Speaker 1: Jammel Hill is a well known journalist, author, and media personality.
Speaker 1: She celebrated for her outspoken commentary on sports, politics, and
Speaker 1: social issues, particularly issues of race, gender, and equality. She
Speaker 1: gained prominence during her time at ESPN, where she co
Speaker 1: hosted Sports Center and contributed to The Undefeated. Since leaving ESPN,
Speaker 1: she's continued to build her platform with projects like her
Speaker 1: podcasts Jammel Hill Is Unbothered and her memoir Uphill, which
Speaker 1: details her personal journey and perspectives on navigating a career
Speaker 1: in media while advocating.
Speaker 2: For social justice.
Speaker 1: She's also been active in broader cultural and political conversations,
Speaker 1: often using her voice to call out injustice and uplift
Speaker 1: marginalized communities. And she is our guest today. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher as we podcast on location here in Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Rams's joh.
Speaker 2: I am Q and while we are broadcasting from Los Angeles, California,
Speaker 2: here we are in the presence of someone I consider royalty,
Speaker 2: and I don't mean that hyperbolic. I mean that literally.
Speaker 2: I was lucky enough to get a copy of uphere
Speaker 2: and to see that journey from a purview of somebody
Speaker 2: that grew up where you grew up, you know, almost
Speaker 2: literally in the same hallways where we went to high school,
Speaker 2: and knowing the journey. For some it might look like
Speaker 2: because you landed on your feet, that you had this
Speaker 2: master plan and that you had it all figured out.
Speaker 2: Ramses and I have a similar story. You know, we
Speaker 2: were radio DJs on the hip hop station in Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 2: You know, we're giving away Migo's tickets, You're playing CARDI
Speaker 2: b having a good time, and then something happened where
Speaker 2: we had to use our voices to speak up for
Speaker 2: our people, and it put us in the crosshairs. I
Speaker 2: like to tell people, I got us called to the
Speaker 2: office because of my big mouth. I couldn't stay quiet
Speaker 2: about what we were seeing going on outside, you know,
Speaker 2: people protesting in the wake of George Floyd's murder, and
Speaker 2: the news called us, you know, vandals and said we
Speaker 2: were terrorizing the city. But we were at protest with
Speaker 2: our kids. I had my two year old, he had
Speaker 2: his I think six year old at the time or five,
Speaker 2: and we knew that that wasn't true. And as you know,
Speaker 2: the bullhorn only goes so far, it only reaches so
Speaker 2: many people, and Rams was like, man, we have to
Speaker 2: do more. We can't just show up for the protests.
Speaker 2: We got this large platform, we got to say something.
Speaker 2: And you know, eventually that led to the station just
Speaker 2: flatly telling us, you know, we don't want to do
Speaker 2: a black show on the hip hop station. And we
Speaker 2: were the only black on air personalities in the entire
Speaker 2: state of Arizona. So being told by the hip hop
Speaker 2: station they didn't want to do black, Rams just quit
Speaker 2: for both of us and then called me on the
Speaker 2: phone and told me, hey, we quit. In the position
Speaker 2: that you've been in throughout your career, you know, you
Speaker 2: have to be responsible with your advocacy because you have
Speaker 2: a living to make, You got bills to pay. How
Speaker 2: do you balance showing up for us? You know, navigating
Speaker 2: like objectivity and advocacy as a journalist, how do you
Speaker 2: navigate that space?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: For one, and first of all, thank you both for
Speaker 4: having me on the show. Really appreciate speaking to you all.
Speaker 4: And of course, you know, any opportunity I get to
Speaker 4: fellowship with somebody else from Detroit, especially from Mumford, Yes, indeed, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's always very important and special to me. But much
Speaker 4: like you guys knew when that moment came, the moment
Speaker 4: shows you and you were just ready for it, right,
Speaker 4: And so I think it's been the same for me,
Speaker 4: is that there are a lot of concessions that we
Speaker 4: have to make, and especially if you're black in the
Speaker 4: media space, really in any corporate space, there's gonna be
Speaker 4: concessions that you make, but you can't let the place
Speaker 4: you're at or the job you're doing change the integrity
Speaker 4: and the fabric and the DNA of who you actually are.
Speaker 4: And I told people this about ESPN when I got
Speaker 4: there in two thousand and six, and told them throughout
Speaker 4: my time there for twelve years, is that you should
Speaker 4: go into any place you have to know who you are.
Speaker 4: The place can't make you, because if that's the case,
Speaker 4: you're gonna see a lot of inconsistency in how you
Speaker 4: behave and how you treat the platform that you're given.
Speaker 4: So for me, when those moments came where I felt
Speaker 4: like my voice or more emphasis was required, that moment
Speaker 4: kind of chose me and I sort of knew, like, yeah,
Speaker 4: this is the right thing to do. And you also
Speaker 4: know that you're okay with the consequences of how it
Speaker 4: turns out, you know, you all made a courageous choice
Speaker 4: to quit rather than subject yourself to clearly a situation
Speaker 4: that did not value you and did not understand the
Speaker 4: power and the.
Speaker 3: The need for your voice, especially during the time like that.
Speaker 4: And I think when we run into those situations, we
Speaker 4: just innately know no more, I can't. I know, we
Speaker 4: have got to draw a line in a saying right here.
Speaker 4: And the great thing about the way my career tri
Speaker 4: trajectory has gone is that I've had much more authority, empowerment,
Speaker 4: and leverage in this stage of my career, and I
Speaker 4: use those and.
Speaker 3: Weaponize those.
Speaker 4: As I feel like I should for the betterment and
Speaker 4: the empowerment of us, you know, because it's not just
Speaker 4: really about me anymore, because I've been able to do
Speaker 4: some really amazing things in my career. And while yes,
Speaker 4: there are plenty of other things I'd love to accomplish,
Speaker 4: but those really take a back seat to this general
Speaker 4: principle of I have of this business needs to be
Speaker 4: better for us than what it was for me. And
Speaker 4: listen to the OZ that took a lot of you know,
Speaker 4: abuse and had to deal with a lot of stuff.
Speaker 4: They did it so that my walk was a little easier,
Speaker 4: and I think that's the way we should all approach
Speaker 4: this business. We got to make the generation coming after
Speaker 4: us or younger journalists, younger media folks like we got
Speaker 4: to make that path a little easier for them. And
Speaker 4: so that's kind of more my mission these days than anything.
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask something of you. I I vaguely
Speaker 1: remember when everything went down with ESPN, but famously on
Speaker 1: our show, our listeners know on the Black Information Network,
Speaker 1: our listeners know their Q certainly knows this. I'm more
Speaker 1: of a music guy than a sports guy, you know.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't watch a lot of sports shows.
Speaker 1: I don't watch a lot of sports games. I don't
Speaker 1: know the names that you guys were talking about earlier.
Speaker 1: It sounds I like the fact that you guys are
Speaker 1: so excited about it, but I don't, you know, it's
Speaker 1: just just I just basking the energy, right And there
Speaker 1: may be some people out there who are kind of
Speaker 1: like me. Now. I know, because I was aware when
Speaker 1: this happened that it's quite a compelling story. But would
Speaker 1: you do our listener as a favor and kind of
Speaker 1: fill in just a Cliff Snotes version of actually what
Speaker 1: happened to you and that critical moment going from you know,
Speaker 1: working to having to stand on business as Q put it.
Speaker 4: So, I got to ESPN in two thousand and six,
Speaker 4: and it was the longest job I've ever had.
Speaker 3: It's the best job that I ever had.
Speaker 4: And so I sort of made my way up the ranks,
Speaker 4: if you will, and I started doing daily television, had
Speaker 4: my own show starting in twenty thirteen. It was called
Speaker 4: Numbers Never Lie. Then they changed the name of it
Speaker 4: to His and Hers. Me and my television partner and friend,
Speaker 4: Michael Smith. We were co hosts, and then in twenty
Speaker 4: sixteen we got a pretty big promotion. They asked us
Speaker 4: to host the six pm Sports Center, which is a
Speaker 4: legacy job in the business. It's a great job, you know,
Speaker 4: hosting Sports Center for those in sports media and even
Speaker 4: those who are fans, they understand the importance of that.
Speaker 4: The sports brand is ESPN's baby, it's its legacy and
Speaker 4: being able to host that it was a tremendous opportunity
Speaker 4: for us. And in twenty seventeen, you know, as you know,
Speaker 4: we President Trump was in office then and this was
Speaker 4: right after Charlottesville, and we saw, you know, to refresh
Speaker 4: some people's mind. In Charlottesville, we literally had Nazis marching
Speaker 4: on an American city saying the Jews will not replace us,
Speaker 4: all sorts of just hideous chants and staking their claim.
Speaker 4: And Trump, who was president at the time, he held
Speaker 4: a news conference. He was asked about this because while
Speaker 4: racism has never died, he certainly awakened the bolder aspects
Speaker 4: of it with some of his language, with some of
Speaker 4: his demeanor, and frankly with the things and the people
Speaker 4: that support him. And so, you know, he held a
Speaker 4: press conference about it, and he was asked about, you know,
Speaker 4: what his thoughts were on it, and he said, there
Speaker 4: were very fine people on both sides, who you know,
Speaker 4: there were no there wasn't very fine people on both sides.
Speaker 4: There was Nazis on one side and everybody else trying
Speaker 4: to stop them on the other side, Okay, And he
Speaker 4: tried to make a false equivalence between the two. You
Speaker 4: had a young lady, a young white woman, the Heather Higher.
Speaker 4: She'd lost her life because a Nazi plowed into a
Speaker 4: crowd of people with their car because they were the
Speaker 4: counter protesters to this very awful moment in our history,
Speaker 4: and So the thing about when you do sports, and
Speaker 4: especially at the place like ESPN, you know, when you
Speaker 4: see these things happening around the world, you're limited in
Speaker 4: the way that you can talk about them because your job.
Speaker 3: Is to frankly entertain people. You know, people love sports.
Speaker 4: A lot of people looked at sports as something that
Speaker 4: distracts them or at least takes their mind off the
Speaker 4: real day to day life issues of their own lives
Speaker 4: and what we're experiencing as citizens. And and you know,
Speaker 4: hearing that defense was just sickening to me. And on
Speaker 4: social media it was somebody who tried to defend what
Speaker 4: he said, and I was going, I was in a
Speaker 4: back and forth with it with this person, which sometimes
Speaker 4: never yes, and it did something we try to avoid it,
Speaker 4: but sometimes today ain't the day and I ain't the one.
Speaker 3: So that was one of those days. Nor am I
Speaker 3: the two.
Speaker 4: I'm not the one, order two or one of your
Speaker 4: little friends, any of those three, right, And so in
Speaker 4: this back and forth, I gave my honest assessment of
Speaker 4: the then president are about to be our president elect
Speaker 4: as of this recording, and I just said, like he's
Speaker 4: a white supremacist, and he surrounded himself with a lot
Speaker 4: of other white supremacists, and he is unfit to lead
Speaker 4: this country, period.
Speaker 3: And that's what I said.
Speaker 4: And honestly, people always ask me like, oh, wow, did
Speaker 4: you know that it would create such an international firestorm.
Speaker 3: It was like, nah, because I thought we knew.
Speaker 4: I thought you could tell thought obviously. I thought it
Speaker 4: was pretty obvious.
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 4: You know, it's one of the most unoriginal things I've
Speaker 4: ever said, because I thought it was just that obvious.
Speaker 4: But when you're anchoring the six PM Sports Center, which
Speaker 4: is the evening news of sports, you know, much like
Speaker 4: you saw the evening news on CBS or NBC. When
Speaker 4: you're in that position, that's not where they expect that
Speaker 4: kind of realism to come from, especially about politics. And
Speaker 4: lo and behold, uh my comment got blown up everywhere.
Speaker 4: Of course, it was all over Fox naturally Fox News,
Speaker 4: and then it just kind of took on a life
Speaker 4: of its own. ESPN they decided that they would put
Speaker 4: out a statement saying that hey, that's how she feels,
Speaker 4: that's not how all of us feel, or you know,
Speaker 4: trying to make the separation between those are her political
Speaker 4: views and got nothing to do with us. And I
Speaker 4: put it out that muss that that statement was a mistake,
Speaker 4: because you then you're gonna take it off of Fox
Speaker 4: News and the conservative echo chamber, and it's gonna be
Speaker 4: on CNA now because you've legitimized the criticism by saying, like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: we know what she said.
Speaker 3: It was probably not right, but that ain't us. That's
Speaker 3: exactly what happened.
Speaker 4: And next thing I know, I go into work because
Speaker 4: you know, I tweeted this when I wasn't at work yet,
Speaker 4: And I go into work and my friends. I have
Speaker 4: friends who cover politics, and a couple of them were
Speaker 4: texting me from the White House Press brief freing room
Speaker 4: because of the Press Secretary at the time, Sarah Huckabe Sanders,
Speaker 4: who's now the governor of Arkansas. She says she thought
Speaker 4: I should be fired for that, and it takes on
Speaker 4: another life of his own. Then next thing you know,
Speaker 4: Donald Trump is tweeting about me, saying, I'm dragging the
Speaker 4: ratings down at ESPN and I need to apologize for
Speaker 4: what I said. And so what was to me a
Speaker 4: meaningless reply suddenly is an international news story, and I'm
Speaker 4: being talked about on CNN and miss NBC and local
Speaker 4: news and national news, and all these stories are being written.
Speaker 3: So it is a firestorm.
Speaker 4: And really, the thing that was also obvious is that
Speaker 4: for as many people who may have supported Donald Trump,
Speaker 4: there was a whole lot of people who did not.
Speaker 4: And much to my surprise, a lot of athletes, many
Speaker 4: of whom I did not know personally, began to speak
Speaker 4: up on my behalf, Kevin Durant, Lebron James, Colin Kaepernick,
Speaker 4: who I did know, like a lot of entertainers, celebrities,
Speaker 4: like they just the black folks mounted up basically, and
Speaker 4: I think, yes, we formed a vultron. And I say
Speaker 4: this often and it's true. It's like I credit that
Speaker 4: for I don't know how close I was to just
Speaker 4: being fired, but I credit them speaking up on my
Speaker 4: behalf for the reason at least ESPN if they were
Speaker 4: thinking of that, they said, I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 4: we want I don't know if we want this.
Speaker 3: You know, And so.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a very eye opening time for me.
Speaker 4: And eventually, you know, that happens. And I think in
Speaker 4: ESPN's mind they were just like, you know, you kind
Speaker 4: of need to chill out and lay low, because I mean,
Speaker 4: I was getting It was so much of a firestorm
Speaker 4: that like I couldn't open like Twitter or anything because
Speaker 4: it was just bombarded with people just you know, I
Speaker 4: had to kind of they had to shut down my
Speaker 4: voicemail at work because people were calling leaving death threats.
Speaker 4: I mean, it was just crazy, you know, and I
Speaker 4: had to have security at some point, Like it was,
Speaker 4: it was wild. And then fast forward, uh, maybe a
Speaker 4: couple of weeks after this all happens, and ESPN decides,
Speaker 4: you know, they weren't going to suspend me, they weren't
Speaker 4: gonna do anything because frankly, they didn't.
Speaker 3: Know what to do.
Speaker 4: The the Dallas Cowboys, it was after Trump had called
Speaker 4: the NFL player's sons because they were kneeling in protest. Really,
Speaker 4: this was about Colin Kaepernick, you know, him deciding to
Speaker 4: take a knee to protest and bring awareness to racial oppression,
Speaker 4: police brutality, you know, things we.
Speaker 3: Should all agree are bad.
Speaker 4: Him doing that had a rub off effect on the
Speaker 4: other player, so the other players started to do the
Speaker 4: same thing, and Trump saw this. It was a political
Speaker 4: opportunity for him, so he goes off and calls them
Speaker 4: sons all this kind of stuff, and the NFL takes
Speaker 4: a quote unquote stand. But then Jerry Jones, the owner
Speaker 4: of the Cowboy, says that if any of his players
Speaker 4: Jerry Jones, who donated a lot of money to Trump's campaign,
Speaker 4: who was friends with Donald Trump, says that if any
Speaker 4: of his players took a knee, he would cut them.
Speaker 3: Now, this is the same dude.
Speaker 4: Okay, just to yes, Jerry Jones, same dude who gave
Speaker 4: Greg Hardy a job. Greg Hardy who was once convicted
Speaker 4: of domestic violence for choking out his girlfriend in the bathtub. Right,
Speaker 4: that same dude was more than okay, we're giving Gregready
Speaker 4: another chance after an eleven game suspension from the NFL
Speaker 4: for some very serious domestic violence charges. And but for him,
Speaker 4: the line is, if you kneel on behalf of humanity,
Speaker 4: then you're not worthy of being a cowboy. And I
Speaker 4: thought that was crazy, and a lot of people, because
Speaker 4: the thing is, in our discourse when we were talking
Speaker 4: about sports or anything, there's one set of people whose
Speaker 4: opinions get elevated and they become sort of the default, like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: we have to adhere to this opinion. And then there's
Speaker 4: a whole lot of people who feel opposite, you know.
Speaker 4: For there's a lot of black NFL fans, a lot
Speaker 4: of black Cowboy fans, and they were outraged that Jerry
Speaker 4: Jones said this, and they were just they were crushing
Speaker 4: the Cowboys players about it, like Dak Prescott and all
Speaker 4: these guys, and they were just like, I can't believe
Speaker 4: you guys would play for somebody who said this about you.
Speaker 4: Where's your sense of dignity, where's your sense of respect there?
Speaker 4: You let this white man talk to you like that.
Speaker 4: You know, there was a lot of that, And I said,
Speaker 4: I was like, listen, last I checked, because you know
Speaker 4: these players and this is not to absolve them, and
Speaker 4: I get that when you're in that position, you made
Speaker 4: a lot of money, you have the comfort of speaking
Speaker 4: up in the way others do not. But at the
Speaker 4: same time, you can't ask the players to constantly risk
Speaker 4: it all.
Speaker 3: Well, all you got to do is turn your remote
Speaker 3: to another channel.
Speaker 4: Anybody putting a gunny your head telling you to watch
Speaker 4: the Cowboys or the NFL like nobody. So what I
Speaker 4: said on Twitter was that if you all feel this
Speaker 4: strongly about what he said, then you need to make
Speaker 4: you need to make a stand.
Speaker 3: Wich a wallet.
Speaker 4: Stop watching the NFL then, or stop watching the Cowboys.
Speaker 4: They all got advertisers, stop patronizing them, Like why are
Speaker 4: the players the ones that have to risk it all?
Speaker 3: And y'all can sit there in the comfort of your
Speaker 3: home and risk nothing, right.
Speaker 4: That was that was what I said. I was like,
Speaker 4: you go after the advertisers. There you go, and the
Speaker 4: history of boycotts, that's usually what works.
Speaker 3: That's all I said. Next thing, I know, big Fox
Speaker 3: News headlines. Big headlines arewa man.
Speaker 4: They did, because at this point, if I would have
Speaker 4: just said, hey, I like to tie my shoe, that
Speaker 4: would have been a news story. It doesn't matter, and
Speaker 4: so big headlines Jameel Hill, ESPNS Jabel Hill calls for
Speaker 4: boycott of the NFL, and I was like, oh god,
Speaker 4: the NFL and.
Speaker 3: ESPN are business partners, right.
Speaker 4: They have a billion on billion on billions deal for
Speaker 4: Monday night football, and now you know, ESPN is getting
Speaker 4: a Super Bowl in a couple of years, so they
Speaker 4: have financially a lot of stake. And so you have
Speaker 4: now one of your most prominent personalities saying, hey.
Speaker 3: Y'all need to just stop fooling with this league.
Speaker 4: If you feel like that needless to say, my boss
Speaker 4: say is we're quite unhappy, very unhappy. And this time around,
Speaker 4: they considered that another violation of their very nebulous social
Speaker 4: media policy, and I was suspended, and I was suspended
Speaker 4: for two weeks. And it was that that firestorm that
Speaker 4: started to kind of die down and came roaring right
Speaker 4: back to life.
Speaker 3: And it was then in that moment that I knew.
Speaker 4: But I knew before I got suspended, honestly, you know,
Speaker 4: and people thought I was crazy for saying this. I
Speaker 4: really wasn't tripping about the suspension. I've been in this
Speaker 4: business long enough to know that when you start messing
Speaker 4: with the church's money, it's going to be a price
Speaker 4: to pay.
Speaker 3: It's okay, I'm alright with paying that price. I'm fine
Speaker 3: with it. They did what they had to do. I
Speaker 3: did what I had to do. It's just that simple.
Speaker 4: However, the part that really bothered me throughout this whole ordeal,
Speaker 4: which lasts, you know, together with the between these two
Speaker 4: incidents we're talking about a month, is that I came
Speaker 4: up with the type of journalism background. I worked in
Speaker 4: newspapers for a decade before I got to ESPN, and
Speaker 4: there was just this understood code that you never let
Speaker 4: city Hall come after your reporters. You stand up for them,
Speaker 4: you fight for them.
Speaker 3: You don't. The whole the way.
Speaker 4: This democracy works is because of a free press, we
Speaker 4: have the right to criticize the government.
Speaker 3: That is what that is.
Speaker 4: So for all the people who always want to holler
Speaker 4: freedom of speech, that's what that is. Protecting you from
Speaker 4: retaliation from the government. Right, And so it's not about
Speaker 4: you know, people wrongly think that free speech means I
Speaker 4: could just say anything to you. You can't do nothing. No,
Speaker 4: it's protecting you from government retaliation. That is the difference, stupid,
Speaker 4: correct exactly. So you run up on the wrong one
Speaker 4: and you get popped in the wind.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, that.
Speaker 3: All the right one, the wrong one or the right one.
Speaker 4: So at any rate, when Donald Trump came after me
Speaker 4: and ESPN didn't do anything, that to me is when
Speaker 4: I knew our relationship was over. And I said mmm
Speaker 4: to myself, I was thinking, like, yeah, where the way
Speaker 4: I was brought up in this business, you don't do that, Okay,
Speaker 4: you got to say something even if you know, and
Speaker 4: it's it was disheartening because being at a place that long,
Speaker 4: of course, you build relationships, it becomes personal to you,
Speaker 4: even though it's a transactional relationship.
Speaker 3: I provide talent to you, you put me on air.
Speaker 3: That's the way it works.
Speaker 4: But it did give me some sense of, I don't know, relief.
Speaker 4: I guess because I met with the president of ESPN
Speaker 4: the day before I was coming off suspension, and he
Speaker 4: apologized to me, John Skipper, He apologized to me for
Speaker 4: not speaking up and at the very least defending me
Speaker 4: against Donald Trump. But even still, when that happens, I
Speaker 4: was like, yeah, I don't think this relationship is gonna
Speaker 4: make it. I did a lot of great stuff at
Speaker 4: ESPN plus on top of that, and this is not
Speaker 4: a small thing. I also did not enjoy doing Sports Center.
Speaker 4: It was a constant fight, like those battles that I
Speaker 4: know you all fought in the position you were in
Speaker 4: in Arizona, same ones, you know, And I got tired
Speaker 4: of fighting to be me every day.
Speaker 3: Got really tired of that on Sports Center.
Speaker 4: And because that's a different thing than when we hosted
Speaker 4: our previous shows, where we had a lot of creative control.
Speaker 4: You know, we could be who we were Sports Center,
Speaker 4: as my co host used to famously say, a lot
Speaker 4: of cooks in the kitchen, but don't know, nobody know
Speaker 4: how to make a meal.
Speaker 3: And that is what we had.
Speaker 4: And when once the political blowback came, it put the
Speaker 4: show in a compromising position because suddenly, you know, we
Speaker 4: have right wing and conservative think tanks or think pieces
Speaker 4: on us, and it's like the show the success of
Speaker 4: it moving forward with me in particular, just didn't seem great.
Speaker 4: And I wasn't enjoying being on there. I don't think
Speaker 4: they were enjoying me being on there because this is
Speaker 4: their biggest property and here we have all this smoke
Speaker 4: we got to deal with every time she says anything.
Speaker 4: And in my contract, I had the equivalent of a
Speaker 4: no trade clause where I had to do Sports Center.
Speaker 4: And the only way I could not do Sports Center
Speaker 4: is if I asked to not do Sports Center. And
Speaker 4: I was just one year into a four year deal
Speaker 4: was not enjoying it, and so I asked them if
Speaker 4: I could leave Sports Center. I didn't ask to leave
Speaker 4: the company that was a few months away. I was like,
Speaker 4: I want to leave Sports Center because however much time
Speaker 4: that I have left here DESPN, I don't want.
Speaker 3: To be doing that. And as they told me flat out.
Speaker 4: Typically we don't pay people the kind of money we're
Speaker 4: paying you to do what you want to transition into.
Speaker 2: But we'll do it.
Speaker 4: And I know they were going to do it because
Speaker 4: they had just as much ve interest in me being
Speaker 4: off Sports Center as I did. We were aligned, and
Speaker 4: you know, so I went back to writing for The Undefeated,
Speaker 4: which has now since become Ndscape. Writing is always my
Speaker 4: first love. And I went to doing different shows, you know,
Speaker 4: highly questionable and around the Horn and you know, just
Speaker 4: really kind of picking my spots Sports Nation when that
Speaker 4: was still going. And then I got to about you know,
Speaker 4: this is July of twenty eighteen, and I'm like, I
Speaker 4: don't have anything else I want to do here, Like
Speaker 4: I'm kind of done, and again I'm just one year
Speaker 4: and two a.
Speaker 3: Two year deal or to a four year deal, excuse me.
Speaker 4: And I met with the president and his second in command,
Speaker 4: the president of ESPN, who was a different president by
Speaker 4: that time, and you know, I was just like, I
Speaker 4: think we both have a vested interest in me leaving.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't really want to be here. I
Speaker 4: don't think y'all want to be here. I'm fine to
Speaker 4: be the first one to say we broke up, it's okay,
Speaker 4: and like we had a good run. You know, a
Speaker 4: lot of people don't last that long at any job,
Speaker 4: so to be there at a network like that for
Speaker 4: twelve years. So I left and it was great for
Speaker 4: me because for the first time in a really long time,
Speaker 4: it made me reassess what I wanted to do with
Speaker 4: my career. It made me think about what this third
Speaker 4: act is going to look like. And frankly, it got
Speaker 4: me out of a little bit of complacency. Like when
Speaker 4: you wind up at a place like ESPN, like people
Speaker 4: are in those jobs forever, like they don't leave them,
Speaker 4: you know, But if you have other things that you
Speaker 4: want to do, it kind of wind up, winds up,
Speaker 4: stunting that a little bit. Because you make a good money,
Speaker 4: you're on TV. You know, you could just hit cruise
Speaker 4: control then you're good. You're still working hard, but finding
Speaker 4: the thing that you want to do that kind of
Speaker 4: scares you a little bit, a little harder to do
Speaker 4: when you're in the comforts of a studio and making
Speaker 4: a lot of money. So there's a there's a very
Speaker 4: long winded answer of what happened with you?
Speaker 2: I want to add something right here. I appreciate that because.
Speaker 1: When we were in a position to have this conversation,
Speaker 1: when your name first came up, I had not made
Speaker 1: that connection yet. I know that story, well, I knew
Speaker 1: the cliffs Notes version of that story, but I knew
Speaker 1: of the story. I just didn't know that you're because
Speaker 1: you're an activist to me, which.
Speaker 3: Is crazy because I would never describe myself that well
Speaker 3: but at all.
Speaker 1: This is why I wanted to make sure I said
Speaker 1: this before you take the next question or the next
Speaker 1: round cue to me, that's what you are. And I
Speaker 1: knew that you kind of came from, you know, the
Speaker 1: ESPN or Sports World or whatever sports center, and you know,
Speaker 1: that was just kind of a part of the story maybe,
Speaker 1: but it just kind of exists in sort of the
Speaker 1: mental sort of fog or whatever. But every time I
Speaker 1: see the name Jamel Hill, it's on some activist stuff.
Speaker 1: So that's the stuff that I share on my stories
Speaker 1: or the stuff that you know gets retweeted, or the
Speaker 1: stuff that we use as source material for our program.
Speaker 1: And so when I finally did make the connection to
Speaker 1: the actual story, I was like, Oh my god, that's
Speaker 1: who we're going to talk to. So that we had
Speaker 1: a whole. We had a whole this was this was
Speaker 1: weeks ago, but we have the whole thing. So when
Speaker 1: we say it's an honor to sit and talk with you,
Speaker 1: I really do mean not because to me, you you
Speaker 1: come from a you know, when you was saying that
Speaker 1: we're sitting in the presence of royalty and he said
Speaker 1: it before, I don't want to speak for you, but
Speaker 1: it's like she doesn't even know how much of a
Speaker 1: hero she is of mine, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And so I'm like, yeah, right, so anyway, yeah, go ahead, you.
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure I got that in.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. That was that was more than I deserve.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting world when being yourself becomes provocative and
Speaker 2: you say benign things like the white supremacist guy is
Speaker 2: a white supremacist and it's a headline that has to
Speaker 2: be confusing.
Speaker 4: No, but it does let you know something that I
Speaker 4: don't think most people, and not even us as black people,
Speaker 4: that we realize that our very existence is political. Yes,
Speaker 4: it's political, and because our existence and our humanity has
Speaker 4: always been a question. So that's why it's like innately posive,
Speaker 4: you know, we show up somewhere we could say nothing.
Speaker 4: It comes out of our mouth, and there's going to
Speaker 4: be some people in the room who are wary, are
Speaker 4: trying to figure out how we got in there, or
Speaker 4: what's happening, What are you doing here. It's like, we
Speaker 4: always have to defend our right to exist constantly, and
Speaker 4: so because of that, we don't We may not ever
Speaker 4: even voice a political opinion, but people just inherently consider
Speaker 4: us political.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you mentioned Colin Kaepernick. You guys got a
Speaker 2: chance to work together, right, We did tell me a
Speaker 2: little bit about that.
Speaker 3: So ESPN funny how things come full circle.
Speaker 4: So Spike Lee is directing Colin's documentary that goes through
Speaker 4: the entire bones of his protests, why things that happen
Speaker 4: behind the scenes that people don't know about that are
Speaker 4: very compelling.
Speaker 3: It's a phenomenal story.
Speaker 4: And then not just about the protests, but also his
Speaker 4: early life, like a bunch of different stuff. But so
Speaker 4: Colin to give you an idea of the kind of
Speaker 4: person that he is, He's one of the most principal
Speaker 4: people I've ever met. And Colin and I knew each
Speaker 4: other loosely, very loosely, very casually. I'm a forty nine
Speaker 4: Ers fan despite being from Detroit. It's not a terribly
Speaker 4: interesting story.
Speaker 2: And we'll talk to her about it.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, well we'll get to that bybe at some point.
Speaker 4: But so obviously, you know, he was once my quarterback,
Speaker 4: and I came there at first know him that way,
Speaker 4: and then at a couple of social functions, you know,
Speaker 4: we talked and by you know, real cool and of course,
Speaker 4: you know, when I was going through my drama with
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, he went through his drama with Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: So and when he was protesting, I was obviously on
Speaker 4: an air at ESPN, and I always defended his right
Speaker 4: to protest and the way that he did it and
Speaker 4: calling out the people who were trying to hijack what
Speaker 4: he was talking about and make it about patriotism when
Speaker 4: it was never about that. So we sort of had
Speaker 4: this little history of like sticking up for each other
Speaker 4: and not knowing each other. And one day, this was
Speaker 4: a couple of years ago, he called.
Speaker 3: Me and.
Speaker 4: He said, hey, listen, I just wanted to talk to
Speaker 4: you because you know, he has some offers on the
Speaker 4: table people who wanted, you know, his documentary, and you know,
Speaker 4: he let me know who that was, and He's like,
Speaker 4: you know, ESPN is one of them, and I don't
Speaker 4: want to do anything that would undermine your mission or
Speaker 4: seem like I'm in opposition to the things you stood
Speaker 4: for against them. He's basically like, you know, I don't
Speaker 4: want to ESPN can basically be off the table for
Speaker 4: me because of what you went through. And I was like, wow,
Speaker 4: we don't even know each other. Like that said right,
Speaker 4: it was, And I was so floored by this, And
Speaker 4: I was like, Colin, if you would have if you
Speaker 4: would have never made this phone call to me, and
Speaker 4: I wake up and read in the trades that ESPN
Speaker 4: is doing your doc. I was still watching and support
Speaker 4: it like it would have never. My personal drama with
Speaker 4: ESPN has nothing to do with you, but I appreciate
Speaker 4: you willing to being willing to stand in solidarity, which
Speaker 4: let me know Yodas dude is for real, Like he's
Speaker 4: a real dude. And so we get to talk, and
Speaker 4: I said, listen, I went through a very specific situation
Speaker 4: with them. Of the twelve years I was there, eleven
Speaker 4: or so we're good. We went through a very rough
Speaker 4: last year and I still left there with more friends
Speaker 4: than enemies and more people who liked and respected me
Speaker 4: than not, and including a lot of people you know,
Speaker 4: kind of at the top. So I was like, it's fine,
Speaker 4: We're in a we're in an okay place. Are things
Speaker 4: awkward to some degree, yes, but we're fine. And I
Speaker 4: was like, evaluating all the offers that you have, based
Speaker 4: off the information you've told me, ESPN is the best platform.
Speaker 3: It's like they have.
Speaker 4: You know, they wanted to make it part of his
Speaker 4: thirty for thirty collection, which we know, I mean they
Speaker 4: want to ask her for with the oj maide in America.
Speaker 4: So they have a very definitive, excellent history with being
Speaker 4: able to do projects like yours. And you know, frankly,
Speaker 4: I was a little surprised that ESPN was interested, not
Speaker 4: because it wasn't a good story, but mostly because you know,
Speaker 4: this was a very polarizing issue for a lot of people,
Speaker 4: and you know, ESPN had been under attack for being
Speaker 4: too liberal and too political and.
Speaker 3: All this other stuff.
Speaker 4: So I was kind of surprised they were willing to
Speaker 4: kind of stand in the pain and do something like
Speaker 4: this because eventually, part of his story is the NFL's
Speaker 4: behavior and terms of exiling him from the league. So
Speaker 4: you have to call them out and part of that,
Speaker 4: and that's your billion dollar business partner. So I was
Speaker 4: a little surprised, and I was like, I think they're
Speaker 4: the best deal. And he appreciated my input, my insight,
Speaker 4: and I also added that like, plus your presence there
Speaker 4: for a lot of the black people who work there,
Speaker 4: like your presence will be very uplifting, it will be
Speaker 4: very inspiring, and you know, I think that's going to
Speaker 4: have like a real trickle down and rub off effect
Speaker 4: on everybody else. Just knowing that Colin Kaepernick has decided
Speaker 4: to be in partnership with ESPN. So he was like, great,
Speaker 4: appreciate it. Then maybe thirty minutes later, he calls me back.
Speaker 4: He said, you know what, I think you're right about ESPN.
Speaker 4: But I tell you how I can What would really
Speaker 4: make me feel good about this. He's like, you have
Speaker 4: to be my executive producer. I'm like, I was like,
Speaker 4: don't threaten me with a good time. Yes, the answer
Speaker 4: is yes. I had talked it by agent anybody. I
Speaker 4: was like, yes, I will do it. I don't even
Speaker 4: know if there's any money involved.
Speaker 3: Yes, I will do this.
Speaker 4: And so so, and he hadn't even picked a director yet,
Speaker 4: so he hadn't picked Spike Kid, and you know that
Speaker 4: came along as part of the process, and you know,
Speaker 4: we started filming and just being able to work with
Speaker 4: Colin and to really see who he is. There's a
Speaker 4: lot of people, so many people that owe him an
Speaker 4: apology and getting to know not just him but his
Speaker 4: wife Nessa, like they're marg yeah, yeah, okay, yes, she
Speaker 4: spent some time him and that's that are married.
Speaker 3: I don't think I let the cat out the bag
Speaker 3: there because it's been on social media.
Speaker 4: They posted it because they have a beautiful daughter too
Speaker 4: as well.
Speaker 3: But they're just really amazing people.
Speaker 4: And it's been my honor to be to play a
Speaker 4: role in telling a story that so many people got wrong.
Speaker 4: And so I'm just excited for people to see it.
Speaker 4: Ask for when I know this is probably will be
Speaker 4: a next question. It's like, uh, we're still figuring that
Speaker 4: part out, but it's done, so that's a good thing.
Speaker 4: It's done, but we're still figuring out exactly when. And
Speaker 4: so I'm I'm excited about everybody else saying it and
Speaker 4: so they can understand just how egregious it was what
Speaker 4: the NFL did to him.
Speaker 2: So this interesting thing happens in the wake of something
Speaker 2: like that. You know it's now author, execut give, producer, director, host, talent,
Speaker 2: scholar Jamail Hill, right, and when you get to this
Speaker 2: point where you realize I'm no longer happy in this
Speaker 2: place where I've always been. In your case, you landed
Speaker 2: on your feet. You made a decision that was best
Speaker 2: for you. And now in the eyes of us that
Speaker 2: follow you, you're thriving. You know, we're looking at above
Speaker 2: the fold, we're looking at politics, we're looking at executive
Speaker 2: producing this documentary for Colin Kaepernick. And the moment when
Speaker 2: you made that decision was it peaceful? Were you like
Speaker 2: I'm out of there? Or were you like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: what's next?
Speaker 4: No, it was very peaceful because I felt like it
Speaker 4: was time. I was like, it's just time, you know,
Speaker 4: like we my Everything that I was supposed to do
Speaker 4: at ESPN, I did, and a lot of things I
Speaker 4: never even saw a coming, never saw hosting Sports Center coming,
Speaker 4: never saw frankly, I mean I went there as a
Speaker 4: writer because I was They hired me to be a
Speaker 4: columnist for ESPN dot com, So I had no intention
Speaker 4: of having a television career. That just is something that
Speaker 4: just kind of happened, and so I was grateful for
Speaker 4: the experience for a lot of reasons, but mainly I
Speaker 4: came in as a good journalism a good journalist.
Speaker 3: I left as a great journalist.
Speaker 4: Like it really in part because the great thing you
Speaker 4: get to do at ESPN is that you get to
Speaker 4: do a lot of things. So I started podcasting there,
Speaker 4: did radio there, television, long form journalism, like every type
Speaker 4: of thing I did while I was there, and that
Speaker 4: gives you an incredible amount of knowledge, an incredible knowledge
Speaker 4: base as you go out into the non ESPN world.
Speaker 4: So that made my skills very transferable to do other things,
Speaker 4: and you know, I wanted to get back to writing.
Speaker 4: So I was able to strike this beautiful relationship with
Speaker 4: The Atlantic, who I still write for, covering the intersection
Speaker 4: between sports, race, culture, and gender, and I could write
Speaker 4: about it at The Atlantic in a way that was
Speaker 4: different than how I wrote about things at ESPN because
Speaker 4: The Atlantic is not in partnership with any professional sports
Speaker 4: rooks and they're also a political magazine, so you know
Speaker 4: exactly what you're getting if you decide to read it,
Speaker 4: Like I don't have to hear about stick to sports
Speaker 4: because politics is what they do, right, and they were
Speaker 4: still very much invested and serious about journalism and that's
Speaker 4: getting harder and harder to find. And when it came to,
Speaker 4: you know, doing television, I was able to be a
Speaker 4: lot more, a lot choosier about what I decided to do.
Speaker 4: I had the show with my good friend Carrie Champion
Speaker 4: on Vice. We did that for a while. We're supposed
Speaker 4: to have a show on CNN Plus that went a
Speaker 4: little bit differently, that was above our pay grave.
Speaker 3: That was a whole merger happening that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I often joke that's the best job I ever had
Speaker 4: because I got paid for a year to do nothing,
Speaker 4: So can't complain about that. And then of course writing,
Speaker 4: you know, my memoir. So I was able to fulfill
Speaker 4: all these other things that were always in the back
Speaker 4: of my mind. But I was able to prioritize because
Speaker 4: I wasn't at ESPN.
Speaker 3: And they're just the.
Speaker 4: Ability to be able to speak a little more freely,
Speaker 4: to be more involved in certain things. I think that
Speaker 4: was I got tired of also having to you know,
Speaker 4: everything I asked to do turn into some colossal email
Speaker 4: chain that like, I was so.
Speaker 3: Happy to be rifted to be rid of all that.
Speaker 4: You know, these days, if I'm presented with a project
Speaker 4: or an idea or you know, an opportunity, do I
Speaker 4: want to do it or not? That's the end of it.
Speaker 4: Like there's no email chain, it's like do I like this? Okay,
Speaker 4: I do cool, I'm gonna do it in the story
Speaker 4: as opposed to being there. What it's like, Well, we
Speaker 4: got to get this person to sign off in this person.
Speaker 4: I do not miss that at all. And then I
Speaker 4: think it was able. It made me reimagine what storytelling is. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I thought about it purely journalistically because that's my background,
Speaker 4: that's where I come from. But as I see now,
Speaker 4: especially being in Los Angeles, it translates into being an
Speaker 4: executive producer for a documentary or like I was a
Speaker 4: producer for someone Biles vacuuseries, which is not on Netflix,
Speaker 4: being able out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 4: It's I'm not just saying that because I'm a producer,
Speaker 4: but it's very good. And having some other production projects
Speaker 4: of mine go forward and I started to understand like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's all storytelling.
Speaker 3: It's just the only thing that's changing is the method.
Speaker 3: So that's it.
Speaker 4: So but you know, make no mistake about it that
Speaker 4: even though I have autonomy and freedom, I can live
Speaker 4: where I want to live. Finally, you know, got married.
Speaker 4: All these great things that happened, it's still a grind.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's still a hustle. It's just it's just
Speaker 4: a different kind of hustle. I often joke that I
Speaker 4: traded one job for fifty.
Speaker 3: Two jobs, right.
Speaker 4: You know, it's like you're still you know, I feel
Speaker 4: like some days a bit of a mercenary because it's like, Okay, you.
Speaker 3: Want to hire me to do what? Okay, Yeah, I
Speaker 3: like it. Sure, let's go. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So you it's just but you're just a little bit
Speaker 4: more in control of what you do. But you know,
Speaker 4: it is, the media business in general is hard. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's just hard. And so I'm thankful that I've been
Speaker 4: able to really turn this, you know, into something. But yeah,
Speaker 4: there's certainly been days, especially with this strike that was
Speaker 4: going on out here, where I was like, what did
Speaker 4: I do? You know?
Speaker 3: So, but those days are few and far between.
Speaker 2: I know that autonomy is freeing like no other, being
Speaker 2: able to just make the decisions that you want to
Speaker 2: make and before Rams just followed up with you. I
Speaker 2: said this really fast, and I don't want it to
Speaker 2: seem small. Politics and above the fold. Those are new,
Speaker 2: so a lot of our listeners will hear in those
Speaker 2: terms for the first time. You tell us a little
Speaker 2: bit about that.
Speaker 4: Sure, So, as you all see, I have a lot
Speaker 4: of experience in the sports and political space, sports, political culture,
Speaker 4: gender space. So I thought, in an election year, why
Speaker 4: not start a political podcast. So I have a podcast
Speaker 4: on iHeart and it is sports and politics, politics, and
Speaker 4: so I think looking at politics, cultural issues, social issues
Speaker 4: to the lens of sports is very helpful because sports
Speaker 4: is one of the few things we actually do together.
Speaker 4: We're a very segregated society by and large. But even
Speaker 4: though Rams is not in this in terms of the sports.
Speaker 1: I used to play football when I was in high
Speaker 1: school and then I got into music.
Speaker 4: But music has the same It has the same effect.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, it brings together people of different races, genders,
Speaker 4: social economic backgrounds, regions, all that. If you all are
Speaker 4: Laker fans, you're all Laker fans, you're all Pistons fans,
Speaker 4: you're all you know whatever. Same thing with musicians, you know,
Speaker 4: you're all Michael Jackson fans like, right, And so because
Speaker 4: of that, that lends itself to an opportunity to discuss
Speaker 4: the political world through the lens of sports. So as
Speaker 4: an example, you know, in terms of one of my episodes,
Speaker 4: like a recent one I did, was about the state
Speaker 4: of American basketball, which in a weird way, it's just
Speaker 4: kind of immigration.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So on opening night in the NBA, there was a
Speaker 4: record tying one hundred and seventy five international players on
Speaker 4: NBA rosters and representing I believe it's something like forty
Speaker 4: something countries might have been more countries than that, And
Speaker 4: the last six NBA MVPs have all been foreign players.
Speaker 4: And there has been a lot of conversation at the
Speaker 4: grassroots level and even reaching beyond all that about whether
Speaker 4: or not development of you young basketball players in America,
Speaker 4: how it's falling behind, and a lot of people that
Speaker 4: are you know, really knee deep in the basketball world,
Speaker 4: coaches whoever, they will say that they feel like the
Speaker 4: European system of development is much better now than it
Speaker 4: is in the in in America. And I was caught
Speaker 4: by I was sort of it caught my eye when
Speaker 4: Gilbert Arena is the former NBA player when he said
Speaker 4: on his podcast, and Gilbert says a lot of wild stuff.
Speaker 4: This is kind of on brand for him, where he said,
Speaker 4: if they want the NBA ratings have not been good
Speaker 4: this season in particular, and.
Speaker 3: So one of the things he said, and.
Speaker 4: Last year's final was like the finals was like one
Speaker 4: of the lowest rated finals they've ever had. He's like,
Speaker 4: you know, if you they want to see more people
Speaker 4: interested everyonet the game to come back, so to speak,
Speaker 4: they need to kick out all the Europeans, right, And
Speaker 4: he wasn't joking, and you know, and I made a
Speaker 4: joke like so I was like, Gilbert supports mass deportation.
Speaker 4: But the whole point, though, is that there is this
Speaker 4: sort of cultural divide that's happening with this. There's a
Speaker 4: lot of coaches who frankly think the AAU system is
Speaker 4: failing kids, you know, like.
Speaker 3: These days.
Speaker 4: I mean they've always said that about AU, and frankly,
Speaker 4: I did consider a lot of the criticism before now
Speaker 4: to be about the fact that it doesn't allow college
Speaker 4: coaches to have as much control as they would like,
Speaker 4: because at the grassroots level, you have local folk that
Speaker 4: are having these teams that you know, with these star players,
Speaker 4: and they become access points.
Speaker 3: So no, the college coach can't just show up in
Speaker 3: the living room.
Speaker 4: It's like you got to talk to somebody, You got
Speaker 4: to talk to somebody's uncle, you got to you know,
Speaker 4: there's a system there in place. A lot of college
Speaker 4: coaches don't like that, and so I understood it from
Speaker 4: that standpoint, kind of those earlier criticisms au, but the
Speaker 4: criticisms now are different. This is about development. And what
Speaker 4: people are noticing is that at these tournaments. Number one,
Speaker 4: they're quite expensive, and not just expensive for the people
Speaker 4: in them, they're expensive for the people going to them.
Speaker 4: Where you're charging for parking concept and it's like fifty
Speaker 4: dollars the park. It's like, you know, just crazy amounts
Speaker 4: of money being that you have to spend to do this.
Speaker 4: And then they're playing a lot of games. And because
Speaker 4: they're playing so many games, the winning isn't really important
Speaker 4: because if you're playing four or five games game, four
Speaker 4: or five games a day, what do you care if
Speaker 4: you lose one or two? Right, and so these and
Speaker 4: now that you have nil money, name, image and likeness,
Speaker 4: money that you can make off, just that the money
Speaker 4: has corrupted the system to the point where the development
Speaker 4: is not the central idea. And so anyway, that's the
Speaker 4: way to merge sports and politics. And one of the
Speaker 4: people I talked to about this was Michelle Obama's brother,
Speaker 4: Craig Robinson, and also Lavelle Molten, who is the head
Speaker 4: coach of NC Central. So looking at things issues through
Speaker 4: that lens, I think, you know, it allows people to
Speaker 4: sort of critically think about it a little bit differently.
Speaker 4: The episode as of this recording that's coming out this
Speaker 4: week is about the.
Speaker 3: Conflict in the Middle East.
Speaker 4: Always the light stuff with me, and one of the
Speaker 4: feature guests is if Dehaj Mohammad, who is the first
Speaker 4: woman to compete in the Olympics in a Hjab, a
Speaker 4: black Muslim woman who's great. She meddled and she has
Speaker 4: been very vocal about her support for.
Speaker 3: Palestine and it's cost her.
Speaker 4: And there's been a lot of examples of athletes who
Speaker 4: have expressed pro Palestinian group, pro Palestinian views, not by
Speaker 4: the way anti Jewish views, I said, pro Palestinian, right,
Speaker 4: So just because what's happening to Palestinian people is an
Speaker 4: atrocity and it has been very damaging to their careers,
Speaker 4: and so I just wanted to have this conversation.
Speaker 3: It's like, why is this the topic?
Speaker 2: I mean?
Speaker 4: And as black people, we understand this. We know that
Speaker 4: for a lot of people, pro black means anti white,
Speaker 4: not what we're saying, right, they intentionally conflate that, and
Speaker 4: it feels like this is some this is a byproduct
Speaker 4: of that. This is like sort of the same thing,
Speaker 4: just questioning is it a good idea that we are
Speaker 4: sending so much money over to Israel that is going
Speaker 4: towards bombing hospitals and schools and is it an idea?
Speaker 4: You know, just raising that question creates a lot of issues.
Speaker 4: And so I'm hoping through the lens of sports, uh,
Speaker 4: because I have two scholars that are on their one
Speaker 4: is a both of which our jewishsue really give me
Speaker 4: some great insight into what is a hundreds year old problem,
Speaker 4: our hundred year old conflict. And so so yeah, like
Speaker 4: I'm I'm hoping to use this podcast to do that.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: Above the Fold is like sort of a that's on
Speaker 4: True TV in the T and T Sports Family comes
Speaker 4: on every Thursday, also streaming on Max, and that is
Speaker 4: more of a nod to sort of traditional journalism. Uh,
Speaker 4: the term above the fold is the old journalism term
Speaker 4: when you you know, back when people physically got where
Speaker 4: people physically read the newspaper. All the stories that are
Speaker 4: above the fold of the newspapers are considered the most
Speaker 4: important stories. And so you know, it'll be a combination
Speaker 4: of my commentary. I guess if I you know, I
Speaker 4: had to do that. In Hollywood, we do the elevator
Speaker 4: pitches where you have to tell it what something is like.
Speaker 4: So this is uh, this is probably uh like real
Speaker 4: sports meet sports reporters, and a little bit of Jim
Speaker 4: Rome is burning.
Speaker 1: So I want to I want to add something right
Speaker 1: here from it, just because I think it's important for
Speaker 1: our listeners to kind of understand that, you know, there's
Speaker 1: even more to what you're saying when you talk about
Speaker 1: and you mentioned it now you put it more succinctly
Speaker 1: that people intentionally conflate pro black with anti white. There's
Speaker 1: another level that a lot of our listeners may not
Speaker 1: be aware of what we do specifically, Just so that
Speaker 1: you're aware, we kind of work in the ally ship space.
Speaker 1: We target hip hop stations. We try to because we
Speaker 1: feel like there's the most potential.
Speaker 2: To reach folks who.
Speaker 1: Have a predisposition towards supporting black endeavors right, black people,
Speaker 1: black communities, black music, and you know, to your point
Speaker 1: about intentionally conflating it, that is one half of what
Speaker 1: we're working against, I would say. The other half is
Speaker 1: that people intentionally demonize what we do or muddle the waters.
Speaker 1: And it occurred to me this might have been two
Speaker 1: or three days ago that so you know, for a
Speaker 1: lot of what you were talking about with you know,
Speaker 1: the media blowback from your original tweet and then some
Speaker 1: of the other things you were talking about. You mentioned
Speaker 1: the Muslim woman Luthi job. You know, obviously we went
Speaker 1: through that same thing that with that whole media moment,
Speaker 1: the white Lives Matter moment, Kanye West stuff, So we
Speaker 1: understand that firsthand exactly what that feels, how overwhelming that
Speaker 1: could be, the death threats, you know, people targeting my children,
Speaker 1: not that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: Like it was.
Speaker 1: Bad when we said black lives matter. When we collectively
Speaker 1: black people in this country said black lives matter, the
Speaker 1: answer back was a collective all lives matter, right, And
Speaker 1: that I believe to be a singularly an issue that
Speaker 1: singularly happens to black people because a matter of months
Speaker 1: after that, there was a movement which we supported and
Speaker 1: still support, which said stop Asian hate. And to date,
Speaker 1: I haven't heard anyone say stop all hate as a
Speaker 1: response to that movement. And so, in addition to people
Speaker 1: being like intentionally obtuse about black people affirming their humanity
Speaker 1: and their right to exist and their right to pursue
Speaker 1: the American dream or at least try to cultivate a
Speaker 1: relationship with this country that's a bit more equitable. You know,
Speaker 1: that pushback always felt a little bit like it, and
Speaker 1: you know that brings me to where we are now.
Speaker 1: A lot of us have been dealing with the results
Speaker 1: of the election of Donald Trump, and we're all looking
Speaker 1: for answers, and we're all looking for a path forward,
Speaker 1: and what we hear a lot from the highest tier is,
Speaker 1: you know, keep fighting, and it's vague and it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's just kind of and they're not saying nothing. I
Speaker 1: don't want to be unkind to people who are their
Speaker 1: backs against want really don't have any more options with
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, and as I famously say, a figure
Speaker 1: four leg lock. But you know, as as a person
Speaker 1: that I look to as you know, like a hero
Speaker 1: tier activist, as a person that inspires me and inspires
Speaker 1: this program. Maybe talk to us a bit about how
Speaker 1: that felt. Maybe there's some some way that our listeners
Speaker 1: can relate to you, because they certainly we've shared our
Speaker 1: reaction initially. And then maybe if you can conceive of
Speaker 1: what the next blah might look like, perhaps you.
Speaker 4: Know, well, you know, it's interesting that you mentioned how
Speaker 4: you all operate in a space of allyship to you,
Speaker 4: try to because if there's going to be among the
Speaker 4: biggest differences that people are going to see over the
Speaker 4: next however long this term lasts, and I know people
Speaker 4: are like, it's four years, are we sure we.
Speaker 3: Don't know who?
Speaker 4: We don't know that if we're taking the President elect's
Speaker 4: words at face value. And that's what's going to be
Speaker 4: different about this time is that black people have collectively
Speaker 4: checked out in a way I don't think i've ever seen.
Speaker 4: You know, we've always been known as we should be
Speaker 4: because there's so many reasons we shouldn't even be here
Speaker 4: right now. We are resilient as hell, we have gone
Speaker 4: through so much. And yes, there's definitely a sector of
Speaker 4: black folks who are like, hey, We've been through a lot.
Speaker 4: This can't be the worst thing, right, And that's true,
Speaker 4: clearly historically that is true. But the difference is, I
Speaker 4: think because we saw other groups of people that we
Speaker 4: have collectively stood for fail in this moment and decide
Speaker 4: that it was more proximity to whiteness was more important.
Speaker 4: That's what we've checked out. We're like, oh, y'all got it,
Speaker 4: y'all got it? Yeah, what are we trying to make
Speaker 4: this umbrella movement work for?
Speaker 3: Y'all got it? And I know it wasn't everybody.
Speaker 4: I know it wasn't the majority, but like just in talking,
Speaker 4: you know, just in group chats and talking with my friends,
Speaker 4: they were really they really felt betrayed by saying the
Speaker 4: number of Latino voters vote for Donald Trump was betrayed.
Speaker 4: And because and it was the comedian and actor as Simona.
Speaker 4: She told me this a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 4: it always stuck with me. He said, listen, don't make
Speaker 4: any mistake about it. He said, all the rest of
Speaker 4: us that are now feeling empowered to speak about our
Speaker 4: rights and you know, to go forward with any kind
Speaker 4: of movement building, we were just seed on the email
Speaker 4: that black people wrote okay, and he like him no,
Speaker 4: he broke it down and he was just like, we
Speaker 4: just got se seed. And it's true because like when
Speaker 4: you go back and look at the Civil Rights Act,
Speaker 4: you know, one of the main components of that Act
Speaker 4: was immigration. Okay, that was one of the main components
Speaker 4: of when that got passed because America had a very restrictive,
Speaker 4: targeted immigration policy where they did not want certain.
Speaker 3: Groups of people in this country.
Speaker 4: And Martin Luther King and all of them fought for
Speaker 4: that to be different. And so to see that in
Speaker 4: real time, like hold up, So in this moment where
Speaker 4: we need a collective brother and sisterhood, y'all are like,
Speaker 4: you know what we value the proximity to whiteness.
Speaker 3: Black people are not going.
Speaker 4: To I think black people are going to be a
Speaker 4: lot more strategic and a lot more choosy about the
Speaker 4: things they decide to get involved with.
Speaker 3: The next however long forty years, you know, I think
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 4: I think it caused it created such a rift that
Speaker 4: I haven't really seen this before and I understand where
Speaker 4: it comes from. So that's gonna be a lot different.
Speaker 4: The allyship is not gonna look the same. You know
Speaker 4: that moment and George Floyd when all the protests were
Speaker 4: happening after his murder, where you did see a wide
Speaker 4: collection of people who were out there protesting. I don't
Speaker 4: know that we're going to see that for a long time,
Speaker 4: and I don't I think Black people are going to
Speaker 4: be a lot more They're gonna be a lot more
Speaker 4: precious about who they allow into our movements, and so
Speaker 4: I see that as being a byproduct of it. And
Speaker 4: you know, it can be debatable whether that's good or bad.
Speaker 4: So that'll be one thing and the other thing I
Speaker 4: think about the selection, which I must say, I was
Speaker 4: not surprised by the outcome in the slightest I actually
Speaker 4: predicted this would happen because the groups of people that
Speaker 4: it would required to frankly fight for a different direction
Speaker 4: for this country. I knew they were not going to
Speaker 4: show up. And the Latino vote, the numbers of it
Speaker 4: surprised me. But when people we're saying that white women
Speaker 4: were gonna show up and vote differently than they have,
Speaker 4: I was like, have y'all not looked at the voting
Speaker 4: trends the last sixty years? And so as people are
Speaker 4: doing these numerous autopsies trying to figure out where the
Speaker 4: Democrats went wrong, and they by not perfect by any means,
Speaker 4: and there were certainly campaign mistakes that were made, his
Speaker 4: mistakes made in every campaign.
Speaker 3: It happens.
Speaker 4: But the thing is when people want to bring up,
Speaker 4: oh they lost the working class voter, Oh they lost
Speaker 4: this kind of voter. They don't appeal to this kind
Speaker 4: of voter anymore. How come that don't work with black people?
Speaker 4: How come black people are working class? Black people live
Speaker 4: in rural communities, black people check all them boxes that
Speaker 4: they said they lost, So how did they not lose.
Speaker 3: Us but they lost everybody else.
Speaker 4: That's what I'm trying to figure out, because it can't
Speaker 4: be that. To me, it is avoiding the obvious. There's
Speaker 4: a reason Donald Trump has beaten two women, and you
Speaker 4: want me to believe this is the other thing I
Speaker 4: couldn't believe. It's like, you want me to believe that
Speaker 4: more white women gonna showup for Kambla Harrison, Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 4: who is.
Speaker 3: A white woman.
Speaker 4: I mean, like they didn't, and more white women voting
Speaker 4: for Trump this second time. So I'm just like, no,
Speaker 4: they're not gonna show up because, as they have shown historically,
Speaker 4: white women the eligible voting white women who so I'm
Speaker 4: talking about that fifty seven percent that voted for Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: Is like, the privilege of whiteness means more than gender,
Speaker 4: and that is the reality.
Speaker 2: Jamel I said that this morning.
Speaker 1: He said on the show, all constant, those.
Speaker 2: That benefit from the misogynist, patriarchal, capitalist, white supremacist system
Speaker 2: are not just white men. So all those people that
Speaker 2: benefit from that system stand up and fight for it.
Speaker 2: Even immigrants, even Latino immigrants, first generation who just got here,
Speaker 2: who may have just gotten naturalized. They're very, very proud
Speaker 2: to be American, correct, and they now see themselves as
Speaker 2: a part of the system that they have to defend.
Speaker 4: They do and they you know, the one thing that
Speaker 4: everybody understands that comes to this country, even other black
Speaker 4: people from different countries, is that they need to separate
Speaker 4: themselves as fast as possible from Black Americans.
Speaker 3: They all understand this.
Speaker 4: It is like it's like they get a blueprint or
Speaker 4: a guidebook when they come here, and in the guy
Speaker 4: book there's a saturate literally, oh by the way, you
Speaker 4: got to be anti black.
Speaker 2: Apes in the pamphlet.
Speaker 3: It's in the pamphlet.
Speaker 4: It's like so you know, having interesting conversations with you know,
Speaker 4: with other Latinos. The interesting part to me is that
Speaker 4: the ones that like a lot of the ones that
Speaker 4: were born here, not everybody certainly, so I'm speaking in
Speaker 4: sort of a rough generality, is that a lot of
Speaker 4: them don't speak Spanish. And that's by design because you know,
Speaker 4: as some of them have told me, is that you
Speaker 4: know they are boilers.
Speaker 3: They are boilers.
Speaker 4: They did not want them to speak Spanish because they
Speaker 4: didn't want that to be something to be used against them.
Speaker 4: And that says a lot about how they perceive what
Speaker 4: it means to be American and who they think is American.
Speaker 4: And we've seen this happen historically. It's the reason why
Speaker 4: it's no longer Irish Americans Italian Americans. And yes, we
Speaker 4: know we have enclaves in this country where there are
Speaker 4: Irish neighborhoods and Italian neighborhoods, but they traded in being
Speaker 4: separated for the whiteness, right, and this is what it is.
Speaker 4: It's like every group has gone through that. We're the only.
Speaker 2: Group that can't. We can't do it.
Speaker 1: A brief history lesson right here. I believe we shared
Speaker 1: this on the show, So I'll give the cliff Stones version.
Speaker 1: But the term black was created and I believe the
Speaker 1: fifteen hundreds, sometime around then. No, sorry, the term white
Speaker 1: was created around the fifteen hundred to delineate the non
Speaker 1: slave class from the slave class. And prior to that,
Speaker 1: to your point, there were Frenchmen and Irishmen and Scandinavian
Speaker 1: people and so forth, and they were separated by countries.
Speaker 1: But in order to again delineate the slave class, the
Speaker 1: term white came about. So that meant that you were
Speaker 1: not a slave, and black came about to suggest that
Speaker 1: you were a slaver or at least a member of
Speaker 1: the slave class. And that was tended to be into
Speaker 1: perpetuity in that term in the fifteen hundred. Think how
Speaker 1: long human beings have been around that term originating in
Speaker 1: the fifteen hundred. It still has ripple effects today, I think,
Speaker 1: to your point, you know, maybe Donald Trump doesn't stay
Speaker 1: president for four years, maybe he dies tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: People can imagine all kinds of crazy stuff, right, Hope,
Speaker 1: that's not crazy. You know, anything could happen, right, But
Speaker 1: the ripple effects, like the term white, the ripple effects
Speaker 1: of a Donald Trump presidency might echo into well and
Speaker 1: to you know, our lifetimes of our kids graand.
Speaker 4: I mean, we're still paying for paying for things Ronald
Speaker 4: Reagan did, thank you, We're still so yes, the the
Speaker 4: the legacies and presidents, you typically aren't able to assess
Speaker 4: it in the four or eight years there in office.
Speaker 4: You don't really see the damage of it until well
Speaker 4: after the fact. I mean I bring this up all
Speaker 4: the time with Ronald Reagan. He's the reason why college
Speaker 4: tuition is what it is because they saw a liberal
Speaker 4: movement here in California. They did not like the thought
Speaker 4: it was breeding hippies and marijuana users and people who
Speaker 4: are anti war and oh, by the boy, the people
Speaker 4: who are against the Vietnam War all turned out to
Speaker 4: be right, but they didn't like that, and so he
Speaker 4: pulled the funding from colleges and that became the model that.
Speaker 3: Everybody else did.
Speaker 4: Like absolutely, Well, that's why education at every level is
Speaker 4: under as you.
Speaker 1: Know, we know here and we're used to it, so
Speaker 1: we can't even conceive the time when college was affordable.
Speaker 4: No, because college used to be basically free, like it didn't,
Speaker 4: you know, in every state, and they wanted to change
Speaker 4: that because also one of his main advisors, didn't like
Speaker 4: the fact that education actually bred more equality. They were
Speaker 4: trying to stop the accessibility to college because they only
Speaker 4: wanted a college system where only certain people could afford
Speaker 4: to go there.
Speaker 2: Definitely didn't want a Jamail Hill to.
Speaker 3: Go to college, you know, anyone.
Speaker 4: Idiots just think he got an education. So it's like, yes,
Speaker 4: you still wind up paying for it. So we have
Speaker 4: to look at the fact that Donald Trump would likely
Speaker 4: get two more Supreme Court appointments, and there's gonna be
Speaker 4: a whole lot more judges and all these other things.
Speaker 4: I mean, as it was, we're still trying to deal
Speaker 4: with the remnants of its first presidency, right, So a
Speaker 4: second one where I think he's probably more politically savvy,
Speaker 4: he's gonna have more loyalists. We now have Elon Musk
Speaker 4: as the first Lady. There will be I know claim
Speaker 4: that as an original dog. That was Stephen Kig, the
Speaker 4: author he got banned from x fort calling him the
Speaker 4: first leg That's incredible, shouted out to Stephen king That
Speaker 4: was I was like, ever since he said that, I
Speaker 4: have been calling him the first lady because yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, you you put a billionaire.
Speaker 4: Oligarch in charge of slashing the government in America.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, when did he growing up?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: What what gives him the okay? So uh?
Speaker 2: An immigrant South Africa's of all places? An immigrant in charge?
Speaker 4: Yes, an immigrant in charge South Africa from a part
Speaker 4: how South Africa exactly grew up steeped in that and
Speaker 4: you could tell by his perspective that's the case. I wish,
Speaker 4: for the love of God, black people please stop buying
Speaker 4: that cyber truck.
Speaker 3: Please please please stop buying it.
Speaker 4: Fight it, trust me, there's plenty of other boxing, ugly
Speaker 4: truck to get it. Ain't got to be that way,
Speaker 4: all right, But so yeah, I think black people as
Speaker 4: a whole sense, we're regrouping right now. We're trying to
Speaker 4: figure out because America has decided whether people want to
Speaker 4: really acknowledge this or not. They've already decided the type
Speaker 4: of country they want to be. That what was on
Speaker 4: the ballot that's been on the ballot the last two elections,
Speaker 4: really and they made a decision. Okay, since we all
Speaker 4: know the decision that was made, we're trying to figure out,
Speaker 4: as we often have, our best way to survive within
Speaker 4: their decisions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so I do.
Speaker 4: I don't think people were going to necessarily give up
Speaker 4: the fight, but I think a lot a lot of
Speaker 4: black folks feel real defeated right now and feel like
Speaker 4: we need to regroup and frankly, the only to maybe
Speaker 4: focus more on our community and no one else's.
Speaker 2: I don't want to keep you forever, but I and
Speaker 2: I also don't want this to be dooming gloom. But
Speaker 2: I brought up Uphill before reading that book was a journey.
Speaker 2: For people who haven't read that book, get it, believe
Speaker 2: it or not. Life for Jamail Hill was not silver spoons.
Speaker 2: And coming from where we come from, there's a unique
Speaker 2: thing about growing up in Detroit. We got to see
Speaker 2: black leadership, black political leadership, black police officers that were
Speaker 2: not violent to us, black teachers, Black like Detroit very
Speaker 2: very black for us, and our experience, especially in Northwest
Speaker 2: Detroit in the hallways of Mumford High School, we also
Speaker 2: got to see black greatness. I bring up Uphill because again,
Speaker 2: this was not silver Spoons. You didn't have this laid
Speaker 2: out easy path a black woman in this country and
Speaker 2: black women on this planet. Ramses and I we might
Speaker 2: be famous for this because we say it every time
Speaker 2: a microphone is on. We spoke to the National Council
Speaker 2: of Negro Women, We said, two thousands of women, reminding
Speaker 2: them the closest thing on this earth to God is
Speaker 2: the black woman, and we believe that to our bones.
Speaker 2: So your journey as a black woman getting to where
Speaker 2: you've gotten in your career would not be an easy
Speaker 2: climb for anyone a male dominated, white, male dominated industry.
Speaker 2: Where you have climbed to what many would say the pinnacle,
Speaker 2: and again I'm not being hyperbolic, the six PM Sports Center,
Speaker 2: as she said, the flagship of sports media journalism like
Speaker 2: that was it to get there? Took a lot to
Speaker 2: now have forged your own media imprint to now be
Speaker 2: the captain and curator of all that you do. You
Speaker 2: spoke about the free press. We talk about what we
Speaker 2: collectively do for a living. And again I don't want
Speaker 2: to be doing in gloom. But in the wake of
Speaker 2: this election, can we still do our jobs? Can this
Speaker 2: industry that we thrive in and that we feed our
Speaker 2: families with, does it go away? Is it illegal for
Speaker 2: us to talk? How we talk two months from now?
Speaker 2: What is your thoughts on what this is going to
Speaker 2: look like for all of us after January twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: Those are very real and grave concerns because part of
Speaker 4: the reason we're in this is because the media, the
Speaker 4: media that journalism didn't do what.
Speaker 3: It was supposed to do.
Speaker 4: And this is not just in regards to Trump, but
Speaker 4: it's just the fact that the whole mission of being
Speaker 4: a journalist is to be a disruptor. You're not supposed
Speaker 4: to go along with the system. You know, there's a
Speaker 4: phrase that I learned as a young journalist that remains true.
Speaker 4: Our job is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
Speaker 4: That's the whole point, right, and so we're there to
Speaker 4: be the watchdogs to provide the check of power. And
Speaker 4: seeing us in this moment already capitulating to what we're
Speaker 4: supposed to be examining, putting under scrutiny, discussing, telling people
Speaker 4: what's really going on. To see us capitulating to that
Speaker 4: is heartbreaking. I chose to be a journales even though
Speaker 4: I chose sports, I chose it for that reason. I mean, yes,
Speaker 4: it's about telling stories about athletes and winning and being inspired,
Speaker 4: but it's also about understanding how systems work. They don't
Speaker 4: work any differently in sports, you know, and so holding
Speaker 4: those systems in accountable. And my fear is that because
Speaker 4: the president elect has in particular singled out media, as
Speaker 4: his words, enemies of the state, that's going to make
Speaker 4: some of the platforms that some of us work for
Speaker 4: capitulate to the power.
Speaker 3: See when you study.
Speaker 4: The Nazi regime and you study how because a lot
Speaker 4: of people ask this question when these regimes, these dictators
Speaker 4: rise up, like what are the people doing? Like why
Speaker 4: did they give in? Like what happened is death by
Speaker 4: a thousand paper cuts. It's not one failed blow. It's
Speaker 4: always little capitulations that happen that when you look up,
Speaker 4: you find that all the things you were worried and
Speaker 4: feared already happened. This is why voter apathy is so
Speaker 4: it's so significant and very problematic. Just because the election
Speaker 4: that just happened, half of this country didn't vote. So
Speaker 4: that's telling you that it is very terrifying. So half
Speaker 4: of the people in this country don't find a reason
Speaker 4: to remain engaged in a system that affects everything they do.
Speaker 4: And so I blame the media for not being great
Speaker 4: at telling people what was at stake, not helping them
Speaker 4: understand what exactly it is we're supposed to be doing.
Speaker 4: And what I see already is media companies already switching up,
Speaker 4: already doing it, and they haven't even been asked to
Speaker 4: do it. And that is very frightening, because no, it's
Speaker 4: not just media, it's going to be everything. I mean,
Speaker 4: we see Walmart, Yeah, I mean so which only And
Speaker 4: I said this when the Black Squares and twenty twenty
Speaker 4: was here. I said this, then said, you know, that's great,
Speaker 4: but now and standing up for standing against racial oppression
Speaker 4: and police brutality and standing up for black people actually
Speaker 4: doesn't matter in this moment. When it matters is when
Speaker 4: you have something to lose. See, if the whole world
Speaker 4: and the whole nation is agreen that what happened to
Speaker 4: George Floyd was murdering is bad, I'm glad we could
Speaker 4: agree on that, But there's no risk in saying I'm
Speaker 4: gonna you know, black Lives Matter twenty twenty, it was
Speaker 4: a cussword though in twenty fifteen when it was Michael Brown, right,
Speaker 4: it was a cuss word then, and then fast forward
Speaker 4: it was like, oh, no.
Speaker 3: Black lives matter. You got the NFL commissioner saying it.
Speaker 4: You can't say that it's still exile a player who
Speaker 4: stood up against the things that you claim you support.
Speaker 4: Now that means your support is only going to go
Speaker 4: with what's trendy. And so right now, black people ain't
Speaker 4: in We're not trending anymore. Supporting us rather is not trendy.
Speaker 4: So you see not just them, but a ton of
Speaker 4: different companies that all of a sudden announced that they
Speaker 4: were rolling back DII initiatives, which means y'all didn't believe in.
Speaker 3: It to begin with. Thank you, You didn't believe in it.
Speaker 4: You were just doing it cosmetically, you were just doing
Speaker 4: it because you wanted to look good. You were doing
Speaker 4: it for the press release and not for anything that mattered.
Speaker 1: I think that's why a part of the reason why
Speaker 1: this second election of Donald Trump was so hurtful, because
Speaker 1: the ripple effect of it exposes just how vulnerable we've
Speaker 1: been and just who our fair weather friends have been.
Speaker 1: And some people live in food deserts where the only
Speaker 1: place where they can get food is a dollar tree,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people live in environments where the
Speaker 1: only employer is a place like a Walmart. And then
Speaker 1: now that Trump effect that the country chose him again,
Speaker 1: and it gives those fair weather friends license to roll
Speaker 1: back what it was that we thought was progressed, what
Speaker 1: we thought was protections. How it feels to be a
Speaker 1: black person on the ground. It's fundamentally different forever because
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 4: And that's I think, No, that is the that's the
Speaker 4: gut punch is that, you know, because the twenty twenty election,
Speaker 4: because that happened the same year of George Floyd, I
Speaker 4: think and Breonna Taylor and ott Arbury. Part of what
Speaker 4: was driving in the pandemic and the pandemic, what was
Speaker 4: driving people to the voting booth was wanting to make
Speaker 4: a statement against the things that created those situations. And
Speaker 4: it's just been four years and we saw the rollbacks
Speaker 4: from what was promised in twenty twenty happened literally like
Speaker 4: not even two years later. They couldn't even stand it
Speaker 4: at that low, and I was like, that's fair yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, And so all these companies that are suddenly
Speaker 4: and they're part of it is that like they're being
Speaker 4: bullied into it, but part of it it's an easy
Speaker 4: capitulation for them. Like nobody was asking, you know, Walmart
Speaker 4: had a d I auditioned like no one knew, but
Speaker 4: they were just like, tell you what before y'all come
Speaker 4: for us.
Speaker 3: We're getting rid of this.
Speaker 4: And of course the Walmart family, anybody does a little
Speaker 4: bit of research, they're big Trump supporters, right, so when
Speaker 4: they even started one, I was like, oh, this is weird,
Speaker 4: but okay, but what we will you know, find is
Speaker 4: that that now because even though it was a slimmest
Speaker 4: of majority, a slimmest of margins, because Trump has did
Speaker 4: win the popular vote by let's I think he wanted
Speaker 4: by the lowest margin in history. You know, it was
Speaker 4: like less than two percent, he won the popular vote.
Speaker 4: But they're leaning into that and saying that this is
Speaker 4: a mandate that America wants to be more in the
Speaker 4: image of what he is.
Speaker 1: America chose to vote, That's what happened.
Speaker 3: That's what happened.
Speaker 4: America chose not to vote, and America chose to dig
Speaker 4: in further into the patriarchy, misogyny, and racism. So America America,
Speaker 4: basically in America, and so that is going to impact
Speaker 4: what we do because suddenly, unless you have some very
Speaker 4: unless you have people who are willing to stomach this
Speaker 4: kind of fight. We're going to see a lot of
Speaker 4: people lay down before they've even been asked to. And
Speaker 4: that is scary. That is how authoritarianism happens.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, I will say this, just because
Speaker 1: you know Ecqu's right, we've taken more time than we
Speaker 1: deserve from you. We on this show, on this program,
Speaker 1: we do believe in allies and those who have chosen
Speaker 1: to stay. You know, we make this show for you.
Speaker 2: Collectively.
Speaker 1: We're all we have, and whatever path forward, it's going
Speaker 1: to require all of us on it in agreement. I
Speaker 1: don't ever want to be a part of anything that
Speaker 1: is even remotely divisive in terms of humanities capacity to
Speaker 1: come together. Uh, And I know that you feel the
Speaker 1: same way. I'll speak for him in this moment, and
Speaker 1: so we will never allow our intellectual property to be
Speaker 1: used in that way, nor our images, nor our voices
Speaker 1: or anything like that. So we're still here. If you're
Speaker 1: still here, and if you're listening, then that means that
Speaker 1: you're still here. I will say that whatever path forward, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's going to take voices like yours, Jamail. We hope
Speaker 1: that we are making a difference with what we're doing,
Speaker 1: you know, being on one hundred and seven d.
Speaker 2: Radio stations that right feel like we.
Speaker 1: Are doing something special. But you know, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: that could.
Speaker 4: Change, but it's more critical now.
Speaker 3: That you do it now.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for saying that, because it doesn't
Speaker 2: always feel. We felt a little hopeless, right you know
Speaker 2: after the election results it was like a are we
Speaker 2: making a different We do that for years and again.
Speaker 2: The conversation that led us to having this conversation with
Speaker 2: you was a communication from somebody at iHeart that said, hey,
Speaker 2: you guys seem to have some shared ideas and I'm like,
Speaker 2: we and Jamail have more than just shared ideas. There's
Speaker 2: some history there. But you know, for I Heart extending
Speaker 2: to us more radio stations and a much larger platform. Now,
Speaker 2: at least someone over there heard what we were talking
Speaker 2: about in since more people need to hear it so
Speaker 2: important to say what's up to Tony Coles and Chris
Speaker 2: Berrian and Chris Thompson and thank you guys for believing
Speaker 2: in us and kind of elevating and amplifying this messaging
Speaker 2: that we have.
Speaker 1: Well, what I would like to do is, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: forge your relationship with you as one of those voices
Speaker 1: that you know, we might turn to your a brilliant mind.
Speaker 3: Call on me whenever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love to have you back on the show.
Speaker 3: Oh, I would love to be back.
Speaker 4: This has been great because sometimes even though in this
Speaker 4: moment where we're all just trying to regroup.
Speaker 3: It feels better to do it together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, what feels better to.
Speaker 3: Do it together. So this has been good for me.
Speaker 2: It's they that's all right.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: We could do that.
Speaker 1: We could do that, but you know, if if it's meaningful.
Speaker 1: I know that you kind of moving a different set
Speaker 1: of circles and there's some very powerful people in your corner,
Speaker 1: but we would like to be counted among the people
Speaker 1: that are willing to amplify any messaging that you have
Speaker 1: that you need to get out there and not just
Speaker 1: pick your brain for our own sake, but just because
Speaker 1: we feel like, again, you're the activist woman to me.
Speaker 1: You know, you might talk about you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know who up there is a basketball player on the sign.
Speaker 1: You might talk about basketball people, but I know you know, well.
Speaker 4: I consider that to be a huge compliment. Sure, And
Speaker 4: the only reason why I'm reluctant to accept it is
Speaker 4: just because I have several of my friends who are
Speaker 4: on ground activists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll say are yeah, same, we remarkable people.
Speaker 1: Well before we go, we're we're DJs and Q obviously
Speaker 1: every saying that that's where we come from. We're we're
Speaker 1: we're radio personalities. As you mentioned, we was, you know,
Speaker 1: stick around after these messages. We got your tickets coming
Speaker 1: up and X.
Speaker 2: Y and Z will do whoop.
Speaker 1: And now we're here firmly in this space. And there
Speaker 1: are people that know us from way back then and
Speaker 1: they're like, man, it's so great to see how far
Speaker 1: you've come. And then there's people that have no idea
Speaker 1: you're a DJ and I'm all tattooed up and everything, like,
Speaker 1: I'm a DJ.
Speaker 2: That's what I do. Give you a microphone and a party, man,
Speaker 2: how to make it work?
Speaker 1: But anyway, yeah, so, uh, for whatever reason, we're all here,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, we we want to make sure
Speaker 1: that that you feel like you have some supporters and
Speaker 1: that you know, we feel like we can come back
Speaker 1: to you and just kind of pick your brain because
Speaker 1: you you know, you have a different vantage point and
Speaker 1: so forth. You know, I'm a you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: from I'm from down down the road there in Comptons,
Speaker 1: So I'm not from Detroit, so you know you got
Speaker 1: to say a proper goodbye.
Speaker 2: Q let her go. Just to everybody they got a
Speaker 2: chance to hear this today, This conversation is a long
Speaker 2: time coming. Jaml and I closer to family than associates professionally,
Speaker 2: my cousins, my friends from high school, our friends from
Speaker 2: high school, my friends from Michigan State. Like it goes
Speaker 2: back from Aaron Hayten and Derek Mason to I could
Speaker 2: be naming names all day. Shout out to Regina Bowie,
Speaker 2: who is the reason I know Jamil's name. And I'll
Speaker 2: tell you more about that story later. But author, producer
Speaker 2: and to Ramsey's activist talk to me host of the
Speaker 2: iheard podcast Politics Above the fold on in the TNT group,
Speaker 2: and I can't wait to see this Colin Kaepernick project.
Speaker 2: You got me really excited about that. We're very proud
Speaker 2: of you, and like Ramsay said, you have not just
Speaker 2: some supporters here, but some brothers who will you know,
Speaker 2: stand up in front of you if we need to
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: I know I know I'm dealing with some real ones,
Speaker 4: So thank you all for you know this wonderful interview
Speaker 4: and this time spending.
Speaker 1: Yeah, last thing before we go. I know that you're
Speaker 1: very popular, but do us a favorite. Let everybody know
Speaker 1: your social media how they.
Speaker 4: Can Oh, very simple, Jamail Hill. Pretty much everywhere. So
Speaker 4: I'm on Blue Sky now for those who have made
Speaker 4: the transition, still on Twitter, just a whole lot less.
Speaker 3: But yeah, Instagram Jamail Hill, threads Jamail Hill. So yeah,
Speaker 3: you can catch me pretty much anywhere. I'm not hard
Speaker 3: to find.
Speaker 1: And you can find me on a social media at
Speaker 1: Rams's Jah.
Speaker 2: I am q Ward on a social media as well.
Speaker 2: And until next time, y'all peace,