Being Black in America Almost Killed Me Part 1

Summary

Reveal: "Being Black in America Almost Killed Me" – Part 1

Podcast: Reveal
Host: Al Letson
Guest: Tremaine Lee
Date: September 3, 2025

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Episode Overview

This emotionally charged episode centers around veteran journalist Tremaine Lee’s personal and professional journey as a Black man reporting on Black life, death, and survival in America. The conversation explores how the cumulative weight of covering systemic violence, the personal trauma inherited over generations, and the economic toll of violence on families converge, culminating in Lee’s near-fatal heart attack. Both a reflection on individual mortality and collective trauma, the episode addresses the unique burdens and expectations placed on Black journalists, the struggle to convey empathy in their reporting, and the need for honesty in confronting pain for healing.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Genesis of Tremaine Lee’s Book

• Personal and Professional Roots:
  • Lee traces the origins of his book, A Thousand Ways: The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America, back to his early journalism career covering a shooting of a hopeful young Black man paralyzed in a robbery gone wrong:
    • “No, the earliest seeds of this book were planted when I was just an intern...Some other guys tried to rob him for his Allen Iverson jersey. They ended up shooting him, and he ended up being paralyzed...But as he's talking, I looked across his bed and I see his mother there...And she started to tell the story of what it would take to get him home.” — Tremaine Lee [03:22]
• The Cost of Violence:
  • Lee was struck by both the human and economic costs of violence—how every injury ripples outward, affecting families and communities financially and emotionally.
  • He originally pitched the idea as “million dollar bullets,” quantifying the literal cost in lives and money, but struggled for years before finding a platform in book form.

The Burden of Humanizing Black Pain

• Reporting with “an Angle”:
  • Both host and guest wrestle with the uncomfortable truth that they often must frame Black pain in ways that provoke public empathy—sometimes by highlighting economic impacts:
    • “It is just so sad to me that we as journalists have to think about angles...maybe you will care more about the economics of this bullet and want to stop this stuff because clearly you don't care about the people that are being impacted.” — Al Letson [05:38]
    • “The gut wrenching exercise of humanizing our people...white society might connect, might have some compassion for the violence that we experience every day, like the literal violence, but also the systemic violence that keeps this whole thing together.” — Tremaine Lee [06:20]

Surviving a Heart Attack: A Turning Point

• The Medical Emergency:
  • At 38, shortly after submitting his manuscript, Lee suffered a heart attack caused by a blockage in his left anterior descending artery—a life-changing event he initially mistook for minor health issues.
    • “In fact, what I was feeling was death. I had a blood clot in my left anterior descending artery that was starving my heart. And that moment changed the book, certainly changed my life, but changed the way I view the violence that I had been writing about.” — Tremaine Lee [08:37]
• New Perspective on Violence:
  • The physical trauma mirrored the psychological death from systemic stress. Lee realized, “what almost killed me was being black in America.” [14:19]
• Impact on Family and Self:
  • Lee reflects on the weight of nearly missing his daughter’s life and how the survival rendered him both more mindful and more free, less encumbered by previous stress:
    • “There is a freedom. In the reshaping of my life and understanding of life and death and the reshaping of the book, there is something, I think clarity is the word. There's a clarity in that man. With the story I was trying to tell in my life.” — Tremaine Lee [13:40]
    • “I haven't experienced stress in the way I understood it before. I ain't worried about nothing now. I'm really, truly not like, what's, what's come on now.” — Tremaine Lee [12:58]

The Invisible Weight: Generational and Professional Trauma

• Systemic Stress and Family History:
  • Lee acknowledges that, despite good health, he bore a “weight on my heart” from a lifetime reporting on violence and a family history of early death—a stressor for which Black Americans pay in intangible and tangible ways.
    • “I was carrying because my 6 year old daughter was asking me tough questions...But there was another weight on my heart that I had never fully engaged with as a journalist...Operating on the edge of death and survival, Black death and survival in particular, and a family history packed with early death and violence.” — Tremaine Lee [10:46], [12:58]
• Honest Conversations About Mortality:
  • The trauma forced Lee to have honest discussions about life and death—not just with his daughter, but with himself.

Unique Challenges for Black Journalists

• Emotional Labor & Expectations:

  • Letson and Lee candidly highlight that Black journalists must often suppress their own trauma to continue working, knowing admissions of vulnerability could shut them out professionally.
    • “You have to just do the job because you talk about that type of stuff. You're not going to get work, you're not going to get the jobs...Because nobody does this type of reporting because they want to. We do it because we're called to do it...” — Al Letson [22:51]
  • They grapple with being seen as biased simply for understanding their communities so well and the burden of “code switching” in white-dominated newsrooms.

• Advocacy and Representation:

  • Lee frames newsrooms as “the plantation,” where Black journalists must tirelessly advocate for the importance of stories that white colleagues may not immediately recognize as newsworthy or important:
    • “Every day we have to walk into the big house...and convince them that what's happening in the back corner of the plantation matters…” — Tremaine Lee [24:35]
    • “No one cares about us. We're still grappling with the Negro problem in this country.” — Tremaine Lee [24:35]

Facing and Healing the Pain

• Parting Reflections:
  • The episode closes with Lee underlining the necessity of confronting “silent, quiet violence from within”—particularly for Black men—in order to live more freely and happily:
    • “Confronting the violence, the silent, quiet violence from within and as men in particular, but in general, finding the strength and courage to face that down and live freely and live happily and find peace. That's why this matters, because it hurts so bad.” — Tremaine Lee [28:11]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On the True Cost of Violence
  “Every time a bullet hits flesh, we're all paying a price, right? Somehow somebody in a literal dollar amount.” — Tremaine Lee [03:22]

• On Humanizing Black Suffering
  "We have to think of an angle and say to you, well, this bullet economically cost you money, and maybe you will care more about the economics of this bullet and want to stop this stuff because clearly you don't care about the people that are being impacted." — Al Letson [05:38]

• On Mortality and Clarity
  "There is a freedom. In the reshaping of my life and understanding of life and death and the reshaping of the book, there is something, I think clarity is the word. There's a clarity in that man." — Tremaine Lee [13:40]

• On Systemic Burdens
  “Yo, what almost killed me was being black in America. And that changed everything.” — Tremaine Lee [14:19]

• On Reporting Trauma
  “You have to just do the job because you talk about that type of stuff. You're not going to get work, you're not going to get the jobs...Because nobody does this type of reporting because they want to. We do it because we're called to do it...” — Al Letson [22:51]

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Important Timestamps

• [02:15] — Introduction to Tremaine Lee and his book’s premise.
• [03:22] — Lee recounts the formative case of the young man paralyzed in a robbery.
• [07:27] — Lee describes the days leading to his heart attack.
• [08:37] — The night of the heart attack; initial medical oversight.
• [10:19-14:13] — Lee reflects on mortality, survival, and newfound clarity post-heart attack.
• [14:19] — "What almost killed me was being black in America."
• [17:11-22:51] — Honest conversation about how to explain death to children, and grappling with generational trauma.
• [22:51-26:28] — Discussion on the unique emotional and professional struggles of Black journalists.
• [28:11] — Focus on healing and the necessity of confronting inner pain.

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Tone and Style

• Candid, raw, and personal: Both Letson and Lee speak with vulnerability, blending professional insight with personal anecdotes and emotional truths.
• Reflective and mission-driven: Grounded in their shared purpose as Black journalists, the conversation balances hope, clarity, and a sense of duty, even as it sits with pain.
• Community-oriented: The episode invites listeners into a broader dialogue about healing, advocacy, and the unspoken toll of fighting injustice—within and without.

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For Next Week

Part Two promises a deeper exploration into "the silent, quiet violence from within," with a focus on the collective journey of Black men (and people) toward healing and finding peace amidst ongoing systemic adversity.

Transcript

[Al Letson]

At age 38, Tremaine Lee turned in the rough draft of his first book. It was about the cost of violence on black life in America. And that's when the unthinkable happened. A massive heart attack that almost took his life.

[Tremaine Lee]

But there was another weight on my heart that I had never fully engaged with as a journalist for, you know, my entire career operating on the edge of death and survival, black death and survival in particular, and a family history packed with early death and violence. I had to engage with that in a way that I had never expected to fully.

[Al Letson]

Coming up on More to the story, Part one of a very personal conversation about life, death and navigating journalism as a black man in America. Stay with us.

[Nadia Hamdan]

This September. Join us in Houston for the lingering storm 20 years after Katrina. A powerful evening of reflection, resilience and action. Hear from national voices like journalist Soledad O', Brien, Reverend Lennox Yearwood Jr. And former Houston Mayor Bill White as they explore how communities are rebuilding and rising after climate disaster. Presented by Mother Jones, Capital B and the Texas observer, the this in person event Takes Place Wednesday, September 10th at 7:00pm Central at the Julia Idison Building. Doors open at 6:30pm Tickets are donation based at motherjones.com LingeringStorm Honor the Past, shape the future. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.

[Al Letson]

This is more to the story. I'm Al Letson. Chermaine Lee is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award winning journalist. He's an MSNBC contributor and hosts the Into America podcast about the intersection of blackness, power and politics. And after surviving a massive heart attack, Tremaine began to think deeply about the weight he's been carrying, all the stories he's reported over the years about violence, all the trauma that generations of black men and his family have endured. That story became his book, A Thousand Ways to the True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America. Tremaine and I have so much to talk about that we're gonna split this up into two episodes and just a heads up, it's gonna get pretty personal. Tremaine, man, thank you so much for coming on, brother.

[Tremaine Lee]

It's an honor and a pleasure to be here with you, man. So thank you.

[Al Letson]

Yeah, man. So this is your first book. I should say that as a journalist, you've been on this beat for a while. I mean, obviously we know each other. I've been following your work for a minute. So how did it turn into this book?

[Tremaine Lee]

No, the earliest seeds of this book were planted when I was just an intern at the Philadelphia Daily news in, like, 2003. I was covering the case of a young brother who was like, 17, 18 years old, and he got shot in the back of the neck during a robbery. So some other guys tried to rob him for his Allen Iverson jersey. They ended up shooting him, and he ended up being paralyzed. And I found my way into the hospital and. And this brother, despite being a quadriplegic, he couldn't feel anything from the neck down. Was so hopeful and so optimistic. And he told me that he had dreams about walking again. And he likes this hopeful, bright light in the midst of what was clearly like a very dark moment for him and his family. But as he's talking, I looked across his bed and I see his mother there, her eyes welling with tears. And we both realized that he would never walk again. And then she started to tell the story of what it would take to get him home. Right? She said, we need a new ramp. We need an ambulance like a van. We need a wheelchair. We need new outlets. And they're just a poor family from North Philly. And this idea of the great cost, obviously, he lost his mobility, he lost a certain kind of future, but also there was this financial cost. And so I started to think about this idea of, you know, nobody cares about that young brother or young brothers like him, but maybe you care that every time a bullet hits flesh, we're all paying a price, right? Some somehow somebody in a literal dollar amount. And so I had this idea that I was calling million dollar bullets. And so I had million dollar bullets in my head. I pitched it to newspaper. Everywhere I worked, I was trying to pitch this story, and I just couldn't. I just couldn't get it done until many Years later in 2015, a book agent had approached me and said, listen, if there's ever anything you want to do, come talk to me. And so I pitched the idea. And then it just made sense. The timing was right. It was right after Trayvon and Michael Brown. And so we were grappling with how violence is heaped upon young black men in particular. And there was all this gun violence with Freddie Gray. All this stuff was happening, and it just felt like it was the right time. Now. The book changed dramatically from what those earlier scenes, but that was the beginning.

[Al Letson]

I'M listening to the way you describe it and it kind of broke my heart. Like, literally we're in this interview and I'm, like trying to piece my heart back together. Because it is just so sad to me that we as journalists have to think about angles.

[Tremaine Lee]

That's right.

[Al Letson]

To make people have empathy for, in this case specifically, for young black people. We have to think of an angle and say to you, well, this bullet economically cost you money, and maybe you will care more about the economics of this bullet and want to stop this stuff because clearly you don't care about the people that are being impacted.

[Tremaine Lee]

That's right. This idea, and you and I both know this well, the gut wrenching exercise of humanizing our people, humanizing our people, finding ways where other people, white people, white society, might connect, might have some compassion for the violence that we experience every day, like the literal violence, but also the systemic violence that keeps this whole thing together. It's a terrible dance we have to do, but we kind of have to do that because things are as they are, not as we want them to be, right?

[Al Letson]

Absolutely. I mean, that's the work. The work itself is. It is what it is. And for people called to do it, that's just the burden you have to carry. But still, sometimes you just pull back a little bit and it's like, wow, like, I have to make an economic case in order for this to matter to the general public, which is just wild to me. So you're putting this book together. It's your passion project and you've been working hard on it. And right after you turned in your first draft, life took a turn that you just did not see.

[Tremaine Lee]

At the age of 38, I had a heart attack eight years ago this past July. And it was one of those moments where in the midst of it actually happening, I wasn't clear it was a heart attack, but I was clear my life felt like it was ending in that moment for a few days. Walking to the train. I live in New York and I was walking to the train. I feel a little pressure in my chest. And I thought it was one of those times where I was just a little more out of shape than normal. I'm a former athlete and I usually stay in shape, but it's one of those times where I've been, you know, out the gym for a while, and so I didn't think much of it. And then the day of the heart attack, earlier that day, I went to have coffee with a friend of mine at work, and I walked down the steps to meet her. And I felt like I was going to pass out. And so I said, you know, I'm going to go to the. The clinic at 30 Rock at NBC just to get checked out. And so I go in there and they listen to my heart, and they put a little EKG thing on me, and they said, you know what? The left side of your heart is a little enlarged. At some point, you should go see someone, right? A cardiologist. But it's not like you're going to go home tonight and drop dead verbatim.

[Al Letson]

Wow.

[Tremaine Lee]

I'm not going to drop. Then later that night, I go home and my wife was cleaning the bedroom, and so I was on the. On the sofa sleeping. And she woke me up. And I went to the bedroom. And like three minutes after I laid down this enormous pressure in my chest, the world was spinning. Cold sweat, nausea. It felt like my entire body was breaking down. And in fact, what I was feeling was death. I had a blood clot in my left anterior descending artery that was starving my heart. And that moment changed the book, certainly changed my life, but changed the way I view the violence that I had been writing about. Right. I had been writing about bullets, but this blood clot lodged in my heart, lodged in my artery, was. Was just as violent.

[Al Letson]

Before we go to the book, can you just talk to me about the. The weight of the heart attack and how it played out, you know, with your family. And, you know, I just want to hear about, like, the personal journey through that because, you know, so we're that age, right, where the thing. I was talking to a friend of mine recently, and I was like, you know, we're at that age where, you know, if you have kids, they're still needing your guidance. If you have parents, they now need your guidance. Work is crazy. The economy is going nuts. You're feeling crunched, and you're just trying to get through the best you can. And then something like this happens. And, you know, I'm sure it has to change your perspective about life.

[Tremaine Lee]

You know, it sounds cliche to think that in that moment I was thinking about everything that I would miss. My daughter, who was six years old at the time, was this beautiful little inquisitive girl who was like my buddy to this day. She's turning 13 this summer, and to think about, you know, not, man, just.

[Al Letson]

Yeah, man, take your time to think.

[Tremaine Lee]

About not being able to walk her to school, the science project. She wants to be a journalist like us. So talking about the W's, the five W's and having little conversations with her and seeing that she's beginning to piece an understanding together and I would miss that. It just, you know, it brought me to my knees in so many ways, but it also coming out of that, that I did survive, that I did live. It was an opportunity to live more fully and more honestly. And so in the beginning it was like, you know what, Let me get physically right because, because it's going to take more than that to get me. That's gonna have to like hawk me down. Absolutely, absolutely. I've been through enough. I said, you know what? I'm getting on this bike. I started to meditate. I started to really be just mindful. But it also forced me to engage with, you know, a weight that I had not fully unpacked, that I was carrying because my 6 year old daughter was asking me tough questions. How, you know, and why. And with no family history, no high blood pressure, no high cholesterol, I had the misfortune of some, some, some soft plaque just breaking off and the clot filled this place. But there was another weight on my heart that I had never fully engaged with as a journalist for, you know, my entire career. Operating on the edge of death and survival, Black death and survival in particular, and a family history packed with early death and violence. I had to engage with that in a way that I had never expected to fully. And so, you know, again, reengaging with how I'm living, the idea of the idea of mortality. Also though, yeah, there was a moment was kind of freeing in a way that though every night for years I went to sleep not knowing if I would wake up. And that was the, that was scary a little bit because it was like. I started traveling again for work and I was like, I don't want to die in this hotel room right then. Or if my daughter, my wife had to go to work, I don't want to die. My daughter comes in the room and finds me. That was one side, but the other side was this clarity that we know tomorrow is not promised, but it truly is not promised. So how are we going to live? I have not. After that wave of a few years, I can honestly say that I have. I haven't experienced stress in the way I understood it before. I ain't worried about nothing now. I'm really, truly not like, what's, what's come on now. So I feel, I feel free in some ways where it's like, man, it's going to come at some point, hopefully far down the road. So I'm going to do everything I want to do. May I be fishing every chance I get. I'm chilling. I'm going to Martha's Vineyard right now, right? I for last year was my first year. I ain't grow up with nobody going Martha Vineyard. Give me the. Give me the finger sandwiches. Yes. Yeah. How you pronounce this? How you pronounce it? Let me get some of that, please. So as scary as things have been, honestly, there is a freedom. And I think in the reshaping of my life and the reshaping of my understanding of life and death and the reshaping of the book, there is something, I think clarity is the word. There's a clarity in that man. With the story I was trying to tell in my life.

[Al Letson]

Coming up on More to the Story. Tremaine Lee talks about the revelation that helped him write his personal story.

[Tremaine Lee]

It blew my mind. And that, like, yo, what almost killed me was being black in America. And that changed everything.

[Al Letson]

Before we get to that, let's get a little personal here. I mean, that is what this episode is all about. We've been bringing you more to the Story for six months now, and I just want to thank you for coming along on this ride with me and the team. We are building a community and we need to grow. So come on, invite your friends to take a listen, give us a rating or review on your favorite podcast app, because what we are building is powerful, and these type of conversations are needed now more than ever. Okay, more with Tremaine Lee coming up.

[Nadia Hamdan]

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[Al Letson]

Hi, y'.

[Tremaine Lee]

All.

[Nadia Hamdan]

My name is Nadia Hamdan, and I'm a producer here at Reveal. Reveal is a nonprofit news organization, and we depend on support from our listeners. Donate [e-mail] donate and thanks.

[Al Letson]

This is More to the story. I'm Al Letson here with journalist Tremaine Lee, a filmmaker that I know has a movie. It's a movie, but it's like four hours long. It was on pbs, but the title of the movie, it was based off An African proverb that was, you never know how alive you are until there's a lion in the room. And when I go through stuff recently, like, one of my kids was really sick and it was really scary. He was in the hospital for, like, almost four months. And that saying, like, I felt it. I felt it so deep. I understood it before. But, like, when you are sitting in the room and you feel like death is on the other side, like, you know, there's a lion in this room and I gotta squeeze life and get everything I possibly can out of it, because we are not promised tomorrow. It is like, you could walk outside now and it all be gone or the people you love be gone. And what did you do in the meantime? You know?

[Tremaine Lee]

Right. And we. And we are not promised the nightfall. You're not promised that.

[Al Letson]

No. So one more question about the family stuff, like, how did you explain this to your daughter? Because six is that age where they are beginning to understand life. But I don't know if they truly have an understanding of death at that part. Right. Like, they understand life in the terms of, like, life is good. Like mom and dad, we get to have fun, we do this, we do that. And they. A little bit of sense of self maybe, but the idea that it could all go away is so foreign at that age.

[Tremaine Lee]

Well, two things, I think. One, I don't think most adults understand mortality because we don't live as if it's going to end. Right. We don't. And even when you have a proximity or a proximal relationship to death, you've experienced it through people, and that's a certain kind of pain of that loss. It's hard for us to understand that we might not be here one day. That's. I think it's a harder to fully conceptualize. And before I get to my daughter, I want to say one thing. That was a moment. So the whole time, I just want to backtrack a little bit.

[Al Letson]

Yeah, please.

[Tremaine Lee]

So the heart attack happens, and for about 10 minutes, it feels like I'm separating from my physical form. This crazy. I can't even explain how it felt, but I'm separating myself. And then it passes. Then the ambulance comes, the MTs. They take my vitals. They say, you know, everything looks pretty good to us. Do you want to go to the hospital? And I said, my daughter has camp in the morning. This is how men. This is how. This is how we. Yeah, I said, you know what? I said, my daughter has camp in the morning. My wife has a trip. I'll wait until the morning to get to the hospital. I don't want to inconvenience my family. I don't want. Even in the hospital. I don't want to have my baby in the hospital and my wife and. And so all night long, I'm tossing and turning on the sofa with a 98% blockage in the. The main artery giving my heart blood. The next day, we drop my door off of camp, and I go into urgent care. I don't know why I'm going to urgent care, but I'm going double over across the street, bro. I tell them what's going on. They said, yo, go to the emergency room now. Like, what are you doing here? Like, get there. So we get there, and they're still like, you look so young. They're still not. They don't. They're not sure what's going on. After, like, seven or eight hours, they finally take a blood test and find troponin, which is a compound or protein that's released if you have heart damage. They said, we think you might have had a heart attack. We're going to prep you for the cath lab tomorrow. So mind you, I still haven't gotten the cath lab yet. So they're like, wow, tomorrow. And then fortunately, my cardiologist, who was my cardiologist today, said, you know what? Let's get you in there now. And so I'm on the table. There's a big screen over my shoulder, and they're threading, you know, whatever it is through my. Through my. My wrist in the. In the vein. And he's tooling around in there, and he pulls it out. He said, you are a very lucky man. He said, you almost had a complete blockage. I put two stents in there to clear it. And he said, where is your wife? Like, let's go talk to her. And in that moment, I started to smile because I was like, yo, your boy was almost out of here. I was so happy because I had a heart attack. I survived it, though, right? Yeah. So I'm actually feeling pretty good. Like, literally dodged. Dodged one. But then the next day, and it's another one of those moments that I get choked up thinking about is my wife, my brother, my sister, my mother. And we're all in the room, and I made a joke to my wife. I said, man, you almost became a thousandaire. Like, you almost got. And then I was like, she almost had to collect death benefits from me. And I broke down sobbing like a baby in my mother's Arms because the reality was again, all of that crashing down on you, like how close of a call that really was. And then my family would have to collect benefits on me. So I mean, I'm in the midst of all that and I still have this precious, beautiful little girl, this little smart little girl who we have been watching. She'd been watching me in Ferguson, Missouri. She had been watching me in Baltimore. So she, she, she's a tool. And we have real honest conversations, as honest as you can possibly be with a six year old. And I was trying to explain that, you know, what happened to daddy's artery is like a pipe, right, with some gunk got stopped up and it almost stopped my heart. And that wasn't good enough for her because she was already starting to ask about God. She started asking about Jesus and religion a little bit. And, and I'm trying to be honest. Like, baby, I don't, I don't know, I don't, I, I don't know. Here's the story, here's the thing, and, and we're tap into something bigger than ourselves. And I'm trying to, you know, but with this, it really forced me to acknowledge what was bearing down in my heart the stress of telling these stories of black life and death and survival and the spectacle of death, but also a family history going back a very long time to realize like what we've inherited but we never fully process as a young journalist running and gunning and hanging out and drinking and when I was single, we're, you know, we're dating and we're moving around and we're hitting the deadlines and then after that we're hanging out. It never fully engaging what it means to carry this specific kind of weight that black people in this country have had to bear. The violence certainly of the bullet, but the systemic violence that is necessary, that is a requisite for these ecosystems in which we experience that other violence to actually occur. And so it blew my mind in that like, yo, what almost killed me was being black in America. And that changed everything.

[Al Letson]

I think as we turn to talk a little bit more about the book, that being a black journalist, especially in the time that you're talking about in the time of Ferguson, in the time of Trayvon Martin, that reporting on it carried a weight for black journalists that I don't think we talk about enough, that I don't think, I don't even think we really acknowledge it. Because here's the thing about acknowledging that working in journalism is that as a black journalist, this is Just the truth. You have to be better. You can't talk about, like you're having trauma about this or that or the other thing. You have to just do the job because you talk about that type of stuff. You're not going to get work, you're not going to get the jobs. You're not going to be able to keep doing the reporting that you, that you feel is important. Because nobody does this type of reporting because they want to. We do it because we're called to do it, because we see, you know, Mike Brown and we see ourselves, we see our cousins, we see our brothers, our sisters, all of that. Like when I see Breonna Taylor, like Breonna Taylor looks like she could belong in my family. So for me, it's like, I gotta tell that story. Cause if I don't, who will? And so you're drawn to it, but you also experience the trauma of it in a way that you can't really. You can't talk about really, except with other black journalists. And then we tend to not talk about it publicly because again, we want to get the job.

[Tremaine Lee]

I remember as a very young journalist, there was the Jason Blair case. Jason Blair, young black journalist from New York Times, who was perhaps one of the most fabulous plagiarists of all time. He was in Oklahoma. He was like saying he was in Oklahoma and was in the new. In the sports department, like, right. And it was just a mess. And there was this like ripple effect. I remember a chilling effect of, you know, what it means to be black now, are they going to see us like that? And other people saying, you know, the kinds of jobs that we were taking. Some people didn't want the so called ghetto beat, which meant you were covering urban affairs and black life in cities. But I think for some of us, that's the reason why we're doing this, is to not just shine light in dark spaces to remind the world of who we are and tell our story. Because no one loves us but us. And that's the bottom line. No one cares about us. We're still grappling with the Negro problem in this country. And so the weight that that comes with of navigating these white newsrooms, it's like the plantation. And every day we have to walk into the big house with our nice clothes paid for by the plantation, and convince them that what's happening in the back corner of the plantation matters. That every day when it rains, people getting sick because they stuck in the mud. And every day you can't get the kids to school because the schoolhouse, they got the hole in the roof because y' all haven't. And they're like, I know some black people back there, and I don't know if that's true. And then you gotta go back to the plantation. And they like, man, you looking real clean. I see. I see you in the big house, look like you eating well. And you're like, yeah, my grandmama from around here. Y' all know me. I'm trying to tell you.

[Al Letson]

Right? Right.

[Tremaine Lee]

So it's dynamic.

[Al Letson]

It is not just the dynamic of having to code switch and leave a part of you behind to go into this space and specifically be able to advocate for the stories that you're trying to tell outside the space. It's also coming to the space. And them looking at you like, I don't know.

[Tremaine Lee]

I don't know. But I think it's like, that is. And you're right. We haven't fully talked about it. And all of us who, as black journalists who tell these stories, who are mission driven, who are purpose driven, right? Who have our North Star is telling the whole truth about how we experience this country. There is also this assumption or this perceived bias because we understand the experience so well. There has to be a bias. We have to have some jaundiced vision because we see it too clearly. And so you have to be so good, right? You have to be so sharp and you can't make any mistakes, right? Because you will find yourself without a job. No, it's a lot, man. But especially then because there was this emotional heat of the moment, but there was also this fire. So we're engaging with America, tearing at its threads and what it means to value black life. And people are saying enough is enough. And how do we cover that through the mainstream lens has never been easy. And I'm not sure we figured out a way to do it, except for to go out there time and again and tell the truth.

[Al Letson]

I'm not saying goodbye to Tremaine because part two of our conversation is coming up next week. We'll talk about coming to grips with the systemic pain that violence has wreaked on our lives.

[Tremaine Lee]

Confronting the violence, the silent, quiet violence from within and as men in particular, but in general, finding the strength and courage to face that down and live freely and live happily and find peace. That's why this matters, because it hurts so bad.

[Al Letson]

More with journalist Tremaine Lee next week. And just a reminder, we are listener supported, and that means listeners like you, you can help us thrive by making a gift today. Just go to revealnews.org gift again, that's revealnews.org gift and thank you. This episode was produced by Josh sanburn and Kara McGurk. Allison Breb Meyers edited the show, theme music and engineering, helped by Fernando, my man Yo Aruda and Jay Breezy. Mr. Jim Briggs. I'm Al Letson. And you know, Come on, let's do this again next week. I'll see you here. This is more to the story from prx.