Were back. Welcome to our tenth annual become festival. Im phil and aim an area author and recorder for the town courier. Were a city at that time proud by supports the arts and humanity. Were pleased to bring you this fact louse event thanks to the generous support of of volunteers. Please sighens your devices. We hope your following the gbf on facebook, twitter and instagram. If you post about the festival, please use the gbf hash tag. Your feet back is really valuable to us. Surveys are available here at the tent and on our web site. By submitting a survey youll be beard into a drawing for 100 visa gift card remember thats cool. Atan thomas will be signing backs immediately after the expense the signing area up there copies of the book are on sale in the politics and prose tent. A quick word about buying books. This is a free event but helps if you buy a lot of books. The more books we sell, the more publishers want to send their authors here to speak with us. Purchases backing from our partner politics and prose helps support one of the world loads great book stores and benefits our local economy and supports local jobs and they make great gifts sol if you enjoy the program and youre in a position to do so, please do buy books here today. At first glance, it may not be obvious how much etan thomas and i have in common. Etan spent 11 years with the nba, including nine with the Washington Wizards as a 6 foot 10inch power forward. And i of course did not. But as a High School Sports writer for Community Newspaper i spent a lot of time with and around High School Athletes and young fans. I appreciate how an athlete, especially a professional athlete, can influence young people in ways that teachers, coaches, clergy, and parents cannot. And so does etan. As he describes in his book we matter, athletes and activism. Etan realized in high school that people would listen to him just because he played basketball. Quote, i could raise awareness. And so he has. As a poet, author, activist, mentor, and motivational speaker, and i would add educator. He is committed to be more than an athlete as he entitled his first book. Now in this his fourth book, etan continues to explore the power that athletes have to influence the youth. He speaks with and shares the experiences of fellow athlete activists such as bill russell. John carlos, elan sew morning, Kareem Abduljabbar, to describe the positive impact that athletes can have on social change and encourages other athletes to do the same. For those who recall watching etan play, youll remember he played with passion, energy, commitment, and i can say he writes the same way he played basketball. With the same kind of passion and commitment and never backing down from opponents like racism and social injustice. Today etan is in conversation with tony. Tony needs no introduction. That because tony just poke about his first book about two hours ago and i assume most of you were in the audience heard this introduction. But if you didnt, tony of former university of maryland basketball star, played professionally [applause] let me get to the punch laughed goodfor parts of 15 seens in the nba. As well as in europe, and puerto rico. He has ban restaurateur, a wiz sports caster and now an author. So im getting out of their way now and lets get the conversation going. Please join me in a warm gaithersberg welcome for etan thomas and tony. [applause] how is everything doing . Great. Thank you for coming out today. I want to start before we do our talk, everybody thats knows me or heard manufacture me nows my passion for poetry and spoken word and they called me the poet when i played and i want to bring son malcolm up to start us every with a poem. This is a poem i printed at the end of the book, we matter and i might do a little bit of my poem as well. Mine is a little longer. But well start off with malcolm doing his poem called kaepernick. [applause] colin kaepernick. Hes carrying on his position of athlete take as stand what they believe is right. With the thought of lose energy job just to stand happy to fight. Muhammad, ally, john carlos, Kareem Abduljabbar and many other stood up. Criticizing. Hated. Who wants a creator a negative association because thats differ agree with the overall appreciation presentation of miss message. During thank you man an them the took a knee, repping the cant different of the brown and black people in the socalled land of the free, where veterans fought for the trying be the home of the brave or so shay say. 0, say can you see . They try to say he was disrespecting the military but if they real cared we wouldnt have so many Homeless Veterans unable to get medical treatment for the post traumatic state, seeping on sidewalks and under bridges, unable to get jobs or foot food on their familys plate. Stand and took of their hat odd but when they come back for more, actually fighting for the united states, they kicked them to the curb. Push them out like trash cans on garbage day but didnt like capperer nick to call foul. Theying a tack he hid character, pointed fingers and talked, said he was antiamerican. Using the television to tear him down because he called out what wasnt right. There are all for athletings using their voices until they Say Something they dont like. Uhhuh. Typical. I see them the same people that bring the dad on their shows to get him to criticize current Authorities Say the where the moder day jim browns or dub but as soon as colin cap permission to talks bout Police Brutality they want him to shut up and play. Much respect to colin kaepernick, posting with a black panther fro and a pick in it. Refused to be forced to choose between one bat and one worse president ial people. The said both choices sucked. The lesser of two evils wasnt good enough option to work with. They were cheating the people. Now, the nfl trying to blackball him. Keep him from playing. Saying he is a negative influence in the distraction from the rest of the team is what theyre claiming. They say he is a bad american . As if dan snyder is a model citizen for his Washington Football Team organization . [applause] using a racist name he no good and well is offensive to native americans. Yall got rapists, murders and wife beaters with no hesitation, repeated Domestic Violence offend cher get the standing ovation and i have the nerve that collin you all a bunch of hitch credits. My man kaepernick donated 50tons of food to somalia. Gave to 50,000 to meals on wheels. Holds know your rights camps, teaching them the real deal. Gave money to standing rock. Wanted the dakota pipeline, that was going to poison theyre water supply and destroy their lives to stop. He stood outside a new York City Parole Office and donates couple of made suits to men who gout out of jail. He is getting them ready for Job Interview and he donated a million does to black lives matter. Doing all of this out of the kindness of his heart and yall questioning his character . All this hypocrisy ties much for me. Maybe any 13yearold minute doesnt understand the grownup rationity but i know a real revolutionary can never be stopped. Colin kaepernick is an inspiration to us all. His ability to stand for something, even if itself means giving up everything, thats why what he did will always mean a lot. Thank you. [applause] [cheers and applause] thats my man, malcolm. So, thank you. Thank you. One of the thing is like to do is encourage young people to use their voices and develop their minds and develop their opinions, so a lot of times i do a lot of workshops and have young people create their own spoken word on whatever topic. Not just topics ai agree with and thats the beauty of spoken word because you can create your own everything. So im going to do quick little bit of a poem of mine called you matter and then well start off. Everybody feel good . Yes. Cool. Cats werent bomber with a form of silverware but got that inner city dental care. Or dudes who pursue red, white and blue promises who fail the acknowledgment that for some life, this aint no crystal. Let downsom injuries who fail to purge, punish or hold those accountable who are sworn to protect and serve. For cats who keep hearing about all these good cops but always encounter the bad. And folks who are tired of seeing victims on trial for their own murder whenever the trigger man has a badge. For folks who cant stand seeing these whack juries come out after the fact, how they actually believed the cop was guilty but for some reason just couldnt convict him. All i want to do is take the chains off. Im tired of seeing killers suddenly become victims. For every emerald sunshines sund and eric gardner every one who lost their lord one from trigger happy cops who get paid leave and go minute me, dont believe your modify doesnt matter. No matter the chatter across nonindictments and not guilty verdicts, dont leapt them incertain inferiority no mach how much their justice burns. Were still yearning for respect in a system built for us to fail. Telling us tales of freedom and justice for all. Game us like an arcade, spinning our little quarter straight playing ourselves until our lives over, try to having screaming and kick without weed controller and this aint no game. They letting monsters free. Like Darrin Wilson and betty shelby. Selfappointed neighborhood watchman, jordan George Zimmerman and cowards hiding behind their balances like rudy giuliani. Trying to destroy our soul, diminish our certain and subjugate our mentality. Walter scats children no longer have a dad. But they want to say the reason for kaepernicks protest was ball out the flag. [cheers and applause] that was awesome. Wasnt that awesome, ladies and gentlemen . Me and this man go way back. Way back. Way back. To banging in the paint. Two guys that liked to play physical. Yes. By and saw him when hi first came in the league and what year was that . 2000. 2000. So by that point i was already ten years in so he he was a guy we had a lot of respect for each other, we started working out together and what he wont tell you is that i was still working out with him when i was well over 40, lets just say, and he was in the nba, and i was Still Holding my own but i did reach the point and i said etan, i cant do this no more. But also, tony was really instrumental in me i had open heart surgery, and so on my comeback in my training and everything like that, i got with tony and he got me in the gym, pushing me and didnt take it easy on me and i needed that. So, i really thank him for that. [applause] authors this is your fourth book. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. [applause] deserves a round of applause. You played a big part of your life and everything that you do. Right. Can you tell us how you got so into poetry, why its so important to you. I was to into poetry from a young age, grew up listen to the last poets in Langston Hughes from my mother and me and playing around he house so when i got high school, i started writing my own poem. I remember a reporter calling you and when you played. Can you just talk about like, well, how do you accept that . When youre 610 and you tell people that you like to, you know, do the spoken word and poetry, what are the responses that people give you . [laughter] a lot of times when i was playing theyd look at me kind of weird because i was a little bit of aggressive player and probably the last person they thought was into poetry and that, you the reporter that youre talking about is tom knot he wrote for the Washington Times and he tried to mock me all the time because i was a poet and i would use that when i spoke to young people and embrace other talents outside of basketball and i would invite my teammates to come and hear me do my poetry and spoken word and performing in different places around d. C. And you know, guys had an appreciation for it, but i the fact that the reporter would mock me kind of make me stop doing poetry. But you have to be comfortable with who you are. Anybody that knows you a little bit. You know, you were an aggressive player and thats your reputation because thats what the general ropopulation sees etan thomas doing his thing underneath the boards and being physical. Can you talk a little about, how youve always spoken your mind, and why. Well, you know, like the gentleman introducing me, i discovered my voice in high school. Long story short i was stopped by a police on the way to a big game and kind of embarrassed. They thought they recognized me from a mug shot and thats why they kept me so long and run my plates and where they recognized me from and 45 minutes later, they found out that or realized that it was because i was in the paper playing basketball. So i wrote about that and i wrote it and it became my original oratory and i started doing it all over and winning a lot and getting a lot of attention for it and the tulsa world wrote an article about it and titled more than athlete and thats kind of where i saw, wow, you know, they really are doing this because i play basketball. And people would come up to me and say, hey, we really appreciate you saying this because it happens all the time, but nobody listening to us. And thats when i kind of continued to use that platform to be able to speak out on Different Things. Now, clearly you were young when that happened and there was no social media. No. And when you think about that situation now, give us your thoughts on how you think that would potentially play out today with a young man and the exact same position that you were in at that time, a high schooler, a kid doing some positive things gets mistaken for somebody else and goes through what you went through. Talk about what, how you think that would be handled now in the social media era. Well, the social media era changes everything. I wrote about it in the book, one time, you know, i coached my sons youth team and we were leaving from practice and stopped by the police. So, you know, first thing i did was i put my video my camera in the cup holder and put it on record and i turned the radio down interior lights on rolled the windows down, took my wallet out and put it on the dashboard because i know what i need to do, put my hands at 10 and 2. The policeman came, and license and registration, i said okay, im going to reach on the dashboard to reach for the license that you asked me for, is that okay. He said yes, and they flashed the light on my hands. And turns out i had a taillight out. Nothing terrible happen. And as to the time, as to what we have to do and has nothing to do with being fair or not. Malcolm was upset. They was treating you like you was a criminal, you didnt do anything wrong. All that for a taillight out thats not necessary. I hear you, but were not talking about what should be. Were talking about where we are, and the fact is that when youre a black man and youre stopped by the police, you have to work extra hard to defuse a situation and deescalate a situation that you didnt escalate it in the first place and the only thing that escalated it, is the color of your skin. Thats a terrible reality. I can speak on personal experience, i was stopped by a policeman for a traffic violation, within a split second i was surrounded not one, two, not three, but four police cars and so i just, obviously, made me a little b bitnbit nervous and i remember asking the officer, you just told me you pulled me over, obviously for a violation. Is this necessary . Quote, unquote, what i asked him, and he said, he told me, and again this wasnt a bad Police Officer, it was a white Police Officer, but it wasnt necessarily treating me like a criminal, but this is what he told me, he said when he said honestly your license reads 6foot 9, 260 pounds. He says said so when we see that, we automatically tend to have a little bit more show of force if case things dont go well and i just said, okay. So my question to you is, what do you think or if you had the opportunity to give Police Officers better training, what would you tell them, how would you tell them to approach guys who look like me and you . Ments well, first, they cant think the worst that were all criminals. I mean, thats number one. I mean, you know, hearing the story and weve done this at a lot of different universities and ive been speaking and touring different places and you know, a lot of the white i did an ivy league tour, went to harvard, went to columbia, yale, all of these different places and so most of the audience was mostly white and they said, listen, we dont know this world. And youre teaching us about this world. So tell us more. What can we do to help and what can police do to be able to, you know what i mean not have this situation happen. I said first of all its a privilege not to have to be in that situation. Number one. And so, one of the things that ive gotten as one of the main feedback from my book was hearing different athletes talk about Different Things that they have gone through, like hearing dwyane wade talk about how hes afraid for his son after Trayvon Martin was killed or Caramelo Anthony talk about why he came down to baltimore and protested with the people after freddie gray was killed because they have a personal connection to it. Right. And to say, you know, how do you teach somebody to not fear you, you know what i mean . And its a really tough question to ask. What you have to do, and ive been so i also interviewed some of the family members of the victims of Police Brutality in my book. So terrence crutchers sister tiffany and eric garners daughter emerald and Trayvon Martins brother, analyze and liza, a sister. And the answer to the question is we have to change the law. She says you cannot change peoples hearts because if they view you as a criminal, if theyre afraid of you, thats how theyre going to feel. I mean, you have different people in there who, from the time that theyre young, look at black people a certain way, and its hard to deprogram that no matter how much sensitivity training youre putting them through, you know what im . When a Police Officer does do something and when he pulls out his weapon when theres no threat and yet, they have clear things that are set where its not allowed. Right now, unfortunately, the only thing a Police Officer has to say is, i feared for my life. Thats it, thats all. No other details, no other anything else matters and were looking at the different clayses, they blanketly say, i fear for my life. I have no much respect for tiffany in particular, shes pushing for laws to be change, for the language to have to be different. So when betty shelby was on trial, she cant just say, you know, i feared for my life and thats it. She has to be able to show there was an immediate threat. And that youre pushing for those laws to change, but each Police Department is different, its not federally ran. Its a tough battle because theyre different. Nypd is different from the tulsa Police Department, totally different. So you know, but the fight has to continue because we dont want to keep having tragedies that theyve been having. In your book, we matter, athletes in activism, you talk to a lot of influential people in sports both young and old. Right. Can you talk about their differences in the times, if you did see difference between the younger and older generation. And ill say the older generation, ill say collectively i interviewed Kareem Abduljabbar and hodges, and all the people who grew up in my era and listening to them, the things theyre saying is that theyre happy to see this resurgence of activism in the younger generation, for a little while, it was a little quiet, the way to say it was quiet for a while and now you have these athletes, you know, starting with lebron and starting with kaepernick and going, the main athletes who are not hesitant to use their voice. Right. And you know, the thing thats so incredible right now is they have social media where they dont have to go to a tom knot at washington time if they want to come out about something. Lebron has more twitter followers than trump. You know what im . Oh, yeah, yeah. [applause] i mean, theyre their own media. Now what i mean . But imagine if like muhammad ali had a twitter account back in the day . Oh, absolutely. Theres so much power that Young Athletes have and what i really want to do with this book is to continue to encourage them to use that power and you know, thats kind of just a collective. I interviewed john wall for the book and talking how he watched lebron and caramelo at the espys and dwade and chris paul and they made their statement before the espys and how powerful it was and how it inspired him. Now, theyre peers, you know what im . But hes younger than that, so i want to continue to show the athletes in the younger generation, the athletes now in the current generations that are using their voices and hopefully continue to inspire them to do the same. What was im very curious to know one guys mammoud abdul raoul. He was fantastic. What about the guy who took a stand in the 90s, who would not acknowledge the flag and basically did what kaepernick did before kaepernick and subsequently found himself out of the league, not necessarily in the manner that kaepernick was ousted because it was clear that kaepernick deserved to be an nfl quarterback, but was not going to get an opportunity. Right. What do you think the difference is between the way that mammoud was portrayed in the 90s versus the way that kaepernick is portrayed now, both guys protesteded the flag . As far as then with the nba, theres a different administration. David stern was a lot different than adam filber to be honest and Donald Sterling was Donald Sterling a long time under david stern and everybody knew who Donald Sterling was. Craig hodges and raoul were blackballed under david sternment i interviewed adam silver for the book and i wanted to get him on record and ask him, would you punish a player who used their platform to speak on a topic, even one that you disagree with . And he said no, i would never do that. I value athletes using their voices and talk about the history of bill russell and kareem and everything like that and i interviewed ted of the wizards and mark cuban from the Dallas Mavericks and steve kerr. I wanted different people in management positions because the notion is if you do speak out, you know, its like youre going to be, you know, shooting yourself in the foot, you know what i mean . Ostracized. Youre going to mess up your career and everything is going downhill and i wanted to get the people in the positions of power to ask them. I had a different experience with the wizards. I had a great experience with them, you know, i mean, theyre i remember when i spoke at this big rally, antiwar rally and you know, it was during the summer and dave called me in his office and when i walked up there he had like the biggest smile on his face he says my son was at the rally. I was like word . He was like, yeah, and raving about you and it was great. And we talked for like an hour about politics, and we talked about Different Things, Affordable Housing and gentrification and all of this stuff. That entire experience could have been different if he was different. And what you see in the nfl is the difference in the leadership. So just like i interviewed different people in the nba, i tried to interview some people in the nfl. I wanted to interview Roger Goodell and dan snyder, they didnt return my calls. They werent having it . Okayment, but adam silver got right back to me. I love what youre doing, lets do it and that shows the difference in the culture of the nba. One of the things i want to keep doing as im talking to different Young Players is let them know you dont have to be afraid. You know what i mean . You can stand up for what you believe in, its a different era now, now the nfl is a little bit different. You know, and i spoke to eric green and tori smith and you know, a lot of the guys, shannon sharpe, who is hilarious, you know what i mean. No, he is. And theyll tell you, you know, when you step out in the nfl, you kind of have to you have to be a different level of a player where they cant get rid of you or youre taking a little bit of a gamble. And thats just the nature of it, where we are right now. With that all being the case, what do you think moving forward is going to be the challenges for, say malcolms generation, guys who are going to be in the pros in the next five to ten years . Well, one of the beautiful things that i see as im speaking to a lot of colleges and high schools and i mean, ive got to tell you, its great to see the passion in these young people. You know what i mean . I mean, the passion in the High School Age and not just on one subject. Theyre attacking gun violence, theyre attacking, you know, abortion, and theyre right now, all formulating whats going on in alabama and theyre organizing different protests and things. Its just, its beautiful to see the energy. You know what i mean . Its not necessarily about something that i agree or disagree with, its just the fact that they had that energy and awareness. So im looking at the different high schools and talking to them. Theres a Political Awareness its like back in the day. I dont know if this is because as a result of the Current Administration where everything put on alert and shocked everybody, i dont know what the reason is, but right now where young people are right now, theyre aware and i think a lot of it has to do with social media because theyre shown everything so much. You know what i mean . When we was younger, my first seeing on video of a Police Beating was rodney king. You know what i mean . That was i was in middle school and that was shocking to me, all right . But theyre seeing it every other week, on their social media. Yes. So theyre constantly on alert, wait a minute weve go the to do something, this isnt right. Its a matter of energy and having the right guidance and its beautiful to see. Now, i notice that you talk to a lot of athletes, former and present, we talked about that. Have you ever had the opportunity to talk to any hollywood people . Because we often talk about hollywood having influence over our culture. Right. And certain actors and then, theyre also held to a standard to where they can disassociate themselves with their careers, depending on what they choose to support. Have you had an opportunity to interact with anybody on the hollywood level . And if you do, what would you say to them in an effort to try to bring awareness. I interact with a lot of people. So you know, hollywood people lock at us, oh, my gosh, you know what im . Thats the guy from the movies. Thats tony massonberg from the spurs. So theres been a lot of them come up to me i like what youre doing. You know what im doing . Youve got to get over that part for a minute. Interesting, i was just talking to alec baldwin and he does the impressions on saturday night live and your impressions are so fantastic, ive got to tell you, all the way great and hes telling me how, its interesting that you know, the response that actors get, kind of differs from what athletes get. Now what i mean . Its a little bit of a stronger, not, i dont want to say hatred, but just anger when people dont agree with athletes. So the reason you have somebody like a Laura Ingraham who tells lebron to shut up and dribble because she disagrees what with he had saying. Had he said something that they agreed with he would be on fox news. On bill oreilly or sean hannity. You Say Something that they disagree with, you need to stay in your lane and thats a part you see a lot more with athletes. You know, but i this is something ive always said, and kind of surprises people sometimes, but this is honestly what i believe. You know, a little while ago you had nick bosa who was drafted and he was a trump supporter and did a whole lot of things and cleaned out his account and chatter about it. And this is my sense on this. I wrote about it for the guardian, i now write for the guardian. For who dont know who nick bosa for the San Francisco 49ers, second pick in the draft. Everybody has the right to their opinion and even, i cant say because nick has a different opinion than mine that he should shut up and play football. Im being a hypocrite if i do that. I think theres value in healthy dialog, in discussion, in debate. Its okay to disagree, you know what i mean . You have to disagree without being disagreeable like president obama always said, but stick to the facts. Its this notion and the thing about this, it happens on both side the left and write. If somebody says something that you disagree with, then automatically they want to shut the person down, attack them personally make them look like theyre not qualified to speak on the subject theyre speaking on. He have to get away from that. Everybody has the right to speak on something. Thats how you have discussion. If you could be in charge of the media and the way that sometimes black men are portrayed. Right. What would you change . Oh, theres so much. I mean, when were portrayed, this is one of the things that Michael Bennett kept talking about in the book, theyre portrayed and these superstars, now what i mean . And Russell Westbrook said the same thing. Everybody in the whole stands in the thunder arena, theyre chanting my name and wearing my jersey and all of this stuff, but then, you know, if i was if my car was broken down on the side of the road like terrence crutchs was, how would they view me . Would they view me as a threat . Would they view me as a bad dude, like the Police Officer said over the scanner about terrence, and a lot of times when were portrayed, you know, were demonized. So you have a person who is has been killed by the police and all of a sudden theyre the one on trial. Now what i mean . Then theyre talking about when they got suspended back in middle school and had something, all of this different stuff. Wait a minute, isnt the policeman on trial not the person thats dead . And thats that demonization that happens, you know, in the media kind of constantly. And its tough to see because you know, when i first wrote the book and i opened up talking about my son malcolm. So malcolm was about six years old at the time. And this is when Trayvon Martin was killed. He happens to accidentally see the news. Like i had it on and sometimes you forget your kids are running in and out so he had watched it and you know, i had to make a decision. And it was a very difficult decision to make. You know, my son was six years old at the time. Remember, hes six, but as you saw him when he was up there, it aint a regular sized kid you know, he was six, but he looked older. And our kids, they look older because theyre taller and everything likes that. Kid now theyre just built different, i dont know if its hormones or whats going on. Something in the food. Theyre built different so i had to remove the disney rosecolored glasses from him to make him understand that, you know, in society, as you get older, youre not going to be looked at as the cute little kid with dredlocks that looks like his daddy, you know what im . Youre going to be looked at like a threat and thats a difficult thing to have to do. In the book, one of the main responses that ive gotten as we do that tour across Different Countries different places in the country, different universities, people are shocked that athletes had the feeling that had to have the talk with our children and thats the biggest response. Wait, dwyane wade was afraid for his children . He shouldnt have to be afraid for his children. Absolutely. Its kind of messed up that takes somebody you look at as a hero and that youre a fan of to say, oh, wait, theres a problem and thats the reality of it so its using that platform to theyll listen because lebron said it or Russell Westbrook said it or dwyane wade said it. You also have a radio show . Yes, the collision, with dave barren, every thursday here on wpfw. Yes, wpfw thats right. This is your fourth book. Yes. When people read any one of the books in your collection, what is the overall message you want them to walk away with. So many, my book before this was father hood raise to the ultimate challenge and basically got a lot of different people in all walks of life. This is like sports, rappers, athletes, actors, everybody and we all talked about father hood because i didnt like the way that fathers were being portrayed in the media, you know what i mean . So i wanted to create something different. I didnt like the way that young people who grew up in a single parent household were kind of being told that if they come from a broken home theyre probably going to end up in jail or something terrible. I didnt like people always throwing statistic at them constantly. Now, that bothered me so i wanted to do something that was inspirational to them. So a lot of stuff i do is based on inspiration. My mother has been a teacher, shes still a teacher. Shes been retired, but is a teacher. Shes retired and works for oake public schools. She brought me to talk to students. I was like in i just went to syracuse. Mom, i havent done anything yet, im a little bit holder than them. No, you need to talk to them, youre an inspiration because youre there at least. She always had me talking and thats how i got in the mode of always kind of using my mistakes, using my not even talking like this type of a thing. Its using the mistakes that ive made and being honest with young people and saying were telling you this so you dont make the same mistakes, too. And young people appreciate when adults are honest. Were going to take this time right now. Weve got a couple of minutes left. Want to do a little bit. Q a if you have any questions for etan at this time. Anybody out there . Got one [inaudible] Major League Players association and how they dont sponsor any kind of political involvement. This guy, nflpa, he ran for office. Redski redskins quarterback, he ran. And what do you think of the sports getting behind candidates and making necessary change in this country . I think the tough part about that, you know, right now were trying to give sports to not necessarily try to sign the athletes in different sports. You saw the problem that happened with the boston red sox, half wanted to go to the white house and half didnt want it and they kind of suppressed and didnt want so. 0s are kind of trying to balance so i think it would be tough for them to endorse one candidate. What they should do is create an atmosphere where their athletes have the theyre comfortable voicing their opinions, and especially in the nfl. You know, they talk about doing a few Different Things and carving out different instances because they put the spotlight on them now, but when you talk to nfl players and they have nonguaranteed contracts and that means theyre an employee atwill and they could say i dont like your face today im going to cut you. Its a different kind of a risk. Thats the first step for organizations to continue to start making steps whether athletes feel comfortable and not muzzled in silence. Anybody else . Right here. Yes, thanks, sir. Thank you. I just want to mention, did you mention anything about greenwood in your book . Malcolm actually has a poem on black wall street and we performed it a few different times. I grew up in tulsa so black wall street is something that we were taught from a young age and i was surprised after i went to syracuse so many people didnt know what happened. Where my mother lives ten minutes from where greenwood was and black wall street. In 1921, you know, the black community in tulsa basically had everything that they needed. They had hospitals, you know, banks, you know, they didnt have to go across the Railroad Tracks for my reason, i mean, cross the Railroad Tracks, to say its segregated and basically, the entire city burned everything down. The helicopters came, dropped bombs, it was a massive orchestrated event that you cant happen, something cant happen that way just lie chance. It was very orchestrated and it was a horrific time in history that a lot of people were not being taught about and thats in a nutshell what happened. Okay. Theres another one here. Use that microphone right there. [inaudibl [inaudible] inaudible thank you, appreciate it. [applause] could we get a microphone over here . I think were having theyve got it. Were good. They got it. [inaudible] just talk loud. How much of that dialog teams to be going on at the professional level, at the College Level and especially at the High School Level among black and white athletes . So people ask that all the time with me. How much dialog goes on about this and people are always surprised when i tell them, yeah, guys talk about this all the time in the locker room. Absolutely. Talk about the range of things. And gilbert is talking about this, the topics that everyone else is talking about. One of the things, there was a fear, you heard this a lot with colin koppernick, hes going to divide the locker room and its going to be terrible. And if you have people with different opinions somehow theyre not going to be able to play together. I dont know what the theory was. One of the teams saying the nba the most political and vocal, probably Golden State Warriors and they won a championship. And then you had, now, the eagles who they were very vocal in a lot of things they were doing and everything like that and they won the super bowl. And people, people think that athletes are not able to disagree because its like theyre afraid of creating anythi anything or having any topic be introduced. And people need to get past that. Because thats the whole part of discussion. Like ive had some of the best debates, discussions as im going through different universities and theyve been great, you know . And there are some that just recently, i believe i was at penn state and they said, okay, how can we be allies . How can we be allied . Im on your side and agree with what youre saying. This is not my world, i dont have to worry about the police. When i get pulled over by the place, man, how am i going to get out of this ticket . Yeah, thats not what were thinking at all. We understand that so how could we be allies . I said allies are so important. When you look back at the civil rights rrights movement in selma, when they were protesting and the police game, they beat the mess out of them. And they said we need to reach out to the clergy across the country and they came and then they paused and you know, that scene was so important, i think they didnt spend enough time on this to show how important the ali relationship is. Theyre not going to listen to kaepernick, or lebron. Theyll listen to steve kerr say it and Popovich Popovich is in texas, right . In texas, speaking the way hes speaking and didnt get na much criticism over it. Hes gotten praise. Gotten praise, so theres a certain amount of privilege you walk in, but using that privilege for good. And ive got to really commend popovich for and thats one of the things, let me ask you a question, i was so surprised by popovich. You played for him. I did not think that he felt the way that he felt. You know what im . As im talking to different players, asking antonio daniels. Yeah, popovich. Is that the popovich that you always knew . Thats the popovich ive always known. Youve got to remember, i met popovich when he was on larry browns staff. I was drafted by the spurs, and. Popovich, and larry brown. They were assistance under larry brown and one of the reasons why coach popovich speaks to the accountability, always holding his players accountable even thinks star players, one of the renes, because he comes from a red light background and there is no room for nonsense in the military. The goal is the only thing that matters and so he takes that military philosophy, that same philosophy, we are all one philosophy and not only brings it to the team, but to the entire organization because he runs the organization and makes everybody accountable, including himself. And thats the thing. Him being from the military background, he didnt buy into the narrative that kaepernick was trying to be disrespectful to the military and that was such a big thing because thats how the narrative was switched, purposely switched, but thats how it switched and i commended him for that. My point in saying that. Thats why the allies are very important. So people like the man who just had his daughter there. Its important for people to have allies and hear different perspectives and identify with an issue that might not necessarily directly affect you. It might not be something that youre worried about, but you can still say that it was wrong. First of all, id like to thank everybody for coming here. We hope youve enjoyed this gathering. This exchange of information this is so important. [applause] that Everybody Needs to understand. On etan thomas book is available. And my book lessons in lenny and along with my partner walt whitman and talks about it has a correlation that from the lem bias situation, and the laws now, enforced enforce ration, the difference between crack and cocaine. The action that has led to the problem that we have with mass incarcerati incarceration, a lot of that happened with lem bias. And look at the books, these are the way that etan can get messages out, what going on. Its not about changing everybodys finds to think a certain way. Its locking at things, and make a decision yourself whether its right or wrong and whatever it is you believed in. We hope you enjoyed this. We appreciate your support. Thank you very much. [applaus [applause]. [inaudible conversations] partisan politics. This is about 40 minutes. Welcome, everybody. Very excited to introduce todays offer a wonderful book called sex power and partisanship. Is this better . Im very happy to introduce todays offer doctor hector