Audio Of First Edition Interview With Sean Yoes September 13th

This is the audio from the second radio interview I did with Sean Yoes that aired on WEAA on September 13th.

My blog article "Where Are The White People With Good Sense?" was the topic.


Audio Of FIRST EDITION Interview with Sean Yoes Part 1




Audio Of FIRST EDITION Interview with Sean Yoes Part 2



Enjoy.

Audio Of First Edition Interview With Sean Yoes September 6th

This is the audio from the second interview the radio interview I did with Sean Yoes that aired on WEAA on September 6th.

The state of Barack Obama's presidency was the topic.

Audio Of FIRST EDITION Interview with Sean Yoes



Enjoy.

Audio Of Brown Man Thinking Hard's FIRST EDITION Interview with Sean Yoes

My father told me he missed the radio interview I did with Sean Yoes that aired on WEAA last Sunday night.

So I tooled around the vast internet for an hour tonight, until I figured out how to make the audio that the station has graciously made available to me easily available to others. Now my father, and anyone else who wondered what it sounded like, can access the interview portion of the show at the touch of a button.


Audio Of FIRST EDITION Interview with Sean Yoes




While I'm working on polishing and revising my real post for tonight, which is liable to be the lunchtime ditty I whipped out on Tony Dungy's interview today on The Tom Joyner Morning Show about his recent work with Michael Vick, especially since I haven't seen the podcast yet of the healthcare townhall President Obama had earlier today, you can see what all the hullabaloo was about.

I swear I don't sound like this in real life - I always thought my voice had a sharper pitch than it seems to here - but it really doesn't matter.

Now I know how those rappers who used to sell their CD's out of the trunk of their car felt.

Well, not really - this is free.

Sean Yoes Interviews Kris Broughton On NPR Affiliate WEAA

Last Friday I did a thirty minute radio interview with Sean Yoes, who is the host of "The WEAA/AFRO First Edition", an hour-long political talk show on Baltimore's WEAA-FM (88.9 FM), which airs Sunday nights at 8 p.m.

I didn't know who Sean Yoes was, but when I mentioned to one of my buddies that he had played on the HBO drama "The Wire", you would have thought I was being interviewed by Barack Obama himself.

"Who did he play? Was he Omar?" my buddy from Alabama asked me.

"Man, I've never seen the show."

My buddy was undaunted. "What'd you say his name was again?"

"Sean Yoes." I heard my buddy shuffle around. "What are you doing - looking him up on the internet?"

"There's this little thing called On Demand that I've got on my cable service-"

The next thing you know he has an episode playing. We found out that Mr. Yoes played Lieutenant Brent Hoskins - what season he was on I couldn't tell you.

The radio interview process itself was something new to me. I have been known to talk until the cows come home, but when no one is recording you, and your audience may or may not be paying attention, you have a whole lot of leeway when it comes to the facts or even actually making sense.

So I was more than a little nervous when the sound engineer called my phone a few minutes before the taping was to begin. Something wasn't working right, so he had to call me back a minute or so later. When he called back, Sean appeared on the line a few seconds later and introduced himself.

"We're on in twenty seconds," he said.

This was it. The last few seconds before-

"Oh yeah," Sean said. "We need to do a mic check real quick, Kris."

I said "one-two one-two" the way I'd heard the old school rappers do it.

Sean laughed. "A-ha. There is a brown man at Brown Man Thinking Hard. Whenever I ask a brother to do a mic check, I always get the same thing: 'one-two one-two'."

And just like that, seconds before we were going to record the show, I felt like I knew him. The next thing you know, Sean was smoothly segueing into his introductory patter a split second after the engineer opened our connection.

It was the fastest thirty minutes I've ever had. I have no idea how it really went, other than a point somewhere towards the end when I forgot the question and began to ramble a bit before struggling to rein myself in. I would also imagine, over the course of the whole time, that my voice was all over the place.

But the interview is in the can, and tonight, at 8 pm, it will be broadcast on WEAA 88.9 FM in Baltimore. You can click this link, and push the "Listen Live" button at the top of the page to hear the show.

My radio rope-a-dope might be a little rusty, but it doesn't matter.

I'm hooked.

Interview: Author Of "Inaugration Ball" Email

Illustration By John Mavroudis

There is an email circulating around the internet has been forwarded to me almost everyday this week called "Inauguration Ball 2009". It is one of those emails that you have to scroll down through five levels of email addresses to read, because no one will take the time to cut and paste the actual message into a new email.

The text of the email is deceptive - it seems simple enough at first, the description of a dream about the ghosts of legendary African Americans mingling about at an inaugural ball held in honor of President Barack Obama - but as you read on, you start to realize that the author has done more than string together a few famous names. The make-believe world he creates captures perfectly the nuances and reactions you would expect to see in such a surreal setting.

It spoke directly to me, because I've been in that room.

We've held two Black History costume parties, gatherings where we asked our guests to dress up like someone of African American descent who has some sort of historical significance. It wasn't as hard as we thought to talk our friends into trying it the first time. It was a small gathering, but it was fun, with people coming as Oprah, Don King, General Benjamin O. "Chappie" Davis, Martin Luther King Jr, Zora Neale Hurston, Bill Pickett, Diana Ross, Condolezza Rice, Cleopatra, Colin Powell, and the Brown Man himself as Frederick Douglas, complete with the crazy hair.

Don King talked trash. Oprah gave away Matchbox cars. Diana Ross batted her eyes at the General. Martin left early because he needed to be in church the next morning. Condolezza and Zora, in an irony of ironies, talked about their kids. Malcolm X didn't have a lot to say, and the half black, half Asian guest who came as Tiger Woods brought his real life white wife.

We ate, drank, and laughed at the details of the costumes we dreamed up. It was hilarious.

In 2008, we did it again, teaming up with some friends to put it on. It seemed that everything was heightened because of the tension in the air surrounding the candidacy of Barack Obama for president. By the time we had the party in late February, Obama had vaulted into the lead for the Democratic nomination. This time around, we had a bigger, broader cross section of guests, who came as Mahalia Jackson, Angela Davis numbers one through six, Bob Marley, Bumpy Johnson, Beyonce, Billie Holiday, Althea Gibson, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, a fully dressed Buffalo Soldier, Louis Farrakhan, Harriet Tubman, Josephine Baker I & II, Claire Huxtable, two overall wearing sharecroppers, Tina Turner, and yours truly as George Washington Carver.

We milled around, just the way Kenyada describes it in "Inauguration Ball", imitating the figure we'd chosen to emulate, sharing little known stories about our characters that we'd picked up while putting our costumes together. As the house began to fill, you could feel the energy between the guests as they heartily greeted each other.

The crescendo was reached about midway through the evening, when the surprise guests of honor arrived. Except there wasn't a hush that spread over the house. I was in the basement, and heard someone cry out after opening the front door. The cry grew to a roar, but it was a jubilant sound, screaming and yelling mixed with laughter.

A few minutes later, someone in a blue suit and a earpiece came down the stairs to the basement, stopping at the landing that opened into the room to announce "the next president of the United States, Barack Obama."

Then the guests who came as Barack and Michelle Obama turned the corner and all hell broke loose. Tall, skinny, with wheatish colored skin, short cropped hair, an elongated face and lips that he had blackened with costume makeup, our Barack Obama lookalike was dressed in the same blue suit you saw Obama wear all last spring. Accompanying him was a woman who could have been Michelle Obama's cousin, with the same long legs, long arms, short torso and a wig that brought out the broadness in her cheekbones, just like Michelle's.

Barack Obama high fived Farrakhan. He shot pool with the Buffalo Soldier. He drank liquor with Mahalia Jackson, admired Josephine Baker I's handmade costume, and took pictures with everybody.

I thought about all this as I looked at the picture above this morning. Then I reread the email. The link at the bottom had "dailykos" in it after the author's name. I'm a member myself of the Daily Kos, a progressive political web portal, so I figured I could at least get the name of the author straight before I wrote about his amazing email. A few seconds later, I had his email address and a website address for him. Two clicks later, I laughed out loud - Mr. Richard Kenyada was right here in Atlanta!

Since I'd come this far, I said to myself as I explored his websites, why not shoot him an email and do a quick interview with the man behind "Inauguration Ball"?

An hour later, I had his response in my inbox.

Mr. Richard Kenyada is the author of "Inauguration 2009", which will be included in his new book titled "Reflections in the Dark Room: The Black Essays". Mr. Kenyada is a community activist in his own right, blending his technology background with a sense of service to operate "Mr. Kenyada's Neighborhood, Inc.", an organization dedicated to promoting computer literacy and computer ownership in the African American community. He also runs a discussion forum called "The Drum", a Society of Voices.

Mr. Kenyada, you have certainly got the internet buzzing over your piece.

Kris, the response has been overwhelming. I was in the middle of putting the final touches on my new book, Reflections in the Dark Room. Like everyone else, I was caught up in the election and the early voting in Georgia. The long lines simply thrilled, and fascinated me. I'll never forget... it was October 29th - 6 days before the election.

I edited a shorter version of the Inauguration Ball 2009, and I called it "Inauguration Ball" instead of Inaugural Ball so that it would be easier to track down using Google. I really wanted to see how much of a buzz it would cause. I knew it would hit the right chord with people because I wept some when writing it.

When I posted it on Daily Kos, the response was immediate and exciting. I started receiving e-mails from all over the world including two reporters from England. There were emails from teachers asking permission to use the piece in their classes. Emails from social workers who wanted their senior centers to experience the piece. And many more people just wanted to thank me.

In fact, I still receive 2 or 3 emails a day, some asking for a copy. So I had a small poster-sized print made up and I send prints to those who are very interested. When the book is available in a few weeks (early February), I'm sure that the essay will sell many copies because it includes the FULL version of the essay.

With all the famous black people in our history to choose from, how did you decide who to spotlight in your piece?

I started out with two famous people - Martin Luther King, Jr and Malcolm X. They have always been the two angels on my shoulders, and my dream of them sharing a laugh together was the foundation of Inauguration Ball 2009. From there, it took off in all directions - politics, entertainment, science, civil rights - all pioneers in their own right. Editing the piece down for the Internet posting was the hardest thing to do because everyone belonged there.

You yourself are a community activist, operating "Mr. Kenyada's Neighborhood". Do you see any potential for the Obama presidency to inspire more African Americans to get involved at the grass roots level?

Yes! As soon as President Obama takes his seat in the Oval Room, he will be an inspiration to millions of people all over the world, but particularly African Americans, who often have self esteem issues. Obama has always stressed personal responsibility, and that's why I admire him so much.

He understands that the greatest debt owed to African Americans in the aftermath of slavery is the debt that we owe to ourselves. We have internal work to do, and it must be accomplished at the most basic levels - in our homes and throughout our neighborhoods.

The dream motif is a strong part of the African American culture. Do you think modern day Americans allow themselves to dream enough?

We all dream, but few seek seek to wake up and do the work necessary to implement those dreams. Many see Dr. King, for example, as a "Dreamer," but the reality is that his greatness lies in the fact that he rolled up his sleeves and did the work. He was much more than a dreamer; he was a doer. Black men, in particular, need to follow the lead of accomplished African Americans throughout history and step up to the challenge.

I've read in comments by you about the piece that this is the short version - the long version is in your book, "Reflections in the Dark Room: The Black Essays", which is supposed to be available this month. When will it hit bookshelves, and where can we get it?

In late January or the first week in February. The new book will be available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, but those interested will be able to come to my website, www.kenyada.com/forums where I will have a link taking them to my publisher's page for my books. And if they contact me directly, I will send them an autographed copy.

Is there anything else you'd like to say about the way "Inaugural Ball 2009" has gone on to become a viral phenomenon?

Well, it's a double-edged sword, really. It's gotten so popular that a few people have even removed my name from the emails and replaced it with their own, claiming ownership of the piece. That's a form of flattery that I could probably do without. But overall the experience has been a great one.

My 83-year old Mom in New York City received a copy, and re-read it over and over again, exclaiming to anyone near..."That's my son!" Kris, it doesn't get any better than that. I only wish my Dad, who actually marched on Washington back in 1963, had lived to see this day.

Of course, I also hope that President-elect and Mrs. Obama get to read it. I could not be more proud of their accomplishments, just as I imagine that they are proud of the accomplishments of the icons mentioned in my essay.


Richard Kenyada

Yada Yada Yada Won't Get VP Job

S. and I watched Charles Gibson interview Sarah Palin last night. I was standing behind the high backed recliner S. was sitting in, watching Gibson look down his nose at Palin while he spoke, when he asked her a question about the right to make cross border attacks from Afghanistan from Pakistan. As Palin rambled on, searching for an answer underneath – well, maybe it was underneath the next participle – or behind the next prepositional phrase – nope, not there, lets try to verbally circle back around the question and just see if we can figure out what he did ask – I felt as if I was watching a job interview.

S. reached her arm up, hand bent back, palm open – I slapped her five. "Lost in a blizzard of words?" S. said, repeating what Charles Gibson had said seconds ago. "She was just rambling all over the place."

As I watched Palin dig in her heels, go on the attack, back off, circle around questions, and proffer standard political jargon instead of direct answers, I thought of my own recent job interviews. Making a transition at middle age from industry to industry meant that, unlike Palin, I didn’t get to start at the top. My interviews have been similar, though, as I have attempted to convince one interviewer after another that there are skills I’ve picked up in the mortgage business that are transferable to their field, and that I am ready to take on the job.

The thing I noticed Palin exhibiting, though, was a sense of combativeness she was trying to hold in check – waiting, like a hitter in baseball waits on the right pitch, for the right opening from Charles Gibson so she could let him have it, could let her indignation and sanctimony come to the rescue, a natural move for a woman who is a learned practitioner in the arts of obfuscation.

She reminded me of one of my old co-workers, a jittery little woman of Pennsylvania Dutch extraction we used to call Yada Yada Yada, who was ready to square off at a moment’s provocation. If she didn’t know something, she would talk faster. She would talk louder. She would ridicule the question. She would try to change the subject.

Yada Yada Yada had already made a transition of sorts several months earlier when she had to go back to being a loan officer. She had been a wholesale account executive for a mortgage company for years, and was well versed in the mechanics of getting a loan closed. But listening to her talk on the phone to some of our high end borrowers, who were usually pretty well-informed people, was a comedy show in itself, with my co-worker often working the hold button like a video gamer as she yelled out for help. "So what index is that margin calculated off of again?"

It didn’t matter if she got someone to answer her, or shoot her a quick email – after about ten seconds of trying to lay out the details to her customer, she would launch into a new language – "well, with these ARM’s, you see, they take the LIBOR, they take the LIBOR, you see, and, and, then its just yada yada yada, ba ding bang boom, ya know, something like that. That’s how it works."

The thing about making a transition, especially when it affects a whole office, is the amount of self evaluation that has to go on in order to point yourself in the right direction. Yada Yada Yada came to my desk one day and slapped a sheet of paper down on my desk like she had the winning hand in a game of spades. “You’re good with words. Look at that for me. Tell me, you think a hundred dollars was too much for this?”

It was her resume, a chronological listing of her life’s work, a format that seemed to reduce all the years, all the struggles and triumphs of our lives down to a simple line item, to be scribbled on or circled by human resources staffers and hiring managers, collated by file clerks, uploaded onto hard drives, your entire life boiled down to a couple of pieces of paper.

According to her resume, Yada Yada Yada had graduated high school thirty years ago, which was the sum total of her educational experience. The words on her resume disappeared as my eyes lost focus, the rudimentary introductions to sociology and psychology coming back to me as I looked at the woman standing beside me with both admiration and disgust. I admired her for her ability to work around her shortcomings, for her ability to refuse to let the lack of an education stop her from finding a career, buying a home, and saving for retirement.

But I was disgusted because of the women I knew like her, verbally agile high school graduates with enough moxie to bullshit their way around the things they didn’t know, brown skinned women with the same work ethic who would never get the chance to "yada yada yada" their way into a job.

Standing behind S., I watched as Sarah Palin, a woman with a resume not much heftier than the one Yada Yada Yada slapped on my desk, dance around questions to which she didn’t know the answers, her jaw cocked, her body arched forward, her eyes fierce.

I thought of Palin, and Yada Yada Yada, and all the women like them, women who had learned to exploit the maxim “a man should never hit a woman” to the fullest, taking advantage of the fact that we weren’t going to hit back with a vengeance.

I thought of S., sitting in the chair before me, a woman with three times as many college degrees as Yada Yada Yada and Sarah Palin combined, who had to suffer the indignity of working with women just like these two - overpaid and undertrained, over opinionated and under informed, the kind of women who could be found in middle management in any enterprise in the country, passing the buck, avoiding decisions, and letting the shit roll down hill.

I wish making a transition was as easy for me as looking an interviewer in the eye and saying, "yes, I am ready," without blinking.

Something tells me, though, that those 8 million volunteers out there working on behalf of the Obama campaign are not going to let "yada yada yada" buy Sarah Palin a free pass this time.