From the Archives: Interview with Rachel Maddow

This interview was conducted in 2010 by Matthew’s Place writer Lauren Neal.

On Wobbling: An Interview with Rachel Maddow

by Lauren Neal, Youth Correspondent

Rachel Maddow is one of the most prominent political television journalists of the contemporary era. Her wit and devotion to academic and critical analysis of current issues are unmatched, and rarely does one find a journalistic personality he/she wishes would be available for coffee just to pick and be floored by her pure, keen intellect.

Still, if I have learned anything critical about life from my experience speaking with and regularly watching Rachel Maddow on CNN, it is that one must acknowledge one’s strength; it is the power in ourselves we must find and embrace, and it is strength we are challenged and encouraged to find when we form our opinions of others. Maddow noted that “nobody should willingly take” any “step[s] into weakness;” for her, this includes walking through an unbridled, uncloseted life. Maddow’s unwavering charge to find and present the political and social truths of the world as she sees it is particularly inspiring for anyone struggling to determine what — and who — it is that one loves.

Rachel Maddow rigorously researches, critically analyzes, and creatively presents global current events to the best of her ability (an ability about which I must eschew impartially and eternally rave). She is only one voice, but but she voices her truths. An adolescent — or anyone — struggling with his or her sexuality might be riddled with questions of ‘appropriateness,’ ‘societal expectations,’ and pictures of ‘normative behavior.’ Taking a cue from Rachel Maddow, I implore anyone in such a position to think only of what he/she knows to be true of them. Yes, perhaps we all — particularly LGBTQ persons — are precariously running along a “six-inch wide ledge” through various aspects of our lives; yet, as Maddow notes, if we are “perfectly capable of running in a straight line and…have been doing it all this time,” why look down?

What compels others to dare tell you that who you love is wrong? More important, I think, is this: don’t you dare believe them. Nothing is “wobbly” or questionable, and certainly nothing is wrong, if it is true.

L: Hi, great. Thanks so much for agreeing to be interviewed for the Matthew Shepard Foundation. How are you this evening?

R: I’m good. I hope I’m calling at the right time and doing all this right.

L: When I started this summer, interning for the Foundation, I decided to start this project that’s basically putting together a repertoire, if you will, of all these different interviews with successful LGBTQ professionals, and people of that nature. I’ve interviewed politicians, and athletes and a lot of different people coming from a lot of different backgrounds. So I would really love to hear about the factors that contributed to your early passion for politics and political science. And just basically what your youth and adolescence was like.

R: Oh. Okay. I grew up in California in a middle class family, my dad worked for the water company and I went to public schools and I was very involved in sports. And I came out to myself in my senior year of high school and sort of freaked out a little bit about it, but didn’t exactly know what it was going to mean for the rest of my life. I went off to college in part because I had realized that I was gay and I had a choice about whether or not I was going go to college right away or whether or not I was going to wait a year and have — I needed reconstructive surgery on my shoulder. I was a volleyball player and had I taken a year off and done the surgery and rehab on my shoulder, I would have gone to college on an athletic scholarship. So it was keep playing sports but wait a year at home, or go to college right away and stop playing sports. And I decided, because I was gay, to go to college right away because I knew that it wasn’t going to be comfortable for me to be gay and at home. So I went to college and in my first year I came out and that was, I think not necessarily more difficult than most people’s coming out experience, but certainly not easier either. I didn’t have an easy time with my parents at first. And I think from there I had sort of made a decision that if sports wasn’t going to be a big part of my life any more, that probably politics was going to be the thing that took its place; that being an activist, which is something that I’ve done a little bit of but not a lot, was probably going to be the thing that filled that void in my life.

L: And was that just because you had an interest in it before, and that seemed appropriate because you weren’t playing sports, or did you have experiences early on in college after coming out, that compelled you to pursue it further?

R: Well, my first activist experience was actually doing anti-racist stuff because the town that I grew up in had a really wide, awful racist streak. We had an active chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in my town when I was growing up. And I grew up — I mean, this is the Bay Area in the 80s, it wasn’t like I grew up in the Deep South or something in the 50s. And I worked with friends of mine to essentially organize against the racist skinheads and the other racist groups in my town just because we were disgusted with them. And so that had been my first taste of racism that … I felt very threatened by, and very embarrassed by, the fact that my town had this virulent racist streak. And so organizing against that was the first thing that I ever did and I think I realized that it was something I felt compelled to do. But once I came out — and again this is the San Francisco Bay area in the 80s, and so the thing that was omnipresent was AIDS and the AIDS movement — I probably figured out I was gay in 1989, Act Up was founded in 1987 and it was definitely sort of like, the fight of my people. And so as I came out and got to know more, got to know more gay people and sort of started to accept the gay community as my own. I realized that we were totally under siege, and had formed a really effective, interesting, aggressive movement to try to save our own lives. And so really, I became an AIDS activist by the time I was 17 and that was my primary identity in the world until about 2004.

L: Wow. Do you feel like there is such a rallying point for LGBTQ youth presently? I mean, do you feel there is one particular issue or that sort of thing that sort of catalyzes that same sort of passion for LGBTQ youth that are of that same age that you were when you first really found your footing in politics?
R: You mean, is there anything that’s sort of doing now what AIDS did then?

L: Yeah, or do you feel like there is?

R: I feel like I can’t speak for young people today because now I’m, I’m 36, more than half of my life has gone by since that time in my life, since I was 17. And that’s very humbling to remember. But I know that I would have been pretty suspicious of any 36-year-old trying to tell me, at 17, what my issues were. So I’m reluctant to say what I think is going on for youth right now. But certainly the sort of diffusion of the AIDS movement hasn’t disappeared, but it’s definitely turned into a much less potent community experience of activism than it ever was. I don’t see something that has replaced that, in the intensity that we had it then. But that was a pretty obscenely intense scenario that we were all facing, so I don’t know.

L: Do you feel like there are issues that sort of get fall by the way-side when it comes to the LGBTQ community? Some people that I’ve spoken to feel like gay marriage or something like that sort of takes precedence in a lot of discussions and debates regarding what a lot of people are referring to as the new civil rights movement or whatever words people choose. Do you feel like there are any other issues that just really sort of are swept under the rug a lot more than they should be?

R: Well, I do think that there’s sort of a continuum of things that matter to the community and that are galvanizing to the community and I think, broadly speaking, equality issues are always going to be there for us. And I mean that’s the real technical sense of what civil rights are — when you define civil rights, the dictionary definition is about having full access to the rights and privileges and responsibilities of citizenship, and right now we still don’t. And the things that we are barred from are things like being in the military and getting married and there’s employment discrimination, the other forms of employment discrimination that we face beyond those in the military. I mean even though I live in Massachusetts; I could get married if I wanted to, and my partner and I have been together for 10 years, and I’ve chosen not to get married. Marriage is not my personal issue, but I recognize that it is a pure civil rights issue for our community. And regardless of whether or not we culturally value the right of getting married — I think that’s something everybody has to decide on their own, and our culture, our gay culture, needs to work out on its own. The idea that we’d be barred as citizens from something that somebody else can do is repugnant. I mean, I understand why we’ve prioritized it, I understand why we fought for it. Even as a person who’s not personally interested in pursuing marriage rights, I get why it is a priority, the same reason that I get that [regarding] the military, and the same reason that I get that with the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. And … I don’t have any qualms about those things being priorities for the movement. That said, I don’t know how much of a movement we really have.

L: Right, absolutely I would have to agree there. It’s really interesting. You know, I’m a college student and that sort of thing comes up a lot in discussions. And people try to figure out a lot of the time — no matter how they identify, whether they’re trying to sort through their own privileges or their identity as a marginalized person in the world or whatever it is — I feel like a lot of people I know have trouble finding out what it is that they should study and how they can best contribute, sort of make waves for their position in the world or how they can best affect their community, I guess. What advice would you give for someone who is trying to figure out what it is that they want to do, or what they want to pursue, any young people but LGBTQ youth in particular?

R: I think that, and this is going to sound a little bit trite, but I think a really big part of ending up an effective person who gets a lot done in the world is knowing yourself well enough to know what you’re really good at. I think that a lot of times people sort of get boxed into pursuing lines of either study or activism or career paths that they’ve seen other people use to succeed and become leaders, and I don’t necessarily think that’s the best way to do it. I think a lot of people go to law school and become lawyers before they realize that that’s not actually going to be the way that they make their mark in the world. I think the way you make your mark in the world is by figuring out what you’re good at and then figuring out a way to do that as your vocation. And so whether its it’s art or math or rhetoric or philosophy or organizing or engineering or whatever it is, do the thing that you’re awesome at, because … you’re going to need to be really awesome at something if you’re going to want to change the world by doing it. And there’s a lot of different ways to contribute and be successful. But by forcing yourself to do something that isn’t really your forté because you think it’s the way to be successful or influential almost never works. I think you really have to know yourself and follow what you’re good at in order to be the best you can possibly be. I also think that, as queer people, we have sort of an advantag,e because one of the ways that queer people change the world is by being out, and that’s something that most other minority groups don’t have to contend with. And this sort of secret silver lining to that is, that you can change the world for queer people by being a physicist or by being a violinist or by being any number of things, just by virtue of the fact that you are willing to be out.

L: Definitely. That’s one of the hardest hitting points of this little interview series, I think. M: Yeah. Being out changes the world and it means that we don’t all have to be Harvey Milk, you know it means we all don’t have to be Barney Frank. It means there’s a lot of different ways for us to change the world and be leaders, because just by being visibly, proudly, unabashedly queer in whatever we’re doing, our very success in any field is good for gay people.

L: Was it difficult, or did you have fears associated with about being open about your sexuality, as you made your way through your education and your preliminary career?

R: My preliminary career was pretty different from my current career. I definitely was on track to be a full-time activist and … I was an AIDS activist so it wasn’t a weird thing that I was gay. Since I’ve been in media, I’m certain that being gay has affected my career path, but I don’t exactly know how because I’ve never done this career path as a straight person. So I’m sure its affected me. But I’m totally out, I don’t have any choice about being out, so I don’t know what my career would have been like had I not been gay … this is how it’s always been.

L: What do you mean by you didn’t have any choice about being out? Is that just because of the nature of the media and you just feel like there’s no way you could do the work that you do if you had something that you weren’t open about?

R: I just — I’m totally incapable of being closeted. I mean I came out when I was 17 and I have never been closeted a day in my life since. I’m not closeted anywhere in any circumstance at any time. I also look like a giant dyke and don’t try not to. So I mean … I’m not a person who has to make, who feels like I need to make at a choice on a regular basis about whether or not to be out. I am, I have lived more than half of my life as an openly gay person and I would not know how to be closeted if I tried, I honestly wouldn’t have any idea how to do it.

L: Well better for the rest of us I guess and everyone who loves watching you so much.

R: Thank you.

L: No, absolutely. I can’t tell you actually how many people I know from my family or even, you know, peers of all ages who watch you and enjoy you very much.

R: Well, thank you.

L: That’s on a very personal note … I can be as professional as I want in this interview but that fact still remains. Do you feel like your successes as a television journalist have increased or changed your sense of personal responsibility to speak on behalf of salient issues in American politics regardless of what they are? I mean I suppose that the fact that you were on your way to being an activist, you were already very accustomed to trying to get the word out about a lot of different issues but I wonder, do you feel more powerful knowing that you reach so many people?

R: That’s a very good question, and one that I don’t get asked very often. It is sobering to know that people are paying attention to what I’m saying. I don’t think about — because the way I plan what to say every day, and this has been true ever since I’ve been in media of any stripe, is that I don’t really think about the audience, I think about what is an accurate, entertaining or provocative way to talk about, represent things in the news that I’m interested in. I just, I sort of write my script for myself. In terms of how things should be explained, how things can be explained in a way that makes them make sense and that illuminates the world. I’m sort of writing for my own conscience all the time. To hear what I’ve said repeated back to me, by people who have heard it or to see it put to light in the world, is sobering. It’s really not the way that I think about what I do. And I do think that … it has changed what I’ve said, but I think its made me take myself more seriously. Which is not something I ever intended to do.

L: You mean in terms of you’re hoping that you give a more accurate portrayal of certain issues as you can, or does it make you more aware or more conscious of what you personally think about these particular things and just wanting to find the right words exactly? Or does it make you work harder to figure out what it really, really is that you think very specifically?

R: Well that is interesting. I mean, that’s really what I already brought to it. Like a real devotion to accuracy and a real devotion to making sure that I was saying exactly what I thought about the issue. That I was not just rounding up to the nearest sentence but I was actually saying precisely what I thought about something, and something that I thought was really defensible, was what I already brought to writing scripts and doing radio and doing television. What’s happened now, it’s more akin to, like let’s say you’re like, you’re running somewhere and you’re sort of running in a straight line and you’re happily jogging along the way you always do and then all of a sudden you look down and realize that what you’re running on is a like six-inch wide ledge and you’ve been running on it all this time and you had no idea that you were on a six-inch wide ledge. And you’re perfectly capable of running in a straight line and you’ve been doing it all this time and you had no idea, but now that you’ve looked down it’s like, “Ah!”

L: You get a little wobbly?

R: Yeah, you get a little wobbly. That’s, that’s more of what it is. I don’t think it makes me do anything differently but it … I think the job is a little intimidating sometimes.

L: So I mean, you obviously use a lot of humor and comedy to address issues in an appealing way. When did you realize that you have such a propensity for comedy and for humor? And, how did you find out that it’s a really effective way to talk about issues?

R: There was, in my family, there’s always sort of been a competition for being a good storyteller and being funny. So I think that it’s sort of an expectation [from] my upbringing. But I also think that, as gay people, I think we learn to use humor to defuse dangerous situations. To make people, if not like us, at least to make people leave us alone. And that there is a certain, I mean I think there’s a reason why different minority groups in the United States are sometimes much more appreciated or tolerated as entertainers than we are as people who can contribute to the culture in other ways. Like people are more comfortable with minority groups entertaining us rather than leading us or being our doctors or being our teachers or whatever it is. And I think that’s a little bit born out of what it means to be part of an endangered subculture, is that we use humor to defuse tension so that that tension doesn’t explode toward us. And so I do actually think it’s little bit of a cultural thing.

L: That’s interesting. I actually study theatre and performance in school so you know we talk about “performativity” a lot and how certain groups in particular are sort of grafted to the performance of their particular identity no matter what it happens to be. And then it becomes maybe a sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy I suppose — when people are expecting certain behaviors from a person they’re more likely to perform to sort of appease the spectators.

R: It also becomes a place that has well charted career paths for people who are otherwise boxed out of career opportunities. I mean there’s a reason that people follow their peers into specific career paths. It’s because they’ve seen their peers succeed there. And so then it becomes sort of a well-worn path for people like me to do this thing that I’ve already done. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy both in terms of people’s expectations but also in terms of what’s open to us.

L: Well given that, what does it feel like to bear a name that, in my opinion anyways, is sort of synonymous with liberal news media?

R: I’ve only been on the air for a year, so that’s awesome. [Laughs] Yes! I try not to think about it too much because I don’t want to freak myself out, because I do want to keep focusing on accuracy and good scripts and being entertaining and all the stuff that makes the show quality. So I don’t really know. People have asked me, “What do you think about the impact you’re having on the gay community?” or “the impact you’re having on the media?” or “the impact you’re having on cable?” I don’t really know. I mean I sort of feel like other people can judge that better than me. I know what I’m doing every day but in terms of what impact it’s having on the world at large, I think I’m sort of a warped lens from which to view that. I don’t necessarily trust my own assessments.

L: Definitely, I would say it’s about the work I guess.

R: This is a hard job … it takes up the whole day every day.

L: Right. You know so it’s not like you go home and watch yourself or anything like that.
R: No, I really don’t. Thank God.

L: Do you think that there’s sort of this great divide right now, between liberal and conservative media sources? Do you think that is sort of counterproductive, how antagonistic it seems to get sometimes? Do you feel like there’s a lot of reporting about the reporting that’s being done?

R: Oh, media reflecting on media. Yeah, there’s some of it. I’m not very good at it because I don’t watch television. And so I don’t know that much about what’s happening on TV, unless it rises to the level of sort of extreme. These guys at Fox News promoting a march linked to the 9/11 anniversary against the Obama Administration, like, dude, I don’t need to watch TV to know how gross that is. [Laughs] So yeah, I’ve been complaining about that. Unless it’s really extreme like that … it’s not really my bag, just because it’s not something that I understand very well and I don’t participate in it.

L: Yeah, it sort of goes back to what I was asking you before, about feeling really conscious about the things that you say, just because even looking over some things to do research for this interview, to be perfectly honest some of the things that come up, or seem to come up just in the general search are not information about you, it’s like quotes, things that you said on some other site. It’s very strange.

R: You mean quotes, stuff that I said on my show that people are like criticizing me for, or what do you mean?

L: Either or. You know, putting in quotes and posturing them against what other media shows are saying or what other journalists are saying. This is really interesting.

R: This universal judgment.

L: Yeah, this tension all the time between the way that we report news, or what people are expecting to hear from particular journalists — before they even begin watching a show or actually listen to information, they pay more attention to the person.

R: Yeah, we become sort of, we become characters in the universe that we discuss to a certain extent. I mean that definitely happens, you know it’s not just that we’re bringing you news about other people but the people who are part of the cable news universe become part of the news in a way. I’m not all that comfortable being part of the news, and so I try not to be. But I recognize that what I say has an effect on shaping the debate and the way that people talk about stuff. So it’s sort of a fine line. I don’t really want the news to be about me and I don’t run with causes and stuff. But I also tell people what I think.

L: Absolutely. Well I guess maybe I’ll just ask you one more question before I let you go. I know it’s getting later and I’m sure you’ve had a long day. I would like to ask what advice you have for youth and young people who are concerned that part of their identity will be a hindrance as they attempt to build a career of any sort?

R: If you build a career on the misplaced presumption that you are straight then any success that you have in that career is pretty fragile. [Laughs] If that’s, I mean I know it sounds a little bit like, “Well if they don’t want to be your friend than you don’t want to be their friend either.” Like, you know, what your mom says or whatever. It’s a little bit like that but it’s totally true. Being closeted is a position of weakness and if you are closeted there is a glaring thing that anybody can use against you at any time in any way that they want to control you. To give away that much vulnerability early in your life, in the middle of your life, at the end of your life, I think is a step into weakness that nobody should willingly take. And not everybody gets to make a choice; some people are in discriminatory circumstances so extreme that they have no choice about whether or not to be closeted. Honestly my practical advice as one queer person speaking to others is that if you find yourself in a situation like that, get out. Because if you are being forced to be closeted you are being forced to be in a position of weakness and you’re going to be at the mercy of people who will use it against you in your life. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned, it’s speak from a position of strength no matter what you’re doing and I think that it’s always better to be out.

L: Well goodness, I can’t think of a better sound bite on which to end an interview. That was very wonderful actually.

R: Well, thank you for doing this. Thanks. And this is a very smart interview, you asked great questions, it’s been a real pleasure.

L: Oh, well I hope so. I’m not quite as articulate as you, but then again I’m not on TV seven days a week yet.

R: [Laughs] You’re well on your way if you want to do it. Well thanks very much. Have a good night.

L: Thank you so much. Bye-bye.