Checking In w/ Eboni K. Williams

Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of iHeart Radio and The Black Effect. All right, y'all, our next guest is an amazing attorney tevy personality, former cast on Real Housewives of New York. You've also seen her on The Breakfast Club. You can also check her out on The Grio as she offers legal commentary. Y'all, it's Ebony K. Williams. We're going to talk about that whole Montgomery, Alabama thing. I have to talk to her about it.

It is so exciting for me to be with my cousin, Michelle Williams. I'm just kidding. I just used to say that for many years, just so you know, I claim all beautiful William's women.

No, this is an honor. I love, love, love what you were doing with this show, my dear, and I can't wait to talk.

Thank you so much for being here. I can imagine everybody's calling you, texting you, wanting opinions about everything that happens on this here planet. Right, We're going to talk about so many things because I want to respect your time and respect so much that you got going on. But I can imagine two people maybe expecting you to uh, they forget you're human at times.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting, Michelle being I became a practicing lawyer young in life. I was twenty three actually when I started practicing, and it's a it's a blessing. It's you know, I'm a first generation college graduate in my family the first person to go to you know, a graduate or professional school. So I'm very aware of the privilege that I occupy.

And also.

It's funny because as soon as you become any kind of lawyer, everybody thinks you're every kind of lawyer and you got legal advice out the wazoo. Girl, I got a ticket. Girl, I gotta go to child support court.

Well it's funny you say say that, but I was gonna get there. But you got to show as well as a justice with Judge Ebanie K Williams, so we'll be able to see a lot in process. So what was your I know when medicine, a doctor has a specialty, but I'm not what side of the law did you practice?

Yeah, so I like all lawyers, we get our juris doctorates abroad, you know, doctorate in jurisprudence. But my special team, Mitchelle, was criminal defense. So after I came out of law school, I went and worked at a big firm. I hated it, hated it, remember that from my age anyway. I hated it and went to be a public defender. And that is when I fell in love with the practice of

To be an advocate.

Michelle, Like, it's one thing to know the law, to understand the intellectual aspects, the academic aspects, but to become what I call a people's lawyer and really learn what it is to hear someone's story and learn what it is to understand how to advocate on behalf and be a voice for the voiceless. That's the part of law I really fell in love with. So I did that, and I specialized in criminal defense work and some family work.

Be child support and all of those fun things. Michelle.

Okay, now where are you from, because earlier you said somebody that's how we got we get down in the South, that's right.

So I am from North Carolina. I grew up in Charlotte, shout out to the Queen City. I was born close to the Brew ha, that's got the culture and a chokehol right now, I was born in Louisiana. So you talk talking about Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, the deep deep South. So I'm deep South born.

Well, since you named Alabama, there has been a storm bruin or a tornado or tsunami. Something ran through the river walk of Montgomery, right. I know your phone been blowing up just from a legal.

What's your thought, Well, Michelle, full disclosure.

My first thought was I had to watch the footage several times, the viral video footage, because my mother, Gloria, now lives in Montgomery. I love that you're laugh think, but I'm about to be very serious with your child. My mother, Gloria, Mama Gloria, who everybody that knows me knows Mama Gloria, Mama Gloria, lives in Montgomery, Alabama. She

Girl.

She would have been minding her business and when she saw all of that, she would have went and just got a leaky in real quick. Just get a leaky in real quick, and keep on walking. So once I made sure Gloria was not there, then I went ahead and was able to analyze the footage gown because that is something my mama would do. Child. But no, listen, this was pretty cut and dry legally for me, Michelle. What you see as you see a black man who

Maybe that's the livelihood. Those are tourists.

There's a relatively poor communities, Michelle, as you know, right, So the fact that people feed their families and rely on the river boat money is for real. So it's a serious job. So that black man was doing his job. He tells these white people, I'll just call him that for now, that they cannot park their fortune. Both there and what you see as a breach of what we

Was with violence.

He was met with absolute direct violence, unprovoked violence, and what started to be a mob attack of several white grown men coming for this one black brother. Thank God, you know, to God be the glory of the revolution was televised right and all everybody that saw this gang up, this mob influenced this brother, came to his defense and came to his rescue, including the young man in the pool shout out to and they say black folks can't swim, but we don't.

That's a lie.

And everybody and their mama literally but thank god, it wasn't my mama, because I did look, but everybody else and their mama came to this brother's and I think for me, Michelle, it was also really it was wonderful to see. We saw the culture celebrate and the only the way that black culture can. We got the memes going, we got the songs going to react like what hilarious. But I think we're also happy deep down, Michelle, because

He's a young black mayor too, Steve Mayor, Steve Reid.

And knowing that when this comes to the legal of it all, which law enforcement has already started handing out warrants and things of this nature, it's going to be a good thing for justice, Michelle, that the leader of the city of Montgomery, Alabama is a young black man who's gonna be able to identify with this brother who was being attacked.

I'm just wondering, will that mayor feel pressure from both sides white people and black folks because white folks gonna be you do the right thing, because you got the man with the chair that came in, you know, hit the people in It was so many people getting licks in. My fear is that people have been arrested, will be arrested, like you said, warrants will be and will black people get the same grace and release that white people in this instance will get a slap on the wrist, maybe

It, It's valid, it's vali mi shoe. That's a legitimate concern. This is where all of the pieces to the puzzle matter, right. So when we talk about black district attorneys, and let me be clear before I say this, just cause somebody's black and in a position doesn't necessarily right.

We know all skin folks ain't always can folk.

However, it is a better chance of justice for black citizens when those positions of power in the system look and can experience our experience. So you talk about black district attorney, black prosecutor, where you talk about black judges residing on these cases, those types of things matter, Michelle, to your point of Okay, we know the charges are going to be out there because they have to charge him, right because we got the video, so they have not

Yep?

Should he be getting pressure from the black community? Yep? Because who voted his lovely.

Self into office the black community. So I think sometimes that pressure is warranted contrary to popular belief, and this is the time to apply that pressure and it serves as a model. Right, Like, if this is what's going down in Montgomery, Alabama, I think white folks need to be on notice broadly, right that Black Americans are not We're not accepting a position of subordination.

We're just not doing it. We never wanted to do it.

On accepting disrespect, Yeah, yeah, we're not We're not going to accept disrespect.

We're not going to accept We're not going to.

Be put in a place that's not first class. We are first class citizens. We are Americans, Michelle. We always have been, contrary to the statute. But now because thank God for videotape, thank God for body cams from police officers, thank God for viral moments. And this is where social media is advantageous because we know the places is not right, but this is one of the places where social media

It is a new day. And again we're not tolerating or standing for disrespect, whether it's the blatant disrespect or that passive, aggressive, under the radar disrespect, because it all never even had to happen. Y'all wouldn't have to get your butt to beat if you would have just ticular steering wheel on whatever the pontoon has and just movement. But you really thought your small pondtoon would got to sit in the way of that big old river boat.

Right, this cruise back.

That's all right?

When you say this to Michelle.

To that point, one has to wonder, though, the audacity to put your patuone where it didn't belong. That's the first audacity. The second though, had the riverboat walker a worker excuse me, employee been a white man, I have to suspect they would have moved on the first command. I believe they felt like, I'm not listening to this black man, because in.

What world does a black man what's to do?

I think that's what's underneath it, right, And they messed around and they found out.

My god, that's what the meaning means, mess around and find out. Thank you so much, Like I said, I'm grateful that you were able to, you know, talk to us about it, because I know that you're going to have to do a lot of commentary on this, you know, probably for the rest of the week and probably next

No? I think we have the premier Michelle. I think the play on the word.

I would say is we need to take up the space right like I think Montgomery shows us what it looks like when we take up the space of our

So you could say it's giving ourselves permission.

Perhaps I think it's recognizing and realizing our God given permission, because that's who really gives us the permission, right, it comes from on high. So when we are birthright as Black Americans, our birthright as the sons and daughters of our heavenly Father is to take up all the space.

And that's to me the best part about being black in America today. We get to take up all the space. Look at how much space my hair is taken up in this frame.

Yes, did you feel like you had to get to a place where you're like, no, I'm gonna take up the space that I know that I get to take up or all? Was it a work in progress for you?

It was a very long and hard work in progress, Michelle. I will not sit up here and be dishonest and act like I came.

Out of the womb. Born and listen.

Born in Tansbahope, Paris, Southeast Louisiana, a small country town, to a single black mother who is brilliant and fabulous in her own right, but had very little by way of resources, I was a free lunch. You didn't have a father, didn't have any of that, so it was difficult. So there were no messages Michelle, not for media, not for most of my teachers in school. Very few messages were telling me that I was extraordinary. Very few messages were telling me that I was brilliant, that I was

And look the way we look and that got really exciting.

And then as I progressed my career, Michelle, whether it was practicing law, whether it was getting into journalism, whether it was at this network or that network. So by the time I got on Real Housewives of New York City as the first black housewife, I turned.

And did unapologetically taking up the space. Like you said, on shows like Real Housewives of New York how much preparation or did you go into their thinking? Okay, sometimes not all the time. These shows can be set up to make a person fail look crazy. How did you I guess, survive or kind of pivot or duck and.

Dodge that it was a lot of bobbing and weave and Michelle, so it's funny.

You say that you got to bob and weave.

So, yes, you're exactly right, And that is the one kind of day if you will or risk of doing reality TV, especially I know, I actually watched your full show on own, which was I enjoyed it. I ain't gonna say nothing. I liked it anyway, stop in Mitchelle. But reality TV, as you know, is risky in that way. It's risky in the sense that you don't control the narrative, you are a subject to a lot of variables production that the third the edit, My god, the edit, right,

Me or play me.

Right right, And you know, I guess the way that plane landed is still up for debate. The reality is, there were some things I was able to navigate better than some, maybe better than most. But were there also aspects of the final products on the show that were so limiting in its portrayal of who I am, Who I am as a woman, who I am as a black woman, who I am as a friend, I am as a daughter. Yeah, and that was unfortunate. It was unfortunate.

Women that don't know nothing and don't represent New York.

I created my arrival on that show created an opportunity to challenge and flip and recreate that.

But unfortunately the pieces weren't there.

The castmakers, their production really didn't know how to culture. There was a lack of cultural competency on the part of production, which I've been very vocal about. But there's always good news, right, So the good news is my life, my career, my bag continue. And also Real Housewives of New York has a new era. Now there's a brand new cast of women that are Afro Latina, that Somalian, that are Jewish, that are Indian, that look like that are queer, you know, that are diverse in ways that

Period.

Yeah, I saw there were clips. Well, I saw a clip of Tamar Braxton responding to something that Ninni Leeks was saying, basically about how reality shows or networks don't let black women shine, and she feels like if they did that they could be as big as the Kardashians. Was that your experience or in general, do you feel that how I guess black women are portrayed on reality TV or the support is kind of not given, even from a promotional advertisement. You know that maybe other counterparts get.

My experience would have to validate that that black women are expected to be regulated to sidekick behavior. Yeah, I do, OK, especially in my case where I was joining a white cast. You know, so I was joining a white cast. We see the brilliant, the beautiful, the magnificent Garcelle Bouvet having joined a white cast on Beverly Hills Housewife, and I want.

It because people's memories get real short.

Michelle, I think we see garcel In going into her fourth season as the shining superstar she always was. When you own for Garcelles first season on Beverly Hills Housewives, want people to really think about that first season. There was a lot of hostility towards Garcel that first season, there was a lot of trying to regulate her to sidekick. There was a lot of when you don't pay your bills,

I'm with you.

I think I just want to say that's important, Michelle, because people like to conflate, Well, this is what I think of Niini after watching her on Housewives, and so I'm gonna be skeptical of this part of her argument. I want people to put that on a shelf. And one of the things that I think is important that I do as a lawyer, is you got to extract the emotion, right, We got to say, this is not about how I feel about you, This is not what I think about you.

This is around the facts that are presented.

Just facts, not emotions, not emotions, just the facts.

So when we look at the facts around what Nini was required, not just any black women in reality television are required to do, Michelle, and the postures in which we are expected to play and the consequences of when we don't adhere to those subordinate, regulated spaces. They are inconsistent, Michelle Williams with the experiences of our white counterparts. That's the only part of this part that matters.

That's right.

Yeah, Oh, we get end it right here, probably gonna get a couple headlines for us.

Yeah know, were gonna end it right here. As of now, my podcast is not the spicy place because I know that I don't ask guests messy questions or I don't

Was like, you, I mean, I'm not expressing to know you, miss Michelle, but from everything I've seen of you over the past, I don't know, almost twenty years of you being in the very national spotlight, that would be far from the verbiage that.

I would use. That's interesting as pressive was the word.

And I was like, I voiced a need or a desire in a business deal type situation, that's it. And I thought I was being assertive. I wanted to stand in what I felt like. I needed what I felt like I do not even necessarily deserved, but I need this. And yeah, I was called aggressive. I was called aggressive.

It's interesting when you say, when you tell that story, it makes me think about probably about ten or fifteen years ago, a woman named Cheryl Samberg wrote a book called Lean In Right. Yes remember this, And Cheryl Samberg is a very famous, very successful, white presenting Jewish woman who ran things at Facebook. I think she might still slash meta And the whole world celebrated that, remember that, Michelle.

And everybody applauded that. But oh, when black women do it, isn't it interesting, Michelle?

How it is rejected, It is undermined, and it is demonized, and it is dismissed in a way that when our white female counterparts do the exact same thing, they are celebrated and they are.

Rewarded, celebrated for asking and demanding what they feel they need in a business situation. But that definitely, I wouldn't say it, shut my mouth, but it definitely I took note, like from here on now when you start getting more mature in business, because you know, we come from an era of we had a manager that could negotiate. All we have to do is show up with her, show up, be the be the talent, be the talent, Be the talent.

Yes, my cheeks are hurting because I'm smiling so big because I'm so This is probably the only thing in the speaking of rattle this topic, Michelle, This pending motherhood journey is the only thing.

That gives me nerves.

That gives me nerves because there's so many black women, yeah right, that I feel like, who are ready to go on this journey alone? And when I say alone, they're not going to go to the traditional route waiting for marriage, right, you know, before they decide to conceive. I had even gotten the question. I mean, you were already being the strength to move forward with such a life changing decision unpacked some of it. Sure.

Sure, So let's talk about being alone, because I think that is where it sounds and can be very scary for people listening. The good news is, while I will not be romantically partnered, Michelle, unless God knows something I

So, yes, I'm a single I'll be a single mom, but.

I won't be alone, and I think that's important for people to distinguish the rest of it. You know, Listen, Michael Jackson said it, if you cannot feed the baby, don't have the baby. So for having financial strategy around this, I'm being funny, but I'm being real, right, it's important. I think that when you start talking about child rearing, especially for a woman. I'll be forty in a matter of days. It's very important, it's right, and I'm very excited about it.

Child that's all that acucation.

It's very important that one of the benefits of waiting to pursue motherhood later in life is I'm more financially stable than I've ever been. Michelle on my first property here in New York last summer, congratulations, thank you. Yeah.

You know.

So it's like there's some fiscal and kind of structural pieces to the puzzle that are now in place that were not in place in my case twenties, in the early thirties.

They just weren't there for whatever reasons.

So I do feel equipped and excited and positioned to be able to hopefully offer this little person a really beautiful and impactful and loving life.

Wow, congratulations on the choice and the embryo transfer, which we know it includes so much, you know, the hormone therapy treatment and all that good stuff. So us women that are in our forties over forties, you know it is not too late, you know, to make that choice. So please if you can, you know, freeze your eggs if that is a choice that you want to make.

Yeah.

Yes, I had a couple people in my life, mostly women, actually most of some of my female friends, because they were just projecting their fears Michelle right like they were just like, eh, are you sure by yourself?

Say I could, and then they would say it.

They were telling themselves, I could never do that, I could never go.

Through that alone.

And I don't think this is for every woman, Michelle. Let me be very clear, I am not at all suggesting that this is the new normal, that this is the revised black family model. I am very clear and believing personally that a dual parent household is advantageous for all children, and especially for Black children.

I believe in that.

And also I believe in the miracles of modern science. And as somebody who has been married and divorced in my late twenties, as somebody who was engaged and in a long term relationship in my to late thirties, you know who ended that engagement because of very legitimate reasons. I find myself on the custal forty, Michelle, with still a desire to be a biological mother. I really do, and I did. I'm so glad you brought broke down

But I was.

Able to find a black male sperm donor, which is not the easiest thing in the world. But I found a great one, and I fertilized those little eggs of mine and I have some embryos hints my transfer this fall.

Okay, So remember when Brett and Judy were doing their their thing and they said the same thing that it is not there aren't a lot of black male sperm donors. Now do you know the sperm donor? Is he anonymous?

So he is anonymous?

But when my child becomes eighteen, we will get all of his contact information.

So that's a I paid. I paid more money, Michelle to have that route.

So there are some donors that require an anonymity their entire life. And then there's this new category of donors that're like, hey, once the child support stuff is done, once the child is eighteen, No, that's the real team. That's the real team, Michelle, that's the real team. So they're like, once I'm once, I don't owe nothing else.

Come find me, Let's be friends. Let's see if there's an opportunity for relation.

So that was the only kind of donor I was gonna select because I do think it's very important that kids be able to know both sides of their identity. And I say that as a young woman who did not know who my father was until two years ago.

I wasn't gonna that's to my child.

Yeah, so I had to go on a genetic investigation child. It was all of that, but I found out and it made a difference for me, Michelle, it really did. It made me feel more legitimate, and it made me feel more whole. So I want to offer that to my child. And so at eighteen, we're gonna get daddy's info.

So we're gonna get a st info. Now obviously he don't have to pay no child support because he is He's just okay. Now, you just dropped something to say you found your birth father two years ago. How was that? Are y'all in relationship or did you make a decision to say I found you and that's okay? I don't want relationship, so I.

Made a decision to say I found you. I made a decision, Michelle, to say I would like to explore the possibility of a relationship and now comes to not so happy ending that was not something my biological father was interested.

In at this point.

Yeah, listen, I get really intelligent here and I have to shut down emotionally because it's really difficult.

Right. I'm so sorry.

Thank you for that, Michelle, And listen, you know I know everything happens for a reason. I know God moves in his timing divinely, so I will not question this. But yes, my father has a beautiful family that he has raised that he is still you know, that's his family. And to get a call after thirty eight years of an addition to that family that puts a wrinkle in the situation. It's difficult for everybody. So I have to

I know who my sisters are.

I know who I now have a paternal legacy that I never have.

I didn't mean to go down this, but are the sisters Are they willing to have relationship?

Absolutely?

Yes, I'm like, when you open up that whole yeah, my heart is breaking for you. Not that you asked, but I'm sorry. I just you know, No, it's a lot.

And I wasn't gonna come on your show, Michelle, which is so rooted in vulnerability and mental health, and you know, I let me be very clear, I have a tremendous therapist, Michelle, who has been with me every step of the way in this journey. So that's all all helpful. Yes, my sisters are beautiful. I have met my sisters. They are very supportive of me. They're supportive of my motherhood journey. My baby will know my sisters, their aunt and that's a blessing.

So you know, I want to be clear in that.

You know, all endings are not storybook, but they're the endings we're supposed to have.

Yes, yes, yeah, thank you for sharing. Checking in is a safe space, you know, where people can share stuff that we didn't even plan on sharing. And so I'm thankful that you shared that information because I know somebody that is listening to this has or they are in they have the same story. And again to anybody listening, I am sorry, and my heart goes out to you. But then this is where I put my spiritual head on. You know, I want to be praying on that, you know. Please,

It's to the Lord in prayer.

I know that I'm beside you in the in the prayer journey, Michell, because I do believe that nothing is final as long as you know, God has his hand on it. So I do believe in that. I know that, and we'll go from there.

We will go from there. One last question. I'm excited about everything you got going on, and please, I'm grateful that you're gonna continue to grace our television screens. I know, I see you on the Grio and and everything you're doing the book, but you also have equal justice with Judge Ebony K. Williams. I love I love all the legal shows. I'm excited about it, and I'm excited about what I believe. Okay, how you are gonna make your

Yeah, I'm glad you asked about the deal process because that's important and we touched on it too when you talked about your story when you go from just being talent to executive producing, being a part of the business aspect, it was.

First of all, I had to have a.

Level of editorial control, Michelle, so being an executive producer on the show was paramount and thankfully I'm partnering with the best in the business when it comes to daytime Core TV.

Baby mister Byron Allen.

Come on, yeah, he really is the best, and I'm so grateful that he entrusts me to help implement this show through my vision, and that's what we're doing. We built it out everything from like small details, Michelle, even like the black lace on the cuff of my judges role, but also the cases that we're hearing.

You know, these are gonna be litigants. Just be prepared.

Everybody needs to be ready. It is a new day and daytime court. We are honoring the legacy of Judge Matthis Judge Judy People's Court. You go feel those vibes, right, We're not reinventing the wheel that everything everybody loves about courts shows, Michelle, are going to be there and then some because it's coming from your girl, Auntie, It's coming from my lens. I'm bringing the lens of black culture.

For, that you didn't know you needed, that is this show?

Come on? When does it premiere? Noon?

So we're looking at all premiere.

I don't want to put the date out there and get people too excited, but soon and very soon, follow my instagrale, you will get a premiere day, very soon, I'm talking about with it in weeks.

Wow, I feel like we've touched on so much in our conversation, super super, super incredible to have you with us and checking in and sharing parts of your heart. That again, it was not planned, y'all, but that's the good thing. But when people come to check in, you never know what we're going to really really tap into. So Ebanie, thank you. We're excited to follow you some

You all are you are.

Thank you for creating checking in as a spec and my vulnerability is a result of your energy, right Like I do interviews all day long, it's my job. But the ability to truly be open and share and trust the context of the share is a result of you, my dear. That is a result of your love, your big heartedness, and your tenderness.

So thank you, thank you.

Thank you again and again. You're a welcome anytime, We'll be in touch and we'd love to have you back on when you can. Gorgeous to see you again. Good bye. Oh mg, you never know what people go through. Yes, Ebony seems like she has this larger than life personality.