BEP Narrator:
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A Black Executive Perspective now presents Need to Know
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with the award winning hyphenated Dr.
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Nsenga Burton.
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Dr.
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Burton.
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What do we need to know?
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Dr. Nsenga Burton: Good afternoon.
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Thank you for tuning into
need to know with Dr.
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Nsenga Burton.
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I am your host, Nsenga Burton.
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Today, we're going to be
talking about Janet Jackson, Ms.
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Jackson, if you're nasty, uh, who has been
in the middle of a firestorm of criticism
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because during an interview with the
Guardian publication, When asked about
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our current vice president, Kamala Harris,
his historic run for the White House, she
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said, or repeated some misinformation.
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I would call it disinformation, but
misinformation has been circulating
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about vice president Kamala Harris.
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And that is that her father is white,
which we all know is incorrect.
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He is Jamaican and there
are white Jamaicans.
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He's just not 1 of them.
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And so.
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She has been caught up in a firestorm.
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Uh, 1 of her colleagues, he was not
authorized to make a statement on her
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behalf, but he made a statement probably
trying to save what is probably going
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to be a lot of money gone or lost for
a show that he's executive producing
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for her in Vegas made a statement.
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That was a mistake.
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She had received misinformation.
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Didn't mean to make the comment and.
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You know, for all intents and
purposes, you know, it was a mea culpa.
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Well, um, Miss Jackson and team, and
she's managed by her brother, Randy,
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uh, refuted that they made the apology
and then fired said person, colleague,
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uh, for making the statement because
they weren't authorized to do so.
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So, of course, now there's even
more hysteria and foolishness
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surrounding what is a very singularly.
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Terrible event in one's life.
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So some people, including her
friends, like whoopi Goldberg have
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been like, just give her grace.
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Others have been like, Oh, she's
been living in London for the last
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eight years and all of these things.
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So I wanted to talk about it from
a professional perspective because
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Janet Jackson is an industry.
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She's an icon.
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She's a business.
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And, you know, whether she's lived in
London for 8 years, whether she's a
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Jehovah's witness, practicing or non
practicing or whatever, all that she's
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raised as a Jehovah's witness, whether
or not she's bereaved because her older
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brother Tito passed away last week.
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None of that is acceptable in
terms of the statement that she
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made and it is misinformation and
she should just simply apologize.
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Sometimes as leaders, particularly
in our corporations and in our
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workplaces, we make mistakes.
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You know, um, and in the same way
that we have to apologize, people
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have to be able, or we willing to
receive them, but we make mistakes.
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We do things that we shouldn't
do sometimes say things that
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we shouldn't say we misspeak.
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Sometimes you have incorrect information.
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Sometimes you don't know the
whole story and you're speaking
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from a point of authority and you
misrepresent someone's intentions.
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Or their contribution, sometimes
we overlook people's contributions
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because we're not sure, or we're not
aware of the extent to which they have
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contributed to a project or to something
that turned into something fabulous.
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And so you're thinking 1
person or 2 people, and it's
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really 8 people behind it.
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You know, these things happen, but
in this case, it's more significant
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because Miss Jackson is an icon.
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She is a legend and she is a role model.
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And she is an industry and she
part of her image has always been,
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uh, someone who is accessible, you
know, someone who, um, is, you know,
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taking control of her life, right?
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She's empowered, even with
the Super Bowl debacle.
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Um, she recovered from that.
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It took a long time, but
she recovered from that.
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And people empathize with her because,
you know, we believed it was a mistake.
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And even if it wasn't a mistake,
it did not warrant the kind of
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backlash that she got from it.
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And, you know, the.
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The, uh, attacks and, um, really the
labeling and the hate, you know, from,
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uh, the former CBS president, Les Moonves,
who, you know, worked for years to keep
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her out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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So, you know, we understand that
Miss Jackson has been through
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things, you know, she's a woman.
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She's African American woman.
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She's an icon and a star.
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But there are certain things that
you have to know as the leader and
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as the leader of a group of people,
she is the leader of corporation.
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She has many, many people on her team.
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She does many, many
different types of things.
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You know, she's an entertainer and she's
supposed to have a Vegas residency that
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I would say is probably in jeopardy.
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Although it's Vegas.
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So, you know, you know, whatever happens
in Vegas stays in Vegas, but you know,
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some things that could be in jeopardy
for her based on this one mishap.
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Um, so I would say, stop with the excuses.
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You know, she's lived in California
most of her life and Kamala Harris
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has been making history, uh,
in California her entire life.
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So she should actually know who Kamala
Harris is and know enough about her.
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To know that she is a black
identified woman, you know,
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she's biracial multiracial.
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Many people are sometimes people refer
themselves as biracial and multiracial.
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Other times people choose
1 of the categories.
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Right?
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But that's up to them.
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We all have the right to identify.
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However, we want to identify
and to present ourselves
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in the way that we want to.
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So, Kamala Harris has chosen
to identify as a black woman.
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For most of her life, you know, she's
never denied her Indian heritage.
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She's never denied her mother.
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If you've read any of her books,
she has to, you should read them.
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Um, you know, that she's very
proud of her Indian heritage.
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So, um, that doesn't mean that
she doesn't that she isn't black.
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That just means that she is multiracial,
like most people in the United States.
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So, um, yeah, I say to miss
Jackson, um, you know, you should
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know that it doesn't matter.
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And not only to miss Jackson, but
to everybody, it doesn't matter
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what your religious practices are.
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You don't have to vote, you know,
as part of your religious practice,
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but you really should know who your
representatives are in your own state.
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You should know who's running for
president, and you should know
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something about them, even if it's
not your candidate, you know, um.
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You know, even if you're not voting
for Kamala Harris, you should know who
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she is, like, legitimately, you know,
if you're not voting for Donald Trump,
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you should know who he is legitimately
if you're going to be silly enough to
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not participate in the voting process.
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That's that's your decision.
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That's your prerogative.
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But you should know who the candidates
are, what their platforms are as
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a business leader as someone who
pays other people has someone
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who other people look up to.
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You should at least have the basic
information and being part of a religion.
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Not living in California
for the last eight years.
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Um, and, you know, somebody telling
you, which I mean, Janice older
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than me, somebody told me the wrong
information is not good enough.
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That's not going to get it.
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So, this leads me to the final
point, which is integrity.
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Integrity is knowing the difference
between what is right and wrong.
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And choosing what is right, most of
the time, and if you choose something,
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choose to do the wrong thing, you
know, intentionally or inadvertently
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accidentally, it's apologizing and
meaning it and try not to do it again.
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That is called integrity.
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And so I think the backlash has
nothing to do necessarily with
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her having being misinformed.
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I mean, we live in a world of
misinformation and disinformation.
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It is our norm, but it's the
unwillingness to have integrity and
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to say, listen, I made a mistake.
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I shouldn't have said that I
shouldn't have said it because I
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didn't know what I was talking about.
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And I understand that that has
hurt a lot of people who love
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me and I don't want to do that.
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So I apologize.
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I will do better.
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Right?
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That's integrity.
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I will do better.
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I will not do it again.
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And I look forward to repairing my
image and being the person that you
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have known me to be most of my career.
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That is not hard to do at all at all.
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So, the fact that that has not happened.
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Uh, since, you know, this debacle,
uh, means that it is going to affect
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her, uh, bottom line, uh, wholesale.
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It's just going to
affect your bottom line.
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Like, that's just what it is.
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So my advice and my need to know
today is to try to stay away again.
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We already had this episode from
this information and disinformation.
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Try to stay away.
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And if you do say something that you
didn't intend to say, if you do pass on
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misinformation, if you do make a mistake,
just have the integrity and the decency
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to admit that you made a mistake and to
say that you will try to do better and
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not do it again and then actually do that.
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That's it.
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So thank you for joining me today on
a black executive perspective podcast.
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Join me next week and I
wish you a wonderful day.
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Stay focused, stay informed and
definitely have some integrity.
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Like remember, integrity is
number one when it comes to
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being a decent human being.
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All right.
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Have a great day.
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BEP Narrator: A black
executive perspective.
