Obviously, the pandemic,
but there's been so much other heaviness
going on in the last month.
I know that you'd been a activist
and a very active activist for many, many years,
and you take this very seriously,
and I'm just curious,
how have the conversations been
in the wake of George Floyd's murder?
Were you and your family having different conversations
than you've had before,
or was it more intense,
or did you feel like, no,
this didn't change anything for us,
we've known this for a long time.
Well, we've definitely had these conversations before,
but I think everyone has felt an intensity about this one
and it has been ratcheted up,
mainly because of the callousness
and the manner in which the murder happened,
and how we were all locked down
and just watching it on a loop.
I mean, I never saw the whole tape, actually.
I just saw the beginning and the end.
I couldn't really watch it.
But, yes, these conversations have been had prior to this
with my family, with the community,
but with my kids, it was definitely ratcheted up a lot more,
because, for them, my youngest anyway,
is really just getting into the workforce,
just beginning her life,
and really starting her life as an adult out there,
and having all of these things happen at the same time.
George Floyd was after Ahmaud Arbery,
was after Breonna Taylor,
was after even Amy Cooper in the park.
So, I think the confluence of all of those things together,
with the pandemic on top of it,
really made this boiling point happen,
and then we saw the lid come off,
and, hopefully, we will continue to find ways
to keep the conversation alive.
I know that there's still protests, I mean, Portland,
it's still happening all around the country,
all around the world really.
So it's not like people have completely forgotten.
But human beings want to exhale.
They want to let that stress off
and go back to what they believe is normal.
But I just think we can't do that now
because I think a return to what is normal
is actually a step back.
It won't be just a return, it'll be a complete reset
to something that I don't think we can afford to do
as a community, so, hopefully, this moment is instructive
and, hopefully, we'll find many, many different ways
to continue this conversation
and find out how we can really approach
this systematic issue from all different angles.
There's a question I wanted to ask you
that I've been pondering a little bit,
which is the role of celebrities in all of this.
I think it can, maybe, sometimes get a little complicated
with celebrities. 100%.
And I think you feel the same way,
but I thought maybe we could have a discussion about that.
My feeling being there's a very fine
between someone in the public eye giving of themselves
and trying to move this piece forward,
and trying to help us all grow,
and saying, "hey, look at me, check me out."
Yeah. It can flip so quickly
and I just wanted to talk to you about it,
'cause I'm sure you have a strong opinion about it.
Well, I agree with what you're saying.
I mean, it can be a double-edged sword.
We have this platform and we're both sensitive people,
and we are a part of the world,
and we're understand that though we have this ability
to, in some ways, insulate ourselves from things.
At the same time, we are not insulated
and these issues affect everyone,
and, so, yes, we want to take our platforms
and find ways to be productive
and find ways to actually say move this thing forward.
But I think a lot of times what it requires is for us
to kind of step out of the way
and use the power that we have as producers,
as people behind the cameras,
as well as in front of the camera
to push it on that end,
and make sure that the non-centered voices get centered,
and make sure that the people who are not seen
get to the front,
and something that I saw people were doing
on Twitter which I thought was really cool,
was a lot of people were just giving their platform over
to other people, you have a million followers,
you're like, okay, now let's check out Debbie
who's doing this with whatever,
or Jim who's doing this over here,
and they're just gonna have my platform for awhile.
So, I think a lot of times our best work is done
when we step out of the way.
Yeah. We get the attention
and then we shift the light, shift the focus,
and yeah, it's tricky because you can look like
you're clout surfing,
you can look like you're trying to go, look at me,
but I'm cool with saying look at me,
as long as once people are looking at you go
now look at them.
So- Right, right, okay.
That's a great way.
You have to be practical about that, right?
That's a great way of thinking of it.
I like that, because I'm always...
and I also think it's, be willing to try things,
have them work, not work, but just move on.
It's that fear that a lot of people have of making a mistake
or looking silly that gets discussed a lot now,
which is try and if you make a mistake,
or if some of your friends check you
and say "yeah, that wasn't quite it.
Nice try, but that wasn't quite it,"
don't overreact and get defensive, try again.
Yeah, fail better, I mean,
I'm not sure whose the quote is,
I had a discussion with Eddie Escalad,
and if he wants to text in, he can tell us,
but, yeah, I think it's try, fail, fail better.
Just keep at it, it's too important to dip out,
and especially because you get beat up on Twitter,
or wherever, that's not really the barometer
by which we should be judging how we should be acting,
although I understand it can influence us.
But we just have to continue to ring the bell
and, like you said, and sometimes it's not the perfect way,
but you just gotta keep ringing it.
Yeah, I always think this has been something that's been,
this issue has plagued our country
for a couple of hundred years,
it is the defining stain on our country
that we need to get better, we need to resolve,
and so, if some embarrassment on Twitter
is the price that you pay, so what?
Suck it up. Yeah.
Suck it up, suck it up.