Hello everyone and welcome to todays ritual commonwealth program. My name is don lemon and ill be your moderator for today. Im excited to do this but i have a few things before we announce our beautiful wonderful sunny hostin. As the club continues tohost Virtual Events they are grateful for your virtual support and their members and donors so we hope youll consider making a donation. You can do it online or text donate. 415 329 4231. And you can text the word donate to thatnumber. We also like to think of barnyard osha foundation for supporting todays good lit events. It is my pleasure right now, my just overwhelming, deep , deeply i cant even tell you how much i love this woman but its my pleasure to welcome my very dear friend sunny hostin, awardwinning legal journalist and the coast of the view. I worked with sunny many years and we talked about so much, were like sisters and brothers and we fight butits all love. Her new book is called, here it is, i am these truths. Its an memoir ofinjustice, identity and living between worlds. The revealing her incredible story. Sunny grew up in the south bronx and through determination and the support of her parents and family she obtained a lot of degree. Went on to become a federal prosecutor and was recognized for her workasking crimes against women and children. Shes a fighter. Shes in it to do good and help people. After leading the court she went to Notre Dame Law School and after the court suddenly became a Television Legal Analyst and was one of the First National reporters to cover Trayvon Martins death. She provides a powerful voice to the marginalized and voiceless people of thisworld , really. I am thrilled to be here today to discuss her story and im going to dig into the timely themes she explores throw out her book and one more note before we get started, were going to be taking audience questions and we may do it at the end but we may do it throughout just sort of interwoven in and it depends on if something is related to whatwere talking about so submit your questions in the chat box. Sunny hostin, welcome. We have so much to talk about, how are you . Im glad to be here with you even though its virtual. I wish we were there in the same world room but im excited to be on this journey with you. Why did you decide towrite i am these truths . I just feel that the truth of it all is that you do hold the power to bethe difference. And you know that ive always believedthat. And i think that at this time we are in the middle of a pandemic, and economic crisis, a National Debate over policing. A delayed, what i think is a delayed recognizing reckoning with systemic racism and i have been journaling for so long and i had been writing and i thought if not now, when . And i have spoken to Justice Sotomayor which sounds like a huge name drop but its the truth. I had spoken to her about sharing my story and my story as you know has more failures than success. And i thought it was time to share that. Warts and all because mystory is painful. You grow up in the southbound projects with teenage parents and you want to share all of that. Is it hopeful enough, is it aspirational enough and she said youve got toshare it because it is. And it can be a story for other people and promise me one thing, you do it in spanish and in english because its so important for those people that may be struggling with english as a second language and english as you know don is my second language with everything thats goingon in the world. Do that so the little girl or little boy that will read it in spanish can have hope. Im sure you thought everyone was writing a book, they do that and especially when you have the humility, when youre as humble as you are you wonder is anyone going to care about what i write . You said you have more failures than you have successes but people dont realize its kind of how life goes. You take those failuresand those are Building Blocks to the success. Why did you feel that way . Why did you feel like you had all these failures or whatever and did you struggle withthinking no ones going to care . Absolutely and i get media feedback because im on the show and i would get, and i tried to be a voice for the voiceless because that job on the view is very important and i get these messages like youre talking about income inequality and youretalking about poverty and youre talking about the struggle. Youre getting on the view and you are wealthy and you dont know anything about it and i remember thinking they dont know. People dont know my story. They dont know how hardits been. They see you on the view and they think overnight success. Youve been working at this for decades. Ive been a lawyer over 25 years. Ive been on television for a long time. This is just the success youre seeing but youre not seeing the failures and there have just been so many of them. What did you learnfrom those failures as people are listening. I said that i like to use my haters as motivators and Building Blocks but what did you learn fromthose failures . Ive learned a tremendous amount of resilience. My father used the always say you have to be twice as good to go half as far. Ive learned that people can take excellence from you so every time ive been fired and there have been many times, at cnn my contract wasnt renewed but i knew that i had done my best. That i had been excellent, so i could leave with myhead up. And i certainly learned that and i learned that there would be another day. I learned to use my voice, that its okay. I learned humility is okay. I also learned recently that im not as good at sticking up for myself as i am at sticking up for other people. Who told you that . My husband told me. You did. I know many told you that but sunday offices used to be across from each other and we would look to each other for advice and comfort and feedback but go on sunny, sorry. Youve often said lien in sunny and you dont stick up for yourself and its so true and i write in the book how its really easy to stick up for other people, to tell other peoples stories. It certainly was hard for me to tell this story. I told the story of my parents, im telling my mothers story. My mother didnt me for about a week after she read the book actually so i talk about addiction, i talk about Mental Health and i bear a lot of secrets in that sense. And ive found that my dignity, i did not want to talk about discrimination. I didnt want to raise my hand and say this is happening to me, is this true . Dont treat me this way, i should be valued more, i did not want to do those things and i found out about myself which was a little bit shocking that i talked the talk and i can defend other people and prosecute cases and stick up for victims but it was hard for me to do it for myself. I want to ask you about the title of the book but i have to speak up on something that you said because i think being where we are in this business theres a lot of advice that we can offer people thats not just in this business but in professional life anywhere. You said that you wouldnt stick up for yourself. Often times when you get to these positions appear in, there are few of these kinds of jobs so you want to stick up for people but then you worry if i do that, am i going to lose my platform and there wont be anyone like me with this voice. Was that part of it . It was a huge consideration. There is a way to both sides that i dont get an email or a tweet or you know, id be on the street and mothers and even young people would come up to me and say thank you for being who you are. You represent me. And that meant a lot for me. And then i thought, if i stick my neck out even more for myself, there wont be someone like me on the view, on television and i remember i write about in the book part of the reasons that i always wanted to be a broadcast journalist because we dont watch a lot of television when i was growing up. And i read a lot of books and we didnt watch a lot of tv. But we did watch was 60 minutes. We watched it every sunday religiously. And i would pretend to be one of the reporters but there werent any that looked like me and my parentswere like , dont do that because youre not going to be able to speak yourself so i remember the power of representation so the thought that i would take a chance and risk being that representation for those people that would stop me on the street was nerveracking and i remember asking my family when i was typing the forward, i typed it in like 25 minutes and it just poured out of me and i remember thinking is this smart . I showed it to my husband and i said this is professional suicide, right . And he said yeah, possibly. And i was like, im going to lose my job right . And he said maybe. I did it anyway. C, lean in. I leaned in like you told me because i felt mygoodness, pandemic. Economic crisis. National debate over policing. People of color are affected more by this crisis. But i dont have the courage to do what i talked about every day on the show. Your in a privileged position. From a privilegedposition, i would be a hypocrite. There you go, girl. And i can so relate to you because you remember when i came out, do you know how hard that was . I talked about it and you read about in the book. I said im never going to work in this business again and i leaned in and it was the total right thing to do. I was living, i always tell people to walk in their own truths, so youre living in your own truth , where is that where the name comes from . I am these truths, where did that come from . I came up with the titleof this book after it was written. And im in my office now, my home office at my desk where i did a lot of the writing and i have all these hippies with things on it. And. I used to keep a copy of the constitution on mydesk. The little one, exactly so says we hold these truths to be selfevident that allmen are created equal and it should be men and women. My foot is going. Sorry, go ahead. All men are createdequal and i just started thinking about all the themes in the book about equality. And systemic racism and pay inequity and i was like, im finally telling the truth. And these are my truths and i hope it encourages people to not be ashamed of where they come from and tell the truth and i was like wow, i amthese truths. Thats where it came from because its very powerful to say that the truth of it all is that we are equal. And that we hold the power to be the difference. You are, people of color immigrants, you are the american story. So if someone tried to on the rise immigrants and people of color its insulting because of the work that people of color did, no pay , slavery, all those things. So when people try to other eyes you and make you feel like youre not anamerican , is that infuriating for you . Its painful. It used to make me angry but now its painful. And one of the things that i thought about when i was writing the book, like why do people still question my background . My ethnicity . Why is it so odd . We had just come when i was writing it, we had just come after, it had just come up again. We interviewed a family on the show and it was a spanishspeaking family. And one of the family members, grandmother didnt speak english so i conducted the interview of her in spanish and i would train for the office and i got all these obnoxious tweets that why is she speaking with a spanish accent and it was just that i was pronouncing words properly and i realized that my parents got married in 1968, just a year after the loving decision on interracial couples were allowed to bemarried and my mom , shes a white hispanic who is also a jewish descent. And my fathers a blackeye. So when they got married they had just become legal and i was a unicorn, there were people that looked like me so people tried to live in georgia which was really kind ofcrazy and the kkk ran them out of town. And so for me, i had been other eyes myentire life , even though im only 50 and in my 50s it was just unusual so i think that is why i have lived that life of a struggle of identity but it saddens me that 50 years later, people still question it because they still want to put you in this box. People have to be able to categorize something in order to feel, to be comfortable. I can understand a little bit but not as much as you as i wrote about in my book the experience in louisiana with the brown paper bag, lightskinned versus dark skin so in the winter i was lightskinned so i could hang out with the light skinfold. It was this weird color thing but i remember when we had this conversation about your like don, you realize people on cnn theydont know that im latino. They just think in terms of africanamerican and white, black and white. And i said sunny, let people know that your latino. Its okay but you felt stuck inthat world. , that no mans land sort of an michigan this, and i both, do i have to choose one . I did and for a lot of reasons it was weird because our offices were right next to cnn and spaniel had never asked me to do any reporting. I said thats kind of weird and i think one of the reasons i write about also in the book, one of the reasons and i blame myself. Is because i changed my name. My real name. Is ascencion. Did you more to make it cuter or more american or friendlier . The story is ive always been ascencion. My family called me ascencion. My friends all called me ascencion. There were a couple of people that would say no and i noticed it so i would say you can call me whatever you want to they would say how about sunshine. Thats fine, how about sunny so they called me sunny, sunshine. When i start started doing court tv with nancy grace, she could not pronounce my name and when i say could not, the struggle was real. She would like the life jamie or the cohost today. I mean, it was just a struggle and one of the brakes she said can i Say Something to you . And i said yes nancy, what would you like to say and i knew what it was about and she said his name thing, its ascencion, i cant say. She said what would you like me to do about my name nancy and she said you have a nickname and i felt the pressure at that point when i had this legal legend telling me this name is not going to cutit. I said a lot of people call me sonny. Right then she said change the comments, sonny. She just, i didnt even have a spelling for it and she changed it and i just went with it to be honest with you. I didnt like it but i went with it and after that my career kind of took off. She knows tv. Sometimes sunny, people get offended but sometimes people just are looking out for your wellbeing and they know. She was like this willwork for you because i know tv. You just have to roll with it. Thats what she told me, god always tells me to lean in. She told me and i readabout that in the book. She said youre going to make it in this business, i havent seen anyone do this as well as you without any training. But that name is going to hold you back, people cant remember it and ive got to tell you , she was right. But i felt like i sold a piece of myself. My grandmother never gave me because i was named after her sister. People would stop me when i was with her and say its hello sonny. But it would infuriate her. And i do think that cnn if i were ascencion just like sonny obrien people would have known my identity so i kind of did that to myself and if i had to do it again i wouldnt have changed myname. You would not have to . I would not have. I know, i would not have an Everybody Knows me now. My first in when i was a reporter when i went to birmingham, she wanted me to change my name, he didnt like the last name lemmon and i knew in tv if its snappy and something people can remember its great and im like don lemon. Thats the name that you change your name to, you dont want to be don clark, don johnson, like something simple and she said no one will ever remember that. No one will remember don lemon, everyone remembers sonny. But we know who you are. I want to ask you this is you talk about you were to lightskinned for the black community, to darkskinned, people didnt get it. Im going to ask you about this quick, 1936 in an essay called the crackup, it test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still obtain the ability to function. Why is it so hard for people, even intelligent people you fork with to understand him one can beblack and latino. Its fascinating isnt it. Look at barack obama. The president s have black and half white yet nobody can really recognize reconciled. I think a lot of it has to do with the history ofthis country. But one drop rule where if you are one drop black, you were considered black. And i think i remember growing up. Can we talk about that a little, that one drop is important because you can be 99. 9 percent Something Else but if you have just a smidge of black and you, you were. You were black. And because of thathistory in the country , legal documents reflect that. And you know, race is just a social constructanyway. So my Life Experience reflected that. And so you know, on my birth certificate it says black and then it also says hispanic which i look back at and it says mother, white. And then its interesting, right. But when you were still out, any standardized test you had to choose black, white or hispanic. And iwould sometimes try to circle everything. Of course you did. Rechecked the form and i think again it just goes back to the history of our country and the way people are indoctrinated to this day. And i remember feeling if i choose one, does that mean my mother doesnt exist or if i choose the other, does that mean my father doesnt exist and who i am and all my complexity. I really believe that is unique to this country, because ive traveled a lot of places. And im expected and more complexity in those other places that i am here. That is an american thing so i think that is, that personifies what were going through right now. Who have got to put you in a box. Even now people want to put you in a box. Everyone is so divided. Theres no nuance because people could not understand when we were on cnn together like you could hold two thoughts at the same time and what is wrong, why did he think that . And we would have a drink later. What is it that people cant do that anymore . Is it about the country you think in society that can hold two thoughts ortwo opposing views . I know that now it is worse than its everbeen. And i remember some of honing that skill when i prosecuted cases. At the justice department, i read a little bit about it in the book in the sense that i would argue to the debt in the courtroom. If you were the defense attorney you knew i walked in i needed to win because i was getting and i felt that i was coming in to save the day on a white horse and you stoodin my way. And i went to the wall with it. And we would argue and then we would go out for drinks and some of these Defense Attorneys were my closest friends , much like you and i are dear friends and we would battle on air much like we do on the view. People are always shocked but megan and i, our friends even though we may battle it out and say all kinds of mean things to each other on air, we can go out and drink our bourbon later and unfortunately, i think that kind of respect for difference of opinion is gone. In our country right now. Its just gone and it requires this kind of relationship that we have, don. Requires a respect for a difference of opinion. A level of forgiveness and being curious rather than judgmental. It definitely requires intellectual curiosity. And a lot of people unfortunately dont have that and they certainly dont have a respect for difference of opinion and when you talk about intellectual curiosity, what that means in my view is why is this person saying that and what experience has led this person to say that and do i see value in that . Theres always value in addition an opinion and how that person got to it. If only for you to strengthen your feelings about Something Else, theopposite opinion. Its only to make you do that, feel outraged and for some reason we cant do that anymore. And i would point to the relationship that Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg had with justice scalia. You read their opinions and their descendents and you would think they hate each other. Thats hard for me because i know intellectualcuriosity but sometimes , theyre making nice. They went out for lunch to together every friday. But they didnt agree on anything. I think we need more of that. I left out a very important part that your dad also had to change his name in the 70s and here you arein the 2000 having to change your name. I write about it and he did it and there are all these words for it. You know whats weird though sunny , you talk to people and one way and then sunny will be like whats up but after a while you get to a certain position, its all kind of becomes one thing and you just do it. Its much more natural now. I find now it doesnt surprise people. I saw chris the other night on air and i said youstupid. If not probable proper english but thats how we talk to each other. Its true and ill tell you its exhausting sometimes. My father when my parents were coming up again, its now the early 70s at this interracial couple are trying to get an apartment in manhattan, trying to get out of the south bronx. Ive just been skipped a grade. My school cant really teach me properly. Ive seen my uncle get stabbed in front of me and there like weve got to get out of the projects so we were starting to interview together for apartments and the minute they show up, the apartment is no longer available and what my mother realizes is her maiden name was rosas so she realizes i change rosa to rose and my fathers name is coming, her last name if i become rose coming and i show up with my light hair and my life i, im going to get the apartment. If i show up alone. My father realizes when he sent his resume out as an it guy, if he uses willie moses cummings, theres not a lot of white guys named willie moses but if he changes it to bill cummings, william cummings, hes going to get the job so he changed his name to bill cummings. And my mother changed her name to rose cummings. We got the apartment in manhattan and he got the job. And thats just the way it was. But what saddens my dad is that we still do it today. And it shouldnt be that way. But it is. I think theres a little of difference. I understand how you feel about the name and especially because your grandmother and its ownership, theyre proud of you as we say and i say as a blatina, but you didnt do it, you did it because sonny was just easy and it was perfect and it fit. But i understand how now if youre looking back you have the success that you have, you wouldnt have to change your name. And its a different time now that i have to ask you, we always asked what would you go back and tell youryounger self . You felt you were nervous about, you miscarried. You were about medical, your treatment with medicine, a woman who has kids in this business and so on and so forth but when you look at whats happening now, this racialreckoning. We had, i call it the summer ofgeorge floyd. If you could go back and tell your younger self in the wake of jacob blake shooting, what would you tell yourself back when you were reporting about Trayvon Martin or when you are entering news television, would you say to that sunny. Thats a tough one. Ididnt know you were going to ask that. What would i tell my younger self . I would, when i was younger i definitely thought that if you did excellent work, that you would succeed. And i think that was a very simplistic way of looking at things. I think if im being honest in the seat that i sit in right now i would advise my younger self that it isnt a meritocracy. And to be ready for that. That it isnt just working really hard and being excellent. That. Those things help, but no one. But it isnt just a meritocracy and in the, you do have to look out for those potholes and you do have to in a sense play the game be more strategic, like you always decide you can dodon. You always that 100, youve got to be strategic. You are a fighter. You are an activist at heart and im like sunny, thats great but you got to be strategic. Be more strategic. And certainly, be more of an advocate for self. I think i would tell myself. I often thought that as you know don, because im always on 100 that its only about the work. And its just not. Its not only about the work. Theres a Bigger Picture there. So you need as we call it now work life balance. But what i so admire about you is your activism and your fighting spirit and also your love of family and your sense of family and the kind of mom that you are. You are wellrounded. I think women are the smarter and most successful of the sexes because you guys can juggleso much. Take care of the home, bring home the bacon and you can do this and all that, produce children, but if men had to do that it would be completely different so sunny, i want to go touson viewer questions. The type thats really small so forgive me. This is from i think its colossae. In this time of racial injustice, Natural Disaster , how can we channel our anger and despair into positive action . And then then theres another question for both of us which is what do you admire about one another first, how do you channel your anger and despair and people asked me how they can do it into positive action during this time . As don mentioned, i am always on 100. I always feel like theres work to be done. And i start the book out by saying i was born in 1968. You got the backdrop ofthe civil rights movement. Youve got the backdrop of president kennedy, the assassinations of president kennedy, Martinluther King jr. I was borninto that. I feel like i didnt honest, my spirit gets it honest. I feel like when we need people to understand that you do hold the power to be the difference. And it doesnt have to be in the big ways. I think people feel powerless like i want this big platform and what do i do . If you feel angry, that doesnt mean, you have to channel that anger that can be in many ways. That could be being a poll worker. And ensuring that people are not turned away inappropriately. It could be as simple as making sure that you go to your local meeting and make sure that your local School District is doing right by the kids. In terms of the covid plan. It could be protesting or organizing a protest. Getting a group of friends together and virtually planning something. Bringing five people with you to vote. There is so many ways i think the harness that anger in a positive way, to affect change. I often think about the stats and this is not a partisan thing. Lets say you were a hillary person and you decided not to vote because you didnt think your approach would count. Hillary lost michigan by 11,000 votes. And in some districts she lost by seven votes. They thought they made a difference and make six friends. That would assume the difference so thats how i feel you Channel Energy and wherever you make your your purpose and you do something , just something. And as you said, it doesnt always have to be 100, it doesnt have to be a fight. It doesnt have to be something that involves the legal system or police or any ofthat. I have an experience as we were going through this george floyd thing where i went into a store andthey were opening. I walked into the sidewalk and i said i want to buy something for the store and so i bought the thing and then as i was walking back for something, i saw this woman inside the store, this white lady shopping and looks to me like it was shopping and i said to her, whats going on and he said shes training. So i wasnt sure if she was training or not i didnt want it to go to 100. Because i didnt know exactly what it was but i asked him what was going on and he knew from the look that igave him and the conversation we were having , he got. I returned item and i said im just not comfortable doing this. I dont want tobe a big deal here are your items and he sent it back. He had his lesson in that moment and it was just the thing youre right, we have to measure figure out how to dothat. One of the appropriate steps. It could be however small but just something. Just something. I think ive said that, what we admire about each other but i can answer that i love sonnys ambition but its not blind ambition. Ambition in the right way and i like that you are able to befall. I like the evolution that is sunny and i told you what else i admire about sonny, you dont have to saywhat you admire about me. I admire a lot about you. What a lot of people dont know is don is so supportive of others. So supportive. And not just of me because ive seen that supports acrosstheboard for a lot of people. There are many days when i will get a tax from don which will be as small as how are you doing or i just watched the show. That was badass. Well done. Or you could lean in here. You could have done this better. But i always know hes watching and hes supporting and he wants you to be your best. And in this business, and in light even, there are that many people that are in your corner who want you to be a betterversion of yourself. And ive always appreciated that. Iq sunny because listen, i am so lucky to have this position and i say lucky because i think im talented and fine but theres a certain degree of luck being in the right place at the right time but theres so few people like you and me, we must look out for each other. Im not in competition with you, i dont feel like it. No one can do me like ican, no one can do you like you can but heres the thing people should know. If not always just weakness and flowers, as a sunny, dont get mad at me but that lighting today. Dont let them do that to you. And you can tell me all right, thats not mybusiness. Dont forget to ask this, you know this, ask this next and its so helpful. A lot of people wont do that. Thats not the name of the person whos asking the question, sorry, thats the name of the person sending me the question. As a prosecutor who is also a person of color, how do you do policing in america, what needs to change . Thats a great question. I use to get a lot. Thank you for that sorry, go on. I used get a lot of flak actually. For being a black prosecutor, a prosecutor of color because a lot of times when people of color go into criminal law they dont go into that side ofthe law. They become civil rights lawyers. They become defenseattorneys. Even judges but certainly not prosecutors but people need to know a prosecutor is the most powerful person in the courtroom and i write about this, not the judge, not the defense attorney, if the prosecutor. That i will why i was so happy you had such inside on Daniel Cameron in kentucky because he saying i couldnt do this because of this, youre like no, the prosecutor has the power. The prosecutor tells the narrative. People that are upset about it. Breonna case and theyre not seeing a prosecution there, Daniel Taylor had the power to flip the narrative in front of the grand jury and he chose a different narrative and thats why i chose to be a person of color as a prosecutor. What needs to change . You work intimately with Police Officers and i know firsthand and have a difficult job. They want to get back home to their families as well. The problem is multifactorial but the Police Office that i worked with and that i am still friends with tell me they are sent into situations thatthey are not prepared for nor that they want to deal with. They are into schools to police children. They dont want to be there. They are also sent to deal with Mental Health situations. They dont want to do that either nor are they prepared to do that. Theyre not trained to deal with that. They are sent into situations of broken policing. They dont want to do that either. They want to Police Murder cases. They want to deal with highlevel drug cases. They want to do real policing so when you hear about this movement of the fund the police whether or not you disagree with the terminology , its really about Arming Police departments across the country with the right tools to police appropriately and that maybe diverting funds to Mental Health professionals, to answer those goals, diverting funds so that you have school professionals, professionals in school that are dealing with troubled children. Guidance counselors. Things of that nature so that Police Officers can do police work which is what they want to do but i think were sending police into situations where they have no business dealing with. I also think that we have over militarized our Police Departments. There is no reason why Police Departments have Armored Vehicles and these assault weapons that are used in war. They and in some Police Departments. Theres no reason why the Police Departments have huge budgets for settlements because they are not, because they are killing black and brown people as as opposed to having budgets for training, bias training, how to deescalate. So theres a problem with training and resources that doesnt seem to be fixed ever. And i also think that we need more people of color that are not only enrolled in Police Academies but are also elevated into positions of a supervisory position so that they can teach lowerlevel Police Officers how to effectively police in communities of color. So you think we need to just as people say reimagine policing in this country because weve gotten used to it being a certain way and we think thats the best way. Maybeit isnt, maybe it is. But its interesting to me when people are offended by it. I understand the team refund the police is, you know how i told youabout that. He hates it, don hates it. We got into this argument about it. You think people on the street were crowd serving that term and taking its advertising agencies and figuring out whether or not that was an appropriate . This is something that, and im sure if they took it to a Marketing Agency that would have come up withsomething different. But they didnt. Its not so much about the term, its about the idea that comes from. Im just saying in an election year, youve got to be, you know what im saying. Because just because people are hyperaware and even more so, the people who dont want what you want are going to use it as a cudgel. Its true. But youve got to realize that not what its about and i do write about policing and prosecuting these cases inthe book. You written about almost everything you talk about,you write about it in some way in this book. That and how to be successful being a mom, being a prosecutor, you write about all that stuff in the book. So speaking of, another viewer question. What is the most professional learning view you have experience as it pertains to Race Relations and thats just a followup. What ive learned. Where, like learned . The most significant professional learning youve experienced as it pertains to Race Relations. What have you learned the most, i dont know, maybe one experience that you had. What is the most significant professional learning you have experienced as it pertains to Race Relations . I think that my recent experience at abc if im being honest. It was really eyeopening and i start the book out with. In that we dont talk sonny experienced someone who was, who had a big role in her career in the company and was in charge of people like sonny and was accused of making insensitive racial remarks which included sonny. I said accused, and she was fired, he was terminated or had to leave or however. I dont want to get through this or whatever but in sunny , it was some very harsh things, unprofessional about sonny and sonny fought back and she continued to fight back. That is recent. It was recent, it wasjust this summer. So for me professionally. Did i categorize it properly . This person was responsible for contract negotiations for my career as well as development of my career so in terms of Race Relations , what i learned was that i think we go through life again taking a meritocracy. Thats people cant take excellenceaway from you. My father taught me that, my mother taught me that but what i did learn unfortunately is that its not just a meritocracy and that race does play a role in our lives. An outsized role in this country. And we do have to speak up and speak out about although i was very reluctant to do that. I chose to talk about it, write about it. Obviously i started the book with it. And what i learned is that while i thought it was personal suicide, in fact people at least at abc were very open about wow, thank you for telling us this is how you felt. How you experienced this and we need to recalibrate and what can we do to make it better . And how can we be better . Whereas i thought there was going to be this reluctance to talk about it. There was a reluctance to talk about it initially because when i first brought the book and handed it in, the response i got was no, you cant talk about this stuff. Youve got to take it out and i said im not going totake it out. And i went so far as the hire a lawyer as i felt like this was my truth and this was my experience but now, they were going through this delayed sort of racial reckoning of systemic racism and people are talking about it and protesting it. Ive seen a real seachange because now the response has been how can you make it better . And so thats what ive learned. As been a real professional change for me. And personal because you were standing up for yourself as we began this conversation. Thats something you would be getting i admire the evolution youhad. So what happened to you is unwittingly, you then time, you hoping other just standing for your own. Ill tell you this offline, because you know this person, i just got a check before i started this, i said im reading this, thank you so much. I experienced the same things and i really needed to read it. And im going to take some action myself. And i was just floored that what i thought would be professional suicide turned out not to be that it is giving other people the courage to speak out. But i think it is the moment that were in in thiscountry. The power you have is an individual you dont think you have but you do. And other people do as well. To what extent, someone wants to know, is social media responsible for the demise of civilityand the ability to communicate like human beings . That is the question. I feel like social media is sort of like this to headed dragon. Theres just you get so much from, i think you and i both cover a little bit of this with the arab spring. It can be used for such good and then it can be used to the detriment of so many people. My husband and i werewatching this documentary , the social , no, not the social network. Its news. Its on netflix. Itll come to me. And like, we immediately changed screen time for the kids. Were like wow, thats disruptive and i think the reason its destructive and it goes to some of the things in the book is that people will say things to each other that they would never say in person. Or they wouldnt even say like this virtually because we can see each other. People become anonymous so all of a sudden a happy twitter outposts in their moms basement and they have this fake courage. And it burdens people to lose all the decorum and it just sort of keeps on replicating. And i think its led to the demise of true civility and weve seen it from the top. There hasnt been in our history a president who is willing to insult people on social media. He has no qualms aboutit. Its the social dilemma by the way. Its kind of remarkable and i think social media has given everyone permission to say these nasty things. I mean, if i read to you the things people say about me on social media. Im pretty thick skin, im from the projects but every now and then i say wow. I have limited my comments on certain social media site just to people i follow. Its unbelievable. You cant, especially on histogram and you can do it on twitter as well. You can set it where not everybody can respond to something that you tweeted. I didnt know you can do that. I called twitterto hook me up. On histogram. I love these exchange of ideas. I love the feedback but it just has led to this incivility that i never thought that i would see. You want to hear the love and the heat from the people you respect. You dont have to hear itfrom the people you dont know or respect. You know everyone loves you. You want to see those comments but you want to see in some ways this person loves me butthen you get upset. Ifim getting it wrong , and i want to know that. I want to know that. You know this don, im such a Firm Believer in the freedom of speech. I want to hear from people but i am always shocked again the crass and sheer instability of it. Sonny, can we do a lightning round because we literally have a couple minutes left. I know, i want to go fast. Sunny, why do you want to become a lawyer . If there is one question you could ask President Trump what would it be . First of all why did you become a lawyer . I wanted to fight for people, i wanted to be someones superhero and i thought that would be the best way to do it. Is there one questionyou would like to ask President Trump, what would it be . Are you doing all this because your father didnt show you enough love . And Vice President biden. What would i ask Vice President biden . How are you, what is the first thing you would do to restore the soul of this country . Wow. Those are good questions. I think i would have 2. One is why are you so jealous of barack obama. Thats a good one. Now its because barack has more money than he has. The question was if you hadto get the truth, if there was a truth serum , how many taxes did you reallypay or didnt pay. Okay, so after writing this book and sharing such personal experiences is there anything that surprised you or that youlearned about yourself . When i wrote the chapter on motherhood which was the hardest chapter for me to write because i shared that i went through infertility, five miscarriages. And i almost lost my son in a pregnancy. And i hadnt actually told my children they were ivf babies so i had to share that with them before the book came out. I learned when i narrated book becausei narrated the audiobook , i stopped in the booth and i knew that i had a really tough time when i was going through all of this but i realize that i really have had fallen into a deep depression. And i realized that about myself because im generally such ahappy person, you know that. Im normally a very happy person. I call it out, youre too happy, im in a bad mood. But i learned that about myself that i really have a new found empathy for people that deal with Mental Illness because i really felt all the pain that i felt when i narrated that part ofthe book. Here, i have a last question and this is my question i alwayshave. Who do you think youare . Sunny hostin . I think that i am ascencion and i think i am the beneficiary of my parents sacrifice and the love and dreams of my ancestors. Love you. Thanks sunny, thank you and we have to get together when were off of limited house arrest or whatever it is were on. It will be more than a virtual hug and text. I would like to thank sunny hostin, everyone can applaud there where you are, author of i am these truths. A memoir of living between worlds, we encourage you to support ourlocal bookstore. Pick up your copy of sunnys new book today and if youd like to watch more virtual programs, support the commonwealth club. You can visit this. My name is donlon and i thank you for being here. I think sonny for everything. You guys are amazing, stay safe everyone and we will see you soon. Bye everybody. It all started with the bigbang. Is there a song in there . I wouldnt give reporter and interview unless they had read one of the best books. They had to read the book before i would interview them. For 20 years, indepth was americas top nonfiction authors or an indepth conversation with cspan2 viewers and today, join us for our live 20 anniversary special, more book talk with authors and your phone calls, facebook comments, texts and tweets. The picture on the back, remember those days . Whats in the book . The book was an examination of life