Speaker 1: Welcome to PM Mood. I am super excited to be
Speaker 1: welcoming too, PM Mood. Jamal Hill, who was a staff
Speaker 1: writer at The Atlantic covering sports, race, politics, and culture,
Speaker 1: and is also the host of Jamal Hill is Unbothered
Speaker 1: on Spotify. Jamal, thank you so much for joining PM
Speaker 1: mood today. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I
Speaker 1: think one of the reasons why I was so excited
Speaker 1: about the opportunity to speak with you is not only
Speaker 1: because you're a badass black woman journalist, but because we
Speaker 1: have something slightly in common, which is that the both
Speaker 1: of us. Me, in the fall of last year, decided
Speaker 1: to put my integrity ahead of what many thought was
Speaker 1: a good paycheck. I was previously working at Sirius XM
Speaker 1: with a show that I had there, and I felt
Speaker 1: that it was my obligation to let my listeners know
Speaker 1: that Serious XM was in fact supporting Trump and supporting
Speaker 1: him with millions of dollars of donations. And because I
Speaker 1: decided to share that on Twitter, I was fired. Unlike you,
Speaker 1: you left ESPN of your own volition, but I was
Speaker 1: let go. I was pushed out, and so I kind
Speaker 1: of wanted to start off our conversation on PM mood
Speaker 1: with one of your quotes two other journalists, which is,
Speaker 1: tell the truth bravely, even if it makes people uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a bit about what it's like now
Speaker 1: to be a journalist where the profession seems to be
Speaker 1: under attack in many ways and there has been this
Speaker 1: desire to kind of acquiesce to the powers that be
Speaker 1: and use euphemisms in a time of great danger in
Speaker 1: our climate and in our culture. What it means to
Speaker 1: be brave in this moment. Well, first, I commend you
Speaker 1: for what you did, and it highlights what is a
Speaker 1: significant problem, particularly in the business and corporate American culture,
Speaker 1: is that you hear them give so much lip service.
Speaker 1: And I call it lip service because they do exactly
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Is that they will promote, they
Speaker 1: will talk about diversity, talk about inclusion, and then on
Speaker 1: the other end, they will fight against it at the
Speaker 1: same time by donating to people who have a clear
Speaker 1: agenda against those principles they allege that they stand for
Speaker 1: in this political climate, which kind of leads into the
Speaker 1: question you ask me, a lot of people want to
Speaker 1: take stands without risk. Doesn't work that way. Is that
Speaker 1: you either are working actively against racism, actively against some
Speaker 1: of these values and principle that lead us to having
Speaker 1: a more diversive, inclusive society, or you're working for it.
Speaker 1: You can't be working against and for it at the
Speaker 1: same time. There is a certainly an attack on journalism now,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, an attack on journalists. Some of it
Speaker 1: is financial attack in the sense that people should be
Speaker 1: very wary, they should be appalled, they should be quite
Speaker 1: concerned that the media business is kind of growing smaller,
Speaker 1: fewer companies are owning more things, and that's not really
Speaker 1: how journalism was intentioned to be. When I first got
Speaker 1: into the business, a lot of newspapers were family owned
Speaker 1: companies and they were not at the mercy of stockholders,
Speaker 1: and that allowed, I think, for journalism to be in
Speaker 1: a different place. That's not to say that from a
Speaker 1: diversity standpoint and an inclusion standpoint, it was good, because
Speaker 1: a lot of the same problems that exist then existed now.
Speaker 1: But at least the type of journalism that was being
Speaker 1: done it was different, as in there was a commitment,
Speaker 1: an active commitment to investigative journalism, to telling the truth,
Speaker 1: to holding the powers that be that are accountable. I mean,
Speaker 1: most of us got into this profession to be that
Speaker 1: We're not supposed to be aligned with the power structure.
Speaker 1: That's not how it works. We're supposed to be actively
Speaker 1: challenging them on a consistent basis, and we do that
Speaker 1: through truth and accuracy and fairness. And so it is
Speaker 1: disheartening to me that because of the boom of social
Speaker 1: media and just the boom even within the structures of journalism,
Speaker 1: that there's a heavier emphasis on opinion and commentary as
Speaker 1: opposed to dealing with the truth. That it has retrained
Speaker 1: viewers and listeners to only seek out news sources that
Speaker 1: already validate their opinions. Now, before that might not have
Speaker 1: been a problem because everybody was pretty much playing in
Speaker 1: somewhat straight But now that you have networks and outlets
Speaker 1: that actively cater to opinions often based in ignorance, it
Speaker 1: really makes a journalist job that much more difficult. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I find that at one hand, I think
Speaker 1: that social media has democratized communication in a way that
Speaker 1: allows everyone right to have a platform, and not just
Speaker 1: the top five news stations. It allows everyone to quote unquote,
Speaker 1: I spy reporters right, they are seeing things on the
Speaker 1: ground and then they're able to share them with the
Speaker 1: people that follow. I think about Ferguson for instance, right,
Speaker 1: and how at the time when Mike Brown was killed
Speaker 1: and people are flooding the streets in protest, and at
Speaker 1: that time, not one cable news station as this news
Speaker 1: was breaking, as people were gathering, not one news station
Speaker 1: was covering it. And had it not been for people
Speaker 1: that were on the ground in Ferguson tweeting and sharing videos,
Speaker 1: and then it grew and grew and grew, only then
Speaker 1: did cable news decide to pick it up. Right, Only
Speaker 1: then did people start to write about it. And so
Speaker 1: on one hand, I think, wow, how extraordinary, right that
Speaker 1: the violence that affects communities of color, Black communities in
Speaker 1: particular are not silenced. Right. I sometimes ask myself, is
Speaker 1: it that there are more black people that are being killed?
Speaker 1: Is there more injustice that is happening, or are we
Speaker 1: just able to report on it more because of the
Speaker 1: social media platforms that we have access to. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, those same mediums have become arenas for bullying, right,
Speaker 1: And you know, in that respect, I want to talk
Speaker 1: with you about twenty seventeen and Donald Trump I don't
Speaker 1: refer to him on my shows as president. I've referred
Speaker 1: to him as a piece of shit. But that's just me.
Speaker 1: But you know, Trump does what he has been doing
Speaker 1: since he was elected, and I use air quotes around that.
Speaker 1: Since he was elected president of the United States, he's
Speaker 1: been using Twitter as his platform to bully people, specifically
Speaker 1: women of color, into silence. And back in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: you were the target of one of those tweets because
Speaker 1: you had referred to him as many people had reported
Speaker 1: the facts of Donald Trump being a white supremist and
Speaker 1: being in support of white supremists following the marches in Charlotte'svie,
Speaker 1: where he said that there were good people on both sides.
Speaker 1: Can you just tell folks remind them kind of what
Speaker 1: that moment was that brought you to send that tweet
Speaker 1: and then what it felt like to be on the
Speaker 1: other end of Trump's wrath. For me, I didn't really
Speaker 1: think I was doing anything special, and it was one
Speaker 1: of the most unoriginal things I've ever said, because I
Speaker 1: really thought that a lot of people already knew that,
Speaker 1: and apparently they did not. But like a lot of people,
Speaker 1: especially people of color, especially black women. I had reached
Speaker 1: the point of disgust with the things that I was
Speaker 1: seeing Charlottesville, comments made by Donald Trump, and it was
Speaker 1: just kind of a culmination fed up black girl moment
Speaker 1: that I had and going back and forth with a
Speaker 1: Twitter user who was trying to present the case that
Speaker 1: he was not, in fact a white supremacist. And I
Speaker 1: think part of the reason why people are still arguing
Speaker 1: this some people, I feel like that group is actually
Speaker 1: dwindling is that they don't really understand what a white
Speaker 1: supremacist is. People in certain groups, certainly a lot of
Speaker 1: privileged people, they tend to think of white supremacists or
Speaker 1: white nationalists as people walking around with hoods and torches
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing, not understanding that it's far
Speaker 1: more subtle, and the subtlety makes it even more dangerous.
Speaker 1: If you have the inherent belief, which Donald Trump has
Speaker 1: expressed many times, that certain groups of people are more
Speaker 1: worthy than others, or in more inferior than others, you
Speaker 1: are a white supremacist. It's just that simple, Like it's
Speaker 1: it couldn't be a more clear cut definition. So what
Speaker 1: he has said about African countries, about Mexico, that's things
Speaker 1: that white supremacists say because they inherently believe that they're better.
Speaker 1: And when he was talking about how the US needs
Speaker 1: more immigrants from nice countries and he named all the
Speaker 1: largely white ones, that's what a white supremacist says. Okay,
Speaker 1: So this is not even hard. This is not the
Speaker 1: Pythagorean theorem. Okay, that's like really easy to figure out.
Speaker 1: So it just all the combination of seeing the things
Speaker 1: I was seeing happening in this country just overnight. It
Speaker 1: seems like the tone, tenor climate of this country changed.
Speaker 1: And this is not to suggest that I would not
Speaker 1: give Donald Trump enough credit to say that he invented
Speaker 1: racism or that it didn't exist before he took office.
Speaker 1: It did loudly in a lot of places. But just
Speaker 1: I think we all can agree something changed in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: And so with me going back and forth with this
Speaker 1: Twitter user when I called him a white supremacist and
Speaker 1: said he's surrounded himselves with white supremacists, which is also
Speaker 1: a fact. Hello, you know, Steve Bannon. I mean it's
Speaker 1: like it's such a fact, right, And Stephen Miller, like,
Speaker 1: these are guys who traffic in white supremacy, in white nationalism.
Speaker 1: They always have. There's not a shock to anybody who
Speaker 1: has kept themselves some what informed of these issues. I
Speaker 1: just didn't really think it was going to be that
Speaker 1: big of a deal, which is why I said it,
Speaker 1: because you know, I guess had I known or had
Speaker 1: a second thought that this is gonna become the national
Speaker 1: story that it did, I don't know. Maybe I would
Speaker 1: have decided not to press in, but I honestly didn't
Speaker 1: really think it was that big of a deal. And
Speaker 1: much to my surprise, it became such a big deal
Speaker 1: that Sarah Huckabee Sanders said I should be fired, and
Speaker 1: Donald Trump blamed me for ESPN's ratings falling, and it
Speaker 1: became this big bruhaha. I wasn't bothered by what I said.
Speaker 1: I don't regret it. It's still a fact, by the way,
Speaker 1: and I don't wish for anything differently, and the ways
Speaker 1: that it changed my life. I don't care what the
Speaker 1: President thinks about me at all. I don't care if
Speaker 1: Sara Huckaby Sanders thinks about me, none of them, because frankly,
Speaker 1: I don't even respect him enough to care, so it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. But what I do care about is the
Speaker 1: fact that he has a certain element and a following
Speaker 1: and a cultish fan base that follows him. That it
Speaker 1: disrupted my life having to deal with them. So that
Speaker 1: was the only part that was a little more unnerving
Speaker 1: because I remember me and well he was then my boyfriend.
Speaker 1: He's my husband now, but me, him and his father
Speaker 1: and another friend of mine. We were going to a
Speaker 1: Monday night football game in New Jersey to see the
Speaker 1: Giants play the Lions because my boyfriend's a huge Lions fan,
Speaker 1: and so I had to have security, you know, and
Speaker 1: that's not something I'm used to. You know. I got
Speaker 1: a lot of death threats, there were you know, ESPN's
Speaker 1: switchboard at the time got totally lit up. My voicemail
Speaker 1: at ESPN was deactivated the last year or so I
Speaker 1: was there, Like post Trump, I deactivated my voicemail because
Speaker 1: people were leaving such nasty, horrible, threatening messages. I just
Speaker 1: didn't even want that in my ecosystem of my mind
Speaker 1: every day. And it wasn't until actually recently that I
Speaker 1: went through some of the snailmail that I received. I
Speaker 1: had it tucked away, but for an event I was
Speaker 1: doing a storytelling event, I decided to read it and
Speaker 1: make it kind of a part of the speech that
Speaker 1: I gave. And you know, it was harsh, like it
Speaker 1: was hard, it was hard to read. It doesn't affect
Speaker 1: my spirit because I know who I am. These people
Speaker 1: don't know me, but just to think about the level
Speaker 1: of hatred that he can inspire and a lot of
Speaker 1: people is really frightening. And so that was the way
Speaker 1: it disrupted my life. And even having to deal with
Speaker 1: all of that, I still wouldn't change anything I said,
Speaker 1: because I think as journalists that's part of our job
Speaker 1: is that we have to say what it is. If
Speaker 1: we lose our capacity to tell the truth, then we've
Speaker 1: undercut and undermined everything we stand for. It like we can't.
Speaker 1: You mentioned a few moments ago about how we're in
Speaker 1: this time of euphemisms where so many newspapers and media
Speaker 1: outlets have a problem telling people that Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: an outright liar when he lies constantly, Like it's okay
Speaker 1: to call him a liar because he's lying, he's not
Speaker 1: telling the truth. They'll say a bunch of things like
Speaker 1: here's another falsehood, or here is something that we fact checked.
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, if you can teach a
Speaker 1: kindergartner right right from wrong, right true from false, and
Speaker 1: say that is a lie. You know, we don't lie,
Speaker 1: which many parents and caregivers tell their children not to do.
Speaker 1: Then why are these decorated newspapers and outlets dancing around
Speaker 1: that fact? And they said, well, the Washington Post has
Speaker 1: a tracker, and up to this point, they have tracked
Speaker 1: over sixteen thousand lies that the President of the United
Speaker 1: States has told correct, so it's okay to call him
Speaker 1: a liar because he is. And so you know, this
Speaker 1: is not somebody who gets caught in one or two lies,
Speaker 1: as you just mentioned that horrific fact. We're talking about
Speaker 1: sixteen thousand. But even when I engage the few times,
Speaker 1: because it's becoming less and less, it's like I engage
Speaker 1: in people who support Donald Trump or are just not
Speaker 1: as bothered by what he has done to this country
Speaker 1: and this presidency in particular, because I hope people understand
Speaker 1: that the office of the presidency will never be the
Speaker 1: same now ever, and he's permanently changed. That is that
Speaker 1: they want to use euphemisms like, oh, he's just not
Speaker 1: politically correct, like no, no, no no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: politically not being politically correct is maybe swearing when you shouldn't. Occasionally,
Speaker 1: it could be joking about things that are taboo. That's
Speaker 1: not politically Kurbac, it is racist to detigrade and say
Speaker 1: some of the things that he said about other people.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's what that is. And I think the
Speaker 1: people who continue to support this man, they will not
Speaker 1: own up to the fact that the reason they support
Speaker 1: him is not because he's not politically correct and they're
Speaker 1: so tired of the political correctness of oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: respecting people and giving them their dignity, which I again
Speaker 1: I always find that it isn't that fascinating when they
Speaker 1: say that. It's like, what does that even mean? They're
Speaker 1: supporting them because they believe in what he says. It's
Speaker 1: just no other way around it. That's why I said that, Yes,
Speaker 1: at this point, you can think it's harsh, your feelings
Speaker 1: can be heard about it. If you support the president,
Speaker 1: if you voted for him, you're a white supremacist because
Speaker 1: either one or two things are the case. Either you're
Speaker 1: okay with white supremacy and racism, which what does that
Speaker 1: say about you? Or you believe what he believes. So
Speaker 1: either way, because I find the people that are just
Speaker 1: okay with it happening and saying like, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I get this out of it. So, yeah, he could
Speaker 1: be a while racist. Cool, you're a white supremacist. Own
Speaker 1: up to it, you know, like you hear it, But
Speaker 1: I don't care about hurting your feelings anymore. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think that it's important for people to own those things.
Speaker 1: But I also think that it's important for journalists who
Speaker 1: press people on that, right. Like, you know, following the
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen election, we had I don't know how many
Speaker 1: articles that came out that said that the reason that
Speaker 1: why Hillary Clinton lost wasn't the fact that Vladimir Putin
Speaker 1: stole our election, right, Wasn't the fact that he propped
Speaker 1: up Donald Trump, wasn't the fact of all of these
Speaker 1: things was because Hillary Clinton paid more attention to identity politics,
Speaker 1: and that was the problem. Right. And so if we
Speaker 1: want to win elections, we can't talk about race and
Speaker 1: we can't talk about racism, and we have to pretend
Speaker 1: that the people that voted for Donald Trump did so
Speaker 1: out of economic anxiety. Well, we've had I don't know
Speaker 1: how many studies that have come out, because white people
Speaker 1: really need studies. I don't know how many studies that
Speaker 1: came out that said, in fact, the opposite, the reason
Speaker 1: why white folks voted for Donald Trump was because of
Speaker 1: white nationalism, was because they are fearing the demographic shift,
Speaker 1: because they know what it's like to be on top
Speaker 1: and how they've treated everybody else on the bottom, and
Speaker 1: they're afraid now to be on the bottom. Yeah, which
Speaker 1: is really interesting because even when we had those opportunities,
Speaker 1: we've rarely taken them. The fear is that, I think
Speaker 1: the realization that is exactly what you said, But on
Speaker 1: top of that, it's the realization that maybe they weren't
Speaker 1: as smart as they think they are, maybe they're a
Speaker 1: lot more mediocre than they want to acknowledge. And the
Speaker 1: reality is that some of them, not all of them,
Speaker 1: have been able to ascend to certain positions, attain certain things,
Speaker 1: not based off their talent and ability, but purely based
Speaker 1: off their positioning and because of white privilege. And that's
Speaker 1: a hard thing to reconcile with, is that you have
Speaker 1: been an active participant in keeping a lot institutional racism.
Speaker 1: It's hard to face that. And that's why I think
Speaker 1: people get so defensive and as much as they keep
Speaker 1: you know, consistently, we've seen a bunch of these videos
Speaker 1: on social media, and it particularly, unfortunately happens to Hispanics
Speaker 1: and Latinos more than anybody when they get that why
Speaker 1: don't you go back to your country, or why don't
Speaker 1: you do this? Or why do you do that? Which
Speaker 1: is really funny a nation founded on basically immigrants, But
Speaker 1: that's neither hearing on there. You know. The reason that
Speaker 1: it's drawing that response is like their worst nightmare is
Speaker 1: that they will walk into a grocery store and everybody
Speaker 1: then and there will be speaking Spanish and they have
Speaker 1: no idea what's going on. Juxtapose that with the fact
Speaker 1: that we deal with that all the time, is that, yeah,
Speaker 1: white people may not be speaking a different language, but
Speaker 1: we're far more used to encounters where we're the only
Speaker 1: person in the room of color, the only woman, the
Speaker 1: only black woman, the only black person, any of those
Speaker 1: categories we fit, so we can adapt. It's not a
Speaker 1: big deal for us. They, on the other hand, have
Speaker 1: never been forced into those situations, or usually they aren't,
Speaker 1: and so because of that, I think it has created
Speaker 1: a sense of panic and it doesn't help. Again, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned where Unfortunately media has played a part in
Speaker 1: this is that if they believe that they can go
Speaker 1: to outlets hello, Fox News, that only continually reinforce that
Speaker 1: belief that they have something to fear by this country
Speaker 1: becoming more inclusive and diverse in them not being the majority.
Speaker 1: So they're allowing themselves to be played by a fear
Speaker 1: that is so baseless and ridiculous that they have decided
Speaker 1: to push their center of the chips to the table.
Speaker 1: They don't care about how immoral it is. And I'm
Speaker 1: especially tickled by these Christian evangelicals who continue, in their
Speaker 1: utter disrespect of God, who they supposedly stand for, continue
Speaker 1: to the support, supposedly continue to support this man based
Speaker 1: off nothing else but white supremacy. That's it, right. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful to hear that. You know, had you
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to do things over again, right, and
Speaker 1: I know that you've said this many of times in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, if you had the opportunity to say, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm not going to send that tweet or
Speaker 1: I'm not going to respond in this way that you
Speaker 1: said that you wouldn't do it over that. In fact,
Speaker 1: having done that kind of changed the trajectory of your
Speaker 1: life in some ways. Can you talk about what it
Speaker 1: means to own your power and your voice in a
Speaker 1: way now that is different from before the tweet. I've
Speaker 1: always considered myself as somebody who didn't pull any punches,
Speaker 1: but I was strategic about the punches that I threw.
Speaker 1: And now I think while I am still somewhat strategic
Speaker 1: because I you know, I've always wanted to be the
Speaker 1: type of person that you know, when I said something,
Speaker 1: it resonated and it mattered, and so I wanted to
Speaker 1: be careful about what I decided to be vocal about.
Speaker 1: So that part still exists, you know, to some degree.
Speaker 1: But I think you know what happened, especially given how
Speaker 1: my work life is designed. Now I have a sense
Speaker 1: of freedom and autonomy and confidence that I haven't had
Speaker 1: to this level at this point in my life and career,
Speaker 1: because ultimately, the people that want to mess with me
Speaker 1: mess with me, and the people who don't don't. And
Speaker 1: I don't find myself feeling as if I have to
Speaker 1: edit myself, or feeling as if I have to curb
Speaker 1: who I actually am, or that I don't have to
Speaker 1: say certain things, you know, for fear of, oh, it
Speaker 1: may cost me this opportunity or that opportunity. I haven't
Speaker 1: thought about that in a long time, because once you know,
Speaker 1: the White House calls for you to be you know, fired.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think people pretty much know what they're getting,
Speaker 1: and so so there's no surprises to sum it up
Speaker 1: this way, and so not to continue to ramble is
Speaker 1: I'm more concerned about the people in the room. I
Speaker 1: don't think about the people who are not there. It's
Speaker 1: a party. Analogy I like to use is that I'm
Speaker 1: worried about throwing the do opest party for all the
Speaker 1: people who want to come to the party, so that
Speaker 1: you know, when it's two am, they ain't trying to leave.
Speaker 1: They got all the drinks they want to get. You know,
Speaker 1: they having a great time. I ain't worried about the
Speaker 1: people outside in the line trying to get in, not
Speaker 1: worried about those worried about having the dopest party of
Speaker 1: the people that you have around you forget about the
Speaker 1: people who aren't there. And so having that mentality, I
Speaker 1: think has allowed me to write the best that I've
Speaker 1: ever had to broadcast the best that I ever had
Speaker 1: to do. My podcast in a way that I don't
Speaker 1: think I would have done it two years ago. It's
Speaker 1: just given me just a new and renewed sense of
Speaker 1: confidence in myself, in my abilities, and I'm constantly getting
Speaker 1: proof and evidence that you don't have to curb your integrity,
Speaker 1: your beliefs to fit into this industry. So I don't
Speaker 1: care about really fitting in that way anymore. And I'm
Speaker 1: grateful and I thank God that I've reached this point
Speaker 1: of autonomy because I've spent over twenty years in this
Speaker 1: business building to get to this point, and so I
Speaker 1: can't regret anything that happened along the way, because if
Speaker 1: I did, I may not have been able to get here. Essentially,
Speaker 1: your description of where you are right now is essentially
Speaker 1: the description of black girl magic. It's the idea that
Speaker 1: you know, there are so many obstacles that are placed
Speaker 1: in our way or duct tape tried to be placed
Speaker 1: on our mouths to shut us up, but the ability
Speaker 1: to keep not only pushing forward right, but to create
Speaker 1: something that is yours. That's why there are more black
Speaker 1: women entrepreneurs in this country than any other group, because
Speaker 1: we will consistently create right in the absence of roles
Speaker 1: being created for us, and I personally love that about
Speaker 1: Black women. Yeah, I mean with black women right now.
Speaker 1: Believe statistically we're the only racial ethnic group that owns
Speaker 1: more businesses than our male peers. So it's I think
Speaker 1: a lot of us have decided. And I noticed this
Speaker 1: trend honestly among millennials too, who because of the access
Speaker 1: to information and everything, they're able to get this point.
Speaker 1: I think quicker than a lot of people. For my generation,
Speaker 1: and certainly from the generation that's above me, is there's
Speaker 1: a lot of us that are choosing for our mental health,
Speaker 1: for our financial health, for a multiplitude of reasons. We're
Speaker 1: choosing to do our own thing versus try to fit
Speaker 1: into a corporate structure or to a system that wasn't
Speaker 1: designed to ever consider us anyway. We just decided, I guess,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better analogy, a lot of people now,
Speaker 1: I notice, more so than ever, I've taken the Tyler
Speaker 1: Barrier approach. I mean, I love all the Tyler Barriers movies,
Speaker 1: but I do appreciate, Yeah, I do appreciate how he
Speaker 1: systematically methodically created his own system. He never worked within
Speaker 1: the confines of Hollywood, ever, and I think he's a
Speaker 1: really great example of what can be accomplished, of what
Speaker 1: you can do when you decide that you're going to
Speaker 1: create your own table, as opposed to waiting for somebody
Speaker 1: to invite you to one. I think that that's right
Speaker 1: as someone and I will openly admit the fact that
Speaker 1: sports is not my go too. It's not why I
Speaker 1: just adore you. It's just the boldness in the way
Speaker 1: that you write. And I have noticed and maybe I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: but I obviously want your thoughts. Is that you mentioned
Speaker 1: before you would not necessarily have said some of the
Speaker 1: things that you have said on your podcasts unbothered or
Speaker 1: written in the way that you are now writing for
Speaker 1: The Atlantic and some of the pieces that come up
Speaker 1: for me. Are you know the NFL owners have a
Speaker 1: problem with coaches of color? Would you have written that
Speaker 1: in the bold way that you did a few years ago? Well,
Speaker 1: I think and I've written and had commentary while I
Speaker 1: was at ESPN about the NFL, you know, and their
Speaker 1: lack of diversity and hiring. But I didn't make as
Speaker 1: specific of the arguments as I made for The Atlantic
Speaker 1: at ESPN. Is you're in a much more uncomfortable position
Speaker 1: because ESPN is in business with the NFL. And one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I chose to go back to writing
Speaker 1: and go back to writing for a publication or entity
Speaker 1: where writing was the main thing and you know they
Speaker 1: weren't in business with any leagues or anything like that,
Speaker 1: is because I wouldn't have to worry about trying to
Speaker 1: juggle and navigate an uncomfortable position of trying to write
Speaker 1: honestly and truthfully about a situation while knowing that the
Speaker 1: people you're doing it for are in business with the
Speaker 1: people you're criticizing. And even though no one at ESPN
Speaker 1: ever told me I couldn't say certain things about the NFL,
Speaker 1: as the old adage goes, was understood need not be said.
Speaker 1: And so when I wrote this particular piece for The Atlantic,
Speaker 1: I wanted to broaden it out and not just look
Speaker 1: at the plight of black coaches in the NFL, but
Speaker 1: related to the plight of black people period in corporate America.
Speaker 1: And which is why I referenced that study that was
Speaker 1: done that you know, showed the level of dissatisfaction that
Speaker 1: black people have who work in corporate America, because the
Speaker 1: NFL operates very similarly and generally, I mean, right now
Speaker 1: in this country, it's four black CEOs of the fortune
Speaker 1: five hundred companies four, So you're not going to convince
Speaker 1: me four hundred and ninety six others are smarter than
Speaker 1: all the black people record. But they have convinced themselves
Speaker 1: of that, of course. And I think that that to
Speaker 1: me was what was you know, so alarming about the
Speaker 1: piece that you wrote, because it goes into your piece
Speaker 1: where you're just like, this is the reason why there
Speaker 1: weren't black quarterbacks, because there's this belief that black men
Speaker 1: can't lead, right, And it goes back to these ingrained
Speaker 1: stereotypes of blackness, right, and white superiority. And I thought
Speaker 1: that the correlation that you were making between corporate America
Speaker 1: and the NFL and how they function together goes deeply
Speaker 1: into the roots of America, right and our belief and
Speaker 1: structure creating systems around white superiority and understanding that to
Speaker 1: be true regardless of the industry that you're in. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a bulls eye right there. Everything you said. That's
Speaker 1: why in the column I wanted to address the fact that,
Speaker 1: whether they want to admit it or not, they have certain,
Speaker 1: as you said in grain, stereotypes about black men, and
Speaker 1: that's why they do not see at this position them
Speaker 1: as leader. They think white leadership is inhebitably better. And
Speaker 1: that's why the goal posts keep moving. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of black coaches that are getting caught up in
Speaker 1: the spend cycle because the NFL, when they're doing hiring cycles,
Speaker 1: it's always some architect of what they're trying to find,
Speaker 1: or archetype, i should say, of what they're trying to find.
Speaker 1: Because of the success of some younger coaches, suddenly the
Speaker 1: InVogue thing was to hire thirty some year olds that
Speaker 1: didn't have a ton of experience, but they were considered
Speaker 1: to be able to better relate to the players because
Speaker 1: they were closer in age, and they were more open
Speaker 1: in hip in terms of installing new offenses, and they
Speaker 1: just had the millennial approach to relating the players. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: for a decade, you've been telling black coaches, now, you
Speaker 1: got to have a lot of experience. That's the only
Speaker 1: that's why you guys aren't getting jobs. You don't have
Speaker 1: enough experience. Meanwhile, everybody's looking around the league and seeing
Speaker 1: a number of coaches, black coaches who have been in
Speaker 1: the game fifteen years, twenty years, held a bunch of
Speaker 1: different positions, still can't get a job. So they moved
Speaker 1: the goalpost real quick. Now all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 1: about younger and more dynamic. Okay, that's fine, do what
Speaker 1: you do. Then all of a sudden, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: who can relate to the quarterback and who's been a
Speaker 1: quarterbacks coach? And that's more important. It just continually is
Speaker 1: a game of leap frog where the NFL is just
Speaker 1: moving the line all the time. And the reason why
Speaker 1: they are is because the truth is, they just don't
Speaker 1: believe in black leadership. Just say what it is, and
Speaker 1: they believe in it as certain positions, but they don't
Speaker 1: consider it's the same stereotypes as you mentioned that held
Speaker 1: the league back from having a proliferation of black quarterbacks.
Speaker 1: Quarterback is considered a face of the franchise leadership position.
Speaker 1: You have to be able to inspire fifty something other
Speaker 1: men to follow you, to run through a brick wall
Speaker 1: for you. And they never thought a team would get
Speaker 1: behind a black man in that way. Part of it
Speaker 1: is they're projecting because they don't do it, so they're thinking,
Speaker 1: why would these other dudes do it too? And they
Speaker 1: don't do it and in their business life and their
Speaker 1: personal life or whatever. You know, there's a reason why
Speaker 1: we've had forty five presidents only one of them has
Speaker 1: been black, because of our idea in this country, the
Speaker 1: picture of leadership is always somebody white. And it's why
Speaker 1: we're in this kind of complete fuckery of a democratic
Speaker 1: presidential field right now is because you see what's emerging
Speaker 1: and I was like, wow, that's really interesting. So now
Speaker 1: we've gone all the way back to the only people
Speaker 1: who can beat Donald Trump are other old white men. Okay, congratulations, right,
Speaker 1: so the clock back, Yeah, precisely. But it gets back
Speaker 1: to that same feeling. And I'm not gonna totally blame
Speaker 1: you know, white people for it. I'm not gonna say
Speaker 1: I would blame black people for it, but a lot
Speaker 1: of us wind up inheriting and adopting those same stereotypes
Speaker 1: that the oppressors have of our own people, of thinking
Speaker 1: like it's not gonna be good enough because of this.
Speaker 1: And so anyway, long story short, or you know, just
Speaker 1: again to stop my rambling, is that the way that
Speaker 1: I attacked what I wrote was in a way that
Speaker 1: was infinitely more nuanced and a little more direct to
Speaker 1: the target, then I know I would have done at ESPN.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, one of the reasons why. And
Speaker 1: this is not to demean or disrespect my time at ESPN.
Speaker 1: It's the best job, you know, I've ever had. I
Speaker 1: was there twelve years. The majority of those years were
Speaker 1: very happy, and I grew as a journalist in ways
Speaker 1: I could not have imagined. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, ESPN is a part of this ecosystem that
Speaker 1: I wanted to be able to write a little more
Speaker 1: honestly about, and I've been able to do that at
Speaker 1: The Atlantic. Yeah, and I you know, and I love
Speaker 1: one of the other quotes that you said about your
Speaker 1: time at ESPN and your decision to which is that
Speaker 1: two things can be true at the same time. They
Speaker 1: ESPN can protect their business and I have the right
Speaker 1: to protect my integrity. And I think that that to
Speaker 1: me sums up you know a truth that real journalists,
Speaker 1: and I emphasize the word real in this day and age,
Speaker 1: really need to hold onto this idea of where their
Speaker 1: integrity lies. And look, I am not somebody that is
Speaker 1: going to tell anyone to turn down a check right
Speaker 1: and not be able to pay their mortgage or their rent,
Speaker 1: or you know, provide for their families or themselves. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, if you don't have integrity, what
Speaker 1: do you have? Right? If you can't really look yourself
Speaker 1: in the mirror or feel good about the work that
Speaker 1: you're doing, then what are you doing? And so and
Speaker 1: so I feel like the decisions that you have made
Speaker 1: and the movements that you have made over the past
Speaker 1: couple of years really signify that and make you emblematic
Speaker 1: of integrity and journalism and what that looks like. And
Speaker 1: I feel you know too, that it has been over
Speaker 1: there so the fuckery of this entire administration, that it
Speaker 1: has been black women in a variety of places and
Speaker 1: spaces that have been holding down the integrity of this country.
Speaker 1: I saw somebody tweet this, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was because it was their thought or the thought
Speaker 1: of someone else. Is that you look across the span
Speaker 1: of our history, black women have always been the conscious
Speaker 1: of America, always, always, And I think it's an unfair burden, frankly,
Speaker 1: and one that we shouldn't be strapped with. Regardless. One
Speaker 1: of the last things that I would love to get
Speaker 1: your thoughts on, obviously, you have throughout the stance against
Speaker 1: Colin Kaepernick and him not being signed, and then the
Speaker 1: bogus workout that was put together, and then jay Z
Speaker 1: deciding to create a partnership with the NFL. You've been
Speaker 1: very outspoken for the past several years on this. Why
Speaker 1: do you feel that? And don't let me put words
Speaker 1: in your mouth, but this is really like my feeling.
Speaker 1: Why do we as a country. Is it okay for
Speaker 1: us to embrace men that are batterers, sexual assaulters, addicts
Speaker 1: and what have you. We can rehab those people right
Speaker 1: and keep them in the league or keep them in
Speaker 1: positions of power, but when it comes to black people
Speaker 1: owning their space, their place, their voice, and trying to
Speaker 1: bring attention to oppression that is still very much being experienced,
Speaker 1: we need to shut them down. And that's from you know,
Speaker 1: the NFL onward right. And I feel like, one, this
Speaker 1: is a two part question, why is that seemingly okay?
Speaker 1: And then two, what do we do about people that
Speaker 1: decide like a jay Z, who I have admired and
Speaker 1: appreciated from a business standpoint, from a music standpoint, for
Speaker 1: basically my whole life. What does it say about those
Speaker 1: that then decide to create partnerships with whom I believe
Speaker 1: to be, you know, the devil in sheep's clothing, the
Speaker 1: wolf in sheep's clothing. Well, the reason why Colin Kaepernick
Speaker 1: is such a turnoff, but somebody who has been accused
Speaker 1: of or has actually committed domestic violence is not is
Speaker 1: because in the eyes of sports fans, and maybe in
Speaker 1: the eyes of more than just sports fans as well.
Speaker 1: But that is a correctable and I put this in
Speaker 1: air quotes behavior like you can convince somebody that wants
Speaker 1: to just enjoy the games and isn't trying to be
Speaker 1: too turned off if they have to think too hard
Speaker 1: about who these players are and in some cases what
Speaker 1: they've done to harm other people, you can convince them
Speaker 1: they don't do that anymore. You know. That's why they
Speaker 1: go through these intense processes to show people they're different
Speaker 1: and nothing we don't ever actually see what's different. Only
Speaker 1: two things usually changes, and that is because we don't
Speaker 1: know these people. We have no idea, right. The only
Speaker 1: thing that usually changes is they start winning, and there's
Speaker 1: a sports in particular to associate winning with character and
Speaker 1: they have nothing to do with each other, or they
Speaker 1: just stay out of the news. That's it. It's like,
Speaker 1: as far as we know, they're not beating any women
Speaker 1: or assaulting any women because we haven't read about it.
Speaker 1: So we just then make the leap like, oh, they've changed.
Speaker 1: So these are easy things to sell to the public.
Speaker 1: Which you can't sell to the public is that Colin
Speaker 1: Kaepernick woke up and he said, you know what, despite
Speaker 1: everything I said about police brutality, y'all are right, police
Speaker 1: don't brutalize black people. They don't. You can't change somebody's
Speaker 1: critical thinking in their mind that, especially about something that
Speaker 1: is about a system of oppression and institutional racism. You
Speaker 1: can't sell to people that they don't think this exists anymore,
Speaker 1: because it does, and it's much more uncomfortable because it's
Speaker 1: in your face, and a lot of people then have
Speaker 1: to start projecting inward and say, okay, well, if I'm
Speaker 1: okay with the structure again, what does this say about me?
Speaker 1: If I don't want to be reminded of the fact
Speaker 1: that these players that on Sundays that I put on
Speaker 1: this high pedestal that ideified, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: reminded about where they come from and the dangers them
Speaker 1: and their children face. I don't want to think about that.
Speaker 1: I want to say and name things like keep politics
Speaker 1: out of sports. When every game I go through they
Speaker 1: sing the national anthem and there's military flyovers, I don't
Speaker 1: want to think about that. So everybody kind of wants
Speaker 1: this to be easily digestible, and it never has been
Speaker 1: and it never will be. So you have to be
Speaker 1: willing to do the tough work of thinking your way
Speaker 1: through it, and you know understanding that life and things
Speaker 1: are complicated. And while I do get, especially in this time,
Speaker 1: that a lot of fans just want to enjoy their
Speaker 1: sports and not think about the atrocities happening in the
Speaker 1: White House or the horrors of this administration, or just
Speaker 1: don't want to be reminded about ship period that's going on.
Speaker 1: I get you want to unplug for two hours or
Speaker 1: three hours and just worry about who scored more touchdowns
Speaker 1: and what this means to your fantasy team. But that
Speaker 1: ain't life. And I think because we've seen sports politics
Speaker 1: race gender always intertwined. The only thing that's different with
Speaker 1: Colin Kaepernick is that right now people are trying to
Speaker 1: act like he won't be on the right side of history.
Speaker 1: The only thing that changed about Muhammad Ali Why but
Speaker 1: he became embraced. Well, it was two things. One he
Speaker 1: got sick. Two everybody saw he was right. Years later,
Speaker 1: once everybody was able to do the autopsy on Vietnam
Speaker 1: and everything that happened, they're like, damn, he kind of
Speaker 1: had a point. But why are you waiting to after
Speaker 1: the fact if you consider yourself a little bit courageous,
Speaker 1: a little bit brave, the time to support people is
Speaker 1: when they're going through the worst shit, not after they've
Speaker 1: been proven right. It's very interesting to me that the
Speaker 1: International Olympic Committee, well, I guess the started from the
Speaker 1: United States Olympic Committee when it came to Tommy Smith
Speaker 1: and John Carlos who raised their fist, you know, over
Speaker 1: fifty years ago, to bring attention and awareness to the
Speaker 1: fact that this bite standing on this metal stand and
Speaker 1: representing America, they were not welcome in their own country.
Speaker 1: They were kicked off the team, totally ostracized, just criticized,
Speaker 1: and every corner called all the same things conin Kaepernick
Speaker 1: is being called. Only for years later the Olympic Committee
Speaker 1: to say, oh, we want to honor them, and at
Speaker 1: the same time pass a resolution that bans athletes from
Speaker 1: making those similar stances on the metal podium. So it's
Speaker 1: like the more people say, oh, you learn from history, No,
Speaker 1: we do not learn from history. We literally do the
Speaker 1: same shit over and over again. So that's one piece
Speaker 1: of it. Your second question about aligning partnerships, This has
Speaker 1: always been the tension in the movement within our community,
Speaker 1: civil rights movement, every movement. Is it better to work
Speaker 1: from within or work from outside and put the pressure
Speaker 1: on the people that you're trying to change, often through
Speaker 1: economic means, boycotting and the like. Both can be accomplished.
Speaker 1: But when you choose to work from the end, as
Speaker 1: jay Z is choosing to do, you gotta be careful
Speaker 1: and aware of who you're dealing with. And this is
Speaker 1: not to discredit or disrespect jay Z, who's very smart
Speaker 1: and obviously become me hip Hop's first billionaire, Like he
Speaker 1: knows what he's doing. But the NFL is different because
Speaker 1: of the structure in the setup. This is thirty two
Speaker 1: owners who operate as independent nations. To get approval by
Speaker 1: the owners is difficult, and people are saying like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe he's trying to make an ownership play. They've never
Speaker 1: had a black owner, and I could tell you jay
Speaker 1: Z ain't gonna be the first one. I hope I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: And by being an owner, I don't mean a steak.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have a There's a lot of black celebrities
Speaker 1: that do have steaks and teams like Serena has a
Speaker 1: steak of the Dolphins. You know, I think Jay Low
Speaker 1: does as well. So there's a lot. You know, you
Speaker 1: get like point five percent or point two percent. You
Speaker 1: have no hiring power, no firing power, no decision making
Speaker 1: power whatsoever. Zero Unless you can get to that magic
Speaker 1: number of fifty one percent of owning an NFL team,
Speaker 1: that's the only time you can change anything that's happening.
Speaker 1: So Roger Goodell works for the thirty two owners. The
Speaker 1: thirty two owners weren't at that PR show that they
Speaker 1: made about the partnership. What is it that the NFL
Speaker 1: has that jay Z needs? The answers nothing nothing, they
Speaker 1: need him? Okay, I mean he rapped about it. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't need you. I feel stadiums too correct.
Speaker 1: So it's like, why give them what they want? Because
Speaker 1: what they were trying to do, and they pointed this
Speaker 1: out the new York Times did a great story about
Speaker 1: this when they got the audio tapes of the meeting
Speaker 1: that happened between the players and the NFL owners as
Speaker 1: they tried to sort out what to do about this protest.
Speaker 1: One of the things that was said in the meeting
Speaker 1: by the Bills owner, he said, it we need a liaison.
Speaker 1: We need a face to take the issue of social
Speaker 1: justice away from KLi Kaepernick from being the face and
Speaker 1: projected onto someone else. Hello, jay Z. It may not
Speaker 1: have been used typically that we're a part of the
Speaker 1: game plan, but their game plan was to get a
Speaker 1: black person to help them ease their way into the
Speaker 1: good graces of the black community, and they got somebody
Speaker 1: who obviously is universally respected by most of us, and
Speaker 1: immediately it put everybody at odds. It took the heat
Speaker 1: off the NFL. You can't say it's time to move
Speaker 1: past Colin Kaepernick when the NFL has created an entire
Speaker 1: social justice campaign that they would not have cared about
Speaker 1: if not for Colin Kaepernick, and just erase him from
Speaker 1: the picture. If Jay Z wants to change some of
Speaker 1: the structures in the NFL. While I'm sure the money
Speaker 1: the NFL has created in partnership with jay Z in
Speaker 1: the players coalition, it's going for real things and there's
Speaker 1: tangible successes that are happening on the ground in the trenches.
Speaker 1: That's great. What the NFL needs to address is why
Speaker 1: is there only one black general manager? Why has there
Speaker 1: never been an NFL owner? How come there's only in
Speaker 1: this hiring cycle, there were nine coaching openings and only
Speaker 1: one person of color was hired. Why are there only
Speaker 1: I think it's three coaches of color as head coaches.
Speaker 1: That's the stuff the NFL needs to deal with. And
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, as the curator of the Super Bowl, how
Speaker 1: is jay Z getting them better musical acts going to
Speaker 1: change any of that? It won't. He's not an owner.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna be able to walk into Jerry Jones
Speaker 1: office and say, you know what, hire this black guy. Nah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work that way. So to me, they got
Speaker 1: everything they wanted out of the deal, which is re
Speaker 1: establishing that relationship with the African American community because they
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of black fans. It was so
Speaker 1: much attention. It's much like with all the stories that
Speaker 1: have been about the election and leading up to the election,
Speaker 1: about how you know, they become this endless stories about
Speaker 1: the heartland and what rule voters think and all this
Speaker 1: and that right, such a concentration on them, which I
Speaker 1: read as we just care what these white people think
Speaker 1: about this election, and that's it. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: never mind like eight five percent of people live in
Speaker 1: metropolitan areas, you focus on the three that live in
Speaker 1: Kansas somewhere cool do that. So beyond that, it's been
Speaker 1: the same thing with Colin Kaepernick. A lot of focus
Speaker 1: on all the people who don't want Colin Kaepernick on
Speaker 1: their team, who don't like Colin Kaepernick. Meanwhile, his stuff
Speaker 1: is selling out in Nike. They can't keep any of
Speaker 1: his things on the shelves. Black people and a lot
Speaker 1: of other people of other races support Colin Kaepernick. It's
Speaker 1: probably just as many on both sides, but the NFL
Speaker 1: decided to cater to only one group, and that group
Speaker 1: is led by the president because that was a big
Speaker 1: piece of this too. Donald Trump seal Colin Kaepernick's fate
Speaker 1: and that sham work out again wasn't going to change that.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump told Jerry Jones, which Jerry Jones testified during
Speaker 1: Colin Kaepernick's grievance hearing Donald Trump told him not to
Speaker 1: put Colin Kaepernick on a team because this is a
Speaker 1: winning issue for him. In other words, one of the
Speaker 1: few things that a lot of people who aren't Trump
Speaker 1: supporters could kind of agree on a little bit was
Speaker 1: that his protest was misguided and misplaced and they didn't
Speaker 1: have place in the NFL. He knew that, which is
Speaker 1: why he kept saying his name at rallies. He was
Speaker 1: gonna get one topic that he could probably get a
Speaker 1: little bit more than majority support, unlike some of the
Speaker 1: other things that he says. And he pretty much told
Speaker 1: the NFL, if you put this dude in the league,
Speaker 1: his name is never getting out of my mouth. The
Speaker 1: NFL wants to eliminate those bad headlines, eliminate that division.
Speaker 1: So the easiest thing to do was to make sure
Speaker 1: that Colin Kaepernick never had a job in the NFL.
Speaker 1: No amount of partnership was going to change that as
Speaker 1: far as Jay Z being involved, And so that workout
Speaker 1: was just disgraceful and disrespectful to Colin Kaepernick. And you
Speaker 1: know what, he went through it anyway. And so for
Speaker 1: those people who questioned whether or not he actually wanted
Speaker 1: to be playing football again. Why would a man who
Speaker 1: hasn't played since twenty sixteen be in nearly perfect shape.
Speaker 1: Why would he put himself through that if he didn't
Speaker 1: actually want to play. So it's just I love jay Z.
Speaker 1: I respect him still. I respect everything he's done for
Speaker 1: the community. I just disagree with him doing this particular
Speaker 1: thing because I think ultimately the juice will not be
Speaker 1: worth to squeeze, and we will find that out as
Speaker 1: time goes on. Jamal, thank you so much for your
Speaker 1: time and for joining PM mood. You continue to inspire
Speaker 1: me and so many other people in the media profession.
Speaker 1: I'm just very grateful for your power, your bad assery,
Speaker 1: your boldness, your black girl magic. Really genuinely appreciate you well.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me on. This is a great conversation
Speaker 1: and I appreciate it you thinking of me, of course.
Speaker 1: Of course, if you want to hear more from me,
Speaker 1: check out my live daily political talk show, Woke a
Speaker 1: f Daily at DNR Studios. You can subscribe now at
Speaker 1: www dot DNR studios dot com. Slash Quoke