Host: Suzanne Rust

Suzanne: [00:00:04] Welcome to All Together Now, Fridays with The Moth. I'm your host for this week, Suzanne Rust. 

At The Moth, we seek to elevate voices from the African-American community, but we recognize that in this moment, it's important to look at all the ways we can do better. We all need to do better. This pursuit is especially urgent now. We want to dedicate all of our Friday podcasts in June to those fighting for racial justice and equality and to those willing to educate themselves on some of the hard truths about this country. 

When we really listen to each other's stories with an open mind and open heart, things can actually shift. Stories help us connect, either because we relate to the teller and feel seen, or because we hear something that never occurred to us before, something that makes us change our minds. 

Our story this week is from Carol Daniel, and it speaks to perceptions about race and the importance of celebrating your identity. Carol told this story to St. Louis Mainstage, where the theme of the night was Voices Carry. Here's Carol, live at The Moth.

[cheers and applause] 

Carol: [00:01:16] So, I was a junior in college when I got my first paying job in my field on the radio. This is not an internship, I'm getting a check. It was a country and western radio station. [audience chuckle] And my job, though it was only on the weekends, was to play the top country hits of the week each Sunday. It actually came on an album, prerecorded. So, I had to take it out of the sleeve [audience chuckle] and put it on the turntable just so, and put the needle down on side one, caring not to scratch it and then let part one play. My moment is coming now. Yes, all the training, it's coming now. When side one would end, I had to lift the needle. [audience chuckle] And here's my moment, I get to read the weather live for Jefferson City, Missouri. 

[cheers and applause] 

Then I played commercials. And while the commercials were playing, I had to flip the album, put it back down on the turntable, put the needle back down now on side two and let part two of the Top Country Hits of the Week play. You know, when you're getting a degree in communications or broadcasting, they teach you all kinds of stuff. But they do not teach you how to flip an album [audience chuckle] in record time before the commercial break ends. My career would eventually bring me here to St. Louis. It's the largest market I had ever been in. I was excited and I was nervous. And so, I am trying to get to know the community. And so, I'm going to every fundraiser and every event I can think of.

After one of those events, I promise you it was actually here at The Sheldon in St. Louis, Missouri, a young man approached me outside on the sidewalk. He was Black. And he said to me, "I knew you were Black." [audience laughter] Now, [audience laughter] keep in mind that I had heard pretty much my whole adult life, "You sound white." I'd heard that. I'd heard, "Oh, you sound white. You sound like a white girl." I'd heard that. But I had never, ever heard, "I knew you were Black." [audience laughter] 

So, he tells me about this debate, apparently, that had been going on in St. Louis. [audience laughter] When I first started here, people told him, "Oh, no. No, she's white, man. She's white. She sounds white. She's white." He convinced, having never met me, that I was Black. Well, as it turns out, he was right. [audience laughter] I am Black. But this whole debate messed with my head a little bit. I thought, here I am, major market, fantastic job of my dreams, and people still don't know who I am, all of who I am. So, I hatch the secret plan, this mission. I didn't tell anybody about it. I am going to start dropping hints on the air, [audience laughter] so people will know who I am. 

And so, my first hint is me discussing an article I'd read in Essence magazine. [audience laughter] Anybody? Essence? Yes? You get it? Essence magazine, of course, targets African-American women. And so, I think, surely now they know. They know. They got to know now. Debate put to a rest. So, I am now all about town, and people are beginning to recognize me just from my voice. I'm at the grocery store. I'm chasing my kids at the St. Louis Zoo, yelling at them. People are recognizing my voice. I'm going to drop another hint on the air. I'm enjoying the secret mission. And so, I describe trying to make my mother's collard greens. [audience laughter] Boom. [audience laughter] They got to know. They got to know now that I'm a Black woman. 

One day, at one of these many events, an education panel discussion, after it's over, I'm in a small group of people and we are talking. An older white gentleman walks up to me and he says, "You speak well for your people." [audience aww] I could feel what you just said. [audience laughter] I could feel it in my stomach, rising to my heart, to my throat. And I said to him, "Well, what people are you referring to?" Now, mm-hmm, I knew what he meant. [audience laughter] We all know what he meant, but I wanted him to say it out of his own mouth. I wanted him to say it. And he said it, “You know, Black people.” 

So, now, it's really gurgling. It is threatening to come spewing out of my mouth. I am embarrassed, because people are standing around and they're hearing this, and I'm angry. How dare he diminish me? I'm indignant even. Before I could say another word, he says to me, "Have you had any training?" [gasps] She said-- [audience laughter] Well, I said, "Nope. [audience laughter] My father speaks this way, my mother speaks this way and they're from Mississippi. My siblings all speak this way. God given talent, no training, no classes, none of that. Just little old me." [audience cheers and applause] 

But I'm still feeling the secret mission. So, I decide to engage in a drop-the-mic moment. It's closer to Thanksgiving now when I drop this hint and I describe again one of my mother's recipes for cornbread dressing. I took care on the air to say, not bread, not white bread dressing, but cornbread dressing, where you make the cornbread the night before and then you soak it. Cornbread dressing. And I thought, boom, mic moment. They got to know I'm through. I can go home now. They know I'm Black. They know I'm Black now.

And so, on the air, one day, I was just remembering this conversation I'd had with these two women, these two petite, older Black women, gray hair, coiffed. One had a single strand of pearls. They both had a touch of makeup. And one of them took me by each hand, and she pulled me close and the other leaned in, so she could hear, and she said to me, "We are so proud of you." I got a lump in my throat. I knew what they meant. They're looking at me, this young, talented Black woman making her mark on this big radio station in St. Louis. But I'm looking at them. They have seen and experienced more than I will ever see, or experience, or have to see or experience. I'm looking at history in its face, and I can feel it.

One day, we're in this debate on the air. We were talking about a-- It was a controversy. An organization, one of many, decided to walk out onto the highway, not a road, but the interstate and stop the traffic and shut it down. They were protesting the lack of minority jobs in construction. And so, one of the organizations that was involved was one I knew of from the time I lived in Kansas City, Missouri. But my co-host at the time had never heard of them. And so, he was truly dismissive and I was truly frustrated and I'm thinking, this is a movement moment. This is a moment where you either educate or chastise or enlighten. I think I'm going to do all three. [audience chuckle] 

But I am also thinking, and I am also worried. I'm still new here, I'm still young, I'm a woman, I'm Black and I'm pregnant. I'm worried about the stereotype of the angry Black woman and yet I'm also worried that I don't speak enough about Black issues. I'm thinking all of this and I dive right in and I said to him, “You know, they're in the Yellow Pages. You can look them up right now and call them. They've been around for 50 years.” And so, we took some calls and we ended that conversation, turned the mics off and left the studio. 

Now, just a few weeks ago, a gentleman came to our house for a service call to repair the windshield of my car. It's right in there in the driveway. I met him outside, and he said to me, “You know, I have a friend who lives over here. And he told me that that news lady lives over here. [audience chuckle] Do you know her?” [audience laughter] And I said, pausing, feeling pride and trepidation, [audience laughter] and I said, "Well, I am that woman.” “You are?” “I'm Carol Daniel." 

And there it is again. He's looking at me, he's sizing me up. He sized me up in my driveway and I thought, did he think I was white? Is he surprised now to find that I'm Black? And I thought, the debate, apparently the debate, is still there in some form or fashion. I am not at all sure I can ever really do anything about it. There's a lot more at stake. There's a lot more to juggle in my life. There's a lot more weight in my life. I just try to not let it weigh me down. But this I know, I deserve to be here. I deserve this job. I don't have this job, because I sound white. I have this job, because I am good at what I do. Thank you.

[cheers and applause] 

Suzanne: [00:14:18] That was Carol Daniel. Carol says that she is first and foremost a mother and wife. She and her husband Patrick are the proud and exhausted parents of two sons. Carol has been with KMOX, the Voice of St. Louis, since 1995, and she's been widely recognized for her work on air and in the community. In her career, she's also been a campaign organizer, an award-winning newspaper columnist and a substitute teacher. Carol's first book, All I Ever Wanted - Relationships, Marriage, Family is out now. 

We started All Together Now, because we wanted to help foster dialogue between those of us quarantining. In these uncertain times, we want to continue to help facilitate these conversations, especially the hard ones. When was the time you felt the need to speak up? What did it feel like to make that choice? How about a time when someone's perception of you conflicted with your own sense of self?

In her story, Carol talks about living in a movement moment. Well, I'm recording this podcast just a week after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, and we are deep into another movement moment. It's a time when Carol says either educate, chastise or enlighten. This is truly a time to speak out. 

On our website, we've listed some resources to help guide you through this current moment, whether you're looking for places to donate to or looking for emotional support. Until next time, from all of us here at The Moth, have a story-worthy week.

Julia: [00:15:54] Suzanne Rust is The Moth's Senior Curatorial Producer, editor of The Moth Review interview series and one of the hosts of The Moth's Friday Podcast. In addition to finding new voices and fresh stories for The Moth stage, Suzanne creates playlists and helps curate special storytelling events.

Suzanne: [00:16:13] Podcast production by Julia Purcell. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.