The Root

Somewhere along the way, ambition ate every principle that this man claimed to have.

So joining me now, and those are my words, these are not my guests' words, historian and political commentator Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an old friend, and Danielle Belton, an old friend as well, former editor-in-chief of The Root and HuffPo.

the Huffington Post.

Good morning, both of you.

Oof.

Thank you for that.

And Daniel, I have to ask you something very similar because, you know, you work for The Root and let's just talk as to just two black folks here.

Tim, what, it's embarrassing when, and he does this like Southern preacher, black thing and, What's happening here? I mean, does he not see himself? Speaking of mirrors, when I said Donald Trump doesn't own a mirror, does Tim Scott not have a mirror? Does he not go back and look at the videotape? He is publicly embarrassing himself in real time.

I'm so excited to be here.

You're a media owner and publisher, The Root, the first black woman owner of The Root.

Yes.

a place where we all go to get our information and news.

So I'm excited to be here to do that today.

All right.

Well, I cannot wait to highlight everything that you have going on, but also letting people know how they can support and be involved in The Root because it's so important.

It's an election season right now.

They're seeing their lives get harder and worse and more expensive.

And they're seeing, you know, a Democratic Party that doesn't seem capable of fighting against the fascism that is that is the root cause of these things and the corporate greed.

And then they're seeing this organization that is open to anyone to join.

It's a very low barrier to entry that offers social opportunities, the parties that I think are actually a really integral part of our organizing, and an opportunity to fight for things like universal health care and social housing and a democratic socialist mayor, and an opportunity to get involved in campaigns doing exactly that.

And that was Assemblymember and Congressional hopeful Claire Valdez, the Democratic nominee for the 7th Congressional District in Brooklyn and Queens.

Coming up, Eljoy Williams is the head of the New York State chapter of the NAACP.

She just wrote an essay for The Root about how to grow Black political power in New York and what the rise of the DSA means to her.

Get ready to call in with your questions and comments coming up after a short break.

Type in Dr. Jason Johnson.

Um, in 2017, I was in Georgia and I was writing for The Root, and I wrote this column called, uh, That White Boy About to Lose.

[laughs]

And it was literally [laughs]...

She earned a doctorate in English from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Illinois.

Her short fiction and essays have appeared in the Paris Review Daily, New York Magazine's The Cut, The Root, The White Review, Plowshares, 400 Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019, and The 1619 Project, among other publications.

In addition to a debut novel with Scribner, The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Rich Milford, which is the, gonna be the focus of our conversation today, and comes out on October 6th.

She also has her young adult debut forthcoming with Make Me a World from Penguin Random House.

Mike is already a guy though [laughs]

One of our guys who be on Clubhouse, Clay, you know, he, he with The Root.

He doing all types of stuff for Black people right now.

He out in LA.

The Root?

Yeah.

The Root?

Mm-hmm.