0:00

Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams,

0:02

a production of iHeartRadio and The Black

0:04

Effect. Okay,

0:18

everybody, h thank y'all for

0:20

tuning in to another episode of Checking

0:22

In.

0:23

I get the privilege.

0:24

I'm truly honored, truly humble to

0:26

interview one of my favorite

0:28

humans ever on this planet.

0:31

She is a three time Emmy Award

0:33

winning.

0:33

Co host of ABC's The View,

0:36

New York Times bestselling author. I

0:39

fell in love with her first of all because

0:41

she is an attorney, a legal analyst,

0:44

as well as a sought after speaker.

0:47

Y'all already know. Y'all know who it

0:49

is. Please welcome Sonny

0:51

Houstin.

0:52

Oh, thank you for having

0:54

me.

0:55

Wow.

0:55

You know, I remember the first time

0:57

we met. I mean I had watched you

0:59

for form, of course, but I remember the first

1:01

time we met. We were you were walking

1:04

out of a Japanese restaurant. I was walking

1:06

into a Japanese restaurant and you were like, Sonny

1:08

Housen and I was like, I know, Michelle Williams

1:10

does not know who I am. So

1:16

it was great and it's been great to keep in

1:18

touch since then.

1:19

Yes, ma'am, it has been great.

1:21

It has just been awesome over the

1:24

years, because you know, I

1:26

am a bootleg attorney. My college

1:29

was criminal justice, so I

1:32

would stay tuned and peeled into

1:35

cases that made like mainstream

1:37

television. And what inspired

1:40

me so much was to see women

1:42

of color bringing it as

1:45

it related to the legal parts

1:47

of all these cases that were going

1:49

on. I mean, killing

1:52

it sure confident.

1:54

There are times where you had to set people in their place,

1:56

or there are times you had to be.

1:57

Like, no, the person did it.

2:00

How do y'all not see it?

2:03

How do they not singing it?

2:05

So I'm just appreciative of you. I'm

2:07

appreciative you've been what ten seasons

2:10

or more on the View?

2:11

You know.

2:12

I was just reminded of that my

2:15

someone on the View I had said

2:17

during an interview six years and

2:20

she was like, no, you started guest

2:22

hosting with us in twenty

2:24

twelve, and I was like what

2:27

She was like, yep, Barbara got you into the rotation

2:29

in twenty twelve, and so I

2:32

was a guest co host for

2:35

a lot, like half the shows in a year, and

2:37

then I've been on the show formally

2:40

as a full time co host since for

2:43

seven years. It went by really.

2:45

Quickly, doesn't it. Go by

2:47

quickly.

2:49

Yeah, and it's like I started guest

2:51

co hosting, but at the time I was working at CNN,

2:54

so it was it was, you know, they wanted

2:56

me to start at the View, but I

2:58

really couldn't because I have a contract

3:01

and CNN at the time was

3:03

like, no, you can't get out of your contract,

3:06

which in a way was a good thing for me because

3:09

I was reporting out in the field. I was doing

3:11

the things that you you were just talking about.

3:13

You know, I was covering the Trayvon Martin trill

3:16

well, the George Zimmerman trial, but the Trayvon's

3:18

murder, and I was, you know, covering

3:21

Casey Anthony who murdered, in

3:23

my opinion, her, you know, her baby,

3:25

And so I was. I was in the thick of a

3:27

lot of heavy stuff that

3:31

was really important to me. And so

3:33

in a way it was great to be able to do

3:35

that that heavy lifting

3:38

and give voice to our community and

3:40

then get on the View and have a little bit of fun.

3:43

So it was it

3:45

was a good balance.

3:46

Got it. The foundation

3:48

of checking in is mental

3:51

health.

3:52

And just mentioned that, you know,

3:54

you had to cover some heavy cases.

3:57

Yeah, okay, I named.

3:58

All these brilliant things that you do. But

4:01

some of the most brilliant things that you are

4:03

is a wife and mother. Yes,

4:07

someone's daughter, someone's friend.

4:10

How were you able to handle all of these

4:12

heavy moments as far as

4:14

your mental health is concerned.

4:16

You know, it's interesting. I'm

4:19

learning how to handle it better. I

4:22

am someone who tended

4:24

to internalize things. You

4:26

know, I was the calm in the

4:28

storm. I had a pretty chaotic

4:31

upbringing because I grew up in the South

4:33

Bronx projects and I saw a lot of violence

4:35

and addiction, and so

4:38

I was always the kid with the book

4:40

that was looking for an escape from my surroundings.

4:44

And it kind of grounded

4:46

me. And my faith grounded me. You know. I'm Catholic,

4:49

went to Catholic schools. I

4:51

had a really good friendship

4:53

with a nun believe it or not, sister,

4:55

and she passed a couple of years ago, and

4:57

I still to this day have a really good friendship

5:00

with two priests, Father Edward Beck and Father

5:02

Bob, and so I was able

5:04

to turn to them. I didn't turn to

5:06

a traditional therapists, but

5:08

I turned to them for guidance,

5:11

you know, like faith guidance, Like how do I do

5:13

this? Especially when I was covering

5:16

a lot of the heavy stuff, and

5:19

it's hard, I will say,

5:22

not only covering those issues,

5:24

but covering them as a public figure, and

5:28

it's especially hard on your family. And

5:30

you don't think about that, or at least I didn't

5:32

think about that when I first started. I just

5:34

want to tell people's stories. I just want to make

5:36

sure people knew about Trayvon. I wanted to make

5:39

sure you know that people knew about George Floyd.

5:41

I just it was important to me that people knew about what was

5:43

going on community. I prosecuted

5:45

child sex crimes and trafficking. That

5:48

was the business that I was in when I

5:50

was a prosecutor, and I

5:52

pretty much put myself last all

5:55

the time. I wanted to make sure

5:57

my daughter was okay, my son was okay,

6:00

my husband was okay, and I

6:03

was doing the work. But I

6:05

wasn't as concerned about myself. And

6:07

I would say within the past five years,

6:10

especially with the help of Joy Behar and

6:13

Whoopee and my co hosts asking

6:15

me, are you okay? And I

6:17

started kind of taking stock in

6:19

that and I was like, some days

6:21

I'm great, but some dames, I'm actually

6:24

not okay. And it's

6:26

okay to say I'm not okay, it's okay

6:28

to say I think I'm going to have to

6:30

take a mental health day off today because

6:33

I need to know. I

6:36

live on kind of a modified farm, So I'm

6:38

like, I need to go out with my chickens, I need to tend

6:40

to my beehives. I need to be with

6:42

my two hundred and fifty pound New Finland

6:44

dogs. I need to

6:46

just spend some time for me. And

6:49

that's been extremely helpful. But

6:51

it took me a minute to understand

6:54

what self care meant and

6:56

how if I am not good

6:59

and centered mentally, that

7:01

I am not good and centered for anybody

7:03

else. And it's helped me on

7:05

the show as well. For sure,

7:08

it's helped me a lot well.

7:09

I think also people feel

7:12

like you should have.

7:13

Yourself already emotionally put

7:15

together before you get out on that stage.

7:18

Everyone, And just so

7:20

you know, respectfully, I don't want to just

7:22

have this whole interview be about your

7:25

first morning job.

7:26

Right on the view.

7:28

But I can imagine, like I because

7:30

I follow the View on social media, I follow

7:32

you, I follow you on social media? Right,

7:34

people a little cruel to me, huh No, that's why

7:37

they have her on the show for

7:39

her expert and being

7:42

able to handleize things.

7:43

But as a human, as a woman.

7:45

We want to know how

7:48

are people really truly feeling? And my

7:50

hat goes off to you and every

7:52

every woman on that platform who

7:54

has to take a chance in sharing

7:57

their personal views on stuff, and

7:59

like, no, they mean this,

8:02

well, this is real.

8:03

This ain't scripted, This is for rescripted.

8:06

It's not scripted. And you know, anybody

8:08

that knows me, you know me, anyone that knows

8:11

me personally. I'm a

8:13

very well researched person. I

8:16

try to be as thoughtful as possible, but I

8:18

back up everything that

8:21

I say with data and

8:23

statistics and receipts as Joy

8:25

likes to call them. And so

8:27

it does surprise me when

8:30

I say things like you

8:32

know, I'm not saying

8:34

this, but Christopher Ray, the head of the FBI,

8:37

is that the biggest threat to our country

8:40

is white supremacy and domestic terrorism

8:43

and that the black community is under attack.

8:46

And then I get someone like

8:49

Megan Kelly who gets on

8:51

her podcast that's watched by hundreds

8:54

of thousands of people, I think, and

8:57

puts pictures of my home on her podcast

9:00

and starts talking about my

9:02

children and really

9:04

puts me in danger for

9:08

what I'm saying. Factually, you

9:10

know, I am not saying that

9:13

I haven't made it. I'm not saying

9:16

that my kid doesn't go to

9:18

Harvard. I'm not saying that my children aren't

9:20

in private schools. But but I'm the

9:22

exception and not the rule. Why should

9:24

I be the anomaly? And until my

9:27

community is the rule and

9:30

my success is my community's success

9:33

and not the exception, then

9:35

I'm going to keep on speaking up and speaking out.

9:38

And it is hurtful when

9:40

people come on, you know, go on social media

9:43

and think they can call me a race

9:45

bader or a racist or

9:48

and that those are the nice things.

9:52

What does everything have to be about race?

9:54

Like? How m does everything go? I'm

9:58

giving you the statistic like, unfortunately,

10:02

in this country, the cruel legacy

10:04

of slavery and racism

10:07

has bled into everything, every

10:10

institution that we have, And when I talk

10:12

about it based in fact, I

10:15

get attacked. And

10:17

I now, though, if I'm

10:19

being honest, I have a social media

10:22

team. I do not read the

10:24

comments. Woopy Goldberg

10:26

told me to do that for my health. She

10:29

said, if you read the comments, you

10:31

may start filtering yourself, and they're

10:33

painful and they're hurtful because

10:35

I happen to be much more of an

10:37

introverted person than people think I am.

10:40

So I was taking things seriously

10:43

and Joy Behart was like,

10:45

don't.

10:45

Worry about it.

10:46

You open up your mouth. Fifty percent of the country

10:48

hates you, fifty percent of the country loves you. It

10:50

doesn't matter as long as your family and your friends love

10:52

you. And so through the years,

10:55

through the past ten years, I

10:57

wouldn't say that I've gotten a thicker skin, but

11:00

I understand human nature more, and

11:02

I understand that these people are people

11:05

that are probably very

11:07

unhappy. Some of them

11:10

don't have the education in

11:12

these topics that they need. Some

11:15

people are watching

11:17

things like Fox News on a loop

11:20

and they're fearful of

11:22

their neighbors. They're going out

11:24

and shooting their neighbors instead of talking

11:26

to their neighbors and asking for a cup of sugar

11:29

and some milk. You know. And I say that

11:31

because I live in a great community. My neighbors

11:33

will come over and ask me for things. My

11:35

neighbors will say, you know your dog has been born,

11:37

and you know it's nine o'clock

11:39

at night, can you put the

11:41

dog in and I'm not going to pull

11:44

out a gun and shoot my neighbor because my dog has

11:46

woken up their baby. So I

11:49

have learned now that you

11:51

know, part of human nature can be very dark, but

11:53

doesn't mean that I have to be a part of that.

11:56

I can give voice, I can spread

11:58

love, and I I can

12:01

be unaffected by that.

12:03

Yeah, I really can press in. We

12:05

can end this right now. That's

12:08

how graceful you are

12:10

talking about this. And I'm

12:13

hoping that by the end of this podcast

12:15

you have empowered.

12:16

People to continue

12:19

to speak up.

12:20

Like you said, people will love you

12:23

and people will hate

12:25

you, but focus on the ones

12:27

that love you. But yes, the

12:29

social media team, I'm sure will have to keep

12:31

an eye out for people that you might even have to report

12:33

to the authorities.

12:35

So they do, and I have had to

12:37

do that.

12:39

Yes, people take it, they take their little

12:41

Twitter fingers a tinge too far.

12:44

They take it too far. And you know it was

12:46

Michelle. I was telling my a

12:49

friend of mine who hadn't been to my

12:51

home for about a year. I

12:53

won't even give him the

12:56

breath, but he also decided

12:59

to kind of put my address out

13:01

there to his viewers and

13:04

within maybe an hour, I

13:07

had people at my front door, you know,

13:09

with signs. I mean they people

13:11

have a lot of time on their hands. I mean I feel like

13:13

they should be working and being with their families. But

13:16

they had signs, and I never had

13:18

gates. I live on a very big

13:21

property with my dogs and my chickens

13:23

and my beehives.

13:25

We don't get to that because I'm like, we'll

13:27

get to that. I have all of that, and I

13:29

never had gates.

13:30

And I know all of my neighbors, and my children

13:33

grew up playing basketball with their

13:35

neighbors and we have a fire

13:37

pit and they would sit around the fire pit. But

13:39

you know, long story short, Disney

13:42

had to pay for me to have security.

13:45

I have gates around my property.

13:48

Now I have cameras all around my property.

13:51

All because one hateful person

13:54

decided that they

13:56

didn't like what my

13:59

opinion was and he

14:02

had a lot of power. He doesn't have it anymore.

14:04

But you know, it's

14:07

a terrible thing when

14:10

people are so irresponsible, and

14:12

they're irresponsible on social

14:14

media as well. Social media has a lot

14:16

of good. You know, you and I sometimes will

14:19

connect and DM and how you doing

14:21

and this and that, and that's wonderful.

14:23

You've had the Arab spring and women

14:27

in Iran. Girls in Iran.

14:29

Have reached out to me.

14:30

Believe it or not, I've had women in Afghanistan

14:33

that are in hiding reach out to me. They're

14:36

such good that can happen. But

14:38

there is a lot of garbage out

14:40

there and people are taking advantage

14:42

of it, and I refuse to be a

14:44

part of that. So now my team does screen

14:46

a lot and they'll say, listen,

14:48

you've got an Afghan judge. This's

14:51

reached out to you, which you like that message,

14:53

And I'm like, yeah, send that message along because

14:55

that's someone that I will make sure knows

14:58

that I care. That's where

15:00

I am now in my life, and I'm hoping

15:03

that social media will get better. I'm hoping people

15:05

will get better, I hope.

15:08

So they're saying that things

15:10

get worse before they get better. So I

15:12

hope that we are in the turnaround of the

15:14

worst.

15:15

Me too, I really, really,

15:18

really really do.

15:23

Oh gosh, thank you for sharing all

15:25

that you've shared up to this point.

15:27

I want to congratulate you.

15:28

You just had a brand new book called

15:30

Summer on Sack Harbor.

15:33

Some of your first book called Summer on

15:35

the Bluffs. Y'all.

15:37

Let me tell you how busy Miss Sunny is. I'm

15:41

exaggerating, probably lying a little bit, but it's been about

15:43

two years I've

15:45

been trying to get her on be because she

15:48

sent me her very first book, Summer

15:50

on the Bluffs. What attracted me

15:52

to the book in the first place was

15:54

the cover and my favorite, one of

15:56

my favorite colors being that bright

15:59

pink color.

16:01

Where some are on the Bluffs is written, and

16:03

so I just was just so

16:05

excited at one of my favorite people sent

16:08

me her book.

16:09

I just want to know, how have you found

16:11

time to find all

16:14

these books? What is I write?

16:17

And it's hard because you

16:19

know, my son's in college now, but he

16:21

was home when I was writing that book. He took a

16:23

gap year. He was home. I wrote the book

16:26

during the pandemic and my daughter

16:28

was home, and my husband's home. Both of

16:30

my parents were home. And what

16:33

I decided to do was just it was so important

16:35

to me to get this book out that I put myself on

16:37

the schedule. I was like, I'm going to write from

16:39

eleven pm when everybody finally

16:42

goes to sleep, everybody except my daughter. Pull

16:44

onma, she's a night ourl like I am, and

16:46

I'm going to write definitely into

16:48

one. But because I got to I get

16:50

up around six. Yeah, I get up early,

16:53

and if I'm doing Good Morning America, then I'm

16:55

really getting up early. But I

16:57

just make an appointment with myself,

17:00

you know, to carve that time out.

17:02

I put my fireplace on. When I'm writing

17:05

in the winter or the damp spring, I

17:07

get myself a nice cup of tea or a glass

17:09

of red wine, and I just start writing, you

17:12

know, And I write kind of traditionally.

17:14

I write pen to paper, which

17:17

my editor writes pen to paper too, so it works

17:20

for us. And then I send it to

17:22

where I'm collaborating with. I have these great

17:25

ladies that I send

17:27

written stuff to which I'm sure they're like,

17:29

they hate it, and then they'll type it up for me

17:31

and give me suggestions. And

17:33

that's generally my process. Sometimes

17:36

my process has included I write a couple

17:38

chapters and I invite my family into the living

17:40

room. I'm like, Okay, I want y'all

17:42

to read this. Have I missed it? Do

17:44

you have questions? And that's been very

17:46

helpful. So somewhere on the Bluffs, I did

17:49

that a lot I didn't do it as much with

17:51

Summer on Sad because I was a little more used

17:53

to writing by then. But it's

17:56

a I make priorities, like my

17:58

kids are my priority. They're both athletes,

18:00

and so I have to go to a lot of track meets

18:02

and football games and swim meets.

18:05

But when they're fed and

18:08

in their rooms, they should be doing

18:10

their homework or a sleep, then

18:12

it's me time. And my

18:15

joy is writing. You know, I've

18:17

always written. I was a journalism major.

18:19

So did you ever think that, Okay,

18:21

I'm going to author these

18:23

books.

18:25

I wanted to. I

18:27

was a journaler when I was probably twelve

18:29

or thirteen. When I had my

18:32

kids, there weren't a lot of books

18:34

centering black children. There

18:36

are so many more now twenty years

18:39

later, but with mine, there weren't. I

18:41

make them up, you know. And my daughter was

18:43

like, please write Princess Paloma's Adventures.

18:45

And I'd write, you know, Princess Looma's

18:48

Adventures. And so I knew I had stories.

18:50

I knew I had stories in me. And

18:53

the impetus for these books

18:55

was I was traveling, and I

18:58

keep on trying to remember what I was traveled for.

19:01

It was it could have been Ferguson.

19:05

I was on the ground in Ferguson during

19:08

the unrest. Ben Crump

19:10

invited me to come and just see what's

19:13

going on. And I

19:16

wanted something light to read, because

19:18

when you start to read case files

19:20

and you start to read about black trauma, it's

19:23

like the last and I'm a preparer, so I

19:25

will have been prepared by the time I got on the

19:27

airplane. I want to read something else.

19:30

I don't want to see a movie, a sad movie or

19:32

anything like that. I want to be on the beach.

19:35

I want Stella to get her groove back.

19:37

I want to do something like that. And I

19:39

went into the book store at

19:41

the airport and I didn't see any black people

19:44

on the cover. If I'm being honest,

19:46

because that's to tell you know. You

19:48

start looking through the books and you're like, is there any

19:51

black or brown people on the cover? And if I

19:53

find one, and then I start flipping through it,

19:56

I didn't see anything, and I

19:58

was like, how is this possible? A big

20:00

old bookshop with the most

20:02

popular books and all these black people traveling,

20:05

there's no black books. And I at

20:07

that moment just started

20:10

thinking, well, maybe I'll

20:12

write a beach read, but not

20:14

just any beach read. A beach read centering

20:16

black and brown people and our

20:18

relationships and our motherhood

20:21

and sisterhood and our

20:23

men and love

20:25

and infidelity and sex and just

20:28

everything that we go through in life.

20:31

And I put it together in a

20:33

proposal. I sent it to my agent and he was like,

20:36

you know, you got some here, right, And I said

20:38

really, I was like, you think

20:40

so because I want to read it. Tony Morrison

20:42

said, if there's a book you want to read and

20:44

you can't find it, then you write it. So

20:47

do you think someone would buy

20:49

this? And sure enough we

20:51

had a book deal, a three book deal.

20:53

I thought it was just going to be one book within

20:56

a week. It was about a week. HarperCollins

20:59

came back said, this is not a

21:02

one off. This is a trilogy set in

21:04

these three different places, places

21:06

where black people were allowed to own black

21:08

beach front you know, communities,

21:10

and unfortunately, in the United States at a certain time,

21:13

there's only three, not including Bruce's

21:15

Beach of course, and not including Chicken Beach

21:18

in Atlantic City.

21:20

And I just I just started

21:23

writing. I just started

21:25

writing because I've summer on Sag Harbor

21:27

for twenty years.

21:29

We're there.

21:29

My friend Erica has a house in Highland Beach.

21:31

Her family, you know, has

21:34

had generational wealth for a long time. I

21:36

go visit her.

21:36

We're there.

21:37

This is real, Like, it's real. I've

21:39

seen you post about it, you know what I

21:41

mean. And those of y'all that are listening. I

21:44

love when the conversations flow to where

21:46

like I had this question about lack

21:48

of diversity for Beach reads, and

21:50

here we are talking about how

21:53

and what made you write Summer

21:55

on the Bluffs and Summer on Sack Harbor.

21:58

Now, I'm like, what an amazing

22:01

opportunity in the book.

22:03

You know that you have incorporated so

22:05

many important messages with

22:08

Guard University and even you

22:10

spotlight the deep history of like we said, black

22:12

communities that have frequented.

22:14

Beach towns like Harbor.

22:17

So did you know that this rich history existed

22:20

before you started the process?

22:21

I did?

22:23

I did. I read Our Kind of People by

22:25

Larry Graham Lawrence Graham. No one's if

22:27

you haven't read it, you got to read this

22:29

book. Yeah,

22:33

I'm not saying it just because he was my friend. He passed

22:35

away just a few years ago, way too young,

22:38

but he was this brilliant man who

22:41

he wrote another book called The Senator and the Socialite

22:43

about the first black Senator. He

22:45

wrote an expos about the Greenwich country Club.

22:48

He went to Princeton and I believe Yale

22:50

no Harvard Law

22:52

School, and basically pretended to be a busboy

22:55

at the Greenwich Greenwich Country Club

22:57

and sort of got the inside scoop of race

22:59

relations. And so he did all this investigative

23:01

journalism and then finally wrote Our Kind

23:03

of People, which discussed black

23:06

excellence from the late eighteen

23:08

hundreds, not like black trauma

23:10

and not about reconstruction, where I'm

23:13

not saying there's not a place for that, because our

23:15

history is being a race. So we need to

23:17

read about slavery, we need to read cast, we

23:19

need to read the sixteen nineteen project. But

23:22

what Larry did was he gave

23:24

us the Bible of Black excellence. And

23:26

he wrote about the divine nine. You know, I'm

23:28

an Aka. He wrote about Jack and Jill,

23:31

he wrote about the links. And

23:33

it was incredible to me that

23:36

there were these beachfront properties

23:38

that people owned in the late eighteen hundreds.

23:41

In Martha's Vineyard in Highland Beach,

23:43

Frederick Douglass owned a home there. His

23:45

descendants still own homes there

23:47

and they would summer on the beach, and

23:50

I didn't. Once I read that, I

23:52

was like, well, I'm going to go visit. And

23:54

that's how I started going into to

23:57

starting to visit these places and

24:00

out that my friends had homes there. They

24:02

were like, little girl, I've had my family

24:05

has had our home since you know, nineteen twenty five.

24:07

And I just I didn't know. Growing

24:09

up poor, that wasn't my

24:11

world. But what was so incredible was

24:14

people would say, well, welcome home.

24:16

There are times I'd go to the Hamptons, you

24:18

know, in the summer, like you we

24:20

had spots up in here.

24:23

You we do, and we What was interesting

24:25

was what I love about sack Harbor in particular,

24:28

because I too, used to go to the Hampton's. You

24:30

know, I live in New York and I would go to East

24:32

Hampton and Bridge Hampton and we

24:34

were the only ones there and I

24:37

felt fine, but I was

24:39

like, why are there more black people here? It's

24:41

so beautiful. And then Barbara Smith

24:43

of the b Smith restaurant fame,

24:46

she had a house on Haven's

24:48

Beach in sag Harbor, which is this historically

24:51

black beach community, and she was like, oh, you

24:53

should, you should walk down to Haven's Beach.

24:55

And I was sort of like, what is

24:57

Haven's Beach? And as I walked down,

24:59

I sa see this elderly gentleman

25:02

just picking up seashells and picking

25:05

up any kind of trash he saw.

25:07

And he started speaking

25:10

to me. And at the time I was a

25:12

little bit well known, and he said, well, welcome

25:15

home. I know you'll stay

25:17

right. And it was so incredible

25:20

that everybody on the beach

25:23

twenty years ago was African American, the

25:25

whole beach. And now, if

25:28

I'm being honest, it's about seventy

25:31

thirty sixty four black ownership

25:33

because gentrification is happening now.

25:37

Before it was undesirable to live on

25:39

the bay. But then I think people realized,

25:41

well, when you live on the ocean, you got to be a little more careful

25:43

with your children. You always have to be careful

25:46

with your children on water, but the bay you can

25:48

walk out two hundred yards and still

25:50

at your waist. And so people

25:53

started realizing, oh, this is actually

25:55

kind of nice and in a predatory

25:57

manner buying black

26:00

homes. So I started

26:02

writing to it, and you know,

26:05

I was nervous because they

26:08

like to keep it private for a reason. But

26:11

I did get the permission of the elders because

26:13

I thought that was very important. And

26:16

just this year it was designated

26:19

by the Federal Registry as a historically

26:21

black beach community, and

26:24

I'm very proud of that. I'm proud of the

26:26

fact that I'm part of the Sag Harbor Homeowners

26:29

Association and everyone's

26:31

worked really hard at maintaining

26:34

the culture, the color, the feel

26:37

of the community and it's still there for

26:39

people to people to go visit.

26:45

So I want to tell everybody she

26:47

has some are on the Bluffs part

26:50

of her trilogy, and now some are on Sech Harbor.

26:52

Listen, I don't live on the East Coast in the

26:54

New York area.

26:55

No one of people who are listening

26:58

to my podcasts who live in

27:00

on the East Coast, y'all have

27:03

to go visit. I'm going visit me that

27:05

she telling you about. I just

27:07

got a couple more questions than I let you

27:09

go. But your main character, Olivia

27:12

Jones, yes, blazing the paths

27:15

in finance. Was that

27:17

an intentional move or something

27:20

like? Is there's somebody you know?

27:22

Is it about you? It's about your girlfriend

27:25

like it.

27:26

Well, Olivia Jones really

27:28

was based on my dear friend Kathy.

27:31

She's originally from Haiti. She's probably

27:33

one of the most beautiful women

27:35

I had ever seen when when we

27:37

met in college, very dark skinned,

27:40

kind of looks like Naomi Campbell. I mean, she was just so

27:43

stunning and we became

27:45

fast friends. And she said to me one day,

27:47

do you know whenever we go out, all

27:49

the men look at you. And I was sort

27:52

of like, that's not

27:54

true, and she said, yeah, they look at you

27:56

because you're the light skinned one. And

27:59

it struck a chord with me because,

28:02

if I'm being honest, it wasn't something that I thought

28:04

about because I had friends

28:06

of all different complexions and

28:08

I just I found them all beautiful and

28:11

fun and interesting. It just

28:13

wasn't something that I thought about. And I asked

28:15

her to talk to me about that, and she

28:17

was saying that, you know, throughout her life, it

28:19

was a struggle that she was always, you know,

28:22

the dark skinned black girl, and she was no

28:24

matter how hard she tried, you know,

28:26

she was put in this little box and

28:28

that there is a thing called light skin privilege.

28:30

And I just I just took it in

28:33

and I thought, well, I'm going to write to that because

28:36

it's a shame that the

28:38

vestiges of slavery have seeped

28:40

into our community to

28:42

the point that people that are lighter

28:45

skin get treated better, you know,

28:47

like that should not be happening. And

28:49

so I wrote Olivia's

28:51

character. My friend Kathy

28:54

helped me write some of it. She's like, Nope,

28:56

that's not how Olivia would feel. She would feel this

28:58

way, and so I took her lived

29:01

experience. I did the best that I could with

29:03

it. And then all

29:06

my readers, because I did a lot of

29:08

virtual book clubs during the pandemic, I couldn't do a

29:10

traditional book tour, they start telling

29:12

me why did Olivia get something? I

29:15

said, well, Olivia dick it a lot. Did

29:18

you not see how much she got? Well, she got less

29:20

than the other sisters, and that's not fair

29:23

and blah blah blah. And people were really in their

29:25

feelings about it, and I was just

29:27

like, oh no, that's

29:29

not what I meant. And a

29:32

lot of women were saying like, thank

29:34

you for tackling the colorism issue.

29:37

But Olivia seems

29:39

to be the most unhappy. She seems

29:41

to be the angriest and I

29:44

was like, you know, I'm going to write to Olivia,

29:47

and that's where somewhere

29:49

on Sag came up. I was

29:51

only going to write about Sag Harbor

29:54

and maybe have some of the same characters, not

29:56

all of them, but the ones that people really responded

29:59

to. But and I realized, wow, I've

30:01

got a lot more work to do with

30:03

Olivia's journey. So now this book

30:05

is really about Olivia finding

30:08

what she wants, what she needs,

30:10

what she deserves. More importantly,

30:13

acknowledging her power,

30:16

acknowledging her value because she's whip

30:18

smart and she's gorgeous and doesn't know it.

30:21

And she's got her Beyonce

30:24

Anderson, who is not who

30:27

you think he is actually oh,

30:29

he loves her. She finds

30:31

a sexy new neighbor named Garrett,

30:33

who she's like, whoo,

30:36

he looks like me and he is hot.

30:39

And then ultimately, you

30:41

know, the notion of mental

30:44

health and therapy and

30:46

how do you discover who you really

30:49

are and what you really desire and

30:51

what you really want and what you deserve.

30:53

That was very important to me, and so I have her

30:55

seeing a therapist because it's so stigmatized

30:58

in our community.

30:58

I love it well, so

31:02

I heard that you

31:04

are turning some Are on the Bluffs

31:06

into a scripted project.

31:09

So I'm putting my hat in the box to play

31:11

a little bit.

31:13

I like that. I hope everybody's

31:16

listening to this because now I have it

31:18

on tape.

31:20

I'm putting my hat in the box, so

31:23

in case I didn't know. There are so many

31:26

things that Sonny is doing also behind

31:28

the scenes. You're a founder of

31:30

your own production company, and like

31:32

I said, you're developing your first book into a

31:34

scripted project.

31:38

And I love that.

31:38

One of the producers of my podcast, they

31:41

work in films, and

31:44

one of the things that she

31:47

mentioned, she says, are you finding that there is more

31:50

awareness of the terms poverty, porn

31:52

and trauma, porn and entertainment

31:54

when it comes to.

31:57

And I hate that, you know. I mean, I love

32:00

watching black centered series

32:03

and films, but then I watch it

32:05

and I'm like, it leaves me feeling

32:07

so heavy. And because

32:09

I know our rich history. My son

32:12

actually has a podcast called Untextbook,

32:14

which teaches you what wasn't in

32:17

your textbook, and so he's taught me

32:19

things about what wasn't in my textbook, and

32:21

I'm like, I know, there's all this black excellent

32:23

and black boy joy and

32:26

all of these things, and so I

32:29

basically wrote to that kind of joyfulness.

32:31

I thought that was important. And I have a first look

32:33

deal with Disney. So Disney backed my corporation,

32:36

which I was in my production company. I'm

32:38

kind of still shocked when I say that

32:40

that I would have such a wonderful

32:43

partner in Disney. And I

32:45

gave the book to Octavia

32:48

Spencer. Really, I

32:50

just figured she would put some

32:53

on Instagram for me.

32:54

I don't know what I wanted.

32:56

And Octavia called me and she

32:58

said, this is going to be made into a sea or

33:01

a film because we need it because

33:03

people are tired of black trauma, and

33:07

I should be your production partner.

33:09

And I was like, Octavia, are you serious

33:11

right now? Like I'm a first time author, you

33:14

know, I wrote a memoir and now this and your.

33:16

Tried ability track record.

33:18

I was like, I don't have a track record. And

33:20

she said, not only will I

33:22

partner with you, I will be

33:25

I will star in it. I was like, well, we're

33:27

done. Now, let's take it out to the market. And

33:30

so we took it out to market. It got

33:32

bought. I can't tell you where it's streaming because

33:35

of the writer's strike and pens are down right now,

33:37

and so I can't tell you where it's

33:39

going to be. But we have a

33:41

buyer, and we have a showrunner. Her name

33:43

is Elizabeth Hunters. If you saw Jumping the

33:45

Broom, you've seen her work, you've

33:47

seen The Five Temptations, you've seen

33:49

her work. And I assembled

33:52

that and Octavier is going to play Olivia's

33:55

mom, Sydney Cindy, and

33:57

I'm in this incredible space.

34:00

It this kid from the South

34:02

Bronx would have never imagined. It's

34:04

it's like a I didn't dream this big.

34:07

You know. I don't know if you've ever felt like that, Michelle, because

34:09

you're so talented and you're such a great singer and

34:11

you were with like, you know, stopping the

34:14

biggest, the biggest group of all time.

34:16

But I did not dream like that.

34:18

I was just like, let.

34:19

Me just like write my book.

34:21

Even then, people might think that

34:23

that's all you are.

34:25

Yeah, you're more than

34:27

the attorney. You're more than this amazing,

34:30

beautiful, smart woman on

34:33

our TVs every single morning.

34:35

Right, And so speaking

34:38

of when I was watching y'all this morning, I was

34:40

like, I'm about to interview her in

34:42

a couple hours. Pool

34:45

is this now

34:48

before we wrap up this amazing conversation,

34:50

Sonny, well for again, back to summer

34:52

on the bluffs, back to someone on South Barbar.

34:55

I'm looking for my agent to send me my script

34:58

in sides for the es. Yeah.

35:01

I love when I I love

35:03

when I at least get the audition, because

35:06

it's good to be thought of by a casting

35:08

director.

35:08

That's like, well you you're now, You're

35:10

now on tape, so I'm gonna hold you to that. I'm

35:13

excited. I'm excited.

35:16

You mentioned something earlier about all the.

35:18

Dogs, your farm, your your chickens,

35:20

and your honey you

35:22

have. I like,

35:25

what is of course you

35:27

and Beyonce both have like your

35:30

farms, your honey farms.

35:31

Oh she has a honey farm. I didn't know that. Yes,

35:34

so I love it.

35:35

I get honey from the

35:38

farm, and I'm like, honey,

35:40

that's the name of your honey, Sonny, honey.

35:42

That is the name of my honey. It's called Sonny's honey.

35:47

I'm glad to tell you something. I actually,

35:50

you know, I read a book. I'm

35:52

a nerd. I read about five books at the same

35:54

time, and I read a book by this guy, Noah Wilson

35:57

Rich and he's the only man in the country,

36:00

maybe the world, but I know in this in the United

36:02

States. Was a PhD in b immunology.

36:05

And I started reading and

36:07

he works with NASA, he works

36:10

with Harvard. He's got beehives on

36:12

the on the rooftops at Harvard. And

36:14

I was reading this book and it was basically

36:16

about the fact that if the bees die, we die,

36:19

like we need our food, you know, pollinated

36:22

and all do. And yeah,

36:25

and these bees were like dying from

36:27

these mites and they were trying to figure

36:29

out how to do it. And he came up with something where he put

36:31

the bees on space

36:34

space shuttles and send them

36:37

up into space and then the mites would die.

36:39

And so they're trying to figure all of that out. And

36:41

I basically just reached out to him. I was like, I'm

36:44

so fascinated by this. You know, what

36:46

can I do to help? And he said, you

36:48

could have beehives. Now, I was a little afraid

36:51

of bees, if I'm being honest, I

36:53

was like, I've never been stung by a bee. I'm not really

36:55

feeling the whole have the beehive

36:57

situation and he was like, if

37:00

you want to start with, I'll give you a

37:02

beekeeper. And so when

37:04

I started, I had a beekeeper. But I got

37:06

so involved in it. I started smoking

37:08

the bees and getting my honey, and

37:10

my kids got involved, and my daughter Paloma,

37:12

who's an artist, she makes candles

37:15

out of the bees wax. And it

37:17

just been stung. Though I've

37:19

never been stung.

37:21

I know you said you were never stung, but I'm like, okay,

37:23

after smoking the bees and doing it ever whatever,

37:26

accidentally like.

37:27

Never, they've never stung me. Because really,

37:29

what a lot of people don't know is if they sting you once

37:32

they die, it's so it's self preservation.

37:34

They really will not sting you unless they feel

37:37

like you're attacking the hive where you're attacking

37:39

their queen, so they don't sting.

37:41

But then the other day my husband

37:44

was very far from the hive. He was on the driveway

37:47

and a bee went right up his nose and stung him.

37:50

I ain't even want the hives.

37:51

I felt so bad.

37:53

Oh, it just flew. I'm

37:57

itching. It was so terrible.

38:01

Probably thought his nose was the high

38:03

I think he was.

38:04

He's the only person and we've

38:06

had him for years that has

38:08

been stung by I'm so sorry.

38:11

We gotta go. How'd you get

38:13

the bee and the fall out of his nose?

38:15

Yes, he was like, oh, and he was

38:17

kind of running around a little little

38:19

bit and

38:24

he's gonna be so mad.

38:25

I told this story.

38:26

He was running around and we were wondering

38:28

what happened to and

38:30

he hit hit his nose and

38:33

he killed the bee.

38:35

I'm so sorry for him.

38:38

I'm so sorry.

38:41

And he came inside. He had a

38:43

big piece of ice. Yeah,

38:45

the ice bag on his nose. I was

38:47

like, I'm sorry. He was like, I told you

38:49

about those bees. It's been years.

38:52

I have never been stung by a bee, nor

38:55

have my children.

38:56

And guess what it's We're gonna keep

38:58

it that way, because.

39:01

You know, because then I'll be looking at my Instagram

39:03

and I'll be looking on TV like Sonny Howsin's

39:05

is out this morning. Guys, we

39:08

don't even want to speak that. We don't want that to happen.

39:11

What we do want to happen is

39:13

the continued success

39:15

of your amazing.

39:17

Books, y'all. Summer on Sack Harbor

39:19

it is out now.

39:22

We're excited to see the scripted

39:24

projects and We're just so excited about

39:26

more that you have coming.

39:28

Thank you for Jue, thank

39:30

you, thank you for having me my friend.

40:43

Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production

40:45

of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect.

40:48

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