Tracee Ellis Ross on her love of storytelling and her new podcast 'I Am America'
Actress, producer, CEO -- all of these words can be used to describe Tracee Ellis Ross. One word, however, sums up who the multi-hyphenate is at her core: storyteller.
Ross is putting that on display with the new Dear Media podcast "I Am America," which she co-created and for which she serves as executive producer and co-writer. Each episode highlights a different individual, people Ross calls "hidden angels," sharing their unique stories.
"One of the things we wanted to do was really find people whose stories are not often told, and the miraculous thing was that there was a through line that developed not in how we chose the people, but after they started to share their stories," Ross told "Good Morning America" of the podcast. "And it was that through line of pulling back the curtain on unexplored stories that are people all searching for a sense of belonging and, in their journey of looking for that, ended up creating more space for belonging for other people."
Ross said the "really beautiful, incredible group of people" interviewed on the podcast set out to define what America means to them, explaining, "This is a version of this country that I experience on a daily basis, that I don't hear enough about."
In her own opinion, Ross said America is "a tapestry of humanity that is filled with people who define and redefine their own identity outside of what society says they are, a sense of community and the possibility of who you can be when you lean into those things."
"There are so many ways that we are all different and so many ways that we're the same, and I think both of those hold an important weight and create a really robust world for us to live in," Ross said. "And storytelling is that thread that connects all of those things."
Ross said she has been "moved so deeply by" and "blown away by the courage" of those featured in "I Am America" and said their tenacity to "push up against systems that don't make space for them" has inspired her "to look at things differently."
"I find that listening to these podcasts that we created, these stories, it's like sitting and having the best your conversation with somebody that you don't know and getting a sense of who they are," she said. "And you walk away with not only that very full and beautiful feeling of like, 'Oh, I just met somebody really amazing,' but also, 'Wow, that makes me look at and think of my life differently.'"
The "Black-ish" alum said she hopes the podcast provides listeners "a counternarrative" to a news cycle, which she said is "very filled with what's not working."
"There's some things that are [working], and I find that they're coming from individuals who are working collectively to make the world a safer place," she said. "And I hope that people hear stories that encourage them to lean in those directions too, to lean towards curiosity, compassion, belonging, community and possibility so that it can be held with a little bit more balance in what we're ingesting in our world."
Ross said that in helping bring "I Am America" to life, she is following a lesson her mother, the legendary singer Diana Ross, taught her as a child: "You buy gifts for other people by buying them something you would want."
"I try and create things that I hope other people would like, but I start with [asking myself], 'Does it wake me up?'" Ross said of what inspired her to co-create the podcast. "That is the compass that I follow."
"I Am America," from Dear Media, premieres Jan. 31. Click here for more information on the podcast.
