CBS National Correspondent Michelle Miller stops by Writing Black to speak with Maiysha Kai about her new memoir “Belonging.” In this thought-provoking and deeply personal conversation, Michelle unveils the compelling narrative of her life and reflects on her intricate intersection of race, family, and identity. Michelle takes us through her biracial experience, as she embraced her Black culture while her mother hid her from her Mexican side of the family because she was ashamed that she was Black. Michelle also tells the story of how she found out her father was one of the doctors that attended to Robert F. Kennedy when he was assassinated.
Full transcript below.
Panama Jackson [00:00:00] You are now listening to theGrio’s Black Podcast Network. Black Culture Amplified.
Maiysha Kai [00:00:08] Hello, and welcome to another episode of Writing Black. TheGrio’s podcast for Black writers, thinkers, and doers. And this week, we have an incredible guest. Her name is Michelle Miller. You may recognize her as the co-host of CBS Saturday Mornings, and she’s got an incredible memoir called “Belonging.” This book is striking in so many ways, and I’m so excited to talk to Michelle about it. Michelle, welcome to Writing Black.
Michelle Miller [00:00:36] Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
Maiysha Kai [00:00:39] Oh, I’m thrilled to have you. You know, “Belonging” really struck me. You know, the subtitle in this book is A Daughter Search for Identity Through Loss and Love. But it’s it’s this is a big, rich story of a big, rich life with a singular thread. A singular missing thread, I suppose, is the best way to describe it. As the circumstances of your birth were very unique in that not only were you born mixed race, but you were born as, I guess, part of a clandestine relationship that was kept clandestine by your mother.
Michelle Miller [00:01:17] And my father.
Maiysha Kai [00:01:19] And your father and your father. You’re right. And your father, too. And this exploration, you know, you really take us back from the very beginning to now.
Excerpt from “Belonging” [00:01:28] As a child, the only detail I’ve known about the woman who birthed me was that she wasn’t Black. Which I’m confronting my light pigment and pointed features in the mirror each day, had left me to assume she was white. As I grew older, the unsolved mystery of my mother inclined me towards chasing the answers. This might explain why a career in journalism called out to me.
Maiysha Kai [00:01:53] But, you know, you weave in so much incredible history, American history, which, you know, your family is also very entrenched in both the family you were born into and the family you have made since. So I really want to get into it. This presumably started with a segment that you produced about your personal history, at least as I understand it. Like, tell me tell me how this came about, this memoir.
Michelle Miller [00:02:19] So the assignment. I’m going to start with a little thing I’ve been saying a lot. The assignment was understood, right? And my producer, a week after the death of George Floyd, called me on the phone. This was in the middle of COVID, and he said, I need you to give your perspective on all of the police shootings, killings, community unrest around policing. You’ve had such a rich history. It dates back to 1992 and the unrest surrounding the acquittal of the four. Those police officers who beat Rodney King. And so I pulled my phone out. I dictated a script into the phone stream of consciousness. And there was 20 seconds in the middle of this, in the middle of this piece where I said, racism has impacted me since the day I was born. And I told my origin story in 20 seconds and my producer said, “Are you sure you want to do this?” And I said, “I think so.” And it aired. Gayle King had like, Wait, what you talking about Willis moment with me after this piece aired. And then 37 minutes after the piece aired, HarperCollins publisher emailed me saying that was unbelievable that that’s a book and I’d love to publish it for you.
Maiysha Kai [00:04:02] Wow. Wow. You know, for our listeners who are unfamiliar with your origin story, you were born to a prominent Black doctor in Los Angeles, Dr. Ross Miller, Ross Matthew Miller and a hospital administrator who was Chicana, whose name is Laura. Is that is that her real name or is that a pseudonym, Laura Hernandez?
Michelle Miller [00:04:25] It’s a pseudonym. It’s a pseudonym.
Maiysha Kai [00:04:27] Okay. So a woman we will call Laura Hernandez a. A love story. But unfortunately, Dr. Miller was already married. And even more unfortunately, your mother’s family rejected the idea of her being in a relationship with a Black man. And thus the rest unfolds. And then you, during your childhood, only consciously remember seeing her. What, Once? Twice?
Michelle Miller [00:04:56] Yes. Mm hmm.
[00:04:58] Until you find her later in life. I don’t want to spoil too much of the book. The book is definitely worth reading. But, you know, it’s so striking, this idea of motherhood and identity and the expectations we have around what both of those things mean. You know, I think a lot of us take for granted that we know where we come from. For better or worse. You know, we may not be able to trace our you know, as Black Americans, we may not be able to trace our identity very far. But to have those questions literally from the very beginning, to not even know, you know, why am I this complexion? Why is my hair like this? You know, you recount a very early incident where you become aware of the effects of colorism. In the book, Yes. And how traumatic that was, it seems to to shade a lot of what happens afterwards in terms of how you interact. So in writing this book and revisiting a lot of those, I guess early revelations, early traumas, like what was that experience like? I know you had a collaborator, Rosemarie Robotham, and so I want to shout her out because we love collaborators.
Michelle Miller [00:06:02] Please. I do. Every chance I get. I tried to write this book by myself and I tell you, being a journalist does not give you a prerequisite to write a memoir like this. .
Maiysha Kai [00:06:14] I love that you say that.
Michelle Miller [00:06:15] She was just absolutely brilliant in this process.
Maiysha Kai [00:06:21] So what was the process like in terms of like kind of excavating?
Michelle Miller [00:06:25] You know, it really was excavating because, you know, we remember our past in a way that’s often nostalgic. We forget the bad and remember the good. And Rosemarie, in a way, was the excavator of my memory and the excavator of what people have questioned me about all my life. And it was like we were on this adventure together. And it’s so interesting because when she describes how I went about telling these stories, it was very clinical. And I tell these stories in a very third person, unemotional way. And I wonder why. You know, I’m starting to have this aha moment and like, wait a minute, you are, like people ask me, was it therapeutic? Was it cathartic? And I and I say to them, I don’t know. I didn’t have moments where or fits of triggering that elicited, you know, these emotional outbursts or these crying sessions or any of that. And I don’t know if that’s because I compartmentalized it in a way that I’ve kept it, how I process it, how I see it, how I analyze it in a way that, you know, I am this child who was hidden. I am my mother’s secret to this day, I am unacknowledged. And for me, I have come to the epiphany that acknowledgment matters to me. And perhaps why I’m the journalist that I am is because acknowledgment matters to me. And I think it matters a lot to a lot of different people. And the people in our society that often are unacknowledged, whether it be their history, their contributions, their presence, their affinity, their nurturing. All of these things, I think, matter to many people. And I, as a journalist, pick up on those often undiscovered stories, those undiscovered, marginalized communities that have not been acknowledged for whatever reason.
Maiysha Kai [00:08:50] You know, I want to talk more about that, because I think that juxtaposition of being a journalist and writing a memoir is so striking to me. It’s so interesting. And we are here to talk about the craft of writing as much as anything else. So we will be right back in a moment with more Writing Black and more Michelle Miller. We are back with Writing Black, and our guest today is Michelle Miller, the incredible award-winning host of CBS Saturday Mornings. You know where she sits at the desk with her co-hosts. And, you know, I think we feel like we know people when we see them. You know, you’re behind an anchor desk, we all feel like we know you. So this story. You know, I think it’s so interesting to me that you were talking about compartmentalizing, because to me, there’s like a lot of vulnerability here. And I think and maybe that’s a credit to Rosemarie teasing that out. I also know that as journalists, you know, we’re so often told not to be the story, right? Like we’re not the story. And I know that early on in your career, back when you were starting out as an intern in my hometown of Minneapolis.
Michelle Miller [00:09:51] Oh, wow. Wow.
Maiysha Kai [00:09:52] Oh, yeah. You had me with the Prince anecdotes. I was. I was.
Michelle Miller [00:09:55] Oh, yes, baby. Oh, I will tell you, you know, in my opening oh, one of the one of the chapters were. How can you just leave me standing?
Maiysha Kai [00:10:05] Yes. Yeah.
Michelle Miller [00:10:07] Alone in a world that’s so cold.
Maiysha Kai [00:10:09] Yes, Yes.
Michelle Miller [00:10:12] We were just worried that, you know, the line was just too rich.
Maiysha Kai [00:10:18] Yeah, Yeah.
Michelle Miller [00:10:19] It was owned by Prince’s estate.
Maiysha Kai [00:10:21] That’s true. Yeah. You would have gotten all kind of red tape with that. But yes, absolutely on that. And I laughed my way through through all of those little things. They paralleled so many of my own experiences. Oh yeah.
Michelle Miller [00:10:35] Did you meet Prince too?
Maiysha Kai [00:10:37] I had a similar encounter. I did. I had to grow up in Minneapolis and not. But. Yeah.
Michelle Miller [00:10:43] But you have to tell me yours.
Maiysha Kai [00:10:45] Well, mine was a little less, you know, yours was very direct and hilarious. Mine was a little more like a, you know, it was more like a stop, scan up and down, observe, smirk and then he kind of drifted away. Like, you know, like on a cloud of purple, like a purple cloud or something. He just kind of floated off into the ether.
Michelle Miller [00:11:05] Oh, my gosh. You know why I’m glad you said that? You know, I was I was sitting there thinking, especially since people remember things differently that way. Did I imagine part of that? Did that really happen? No, it happened. It sounded just like an it sounded like so many Prince sightings over so many years. And so many of my friends and I have had because he really was a human walking. And he was one of my heroes. So, again, you know, you and I have that in common, that Prince editing. That Very early, you know, the older cousin introducing you to that music and it having this kind of profound meaning and thread through your life. But you know, speaking of, you know, again, back to the journalistic part of this, you know, obviously you’re used to doing research. You’re even used to you know, you’re used to even researching your own family. And I want to double back to that as well, because that’s another really gripping chapter about your father. But I love that you talked about the difference between writing a memoir, something so personal, and the work that you know we do daily in terms of just like the fact finding and the you know, what surprised you most about that process, like of having to put your having to be the subject, you know, having to put yourself on the page?
Michelle Miller [00:12:17] Well, how hard it is, is, as I mentioned, to excavate from yourself. And what Rosemarie, through the process, it was defined as questioning and re questioning and re questioning, the same topics over and over again. So I think it was to clarify and to make sure the accuracy of the memory was there. Yeah. And and also to to hear the ways we describe ourselves in the past. And I’m sure that there was there was certainly overlap in you know, in in the anecdotal and in the accuracy of the memory. But then the shades of emotion or lack thereof in how you tell the story. And it’s almost like a different voice. Maybe I would tell the story in a way that alluded or elicited perhaps some more insight about what that meant. And so like the weaving of emotion with the weaving of the story and how it happened with the weaving of how it was perceived, with the weaving of what the stand back moment really encapsulated. And I think that, you know, she had to pull all of this from my memory. I don’t journal.
Maiysha Kai [00:13:47] Yeah, me either.
Michelle Miller [00:13:49] I don’t do it.
Maiysha Kai [00:13:51] I’m a writer who does not journal. Yeah, me too.
Michelle Miller [00:13:53] I know. Like, I’m a bad person. I’m a diarist. So I keep elaborate what I did. I don’t talk about my feelings. And maybe therein lies a clue to how my compartmentalization works because I am able to cover some of the most horrific stories over the last. 30 years and I’m not even a war correspondent, so I can’t even say that that has entered the fray. So I don’t cover war, but I cover strife and I cover pain and I cover violence in a way that some people equate it in much the same way. And yet I’m able I mean, I think about there is no school shooting, to me, that was more of a graphic than Sandy Hook.
Maiysha Kai [00:14:46] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a tipping point, obviously also for America.
Michelle Miller [00:14:51] 20 babies. Babies. And at the time my daughter was the same age in the same grade. And so the impact to me and the parallel as I was covering it and then my daughter’s school being as wide open and anybody could walk on the campus. Just like all of us. And yet it didn’t hit me in the way that it hit some of my colleagues. And then I think about the Emanuel Nine. Juxtapose as somebody walking into a church, you know, because I covered that directly. I didn’t directly cover the shooting in Pittsburgh, in the synagogue, but that was it was the same situation, walking in, praying with those people. Who welcomed him in. And then him just and the historic nature of that church. Yeah, all of that. So so I think the clue for me was that I compartmentalize well. So when I when people ask me, was it therapeutic, I think it was more enlightening for me. I glean knowledge about myself and how I deal with life and deal with disappointment, deal with absence, deal with expectation, deal with moving through, getting back up.
[00:16:11] I mean, it’s all it all is very tenuous. I want to talk a little bit more about personal history in a second. We’re going to take a quick break and we’ll be back with Michelle Miller and more Writing Black. All right. We’re back with our guests today, Michelle Miller and Writing Black. And we were just talking about, you know as well, we were talking about so many things. We talked about Discovery. Discovery. We’re talking about discovery. Yes. And, you know, one of the things I love about your memoir, which, you know, let’s show our listeners again, is the “Belonging” with your lovely face on the cover. You know, I, I was really struck by how artfully you and Rosemarie wove in these facets of American history along with your own history. You know, this juxtaposition of your personal story which is unfolding. You know, you’re unable you are native excuse me, of South Central L.A. So, you know, when you talk about, you know, Rodney King, it’s like you were literally there, you know, blocks away from from that happening. Your father. And this is so striking to me that your father, who was not only a doctor attending to patients, but was also a race man, as we like to call them, and, you know, was a person of the people and campaigned alongside Robert Kennedy and was the first person on the scene attending to him when he was fatally shot. Right. And that you, at the challenge of your son, helped to excavate his story as well. You know, you talk about restoring him to the record. And I just was so struck by that, you know, and, you know, we’ll get into the fact that you also are part of another huge, you know, Black American dynasty. We’ll get to that in a second. But I did really feel that this was almost as much his biography as yours in a weird sort of way. And I love that. Yeah.
Excerpt from “Belonging” [00:18:03] He reminded me that in college he had worked as a biology and chemistry tutor and served food in the campus cafeteria, saving every penny to make the same trip in the year between graduating pre-med from Howard and returning to pursue his medical degree there. He often shared that traveling the world alone as a Black man had left him with an unshakable belief that he was equal to whatever life might send his way. In emboldening me now to explore regions as yet unknown to me, he trusted I would strengthen my own resilience and resourcefulness too.
Maiysha Kai [00:18:41] Tell me why that was important to you.
Michelle Miller [00:18:42] So this book really is I think people miss a I don’t correct them as often as perhaps I should. The book is. A love story to my father and my grandmother. As much as it is a showcase of the absence that I felt from. Avoid, I felt, from the absence of my mother. And I think people harp on the mother part and don’t really highlight the part about all those other people. This started with my grandmother and father and my Aunt Edna. Who filled in the blanks. Who filled those voids. Who were present. Who stayed. Who have nourished me. Who nurtured me. Who raised me. Who lifted me up. And I think that, you know, I made mistakes with not acknowledging those people. And there were many people throughout my life that I never will get back, like many who passed on. And this is really my attempt to to share. Do not make the mistake I did and not showcase the people who are in your life who made a difference for you. And and so that’s number one. And number two, it was you know, it goes back to acknowledging how weaved into the history of America we are as a people. And I have always fought to be seen. I mean, I’m seen in one way and perhaps in another. And sometimes I’m not really clear on how I’d seen and certainly I did not feel seen at the time or seen as the way I wanted to be seen professionally. I was a green rookie correspondent when I started at CBS News and there were a lot of people who helped me remain long enough so that I could shine and really given an opportunity to shine. And that was the first story that dare from my son. It was a dare from my son for me to get on the computer at the point in time when the information was there.
Maiysha Kai [00:21:07] Right.
Michelle Miller [00:21:07] So It’s 45 years after the death of Robert Kennedy. And more documents have been released by the FBI, By the LAPD. Then finding that note, in exchange for a ride from the hospital back to the hotel where Robert Kennedy was shot, my father agreed to an interview to two CBS News correspondents. And I went in the next day and the producer that I started working with saw me. When I say that he listened to me, it was like one of the first people really like hear me at my level. And he said it was worth a try. Do you think we could find this? And he was like it’s worth a look, and then he sent somebody else. That was Joneil Adriano. Shout out. Aly Sadik. Shout out. Who then was like a news associate. And she scoured through, I think, something like 48 hours worth of tape. Right? And then found that seven minutes.
Terry Drinkwater [00:22:12] Can you describe the senator’s wounds?
Dr. Ross Milller [00:22:15] Well, they were a mass of blood and he had head injuries. The extent of them could not be ascertained immediately.
Michelle Miller [00:22:24] Can you imagine scouring tape?
Maiysha Kai [00:22:27] I’ve done it. Yeah.
Michelle Miller [00:22:29] Right. And so what I’m saying to you is it, it’s a people like they invested in me. And then the boss to say and you know. Yes. Tell that story. Not knowing what we would find. It was incredible when I think about it. Because I found the guy that he went to the hospital with.
Paul Schrade [00:22:51] There’s still a dent there. The bullet went into first layer of skull and out.
Maiysha Kai [00:22:56] And then I found the photographer and then the gold mine. The gold mine was finding the picture that place my father at the scene.
CBS News Report [00:23:04] There in the corner, standing just outside of Kennedy’s room. Dr. Miller. Yes, it him. That’s him.
Michelle Miller [00:23:13] That’s in 2013 that I tell the story. But remembering. So, Rosemarie, in 2021, in 2022 that my grandmother used to always talk about how we landed the same day and had to wait on the tarmac that Robert F Kennedy’s body was flown back in. Now that, like, that’s a little piece of gold. And it’s true. And there’s all of these incredible serendipitous moments in my life like that. That are so unbelievable. And I tell people, you have them, too. Either you don’t remember them or you haven’t made the connection. And so I just wanted to share that there is magic all around us.
[00:24:03] Absolutely. And I definitely think that that is a huge take away from “Belonging.” Like as much as it’s a poignant and, you know, in many ways sad story. It’s also a really inspiring one. And I want to talk about that more. We’re going to come back in just one second and talk more about “Belonging” by Michelle Miller. We’re back with Michelle Miller and more Writing Black. You know, Michelle, we were just talking about magic being all around. And you really have had it. What I love about this book is that as much as, yes there is a sense of a lost child, you know, being a bit adrift, you know. And I think that you were very conscious of that throughout the telling of the story. Also, you land always where, you know, it’s a reminder, I think, to all of us that you land where you’re supposed to land. Right. You you find your people, you build your families. You you know, even when you were just saying about all the people who made a family for you, all these mothers who showed up in the absence of your biological mother, you know, whether it be Yvonne Della, who, you know, basically, you know, gave up her life to come and be surrogate mother to you or your grandmother or Aunt Edna or any of these amazing women, these mentors, you know, because a lot of us don’t get mentorship the way that we would hope to. Um, and then there is the family that you built. So, you know, what are the odds that you are going to, you know, as a reporter, you know, as we you know, for people who are unfamiliar with how reporters work, it’s a lot like I kind of feel like it’s like the draft or something. You know, you got to end up in the city that, you know, like, you know.
Michelle Miller [00:25:41] Yeah. Thanks very much like it.
Maiysha Kai [00:25:43] Yeah, it’s like the NBA draft.
Michelle Miller [00:25:44] You go where the opportunity is.
Maiysha Kai [00:25:46] Exactly. And you end up in New Orleans and there is a at that time, a history has been made by the youngest mayor in the city’s history who is a second gen mayor because his father was the first Black mayor of that city. We’re talking about Marc Morial, who we now know as your husband. But the odds of this happening, this particular this unfolding of this relationship, I think, is another bit of magic in a magical city and a magical place. And you really kind of reckoning with what that means. And, of course, you know, in that sense, you’re marrying into a very established, very entrenched family. And here you are as kind of at this point a very independent, you know, person who is living, you know, solo. If I were in your family, Right. Was that was that how was that telling your love story? I think, you know, to me, that would be probably the most personal. But, you know, oddly enough, but.
Michelle Miller [00:26:48] For me, it was it was really in a moment to set the record straight because people have wondered how that occurred. And it was a really like it was serendipitous. And moments were like, Oh, wait a minute. Like, for instance, how we met. What connections we had, like, his comms director was my across the street neighbor’s best friend’s daughter. She told me that the minute I went to City Hall and was part of a press conference of the mayor who showed up 45 minutes late and I’d already had like kind of words with, you know, in a rapid fire Q&A from, you know, the press corps on my first day. And she invited me to an event. I went to the event and I didn’t realize it was a fundraiser. So I hightailed it out. And he was coming up the stairs. He was like, “Where are you going?” “I’m leaving.” He was like, “Well, you have a ride?” I was like, “No, I’m going to catch a cab or walk back.” And the quarter was a dangerous place at that time. New Orleans was the murder capital of the world at that time. And he’s like, No, give me 5 minutes. I’m going to make sure you get back. And so he and his driver, the two of them in the front seat, me in the back, like in the middle, like a little kid gave me a ride back to the station and pulled all the way in and I get out the mayor’s car. Can you imagine what that looked like?
Maiysha Kai [00:28:21] Yeah.
Michelle Miller [00:28:22] So, like, the rumors were flying left or right, and I remember.
Maiysha Kai [00:28:27] And you’re the new girl. You’re the new girl in town.
Michelle Miller [00:28:29] I’m the new girl, Right? And so, you know, like. And what was hilarious about it at the time. Well, it’s hilarious now. And there’s so much hilarity in this book tour because let me tell you what’s come out of the book tour. One. The man who helped me find my mother, I ain’t seen in 30 years, he he happened to be in Atlanta for a book signing and he showed up. So that was a reconnection. Also, at that book signing, my father’s baby sitter from Compton, California. She lives in Atlanta now. She shows up. Then I then I get a call from the reporter who I worked with in New Orleans at the time. And he remembers all of these things that did not happened. And so I had to kind of set the record straight. I was like, that’s not how I went down.
Maiysha Kai [00:29:22] And see and that to me is the power of memoir is being able to set the record straight. I mean, I think the writing of the memoir is like, I get to tell a story the way I wanted to tell it. To an extent, yes. But, you know, as journalists, we still deal in facts. And so, you know, I’m interested in that for sure. We’re going to take a quick break, but we’re going to be back with more Writing Black and more with our guest, Michelle Miller. And we are back with more Writing Black. What has that meant to you in terms of this incomplete narrative, obviously, with your biological mother and now being able to start your own family?
Michelle Miller [00:29:57] You know, I was explaining to people how you feel differently about things through a process. And when I started the book, even before I started the book, I think of my mother in waves. In time spans. From 0 to 20 there was, Oh, it’s absence. I don’t know but wonder. Right. When I met her, there was Oh, I understand. I can’t fault her. I might have made a similar choice, but when I had my children and her lack of acknowledging them. That’s when it became personal. And that’s when I think the seed of anger started to well in me and swell. And then ten years later, when I asked her after everyone that she claims she loved had died. The people who really mattered to her, her mother, her father, her husband, why she couldn’t acknowledge me to her family then? And she said to me because they would think I’m a liar. And how I answered that was really crushing, I think to her. Cruel, she said. And I even feel differently now than perhaps I did eight, seven years ago and that I’m okay. I get it. I, I am just I think the bottom line, the win out of of my belonging is that I’m here.
Maiysha Kai [00:31:41] Yeah. Yeah.
Michelle Miller [00:31:43] The win is I’ve had a family that raised me and that some kind of way they instilled ambition. They instilled a keen sense of perseverance, an incredible work ethic and the will to look at the sunny side up, the glass half full. And as my Aunt Edna would always say, you have to make your own self happy.
Maiysha Kai [00:32:15] I love that. I love that so much. We’re going to take a final break and we’ll be back with Michelle Miller and more Writing Black. Michelle, we were just talking about joy and I loved what you were saying about that, because I do think it’s so easy for us to get caught up in the minutia of. Of our lives now and not think of the broad strokes of how we’ve gotten here, how we’re able to get here. And I do want to talk about some place that I’m going to call for, for you perhaps, and for a lot of people I know the Mecca of Joy. Which is Howard University.
Michelle Miller [00:32:48] H.U.
Maiysha Kai [00:32:48] You know. Now, I did not go to Howard. Sorry. It was my number two. I almost went. My sister did. But I have a very soft spot for Howard because it was such a huge part of our family life. And I know you did as well. You were a third, third generation to go to Howard?
Michelle Miller [00:33:03] I am.
[00:33:04] And you went with some some some names that we would recognize, you know, as roommates with Wendy Raquel Robinson, who many of us, you know, have grown up watching on television, although I’m not that much younger than you. So there’s that part. But you know.
Michelle Miller [00:33:21] Sean “P.Diddy” Combs.
Maiysha Kai [00:33:23] There you go. There you go. Kamala Harris was a senior when you were a freshman.
Michelle Miller [00:33:28] She was, you know, that’s three pretty good ones right there.
Maiysha Kai [00:33:34] Very impressive.
Michelle Miller [00:33:35] Mark Mason CFO of Citigroup. Chief Financial Officer. Yes, indeed. Let’s give a big shout out.
Maiysha Kai [00:33:44] It is the Mecca for a reason, you know, and yeah, there are a lot of folks. Yeah. And I guess what I wanted to touch on, you know, because I know a lot of our audience also has a soft spot for how, whether personally or just, you know, because it’s legendary. When we talk about this search for identity, you know, obviously this was already part of your family legacy. This is what you wanted to do. But in that sense of here, you are obviously a mixed race person who’s grown up in a Black world, like predominantly, you’ve always been juxtaposed as a Black person. But what did Howard do for you in terms of further kind of defining that identity and giving it your place in the world?
Michelle Miller [00:34:29] Well, it was rooted me. It rooted me in the absolute awesomeness of our history. The first course at Howard University that I took that really impacted me with the history of the Black diaspora. What I learned how far back into antiquity Africans and their journey throughout the world had been and how impactful and how monumental it is. And I’m talking beyond Ancient Egypt. I’m talking sub-Saharan Africa. I’m talking the Iron Age. And then I think about our history within the United States and what we did through our labor, but through our skill sets. And I think the fallacy of people not understanding that we were kidnaped based on our skill set the artisans, the craftsmen, the architects, the farmers. Our skill set was was determined on what we could do to bring back to this country. It was it was labor, but it was specific labor. It was specific know how. And so and then everything that we did here, despite our enslavement, despite are second class citizenship, despite all the things that tried to keep us down. Still we rise. I am in Washington DC and I am looking out on the Tidewater base, some of the beautiful cherry blossoms, the Jefferson Memorial. And I think about a man named Benjamin Banneker, who was an apprentice of Charles L’Enfant, who was an incredible architect from from France. We had hired to, you know, make this city. And he left with the plans back to France when the Americans refused to pay him. Right.
Maiysha Kai [00:36:37] Can you blame him?
Michelle Miller [00:36:38] They were like What are we going to do? And Benjamin America said, Oh, I remember. And then he’s the same guy who argued with Thomas Jefferson about the absolute inhumanity of slavery and how hypocritical his Declaration of Independence was with how he was living. Post-Presidency in his Monticello home. And so I think about Benjamin Banneker, who was this child born into a Quaker family and created a life of himself and fought for his people with his utter brilliance and determination and the power that he had. And we continuously did that all the way through to today. And so that is what I gained from Howard University, that education now that education is is all over this country in PWI, predominantly white institutions as well. And I thank them for for creating a space in place where our history. But we need to tell our history. Yeah. And we need to make sure our children understand so they are proud of who they are. They have no shame in the gain of their identity. And and it was funny. I was with Michael Eric Dyson. He did a Q&A, one of the book signing.
Maiysha Kai [00:38:03] We love him. Yes.
Michelle Miller [00:38:04] And he said, you know, he says, I’m at an HBCU. What he say? Home Boy Cutting Up because he’s cutting up and letting folks know the history at his new place of Vanderbilt University. I thought that was really funny. So I’m going to take that one on the road with me.
Maiysha Kai [00:38:28] Okay, so you and I have established, you know, now what? I love it. First of all, I love this book. So, you know, I really want our listeners to.
Michelle Miller [00:38:34] Do you really love the book?
Maiysha Kai [00:38:35] I do really love it. I really got into it. When I find myself reading a book and wanting to return to work, it’s always a good sign. And I read a lot of books because I host this podcast. So there you go. I don’t know what I expected to find in this book. I don’t know what I was, you know, but I was definitely drawn in. I saw so much of myself in it, so many parallels, just, you know, generationally and, you know, culturally and, you know, and I think that anybody who engages with this book, it it will it has something to give them.
Michelle Miller [00:39:09] I wanted it resonate beyond me. Wanted it because I think my story is so many other people’s stories. To the point where I happened to be on the set with someone like Bryan Cranston, and I discovered that his origin story as a child, his parents abandoned or his father had abandoned him. So, you know, it was a moment of like, here’s this. No one knows that story about him. And yet it’s something we share. And and I just I think that people hopefully they’re going to grow from this. They’re going to search their identity in many ways. I wanted to be a bridge.
Maiysha Kai [00:39:51] Yeah. And I think I definitely think it has that potential. Now, I’m going to ask you a question that we you know, as we as we wrap up this very lively and very fun conversation, I’m going to ask you a question. I ask all of our guests because I do think it’s important. We have already established, you and I, that we are we do not journal for better or worse, we do not journal. But what do you read? Like, who do you what writers do you gravitate towards? What storytellers do you love?
Michelle Miller [00:40:16] You know the thing I’m really funny, but also my favorite book is Carl Sagan’s “Contact.”
Maiysha Kai [00:40:25] Oh, my. I mean, I love the movie. So.
Michelle Miller [00:40:27] And Arthur C Clarke’s “2010.” Okay. Well, and and then I’m going to just admit that I am a glutton for romance novels.
Maiysha Kai [00:40:41] And you know what? It’s fine. We’ve had some romance novels on this show, some really great ones. And I you know, listen, Stacey Abrams is a romance novelist, So there you go. Like, what are you going to do? What are you going to do?
Michelle Miller [00:40:55] Oh, gosh. I don’t even what to tell you the titles that come to mind.
Maiysha Kai [00:40:58] It’s okay. It’s okay. So you like a good bodice ripper? Like a good like.
Michelle Miller [00:41:04] Oh, I love the reimagining of the Bridgerton’s on screen.
Maiysha Kai [00:41:10] They are fun. They are fun for whatever liberties they take with history and colonialism. They are fun. And, you know,.
Michelle Miller [00:41:16] I wouldn’t call them liberties. They’re reimagining. They are based in some way, shape or form on an element of truth.
Maiysha Kai [00:41:25] Yes. Yes.
Michelle Miller [00:41:27] We did have a Queen Charlotte. There are people who did live that life. Albeit they were few and far between.
Maiysha Kai [00:41:34] Yeah. I look forward to us being able to enjoy that stuff too, without having to kind of like interrogate everything, you know, I guess. I mean, it’s a circumstance of how we got here and how we’ve lived here. But I also think, as you said, we deserve joy and whatever that looks like in terms of how we cut loose and enjoy ourselves. But Michelle Miller, I have so enjoyed having you on the podcast. You were so fun and I really enjoyed “Belonging,” and I hope that our listeners will get into this too. This is a really this is a fascinating story. So, you know, you Writing Black fans, check this out and you can see Michelle in the meantime on Saturday mornings on CBS. Thank you so much for joining us.
Michelle Miller [00:42:19] Thank you for having me, Maiysha.
Michelle Miller [00:42:25] I really can’t say enough about how fun it was to speak with Michelle Miller or how intriguing “Belonging” really is. You know, for for all that we talked about in that conversation, there’s so many other layers to this story. I really, really highly recommend this book. I think it’s a really thoughtful and insightful look at race and class in America as we know it. But if you are looking for other books that really kind of deal with that tenuous thread that we call mother child relationships and the issues that arise for mixed race children in this country, “Surviving the White Gaze” is another memoir that’s pretty amazing. This is by Rebecca Carroll, who is a tremendous writer. And this, you know, book is both similar and different in terms of a child who was again brought into the world under tenuous circumstances and raised in an unconventional way, in a way that really forced them to have to investigate and excavate their own identities. So “Surviving the White Gaze” is another tremendous memoir that I highly recommend, but also get into “Belonging.” And please come join us again for our next episode of Writing Black. Thanks so much for joining us for this week’s episode of Writing Black. As always, you can find us on theGrio app or wherever you find your podcasts.
