Al Roker is one of the most sensible people you'll ever meet. He's raised two daughters and a son. And I love him, in that as jovial as he is, he's a straight shooter. He's a New Yorker, as they say.

I've not given up having a child. But I hope whatever route of parenthood I choose, whether it's adoption or I'm able to conceive, I just hope that I'm able to give someone as beautiful a life as my parents gave me.

Everything I ask is a question from Tamron, like it or not. My team does not write my questions. We put together a segment. We talk about the elements that I want, but we have a conversation for that hour with our guests.

It used to upset me - now it makes me sad - to see people use patriotism and our troops as a pawn in their political argument. Because I know personally, growing up in a military family, the sacrifice that is made on a daily basis.

We all have these challenges and stereotypes that exist, but you can't let that hold you down... If that's the first thing you think about as a black woman - the challenge that lies ahead - you are thinking in the wrong direction, in my opinion.

On career day as a young journalist, I scraped up my money and went to this big conference for young journalists, and the great feedback I got was that I would not or should not become an anchor because my eyelashes were too long and too distracting.

I laugh about it all the time, but, for whatever reason, a lot of people think that I wear a wig. I get emails and tweets about people commenting on my hair being a wig. It's one of the strangest but most entertaining things I've read about myself online.

I mask every single day. I mask every morning - since I was 27 years old. I don't care the brand: it can be from the drugstore or high end. I can be walking my dog in the mask scaring children and people off, but it's my routine that I commit to every single day.

Every time a young girl comes in and asks me for advice, if you start your conversation with, 'How hard is it as a black woman,' or, 'How hard is it as a woman,' I turn you around. Because I cannot - we cannot look at the roadblocks and see the road at the same time.

I remember reading the cruelest, most awful thing about my hair online. A person speculated about who I was as a person and even read into my personal life based solely off my hairstyle. He or she said I must be lazy because I have short hair. It was just devastating.

So I have people who tweet and ask me, 'You can't be this happy all the time. You can't be this cheerful.' Well, yes I am. From where I've come from and my family and what I see as real struggles in day to day life, through my reporting. I'm never going to look at challenges.

I'm proud of my hard work. Working hard won't always lead to the exact things we desire. There are many things I've wanted that I haven't always gotten. But, I have a great satisfaction in the blessings from my mother and father, who instilled a great work ethic in me both personally and professionally.

We are presented with a unique situation in the black community in that we have embraced the beauty of hip hop, the real rawness of it, the real fun of it, but we also have to address the damage it has done. We have to look at what it's done to our black girls, especially when it comes to domestic violence.

I think when I first straightened my hair, I was a teenager. I don't believe that I was consciously doing it to look white or to be on television. It never crossed my mind. All of the girls in my neighborhood got perms and their hair straightened. But I know that historically it was to assimilate and there are some people who do it for that reason.

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