WEBVTT - Taking a Knee with Malcolm Gladwell 0:00:14.036 --> 0:00:32.836 Push it. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, I'm already taking a knee. 0:00:32.876 --> 0:00:34.996 I'm already on one knee. I don't think I've ever 0:00:35.036 --> 0:00:38.916 told you this, but my entire childhood I could not 0:00:39.516 --> 0:00:41.996 sing the national anthem or do the Pledge of Allegiance 0:00:42.036 --> 0:00:45.076 in school because growing up in the Nation of Islam, 0:00:45.116 --> 0:00:47.556 when I was a kid in grammar school, that was 0:00:47.636 --> 0:00:50.476 like we were just instructed from day one, Man, you 0:00:50.556 --> 0:00:52.796 do not do it. That was my version of taking 0:00:52.796 --> 0:00:55.836 a knee before there ever was a Colin Kaepernick. Man, 0:00:55.876 --> 0:01:02.836 I'm with you. I'm Khalil Jebn Muhammed. I'm Ben Austin. 0:01:03.156 --> 0:01:06.836 We're two best friends, one black, one white. I'm a 0:01:06.916 --> 0:01:10.316 historian and I'm a journalist. And this is some of 0:01:10.356 --> 0:01:15.076 my best friends are Some of my best friends are athletes. 0:01:15.876 --> 0:01:19.116 In this show, we wrestle with the challenges and the 0:01:19.156 --> 0:01:23.436 absurdities of a deeply divided and unequal country. And today 0:01:23.516 --> 0:01:28.236 we have the franchise player for Pushkin Industries on our show, 0:01:28.316 --> 0:01:34.676 the one and only Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm Gladwell Outliers coming 0:01:34.756 --> 0:01:37.716 inside with us. We are going to talk to him 0:01:37.836 --> 0:01:43.836 about sports and activism and how politics and athletics. They intersect. 0:01:44.476 --> 0:01:58.476 Let's get into it. Game time. That's right, Game time, man, Malcolm. 0:01:58.516 --> 0:02:00.956 It is so amazing to have you on the podcast. 0:02:01.036 --> 0:02:03.516 We have been, uh, we've been We've been thinking about 0:02:03.556 --> 0:02:07.196 this moment for years now. So I'm very flattered. That's 0:02:07.196 --> 0:02:10.316 just that's just how old I am. People can think 0:02:10.316 --> 0:02:14.636 about me for years. We are obviously excited to actually 0:02:14.716 --> 0:02:18.276 have you in house in studio today. Thank you. And 0:02:18.556 --> 0:02:20.196 one of the things we wanted to talk about today 0:02:20.396 --> 0:02:25.156 is about athletes, sports and politics. And maybe a good 0:02:25.156 --> 0:02:28.956 way to start is your great podcast, The Legacy of Speed, 0:02:29.356 --> 0:02:31.836 and it tells the story of the nineteen sixty eight 0:02:31.876 --> 0:02:35.716 Olympic Games and the track stars, the sort of unlikely 0:02:35.756 --> 0:02:39.116 track stars from San Jose State, and maybe maybe you 0:02:39.116 --> 0:02:42.076 could give us a quick synopsis of what happened in 0:02:42.156 --> 0:02:45.516 nineteen sixty eight in the nineteen sixty eight Olympics and 0:02:45.556 --> 0:02:50.396 why it's it's so important for understanding sports and politics. Yeah, 0:02:50.476 --> 0:02:53.836 it's um. In nineteen sixty eight, the you know there 0:02:54.156 --> 0:02:57.756 there were all these great college teams. Maybe the most 0:02:57.916 --> 0:03:01.436 iconic sports team of that era was the San Jose State. 0:03:01.596 --> 0:03:05.316 San Jose State track team UM coach by gun named Budwinter, 0:03:05.356 --> 0:03:08.716 who was this legendary sprint coach, and he takes this 0:03:09.196 --> 0:03:12.916 gear commuter school because he has these new ideas about sprinting, 0:03:13.556 --> 0:03:16.956 but how to sprint him run fast for a time. 0:03:17.036 --> 0:03:19.796 He has a track team which has not just the 0:03:19.836 --> 0:03:22.716 best sprinters in America, but the best sprinters in the world, 0:03:22.956 --> 0:03:27.596 like multiple world record holders on one team, and several 0:03:27.636 --> 0:03:31.596 members of that team are the ones who stage the 0:03:31.676 --> 0:03:37.436 famous protest in Mexico City and with a we remember 0:03:37.436 --> 0:03:40.556 on the stand of the of the two hundred beaters, 0:03:41.116 --> 0:03:47.516 Tommy Smith and John Carlos raised their clenched fists right 0:03:47.556 --> 0:03:51.836 as that iconic photograph. Um, well, Tommy Smith and John 0:03:51.836 --> 0:03:55.116 Carlos were Bud Winter Runners. They were members of that 0:03:55.436 --> 0:03:58.916 of that fable track team, and so it's like, it's 0:03:58.916 --> 0:04:04.036 this really fascinating moment in sports. It has these incredible 0:04:04.076 --> 0:04:08.956 cultural ramifications. So so black athletes, African American athletes, they 0:04:09.356 --> 0:04:11.996 come in first and third in the two hundred. They're 0:04:11.996 --> 0:04:15.076 wearing black leather gloves and they raise their fists above 0:04:15.156 --> 0:04:16.516 them and it's like you said, it's one of the 0:04:16.516 --> 0:04:20.156 most iconic images in sports. Yeah, that's right. One of 0:04:20.196 --> 0:04:22.996 the things that and listening to the podcast and you're 0:04:23.076 --> 0:04:26.476 visiting this moment, is is really learning about Harry Eetwards. 0:04:26.476 --> 0:04:29.236 I'd love for you to say one more thing about 0:04:28.876 --> 0:04:32.636 Harry Eetwards as someone who helped to make some of 0:04:32.636 --> 0:04:37.316 this possible. So Edwards is also a San Jose guys. 0:04:38.436 --> 0:04:40.116 He's on a part of that same track team. He's 0:04:40.116 --> 0:04:43.796 a little older than the others, but he's the one 0:04:43.836 --> 0:04:49.156 he sort of articulates a kind of philosophy, an ideology 0:04:49.156 --> 0:04:52.076 of sports. People thought about sports as a kind of pasttime, 0:04:52.716 --> 0:04:54.796 and he said, no, no, no no, what sports are a 0:04:54.876 --> 0:05:01.196 kind of reflection of society's deepest beliefs, of its values, 0:05:01.236 --> 0:05:05.156 of it that participating in sports can be as political 0:05:05.196 --> 0:05:07.476 an act as demonstrating in the streets. I mean, he 0:05:07.556 --> 0:05:10.196 was he articulately, it's a whole of sport as being 0:05:10.236 --> 0:05:13.636 something that's embedded in the fabric of society. You can 0:05:13.716 --> 0:05:15.876 study sport and learn about a society no one that 0:05:15.996 --> 0:05:18.516 had not occurred to anyone before. As incredible as that 0:05:18.596 --> 0:05:21.956 sounds today. So Harry Edwards goes and gets his PhD 0:05:22.036 --> 0:05:26.436 in sociology and becomes the kind of he's kind of 0:05:26.476 --> 0:05:29.556 the philosopher of this movement, and he's at the center. 0:05:29.836 --> 0:05:33.396 He was at the center of the nineteen sixty eight protests. 0:05:33.436 --> 0:05:36.716 He's the guy who's behind the scenes bringing these athletes together, 0:05:36.876 --> 0:05:41.076 trying to figure out what should our response be to 0:05:41.956 --> 0:05:45.676 you know, the does as a black athlete have a 0:05:45.756 --> 0:05:49.356 responsibility to say something in face of the kind of 0:05:49.876 --> 0:05:52.356 not just racial oppression at home, but racial oppression around 0:05:52.396 --> 0:05:55.876 the world. But then Harry Edwards goes on and you 0:05:55.916 --> 0:06:00.956 can't find a political protest involving sports to this present 0:06:00.996 --> 0:06:02.836 day that doesn't have his fingerprints on it. I mean, 0:06:02.876 --> 0:06:06.436 he's just well, I want to unpack that moment and 0:06:06.516 --> 0:06:09.756 its legacy particularly has been an eye like yourself, come 0:06:09.796 --> 0:06:13.236 of age. You know, we are primarily seventies babies. We 0:06:13.516 --> 0:06:17.356 become teenagers in the nineteen eighties, and we're tennis kids. 0:06:17.156 --> 0:06:19.836 That was our childhood sport. In some ways, that's how 0:06:19.876 --> 0:06:25.076 we met, playing high school tennis together and in sort 0:06:25.076 --> 0:06:28.916 of thinking about my own sense of like who were 0:06:28.996 --> 0:06:33.236 sports heroes that had a political consciousness. We also grew 0:06:33.316 --> 0:06:35.916 up in the same neighborhood as Muhammad Ali wait Muhammad 0:06:35.916 --> 0:06:38.396 Ali is living in Chicago, or Muhammad Ali owned a 0:06:38.476 --> 0:06:41.596 home across the street. As you know, my great grandfathers, 0:06:41.636 --> 0:06:45.116 Elijah Muhammad. They lived on the same block. So yes, 0:06:45.276 --> 0:06:48.036 I didn't know that. I remember seeing him outside the 0:06:48.396 --> 0:06:51.876 computer store where Khalil and I met, and you know, 0:06:51.916 --> 0:06:54.276 his Parkinson's might have already begun, and he had these 0:06:54.316 --> 0:06:56.876 fists that were the size of like Catcher's mits, and 0:06:56.916 --> 0:06:59.116 he was just sort of fooling around. Everyone's like, hey, champage, 0:06:59.156 --> 0:07:01.076 champ and he would just like throw a jab and 0:07:01.156 --> 0:07:04.596 it looked like a lightning flash. Yeah. Yeah, so we 0:07:04.676 --> 0:07:07.956 so we you know, we have these personal encounters with 0:07:08.036 --> 0:07:11.516 these sports grades and and perhaps none more significant at 0:07:11.556 --> 0:07:15.796 the intersection of sports and politics than Muhammad Ali. Yeah. 0:07:15.836 --> 0:07:17.996 And by the time we are coming of age in 0:07:18.316 --> 0:07:21.756 the eighties and nineties, it's just a completely different political 0:07:21.796 --> 0:07:24.796 time and a different political time for athletes, right, Like 0:07:25.196 --> 0:07:27.356 that made me think of Michael Jordan. So we're growing 0:07:27.396 --> 0:07:29.796 up in Chicago. We have the great fortune as sports 0:07:29.796 --> 0:07:32.236 fans to be like in middle school when Michael Jordan 0:07:32.316 --> 0:07:34.916 starts with the Bulls and to see him evolve into 0:07:34.956 --> 0:07:37.916 the greatest maybe athlete of all time. And you know 0:07:37.956 --> 0:07:40.516 what a ridiculous thing to root for this team where 0:07:40.516 --> 0:07:41.876 like they're going to win all the time, because they 0:07:41.876 --> 0:07:45.316 have this guy, you know, Superman. But but you know, 0:07:45.356 --> 0:07:47.996 I've been doing all this work about this killing in 0:07:48.076 --> 0:07:50.756 nineteen ninety two where a seven year oldest shot to death. 0:07:50.756 --> 0:07:53.556 And in the nineties it's actually the highest murder rate 0:07:53.596 --> 0:07:57.316 in Chicago of all time. And you know, crack epidemic 0:07:57.396 --> 0:08:01.716 is raging, there's so much there's this seven year old 0:08:01.796 --> 0:08:03.996 is killed, and it's sort of like set into motion 0:08:04.036 --> 0:08:08.716 this conversation about what to do and Michael Jordan nobody 0:08:08.716 --> 0:08:11.276 on the bull nobody says anything. I mean, there's not 0:08:11.356 --> 0:08:13.036 and there's I don't even think there's a demand to 0:08:13.076 --> 0:08:16.036 say anything. It's so far from the discourse of that time. 0:08:16.476 --> 0:08:19.396 You know, Michael Jordan has this famous comment right around 0:08:19.476 --> 0:08:22.116 then when there's a Senate race in North Carolina where 0:08:22.116 --> 0:08:25.556 he's from, and there's an arch conservative running against a 0:08:25.596 --> 0:08:29.716 black candidate, and he says, Republicans buy sneakers too, meaning 0:08:29.716 --> 0:08:32.156 I'm not going to say anything. And I like, yeah, 0:08:32.236 --> 0:08:36.236 maybe throw this back at you, Malcolm. You know, it's 0:08:36.276 --> 0:08:40.076 thinking about the ways that the athletes and politics actually 0:08:40.116 --> 0:08:43.356 reflect their times, you know, rather than sort of shaping 0:08:43.356 --> 0:08:48.116 the times. We very rapidly go from an euro where 0:08:48.516 --> 0:08:52.156 people are demanding of black athletes like Arthur Ash or 0:08:52.636 --> 0:08:56.036 cream Abdul Jabar or those sprinters in sixty eight or 0:08:56.116 --> 0:09:00.356 Muhammad al either demanding that they be kind of complicit 0:09:00.636 --> 0:09:04.796 in social change. And we in a space of not 0:09:04.836 --> 0:09:07.916 a generation, I mean have a generation. Yeah, you get 0:09:08.636 --> 0:09:13.196 you get Jordan who who you know, his alignments are 0:09:13.196 --> 0:09:16.516 completely different. He's and he's able to say. I mean, 0:09:16.556 --> 0:09:19.116 I think Charles Barkley, remember that the I am not 0:09:19.156 --> 0:09:23.116 a role model, not a role model says, He explicitly 0:09:23.516 --> 0:09:27.716 declines to take up that particular burden and makes and 0:09:27.796 --> 0:09:32.596 both of them, I think are making a justifiable argument, 0:09:33.196 --> 0:09:36.036 which is in addition to all the other burdens I 0:09:36.076 --> 0:09:38.276 have to bear. Why do I have to do this? 0:09:39.116 --> 0:09:41.156 I'm just an athlete. I you know, I got a 0:09:41.196 --> 0:09:43.156 lot of my played already, and you want me to 0:09:43.196 --> 0:09:45.636 battle these things that are bigger than me and outside myself. 0:09:46.196 --> 0:09:50.116 Do I agree with that? Not necessarily? I understand it though. Yeah. 0:09:50.276 --> 0:09:54.836 And I also it's funny because this has been but Malcolm, 0:09:54.836 --> 0:09:57.276 it's also it's corporate test. It's not just it's not 0:09:57.316 --> 0:09:59.876 just like my craft, right, I mean that even the 0:09:59.956 --> 0:10:03.116 Charles Barkley thing that he said was part of a 0:10:03.236 --> 0:10:07.956 Nike advertisement campaign. Like it's sort of like I got mine, Yeah, 0:10:08.036 --> 0:10:10.116 But I mean what they're asking is to be treated 0:10:10.156 --> 0:10:12.396 the same way a white athlete is treated. No one 0:10:12.436 --> 0:10:16.076 asked Peyton Manning to speak up against speak out against, 0:10:16.556 --> 0:10:20.876 you know, climate changer. More than that, Peyton Manning is 0:10:20.916 --> 0:10:24.036 from New Orleans, a place with as serious of social 0:10:24.036 --> 0:10:26.596 problems as you can find in the United States of America. 0:10:27.036 --> 0:10:30.036 I guarantee you no one has ever said to Peyton, 0:10:30.876 --> 0:10:33.076 how do you feel about the fact that New Orleans 0:10:33.116 --> 0:10:35.596 has got you know, murder rates that are through the 0:10:35.676 --> 0:10:38.916 roof and dysfunctional this and that and so. Like if 0:10:38.916 --> 0:10:42.116 I'm a black athlete and I'm watching that, I sort of, 0:10:42.236 --> 0:10:44.516 you know, I have great sympathy for them who say, 0:10:44.756 --> 0:10:47.996 you know what, why why does Peyton get to watch? 0:10:48.116 --> 0:10:51.476 Why does Tom Bradley get to Tom Brady? Tom Brady 0:10:51.556 --> 0:10:55.836 get to you know, he tom Brady is rewarded more 0:10:55.876 --> 0:11:00.396 than that. He is deified for his singular focus on 0:11:00.396 --> 0:11:03.556 the game of football. They say, of demand or no distractions, 0:11:03.596 --> 0:11:06.076 the game, you know, and everything that's all about. His 0:11:06.196 --> 0:11:09.396 greatness is summed up by his complete and utter motion 0:11:09.436 --> 0:11:12.356 of football. When a black athlete does that. They're like, well, 0:11:12.396 --> 0:11:15.916 you know you're ignoring your community, You're not. At a 0:11:15.916 --> 0:11:20.036 certain point that double standard becomes intolerable for these guys, 0:11:20.436 --> 0:11:25.116 and Barkley Barkley and Jordan's just saying, you know, effort like, 0:11:26.076 --> 0:11:28.676 I'm sick of this, and I so to see where 0:11:28.676 --> 0:11:32.156 they're coming from. I do get the double standard. I'm 0:11:32.156 --> 0:11:34.636 with you a thousand percent on that. I think the 0:11:34.676 --> 0:11:38.556 difference is that Peyton Manny doesn't represent a community that's 0:11:39.716 --> 0:11:44.076 metaphorically speaking underwater in New Orleans. I mean the country 0:11:44.116 --> 0:11:47.676 we live in is the presumption this has Ben's I 0:11:47.676 --> 0:11:50.436 think point about a corporate ethos is that Brady's an 0:11:50.436 --> 0:11:53.396 extension of the franchise. He is the franchise, and the 0:11:53.476 --> 0:11:56.996 franchise makes its money by not pissing off it's millions 0:11:56.996 --> 0:11:59.396 of fans, and so the only people who really have 0:11:59.516 --> 0:12:02.196 something to lose are the black people who see this 0:12:02.356 --> 0:12:06.356 representative figure who has a platform and a voice to 0:12:06.476 --> 0:12:10.556 actually say something because people are literally in the streets. Yeah, 0:12:10.596 --> 0:12:15.196 I'm working on this book about Los Angeles Black Los 0:12:15.196 --> 0:12:18.836 Angeles in the thirties, forties and fifties, and it's a 0:12:18.916 --> 0:12:23.436 kind of meta biography of Tom Bradley, and Bradley's part 0:12:23.436 --> 0:12:26.396 of this group of athletes that are at UCLA in 0:12:26.436 --> 0:12:30.956 the thirties, among them Jackie Robinson. Jackie Robinson is his classmate. 0:12:32.236 --> 0:12:35.196 All these really interesting. They're a very very small group 0:12:35.196 --> 0:12:37.036 with them, and all of them face a version of 0:12:37.036 --> 0:12:39.196 this choice in their life and in this in their 0:12:39.236 --> 0:12:41.596 case it's many of them are. A couple of members 0:12:41.596 --> 0:12:44.396 of this group are Olympians and their Olympics is thirty 0:12:44.476 --> 0:12:48.036 six do we go to the Nazi Olympics? Right, same 0:12:48.236 --> 0:12:50.516 same question that we're revisiting in sixty eight, just with 0:12:50.556 --> 0:12:54.276 different cast of characters, and they're all asked to resolve 0:12:54.316 --> 0:12:57.876 this question of what is my what is the appropriate 0:12:57.956 --> 0:13:02.516 path I ought to take in the world to express 0:13:02.716 --> 0:13:06.236 my anger at the way my people are being treated. 0:13:06.876 --> 0:13:10.356 And the thing that the idea that I'm most interested 0:13:10.396 --> 0:13:13.596 in is the mistake we make is in assuming there's 0:13:13.636 --> 0:13:18.996 only one path and there's multiple paths. And at the 0:13:19.156 --> 0:13:22.676 end of the day, you can we can look at 0:13:22.716 --> 0:13:26.276 someone like Michael Jordan twenty years out and we can say, 0:13:26.476 --> 0:13:30.996 did Michael actually do more for Black America by playing 0:13:30.996 --> 0:13:33.916 the role he did than if he had been outspoken. 0:13:34.156 --> 0:13:38.036 Not everyone has to be outspoken. If no one was outspoken, 0:13:38.676 --> 0:13:42.756 if not a single black person of cultural authority was 0:13:42.756 --> 0:13:47.236 saying anything in the nineties about anything to do with racism, 0:13:47.356 --> 0:13:49.956 then I would say, Michael, you got a problem. But 0:13:50.636 --> 0:13:53.356 there are people who were saying stuff, and Michael was saying, 0:13:53.396 --> 0:13:55.236 I'm going to try and make my case in a 0:13:55.276 --> 0:13:59.356 different way. I'm going to confront whatever demons were faced 0:13:59.356 --> 0:14:02.836 with as a people using my own strategy, which is 0:14:02.876 --> 0:14:05.276 to demonstrate that a black man can be the hardest 0:14:05.316 --> 0:14:08.156 working and smartest man on the basketball court. Malcolm, that's 0:14:08.156 --> 0:14:10.916 really interesting this set of choices and using Michael Jordan 0:14:11.116 --> 0:14:14.756 as a kind of example. We know from legacy of 0:14:14.796 --> 0:14:17.596 speed that you have some ideas about this. So after 0:14:17.636 --> 0:14:20.916 the break we want to hear more about these choices 0:14:21.596 --> 0:14:24.516 and how they make a difference in the larger struggle 0:14:24.556 --> 0:14:29.556 for racial justice. We'll be right back after the break. 0:14:35.356 --> 0:14:37.476 Welcome back to some of my best friends are today. 0:14:37.516 --> 0:14:41.596 Our guest is Malcolm Gladwell. We are talking sports, politics, 0:14:41.756 --> 0:14:46.196 activism and justice. And Malcolm, so you were just telling 0:14:46.276 --> 0:14:51.236 us about Michael Jordan's choices to be the best and 0:14:51.276 --> 0:14:56.036 the hardest working basketball player in history and that that 0:14:56.076 --> 0:14:59.796 feels to you like also a contribution to some form 0:14:59.836 --> 0:15:02.996 of politics. So talk to us a little bit about 0:15:03.436 --> 0:15:05.636 some of what you learned in your work on legacy 0:15:05.676 --> 0:15:08.676 of Speed, about the different choices that people have when 0:15:08.716 --> 0:15:11.916 it comes to trying to make a difference. So we've 0:15:11.956 --> 0:15:16.276 got we have three examples in a sixty eight Games 0:15:16.316 --> 0:15:22.596 of how African Americans chose to chose to express their 0:15:22.676 --> 0:15:26.676 anger at the way they were being cheated in the 0:15:26.716 --> 0:15:29.276 way that you know black people around the world are 0:15:29.316 --> 0:15:32.916 being treated. One approach is the approach that was taken 0:15:33.116 --> 0:15:37.556 by people like Tommy Smith, which is will go and 0:15:37.596 --> 0:15:39.916 we will make a public protest in front of the 0:15:40.036 --> 0:15:42.916 entire world, so we're we're not going to turn our 0:15:42.916 --> 0:15:47.476 back on the the institution of the Olympics as problematic 0:15:47.516 --> 0:15:50.196 and troubled and racist and whatever as it is. We'll 0:15:50.236 --> 0:15:53.356 go and make a stand when we're there. Second approach 0:15:53.436 --> 0:15:56.716 is what Kreem Abdul Jabbar does. And remember Kreem doesn't 0:15:56.716 --> 0:15:59.556 go to Kream would have won a gold medal betting 0:15:59.876 --> 0:16:03.596 Boycott's he stays home, right. The third approach is to 0:16:03.716 --> 0:16:08.436 go and just to behave like everyone else. Michael Jordan's approach. 0:16:08.476 --> 0:16:11.436 Michael Jordan, Right, those are your options, um and and 0:16:11.836 --> 0:16:14.236 Malcolm you cite in in the Legacy of Speed. You 0:16:14.276 --> 0:16:16.476 cite a source for this, a book that has sort 0:16:16.476 --> 0:16:19.676 of presented these three three choices of opposition fame. It's 0:16:19.716 --> 0:16:23.996 the It's the Um, the famous book by by the 0:16:24.076 --> 0:16:27.356 economist Alberto Hirshman, one of my one of my favorite, 0:16:27.956 --> 0:16:31.156 not just mine, many people's favorite thinker of the twentieth centuries. 0:16:31.396 --> 0:16:36.156 He writes this brilliant book called Exit, Voice and Loyalty, 0:16:36.516 --> 0:16:40.156 which is really about this question. You have options. These 0:16:40.156 --> 0:16:41.596 are the three options that are available to you. You You 0:16:41.636 --> 0:16:44.276 can go along with it. You can you can leave. 0:16:44.396 --> 0:16:48.076 You can you can if you don't like your public schools, 0:16:48.516 --> 0:16:51.156 you can give up and homeschool your kid or moved 0:16:51.156 --> 0:16:53.636 to the suburbs. You can go to school board meetings 0:16:53.676 --> 0:16:55.876 and speak up and say I'm angry. Or you can 0:16:55.916 --> 0:16:57.756 just keep your mouth shut and hope things get better. 0:16:57.876 --> 0:17:00.636 Those are your choices, right, And there's a case to 0:17:00.636 --> 0:17:03.396 be made for all three choices. At various point Alberto 0:17:03.476 --> 0:17:06.436 Hirshman happens to like what he calls Voice. He thinks 0:17:06.476 --> 0:17:09.276 that going to the Olympics and speaking up is the 0:17:09.356 --> 0:17:13.996 right move. But he's not dismissive. I'm not going to 0:17:14.036 --> 0:17:16.556 sit here and tell you that krime Abdul Jabbar made 0:17:16.556 --> 0:17:20.516 the wrong decision sixty eight that was consistent with who 0:17:20.556 --> 0:17:25.436 he is. He's someone who's deeply thoughtful and principled, and 0:17:25.996 --> 0:17:30.076 he personally could not square his participation in those games 0:17:30.076 --> 0:17:32.996 with his beliefs. And although although Malcolm you you, you 0:17:33.076 --> 0:17:34.756 kind of do make the case against it, in a 0:17:34.756 --> 0:17:38.036 way in Legacy of Speed, you remind us that none 0:17:38.036 --> 0:17:40.836 of us remember that he boycotted the sixty eight Olympics. Yeah, 0:17:40.836 --> 0:17:44.236 but he didn't. It wasn't lasting. It didn't make change 0:17:44.556 --> 0:17:47.396 for him. Like as an individual it made sense, but 0:17:47.516 --> 0:17:50.636 in terms of affecting change right like it's but I 0:17:50.636 --> 0:17:53.036 don't think who I guess I would say to critique 0:17:53.076 --> 0:17:58.556 my own position in it, I've now I've rethought this. Actually, 0:17:58.556 --> 0:18:01.436 since Speed did Legacy of Speed interressing in my new book, 0:18:01.796 --> 0:18:07.036 I'm much more sympathetic to those who make different choices 0:18:07.036 --> 0:18:10.596 than speaking up. The cream had gone to sixty eight 0:18:11.236 --> 0:18:14.556 and spent the rest of his life second guessing his decision, 0:18:14.996 --> 0:18:17.876 then I think that would have been a tragedy. It's 0:18:17.876 --> 0:18:21.476 not who he is, right, like, everyone has to be free. 0:18:21.556 --> 0:18:26.556 One of the things, one of the tragic things of 0:18:26.596 --> 0:18:31.276 the way we judge the angry and the dispossessed is 0:18:31.676 --> 0:18:34.796 not only do we judge them for being at the bottom, 0:18:34.836 --> 0:18:36.876 we also judge them for the ways in which they 0:18:37.276 --> 0:18:39.316 try to come up from the bottom. And we create 0:18:39.356 --> 0:18:42.916 this hierarchy of options for them, and we say, the 0:18:42.956 --> 0:18:47.076 noblest thing for the disadvantage to do is to speak 0:18:47.076 --> 0:18:50.676 out bravely, right, and the least noble is for them 0:18:50.716 --> 0:18:53.196 to meekly go along, to be a kind of Uncle Tom. 0:18:53.236 --> 0:18:56.916 And my point is that that's just as unfair as 0:18:56.956 --> 0:18:59.476 the old system. You can't judge people for how they 0:18:59.556 --> 0:19:02.476 choose to respond to everyone is. As long as someone 0:19:02.556 --> 0:19:05.356 is thoughtful about the decision they're trying to make, I 0:19:05.396 --> 0:19:07.036 am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. 0:19:07.996 --> 0:19:10.676 I mean, this is this is a really interesting dilemma, 0:19:11.156 --> 0:19:17.796 and I'm glad we're talking through it, because admittedly I'm 0:19:17.836 --> 0:19:22.316 taken with Bill Roden's provocative thesis in the book he 0:19:22.356 --> 0:19:25.836 wrote several years ago called forty Million Dollars Slave, which 0:19:25.916 --> 0:19:29.876 essentially tells the history of the commodification of black talent 0:19:29.996 --> 0:19:33.996 in sports that black people for most of the history 0:19:34.036 --> 0:19:37.836 of the twentieth century, and competitive professional sports have been 0:19:38.076 --> 0:19:42.396 used for the purposes of creating wealth on behalf of 0:19:42.436 --> 0:19:45.276 the owners of these sports teams in every field of 0:19:45.316 --> 0:19:50.316 sports endeavor, and that at a certain point, their ability 0:19:50.356 --> 0:19:55.116 to use sports, say Jackie Robinson, to do something that 0:19:55.156 --> 0:20:02.596 transforms society, is stymied in part because the financial rewards 0:20:03.796 --> 0:20:08.516 shutting up and dribbling becomes so great that people no 0:20:08.636 --> 0:20:12.836 longer can attach any kind of social mission to their 0:20:12.876 --> 0:20:17.276 sports athleticism, and he sees this as a loss despite 0:20:17.396 --> 0:20:21.196 what I think your bigger point is that some people 0:20:22.316 --> 0:20:24.996 are built to do a certain kind of thing well, 0:20:25.316 --> 0:20:28.676 even within a socially charged context. Michael Jordan may never 0:20:28.716 --> 0:20:30.956 actually have been the right person to be a spokesperson. 0:20:31.036 --> 0:20:34.756 I think that's probably right, and that Korean Abdul Jabbar 0:20:34.876 --> 0:20:38.436 found his voice outside of the arena eventually, and so 0:20:38.556 --> 0:20:40.796 maybe he needed to do his best there to create 0:20:40.836 --> 0:20:43.396 that space. I'm okay with that. But I do think 0:20:43.396 --> 0:20:47.276 that this other context is real and meaningful, and that 0:20:47.396 --> 0:20:50.636 money matters in terms of the choices at athletes today 0:20:50.676 --> 0:20:53.476 make about their their politics. Please, I was gonna say, 0:20:53.476 --> 0:20:54.876 I wanted to go back to that comment and made 0:20:54.876 --> 0:20:59.116 about Michael Jordan setting a standard for being the hardest 0:20:59.116 --> 0:21:01.596 working and smartest guy in the court. And I don't 0:21:01.596 --> 0:21:05.516 think that's a trivial accomplishment. And I say this because 0:21:05.596 --> 0:21:07.996 I read I forgot where I read it. I was 0:21:08.036 --> 0:21:13.276 reading through some academic journals and I came across the study, 0:21:13.556 --> 0:21:17.116 brilliant study in which they simply they went through, I 0:21:17.196 --> 0:21:24.996 mean thousands of hours of NCAA tournament basketball announcing footage 0:21:24.996 --> 0:21:28.596 from announcers talking and just tried to just did that thing, 0:21:28.636 --> 0:21:30.636 you know, and this has been done before. Were they saying, 0:21:30.756 --> 0:21:33.796 when we're talking about a black player's accomplishment, what are 0:21:33.796 --> 0:21:36.636 the adjectives we use? And when we're talking about a 0:21:36.636 --> 0:21:39.916 white player, And it's like, and it's smart for a 0:21:39.956 --> 0:21:41.996 white player, it's smart for a white player, and it's 0:21:42.036 --> 0:21:45.156 athletic and it's emotional for the black player. And I 0:21:45.196 --> 0:21:47.356 looked at that and I say, you know what, we 0:21:47.476 --> 0:21:50.676 have such a long way to go even now, and 0:21:50.716 --> 0:21:54.236 we fool ourselves that we're in this luxurious position now 0:21:54.276 --> 0:21:56.876 where our athletes can we can ask our athletes to 0:21:56.876 --> 0:22:00.036 debate the fine points of legislation before the Congress, and 0:22:00.076 --> 0:22:02.276 I would say, you know what, in most cases, that 0:22:02.436 --> 0:22:05.956 is way fucking premature, Like there is an awful lot 0:22:05.956 --> 0:22:09.036 of room for someone like Jordan coming along and proving 0:22:09.156 --> 0:22:11.116 to a lot of people who are that who are 0:22:11.196 --> 0:22:14.916 carrying around some unexamined prejudices in their heart about what 0:22:14.916 --> 0:22:17.836 black people can or can't do, and proving to them that, 0:22:17.876 --> 0:22:21.516 you know what, I am both the most physically talented 0:22:21.516 --> 0:22:25.436 person on the floor, but also the hardest working and 0:22:25.556 --> 0:22:29.836 also the smartest. And I wonder if that contribution isn't 0:22:29.876 --> 0:22:35.036 in retrospect incalculable. I'm gonna put another spin on that study, 0:22:35.356 --> 0:22:37.996 which and thinking about it, which in another read of 0:22:38.036 --> 0:22:42.636 that is that sports is inherently political, right, you can 0:22:42.756 --> 0:22:45.476 say that it's it is like, you know, this pure 0:22:45.796 --> 0:22:49.716 just you know, space where people compete and it's outside 0:22:49.756 --> 0:22:52.316 the realm of politics and sociology and all these other 0:22:52.316 --> 0:22:54.476 things that if we're even when we're you know, you 0:22:54.596 --> 0:22:57.116 just describe the even even the lens that people through 0:22:57.276 --> 0:23:01.076 see sports, it's racialized, it's politicized. And you know, I 0:23:01.116 --> 0:23:03.116 think a lot about the Olympic Games and sort of 0:23:03.116 --> 0:23:08.236 the idealization of human achievement. You know, excellence and to 0:23:08.356 --> 0:23:11.676 think about that kind of excellence without thinking about all 0:23:11.676 --> 0:23:14.716 of our failings and hypocrisy, like they go hand in hand, 0:23:14.836 --> 0:23:18.036 right or or I think about baseball, I sort of 0:23:18.156 --> 0:23:22.356 did writing about baseball earlier in my career and thinking 0:23:22.396 --> 0:23:27.436 about a kind of the gauzy way that that baseball 0:23:27.596 --> 0:23:31.196 is imagined as sort of Americana and you could only 0:23:31.276 --> 0:23:35.316 sort of see it as this kind of uh, you know, 0:23:35.716 --> 0:23:38.956 pre racialized past, like a lot of baseball literature to 0:23:38.996 --> 0:23:42.756 sort of escape racism, imagine something like, you know, like 0:23:42.756 --> 0:23:46.316 shoeless Joe needs to imagine nineteen nineteen in some corn 0:23:46.356 --> 0:23:51.316 fields when it's not racialized. It's so wrapped up in 0:23:51.396 --> 0:23:56.556 some idea of American exceptionalism and some dreamy idea of 0:23:56.956 --> 0:24:00.556 America that not, you know, it's it contains all of 0:24:00.596 --> 0:24:03.796 its hypocrisies. It's like you have to sort of start 0:24:03.876 --> 0:24:06.876 digging in there. What's absent, what has to be excluded? Ye, 0:24:07.796 --> 0:24:10.756 you can't see the two without without you know, without 0:24:10.796 --> 0:24:13.276 grappling with these with these issues, I mean, and the 0:24:13.276 --> 0:24:18.796 whole thing is heightened by the fact that thirty years ago, 0:24:19.796 --> 0:24:23.676 sports was just one of a number of different areas 0:24:23.716 --> 0:24:26.756