Boston Public Radio Podcast

Michelle Singletary, nationally syndicated personal finance columnist at the Washington Post, said she faced a lot of questions about her credentials when she was first hired. So she pulled her editor aside and asked him point blank, was she hired because she’s Black? The answer her editor gave herShe was, but like all things, it’s more complicated. “I hired you because you’re Black, I hired you because you’re young. I hired you because you were raised in a low income household so you know what it means not to have a lot of money. I hired you because you have a Masters’ Degree,’” Singletary recalled her editor telling her. “He said ‘I hired you for the totality of who you are,’ ... I get teared up now when I think about it, because he said ‘I didn’t want you to run away from your Blackness.’” That’s where Singletary’s latest series, Sincerely Michelle, starts: affirmative action. Part memoir, part history lesson, the series breaks down misconceptions about race and finance through letters to readers. She t