"Just Eat Your Pancakes"

The media that surrounds us is a reflection of who we are. When those reflections look like fun-house mirrors, it can impact the way we interact with society. As the SVP of Brand Strategy & Marketing for BET, Tiyale Hayes is working to help the Black network meet its business objectives while staying true to itself. For him, that means pushing for representation beyond stock characters and using storytelling to advance important cultural conversations. He talks to LZ about the longstanding trope about homophobia in the Black community, and how that impacts his life and family. He gets real about growing his family through adoption, and all the tears that were shed along the way. Afterwards, LZ talks to Stacey Stevenson, the CEO of Family Equality. They put Tiyale's personal adoption struggles in a wider political context and share the big change they just made to protect their family.

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