This week, Farai speaks to co-founders Akoto Ofori-Atta and Lauren Williams of the new media initiative, Capital B– aimed at providing what’s lacking in Black communities across the country – reliable and trusted journalism. Also, she meets with Stephanie Wash a producer of “X/onerated,” a documentary about the men accused, and after decades, exonerated in the killing of Malcolm X. Lastly, Karen Attiah of the Washington Post and Farai discuss her upcoming book and opinion column, which in recent weeks has tackled the controversies surrounding Joe Rogan and Whoopi Goldberg.
Farai Chideya:
Hi folks. We are so glad that you're listening to Our Body Politic. If you have time, please consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcast. It helps other listeners find us and we read them for your feedback. We would also love you to join in financially supporting the show, if you're able. You can find out more at OurBodyPolitic.com/donate. We are here for you, with you, and because of you. Thank you.
Farai Chideya:
This is Our Body Politic. I'm Farai Chideya. The economic headwind stirred by the pandemic accelerated the trend of local news outlets across the US folding, leaving news deserts. But not all local news makers are waving the white flag. In fact, some are actually launching during a tough market with innovations and new energy and focus. Among those are journalists Lauren Williams and Akoto Ofori-Atta. The two longtime friends just launched a new locally driven national nonprofit Black news organization called Capital B News. Their urgent mission to serve Black news consumers better. I spoke with the two entrepreneurs to mark their launch and hear more about their plans for their work ahead.
Farai Chideya:
So I want to start with a big question, hopefully a short answer. Why this, why now and why you? Lauren, you first.
Lauren Williams:
Well, Akoto and I saw a need for more high quality, high touch news for Black audiences by Black journalists out there. And why now is that mainstream media has had chance after chance to get this right, to figure out how to cover Black communities, to figure out how to build trust with Black people, to figure out how to treat Black journalists in our nation's newsroom and just have not done it. And the events of 2020, from the George Floyd murder and its aftermath to COVID and COVID's effects on Black people around the country, it was really a spark for us that, not only in that moment, but after, Black people were going to deserve quality news. And we just didn't feel like our nation's newsrooms were equipped for it. And so that's why now.
Lauren Williams:
And why us? Why not us? If not us, who?
Farai Chideya:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, absolutely. And Akoto, what about your perspective? And how do did you and Lauren decide to team up?
Akoto Ofori-Atta:
Yeah, just like Lauren said, Black people need urgently better access to trustworthy news and stronger information systems. With all the challenges that we face, black communities, Black Americans just need quality news now more than ever.
Akoto Ofori-Atta:
And yeah, why us? We have the complimentary experience, skills, talent, vision, verve, ambition for what we think Black communities could benefit from right now. And so we didn't want to just talk about it, we wanted to just go ahead and do it.
Farai Chideya:
So let's give folks a taste of what you're serving up. One story that immediately caught my eye was about Jecorey Arthur.
Jecorey Arthur:
We can't really have a conversation about addressing housing until you address poverty. Seeing people suffer, seeing people struggle, seeing people impoverished and knowing that, without government, we will never overcome all of the disparities that we live.
Farai Chideya:
Who is he? And why did you choose to cover him and what makes it Capital B the way you covered him?
Lauren Williams:
Jecorey Arthur, he is the youngest council member in the history of Louisville, Kentucky. He is an activist turned politician. Born from the activist moment in that region, after the killing of Breonna Taylor. And he campaigned on reparations, which is, in Kentucky, is a really amazing thing. And now he's in the city council. And there's some really fascinating folks like that around the country. The question is, now that they're there, now that they're in office, what are they going to do? And what can they do? After 2020, 2020 was an amazing moment for igniting people around the country, around some of these issues. A lot of folks are questioning whether it's going to win elections to continue to talk about these issues. And so whether or not some of the people like Jecorey Arthur in Louisville are going to be able to continue the mantle of their activism while in office is a really important question to ask. And we want to ask those questions and not just ask if you know, the Jecorey Arthurs of the world are going to make white voters mad. We want to talk to Jecorey Arthurs of the world and not just center white people's feelings in these conversations.
Farai Chideya:
You both were part of a big Politico takeout with the cheerful title, Is The Media Doomed? I had to laugh at that. We've been talking about the work that you're doing, but also there's the thought leadership. Both of you are thought leaders. And you said in this piece that you wrote jointly, "We no longer have to rely solely on outdated business models." What do you mean by that, Lauren?
Lauren Williams:
I mean, we were just talking about June of 2020, right? And during that time, advertisers were blocking out anything having to do with the protests on their media buys. The thing that people were most interested in and searching and getting the most traffic on news web sites were things that were totally non-monetizable because advertisers didn't want their ads next to controversial pieces about police brutality and racism. And this isn't just true of that moment, it's always true. And a Black led news site, by and for or Black people, we're going to be talking about racism a lot. We're going to be talking about systemic racism and health disparities and things that matter in our country, our country's deep problems. And if we're basing our business entirely on advertisers who are primarily concerned about brand safety, and racism feels unsafe to brands, then either we go under or we have to shift our mission to entertainment or something that is much lighter and doesn't cover these issues. And we didn't want to do that. And so while we still have a sponsorship business as part of our revenue model, our nonprofit and our primary source of revenue is philanthropic donations.
Akoto Ofori-Atta:
Yeah. I'll add to that, that despite the very cheery title of that Politico piece, is that we're building Capital B at a time where I do think there is some excitement and some new energy in local news. We started Capital B in a year when nonprofit newsroom saw the most small dollar donations ever in history. We've also launched at a time where there's more philanthropic money donated to journalism. There are so many local newsrooms that are trying to really, really deliver value very directly to their audiences. And so all of the problems with standing, there is a bit of what I'm hoping is a new era where we can all fund really important work for people who need it most.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. And following up with that, and Akoto, you can weigh in, or Lauren, I obviously worked in philanthropy for several years and helped start the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund. And longtime leader, Tracie Powell, who was the lead on the Racial Equity In Journalism Fund for some time is now starting something called the Pivot Fund. Do you think that those types of funds can play a role in turning away from the underfunding of Black and BIPOC news?
Akoto Ofori-Atta:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think Tracie's Pivot Fund has a very, very explicit goal of funding Black and brown led news organizations that are specifically serving information needs. And I think that her vision for the kind of money that she wants to donate to that particular part of journalism, I think is not just noble, but urgent and important. And I think that is another reason to think about all of the reasons to feel a little hopeful about journalism, that there are also people working with philanthropy trying to really solve for these challenges in big and bold ways.
Lauren Williams:
Yeah. I was just going to say, I mean, I think things like Pivot Fund, I think Capital B, I think some of these news organizations that we mentioned in Politico, I think there new to be just this constant drumbeat in the world of philanthropy on, not just who's telling the story, but on who's receiving the information. And I find that in funding meetings often there's a real focus on storytelling and highlighting the stories, and objectively that's incredibly important, right? But the thing that often comes as surprise in these meetings is when we bring up, yes, storytelling is half of it, but the other half of it is the exchange of information.
Lauren Williams:
And that is why Black media is so important because that is the historic importance of Black media. That's why it began. That's why it persists. Because it is an audience focused medium. What we are trying to do is tell the stories that aren't being told, but also give the information to people it is not reaching. And that is the part that is missing when you give millions of dollars to a mainstream news organization to fund a bunch of Black journalists or fund coverage of Black communities. Who is reading it? Who is going to be the beneficiary of that information? We are still not doing anything with that money to reach Black people, to build audience trust. That's not serving the democracy purpose. And that's the drum beat that all of us, from Tracie Powell at Pivot Fund, to us, to a bunch of the new kids on the block in the nonprofit world, that's the drum we're beating.
Farai Chideya:
Why Atlanta first? I know that's a silly question, especially for our contributor, Errin Haines, one of the goddesses of the 19th, she would say, "That's not even a question." But why Atlanta first?
Lauren Williams:
Yeah. It has an enormous Black population. There's 2 million Black people in metro Atlanta. It is a hotbed of stories. It isn't a saturated media market, despite its size. And as a place where they're shifting demographics in Georgia, there's a lot of misinformation and disinformation floating around. And that's one of the core parts of our mission. We want to create a trustworthy news source that combats that. And so it became the perfect place, the perfect proof of concept for what we're trying to do.
Farai Chideya:
That's the co-founders of Capital B News, CEO, Lauren Williams, and Chief Content Officer Akoto Ofori-Atta. And we've got more from them coming up next. Plus...
Speaker 5:
For five decades, information, establishing the identity of who actually committed the crime, has been known.
Speaker 6:
The amount of information here is like nothing we've ever seen in a wrongful conviction case.
Speaker 7:
There was a real question whether a fundamental unfairness had occurred here.
Farai Chideya:
The making of Xonerated: The Murder of Malcolm X and 55 Years to Justice. That's on Our Body Politic.
Farai Chideya:
Welcome back to Our Body Politic. We've been hearing from the co-founders of the brand new Capital B News, Lauren Williams and Akoto Ofori-Atta, about their national news venture with plans to build out local coverage, which has already started in Atlanta. Here's more on how they plan to sustain themselves as entrepreneurs and make an organization that lasts well into the future.
Farai Chideya:
I mean, I'm not going to lie, I am worried about this country. I am worried that people don't realize in some cases, the urgency of the moment, what keeps you going? Lauren first.
Lauren Williams:
There are so many barriers to Black people achieving full, equal rights around voting access and around so many things. And so I would never presume to say that Capital B's existence could solve those things, there are structural and systemic barriers. But there are also so many people who are disconnected from information systems who are not currently engaged in the news, who are just disconnected from trustworthy media. And what keeps me going is the incremental and important changes that we could potentially make in making connections with people who could find the news source that would change people's lives.
Farai Chideya:
And let's talk about personal refilling the well. That is something that we talk about all the time on the show, we have people on doing really amazing, intense work in any number of fields, whether it's medicine or organizing, of course, being a member of Congress and you all have to refill the well. Akoto, how do you refill your well? What gives you joy?
Akoto Ofori-Atta:
Many things give me joy. It's a different thing, being a co-founder. It's just, it's always with you. There's times on Saturdays, you'll be thinking through a problem and it doesn't necessarily feel like work because you just feel compelled to work toward this grand thing you're helping to build. But I spend a lot of time with my husband. I like to work out and move in ways that feel really good to me. I think Lauren and I, even day to day, a lot of times we will start our meetings and maybe spend 20, 30 minutes and just like Kiki, talk about things that have happened-
Farai Chideya:
Oh yeah.
Akoto Ofori-Atta:
... with us, with our families. Lauren's kids are adorable and there is always a cute, cute story coming out of that corner. But those sort of things and being fortified by our friendship.
Lauren Williams:
We'll put Kanye on the agenda.
Akoto Ofori-Atta:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Lauren Williams:
Like, okay, before we start, we have to talk about Kanye and Instagram and then we will talk about this funder meeting that we have.
Akoto Ofori-Atta:
The budget. Right.
Lauren Williams:
Yeah.
Farai Chideya:
I love it. Yeah. Lauren, what about you?
Lauren Williams:
I always feel bad when I get these questions because I just feel like I am in a place where I'm not doing it as... I'm not feeling my covering.
Farai Chideya:
Okay. Lauren. So you you have officially failed Black womanhood, which is that our cup always has to runneth over, no matter how much it's drained. So you're voted off the island.
Lauren Williams:
Yeah. I'm [crosstalk 00:16:19]
Farai Chideya:
Let's add one more thing to your task list, that is not what this is about.
Lauren Williams:
Yeah. I've given myself the space to not fill my cup right now and just going to make up for it a little later. I have two-
Farai Chideya:
That's real.
Lauren Williams:
... Yeah. I have two small kids and just launched Capital B and I just, I don't have a lot of space for myself. And I'm okay with that, I haven't had a lot of space myself in a long time. Before we started Capital B, I also had two small kids and I was running Vox with was really hard. And this feels a little... it's hard as well, but it feels different. It feels like something that, in and of itself, is filling my cup. And so even though I don't have a lot of time, I don't have any activities that I do. I barely have time to get on the Peloton. I still feel quite fulfilled and satisfied.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. And Akoto, maybe we can wrap up here. What's your vision for how Capital B serves Black communities, let's say five years from now? In terms of having roots in different places, having a national footprint, where do you want to lead from here?
Akoto Ofori-Atta:
The way that we're going to really know that our work is valuable is because we are going to be in direct relationship with the communities we're serving, right? Each of our local newsrooms has a community engagement editor who will be tasked with building relationships with residents and neighborhoods that we're covering, talking to them about information gaps, just things they want to know, things that they're curious about, things that they're frustrated by. And all of that information is going to help build and shape our editorial priorities and strategies. Right? I hope in five years that we're starting to see some real trend toward Black communities just trusting news again.
Farai Chideya:
Now that I am looking forward to, and you're the ones to do it. Akoto and Lauren, thanks so much for joining us.
Akoto Ofori-Atta:
Thank you, Farai.
Lauren Williams:
I thank you so much for having us.
Farai Chideya:
That's the co-founders of Capital B News, CEO, Lauren Williams, and Chief Content Officer, Akoto Ofori-Atta. You can follow their work at CapitalBNews.org.
Farai Chideya:
This is Our Body Politic. I'm Farai Chideya. What would you do if you found yourself a accused of killing one of the most loved and hated leaders in American life, Malcolm X?
Muhammad Aziz:
You have to compartmentalize, or else, you can't function. Because if you don't compartmentalize, you will panic.
Farai Chideya:
That's the voice of Muhammad Aziz. In 1966, both Aziz and the now deceased Khalil Islam, were falsely convicted of the assassination of civil rights champion, Malik el-Shabazz, or Malcolm X. Both men spent decades in prison for first degree murder. And last November, both were exonerated of those charges by Manhattan's District Attorney's Office. In a new powerful special streaming on Hulu by ABC News, Aziz shares his story for the first time publicly since the courts cleared his name. It is called Soul of a Nation Presents: Xonerated: The Murder of Malcolm X and 55 Years to Justice. The special is currently streamable on Hulu. And joining me now to talk about the show, Xonerated, is one of its producers, ABC News Senior Editorial Producer, Stephanie Wash. Stephanie, welcome.
Stephanie Wash:
Thank you for having me on.
Farai Chideya:
I have to say, I watched this doc with my mom and my mom just turned 80 I'm 52. And for me, it's so much that fills in the blanks as someone who's read the autobiography of Malcolm X and certainly knew about the convictions, but didn't really know whether they were meant to be. And then I saw the news story about the exonerations and here you come, you'll and your team with this documentary. What did you attempt to do more broadly and succeed in doing in this special? And give us a sense of what your aims were and if you think you met them?
Stephanie Wash:
Soul of a Nation, for those who don't know, is a docu-series that ABC launched last year, in 2021. And it started out as a six part series that was meant to focus on the Black experience in America. And it was meant to be a docu-series for diverse audiences. And so this special, Xonerated, was something that we launched during Black History Month. And we really wanted to do what we do in most of our Soul of a Nations, which is present viewers with this unique window into the authentic realities of Black life. And we want to dive deeper. And so it's interesting that you said that the story of Malcolm X's assassination was one that you didn't know fully, because I think we both had the same experience. I'm 35 years old and Malcolm X is one of the most influential figures in US history. And many people, including myself, had never heard the details and the facts of his assassination. My first time learning about it was in the news hearing that two men were wrongfully convicted and they were about to be exonerated.
Stephanie Wash:
Soul of a Nation Presents: Xonerated: The Murder of Malcolm X and 55 Years to Justice, which is the full title. We were hoping to really retrace Malcolm X's shocking assassination for those who didn't know the story in full. We were hoping, through Muhammad's first TV interview since his exoneration, be able to tell how something like this can change a man, how something like this can change the entire fabric of a family, as it did in his case, as it did in the case of the late exoneration of Khalil Islam. And we can't forget about what it did to the family of Malcolm X.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. I have to say that Muhammad Aziz's interview is really something that just holds space. Let's listen to a little bit of Aziz and interviewer, Byron Pitts.
Byron Pitts:
Were you scared?
Muhammad Aziz:
No.
Byron Pitts:
No?
Muhammad Aziz:
No. Did I look scared? You look at the pictures. Did I look scared?
Byron Pitts:
No, sir.
Muhammad Aziz:
I wasn't scared.
Farai Chideya:
And somehow, when he says that you, at least for me, I completely believed him. And when most people say that they're not scared, they really are, but I completely believed him. You did show images of some prison cells, but I just thought, "What would it be like to go from your young manhood, into your 80s, in prison." And just, I started imagining the kind of spaces that he inhabited while still remaining very much a man of dignity and faith and self assurance. And in fact, he spoke about that act of being in prison and what it was like there.
Byron Pitts:
The first 19 months you were incarcerated, you spent it-
Muhammad Aziz:
In what you can call solitary or what they called, in the boxes.
Byron Pitts:
But people knew why you were there, that you were one of the men convicted of killing Malcolm. Were there threats because of that?
Muhammad Aziz:
To me? No.
Byron Pitts:
Yes sir.
Muhammad Aziz:
No. The people know I didn't do it. Nobody ever thought I did it.
Farai Chideya:
So who was he before he was incarcerated for the assassination of Malcolm X?
Stephanie Wash:
Muhammad Aziz was a Navy veteran. He was someone who had a family, he had children. When he was accused and convicted of this crime. He was a lieutenant within the Nation of Islam at the time. And it was interesting because I was in the room during this interview and hearing him say about that iconic photo of him being arrested, "Did I look scared?" We all believed it in the room too, because Muhammad is someone who wholly leaned on his faith when this horrific thing was happening to him. He's someone, to this day, that believes God was on his side, through it all. And that's what kept him. And thinking back on who he was at the time, just think of the courage and the poise that it takes to be a man of that young age. You're a husband and a father. The police are dragging you out of your home for something you know you didn't do and you don't know if you're coming back. And this is an American citizen that has the same rights as anybody else, like I said, he was Navy veteran, he served this country. His life is just snatched up from under him. And he's telling everyone, "I didn't do this." And the sole admitted assassin is even saying, throughout the years, Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam are innocent. But as Muhammad tells Byron Pitts in this interview, no one was listening.
Farai Chideya:
Xonerated features just a host of subjects. You really got some incredible participants. You have family members, investigators, lawyers, and one voice is independent historian, Abdur-Rahman Muhammad. And his detective work into the old FBI documentation is what reignited interest in the case.
Abdur-Rahman Muhammad:
Over time, it became something of a crusade for justice, not just a cold scholarly matter.
Farai Chideya:
And you also present a cadre of legal voices in and around the exoneration. And here's some of what they had to say about the case.
Speaker 5:
For five decades, information establishing the identity of who actually committed the crime has been known.
Speaker 6:
The amount of information here is like nothing we've ever seen in a wrongful conviction case.
Speaker 7:
There was a real question, whether a fundamental unfairness had occurred here.
Farai Chideya:
And so Stephanie, as a journalist, how did you decide who to put in and how to feature them and how to make it make sense to... probably most of your viewers are not contemporaneous with having witnessed the media around the assassination of Malcolm X, so many years have passed, more than half a century. How did you choose who needed to speak?
Stephanie Wash:
Well, Abdur-Rahman Muhammad is such a dynamic character. We knew that he would lend a voice that was much needed, just as a citizen scholar, someone who we learned about from the Netflix documentary, someone who was so committed to digging and uncovering the truth behind Malcolm X's assassination for years. And when we sat down with the Netflix directors behind the special, they told us that nobody knew more about Malcolm X's murder than Abdur-Rahman Muhammad. They were able to follow him in the Netflix documentary as he built on his research and investigative work. We knew that he was a voice that we needed in the special to document for us Malcolm X's life, his assassination, and what he had uncovered since then. And we came across Deb Francois and David Shanies, the civil rights attorneys for the estate of Khalil Islam and Muhammad Aziz, basically when everyone else was learning about them in the news, when there was this news that the then Manhattan DA, Cy Vance, was looking into exonerating, these two men. It was a given that we needed to sit down with the civil rights attorneys that were behind this rewriting of history.
Farai Chideya:
And were there times where you were like, "I just don't know about X, Y, or Z?" Because there are still mysteries left behind who actually assassinated Malcolm X, not just who pulled the trigger, but who was behind who pulled the trigger?
Stephanie Wash:
Well, we had a lot of questions. Something that we did do for this documentary is we tried to locate and contact some of the names that the admitted assassin of Malcolm X gave in an affidavit. He claimed that these were the four men that were involved in the assassination with him. We tried to locate them. We believe that all four of them are dead. And so we were unable to locate them. But we also had questions about what the FBI knew. We tried to interview folks from the FBI. We tried to interview former detectives from NYPD, a former DA. We had questions that were unanswered still after the Netflix documentary. But a lot of us are still left with so many questions. And we spoke to Ilyasah Shabazz, Malcolm X's daughter, and in our interview she says that she would like a federal inquiry into what happened to her father and who was responsible. She wants to know the truth. There are just so many unanswered questions, especially for the family of Malcolm X.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. And as we wrap up, why is it important for the nation to know this history?
Stephanie Wash:
That's a great question. There are so many things right now in 2022 that are being looked at again. There are monuments coming down, there are statues coming down, there are things being removed from history books. We are in a moment of complete reckoning in this country. So it's not only important to know history when it comes to race and culture, it's important just to know American history as a whole. But this story in particular, having covered it so deeply and understanding the devastating impact it has had on three families, I think it is so important for us to lend our ears and to lend our hearts to this story. Because as Muhammad Aziz told Byron Pitts in the interview, no one was listening to him. Absolutely no one. And I think it's so important for us to know our history, and to listen to people like Muhammad Aziz, who just want their story to be told.
Farai Chideya:
Well, Stephanie, I was completely captured by this and I thank you for your journalism, here and ongoing.
Stephanie Wash:
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Farai Chideya:
That's ABC News Senior Editorial Producer on Soul of a Nation, Stephanie Wash. And you can stream Xonerated: The Murder of Malcolm X and 55 Years to Justice right now on Hulu. Coming up next, a special edition of Sippin' the Political Tea, catching up with Washington Post opinion columnist, and Our body Politic Contributor, Karen Attiah, about Joe Rogan, Whoopi Goldberg, the legacy of Jamal Khashoggi and more.
Karen Attiah:
When it comes to Joe Rogan's deal Spotify, this is not free speech. At this point, this is $100 million speech.
Farai Chideya:
You are listening to Our Body Politic.
Farai Chideya:
Every week on show, we bring you a round table called Sippin' the Political Tea. Now, before we jump in, I want to check in with you about a topic we are tackling on next week's show. That is inflation and how it's hitting our wallets. Please tell us what's on your mind. And the question is, with rising prices, what are the pressure points for you right now? What costs are hitting you hardest? Food, gas, rent, childcare, medical bills, something else entirely? Are you doing anything in particular in this moment to get by? For me, it's really an awareness of my privilege. I love fresh fruits and vegetables. I have a sense of gratitude I can pay for them, because they are not cheap right now. And as a kid, my family saved money by growing them ourselves. My mom was a really great urban farmer and we grew and we canned and we froze. So I am actually grateful that, although I can see inflation adding to the cost of getting fresh produce, that I can buy it. We want you to answer that question. Call us at (929) 353-7006. That's (929) 353-7006. Again, the question is, with rising prices, what are the pressure points for you right now? And what are you doing? You can all also respond to us on Instagram or Twitter @OurBodyPolitic, or go on OurBodyPolitic.com and scroll down to where it says we want to hear from you.
Farai Chideya:
Next week, we'll have Washington Post columnist and personal finance expert, Michelle Singletary, on to answer your money questions.
Farai Chideya:
Now back to the Tea. And is it ever hot this week? Joining me for a special edition of Sippin' the Political Tea is Our Body Politic contributor, Karen Attiah, opinions columnist at the Washington Post. She has been producing some of the most important cultural and political criticism today\, deeply researched and brilliantly written. Welcome, Karen.
Karen Attiah:
Hey Farai. Good to be here.
Farai Chideya:
Oh, it is so good to have you. We would love to start with your Washington Post column on Joe Rogan. You wrote among other things, "In America, the basic humanity and safety of those who are not white men is always up for open debate. It is this freedom that allows figures such as Rogan to use slurs in the aim of honest conversation and have guests who peddle racist pseudoscience, such as the ridiculous claim that Black people are genetically predisposed to violence." And Rogan did in fact have the alt-right activist, Chuck C. Johnson, on his show in 2015 saying just that.
Charles Carlisle Johnson:
There's this whole debate about the MAOA gene, which is this gene that Africans have, it's a proclivity to violence that they have. But basically what it is it's, if you think about of white European, Asian ancestors, as we moved out of Africa, aggression and violence was less necessary, because we were farmers and stuff.
Farai Chideya:
Because we all know that there's no farmers in Africa. That everyone rides a lion and just goes and hunts down the antelope or crawls along, actually eating the little tiny things that lions leave behind. Actually, you know what, let me just say Karen, before I even go to you, one of the many fun facts that people don't know is that low country cuisine, I mean, some people do know in, especially in our audience, low country cuisine came out of West Africans importing rice techniques to the United States. And as you know, and I know, there would not be American food without Black people who knew how to farm before we even came to America.
Karen Attiah:
Yeah.
Farai Chideya:
So rant off, that episode has now been deleted by Spotify. And it's just one of many now deleted episodes. What are we supposed to make of this, queen?
Karen Attiah:
Joe Rogan, I mean, his super loyal fans and defenders will say, "Look, he's willing to listen to all sides. He's willing to say the things that people are afraid to say. What about free speech, Karen? Don't you care about free speech?" And I'm like, when it comes to Joe Rogan's deal with Spotify, this is not free speech. At this point, this is $100 million speech. This is what Spotify-
Farai Chideya:
It's a hustle.
Karen Attiah:
... It's a hustle. And I think for me, it's the fact that we are so, in this country... not we, but white establishments, in particular, are so casual about inviting this debates in the spirit of progress and in the spirit of conversation, these debates about Black people's humanities, trans people's humanity, women's humanity, our safety, our very basic right to be able to live dignified. And they put it up as, "Oh, we're just, just having a conversation." And to me, the Joe Rogan situation, honestly, if I'm going to be absolutely real about it, as someone who's in the "mainstream media," I saw a little bit of almost condescension in the sense that the elites tend to think that who listened to the Joe Rogan show are these bros who are ignorant, a little bit beneath them and they're like, "Oh, of course they would listen to that low brow stuff." But you and I remember that this ethos of, "Well, we want to just hear all sides," is something that also happened in the mainstream media in response to Trump. They're like, 'Okay-
Farai Chideya:
Absolutely.
Karen Attiah:
... Right. "Maybe it's not a bad idea to have Jason Kessler on NPR to hear him rank the races." Which he did ahead of the Unite the Right rally. So to me, I place the Joe Rogan Spotify situation as the latest incident of large powerful institutions, white institutions, Spotify is based in Sweden, on not being afraid to platform the dehumanization of marginalized groups. And not only not being afraid, but making a lot of money from it. He's in the tradition of Rush Limbaugh, of Tucker Carlson, of all these right wing white male hosts that have profited off of this, have built empires from particularly white male audiences enjoying this sort of stuff. This is a deep societal cultural, almost titillation with playing around with dehumanizing us. So the question is how to reign this in.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. How do you choose what you write? You have really developed such an incredible voice. After years as an editor, moving into being a columnist, how do you choose?
Karen Attiah:
Gosh. I like to say, in some ways, when the spirit moves me, I mean, I think, particularly in the last couple of weeks with these issues, I try to choose what's I think not really being said, or to try to take a different angle. I mean, I just think that these are political moments in many ways, these are very much cultural moments. And I, especially being at the post, which is so known for politicians and the horse race, left versus right sort of thing, I believe that politics follows culture. Politicians are followers, and often the leaders in our society are the ones who are pushing the culture forward and shifting consciousness. And I think for me, I'm, at heart, still an internationalist. And I like to draw patterns. So with the Whoopi Goldberg whole situation, it was a learning opportunity. It was a teachable moment. And I think I just saw that, I was like, let's try to make this into a bit of a teachable moment about race and its trajectory through the centuries.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. Let's jump right in there. Whoopi Goldberg was suspended from the view for saying that the Holocaust isn't about race. She apologized later that day and said this on the late show with Stephen Colbert
Whoopi Goldberg:
As a Black person, I think of race as being something that I can see. So I see you and I know what race you are. And I felt that it was really more about man's inhumanity to man and how horrible people can be to people. And we're seeing it manifest itself these days. But people were very angry and they said, "No, no, we are a race." And I understand. I understand.
Farai Chideya:
And you wrote that instead of taking the opportunity to educate Goldberg and viewers, ABC silenced a Black woman. What kinds of conversations do media outlets need to have constructively? And what happened here in this kind crash of Whoopi, who is a titan, and the rest of The View and the audience?
Karen Attiah:
Yeah. To actually back up, you have to keep in mind that whole segment was actually about this wave of book banning that's happening across the country. Right? The whole context and the conversation was about, frankly, white supremacy. And it was a conversation about a book called Maus that was about the Holocaust and was banned. So to put all that in context, and her, in public, stumbling and not understanding, right, that the idea of Jewish people as a race, as an other peoples as was part and parcel of, not only Germany, but frankly, Europe's construction of superior races, of white supremacy. And you could see her fellow, co-host trying to reel her back in, trying to give her an out to dig out and to tell her that this was about white supremacy.
Farai Chideya:
Absolutely.
Karen Attiah:
There was also Roma peoples, also other groups that were deemed as inferior peoples by the Germans at the time. And frankly, there were a lot of people, even after I wrote the piece, a lot of people who didn't understand, they were like, "Whoop's right. What is she talking about?" And even if you look back to Black scholar, I've been reading W. B. Du Bois, who at the time were looking at it, it's like, "Wow, Europeans turned against other Europeans." And I think what's really difficult to conceive is that the idea of race just being about skin color. In the European context, it wasn't just about your skin color. It's about your religion. It's about your ethnicity. It was an unfortunate moment because it actually disrupted... Whoopi stumbled, disrupted the very necessary conversation that is so necessary for this time right now.
Farai Chideya:
Absolutely. You are listening to Sippin' the Political Tea on Our Body Politic. I am Farai Chideya. And this week we are talking about all of the mines in the field, race, gender, and the power of the media, with the Washington Post's Karen Attiah. If you are just tuning in, you can catch the whole conversation on our podcast. Just find Our Body Politic wherever you listen to podcasts.
Farai Chideya:
I've got a couple more things I want to touch on with you. One is that you took on educating the beehive that is Beyonce's land of stands. And so Beyonce and Jay-Z were featured in a Tiffany & Co. ad with the big yellow Tiffany diamond discovered in South Africa, "discovered" in South Africa in 1877. And some people celebrated the fact that she was the first Black woman to wear the necklace. But you pointed out that African lives were lost and communities destroyed in the mining of diamonds. So what happened when you tried to point this out?
Karen Attiah:
Oh God. Okay. In my time at The Post and being a journalist, I've gone up against governments that jail writers and threats, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, name your authoritarian country. When I published the Beyonce piece, I had friends texting me, they're like, "Are you okay? Do you need anything? Yo, I'm here for you if you need anything."
Farai Chideya:
Karen Attiah from an undisclosed location.
Karen Attiah:
I know because we've seen the stories. Oh gosh, we all remember when Beyonce dropped that Becky with the good hair lyric about Jay-Z cheating and her hive went wild with speculation and were sending death threats to these poor targets and stuff. And so in our internet stand culture, her fans can be vicious. And to an extent, they were, but honestly in many ways it wasn't even about Beyonce. And here's a little bit of a theme in my work. And in many ways, I'm not always concerned with individuals' behavior. Although, these are things we should look to, particularly public figures, it matters what they do and what they say. But what I resented the most was Tiffany's using Beyonce and Jay-Z and this diamond of Black excellence that we should celebrate, that this was a historic thing, that we should aspire to wear a colonial diamond. The heck? Absolutely not. It was insulting. Same with this idea-
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. I'd certainly like to just have a whole bunch of random South Africans die mining so that I look cute.
Karen Attiah:
... Not just look cute, but it's an honor. No. F that.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. And of course that was a joke folks. I have many relatives, including my brother in South Africa, and I respect human life all over the world. Just putting that in there in case you can't get what I was saying.
Karen Attiah:
Right. Yeah, the fans came for me, but, in the great words of Nene Leakes, I said, what I said. You can't argue with history and you can't honestly argue that these ideals of excellence, of consumption, of wearing diamonds are somehow racial progress. Nah, get out of here.
Farai Chideya:
That's right.
Karen Attiah:
That was basically what you're going after.
Farai Chideya:
That'll be our pull quote for this episode, "Nah, get out of here." Karen Attiah. I do want to ask you about this incredibly important work that you've been doing in addition to your 12 other jobs, which is writing Say Your Word, Then Leave: The Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi and the Power of the Truth. It comes out this summer. You were his editor. What should we anticipate from this book?
Karen Attiah:
Oh, gosh. I think this book is for the people who saw this story, which dominated the headlines for a solid several months and years. People know his name and know him as a symbol of so many things, of Middle Eastern repression, of Trump's, perhaps, indifference to life and of the US-Saudi relationship. But I hope with this book, honestly, him and I, we were just two people trying to do good work for The Post, trying to do good work for our communities, in many ways respectively. And what happens when literally you get caught up in the storm and the consequences for speaking out, the consequences for speaking the truth. I think there are times when we forget how much many of us risk. Yeah, I'd hope, it's just my humble, I think, contribution to how I saw things, mostly as just two people trying to do good work and then having our lives shattered for a while and trying to make something right out of it all. Yeah. I'm excited to put it out there.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. And we will be excited to talk to you about it. There's so much that we could continue to talk about, but I want to end here because it is an important place to end with the memory of Jamal Khashoggi and the work you have coming out. Karen, so glad to have you give us this incredible tour de force interview. Thank you.
Karen Attiah:
Ah. Thank you so much, Farai, for the space you give me. And just the profound questions. I always love being on with you. So thank you.
Farai Chideya:
And that was Our Body Politic contributor, Karen Attiah, cultural critic, author and opinions columnist at The Washington Post. Her book, Say Your Word, Then Leave: The Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi and the Power of the Truth comes out this summer.
Farai Chideya:
Thanks for listening to Our Body Politic. We're on the air each week -- and everywhere you listen to podcasts.
Farai Chideya:
Our Body Politic is produced by Diaspora Farms. I'm the executive producer and host, Farai Chideya. Jonathan Blakley is co-Executive producer. Bianca Martin is our senior producer. Bridget McAllister is our booker and producer. Emily J. Daly is our producer. Our associate producer is Natyna Bean.
Farai Chideya:
Production and editing services are by Clean Cuts at Three Seas. Today's episode was produced by Lauren Schild and engineered by Roc Lee and Archie Moore.
Farai Chideya:
This program is produced with support from Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Democracy Fund, the Harnisch Foundation, Compton Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the BMe Community, Katie McGrath and J.J. Abrams Family Foundation, and from generous contributions from listeners like you.