Reveal – “Being Black in America Almost Killed Me: Part 2”

Air Date: September 10, 2025
Host: Al Letson
Guest: Tremaine Lee (journalist, author of A Thousand Ways to the True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America)

Episode Overview

In this intimate and raw conversation, Al Letson continues his discussion with journalist Tremaine Lee, exploring the personal and generational toll of reporting on Black violence in America. The two delve into their family histories, the physical and emotional burdens of bearing witness, and the unbreakable ties between trauma, identity, and storytelling. Lee discusses the impact his near-fatal heart attack had on his new book, and both speakers reflect on how their work—and their lives—are intricately intertwined with the themes they report on. Ultimately, the episode is about survival, healing, and the urgent need to confront America's persistent racial trauma.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Burden of Bearing Witness

• Both Letson and Lee discuss the unique, heavy weight Black journalists shoulder when reporting on violence involving Black victims.
• Lee describes arriving at crime scenes and seeing victims who “look just like you... and that look in a mother's eyes that could be your mother. There's zero things in this universe like that pain.” (03:29, 10:19)

2. Personal and Family Trauma

• Tremaine Lee details his deeply personal connection to stories of violence:
  • The murder of his grandfather in 1976.
  • Discovering murders in his family dating back to Jim Crow-era Georgia.
  • Multiple subsequent family losses due to violence.
• Lee reflects on “the psychic residue of what's been passed down and me grappling with telling these stories that black families across the country experience…” (03:29)
• Letson shares a parallel story about the likely lynching of his great-grandfather and only learning about that family trauma through reporting his own story. He notes, “I am reporting on the story of my family and didn't even know it.” (06:16)

3. Health Toll of the Work

• Al Letson recounts the profound emotional and physical impact of producing the “Mississippi Goddamn” series:
  • “I remember feeling like it was gonna kill me. My blood pressure was ridiculous... but I couldn't stop because I had to turn in this story.” (07:13)
  • The compulsion to finish reporting despite health warnings, feeling indebted to the story’s subjects and his own children.
• Letson eventually realized the need for self-care, entering therapy and taking three months off: “I just couldn't do it. Cause I thought it was gonna kill me. And I think, by the grace of God, it didn't.” (08:00–09:50)

4. Inherited and Encoded Trauma

• Letson and Lee discuss the transmission of trauma through families:
  • Letson tells a moving story about meeting his son for the first time and recognizing himself in him: “Like, I believe that DNA is way more powerful than we talk about... you carry both the good, but also the trauma. And you can't get away from it. It is in you. It is in your blood. It is in your bones. It is who you are.” (12:22)
  • Lee notes both genetic and psychic connections to violence, referencing both epigenetics and “post traumatic slave disorder.” (14:07; 14:52)

5. The Cycle of Violence and Moving Through Grief

• Lee expounds on the historical and present-day cycles of violence:
  • From the guns-for-slave trade origins to successive generations forced to migrate and endure new trauma, such as “standing in the spot where my grandfather was killed” and reading about it in the papers. (14:07)
  • The “ethereal psychic trauma” passed down through generations. (14:52)
• The power of acknowledging and articulating this trauma, not letting “America convince you it's not there.” Letson calls out the nation’s “great forgetting” and the dangers of collective amnesia. (15:59)

6. Refusing the Narrative of Brokenness

• Lee emphasizes that Black communities are not innately broken but are shaped by external systemic forces:
  • “Ain't nothing wrong with us. If you want to understand what's wrong with us, let's look at this machinery around us, right? Let's look at what we've carried in us, what was sparked by this white supremacist violence and a society bent on our breaking.” (16:39)

7. Healing and the Importance of Storytelling

• Both men reflect on the possibility of healing by facing pain directly:
  • “There is healing... in facing down the hardest parts of what we harbor within.” (17:32, 24:17)
  • The necessity of community, conversation, and telling the “truth as they are renaming military bases after these fake Robert Elite they're so bent on making sure they honor.” (21:57)

8. Legacy, Resistance, and the Role of Journalism

• Lee comments on documenting the Black experience for future generations: “What’s going to happen is as they continue to try to erase us and erase our story in 100 years ... they have to understand that this is not unprecedented, that this is precedented, this is the default position and this is how you survive it ... is to look at Square's face and tell the truth.” (20:13)

9. Critique of Historical Amnesia and Anti-Blackness

• Both critique America’s propensity for forgetting—or whitewashing—its violent history:
  • “America loves this idea of collective amnesia that it continually pushes on people.” (15:59)
  • Even among sympathetic audiences, “there is an acceptable level of anti-blackness in this country that is okay. Even among people who wish it would be different.” (22:28)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “There's nothing like arriving at a crime scene, right, and seeing someone that looks just like you, dressed just like you ... And that look in a mother's eyes that could be your mother. There's zero things in this universe like that pain.”
  – Tremaine Lee (03:29, 10:19)

• “I am reporting on the story of my family and didn't even know it.”
  – Al Letson (06:16)

• “I remember feeling like it was gonna kill me. My blood pressure was ridiculous... I couldn't stop because I had to turn in this story.”
  – Al Letson (07:13)

• “We are the burden bearers of that. And we have to be. And we have always had to be.... But it's a reminder that we cannot report our way out of the pain. We cannot educate our way out of the pain. We cannot drink our way out of the pain.”
  – Tremaine Lee (10:29, 10:42)

• "I believe that DNA is way more powerful than we talk about. ... You can't get away from [the trauma]. It is in you. It is in your blood. It is in your bones. It is who you are."
  – Al Letson (12:22)

• "Ain't nothing wrong with us. ... Let's look at what we've carried in us, what was sparked by this white supremacist violence and a society bent on our breaking. That's what's wrong with us."
  – Tremaine Lee (16:39)

• "We are just now comfortable enough to say white supremacist system, White supremacy.... Even among our friends and friends of the truth, there is an acceptable level of anti blackness in this country that is okay."
  – Tremaine Lee (22:04, 22:28)

• "There is healing in facing down the hardest parts of what we harbor within ... 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 (24:17)

Timeline of Important Segments

• 00:01 – Opening: Setting the episode theme; burden on Black journalists
• 03:29 – Tremaine Lee recounts family history of violence, the personal cost
• 06:16 – Letson shares about uncovering his own family's trauma while reporting
• 07:13 – Letson describes toll of reporting “Mississippi Goddamn,” near-breakdown
• 10:13-10:53 – The burden of standing at crime scenes, reporting pain that mirrors one's own life
• 12:22 – Letson discusses the inheritance of trauma through DNA and experience
• 14:07–15:48 – Lee discusses historical cycles from slavery, forced migration, generational trauma
• 15:59–16:39 – On America’s “collective amnesia,” the need to talk about trauma
• 16:39–17:27 – Lee rejects the notion of innate brokenness in Black communities
• 19:52–22:28 – Conversation expands to the historical moment, contemporary parallels, journalism's role
• 22:04–23:26 – On the difficulty of naming white supremacy, persistence of anti-Blackness
• 24:17–25:22 – Lee underscores the personal cost and hope for his book: healing, peace, confronting pain

Tone & Style

• The discussion is deeply personal, at times emotional, consistently candid.
• Both Letson and Lee are reflective, at times introspective, and unsparing in their critique of American history and journalism.
• The mood is somber but not hopeless—there’s an insistence on survival, healing, and the necessity of truth-telling.
• Moments of humor (America “jumping the shark in Season Five”) diffuse tension, but the seriousness of the issues remains at the fore.

Conclusion

This episode of Reveal is a powerful meditation on the intersecting wounds of Black America—personal, familial, historic—and the burdens shouldered by those reporting them. Through stories that are both distinctly personal and broadly representative, Letson and Lee underscore the urgent need for self-care, collective memory, and truth-telling as paths to healing.