune. You know, if you called him up and say, you know his name is, I love you so much. I wish I could be with you. I just want to hug you, he'd be like uncle Don grows right. I just want to go back to playing my video game. And so I decided to sit down and put pen to paper and write this letter to him, as James Baldwin had written to his nephew at the beginning of The Fire Next Time. And that's how it starts. Can you read us a passage from the letter to your nephew, because I think that would be a wonderful thing for people to hear. Yes, I have it right here, and I just realized Barkley is smelling my cookie. He's right here trying to get onto the table where I have my computer. Prologue A letter to my nephew, May Dear Trishad. Today I heard a dying man call out to his mama, and I wept for the world that will soon belong to you. I know what comes next as surely as I know. The Mississippi rolls down to the sea, the weeping passes, the rage takes hold, the rage burns out, the blame begins. The blame bounces back and forth, and promises are made, and the promises with her, and complacency returns, and the complacency stays. It stagnates, like a lullaby on auto played, until another man dies based down another street and another city, and the weeping begins again. I was a baby boy in our family until thirteen years ago when you came along and made a grandmother mother out of my big sister Lisa. Your grandmother helped raise me, and I helped raise your mother, so when you were born, it all came full circle. You look like me. We share the same forehead, nose, and well articulated armbones. We share the same skin, a dark russet color rich with history. Yours is darker than mine in winter, but in the summertime, I gravitate in your direction. So that's when I go into how beautiful he made me. When I saw him as a kid and getting to know him as a young man, he made me feel beautiful about myself because he was so beautiful. He is such a beautiful person. And I look at him and I say to him, and all those things that my sister and parents tried to teach me as a young person about how beautiful I was as a black kid. I never believed it until I laid eyes on my great my great nephew. And so why didn't you believe it? Why didn't you believe it? I didn't believe it, Katie, because the media. I never saw myself reflected back in television commercials or in children's TV shows. Except for the rare you know, hey hey, hey on, it's fat Albert for the rare or the rare you know Jackson five cartoon. Everything else looked like other people than me. All the images and media never looked like me, never said that I was beautiful. I lived in the South, I grew up. Either you had there was a brown paper black bag test if you were lighter or darker. There was colorism in the black community. You had to have a certain texture air, and it's just such confusing. And then I was hiding the secret that I was gay, So it was it was not easy as a kid. And then on top of that, I was hiding a secret about a neighbor, an older kid, who was, you know, molesting me, doing things that he shouldn't do to me. And so it was it wasn't I. I had this beautiful dreamlike childhood in the southern town, but I had all these little secrets that that complicated my my experience. You know, I wondered too. You were talking about all the Ahmad Aubrey and Brianna Taylor and of course George Floyd, and you have the overlay of COVID disproportionately affecting people of color. Was that the the alchemy that that made this situation so beautifully combustible and and and so so appropriately combustible, because it seems to me that the stars were aligned to break it wide open. Did you feel that way, Yeah, but I told that way, of course, COVID, Yes, covid was you know this just as you said, it was sort of the stars were aligned, but it was in an awful way, right, Um, It led us here, but it was an awful and if we you know, if we could choose not to have that experience, we would choose that. But it led us to where we are now. Katie, I didn't know. I thought we were gonna be at home for two weeks, right, like, Okay, we'll be at home. And then the economy started to go off a cliff. People started to get really sick. Um, we couldn't leave our homes. Everyone's like, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna get food? We're gonna order in? Am I gonna do this? And everyone was watching the news to trying to figure out what was happening with this pandemic and then this man, this video of this man dying comes out and we can't take our eyes off of it because it's so horrendous, and I think that if we don't, I don't know if it would have had the same impact. I think it would have had an impact, but probably not as significant if we weren't all just trapped in our houses being forced to watch the news, trying to figure out what was happening, not just from day to day, but from moment to moment. That's why I think it had such a huge in fact, and because we were all open and vulnerable, we all felt I think a UM a very similar degree of humanity and vulnerability. I don't know where this is going. I'm not so sure about my future. Maybe all this money I have doesn't save me from this horrible thing that could happen to me. And so it was it sort of, it was like it was like the a great equalizer for all of us to be able to feel and experience each other's shared humanity. But I also feel like it must be a very singular experience for a Black American, especially a Black American man, to witness the murder of George Floyd. And I'm curious down the first time you saw that video, the first time you watched the seconds go by and that man casually with his hand in his pocket, basically suffocating another human being. I take me back to that first time, but when you probably couldn't sadly take your eyes off of it either, I couldn't take my eyes off of it, And I just remember um, I kept thinking he was robbing him. Here was a human being right robbing UM, a child of God, of his um natural of his God given right to be able to breathe. That's what I thought. And UM, you know, people talk about, you know, the death penalty and all of that, and whether we should have control over another person's life or death or existence, and here was a person who was exhibiting that in real time for us. But I remember seeing the video and I think I was UM. I was. I was in the office actually by myself, which was weird because we were all in quarantine and I was UM one of the only anchors going into the office US. And even though there was no one out in my pod, I was just sort of looking around. I had to close the door in my office and I just cried, UM, and I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it, but I couldn't that for me. I saw my nephews, I saw my uncle's, I saw my cousins, I saw my dad, I saw people I saw there before the grace of God go I UM, And I just had to cry. And I knew immediately that the character assassination would start. You know this sort of idea that we have of the perfect victim. Well, he must have been doing something, was he on drugs, he didn't comply, and all these things that that go along with And I always say, what police stop is positive. Even when I'm getting pulled over for a traffic ticket. I know he's not gonna say I want to write you a ticket because you were going the speed limit, Mr Lemon, and we're gonna give you fifty dollars for obeying the law. No encounter with the police officers like that. If they pull you over, it flashing lights happened to you know, show up behind Katie Curic's car. I mean, I think you have um the you have the compidence that you're gonna survive it. But it's not a happy experience. You're not looking forward to having an encounter with a police officers never positive. So this and and in some way you're the coppice thinking that you're breaking the rule. So most of our encounters with police officers are not positive experiences. They think that we're doing something wrong. So I'm you know, I just you know, I knew that that would come. But my initial experience was sadness, anger, and depression. It was contributing quite frankly, if you want to really want to talk about this, Katie Kirk, which I know you do, it was contributing to the depression that I was already dealing with from um, not only from covering Trump for four years or however long it had been. And then that came along with being in quarantine, having my friends supper COVID, not being able to see my family, and just the general may is it just made it that deeper and worse. I covered all these stories down, you did, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis who was murdered because the music in his car was played too loud when he was with a group of friends. And you know, these these sporadic incidents that made their way into the national news. Who knows how many never made their way to the national news. But it was George Floyd that that really galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement as as never before, as no one else really had much to the shepran. I'm sure of a lot of activists who were paying attention to this very early on. And and and what was it about about the George Floyd murder? And I think also Ahmad Aubrey and Brianna Taylor. And do you think the pandemic, as you were saying earlier, created this this recognition and this activism that just for whatever reason was not ignited, uh, as it you know, should have been earlier. Well, I think it's hard for people to um to believe things. And then you know, I know some people are grown at the idea or when people say that's privilege, But privilege really is when you don't have to think about it because it doesn't happen to you. And listen, I to a certain degree, even though I am a person of color, I have a male privilege in the society that I don't have to be concerned about um things if I don't want to that women have to deal with, Right, I can turn a blind eye to them because they just don't happen to me. Or you may have an an economic privilege, right because and I do have an economic privilege in the society that that many people of color don't. And actually many people not of color don't have the same economic privilege. You're absolutely right, and privilege comes in many forms. I know people grown at that, but you don't have to think about it, right, You could not avoid George Floyd Katie. And no matter how many times you saw the video, even if you see it today, if someone says, sit down and watch this video, either you go I can't watch any more of it, or come on, let's be honest, you scream like, okay, enough, it's been a minute. You can take your knee up the guy's neck. Now, come on, stop it like you scream at this video as if it's real, even though you know the outcome, and you're sitting there going, oh my god, I cannot believe this. I can't believe it. Can you take the guy? He's not armed, he's you know, did he do something that wrong that you have to snuff the life out of him? Like just stop? And you people they're screaming stop, stop stopping. Everyone is feeling the same thing, and they're telling him you're going to kill him. Stop. And two, I just I just think that it's it's it's just so relatable to everyone, and you couldn't it nor because you had to. What else were we doing? We had nothing quite frankly, we had nothing else to do but pay attention. And so um yeah, that's why I think. I just think that that it was. The video was so profound, it happened for such a long time. We didn't see Briana Taylor. We heard about it the part of the video with um Ahmad Aubrey. Initially, I think we saw the shotgun blast maybe once or twice, and then the news media decided we're not going to show it. Will show it up until the point of the blast, and then we'll stop. George Floyd. We played all eight minutes and forty six seconds of it because it was so egregious and so horrific, and um I really think that that was key that people it was. It was so in your face, and it was just so undeniable. Even the people who don't want to believe that those types of interactions happened with police, I had to believe it because it was there. Now they're making excuses for it in the trial, like there were these things that you didn't see and what the media is not telling you about George Floyd and blah blah blah. So now that's the whole political thing. That's a spin. But we know what we saw. Why do you think the world almost immediately or in the last couple of years, done the country divided itself into Black Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter or all lives matter. Okay, So the whole idea of the book is if you if you know, UM is about truth, and it's about That's why I give some history lessons, right, And it's about talking about contributions of of Black Americans or African Americans to the country, and that many people were left out, right. I think my people were left out a lot of the history we learned. But we learned charge Washington Carver and the peanuts and Eli Whitney and the cotton gin or whatever, but we don't learn that there were Africans on the continent helping to build a country before the Mayflower even showed up, right, So we don't learn about those things. So I think that UM, but that we live in two different of worlds and that it was meant that way. It was meant for us to live in two different worlds. It was meant for as you said, it's the environment that we've we've grown up in. And I say, if you if you've come out of American soil, how could you not the extreme People will think it's extreme is be racist or have a racial blind spot. Or not think that, UM and not have issues when it comes to white supremacy, because that has that is what has been presented to you. Columbus discovered America, you know, right, when we all know what. Columbus didn't discover America. That's offensive to Native Americans. If now, if you say Europeans and Columbus conquered America, you're absolutely right. And what is wrong with saying that. Nothing. That's the true history of this country, right, so it should not be whitewashed. So we have two different we live in two different worlds. I think most African Americans and many African Americans no, and I don't think it was taught in the history book. Maybe White America doesn't know that the history of policing comes from when it really slavery, slave catching, making sure that slaves don't leave the plantation, UM, and that they don't you know, they don't run away from slavery. Fast forward to now, many African Americans, especially in urban areas, UM, I feel like they are occupied. The police officers are the occupiers rather than the peace officers in their community. And so where you, as a white American, will look upon a police officer as having your your best interests in looking out for you, and it's trying to protect you. African Americans look at police officers, says sort of, what are they going to do to me or going to you understand what I'm saying. So I think that's a completely different relationships. So just let me finish your thing here. So that's how we So when we say when people say black lives matter, basically what they're saying is you've heard is black lives matter too, not that only black lives matter, but that you should have the same respect for black lives as you have for white lives in this society. And UM, by saying, well, blue lives matter, all lives matter, it is a denial of um and a lack of prioritizing what the what the point is in this particular moment, and that is that we have to protect and we have to understand that black lives in this society matter as much as any other life. But the point is not all lives matter. Everybody gets all lives matter. White lives matter in this country and have been prioritized over black lives forever. Of course, blue lives matter, but that's not the point of this. The point of this is to draw awareness to the plight and the attention of black people. So why we've divided in that, it's just because we have a complete have two different receptions of America. Does that see? Do you understand that? Oh? Completely? Oh, I completely do. And by the way, I'm not one of those people who respond to black lives matter with either blue lives matter or all lives matter. But it seems that you know, as as so much of society, that these two opposing forces immediately kind of rise up and they don't have to be opposing. That's that's my point. Yeah, they don't have to be opposing. They can you can. You can think that blue lives matter, all lives matter, and Black lives matter all at the same time. People have a hard time I think, recognizing that though, don't you. I feel like we live in a world where people are on one side or another and that's one of the big problems. Well, that's right, and that's a whole like listen, um, you have been very involved in colon cancer, right, so if you know, if someone said what you said, what you said, um, you know, uh, colon awareness matters, and someone said no, Katie Aids awareness matters and you're like, yes, it does, but I'm not talking about AIDS awareness, and it's all. AIDS awareness is very, very important, and there are people who it's their issue, but my issue is colon awareness and colon health and I want to draw attention to that. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. There's you know, there's um, there's a degree of pride, and there's something great about what the awareness that you're bringing to to colon health and that it's not that you're shunning or saying that you know AIDS awareness is bad. Is it that you're focused on colon help? This is that simple. When we come back, Don shares what his sister Lisa's untimely death taught him about the importance of grace. Let's talk a little bit Don about how deeply personal your book is, because you talk a lot about your family, and they talked very movingly about your grandmother, in particular, who you you pronounced mommy, mommy, mommy, and you right, I know that you lived with her when you were a little boy. She had a fifth grade education, You tried to help her learn to read, and um, talk to us about how this shaped you personally but also your view of the world. This always gets me. Um. So I was growing up and my grandmother was my life. I loved her, so, I mean just loved her. And we would the funny thing. We would be together and they would wonder why was this white lady with this black kid when, you know, because they didn't my grandmother as they say, mulatto, right, she came from mixed parents and that was back in the day. So um, but she was we were always together, were thickest, these and um, I didn't realize that my grandmother, it just had a fifth grade education, Like you don't know that when you're a kid. But I remember doing my homework around the kitchen table, and I don't know, you know how you grew up. But we had these, um you know, aluminum cabinets, these white like metal cabinets and um, you know, the little like plastic chairs. But it was kind of the kitchen that everybody had in the fifties and sixties, you know what I'm talking about. And I was, yeah, yeah, and we and yes, and every every every couple of years we get another one. Either it was yellow or you know, baby blue, and then later it became olive green. You know thing, And so we would sit around this this this yellow and white kitchen table um, you know that had the yellow phone on the wall with the cord that went around the house. And so, um, I would do my homework and I would ask my grandmother to try to help me, and she would sit there and you know, her presence would help. And then but very quickly I got to the point and I realized that she really couldn't help me, that she wasn't helping me. And then so I would just sit and talk to her and she would tell me about all these stories as we were reading. So I think that was what she was doing, was trying to throw me off the trayal or overcompensating, because she would tell me stories if I would ask her about things, so she would go and tell me stories. And then she would tell me stories about going to vote, and um, how she couldn't go vote. She would just give all these old stories, you know, and when I was coming up a being blah blah blah blah blah, and one of the stories was about voting and how they would make her account the jelly beans in the jar and my mom would take her to vote, and how they would um uh the number of bubbles in a bar of soap, and all kinds of things in poll taxes, and I couldn't believe it. And one day I just started crying and I was like my grandmother, I can't believe that my grandmother couldn't vote. That was just so weird to me, or they tried to stop her from voting. And how was my grandmother in her I guess at the time, in her forties, maybe her fifties, how could she not know how to read? Like doesn't everybody learn how to read? Like I didn't. I didn't understand those things. And then from that moment on, Katie, I wanted to read. I wanted to be like the best reader ever so that I could teach my grandmother how to read, because I just thought it was just unfathomable to me that someone was not allowed to have an education or the circumstances of her life prevented her from getting an education. So I I learned how to read quickly, and the biggest part of that was sitting around that table with my grandmother so that I could eventually teach her how to read as a first or second grader. And did you I did, and my grandmother and I would sit there and we would read My Little Fun with Dick and Jane books. See Dick Run, Run, Dick Run, Look at Jane and Dick play, you know, those kinds of things. And I would do my UM. You know, they would the teacher would give you word lists and you'd have to say, uh, there the other right, and you would say. And I would sit there with my grandmother and we would do our homework together, and we would learn to read together. And that was my experience growing up with my grandmother. I still miss her to this day. Was she able to to see you succeed? She was able to see a degree of success for me um. But my grandmother started to just before I left Louisiana. She started to develop Alzheimer's. And so I made my peace with my grandmother because it was during the time that I had to move on from Louisiana and my mom and my aunt were taking care of her um as she had Alzheimer's. Because my mom refused to put her in the home. She said, I will never see my mother in a home. And I watched my mom within those ten years or so, and I think it was five years. Um, while I was there, and then probably five years after I left, I watched my mom age. I could see it every time I go home, and she would each ten years in one year. Um, but yeah, she got to see some degree of successful. By the time I became like a really thriving adult. My grandmother had was succumbing to Alzheimers. She would go and um, she would drive off in her nine six Ford Falcon and powder blue by the way, and she would come visit us at our house. We lived around the corner, and then we should have a conversation and then no more than twenty or thirty minutes later, she would come back again as if she hadn't been there. And that's how we started to figure out. And then um, you know, she would start to like walk down the street in her slip and not have her dress on, and so then we would know that she was dealing with something. That's how we figured it out. But your sweet mom got to see you and all your glory. Isn't that amazing? That is that is the one thing you know, And I write about the book The Visits to Africa, Katie, as you know, to any any file that has any awareness all they want to do is make their mom, their parents proud, especially the mom, and my mom had sacrificed so much for me Um the trip that we took to Africa to learn about our ancestry, and we sat by the sea and talked about what we were experiencing, and we had just you know, we had just been to the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana where the slaves left to make that track across the Atlantic. Uh, and we had been such an emotional day for us. And we were watching as we were watching all this, these kids play in the sea, naked, some of them with bathing suits on, some of them in shorts, some of them naked, just frolicking out a care in the world, just being kids. And we wondered if we would have had that degree of freedom if we had stayed there with and and Um, even with the all of the luxuries and the privilege that we had as Americans, if there was something in us that did not um that we did not contain that sort of freedom our person because of everything that we had gone through, even with all the privilege that we had. Because it was just if you ever watch kids like that, they're just carefree, not a care in the world, and they don't know all of the craziness, right, it hasn't gotten to them yet. And we started talking about that, and my mom said, I know that you are on the mother and I'm supposed to show you things. But I'm so proud of you. You have shown me things and taking me places that I never thought that I would experience and see in my life. And I cannot tell you how proud I am of you and how much I love you and what this experience is meant to me. And I just lost it and I said, you know what, if I never accomplished another thing in the world, on this earth, I'm totally fine. Now it's it. You're you're You had a tragedy and I didn't realize this done. I wish I had, because you dedicate this book to your older sister Lisa, who who died unexpectedly in two I was in eighteen, and you write so poignantly about what it was like to to grieve that loss, and um, you know, having worked on my own book and having to relive just even losing my husband j twenty three years ago, this was still so fresh and so painful. UM, and I wondered if you could just talk about They talk about her first and foremost, so we understand more about her, but also talk about the experience of of writing about your grief. Um. The experience in our lives shape us. This is why the book is so hopeful to me, and why I believe in allowing people to have grace. Right, I don't believe in canceling people. I don't believe in um judging people harshly, because we all deal with things, and we don't know what people are dealing with, right, and and even sometimes our anger can be really telling about who we are and what we've experienced. And so UM, this was a very profound experience for me, and it taught me. I shouldn't say it taught me. I think it's just Um. It re confirmed all of the teachings that I had learned, all the things that I had learned from my grandparents and from from my grandmother and from my parents about grace and about loving people. Because I love my sister with every fiber of my being. And um, all of a sudden I lost her, And not that she was sick, not that you know, there was some expectation maybe she'll get well maybe she won't. Maybe we should say our goodbys. But all of a sudden, in an instant um and which was part of the urgency of writing this book, my sister's death UM reinstalled in me an urgency to make change, to live my life, to say what I want to say before my time is up, and to do right by people, and just to tell the truth. So um, my sister was like, uh, you know, the modern day version of Angela Davis with the afro. She was like black power. She she made me um. She taught me about Gil Scott heron she would play it in a car and her a little convertible. Um. She would make me listen to Dr King's speeches and Malcolm Max speeches, and she was she was a force. And um and this force, I was like, how can my not? My sister can't be dead. She can't have drowned accidentally in the lake. My sister is a force of nature. She's the person who taught me how to drive, how to dress, the value of a dollar, how to stand up to people, um, how to teach people, how to how to treat you, all those things. Devil make care. She you would say something to her and she would tell you exactly how she felt and you'd be like, oh wow. And so she was worse than me. She had a mouth that was worse than mine. But that was that was That's why I give people grace because that that is a pain that I don't want anybody ever to have to go through, losing a sibling that you're so close to. But also the pain that my mother went through. Um, and I listen, I saw it, but I still can't relate to it. The they say losing a child for a parent is the worst thing that can happen. And I watched my mother and I experienced her go through that, and I write about it in the book, how she could not stop talking because she had to fill the silence because the silence was just too painful for her, and it would fill her with thoughts that she probably didn't ever want to think, and the realization that her eldest daughter was dead. And I watched her just talk talk talk tok tok tok tok tok talk talk, and fidgeon and smoking and do and smoke cigarettes and do whatever, and just um, she just couldn't be silent for a moment, and so um, it was even worse than when my dad died as a kid. So yeah, that's my experience with my sister. But you probably didn't realize I was going through it because it wasn't that long ago. Um. I felt that I felt so bad not to talk about those things publicly, and I put up this front right like, hey, everything is great, But everything wasn't great, Katie. I was dealing with a lot of depression, and I was also dealing with at the time the whole Trump thing, which was so tough as a journalist to cover. I know it sounds crazy, but it was so toxic. That's what it was, just so toxic, and all of it was just way. It started to weigh on me. Can you read a passage about Black Americans and grief from page sixty nine for us Don The chapters called my Lord, what a morning? When the stars began to fall? And I talked about the Negro spiritual about morning it should be m O you are and I n G and not m O R and I n G that people think that you're you're talking about But I talked about um about black grief also depression. How we you know, don't really talk about it, and um, and so on and so forth. Okay, so it's I say. Black Americans have an intimate relationship with death. They know loss and what it is to be left behind. A black funeral is a beautiful thing to experience, because that marrow, deep understanding moans from the very bones of the mourners and reverberates in the rafters above the choir. The grief is unchained by waspish inhibition. The music is soulful, older than pipe organs in church pews. White choirs try to coop songs like go Tell It on the Mountain and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, but they never truly succeed. In the late eighteen hundreds, white Protestant choirs began to sing a Negro spiritual that, in their minds spoke of the rapture that day, at the end of days, when a resolutely white Jesus will return to Earth, kicking butt and taking names. My Lord, what a morning when the stars began to fall. But the original version of the song goes back much further. The song as They Decided in the Souls of Black Boats Folks by W. B. Two Boys is from an eighteen sixty seven collection simply titled slave songs of the United States, and then do anyway. I go on to read what it is, and then I say it was m ou r n i n g. They waited for, not m o r i n G. The apparent scriptural source of the song Amos say nine and talked about speaks of a time when corruption, cruelty, and greed have reached a critical mass and the feasts of the wicked turned to lamentations. You don't have to dig hard to get the subtext there. It is not about rapture. It was about reckoning. You're such a good writer. Don I think I'm a better writer than I am a journalist, Katie. You know, this experience taught me, Like, you know, I think I do okay, you know, at night on TV just sort of talking off my head. I think I'd be okay with that. But when you actually have time time to sit down with the words and with the information that you're you know, I had to do research and all of those things. When you have time to sit with it, you can craft it and it's not just coming off the top of your head. You're like, how do I want to craft this sentence? What do I want to tell people? About it, and I had to remember that the original love of my life, but not people wise, was writing because of my grandmother learning to read and writing, and that was I always got a's in writing. Like my teachers would not believe. They'd say, who wrote this for you? And I would say, I wrote it this. You didn't write this. I would say, yes, I did write it, and they had to call my parents and my parents would say, yes, he wrote that, and I said, well, you helped him. Well, of course I helped him, but I didn't write it for him. Right. Parents sit there and say, you know, you know, okay, that's you. Um, you have to you know, the instead of or like little things like that. But I always wrote it. And that's why I was so attracted to James Baldwin is because he's such a beautiful writer. But I think I do. Okay, I'm not Baldwin, but I actually think I'm a better writer than I am, just like a TV host talking off the top of his head. When we come back, is this the end of white supremacy as we know it? That's in just a moment. We are still in the midst of seismic cultural shifts of all kinds. I think when it comes to race, gender, uh, marginalized communities of all kinds. And I I'm curious, you know, I think about the quote the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. But when you think about the arc of the moral universe, I mean, where are we in this racial reckoning? Don I know we have a long way to go In many ways, it feels like we're at the very beginning. But do you feel like progress is being made? Do you feel that it's it's hard to evaluate. I know you had an experience in sag Harbor when you during the pandemic or towards the end, when they opened up a shop and well you tell the story, well and there's open on a shop and you know, Katie, I wasn't going to include that because I was like, this is way too privileged and um, and I'll tell the story afterwards, and then um, along with the publisher and the collaborator of the book, we're like, I was like, I didn't want I said, I wrote about it, but I don't know if I want to. And everyone said you should leave it in there because it's important to know that these things happen to not just UM for black people of a certain economic background. It happens to all people, all all people of color and UM. And it was the It is one of the most related both things UM two people in the book. And I almost left it out. But I was in the shop. I was shopping. I was just walking by this place I was opening up in sag Harbor, and I wanted a cutting board and had the perfect cutting boards because I was during the pen during quarantine. I had ruined my marble countertops with the acid from lemons. That that that I was I was making lemonade from. We had these Myers lemon trees from the summer that we brought into the house in the winter. It was full of lemons and so we would use it to make lemonade. I would squeeze lemons and make it in this old sunbeam mixer which were in the count And so the guy who was reading the counter shop said, here's what I suggest is that you get cutting boards and you put them all over and that way won't you won't get okay? Fine, So I saw the cutting boards and I went in the shop and I said, oh, I want these, And he said, sir, you can't come in. It's a that is. Oh I'm sorry, I said, but I'll take these and I bought them. And so I went and all my way back because it was right around my house. I think we're going to get a coffee or something. And I go back by and there's like a one been shopping in the store. I didn't think much about it. If it's just like, well, he just told me that I couldn't come in there because and there's this woman shopping in the store. And I said, and so, and I'm like, okay. So I told him about it, and then I called up some of my friends about it. And I called up like my black friends and my wife friends, and they were all like, you know, and I said, I don't know. I don't want to make a thing out of it. Maybe I'm being paranoid. I have no idea, but this is the time that we're in right now. And I said, what should I do? And and um, they all, to a person, regardless of their ethnicity, said take them back. And I said okay. And I said, but I'm not gonna make a thing out of it. And then I told him, I said, isn't that weird that we have to live in this world where I don't know if he was um, if he was discriminating against me, or I'm not sure, but that is the paranoia that black people live in. I equated it. I equated it too, or I equated to running a race, ready set go. Black books are always in set when it comes to these issues. We don't know. There's a paranoia about is it happening or not. It could be that it is happening or couldn't be. But that's the world that we lived in, and that's the reality. So um, anyway, I write about that long story short, I hope I've told enough of that story. I took him back, the guy and I had this knowing experience, like and I said to him, I said, I don't know, but I walked by and you you know, you told me this, and I bought them. And then I walked by and someone shopping and he said, oh, well, they're training in the store. And I was like, well, she doesn't look like she's training. She's shopping. And I said, anyways, they just don't fit in my kitchen. And so I would just like to return them. You can have them back. I'll take my money back. Or if there's a store credit. I don't know. I just don't want it to be an issue. And he got it, like I think he got it, and I got it, and that was it. I felt good about what I did. I didn't blast him out. I won't say the store. It's not a big deal to me. Okay, I'm not trying to cancel anybody. Goo shop at every store in sag Harbor, spend all your money. It's not my thing. It's not for me to do. But um so your question him was are we making progress? Right? That's the good question. I think we are making progress, but you know, I think we make more progress. Katie. It's for people like me and you to sit and have these conversations as we are now as someone who knows each other of different backgrounds, don't look like each other, and there is a degree of respect, friendship, love and honesty and confidence and vulnerability that we have. So, as I said at the beginning, there are no stupid questions. Katie. Kurt can ask me anything she wants to as a friend who is white, and I'm not going to cancel her. I'm not gonna do I'm not gonna yell at her about whatever. I'm going to offer her the grace to be able to learn something as long as she's willing to do so. And the same thing, I think respect should be paid back to me that Katie doesn't expect me to teach her everything about what it's like to be black, but is confident enough in me to know that I'm going to listen to her and offer my help. And so I think we have enough people like that in our society now who are willing to do that work. I hope, because we're I hope, so at least we're at an inflection point. And the reason I know that we're at an inflection point is because I think that we're in the last throws of white supremacy. And my the evidence of that for me is the insurrection on Capitol Hill. It is the racist marching openly in Charlottesville. It is the big lie that people bought into, many of them willingly, some of them not willingly, about an election being stolen, and a lot of things that happened over the past five years that exposed the degree of racism that we had hidden, or at least under just below the surface in this society. So I think the demographics, we'll take care of it. Between we're gonna be at minority majority status in this country, and I think that's gonna do a lot just to you can't fight it, it's just simple mathematics. But the inflection point now is truth voter suppres shouldn't we have to fight against it and having relationships with people who don't look like us, because then we get to see their humanity. This is an inflection point. So I think, yes, we have made progress, but the real work is in the coming days, months, and a couple of years ahead. But I do believe that we're at the end of white supremacy as we know it in this country. I really do. It's not gonna happen over It's not going to be you know, in five years. It's gonna maybe ten, twenty years. But I think we're at the We're at the end of it. That's why people are fighting so hard to keep it. Yeah, I I think you're it's almost the last gasp of a of a different of a different country, and you right that we must summon the courage to love people infuriate us um And I think that's that's very tough for a lot of people now, especially when you consider seventy four million people who felt, you know, for whatever reason, and I don't think you can generalize about that biggest, largest swath of the population, but seventy four million people felt comfortable voting for Donald Trump, uh, and felt that it was okay if he continued to be the you know, the leader of our country. Um. And you don't seem that loving at night on CNN with all due respect God, UM, I'm loving to the people in my life who I know personally. No. I mean, you know, when you talk about issues, Um, I don't. I don't know. I don't sense many metaphorical olive branches being handed out on your show, because I can't give an olive branch to people who who don't believe in my existence. I can't give an olive branch to people who don't believe that I should have the same rights under the same laws, constitution, and even under the same God. That then how can you right? We must summon the courage to love people who infuriate us, because you can love people and you can hold them to account at the same time, and you can love people and you can expect a degree of truth from them UM, you can love people and then not have your morals and your values compromised. But the easy answers that you can love people from afar. You don't have to by loving someone, it doesn't mean that you have to invite them into your home, doesn't mean that you have to sing Kumba Yah with them. But it doesn't mean that you have to that that you should hate them. So I don't hate anyone. I don't hate Donald Trump. I can't say that I love Donald Trump. I don't know him enough for that. But I know that there are UM and I'm paraphrasing James Baldwin here after he met with UM, the Honorable Elijah Mohammed, and he said, I know that there are I love. There are a few people I love in my life, and some of them are white and some of them are black, And so I sort of had that same sort of feeling about it. But just because I'm calling someone out and I'm telling Trump supporters UM about themselves and not all of them, because not all of them are living in denial, it doesn't mean that I don't love them. I don't love my fellow countrymen. I'm just holding them to account. But also again as I agree, I can love them from the bar. I really appreciate you writing this book done. I think it's incredibly helpful and instructive for people, And I also appreciate your idea of grace. And I think a lot of well meaning people want to be better, want to do better, um, and are trying, but sometimes they slip. And I think that giving people that grace is a real gift and very much an act of of generosity and humanity. So I think that we should have more conversations like this, Um. We're well meaning people really really want to learn and do better. And sometimes I wonder how I would feel if I had grown up black in America, and how how full of fury I might be. You know, It's it's an interesting exercise, uh, And I think we're all on this learning journey. But I think your book is going to help a lot of people with that, So thank you for writing it. I believe that, I hope, so I said initially, I believe that in the reception that it's had, it's been really good. So I'm very hopeful and optimistic about about that. And I agree with you it is a gift, um, But we have to give each other right grace, each of us. You had to respect and believe in my humanity, and I have to respect and believe in your humanity. And once we start to see each other as human beings and recognize the humanity and each other, it's harder to discriminate our dinner grade or put your knee on someone's neck for eight minutes and forty six seconds, because obviously, in order to do that, you don't see the humanity and the person you know, you don't respect a life. And if we see each other's human beings, we respect each other's life and the right to be able to breathe. And so I agree with you. So let's continue to do this, and I hope there's a commitment in America that we all continue to do at these conversations. Do the work. Thanks again to Don Lemon and his new book is called This Is the Fire. I highly recommend it. Next Question with Katie Kurik is a production of My Heart Media and Katie Kurk Media. The executive producers Army Katie Curic and Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements Adriana Fassio and Emily Pinto. The show is edited and mixed by Derrick Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to sign up for my morning newsletter, wake Up Call, go to Katie currek dot com. You can also to find me at Katie Couric, on Instagram and on my social media channels. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.