Enrique Cerna Interviews Tavis Smiley
This is a transcript of an interview with Tavis Smiley on Conversations at KCTS 9 which aired on April 3, 2009.
Other Transcripts:
Tavis: I’m always good to—it’s always good to be in Seattle, it’s always good to be with you, thank you. Last time I was here you emceed this wonderful program that...
EC: For Solid Ground…
Tavis: For Solid Ground. Great organization doing great work, it’s a great program. I was honored they asked me to be a part of it. When I saw that you were—when they asked me to come and told me you were going to be the emcee, I said I’m sold, I’ll be there. So thanks for doing that.
EC: Alright I’m glad about that! Hey about 1,000 people that day… You gave a rousing and at times a little controversial speech questioning some of Mr. Obama's priorities…and we’ll talk a bit about that.
But first let’s talk about you’re a radio, television host, a journalist, an author—we're going to be talking about your book a little bit later—political commentator, you do Meet the Press and other political shows. You have a foundation, you have a publishing group now as I understand it. So when does Tavis Smiley get to sleep?
Tavis:...hopefully not during live interviews like this. No I think I average probably four and a half, five hours a night. When I get more than that I’m really wired and ready to go. But I can operate on four and a half or five hours, I probably shouldn’t say that in front of children watching this program—your sleep is very important.
I’m also the kind of person when I hit the wall, I hit the wall. When I really need to shut it down I do. We’re in the middle of a book tour right now obviously. And once we finish the book tour I will take off about, about ten days. And I really just need to kind of recoup and get ready for the, for the second quarter of the year. But I, I think that most of us—it’s a good question—I think most of us are capable of a lot more than we think we can do...if we apply ourselves, number one.
Number two I also think it’s about compartmentalizing. When I’m sitting here with you, I have a staff that’s working on eighteen different projects right now...but when I’m sitting here with you, all I’m thinking about is being in this moment. I believe in life we have to live in the moment. Whatever’s going to happen when we’re done in thirty minutes, it’ll be there when I get there. And half the stuff has to wait on me until I get there anyway.
But right now I’m in this moment, there’s no other place in the world I’d rather be. So I think if we, if we structure our lives differently, if we compartmentalize, if we focus on the task at hand and do it well, then we can move on to something else and do it well. So I’m with you right now. I’m with you.
EC: Did you always think that you would be entrepreneurial? That there wouldn’t be just one thing that Tavis would do… but that you would be looking into lots of different things…?
Tavis: Honestly I didn’t. It just happened to work out that way...there’s something my grandfather used to always say to me, it was this: Tavis, the more you can do, the more you can do. The more you do, the more you can do. That was just his way of saying to me that when you perfect what you’re really good at, when you become proficient at what you’re really good at, it will open up doors for you to do other things.
I remember one time having a conversation with Shaquille O’Neal. I live in L.A. as you know, and Shaq was playing for the Lakers at the time—I wish he hadn’t left. I wish he hadn’t left. Ah, but anyway, he’s getting older now, even if he came back he and Kobe couldn’t do the same as they did years ago. But anyway, he was having a great season. Running his mouth a little too much but anyway that’s inside—that’s inside the NBA....but Shaq and I were having a conversation one time…he was trying to do movies, he was trying to rap. You remember this period, he was trying to do a bunch of stuff.
EC: He did some bad movies.
Tavis: He did some bad movies and some bad raps… Don’t tell Shaq that though. And I remember saying to him in a conversation one time that, if you ever win, if you get the Lakers, with Kobe, to a point of being champions, the flood gates will open up for all the stuff you want to do. And it won’t be bad choices. But first you have to become a winner. He was trying to rap and trying to act before he had a championship in L.A. Once he won that first championship, and that second championship, and that third championship, you know the commercials, the movies, the record deals, everything opened up to him. But he had to become a winner first.
So this priority is very important. The order of how you go about your life is very—I believe in order. So all I tried to do…coming out of high school I was a state speech champion in high school. Then I got to college and I moved from just doing speech to argumentation and debate. I learned how to go back and forth and hold my own in these conversations. I take the speech training, I build up on the debate training, I leave college and go work for Tom Bradley who was the late, great mayor of the city of L.A. where I lived.
So then I was able to use this speech and debate in that political environment—the mayor sees that, honors that, gives me more assignments, gives me more work. And I become pretty good at expressing, and I’m turned on by issues. My mind is a fertile ground for issues and particularly for using this gift that I have, this instrument, this voice.
EC: The gift of gab…
Tavis: The gift of gab, yeah—to talk about those issues. Particularly and especially on behalf of people of color… but on behalf of all American citizens who are disenfranchised politically, socially, economically, or culturally. So all these opportunities just grow and they build. I never studied radio or television and I never expected to be in broadcast media.
But working for the mayor, he would always send me out to do things for him, to represent him as his aide, when he couldn’t do these interviews. And so going to community groups and local television and local radio in L.A., I got a chance to really get better at this. And one day, long story short, somebody offered me a show. And the rest as they say is history. And I went from just being on locally in L.A. to being on national on PBS and NPR and everything. It just kind of happened and it built that way, but it was never planned.
EC: Public television, public radio…why haven’t you decided to go the commercial route? I suppose that, you could make a lot more money.
Tavis: Whole lot more money!
EC: But you stayed with public radio and television.
Tavis: I love public TV and public radio. Even after I left NPR for a year, after doing that for three years, I left—not even for a full year came back basically with the same show, now distributed by PRI, and we’re so honored, that this show does so well. When I was on NPR I did well—on KUOW here in Seattle. Still doing well on PRI. I love public radio and I love public television because we get a chance, when we are at our best—when public TV is at its best—it allows people, in love, and with respect, it allows us, you and me as hosts, we get a chance to help people reexamine the assumptions that they hold.
We all bring assumptions to the table, but I believe that information is power. That knowledge is power. My grandmother put it this way: When you know better, you ought to do better. And we empower people with information that can help them live better lives. It allows them to not have to live beneath their privilege. I hate seeing Americans living beneath their privilege. And so I use these mediums, and you use these mediums quite well...to help people to reexamine the assumptions they hold.
We help people expand their inventory of ideas. And these mediums of public TV and public radio allows them to introduce Americans to each other. Commercial television is so narrow-cast these days—there’s a reason we use the word broadcast, it’s about broadcast, not narrow-cast. So on commercial—I do commercial television all the time—but it’s so narrow-cast, you get the same thing. You turn on Fox News, you turn on MSNBC, you turn on CNN, sometimes it’s the same story all day. But here’s how these networks work. I’ve been there.
They have a meeting in the morning with all the producers of all the major shows—you know how this works. And they come up with what the theme of the day is going to be. These are the three stories we’re tracking all day. And you watch CNN all day, and every show from the morning all the way up through Larry King, through Anderson Cooper, it’s the same conversation being disc— and I love Larry he’s a dear friend, but…and Larry breaks out of that somewhat because Larry, he is the king of talk. But the rest of the lineup, does the same thing all day.
It’s true of MSNBC, true of all these, Fox News, so I’m not casting aspersion on any of them. You turn on public television, you’re not caught up in that spin cycle all day long. So we get a chance to use these mediums, again, to help Americans to reexamine their assumptions, to expand their inventory of ideas, to get out of the spin cycle and to introduce Americans to each other by, by asking questions. Here’s how I see my role—to ask questions that the other folk aren’t going to ask. To raise issues that they aren’t going to raise. To address topics that they’re not going to address. And to profile people who otherwise would not get a chance to be profiled. I take so much pride in that. I take such pride in having people on our program on PBS nationally, who have something to say, but who have never before my invitation, been invited on public television.
EC: And I think that’s one of the keys of what we do that’s different. Let’s talk about the book: Accountable – Making America as Good as Its Promise. So how do we make America as good as its promise? What is the promise?
Tavis: I’m glad, that’s best question I’ve been asked, I’m going to shake your hand for that, man. Ain’t nobody ask me that yet, What is the promise? I’ve been on two…
EC: I mean at this point too, wondering what’s happened…
Tavis: I’ve been on tour for two and a half weeks and you’re the first person to ask that question. Here’s the answer. In America, the promise that we have been given, and the possibility that exists for every one of us—there’s a gap between the two. The promise is life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. The promise is that we have this, have this—inalienable rights to have access to all of that. That our gifts and our skills and our talents determine how far we go. That the only thing that holds you back is your, is your attitude.
But there aught not to be another ceiling on your altitude. The promise is, that every one of us wants the same thing, which is to live in a nation as good as its promise. That is the promise. That we can one day live in a nation that lives up to the promise it gives us—that we can be anything and everything we want to do, if we play by the rules, if we apply ourselves. That’s not how it actually works, and you and I both know that. So the promise of America is one thing. The possibility in America, for everybody, is different. Even with a black man in the White House, which we celebrate. But the promise, and the possibilities are different.
So the way we shrink this gap—the way we do away with this divide, this disconnect between the promise and the possibility is to hold ourselves, and our leaders, accountable, for making the promise of democracy real for every person in this country. And I hope we won’t just stop at celebrating one black guy, one person of color in the White House…that we will really take this moment over the next four years, maybe even eight years, to do something about the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, and the middle class stagnating. It’d be different if everybody were getting rich… And the richest were just getting richer, at a faster clip—I wouldn’t be mad at ’em.
But it’s not the case. They’re getting richer, poor getting poorer, the middle class stagnating. The promise of America, and the possibility in America, doesn’t seem to be getting closer. That divide seems to be getting wider. And I think now with this new person, this new leader president in the White House, we have to take advantage of what this moment offers us.
EC: What does it offer us?
Tavis: I think it offers us a chance to put America on the right track. But only if we’re willing to hold all of our leaders, Obama on down, accountable. What the book does is simply this theme…it lays out on these ten major issues that matter to most of us in America—the big ones. Health, education, the environment, economic opportunity, for me—the criminal justice system, I said the environment.
On these top ten issues it lays out everything Obama promised to do as candidate if he were elected. Here’s the bottom line. In America, let’s be honest about it, we fall down, we fail, we falter, pick a word. We don’t follow up. We’re bad about follow through. We elect people and we don’t even ask to hear from them until they come back for re-election looking for our vote again. That’s why we all learned in political science this term “incumbency effect.” Once you get in as an incumbent you stay in…you could die in office. Very—that’s why there’s such a big story, it’s always such a big story when an incumbent gets toppled. Because we’ve just come to accept the fact that these are jobs for life basically.
We treat elected officials like Supreme Court appointees, as if they’re there for life and we have nothing to say about that. And the problem is that we, the citizens, the most important persons in this democracy—not the president, not the speaker, not the majority leader, not the chief justice—we the people, the citizens are the most important people. And we surrender too much of our authority and our power when we don’t hold folk accountable. So the books lays out what Obama said he was going to do on these top ten issues, with a checklist and a report card.
So you don’t have to wait on me, or the media, at the end of 100 days, to tell you how the President is doing, you can follow along with it yourself, hold him accountable. And right along with holding him accountable, in every chapter we lay out what you can do, what everyday people can do on these issues to help advance, to help progress America. So it’s a book to hold leaders accountable and ourselves accountable at the same time.
EC: It’s interesting, this book cover has Mr. Obama’s face, and it is made up of all these many faces of elected officials around the country.
Tavis: Hundreds, yeah. Of every political ideology, every race, every color, every creed, every religion. And that’s my way of pointing out what I said earlier—that it’s about holding all of our leaders accountable. They’re accountability is our responsibility. But I wanted to reflect in that cover that he is the president, but all these other officials have to be held accountable too. And inside these chapters, these checklists we’ve laid out. There are checklists for Obama as president, but there are also checklists for governors, for legislators, for local elected officials, for community leaders, for faith-based organizations, and every chapter ends with a checklist for you and I—what are we doing on these issues.
There’s never been a book that comes out after a president is inaugurated that says, here’s the playbook, here’s the guidebook, here’s the manuscript you need to hold him accountable. So many folk were engaged in this campaign because of Obama, let’s give him credit. He engaged a whole lot people. As a result, I argue that what the country has now realized, what we have now received, is what I call an engagement dividend. We learn very quickly from the Bush administration that dividends can very quickly become deficits. I don’t want this engagement dividend to become an engagement deficit. So the question is, how do we use, how do we invest, how do we spend this engagement dividend that the country has received by all these people getting involved in the process.
This book essentially answers the question, What now? Now that you voted for Obama, now that you’ve celebrated the first black president—he’s this, he’s that, he’s cool, he’s smart, he’s aggressive—he’s had a good first fifty or so days being very aggressive. But now that he’s in, what do we the people—we voted him in—but what do we do now? And this Accountable book says, you hold him and all leaders accountable, and there are other things that you can do, along with holding them accountable, to advance America.
EC: On the night that he was elected president of the United States, how did you react?
Tavis: On Election Night I was in New York, sitting on the anchor desk between Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw. Uh, and Brian at 11:01 made the call that Obama had been elected. He shared some of his thoughts, he asked Tom Brokaw what he thought, and then he came to me. And I recall saying, first, Brian, if I were not microphoned and wired down and strapped to this chair, I would jump up right now and lead everybody in this studio in the electric slide. We’d do a big electric slide in this studio right now to celebrate this moment.
Then all I could think of are the words, were the words, of the person I regard as the greatest American we’ve ever produced—my assessment—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And as you recall during that campaign there were so many comparisons between Obama and King, and Obama being the fulfillment of King’s dream. I said on NBC that night, he is not the fulfillment of King’s dream but he’s a significant down payment. The dream has yet to be fulfilled back to that gap between the promise and the possibility.
EC: It’s a work in progress…
Tavis: It’s a work in progress exactly. So it’s, it was a down payment though not the fulfillment. But I said, please allow me to quote Dr. King because I can’t say it any better myself, what I’m feeling in my heart. King once said, “Cowardice asks, is it safe. Expediency asks, is it politic. Vanity asks, is it popular. But conscience asks, Is it right? And every now and then as people, we must take positions that are not comfortable, that are not popular, not convenient, but we do it because our conscience tells us that it’s right. And I said to Brian, tonight I believe the collective conscience of the nation has said, this is right. And that’s what I said.
EC: Let me play off of that because during the campaign you were critical of him, very critical of him. In fact, in the speech that you gave in Seattle, that I was the emcee for which had over a thousand people listening, did you really say, Wait a minute, let’s not fall in love too far here. Let’s really examine things. It's really nothing much that you haven’t already said since then. And yet the reaction you got was pretty strong from the black community.
Tavis: My entire career, all I’ve talked about is the title of this book: accountability. I want people to be held accountable. There is no constituency group in this country that does, or should, give somebody a pass. If you get behind a presidential candidate, you get behind him because you believe that, and not just believe, but you believe because they have addressed the issues that matter to you and your constituency.
The NRA isn’t supporting you if you’re not on the right side of the gun, of the gun issue. The AARP isn’t supporting you if you’re not on the right side of the senior citizens’ issues. The teacher union, the labor union… the Sierra Club around the environment. Constituent groups want to know where you stand on issues that matter to them. And so because these issues that we laid out in the first book, the Covenant with Black America, were not being addressed in these debates. Were not being addressed by these candidates. Talking to a black audience of 10 million listeners every day, I kept raising the issues that matter to that constituency.
The problem was, there was some black folk who wanted him to win by any means necessary. Now all the accountability that we had talked about for all the years I’ve been doing this—for Dukakis, for Clinton, for Gore, for Kerry—all of a sudden because there’s a black man running, I’m supposed to abandon my post. I’m not supposed to raise issues, I’m not supposed to talk to anybody about accountability. Barack Obama is a big boy, he’s running for president, he can handle this. My asking questions and raising issues is what every other constituency group in the country is doing, and some black folk didn’t want to hear that because they wanted him to win so bad.
Tavis, don’t say nothing. Don’t ask no questions, let the brother win. And my thing was, there is honor in accountability. Let’s raise these issues like every other constituency group is. When you don’t raise them, you don’t get a discussion. That’s why the word poverty didn’t come up in three presidential debates between McCain and Obama. Poverty didn’t come up one time. We never talked about the criminal justice system, and black folk are overly concerned about that because we make up the criminal justice system.
I could do this all day. We talked about the environment but not environmental racism. Black and brown people living next to toxic waste dumps, dying of cancer and car—of other diseases. That part never came up. We talked about the health care industry, but never talk about the disparities in treatment, in access, inside of that health care system for people of color. So we talk about these issues up here, but we never got down here to where everyday people of color live and work. And those are the issues I was raising.
EC: Did it sting to get that criticism?
Tavis: Oh of course, it always stings. But I mentioned earlier that Obama’s a big boy and so am I. Every morning I wake up, the first thing I do is take my big boy pill, so I can get through the day.
EC: How big is that pill?
Tavis: It’s a nice, big, blue pill. Horse of a pill. ’Cuz you get stuff thrown at you every day when you’re out doing something. Quick footnote to that though is—two quick footnotes. While this mess between Obama and Smiley was brewing in the national media, Obama and I were talking on the phone six times. He’s been a friend of mine for years. He called me, I called him. We were talking through this because I know he’s running for president. He has his agenda, he knows I’m a media personality, I got to do my job.
We understood that. And the irony of it is, finally, a year after I caught all this hell talking about accountability a year ago, every time the president speaks now what is he talking about? Accountability. In every speech he gives he’s saying, Hold me accountable. And so, he understood it then, he really gets it now, he can’t do it by himself. I want Barack Obama to be a great president, I believe he can be a great president, but only if we help make him a great president by holding him, all leaders, and ourselves accountable, and that’s what this book is all about.
EC: Did you send him your book?
Tavis: Absolutely. Not only did I send it to him, every year we have the “State of the Black Union” symposium where all these great black thought leaders come together for an annual conversation about what ails black America and how to advance the country. The president joined us for that annual conversation live on C-Span two weeks ago, via satellite from the White House. He starts by saying “First I want to thank my friend Tavis Smiley for all the work he’s done, yadda yadda yadda.” And then he goes on to talk about the book, and then he talks about, and then he says, Hold me accountable.
So it was, it was much ado about nothing quite frankly because of people’s fears and trepidations that anything might trip him up from getting elected and again what my sense is, there’s always honor in accountability. Let’s hold all of now—forget the black thing—all Americans in Seattle and beyond, let’s hold our president accountable. We don’t have to wait until 100 days, let’s start that now.
EC: The Republicans seem to be in disarray. Rush Limbaugh says he wants the President to fail...Michael Steele, The RNC chairman, apologizes to Rush Limbaugh after calling him an entertainer. They seem to be all over the map here. How are you seeing this?
Tavis: Three things right quick. One, Michael Steele, who was on this symposium I just referenced too weeks ago, I said to Michael Steele, you cannot let Rush Limbaugh or anyone in the media to become a distraction to you. You’ve got real work to do if you’re going to turn your party around. You can’t get caught up in these back and forth “he said, he said” debates with Rush Limbaugh, number one. It’s a distraction.
Number two, the blame cannot be laid at Michael Steele’s feet solely for what’s wrong with this party. The disarray you spoke of is what he’s trying to straighten out. People are trying to act like the party’s in disarray because of him running his mouth. No, they’ve got real issues, he’s got to focus on that.
Third, it is asinine for that party to think just because they put a black man out front means he’s going to automatically appeal to black people or people of color. It’s important they understand this. It’s not about the personality out front, whether it’s Rush or Michael. It’s not about the personality, it’s about your policies. And because your policies are so out of touch with everyday people, whoever you put out front, if they’re saying the same thing, it doesn’t much matter. And lastly I said to Michael Steele that Rush Limbaugh has a microphone—a big, fat microphone.
You will never, ever win a fight with Rush Limbaugh as Republican chairman. Because every day he’s got millions of listeners, he’s preaching to the choir, and he’s got a big, fat microphone. I said this to him, do you get this? You’re never going to win this. Stay focused on what your job is and it ain’t to get in for tit-for-tats with Rush Limbaugh.
EC: And, Tavis Smiley has a big book…not so big, but a good book…
Tavis: Yeah. Not as big as Rush’s mic but anyway.
EC: It’s called Accountable: Making America as Good as Its Promise. Now you’ve got to promise to come back here and talk to us again…
Tavis: You promise to invite me?
EC: Anytime.
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