Oral History Interview with William Buchanan

Title: Oral History Interview with William Buchanan
Interviewee: William Buchanan
Interviewer: Stewart Buchanan
Description: William Buchanan of Dallas, Texas was interviewed by Stewart Buchanan, a Sewanee student, on November 30th, 2023, on Zoom. While their conversation was primarily on the Black Lives Matter Movement, other topics included discussing how the Black Lives Matter movement has influenced law enforcement training. We hope that this conversation will assist scholars with a further understanding of race in the United States during the early twenty-first century. Please click on the link to see the full interview.
Transcript: 0:03 Stewart Buchana...: All right, it's recording.

0:06 William Buchana...: Okay.

0:07 Stewart Buchana...: All right. This is Stewart Buchanan from Sewanee, the University of South. It is 7:35 PM on Wednesday, November 29th, 2023. I'm with

0:21 William Buchana...: William Buchanan

0:22 Stewart Buchana...: And you're from

0:25 William Buchana...: Dallas, Texas.

0:26 Stewart Buchana...: Thank you William Buchanan for being here. So where are you originally from?

0:32 William Buchana...: I was born in Dallas and I was raised in New Orleans and I've lived in Dallas since 1992.

0:42 Stewart Buchana...: So how, how's where you currently live different from where you were raised?

0:49 William Buchana...: Well, I was essentially raised in New Orleans and I currently live in Dallas. New Orleans is a very different community. It's much smaller, it's much more insular. The culture is a blend of lots of different cultures and Dallas is very large, very cosmopolitan, and relatively new compared to New Orleans.

1:27 Stewart Buchana...: Alright, and where did you find community as a child?

1:32 William Buchana...: When I was growing up in New Orleans, we were a member of Christ Church Cathedral. My family was very involved in the church and I was a member of the youth group for as long as I can remember. I was confirmed. There was in the junior youth group, the senior youth group, and I found a lot of community within my church. In addition, I swam on a swim team from the time I was in fifth, probably fifth or sixth grade. And I swam all the way through the end of high school. And the swim team was also a part of my community, members of the team. And then in addition to that I went to a high school that was relatively small and I had a number of very good friends that I did things with as a teenager.

2:34 Stewart Buchana...: Alright, and then where do you find community today?

2:39 William Buchana...: I find community amongst my local friends. I find community at my church here in Dallas, St. Michael's and All Angels. I also have a very intimate small group of graduates of Harvard Business School and that is a very important part of my community. We meet regularly and we're in a position to be able to share our most intimate thoughts. In addition to that, I stay active in my Naval Academy Alumni Association and I stay active in Boy Scouts where I also have community. I'm on the board of directors of Circle 10 Council.

3:25 Stewart Buchana...: Alright, very cool. What is your occupation and what was your journey to this role?

3:32 William Buchana...: I guess you would consider myself an investor in real estate and real estate related assets. I'm currently working on the acquisition of a very large mixed use asset in Las Vegas, Nevada. After I left the Navy, I graduated from business school and went to an investment bank called Alex Brown and Sons. And there I was a part of the team that worked on raising private and public debt and equity for real estate companies. After that, I joined my first real estate private equity fund and began investing, and I did that for 13 years and then I created a company to buy distressed mortgages after the great financial crisis. And lately I've been investing in individual transactions in real estate and real estate related companies. So that's how I got here. I started in investment banking and I ended up doing direct investing.

4:39 Stewart Buchana...: Really cool. Who inspires you and what traits do these individuals have?

4:55 William Buchana...: I think today I get inspiration from a number of places within my community. My closest friend is very even keeled and I get inspiration from that. Within my Harvard group, there are people who have sought and found real happiness and I get inspiration from that. I have friends who are quite entrepreneurial and I get a can-do attitude from that. And then I get inspiration from my children and I see their determination and I see their resilience and their seeking achievement and I get inspiration from that. I want to learn from them and I also want to not let them down, inspire me to work hard, be a part of their lives.

6:00 Stewart Buchana...: All right. And have you done any traveling and where?

6:06 William Buchana...: Oh goodness. Yes. I've done a lot of traveling. When I was in the Navy, I traveled throughout the Mediterranean Sea, specifically Spain, France, Italy. I also traveled in the North Atlantic and visited parts of Norway. I traveled in the Mid-Atlantic and went to England and Scotland. After the Navy I traveled for fun to England, Africa, specifically Kenya East, so East Africa and some of the Caribbean islands. I've also traveled extensively throughout the United States, principally in the mountain states, the west coast and the East coast, both for work and for pleasure. And I've traveled to China in a month in Shanghai with side trips to Hong Kong and Western China.

7:31 Stewart Buchana...: All right. That's a lot of places. What's your favorite type of food?

7:38 William Buchana...: Italian.

7:42 Stewart Buchana...: What dish?

7:52 William Buchana...: Pecorino.

7:53 Stewart Buchana...: What is that?

7:55 William Buchana...: It's a dish made from three different kinds of bell peppers and cheeses and pine nuts and raisins and onions and garlic served over or f pasta.

8:08 Stewart Buchana...: Sounds really good. How have you experienced international cultures in your life?

8:18 William Buchana...: Well, I've traveled extensively throughout Europe and interacted with Europeans from many different nations and in particular Italians. I attended classes in Italy, both in Venice and in Tuscany. I spent a great deal of time on the island of Sardinia when I was in the Navy and experienced interactions with many different who based their sailboats out of Sardinia, principally British. At business school. I had friends from Norway, England, Italy, and Lebanon and Japan and India, and they were my friends and I knew them well and experienced their cultures through them. When I was in China, I spent a month in Shanghai and spent a lot of time with people from Hong Kong who were living in Shanghai. I've also interacted extensively in my work with Australians and been on an Australian team in business.

9:55 Stewart Buchana...: What about your time in Kenya?

9:59 William Buchana...: My guides were Kenyan. They were from the Coco U Tribe, which is the tribe that's generally associated with the administration of the country and academic achievement. One guide was, had a PhD in zoology and was an expert on elephants and on Kenya. The other was a driver and who had decades of practical experience in the wild, and I spent time with them. I also spent about four days at the A country club in Nairobi, and the members were primarily highly educated, Kenyans and I spent time with them. So Chinese, Hong Kong, Kenya, Australia, Southern Europeans primarily, and then at business school, people from around the world.

11:11 Stewart Buchana...: Awesome. What is your experience with social media?

11:17 William Buchana...: I have limited experience with social media. I am a casual user of Facebook and Instagram. I, I'm a more committed user of LinkedIn.

11:29 Stewart Buchana...: Alright. How did you first encounter the Black Lives Matter movement?

11:36 William Buchana...: Newspapers.

11:39 Stewart Buchana...: Which ones?

11:41 William Buchana...: Probably the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Do

11:45 Stewart Buchana...: You remember what it said at all whenever you first saw it?

11:49 William Buchana...: I remember it began to gain traction after the Floyd killing, and it was mostly around the arbitrary nature of law enforcement and the very statistically significant data that indicated that blacks suffered disproportionately at the hands of police departments across America. That morphed into something more. It morphed into an understanding of cultural biases that were very subtle but nonetheless real. So I think that to say that Black Lives Matter is a statement of the obvious, but I also think that because they suffer disproportionately in America, it's an appropriate movement.

13:11 Stewart Buchana...: Alright. And can you give me more about your opinion on Black Lives Matter?

13:17 William Buchana...: No, I mean, it's an appropriate movement. It addresses disproportionate violence. It addresses subtle biases and prejudices. I think it's important. I think it's fundamentally impacted the way our police behave and are trained, and I think that's all good.

13:45 Stewart Buchana...: All right. And what was your community's reaction to the BLM movement?

13:51 William Buchana...: Some people dismissed it as why should we single out black people? All lives matter. And I think that's a very trivial argument. Of course, all lives matter, but to say that Black lives haven't been disproportionately impacted by the culture in America and their roots in our country in slavery, it would be ridiculous to assert that. Of course they did, and of course they do. So, yeah.

14:31 Stewart Buchana...: All right. And which generation do you think was most affected by the movement?

14:38 William Buchana...: Millennials.

14:41 Stewart Buchana...: Why is that?

14:43 William Buchana...: They were most prepared to be receptive. They were in the real world at the time of its sub emergence. They were in the middle of their careers. They were in the middle of being influential. They were in the middle of raising their children, millennials.

15:01 Stewart Buchana...: Alright. And how has the Black Lives Matter movement impacted your life?

15:11 William Buchana...: I'm probably more sensitive to the subtle biases and prejudices than I was before, but it hasn't fundamentally impacted my life as an adult. I've lived in an environment where I interacted with blacks regularly, albeit they were all highly educated and highly trained. I interacted with them and my world has probably been more of a meritocracy than others. So I think for me it's about the subtleties of it all.

15:57 Stewart Buchana...: And has it changed at all how you interacted with people of other races?

16:04 William Buchana...: No, no. I've always tried to interact with people by engaging them with kindness and respect.

16:15 Stewart Buchana...: Very good. How do you think the Black Lives Matter movement has succeeded?

16:21 William Buchana...: Oh, well, I fundamentally believe that it's changed police training and police behavior. And I think that it's ultimately going to impact this disproportionate violence that they experience. It's a much more complicated question. Blacks suffer disproportionately from poverty. Blacks suffer disproportionately from illegal substance use. I mean, there's lots of chronic causes of all this, but nonetheless, I think awareness is the first step to change. And I think Black Lives Matter helped awareness.

17:07 Stewart Buchana...: Alright. And how do you think the Black Lives Matter movement has failed?

17:15 William Buchana...: I don't think it has. It's still an active movement. They're still lobbying for change. They're still disproportionate violence and prejudices, and they're still building awareness. Does all that ebb and flow? Yes. Is it as visible as it once was? No. Are people numb to some of it now? Yes. But that pendulum will swing.

17:55 Stewart Buchana...: Why do you think it's at a low point right now?

17:59 William Buchana...: Just a natural swing of the pendulum. People have a limited amount of tolerance for change, and I think we're at a point where that messaging is probably falling on more deaf ears than it used to because just the natural evolution of human beings and how they hear and how they hear messaging and how they experience change. Change, there's less tolerance.

18:38 Stewart Buchana...: Alright. And what is your opinion on the state of race relations in the United States?

18:48 William Buchana...: Race relations is a dynamic process. It'll never be done. I think it's better than it's ever been, and I think there's more to go.

19:03 Stewart Buchana...: What are the changes you've seen from growing up to now?

19:09 William Buchana...: Oh son. I grew up in south Louisiana. I can remember going to a restaurant where they had black and white bathrooms as a child.

19:22 Stewart Buchana...: Can you still,

19:25 William Buchana...: In the 1960s, they had black and white restaurants in black and white restrooms in some of the country restaurants that we would go to on family excursions. And that doesn't exist anymore anywhere in America. There's one example.

19:48 Stewart Buchana...: Do you have any more?

19:49 William Buchana...: Well, I think the Navy is fundamentally more segregated than it was when I started, for sure.

19:58 Stewart Buchana...: Yeah,

20:01 William Buchana...: I think Wall Street is fundamentally more segregated. The business schools are fundamentally more segregated. I mean, all that, it's all evolutionary. It just continues to move along.

20:17 Stewart Buchana...: Yeah, for sure. And what do you think the future of Black Lives Matter is?

20:26 William Buchana...: I don't know. Depends on who's running it and how relevant they stay. I don't know. It's all about the leadership of the movement and the messaging that they want to deliver. If they keep the messaging relevant and they keep commanding attention, it'll continue to be a vibrant part of social change. If the leadership fails in that, it'll die.

20:59 Stewart Buchana...: Alright, so have you been keeping up at all recently with the movement?

21:04 William Buchana...: No, only I keep up with the movement because I read the paper every day.

21:11 Stewart Buchana...: All right. Well, thank you William Buchanan for this interview.

21:19 William Buchana...: You're very welcome, Stuart Buchanan for being an interviewer.

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