Interracial Marriage with Ellen Pompeo
Red Table Talk- 1,098 views
- 3 Sep 2020
Grey's Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo opens up about her interracial marriage and the challenges of raising bi-racial children
Hey, I'm Mr. Toy, host of Get Down Cape Town, a new podcast from My Heart Radio. As a founder and chef of several New York City restaurants, I believe that food is the ultimate gateway into a culture. As a proud ambassador of Korean food. I'm excited to share my culture with you. Tune into the unfiltered conversations with trailblazers like Roy Choi of the Great Food Truck Movement, Korean Skincare with Charlotte Cho and pioneering rap battle art dumfounded.
Listen to get down in Cape Town of the Heart radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to the Criminally, a podcast, I'm Holly Fry, and I'm Maria Trimark, and together we're exploring the intersection of history, a true crime. Our first season of the show is all about lady poisoners. Sometimes women take power for themselves and sometimes they do it through murder. But how many were just misunderstood? Join us on criminality as we untangle their stories on the radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, pay Färm.
Jada Pinkett Smith.
And this is the Red Tablecloth podcast. All your favorite episodes from the Facebook Watch show in audio produced by Westbrooke Audio and I hate radio. Please don't forget to rate him review on Apple podcasts. Ellen Pompeo. I love her and I know you do what I find most interesting about her is she's married to a black guy and she has three brown children.
Right. It's only been 51 years since the U.S. Supreme Court decriminalized interracial marriage. New statistics reveal a dramatic increase in people marrying outside of their race. Ellen Pompeo is one of them.
Ellen is married to music producer Chris Ivory. Together, they have three biracial children.
I can't even imagine that would be the best one ever, even dated outside of my race at all. That really astonishes me. You never, ever I did a lot of that for you.
You certainly did. Allan, thank you so much, and I know that you're a big superstar on Grey's Anatomy and you're like, I love that show, me and Jim were obsessed with it for a very long.
Yeah, it's amazing. Thank you. Thank you. It has been an amazing journey.
And I also know that you're like the highest paid actress on television.
We're trying to make money moves. That's right.
That part we did a show dealing with race issues with women of color and white women.
And we've been dealing with trying to understand how to bridge the gap is hella difficult. Don't feel like you have to tiptoe. I'm not afraid to talk about race. A lot of people get very nervous when you bring it up. And I understand why they do, but I am not afraid. That's good to know because I want to be sensitive. You know, I never know how someone else feels about it and you don't want to put them on the grill and be white.
But I mean, at the same time, it's like this. These are important conversations to have. And if you're afraid to talk about it, then that's a problem, right? There need to talk about it more. Right. Than if you're afraid.
I feel like you're in a unique situation. Yes. Raising young girls in this time, let alone young brown girls, considering, you know, Ellen is white.
Right. You know, it's interesting. My challenge with raising brown children is how much do you say to them and how much do you not say to them? Right. A couple of weeks ago, I had some friends over the house, little girls of color. And the little girl came in and I introduced myself and I said, I'm Stella's mom. She's a little black girl. And she looked at me and she was like, almost scared, you know, this white lady.
And then she went right to Stella and she said, That's your mom. I thought that was you that pointed to the nanny black girl. I thought that was your mom. Wow. In the little baby. Looked like she was scared of me. Right. That just breaks my heart. You know, maybe scared is a strong word. Maybe she wasn't confused. Confused, confused. Yeah.
But again, no, I'm trusting. Yeah, possibly. That's why that experience of being in my house and meeting me was good for her to see that all white people aren't what you think as moms and dads. Yeah, we have the responsibility to expose our children to all different types of people, to just show them the differences in world. I don't care for the word diversity. I'm quite honest.
I have to teach your kids not to be afraid of different kinds of people. Right. Which only comes from exposure. Exactly. And my husband is also biracial, raised by a white mother and grew up in the projects in Boston. Got it. And he had his own experience because he was the only child growing up in the projects with a white mother and no father in his life.
So he was embarrassed. He loved his mother dearly and that was his queen. But she was white. We're both from Boston. And Boston is historically a very, very, very race place.
Yes, it's where busing started. So, you know, I have a long history with the issue of race. Right? I know both sides similar to my husband. I grew up in an Italian Irish neighborhood in Boston. It doesn't get any more racist than that. Right? Right. We're going back thirty years now. So that's my experience. It's very real. Right. And it's actually the racism is what drew me to black people to to brown people, because I was like, what is it about anger?
And it's name calling. And it just made me so curious. Right.
And I always had black friends. How was that received by your family? Oh, my God.
My father would have liked to think he was racist, tried to be, I guess, culturally and societally. And I was going to try to make him examine that every step of the way. My favorite thing to do was to have pool parties and invite all my black friends over the swim in the pool so that when he would come home for this pool for black boys, you know, because you're a teenager, you have to rebel a little bit.
And then my husband ended up being his favorite person in the entire world. We couldn't go a day without calling.
I know that there have been times where you might not have gotten a warm welcome or gotten support from other women of color, women of color or just women in general.
No women of color specifically. Well, if black women have a problem with white women, I completely understand why if any black person has a problem with any white person. I understand why, right? If black people have a problem with things that I've said, I use the term reverse racism that caused a stir. People of color had a huge problem about that. They get a pass. They get to have a problem with whatever I say. All I can do is explain why I say it and what my experience is.
And if you want to come at me for that, you get that right. You get that pass. Even if you're not individually racist, we're responsible for each other. Right? Right. So if you were not actively standing up and screaming from the rooftops, you are responsible for it. Right?
Tell us why you use the the term reverse racism.
Was there a specific incident?
Well, OK, so A&E was going to put out this documentary about the KKK and I had tweeted and was local. This isn't cool. You guys shouldn't be making this kind of programming. I don't care in what light that show is. The trailer that I saw was provocative and it was sensationalizing the KKK. And if you're going to give those dudes money for burning crosses, whatever they do, then that's not OK for me, for A&E.
A&E walked it back, said we're sorry, we're pulling it. So I was like black fist emoji. Black power. Yeah.
The Gold Club was the top strip club in Atlanta in the nineteen nineties, a 20th century bacchanal for the rich and famous with patrons like Dennis Rodman, Michael Jordan, Madonna, the king of Sweden.
People from all over the country, everybody came to the Gold Club and it was the spot to go, the Gold Club owner, Steve Kaplan, was able to make almost four times the amount of other strip clubs with three hundred fifty dollar bottles of Dom Perignon private rooms and the sexiest entertainment in the south.
I would chain up a girl and drag her through the club, drag her across the stage. It was kind of an S.A.M. and the guys loved it.
But in 2001, the club was put on trial with charges of prostitution, extortion, credit card fraud, racketeering and an affiliation with the mob.
It's like a festering cancer. I mean, if you're going to allow it to grow and prosper, you're going to have a problem going forward.
I'm journalist Christina Lee, and I'll be taking you behind the scenes of the Gold Club scandal. From the beauty and bubbly to the deceit and courtroom drama, listen to Racket Inside the Gold Club on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.
What if we reimagine the word citizen not as a weapon to divide us, but as a verb, inviting us all to wield our collective power? Pretty dull pun. In this time of pandemic and revolution, you may find yourself frustrated at high levels of corruption and inequality, at our inability to get basic things done at the persistence of systemic racism. You are not alone. I'm Baratunde Thurston. I've produced for The Daily Show, advised the Obama White House and screamed way too much at my screen.
Now I've made a show for us. In it we highlight people mobilizing their communities, having an impact on some of the biggest challenges we face. We offer you ways to get involved and we remind you that we, the people, have the collective power to change how our society works and for whom. Listen to how the citizen with Baratunde on the I Heart radio at Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcast.
I'm not a pop culture. Right. I'm just joining the site. Right. If you call me a white bitch, then isn't that judging me on the color of my skin? All right. Why can't I help a victory for black people? Because I'm white, right? You know, if someone is offended by me using the black emoji, I'm sorry. It's not my intention to provoke you or try to offend. But I still stand by what I did because it's a way for people of color and I'm here for every day.
Just because I use a brown emoji doesn't mean I think I'm black. I just think they misunderstood.
What you were doing with the black emoji, they just felt like you don't have the right, they don't know who you are, really, how you feel inside that you've been doing this for years like you are. Yes. OK, if they want to get mad at me for doing it, that's their right, because I don't know their pain because they feel like you don't have the right to use the black emoji, OK?
It's a really difficult position because I do feel as though specifically for black women, there's a lack of trust. Absolutely. There's just such a lack of trust that I really feel like has to be rebuilt between.
That's what I'm saying. Like, it's hard to do that.
But when you keep experiencing having the same negative experiences, just I just want you to let that go.
People like don't feel comfortable talking about race. I feel like a part of that distrust is because of that like like pull back from talking about it, you know, because of that anxiety.
What are you scared of or even insecurity about talking about?
And I feel like that sometimes leads to that suspicion. Like if you're scared of talking about it, then what do you really feel?
I think that a lot of people are uncomfortable with talking about race because they're not around people. They don't spend time, so they get awkward and everyone's awkward. And yeah, one thing that I do think that would be productive for everybody to do is just try to make different friends. It's not like you have to form these deep friendships. I have a lot of black friends and I have a lot of white friends. I don't see my white girlfriends have black people in their life.
From what I can see, my black friends have plenty of white friends, really just my personal world, my experience, something that kind of is driving me a little bit crazy. Currently right now, everybody, so woak, we finally realized that we can put black people in films that Will Smith isn't the only black movie star now with popular now, it's like, oh, it's popular to be inclusive.
Yeah. And I like I hate to be cynical. I don't want to be that person. You guys are just doing it because it's popular. So you're going to follow Tiffany Haddish on Instagram? Well, that's all great. You know, she's a superstar. We love her. But how many non entertainment people of color are in your life?
What do you do if you have dinner?
How are you going out with after work? I could not agree with you more. And I feel like it's that authenticity that needs to happen, the willingness to do, you know, break bread. You know, one of the things that I have such difficulty with, I haven't found anybody or maybe I haven't opened myself up to allow myself to interact enough to find out whether there's any commonality with me and other white women that I know. But it's brought an awareness.
Yeah. So maybe that's a little spiritual, a little journey for you to tell. Yes. But it's not like you have to form these deep friendships, but you should have different people in your circle. That's true. Yeah.
So Ellen, through all the ups and downs, you've had people calling you a white bitch and people telling you don't use Black Power fist and, you know, you married a black man. And that probably being an issue at some point that could create a lot of insecurity, that could create a lot of instability in a person. What I've seen you is it is only create a deeper character.
So I suffer trauma at an early age. Right. My mother died when I was four. And I think that when you suffer any kind of trauma, especially as a child, I think you learn compassion. And I think that that makes you a more compassionate person at the root of it. Compassion is is a great practice. And I read a lot about the white identity, like what that's all about. There's a section of the population that truly feels like opportunities are going to be taken away from them by people of color, by LBG community, by anyone that's different from them.
There's a real fear of losing their piece of the pie. Someone's going to come and say hi and lose and power. Yeah, I can see why some white people are intimidated. People of color are magical and mystical and powerful and beautiful and spiritual and strong and excellent at what they do. It's just so much power and talent that the black world that's presented to white people is sports entertainment, some of the greatest entertainers of all time. The black experience is a powerful one and I can see where that would be intimidating.
I personally just choose to be a fan, but I can see where if people were insecure, I guess I should be scared by it. But it's so much easier to just celebrate it and just think the universe for giving us people of color because it's a gift. You know that that's the first time I've heard that. Like, really? Well, no. From a white woman. I'm always feeling like in a certain way, white women looking down at black women in a certain manner, like they're angry, they're mean.
So it's interesting to hear that idea of the insecure insecurity component.
I have been told many times by white women that are my peers. What's the problem? You're judging me. I'm like, no, I'm not judging you. I'm just speaking my mind because I get very passionate about certain things. Like if one of my white friends is like, you know, I'm going to go meet with this music producer at his house. And I'm like, well, you bring in anybody, like, don't go alone. And I'm like, who's, you know, this and this and this don't I don't play that like you need to be, you know what I mean?
Like to put me down. Yeah. They're like, why are you judging? I'm like, no, I just care about you. I want you to be safe. Right.
And so I want you to know that how I feel about it so that nothing happens to you know what I mean. You shine a light on their ability not to speak up for themselves. So then they have to throw it back to you because you're too strong. You're too intimidating, too intense. That's interesting.
I never thought about that. I mean, I don't think I'm angry. I just think I'm I know what I'm a musician.
But that's very odd type. Like when women have it, when when black women are passionate, they're angry. It's like not cool.
I know even for me over the years from Baltimore, from deep in the hood and having to really learn how to streamline my behavior and comments, you know, and style of communication because it was just.
Considered so offensive, right, you know, and the idea of just being your passionate big self is just one of those things that you just got to keep on keeping on and breaking those stereotypes.
Right. Because the power is too much for people to handle. Yeah, real talk. Unconscious bias is a term that I think is, you know, it should be plastered on everywhere because we all have even been right.
We all have. About everything. And you don't even realize it yet. Right.
I tell you, that's one of the things that I had to check myself about was really. Me getting in contact with my unconscious biases is like as if you could all just check ourselves, man, if we could just do that instead of trying to check each other.
Oh, yeah, I got that right. A yes. Yes. A different word. Yes, that's a t shirt. Check yourself on each other. Yeah. Real talk.
Can we had a fishbowl, please. Thank you for bringing us the fish bowl. We have some handwritten. You're right. Blood on the Tracks is a new podcast about legendary music producer Phil Spector and the murder of Lana Clarkson. This podcast is hosted by me, Jake Brenin, creator and host of the award winning music and true crime podcast Disgrace and twenty seven Club.. This new serialized podcast is part true crime, part historical fiction and part spoken word lo fi bete noire.
Each episode is told from the perspective of the people who knew Phil Spector best, his so-called friends. Season one features 10 episodes and is released. Weekly episodes are packed with secrets, confessions and revelations and are narrated by the fictionalized voices of real people like Lenny Bruce, Ronnie Spector, Ike Turner, John Lennon, Debbie Harry and more, just like Phil Spector. This podcast sounds like nothing you've heard before because you can't push the needle into the red without leaving a little blood on the tracks.
Blood on the Tracks contains adult content and explicit language. Listen to Blood on the Tracks and the I Heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
What if you could learn from one of the world's most inspiring women, now you can introducing Senecas 100 women to hear a new podcast brought to you by Seneca Women and I Heart Radio. I'm Kim Azorella. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of American women getting the vote, we're bringing you the voices of a hundred groundbreaking and history making women listen to Senecas 100 women to hear on the radio app Apple podcasts for Wherever You Get Your Podcasts. For Ellen, why is it when a white person has children with a black person, the children are automatically black?
Hmm, you got to consider the fact typically they come out brown, although we have family members whose children came out looking white, they look just white, they just look like white.
My son looks completely white. You couldn't even tell why he has any brown in him at all. From my experience, if you're asking me a white person to answer this question, being black is a thing and it's white people that have made it a thing. Why there is no escaping when your skin is dark. That's why my children are brown or whatever it is, because the world will see them that way and they will be discriminated against and they will be judged and they will be spoken to and they will be treated like they are brown because their skin is brown.
And sticking up or celebrating brown people does not mean that you're anti white. I celebrate anything black. I inevitably get a million comments. My comments.
Or can you tell whether the comments are coming from white people or are they coming from white people?
Of course they are. Of course they are. They are threatened by my love of people of color or black culture. Yeah. All right. Amber from Detroit for the group Best Life Lessons You have learned. That's life lessons I have learned is check yourself before you check somebody else.
Right. Learn how to come from a place of love.
Love is the key. Yes, that is a new lesson. Believe it or not, it's a new lesson and one that I'm trying to learn I have to practice and incorporate in my life because that's a huge change for me. Yeah. And probably for a lot of people. I don't think I'm alone in that.
Oh, no, no.
Yeah, no. I think as of so far, I think the greatest life lesson that I've learned is that you just can't assume what any one else is going through from such a young age. I've had people trolling me on the Internet talking crazy to me in public. Yeah, they don't know what's happening in my life and I don't know what's happening in their life. So I'm not going to put my emotion in to not make it. There are some exactly haters going to hate.
Exactly. Straight to speak. All hey does is go.
Hey, what are the biggest life lessons for me as of the last couple of years is really having the courage to do what was necessary for myself, make changes in my life, make changes in my relationships to really find that sense of self love and really be able to mature in a way to rely on myself emotionally.
It's changed my life and in all my relationships in the best way is that practice of self.
Like if you can't love yourself honestly, you cannot let anyone else. You can't.
The really craziest part is I thought at one point in time that my achievements would create that sense of self acceptance and self love, only to realize it didn't or didn't do it.
And really having to strip all of that, strip my career, even my dependency on my relationship to will, even my dependency on my relationship to my kids.
I mean, that's something I think every mother should.
Yes, I had to just like go to the bare bone and just have Jada and Woo when I tell you that was.
Well, I mean, just to just tear everything down. Yeah, and that only comes with age. Yeah. Everyone talks about, you know, youth, but no one talks about the wonderful things about getting older. And the wonderful thing about getting older is the wisdom that you have that we're imparted with. Absolutely. I'm a white woman engaged to a black man, what are some things I need to know we don't pallette, do you, El?
Just love them, just love just you all, just love each other, just love each other. Communication is the key to any relationship. Yeah, it really if you want to stay in a marriage, you got to listen first and talk.
I would imagine that with black men and white women, white women have a sense of. Oppression, just being a woman, I have dated some really wonderful white men, but it was interesting in the fact that you're dating someone who has no idea what oppression or any kind of, you know, is at the top of the food chain.
You just he can't you don't understand.
You know what I mean?
It's a very hard thing for him to be able to relate to. It was always the factor in the relationship that made it break. Katie from Manhattan Beach, what's the best piece of advice? You didn't take him to quit the business and I'd never make it. I probably would have to go with that.
I remember Shirley, my grandmother, telling me, you know, you'll never make it.
You need to go to college.
She told me that because she's trying to protect me. And that's why I'm single as an educator to educate. Yes, education was a priority for her.
Our last little question. Are you and. Patrick Dempsey, still friends, we haven't spoken since he's left the show. OK. I have no hard feelings toward him. He's a wonderful actor and we made the best TV you can make. That's a talented man right there. He did 11 amazing years. Typically, when people leave the show, they need their they need to sort of. Yeah, we we find themselves who they are without the show because the show takes up so much of your life and you need that time to, like, figure out who you are without the show.
So we have not spoken, but I will always have a place in my heart for Patrick Ellen.
This was amazing. Thank you.
I just want to thank you for having this show and for creating this forum to be part of the change.
I want you to know I consider you my home girl and I have you.
On our next round table talk, why am I depressed like it was a nightmare and, you know, I'm just trying to keep it together because everybody's like enrols I was dealing with my own was a very private thing because I was ashamed.
I felt utterly out of control where I just had a complete emotional collapse that then I became extremely suicidal.
Oh, my goodness. So awful. So much for us. And this was also. So thank you. Thank you so much. Hey, red table talk. Family head to our table talk Facebook.
What show page. Join the conversation and become a part of roundtable talk to join the red table, talk family and become a part of the conversation.
Follow us at Facebook. Dot com slash red table talk. Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Tablecloth podcast produced by Facebook Watch Westbrooke Audio and I Heart Radio, WhatsApp, everybody.
We're L.A. comedy group, Obama's other daughters.
And on our podcast you download, we're discussing what's going on in the culture, everything from dating to therapy.
Look, I got dumped on FaceTime, so I had to hold it together. Thank you.
So come Kiki with us, enjoying the kinds of candid conversations you only have with your girls. Listen to you down on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
My name is Langston Kaminen.
I'm a black man who loves conspiracy theories.
That's why I, along with the beautiful oppressor's that I heart radio and big money players, have a brand new podcast called My Mama Told Me where each week me and a special guest will explore all the twisted conspiracies that the white man is keeping secret.
So listen to my mama told me available on the radio app, Apple podcast or anywhere else that pods Arkan's.