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This interview was originally broadcast on Feb. 1, 2012. How to Be Black will be released in paperback on Oct. 30.
It's no coincidence that Baratunde Thurston's new memoir and satirical self-help book How to Be Black was slated for release on the first day of Black History Month.
"I feel great about that," Thurston tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I think we have a moment every year in our country where everyone buys black stamps and thinks more explicitly about black people and blackness, so it was a perfect month to release a book on this subject."
Thurston, a stand-up comedian and The Onion's digital director, says that he doesn't get as many gigs this month as one might think.
"There aren't as many black spokespersons to go around, so I'm happy to play that role from time to time," he says. "But I think this year will probably be a little bigger than years past."
That's because How to Be Black is partially a practical guidebook for anyone looking to befriend or work with a black person, become the next black president or challenge anyone who says they speak for all black people.
But the book isn't just filled with comedic advice. Thurston weaves together his comedy with thoughtful missives about his own education at Sidwell Friends and Harvard University, and his childhood in one of the worst crack-addled neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. His father was killed in a drug deal when Thurston was 6. His mother was what he describes as a "pan-African hippie type of woman who marched in the streets" and named him Baratunde as a way to "get back to Africa."
"My version of being black adheres as much to the stereotypes as it dramatically breaks from them," he writes in How to Be Black. "And that's probably true for most of you reading this: if not about blackness itself, then about something related to your identity. Through my story, I hope to expose you to another side of the black experience while offering practical, comedic advice based on my own painful lessons learned."
When Thurston went to school, his teachers shortened his name — which means "one who is chosen" in Nigeria — and started calling him "Barrington." They later shortened it to "Barry."
"Baratunde was a little strange for them," he says. "I was a child and had no freedom, so I was 'Barrington' and then 'Barry' and then in 7th grade, it just clicked for me. My name's Baratunde. It's a great name. People should call me that."
It took some time, but Thurston eventually retrained his classmates to call him Baratunde.
"People assume there's a nickname, and they just jump to it, or they say, 'What do people call you for short?' And I say 'Baratunde. Just say it faster. It can save you time and be a little bit more efficient if you're worried about the time.' "
Thurston says he often encounters different assumptions based on his name, depending on his audience. Nigerians immediately think he's from Africa, and then are disappointed to learn that he's not. The reaction from Americans, meanwhile, is also mixed.
"American-born black people don't have that much of a reaction, because American blacks are used to interesting names in our community," he says. "And then from white Americans, it's the assumption of, 'Well, you have to have a nickname' or 'What does it mean?' Because it has to have some sort of superdeep meaning. So the name for me became a prism, because Baratunde has such a strong sound ... so it signals to people, 'This is definitely not a white dude. Maybe he's a black dude or an African dude.' But the reaction from the actual Nigerian community — which is 'You're not one of us either' — was a fun thing to experience growing up."
Thurston says his name wasn't the only indication that he straddled two worlds as a kid. On the weekdays, he attended the private Sidwell Friends School, where he played lacrosse and hockey and hung out with kids whose parents ran the State Department and the World Health Organization. But every Saturday, he attended what he calls "a Hebrew School or Bar Mitzvah for Blackness" in the Washington neighborhood of Columbia Heights.
"[My mother] enrolled me in a 'Rights of Passage' program," he says. "Every Saturday morning, we'd have physical training, we'd read books like The Isis Papers, and we would dance and do all kinds of cultural and intellectual activities to ground us in what they thought was a more appropriate Africanness in that era ... But even at home, it didn't stop. My mom had this map of Africa on her bedroom wall, and she'd actually quiz me."
Growing Up In Washington, D.C.
Thurston's mom raised him by herself after his father was killed. He remembers his mother telling him his father was dead after receiving a phone call from the police.
"I started crying," he says. "And it's such a strange thing to think about because I know what those words mean now — I've experienced death as an adult — and hearing those words and having those feelings at 6, they're a little different. So I know I had a physical reaction, but it wasn't until years later that I fully understood what that meant."
Thurston says he remembers not being allowed outside at the height of the 1980s crack epidemic in the district.
"I remember not being allowed to sit on our front stoop," he says. "There was a period of time when that was no longer allowed. I remember not playing outside as much, being told: Go to so-and-so's house but stay inside. And I also have a very particular memory of watching some of my friends walk down that road [toward drugs that] I didn't walk down."
Thurston says one family on his street morphed "almost like that figure of evolution — of the ape hunched over becoming man" into drug dealers.
"You could watch the older brother get into the drug business, and then the next one and the next one, and that was the pattern established," he says. "I remember when those guys used to deliver pizza for Domino's and that was their way of making money ... I remember when those same kids set up a lemonade stand. And then I remember when their jackets got nicer, their boots got nicer and they were selling drugs. That was such a strong memory in my head."
In junior high, Thurston moved from Columbia Heights to a suburban black neighborhood in Maryland. The move, once again, made him shift his persona.
"I think there was a Baratunde from Newton Street [in Washington, D.C.] who learned to walk those streets and navigate that world and be very comfortable with all the things happening in the street, and then there was the library-studious high school newspaper Baratunde, and then there was the Black Power 'Tunde that was also going down," he says. "And those worlds often collided."
Thurston says he was able to balance his worlds because he was taught "multiple extremes." At Sidwell, he says, the faculty was always trying to find more black faculty members.
"Meanwhile, in the ['Rights of Passage' program] it was: Africa did this, Africa did that, and the white man caused this," he says. "And those [viewpoints] either cancel each other out or they drive the bearer of both ideas insane. I didn't go insane. So it encouraged me to see the goods in both sides and challenge both perspectives."
Interview Highlights
On the term "Oreo"
"It was my first day at Sidwell. A black student who had been at the school for a really long time was assigned to be my buddy and adjust me to the environment. And he asked if I knew what an Oreo was. We were in the first stairwell of the upper-school building, in the southeast corner, I remember all this. And I really thought he was talking about cookies. I said, 'Yeah, it's the cream-filled cookie from Nabisco.' And he's like, 'No, no man. Oreo's someone who is black on the outside and white on the inside.' And then he made an example. He pointed to a kid across the way and said, 'That kid's an Oreo.' And I didn't know the kid's name at the time — I saw this nerdy black kid with glasses hanging out with white friends ... And that was the first introduction of this concept, inauthentic blackness because you're comfortable around whiteness."
On judging identity
"I have an image in my head of the layers of expectations around your identity. At a school like Sidwell, let's just take the fun fact of a black kid who's been at Sidwell all his life judging another black kid at Sidwell's blackness ... Then you take someone like me that would go to Sidwell by day and then go back to my neighborhood and the black kids there, and their judgment of someone like me who goes off to the fancy private school. Initially, it was like: 'Oh, you go to that white school.' I never got hit with the heavy 'Oh, you think you're white,' in part because these kids just knew me. But you will get it from kids who don't know you."
On learning how important it is to have a black friend if you're a white person, and vice versa
"A lot of white people like black people. They buy hip-hop, they watch black athletic and sports figures, and it's superpopular — from jazz through hip-hop. Having a black friend is a mark of progressive success as a white person. And the black person is usually seen as their asset. It's like: I'm cooler by proxy. ... What black people get in the white community [is having] a covert operative behind enemy lines. You have a trusted source who can shuttle information back and forth. It's like the Cold War. It's a back channel that prevents race wars from blowing up. So if your white friend has a question about something, they can ask you, their trusted black friend, and you can feed them real or false information, depending on your purposes, but they don't have to make an assumption or a leap that ends up in a more awkward, more public moment."
On hate-tweeting Twilight
"I hate the franchise. I think it is bad for America and little girls. You basically got this stalker vampire who's basically abusing this low self-esteem child, and that is hailed as a great image of love and respect. Because I have read the books and suffered through them, I wanted to prevent others from falling into that same fate. So on opening weekend, I go to the theater, I sit in the back to not disturb people, and I live-hate-tweet the film. And that just means I tweet in real-time with hate. I absolutely disdain this franchise. So I'm describing the storyline through my eyes and what the story really means, and it's proved very popular. And most importantly, I've prevented people from spending their hard-earned money."
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The book "How To Be Black" is part memoir and part satirical guidebook. My guest is the author Baratunde Thurston. He's a stand-up comic, the former director of digital for the satirical newspaper The Onion, co-founder of the blog Jack and Jill Politics and founder of the new digital comedy project Cultivated Wit."
The guidebook part of his book has chapters like "How to Be the Black Friend," "How to Speak for All Black People," "How to Be the Black Employee," "How to be the Angry Negro," "How to Be the Next Black President." The memoir part of his book is about the different cultures he's been exposed to, like being enrolled in a Quaker private school and an Afro-centric program at the same time.
And it's about how his life does and doesn't fit the popular concept of blackness, a concept he describes as hip-hop, crime and prison, fatherless homes, high blood pressure, school dropouts, drugs, athleticism, musical talent, "The Wire," affirmative action, poverty, diabetes, the civil rights movement, and recently, the U.S. presidency. The book will be published in paperback later this month. We spoke in February, when it was published
Baratunde Thurston, welcome to FRESH AIR.
BARATUNDE THURSTON: It is great to be here. Thanks, Terry.
GROSS: So I'd like you to do a reading from your new book, "How to Be Black," and it's a very autobiographical part of the book.
THURSTON: Yes, it is.
GROSS: Would you read it for us?
THURSTON: Absolutely. My name is Baratunde Thurston, and I've been black for over 30 years. I was born in 1977 in Washington, D.C., in the wake of civil rights, black power and "Sanford and Son." My mother was a pro-black, pan-African, tofu-eating hippy who had me memorizing the countries of Africa and reading about Apartheid before my 10th birthday.
My Nigerian name was not handed down to me from any known lineage but rather claimed and bestowed upon me by parents who demanded a connection, any connection at all, to mother Africa.
Yes, I grew up in the inner city at 1522 Newton Street, and I survived D.C.'s drug wars. Yes, my father was absent. He was shot to death in those same drug wars. But it's also true that I graduated from Sidwell Friends School, the educational home of Chelsea Clinton and the Obama girls, and Harvard University. I love classical music, computers and camping.
I've gone clubbing with the president of Georgia, the country, twice. My version of being black adheres as much to the stereotypes as it dramatically breaks from them, and that's probably true for most of you reading this, if not about blackness itself than about something else related to your identity. Through my stories, I hope to expose you to another side of the black experience while offering practical comedic advice based on my own painful lessons learned.
GROSS: Great, thanks for reading that. And that's from Baratunde's - Baratunde Thurston's new book, "How to be Black."
So let's start with your name, which you say some really interesting things about in the book, the name being Baratunde Thurston, very African first name, very...
THURSTON: Not African last name.
GROSS: Not African second name, yes. And you say my name has served as a perfect window through which to examine my experience of blackness.
THURSTON: Yes.
GROSS: So how were you named Baratunde?
THURSTON: So I was named, as most children, by my parents, and for them it wasn't simply a name, and it wasn't grabbing an ancestral name or a grandfather or grandmother. They were - it was a political act on their part. My mother was very much this pan-African hippy type of woman, and she marched in the streets, and I have photos of her taking over radio stations.
And there was a phase in African-American history, especially in the '60s and '70s, where parents were trying to get back to Africa, and if they couldn't physically do it, they did it by naming their child something African. So they were flipping through books looking for a name that had a particular meaning.
And in my case, my mother had had a series of miscarriages before I was born, and so they were looking for something extra-deep, and they found this name, Babatunde. Babatunde is a very common Nigerian name. It means the spirit of my mother's grandfather returns in me.
In the same book, they also saw Baratunde, a slight derivation, a little tweak with an R instead of the B. And the book also explained that Baratunde means one who was chosen, which I have to clarify with people. It doesn't mean the chosen one. That's a lot of pressure. It's one who was chosen. There could be like 50 chosen people, 1,000. The chosen one, usually life ends poorly for that person.
THURSTON: So I'm happy to be one who was chosen. And my middle name is actually Arabic, it's Rafik(ph), and Rafik means friend or companion. So the combination of Baratunde Rafik is to mean kingly companion, and that's the total history of how I got that name.
GROSS: So what reaction did you get to your name typically from white people, from African-Americans and from Africans?
THURSTON: So very early on, teachers started shortening my name. They didn't want to deal with Baratunde. It was a little strange even for them. So they called me Barry. Actually, Barrington was the first name a teacher...
GROSS: That's the same with Barack Obama, right? He was Barry.
THURSTON: Yeah, yeah, so I'm just like the president. I control the nuclear arsenal, I occasionally disappoint my progressive base, but I'm generally a good guy.
THURSTON: So yeah, I was Barrington, and then I was Barry, and halfway through my middle school time at Sidwell Friends, it was seventh grade, and it just clicked in me, my name's Baratunde. That's a great name. People should call me that. And I had to actually convert the school to call me not Barry but Baratunde because once people know what they call you, even if you don't approve of it, you know, nicknames, Chester is Chest Hair, right, just stuff like that.
So people, usually they assume there's a nickname, and they'll just jump to it, or they say: What do people call you for short? And I say Baratunde, just say it faster.
THURSTON: You can save time and be a little bit more efficient if you're really worried about the time it takes to say the name.
GROSS: So what assumptions were made about you because of your name?
THURSTON: Well, so it's really, I have different audiences that take it differently. First of all, I meet Nigerians, and many of them are initially really excited because they're like, oh, one of our brothers. But then they're like, wait, Baratunde, you mean Babatunde. I'm like, no, I mean Baratunde. Well, where'd you get the name, and who did this?
And so they have excitement, then frustration, then judgment often from the Nigerian community.
GROSS: And the judgment is, like, you're not really Nigerian.
THURSTON: Exactly, and I'm not authentically Nigerian. I'm not really African, which is just fun given the idea of why I was given the name, because I'm not really fully American either because of the history - this was my mother's attempt, and I didn't have any say in it, but I like the sound, and I like the meaning.
So I have that community. Then you have kind of the more American-born black people who really generally don't have that much of a reaction because I think American blacks are used to very interesting names in our community, whether they're derived from Africa or just made up from cars plus like a candy bar and the name of the street you grew up on. Like that's a pretty unique tradition.
And then, you know, from white Americans it's often the assumption of, well, you've got to have to have a nickname, or what does it mean. It's got to have some super-deep meaning. And in my case it actually does.
GROSS: Because it was an African name, a meant to connect you to Africa, because your parents, or at least your mother, was interested in that connection, did you feel that connection when you were growing up?
THURSTON: I did, and my mother wouldn't let me not feel that connection either. It was a part of my programming as a kid growing up. So I grew up in D.C. in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, before it became as shiny as it is today, and my mother after sixth grade enrolled me in Sidwell Friends School, which is a great private school.
The Obama girls go there now. But she also at the same time enrolled me in what's known as a rites of passage program. And in the '60s, you know, along with black power, there was even a subset of pan-Africanism, where people were really trying to reclaim this connection and borrowing and learning from traditions.
So you could think of it sort of as Hebrew school or a bar mitzvah for blackness.
THURSTON: And every, you know, weekday I'd be at Sidwell learning Sidwell-type things, and it's field hockey and lacrosse and the sons of presidents and daughters of World Health Organization people.
And then every Saturday morning, we'd have physical training, we'd read books like "The Isis Papers," we'd read Toussaint Louverture, and we would dance and do all sorts of cultural and intellectual activities to try to ground us in what they thought was a more appropriate African-ness in that era.
It was also a time when crack was ravaging communities, and there was a special focus on how do we preserve young black boys and prevent them from ending up in the criminal justice system. So that was also an angle.
So I had this balanced experience of Sidwell. By weekday (unintelligible), which is the name of the program, on the weekends, and that was kind of my strongest grounding. But then even at home, it didn't stop. My mom had this big map of Africa on her bedroom wall, and it had all the nations carved out. She would actually quiz me.
GROSS: And you keep describing your mother as like a hippy and, you know, tofu and carob and all that. So how was she accepted in your neighborhood? Was she considered like the hippy of the neighborhood, and was that a bad thing?
THURSTON: She was not in any way ostracized. I mean, my mom also had this sort of hybrid personality. When she grew up, I think it was Fourth Street Northwest, I'd have to double-check, I didn't get that deep into her bio, but she had - you know, she ran the streets. She was in gangs. She was also super-political, and she was a crunchy hippy lady.
She went through her own evolution, grew up in a Baptist church, kind of rejected that because of the images of whiteness all around. She's like, what, they can't all be white. You know, if civilization began in Africa, the logical conclusion is - so she was kind of ahead of her time on that.
Then she became vegetarian and started hanging out with the hippy-type people, but that wasn't the full extent of her personality, and she was still kind of a bad-ass as well. So I think she had, from my young eyes and recollection, a lot of respect in the neighborhood.
GROSS: So in the reading that you did at the beginning of the show, you kind of like drop in that your father was killed during the crack epidemic, and he was murdered during a drug deal that went bad, and he was the person buying, not selling.
THURSTON: Right.
GROSS: And you say in your book the only thing that could have been more cliched at the time - and you say this with great sorrow - but that the only thing that could be more cliched at the time was that the deal had gone down at a KFC.
THURSTON: Yes, I did write that.
GROSS: How old were you when that happened, six?
THURSTON: I was five or six years old, yeah.
GROSS: How did your mother tell you what happened?
THURSTON: So there was a - there was a phone call that she had received, and you have to understand, my father did not live with us at the time. So I had very few memories and interactions with him. But I knew I had a father, and I'm pretty sure he loved me a lot, and I probably loved him in any way a four or five-year-old kid can actually know what love means for a father.
But she got a call, and she said Arnold Robinson is dead. And I started crying, and I still - you know, it's such a strange thing to think about because I know what those words mean now, I've experienced death as an adult, of my own mother, of really close friends, and hearing those words and having those feelings at five or six years old, they're a little different.
So I know I had an immediate physical, emotional reaction, but it wasn't until years later that I fully understood what that meant. This to me at the time just meant, oh, my daddy's not around anymore, that's bad.
GROSS: Did she explain that he was shot?
THURSTON: I found - I don't remember in the moment, and a young child's memory is a little fudgy. What I do remember is actually not knowing how he died when she told me, but coming across - we had a big file cabinet in our house, a big black file cabinet, I think five drawers - very, very deep; smooth rolling wheels with these chrome label-holders you could slide an index card into.
And we had a file subsection within it called vital statistics, and I remember it so specifically because statistics was spelled with an X at the end because my mom thought that was fun. And I used to think it was vittle(ph) statistics.
And so I was going through the vittle(ph) statistics file one afternoon, as a kid does, rifling through papers, and I found my father's death certificate. And I had never known in that detail what had happened.
And the death certificate from a gunshot wound is a horrible, horrible representation of mortality, and it's cold, and it's clinical, and you basically watch the body shutting down in text.
GROSS: You quote it in the book. You want to read it?
THURSTON: Yeah. Here's what the death certificate said: Bullet wound of chest, lungs, spine and spinal cord followed by paraplegia and bronchial pneumonia.
GROSS: Right.
THURSTON: That's - I don't know, it's just, it's a strange medical dark poetry, and what I'd understood is he was shot, which translated into something much more troubling yet also richer and just strange. So I don't remember knowing in the very moment that he was shot. I know I found out in the intervening years, and then coming across this document was sort of another shock to my system of just what that actually meant.
GROSS: So what did it do to your sense of, like, violence in the neighborhood, how drugs can actually lead to death? You know, it's the kind of like potentially "Scared Straight" type of thing that, you know, a lot of parents and law officers and stuff try to like instill in young people. This is the consequence.
THURSTON: Right.
GROSS: So like at age six, your father's shot to death in a drug deal. What impact did that have in terms of how one goes about living in the world?
THURSTON: So I don't think it was an explicit, like, red flag in my head. I was a nerdy kid. I was a studious kid. I did have friends as well, I wasn't totally isolated and alone, but I was in the gifted and talented program in the public school system and did extracurricular activities, playing bass in the D.C. Youth Orchestra program, Boy Scouts.
And again, this was in part my mother just throwing activities at me to keep me drowning in busy-ness.
GROSS: Keep you off the streets.
THURSTON: Exactly, so I wouldn't have time, literally didn't have time to do any crime because I had assignments backed up from all these different activities. You know, and it wasn't just a matter of not having time, it was being engaged in things that actually stimulated the mind.
And I think that probably lifted any burden off of me where it might have been so easy to kind of fall into the statistical future that lay before me of hold this bag, deliver this thing and then look out for that and then collect this.
It just didn't interest me as much, and it was never this loud voice of my dead father saying don't do this, but that probably had a subconscious effect, at least.
GROSS: In your book, in talking about growing up during the crack epidemic and that epidemic affecting your neighborhood, you write - you compare it to the HBO series "The Wire."
GROSS: And you write: When the HBO series "The Wire" came out, I recognized so much of what was on my TV screen from my memories of my own neighborhood. We had everything "The Wire" had except for universal critical acclaim and the undying love of white people who saw it.
GROSS: I love that.
THURSTON: That's true, we did not have the ratings or the Netflix popularity that "The Wire" did.
GROSS: My guest is comic and writer Baratunde Thurston, author of "How to Be Black." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: My guest is writer and comic Baratunde Thurston, the author of "How to Be Black," which is part satirical guidebook and part memoir. When we left off, we were talking about how his neighborhood was affected by the crack epidemic when he was growing up.
So how did the crack epidemic affect your neighborhood?
THURSTON: It was - I think the first thing I remember was not being...
GROSS: And do you know one of the reasons why I'm so interested? I remember like during the height of the crack epidemic, like always thinking what's it like for the kids who are growing up in this, you know, and like now we can talk to the kids because they're adults and find out, you know?
THURSTON: Exactly. Let me - I remember not being able to go outside. I remember specifically not being allowed to sit on our front stoop. And on the weekends I used to sometimes sit on the stoop and eat breakfast outside, especially in the summertime. We didn't have air conditioning, it's hot, it's a nice day.
And there was a period of time when that was no longer allowed. I remember not playing outside as much and being told go to so-and-so's house but stay inside, there's a sort of captivity. And I also have a very particular memory of watching some of my friends walk down that road that I didn't walk down.
And there was a family of brothers who lived across the street from us, and there may - there were at least three of them, I'm pretty sure there were four, and you could just watch them almost like that image of evolution, which shows kind of a hunched-over ape evolving into man.
You could watch the older brother get into the drug business, and then the next one and the next one and then the youngest one, and it was just - that was the pattern established.
And I remember when those guys used to deliver pizza for Domino's, and that was their way of making money, and that was their job, and they had rigged up a lawnmower engine to their 10-speed bikes to turn them into motorcycles and would zip down 16th Street - I lived at 16th and Newton - and I thought that was so cool.
And then I remember when those same kids set up a lemonade stand. And then I remember when their jackets got nicer, their boots got nicer, and they were selling drugs.
And that was a - I don't know, such a strong memory in my head of, well, they used to that, and now they do this. And I used to be able to do this, and now I can't do that. Those are some of the effects I remember kind of growing up in a neighborhood that was being corrupted and poisoned by crack cocaine.
GROSS: In seventh grade, you moved to a different neighborhood.
THURSTON: Yeah, the end of seventh grade, we moved out of northwest Washington, D.C., to Tacoma Park, Maryland. And essentially it had become too much for my mother, and I think it was very stressful for her raising me. She was raising me alone. So she was working a lot of hours to pay for all these things, including private school at the time.
And I was pretty cool with it because, again, as a kid, whatever you grow up in feels normal. So this is where my friends are, this is the neighborhood I know. I'm not feeling so dramatic about the situation. But as a parent, you're probably just seeing risk, risk, risk, risk, risk - everywhere.
So we moved out to a more suburban area, still a black neighborhood, actually, but we had a little plot of land, free-standing house and...
GROSS: Did you like it?
THURSTON: I did like it. I didn't spend much time there. And it was quiet. It was quieter than I was used to, especially growing up at a major intersection in a city. You have cops and ambulances and people yelling, and that's a sign of life. So we moved out to - near a park, and there's deer that run across the street.
THURSTON: That's actually a little alarming, you know, even for a kid who was a Boy Scout and went camping. I wasn't used to sleeping in silence. So the first while was a bit different. And then I did so many school activities that home really was where I slept and not much more. But it was nice.
GROSS: What kind of work was your mother doing to support you?
THURSTON: So she evolved a lot throughout her life. I think she started doing domestic work, and then she was a secretary, and then she was a paralegal. And she - she never got a full college degree, but she took a lot of classes and ended up essentially learning computer programming and taking - you know, sliding from the paralegal department within the federal government to the programming department.
And I don't remember what level grade she made in the government, but it was a pretty good one. So she worked for something called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; it's a division of the Treasury Department, and they were charged with overseeing the national banks.
So she programmed in a language called COBOL...
GROSS: Oh COBOL, wow.
THURSTON: This mainstream computer language, and wrote software and inspected software that in turn inspected national banks. She was a big geeky nerd.
GROSS: And you got deep into computers too.
THURSTON: Yeah, because of her. I mean, she - that was so fortunate for her to have discovered that. It really magnified her earning power, but it also positioned both of her kids - I have an older sister who lives in Michigan - and both of us, because of our mother, got early access to computers. She knew it was important. So we were one of the first households in our neighborhood to have a computer, to get online.
I was doing bulletin boards and early Internet before it became anywhere near front-page news.
GROSS: We'll hear more of my interview with Baratunde Thurston in the second half of the show. His book "How to Be Black" will be published in paperback later this month. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Baratunde Thurston, author of the book "How to Be Black." It's part memoir, part satirical guidebook. Thurston is a stand-up comic, the former director of digital for the satirical newspaper "The Onion," co-founder of the blog "Jack and Jill Politics," and cofounder of the new digital comedy project "Cultivated Wit." His book is in part about the different cultures he was brought up in.
So you were describing, earlier, how your mother really wanted to give you a very complete education and some like historical rooting...
THURSTON: Yeah.
GROSS: ...and what it means to be African-American. So she sent you to Sidwell Friends School, a fine school that the Obama children go to...
THURSTON: Yeah.
Chelsea Clinton went there. But on weekends you'd go to this, like, Afro-centric school and learn all about like African history and...
Yeah. Yeah.
GROSS: ...and so on. Were you able to be the same person in both those settings? Or did you have to like adjust who you were? I mean because a lot of us are, that's how we are.
THURSTON: Yeah.
GROSS: You know, you have different friends and you're slightly different with different friends, you're slightly different in different contexts.
THURSTON: Yeah, no, the code switching is a real thing and I think there was a Baratunde from Newton Street who learned to walk those streets and navigate that world and be very comfortable with all the stuff that's happening in the street. And then there was the academic library, studious, you know, high school newspaper Baratunde; and then there was the, like, black power Tunde.
THURSTON: That was also going down. And those worlds often collided. I remember I wrote a paper once for an English class, that was extremely radical. It was the type of paper that I won't be president because I wrote this thing.
THURSTON: It was one of those things that they dig up, like Rush Limbaugh would have field day.
GROSS: No, you should read - you have to - you reprint some of it in the book. You have to read some of it.
THURSTON: Yeah. Yeah. I'd be happy to. I'd be happy to...
GROSS: You have to read some of it from the book. It's very conspiracy.
THURSTON: So the title of this piece is "The U.S. Propaganda Machine," and that's what I submitted to my English teacher.
GROSS: Find a really good excerpt in there.
THURSTON: Yeah. Let me jump to a hyper-inflammatory section, which...
THURSTON: All right. This is fun. (Reading) Now, my brothers and sisters, I will tell you - and what you also have to understand I wrote this as if it were a major speech...
THURSTON: ...that I was delivering to all black people. I imagined kind of a State of the Black Union with everybody around the world, and especially the U.S., tuned into my words. (Reading) Now, my brothers and sisters, I will tell you ways that the white man has led our people into this epidemic - this epidemic of violence. If you want to go way back: It all started when the Europeans invaded our rich, prosperous motherland and robbed her of her people. At the time of the slave trade, there were Africans who sold their own people for beads and jewelry. This was the beginning of our self destruction.
(Reading) Another possibility is found by looking at the brutal times of slavery. During slavery, some of the brutalities were earthshaking and unfathomable.
And I remember being so proud of using the word unfathomable. And so I go on and I blame the white man. I basically call for a reverse revolution against white people. And I turned in this paper, very proudly, not at all conscious that this wasn't a normal thing to submit to a middle school English class at a place like Sidwell Friends. That was the black power Tunde speaking. And my English teacher came to me the next day, asked me to stay after class and said hey, some pretty radical stuff you put in that paper. Would you have written that if I weren't black? And I was like absolutely not. And I expect you to keep our secret. But that was a moment - a flashpoint for me, of conflict, of kind of, using the ability to manipulate words that I was picking up at Sidwell, but with the ideas that I was sucking up Saturdays at this Ankobea Society and it turned out into this, kind of, militant speech that I hypothetically delivered.
GROSS: Were you taught that all of black people's problems were really a conspiracy by white people?
THURSTON: Well, so here was the beauty. And this is why the mix is so important - and even I talk about my mother's evolution in her life. I talk about my mix in these neighborhoods. I was taught extremes, and able to balance them because I was taught multiple extremes. So at a place like Sidwell, and Sidwell's a great school. It really is. But it was also a tough place to be one of the few minority kids, one of the few poorer kids, and there's a big social adjustment. And one of the arguments there was we need more black faculty, we need more black subjects in the curriculum. That always happens at any sort of school, especially kind of elite secondary and then colleges. Meanwhile and the Ankobea environment, it was Africa did this, Africa invented that, Imhotep this, blah, blah, blah and the white men cause these problems. Those either cancel each other out or they drive the bearer of both ideas insane.
GROSS: Right.
THURSTON: I didn't go insane.
THURSTON: And fortunately. And I think most people in that situation probably wouldn't, so a sort of encouraged to me both see the good in old sides, and also challenge both perspectives.
GROSS: OK. So we've established that you were exposed to really different ways of seeing history?
THURSTON: Mm-hmm.
GROSS: Of seeing being black in America.
THURSTON: Yeah.
GROSS: And that that was a really good thing for you.
THURSTON: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
GROSS: And then you went to Harvard.
THURSTON: I did.
GROSS: And you say at Harvard is where you learned that some people could see your black skin is just a cover for the whiteness underneath. Not necessarily you, but ones like skin. So was that like your introduction to the whole, you know, quote, "Oreo" concept?
THURSTON: Well, the Oreo concept was, I was introduced to that at Sidwell.
GROSS: Oh, OK.
THURSTON: Sidwell was boot camp for me.
GROSS: Right.
THURSTON: It was, OK, you're going to go train here so that you can enter the world, you know, the mainstream world of America. And it was actually my first, possibly my second day, but I'm pretty sure it was my first day at Sidwell, that a black student who had been at the school for a really long time was assigned to be my buddy and adjust me to the environment. And he asked if I knew what an Oreo was. I actually - it's such a strong memory. We were in the first floor stairwell of the upper-school building, southwest corner, I remember all this - southeast corner. I really thought he was talking about cookies. I was like, yeah, it's the cream-filled cookie from Nabisco. And he's like, no, no man. Oreo's somebody's who is black on the outside and white on the inside. And then he made an example. And he's like you see that kid across the way. And he pointed across the dining hall a little later, he said, that kid's an Oreo. And I didn't even know the kid's name at the time - I saw this nerdy black kid with glasses hanging out with white friends and I was like he could be president someday. It's a good way to fundraise, you know, make white friends early. And that was the first introduction of this concept of, sort of, inauthentic blackness because you're comfortable around whiteness.
GROSS: And if you were either introverted or, like, intellectual bookish, would that add to an Oreo image?
THURSTON: It, I mean I think and again, I wish I almost have in my head an image of the layers of expectations around your identity. So at a school like Sidwell, first let's just take the fun fact of a black kid who's been at Sidwell his entire life judging another black kid at Sidwell's blackness. It's like you've both been steeped in this environment so why are you picking on that kid. But then you have the, you know, take someone like me who would go to Sidwell by day and then go back to my neighborhood and the black kids there, and their judgment of someone like me who goes off to the fancy white private school...
GROSS: Right. What was that judgment?
THURSTON: Well, so and I never got hit with a heavy like you think you're white, in part because I think I, these kids just knew me - at least from the kids that actually knew me. But you will get it from kids who don't know you. I mean we're - as people who are really good at judging people, we don't know, that's part of how we move through the world and were programmed to do it. So you see some black kid in this environment like, sellout, Oreo. It's just an instant, mild envy, misunderstanding and judgment about someone who you don't really get. And when you start equating success and literacy and achievement and hard academic work with white, and more importantly, with not black, then it becomes a little troubling, or actually, I'd say, very troubling. So I experienced a little dose of that but mostly because I was interacting with kids who knew me and I had made that transition, they saw me make it, they were less harsh.
GROSS: And I'm also wondering if the African name Baratunde...
THURSTON: My black pass. Yes.
GROSS: Seriously. Yeah. And also everything that you knew about like African history, because of your Afro-centric schooling on the weekends...
THURSTON: Yeah.
GROSS: I mean, you know, I mean come on.
GROSS: You know what I mean? Like you...
THURSTON: Actual knowledge never prevents people from judging you.
GROSS: That's true, isn't it?
THURSTON: There was a great moment in the book - I interviewed people in this book, as well - and one of them was a friend Derrick Ashong, who was born in Ghana. And he described an experience of being judged by black Americans, saying he wasn't black enough because he wasn't radical enough, because he hadn't written some middle school paper calling for the death of all white people.
THURSTON: And he's like slow down. I was born in Africa. Like, I can trace my family back generations. You can't out black me. It's impossible. I am definitely, definitely black.
My guest is comic and writer Baratunde Thurston, author of "How to Be Black." We'll talk more after a break.
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: My guest is writer and comic Baratunde Thurston, the author of "How to Be Black," which is part satirical guidebook and part memoir. When we left off, we were talking about his experiences as a student at Harvard.
At Harvard you say you learned how important and powerful the role of black friend to white people could be. Explain that.
THURSTON: A lot of white people like black people, right? They buy hip-hop, they watching black athletic and sports figures, and movie figures and this black culture, it's super popular - from jazz through hip-hop and everything else that's come in between and beyond. And so having a black friend, which I think is actually in the book "Stuff that White People Like" that Christian Lander wrote, is a mark of progressive success as a white person. And the black friend that they have is usually seen as their asset. It's like oh, I'm cooler by proxy, I can get my questions answered, I'm hip.
What I try to describe in the book a little more is like what black people get out of having emissaries in the white community as the black friend.
GROSS: What do they get?
THURSTON: Well, you have a covert operative behind enemy lines. You've got a trusted source who can shuttle information back and forth. It's like the Cold War. It's basically a back channel that prevents race wars from blowing up. So if your white friend has a question about something, they can ask you, their trusted black friend, and you can feed them real or false information, depending on your purposes, but they don't necessarily have to just make an assumption or make a leap that ends up in some even more awkward, more public moment. So it's actually very important to have this cross-cultural exchange of actual friendship going on and the black friend is a really, really big part of preventing that conflagration.
GROSS: I want to quote something else from the book. You write about, I write that upon graduation from Harvard, you say; I was conscious of the fact that I could be me and thus be black, but not have to be black in order to be me.
THURSTON: Yeah.
GROSS: Talk about that.
THURSTON: Harvard was a liberating experience, which I don't know many black people who would say that. But it was because of Sidwell. I spent six years at Sidwell Friends going through - there is a typical lifecycle kind of minority in private schools. You know, first they challenge your right to be there and say it's all affirmative action, you feel awkward, your friends back home judge you as selling out, you have the black student union, you probably protest something, someone writes the N-word on the wall or in the bathroom, or in your locker, like these things are going to happen. And by the time I got to Harvard, I had been through all of that.
And at Harvard I still was actively involved in that black community, but it wasn't the core source for, like, my full identity and I felt as comfortable hanging out with the kids at the newspaper, hanging out with the kids with the computer society, and the theater kids. And black became more of a part of my identity and less of kind of an ongoing protest movement, which it can often be because you often feel besieged. And I was able to let go of that feeling of being besieged and just sort of be instead. And so there were protests and there were controversies, but I think I was able to not let them define me or limit my definition of myself, certainly not affect my feeling of a right to be there. And so many folks that's a harsher transition when they haven't had the boot camp of some kind of private school to prepare them.
GROSS: Baratunde Thurston, thank you so much. It's really been a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you.
THURSTON: Thank you. This has been a life goal. I'm checking this off the bucket list.
THURSTON: Thank you so very much, Terry.
GROSS: Thank you.
Baratunde Thurston is the author of the book "How to Be Black." It comes out in paperback later this month. Our interview was recorded in February, when it was first published. You can read an excerpt on our website freshair.npr.org. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


text:
Bel Canto, Inc. is a non-profit
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The group was formed in 2002 by singers who met at the Fairbanks
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Arlington Friends of the Drama will present a three-weekend run of the musical �Sunset Boulevard� through March 19.
Performance dates are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 4 p.m. Sundays, until March 19. Tickets cost $25 and may be purchased at the door or online at http://afdtheatre.org. Arlington Friends of the Drama is located at 22 Academy St., Arlington.
Based on Billy Wilder�s Hollywood classic of the same name, the musical was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber with book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton. The plot revolves around Norma Desmond, a faded star of the silent screen era, living in the past in her decaying mansion on the famous Los Angeles street. When young screenwriter Joe Gillis accidentally crosses her path, she sees him as an opportunity to make her comeback to the big screen, while Joe sees it as an opportunity to make some money free-loading off the rich but now forgotten former movie star.
When the movie was filmed in 1949, Cecil B. DeMille played himself, but Arlington resident Charlie Carr will perform the role for this musical version. Carr is a veteran of the AFD stage, holds a Bachelor of Arts in dramatic arts from the University of California, and completed graduate studies in dramaturgy at UMass. He performed in a dozen previous AFD shows, and designed many of the sets, most recently �The Boy from Oz� last season. Newly minted Arlington resident Paul Dingman will make both his Massachusetts and AFD debut, having previously performed in Philadelphia, New York City and upper New York state. He will play multiple roles in this production, so audience members can watch him change from Manfred, to �Hog Eye� to a policeman over the course of the show.
Filled with both romance and tragedy, the musical won Tony Awards for both Best Musical and Best Musical Score when it opened on Broadway, and was performed in 10 countries and four continents. Headlining the cast is Janet Ferreri as Norma Desmond and Trey Lundquist as Joe Gillis. Kevin Mark Kline is the director, and Steven Bergman is the musical director.
Ferreri is returning to the AFD stage since playing Judy Garland in last season�s production of �The Boy From Oz,� for which she won an Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theatre DASH award for best supporting actress in a musical. She has performed extensively in Greater Boston and has won numerous EMACT DASH nominations and awards.
Lundquist�s acting credits include roles with the Riverside Theatre Works, Cohasset Dramatic Club, MMAS Black Box Theater and Company Theater.
Kline is directing the show that he says has been on his bucket list for a long time.
�This is my favorite Andrew Lloyd Webber musical,� Kline said. �I have always seen it as a production where the actors and the music tell the story, which makes it perfect for the AFD stage.�
Kline�s director credits at AFD Theatre include �Enchanted April,� �I Love You, You�re Perfect, Now Change!� �Proof,� �Rabbit Hole,� �Death of a Salesman� and �Avenue Q.� Kline holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in musical theater with a directing emphasis from the Boston Conservatory. His other directing credits productions at Boston Theatre Works, Boston Playwrights� Theatre, Boston Gay Men�s Chorus, the Boston Conservatory, Company Theatre, the Longwood Players, Blue Spruce Theatre Company and Riverside Theatre Works.
Bergman is the musical director for AFD Theatre�s production of �Sunset Boulevard.� His musical director credits include �Spring Awakening� at the FUDGE Theatre Company, �The Adding Machine� at SpeakEasy Stage Company, and �Annie� and �Disney�s Beauty and the Beast� at Wheelock Family Theatre..
Other cast members include Jim Ansart, Heather Hannon Rufo, Patrick Harris, Ira Kantor, Nick Stevens, Robert McCall, Lisa Tierney, Alexis Kirkpatrick, Adina Lundquist, Dilara Eynula, Emily Jane Morris, Corrine Apostolides, Adam Kaplowitz and Timothy Gravely.
Event of week: Arlington Friends of the Drama to perform Sunset Boulevard'
Arlington Friends of the Drama will present a three-weekend run of the musical �Sunset Boulevard� through March 19.


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HR Business Placement Experiences Interviews
Are you considering a placement year as part of your degree? Wondering what it might be like? Here's a little insight! Molly is currently on her placement year as a HR Work Placement Student at PwC, a professional service organisation, working with the Student Recruitment team. She shared her experiences from her time with the team so far and told us what appeals to her about working in HR…
What are you currently studying and at which university?
I'm currently studying Business with Human Resource Management at the University of Sussex.
Why did you decide to do a sandwich placement degree?
I decided to do a sandwich placement degree because I wasn't sure which area of HR would be for me, and hoped that doing a placement year would allow me to have an early insight into what my preferred area might be.
What drew you to HR in particular?
I was drawn to HR because of the 'people' aspect involved. When applying to university I was torn about whether to apply for a business degree specialising in marketing or HR. I found HR to be the most interesting to me, as I enjoy working with others and dealing with new people on a daily basis.
What was it that stood out to you about the business placement opportunity with PwC?
I was attracted to the 11-month placement opportunity at PwC because I thought it would provide the HR experience I was seeking, but in a fast-paced environment. The fact that the placement wasn't a generic 'HR' placement and allowed me to choose from four key areas of HR definitely stood out to me.
I felt it would provide me with the opportunity to be completely immersed in one area of HR, which I hoped would help me to make an informed decision about which area of HR I would pursue after university.
What kinds of things are you doing on a day-to-day basis with the Student Recruitment team?
I find I get stuck in with pretty much everything! My role as an assistant means that I support other members of the team wherever I'm required. As such, I've had a great opportunity to gain insight into many different aspects of the work the student recruitment team do.
Over the past six months I've attended campus events and careers fairs, supported candidates by providing feedback at various stages of the selection process and provided advice to help them prepare for next stages as well. Alongside these types of activities I work closely with the Assessment Services team, providing support on a candidate's application process.
What do you enjoy most about working with the Student Recruitment team?
My favourite part about working with the Student Recruitment team is that no two weeks are ever the same. Whilst there are specific tasks that I need to complete on a daily basis, the role is very varied meaning that even now, nine months into my placement, I'm still being given new challenges.
Going out onto campus and meeting students, and hosting assessment centres are both highlights of my role. I enjoy speaking with students who are looking to apply or have already done so, and find it most interesting as I was in their position just a year ago.
What's been the biggest challenge so far?
The biggest challenge so far in my placement year has been balancing university deadlines with full-time work. When initially starting my placement I also found it challenging to get into the routine of working full time, having been studying for two years. That said, after a couple of weeks I soon settled.
How do the skills you use in your studies transfer over to work in HR? What new skills have you started to develop since you began your business placement at PwC?
I completed lots of group work whilst at university which I think has definitely helped me when it comes to my team-working skills on my placement, particularly when it comes to splitting tasks with other members of the team.
I was also required to do several presentations at university, something that used to terrify me. This has definitely helped me during my placement year as I'm required to do a presentation to the HR leadership team in PwC, something that prior to university I would have dreaded!
My communication and networking skills have developed throughout my placement, as they're key to my role. I meet students, and members of PwC from all levels of seniority on a regular basis, meaning I have to network with a wide range of people.
Is life in HR what you had expected it to be before you began your placement?
Life in HR is definitely different to what I had expected before my placement. I've been given much more responsibility and a more varied role than I would have expected, and have been involved in more team work but the support from the team, such as my People Manager and other Senior Managers has been great.
Could this experience lead to further opportunities with PwC in the future?
At the end of my placement year, my People Manager and Senior Managers will be able to decide whether I 've been successful in my placement. If so, I can potentially transfer my application to a graduate programme within PwC. As the graduate programmes are client-facing and therefore different to my placement role, I'll need to have an interview with a Senior Member of staff from whichever line of service I choose to apply to.
If you hadn't chosen to work in student recruitment in HR, what other opportunities were available in HR at PwC?
Alternatively, I could have chosen to complete a placement year in either Learning and Development, Global Mobility or Resource Management and Management Information. I have contact with a lot of the other students on these placements as we're going through similar experiences so it's good to share our knowledge and regularly catch up.
Reckon you'd make a good people person? Find out more about HR Business Placements with PwC here. There are currently opportunities in Birmingham, London and Manchester!
More Interviews
An Insider's Guide to City Vacation Schemes
Sussing out the law firm you want to work for is a tricky old business! It can be difficult to really pinpoint the best way to do it. Of course, one the best ways is to get yourself onto a vacation scheme with a firm. But what will you get out of your one or two weeks in the office? Andrew Pollock is now a trainee with top City firm King & Wood Mallesons SJ Berwin after finding the perfect fit through a vacation scheme! Here's what he got up to…
A Vacation Scheme with International Law Firm Taylor Wessing
Clara Garfield completed a vacation scheme at international firm, Taylor Wessing in 2011. Throughout the scheme, Clara felt well supported by the firm and commends the ethos of the firm and their hiring policy – Taylor Wessing look for people who are a good fit for the firm's culture, not just those with top grades.
A letter to AAC readers, from James Caan and Levi Roots
This month, we have a special message exclusively for AllAboutCareers users, courtesy of James Caan CBE (yeah, from Dragons' Den) and Levi Roots (as in, Reggae Reggae Sauce). Thanks to the Prince's Trust, they've given some insight into how to set out in the business world on your own, or in other words - how to become an entrepreneur.
What it's really like to work in the tech industry and how to nail it
Starting a career can seem daunting, even if you've spent three years at university preparing. So we caught up with two successful graduates of the Exponential-e Sales Academy, Liam and Eric, to shed some light on some on what the world of work is like – and more specifically, sales in the technological industry.
Alan Clark: What it's like to work as a Scotch whisky Graduate Ambassador
The prospect of life after university can be daunting. Once the student bubble has burst it's time to decide what you're going to do next. Do you jump straight into the world of work or take a break to travel? What if we told you that you could do both? AllAboutCareers spoke to Alan Clark about his experience travelling across India as a Graduate Brand Ambassador for Scotch whisky and premium gin producer Chivas Brothers.
Interview with Robert Freeman, Designer at Farah
Robert Freeman is the Designer at Farah, having previously studied Fashion and Marketing at Northumbria University. He offers his advice about getting into the industry.
Talking Tech: James Broad, Web Developer
Last week London was named the second most tech-friendly city in the world. We thought we'd take that opportunity to talk tech with someone that knows about it, so we sat down with James Broad, a web developer who has worked with BBC, Yahoo and Moo.com, for his advice on how to make it in the ever-growing technology industry.
Are hobbies the way to a job?
We sat down with Matt Eastlake, Managing Director of World Challenge, to ask him how he thought a student's experiences outside of academia might be a route into their dream job, because in today's saturated job market, how do you stand out from the crowd? Here's what he had to say...
What's Life Like as an App-Creating Entrepreneur?
Luke Massie is a 22-year old entrepreneur and the creator of Vibe Tickets, a new app to share tickets between like-minded fans. Luke started his business journey by launching a call centre in Preston at the tender age of 17, and came up with the idea for Vibe through his love for live music and sport. We sat down with him to discuss his journey into the business world and what his new app is all about.
What's life like as a Professional Poker player?
Ellie Biessek is a rare case – a maths teacher by trade, she accidentally discovered poker in 2010 and became fascinated by the game, eventually giving up her job in the teaching profession to take on the big time in the Poker world. We caught up with Ellie for a lowdown on what life was like when it's based on flushes and chips.
Life as a Private Tax Trainee
Gautham Sriram is discovering the world of private tax in his graduate scheme with Smith & Williamson. Based in the Moorgate office in London, he's been dealing with the tax compliance issues of the wealthy – including top sports stars! And that's whilst he studies for a professional qualification too. Read on to find out more about life as a graduate in private tax…
Public Finance Accountancy: Training in the Home Office
Not everyone in the Home Office is a politician or civil servant. The government needs accountants too! History and Politics graduate Precious Akinmoju is a trainee public finance accountant through CIPFA. She told us about what's involved in her programme.
How To Become A Psychiatrist
Dr Niall Campbell is a Consultant Psychiatrist, who specialises in working with patients with an addiction. Here, he speaks about how he became a psychiatrist, what he enjoys most about his career and provides advice to current medical students who may be considering a career in this field.
What's It Like to Be A Film Marketer?
AllAboutCareers.com sat down with a film marketer, quizzing them on their experience of working in the film industry, interesting campaigns and the buzz they get when they see a poster of a film they've worked on on the underground. We also asked what career advice they had for students aspiring to land a job in the industry...
Working on Global Markets at Nomura
Edward Grissell took on the fast-paced industry of sales on the global markets after graduating from university with a graduate role at multinational bank Nomura. How has he found the experience so far?
Work-life Balance on a School Leaver Programme
Is it all work, work, work on a school leaver programme? The idea of jumping straight in at the deep end in the working world immediately after finishing school can be a bit daunting, but there is plenty of help and social events going on to get you into the loop! Brooke Cullum is a school leaver at professional services firm BDO. She told us what it's really like to be in a school leaver role at a multinational company.
Why Choose a Big Four School Leaver Programme?
Fancy a fast-track route to manager level? As school leaver programmes gain more and more exposure as valid, career-enhancing options for school leavers who don't think the university route is for them, Talent Partner for Student Recruitment at Deloitte Fiona Walker spoke to us about Deloitte's BrightStart scheme and the opportunities it offers…
What's it like to study the LPC?
Following a first taste of work in a law firm aged 16, and excited by the practical aspects of the job, Charlotte Pitt knew a career as a solicitor was the way for her. Having studied for a law degree and now in the thick of her LPC course with BPP in Birmingham, Charlotte gives us an insight into the course and some top tips for this essential stage on the road to becoming a qualified solicitor.
What's it Like to be a Talent Scout?
There is a common saying in this industry: "It's not what you know, it's who you know." For a large part of my career I thought this to be true, until one day when I was discussing this with a wealthy businessman named Tejas Mistery. He corrected me, and said, "In any industry, it's not what you know or who you know, it's who knows you." This quote changed my life. I began to look at myself as a product on a shelf and started to employ all the managerial and marketing techniques any successful business would to make their product the brand leader. You may be a great singer, actor, model, dancer, producer, director or casting director, but unless people know who you are your talents might as well be given to someone else.
What's a Career in Youth Work Like?
Thinking about youth work? Go for it! I have really enjoyed my career, but there are a few things that you might want to know before you make up your mind.
Vacation Schemes: The Recruiter Interview
Do you want the inside scoop on law vacation schemes? We thought so! That's why we chatted to Amelia Goodwin, the Graduate Recruitment Manager for Field Fisher Waterhouse. She told us why vacation schemes are so important, how to make a good impression, and how to nail that application form…
Training Contracts: The Recruiter Interview
With application deadlines for training contracts looming, we decided to get some last minute advice on training contracts from Victoria Widdows, Legal Recruiting/Attorney Development Manager at Bingham McCutchen. We chatted to Victoria about training contract application forms and managed to get the inside scoop on American law firm salaries, commercial awareness, international secondments and much, much more…
The Secret Life of a Poker Player
A first class degree in astrophysics, a penchant for heavy metal and a hardnosed poker player, Liv Boeree isn't your average woman. We caught up with Liv before UKIPT Nottingham, the second stop on the Pokerstars UK & Ireland Poker Tour, and found out what it's really like to earn your bucks through poker. Think parties, big money and… um… plenty of studying. So is the life of a poker player all it's cracked up to be?
The Perks of a Financial Career Outside of London
If you're planning on embarking on a career in finance, you might think working in London is your only option. However, two-thirds of people employed in the financial services are based outside of London. There are rich pickings to be had beyond the Big Smoke: with opportunities and clients to rival that of London. Tom, a Senior Audit Manager at Deloitte's Reading office, tells us what life is like in a regional office.
The Other Magic Circle
Noel Qualter is a professional magician. He may not be Harry Potter, but his innovative close up magic tricks are currently blowing people's minds all over the world. We caught up with Noel to chat about his favourite tricks, his heroes, his mistakes and his most memorable moments as a magician…
The Life & Times of a Windsurfing Instructor
In 2009, Steven Peace left Britain behind to turn his passion for windsurfing into a full-time career. He currently works for Mark Warner in Sardinia and spends his days teaching people how to windsurf. We caught up with Steven to find out more about his life on the waves…
The Life & Times of a Professional Freediver
You don't need tons of expensive equipment to be a freediver. For this type of underwater diving, all you need is a big pair of lungs, a decent pair of fins and some serious determination. Freediving gives you the opportunity to explore the underwater world in complete serenity. Sounds cool, right? But I bet you didn't realise you could make a living by holding your breath underwater! Emma Farrell does just that. She is one of the world's best freediving instructors and Europe's only SSI Freediving Instructor Trainer. We chatted to Emma about her professional life as a freediver and found out exactly how long she can hold her breath for…
The GDL Experience
Jack Moxon decided to train to be a solicitor after completing a non-law undergraduate degree. The Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) is the way forward for all students looking to convert, and, as Jack explains, it's a full on year with lots of new challenges and skills to master…
Technology in the Finance Sector: The Graduate Developer
After making a great impression in his placement year, Carl Holloway was asked to return to Nomura as a Graduate Developer following graduation. Score! Nearly a year into the new role, Carl lets us in on what it's like to work in technology within the financial sector – a fast-paced, growing area you may not yet have considered if you have a technical degree…
Targets, Commission & Bonuses - Life in Recruitment
Why recruitment? This is a unique industry, where cash meets conscience. To be money-driven is not frowned upon in this trade; quite the contrary, it is flagrantly encouraged and endorsed, so much so that bonus schemes and structures are often the first items on the agenda.
Switching from the Private Sector to the Third Sector
Why did you choose to leave the private sector for a career in the third sector? To be honest, I didn't consciously plan to make a sector transition from the outset; it just turned out that way! At first, all I was doing was walking away from a career that didn't suit me. I was making an escape from the person that I had become through the stress of running of my own business. I didn't even know that person anymore and it was someone that I wasn't proud to be.
Steve Weiner, Business Skills Consultant at Ashurst
Having initially trained as a solicitor with international law firm Ashurst, Steve Weiner has enjoyed a diverse career in learning and development, training and … stand-up comedy. An award-winning comedian, we chatted to Steve about the benefits of his blend of performance and legal experience in his role as a Business Skills Consultant.
Sheila Crowley: Literary Agent
Sheila Crowley works as a literary agent for Curtis Brown, one of the oldest independent literary agencies in Europe. Specialising in women's commercial fiction, crime, thrillers, memoir, business and sport, she currently represents over 45 different authors. We chatted to Sheila about crossing over to 'the other side', the importance of internships in the book industry, and what she looks for in a new author…
School Leaver Programmes: The Big Four Perspective
Thinking of heading straight into business after school? A School Leaver Programme could be just your cup of tea! There are opportunities available with some of the biggest professional services firms in the business. Louise Coops, Senior Resource Manager in UKI Assurance at Big Four firm EY told us about what you can do as a school leaver with them…
School Leaver Programme Experience: Mazars
Tom Johnson left school after finishing his A-levels and headed straight into the working world with a school leaver programme with Mazars. He's now on the way to qualification as a qualified accountant, with a multitude of different experiences at the top multinational professional services firm to boot! He gave us an insight into life on the school leaver programme...
Samantha Crawford: Emerging Opera Star
Think opera and you might picture a fat lady with horns giving it some welly, not an exciting, and often glamorous, career opportunity. Soprano Samantha Crawford lets us into a few home truths about what it is really like to be an emerging classical artist. Think amazing costumes, staggeringly creative people and plenty of hard work. Curtains up as we present the new fresh face of opera…
PwC Legal LLP Vacation Scheme: Ask the Trainee
It's not often that we get to hear the inside scoop on vacation schemes. Trainee solicitor Yaxin Zhang tells us about her experiences on PwC Legal LLP's vacation scheme, the application process and why PwC Legal LLP is different. As the main vacation scheme deadline approaches, now's the time to knuckle down and send in those applications.
PwC Consulting: The Recruiter Interview
With application deadlines for consulting graduate schemes approaching, we decided to get some up to the minute advice from Anthony Takyi, Student Recruitment Manager at PwC. We chatted to Anthony about the Consulting application process and managed to get the inside scoop on the importance of commercial awareness and the amount of work experience you need to succeed…
Placement Life In Australia
Andri Christofides is a student at the University of Surrey currently undertaking a placement at F. L. Press in Australia. "Australia?!" Yep, that's right. Andri explains how "everything revolves around the beach and outdoors activities" and gives us an insight into her job and daily responsibilities.
Peter Robinson, International Criminal Defence Lawyer
Peter Robinson is a defence lawyer who specialises in international criminal law. He is currently the legal adviser to Radovan Karadžić, who is accused by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia of committing genocide and other war crimes against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croat civilians during the Bosnian War in the early 90s. We chatted to Peter about making the transition from prosecution to defence, the value of doing an internship, and the challenges of working as a defence lawyer on such a high-profile war crimes case…
Nick Seaver: Working in Cyber Security
Cyber security is still a relatively new area, constantly evolving as a result of the tech savvy world in which we live. But what's it all about? Nick Seaver is Partner in Deloitte's Advisory group, specialising in advising financial clients on managing a wide range of operational and technology risks – including cyber security. He lets us in on the kinds of cyber security roles out there, what it takes, and tells us all about the new De Montfort University Deloitte MSc in Cyber Security…
My Vacation Scheme Experience: Nabarro
Remy secured a training contract with law firm Nabarro after making a great impression on her three-week summer vacation scheme. But what did this experience entail? Here's the lowdown on her time on the programme, and the importance of seeing a vacation scheme as a two-way process.
My International Secondment: Moscow
After six months as a trainee solicitor in Berwin Leighton Paisner's London office, Joanne Cox was given the opportunity to complete her second seat in Central Russia. We chatted to Joanne about her international seat in Corporate Finance and the best thing about living and working in Moscow…
Meet the Trainee: Ince & Co
Taiwanese by birth, Malene Wang grew up in the United States and studied computer science at university. After graduating she worked as a computer programmer in the financial services industry for six years. Having been transferred over to the UK, Malene was made redundant when the financial crisis hit in 2008. This was the catalyst that prompted her to pursue a career in law. After completing her GDL and LPC, Malene managed to secure a training contract with Ince & Co. It's safe to say that she was not a conventional candidate…
Life as a BPTC Student
After successfully completing a non-law undergraduate degree and a GDL at BPP Law School, Leeds, Emily Reed is currently studying the BPTC with BPP – the programme that will prepare her to take on a career as a barrister. With a pupillage lined up now, Emily shares her experiences of the course and tells us what it takes to earn that barrister's wig.
Jonathan Hayward: South Africa Secondment at Mazars
Jonathan Hayward is a senior audit manager at professional services firm Mazars. As part of his role, he had the opportunity to take some time to go and work in a Mazars office in another part of the work. He tells us about his secondment experiences in South Africa…
Jane Houston, LPC Co-Director at BPP Law School
Wondering what to expect on the LPC? Need some advice on how to tackle that all-important year? Jane Houston, Co-Director of the LPC programmes at BPP, lets us in on a few insider tips and what law firms are looking for from their future trainees…
Iva Vukusic: War Crimes Researcher & Analyst
Iva Vukusic works as a researcher, archivist and analyst for the Sense News Agency in The Hague. An expert on war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, she has used her specialist knowledge to help indict war criminals in Bosnia and has spoken at conferences all over the world, from Rwanda to San Francisco. We chatted to Iva about her career so far, her plans for the future, and what it takes to develop a career on the analytical side of international criminal law…
Interview with Katie Trewhella, Global Market Sales Analyst at Nomura
Katie Trewhella is a Global Market Sales Analyst at Nomura, having previously studied Maths at the University of Leeds. Here she provides an insight into one of her typically busy days…
International Secondment Experiences in Abu Dhabi
The Middle East is a hive of opportunity for trainee solicitors who want to experience a different office and culture during their training contract. International law firm Norton Rose Fulbright offers their trainees the chance to join the Abu Dhabi office amongst others. We spoke to Juraj Neuwirth who is currently working over there…
International Opportunities in Law
Ever thought about jetting off for an English Law training contract in foreign climes? Or mixing things up with an international secondment? Trainees at international law firm Latham & Watkins can take advantage of either of these options over in their Singapore office. We spoke to two trainees, plus Singapore office Partner Rob Brown, to find out about the challenges and adventures of life in the hub of the Asian market.
Inside the Training & Development of a Trainee Solicitor
Have you ever wondered what kind of training you will receive as a trainee solicitor? We chatted to Joanne Gubbay, the Head of Practice Learning & Development at Ashurst, to find out more about how a trainee solicitor's training is structured and what it actually involves…
Elisabeth Baltay, Partner, Finance @ Bingham
Elisabeth Baltay is a partner in Bingham's Finance group. She is also one of the firm's graduate recruitment partners, which means she plays a vital role in the selection, supervision and development of trainees. We caught up with Elisabeth to find out more about the life of a trainee solicitor at Bingham…
Changing Careers through a School Leaver Scheme
Many training schemes aren't just for fresh graduates or school leavers, but career changers too. We interviewed David Mannion to find out why he chose to give up his previous career in sales and financial services for a place on the National Audit Office's School Leavers' Scheme.
Andy Butcher, Trainee Solicitor on a Client Secondment at McDonald's Europe
Andy Butcher joined Bristows as a trainee solicitor in 2010. He is currently on a client secondment at McDonald's. We caught up with Andy to find out more about his three months with the fast-food giant…
Gregor Pryor, Media & Technology Partner at Reed Smith
Gregor Pryor, a partner in Reed Smith's media and technology group, spoke to AllAboutCareers.com about this ever-developing area of law. He tells us about his work and provides advice to future lawyers…
Georgina Reid, Food Buying Intern at Tesco
Georgina is a 21-year-old undergraduate studying History at the University of Southampton. She recently completed an internship in buying with the UK's biggest retailer Tesco. As a result, she has secured a sought-after graduate job with the company as a Trainee Graduate Buyer after she's graduated and taken a year out to travel to South America and teach English. She told us all about her internship experiences…
Georgina Blackwell: From Beautician to Barrister
In 2009, Georgina Blackwell, a beautician at the time, stepped into the High Court and won a courtroom battle against a property development giant without any legal training. Following her victory, she was offered a full scholarship by BPP to complete the LLB. Two years later, she graduated with a first class honours degree. We caught up with Georgina to chat about her unique experiences of the legal profession so far…
A Day in the Life of a Financial Benefits Advisory Consultant
After graduating from LSE with a degree in International Relations, Emma Haugh joined Aon as a Financial Benefits Advisory Consultant. We caught up with her to find out more about her professional life…
Using Your Internship to Get into Investment Banking
You've probably heard that work experience is the best way forward when it comes to securing that golden graduate job. But how do you go about making the most of your internships to get into the highly competitive investment banking industry? Raisah, who is now a credit trading analyst at international bank J.P. Morgan has is covered…
Gavin Thomas, Travel Writer
After a two-year round-the-world trip, Gavin Thomas decided to move away from music journalism and started working as a travel editor with Rough Guides. After several years of editing, he was given the opportunity to author the first edition of the Rough Guide to Sri Lanka. Since becoming a freelance travel journalist in 2005, he has written a range of guidebooks about Dubai, Oman, Rajasthan, Delhi and Agra. We chatted to Gavin about becoming a travel writer, avoiding cliché and the time he was shot in the stomach by armed bandits in Mexico…
Finance Apprenticeships: A Smith & Williamson Insight
Finance apprenticeships are increasingly on the up as an alternative to university for top school leavers. But what does an apprenticeship actually involve? Josh and Katie came from slightly different routes (A-levels and a Level 3 BTEC Extended Diploma in Business) and have now taken up tax and audit apprenticeships with financial services firm Smith & Williamson. They let us in on what their programmes involve…
Diversity in Banking: An Insight
You'll often here that nowadays banks implement diversity policies and programmes in all elements of their business. But what are they actually doing? Vinay Kapoor, UK Diversity & Inclusion Manager at BNP Paribas told us about how things are changing within the industry and what diversity and inclusion means at the Bank…
Devan Nathwani, Actuarial Intern and Graduate at Aon
Devan was curious about what an actuarial career may hold as a mathematics student, but wasn't 100% sure what the industry actually entailed. A couple of years later, he has completed a summer internship in actuarial consulting within pensions with top actuarial firm Aon, and has now moved into their graduate scheme. So what did he gain from his summer internship?
Deutsche Bank Experiences: Private & Business Clients
Private and business clients is a highly desired career path focus in the banking and finance world. Roya is gaining experience in this area with Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, Germany – one of the world's biggest financial hubs. She told us about the opportunities this is opening up.
Deutsche Bank Experiences: Graduate Global Technology Strategy Analyst
Leo is a Global Technology Strategy Analyst in Group Technology & Operations in London. His team pioneers technologies and re-engineers business processes to deliver innovation and world-class client service. From moving trillions of Euros through a business every day to integrating two organizations after a major acquisition, they face the technological challenges caused by growth, market change and constant competition…
Dave Benson Phillips, Children's Television Presenter
If you watched children's television in the 90s, you will probably recognise the trademark smile of Dave Benson Phillips. Yep, that's right! He's the charming chap who presented Playdays, Get Your Own Back and Wake Up in the Wild Room. We caught up with Dave to chat about his life as a children's television presenter, the 'World's Largest Gunge Fight', and the internet death hoax that threatened to ruin his career…
Damian Fleming, Partner, Commercial Real Estate @ Berwin Leighton Paisner
Damian Fleming has been a partner in Berwin Leighton Paisner's (BLP) Commercial Real Estate group since 2006. We caught up with Damian to chat about his career in real estate law and to find out more about the life of a trainee solicitor at BLP…
Culture Shock: The Difference Between an SME & a Large Corporate
After I graduated, I completed a two-year graduate scheme at a global financial services company, which involved three placement rotations: Project Manager, Team Manager and Regulatory Reporting Analyst.
Confessions of a Recruitment Consultant
Prepare to be shocked, appalled and amused! We interviewed a graduate recruitment consultant to find out what really happens to your CV when you apply for a job through a recruitment agency. If you want an honest insight into the recruitment process, you're in the right place. The person we interviewed has asked to remain anonymous. Get ready to find out why!
Chibundu Onuzo, Student Novelist
Chibundu Onuzo started writing her debut novel when she was just 17 years old. Having secured a two-book deal with Faber at the age of 20, whilst studying history at King's College London, she went on to receive widespread critical acclaim for The Spider King's Daughter, which was recently shortlisted for the prestigious Dylan Thomas Prize. We chatted to Chibundu about tackling the writing process, getting published, and balancing academic work with a literary career…
Catching Up with Browne Jacobson's New Training Principal
Mark Hughes has recently been appointed training principal at Browne Jacobson. Mark, a partner in Browne Jacobson's corporate team specialises in all aspects of corporate advice, including acquisitions and disposals and has been with the firm since 1999. AllAboutCareers.com caught up with Mark, finding out about changes to Browne Jacobson's trainee recruitment programme…
Building a Brand: The World's Best Tasting Popcorn
Fresh from his recent appearance on Dragons' Den, Martin McLaughlin (a.k.a. Ben 'Jamaican Me Crazy' McLaughlin) chatted to us about starting his own popcorn company, Love Da Popcorn, with two close friends. With a background in advertising and a tidy little bit of investment from Peter Jones, Love Da Popcorn's products are likely to be making your tonsils tingle with happiness very, very soon…
Are apprenticeships the best route into the accounting industry?
Mike Day is the Head of the Accounting Academy Partnership, an apprenticeship scheme which helps young people to become qualified accounting technicians in just 14 months. We chatted to Mike about the increasing importance of apprenticeships in the accounting industry, especially now the government has announced its scheme to create 360,000 apprenticeships in the UK this financial year…
An Interview with the Attorney General
Appointed as the Attorney General by Prime Minister David Cameron in May, 2010, Dominic Grieve QC MP is the Chief Legal Adviser to the Crown. A champion of student pro bono projects, he also chairs the Attorney General's Pro Bono Committee. We were lucky enough to get the chance to talk to the Attorney General about the importance of student pro bono projects, his own personal experiences of pro bono work, and the possible impact that the proposed legal aid cuts will have on pro bono initiatives in the UK…
An Interview with an Ambassador
His Excellency Ric Todd has recently been appointed Her Majesty's Governor to Turks and Caicos Islands. Previously he was the 56th British Ambassador to Poland. We were lucky enough to get the chance to talk to Ric about his career so far, his advice for people considering a career as a British Ambassador, the challenge of learning new languages and meeting Pope John Paul II...
An Employer's Perspective on Modern Apprenticeships
Employers Jessica Addis and James Vaughan-Smith needed to hire additional staff recently and took a chance on apprentice Chloe Hutchinson-Brown. Having had a positive experience of utilising an apprenticeship scheme, Jessica and James spoke to AllAboutCareers.com about how hiring an apprentice worked for their company and should be a serious consideration for all school leavers.
Alice Coates, Teach First Maths Ambassador
Alice Coates gained a multitude of different experiences working with young people through her studies before she took on the challenge of the Teach First Leadership Development Programme as a maths teacher in the Yorkshire and The Humber area. A couple of years later, she's now a Lower School Assistant Head in Sheffield! She chatted to us about her experiences on the programme and what teaching means to her…
Adam Gamsa, Trainee Solicitor @ Field Fisher Waterhouse
Having completed a DPhil in Physics at the University of Oxford, Adam Gamsa decided to move away from academia and join Field Fisher Waterhouse as a trainee solicitor. We caught up with Adam to chat about his first nine months as a trainee, his vacation scheme and his enthusiasm for intellectual property law…
A Life in Social Care
Many of the people who pursue a career in social care are initially drawn by the simple motivation of 'helping people' or 'giving something back'. Behind such simplicity is a complicated range of values. For example, a recognition of the inherent value of every person and their right to be considered equal with every other citizen.
A Different Kind of Accountant
When you hear the word Mazuma, you might think of those irritating adverts which invite you to exchange your mobile phone for cash. But wait! There is another company with the same name. Started by two friends, Mazuma provides expert accountancy services to small businesses and independent contractors. We had a chat with Sophie Hughes about starting up her own business and what it's like to be a woman in a male-dominated industry…
A Day in the Life of a Trainee Solicitor
After graduating from the University of Leeds with a law degree, Sacha Wooldridge joined PwC Legal LLP as a trainee solicitor. We caught up with her to find out more about her life in law…
A Day in the Life of a Trainee Actuarial Consultant
After graduating from the University of Warwick with a degree in Maths, Operational Research, Statistics and Economics (MORSE), Tom Williams joined Aon as a trainee actuarial consultant. We caught up with him to find out more about the professional life of an actuary…
A Coveted Position: What's it like to be a Partner in an International Law Firm?
Richard Hough, Graduate Recruitment Partner at Allen & Overy, started out as a trainee solicitor with the firm in 1992. He has been a partner in the Corporate department since 2000. We were lucky enough to get the chance to talk to Richard about his career and what it's like to be a partner at an international law firm…
Why I Chose My Sponsored Degree in Engineering
Sponsored Degree Programmes can be ideal for those looking for a career change too. Lee Dennis was initially an engineer with the Royal Navy, and took his career in a new direction into the power system industry through the National Grid Engineer Training Programme…


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Serving the Central and Southern regions of Georgia since 1946, Davis Oil Company is a third-generation family-owned business with over 135 years combined experience in fuel and lubricant supply and distribution. We offer our clients comprehensive services including fuel and lubricant delivery, fleet fueling, inventory management, maintenance, regulatory compliance training, and more.
As a member of the Clean Cities Coalition, we devote our resources to finding alternative fuel sources and protecting the environment. We are proud to partner with Trillium CNG to make compressed natural gas more accessible and convenient for the Central Georgia community. In everything we do, we strive to uphold our family's commitment to quality and integrity.