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Oh yeah, we're live. The mic is hot.
Hey, hey, and we're back episode twelve with Brown Ambition.
Twelve Real Like Seniors.
Yeah, yes it is. That's how we open. Did you even say hi to the people?
Hi? People, Hi everybody.
Thanks for sticking with us, Yes every week and your feedback has been amazing. We just want to remind you to email us at the Brown Ambition or sorry, Brown Ambition Podcast at gmail dot com if you have any questions or you want to share your Brown break. We'd love to answer your questions on air, specifically having to do with money or career or anything really.
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So.
So let's get started some buzz.
Let's do it.
Let's do some fun. Something fun at first.
Uh Starbucks, Yes, let's talk about Starbucks. There's some nonsense happening every so, this happens every holiday season. The Fox News is of the world, like the Christian sort of like the right wing conservatives come out with something.
They'll find anything to prove there's like a war.
On Christmas, Christians and Christmas, like there's a war on the holidays. Usually it's when everyone says happy Holidays, like I'm just going to say Merry Christmas and screw you guys, you know. And this year they decided to go in on Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks has a new Every year they have a new cup, I guess, yeah.
Like it's usually like some some sort of holiday Christmas theme cup, and passing years it's been like, you know, I don't know, like ice skates and snowflake snowflakes and you know, they're totally key. You can google it. And so this year the cup is red and green and it's devoid of like snowflakes.
There's no patterns. It's like an ombre yes and it's nice.
I mean, I don't know, it's like whatever, it's a freaking cup, Like who thinks about that exactly? But now people are saying that because there's no festive accoutrement, that they think it's Starbucks's a way of ignoring Christmas and of course there's a war on Christmas now, which I think is such utter bullshit. I actually went to weather dot com and looked up the weather in Bethlehem.
Which is a real place where Jesus was born.
This was born there.
Yes, they travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Let me tell you, in December it is a smooth sixty degrees in Bethlehem.
You means to tell me there's no snowflakes.
There's no snowflakes in Bethlehem.
Now, so Jesus was not born on a wintry night. There was no snowflakes from nobody was ice skating in Bethlehem the night that Jesus was born. Like, it is nothing to do with snowflakes. You guys need to calm down, yes, please do. And so I read that. I read that there were six passengers on the Spirit Airlines. First of all, Spirit Airline is like the toilet bowl of all airlines. Like it is just the worst. It's so bad I've had I feel like everyone has a like a Spirit
Airline horror story. If you travel, because you get lured in by that, like you know, one hundred dollars round trip ticket and then you're like, oh, and it's thirty five dollars for a carry on and oh like ten dollars for booking online and not.
If you don't pronoun your ticket ahead of time. It's like Frontier some bullshit.
Yea.
So they apparently like so they constantly overbook and they have so few flights, so like if you get bumped from a flight, you have to basically stay over in that city because they have so few.
Flights for people.
So they overbooked, and they had these to this this African American couple. They wanted to change seats, and so they asked them, and the couple was like, no, we don't want to change seats.
It's not fair.
We paid money, like why do we have to change seats? And I guess things got a little out of out of hand, and then other passengers kind of like piped in and stood up. I guess four other passengers who were African American like started arguing with Spirit with the flight attendant, and then she called the cops, and the cops came and everybody like, all these six people had to get off.
The flight got kicked off, and so now spirits in a world of bad press.
Yet again, Yes, and yeah, you know, and obviously like it's hard when you're not.
There to see what happened.
Yeah, to see what happened.
But you know, there is that whole thing like would this have escalated so much if they weren't black? You know, like are they going to be so quick to call the cops if it was like a little old white lady or you know, just anybody else. Besides that, I feel like people are it's always like when you are, when you were outspoken and black, what the feedback is like, why are you so angry?
Calm down?
Like because the threat, the threat is always that violence is coming next.
Yeah, like someone's gonna pull them niight.
Yeah, like if you went.
Through security, exactly, nobody has sharp botches. We're using our voices exactly.
There's a a gentleman that told me that he always asked for a second employee. He said that way before if he feels like, you know, he started to get angry, he starts to escalate, he said, because we would need to have more than just two stories here, right, you know, if you want to there's this really funny rant by this woman, young woman named c dot c CS in the letter C like cat EE dot C e E TV, so C dot cd TV on YouTube, or you can just google a Spirit Airlines rant. It is hud.
I want to play a little clip. She has a story hilarious. Yes, thank you, thank you so much.
So online checking the bag and they're like forty dollars for check that, forty five dollars for carry on. What I didn't think I was reading it right because normally carry on free. I'm doing all the work myself. Why why am I paying you to carry my own bag? I don't I was very turned off in the first five minutes of Spirit Airlines at that moment.
So I paid eighty dollars forever check my bag going to and coming from. So the flight was tours except stops.
So then if you can tackle on another eighty somebody do the math wire kicking your.
Head somewhere three hundred and fifty six. Now, Spirit, you need to stop bamboozling people. You need to stop. It's what got me there, they got me.
Whatever is thee That was hilarious? Yes, it's so true. God, just like you need to look out for those hidden fees.
Yeah, they actually add on fees for the holidays too, just for traveling during a high traffic season.
Oh spirit, you stole her spirit? Any other buzz worthy but body? Yeah, a couple, Well this could be a win. Okay, I'll save this one, but I want to talk about Serena. Did you see the clip? Yes? I didn't actually, but I heard that.
So Serena Williams tennis star Extraordinary, was at dinner at a restaurant and she posted this thing on Instagram about how she noticed some guy like creeping behind her, but she didn't want to like, you know, assume.
The worst, but she kept her eye on him.
And then she like had her cellphone on the chair next to her, and he just like walks by, casually picks it up, and then walks out of the restaurant, and then she chases him down in her in her Instagram post. You know, of course she's she says she's chases him down and she's like he didn't realize I'd be so fast, you know, and like she came back and everyone cheered for her and whatever, and like the picture on Instagram was of a superwoman, like her dress like superwoman.
I saw that picture.
And then she's like.
Women like don't feel like just because you're a woman, you can't stand up for yourself. This is an example of you know, just like girl power or whatever. And part of me is like yay, part of me is also like.
Don't chase down a crook.
Yeah, like maybe they have a gun, Yeah, perhaps they have a knife. Like that's not you know, but good for her. And then they actually have security footage from the from the incident, so she's telling the truth.
You see the.
Guy behind Harry picks up the phone. She doesn't chase him down the street. She's not running like, he's really just strolling, and she just also strolls after him and stops, and it sounds like they have like a polite exchange.
She's like, did you take my phone?
Sir?
He's like, oh, yeah, here you go and hands it to her.
So there's no like like creaky chase she's doing on the You know how fishermen have like those fishermen stories like then I.
Pulled the big not just fishermen, Like apparently presidential candidates have been a little a little bit embellishing some of their stories do tell. So Ben Carson, who was gonna be my brown break, Actually eventually he probably won't be, but I have something else today. But Ben Carson obviously is gaining in the polls, and that's just put a huge bulls line on his back and people that are really digging into his past. He's obviously over now and
we're a neurosurgeon. He wrote a book in the early nineties called Gifted Hands. Gifted Hands. He's like, was it an autobiography? You're gonna have a memoir thing? Yeah, And several news reports this week have come out saying so one of like three different things he's sort of like
fudged details about. So one that CN ended was all about how he claims to have had all these anger issues, and he claims to have pulled a knife on a friend one time and like beat up people and been really violent, and apparently he had some kind to Jesus moment where he was in the bathroom and he had just like almost killed or just wanted to kill one of his friends, and he was in the bathroom and he's like, and then I reached in the drawer and pulled out the Bible, and then I like I my
second coming or whatever, like Jesus helped him and then he became this new life of like you know, uh, kindness and Christianity or whatever. Okay, So CNN went back and talked to like a bunch of his classmates from this time in his life, and none of them were like they're like ben like violent.
He was kind of nerdy. I wouldn't remember him like pulling punch it.
Yeah, right, like as he was talking to talk like, you know, I used to be out thug out in these streets.
That's so random, Like why and especially in a book that supposed to be like, you know, talking about yourself, why would you say something negative about it?
I guess I guess it's it's the build up to like and you know, everyone has to have like the arc, you know, and their story, like I was so terrible and then Jesus saves me and then I'm better. And I'm not saying Jesus can't save you. Yeah, but let it be authentic. You don't need to give extra you know, lies to I don't know. That just seems really crazy and not just that.
So he also said that he was offered a scholarship to West Point, which is this like highly competitive military academy, and turns out there are no scholarships to West Point because people who go there don't pay, and the only way to get in is you have to be you have to have a reference from like basically someone in Congress or someone in political power or from the military has to refer you, and nobody, like he nobody referred him, and he didn't actually get admitted at all.
Wow, that's a big one.
Yeah.
So the way he explains it is that he's like, oh, actually I had a conversation with someone who said I should apply, but he only had ten dollars and back then it cost ten dollars to apply to college. He's like, I only had ten dollars, so the one place I applied to was he was a Yale and he got into Yale and went on And I'm just like.
You have an amazing career. The story is amazing. You have to add in these lies.
Because I mean exactly like you went to Yale. Dude, it's cool, you know.
Yeah, this happens, like you always hear these stories about people, you know, like, oh, like the people who lie on their resume and they become like executives at these major companies.
And then you find that later you're like, who was the the news anchor.
Guy Brian Williams. That wasn't a resume, that was like an Embellas story.
Yeah. Yeah, I always see like the memes on him, like, oh, like the time I was hanging out Beyonce and jay Z.
You're like, it's sad because you know, I think we've all done. I'm guilty of it too, Like you retell a story and it just gets a little bit more dramatic.
But when you are on that.
When you get to this public stage and you are in front of a camera and you're talking to people like you cannot be lying, especially in the day, in the age of Google.
Yeah, that everyone can find out.
I can imagine Ben Carson in the nineties being like, how they gonna know? You know, like there's not even computers yet. So yeah, it's just and you. It's a cautionary tale, like do not do not lie. Your story is enough?
Yes, you know, are enough, Ben, You're enough whatever.
I mean, but I mean, yes, you said you have something funny about Donald Trump.
You said, oh Trump, Yeah, so real quick. Today is Sunday.
Last night, Donald Trump was on SNL and I obviously did not watch because I had better things to do with my life. And it's a hot mess. He was even on there in the first place, and he you know, I was really worried that because of his because of his like his media savvy or like just people being really fascinated by him and loved watching him for entertainment purposes, I was worried they were going to get high ratings.
And the ratings haven't come out yet, but.
All the reviews of the show said he was terrible good that he just like totally bombed. He wasn't funny, and he watered down, Like he said no to several sketches because he was worried about how they play in the polls, and so he ended up just doing like a really weak cameo and a couple of skits, and the whole show is kind of awkward.
So yay SNL that NBC.
And there was all those protests.
You know, that famous Latino actor John Luguizamo, he was actually interviewed on Yahoo. I got to see the back of his head. Yeah, he's like, he's an amazing actor. He's not really vocal politically, he's not. But he came out on Yahoo and said that he was boycotting. He was like, I'm never gonna watch SNL again because they had this joker on there, and I mean, you know, I hope it was worth it, NBC.
I hope it was worth whatever.
Ratings you may or may not have gotten, exactly alienate such a huge base. They also got called out because one of the sketches apparently they had another and this isn't this isn't Like. SNL is notorious for having white actors play Latinos and they had yet again. I think a white one of the white show people people on the show played am a Latino personality, politician or something like that. So they need to diversify their cast and they need to stop having these racist xenophobes.
Exactly as host. You see, it didn't work out for you. I mean, you know, but we all have to learn Lama's a bitch and she bites, and that's it for buzzworthy.
Brown break, Brown break, what you're gonna do?
That was the break?
You didn't get it.
We're doing a lot of like voiceovers and like you know, we're.
Gonna get like sued for copyright infringement.
I feel like if we well no, I mean, because it's our own voices and clearly we're off tuned.
It was a remix. Yes, so cops, sorry about that brown break this week? Yes, you want to go first, So.
Mine's a little bit embarrassing. I don't care. So I'm taking a brown break from waist trainers. Yes, I said it. Some of y'all are wearing it right now.
I believe I've got so I can hardly wear tights without feeling like I'm gonna die.
I'm not to do that, And honestly, I'm not judging because I totally bought two different waist trainers.
First of all, Like what are they supposed to do? Like, how do you train your waist?
Because if you wear them, are you're supposed to wear them for a number of hours a day and it's supposed to like basically like remold your body.
But these are what the Kardashians wear.
Yeah, but that's not what I was using it for. I was using my waist trainer because I was like, ooh, when I had a dress on that was like slim fitted, and now that I'm thirty six, I had a little pudge in my belly. I wanted something like the next level up from spanks, right. I wanted something I was gonna kind of like hold me and then I could just eat all night.
Is it like metal?
Yeah, so tis have like a little bit of metal boning, but like so like it really cause spank's kind of like it spank smooths where you already are. That's what I felt. That it pulls you in. Of course some but the waist trainer actually like shapes your waists. But I found that first of all, it was like, I don't know, it didn't do anything, but I felt like it made me look like I had a bigger belly
in clothes. Really yeah, I had like pictures. I'm like, what is this stuffach No, because I've got like twenty bucks on it. Maybe that's why people were like, well there you go to him and then too, I was just like, you know what, how about I just get a personal trainer? And I did. Yeah, and in the last week I lost two pounds, sooo, I know, and honestly, it's come for my belly and so like I was wearing a dress that we can't.
Always just you can't always choose where it comes from.
Yeah, I know, but you know what she really I told her one of my areas I really wanted to work on and so I want a meal plan. And the meal plan's not anything crazy. It's just like literally just just better eating, you know. Like she's like, hey, instead of chicken thighs, have chicken breasts, salad, more greens, you know. So it's nothing like crazy. She's just given it to me. And honestly, I know how to cook fairly well, so just using these ingredients in better ways,
you know. So that's been great. Even Superman he was like, so, I'm not on a diet. I was like, hush, she eat this food. He's like, I made salmon baked salmon the other day, and I found this recipe on YouTube with like basil and this and that and lemon, and it was so good. And he was like, are we eating healthy again? But I made it. He was like, babes, this is so good.
I was like, Samon's delicious. Yeah, I just need some lemon juice and some olive oil.
And just pop that.
Yes, it was just so good. And so that's why I'm like, it's really on lifestyle shift and I've been going to gym and I feel great. I can already tell the difference. Like I wore dress the other day that I would normally whip out my waist training for and I didn't, and I was like, I looked, like, you know, almost back to my normal self. So where's your brown break?
My brown break this week?
So being in like, I mean, I read a lot of financial bloggers. Obviously I read, well, you don't really blog that much, but I read a lot of I read your stuff. I read everyone's sort of like little blog posts and stuff. But one of the most popular types of financial blogging these days is these travel hackers. And I need a brown break from these travel hackers because they get under my skin for a specific reason.
They call themselves mile runners, card churning, card churners, travel hacking. Basically, what it is is they they say they're getting free travel, like oh, I got my flight to Hawaii paid for
I you know, didn't pay for my hotel. And how they do it is they take out a bunch of rewards credit cards, and these credit cards, you know, where you spend three thousand dollars in the first two months, and they'll give you fifty thousand miles, which is like six hundred dollars, which you can put toward airfare or you can you know, trade those miles for like a hotel stay or if you have like a oh we're getting a called again.
Yeah, collar colors are there?
Why they always calling?
That's funny, Let's keep it.
It's like the points guy calling me is like I heard you were dis an travel hackers. And you know, I'm not calling out anyone specifically on this, but my problem, and it's not just travel hackers, but it's with the entire rewards card frenzy. They're amazing, Like I love my AMX Blue cash card, give me six percent back on groceries. But the reason you should get like, you should never open a credit card to get bonuses exactly because first of all, it's a hard inquiry on your credit report.
It'll ding your credit score.
Second of all, you have to spend money to get money, exactly.
And I don't like how they make it seem like, oh, it's a free trip, but you spent three thousand dollars to get to there. And it's one thing. If you spend three thousand dollars anyway within two months on a normal basis, if that's.
Normal for you, exactly, I don't think that's normal for a lot of people.
Yeah, for most people, it's not.
You'd be like spending.
I mean, I feel like it would just encourage you to whip out that card and spend more. And that's a lot of money to spend in a two month period. Do you have three thousand dollars to pay it off immediately?
Exactly?
Because some of these cards don't all have zero percent interest rates.
And see if they do. Honestly, I always suggest, you know, because you know, I'm the budgetiest to full time. And so when people ask me, like, you know, I want to get a card because I want to, you know, save on this flight or whatever, I'm like, well, to me, first and foremost, the purpose of getting your credit card
should not be, like you said, for the bonuses. It should be for the specific thing you might say, because I suggest that people have at least one card, especially if you're an adult, you're going to have to rent a card sometime. It's a great way to build your credit if you use it responsibly, you know, And.
So say further, you have more protections from fraud and things like that.
So when I buy certain things, I definitely will use my card because I know, like, Okay, if this doesn't work out, I know I can call the credit card company and they will reverse the charges. And then after I've decide that I need a card for a specific financial purpose, then I look for a card that matches the kind of rewards that I want. So that's secondary. It's like, oh, do I use gas a lot? I look for a gas card. If do I use you know, if I travel a lot, So I have a travel card,
you know. But that wasn't the intention of me getting it. I got my card because I wanted a credit card, you know.
But then if it's working, I mean, I definitely feel like, if you're going to get a credit card, it should be a rewards card because there's just so many out there are. But these what these guys don't always say too, is that there's a lot of fees. Like some of these cards have ninety five dollars and up annual fees. Ye you know, I actually have a I have a rewards card with the airline that I travel with the most.
Like I said, my parents live in two different states, so I'm always you know, flying to see them, and this card gives me a free check bag, which I feel like if I take four flights, which is easy. It's like Christmas travel for me. You know, it's a ninety five dollars annual fee. But if I fly four times, then you go, it pays it off. And and I, you know, I do get a big bonus if I spend a certain amount of money in the first two months,
but I made sure it wasn't too much. And I would just say, be weary and shop around and be careful with these travel hacker blogs too, because a lot of them are recommending cards and they're getting kicked backs.
Yep, they're getting paid money from you clicking on affiliate.
Liketh Sometimes it's much as one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars if you sign up.
You're kidding.
So they're like laying into you like it's so amazing good. They see you as a payday, you know, which, like I said, if you are already in a hunt for a card. That's why I love about that. Nick's website Magnify Money.
Oh yeah, magnified money dot com. It's a personal finance kind of like education site. Yes, and they do a lot of card do they do travel reward card comparisons.
They do everything. But what I love is that you could just go in and be like, hey, I'm looking for this, and he will compare and he makes it easy. He'll say, this card has a A here's why. This card has a C. Here's why, and a clear, plainly spoken language. So when you look. When I'm looking for a financial product or service, I usually go there first and then I'll say, like, you know, let me see why, you know, like if I'm looking for a secured card or whatever
it is. But yeah, so that's a great place to start if you're already looking for a credit card. Not for a credit card so you can get travel points, but just a credit card in general.
Yeah, definitely. And what's so Magnified money is a good site. And I mean a lot of these sites do good affiliates. It's the reason they don't charge you. Like for example, credit Karma, which I like because you give Credit Karma is one of those sites where you can get an estimate of your credit score, which is nice to keep track and you can get if you from it, an estimate. Right, it's not your FIGHTO score. It's actually based on just one of your credit reports, but it gives you a
good benchmark to tell you where you are. It won't be exactly like your fighto score and it's it's a nice way too to monitor your credit on your own because they do have all your you can see, like if someone takes out a credit card that's not that you didn't take out, you can go on credit Karma and it'll show up there and you can go dispute it and whatnot.
They're actually launching pretty soon. This actually might be under embargo. I don't know if I should whatever, who cares. It's Credit Carmer. They'll love it.
They're starting a new thing where you can dispute errors on your credit report from credit CARDMA. Yeah, before you credit Carmer was nice because you could see your credit report, but you couldn't actually do anything about it. You had to go to Annual Creditreport dot com and dispute stuff through the different channels.
But yeah, they're adding on that feature.
But so they obviously when whenever I long go onto Credit Karma, i'd see my score, I see my stuff. I'm like great, and then it has a million oh like, while you're here, here's some recommendations for credit cards. You should and honestly, that's that's where I got my AMEX from, through them and change then yeah, exactly, So I mean you have to keep that in mind. To you are they showing you all the best options for you? Like, so don't just go to one site. I would say
magnified Money is a good site. Credit Karma, well maybe not credit Karma for credit cards, but nerd wallet I like a lot, although I'm pretty sure they get kickbacks too, nerd Wallet.
We're honestly. What I like about Magnified Money is that like they well they weren't getting paid before, but now for those credit cards that are kind of up there, it clearly says on top sponsored, so you can kind of like choose, you know, so it's not but their a's are not for free. So if you like Nick has told me that people have said it, well how much for an A?
Those are not so the credit card company ask because they can pay to be listed on other sites.
Yeah, now I know I'm not going to mention some of the sites. I used to actually recommend the one site in particular that I loved br but I found out that people could like pay do you mean bankr I don't know what you're talking about, And so I was like, what you could pay? No, because how do I know what's real?
You know what I mean, right, So it's just like shopping around different sites and just being aware that maybe they're showing you what they want to show.
You because they get kickbacks exactly.
And just because it works for one guy to turn and get a bunch of open up a ton of credit cards in one year just to get a free trip, is it worth the amount of debt you will put yourself in to get that free trip.
It's just so that's my.
Brown break, brown break, what you're gonna do?
We done broke on you, you know, let's do it.
Let's we always forget. If you're gonna tweet us, please do. We'd love to hear from you. I love when people tweet us.
So it's our Twitter handles.
Our tweetle handle is the BA podcast at the BA podcast. Good and so, but also I love when people tweet us at the BA podcast. And they also hit you up Mandy Mandy with an I woodruff that's what you are on Twitter.
Right at Mandy woodruf.
Yeah, and I and I'm at the Budget Nisa, like fashion Nissa, but the budget Nissa. So if you tweet us, we'd love to hear from you. I love those tweets when they're like I listen to you guys, or you guys say something that we said back, but you tell us like this is your brown break.
We love those.
I know somebody said they had a brown break against windy millennials. Oh oh, and I was like, hmm, you sound like my dad.
I like that one. See you're a millennium. I'm like one year past millennial age.
Yeah, different gen X.
Yeah.
So anyway, I wanted to take so this week, I want to do something special we have we don't always have guests on. Yeah, but I had a really great conversation with someone I admire a lot.
She's a writer. Her name is Mira Jacob.
And the way I thought I came on to her work is she writes sometimes for BuzzFeed. She's Indian American and her husband's Jewish and they have a six year old son. He might be a little bit older now, but he's around six years old, and he's obviously biracial, multicultural and not just that, but interfaith. I don't think she was raised obviously, Mirror wasn't Jewish growing up. And
she did this like amazing BuzzFeed article. It was like a graphic novel almost of taking the questions her son asks her about race through the This Is to Stay with Me. He's asking her about race, but with Michael Jackson as the theme. So he's apparently a big Michael Jackson fan and his parents had like all Michael's like albums.
I don't know if they have like forty five's or vinyls or whatnot, but anyway, he can see the progression of Michael from like black Michael to like different shades of Michael throughout the years, and that's sort of like how he started looking at rape. And she, on top of that, has written about what it's like to be
an Indian American writer in the publishing world. So I had a really great conversation with Mira about raising a biracial multicultural child and then also what it's like to be an Indian American in the publishing world, and I just wanted to share that with you guys.
Yes, let's real Tate, Miya.
Jacob, thank you so much for being on Brown Ambition.
Thanks for having me.
So.
I know you're a very successful fiction writer.
Obviously that goes without saying, but I got to say that I found your work through your nonfiction writing. One of the first pieces I read by you, and probably a lot of people out there have read, was on BuzzFeed and it was about It was actually a cartoon essay, which was excellent, by the way, on how you handle
your son's awkward questions about race. And I could really identify this, identify with this because like your son, I grew up and I'm bi racial and I have a younger brother who used to ask me a lot of awkward questions about our race as kids, like why is my hair curly? And why is it not flat? Like you know the Backstreet Boys. Yeah, written right, And I just love to talk to you about you know where this how this story came about, and what inspired you to write it in this way?
Yeah?
Sure, well so the story, you know it really it came about pretty naturally and intensely because my son is he's six now, he's about to be seven, and he is really obsessed with Michael Jackson. He watches Michael Jackson videos all the time, and he tries to emulate Michael Jackson. You knows a bunch of different ways to dance, like Michael Jackson's pretty good actually, And all of this is
you know, he's sort of had this burgeoning obsession. And one of the things that I did so he wouldn't become part of the generation that just keeps skipping between songs the way you do when you have an iPod or something else, is I got him a record player with albums, so that came with. I got him these very big Michael Jackson albums, and he has been studying
those for a long time and looking at them. And what happens when you look at Michael Jackson albums at that scale is that you realize pretty quickly that early Michael Jackson looks nothing like later Michael Jackson.
Actually, I'd like to do that myself. Let's just get all them together and look at the color palette changing.
Yeah, it's pretty impressive.
It's really it's pretty shocking when you see it, and when you're a little kid and you.
See it, you have a lot of questions.
So obviously one of his first questions for me, which I didn't realize was going to open this whole can of worms, is what color is Michael Jackson? And so I said, well, you know, he's a great question. He sort of started brown and he turned white because he turned white and I said yeah, and then he just looked at me and.
He goes, are you going to turn white? I was like, no, no, turn white.
And he goes, am I, And I said no, you're not going to turn white?
And he said is daddy? And I said, well, Daddy's already white?
And he goes, but was he always It's just.
Like he was.
So I was, oh, God, what have I done? And then but what was interesting about that is so I messed my kid up for life pretty instantly right then, and it was it was both funny and weird, and I realized I'd kind of blown it and that I had been taken off guard by this really simple question. So I thought to myself, the next time he asks a question about race, I'm really going to be on it. I'm really going to have some better answers for him. And as you can see in that segment, I never
had better answers for him. I'm continually baffled. And my main goal in trying to talk to him was just to try to be truthful without being scary, which is really hard in a world where you know, that was last year and most of the stuff at Ferguson was breaking and when he's asking questions about who is Michael Brown?
You know, when he's asking these kinds of questions, and he keeps.
Seeing things on the television that tell him that brown kids and black kids are you know, are targeted by.
White police, and he.
Has a lot of questions about that in the six and it's you know, it's really.
Hard to to kind of thread.
That properly and say this is the real Yes, this is a real problem.
This is something that we are all working to change, and that's.
Why we go to those protests, and that's why we go to those marches, and but also keep his world somewhat safe for him. And frankly, it's easier to do for him.
I'm well aware of that.
It's easier for it to do for him because I'm East Indian and my husband is Jewish, and he's facing a different set of circumstances than a lot of kids. But he's aware also that his skin comes with a story behind it, and he's unsure of what that story is.
It was interesting to me that you said, you know, you knew, you knew, you didn't do the greatest job explaining, but you wanted to wait until he came to you again, that's hard that I feel like that'd be hard to do for you know, I'm kind of I'm a nerdy finance nerd, and I tend to be like, wait, you don't understand this, let me explain it to you right now. I have all my power points ready. I'm going to
like drill us into you. And what do you think is important about waiting for your son to come to you?
For that?
For those questions before you you know, kind of laid on them all at once.
It's a great question, you know. And I'll be honest with you. It's not that I'm always so good at that. There are times when I've definitely over explained things. But the other thing is is that when I when I find, when I do, when I do wait, usually the questions he asks me are quite different than the ones that I want to give him answers to.
So I will want.
To tell him, you know, you're great, you're fine being brown, and you're gonna be okay.
And those aren't even the questions he has. That's that's not what he's asking me.
And he's asking me other questions which are which are harder to answer.
Sometimes.
I mean there was a section in that when he asked me if white people were afraid of brown people, And I was so devastated after he asked me that. I mean, at the time, I sort of answered it very as straightforwardly as I could. But that night, and part of the reason I started drawing this whole piece is because I just the idea that he was asking me these questions and that the answers were so complicated and occasionally unforgiving was it was really hard to kind of live with all of that at once.
And I'm sure your husband's I mean, I know he wasn't included in the cartoon, but he can't be off the hook altogether. I'm sure your son is also sort of asking him, And how do you guys sort of approach those questions together?
Do you talk about it?
You know on the side, how are we going to you know, address race and kind of come to an agreement?
Yeah, you know, there's a there was a part of that strip that I didn't include, which is when my son asked me because he asked me, a poite people are afraid of brown people? And then shortly after that he said, is daddy afraid of us? And I said no, and he was just quiet, and he was doing that thing that kids do when they're just thinking, thinking, thinking, and I said, again emphatically, no.
No, he's not.
And then and then what I said to him was, I said, you know, you can ask Daddy that. And Daddy would love it if you if you did ask him that, because he would be happy to answer that. For you can always ask Daddy these same questions you asked me, because I know on some level that he comes to me with this stuff because I look like him and I'm brown, and so I'm in I'm dealing with some of the same things that he sort of feels.
But also he is half his father, and his father certainly thinks about all this plenty.
So I said that to him, and he said, oh, I don't want to do that. And I said, you know, sweetie, you know, don't be afraid.
Dad is not going to get angry with you. You know, this is a totally worthwhile question. He said, no, it's not that. I just what if we hurt his feelings? And I just felt so wrecked when he said that. I mean, at the time, I said, yeah, okay, yep, I understand. I said, you know, I don't think we're going to I don't think you saying that to him
would hurt his feelings at all. That I understand that, and it also but it hit that part of my heart that you know that you have growing up as just a person of color in the States, where you know so often that the kind of the worry you feel about how people are going to react to you and.
Is so often subsumed by your need to want.
Them to be okay with you.
And it was really heartbreaking for me that he would feel that with his dad, you know, like I want him to be okay. He was sort of saying that, like I want him to be okay more than I want to answer this question for myself. And it was really hard. You know, that was really hard, and it you also can't push someone to say something. And it did go and talk to my husband about it because I said, you know, because secure and I, my son and I have so many talks about race.
And I said, by the way, he's probably going to ask you.
I's probably going to ask you if you're afraid of him, just get ready.
And my husband said what And I said yeah, And it was you know, it was so funny because I had been so deep in this conversation with ze Cure about race, and I'd.
Been so kind of bogged down with it in a way.
We've been like in the deep water for you know, weeks at this point, and I hadn't realized that he just bringing all the race stuff only to me. And then when I saw my husband's face, I realized, like, oh, yeah, no, it's all it's all.
Coming to me, because he looked so broken hearted.
By it and I and I, you know, I said, oh, we need to just have a moment to be upset about.
This, Like we need to just have a moment where you're.
Allowed to be just upset that we're in a world where your son has to worry about whether or not you're afraid of him because of everything he's seeing on TV, and we can do that.
I wanted to bring up the most recent story I've read of yours on BuzzFeed, which detailed something right on
this topic. Like you were just mentioning how you were invited to speak at an event hosted by Publishers Weekly, and the talk was supposed to be about your successful year getting published your book all the great reviews, but things didn't go exactly as planned, and you wanted an opportunity to sort of talk about your experience and some of the microaggressions that you had gone through in the publishing industry, and again things didn't quite.
Go as you expected.
Can you talk about that and what you what message you were trying to get out that night?
Sure? So Polloser's Weekly.
Actually they were lovely and they asked me to give this keynote speech for them at a.
Young Publishing Stars event, and in the course.
Of of kind of coming up with what I would speak about, they said, oh, just talk about your last year. And I thought, Oh, this is the perfect time to talk about what that what my last year was, because I think.
There is you know, far and might.
Have had a very nice year, very nice reviews.
And generally a kind of lovely moment of coming out with a debut novel, but what was happening behind the scenes was often very different from what was what I was kind of presenting, and so I wanted to talk about that and it and what I started with in the speech was a Boston radio producer who asked me to to read a portion of my book on air, and he said, you need to edit it, and I said, oh, sure, of course, you need to edit it. And so he sent the edits back and part of them were what
you'd expect. It was like, here are three hundred words and I've now cut them to twenty five. I thought, yeah, sure, But then I looked further in his notes and he had circled the names of my characters and said, if you're going to stick with the unusual names, maybe cut down these three characters to two, because you're going to confuse our audience.
Which I just thought they couldn't possibly understand these weird names, I know.
And it was really funny, by the way, because these were all two syllable Indian names.
I wasn't even going with like rama, you know what I mean.
Yeah, it was like a kiel.
You know.
I don't know that that's that confusing.
I hate how he was underestimating his listener's intelligence at the same time.
You know.
It was crazy.
So he said this, he said, you know, cut out one of the characters. And I thought, this is this book has been published, crazy person. I can't just change a scene and cut out an entire character. But anyway, I didn't say that. I just said I said you know,
we can't cut a character. But then further down, because he had asked me to write a quick one sentence intro, and I had said, these are three East Indian teenagers, children of immigrants, are sitting on a roof talking and he had crossed out East Indian and written Asian Indian.
And I just.
Remember, I know, I read that, and I thought, what.
Because I have because I literally have never heard anyone say Asian Indian unless they were saying no, not like American Indian, like Asian Indian and so and I wrote back and I said, yeah, I just you know, first I just crossed that back out and wrote.
East Indian and just gave it back to him.
And then he crossed it out and again and he wrote, he wrote this note to me on the bottom, and he said, you know, alas here in this country, East Indian is just not a term that we use, so I want to be sure or that, you know, our listeners are going to understand what you're talking about. And I just, I mean, I read that and I just kind of had this moment where I felt like my brain was going to fall apart because I just thought, are you kidding?
Well, I mean it's not even I mean, it's a direction and there's a country and it points to a region. I don't understand what's so difficult about that.
The whole thing was baffling, but the part that was most baffling to me was his assumption that I was not every bit as American as he is.
Just an assumption, and.
I'm you know, I'm forty two, I have been born and raised in this country. I have been waiting for it to catch up with me for a long time. And this is just to say that when this happened, I wanted to talk about that in the speech.
I wanted to say because I think that there.
I think sometimes when I'm in the book world, I feel like they are catering to that guy, that guy who is so sheltered and so not a part of the conversation that the rest of us are having, and they're saying, well, let's make sure everything is understandable for that guy, And I feel like, what about the rest of us.
There are so.
Many of us.
We can go so far beyond this conversation.
East Indian is not confusing three kids without.
Names that are you know, with names that.
Don't happen to be Mary Dick and Tom.
That is not confusing. People can handle this. We are these people, you know. I think one of the things that I have problem with with that narrative is that it assumes that nobody like me exists or buy things or.
Is out in the world.
And meanwhile, there are so many of me. And I don't mean East Indian women raised in New Mexico. I mean people that come from a broad range of cultural experience who expect to go into the world and not have every question answered immediately about somebody, but are curious enough to push through that and to.
Find out who someone is and where they come from.
Because we're a huge audience and you haven't found us because you keep trying to make books for only white audiences, because you're relying on your own experience, and you don't need to. There's so much more here, And frankly, frankly, I think in New York especially, there are plenty of people that have a lot of experience outside of that. So part of it was also just to like trust your gut, here, go with this, go with what you
know in the world, Like get rid of those voices. Well, let's override these voices that tell us that it's all too big to take on.
It is not too big to take on.
All I do is when, when, when, no matter what. So, first I want to say thank you to Mirah for being awesome.
Yes, thanks Mirah. And again you can check her out at Mira Jacob dot com. Her new book is Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing.
So now it's time for whens.
Ending on a high note.
When what I love? What like my new my new favorite? Like races like what w e T?
What?
What is that?
A question?
Yeah?
Like so it's like you're staying there? Yeah, No, just like a question, just a sassy like what were you saying? So sometimes like I'll send it to like my best friend Drina or Linda, like something will happen. I'm like, wait, what did she say?
What?
Anyway, when something else I really wanted to talk about for a win is so the very first person Chicago woman became the first patient to be cured of sickle cell I know, which is huge because why is McDonald's on. I don't know, they just I'm looking at my computer. Man, it's looking on because sickle sau effects one and five hundred African Americans. It's if you are African American, you
probably know someone who's suffering from sickle cell. Unfortunately, it's like is it Tay Sacks set with the Jewish population, Like usually there's like every race kind of has like some sort of like illness that like you know, it's like really specific to that race anyway. So for us, for African Americans, it's sickle cell. And so Lesha so Lesha Tom and she's thirty three. They cured her through stem a stem cell transplant. And this is right here
in Dwell. We're not in Chicago, but right in Chicago. The physicians of the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Science System performed a procedure using medication to suppress hermune system and a small dose of body radiation before during a stem cell transplant. And so that was just really dope. But I'm just like, wow, they can find a cure for sickle cell. So many like a great friend of mine, Uh, look me, a great friend. I can't remember her name, Eddieomi.
She has sickle cell. Her sister has sickle cell and has had so many scares with death, and she started this great organization called well, she can't call it anymore because Susan G. Cooman sold them. Yeah, I know, I don't know what he or they it's called now, but just I remember that was like kind of like my first kind of like just like knowledge about sickle cell from somebody in person. Then knowing that you kind of go through these bouts where you really can't get up,
where you're so sick. She said, she spent so much of her her childhood in the hospital, right, And I'm just like wow, So if they can find a cure and do this again.
The cell, you know what, stem cell research. This is just one example of how powerful it can be. And there's a lot of controversy because embryonic stem cells are used widely and they're the most powerful tools in stem cell research. They're much better than adult stem cells. So they get them from fetal tissue, you know, which can be you know, donated from women who have abortions and other ways too. But this just goes into like the other side of the debate about stem cell research and
just look how powerful it can be. So if you you know, feel like you're anti stem cells, then just look at this example.
Woman's life was saved exactly. So those those are some good ones.
I came ready because you know, Mandy was beating me up last week.
You weren't prepared. I keep this going.
You get a plus. This is a good one. So I used to be a big fan of Project Runway. This was like the antidote for me to like America's next Top Model, Rest in Peace, which is ending after like seventy five cycles.
Yes, I was done with like I.
Needed a brown break from a A n TM like years ago.
Yeah.
So I love Project Runway and I love Tim Gunn And they just had the very first plus sized designer wind the whole the whole kit in Kaboodle. Yes, her name is Ashley. What's her last name?
What her last name is? Oh my god, I love Ashley. She's so cute. Ashley tipped in Yep.
I didn't watch this season, but I feel like I'm gonna binge watch it now because she's so cute. She has like this this cute little watermelon skirt. Yeah, I love me some watermelon clothes and her little lavender hair, and she just looks so so cute, and she looks so like everyone else in America.
You know, I want to I want to see like her clothing. You know, usually like American and they'll have like I mean, Project Granway will show you like all of her looks.
Oh the looks.
Yeah, yeah, gotta look. I gotta google her to watch.
The season finale.
And speaking of Project Runway, they had this big when plus sized designer winning. But then mister tim Gunn, who's like, I love him. He just actually, if you want something, you want a Tim gun fix. He's he's doing the rounds right now. I think he has a book coming out or something or other. He was just on for a new Staabbies podcast, so money. Yeah, it was a pretty good interview. So he was on Huffing to Post Live and they asked him about his feelings about the Kardashians.
I forget how they came up. Tim gun does not strike me as the kind of person who just brings up Kardashians in his everyday conversation because he hates them, like his his feelings toward them were so visceral in this interview and he says that he basically says he hates he he thinks it's disgusting and tasteless, like how they have used their platform to influence fashion, and he's like, if you want to know what not to wear. Just look at whatever the Kardashians are wearing. And he doesn't
like that the fashion. It seems like he's a bit bitter about how the fashion industry is has, you know, so supposedly embraced them. They're like at all the shows now Balmain is like their official Kardashian fashion house, and he even calls out Kendall Jenner. And I feel like, if you're a model today and you work, like modeling isn't easy and it takes a lot of hustle, and I feel like if you look at a person if you're modeling, you're trying to get your you know, your
career off the ground. You look at someone like Kendall Jenner, like I'd feel like you can easily feel a little bitter about how quickly her star rows and question whether or not that would have happened if she didn't have the Kardashian pr machine behind her.
Yeah, I mean definitely. I mean Kendall obviously has the build and she's beautiful, so I don't I think that she would still be a model. I don't know if she'd be a top model, but I mean, I don't know.
She certainly wouldn't have been like hanging out a car Lagerfeld house.
Oh yeah, yeah, those things. Yeah, but definitely I think that she's got the building, the look to be a model.
Well.
I just loved Tim that he kept it so real because I feel like people for some reason have become afraid of the Kardashian Like they're so powerful now that people are afraid to come out and talk against them.
Yeah.
That one time Katie Kirk who works at Yahoo, but apparently Katie Kirk when like Katie Kirk said something about them that wasn't so nice about Kim or something like that, right before Northwest was born. And then when Northwest was born, she sent her like a little baby gift or a card or something congratulating her, and Kim send it back and like and like posts on Instagram about it. So I remember, the people are afraid to talk about them,
But I don't know. I just loved him gun for calling them out for the crazy, insane machine that they are and calculating they call them entrepreneurs.
Now that's just like just yeah, any other wins, I think those were my two wins.
And with that we say it.
Do another episode of Brown break in the can no Brown break another Brown mission.
If you have a Brown break you want to share, If you have a win, we'd love to get some more wins that.
You want to share or questions.
You know, November is not just Thanksgiving and Black Friday season, which we'll probably talk about in future episodes, but it's also the time when everyone who graduated from college in May. It's when your student loans come to six month grace per it's over. My little brother included, it's a wrap, it is. They're coming for you. Please do not forget. I made the mistake of forgetting about the grace period ending and I was like two months behind right out
the gate. Yeah, awesome for my credit score. So anyway, just a public service announcement about that. And if you have any questions about student debt, salary negotiation, something happened at work story to share, email us at Brown Ambition podcast at gmail dot com.
Tweet us at the BA podcast, Facebook us Brown Ambition.
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Everyone's really like involved and really support him on there. So it's a fun place.
And then just everything all in general can be find. I feel like that's a lot. Just go to Brown ambition dot com. Everything is literally the Brown Ambition Podcast dot com, Brand Ambition Podcast dot com.
Someone said brown ambition dot com years ago. Currently Brown Ambition podcast dot com. All of our information, they're all the social all the different places you can find us on iTunes, Google, Sure, SoundCloud, all that.
Gets just everything. That's where you can find this though. All right, and we're out by