The Next Big Story: My Journey Through the Land of Possibilities
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE - MY LIFE OF PERPETUAL MOTION
CHAPTER TWO - GETTING STARTED
CHAPTER THREE - A PLACE AT THE TABLE
CHAPTER FOUR - FINDING MY VOICE
CHAPTER FIVE - AN AX TO BREAK OUT
CHAPTER SIX - WORDS TO CHANGE A NATION
CHAPTER SEVEN - BLACK IN AMERICA
CHAPTER EIGHT - NOT BLACK ENOUGH
CHAPTER NINE - LATINO IN AMERICA
CHAPTER TEN - A VOICE IN THE DEBATE
CHAPTER ELEVEN - ONE CHANCE TO SUCCEED
CHAPTER TWELVE - MISSION TO HAITI
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - THE LIGHTHOUSE
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - RESCUED
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - GOING HOME
Acknowledgements
CELEBRA
Published by New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,
Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,
Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,
Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre,
Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632,
New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue,
Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England
First published by Celebra, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, November 2010
Copyright © Soledad O’Brien, 2010
All rights reserved
CELEBRA and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
O’Brien, Soledad, 1966−
The next big story: my journey through the land of possibilities/Soledad O’Brien with Rose Marie Arce. p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-46611-7
1. O’Brien, Soledad, 1966− 2. Television journalists—United States—Biography 3. African-
American television journalists—Biography 4. Women television journalists—Biography
I. Arce, Rose Marie. II. Title.
PN4874.0355A3 2010
070’.92—dc22
2010029396
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however the story, the experiences and the words are the author’s alone.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
http://us.penguingroup.com
To my mom and dad and Brad, whose appreciation and support have never wavered, even when I didn’t necessarily deserve it
INTRODUCTION
I am crammed in an uncomfortable little stick-shift car climbing over the edge of the Patagonia region of Argentina into Chile. It is the middle of the night and these huge bare trees with peeling white bark stand out against the sky like creepy phantoms. We swing left and right, zigging and zagging, up, up, up, past a forest of ghosts.
I’ve been diverted by CNN from reporting in Haiti to cover an earthquake in Chile. I have flown through Miami, Panama, Lima, São Paulo, Buenos Aires and Bariloche in twenty-four hours to end up on this mountain road. The plan is to enter the disaster zone by land because the Chilean airports are closed. We finally hang a hard left turn and climb over the top of the last big mountain. A huge white ball rises above the landscape and lights up the night. I have never seen a moon so large, so round and so close, floating in vast black space like a beacon for travelers.
My journey as a journalist takes me to places of great beauty and deep sorrow. I never know what or who will emerge past the next turn. I just know that being a reporter has given me a unique opportunity to bear witness to the humanity of another moment, to follow the magnetic pull of a bright moon into uncharted territory In a few hours, I will walk the streets of Concepción, Chile, and see looters thrown down by water cannons. I will sleep stranded by a roadside as the earth rocks from aftershocks. I will tell the world via satellite that help needs to be on the way. I will once again see people rescued from disaster, not by nations or organizations, but by the kindness of a stranger who decides to reach out beyond themselves. I will record the latest opportunity in life to do right by each other during the worst of times. I have told this story in places as far-flung as Thailand, New Orleans, and Port-au-Prince. Bad things happen until good people get in the way. I learned this life lesson growing up in Smithtown, Long Island, and I see it almost everywhere I go in pursuit of the next big story of the moment. People have an incredible potential to do good and make good and seize good from bad if they will only make the choice to do it.
I have had that same chance many times over and I am so thankful for the opportunity. I began life as the child of a mixed-race marriage growing up in a white suburb, treated sometimes as a creature of bad circumstance. My immigrant parents made sure I had the potential to capture my American dream anyway. I was handed a life of possibilities. That experience left me with the urge to chart how those around us get their chance at life and whether they go on to share their good fortune with others when the time comes.
So often I am disappointed one minute only to be elated the next. In Concepción, I see adults whose homes and lives were spared by an earthquake trolling a shopping mall to steal cell phones. Then, a block away, a line of volunteers work all night to clear the way for rescuers to pull total strangers from the rubble of a building. You can be a looter or you can be a lifeline. The choice is yours. That is often what I report.
I am lucky I get to leave Chile in its crisis. I return home by barreling through the chilly skies above the Andes on a Peruvian police transport plane. I ache from the bitter cold and loud buzz that shakes my senses. But the pretty moon shines slices of light through the windows. There is always good with bad. It’s all in how your mind
wraps around the moment. I think of the people lifting those heavy blocks of rock to help out no one in particular. I look to the part of the journey that reveals the best in us. I always try to remember the beautiful moon and how it draws me back home and then out again on the next assignment.
CHAPTER ONE
MY LIFE OF PERPETUAL MOTION
I’m eleven. My sister Estela is fourteen. We’re at a photographer’s studio to get a picture taken to give to our parents. The studio is on the main street in Smithtown, Long Island, not that far from where we live. The photographer says, “Forgive me if I’m offending you, but are you black?” For a moment, I’m speechless. I turn the comment over in my head. I can’t figure out what he means. My sister is light-years ahead of me. She starts to shred the guy “Offend us? Offend us? By asking if we are black?” He is maybe thirty but he seems old to us. He has dark brown hair and he’s tall. He’s white and we’re two mixed-race girls trying to get our picture taken as an anniversary present for our parents. It’s 1977. I’m this cheery, optimistic kid who suddenly feels quite sunk.
I just stand there in my big sister’s shadow. I’m trying to figure out why the nice-sounding words make me feel small and embarrassed. The photographer is being exceedingly polite but he’s crushing my girlish self-confidence. “Forgive me if I’m offending you ...” What is that supposed to mean? Why would it be offensive if he were to call me black? I am black. I am also Latina, and half white through my Australian father. That isn’t typical in Smithtown, but there is nothing wrong with me. My name is sort of long. I’m Maria de la Soledad Teresa O’Brien. I am fast becoming “Solie” to my friends. I’m a kid so I draw a little heart over the “i” when I write it. My hair’s combed back in a bun and my clothes are what an eleven-year-old would wear. His tone makes it sound like something about me is off, especially the part about not offending me by assuming I’m black. I just don’t understand how it could possibly be offensive to be black.
This is the first time I remember feeling like I might be disliked for who I am. My mind does leaps on this theme. But Estela is totally on it. I am very impressed that she can articulate her anger so well at fourteen. She is already able to take apart a grown man. She’s so much more on top of it than me. “Forgive me if I’m offending you ...” We don’t have to take this crap. And from a photographer? Estela gives me the universal body language for “we’re taking a walk” and off we go.
I think this was the day it began, my life of perpetual motion. There was a time when I was always walking away from comments or stares. There was the store where someone explained that I couldn’t be black because black people were thieves and killers. Um, gonna put down this jacket and leave now. I didn’t feel rejected; I felt annoyed and confused. I was proud of my identity. I thought I fit in comfortably in my suburban town. It was off-putting when someone came out with something nasty, something that signaled that not everyone saw me the way I saw myself. I always expected the best from folks so it came as a surprise. It would take me a moment to figure out if that’s what they really meant to say Then I would refuse to let it get to me. I was a middle-class girl in a middle-class Long Island suburb, but my young life became like those games of dodgeball we played in the school yard. When you move, you can’t get hit. You survive to play again. By doing that you come out the winner.
There was the day I was walking down the hall to sixth-period science class. An older kid, eighth grade, came right up to me. “If you’re a nigger why don’t you have big lips?” he asked. It killed me that not only could I hear him: I actually could feel myself trying to formulate an answer, as if the question necessitated a response. There was no hostility in his voice. It was just this question he hurled at me in the rush to change class. He wasn’t much bigger than me; he wasn’t even scary. Just a guy with long sandy brown bangs swinging past his eyes like windshield wipers. I rushed past him, recording for some reason the colors on his short-sleeve shirt. I could pick him out of a lineup today, almost thirty-three years later. That day, I just pursed my mouth and kept moving, walking away. I wouldn’t dignify him. I had to get to class.
I’ve been a journalist now for more than twenty years. I go sprinting from story to story. My life moves fast. I am a big version of the little girl in Smithtown except now I’m walking toward something rather than away from it. I force people to consider every word they’ve said in interviews. I dig in to the awkward question. I revel in making people rethink their words. Nothing stops me. I am not the type to dwell on bad things. I have no patience for people who do. I am the glass half full, the one who insists there must be a way to fix things. It’s not that I’m propelled by unfounded optimism. I just can’t suffer the small stuff or the bad stuff or the meanness we encounter in the world. I think better of life, that it harbors the possibility we can get past things and come out better on the other end. I see life as a series of victories, of wins. I live to capture that feeling when your chest cracks the ribbon at the finish line and tiny triangular flags flutter high above the track.
I graduated with honors from the school where being half black and half white meant I was the brunt of bad jokes. I went on to Harvard, just like my sister Estela, like all six of us, in fact. I am by all accounts a successful journalist. I produce award-winning documentaries about challenging subjects like race. I went on to write books, give speeches, marry a great guy, have four healthy kids, and anchor a network TV show. That eighth-grader in the hallway didn’t hinder my forward motion one bit. Whatever became of him and his life, he was wrong about me. Whatever assumptions he made about me, I proved him wrong by succeeding.
I won not just because I charged on. I won because experiences like that changed me for the better, not for the worse. I learned that I didn’t need to stop and confront every injustice thrown my way That I could win just by moving along. That feeling angry was healthy, if I used it as a motivation and didn’t let it fester. That anger could teach me. That my experiences would help my work as a journalist because I could identify with people with whom I had little in common. I refused to let anger find an ugly place to grow deep inside my gut. I refused to let it lie fallow inside of me, waiting for some new idiot to make it grow like a desert weed in a flash flood. I knew that if I let anger take hold of me, every person who rubbed me the wrong way would be paying for the guy back at the photo store in 1977. “Forgive me if I’m offending you ...”
So I’ve figured out a strategy of pushing forward. And I think it’s a good choice to make. One thing that’s certain in this country is that not far around the corner from every ugly thing there’s something really beautiful. And if you stop at every bitter comment you will never reach your destination.
My mom and dad initiated this life strategy long before I arrived. They lived their lives in flight. My father, Edward Ephram O’Brien, or “Ted,” took off from a rural town called Toowoomba in Queensland, Australia. His family had a mill and wanted him to work there as a chemical engineer. He disliked the strictures of working for the family business, so he took off for the United States instead. He studied at Purdue in Indiana, then at Johns Hopkins near Baltimore.
My mother, Estela Lucrecia Marquetti y Mendieta, began her journey at the age of fourteen. Her family was poor and black and living in Cuba. She wanted to study and escape the sweltering heat, racism, and isolation of pre-Castro Cuba. She connected with the Oblate Sisters, a Roman Catholic order of women of African descent. She went to study with their counterparts in Baltimore, who raised her to adulthood. She was working in a science lab at Johns Hopkins University when she met Dad.
My dad had the build of a rugby player, which he was, and which he still has at seventy-seven. He had a firm, almost mischievous smile and ivory skin. There are old photos of my dad with his rugby T-shirt. Although he’s one face among seventy, I can always pick him out by his smile. I think I look like him. His hair thinned young but he was always handsome.
Mom’s skin was the color of a coconut shell. Her ey
es were wide and bright. Her black hair was shiny and combed back. In those days a press and curl was in vogue and she was very fashionable. She had these full cheeks as a young woman, smiling cheeks. My mother was a natural beauty. My parents looked and spoke like immigrants making their way to a different life. Their accents faded with time but they were always present. The two of them were making their way separately to mass when Dad offered Mom a ride. She said no. My mother is the kind of woman who goes to mass every day. Yet she turns down a ride if it’s offered by a man she doesn’t know. That pretty much describes her. But my dad just kept asking, and I can imagine him tossing his funny little jokes through the car window, working his charming Australian accent and his easy smile. One day she finally said yes.
Dating for them was something like my experience in school, a game of avoiding issues with race. They traveled from place to place looking for someone willing to serve a young white man on a date with a black woman. It was Baltimore in 1958, so there were many places where eyes would follow them as they came to sit, places where folks would get up and leave or come over and say something offensive. But most places just wouldn’t have them at all. It didn’t faze them. My mother cooks great Cuban food. She had to bring my dad home when no one would serve them on their first date. She always advised us to learn to cook.
When they decided to get married their church said no. It wasn’t legal in Maryland in 1959 for someone black to marry someone white. A lawyer asked them if they were willing to become a test case to challenge the ban on interracial marriage. They declined. They didn’t want to be part of a legal case that would stop their forward motion. They drove to Washington, D.C., where it was legal for them to get married, got hitched, and came back to Baltimore.