Adena and Kara talk to broadcast journalists Brittany Noble and Lisa Benson, who share their experiences with racism in the newsroom. This episode's Turn to Your Neighbor segment features newspaper reporter Stephen Simpson.
Adena and Kara talk to broadcast journalists Brittany Noble and Lisa Benson, who share their experiences with racism in the newsroom. This episode's Turn to Your Neighbor segment features newspaper reporter Stephen Simpson.
This summer, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery wrote an article called a "Reckoning Over Objectivity, Led by Black Journalists." His reflections were poignant — that media organizations do not reflect the diversity of the communities they cover. And that all became obvious to more people (not us; we been knew) with the protests following the murder of George Floyd.
Media institutions, while trying to be objective, had to come to terms with their role perpetuating the status quo. And when Black journalists challenge those conventions, they’re often pushed aside or labeled as a non-team player, looked over for promotions, and/or fired.
Brittany Noble tells her story in this Medium article.
Lisa Benson is now a diversity and racial consultant who recently published the book, Anchored in Bias: Fired Over White Tears.
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CREDITS AND SPECIAL THANKS
Edited and produced by: Katrina Dupins and Prentice Dupins Jr.
Music: Prentice Dupins Jr.
Logo Design: Kara Darling Creative
The Blackbelt Voices podcast is a production of Blackbelt Media LLC.
Adena White 00:32
You're listening to the Blackbelt Voices Podcast, propagating the richness of Black southern culture, by telling stories from and about Black folks down south.
Kara Wilkins 00:44
This summer Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery wrote an article called Reckoning over Objectivity, Led by Black Journalists.
Adena White 00:53
I've read that and his reflections are really poignant. He was saying that the media organizations do not reflect the diversity of the communities they cover. And it all became obvious to more people-- besides people who already knew like, us and our listeners, (you know, we been knew) it became obvious to people with a protest following the murder of George Floyd.
Kara Wilkins 01:12
Yeah, people of all backgrounds flooded the streets all over the nation in protest of police brutality and systemic racism. Media institutions tried to be objective, but they also had to come to terms with their role of perpetuating the status quo.
Adena White 01:29
One thing Lowery talked about, what's the view through the white lens being accepted as the objective neutral. So even objectivity is not truly objective unless it lines up with the larger accepted narrative.
Kara Wilkins 01:40
Right. And when black journalists challenge those conventions, they're often pushed aside or labeled as a non-team player. In some instances, they're looked over for promotions, or even just let go.
Adena White 01:54
Today on the podcast, we're talking to two former broadcast journalists who know that all too well: Brittany Noble and Lisa Benson.
Kara Wilkins 02:02
Brittany Noble began her journalism career at KAIT in Jonesboro, Arkansas. She started working there as a camera operator for the morning show. But she dreamed of becoming a reporter. She worked hard on writing and building a resume tape. Her first on-air job was in Flint, Michigan. Later she went to St. Louis, Missouri.
Brittany Noble 02:26
Brittany ultimately landed at WJTV in Jackson, Mississippi. Brittany says some of her story ideas were rejected because her boss told her they were quote, "not for all people," Unquote. Black people in TV news -- I wish people knew the fight in the newsroom. I wish people had an inkling of the fight. And I'm and it's hard for somebody like me because it's like I have been fighting for stories from a Black perspective for so long. And sometimes it feels like us media folks get overlooked.
Kara Wilkins 03:05
In addition to sometimes having her story ideas rejected, Brittany had decided that she wanted to think about wearing her natural hair. She wanted to stop straightening after her son was born. So she went to her supervisor to ask permission to wear her natural hair on air.
Adena White 03:24
I said, "Look, can I just stop straightening my hair? And he's like, yeah, you know, like, it's not a big deal. I was like, Okay." And so I stopped straightening my hair. I was, I mean, I've been straightening my hair for for since I was in third grade, that's when I got my first relaxer, I stopped relaxing my hair, maybe in 2010. Um, but I was still straightening my hair every day. So my, my hair was just all over the place. So I all I could do was really put it in two little braids, and pull it back to the, you know, in the back in a little bun. And so that's what I was doing. I was rocking the hairstyle like I had a lot of good feedback from the community. Really, nobody's worn their natural hair there at WJTV before me. The first black anchor that we had at the new station was back in the 70s. And she was an intern, they were trying to avoid an FCC lawsuit because the other station had lost their license. And they put the intern on TV but told her to straighten her fro. And I remember when I was doing that story for Black History Month, I'm like, Okay, why am I still straightening my hair? So, it was about a month after I had stopped straightening my hair and trying to doyou know, like little styles that I could pull my hair back. About a month later and my boss - I was really trying to pitch another story, y'all - and he didn't want to hear my story pitch and he was like, "you know, the real problem is your hair." And mind you I'm recording. I'm a journalist. You know, this is a one party state. Don't try me. Don't try me. And so he would tell me You know that that my hair was unprofessional, it's the equivalent of him wearing a baseball cap and that viewers needed to see a beauty queen. And you know, he hated that that was the way it is. But that's just the way it is. So, I said, "What do you want me to do on social media, since I've already put it out there that, you know, made this transition?" And he said, "You should write,"I was told to change my hair back to what it was because that's what looks best." I said, "Well, I'll do you a favor, I'm not going to put that in there. But I will let my viewers know that y'all forced me to change my hair."
Brittany Noble 03:30
Unfortunately, Brittany's story is probably not unfamiliar to many Black women. I know I have friends and myself even struggled with: Is wearing my hair in my natural state going to keep me from advancing? Adena, I don't know if that's something that you have dealt with. I remember my first job interview - after I went natural - for my current job. It proved to not be a problem, but I was really nervous about how I was going to wear my hair that day because it's my first job interview being natural. So something we constantly have to think about. And we did a whole episode on natural hair like it's a real thing. It's not just hair.
Kara Wilkins 06:13
Exactly. And that takes us back to you know, even hair discrimination laws that we see happening all over the country. Rulings that say that, you know, people should be able to wear their natural hair, whether in braids or dreadlocks or just in its normal Afro state. California became the first state to prohibit such discrimination with the Crown Act. And that was signed into law last July. Similar bills have been passed in New Jersey, in New York City. And there are other states who have Crown Act bills in the works.
Brittany Noble 06:48
But it wasn't just hair that Brittany saw racism playing itself out in the newsroom. The station also went out of his way to make sure that two Black people weren't anchoring at the same time. Racism is when you have seven, eight Black reporters out of 12 of us and you're going out of your way to make sure we don't anchor on the desk next to each other. I had two Black reporters. And anytime my co-anchor was off, I'd either get a white girl or nobody. But I would not get my two Black reporters who are both anchors themselves. So I mean, it's incredible. I wish that we could just take detailed notes about, you know, Black reporters in certain markets, how much we're making and how long we've been there and the experience that we have. It's just unreal.
Kara Wilkins 07:33
And honestly, that's not uncommon. I think, as far as I can recall, Dena, here in Arkansas. I don't recall ever seeing two Black anchors, lead the news at any time, whether it's noon, the five, six or the 10 o'clock one or even weekends.
Brittany Noble 07:57
Now, yeah, it's not a common thing. And it's really something when you know, it's a strategic decision on the part of the network. You know, sometimes we just think, "Oh, I mean, it's just something that doesn't happen." But just hearing that it's something that was that they planned for us to probably appease their white viewership.
Kara Wilkins 08:16
And Britney talks a little bit about that, what the culture was like working for a news station who make these strategic decisions about their Black anchors,
Brittany Noble 08:24
Every single newsroom I've ever been in. I'm just trying to catch up with everybody else. I'm trying to be like everybody else. I'm trying to be like the other boss's favorites. I was never the favorite. And they would look at me and they would see how well I'm doing. My following on social, how well my stories were, how people responded to me in the community, how many events I got on my own, the station wasn't supporting it. And every station I've been in, it's almost been like that. So by the time I got to Mississippi, I was just like, "You know what, I'm not signing an NDA. You're not going to shut me up." You're not going... I called them freedom papers. They had basically written up a contract letting me out of my contract as long as I ignored, like, the all the things that they had done to hurt me. And I wouldn't sign it. I wouldn't sign the NDA. So, they terminated me. Brittany's story caught the attention of major news outlets, including the Today Show, and Huffington Post.
Kara Wilkins 09:26
She refused to be quiet and pretend like newsrooms weren't a part of the problem.
Brittany Noble 09:32
I could not pretend to go to a protest and there are Black Lives Matter signs behind me and then I pretend that my own Black life doesn't matter. You can't do that anymore. What if it was, you know, white people talking about something that matters to them, it would be okay for them to share their bias. But for us, you know, us being Black is just like something that we're supposed to take out. It's just something that we're supposed to ignore, but you can't ignore it. You know, like another thing that I think would have connected me to viewers is them understanding that my parents were police officers, right? The way that this became a police versus them type of situation and Brittany's at the nucleus, at least in Ferguson, telling the story, I think that it would have been great insight for my viewers, for them to know that, you know, I'm a daughter of the law. So we don't share biases like that, because we want to walk this fine line. But the truth is, we really can't walk that fine line unless we're all walking it together. So I think it's important that we have different viewpoints in the newsroom so that we can make these decisions. That's really what it comes down to. We don't have managers in the newsrooms helping us make decisions. When Mike Brown died in Ferguson, Missouri, there were no minority managers in the entire city. So the people that are making decisions about how we cover what has become a civil rights movement, are not people of color. I mean, there were things that we could have shared that we just quite honestly didn't do. And I think that if we had more people of color in newsrooms, we could avoid some of those problems, or at least begin to start representing more of our community on TV.
Kara Wilkins 11:22
Honestly, again, I think Brittany's story is not uncommon for other Black people who work in the media, like I think I've, I feel like I've heard even national folks talk about how hard it is to tell the story correctly, because you don't have people in the newsroom. What is the thing? Don Lemon, I feel like Don Lemon has talked about that, and talked about the importance of the fact that you need to have people who, you know. .. It's not necessarily that you have to have Black people talk about it, but you need to have people who are culturally competent, so that they can be able to talk about things in the right way and make sure that, that the representation is there.
Adena White 12:09
Right. And we're so used to thinking that if you're Black, you automatically have --you can't be objective. And that's that's what Brittany was dealing with. Or ven if you're a woman, you can't be objective, like, really, I guess we're used to like the white male, the white male...we're used to the white male perspective being the only neutral and objective way to tell the news. And that's not true. And so kind of going back to what we talked about earlier, Jackson, Mississippi is 80%, Black. So, you know, when when you think about viewers, they're not necessarily thinking about the majority of viewers in Jackson, Mississippi, they're thinking about the ones who are who seem to be most important, I guess, because the majority of viewers in Jackson, Mississippi are Black. But still, they didn't want to Black people on air. So it just goes to show you how people perceive blackness. We talked to Brittany about what she has going on now. And here's what she had to say.
Brittany Noble 13:02
I hope eventually, maybe I'll be able to find my voice and get back in the news at some point. But I want to be over-prepared and ready. So right now I'm just really trying to find myself, um, find my voice. And, you know, that was part of it because you couldn't have a voice in TV news. So for so long, I didn't really know how I felt. It took for me to get out of the business to be like, wait a minute, Black Lives Matter. Okay, now that I have this right to say that how can I help? So I'm really still figuring it out. But I think I'm moving more towards activism and law, you know, understanding our legal rights is so important.
Kara Wilkins 13:44
Brittany wrote a widely read Medium article last year titled Why disappeared from the newsroom at WJTV in Jackson, Mississippi. We'll link that in the show notes. When we come back, we talk to Lisa Benson. Lisa recently published a book called Anchored in Bias: Fired over White Tears. Hear her story next.
Katrina Dupins 14:07
Hi, Katrina Dupins here with this turn to your neighbor segment. This week's neighbor always knew he had a love for storytelling. In fact, Steven Simpson of Little Rock was initially interested in becoming a filmmaker. And he almost chose that as his major at the University of Central Arkansas.
Stephen Simpson 14:25
I actually wanted to be a film major at the time when I was at UCA. And I learned that according to some of the people that were in that study that it's a very risky career move and that you don't make a lot of money.
Katrina Dupins 14:40
So he switched to journalism. Stevens started his first reporter job at the Pine Bluff Commercial. That's when he found his stride and inspiration. He later went to the Jonesboro Sun and now he's at the Arkansas Democrat Gazette in Little Rock. Stephen loves what he does, but he noticed it's not uncommon for him to be the only Black reporter, especially in print journalism.
Stephen Simpson 15:04
it's interesting. I've gone out to stories before, especially at the Demorat Gazette and I've gone talk to other Black people, and they'll be like, "I didn't know the Democrat Gazette hired Black people," or like "I didn't know like Black people were in journalism," or things like that which is kind of funny but sad at the same time. But I guess I can kind of understand it, I would if I was thinking about it. When I was a kid, I didn't really see very many Black print journalists in my time either.
Katrina Dupins 15:35
Stephen goes with the flow. But his workday experiences in various regions of Arkansas have been noticeably different.
Stephen Simpson 15:43
Being one of the few Black people in Pine Bluff is different because everyone around me was also usually Black. And so if I ever wrote any kind of like, I guess, negative story I would get, the "You're supposed to be one of us kind of things. And you're supposed to protect us from these out these kind of problems." Being in Jonesboro in the Northeast Arkansas area, not only one of the rare black people in the newsroom, I was one of the , there are Black people most of the area. And so you had to face other kinds of resistance. And I guess, people being kind of confused and why you're there some of the times or be kind of hesitant to say what they truly feel. Which is kind of funny, because I guess my voice is kind of particularly white over the phone. And so people would tell me things over the phone, not realizing like what my skin color was, until they came to the newsroom. And then I couldn't really tell the shift change that they would have.
Katrina Dupins 16:47
Steven loves doing his part to amplify voices that may have otherwise gone unheard.
Stephen Simpson 16:53
I would say the feeling of being able to like actually change things in your local area, or the state or just someone would just change someone's life with your words, is something that you can never replace, it's a great feeling and being able to tell those kind of stories like somebody's story from like Alma or Blytheville, or something that you like, but no, no one else would know about this person, if you didn't write about it, and seeing their lives changed because of it is a great feeling. If there's any young Black people that are interested in doing journalism, we really do need a lot more of them. in print. I feel like a lot of the disconnect between black people in journalism in today's culture is just there's not a lot of faces in the newsroom. And that sometimes we just like this traditional way of writing in print. Print is all about tradition. And if the other person says this is how it's been for years, upon years upon years, and there's no other cultures to give input on that. And that's sort of how some of those disconnects can happen. So if we could get some more reach into the black community, that would be great.
Katrina Dupins 18:03
For this turn to your neighbor segment. I'm Katrina Dupins.
Adena White 18:11
Welcome back. We're gonna revisit Wesley Lowery's article we discussed at the top of the show, it's been more than 50 years since the first black journalist appeared in mainstream American newsrooms. And really all they want is to be treated fairly, paid the same as their white colleagues...
Kara Wilkins 18:26
...Be considered for leadership roles, have greater representation in the newsrooms, you know, all of those things. Unfortunately, what ends up happening is those who speak up, end up being punished. Sometimes it's subtle. Other times, like in the case of Lisa Benson, it's downright blatant.
Adena White 18:46
Lisa, who is an Emmy Award winning journalist who had 14 years of experience was fired for sharing her personal Facebook page without comment in article about white tears. Basically, a couple of her white co-workers were offended. And they went to HR to complain.
Kara Wilkins 19:02
And it's an interesting paradox here. The title of the article Lisa shared is literally "How white women use strategic tears to silence women of color," So that's essentially what her colleagues did.
Adena White 19:17
Mm hmm.
Lisa Benson 19:19
They read the article. It was posted on a Wednesday, they will have seen it on a Thursday and I was suspended by Friday. That's how powerful that is. It's I mean, they were uncomfortable, and that meant it was time for me to go because if anything, if I did something to make the white women uncomfortable, by all means, Get her out of here.
Brittany Noble 19:36
That was Lisa Benson. Let's back up a little to see how we got to this point. Like we mentioned, Lisa had been working at KSHB, a television station in Kansas City for 14 years. After she'd been overlooked several times for a promotion, she filed a discrimination suit.
Lisa Benson 19:52
Honestly, when I started the whole journey it was legitimately because I felt like I had been cheated. I feel like I had been treated differently, I felt like I didn't get the same opportunities for growth as my white counterparts. And I was honestly embarrassed for myself with myself. Because I was so naive along the way thinking one day, they were going to call my name; one day my number would be called; one day it would be my turn. Because I had been kind of telling myself that and I honestly have been conditioned to believe that, you know, as a woman of color, a Black woman being raised, I was told you have to work twice as long -- twice twice as hard for twice as long to get half as far. I was told that and I understood that. I understood that when I went through college, so by the time I get to this space, where I knew I wanted to be in Kansas City, and I kept on applying for opportunities, they just, it was just never my turn.
Kara Wilkins 20:37
I find it really powerful that Lisa talks about how she honestly thought that she was being passed up for opportunities, because, she wasn't working hard enough. I feel like a lot of Black people can relate to that: if I just do my best, work hard, I will eventually get the same opportunities that I see everyone around me having. You get to a point where you start to recognize it's not that you're not working hard enough. And it's not that you're not smart enough, or you're not educated enough. But that it really just is a system that has decided to not promote you because possibly of your race or gender.
Brittany Noble 21:25
And we all grew up in this American society where we're told to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. If you work hard, you'll get a great job and, and all that sort of thing. But what what part of the story is not often told is that there are systemic barriers for a lot of people. And we're seeing, Lisa saw evidence of that on her job.
Kara Wilkins 21:46
So that led her to file a lawsuit. And she knew she had to be extra careful after that, because basically, she knew that her job would be looking for any reason to let her go.
Adena White 21:58
So she documented everything.
Lisa Benson 22:00
You're already walking on eggshells making sure that you dot every I cross every T and so by the time they call me and suspend me for sharing an article on Facebook, because two of my white co workers didn't like the article. I was like, You got to be kidding me. You got me for an article on Facebook, you got you got to be kidding me.
Adena White 22:16
That suspension eventually became termination. So Lisa amended the original lawsuit to include retaliation.
Kara Wilkins 22:23
This was all in late 2016. She went to trial in February 2019, three years later, with the mostly white jury with no black people,
Brittany Noble 22:34
But the fact that her coworkers went crying to HR was not lost on the jury.
Lisa Benson 22:38
So funny. My attorneys brought that up in court. You know, it's like the reality, the irony of what we were doing was absolutely not lost on the jury. In fact, he wouldn't allow it to be the fact that it is very, it's absolutely the white tears and my two former co workers, they got us to trial and change the whole trajectory of my case, remember, my original discrimination case was, hey, I want the same opportunities that are afforded to my white counterparts. Give me the same shot. Let me get off weekends. Give me I want give me a shot, the investigative reporter position give me a shot at the weekend morning anchor position, give me a shot at the weekend morning, give me a shot at something other than what I've been doing. Okay, after 14 years, can I get a shot at something? Anything, please? Okay, that was my initial plea. And so they transformed the entire case into something that honestly wasn't. And I'm at this point, I'm obviously okay with it. But that's still the power of white tears, understanding the whole conversation shifted, because of what these two white women said. And did you know, and it changed the trajectory of the whole case, in fact, it postponed the case.
Kara Wilkins 23:39
So once again, you know, we see the prioritization of white women and their feelings being put over a very tangible issue of racial discrimination at the workplace, right. And the fact that, you know, the lawyers were able to center that and make that a key component of, you know, this trial. It's very telling. I mean, it's it's not lost on me that 55% of white women voted in this last election, for someone who is not someone that I would think that women in general would want to support. And so I'm, you know, just being able to weaponize your feelings, your tears in that way. I mean, there's a lot of women who I think are really not for positive policies for black and or women.
Adena White 24:45
Yes, I've seen the phrase, maybe it's Lovia Gyarkye who said it, but that white women can be foot soldiers for white supremacy and the patriarchy. Because we, I mean, this this is a case about a job, but we saw the power of white women's tears back when Emmett Till was killed. And back when that older woman, you know, said he was whistling at her and flirting with her. And we found that later, that was a lie. I mean, later as in like, decades later when nothing could be done about it, but that just shows you the power of like you say, a weaponizing, those white tears. So in Lisa's case, the jury ruled in favor of the TV station on the discrimination suit. And in favor of Lisa on the retaliation claims.
Lisa Benson 25:29
I don't have any regrets. But if I was going to do it, I would have done it sooner. Honestly, some of that I just chalked up to my own racial ignorance. The reality of internalized racial inferiority says to you that you're never quite ready, you're never quite good enough, you have to work a little bit harder, a little bit longer. Even when you see your counterparts, your white counterparts, making the same leaps and bounds and half the time, there's something about the internal mechanism and some something about the conditioning way, we're conditioned as people of color in this country that keeps telling us "Well, the reason it worked out for them is because of this is not my turn," you keep on kind of validating really the systemic oppression that we are honestly victims of. And so if I was to do it all over again, I simply would do it sooner, that's all. But I think people of colors, Black people ... me too, it's uncomfortable, it's always to think about the racial hierarchy and how it was constructed with white people at the top and Black people forever indentured at the very bottom. So nobody wants to be pitied upon. So race is an uncomfortable conversation across the board. And then the deliberate actions and the reality of systemic racism, how it shows up in every institution is very uncomfortable, you know. And so the work that I've read, including Robin DiAngelo has helped me to just see how it shows up and how it manifests in people who are not willing to really confront these difficult topics. And so all that being said, I wanted and want to now get to be a part of the movement of people who are trying to normalize these conversations in hopes of creating better spaces and work environments and just lives for everyone. Because I've said this before, but I unfortunately lost my livelihood. I've worked in television news since I was in my 20s. And so, you know, I lost my career, I lost my livelihood, I lost my job, but I didn't lose my life. And we know these very same dynamics that are playing out in the nation that we live in, are costing people their real lives, their whole lives. On the line, there are people who are sitting in prison right now, as we speak. There are people who are laying in the cemetery right now, as we speak, because of these same dynamics. So I am honestly one of the fortunate ones. I got this lesson. And honestly, I'm so grateful and thankful for this new career. So I'm thankful. But there are so many people who live through this trauma and don't, and their outcome is not as great. And so I feel like we can get to the place where we're normalizing this conversation, and everyone's on the lookout for the reality of racial injustices, then we can save people from the burden of it. It really is a burden. To me, the the unfairness and the injustice is still pure, the truth is I should not have lost my job for sharing that article. And the federal court system in Missouri agreed with that. But there are so many people who don't even get their day in court, they just have to live with the consequences of racial injustices, they have to live with the consequences. Some honestly, some of this is racial ignorance. But some of this is honestly, the weaponizing the you know, the weaponizing of whiteness, really. And so my hope is to be a part of the conversation because sometimes people are acting unconsciously, they're not consciously making these decisions, not consciously supporting this racial construct that oppresses some people and uplifts others, but they're still doing it. So my hope is to be a part of the people who are normalizing these conversations and educating so people are making better decisions when they honestly they want to make some people really want to do better, they just don't know what they're doing wrong. And so I want to be a part of this movement to educate and uplift and normalize conversations about race and racism.
Adena White 29:00
We end with a little call and response thing that we do with our guests, and we just ask a few questions. A few little rapid-fire type questions, so the first thing that comes to mind. So the first one is, even though St. Louis and Kansas City aren't really Southern, you know, they're Southern adjacent and as someone said, and whenever he calls the South is wherever black people are, so we're gonna take that approach. So here's our common response. What do you wish people knew or understood about the South?
Lisa Benson 29:35
How classy it is. You know, but I think it's classy. Honestly. There's like this Southern elegance and pride that I love. So the pride and elegance that exists in the south.
Adena White 29:47
Oh, I like that.
Lisa Benson 29:50
You know I went to CAU Clark Atlanta University. So yeah, okay. I was so impressed. Yeah, I think there's a pride and elegance with Southern folks that I love.
Adena White 29:59
What did you love most about your time living here?
Lisa Benson 30:02
in Atlanta?
Adena White 30:05
I'm sorry, living in South.
Lisa Benson 30:07
Just seeing Black people in a different life growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, it's just a different atmosphere is like the expectation level, the elegance, the standard, I feel like the standard for Southern Blacks is different. I mean, the way they move the way they talk, just the elegance. I remember going to CAU the first time and seeing that was my first time really seeing black wealth coming from St. Louis. You know, I mean, St. Louis is very segregated. So you just have the Black side and the white side, but going to Atlanta and being in the South, you have Black wealth that still exists in the South that I've never ever interacted with. I remember my best friend's brother's roommate was from Atlanta and we went to their house and they had a spiral staircase and I'm trying to figure out what football team his daddy played for. Because in my mind, all I had ever seen was wealthy Black athletes (and understanding, I'm old)but I did not realize the wealth that you know, that amassed in the South for Black people. Obviously, that's connected if you do obviously land ownership was a huge part of that. The point being I've never seen it, and so I still assign when I look at Black elegance and Black wealth, it's a Southern thing in my mind.
Adena White 31:14
Fill in the blank: I would love to see a sweet tea - or your beverage of choice - on the front porch with blank.
Lisa Benson 31:21
My goodness Oprah Winfrey or Trevor Noah
Adena White 31:25
that'd be a great conversation.
Lisa Benson 31:28
Or both right. both. haha
Adena White 31:33
What's your favorite black and or southern saying?
Lisa Benson 31:35
Do y'all have sweet tea?
Brittany Noble 31:41
And then they bring you if you're not in the south, they bring you little
Lisa Benson 31:44
packets, right?
Adena White 31:49
What's your favorite soul food?
Lisa Benson 31:51
I don't know if this is considered a soulful, but it would be dressing. I like dressing. Like that's my favorite food. So they have to be dressing is not even the turkey is just the dressing.
Adena White 32:02
Yes. And everyone's is so different. Cranberry Sauce. Do you like the...s
Lisa Benson 32:07
Oh yes, I'm gonna say that. But I was too at TMI. But yeah, I need the dressing with the cranberry sauce. And like that's the whole meal like and that's the whole meal. And it's the cornbread dressing. And it does not dry flat. It has lumps in it. So when it you know it doesn't? Yes. It's like I used to go to satellites when I was in Atlanta just for the dressing.
Adena White 32:29
And cranberry sauce with ridges right? Not that homemade stuff.
Lisa Benson 32:32
Exactly.
Brittany Noble 32:36
And finally, what's something awesome that's happened to your life recently?
Lisa Benson 32:39
Well, definitely publishing the book was a huge thing for me. It's crazy. I wanted to be a published author before I even had this lived experience. And so it just motivated me to accomplish that goal. And being a business owner has been great. And having two little boys who I get to, I get to and I have to online school with so some days I get to do it and some days, I have to do it, but I know that this is definitely counted among my blessings.
Adena White 33:09
Thanks so much.
Lisa Benson 33:11
Thank you guys for having me.
Kara Wilkins 33:13
We want to thank Lisa Benson for being a guest on the show. She is the author of the book titled anchoring in bias fired over white tears, which is available in bookstores and on Amazon. Thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a five star rating and a review on Apple podcasts so others can find us. You can also listen to the blackbelt Voices Podcast on most streaming platform.
Adena White 33:46
This episode was edited and produced by Katrina Dupins and Prentice Dupins Jr. With music composed by Prentice Dupins Jr. Blackbelt voices is a production of Blackbelt Media LLC. Be sure to follow black belt voices on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Blackbelt Voices and visit blackbeltvoices.com