What If Your Santa Ain't Pink?

Happy holidays, all! By the time you read this, you will probably have consumed your turkey, goose or ham (Some latkes maybe? Peas and rice? ); opened your gifts (and we hope you got some nice ones); and are looking ahead to... well, what are you looking ahead to? For some of you, at this point it's all about New Year's. For others, maybe you're still in the middle of Kwanzaa or you're going to observe Epiphany, the Feast of the Three Kings.

The point is that a multicultural society like ours offers a feast of opportunities to celebrate and worship. But it can also get complicated. The traditions of Christmas, as practiced in North America, draw heavily on imagery shaped by northern Europe: the pink-cheeked Santa and all that snow, snow, snow! It's a problem for some of us to see ourselves in the story. And Kwanzaa can be a dilemma, too: Does it add to Christmas or detract from Christmas?

You may find yourself thinking about these things when you're on your own, but for most of us, what and how to celebrate doesn't really become an issue until we decide to share our lives with someone else, especially when we have children. So we decided to ask some savvy multicultural moms how they navigate the cultural minefield of holiday time. We hope to offer this kind of practical, accessible talk about real issues as a regular feature of our program.

Our working title for this segment is "Mocha Moms" -- and no, we weren't clever enough to come up with that one. Mocha Moms is a national organization founded by stay-at-home moms of color, but open to all. I stumbled across the group a couple of years ago when I interviewed some of their chapter members for a story for ABC News Nightline. When we started developing this program, my colleague Marie Nelson had the idea of building a segment around members of the group, which was founded here in the D.C. area.

We liked their common sense, chemistry and energy, and we hope you do, too. Please listen (audio) and take a minute to tell us what you think about the segment. What about the topics? If this were a call-in show, is this the type of segment that would move you to call or write in? What if you knew about it in advance from our blog? Would you make more of an effort to participate in the conversation?

On a side note, a husband of one of our Mocha Moms just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. That reminds me to take a moment to thank all of you who are spending your holidays abroad, whether in the military, Peace Corps or Foreign Service. Thank you for your service and sacrifice, and that of your families. And thanks also to those of you who are spending the holidays working here at home -- in squad cars, firehouses, newsrooms, fixing utility lines, serving food or taking care of the sick. Whatever you do, we appreciate it, even if we don't always take the time to say so. So thank you and happy new year to all! We're gone for the holiday but will be back next week to respond to posts.

Michel Martin

2:13 PM ET | 12-28-2006 | permalink | comments (48) | e-mail post

 

Grooving to a Different Beat

So, as we said before, we all agree that we want this new show to talk about things other people might not talk about. And -- I may not have said this soon enough -- we plan to have fun doing this.

So we were thinking about the holidays and we started thinking about the whole "white Christmas" thing -- as both a song and a metaphor. That got us to thinking about how and why African-Americans started putting their stamp on the holiday. Which led naturally to thinking about the great (as well as the resolutely cheesy) holiday songs we all love, from the Jackson 5 to the mighty Temptations.

We started looking around and soon found Mark Anthony Neal, a professor at Duke University who actually studies African-American history and pop culture (that's what's so great about America -- and Google). We got his take on the subject and listened to some great tunes. We were grooving all week long!

We hope you'll listen (audio) and, if you'll take the time, tell us what you think. Specifically, have you ever heard a radio segment on this topic and did you find this conversation interesting? What about our use of music? Is music an important cultural marker and would you like to hear more music segments? Don't be shy. We need to hear from you to make this show sing -- pardon the pun. Happy holidays! We'll be back on Thursday after our own little holiday break.

Michel Martin

12:53 PM ET | 12-22-2006 | permalink | comments (24) | e-mail post

 

Wonder Women

Now might be a good time to let you know that, although I am writing in the first-person singular, I am by no means doing this by myself. Sitting one office over is my pal Marie Nelson. She is a former producer and colleague of mine at ABC News Nightline and she came over here a couple of months after I did to help us get this show off the ground. Marie has an interesting background, but the short version is: very international, scary smart, fabulous wardrobe. In short, I hate her. I would have HER tell you a little bit more about herself, but she's too busy editing an interview I just did. So, more on her later.

And working two floors below us is Sue Goodwin, the executive producer of Talk of the Nation, who's also been helping us navigate the rocky shoals of a startup. Sue has worked on just about every show at NPR as well as on the Science Desk. She is amazing: a great listener, super efficient, fun to talk to -- except when she gets all nostalgic about cutting audio tape with razor blades. Spare me!

Michel Martin

11:28 AM ET | 12-22-2006 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

 

A Leap of Faith

Hi everybody! I'm Michel Martin, and this is my first blog posting in support of the daily news/talk/interview show I'm developing with the help of many fine people here at National Public Radio.

I have to say it feels a bit weird to be blogging. It feels a bit weird to be writing about myself at all after all my years as a journalist, where you learn that kind of stand apart, "objective" voice. Finally, it feels a bit weird to be starting this blog in December since I've actually been hanging around here at NPR since January of this year, preparing for the show launch and guest hosting on other shows. But trying new things is what we're all about here... so OK... deep breath... here goes.

I'd like to begin by telling you a little bit about myself. We'll go into more detail in later postings, but for now, the broad strokes: I was born in Brooklyn. My father is a retired firefighter. My mother had several careers: as a homemaker, as a teacher's aide and then in the back office at Bloomingdale's (which she seems to have really loved -- especially the employee discount).

Although I have flirted with other fields, I have been a journalist for my entire adult life starting literally days after college graduation. I worked first in newspapers and later in television at ABC News. Just to prove we have no imagination in my family, my sister is also a journalist and my brother is a firefighter, like my dad. Needless to say, we all respond to deadlines with alacrity.

Speaking of which, some people think I talk too fast. That's just because they are not New Yorkers (don't hate, emulate!).

Some of you may want to know why we need another news and talk program at NPR. There are a lot of answers to that question -- some glib (because I need a job), some snarky (what, you have something better to listen to?). Here's the serious answer: This is a complex world. Our audience is diverse and we would like to it be more so. No single news program can really cover the entirety of the world in the voice and style that everyone in our audience would truly enjoy.

So around the same time the good folks at NPR were thinking they'd like to try some new ways of presenting news and issues, there I was a couple of miles away thinking, you know, I might like to try some new ways of doing news and issues. The NPR folks, along with a group of African-American stations, want to bring new and diverse voices into the mix and, what do you know, so do I.

We plan to talk about issues that matter to a diverse audience. We plan to spend some time visiting and talking about parts of the world that don't always get top billing. We want to notice things that other folks might miss and hear points of view that don't always get heard. We take the "public" in public radio seriously -- we plan to talk to you and with you and about you. And we want as many of you on this journey as are willing to come. Oh yes, and we're also serious about having some serious fun. So, deep breath... we're jumping in! You coming?

Michel Martin

10:19 AM ET | 12-22-2006 | permalink | comments (52) | e-mail post