A Black Executive Perspective. Now presents need to know with the award-winning hyphenated Dr. Nsenga Burton, Dr. Burton. What do we need to know?

Good morning and welcome to Need To Know with Dr. Nsenga Burton. I am she. I am coming to you today with a little bit of sadness, a whole lot of sadness. In fact, um, the world is in mourning over the loss of the iconic actor, poet, musician, director, spoken word artist, uh, Malcolm Jamal Warner, uh, who came to us, um, as a Cosby kid on the Iconic Show, uh, the Cosby Show. And what I wanna say is that I've met him, you know, a few times in life and, um, spent some time with him and had the opportunity to interview him several times. Um, and he was always a nice guy, always respectful, super professional, and he always, always, uh, gave me an interview. Now, for those who don't work in media. A lot of times when you cover, let's say, a festival, film, festival, TV festival, um, or even like an opening of film, you have to work with publicists. And sometimes publicists don't have a great respect for smaller venues, right? A smaller outlets. So they, you know, have whole rooms dedicated to like, let's say, A CNN or an M-S-N-B-C, or Fox News even. Um, but then, you know, you're. Thrown into a room with 25 other outlets, and they're telling you, you get one minute with the person. Um, and then they put the outlets in order of importance. Um, so you have to have a lot of humility and your outlet might be at the front or might be at the back, or might be at the middle. Um, so you have to have a lot of humility when you do media because, and when you're independent and black owned, which is what the Burton Wire is, um, and has been for 14 years, uh, you have to have a lot of humility because people may not have heard of you or they may not be aware of our, our strategic content partnerships, um, and how far our reach really is. Uh, and so they sometimes. Don't treat you very kindly and they don't treat you with a lot of respect. And, uh, publicists, you know, not, and I've had great relationships with publicists, so they're not all bad, but some of them, uh, particularly those who come out of Hollywood who are very much bottom line driven. Um, and in their defense, that's how they keep their jobs. Um. They will skip over you. Uh, they will be disrespectful. They will have you wait for hours and hours and hours and then not give you the interview. They will give, you know, like I said, hours to, you know, an hour to someone else, 45 minutes, 35 minutes, and then come around and tell you you got 30 seconds, one question or what have you. Um, and so sometimes you are not able to interview people the way that you want to or get what you need to write a compelling story, uh, which is why you see so much. What I would call crap, I'm 52. So, uh, I think if you don't take the time to, to write a compelling and engaging story, then it's crap. Uh, but you just see so much. Um, more social media driven stuff, like a picture with a celebrity, but no story to go with it. Um, and things of that nature. So all of this leads me back to Malcolm Jamal Water, um, queen Latifah's like this too. Uh, Taraji p Henson is like this too. He was never, ever walked by me and not stop. And say hello, have a conversation, and then answer my questions. And if his publicist, um, or you know, the person who might be in charge of the room, the press room or whatever, would try to urge him on when we were in conversation, uh, he would stay steady and say, Hey, I haven't finished talking to Senga. Just gimme a few more minutes. And then that way I would have more minutes with him. Um, and so I just wanted to share that with people because the reason you haven't seen anything bad written about him is because there really isn't anything bad about him. He's, he was really a good man, a good person, a. A good human being. And he was decent in, um, all aspects of his life from what I that, from what I understand, um, and certainly in his professional life. And so we are thankful, um, that he thought enough of the small yet mighty independent black press, um, to share her stories and to treat us with the same respect and give us the same access. Um, that was also given to, uh, what I would call major media outlets. So, um, we are profoundly sad today. Um, and many of us are sad about this untimely passing first 'cause it's tragic. I mean, you know, he passed away on vacation with his family. We know how private he was about his family, how guarded and protective he was of them. So to think about this great protector no longer being there with his family is, is really sad. Um, it's also because, you know, we grew up with him. He was like our first little brother. For those of us who didn't have brothers. Um, maybe he was your first crush. Um, he's your first play cousin in your mind. 'cause he was, he was so funny. Um, things of that nature. He, he, he embodied that and he also embodied what we like to call black boy joy. We, we call it now. Um, back then, I don't think we. We had a, a term, he had coined a term for it yet, but he had black boy joy. Um, not only on the show, but also in subsequent roles, um, with the exception of the resident. You know, he played a jackass on the resident, but he was very good at it. Very good. Um, but you know, this whole idea of him when he was young and when, you know, the Cosby Show, which is a groundbreaking show. Say what you will about Mr. Cosby. But it was a groundbreaking show. And to be able to see upwardly mobile or some would say affluent, uh, black family in Brooklyn, uh, New York during the, uh, eighties and early nineties, uh, particularly with the, I mean, horrible representations of black people that were pervasive, uh, in media at that time, um, especially, uh, in, in News, um, was. Fantastic. It made us feel seen, um, those of us who struggled with being, um, kind of. Part of a new class for your family, but coming out of, uh, of the mud as people say, like to say, um, and trying to figure out what that looked like or what that meant. Um, we had some role models and he was a role model for young black boys, young black girls, um, and I would say black people in general. Uh, in terms of who you can be. Um, and last, I'll leave you with this. He also was an activist in real life. And even on the show, um, there was a, a situation where he had a, uh, end apartheid, um, sticker on his door and he and, um, Mr. Cosby had to go to war, um, with the television executives to keep that sticker. They did not want that sticker, but they found other, um, subversive mains of. Of getting to the end result, uh, they kept a sticker, but they also named the twins. Saunders twins win Winnie and Nelson. Right. Um. And then also the introduction of dyslexia, which had not previously been talked about on tv. Um, which is a learning, uh, disorder or learning challenge is what we would call it now. Um, and that, that his character suffered from it and, uh, dealt with it and was able to have a full life. You know, he went on to school, uh, and this is Theo, um, to NYU and graduated and then turned around and used his talents, um, to help the community. Um, and so, you know, Malcolm Jamal Warner's characters, um, you know, were diverse, but that character was iconic and groundbreaking and really meant something, uh, to viewers. And I would argue not just black viewers, like viewers overall, like what does being a, a boy look like? What does being a good boy um, look like? Um. You know, who still had his own mind, his own thoughts, um, and his own quirks. So what I need you to know is that tomorrow's not promised. Um, and we only have one life to live. Like truly. We only have one life to live that we know of. And I know people, you know, regardless of your religious affiliation, whether you're agnostic or a atheist or what have you, we have one life to live that we know of. Uh, and so. What I need you to know is make it count. Uh, Malcolm Jamal Warner made it count, which is why people are literally heartbroken, uh, over his passing and over his loss because we've lost, because he's no longer on this earth and I just can't imagine a world without Malcolm Jamal Warner in it. But here we are. All right. So, um, tune in next week. So rest in peace. Uh, Malcolm, Jamal, Warner, Malcolm, or as people call him. Uh, condolences to his family, both of his parents. Um, he talked a lot about his mother, but his father's also very much a big factor in influence in his life and very present. Um, and his, his small, uh, but mighty family that will have to continue without him. Um, rest in power. He was a righteous brother. And, um. We, he will be missed. So tune in next week to A Black Executive Perspective. Um, an award-winning podcast with Tony and Chris who are amazing and also being serve, serving as great role models and a problematic period in American history. Um, so adding to that canon of fantastic, uh, podcasts and culture. Um, I will see you next week as well. Uh, stay focused, stay informed, and stay tuned. A Black Executive Perspective.