What You Find Out When You Don’t FAFO, Blacksplained by Joy Reid

Michael Harriot: Have you ever wondered what's the worst thing you will find out if you fuck around? our parents and our ancestors taught us about fucking around so that we would do the right thing. But what if you fuck around and don't speak out when you see injustice? What if you just remain silent in the face of oppression? What if you Just separate yourself from other black people. Well, every week, Blacksplain asks a scholar, an expert, or somebody who just knows what they're talking about to discuss one question. and today Joy Ann Reed is going to black explain what she found out when she didn't fuck around. Welcome to Black Splain, today we have Joy's House host, the infamous Joy Reed.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: It's so good to be infamous and so good to be here with you, my carriage.
Michael Harriot: when you ask people to listen to somebody who knows what they're talking about, of course they want to know, well, how do this person knows what they're talking about? So you could do it like Dr. Umar talking about his school or if it was a professional wrestling interview or like Ali before the thriller in my n Manila. Tell why. Joy Reed know what she's talking about
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: That is so funny. Okay, so that's a really good question. I would say the reason that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to media, I have to give all credit to my mama. Because my mother was a news junkie and she raised a news junkie. She basically raised a little her because she would sit and watch everything from the Sunday shows to nightly news. And I was I was like, I was a mama's girl. You if you have a daddy's girl, I was a mama's girl. So I was right at her hip. So everything she was doing, I was doing. If she's watching Fantasy Island, I'm watching Fantasy Island. Like I'm watching all the things. And so since I was her little sidekick, I learned media really watching it from my mom. So I feel like I grew up as like a I was like a cadult. I was just watching the news since I was like in sixth grade. So that's how I think that's how I feel like I know media, because I kind of grew up as a fan of the news media, never intending to be in it, just as a consumer.
Michael Harriot: So you say you were never intending to be in it. What did like you, like twelve year old Joy or fifteen year old Joy, think she was going to be when when she grew up? Like if your teacher asks you, what are you gonna be when you grow up? What did you tell people?
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: So I unfortunately, because I was grew up with a Caribbean mother, I said I was gonna be a doctor. And once you say that to a Caribbean parent, you are locked in. So as far as anyone who asked me, told me what I asked me what I was gonna be, I would always say, I'm gonna be doctor. But while I was saying I was gonna be a doctor, my sister was gonna be the lawyer, I was gonna be the doctor, my baby brother was gonna be the architect. So we're doctor, lawyer, architect. That's what you're supposed to be. And they made my mother happy. And so I would say it because I knew she loved hearing it. And I actually applied to all the schools I applied to as a pre-med. So I was officially like on the track to be a doctor. but it but what I really wanted to be, and what I secretly tried to be as you know, little me, young me, was to be a writer. I used to write poetry. I wrote a book of poetry in long hand and sent it to a publisher when I was in like seventh grade thinking they would publish it. They sent it back, like, how cute. No, you know. I wrote I would write longhand you know, like my own little book. One time, this is a true story. I wrote a horror story called It and then Stephen King stole my shit.
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: I wrote the thing it was called It. I illustrated the cover. I literally drew the cover and everything, did the whole thing, and then the r that it came out and I was convinced that this man somehow knew I was writing it and got ahead of me. because and I would tell my k my sister and brother I would keep them entertained with serials. I would do serial dramas. And I would tell my my sister and brother these dramas and they would come back every day for updates on the drama. And I really was a writer. And so finally when my mother got tired of me, you know, making my hands sore writing longhand, she bought me this old typewriter. I to this day collect old typewriters. She bought me this old giant, enormous, like nineteen sixties typewriter. And I would sit in the basement clackity clacking out stories. And so really I in my mind I was gonna be a pediatrician. who would roller skate down the hallways of the hospital to my to my patients and on the side would be a world famous award winning novelist.
Michael Harriot: That is quite the the adventure. As a matter of fact, because I I like that sounds a lot like my story and I still can't type on anything other than a typewriter keyboard. So like people like right here is my keyboard. I I have I have this
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Listen. Wait, why do I okay, wait, hold on. I have to do this now. One second. Gotta do it. Bruh, why are we the same person?
Michael Harriot: for I so I met the guy who invented that at the LA book fair and I I have like I have one that I just keep in my suitcase so when I travel
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: and I have to write. So yeah, it is the greatest thing for anybody who's watching. It's called the Quardy Writer. I don't get any any kickback
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: He's not a sponsor.
Michael Harriot: or a sponsorship, but this is if you are used to typing on key b or on a typewriter. This is the greatest thing. It even has a thing where you slide back and it you slide the enter key and it it enters like a return on a keyboard. But but
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: The gr I got that from Jason. This was my best Christmas present. He the he's a good innovator when it comes to cause he knows what I was a black I was the Blackberry Queen. I used to write entire essays on the Blackberry because I had a Cordy keyboard. When they had to take that Blackberry out of my cold day, I was like Obama. I was like an addicted Blackberry. I was so mad when they stopped making it. It's the best phone ever because it was literally like you could type a essay on it.
Michael Harriot: Yeah, I had the Blackberry too. I was a early adopter of the Blackberry and then I moved to the iPhone. But if you were so as a writer, I think most people know you as of course host of MSNBC on MSNBC, but I don't think they know you were I I worked at the Grio before I started Contraband Cap. You were the editor at the Grio. You were in charge of the Grio. You have a backstory in radio, in newspapers. So you have a l tell us some of the jobs that you've had in media besides television.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah, I mean, so I, you know, I went to college as a pre med I went to Harvard as a premed, as I mentioned, but I didn't make it as a pre I was a very one year pre-med, 'cause my mom passed away like twenty-two days before I started Harvard. So I sunk into a insanely deep depression and that was like my best cheerleader, you know, and I really had no interest in being a doctor anymore. I didn't believe in it. I felt the doctors had failed her, so I didn't know what to do with my life. So I barely made it through my first year at Harvard. I had never gotten below a C and the only C I ever got, ironically enough, was in typing. And my mother literally rode a hour and a half from the University of Northern Colorado to my bellow high school to cuss out my typing teacher saying she was messing up my GPA and ruining my life. The only class I I didn't ever got a C. So then all of a sudden I'm getting like D's. You they don't really fail you at Harvard. They grade on a curve, so they give you D and E. So I had to figure out what I was gonna do. So I left Harvard for a year, took a year off, and so the jobs I've had when I was out of Harvard, I worked for the standards and practices department at CBS News as a a secretary. I They still have no, it's still there. And as a matter of fact,
Michael Harriot: Wow. They don't even have that anymore, right, at CBS News. Well
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: some of the same people are still there. she might have you right though. She might've got rid of that.
Michael Harriot: Well Barry Weiss is I think the Yeah. I think it might be just please Barry Weiss is the only standard of practice at CBS News.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: That's fair. But I did w I did that and I used to sneak over to the other building, to other building where Dan Rather and them were just to watch the news because it was in different building. I had that job and then I switched and I worked at Columbia Pictures as a secretary, and the first film as in the pro in the promotion in the PR department. And the film that we were doing PR for was Leonard Six. The movie,
Michael Harriot: Wow.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: the worst movie ever made. Leonard Six starring Bill Cosby. That was our first film. So there it was really Tri-Star Pictures. So I had that job literally down the street from Trump Towers, a secretary. Then I went back to school, came out with a documentary film degree. My first job out of college was I worked as a secretary for a company that did stock footage and I quit because somebody white said something racist over the loudspeaker, and I quit and didn't have another job. Then I got a job working for Beverage Marketing Corporation. I don't even I just was looking for any kind of money. And they hired me to be a market research analyst for the beverage industry, which is the craziest job I've ever had. And I would write book length thoughts length style length market research reports about the beverage industry. So ask me anything about soda, I'm gonna tell you about the industry or the beer industry. I got you. Then I left there because on the side, my husband, now husband, then my boyfriend and I, because I quit that job and got a job at School of Visual Arts. which was a production I was the manager of the production office at School of Visual Art. That's where I met Jason. And that job led me to me, Jason, and a bunch of our friends starting a music video show called Video Dub Plate. So I was the producer of a music video show called Video Dub Plate. We used to compete with Ralph McDaniels and David Kid in New York and also with BET Caribbean rhythms with Rachel. We used to compete with them so I was a Producer of a music video show that actually won an award. We won Tamika Award. and we interviewed like all kind of like reggae stars, Shaba ranks, Shaggy, all of them people. Then my next job, we moved to Florida because we had a child. Then we got married. We won't go into that. And I wanted to stay on the media side. Now I was like, I'm in it. I'm doing media-related stuff. We even had a news segment. Debbie Goodison was our news host. So we would feed you music videos, but then we would shoot you some news and then we get back to the videos. We used to rewind the videos. It was a very cool show. Then we moved to Florida and I got a job as a associate producer at The Plex, WSVN, which is the Fox affiliate in Miami. So I became a very low level, I was thinking I was making minimum wage. and I was basically the producing assistant for the morning news. But it wasn't paying me enough. So on the side, I was a copywriter at Birdine's department store for the intimate apparel and fine jewelry department. So I would take the bus, it was like a little metro bus. I would get to my main job at two in the morning, write the morning news. When the morning news was done, I would get on the little metro, go over to Birdines and write about fine jewelry and intimate apparel. Then I decided I didn't want two jobs, I just wanted one. So I took a job as a digital editor at NBC News, their affiliate, WTVJ. So I was a digital editor. So I was trying to convince them to break news online, which they did not want to do. And I was kind of writing my own enterprise stories. And that was really, those were my first two jobs in actual journalism. So I did that, and then I quit that job. I was a job quitter at the time because Jason had a good job at Discovery Channel. Quit that job because I was against the Iraq War. And I had met a guy called Ike Siemens, who was a senior producer at NBC. He used to be the NBC Bureau chief in Israel, but now he was working for the local network. He introduced me. To the first black editor at the Miami Herald op-ed page. That guy gave me an op-ed, you know, a contributing op-ed sort of deal. My very first op-ed was against the Iraq War. NBC tried to fire me. My tenure with NBC was very rocky. I eventually left because I was against their coverage of the war, and I took a job as a press secretary for America Coming Together, which was an organization that George Soros funded to try to beat George W. Bush. We lost. I then went into talk radio as a producer for my mentor, James T. Thomas, who was the most famous black man in radio in Florida, became his producer, then became his co-host. Then I ended up going back into politics because some of my friends from America Coming Together were working for Obama. So I took a job at the closing end of the Obama campaign, won that, and then from there got recruited to the Grio. So that is my crazy path to media. It makes no sense to anyone when I put it on a resume. Wouldn't put it on a resume because it would look stupid. But that is my path. And then I ended up at the Grio from the Grio became a fill in for many shows on MSNBC. Got my own show. That show got canceled. Became a field r reporter. Then got the weekend show, which was a huge hit, then got the primetime show. Crazy.
Michael Harriot: S what's interesting about that is when you think about when I whenever I ask people about like their pu previous jobs or how do you get here? How did you get here? It's always a story of w especially if it's a black person, like they were already an expert. They've done everything in every part of the industry before we see them, right? And it you know the opposite side of that coin is like we always see our white col we always work aside alongside white colleagues and we like, yeah, I just took an internship here when I got out of college and I had enough money to work I mean to do the work without getting paid and then I became a a staff writer and then I became a columnist and now I'm on T V, right? And it's always interesting how differently those paths are for black people. And the other thing, and which is what I wanted to get to, is How so many of us take a stand at like just I don't even know if it we consider it taking a stand as, I I that's a value that I won't compromise. If that's the thing that I have to do, I can't work here, right? And throughout your career, we've seen you do that. was it something like, you know, you standing on the desk and making a big announcement? No, this is wrong, or was it just like I just can't have these values compromised.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Well, at the at the stop footage place, this guy the and I can't remember what the specific comment was, but it was very anti-black what this person was saying. And it about some footage that had rolled in. And I immediately got up and went to that person and said, That is racist. I cannot believe you just said that over a loudspeaker. And then we got into an argument and then our my supervisor got involved and I said to him If you don't check that person, I can't work here. And I I didn't say it a big announcement to the room. I said it to my supervisor.
Michael Harriot: Right.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: And then the supervisor did not check the person. So I said, Fine, fine, F you, I quit. But see, this was you have to keep in mind this was the nineties. You could get another job in ten minutes. Like this was the best economy to be the my personality in. Cause you quit a job and get a job the next day. I'm like, I'll have a job in the morning. You know, I'm like, you can't check me, boo, because if you're not gonna and so it was really more Like I my mother was the type of person that never let anything go unchecked. You know what I mean? Like she was a black Caribbean woman living in an eighty percent African American town. Cause she left Brooklyn when I was two and moved to Denver to get, you know, it was too many of her Guyanese family. She helped him come over and then she was like, Ooh, too many of y'all. Let me move. So she moved all the way across country to Denver with my sister and me, and then had my brother. And, you know, she was like a lo she was the only one of her. In Montbello where we live. There were no other Caribbean Americans except my cousins who would hang with us every summer. So we were like a little gang of Guyanese kids, but everybody else was African American or white or Mexican, not like Hispanic, just Mexican. And then there was a small number of Hmong and Vietnamese people. That was it. It was not a lot of diversity. And there were four African families, and we counted as one. So the Lomenas, the Chirongas, the Akias. and what was that and those and the and one more family. It was four of us. And so she had to navigate a world where she was unique and where she had to constantly correct people. Like people would ask her, was she from Jonestown? And she would have to tell them, There's no such thing as Jonestown. That was that was you people, that was white people who created Jonestown and killed themselves in my country. Don't put that on me, I'm from Georgetown. You know, so she would constantly correct people when they would do stuff like that. So I think I was just raised that way to be kind of irascible. And you could be irascible in the nineties 'cause you weren't gonna ever be unemployed for for a long.
Michael Harriot: That that idea of irascibility or just standing up for yourself though, I I wonder oftentimes, like who else has that? Because we don't see it. Oftentimes you you know, you pose it as a thing a thing that was in the nineties, but that's kind of been our template for as long as we've been here, right? Like there's some things that we won't compromise on. And how, you know, considering all of the the g jobs and areas and industries that you've been in, like have you noticed a commiserate thing from people who weren't black, like who who had the privilege to just ignore the things that they s they s supposedly stood for, right? have you ever noticed that?
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: I have and I think the re the here's the reality. I mean I I think I think I understand what you're asking is that I don't think white people necessarily the thing about them is that they live in a world in which they can be thoroughly comfortable everywhere and feel and feel like they belong everywhere. I'll put it this way, like I used to live in Fort Green before when Fort Green was black. And Fort Green had the pro the Fort Green projects like, you walk out my door, it was over there. When white people started moving into Fort Green, the park used to be where they would snatch your chain if you got there after a certain type. And I was never afraid and Fort Green, because I'm around black people. I like this is my like I'm not scared to be there. But white people would would class it as being some sort of a bad neighborhood. But once they decided to gentrify that joint, they were jogging through the park like they owned the park. And no one would touch them because you knew the white black people would only prey on other black people because they knew if you touch that white person and you took their chain, you were going to jail, under the jail. And then we've known black people's t sojourn in this country has been that white people, we know they're protected by law. We know they have and they move like they're protected. But they don't usually just extend that protection onto other people unless they are real, real, real, real woke. You know what I mean? Like when I've taught white students, I've told them when I've given you because I used to teach a class called Race, Gender, and Media, and most of my students were white. And I would say, now that you have this knowledge, it's on you to do what I would do in a situation where something racist happens. Cause normally white people don't do that. They ignore it, they internalize it, they laugh it off, they get uncomfortable, but they don't feel like they have to do something. So as black people, if we're in the space where something like that is happening, The onus usually is on us to say something, you know. My my godmother, I was just talking to her over the weekend, she's ninety-two, and she talks about the fact that when she and my mom became friends at NYU, the professors would just say out of the box crazy stuff about black people, and the af and there would be one African American student in the class with them. And my godmother, who basically is she's the Malcolm X, my mom was the Dr. King. My my my godmother is the Bumba Kalakui. She would go off. And then my mom would try to calm her down. And then the African American student really wouldn't say anything. And she would ask them after, Why didn't you say anything? They were saying these things about black people. And the African American student would say, Well, I would get flunked out. You could say that because you got that accent. And so there are like levels of of like privilege we can deploy as black people. And my godmother would deploy that privilege as a foreign black, you know? And
Michael Harriot: Right.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: I think the lot of African Americans who then in situations where it's black and white people, they will deploy the defense of us. You know, I don't know if I'm explaining it well, but I feel like we have to defend ourselves in this country because white folk are generally not gonna do that for us.
Michael Harriot: Right. I th I think I I know exactly what you're saying and a lot of that is because, you know, there's always these diaspora wars on on social media where people you know, segment themselves like I'm a b I'm a Caribbean black and or African black, which is different from American black. And I often try to explain to people like, Well, you know those stereotypes were just what white people exported to us, right? Like the I can understand why African believes that shit because that's what they export about black people. we talking about the if we're talking about the nineties media, we know how we were viewed
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: and what was exported of us throughout the media. And I think we don't as a black American, sometimes we don't know what where that sentiment comes from. And then from The other side, I think a lot of times they accept that media, I mean that version of black people. Because the myth of America is that if you do the thing that white people did, right, then you can be the thing that white people are in America. And that is one of the biggest fallacies of it. But I also think it's important to understand that that myth is impossible to believe. If you grew up in a country that where you're surrounded by people who look like you, right? Where that that kind of mythology could never be deployed just based on stink skin color. If everybody's saying it about the black people in America, it must be true because you don't have that context, not just the context of slavery and all of that, but the context of there are a group of people in America who can weaponize who control the narrative and who basically can create a myth and everybody else adopts it. I I don't think it's possible for somebody from outside this country to really understand how America is until you're about like one or two generations in and then you become black and then you
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Mm-hmm.
Michael Harriot: see, this is what they talk about.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: no, 100%. My b look, my mother and father had very different experiences in America, right? My father was a you know, Reaganite conservative because he really didn't live here. Like he came to school here, messed around, had a whole bunch of other children here, went back to the Congo and my and my mama divorced him. Like he really wasn't here here. My mother lived here. It didn't take her long before she was like, it's racist here. She would talk about she was like, ooh, like she and so she raised her children. She said, Y'all are not Guyanese, y'all are black, y'all are Regular black, like every other black person, don't try to separate you just black. But you still got these guy and these values. We're gonna make sure you know your culture, make sure you know your aunties and your cousins, and they come every summer, so you still keep your culture, but you're black, right? And so I think as a black person who's got foreign parents, I was raised African American. But to your point, my father's view of African Americans was not formed as a fellow black person, because remember, black and white were invented here for the purposes. Of s of making a certain set of people congenital slaves. So white people invented this idea that if you are here, especially if you're bred here and you brought here, you are a separate thing called black. On the African continent, they did a different game with them in colonialism. They exploited the way that black people there think of themselves is tribal. So I'm Hausa,
Michael Harriot: Right.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: I'm not, you know what I mean? Like I'm this tribe and you're that tribe. So The tribes fight each other, but keep in mind that when they talk amongst themselves, they don't talk amongst themselves as black people. They talk
Michael Harriot: Right.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: amongst themselves as tribes. And so the exploitation of tribe is how they conquer them. and so the Fulani and the Hausa, we don't like each other. So you Fulani, I'm Hausa, we're not both black. We don't have a commonality beyond our tribe.
Michael Harriot: Right.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Because everybody's black. So how do you make your distinctions when everybody's black? Tribe. And if you go in the Caribbean Most of the people who went to you know this better than me, you wrote Black AF History, they went direct from Ghana to Jamaica. Direct. So you are still tribally similar. It's all these Nigerians together, straight there. Where they're not whereas in the US, they're all mixed together and thrown into havoc and hell, which created their own separate group, which is black and which just embraced the idea of black. And made black Americanness its own very special thing. That's why I don't really quarrel with the FBA people on the idea that African Americans are effectively their own identity and racial group. Because
Michael Harriot: Right.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: they were formed for they're like the wakanda of blacks. Every kind of black, African mixed together with European, with indigenous, all thrown into one group that now identify one way culturally. But foreign black people just know they come over here. Also thinking of African Americans as a separate group, they don't think that they're the same, and so they think about black Americans the way white people from foreign think about American black Americans. Everybody is taught, whether you're coming from India, Ireland, Russia, Kazakhstan, you all taught the same horrible things about African Americans, and they all adopt it as the same. And so they come here with this stay away from African Americans. African Americans are this African American and they they they think that until they become black because they get treated like niggas, if we don't be real. And then when they
Michael Harriot: Right. Yeah.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: get treated that way, they go, my goodness, because I know Cuban, I black. I know I know black, I Cuban. I know black, I know black, and all of a sudden you're black and they don't know what to do and they get thrown, you know. So it's this weird diaspora war where it it only helps white people. It
Michael Harriot: Right.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: only hurts black people. But foreign black people need to learn the language of talking to and talking about African Americans before they can truly be a a true ally in coalition.
Michael Harriot: Right. And I think part of learning that and we might be even be pivoting to away from the initial cause of this this conversation into like talking about this because part of it is realizing they ain't gonna s accept you. Right? Like you are on their when you are in their side or on their side, you still ain't you'll never ever ever ever ever be one of you. I know Recently we you were involved in this whole conversation about with Stephen A. Smith, right? and one of the things I often point out is when people ask, you know, what should we do, quote unquote, with Stephen A. Smith. And I'm like, I don't want Stephen A. Smith to like lose his job or be unemployed at ESPN I also don't think that he'll never ever ever I think it is impossible for him to see the error of his ways. I think what this job entails on our side is the thing we did is and successfully is saying, now they know that because they use him as he's one of them, he's inside their culture. And when we get him to say the anti black stuff or revert. reverse r repeat the anti-black rhetoric that he's saying it like he this is a man who's deeply embedded in their culture who's saying the stuff that we believe. So our job is to say, nah, like he ain't reflecting a thing that we believe. Like that's y'all shit. Right. And once you show the world that he's saying their shit, your job is done. You don't gotta take his job. I don't want Stephen A. Smith to lose his job or to be kicked out of blackness or no shit like that. Like just make it apparent to the people who listen to him who he's speaking for. Whose side he's on.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Hundred percent. I agree. And look, Stephen A. Smith and look, I you know, he he kinda cor he kinda Caribbean, he kinda almost my people because he was Virgin Island in and the Virgin US Virgin Islands is in the US. It's obviously a US territory, but it has a Caribbean culture. And one one thing I recognize when I hear Stephen A. Smith is this idea of don't rock the boat, don't challenge authority, especially don't challenge white authority to keep your job. And this is the to get into the media conversation of where black people land. If you are real real black, it's hard to last in media, right? If you are gent if you are coming in with blackness in the forefront of your delivery personality, interests, it's har it's you can't become Oprah that way, right? Oprah
Michael Harriot: Right.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: couldn't become Oprah being fist in the air black. She became women's interrogator, not black women's, but women's, right? And that is, you know, and I and I can't hate on her because she got to be a billionaire doing it. But that is what the what she did to be to create who she was, even though nobody would ever say Oprah's not black. She has a whole black experience, an authentic black experience. But that is who she is. Women and then it was so she was so much women's interlocutor in media that when she didn't endorse a woman specifically for president that they wanted, they got mad at her. Like she got she had to like Pivot, you know, when when people did, you know, white women felt they had a claim on her th her thoughts and beliefs, you know. And so Stephen A. Smith, his job is to quote unquote represent black thought, but pivot black thought to what white people want black thought to be. And that's how he's become a hundred million, that's how he's a hundred million dollar man. Because he's gonna present as black people listen to me, black people love me, and I also agree with you white people. And then they can say, Hey, look. Stephen A. Smith agreed with this. So we're not racist. Stephen A. Smith says this as well. Stephen A. Smith also thinks Jasmine Crockett is loud and obnoxious. Stephen A. Smith also thinks, you know, these same things. We he don't like the Stephen A. Smith thinks LeBron James out of pocket. Like he's a person they can put their beliefs onto, and he's made a lot of money doing it. And so what he tells people like Jamal Hill and Carrie Champion and me is don't rock the bow. Don't mess with the don't don't don't mess with Trump too much. Don't be too hard on him. You're gonna lose your gig. You're gonna lose your influence. He's trying to give you a hundred million dollars worth of game by saying you just have to compromise on the black stuff. And a lot of us are like, Yeah, I'm not gonna do that. So we can't
Michael Harriot: Yeah, but I also wonder though, is it because when you said you know you can't do that being black, right? I think you can if you serve that purpose, right? Like as the person inside the culture who still has the same goals as white people to acquire wealth, to acquire status. The perfect example to me, right, and and we've been there's d been this conversation about it lately. It's Jay-Z. Right?
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: Right. Like Jay-Z, I often tell people, Jay-Z hasn't changed. Jay-Z from the outset said, I my goal is a bunch of money. I
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yes.
Michael Harriot: am going to like be the king of capitalism, whether it is on the corner selling dope or selling
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: this music or telling y'all because Jay-Z's argument is not that he didn't do things that we accuse him of doing. He's saying, but look at all this money I got doing it. Y'all crazy if you're saying
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: It was out there.
Michael Harriot: y'all would turn down this money
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Right.
Michael Harriot: to be black, right? Like you would you wouldn't sacrifice your position in the culture or like I thought that's what all we all wanted was
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Right.
Michael Harriot: this status, this wealth, this billionaire status, right? Cause a hundred million selling music wasn't enough for me. Right?
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Listen, bruh, when I tell you, last night I was driving back from my Auntie Dolly house. I went up to Delaware to visit my aunt and I was driving back, you know, put soundtrack on, and the song Monster came on. Monster, to me, is one of the best hip-hop collaboration songs I ever. And it is Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj, who's the closer, and whose bars are fire.
Michael Harriot: Mm-hmm. Who who really had the best bars on that song? Like she killed that song. Yeah.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: She had the best bars on the song. That's why they made her the closer, okay? Uh-uh. Like the best. She got Willie Wonka in the in the lyrics. I'm like, this lady is a bad girl, right? And it's also Kanye West and Rick Ross. All people who have played FTSE with MAGA. Either MAGA or with the right or with capitalism. These are the capitalist hip-hop blacks, all on one track. And I'm listening to it and then, and you know, I had to rewind it because it's a dope song, right? And I love all of the lyrics in it, have problems with the social, like positioning of all the people mentioned. But you can't deny, number one, that they are black. You can't deny that they're culturally in the culture and that they are good at what they do, great lyricists, great performers, whatever. But the but they all represent to me, I'm like, this is the ultimate song that shows you what black capitalism is. Is that I'ma get this money. If I gotta play ball with Trump, put a MAGA hat on, I'ma do that. If I gotta go to Turning Point USA, I'ma do that. I got some things I need. They need money, they need proximity to power, and they go get it. And they are not ashamed of it and they're not apologizing for it. This is who they are. And so we on the other side of a consuming that culture, we have to decide what we're gonna do with that. You know what I mean? What do we do with these people who we admire, their artistry, but we know that they're on that side of the line because capitalism is more important to them. than like a principle that black people hold.
Michael Harriot: Well, I th I think that that principle of those principles that we just talked about, right? When you really examine them, they are the only, I mean really the only threat to capitalism. Right? Like 'cause if those remember when hip hop started, if you're talking about hip hop, we wore the big gold chains, right? We wore all of that, right? We like the big cars, but what the essence of hip hop at the beginning, even through the early 90s, when you were leaving those jobs, they were the real hip people in hip hop would look down on the people who were just doing it for the money. Like who were just
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Mm-hmm.
Michael Harriot: doing it. They if you were in the culture and just doing it to make hits, they look down on you. And I often my my theory theory is that What changed about hip hop is when hip hop started, we were in control of the music. We were
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yep.
Michael Harriot: deciding who was the best rappers and all of that. And what happened was it became corporate. I mean,
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yep.
Michael Harriot: it became a capitalist endeavor and the people who were in control of that capitalist endeavor chose the people who rose to the top, the best capitalists, not the best rappers, the best capitalist, right?
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Mm-hmm. Possible.
Michael Harriot: Right? And yeah.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Puffy. Puffy is that in a human, you know?
Michael Harriot: Yeah, and I I I think overall, right, when you're talking about what we're talking about, how do you convince someone that that capitalist dream you'll never, ever, ever achieve? Jay-Z ain't get a team. He just like sit in the room with the billionaires, right? Like you don't got the money they got, you don't got the power they got, you don't even really have the status they got, right? Like You are their super bowl literally their Super Bowl halftime show of their inde of this capitalist endeavor. And they ain't really even capitalist because for them they choose socialism for them, right? Right? And I think overall when you look at, you know, taking these stands in the media and like sacrificing them never actually gets you anywhere, right? Like if Jay-Z is successful if you look at him as a capitalist.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Mm.
Michael Harriot: Right? And we were saying, well, sh it ain't like you will you could turn down all that money that Jay-Z has or you wouldn't want to be successful like Jay-Z. My point is this, right? Jay-Z was always going to be successful. He is one of the greatest rappers who ever rapped. He was going to be rich selling his music, right?
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Harriot: The capitalist part is the extra stuff, the stuff that you were used as a weapon to object to our principles, right? Like your principles,
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: like you gotta sacrifice them. That's his message, right? Right. I I mean even
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah. Yeah. He's like you gotta sacrifice Colin Kaepernick. He's like F Colin Kaepernick. Colin Kaepernick took money too. Like he's justifying it because he's like He he you can see he feels some kind of way about the accusation that he's just a capitalist and not an artist anymore. Cause you're right, back in the day, like K R S one would never, right? You what I mean? Like can you imagine K R S one taking doing a deal
Michael Harriot: Nah.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: with Target? No. Like you know, like that. It just wouldn't happen because that's he's just a princi his his principles came before the capitalism, his art came before the capitalism. He's like, I'm doing this as a movement, not just as a profession. You know, and Jay-Z took that what was h and he is truly, as you say, one of the most gifted hip hop artist ever period. He gets in the top five, top three probably, of of hip of hip hop artists ever. And there's just no way to remove him from that. But he's also like a really good capitalist. Like he's real w whereas like Puffy is a really good capitalist and a terrible rapper. Like hip hop be an artist, he's he's he's not good at that, but
Michael Harriot: Bye.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: he is a hell of a capitalist and he can find talent and push them and make money. And so our question about hip hop is did hip hop lose its soul To capitalism. And in a lot of ways, I think you have to say yes. You know, I mean, when Eminem became the central focus of hip hop to where even black folk in the media, in the musical media, are saying he's the greatest rapper, I'm like, okay, then I give up. The capitaliz capitalism took took hip hop and run. Not that he not that he's not a decent rapper, but come on now, you know?
Michael Harriot: Yeah. But is did hip hop lose its soul, right? Or I I don't think that people or hip hop artists start stopped making conscious music or relevant music, right? It is just who capitalism captured and funneled through the machine of capitalism to our destinations where we get it from, right? Because There's still pa people making the same kind of music that they've always made. You gotta look for though, because the
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Harriot: machine has captured the music. They own the radio stations now. They own like ain't no Joy Reeds competing with video jukebox and other black people sharing that music now. It's all cap it's MTV. It's Paramount. It's Barry Weiss, right? Right? Like
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: That's right. Yeah. For real.
Michael Harriot: B E T News Paramount bought it.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Come on. Take out it.
Michael Harriot: Deleted all of their, literally deleted the archive of of Black News
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Crazy.
Michael Harriot: and say, hey, it belongs to us now. That news still exists, right?
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: They control the machine that delivers it to us. So I don't I don't necessarily know that hip hop has lost his way because we think about this, right? When when Kendrick Lamar, he's, you know, he's signed by one of the biggest, if not the biggest, record company. But when he became the person who broke the mold and s performed at the halftime show, what did he do? He just put some music out there to black people. He bypassed the capitalist delivery machine and said, all of y'all can have it. Right? We think about, like I was listening to Rhapsody's new album, which, if you haven't heard it, is revolutionary, right? Like she it's great music. We'd all love it. The capitalist machine ain't gonna let it get but so far. Right.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Right.
Michael Harriot: And you think about all of the the chance the rapper is not in that machine, right? He said, I'm gonna stay independent, right? And I I I wonder if like if hip hop is fallen or we just don't look for it the same way we used to look for it.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah. That's a really good question. Cause even look, I I didn't mean to slight poor Eminem because he even making some conscious music right now too. Macklemore is out here like the white
Michael Harriot: Yeah. Yeah.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: dude trying to do like doing all the things, but if you say Free Palestine, you ain't getting signed. I'm just gonna say. But I mean i i I agree with you. I think there is and this is like my the the my my my youngins, my cadults always chide me when I try to go back to the golden age of hip hop in the nineties and they're like, No, there is good conscious, there's good music out now. You just like you said, you have to really look for it and you're not gonna find it in the commercials. Space, but people are very smart. Like, you know, black folks, one thing about us, we're always very creative and get around the system because black folks are figuring look, I can just put they can just put my music on TikTok, I can put my music on YouTube. Like people are literally getting their music out without any contact with the machine. Because you're right. I mean, when you get to a point where the Ellisons are trying to sell black culture back to black people on Bet. on what's now called B E T, but the B is in a whole bunch of scare quotes. I refuse to watch it because I'm like, I am not gonna let these Zionists sell me black culture back to me with movies with black people in them, but who knows there's even a black person even in the writing room at this point. It's gonna be what they want filtered through their politics on what's called BET. It it breaks my heart that that's what's happening. We don't have Ebony Essence jet like when we were growing up, where we knew we were getting that from black people, from black owners. That is even like just the it's there, but we don't read it like we used to. We don't consume it like we used to. It's not like I gotta get my jet magazine and see what I'm at the hair salon. Let me go look at what's in jet. Like that world is gone. And I kind of do I'm sad about that, you know? But I I am excited that younger people have figured out how to create a discontinuous media ecosystem that's not a system, but that still allows us to get, you know, conscious product. you, I mean, I think contraband camp. I feel like both of us having come out of the Grio, and I was managing editor from like 2011 to 2014. And we were, when I was managing editor, we our company, David Wilson, sold that had sold that company to NBC News. So even though we were a a quasi-independent front-facing independent media outlet, we were owned by NBC News. We had to live by NBC News standards. We were we our boss's boss is NBC News, you know? So we were never really independent like the root was. When you were at the when we, you know, when I first met you, you were at the root. They were really free of that. And then they got bought. So it's like I I don't know how long. Hopefully Contraband Camp stays independent because I know they're gonna come try to buy it because it's doing so well. But that's what happens is that they see our culture and then they eat it and buy it and then they homogenize it and then it isn't us.
Michael Harriot: Yeah. I I I I remember 'cause I was at the route when it was independent and when it was after it was bought by venture capitalists. And I remember the first when I said I had to leave was when the first they hired a new executive editor after Danielle Belton left. And the first meeting they asked, we had a brainstorming session and they said, Hey, why don't we do an exclusive interview with Kevin Samuels? And I was like, yo, I gotta get out of here. Right. But that's what capitalism does.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: And but when you keep saying like young people have figured it out, you figured it out too, right?
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: and I like I d first of all, did you think you were risking like social capital when you were saying, like, I'm not just gonna talk about this genocide in Israel in the way that the rest of the media talks about it. Did you think you were risking social capital or were you just like you were at the the copyright? I can't work here if you're gonna talk about it like that.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: I mean, like I and and look, I come to there are people, hello Candace Owens, who have come to the, you know, free Palestine kind of moment, you know, really of late and welcome to the right side of history. But I grew up in this. My mother came from a colonized country, Guyana. my father is from the Congo, was from the Congo, but he grew up basically in South Africa. He went to high school, went to a private high school in South Africa for whatever reason. But a lot of the sort of big men in so southern and central Africa would send their kids to I guess this school. So he met his best friend, my play uncle, there. And he worked his his entire career in South Africa during apartheid. So we were an anti-apartheid family from jump. Like we were I was raised anti apartheid in South Africa and anti apartheid in Israel. And was always taught that they were both apartheid. So that's just where I come from. So this isn't like a new thing that I adopted. This is just where I always have believed was what my mother believed. And so I came into the media, mainstream media and MSNBC really horrified by the way that the media was treating this, just like I was horrified by the way the media treated the Iraq War. I was hosting my first MSNBC show, which was called The Read Report, during the f the second Intifada. I think it was the second Intifada, and interviewed the Israeli spokesperson to the US, to the UN, interviewed Israeli officials, Got pushback for how they thought I was negative in these interviews. Sometimes my bosses didn't like my style of questioning, because I was very skeptical of their arguments. So but I've interviewed, you I've I've been honest. I've interviewed former Israeli prime ministers. Like I've done the due diligence to talk to that side as well, to always talk to both sides. Struggled to get people like Rula Jabril on because there was a pushback about putting someone like her on. She's Afro-Palestinian. So I'm like, I need Palestinian voices. When I would speak about the genocide. coming f coming forward to that on my sh on my primetime show, I in my mind was doing what my godmother did at NYU with that African American student in her class. Where if that African American student didn't feel comfortable speaking up for fear of being failed, my godmother said, Well, I'll do it because I'm a foreigner and with my accent I have the privilege to do that. So let me do it. And I felt like that's what I was doing because I had colleagues who were Palestinian or who were Muslim who I knew would catch hell if they did it. So myself, and I will I I don't want to speak for Chris Hayes, but I feel like Chris felt the same way that we actually had the privilege as outsiders to speak about that genocide in a way that some of our colleagues could not. I'll be honest with you, I feared for Medi Hassen's job when he was there because he would speak very freely about it as well. He's not Palestinian, he's Indian, he's of Indian ex you know heritage. But even he was out on a limb because he would get constantly attacked by the A by the the ADL and other organizations. So in my mind, I'm like, but I can do that because I'm a black Christian, you know, I'm not in the community. So it's not gonna be like I'm that I wouldn't be attacked the same way internally for it. I thought. I was just wrong about that. You know, I thought I was not I actually thought I was risking less than my Muslim colleagues. And I just was wrong about that.
Michael Harriot: So one of the things that you know I know I've heard you say is that I think most people think and 'cause partly because Stephen A. Smith put this thing in the air that you get l got let go because of your ratings decline, which, you know, they always say, Well, it's of the her ratings decline after the election because literally everybody in news
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: I can do.
Michael Harriot: no matter what side of the aisle you're on, like that's how ratings work. They decline after an election. People don't watch politics anymore. So they don't juxtapose your ratings besides like which decline less than most of the industry's ratings. But the the thing that I know is that they never actually told you why you were fired. Do you why do you think you were fired? Do you think that is the main reason that you were fired?
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Trump claims he got me fired. So Trump Trump did a tweet where he said he's the one who he is responsible for me being fired. I can see an argument that my bosses felt like going into because I was fired right before the State of the Union, where I would have been on set with Rachel and Nicole and the gang. so they fired me like a week before that, so that I wasn't able to be a part of that coverage. We wound up doing our own coverage with State of the Black Union instead. but so I I can see an argument of them saying, look, we've got this, we've got Trump back in office. She's too anti Trump. She's not willing to not call him names and not call him a fascist and not call him a criminal. Because they also told us we couldn't call him a felon. And we got into a whole I got into a whole back and forth with standards and practices about that. Whether we call him a felon, a lot of pushback on that. So I can see an argument that they didn't want this very, very anti Trump voice. But then I look at Rachel Maddow and You know, he she's very anti you know, her her presentation and I even think about Lawrence O'Donnell, who goes harder on Trump than probably anybody.
Michael Harriot: hard. I think he'd fight Donald Trump if they like ran each other in in the street.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: I feel like he would fight him and beat him. yeah. I I promise you, I feel like he would. Like Lawrence O'Donnell probably goes the hardest of anybody on television. So I'm like, that argument f sort of fades when I look at the Lawrences and the and even Chris Hayes. I look at the people who also were hard on Trump and I'm like, so that argument becomes weaker for me, even though Trump said it. But then I've had other people point out to me, like, Hello, Gaza, you know, and I I I know because I had to deal with my HR. rep who was a black woman. My HR file is thick and it's almost all about Israel. It's almost all people internally complaining about my coverage of the genocide and of Israel and of Palestinians. That's most of my HR file. I know that for sure. And then my other HR issue that I had toward the end was anonymous white Christian men, and it was specifically told me it was white Christian men who objected To what they saw as my anti-Christian bias.
Michael Harriot: Right.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: So it had so if you just go by my HR file, it had to do with white Christian men who objected to things I was saying about Christianity. Because remember, I would have on Robbie Jones from Public Religion Research Institute, and we would talk about white Christian nationalism. And I did that on a regular basis. And that was apparently that provoked a lot of anxiety among some of my colleagues and Absolutely, I got a lot of pushback and I have a whole HR file and had to do multiple meetings about my coverage of the genocide. So if I'm being Occam's razor, it was that.
Michael Harriot: Yeah, so one of the things that I think people outside of the media look at this as is like, okay, she's a black woman, they fight her because she's a black woman, or let's say Gaza, or let's say and being anti-Trump. But talk about how all of this ties into capitalism, right? Like 'cause none of that would matter because one of the things is like It's not like MSNBC is filled with Zionists and right-leaning people, right? the media politically is kind of liberal, but the capitalism factor and the fact that there's this merger going on, the FCC has to approve it. Talk about how that connects to all of that stuff in your HR five.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Well, I don't know about the not filled with Zionists part. I don't wanna s I don't wanna besmirch them. I don't wanna disparage them.
Michael Harriot: Yeah, okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I I I I wanted to take that back almost as soon as I said it, so okay.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah. I mean there are a lot of people and they're not all Jewish, a lot of they're Christian Zionists, like you know, Joe Biden was very clear he was a Christian Zionist, but I know for sure that there are a lot of people with power inside of that organization that have a great love for Israel. And and you know, and they have a right to do that. They can feel that way. But I know there are a lot of people who had a very strong affinity for Israel. you know, whether they would class themselves as Zionists, I know some would. So I'm so I think that is actually true inside of that organization, just like CBS, you know, and those the Ellisons and Bari Wise are very clear that they are ultimately Ultra super Zionist. They say that themselves. So I'm not saying anything that they wouldn't say themselves. And I think that's probably true of MEC Universal, I'm gonna guess as well. but on the capitalist side, what we have to understand is the same thing we were just talking about by hip hop. It's literally so wild that it's literally the same thing. Hip hop is like this thing, people were trading mixtapes in their back of their car and everything, and then all of a sudden it got corporatized and it got systematized and it got capitalismized or whatever. That's not a word. Same thing with media. Media was newspapers, journals. magazines that didn't make any money, you know, the Atlantic was just struggling to stay alive in the nation. And then a lot of these companies also got acquired. NBC Universal was the radio thing that could with the little dog and the little, you know, the little it is not that anymore. These media companies are part of giant conglomerates that have business with the administration that has nothing to do with men with news. News is a part of their business. When they broke off NBC News from MSNBC, we saw it in real time. The number of companies that became Versant included their Science Channel, I mean their high sci-fi network, it was MSNBC. They put a bunch of companies over there. The NBC side was Bravo and NBC News. They have a but and they also have Universal Studios. They've also got a big theme park business. They are certainly not going to get a little thing like some, you know, loud ass black girl talking shit about Trump and Gaza. Getting away their business. And so I think at the end of the day, all of these companies are conglomerates. They're multinationals. They've got much more business than the news. And if the news becomes a sticking point where the FCC or Donald Trump from the White House is going to stick it to their other businesses, they'd rather remove the problem, get rid of Jim Moran, get rid of the people at 60 Minutes that are gonna piss Trump off, get rid of the stories on 60 Minutes that are gonna make Trump mad, make the news more palatable to him, because then they can do business. 'Cause at the end of the day it's all about doing business.
Michael Harriot: Right. And one of the biggest examples of that, right, besides you, right, is that like when you tie that, put that in context with, you know, Mary Hassan and and all those other people, right? There is no other logical explanation, right? Like it's not like I mean, they would have a legitimate argument that for whatever reason they gave or made up because we still don't know right why they fire you but in context of all the other people like how white news has gotten and we also have to add this like how who they brought in the black faces that they brought in they brought in the Jay-Z they brought in like the like not journalists right but people who speak For a side, right? Who are not
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yes.
Michael Harriot: going to, as you said, rock that boat. They bought in the Stephen A. Smiths, right? People who really believe in conservatism and they still got the black face. They can still really claim that we still got some black people, right?
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: Again, the media hasn't changed. The the faces that give it to you are just on their side now. What
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Well.
Michael Harriot: do you feel like the difference is now? Like Joy House and you're on your own, you're independent media. Is there a freedom that comes with that? are there as many battles? Like, do you feel freer in some sense? or do you miss your show as it was in its former iteration?
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Well, I will tell you that as somebody described it to me, you realize when you go independent that you were literally living in the four seasons and now you work at the four seasons. Right? Like, I mean, I was literally like, I just come up with some great idea and I'm like, ooh, let me I would type out a 12 minute open or 20 minutes of brilliant prose and send it to my producers and say, make this into TV. Go! And then they don't do it. You know, then now I'm the person that has to do it. If I come up with a 20 minute script. I gotta find all the elements. I gotta figure it out. I gotta produce it myself. And I'm back to my old job as a producer, even an associate producer. I'm like literally the I'm like four people now. I'm the talent, but I also am the producer and I have to do all this work. It is a lot of work. And so it's a lot more work. And before I had the luxury of this massive staff at 14 producers, the total team when we would do our end credits at the end of there was like 60 people between the tech people and everything. So now Jason is 40 of the people and I'm like 30 of them. You know what I mean? Like we are a small operation. It's eight people. Everyone ab but me and Jason are part-time. It's a lot more work. It's it's it's a heavy lift. It's a heavy load. But it also is more satisfying because I also don't have to battle with management. Who has a problem with me calling a genocide a genocide or calling racism racism? Like I can actually do the things that I would have to either do it and know I'm taking I'm on a limb in my old job, or do it and get pushback. So there's no pushback now. I can just do what I gotta do. there's also a lot of less safety because you don't have the big corporation that's backing you up if you get attacked by the president of the United States. It's now me, our attorneys, our insurance company, you we took out liability insurance. But it's like it's a lot riskier. So it feels risky, it feels like you're more exposed, but it also the freedom is worth the feeling of risk.
Michael Harriot: But one thing we talked about at the National Association from the Black Journalists Convention is that y you also realize like, there wasn't any danger from the audience of me losing my audience if I talk about a genocide in the way it should be talked about, or if I talked about black issues in the the way that they should have be talked about. We often talk about we often call like MSNBC or Or NBC News like mainstream media when you and I we know the numbers
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Harriot: and we you know the numbers that you're getting now and it really ain't much different. So talk about like how you were able to ri like what you don't sacrifice when
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah.
Michael Harriot: you have to stand up and be your true self.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yeah, I mean, I think that is the the good news, I think, for a lot of people who are made nervous by the very clear, slow death of what we called mainstream. I love what you said at NABJ, which is we are mainstream media. Because our audience is real mainstream. It's regular black folk that I run into at the movie theater and the stole. Like it's re it's the same people used to watch on MSNBC. It's literally the same people. So we are mainstream media. And you're right, you don't sacrifice that. Because here's the thing. Now the difference between Now, well, it isn't really a difference. People had trusted interlocutors on TV. It was Dan Rath, or it was Walter Cronkite, or it was they were just all white men, but you know, it was whoever, right? now they take their trusted interlocutors and they just follow them wherever they go. They just say, if you're no longer on MSNBC, I'm just gonna watch you over here. And it's just a slight adjustment for people. Even older folks, I we have a good percentage of our audience that is the same demographic as MSNBC. They are Gen X and older that have just figured out they got the They millennials in their family to show them how to put it on the TV and they just watch it. So I feel like you really don't s I think people fear that the demise of main of of corporate media will hurt journalism or will hurt the individuals who work in this business, but I don't think it will. It just shifts the dynamic and shifts the base to where independent media is the growth industry and corporate media is slowly declining. They just launched a thing on my at my old job where you can where viewers can like sign up for a thing where they can like interact with
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: the hosts. I mean that's like that's just my show.
Michael Harriot: Yeah.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: That's just the Joy Read Show. Like you can do that on the Joy Reach Show right now. You can go and look in the chat and chat. You know what I mean? So it's like they're they're now trying to replicate podcasts and they're like running to do the things that we do, which just shows you who's growing and who's not.
Michael Harriot: Yeah, do you feel like you jumped off of a sinking ship? That like now that you're off the ship, you were like, shit, that ship was sinking the whole time. Right? Do you feel like like you're in the growth industry now versus like would you ever go back to that corporate media?
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: No, I feel like you know in the end of Titanic, where the people were all on the boat and they were all looking all exhausted and they were laying
Michael Harriot: Mm.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: out in the boat and they realized that what they had what they had that they had survived when they saw the ship go under. I'm those people. I'm very glad to be in the boats, in the lifeboats. The few of us that got in these lifeboats, we're all telling the Lord, Thank you. I promise you, because I talk to Don, we text all the time. I talk to these we are all like, Thank you, Jesus. We did us a favor. They it was a blessing because I would have gotten fired three four more times. Since since I've left there for shit that I've said and that I would have wanted to say, or I would have been like tormented about saying things that needed to be said, you know? So I feel like it was a blessing in disguise. I don't think they meant it, but you know, my my godmother always says, What disappointment works for good. And I look, I miss my team. I still text with them. My crews, a lot of members of my crew, I still text with, you know, I miss those folks. I miss being with them, but I miss them. I miss the people. I don't miss the company. If I if that makes sense.
Michael Harriot: Yeah, so back to the original question where we were that we started off with, had you not spoken up at the job as a copywriter or talked about Israel and the way that they want to talk about it, or in all the things that you did in between then? Like if you had just gone along to get along and went to the went to the r went into the room with the billionaires and did the thing that they want you to do, where do you think you would be like that? Did Did you think I know you can say, well, it see it all worked out for good. Do you think it where do you think you'd be if you were just the person that they wanted you to be?
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: I think I would have gotten really I think I've g gotten farther. I mean I you know, I'm not not to humble brag, but I think I'm a good broadcaster. I think I'm good at my job. I think I'm knowledgeable. I bring a love of history, I bring a lot of sort of international context. I think I'm a unique figure in black media because I have some international background, but I'm African American and I think I'm a I'm a unique person that actually would have been quite d done quite well. But I also think I wouldn't have the same audience quo loyalty quite. Because if I was a more corporate minded person, I think I would have been more financially successful. I think I'm not the best capitalist. I'm not Jay-Z. You know what I'm saying? Like I probably would have made I probably would have done well in Boogie Down productions, you know? Because I feel like I still am I'm still the rapper that wants to do the the hip hop that's out of the trunk of my car. regardless of whether, you know, CBS Radio or Columbia Radio, whatever wants to sign me. you know, I like to think like, I'm not trying to put myself on that level, but you know, like Prince fell out of corporate media, but he was like, I'm still gonna be me. You know what mean? I think if I had been willing to be more corporate, I definitely would have lasted longer and I definitely would have made a lot more money. You know, I could have literally done the proper West Indian girl thing and climbed the ranks. systematically and been more obedient and I definitely would have gone farther, but I don't know that I would sleep as well at night.
Michael Harriot: So that's what you gain sleep and y you are just I think you just said you're just as good a rapper as as K R S one. I think that's exactly what you said. Like you you are are better than
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: And he he's and no, let me let me go and I love Kara as one, but I'm like, I don't even know if that's the rapper I want. If I had to be a rapper that if I i I'll tell you be on I'll tell you we have the same birthday. When I tell you I'm a huge fan of her talent, I wish Nicki Minaj was not on the wrong side of history. Cause I if I could have somebody's talent infuse it into myself, I feel like her talent would be so useful for the good side of history. Because she's a talented ass lady. Talented sister. G is on the wrong she does evil. I would like to be the good Nicki Minaj.
Michael Harriot: The good Nicki Minaj, I think that's the name. That's the that's that's the the way to be, the good Nicki Minaj. Nicki Minaj who don't have a cousin who took the vaccine and their balls exploded.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: And no and no sex offenders in the family. Like no i Nicki Minos, but with no s sex offenders in the family. Maybe that's.
Michael Harriot: Well you know who is the good Nicki Minaj is Rhapsody.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Yes. You know what? That's it. Let me be rhapsody. I w if the in a world of Nicki Minajes, let me be a rhapsody, because that's true. That's a bad girl. She is amazing.
Michael Harriot: All right. Well, thank you for joining us and thank you for black explaining Joy Reed and Joy's house. We'll see you later.
Joy-Ann (Joy) Reid: Thank you.