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