Soledad O’Brien profile…
The Irish Echo’s Niall Stanage has a profile of American Morning’s Soledad O’Brien…(via WHAC)
O’Brien tends to treat her own ethnic mix with a light touch. She said that people laugh when they see her without makeup “because I have so many freckles that I look very Irish.” She also gently mocked the notion that her mixed-race background exposed her to unimaginable horrors.
“I have had people say, like, ‘Oh, so you were a tragic mulatto?’ Well, um, not exactly. I was just a middle-class girl growing up on Long Island.”
Asked about her parents’ experiences, however, she swiftly - and understandably - became more serious.It isn’t possible, she contended, “to over-dramatize” what they went through. Her parents met as students at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. At the time, racism was so rabid that interracial marriage was banned outright in the city. When O’Brien’s parents were dating, restaurants would not serve them together.
“They were doing stuff that for the time was very risky - socially risky and risky to their own physical safety. And they decided they were going to go ahead and get married and have six kids,” their daughter recalled.
“When I was an adult, I would ask them what that was like,” she continued. “‘Oblivious’ isn’t the right word… but they felt people’s opinions were irrelevant to what they wanted to do.”
Funny, I thought I read not to long ago where she said she had such a hard time. Perhaps she should make up her mind. Sorry, not a fan of hers.
Comment by bravesfan — October 21, 2005 @ 10:46 am
She changes her stories to match the publication she is being interviewed by. She’s done that for years.
Comment by Chris — October 21, 2005 @ 5:13 pm
@Bravefan:
Sorry that some people don’t have a life made up of just one single story, like you. I know that I have my bad days and my good days, and depending on what mood I’m in, that’s the version you’ll get out of me.
@Chris:
you want to refer to a few examples…dying to know if this is true.
Comment by reader — October 21, 2005 @ 10:25 pm
First of all, I don’t know why you are attacking me. I never said that my life was made up of one story. There is a difference though between having your life made up of multiple events and saying on some occassions that you had such a tough time and then saying on other occassions that you grew up well. This is black and white. You can not have it both ways so she needs to make up her mind on which story it was. This is not a matter of good days and bad days.
Comment by bravesfan — October 22, 2005 @ 1:59 am
Soul-a-Bad should return to her Johns Hopkinsian “ROOTS” and quit referring to our leader as her long lost cousin…..”Chicken George”……so to speak.
Comment by Roger C. — October 22, 2005 @ 10:42 am
Soul-a-BAD…how long did it take you to think of that lame thing?
Comment by Person — October 22, 2005 @ 8:32 pm
Lame, are you crazy, it’s wonderful! It’s the best nickname for her. She’s so Soul-a-BAD!!!!!
Comment by Mia — October 22, 2005 @ 9:02 pm