Kiplyn Primus

[00:07] KIPLYN PRIMUS: Hi, my name is Kiplyn Primus I am 59 years old today, and it's November 20, 2020, and I'm in my home in Stone Mountain, Georgia, and I do not have a partner today. So I'm going to start by talking about my family's pandemic adventure. So I was in the midst of the pandemic when it first started at the end of February. My radio show does a annual trip to the weeping time in Savannah. So I had a small bus, about 25 people on it, and every it was for the weekend. So it's Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And from Friday night to Sunday afternoon when we left, every television in America was talking about the pandemic. I mean, everyone was, you know, this is when it was first hitting. This is the first weekend in March. And I, you know, the only thing in the back of my mind was, please, God, don't let any of us get, you know, catch COVID So we make it back to Atlanta. And on the trip, a lot of the folks were saying, it looks like this is going to be my only vacation this year. You know, it looks like this is going to be my only vacation because everything is going to be on lockdown. And, you know, they were thankful that it was a good vacation. We made it back to Atlanta that Sunday evening and the next day everything was fine. That Tuesday, I got a call. One of the participants in the program, Senator Lester Jackson from Savannah, had tested positive for Covid. I was sitting with senator Jackson and you know, we were exchanging information because he had the proclamation and all this kind of stuff. And as one of the organizers of the event, I was sitting right there next to him. We found out later that he had probably been exposed on that he had probably been exposed after our event. But it was just one of those things where you're like, where am I? What happened? And oh my God, please don't let anybody get Covid. So about a week after that, it was still all over the news. But about a week after that, it was my brother in law's birthday. We had missed his celebration because we were in Savannah and we were going to take him out for dinner. And I was nervous. I mean, this is not March 21st, when everything officially shut down. I was thinking there was going to be no one in the restaurant. There were several people in the restaurant. Of course, there were no masks or anything like that. And the thing that gave me pause was they brought, you know, the dessert with the candle in it, and my brother in law blew out the candle, and I, like, froze. It was like, no, you know, you shouldn't be blowing out candles anymore. I think that's a tradition that may actually go away, which is probably a good thing. But I do, you know, remember him blowing out the candle and kind of having that freeze in the parking lot of the restaurant, you know, hugging everyone. Sister, nephew, mom, me and my dad, we all gave big hugs. And that was pretty much the start of our lockdown. I got a call from my boss Sunday evening saying not to come in. And he was asking, you know, did you need anything? And said, don't come in. So I started that first week at work with just a laptop. And, you know, today companies give you small laptops. Laptops and tablets are getting smaller and smaller, so it's a small laptop. I have to do work on the spreadsheet. So I'm used to being in an office with two monitors, and I am, you know, I'm getting frustrated. It's just driving me crazy. And I think the next week, I reached out to one of my coworkers, and she was like, kiplan, you know, call the help desk and order yourself a monitor. So I did that. I went and picked up my monitor and, you know, have pretty much been working from home since March 21st. That was when that lockdown came. So my family had a couple of things. Me and my family had a couple of things planned for the year in. At the end of April, for my mom's birthday, we were taking a family trip to Panama in Central America. See the Panama Canal, do the whole, you know, nine yards. And that trip, needless to say, was canceled in May. I was supposed to be going to Isla Mujeres with some girlfriends on a girlfriend trip. Needless to say, that trip was canceled then. I distinctly remembered the mayor of Chicago, Mayor Lightfoot, when everyone else was saying, we'll be locked down for 30 days. We'll be locked down for just a little while. When she said that the lockdown in Chicago was going to be through June 2020, I actually took some comfort because she's a black woman. I believe black women. You know, she was like. I figured she had information that the other people had, but she was not being. She wasn't being, you know, that glowy, positive outlook. She was really saying, the real deal. This is going to be hard, and we're going to be locked down until June 2020. So I kind of made up my mind. We're going to be lockdown through June 2020. You know, I can do that. And the other trips that my family had planned for the year we were supposed to be going to the Olympics. My cousin Brittany Reese's women's long jump, silver medalist from Brazil, gold medalist in London. So we were all planning this trip to Japan for the Olympics. And we're still trying to see are they going to do it, Are they going to do it? Are they going to do it. The Olympics got canceled, so we're in Atlanta. It was a rainy year this year. There were some weeks there where it rained every day in May and June. And my sister was like, you know, we gotta get out of here. She found a house that we could rent that was about 15, 20 miles outside of Panama City, Florida. So if you can imagine Panama City, Florida being, you know, this big, round, bustling community and activity, we were about 45 to 50 miles away from that. There was not a hotel within about a 10 mile radius of the house that we had. And we were able to go to the beach. My niece flew down from Boston. Everyone's working from home, so everyone just kept working from home. And, you know, we took a couple of days, but we were able to get some sun, you know, get some fun, get some beach. It was a really good family time with my mom, my dad and their grandkids. And even my brother came down on the weekend with his kids. So it was a wonderful opportunity to spend family time and to get out of the pandemic. But because people are so judgmental, I didn't even want to share with anyone that we did it. I don't even think I have one social media post from that trip because, you know, people were. People are. And I, unfortunately, I'm probably one of them. But people judge people on the activities that they're doing during this pandemic. But that was one of the, you know, one of the best things. Now when I got back from the Panama City beach trip, I didn't realize it, but I ended up dropping into a little funk. And if you can imagine after, you know, two weeks of being on the beach every day, you know, rainy, because it's beach. So it might rain in the morning or it might rain in the evening, but you had enough time to actually, you know, have beach time. So that was just this wonderful thing to me. But the backlash was that I got depressed. I mean, I really got depressed when we came back. And I think it was twofold. It was being back, you know, knowing that I was back on lockdown. And it was also, I think it was Google put out that their employees prob would not be returning to work until July 2021. And I mean, that was like. I mean, that really felt like a dagger to the heart. So I'm out of the sun, you know, back in my kitchen, at my desk, Google is saying, we're not going to get out of this until July 2021. And it took me a minute to realize it, but I realized that had sunk into this little depression and, you know, kind of had to make my way out of it. And I knew that if I would. If I walk, that takes it. You know, that is the thing that works for me. Mentally. I'd hurt my ankle, but I was still able to walk. And so I kind of picked myself up and started walking. So then we come to the 2020 political part of the year when the election and stuff is heating up. And one of the things, you know, not fantasy, but one of the things that I have often thought about is in the World War II in Germany, you know, that there were probably people who were making plans to get out of the country. And the Gestapo came on Wednesday. They were leaving on Saturday. So they, you know, just timing on things. And, you know, with the way things have been so crazy and the US with the rise of hate crimes, the president preaching disinformation on a daily basis from the White House, almost in cahoots with the media because they can't seem to turn away from him. So it's just more and more. And he actually said, stand down and stand by. So I live in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Growing up, this was the home of the Klan. They had their rallies in Stone Mountain at the park about, you know, 15 minutes from my house. If something really happened, if the militias came out, and we've seen the pictures of both the black militia and the white militia at Stone Mountain, you know, would it spill over outside of the park? Would I be in danger? And so I was telling my sister that, and, you know, I was like, I think we should try to find somewhere to go. I don't want to be on a plane, but I think we should try to drive to Mexico because, you know, we could get to Belize in two days, I think, and we'd have a stopover in Louisiana, Houston, cross over New Mexico, and be in Belize in about a day after crossing over. And so my sister was nervous about driving in Mexico. A friend was like, do you think you'd be safer in Mexico than when you be outside the perimeter? And it was like, you never know. You know, you never know. And, you know, I just kind of said it and left it at that. Well, unbeknownst to me, my sister kind of took it seriously and she started looking for trips. Now the challenge of traveling during a pandemic is number one, Our passports are practically useless. There is not there. There are not many countries in the world that will say, as a US citizen, you can come here. Belize was updating their travel guidelines. In October, Trinidad and Tobago were accepting US citizens. But my brother in law was like, if we get stuck over there, you know, the only way off is a plane or a boat. And he was like, you know, we don't have a plane, we don't have a boat, we can't fly a plane, we can't drive a boat. So he was like that. You know, he kind of said that wasn't a good answer. But she found a all inclusive package tour to the Yucatan, to Cancun. And of course people are like, cancun, it's the cortels, the drug. You know, everybody's saying that's not a good place either. But again, my sister found a place that was an hour outside of Cancun. So if you can imagine, you know, Cancun being a resort destination, when you go an hour outside, it's a completely different. You're in a completely different environment. And we were in Playa del Carmen or the Riviera Maya, which is part of the Yucatan. We were in a resort, a RIU resort, which was all inclusive. Your all meals, drinks, snacks, water activities. You know, we did. We didn't have to pay a dime after we got there except for tips. And the resort, I would think probably held about 3,000 people. And I'm willing to bet you there were fewer than 500 people. So it's empty. I mean, there are three or four pools, you know, one pool, I think I maybe saw three people in it the whole time we were there. Never had to try to scrounge for beach chair. You know, all of the things that happen when you're in resort, the standing in line for the food, the trying to get a beach chair, trying to get a drink, you know, none of that applied because there was no one there. You know, I never, we were never in the elevator with anyone else. All of the people that worked there had on masks and face shields. You had to have masks and all public areas. And as much as people continue to say you should have masks in all public areas. Yes. One day while getting changed at the front desk, there was a. I think she was American, but there are a lot of Europeans there and a lot of people from Mexico were vacationing there. But this, this woman with her mask on, her husband without a mask was filing a complaint because the bartender wouldn't serve him because he didn't have on a mask. I don't get the hang up on the mask. I don't get it. But they told if you don't have a mask, you cannot get served. One of the other things that they did, they were doing the checking temperatures and hand sanitizer was everywhere. But when you walked into. And if you've been in those resorts, they're all open air. So all the restaurants are open. You know, birds are flying around. Even in the part that seems like you're not open, it's. It's open because there are no real walls. Sometimes they would pull down these shades, but they're not any walls in these eating places. But they took your temperature. And every time you touch food or touched anything, it was someone there to spray hand sanitizer on you. So, I mean, I actually thought I was going to get sanitizer. I get a fungus because my nails are so sensitive. I really thought I was going to get something, but I didn't. But everyone had to wear a mask. I actually walked out of the room one time and I gotten far enough away from the room to keep going when I realized I didn't have a mask. But as soon as I stepped into the area, one of the workers, she came over, she said, you don't have a mask. I said, I'm sorry, you know, I didn't want to go back. And she pulled out a paper mask. So in that community and where we were in Playa del Carmen, I think my county here in Georgia probably has had more Covid cases than that area. So that was one of the other things that we had done in every place that we visited since this happened was to make sure those we were. We were coming from higher Covid to a lower Covid area, which may be bad on us, but it was just such a needed break. So, you know, we get to Playa del Carmen. I've got all, you know, my computers and everything set up because we're planning to work. And I'm really, I'm mainly there so that my sister can have a break and I can take care of my mom, you know, while she and her husband have a little bit of a break. But I logged on to my laptop from Playa del Carmen and was working about 7, you know, 7am on Monday, the 2nd of November. I'm sitting there working. And I get this emergency message from my office on the Slack platform, which thankfully I had open. And this guy is like Kipling, someone is trying to log onto your laptop from Mexico. Are you in Mexico? I was like, yes, I'm in Mexico. So, you know, they do something so that I can access content on my laptop. I couldn't access my emails or anything on the phone. But what was great about being there in Playa del Carmen was, you know, I got up early every morning, coffee con leche, pistachio muffin, you know, sit down at the computer, start working for all of my clients. You know, nine to five, client and other side gig clients. And around, you know, 9:30, go down, you have breakfast, you know, come back up, finish getting everything done around 1:00, change out and go to the beach. So you're sitting on the beach from 1:00, 1:00 to about 3:30, 4:00, come back up 4:00, you know, close out everything that I need to close out, probably between 4 and 6 and have dinner. I mean, it was wonderful. Now it wasn't so wonderful being here during there, being there during the election. So initially I had said I wanted to really take a break, but I couldn't. We had voted early, we had left the country. And I was looking at CNN every night and I realized that CNN was doing special programming because it wasn't CNN International in Mexico. We were looking at the US Broadcast and on the third, it felt like deja vu. I mean, it truly felt like deja vu. It felt like the 2016 election. The Democrats were, you know, in the lead as everyone had predicted they would be. And in some states, you know, in the lead where they weren't predicted to be. And then all of a sudden, you know, I mean, it was almost exactly like the 2016 election. All of a sudden everything starts back turning red. And I remember texting with some of my friends and saying, oh my God, you know, this is going to be like 2016. My boyfriend was like, you know, it's early, don't worry, you know, remember there a lot of mail in, ballots, whatever. And then the next day is my birthday and I want to really, really celebrate. But they haven't called the election. So my mom and I go and, you know, kind of have breakfast to. We go to a, you know, one of the fancier restaurants for dinner that night. And the next day it's still, you know, still nothing. And it's just like, oh my gosh, I knew we might have to wait. But I had no idea it would be like this. And so we end up, you know, having to wait till that Saturday. And it's one of those things where I think if politics in this election were important to you, you know exactly where you were when they called the for President Elect Biden. So I was on the beach. My mentor is a young lady named Amel Guillory. And her mom called me and it was about a little after 10. And she said, Kiplyn I think this is it. CNN just went to a commercial and came back with breaking news. And I was like, alisa, they come back with breaking news from every commercial. I mean, it was like, for real, you think that's it? And she says, I think it's it. I think it's it. And she said, I'm. I'll let you know. You know, if I find out anything. I'll let you know. So I hang up the phone and honest and truthfully, it was about. It was fewer than 10 minutes after I hung up with her that my cell phone started pinging. And it was all of the, you know, LA Times alert, NPR alert, New York Times alert, USA Game alert, Washington Post alert. Everything started coming in that the election had been called for Biden in con Kamala Harris. And I was ecstatic because even though I wasn't in the US on, you know, the day of the election, I had my November 3rd matters T shirt, I had my Biden Harris mask. So I was just ecstatic. I mean, not only did it seem like Americans wanted to, you know, take ourselves from the brink of our democracy failing, but that it looked like everything was going to work out favorably now we're still here. The election was called on the 10th. I actually cut my trip short. And instead of coming back on the 14th, I came back on the 12th so I could record radio show with Dr. William Boone from Clark Atlanta University's Political Science department. And, you know, we got that show done. Unfortunately, I was a little jet lag, a little tired, and thank God for editing because I ended up calling our current I ended up calling Trump a fat white man baby. Because, I mean, if a woman was in the White House and doing what he's doing, what people would be saying is that women are hysterical, they shouldn't be in leadership. This is why women shouldn't be in leadership. They're hormonal, they're hysterical, they can't take reality. And we are. Like I said, it's been over a week, almost two weeks since the election was called. And we still have this man, baby acting like he's going to overthrow the government. And I say acting like because I hope to God that the people in power will step up and, you know, not let that happen. So that's the first part. That was my Primus family in the pandemic. And believe you me, I'm trying to find another trip. That trip to that resort was so cheap. If I can find something else cheap, I still want to get out of here. And with 70 million people voting for Trump, I still want to get out of. I think it would be nice to have somewhere to live somewhere else, just in case you ever feel the need to escape. But one of the other things I'll share is that I have been working for StoryCorps for a number of years now. I started working at StoryCorps after doing quite a few interviews, and I started interviewing my girlfriends because the majority of the women that I know are daddy's girls. I mean, they are daddy's girls to a fault, you know, spoiled rotten by their dads, including me. And if you were to look at 20th, you know, late 20th century, early 21st century general media, you probably wouldn't even think that a black woman could be a daddy's girl, because the media acts like there are no black fathers. And we know from recent research that black men are actually more involved in their children's lives. Black and brown men actually more involved in their children's lives than their white counterparts. And so I interviewed all of my girlfriends and, you know, talked about their dads. I interviewed my dad. And that's how my relationship with StoryCorps started. And I think I know one of my co workers, Erin, who was there, she did the training when I did the training, and she actually studied stories. And I've never been envious of someone to the degree that I was envious of Aaron. Because if I had been a 17 or 18 year old person who knew I could get a degree in storytelling or fairy tales, I would have done that because I love stories. I tell people. I get paid once or twice a month to go and listen to stories. And one of the things that does amaze me about StoryCorps is, like I said, about once a month, I listen to three or four stories every month. And I've been doing it for a number of years, like 2011, 2010, I can't even tell you. And there's some stories that just stick with you. I mean, they just stick with you. And I think one of the things about the stories that have stuck with me. Or at least one part is that when the people were sitting in the waiting area and we were given the little orientation and talking, I just thought, this is not, you know, this is going to be some white bread story. You know what I mean? It's going to be good, but it's not going to be anything for real. So the first story was this young girl and she has come into StoryCorps numerous times, I think with her dad and her stories has been produced. She was talking about body image. And so she came in with this gentleman and you know, in the course of the story it was. He was her boyfriend and he wanted to do story corps with her because he had heard her, you know, body image challenge interview that she did with her dad and he had body image challenges as well. And you know, she was like, you know, he said this in the interview and she was like, you have body image challenges. She said, you know, she couldn't understand. She was like, I never knew. And he explained that when he was growing up, he had exceptionally bad acne and it was all over his back and, you know, had left scarring. And he would only ride his bike in the evening because his shirt would raise up and people would, he knew people would see the scars on his back. And he said that he always kind of froze when he was having intimate relationships with people because he knew that they could maybe feel or see the scars. And he was always waiting, you know, for the comment. And so the most interesting thing was that this young lady was like, you know, she was like, no, I don't remember scar. She said, I don't, you know, she was like, I don't know what you're talking about. So they finished the interview, we take the pictures and I asked him, I said, well, you know, can you, would you mind showing us your back? You know, would you, can I take a picture of your back since that was your challenge? And he was, you know, he hesitated, but then he was like, okay, sure. When I took a picture of his back, there's nothing there. I mean, he may have had some kind of scarring as a teenager, but this man at this time was over 35. I mean, there was nothing there. And that story has stayed with me because we all have these images of ourselves and even when age or something changes, it's that, that 12 year old, 15 year old image that we kind of still have as who we are. And so again, that story was years ago and I have never forgot it. And then another story that has stuck with me for years. This was another one that was recorded at wabe, and it was a mother and her daughter. And again, this is where StoryCorps has taught me, you cannot judge people, man. You think you know what's going to happen, and when someone walks up, you look at them, you think you know what the story is going to be. And you cannot judge. You cannot judge. And StoryCorps has taught me that over and over again. And so this was in the Wade lobby, old lobby over there, and it was this, you know, woman with her daughter, if I'm not mistaken. I think they were both blonde, but that just may be my bias. But they're these, you know, two blond women. And the mom is very proud of her daughter. She's in college at Emory University. And she, you know, she tells. She's at Emory. And I was like, okay, this is going to be, you know, one of those. Those stories. And this woman told her story of raising her children, really as a single mom because her husband was in the military, so she was a military wife. And. And she talked about being in Texas. Her husband was out of the country. Her two older children were fine, but the daughter that she was there with had been admitted to the hospital. And this wasn't the first time she had been admitted to the hospital. She was clearly a sickly child and was always being admitted to the hospital. But this night, when the girl had been admitted to the hospital, she was coding, and she literally coded like four or five times, and her mom was the only one there. The children are at home, and her husband was away. And so she talked about that night, and she, you know, talked about, you know, all of the sickness that she'd gone through with her daughter. And see, I'm getting emotional again because I thought this was going to just be a white bread story. But her daughter, you know, eventually got well. She was well enough to be a student at Emory University. She was a beautiful young girl. But her mom then shared that she was fighting breast cancer. And she said that the only reason she knew how to fight was because she had watched her daughter fight for her life for so many years. And so what I thought was going to just be, you know, average mother, daughter story turned into one where all three of us were crying. And I was really trying to suck up, to not cry hard because it was of an emotional moment. And if I'm not thankful for anything else about working at StoryCorps, I am so thankful that it has taught me that you really cannot judge people. You cannot look at people and know anything about them, you really cannot. And I try to take that into my real life, but I know and every time I start to judge someone, I get a little tinkle of those two blonde girls in the lobby. I just know that that's not something we as humans can do. So there, that's my story. The Primus family pandemic criminals and just two of the stories that I've heard at StoryCorps that stayed with me for at least a decade. Kipling, what's your radio show? My radio show is called the local Take and actually we are celebrating 10 years in 2021. If you ask what would Kiplyn do for free, it would be the radio show because I did do it for free for a number of months, maybe, maybe a year or so. But it's one of those things that I wrote into existence. And you hear about people who write things into exist and they are, you know, manifested, but I truly wrote it into existence. I started the radio show 10 years ago when radio was moving towards talk and you could see what conservative radio was doing to the country. And I just thought that we needed a counterpoint. And you know, at one point in time in media, there was a point in counterpoint, the fairness doctrine. And I just felt if I could add, you know, my voice to the other voices with information that people could use and the local tape came out of an idea that things that are happening up on the national level in our government, people don't understand how that trickles down to impact them. They just think it's, you know, oh, that's out there, that's them. And then when you go to try to do something that should be a common sense action and you realize you can't do it because a judge or a representative has made some rule and you're making and frustrated. But you didn't vote in the last four elections. You know, not only did you not vote presidentially, you didn't vote locally. And it's like, you know, this is why you're frustrated because you didn't vote and you're not paying attention. So what I tried to do was take those things and siphon them down so that everyone in the community could understand what's going on. And I think it's unbelievable that I'm getting ready to celebrate 10 years next year, but still going strong. And even though it's Public affairs at 8 o'clock on Saturday morning, I actually do have listeners and they engage. So it's been fun. That's been a good thing. What radio station is it on? It's WCLK, which is 91.9, an NPR affiliate at Clark Atlanta University. And it's the jazz station, they call it now America's jazz station because it's the largest jazz station in. In the Southeast. The station actually plays so much jazz, and they have broken so many jazz artists. There's a artist. Her name is Julie London. She's. Is her name Julie London? She's from London. I gotta think of her last name. It's probably not London, but she. Julie Dexter. She actually moved to Atlanta because her music was being played on wclk. So she. She is now bicontinent because she still has her home in London. But because her music is played in this market, she can have a whole nother career. It's a pretty landmark station. It started in 1972 by students at Clark Atlanta University. I can't think of the president's name, but he is the one that applied for the license. Think it was the first HBCU with a broadcast license in 1972. And, you know, I've interviewed some of the students for StoryCorps, and this one guy, I asked him, I was like, you know, what is it like to have been at the start of an institution that's now been in the community for over 40 years? And he was like, well, Kiplan, I wasn't really at the start. I came in about six months after the station launched, and I'm like, man, six months. Six months and 40 years. That's the start. But they were students. The whole station was run by students. And so that is a remarkable thing that this project that they started in 1972 is still going strong. All right, hold on.