As the daughter of an interracial couple growing up in a middle-class town on Long
Island in the 1970s, Soledad O’Brien learned not to let inappropriate or racist comments throw her. “On the one hand it was a very normal, boring middle class childhood, and on the other we knew we weren’t always going to fit in,” says the CNN journalist.
So when the Rev. Jesse Jackson complained that CNN didn’t have any Black anchormen and anchorwomen and dismissed her Afro-Cuban heritage on her mother’s side saying at a private meeting in 2007 she didn’t “count as Black,” O’Brien was embarrassed at her response. She felt angry and did not push back with a follow-up question.
“Today, I would have said, ‘Well what do you mean?’” says the 44-year-old reporter.
Now as the anchorwoman of CNN’s “In America” documentary unit, she says she asks those uncomfortable questions about race all the time.
“One of the things that has been a real strength, and a real value in our ‘Black in America’ and ‘Latino in America’ series is that we push on those uncomfortable questions.”
O’Brien’s mixed race background — she checks Hispanic, Caucasian and Black on U.S. Census forms — has undoubtedly shaped her work, says Rose Arce, a senior producer who has worked with O’Brien for the past six years.
