The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
This week I’m joined by Jemele Hill, an Emmy Award-winning journalist, creator, and host of the podcast "Jemele Hill is Unbothered,” She's also the founder of The Unbothered Network, a groundbreaking podcast and production company. Today she joins us to talk about her newly-released memoir Uphill, which details her upbringing in Detroit, her long-time career in sports journalism, overcoming a legacy of pain, and forging a new path. During our conversation, we discussed the considerations and discussions she had while writing about her family history, her career-defining moments and how she prioritized her mental health while writing the book.
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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for Session to eighty one of the Therapy for Black Girl's podcast. We'll get into our conversation right after a word from our sponsors. This week, I'm joined by Jamal Hill, an Emmy Award winning journalists, creator and host of the podcast Jamal Hill is Unbothered. She's also the founder of The Unbothered Network, a groundbreaking podcast and production company. You may also be familiar with her nearly twelve year career for sports conglomerate ESPN or her prolific writing at the intersection of sports and race as a current staff writer for The Atlantic and former senior correspondent in columnists for The Undefeated. Today, she joins us to talk about her newly released memoir Uphell, which details her upbringing in Detroit, her longtime career in sports journalism, overcoming a legacy of pain, and forging a new path. During our conversation, we discussed the considerations and discussion she had while writing about her family history, her career defining moments, and how she prioritized her mental health while writing the book. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media using the hashtag tv G in Session or join us over in the Sister Circle to talk more in depth about the episode. You can join us at Community not Therapy for Black Girls dot com. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jamil, Well, thank you. I appreciate being here. I've been really looking forward to this. Likewise, so happy to chat with you about your memoir. Very excited for people to be able to pick it up and check it out. So it feels like you have done so many things, you wear so many halves. Can you give us a little bit of insight into who Jamal Hill is today well. One of the best compliments I think I often received from people, particularly for friends who have known me for a long time, is that they feel like, although I've grown and matured, that I'm the same person that they met X amount of years ago. The core, basic foundation of who I am has never changed. And I do think that change and growth are different things. I want to never change, but I want to always grow, if that makes any sense, And so I think at the core of it, I'm always going to be somebody who certainly believes in working hard, but believes that life should be lived with a sense of adventure. That's always been something that's been really important to me. And so as much as I'm doing fifty projects and I got sixty two jobs, I still try to keep a sense of adventure, that spirit and everything that I do. I think that that is quite a compliment and quite the feat for people who have known you for a significant amount of time to say You've done different things, but you have not changed. What do you attribute that to? Like, that sense of being grounded, I think it has a lot to do with the way that I grew up. When you grow up in some of the challenging circumstances that I did. I think about often some of those very tough moments, bad moments, and I think because I was able to persevere through that, that's why, like now, in present day, it really would take a lot to just kind of sort of get me down because I'm like, I think I've already seen the worst of it. Okay, does not have to say that I won't face any more obstacles or any more challenges or even things that might be on the same level of what I experienced as a child. But I think my perspective is just so much different now. And because I know what it's like to not have and know what it's like to kind of be, you know, missing some core elements of support around you, then it allows me to navigate this life that I'm in now much differently with the respect for it and appreciation for it, of course, and with the understanding is that this could all go away and smoke tomorrow, so I better make decisions and live my life as enjoyably as I possibly can. M hm. So I'm curious, was a book always a part of the plan for you? Because this is your debut book, And so I'm curious to know. Was it a memoir always your choice? Did you consider writing something else? Tell me you a little bit about the decision to even write a book right now. A book was always something I wanted to do. A book about myself was something I never wanted to do. So no, this was not the plan was to do a memoir first. I really want to and I want to say it in present tense to make sure that I do be right fiction, and I think eventually I will do that, but this was sort of the book that the market decided was the one that had to be first, and I'm glad that it worked out this way. That I had to kind of be convinced to do this because going through this journey of writing this memoir was very eye opening. I had to unpack some things and unlock some doors that I pad lockshut, and so this forced me to kind of d with those issues again and remembering certain incidents and having to relive some things That was not always easy to do. But nevertheless, I feel better because I was able to do that. So No, a memoir was never in the plans. Wow, So tell me more about like the convincing I'm guessing this is your agent the publishing company. What was the convincing to say, hey, this is what we feel like it's needed right now. It was my literary agent, David Labell. He was chief among the convincers, if you will. And as I said, the market decided, which you know what that means money, I mean to be frank, is that he had a really good feeling because of the time of my life where I was being approached about writing a book. He had a really good feeling that this book would go to auction many it would be several publishers bidding for it. And that's exactly what happened. And so while obviously it was my decision, I had the final say. So he was just like, the book publishing business is hard, and while I know you want to eventually write fit and this is a great entry point for you to do. So you write this book, if it's successful, then it's gonna be a lot easier to get people to buy into a fiction product. So it was a combination of you know, strategy and looking ahead money and just as I said, you know, understanding that he felt like there was a real audience for this story and that I could really make this a transformative process. So yeah, he convinced me, and I said, Okay, I'll just grip my teeth and suffer through and write all of this. But as I said, I'm so glad that I did it because it really was a worthwhile experience. Mm hmmmm yeah. I mean, so it's a memoir, so it's incredibly personal, you know, as you mentioned, lots of difficult experiences, and I don't feel like at he's reading it you held anything back. It is very honest, and so I would love to hear if you're comfortable with sharing, like what was the process of like talking to your mom and your husband and maybe other family members, and what was the process of letting them know that were about to write this story. Well, of course, my husband, like he knew first it was happening, and I mean certainly he was aware of most of my story, but there were just certain details I hadn't yet had an opportunity to share. Because I think people who are married and attested this is that even though you're married and you feel like you know the core person and who they are and you know their life story to a large extent, but there's always moments and instances that you haven't quite feeled in for them yet, not because you're trying to hide them. It's just either it hasn't come up, or you haven't thought about sharing it or whatever. And so I gave him a sense of what I would be writing about it, and he was the first person to read it, and it's like raw's form, so that he would know everything that was gonna be in this book. And of course when you're writing a memoir, you have to think about how it will impact the relationships that you currently have, and even how people maybe you have not talked to in a while, how they will look at what you have written. So, yes, me and my mother, we had a lot of conversations. Some of them were very difficult, and difficult just in the sense of unfortunately she had to replay and recount some very awful moments in her life. And I made sure to save those moments for the last conversations that we would have in the book, so that it wasn't constantly a trauma call every time I talked to her. And so she's become like the family historian now, so she knows it could feel in for me. Some other details that I didn't know about her early life, about my grandmother's early life, about things like that that I did not know. So it was also in the process that I learned a lot about my family and a lot about both my mother and my father and my grandmother too throughout this. So I had the most conversations with her. I had some with my dad. My dad still has not read the book, and fool my mother has and that was also a difficult conversation. Is one thing if I'm interviewing you and we're talking about it and you sort of know what's gonna be in the book, it's another thing to read it. And there were some things that her and I had an argument about, to be honest, like, she was not happy with some of the things that were in there. But we were able to work through that and come to some compromises, just in the sense again, when you write something like this, you have to think about what does your relationship look like with these people after this is out and after the public has consumed it and they've had their opinions about your life and the people you're writing about. And I was very sensitive to that process, to say the least. So the one thing she wanted me to remove I actually removed it. But what was funny is that she o came back later and after having thinking about it and talking to some friends of hers that she really trust, she said she thought she was wrong. Like she was like, you know what, I had a chance to think about it, and you didn't have to take that out if you didn't want to. But I had already done it, and so I was like, well, just thinking about how I want our relationship to be afterwards, I took it out, and so she was really surprised. And so it was an interesting journey for us in our relationship. You know, I think my mother is like really comfortable with where it is. But certainly there was a lot of tough conversations throughout this entire process. M hmmm. And you mentioned earlier that you had to do a lot of like opening doors that you would rather have left clothes and unpacking things. What did your support system look like while writing the book. Well, my husband was wonderful throughout the process. It wasn't like I would write and then I go talk to him about everything that I just you know wrote. I think just him supporting me through it was like okay, you know, he's like I'm sure it's fine, You're doing a good job, just just encouraging me to continue to like dig deeper and that the reactions to it would be fine. And he knew how important it was for me to write this book with a sense of authority and transparency, and so, you know, just him just kind of holding my hand so to speak throughout the process was like, I think he just gave me the reassurance that I kind of needed as I was writing this book. Mm hmmm. So I was drawn in by the first sentence of the book. So the book starts with I started going to therapy on a dare And so you talk about that, and you know, you talk about lots of the experiences that may be led to you being in therapy. Can you say how therapy has supported your journey and even maybe what therapy looks like now as you prepare for the launch of the book. It's funny you brought that up, because one thing I definitely want to do before my book tour starts is make sure I have an exception with my therapist, right because this will be very different than Yeah, I'm certainly I've been interviewed thousands of times, so being interviewed, that is no big deal. But I've never really been interviewed about my life. Maybe some bits and pieces of my life. But this memoir, as you said before, it's intensely personal. So I'm going to be asked very personal questions about my life, and so I want to make sure that I'm in the right mental framework to do that, to answer these questions repeatedly over and over, to be asked repeatedly about having an abortion and some of the sexual abuse that my mother suffered, like having to go over that over and over again, and even doing book signings, having people who read the book just asking me about that or sharing their stories. So I have to make sure that I'm in the right mental framework to handle all of that. But for me, therapy was very i opening, and I guess that's kind of a cliche word to use, because I guess for everybody it is. And I remember the very first session I had with my therapist, and I started going to her in eighteen and our first session, she told me something that, like, you know, just kind of really hit me all up in the chest. She was like, childhood lasts forever, That's what she told me. And I was like, Hey, she is so right about this, because we're constantly dealing with the impact of our childhood, be at the traumas, whatever it may be. You know, that's not to say you continue to be the same person you were as a child. You obviously do not, but it is to say that some of those things you experienced they literally last forever, and that you're going to be dealing with that. And so in addition to be an eye opening, I think what I loved about therapy is that it's forced me into a space of vulnerability. It's the space I'm most uncomfortable with, and I mean most of the memoir is about me on that journey of trying to be more vulnerable because it just simply was not the way that I was raised. And I see the unintended consequences of not being able to embrace or live in a space of vulnerability. I mean, I think a lot of black women, unfortunately, we get conditioned to be out of that space, even though we're not perfect, nor are we superheroes, and so we can't always be all these things to so many other people and then be nothing for ourselves. And so finding that balance and being able to kind of appropriately deal with my vulnerability issues has been a challenge, but it's been one that I've always embraced. One of the things I love about being married is that marriage forces you into that space all the time. Marriage is a reflection, I think in good and bad ways. It is a completely reflection. So it exposes you, and so some of the things that you don't want to deal with, you are forced to deal with them in marriage. If you want to have a good marriage, deal with them in order to be better for the person that you've committed to. You say something that made me think I have always wondered, like, is there some kind of after care or is there a group of people who like prepare you to release a memoir to the public, because I think it's different than like a fiction book, right, Like people project all kinds of stuff. But you're right, like, I think you should be prepared on your book tour for people to ask you very personal questions even though you've shared very personally, but also for them to identify so much with your story and your mom's story and your family story that it will also encourage them to share their own stories that may be very difficult. Do those kinds of conversations happen like cans your Asian or the publishing house had you down and say, Okay, here's what to expect. No, I don't think they would be probably the candidates for that. But what I have done is talked to other authors who have written memoirs. And I had a conversation with a friend of my Gabrielle Union, and she's released essentially to memoirs. Right, We're not gonna need more wine, and I'll have another and and it she shares the fact that she was sexually assaulted when she was a teenager, I believe, And so she talks about the crippling effect of that and then the multiple miscarriages that she has. So she was telling me when she was on her book tour about how mentally it was just really tough to deal with the fact that women were constantly coming up to her telling her their stories of sexual assault. And she was like, it was a lot to deal with because like, you don't want to relive the worst moment of your life every single day for three weeks, you know what I'm saying, or four weeks, however long she was on tour. She did a nationwide tour and so just hearing how she handled it, what it was like for her coming out of that, her taking a break and taking some time to collect herself, it was very helpful for me so that I can maybe figure out a way to set some boundaries with that. It would be quite an interesting mix because you want to set the boundaries, but you also have a book to sell, so it's like you have to figure out what that looks like for you. And so I think as I go through the first week of it, or you know, the first couple interviews, that I'll be able to have a better handle about what kind of space mentally that puts me in after doing these interviews, and everybody's not going to ask about all the trauma, Like there are other things that are in the book that people will ask me about. So I'm not going in with the expectation that they're just gonna be like entire trauma conversation. But I'm just trying to make sure I'm as mentally healthy as possible to deal with the after effects of that. M hmm. And I think that follow up session with your therapist as you prepare for the Yeah, I'm gonna have one with her before I go on the tour and then I'm gonna have one with her when I come off the tour, right right, So what do you feel like we're the toughest chapters for you to write? Do any come to mind? Oh? Yeah. When I was interviewing my mother, there were things she told me I did not know at all, like about things she experienced as much as I was a spectator and a bystander. Unfortunately too, when she was really embroiled deeply in her drug use, and as much as I saw even through that, there was a lot of stuff I clearly did not even see or no. So the tougher parts, for one, is when she told me the story of her being raped in Texas. And I knew she was raped in Texas, and I've known that, you know, my whole life. I never got the breakdown of everything that happened, and so for her to go into detail about how she was kidnapped, essentially because she was taken outside of her apartment by what the police believed to be a serial rapist in the area. So having her go through that, and it was probably the first time in a while that she had probably talked about it in such detail, to the point to where she could remember certain smells and certain feelings and just things like I didn't know that she was given a morning after pill when she got the kid at the hospital, So these little details were tough for me to here, even though I knew this is what happened to her. Another story she told me that's in the book is about her basically hiding out in a rat infested trap house because she had come there looking for drugs. And I never even knew that story, so I had no idea. You know, I didn't know that her drug use actually started when she was like ten or eleven years old, so I didn't know that either. So those are tough chapters and moments to write about, and because when I'm sending her back to a place that she, you know, as is very distant from because my mother has been drug free for decades now, so it was trying like to hear about that and to understand just how much my mother had been through. And I've always known she's been through a lot, but this like really put it into very distinct detail, like what she had actually been through. So, you know, I guess when you're somebody's child, regardless of your age, it's inherently selfish existence to be a child, because everything is about you. Write about how you're taking care of how you're doing, and so your parents focused on you once they have you, like the rest of your life, your parents are somewhat focused on you, and so what happens is that you don't learn nearly enough about them as you should. And so as part of this memoir writing process, I've told a lot of my friends, I was like, listen, while your parents are still here, asked them every single question that you can, because as I was writing this, as close as me and my grandmother were, there was so many questions I didn't ask her that I had as I was writing, and I was like, I wish you were still alive, so I can ask her some of these things, not necessarily for this book, but just to learn more about her early life and to put together the pieces of like how she came to be the person that she was. So yeah, there was a lot of, you know, challenging moments. There's also kind of a lot of funny moments to relive and write about it as well. But probably the more challenging parts were writing about my mother's trauma. MM hmm. Yeah. More from my conversation with Jamal after the break. So what was it like to look back over your career as you were writing this book? I mean, you still have a lot of career, I think, Levet, but there's been a lot of career already. So what was it like to look back over there to prepare for the book? Mostly? I just realized how old I am. I was just like, kind of old. I've been doing this for so long. It dawned on me as I was writing that I've been a paid journalist. It's I was sixteen years old, okay, so that is spanning thirty years, And that in itself is just a tremendous blessing because a lot of people, when they identify what their life's work is and identify their passion, they don't necessarily get paid to do it right away. I got paid to be a journalist right away when I started working for the local paper in Detroit. That's what I was paid to do. And to realize too that I haven't had that many jobs outside of journalism, maybe like two, and those are part time, just kind of seasonal things that I was doing. That nothing on any kind of a full time basis. But every job I've had as a professional has been journalism related, and it just kind of put me in the space of gratitude of understanding like just how rare that is. And my husband tells me this all the time, is that you know, I have the privilege of identifying early what I wanted to do, and also the privilege of always being paid to do that thing that I love to do, because, as he reminds me, like so many people have jobs they don't really like or are not in passionate professions. Really, as I recounted the different stages in my career in in the memoir, it kind of brought that home even further, like, Wow, I'm truly blessed to being able to have done this for thirty years. M hmmm. Yeah. A part of the story that a lot of people will probably be most familiar with was your time at ESPN. So can you tell us a little bit about how your career they're kind of wrapped up and what lessons you've learned from that experience. Well, you know, ESPN, I was there twelve years. It's the longest job I've ever had. It's certainly the best job I ever had. The last couple of years were rocky, and I write about them very transparently in this book, particularly after the tweet that changed my life happened with Donald Trump and what that experience was like. But one thing that ESPN taught me, or among the many things, because it's more than just one thing, I learned a lot. I mean, the journalist that I was when I got to ESPN was not the journalists who I became aim when I left. It was a much better journalist, Like I was so much more well rounded. I learned so many different mediums at ESPN, like it was a true I wouldn't necessarily call it a training ground. It was more like a very intense boot camp where you came out of it and you slimmed out about twenty pounds and you're in the best shape of your life. That's how I felt leaving ESPN, and I think it taught me about my value, my worth, also about how the next phase of my career. It really put the battery in my battery pack to make sure the next phase of my career was about ownership and autonomy. And while ESPN was so great for my career and a number of ways, the one downside about being there is that you are property of ESPN essentially, like there's not a whole lot you can do outside of being at ESPN. And I realized just how much my professional freedom meant to me being there, And once I left there, I just kind of mentally decided, like, I'm never going to be in that space again where I'm beholden to one entity and do not have the freedom to do other things that I feel like would amplify you know, who I am, or amplify my brand. So it definitely taught me the value of that, and also that I think you know so much in your career you're striving for stability, and stability is great, particularly financial stability is great, right, But I think now like I'm okay that if I get a project or a job that just last a couple of months, as long as I'm fulfilled in doing that. And you know a lot of times we professionally, we chase contracts for the length of time, and I'm learning the the shorter the contract, the better, to be honest, So it's just kind of switched up my mentality coming from a more traditional mindset like oh, gotta work for one network or one media outlet and that's it. But now I'm just like, I'm a higher gun, I'm a mercenario here, like I work for thirty differ networks. At the same time, I don't care. It's like cut the check. So I think, yeah, just understanding the value of my freedom. It really brought that home. I mean, once I left ESPN for the first time in my professional career, I was able to pick where I wanted to live. And that was like a crazy, exhilarating feeling for me. You know, me and my husband we moved to Los Angeles because you know, we were able to sit down and say, Okay, personally and professionally, where's the best place we want to be? All right? Who doesn't have no, they're in the conversation if they don't have so so it felt really good to feel more in control of my life once I left ESPN. You know, had there been inklings of that for you even before, like the tweet that changed everything? Like has you kind of been feeling restless and like you wanted to establish yourself as more of your own brand even before then? Oh yeah. But the funny thing is what I thought about doing was not really about my own brand. It was more or less about me separating from something that I didn't love. The last shot I had at ESPN was as SportsCenter anchor. It was the worst job that I had ESPN. I knew within a couple of months after we took that job. I was like, this ain't for me. I knew it. I told my co host at the time, Michael Smith, a dear friend of mine. I said, Mike, I'm gonna make it to the end of this contract, and that's gonna be it for Sports Center for me. The problem was, we had at that point three more years of me, so that was gonna be a long wait, and it was just like, man, how am I gonna get through this? And of course you hope that maybe things will improve, but there was a very significant change in leadership that happened before the Trump thing' even happened. So I was already in the thought process of I'm not very fulfilled or happy doing this and wondering what the best strategy was to leave. And so I didn't know if leaving meant just leaving Sports Center and doing something else at ESPN, or if leaving meant just leaving ESPN altogether. So before the tweet, those were very dominant thoughts in my mind about something that makes me feel much more fulfilled than this does. In the book, when you're talking about talking to your mom about leaving ESPN, you talked about her describing you as angry and you're feeling uncomfortable with that label. Can you talk about how your relationship to anger has changed since then? If it has, well, you know what, anybody who knows they would never describe me as angry, And so I was kind of thrown off with my mother said that. But I think, and we do this a lot of times with people, is that sometimes people confuse anger and passion. I'm passionate about what I do and who I am and defending myself. But I'm not angry, just not. I'm like, I'm not. I don't wake up mad at the world with my fist raised in the air like that's not even if it really in my personality. Yes, there are things that make me angry, as they should. Yes, in justice makes me angry, Racism makes me angry. A lot of things that we face as a society make me angry when I see those things. But I try to approach what I do from a sspect of a passionate determination, not through anger. And so when I started therapy and after my mother accused me of being angry, I think some of that and you know her and I've spent a lot of time for years unpacking this is that there's a part of me that always feels like my mother feels like I haven't forgiven her for the things that happened in my childhood that I was able to endure and the vote of forgiveness left for me a long time ago, like I've forgiven her years ago, like a loone time ago. And so if I give her pushback about some of the things that she says now, then I'm angry, And I'm like, no, I'm not angry, I just don't agree with you. Like there's a there's a difference for anybody there who has any kind of relationship with your mother, you know that, Like, especially if they're not accustomed to that pushback, they don't really like that, you know what I'm saying. So I think some of that It comes from that place, and I needed her to understand that this is not anything rooted in angerous and rooted in the fact that I disagree and I'm going to push back on you a little bit. Mm hmmm. Have you and mom done any therapy together? No, but we should And I was just like, I better even saying, try to be funny, like we have surfaced the idea. I think my mother would definitely be open to it. I certainly would, So maybe after this book tour, that's something we need to get to quickly. More From my conversation with Jamal after the break, Yeah, I mean, when I hear you say stuff like you know she thinks I haven't forgiven her, I'm thinking like, oh, a conversation with the therapist might be a great place to have some of those conversations for you to maybe even hear more about what she's still thinking that may not even be true. Yeah, No, I mean I think you're a hundred percent right, And it's like, I want to definitely do that because I think it would be very helpful for our relationship and one thing I definitely thought about on this memoir journey because there's gonna be times where we're actually interviewed together, which has never really happened. So how we do that It's going to be very fascinating because I'm just really curious and as I told my mother, I was like, be as honest as you want to be, or set your own boundaries. Like I'm not here to tell you how to conduct yourself at all. It's like, I think you have your own story. You have a right to tell it in your way and from your perspective, and do that. This book is just my perspective, but you have your own. You certainly will offer that. I think people will really be inspired by because my mother has an incredible testimony, and so I think as this memoir gets out there, I think she'll see just how inspiring she can be to people. But yeah, I completely agree with you. It's like we we should definitely go to some therapy. I know other friends who are going to therapy with their moms. I can't say it's turned out well, but I'm not. But at least you'll win. That's right. You just try and see, you know, see what how much you never know? It feels like there is this very clear thread throughout the book. As you're talking about your column on the Celtics and the sexual harassment with the female kicker Katie Nida and the Trump tweets, like it is very clear that there is a use of your voice with like confidence in conviction. I want to hear how your podcast and how starting and launching your own podcasts and network has really helped you to kind of hone your voice as a journalist. Once I left ESPN, one thing I wanted to get back to doing is having conversations with people. And although you do have them when you're in the midst of a daily talk show, there are five six minute conversations tops, so very short. You don't get to unpack some things, or you don't get the vulnerability, you don't sometimes get the honesty in a five minute interview, And so I wanted to go back to some of the original reasons that I became a journalist in the first place, and that was to talk to people and to help them share their stories. Especially with the time that we're in now, it's important that we have some like really critical conversations. So the podcasting medium was very conducive to that. And as my own podcast launched and had its success, when happened and obviously in this country we're having a lot more conversations about racism, and just had we reached that watershed moment where we were finally ready and willing to do the hard work to do something about it. It was a perfect time to approach Spotify about creating a podcast network for black women that was black women lad. That second part of that is very important, and the reason I thought that now was the time to do it is because frankly, corporations seemed more interested in actually financially supporting black content creators and just looking around and seeing all the dynamic things black women were doing. That part, of course, is very inspiring. You know, you have black women saving Wakonda, got Stacy Abrams out here trying save democracy, You've got Combla Harris trying to say the country. I mean, like, all of this is happening, and black black women were really seizing and stepping into their power. However, that to me was such an incomplete story about who we were. Yes, black women are dynamic, successful overachievers, but that's not all we are. And also, our function in society is not to save everybody. Sometimes the way we can save everybody is about saving us saving ourselves, right, And I'm thinking, like, if all these black women are out here saving everyone else, who is saving us? And so I wanted to create a network that represented the full picture of who Black women are, how Black women worship, how Black women laugh, how Black women love, how Black women relate to their families. So there were buckets As I was thinking about a podcast network that I wanted to try to feel dynamic black women creators and just give us the subject matter that I think we've really been looking for that explore us in more fullness. So I'm really excited about the network. Our first two shows launched the first week of November, one of which is called Sanctified, which I mentioned like one of the things I wanted to look at is how Black women are worshiping today, and Sanctified as a podcast with Levon Briggs. As she describes, I told her, I thought this description was so cool. A sex positive woman is preacher and I love that description. And also debor Joy Windings, and you know any time the Last Night Windings, you know exactly what family that is from one of the legacy families in gospel, and you know they are going to really get into some taboo topics that are talked about both in the pulpit and outside of church, like talking about purity culture in churches and marriage and sexuality and all these other really taboo topics when it comes to how we discuss things within a Christian religious framework. So I'm really excited about that one. And then another podcast we have launching with these two dynamic hosts of Brittany and Germany. It's called Black Girl Pravado, and they are an existing podcast that we license exclusively now to Spotify, and they're in the wellness space, but this is not your normal sort of wellness space in the sense like you have your sins, you have your own that they are coming straight from the hip pocket and talking about self care in a way that I think is super relatable to a lot of women, particularly young women, millennials and sillennials, because they stooped just straight from the straight from the hip for them listening to Little Kim's probably self care. So they they're very they're very funny, they're very earnest, genuine, authentic, and just bold and I love them both. So both these podcasts, I'm so proud that these are initial offerings. So I'm really excited about the possibilities of where this network could be because if I get it to where I envisioned it when I first came to Spotify, this will easily be the biggest thing I've ever accomplished in my career. Mm hmm. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. So, what advice would you give to young journalists, you know, early career journalists who may be struggling and want to speak out about injustices, but are worried about pushback from their employers. Well, I think you have to let the journalism be your activism, focus on the craft, on telling good stories, stories that you feel like illuminate what are very pervasive issues in a different way. We know injustice is everywhere, but sometimes it's the way you tell a story that gets people to understand the gravity of something happening. I think about a friend of mine, Wesley Lowry, who is a great writer, and he was one of the writers during Ferguson. He got arrested, he was right on the scene, but he created this whole lane of looking into all these police killings of black people, and you know, created a database. He didn't really good investigative work, and it all stems from him understanding that, you know, when black people are pulled over by the police, our life is at risk pretty much, I mean every single time. And from there, doing the reporting to support what was clearly a very deep societal problem. So if you're a journalist who is in the early stages of your career, you don't have to go into your boss is just spouting opinions. Give them a story that they can get behind that illuminates the issue that you feel like needs to be discussed, being police brutality, be it housing discrimination, whatever the topic is, find a story, put a face to it that will get people to maybe buy into an issue in a different way. M hmm. Such a good information. I really appreciate you and Wesley's work is incredible, So I think that's a great example to give people. So as we wrap up, can you say little bit about what you're hoping people will take away from uphill? What are you wanting people to leave with? Well, it's a few things, but I think mostly you know, I think, if anything, when you read my memir, you see the numerous challenges I faced, and then you see where I am now. Like a lot of people thought I was born on SPI and I was like, no, I wasn't. It's a whole life that happened before I ever got to ESPN. But they see sometimes the completed team photo, but they have no idea like what's going on behind that photo. I hope do anything that people will be inspired to overcome whatever is the challenge in their life and understanding that however you grew up, what you did or what you didn't come from, is not a predictor of your future. You are able to control, even in the dire circumstances, a lot more than you think that you can. And so I hope it inspires people to be driven to be purposeful and whatever it is that they pursue, because that's certainly something that I have been able to lean on and my whole career, like my whole life, I should say, like, I don't know where my life would be if I didn't pursue journalism the way that I did, with such a single minded focused and passion and knowing that nothing was good to stop me from doing this. And so I have to think it's kind of funny because we hear stories from you know, entertainers or whatever, how they talk about like that. You know, I sung because I was trying to get about a poverty. Well, I wrote my way out of property, you know, I journalism my way if I can make up a word. I journalism my way upout poverty. I think that what you should also take away is that if you're passionate about something, you will be the best at it. You will make money. You know, when I was coming out of school, out of college, journalists were making nineteen thousand dollars a year. That was an average stary right my first year and my first job out of college, I made twenty two. I was already above the game, right, And a lot of kids and I cautioned them against this. They picked careers based off how much money they make. And I'm not saying money it shouldn't be a factor, yes, but if you pick it based off, hey, I'm gonna be an engineer because they make a lot of money, will never sustain you. You'll be out of engineering and within a couple of years because it won't be enough to keep you in it. And so if you just pursue the things you love to do those things you love, you will make the money. The money, the success you want will all come because your love will be able to sustain you during those challenging times in your career, and it will also push and drive you to take certain risks and to bet on yourself and those kind of things. You know, I love this profession now just as much as I did when I was making thirty dollars a story in college. So to me, there's no difference. And so if you can find something that gives you that amount of like joy and passion, that's the thing you do, and that's the thing that you commit to and focus on and don't let people stop you from achieving and doing your best. M great advice, I thank you for sharing it. So where can we stay connected with you? Jamal? What's your website as well as any social media handles you'd like this year? Well, my social media handles are all the same, just Jamalel, so you can certainly keep track of me there on by the network, we have a website as well, so if people want to go and check it out to find out about the show's launching, or even if they have podcasts submissions themselves. We have people that have submitted original podcast ideas that we take a look at so that it doesn't just go to somebody's email box never to be seen again. We actually do read them, and so we're always in the market for black women podcasters. Who feel like they have something to say, feel like they can approach things, you know, from a nuanced perspective that they feel like we'll really add something to the conversation that surrounds being a black woman in America. So yes, so they can certainly, you know, find me there as well. And most importantly, go buy this book because I've tried to make a New York Times bestseller list. I'm not what you gonna hold you up right, So you could get this book wherever books are sold pre ordered, get it at the bars and Noble and the airport. I don't care. Just go by this book and to borrow something that I saw Oprah does. When she buys a book, she buys it for herself and for Gail so they could discuss it. So do that by for yourself and a friend so you can talk about it. Great break tips there, and thank you so much for sharing with us today, Jamail. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad Jamil was able to share with us today. To learn more about her and to grab your copy of Upheal, visit the show notes at Therapy for Black Girls dot Com slash Session to eight one and don't forget to text two of your girls and tell them to check out the episode right now. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, check out our therapist directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash directory. And if you want to continue digging into this topic or just be in community with other sisters, come on over and join us in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner of the Internet designed just for black women. You can join us at community dot Therapy for Black Girls dot com. This episode was produced by Frida Lucas and Alice Ellis and editing was done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank you all so much for joining me a in this week. I look forward to continue in this conversation with you all real soon. Take it care