Jenna: Good evening.

Welcome to "MetroFocus."

for too long, too much of the discussion about being Black in America has been centered around the negative.

While Black Americans have always experienced particular difficulties navigating this country's racist structures and beliefs, blackness is not and should not only be something to lament.

It should be something to be celebrated loudly and proudly.

That is the argument Ebony K Williams makes in her new book, "Bet on Black: The good news about being black in America today."

She discusses how we are living in a unique time that offers unprecedented access to an array of tools to alter our blackness however we see fit and wherever we see fit.

And joining me now is Eboni Williams, in addition to being a television and podcast personality, she is author of "Bet on Black: the good news about being Black in America today."

Welcome to "MetroFocus."

Eboni: Thank you for having me and for that incredible introduction.

Jenna: Absolutely.

Usually when we talk about books or movies, I want to get into the title a little bit.

I think it harkens back to a line some people might remember from a movie.

Tell me, what was the inspiration behind the title of the book?

Eboni: The "Bet on Black" part, it is exactly as you referenced, that is a pop-culture reference.

As the kids would say, if you know, you know.

That is from a movie.

It is also a colloquial saying many people use broadly.

It is the subtitle for me that was very important for me to get right.

"The good news about being Black in America today and to tether that alongside the literal word Black.

As you said, I do make the argument in this book, and I do feel wholeheartedly that Black ness is often perceived as a trauma story, only something to see as downtrodden or woeful.

And while certainly there are very unique devastations around how Blackness has been constructed globally and in America, that is not at all close to our experience.

It is Blackness, for me, I call it my superpower.

Is the place from which my end -- my identity most strongly arrives.

It is where my confidence and swagger is centered, and it is something I'm extremely grateful for, that I get to be Black in this world and this country.

Jenna: It almost feels like, not only the intention behind the book, but the title and the intention both harken back to the period where "I'm Black and I'm proud" something people were saying.

I'm wondering, there is a time and place for everything, and I'm wondering if the recent events we have seen, especially since the onset of the pandemic with black and brown people being disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 virus, Black lives matter, say their names, George Floyd, all of these things, were those all inspirations for you to say, yes, there is all of this trauma, but there is also this good stuff too?

Eboni: Exactly that.

Everything you just said, and we can add on lack women dying twice as likely as white women in childbirth.

The issues around our populace and health care disparities.

All of it.

You name it.

And yet, I find joy in my blackness, and I see joy in my comrades across this nation.

And I know it is something deeply both academically, as I talked about in the book, I have a degree in Black studies.

I understand Blackness from an economic lens and a cultural lens.

I'm almost 40 years old, I have been Black my whole life.

I felt the need in this moment, because of everything you laid out, to reframe, to challenge the framing of Blackness.

Because we are generalists and we work in this field, and we know the headlines better than most.

Even if you are a consumer, the headlines around weight -- around the ways Blackness are talked about, it can seem extremely unilateral and extremely tragic for lack of a better term.

And I am not comfortable nor am I willing, as a Black Blackness American -- eight Black American who is appreciative around the broadness, the broad scope of Blackness and the Black experience, not on my watch while I allow that narrative of black trauma to take hold, without challenging and pushing back in presenting a good news story about being Black in America today.

Jenna: That is always something we try to focus on on "MetroFocus."

There is no one ubiquitous Black American or African-American experience.

I want to get into the good stuff that you were talking about.

They might not be at the forefront of people's minds because of so many of the challenging sometimes heartbreaking headlines.

Let's talk about the positives that are happening right now that are good?

Eboni: That are good.

Underneath the statistic that is very real around, let's say, Black homeownership.

They were a lot -- the reality is Black homeownership rates hovers around 42%, maybe 38%, depending on who is counting.

Jenna, that number is exactly where we were as a people with homeownership in 1964 when the fair housing discrimination act was passed.

That looks like a bad news story.

The reframing I do in the book, and I talk about the good news story, I talk about how I don't think it is -- I think it is hard to be free when you don't own anything.

I'm making an argument to advocate for Black people in America to prioritize ownership of assets of any kind.

I'm speaking to homeownership as one example, I recently purchased my condo here in Manhattan in Harlem.

But I'm talking about collaborative homeownership.

It is New York City, it is very expensive to buy here.

One bedroom, one bath is $1 million.

Maybe an paying rent in Manhattan but maybe I have tenants in Tennessee or a place that has a more affordable price point.

The good news under that sobering statistic of Black homeownership is that we have resources and tools today that we did not have in 1968 when fair housing was first passed.

We can be creative, mobile and we can avail ourselves to programming's, financing, and collaborative efforts to access ownership and -- in creative ways.

Jenna: The other things I thought was interesting and I mentioned in the intro, the celebration of Blackness wherever, however you want.

Not to focus on the negative, but we have done some pieces where we have had people across the African DS borough talk about the fact that they don't feel comfortable to do that in all spaces.

I'm wondering if you can unpack that no, you can be proud and out loud about who you are, wherever you see fit.

Eboni: The very best example to what you are speaking to now is the very newly minted NCAA women's collegiate basketball champion, Angel raise.

This is a young woman who, if you are a Black American or you know or love a black American, and you want to know what celebrating Blackness in your own construction looks like, in real time, when and how and where you see fit, look at Angel Reese.

This woman is unapologetic about who she is and she speaks about the fact that her aesthetic as a Black woman is not as palatable.

She speaks about her rhetoric, her dialect being particularly Black and not necessarily being so comfortable to some.

And she is unbothered, in a word.

She is persistent, she is insistent on showing up in her Black skin as the champion she is.

I love to see it.

I think this generation right in front of us is really modeling what the celebration of Blackness can look like.

Jenna: And it is important while celebrating that Blackness to bear in mind, the people who laid the path, or laid the groundwork to do that.

.

Because of course, when I think of Angel, I believe is her name, I also think of women before her like, Flo Joe.

Eboni: Yeah.

Absolutely.

I'm thinking about Wilma Rudolph, I'm thinking about all of these titans of industry.

What is that brother?

Author Ash.

You are correct.

In the book, I take a lot of time going back to bring us forward.

I open each chapter of the book with a quote that I think centers the theme of the chapter, and often cited in the book are going to be my favorites, James Baldwin.

Eyesight a ton of James Baldwin, I know.

A ton of Frederick Douglass.

This is because of what you just spoke to.

The fact is, what we get to do now as Black Americans living today, we only have this privilege because of everything that has been done on our behalf by the ancestors.

Jenna: Do you see a point in time -- another thing a lot of black Americans have become very adept at, and that is code switching.

Because there is still theoretically, seemingly a time and place where it is acceptable to be unapologetically Black, that that is something a lot of people have had to master.

Do you see that as something that could be perhaps another part of the past in the soon future?

Eboni: I do.

I know that can be a hot take.

I have made the personal decision very recently to no longer code switch.

I just refused to do it.

I'm not advising everyone at home to adopt this methodology.

It depends on the, frankly, your risk tolerance.

It is a risk.

When you have the audacity to decentered whiteness, to D center hetero normalcy, to D center patriarchy, anything outside of traditional American norms, you are, by act, protesting peer that is a protest.

That is something that is going to be met with reaction and consequence likely.

You have to assess for yourself, depending on where you are academically, financially, even geographically, what are the risk associations with choosing to push back on white comforts and normalcy's?

And not adhere to code switching?

And make that choice for yourself in a way that feels good to you.

But I personally think that, unlike previous times in our nation, it is at least an option to opt out of code switching.

That is part of the good news about being Black in America today.

Jenna: We have a minute left.

I realize there is no way to answer this question in a minute.

I'm sure people watching and they are like, she is familiar but I don't know where.

You are a cast member on real housewives of New York.

The reason I bring that up is because that had been an all white cast, which is ironic because New York is a diversity.

During your time on the show, you did push back.

What was that experience like?

Eboni: I talk about it a lot in chapter three of the but, so you will be able to get more there.

That experience was trying, difficult, and ultimately very liberating.

I found a lot of liberation in my form of protest, and that is essentially what it became during my insistence on centering my Black identity as a housewife is the historic first Black housewife.

Many of my cast mates met that protest with ire.

I was able to stand at 10 toes down and show up in my allness.

Everything this world and society tells me and women that look like us that we are not deserving of or qualify for.

I am very clear to say I am done working half as much -- twice as hard for half as much.

It is now time for me to get everything.

Jenna: I think that is a powerful note to leave it on.

Ebony K Williams --Eboni K. Williams, thank you for joining me on "MetroFocus."

The good news about being black in America, and we look forward to see what you do next.

Eboni: Thank you, Jenna.

Jenna: ♪ absolutely.

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