Opening Audience Applause
Good Afternoon everyone Uh so
This is kinda surreal sitting here with you
I should've worn my Howard University gear too (laughter)
Ta-Nehisi and I have been friends for about 20 years and we worked on the
Hilltop, Howard's school newspaper together
Yes, I worked for that
(laughter)
I was his editor at one point (more laughter)
Um... You didn't start off wanting to be a journalist
We all knew Ta-Nehisi was going to be special back when we were at Howard
We knew he was going to a famous writer. He was amazing in his editorial
writing
Everybody says that now (laughter)
We said that then (more laughter)
(laughter) says that now
We said that then. There's proof.
But you came to Howard wanting to be a historian
I did
Um and your father who runs Black Classic Press told you that there was the
power of the pen, you should be a journalist.
How did you make that switch because you were a history major?
I was... I mean um, but the path uh to actually becoming a historian is long
and it's filled with a lot of school work um
(laughter)
Um... by the time I got to Howard, my path was pretty long
It was filled with uh many many bad attempts at school work
and so it was fairly clear to me that I probably could not succeed
Like I probably could not, ya know um I just didn't think I could make it
Um journalism meanwhile had a kind of immediacy
You know one of the um attractions to me for journalism was um...
The basics of journalism actually pretty simple. Um...
But they have to be practiced over and over and over and over and over
again to actually get good at them
Um, the problem with journalism is not that it's-- it's a particularly
Complicated, ya know thing to do It's just that it takes a ton of practice
to get it right
Um and so, my process of learning I've always been much better um at,
um learning by doing? As opposed to like sitting back and for long periods
having to observe. You know that's always been a problem for me
and journalism , you know you can't learn journalism without actually doing
journalism. And so yeah I did it I could actually, you know, um
go out and pursue information the idea that I could go out and
pursue my curiosity...
um and immediately like see the fruits of that
I mean I was just...
it was tremendously attractive even at a school newspaper you can do
that, I mean you know in a way that like with history you can't really do it in
the same sort of way
You had a whirlwind month, touring, all your accolades
the way the book has been received, the Genius Grant, um
where are you in this moment, how have you been receiving the
reception and the accompanied criticisms?
Well I..I um. because I think there's some people here they don't tell us their names
but I think there some people here from the MacArthur Foundation
I have to make the correction that they don't like to have it called the
Genius Grant. It's the MacArhur Fellowship (laughter)
I stand corrected
laughter
I am not a genius You may address me as a genius however ,
but that's not because of MacArthur you just can't associate with it MacArthur
um that's just cuz of me
Laughter
Um, you know it's actually-- to be frank about it, it's been stunning, I mean