Its an honor to be able to sit down with Howard Bryant and his book is called full dissidence notes from an uneven Playing Field. How are you mr. Bryant . Guest its good to see you again. Host this is a very interesting book today the chance to really read through it here and i really couldnt put it down. You attend original essays and i think he really touched on a lot of different topics with the different worlds that exist and they think mainstream america arent aware of those two worlds even though we are talking about them and pointing things out you do a good job of laying everything out through these different essays. You dedicated the book for tests. Guess who she is my other sister she is the original troublemakers i wanted to make sure i acknowledged her and she is one of the people that we always talk about in terms of when she and i go back and forth over the years talking about all the different subjects and details and of all the books ive done i thought this was the most appropriate for her. Host talk to me about your overall goals of the book. Guest i think the goal of the book was to reach an acknowledgment to try to sort out where we were as a country and for me as a person. I think after my last book the heritage that you helped me on very much and enjoy talking about all that about where black athletes were in the culture and the revival of the black political athlete. Think the combination of ferguson, the combination of the militarism, the combination of trayvon tennis 2016 election thinking about what was happening in sports and brought me back to thinking about where i was as a person and how this election tickets coors and implications of it. What were they going to do to relationships . I remember saying to myself that this election was going to end a lot of friendships and maybe some relationships as well. It created a moment of introspection to think of how could this happen in the wake of the first black president with eight years of barack obama and what was being said and what message was being sent to all of us . To me personally sports and you know we have had so much conversation on where politics did and how we are constantly told theres no room for politics, it made me think that sports was a major major vehicle and pushing a certain narrative while you are being told not to push that same narrative having a political attitude. It struck me that i needed to make some conclusions. I needed to really think about where we were and i started to think about that i didnt think i had ever characterized it in this way but i started to think that sports was one of the main sources of antieven on the previous book i started thinking about the power with the athletes and i began asking the question how much power do you really have if you lose everything if you run the risk of taking a black position in losing everything that you have despite your millions. Host having this conversation still in mourning over the tragedy that happened was kobe bryants death and the death of his daughter and the teammates of nine different people. Its the group that is coming against it right now and its only been 72 hours but you see that antiblackness where the are talking about the media or the social media. Thats another point we will delve into a demented but i wanted to get your reaction on that aspect and dealing with the kobe bryant tragedy. Guess who i how much of a connection there was in the fact that there was such a beloved character a one level but at the same time when we think about his arc his art was far from clean and i think its been real interesting watching how this has played out. I havent really come up with a thesis about it yet because it is so early and it was such a terrible tragedy but im sure over the next several weeks and months as we see how this plays out we will see some definitely. Host i definitely agree. One of the things that ive noticed when i went on different interviews we would do the interview and after a while we didnt really talk about the book. Guest did you read the book . Guest yes 2d then read the book lacks i want to go chapter by chapter and have a breakdown each chapter. The first is what Colin Kaepernick taught us. Guest the first section of the book was about this thing we were talking about these images and these ideas that sports is used to sell to the public. What is being sold by sports of the public in the first essay was really about kaepernick and the lessons of Colin Kaepernick that as we talked about him he still looming so large that hes at the center of so many different movements. Hes at the center when we are talking about the nfl and their initiatives now. We are still talking about kaepernick even though hes not in the game. Whether we are talking about his reannotate with nike and the different athletes that commit crimes and get into all kinds of trouble and yet they are allowed to return and what does that say . Everything seemed to come back to him. One of the things i wanted to concentrate on what the athletes in that chapter as well was to talk about two things. The first thing was labor. I was wondering when i got done at the heritage i was asking the whether or not i was to charitable to the athlete he talks about the Players Coalition and the athletes being at the forefront of this Movement Toward being more political and to thank after the book came out i was thinking the athletes really worn out front. It was the people were out front in the athletes will of the people. The athletes follow the teachers who are out there on strike in oklahoma arizona and West Virginia and i started thinking more and more about them and maybe the athletes in so many ways despite having as much much power as they have as much money as they have i found them to be more timid than i let on in the previous book. I wanted to really talk about that there is a movement taking place that we give the athletes credit because they are out front but what you are really talking about is power making its move across labor whether its the Supreme Court are talking about education or whether we are talking about sports, that you see institutions asserting themselves more and more. The second thing in that chapter that i wanted to talk about as well was me personally about what Colin Kaepernick representative. Over time there has been so much frustration and desperation at the same time about him. Number one about all the things he brought in terms of raising money and spending his own money and essentially monitoring his career for what he believed was right and for what he believed was right. I think at the same time people were frustrated that he didnt give any interviews and what did that mean if he was marketing is product and everything else. There was this tugofwar about okay well did he lose an opportunity as the leader and at the same time by not speaking in what was his strategy and tactics and then i started to take another position. By the end of that chapter i realized that he deserved our support and he deserved our sympathy in a lot of ways because just because nike decided to bring him back the number of organizations whether it was the police or fire or individual businesses that were trying to boycott nike just by mentioning this mans name told me that there was an entire movement that was out to destroy him and i felt that required a reassessment on my part that he deserves support and why it was so important and what did that say. Host one of the things that i liked about this chapter in particular because i spent a lot of time and i book talking about kaepernick and i like the way that you fully examined him. Its okay to be critical of somebody can still support them. Because about the fact that he didnt speak to the media and you critically tied to examine that. Wanted to talk about the fact that is it easier for him to get a lot of the credit for what the people ive been doing and pushing for . My answer to that would be a platform and an opportunity to further along a movement not to create the movement. I like the way that you examine that has some people are not able to critically look at a person in the dynamics of of it without saying im trying to cancel him im attacking him or im pro. I thought that was a credit to you. Guess that when we are thinking about him overall this time. He keeps changing. We are talking about you are really looking at august 2016. We are looking at almost four years in so many things changed between that time as well. Its going to be a constant assessment and reassessment of not just him but also us. Host its okay to criticize the military i thought was really good for a lot of Different Reasons but because people think if you were critical of the military than you are against veterans in your against the country and against america and thats a narrative that has been drawing a line in the sand to talk about this chapter little bit. Guest what i wanted to get across in that chapter more than anything else was to Pay Attention to the images that are being used to sports that what we are saying when we are watching a sporting event, we are so constantly trying to tell people if you have anything to say you are antitroop and your antiamerican and antithis or antithat and if that same thing where we are being told it isnt political. I look at this and im thinking the choices are being made in the United States every day with our money and every single day you are talking about not criticizing military or feeling as though you cannot discuss the military are also recognizing whats happening to our budget. We were looking at seven or 800 billiondollar Defense Budget and thats coming at the cost of something. When we are talking about sports we keep being told that we dont want to hear from Colin Kaepernick but at the same time youre out there and you see military and if you go out and take a look at some of the skeptics and some of the studies are out there we are at war and we have a military presence all over the world. We have a military presence in 76 countries. Across the world project was incredible and the research and the chapter where you looked at essentially what we are selling and what we are selling it the expense of what youre losing. What i thought was very important was to think about student debt and to think about all these things that are happening at the same time during a president ial campaign that you are not allowed to talk about the military and not allowed to talk about where the moneys going at the same time you have this National Conversation taking place about student debt and canceling debt in the next generation of americans that simply cant afford to choose majors that are going to put them in some financial problem. Host again i really appreciated this chapter because my grandfather taught fought in the korean conflict and we have these conversations all the time about the shortcomings of the military and the fact of Mental Health of being something where you got any type of assistance went to her brought back from the war. The veterans that you care about so much and their different problems. Its okay to discuss that and not painted as against an insight. Lets move on to the next one. Up again. Again i thought this was great because if you criticize the police then your antipolice. Or if you say okay this didnt happen the right way and the Police Department can do what they were supposed to do it comes with complete label and you again it is not the case. I think thats one of things as well and we talk about Product Placement in the overall conversation as well when you look at the culture when i take this under the movies and we are looking at all these trailers and we talk about the culture in all these different images and talk about who we are and everything attention to who we are and what we are selling . Whether its your buddy movies are your will smith or Martin Lawrence is her Duane Johnson are these movies were oneliners with more ammo and more ammo in how guns and police are such a central part of our culture. I think the fact that we are for policed and i wanted to discuss the difficulty in having Police Accountability and what having police as the center of your entertainment in the center of your culture what that actually does her justice. What does that mean for actual justice . Are evil and we talk about even someone like Colin Kaepernick where police reformer whatever power we supposed to have justice in the jury pool when people treat police like they are part of your favor ball team i wanted to really get out there and have conversation inside of that about the police being such a powerful presence in her Daily Culture and what that actually means and how difficult it is to even hold them accountable when you are looking at the discount and you are looking at the different dispensation they get it and remember this is taking place when we are we are being told that sports are political. Host its interesting since ive interviewed a lot of family members of the victims of alize brutality might look i have done a lot of work with him so Tiffany Crutcher and eric garners daughter i went to an event with Valerie Castile who was castiles mother. They keep having to repeat that over and over again. Guest the point is they feel like they have to say that. Host exactly what they want the rule to be able to change in the way that is antipolice. Its interesting what you said about how we are always flooded with when you see something happen mainstream america says lets wait for the fact that amount and that usually means lets wait until the police tell us what really happens. Because they know the police are going to tell us the truth. Guest thats one of the problems that we have are the police arent held accountable and they arent responsible for their own police reports. Think its dangerous as a culture that we are taking an entire field an entire industry and treating it as heroic and in every other business and if i go out and break the story thats not true i get sued. If you are doctor and operate in the wrong theres accountability and people want you but that doesnt apply to police and what that does is it creates a real danger in what it also does a constantly puts the black community in a defensive position and the dangers are obviously something we seen something we needed to discuss. Host you did it brilliantly. Lets move to the next one. The lost tribe of integration. Coming off of the hills of berkeley the king day and leaving out the part of the tremendous essay that he wrote and i wont say correctly but he said i feel like i integrated my people into a burning building or something of that nature. I thought about that as i was reading your chapter. Talk to us about this. Those essays are more personal about the price of integration about and what the price of is on africanamericans in the choice we are being asked to make. That was more personal for me growing up thinking about which of these is that my family made growing up in boston and thinking about the choice the family had to make for our education. Everybody who thinks it lost in the first thing they think is boston as being racist. My sister and i were part of that period of School Integration in boston. We were part of a voluntary program where we were bused out to the white suburbs so we were part of the inner city busting but we were getting up at 5 00 in the morning to go away schools. Those next several essays are about the price of and the price of integration and asking ourselves this question. All of the things that these black families are doing is to give you a better life, to give you an education and all these tools that you need. One of the issues that was pertinent for me was to this day why we still being asked to do these things . Why is the proximity to whiteness so important . Why are we still unable in so many ways to provide Educational Opportunities and resources in our communitys . Why is this choice in my personal case growing up in the inner city of boston and then moving 50 miles south to plymouth, massachusetts where you are trading one set of violence, the physical violence of the declining innercity to the emotional violence growing up around white people. You are growing up in an environment where you are the only lack kidding class for the rest of your school career. I wanted to talk about that because so many times we talk about this black experience in the authenticity of black experience when there are several black experiences. This was one of the areas were so many africanamerican students and parents make this choice. They take their kids and they put their kids against this white backdrop and how much of that emotional violence and trauma you were dealing with. The black schools teaching u. S. If youre inauthentic or being you are caught in between constantly and i wanted to talk about that and once again that question of why is all this necessary and what are the sacrifices that black terrence have to make in order to give their children the tools and the choices they need to become american. Host this chapter really spoke to me because i had a similar situation moving to oklahoma from new york. My parents wanted to put me in what was thought of as the best schools in oklahoma. Literally the third and fourth grade was okay and fifth grade was literally on earth for me. I started becoming a threat to the teachers and i started see how i was treated differently as the mom please get me out of this school. They do not like me hear and the things i like you pointed out was people think of it is the proximity to white people as being better but what he was is they have better resources in their schools but why did they have better resources and their schools . If we have the resources in our schools we wouldnt be trying to go over there. Its an important point to make. Guest and what is the emotional cost when you go to the schools and you go to these communities and then you come home and see what you have and you start wondering why are we like this . On the one hand you are thinking about the value of being in that environment and then he start it yourself and you have got to be strong to go through that and so many times you think about it. Our parents they sent us a message that you have to tough it out. They stuck us in there for our betterment and one of the things my sister and i spent a lot of time thinking about was what is better in the long run . A lot of black families are having that conversation retrospect. I know my family, the other members of her family that didnt do this talk about how important it was to maintain your identity even though you were in schools and it may not be as good as the ones we have gone to but they were willing to sacrifice a little bit of educational quality for your identity to maintain that identity and importance of keeping your identity. Host and is so important i cant say it enough, i looked at the positives and the negatives of it. On the one hand it taught me how society will be or how youll be looked at a certain way. You are looked at as inferior and as you dont belong. You will be looked at as a criminal in some cases some people dont like the notion that you have to be twice as good just to not be inferior. Not that you are but viewed as though you were not. I saw that throughout so did prepare me for that experience. I was so happy and middle school they went to Carver Middle School and got back around black people and educators and you know what i mean . Guest i think i had one black teacher through my entire high school career. I didnt have the black nongym teacher until africanamerican college. Those were the things that i think one of the difficult things if you were white and reading these essays is theres a feeling of inherent goodness that this is good for you ahead we are not placing you in a hostile environment. These environments are hostile and those were the things they were really difficult for me in thinking about these essays was you had to survive and some people did and a lot of people didnt. You have to find those different areas where for you and for me we played sports and if you could play that integrated you and gave you a leg up as opposed if you didnt have that thing that was going to ingratiate Unit Community you were going to be in real trouble. Posted you remember the movie finding forester . Guest of course. Host i would show the students and i would say listen you are going to run into teacher like you. They will challenge you and you have athletic talent but he dont really belong in their classroom and those interactions at a younger age or prepares you for what you are going to see especially if you get a dwi. Youre going to experience that in one of the things that you did in this chapter is really show this too makes you american. A lot of people dont know this. They dont know this is the situation that we are in in these institutions where we are looked at it. They dont know how that feels. Guest the other part of that is what does that do to your social life . Who are you going today to be friends with and all of a sudden before you know it you become integrated into whiteness and its not integration at all. Assimilation and especially when the study show if you have true integration and the minute the statistics move towards he start to get 20 or 30 black to white folks moved out. You are constantly going to be against that white backdrops they were never really getting chair integration. Without meaning to about the people that you date and what is it mean and social significance in terms of interacting with other africanamericans and when you get back into the black community were either not black enough or when youre in the White Community never feel like you belong. The was a doityourself identity in how you feel about yourself and the pride they feel . The people that i went to school with, they literally were ashamed of being black. Guest not literally ashamed of being black or they were actually ashamed of being black. They did not have talked to other black people. Host lets go to the next one, open season. The mediocre white void a very good chapter. Please break it down for us. Guest i wanted to go back and talk about the worst thing in the world. I was thinking about you in some ways when i was working on that because as a professional obviously i was thinking about it from a media standpoint about what it meant when i would talk to africanamericans actually about any sort of conversations at all. Every now and then he would find the players or down those were the ones relied on the to most of the black athletes realize the choices being made of them when they were professional athletes. They thought you were trying to set them up because they knew they didnt want to be part of the news cycle. I wanted to write in that essay about how it is in this environment if you are in 80 black league or 70 black league if he still felt like you couldnt be authentically black and he couldnt advocate black political positions what does that say for your power . Host one of the things i did and about with this is what is it to be authentically black . You didnt feel that you could be authentically black and a lot of people have different interpretations of what that means. Now you speak with the level of intelligence to be able to talk about statistics or it mean to have some type of big character that you see on tv whether its hiphop or interpreted as authentically black and thats a real struggle with black people especially feared situations where they are not around black people. When you are in school there looking at you and everything you do is cool because you are the blue cool black kid and you get around black people and their like why are you dressed like this . Guest what i was trying to get at in this chapter the tubally if you advocate for the black community, im talking about the black Political Choice and if you advocate the things that kaepernick was advocating for an Police Accountability and all these things that are important to the black community in terms of those Political Choices where you find yourself at odds with the price that you pay for that in the choices being made there. That is what i was talking about to me when i think about black authenticity and thinking about you looking in the mirror and knowing who you are and that choice is yours. Host that other part does exist in your presentation of the issues they talk about in the black community. The part that was interesting and this was also allies. I wonder if you could talk about that. When you are talking about an athlete speaks out on something and they become known for speaking out on black issues specifically it should be an issue that should bother everybody even if its not something that specifically affects them. Do you know what a me . That it becomes an issue that shouldnt happen at all. Guest exactly but how many said was important to me they say is imported them to . It become black issues. Host explain your point in that chapter. Guest my point was it was written during a specific time during charlottesville. Remember right after charlottesville i went to go see the movie and i was watching and it ate me think so much about writing and journalism and about control. U. S. Control of the camera and who gets to rehabilitate and who doesnt had while watching that movie i understood the story and i understood obviously because it was so bizarre. Member 1994 and Tonya Harding and it was ridiculous and bizarre and the whole thing but it was a serious issue for me too because youre watching this film and thinking okay there something about her rehabilitation. Why do we care about Tonya Harding right now and there was a certain level of whiteness in that film where you could see people relate to her and humanize her and it made me think about writing and controlling who gets humanize and he doesnt. I thought about it from the standpoint talking about the character it made me think of Colin Kaepernick and made me think about why color in kaepernick never got rehabilitated rehabilitated in that way and never got and the. She for oregon state who had, who was a defender and how Sports Illustrated wrote an entire cover story on him about rehabilitating him and trying to ask the question which was an excellent question. What do we do with people in a situation so what do we do with their second offenders and does Luke Heimlich have a right or an opportunity to be a majorleague player despite his past . I thought about these issues and i was thinking, and i thought about cat in a very different way and for everything we have talked about with Colin Kaepernick dewyze considered him to be a business consideration whether he was a distraction or whether he wasnt and whether he was good for ratings and whether the teams would accept him but no one ever talked about him as a man and as a person and i thought about looking at someone like Tonya Harding who was disgraced by her own admission. You look at someone like Luke Heimlich who was disgraced through the legal system in both cases and yet the media allowed them to be treated with a different lens and it made me think once again who has the camera and who has to control and how important it is when we tell stories and when we decide who gets to be treated with a level of humanity . Host as i was reading this i couldnt help but think about the kansas and kansas state fight and how they were demonized. Particularly soso was demonized and i started looking at the different baseball fights have happened in the different hockey fights that happened and how the crowd was cheering. It was a fight between kansas and kansas state. A player picked up a barstool and they chopped the barstool but the way he was vilified and the language that was used like criminal charges and he should be banned from the ncaa forever and people wrote articles like you only get 12 games . He should never play basketball. Womack wait a minute. I understand what it was against the rules but guess who he also understood what he did was wrong and immediately put the chair down. Once again absolutely right. These are the types of things when you have these conversations with your friends and this is where the black white relationships where they start to break down where you were here people say i dont care about black or white i just care but just as many see Something Like this happened and you see these ideas and color in supposedly basic notions. Host that is definitely true. I thought it was a great way to explore that in that chapter. Onto the next open season. This is a notion that i talk about this with my guys alive as far as you are looking at somebody else getting away with something that you can get away with. Thats basically what it is. Whether its dealing with the police or schools or whatever it is worth looking at other people and why your white counterpart can get away with doing something that you cant because there were two sets of rules. Guest it is what i refer to as the assumptions of competence. I think about the number of times we hear these words about meritocracy and affirmative action and all these different conversations and it struck me that when he it came to africanamericans announced over the course of my career they started to realize you cant win it was a whole different situation some ways because when youre not part of the system you are draining it and running it down and when you are you are in the affirmative action hire. My white counterparts never questioned or owned competence. They assume they belonged. They always assume that they belonged in yet and you begin to look at they were on of who gets hired and who doesnt and we are talking about this obviously in sports over the nfl coaching and how frustrating. Its almost like a full distance moment that nfl coaches are having where they recognize no matter how much time they put into it and how much experience we have we are not getting the chance. We are getting the opportunity and yet you see these other folks get opportunities that they arent getting. I want to talk about this concept that the assumptions of of competence and without meant and how when youre in the business the competence of your white counterparts, they believe they belong and they know they are good and even when they dont get jobs they may be upset that they dont get jobs but they dont assume that the people that got the job didnt deserve it. They just didnt get the job whereas when somebody black obviously didnt deserve what they have gotten and youre seeing this as so many of the schools especially the harvard. You see the idea when it comes to africanamericans in so many ways there is this inherent belief that somehow you have not earned what you have. You dont belong in your constantly fighting to prove that you do. One of the pieces of that essay was to talk about the women are starting to feel this now as well. You see a lot of white women advancement. They are going through something on the me too site if it too. Their number people are businesses say the alpha comfortable being in a room with a woman because they feel they are standing might be in jeopardy. I remember looking at this and thinking what is really big protected here now packs you cant have dinner with a few not collate as you feel like shes going to ring your career . What is this narrative analysis taking place . Host i thought that was really interesting and i will move onto the next one but especially when you look at the president. President obama had to be the cream of the crop in everything. He had to have no blemishes and as history or anything like that and all donald trump head to the was rich and white. He didnt have any credentials that would allow him to be able to be justifiably good as the president United States. Guest thats what this entire book is about. You start to look at this and all these different areas and i began to think more and more that theres a rat taking place in this country and theres a con taking place here and you can see it in so many different areas in these areas begin to come together for me in these different types of ethics whether we are talking about race are talking about labor or are talking. All of these different areas bring me back to the same point and that was that there is a movement happening right now and i felt like i was taking place so many ways in sports are wary of being told that none of these issues are occurring when this is the spot where you can see everything lay itself out. Eskalith go to the next one the hero game and you know this is an interesting one as well. This is something as i was going around speaking at different universities this hero game of have some might someone where you where their jersey and their son has their picture on the wall you know they mean and you literally is phantom where you love everything about them and then you hear something that they said that you dont agree with on what happens with that . Guest that chapter 4 me was also about celebrity and the creeping celebrity in the distance in terms of wealth equality which goes into the next essay about the role of celebrity and the culture and how celebrity is overtaking policy and there are two sides of the essay. When was this idea of falling in love with a gesture where you have these people who commit acts whether we are talking about donald trump or john mccain or whoever we are talking about, we are talking about all you have to do in this culture is your one good deed and what does that do for you in terms of how people deal with you . The other side was the hero game which i feel is very dangerous in so many ways and we are talking about how many more ways can we see the story of jayz and beyonce and kevin durant and all these people paying for college or lebron james and the battle takes place where people want to ask you whats the matter with lebron james going to school . My point in the essay is theres nothing wrong with it as long as its not replacing policy or am getting more and more concerned how many times do we see these heartwarming Human Interest stories of a 12yearold with a Lemonade Stand trying to raise money for her mothers cancer treatment. Im thinking this isnt Human Interest at all. This is a society that is getting away from us and we are losing a lot of her principles and yet you see so many times is overwhelming celebrity taking over the different parts of the culture where okay is there something wrong with jayz and beyonce paying for four years of college for somebody . As long as you are that person and this goes back to what we were talking about in chapter 2 about the military, is that theres plenty of money in this country and yet you think about all these different ways for people are being left behind hoping that celebrity is going to save us and what i was trying to get out especially when it comes to black celebrities lebron james isnt going to the same person and yet we seem to be comfortable with this replacing having where policy in the country. Howard because of they can do th her school and with these young people who have been deemed to be at risk, who have been labeled to be the unteachable. They need to have a certain label to be put on in a certain tool for curriculum the thicket of the results that they have, my consensus would be that is to show that with the rights of education, anybody can be successful. Our Education System is at fault right now. We have to make an adjustment in our actual Education System. Host i agree but my argument is is that happening or are you saying are we just waiting for the rich people to come same as our you say saying, the nobodys coming to save us but theyre just going to go for it. Howard that is a good point. The joke is on you. Its good that point. Etan i think in that essay, that was really in the different areas where it was getting away from us. Where you look at privatization versus Public Wealth and you are looking at so many different areas when the joke is on all of us. And like what we were talking about with the black coaches in the nfl where you starting at this moment where you say this is not happening for us. Are you look at the cabinet after the election and youre looking at their all billionaires. And youre looking at them and looking at people not paying their taxes and we are being told to follow along with it. To lean into this one actually the joke is on us. And youre looking at the different ways where the dollars are getting away from us and youre looking at the way about the policy is getting away. And that these cabinet members are being installed into the governments not to regulate but to deregulate. And to essentially take away so much of the public trust. And you start to look at this and you add all of this into the other areas of inequality, you start to see that it is starting to get away from us and is a spectacular con and what might favorite writers naomi klein, it is something that i wanted to look at a new starting to see these different areas where youre asking yourself, why are we okay with this. And especially from the standpoint of education, we are talking about education. If you look at the number of ways that education is being deregulated, and whether it is that or whether it is the environment. I think one of the areas i really thought about two was we want to be good and the good society. We want to do the right thing. I look at this in terms of my own 401k and i thought that was interesting to add it into estate that we want to think that we have right politics pretty want to feel like we are the clean fuel. And then i look at my own four oh 1k and i am funny private econ sector 401k. And all of these Different Things that politically, i said disagree with any of his fueling my retirement so that is key to look at that as well. A think that on the one hand, you may think that you are the clean fuel but theres no such thing as a non pollutant. You talk about different athletes and somebody gets a lot of things that were brought up in this conversation is michael jordan. They talk about him in a Different Things and hes invested in. Etan things that he has contributed to. She was at against conventionally the enlistment of the black community. He does a lot of great things printed but his is not an microscope. Howard will look at what are you doing. And where do you fit in this. Right and i think that goes with as far as the investments, i love the example that you brought with the 401k printed also with athletes picking up i want to talk about this. Were running close on time. I think this is absolutely great pretty want to go back to athletes and what they taught us going back to the first chapter. And as far as how can athletes be an effective tool in order to push things further in society and purse for a policy chilly change. In order to push for a difference in how we police say you have one instance where you bringing an issue to the light of everybody using your platform. But then have you taken to the next step. Howard i think first and foremost you have to know what youre talking about have to be committed and think that sometimes less is more crated and there are so many different ways where we are talking about so many different examples where there is an to get involved but do you know what youre talking about. I think that it is hard. Theres this feeling. Like we go back and forth through all of this pretty coming more times can you build school numbing championships and went and anytime soon if i for your country and yet at the same time, there is this feeling of the entire black as we feel like people want to tell you to go back to africa or go back where you came from or all of it. So i think the sum total of it made me really think that there had to be some recalibration on my part on how to negotiate this. Howard this happens on both sides of the aisle. I since all of the time from the left in the right, when athlete speaks out about something, that you agree with, then it is all this wonderful athlete in this platform that is in this brilliance like lifting him up. It in a thin athlete spee7 something that you do not agree with, and both on the left in the right, then it there is an attack, he doesnt know what he is talking about, he needs to st up and dribble in a different way. I think that is a problem that we have in society is being able to actually have a dialogue of debate of discussion with somebody that you disagree with. And still be okay. Etan the first sentence in the book is to be black, that once again whenever you get involved in a subject, you are expected to behave in a certain way and if you notice what happens with so many africanamericans, if you advocate for my position or ask for something, immediately the walls go up and immediately there is this feeling that youre being ungrateful and you should be happy for what you have been sent to me, my solution had been to not feel like you have to sacrifice what is inside of you. And that it is all right to disagree and to be able to say listen, i do have agreements here and its this idea once again when you are talking about who belongs here in him just to own and thats why that last essay is called renters, as a kid to renters coming cant evict the owner. The idea of being able to tell people to go back where they came from in a lot of ways is their way of saying that this is never yours or never going to be yours and i think that the key for us, and the key is to, recognize that that cannot be taken away from you whether you want to participate or not. Howard i think thats great in my platform and my pushes that im going around to speak in different places and encouraging athletes to continue to use our voices. To understand the power of their voice and the power their platform. And you have a great job of showing, what makes america, the way that that court of sort of backup whether you are an athlete or a regular person, nine five. What would be your advice and five minutes, first to athletes, who want to use their voice, who have all of these and want to make an actual change but are a little bit nervous because i know the difference in the two worlds that do exist even with athletes of their stature. Etan will certainly think you have to be a citizen you have to recognize that there is an anti blackness enforced and i think that we treated as though there is none we treated as though, all of the players are back so therefore, the players are millionaires so therefore this is a place for them when you recognize and you walk into the locker room, and its not the case. And you think you have to be extremely judicious about it have to be smart about it. When i say smart, i mean recognizing that there is hostility against you there. I also feel that you are a citizen and that in today, todays world more than anywhere or any time previously, there is opportunity. And obviously, you know when youre in that room, more times when you have leverage and there are times when you dont. I also think that the most important thing that africanamericans can do in looking at this and feeling like this deck is stacked against you, and even if youre not black, is to feel empowered by what you see in the mirror because are far too many examples where you are placing is that white or hostile back tried to draw you feel like the outsider. And sometimes when you dig a little bit deeper and you realize many people who are the same boat and you dont feel like you should check out necessarily that you do not always have to lean into the mainstream. If you look at 30 say, i dont love the fact that that f14 flyover is happening during a sporting event printed but obviously maybe thats not the time but youre all right to feel a little bit different from what the mainstream want you to think. Etan notes from an uneven Playing Field by Howard Bryant. Thank you so much for writing this and being part of this. Howard inc. You, its my pleasure printed. Weeknights this month but we are featuring tv programs, showcasing what is available every weekend here on cspan2. Tonight, our focus is the Founding Fathers first former job george Bush Jonathan forms speechwriter, in his book washingtons pin about George Washingtons final years. Then author alexis cho and you never forget your first. Chronicling the life of the first president. I later, historian