Interview with Dr. John McCartney Audio

My first interview was an important learning experience.  I realized a lot about the interview process and how a half-hour chat leaves little time to dance around a topic.  I need to develop a series of questions that quickly and efficiently get at my main objective, to figure out how to expose a new set of role models to the American people.  In my first interview I spent too much time talking about the existence of the problem and not enough time discussing ways to expose the influential figures and solve the problem.  As the interviewer I need to take control of the direction of the interview, while my interviewees may be content to talk about the issue, I need to push them to go farther and attempt to solve the problem.  Imagine that, the new role models bringing themselves out of the shadows.

My first interview was with Dr. John McCartney, a professor and the head of the Government and Law department at Lafayette College.  Before the interview began, a reflective and intelligent McCartney discussed his involvement in the political scene in the Bahamas, and seemed intrigued by my study and my story behind why I am doing this.  McCartney ran for Parliament in the Bahamas in the 1970s and was politically active in the area for more than ten years.  I knew that I could learn a lot from Dr. McCartney but I was worried that he might not agree with me or see the issue as I saw it.  This was the flaw in my first interview.

As I asked my first questions introducing my topic and my interview subject I found that he was as passionate about the issue as I was.  This gave me more confidence but also threw me off topic as I spent the majority of the interview talking about the problem’s existence and not about how to remedy it.  McCartney talked about the direction America’s ongoing conversation on race and how he has, through his courses, politics, and published works, worked to tell the story of an entire people.

McCartney talked about how the sense of self worth as a young black person can lead to exploration beyond the media’s portrayal of minorities.  He talked about the influence of a person’s media image has created a sense of superficiality among today’s leaders.  Given the charge of solving the problem, Dr. McCartney suggested that the increase in black people attending college and traveling abroad as Americans representing their country would help, over-riding the superficiality our media can project.

In reflecting on these comments it is clear that the persisting segregation between minority cultures in America (Black Culture, Asian Culture, Hispanic Culture) and American culture is a source of the problem I have identified.  Dr. McCartney called for more black youth representing their country abroad and at universities, which I completely agree with.  It took me until the middle of high school to completely realize that the media images were not going to define my life.