Latest / Blocked and Reported / Episode 248: The Jussie Smollett Of Sports (with Ethan Strauss)

Transcript

Episode 248: The Jussie Smollett Of Sports (with Ethan Strauss) · Blocked and Reported

0:08
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Blocked and Reported.
0:09
I'm Katie Herzog and joining me today while Jesse is hiding
0:12
from the Zizians,
0:14
SPEAKER_01: we have Ethan Strauss.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: Ethan is an independent journalist,
0:18
SPEAKER_01: a sports and culture writer,
0:19
SPEAKER_01: and I am so glad to finally have a manly man joining me on this show.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: Ethan, welcome to Blocked and Reported.
0:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's what everybody says about me.
0:28
They're intimidated by my masculinity and I try not to let it
0:33
get to my head,
0:34
SPEAKER_03: but I appreciate the compliment,
0:35
SPEAKER_03: Katie.
0:36
And even if I might have a fearsome manly bearing to all who
0:42
see me deep down,
0:43
SPEAKER_03: I am roiled,
0:44
just nervous to be unblocked and reported because I know people
0:48
love to have Jesse.
0:50
They love to have the two of you and just my presence alone
0:53
disappoints them.
0:54
SPEAKER_03: It's hard to reckon with.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: The thing is,
0:56
SPEAKER_01: so people might think that because Jesse constantly gaslighting people,
1:00
SPEAKER_01: like people always say that Jesse and I have chemistry.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: This isn't true.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: I have chemistry.
1:05
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: It's me.
1:07
It's anybody who can stand in for Jesse who talks to me like
1:10
the people love.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: It's him.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: It's he's the problem.
1:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:13
SPEAKER_03: Well, he's naive to a lot of things.
1:14
SPEAKER_03: I actually saw him last night.
1:16
SPEAKER_03: And he was ranting and raving.
1:17
SPEAKER_03: Why did you do that?
1:18
Well,
1:18
you know,
1:19
I took pity on him and he was ranting and raving about Elon and Doge.
1:25
And I didn't have the heart to break it to him that he doesn't
1:28
even know that half
1:29
SPEAKER_03: your money comes from USAID.
1:33
And that's what's funny in the podcast because he's so ignorant
1:36
about how all of this functions.
1:38
SPEAKER_03: But, hey, I like the guy.
1:41
SPEAKER_03: What can I say?
1:42
SPEAKER_03: Despite his failings.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, he doesn't get paid anyway.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: So when the money is cut, he won't really notice.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: OK, we have a lot to talk about today.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: In the second half of the show,
1:49
you're going to guide me through a story about the Robin
1:52
DiAngelo of the sports world.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm very excited to hear about that.
1:55
But before we get to that,
1:56
Ethan,
1:57
this is your second appearance on the show.
1:59
You were one of the very first guests that we had way back
2:02
during the first Trump administration.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: And I think it was 2020.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: And at the time,
2:06
you had just left The Athletic and you were striking out on
2:08
your own on Substack.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: And of course,
2:10
SPEAKER_01: since then,
2:11
SPEAKER_01: many people have left their institutions,
2:12
SPEAKER_01: including some big names like Jen Rubin.
2:15
She recently left the Washington Post to start a newsletter
2:18
beloved by pussy hat
2:19
SPEAKER_01: wearing boomers across the US.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: Mom, please stop sending me her articles.
2:24
But you were one of the earlier writers to actually quit your
2:27
job and go independent.
2:28
So remind people what was going on at The Athletic that made
2:31
you want to leave.
2:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, man.
2:33
So much of that era,
2:34
I think,
2:35
is going to be forgotten as we enter this current one.
2:38
A lot of people are going to not admit how fearful they were of
2:42
just saying normal
2:44
SPEAKER_03: things out loud.
2:46
The sports world was being absolutely roiled by the pandemic
2:50
and all the attached craziness,
2:52
SPEAKER_03: the George Floyd moment.
2:54
And it felt like the Overton window on saying anything cultural
2:58
in sports media was
3:00
SPEAKER_03: dime-sized and maybe slanted towards one ideology.
3:05
SPEAKER_03: And I just felt like I wanted more to say combined with how,
3:11
SPEAKER_03: if we go back to that pandemic time,
3:12
SPEAKER_03: it felt like a lot of things didn't matter or stopped mattering.
3:15
SPEAKER_03: I even felt that way a little bit about the games.
3:17
I just reached a point where I'd hit a wall and it wasn't clear
3:22
if we would ever be
3:22
SPEAKER_03: back in the locker rooms or covering sports in the way we used to.
3:27
SPEAKER_03: And everything was just in a state of hysteria.
3:30
SPEAKER_03: And I just felt like I had to do something different.
3:33
SPEAKER_03: I felt like I had to make the leap right then or I would regret it.
3:37
Because I think if you're in this business,
3:39
if you can call it a business,
3:41
Katie...
3:42
SPEAKER_03: And you're thinking about it.
3:44
You might reach a conclusion of if I'm not saying what I want
3:46
to say,
3:47
then why to get into it?
3:48
SPEAKER_01: For the money.
3:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
3:49
SPEAKER_03: Oh, for the money.
3:49
SPEAKER_03: The obvious money in sports journalism paved with gold that industry is.
3:55
Although I'd done well because the Warriors had thankfully
3:58
become this incredible
3:59
SPEAKER_03: dynasty that I benefited from.
4:01
But yeah,
4:02
I just came to the conclusion that I want to say what I want to say.
4:05
SPEAKER_03: Otherwise, I should have become a lawyer or something else.
4:08
And I don't want to be miserable and just grind out content and
4:12
be scared all the time.
4:13
SPEAKER_03: So I launched the Substack and it was a very scary thing.
4:19
SPEAKER_03: But that's what I loved about it, Katie.
4:20
SPEAKER_03: I loved that it was terrifying.
4:22
SPEAKER_03: It was terrifying because I didn't know...
4:25
If I would become a broke person because nobody would show up
4:28
and put money in my coffers.
4:30
And then there's the attached ego death combined with it where
4:34
I think this is why
4:34
SPEAKER_03: a lot of people don't do it or didn't do it.
4:36
SPEAKER_03: You don't want to find out how few people show up to your birthday party.
4:40
SPEAKER_03: That's something people don't want to know.
4:42
SPEAKER_03: So I decided to find out and thankfully it all worked out.
4:46
SPEAKER_01: People came to the party.
4:48
SPEAKER_03: They did.
4:49
SPEAKER_03: They came to the party.
4:50
Some came to the party and called me a racist and a sexist,
4:52
but they came to the party.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: So before you launched your own Substack,
4:57
SPEAKER_01: when you were working for The Athletic,
4:59
SPEAKER_01: so you were going to games,
5:00
SPEAKER_01: you were an analyst,
5:01
SPEAKER_01: you were a reporter,
5:02
SPEAKER_01: you were in the locker room with the Warriors,
5:04
SPEAKER_01: right?
5:05
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: And so what has changed now?
5:07
Do you still have that level of access or are you sort of
5:10
outside that world entirely?
5:12
SPEAKER_03: I have that level of access if I want it.
5:15
SPEAKER_03: They've been generous, the Warriors have.
5:16
SPEAKER_03: They've said, hey, come back.
5:18
SPEAKER_03: But I have only been to one game over the last two years.
5:22
SPEAKER_03: I actually went with Camille Foster recently to Thunder Warriors,
5:27
SPEAKER_03: and it was fun to see everybody.
5:29
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, there's this...
5:32
SPEAKER_03: almost self-compartmentalization, almost like a breakup.
5:35
There are people who want to be friends with their ex and there
5:37
are people who want
5:38
SPEAKER_03: to maintain communication.
5:40
And I'm perhaps one of the people who feels as though you need
5:43
to cut off contacts
5:45
SPEAKER_03: so you can grow anew and then you can revisit.
5:48
I'm often in contact with people in the league,
5:51
especially at the management level.
5:53
But I'm just not engaged in the sport like I once was because
5:57
it doesn't really
5:58
SPEAKER_03: suit my business and also just my life has changed.
6:01
SPEAKER_03: I have kids.
6:02
SPEAKER_03: Games tend to be on in the evening.
6:04
Sometimes they'll be talking to an NBA general manager and
6:07
they'll be talking to me
6:08
SPEAKER_03: as though I know everything they're saying about how their team is doing.
6:11
SPEAKER_03: And they'll be like, you know what's going on with us.
6:13
SPEAKER_03: And I'll just go, uh-huh, sure.
6:15
SPEAKER_03: But I really...
6:16
SPEAKER_03: I really don't.
6:17
I'm in this very weird position where I have just deep contacts
6:22
within the NBA specifically,
6:25
but I know far less than what your average fan might know about
6:29
who's doing well.
6:30
SPEAKER_01: Okay,
6:30
SPEAKER_01: so five years in,
6:31
SPEAKER_01: things are different,
6:32
SPEAKER_01: but you have maintained,
6:33
you have not had to crawl your way back to the athletic begging
6:36
for a job.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: You're not a greeter at Walmart.
6:39
SPEAKER_01: How is it going?
6:40
SPEAKER_01: How's the business going?
6:41
Well,
6:41
I'd say the business is going well,
6:43
but also not growing explosively.
6:47
SPEAKER_03: And this is a little behind the scenes of the content business.
6:52
But Elon Musk,
6:53
when he bought Twitter,
6:55
he accelerated their de-emphasization of links.
6:59
And I think that's something a lot of people have noticed and
7:01
now they're commenting on.
7:03
SPEAKER_03: I think Musk himself...
7:04
SPEAKER_03: even admitted to it.
7:06
SPEAKER_03: And it's really changed the content economy,
7:10
SPEAKER_03: especially the written content economy,
7:12
where I used to put out an article and it might go viral and it
7:16
could get hundreds
7:17
SPEAKER_03: of retweets,
7:18
SPEAKER_03: maybe thousands.
7:19
SPEAKER_03: And that would be great.
7:21
SPEAKER_03: And you would get more paid subscribers because of that.
7:24
And I think there was a moment where a lot of us sub stackers
7:27
were planning our
7:28
future islands that we might buy and thinking about how wealthy
7:32
we'd all become.
7:33
SPEAKER_03: And
7:34
And when Musk bought Twitter,
7:36
that changed sort of little by little and then suddenly.
7:39
And I tried to not infuse my view of the current moment on how
7:47
it's impacted by business.
7:48
I want to pull back from it because I did not like the Twitter
7:51
that existed before Musk.
7:53
SPEAKER_03: And I thought it was hysterical and uncomfortable.
7:56
SPEAKER_03: And it helped us,
7:57
SPEAKER_03: Katie,
7:58
because it gave us an opportunity to differentiate ourselves
8:01
from that hive mind.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
8:03
SPEAKER_03: But it was far better for business.
8:06
And so right now,
8:08
business is good,
8:10
but it's not growing like it once was.
8:12
SPEAKER_03: And so I'm trying to be more discoverable in any way I can.
8:16
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like one of those people where...
8:18
SPEAKER_03: I'm so happy I bought the house when I bought the house.
8:21
SPEAKER_03: That's how I feel about it.
8:22
SPEAKER_03: If I started a Substack today, I'd be screwed.
8:24
SPEAKER_03: I'm just lucky.
8:25
I'm lucky I started it near the end of 2021 because otherwise I
8:30
don't think you
8:31
could really make a go of it unless you're Nate Silver during
8:34
an election season.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: No, I think you're totally right.
8:36
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
8:36
SPEAKER_01: if you were Jen Rubin,
8:37
SPEAKER_01: like I looked at her Substack today and she has 475,000 subscribers.
8:42
SPEAKER_01: Whoa.
8:43
So if you're a big name and you go independent,
8:46
you're probably always going to do well.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: But if you're not a name that big,
8:50
SPEAKER_01: for sure,
8:51
SPEAKER_01: starting a Substack now,
8:52
SPEAKER_01: going independent now,
8:53
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't recommend it to basically anybody.
8:56
And I spent 2020 recommending it to everybody because it was
8:59
such boom times.
9:01
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
9:01
And it's not just the fact that Elon Musk changed the algorithm
9:06
and links don't go
9:07
SPEAKER_01: viral anymore.
9:08
I mean,
9:08
I think,
9:08
you know,
9:09
I worked for publications before we started this podcast.
9:12
And Twitter never really drove traffic at the publications that
9:16
I worked for.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: Facebook did more.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: And even when articles would go viral,
9:22
that didn't necessarily mean that people were clicking on the
9:24
links and going and
9:25
SPEAKER_01: reading the article.
9:26
They might just be – an article would go viral and really just
9:29
the headline went viral.
9:31
And all of the commentary would be on Twitter rather than
9:34
actually on the post itself.
9:36
So it didn't even truly benefit the publication,
9:40
at least from an analytics side.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: And then Elon,
9:43
SPEAKER_01: you know,
9:43
he came and then he specifically penalized Substack links
9:48
because he got in a fight
9:49
SPEAKER_01: with the Substack guys about some bullshit.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: We don't even bother to post links to the show on Twitter whatsoever.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: We have a Twitter account.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: We never use it.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: I don't know that anybody has the password at this point.
10:01
SPEAKER_01: It just drives absolutely no traffic.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: But something else has happened as well.
10:05
And you wrote this,
10:06
you wrote about this in a recent post for your subsec House of Strauss.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: Your post was called, is the vibe shift bad for House of Strauss?
10:13
SPEAKER_01: So sum that up for us and first define the vibe shift.
10:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
10:17
a subscriber wrote in after I did a podcast with Freddie DeBoer
10:20
and I'll read what
10:21
SPEAKER_03: they asked me.
10:22
They said,
10:23
hey,
10:24
Ethan,
10:24
I've been pondering something recently as I've listened to your pods.
10:27
SPEAKER_03: Is the vibe shift bad for you and your business?
10:30
You built your audience by being willing to say things that
10:33
were in this weird
10:34
SPEAKER_03: category of obvious but dangerous.
10:37
I'm curious of what you think of that in relation to our
10:39
current national conversation.
10:57
SPEAKER_03: So I thought that was a provocative question.
11:00
I even brought it up to Freddie on the podcast before writing
11:04
about it overall.
11:06
SPEAKER_03: And I think there is less low-hanging fruit.
11:08
SPEAKER_03: I think the culture in many ways...
11:11
is less insane,
11:13
at least in the ways that yield to low-hanging fruit content.
11:16
SPEAKER_03: There are big things happening right now.
11:18
SPEAKER_03: There are a thousand news items a day.
11:20
SPEAKER_03: So if you're covering politics, I think there is a lot to deal with.
11:25
But I think there was a particularity to The Great Awakening
11:29
that made for
11:31
SPEAKER_03: Just an easily found market inefficiency of speaking against that.
11:36
SPEAKER_03: And that applied to if you were on the right.
11:39
But I think it also applied to people who are maybe not
11:42
completely on the right,
11:43
but willing to stand apart from this emergent media consensus
11:46
that would be arrived
11:48
SPEAKER_03: at on Twitter.
11:49
SPEAKER_03: And a lot of people would secretly think was completely batshit insane.
11:53
SPEAKER_03: So my view of it is that the vibe shift has already happened.
11:57
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's one of my views.
11:58
SPEAKER_03: It's already happened.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:59
SPEAKER_01: Jeffrey Toobin got a new job today.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: It was announced that he's going to be a New York Times contributor.
12:04
SPEAKER_03: A lot of people just don't care anymore.
12:06
SPEAKER_03: They don't care about what happened with Louis C.K.
12:08
SPEAKER_03: You can...
12:09
SPEAKER_01: Masturbate on Zoom call.
12:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:11
SPEAKER_03: Jerking at his back.
12:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:13
SPEAKER_03: So that's back.
12:15
SPEAKER_03: And but I think specifically in the sports world,
12:17
I felt as though and I even wrote it in 2023 that the culture
12:20
war had died in sports,
12:21
SPEAKER_03: that quietly,
12:23
SPEAKER_03: even if Trump hadn't been elected,
12:25
SPEAKER_03: a lot of this stuff was dying down.
12:27
I think a lot of that had to do with the aforementioned
12:30
purchase of Twitter by Elon
12:32
SPEAKER_03: Musk in 2022.
12:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:34
This might be this is a difference of viewpoint I have with
12:37
some other people.
12:38
SPEAKER_03: I think Twitter is just massive, just massively culturally influential.
12:42
I think whoever is in charge of it effectively gets to set the
12:45
political norms and
12:47
SPEAKER_03: it explains a lot of what's changed.
12:49
SPEAKER_03: So I think that the vibe shift has happened.
12:52
SPEAKER_03: Now we're seeing this attached power shift on top of the vibe shift.
12:56
SPEAKER_03: And I don't really worry about it too much in terms of my business.
13:00
SPEAKER_03: I think there's still a lot of craziness out there.
13:03
My job has always been just to describe reality as I see it,
13:07
and that will continue.
13:08
And it's just nothing compared to the whole link suppression
13:11
and general death of
13:13
SPEAKER_03: the article on social.
13:15
SPEAKER_03: That was the big asteroid that hit us.
13:18
SPEAKER_03: This thing right now,
13:19
SPEAKER_03: I haven't seen any sort of negative impact on my business,
13:22
SPEAKER_03: at least lately.
13:23
SPEAKER_03: So I
13:24
SPEAKER_03: I just don't tend to worry about it.
13:25
SPEAKER_03: But it is a real thing.
13:27
SPEAKER_03: I think that we're in a moment right now where a lot of people,
13:30
SPEAKER_03: especially people who are more in that gray zone,
13:34
SPEAKER_03: don't quite know what to make of the moment or how to approach it.
13:38
SPEAKER_03: I feel like I've observed you kind of going through it a bit on Twitter.
13:41
SPEAKER_03: I'm really not liking how the vibes have shifted of late.
13:45
SPEAKER_03: I think it's a very unsettled moment, is what I will say.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the vibe shift...
13:51
SPEAKER_01: has definitely changed my experience of Twitter.
13:54
And I actually deleted the app a few days ago because it was
13:57
just Twitter was
13:59
SPEAKER_01: getting too dark for me.
14:01
And I had been pretty good for a couple of years about not
14:05
spending too much time
14:06
SPEAKER_01: on Twitter,
14:07
SPEAKER_01: reading more than posting.
14:09
SPEAKER_01: And then when I would post,
14:10
it was like 90% jokes and I had just kind of stopped engaging
14:14
in the discourse.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: I was basically a conscientious objector.
14:17
SPEAKER_01: But then since the inauguration,
14:19
SPEAKER_01: The MAGA right has turned so ugly and so loud online,
14:24
SPEAKER_01: just cruel,
14:25
SPEAKER_01: spiteful,
14:26
SPEAKER_01: uncaring,
14:27
SPEAKER_01: like,
14:28
ready to burn down the whole neighborhood if it will just hurt
14:30
the one neighbor
14:31
SPEAKER_01: with the pride flag on his porch.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: Like, this...
14:35
SPEAKER_01: The stuff with the AIDS funding in Africa is really getting to me.
14:40
Like someone will post a video of a woman somewhere in Africa
14:43
who goes to a clinic
14:44
where she's been getting her HIV medication for years only to
14:48
find that the place
14:49
SPEAKER_01: to get the medication that keeps her alive is inexplicably closed.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: And the response from MAGA is like,
14:56
SPEAKER_01: It's fake.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: It's scripted.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: This isn't my problem.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: Why should I care?
15:01
SPEAKER_01: And I just watching this,
15:03
I had spent so much time over the past few years calling out
15:07
the woke left for authoritarianism,
15:10
SPEAKER_01: intolerance,
15:11
SPEAKER_01: for being uncaring.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: And when I see the woke right repeating these same patterns,
15:18
SPEAKER_01: but now with real institutional power,
15:21
it just felt important to me not to sit by and watch this
15:24
without objecting.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: And especially because so many libtards fled to blue sky that this crazy
15:30
information ecosystem is just proliferating without enough
15:33
pushback or balance.
15:36
But so I so I started reengaging,
15:38
but I just don't like what it does to me.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: Like I the other day,
15:44
I was knee deep in the replies fighting with like Maoist dead
15:47
enders like David
15:48
Cleon with one hand and then like return 1776 with the other
15:53
and lobbing insults
15:55
SPEAKER_01: with people calling people fucking morons.
15:58
SPEAKER_01: And at some moment, I was just like,
16:00
SPEAKER_01: damn Herzog, like you are 40 years old, 41 years old.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: What are you doing?
16:05
SPEAKER_01: It just felt so undignified and embarrassing.
16:09
And when you're a podcaster,
16:11
the bar for undignified and embarrassing is very high.
16:14
So at some point I pulled a Jesse and I just deleted the app
16:17
and I'm still going to check in.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: I'll still read it.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: But like,
16:20
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to debase myself any further by being a poster.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: So I ran myself off of Twitter,
16:26
SPEAKER_01: which in itself,
16:27
SPEAKER_01: like announcing that you're leaving Twitter in itself is embarrassing.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: The whole thing.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: I just feel terrible about myself.
16:32
SPEAKER_03: Just becoming a cliche.
16:33
SPEAKER_03: Do you know you're becoming a cliche?
16:35
SPEAKER_01: I'm morphing into Jesse.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: It's terrible.
16:38
SPEAKER_03: Well,
16:39
and the other thing is that there are these broad trends we can
16:41
detect on Twitter,
16:42
but everybody actually has their own experience curated to who
16:45
they're following.
16:46
SPEAKER_03: So a lot of what you're describing,
16:47
SPEAKER_03: I haven't even noticed or seen because a lot of...
16:50
SPEAKER_01: Do you follow your...
16:52
SPEAKER_01: Are you on like more of the...
16:53
SPEAKER_01: I just always go to the default for you tab,
16:56
SPEAKER_01: not the people that I'm following.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: So it is curated,
16:59
SPEAKER_01: not based on who I follow,
17:00
SPEAKER_01: but who I interact with or like what I click,
17:03
SPEAKER_01: which is apparently a lot of...
17:05
fucking andy no style like black on black violence and libs of
17:09
tiktok shit i hate
17:10
it yeah i go to the chronological almost reflexively it's just
17:14
it messes with me
17:15
too much and i think i'm trained to do it a bit just because
17:18
i'm used to being in a
17:20
sports coverage mindset of i can't have my timeline jumbled i
17:24
need i need the
17:25
chronology to happen so and also i just follow a lot of sports
17:28
people so i've
17:29
SPEAKER_03: noticed some things i noticed there was that moment
17:32
SPEAKER_03: over the visas where there, I noticed the anti-Indian stuff.
17:35
SPEAKER_03: I saw that breakout around that time.
17:38
SPEAKER_03: One thing I've noticed that,
17:40
SPEAKER_03: okay,
17:40
so my thought process on it is that you will see certain
17:44
patterns mirrored.
17:46
SPEAKER_03: You'll see the tribalism mirrored of the left and the right,
17:49
but the constituencies are different so they can represent
17:53
themselves in different ways.
17:54
SPEAKER_03: But there was one thing that I've seen that's similar.
17:56
SPEAKER_03: I can tell
17:59
SPEAKER_03: Who has the cultural whip hand by who's demonizing centrist?
18:03
SPEAKER_03: That's the thing I've noticed recently.
18:04
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
18:05
SPEAKER_03: I've noticed some people on the right.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: We are always the ones who are fucking victimized.
18:12
SPEAKER_03: Well, don't say we.
18:13
SPEAKER_03: I don't want to identify as that.
18:14
It seems to be the group that gets attacked most reliably,
18:18
no matter who's on top.
18:19
So I've noticed some people on the right starting to say that
18:22
the centrists they
18:24
SPEAKER_03: used to have respect for are actually the worst of people.
18:28
SPEAKER_03: And I thought to myself,
18:29
SPEAKER_03: man,
18:30
you guys must be in charge because I remember when that was all
18:33
coming from the
18:34
SPEAKER_03: left that the centrists were the real Nazis.
18:36
SPEAKER_03: And maybe it's obvious as to why that happens.
18:39
But whoever is feeling the wind at their back,
18:42
that's who they turn their sights on.
18:44
SPEAKER_03: It's the sense of we are really gaining a huge coalition right now.
18:49
SPEAKER_03: What is up with you stragglers?
18:51
SPEAKER_03: You guys are the real problem.
18:53
SPEAKER_03: That's how you know who's in charge.
18:55
SPEAKER_03: It's the people attacking the centrists.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: And so how has the sports media shifted with the vibe shift?
19:01
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
19:01
SPEAKER_01: are the people who were like posting the black square in 2020,
19:06
SPEAKER_01: are they saying the R word now?
19:08
Have you heard from old friends who maybe decided that you were
19:10
racist a couple of years ago?
19:12
SPEAKER_01: How has that dynamic changed?
19:13
SPEAKER_03: The R word.
19:14
SPEAKER_03: Are they saying redskins again?
19:16
SPEAKER_03: Bringing that back.
19:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
19:17
SPEAKER_01: when the commanders revert to their dead name,
19:19
SPEAKER_01: that's when we'll know the Great Awakening is truly over.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:23
SPEAKER_03: So the sports media.
19:25
SPEAKER_03: There have been retreats to blue sky,
19:27
but I feel like even more so the retreats are followed by the
19:30
slinking back to
19:31
SPEAKER_03: Twitter just because sports just Twitter is where sports happen.
19:37
SPEAKER_03: And it's going to be really hard to replace that.
19:40
I think that's actually the secret or one of the secrets of the
19:43
power of it and why
19:44
SPEAKER_03: it will be so hard.
19:46
for people who want to make the conversation happen elsewhere
19:50
because they don't
19:50
SPEAKER_03: like Elon and they're progressive.
19:52
Part of the problem for them is that the non-ideological
19:56
components just have
19:57
SPEAKER_03: little reason to leave right now.
19:59
SPEAKER_03: And so if you're following sports,
20:02
Twitter is still the virtual sports bar where all the jokes and
20:05
the memes and the
20:06
SPEAKER_03: reactions happen.
20:07
So I think it's been hard for progressive sports writers to
20:11
make this journey into
20:13
SPEAKER_03: blue sky and make a go of it.
20:16
SPEAKER_03: There was an interesting interview.
20:17
SPEAKER_03: Howard Beck,
20:18
SPEAKER_03: who is a fairly progressive sports writer,
20:21
SPEAKER_03: was talking to Richard Deitch,
20:23
SPEAKER_03: who the same,
20:24
SPEAKER_03: and he was really emphasizing.
20:27
SPEAKER_03: I thought it was going to be ideology,
20:28
but he was really emphasizing the link suppression thing as why
20:32
the sports
20:32
journalist should move on and saying that the problem with Elon
20:36
is that he doesn't
20:36
SPEAKER_03: respect journalists.
20:38
So I wonder if maybe that's a reason why something can shift in
20:43
the future.
20:44
But for the most part,
20:45
I've just seen more quiet on the ideology from people in sports media.
20:50
SPEAKER_03: I haven't seen them completely switch over,
20:53
SPEAKER_03: but I've seen them be quieter,
20:55
SPEAKER_03: less lecturing,
20:56
SPEAKER_03: less sanctimony,
20:58
SPEAKER_03: less talking about diversity.
21:00
SPEAKER_03: I think there's just a sense that there's no path to success,
21:08
SPEAKER_03: that it's more trouble than it's worth.
21:10
SPEAKER_03: And so there's been more quiet quitting as far as I can see.
21:14
And then there have been other voices who aren't necessarily
21:16
sports journalists,
21:16
but they've been elevated and they're saying things that used
21:20
to be verboten.
21:21
Pat McAfee,
21:22
for instance,
21:23
is this guy ESPN hired to run a bro-friendly show on their network.
21:28
SPEAKER_03: And he has said more conservative coded things,
21:32
SPEAKER_03: things that I regard sometimes as just reasonable,
21:34
SPEAKER_03: but you don't say it.
21:35
SPEAKER_03: You don't say that reasonable thing.
21:38
SPEAKER_03: That's not the rule.
21:39
SPEAKER_03: That's not the etiquette of this profession.
21:42
And I think that there has been more traction gained by voices
21:46
who fit the current vibe more.
21:49
SPEAKER_03: But those voices aren't necessarily traditional journalists.
21:53
SPEAKER_03: They might be on YouTube, for instance.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: One thing that's been interesting to watch is...
21:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, we grew up in the 90s.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: We're about the same age.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: Jocks were not social justice warriors, if anything.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: I think they were thought of as bullies,
22:08
SPEAKER_01: maybe kind of dumb often with conservative politics,
22:11
SPEAKER_01: if they were political at all.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: Not that there isn't a history of athletes as activists.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we all know about Jesse Owens and others.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: That's obviously true.
22:18
But at some point,
22:19
it seems as though the expectations shifted immediately.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: And athletes themselves were actually expected to stand for something.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: So first off, is that true or did I make that up?
22:28
SPEAKER_01: And if it is true,
22:30
SPEAKER_01: was this an organic process,
22:31
something that you think athletes wanted themselves or was this
22:34
something foisted
22:35
SPEAKER_01: upon them by the press or corporate overlords?
22:38
SPEAKER_01: The latter.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
22:39
Yeah.
22:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, that's the simple answer.
22:42
SPEAKER_03: Sorry to interject.
22:42
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, I mean, athletes aren't stupid.
22:45
SPEAKER_03: They see what gets praise.
22:46
SPEAKER_03: They see what gets them trouble.
22:48
They're a little bit like actors where there might not be a lot
22:53
of devotion to the
22:54
SPEAKER_03: topics of the era,
22:55
but they want to say the right things and they want to say the
22:58
things that are
22:59
SPEAKER_03: going to get them increased glory.
23:01
SPEAKER_03: And that's,
23:02
SPEAKER_03: I think,
23:02
one of the motivating factors behind my Substack is that I was
23:05
in the locker room.
23:06
And I knew that the ideology of the locker room was incongruous
23:11
with the promoted
23:12
ideology of the sports leagues and often of the sports
23:16
journalists and a lot of
23:17
people who were almost projecting these progressive opinions on
23:20
these athletes who
23:21
SPEAKER_03: were not...
23:23
SPEAKER_03: You know, they might have.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: They might have.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: They know what a woman is.
23:26
SPEAKER_03: They know what a woman is.
23:28
SPEAKER_03: They know what many women are in many cases.
23:31
And they might have been down with the BLM stuff,
23:35
but not the other stuff.
23:37
And yet you had these moments like the NBA moving the All-Star
23:41
game in 2017 from
23:42
SPEAKER_03: Charlotte over the bathroom bill.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: And.
23:46
SPEAKER_03: Whatever the merits one thinks of that decision,
23:49
there's something a little ridiculous about it in that if you
23:54
would actually
23:55
SPEAKER_03: interview these players about their views of the trans movement,
24:00
SPEAKER_03: the NBA would not want that.
24:02
SPEAKER_03: They would not want those opinions out there.
24:04
And we went through this period of the leagues from the top
24:09
down trying to get the
24:11
SPEAKER_03: players to mirror...
24:13
An ideology and messaging that resonated with the professional
24:18
class and with journalists.
24:20
And it was almost like trying to dress up your dog in an outfit
24:22
for Halloween.
24:24
SPEAKER_03: It's just the players didn't want that.
24:26
SPEAKER_03: They didn't want to be wearing pride jerseys, for instance, in baseball.
24:31
And I found a space where I could just talk honestly about
24:35
these things and just go,
24:36
okay...
24:37
maybe you think that's a worthy goal for society to be less
24:40
homophobic and you
24:41
SPEAKER_03: understand that athletes are memetic models and that can make people less
24:45
homophobic but there's a just an inherent um oddness i don't
24:50
even know what to call
24:51
it in trying to pretend and in trying to force these guys to
24:55
wear the ribbon as was
24:57
SPEAKER_03: said in seinfeld with michael richard's character when they don't
25:02
SPEAKER_03: like that.
25:03
SPEAKER_03: They don't want that.
25:04
SPEAKER_03: They're not into it.
25:05
SPEAKER_03: And you really,
25:06
SPEAKER_03: when you do that,
25:06
SPEAKER_03: you threaten just tearing down the whole illusion,
25:10
SPEAKER_03: which is what started to happen until some of these leagues backed off.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: It's almost a form of colonization,
25:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
25:17
SPEAKER_01: forcing these athletes,
25:19
SPEAKER_01: many of whom are black,
25:21
SPEAKER_01: especially in the NBA,
25:23
SPEAKER_01: but forcing them to adopt the values of journalists,
25:27
SPEAKER_01: of mostly white journalists,
25:29
SPEAKER_01: of management,
25:30
SPEAKER_01: which is clearly not a part of their culture.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: And you can see this just in Poland.
25:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:35
Well,
25:35
the pride stuff was more of a thing in baseball because of when
25:38
the season happens.
25:40
But if it had been tried aggressively in the NBA,
25:45
that would have been a situation,
25:46
I think.
25:46
SPEAKER_03: If that had really been pushed,
25:48
it would have threatened to sort of tear open some things and
25:54
been uncomfortable.
25:56
SPEAKER_03: But a lot of people...
25:58
SPEAKER_03: They like to project upon the athletes.
25:59
SPEAKER_03: That's what a lot of sports is.
26:01
A lot of sports are people watching these guys and renting
26:05
their experience in a
26:06
SPEAKER_03: way or imagining themselves as the people.
26:09
SPEAKER_03: And it's not just little kids who do this.
26:10
SPEAKER_03: It's also adults.
26:12
SPEAKER_03: And it's just amazing what gets projected onto them and how,
26:17
SPEAKER_03: as somebody who's covered the NBA,
26:19
SPEAKER_03: I can just shock people at a dinner party by going,
26:22
SPEAKER_03: well,
26:22
SPEAKER_03: this is what these guys think.
26:24
SPEAKER_03: Or even just saying that they're not friends.
26:27
People want to believe that they're best friends because
26:31
they're wearing uniforms
26:32
SPEAKER_03: together and they're high-fiving after things happen.
26:34
I've been in situations where I'll just say,
26:37
yeah,
26:37
those guys don't like each other.
26:39
SPEAKER_03: And the person I'm with will start arguing with me like they know.
26:42
SPEAKER_03: And I'll go, I know them.
26:44
SPEAKER_03: I actually know them in real life.
26:46
SPEAKER_03: But people want these athletes...
26:48
SPEAKER_03: to mirror whatever their projection is on them.
26:51
And I think that that's where some of that impulse came when it
26:55
came to you have to
26:56
SPEAKER_03: be saying this platformism was really big back in the day.
27:00
SPEAKER_03: You remember that you had to use your platform?
27:02
SPEAKER_03: You got to use your platform.
27:03
SPEAKER_03: You got to use your platform to save the world, Katie.
27:06
And so there was just a tremendous amount of pressure for these
27:09
guys to be what the
27:11
SPEAKER_03: loudest cohort at the time wanted them to be.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay, there's one of your pieces I want to discuss.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: So this one was called Fox Sports Mess Yields Era of She Too?
27:20
SPEAKER_01: Why is Joy Taylor the focus of a sexual harassment allegations at FS1?
27:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so lots of words I don't know there.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: Joy Taylor, never heard of her.
27:29
SPEAKER_01: FS1, give us the rundown of this whole controversy.
27:31
SPEAKER_03: Oh, my God.
27:32
SPEAKER_03: It's hard to recapitulate.
27:35
SPEAKER_03: Joy Taylor is the sister of a former NFL star, and she is attractive.
27:41
I will say that now that the vibe has shifted,
27:44
we could admit these things.
27:45
SPEAKER_03: I will say that she is an attractive woman.
27:47
SPEAKER_03: I will admit to that.
27:49
And I will even possibly say that she is well endowed in
27:52
certain capacities.
27:53
SPEAKER_03: And
27:55
She was involved in this whole situation despite not being the
27:59
focus of it.
28:00
There was a hairstylist at Fox Sports named Nugene Farage who
28:06
alleged that the
28:08
network executive that was being sued or named in the lawsuit
28:11
was using his
28:12
SPEAKER_03: position to sexually harass women.
28:15
SPEAKER_03: But part of the subplot, the sordid subplot of the 42-page lawsuit was
28:20
SPEAKER_03: was that Joy Taylor, in effect, was almost complicit in it all.
28:26
SPEAKER_03: And the lawsuit claims that once Dixon,
28:29
SPEAKER_03: the guy who was the executive,
28:30
SPEAKER_03: was no longer beneficial to Taylor's career,
28:33
she would accuse him of sexual assault to distance herself and
28:36
protect her reputation.
28:38
SPEAKER_03: That was something that Taylor was saying,
28:39
SPEAKER_03: and Taylor was basically saying to Nugent Faragey,
28:42
SPEAKER_03: this is how you play the game,
28:44
SPEAKER_03: you know,
28:44
SPEAKER_03: effectively and operating cynically.
28:46
SPEAKER_03: That's what the lawsuit alleged.
28:48
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot in the 42 pages,
28:50
but my main takeaway from the lawsuit was that there were men
28:53
accused of things in
28:54
SPEAKER_03: the lawsuit.
28:55
SPEAKER_03: Dixon,
28:55
SPEAKER_03: namely,
28:56
SPEAKER_03: also Skip Bayless,
28:57
who was a Fox Sports TV star who has since left the network or
29:03
maybe been ousted.
29:04
SPEAKER_03: Who knows?
29:05
SPEAKER_03: But they weren't the focus.
29:07
SPEAKER_03: In the Me Too era, these guys would have been the Louis C.K.
29:11
SPEAKER_03: of the moment.
29:12
SPEAKER_03: And instead, nobody really cared.
29:13
SPEAKER_03: Instead,
29:14
SPEAKER_03: Joy Taylor,
29:15
SPEAKER_03: because she had been very social justice-y in her outward preaching,
29:19
SPEAKER_03: and since people had a degree of resentment towards her,
29:22
SPEAKER_03: since she was a good-looking woman who...
29:25
SPEAKER_03: appeared to have been using this to get a certain prominence,
29:28
and this was an unacknowledged aspect of the prominence and
29:31
being highlighted.
29:32
And since the lawsuit was alleging that she was effectively the
29:35
Evita Peron of Fox Sports,
29:38
SPEAKER_03: there was this tremendous backlash and this sense of,
29:42
we're tired of being lectured by people using these social
29:46
justice mores to get ahead.
29:48
SPEAKER_03: Few said it or articulated it in those words.
29:52
SPEAKER_03: I think they just called her names.
29:54
SPEAKER_03: But there was that.
29:56
SPEAKER_03: And it was also that the lawsuit, it wasn't being taken seriously.
30:00
SPEAKER_03: There was a lot of mockery of her, lambasting of her.
30:04
SPEAKER_03: But it was also just one big joke.
30:06
It is one big joke that she,
30:08
according to the lawsuit,
30:09
was having sex with one of her co-hosts.
30:11
SPEAKER_03: And when he was talking about her and effusively praising her,
30:14
SPEAKER_03: sorry to be gross people,
30:15
SPEAKER_03: but he was smelling his fingers throughout.
30:17
SPEAKER_03: Like this was hilarious to people.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: Horrifying.
30:20
SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry.
30:20
SPEAKER_03: That's what happened.
30:21
SPEAKER_03: I'm just recapitulating.
30:22
SPEAKER_03: You wanted the recapitulation.
30:24
SPEAKER_03: This is the recapitulation.
30:26
But it was this combination that showed I think we were in a
30:28
new place where if
30:29
SPEAKER_03: this lawsuit had broken,
30:31
SPEAKER_03: the focus would have been the men.
30:33
SPEAKER_03: But instead, the focus was the woman.
30:36
And she was this sort of deceitful character,
30:40
this Eve character to be blamed.
30:42
And I think that represented a difference in the culture when
30:45
it comes to sex
30:46
SPEAKER_03: scandal and sexual harassment allegations.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, things have really changed since 2017.
30:52
And I think this Me Too is a good example of how terribly the
30:59
left and Democrats in
30:59
SPEAKER_01: particular have performed because you have cases where in 2017,
31:04
SPEAKER_01: like Al Franken,
31:05
SPEAKER_01: someone like him gets accused of really misdemeanors,
31:09
SPEAKER_01: misdemeanors that may or may not have been true.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: There was some really great reporting by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: that called into question all of the allegations against him.
31:19
SPEAKER_01: And he still loses his seat in the Senate.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: He's a podcaster now.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: Donald Trump is president,
31:24
SPEAKER_01: someone who has been incredibly accused of sexual assault,
31:27
SPEAKER_01: someone who is known to be a womanizer.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: And the left can't even have someone like Al Franken.
31:30
And the right elects a serial philanderer,
31:33
an alleged sexual abuser,
31:36
as president.
31:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
31:39
SPEAKER_03: We used to care about things that nobody cares about anymore.
31:41
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's the whiplash feeling I have.
31:44
SPEAKER_03: I mean...
31:45
SPEAKER_03: Yes, there's a lot to be said about the sexual politics of that.
31:49
SPEAKER_03: But I will just never get over Katie.
31:53
SPEAKER_03: You referenced the black squares earlier.
31:55
SPEAKER_03: I will never get over it.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: And this was let's let's remind people what this was.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: So this was a trend on Instagram where people were.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: For a day,
32:05
SPEAKER_01: good allies,
32:06
white allies on Instagram would post a black square to show
32:10
that they were allies
32:13
SPEAKER_01: of black people.
32:14
They were going to be silent for a day and just post this
32:17
fucking black square.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: I assume you posted it.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: And it's...
32:20
SPEAKER_03: It saved a million black lives.
32:22
SPEAKER_03: No, I didn't post it.
32:24
And I definitely noticed colleagues of mine and other people in
32:27
my orbit noticing
32:28
SPEAKER_03: it and tweeting about it that I didn't post it.
32:31
SPEAKER_03: They were right, though.
32:32
SPEAKER_03: I was a deplorable bigot deep down.
32:34
SPEAKER_03: They discovered it when I launched my Substack.
32:36
SPEAKER_03: So they really did do a good job of...
32:38
SPEAKER_03: ferreting that out.
32:39
I just will never get over people making their entire being
32:45
about things that they
32:46
SPEAKER_03: instantly never cared about again.
32:49
SPEAKER_03: I can't get over it.
32:50
I just will never get over seeing that in people because I
32:54
can't imagine doing that myself.
32:57
And just to see society-wide all these people in this just
33:01
absolute hysteria
33:04
SPEAKER_03: insisting that they were just going to devote the rest of their lives to
33:07
SPEAKER_03: to anti-racism and fighting against police violence.
33:11
SPEAKER_03: And they never talked about it ever again.
33:15
SPEAKER_03: I can't get over that.
33:17
SPEAKER_03: It's the craziest.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
33:18
SPEAKER_01: and brands too,
33:20
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:20
SPEAKER_01: just individuals did this,
33:21
SPEAKER_01: people in our business did this for sure.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: And then brands,
33:23
SPEAKER_01: like,
33:24
SPEAKER_01: I guess the NFL used to have end racism,
33:28
SPEAKER_01: like painted in the end zone of the,
33:31
SPEAKER_01: what stadium was it?
33:32
SPEAKER_03: All the stadiums, I think.
33:34
SPEAKER_03: All of them.
33:34
SPEAKER_03: All of them.
33:35
SPEAKER_03: There are a lot of stadiums of that.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: And they just deleted the word racism.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: What does it say now?
33:40
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
33:41
SPEAKER_03: Some platitude.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: In taxes.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
33:45
SPEAKER_03: N-D-E-I is what it says now.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: The mod shift is complete.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: And anti-racism.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: They just painted anti in front of the word.
33:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's amazing how people, frankly, are this memetic.
33:59
SPEAKER_03: And it feels self-serving to say it and go,
34:01
SPEAKER_03: well,
34:01
SPEAKER_03: I'm the person who actually has my own opinions and attitudes.
34:05
But it is shocking the degree to which people's professed deep
34:10
moral concerns are
34:12
SPEAKER_03: just mirrors of whatever they're seeing in order to fit in.
34:15
SPEAKER_03: And it's why I do think whoever runs Twitter effectively believes
34:19
runs the culture and maybe society writ large because so much
34:24
of the concern is
34:26
SPEAKER_03: just an act of curation.
34:28
SPEAKER_03: A million things happen every day.
34:31
SPEAKER_03: Whatever you're going to highlight is the locus of concern.
34:34
SPEAKER_03: And there was a time in the biggest story in the United States where
34:38
SPEAKER_03: Was a woman in Central Park being mean to a black guy over a dog?
34:43
SPEAKER_03: And maybe she was threatening.
34:45
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
34:45
SPEAKER_03: But there's something like that every day.
34:47
SPEAKER_03: The Karen, the Karen menace was the biggest thing facing America.
34:51
SPEAKER_03: And people took it with immense seriousness, immense.
34:57
SPEAKER_03: Nothing even compared.
34:59
SPEAKER_03: And now that's out of the aperture and it's immigrant crime or whatever.
35:05
SPEAKER_03: And it's just about whatever the lens is trained on.
35:08
That is what the society decides is the thing that is happening
35:12
when there are a
35:13
SPEAKER_03: million things happening.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: I miss it.
35:15
SPEAKER_01: I want Karen to be the villain number one in the US again.
35:19
SPEAKER_01: It was much better for my business,
35:21
not just because now there are more independent journalists
35:25
doing the same thing
35:26
SPEAKER_01: that we are,
35:27
but mainstream journalists are doing the same thing that we're
35:30
doing as well.
35:31
So you can get good reporting on the science of gender
35:36
dysphoria in the New York Times now.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: The reporter might end up on a glad list,
35:40
SPEAKER_01: but the paper will publish it and they will do a good job.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: And the widening of the Overton window has increased the competition.
35:48
And,
35:49
you know,
35:49
when Trump was elected,
35:50
I thought,
35:51
well,
35:51
this is going to be good for the show.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: This will be good for my business because the left is going to go nuts.
35:57
SPEAKER_01: Anarchist cafes will be...
35:59
SPEAKER_01: opening up and shutting down all over the place.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: We're going to see meltdowns in every online subculture.
36:04
SPEAKER_01: And that's the shit that I like best.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: And that's the shit I think our audience tends to like best.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: But we haven't really seen that, at least not yet.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: And at the same time,
36:14
the shit that's happening on the online right is really
36:16
newsworthy because it's
36:18
SPEAKER_01: overtly influencing the
36:20
SPEAKER_01: American politics.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: Dumb internet bullshit is American politics right now.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: So you've got people in the highest reaches of power,
36:28
SPEAKER_01: like Elon Musk,
36:29
calling for the firing of a journalist who reported that one of
36:33
his little henchmen
36:34
SPEAKER_01: was racist.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: That is absolutely a blocked and reported story.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: But the thing is,
36:38
it's also a New York Times story and a Washington Post story
36:41
and a Wall Street
36:41
SPEAKER_01: Journal story.
36:42
And I don't want to cover the same shit as those guys,
36:45
because what's the point?
36:47
SPEAKER_01: Like,
36:48
SPEAKER_01: We what we do different is what we do well.
36:51
And now because Internet bullshit is politics,
36:54
everybody is covering the same stuff.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: So let's go back.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: Black Lives Matter, folks.
37:00
SPEAKER_03: Well, I don't know if I want to go back.
37:02
SPEAKER_03: I think that particular time.
37:04
I almost disagree with you because you said that you hate this
37:07
Twitter more than that Twitter.
37:09
SPEAKER_03: I felt like that Twitter felt,
37:11
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
37:11
SPEAKER_03: with the pandemic too,
37:13
it just felt like things might really melt down into some sort
37:17
of French revolution
37:19
SPEAKER_03: level event.
37:20
SPEAKER_03: And people will, you want the juice of it.
37:24
SPEAKER_03: I do want to feel alive again.
37:26
I do,
37:26
because for me,
37:28
the thing that I am good at is I'm not a great investigative reporter.
37:32
SPEAKER_01: I'm not even a great writer.
37:34
SPEAKER_01: What I'm good at is arguing with my allies, arguing with my own side.
37:38
SPEAKER_01: And my own side, they're all on blue sky threatening to kill Jesse.
37:42
SPEAKER_01: That's boring.
37:43
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
37:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the lefties have lost their network effect.
37:45
You were talking about thinking that there would be all this resistance,
37:49
and no.
37:50
SPEAKER_03: Again, it's the Twitter effect.
37:51
SPEAKER_03: The Twitter, it was the brain.
37:54
SPEAKER_03: It was the brain of the left.
37:57
SPEAKER_03: It's when they would arrive...
37:59
SPEAKER_03: On an emergent consensus, a lot of people were conspiracy minded.
38:02
SPEAKER_03: They thought it came from one person from on high.
38:05
Maybe some NGO determines it,
38:08
but I think it was actually emergent and collective.
38:11
And that gave them this messaging power and the sense of
38:14
passion and ability to focus.
38:16
SPEAKER_03: What we're seeing right now,
38:17
it's like one of those cruel experiments on an animal where
38:21
they clip some part of
38:22
the mouse's brain and the mouse just runs in circles instead of
38:25
going through the maze.
38:26
SPEAKER_03: They don't know what to do.
38:28
SPEAKER_03: They don't know where to focus.
38:30
SPEAKER_03: There are a thousand things happening at once simultaneously.
38:34
SPEAKER_03: And it's also just infused with this meme culture, too.
38:39
I think if I would criticize Jesse,
38:42
I don't know if it's a real criticism,
38:43
but...
38:44
I think he's really caught up in some of the dumb shit that
38:48
Elon is doing and the
38:50
SPEAKER_03: glibness of the dumb humor that he's doing.
38:54
And what I would say to that is just talking to people who are
38:58
in that orbit,
38:59
SPEAKER_03: they would say that that's in part strategy,
39:03
SPEAKER_03: how he acts.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: Changing his name to Harry Balls on Twitter is strategy.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
39:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
39:08
SPEAKER_03: Yes, to a degree.
39:09
And I think that because we all joked in the end about how
39:13
Trump wasn't playing
39:14
SPEAKER_03: five dimensional chess,
39:15
SPEAKER_03: that he's really more of a creature with animal cunning,
39:21
SPEAKER_03: perhaps,
39:21
SPEAKER_03: but he's not thinking in terms of long term strategy.
39:25
And there are a lot of people trying to graft on this
39:27
Machiavellian nature to the man.
39:29
because they wanted to be involved in something more
39:32
sophisticated and it wasn't the case.
39:34
SPEAKER_03: I think they can then assume the same is true for Elon Musk,
39:36
SPEAKER_03: but Elon Musk is somebody who is fairly serious,
39:40
SPEAKER_03: a serious guy who has done serious things.
39:43
And the Democrats and the progressives have been absolutely
39:47
blitzed and overwhelmed by
39:49
SPEAKER_03: By his project and the speed with which it's been unleashed.
39:54
And I think that there can almost be an underestimation just
39:57
because he is getting
39:58
SPEAKER_03: things wrong on Twitter as he does Twitter X,
40:01
SPEAKER_03: his platform.
40:03
And just because he is not aware about something or says
40:07
something stupid.
40:08
SPEAKER_03: I just think.
40:10
SPEAKER_03: At a certain level,
40:12
SPEAKER_03: I do believe that the hairy balls is part of the whole act,
40:16
SPEAKER_03: and it is part of the lulling people to sleep,
40:18
SPEAKER_03: that there isn't a very serious revolutionary project taking place,
40:25
SPEAKER_03: as it so obviously is.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think he's just got a really fucking juvenile sense of humor.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: That do.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: And he's surrounded by people who...
40:33
SPEAKER_01: are yes men he's surrounded by.
40:34
And we've seen this in some reporting that when anybody
40:38
questions Elon Musk,
40:40
SPEAKER_01: there was some reporting about an employee at Axe after Elon took over,
40:44
basically criticizing him because he retweeted these conspiracy
40:48
theories about
40:49
SPEAKER_01: Nancy Pelosi's husband being beaten.
40:52
SPEAKER_01: And always said something like,
40:53
SPEAKER_01: look,
40:53
SPEAKER_01: only the top 10% of most gullible people could ever believe this.
40:58
SPEAKER_01: And Elon and
40:58
SPEAKER_01: apparently flipped out,
41:00
absolutely flipped out on this employee because he actually is
41:04
in the top 10% of
41:05
SPEAKER_01: most gullible fucking people on Twitter.
41:08
SPEAKER_01: And you can see this based on what he posts.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: It may be a strategic, maybe he's just taken too many drugs.
41:13
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
41:13
SPEAKER_01: Either way, big impact.
41:14
I think there's definitely a glass half empty versus glass half
41:18
full aspect of that
41:19
SPEAKER_03: story because one person could take that and go,
41:22
SPEAKER_03: oh,
41:23
SPEAKER_03: I am so worried that the most powerful man in the world is so gullible.
41:27
SPEAKER_03: That's terrifying.
41:29
But I,
41:30
a narcissist,
41:31
take that story and I go,
41:33
man,
41:33
I'm less gullible than Elon Musk.
41:35
SPEAKER_03: That rules.
41:37
SPEAKER_03: I haven't built anything.
41:38
SPEAKER_03: I don't even know how a rocket works.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: You should start a rocket company.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: I'd invest.
41:42
SPEAKER_00: All right, Ethan, let's do housekeeping and then get to your story.
41:46
SPEAKER_03: Oh, how does the housekeeping work?
41:48
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:49
SPEAKER_01: Are you not a regular listener to this show?
41:53
SPEAKER_01: We always make our guests do housekeeping.
41:55
SPEAKER_03: What?
41:57
SPEAKER_01: I'll do it.
41:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm knocking half of the money off of your wage.
42:01
SPEAKER_01: Your pay has been cut by 50%.
42:03
SPEAKER_01: We are a podcast.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: You can find us at blogsandreported.org,
42:06
SPEAKER_01: where if you become a member of this show,
42:09
SPEAKER_01: if you become a primo subscriber,
42:11
SPEAKER_01: You get twice as much content every month.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: You also get access to our fantastic community over there.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: It is the best and really only way to support the show.
42:19
SPEAKER_01: So please join us, blockedandreported.org.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: All right, Ethan, you're up.
42:23
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
42:25
SPEAKER_03: Let's see.
42:25
SPEAKER_03: Do I fashion a radio voice for this presentation?
42:28
SPEAKER_03: Do I go NPR?
42:29
SPEAKER_01: Actually, could you do like a rush level voice for this?
42:32
SPEAKER_03: How did Rush Limbaugh used to talk?
42:34
SPEAKER_03: Rush Limbaugh.
42:34
SPEAKER_03: That's what he sounds like in my head.
42:39
SPEAKER_03: That's my limited fake Rush Limbaugh.
42:41
SPEAKER_03: It includes no words.
42:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:43
SPEAKER_01: And then frequent sounds of inhaling a cigar.
42:48
SPEAKER_03: Rush.
42:51
SPEAKER_03: I mean, Rush Limbaugh will be mentioned in this.
42:53
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
42:53
really so uh katie have you heard of this thing called dei just
43:00
throwing it out
43:01
there yeah it's uh it's been in the news a lot apparently and
43:05
they say it stands
43:05
for diversity equity and inclusion but i can't differentiate it
43:09
from what we used
43:10
to call affirmative action but it's it's all the rage the
43:14
difference is that uh dei
43:16
SPEAKER_01: requires more meetings and from hr
43:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it requires more power points.
43:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, more Zoom, certainly.
43:23
And with Trump back in power and an overall political
43:26
revolution taking hold,
43:27
SPEAKER_03: DEI is under the gun,
43:30
SPEAKER_03: even in sports.
43:31
And in theory,
43:33
sports should be a readout from census category hiring emphasis.
43:37
SPEAKER_03: You would think so.
43:38
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, indeed, when people criticize DEI,
43:42
SPEAKER_03: Sports often they get invoked.
43:43
You know,
43:44
nobody's bent out of shape that 80 percent of the NBA is black,
43:47
for instance.
43:48
And are there any Jews actually on the court or are they just
43:52
managing the teams
43:53
SPEAKER_01: and owning the teams?
43:54
SPEAKER_03: Well, half of the owners are Jewish.
43:56
SPEAKER_03: And when I say that, people say don't say that.
43:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
43:58
SPEAKER_03: Then people say don't say that.
44:00
SPEAKER_03: That sounds bad.
44:01
SPEAKER_03: I was like, why does it sound bad?
44:03
SPEAKER_01: How many of them are Palestinian?
44:04
SPEAKER_01: We have a problem.
44:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:06
SPEAKER_03: Why is it bad?
44:07
SPEAKER_03: I don't know why it's bad.
44:08
SPEAKER_03: But there is one Israeli player, but he is half Balkan in his lineage.
44:15
SPEAKER_01: And that's the only way it can happen.
44:17
SPEAKER_03: So it's the Balkan half?
44:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
44:19
SPEAKER_03: It's the only way a guy can make it nowadays in the NBA.
44:22
SPEAKER_03: But what are you going to do?
44:23
SPEAKER_03: Nobody cares about it.
44:25
SPEAKER_03: You know,
44:25
SPEAKER_03: if you're trying to win the World Series,
44:27
you wouldn't want to compromise the talent of your baseball
44:30
roster to fit certain
44:31
SPEAKER_03: demographics onto it.
44:32
SPEAKER_03: And people make these arguments in response to DEI, Katie.
44:36
SPEAKER_03: And yet.
44:37
SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah.
44:37
SPEAKER_01: OK, so question for you.
44:39
SPEAKER_01: So.
44:39
SPEAKER_01: All right.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: So we know the NBA is.
44:43
SPEAKER_01: Black people are overrepresented in the NBA.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: NFL, is that pretty equal?
44:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure black people are still overrepresented,
44:49
SPEAKER_01: but is it pretty split a little bit more evenly?
44:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a little whiter and more American white because...
44:56
SPEAKER_03: NFL is just more of an American-based sport.
44:58
SPEAKER_03: And it's a little less black, but it is majority black in the NFL, yes.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: And then baseball.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: I assume that skews white.
45:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
45:05
SPEAKER_03: Baseball is majority white, but it's also very international.
45:09
And there have been a lot of think pieces about the decline of
45:13
the black American
45:14
SPEAKER_03: baseball player.
45:15
SPEAKER_03: And it just sort of opens up our weird Ameri-centric view of race.
45:19
SPEAKER_03: Because if you watch...
45:20
SPEAKER_03: a baseball game,
45:21
SPEAKER_03: you'll probably notice plenty of black people,
45:23
SPEAKER_03: but they have Spanish last names.
45:26
And I guess in our country,
45:27
we are undecided about whether that makes them black.
45:31
SPEAKER_03: So that's baseball for you.
45:33
SPEAKER_01: OK, so in golf, I assume golf, very white.
45:36
SPEAKER_03: Golf is very white.
45:37
SPEAKER_03: And it's a funny thing.
45:39
SPEAKER_03: When Tiger Woods came on the scene,
45:41
much of the marketing and the advertising and the media
45:45
coverage was done with this
45:46
assumption of the incoming diversification of golf and how
45:52
there would be a
45:53
SPEAKER_03: generation of black golfers.
45:54
SPEAKER_03: And you are Tiger Woods, I believe, was a slogan.
45:58
SPEAKER_03: And it never happened.
45:59
And this sort of thing occurs sometimes in sports where there's
46:03
this expectation of
46:04
SPEAKER_03: a new demographic within it,
46:07
SPEAKER_03: and it just doesn't occur,
46:08
SPEAKER_03: and it's uncomfortable for people to talk about.
46:11
SPEAKER_03: In the NBA, it was Chinese players.
46:13
They thought that they would have a bunch of Chinese superstars
46:16
after Yao Ming
46:18
SPEAKER_03: And they invested a lot, and they really just expected it to happen.
46:23
SPEAKER_03: And nearly every other country produced an NBA player,
46:26
SPEAKER_03: and China just didn't after pouring hundreds of millions,
46:29
SPEAKER_03: if not billions,
46:30
into the project of creating the best possible Chinese
46:33
basketball players.
46:34
SPEAKER_03: So...
46:35
SPEAKER_03: These things happen.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
46:36
SPEAKER_00: it seems like they have a fundamental,
46:39
SPEAKER_01: maybe I'm not supposed to acknowledge this,
46:40
SPEAKER_01: but Chinese people are short.
46:42
SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is a little scary for you to say.
46:46
SPEAKER_03: You don't say that in the boardroom,
46:47
SPEAKER_03: Katie,
46:47
which is probably how these assumptions go along unchecked is
46:50
you don't say that
46:51
SPEAKER_03: kind of thing.
46:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, so here's my question.
46:53
You have various different leagues that are mostly white,
46:57
hockey,
46:57
I'm sure,
46:58
golf.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: Are there efforts to diversify those leagues?
47:02
SPEAKER_01: Or is it like you're saying,
47:03
like people just want the best players and they're not going to
47:06
sacrifice talent
47:07
SPEAKER_01: for the sake of superficial diversity?
47:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:10
Yeah,
47:10
hockey is among the major sports,
47:12
maybe the most insecure and therefore the most woke.
47:16
SPEAKER_03: And there are a lot of programs that Gary Bettman,
47:20
SPEAKER_03: hockey commissioner,
47:21
SPEAKER_03: talked about trying to diversify hockey.
47:24
And they've poured a lot of resources into trying to make
47:27
hockey more popular in the inner city.
47:30
SPEAKER_03: I don't think they're getting great results.
47:33
SPEAKER_03: It's just that's my guess.
47:35
SPEAKER_03: I would assume.
47:37
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank God for white people.
47:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, come on.
47:39
SPEAKER_01: If black people start ice skating, they are screwed.
47:41
SPEAKER_03: There's a danger to it.
47:42
SPEAKER_03: Well,
47:42
SPEAKER_03: there's also another funny aspect to this,
47:44
SPEAKER_03: Katie,
47:44
SPEAKER_03: which is there's no discussion of,
47:46
SPEAKER_03: well,
47:47
SPEAKER_03: what if black people just think the sport sucks?
47:49
SPEAKER_03: What if that?
47:50
It's this assumption that racism and segregation and all of it
47:55
have kept black
47:56
SPEAKER_03: people out of hockey.
47:57
SPEAKER_03: And I wonder,
47:59
maybe a lot of black Americans are just surveying the sea and
48:03
just ranking the
48:04
SPEAKER_03: sports and going,
48:04
SPEAKER_03: yeah,
48:05
SPEAKER_03: this one doesn't
48:06
SPEAKER_03: Really measure up to me.
48:08
SPEAKER_03: This is not my preference,
48:09
but that's not really part of the discussion when they hire
48:12
these DEI officials
48:14
within the NHL to solve their problem and expend all these
48:18
resources in that direction.
48:20
SPEAKER_03: Actually, hockey's got a crazy thing going.
48:22
hockey is a whole thing that you could do an entire show about
48:25
they have literal
48:27
teenagers i think they call them their power players and they
48:30
have regular meetings
48:32
with the selected group of teenagers to advise the nhl on how
48:36
to become cool and
48:37
how to become more diverse so yeah i think even pre-zumers
48:43
start airing the games
48:45
SPEAKER_01: on tiktok
48:46
SPEAKER_03: I think they probably get all of these suggestions.
48:51
The CFO or whoever of the NHL literally sits down with children
48:57
and has the
48:58
SPEAKER_03: children yell at them about why hockey sucks and what they need to do.
49:01
SPEAKER_00: That actually sounds kind of fun.
49:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
49:04
SPEAKER_03: I interviewed a couple of these kids,
49:05
SPEAKER_03: but that's a different article for a different time perhaps.
49:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so DEI.
49:11
SPEAKER_03: So, yes.
49:11
SPEAKER_03: When it comes to the people on the field,
49:13
SPEAKER_03: I think most reasonable types just assume that it's highly merit-based.
49:18
SPEAKER_03: But DEI,
49:19
it gained a lot of traction in the sports world amid criticism
49:23
of who gets hired to
49:24
SPEAKER_03: coach and manage the teams.
49:26
SPEAKER_03: Ah!
49:27
SPEAKER_01: OK, so you want to have on the field.
49:29
It doesn't matter what color people are because you just have
49:32
to have the best
49:33
SPEAKER_01: people for the position.
49:35
SPEAKER_01: But in management, you can control that a little bit more.
49:38
SPEAKER_01: So we got to get some more black people coaching and managing.
49:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a little more loosey goosey.
49:43
SPEAKER_03: Right.
49:44
SPEAKER_03: So there's a little more flex in it,
49:45
a little more of an assumption that maybe it could be anybody
49:48
in the chair back
49:49
SPEAKER_03: there because the players are who matters.
49:51
They should start if if if teams want to really start
49:55
diversifying in terms of players,
49:58
SPEAKER_01: they should really look towards trans women.
50:00
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's a suggestion.
50:02
SPEAKER_03: They could go in that direction.
50:03
I'm sure it would be very helpful to House of Strauss in terms
50:07
of content.
50:08
SPEAKER_03: So I would advise that they do that.
50:10
But yeah,
50:11
leagues have responded to this pressure that builds up during
50:13
the Great Awakening.
50:15
But the most controversial of former DEI efforts in sports
50:19
actually dates back to 2003,
50:21
the year America was conservative enough that Rush Limbaugh got
50:27
hired by ESPN to
50:28
SPEAKER_03: host its Sunday NFL countdown pregame show.
50:33
SPEAKER_01: Different era.
50:34
SPEAKER_03: Much different era.
50:34
SPEAKER_03: And actually Limbaugh,
50:36
he actually had to resign due to a quick firestorm following
50:40
his assertion on air
50:42
that Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated because
50:46
the media was,
50:46
SPEAKER_03: and I quote,
50:47
SPEAKER_03: very desirous that a black quarterback do well.
50:51
SPEAKER_03: But we can stay on topic.
50:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
50:55
SPEAKER_01: If you say that with like Rush Limbaugh's voice, it sounds very racist.
51:00
SPEAKER_01: But if you say that with like Jamal and Jamil's voice,
51:02
SPEAKER_01: it's just like,
51:02
SPEAKER_01: yes,
51:03
SPEAKER_01: we need,
51:03
SPEAKER_01: it's just like about opportunity.
51:05
SPEAKER_01: It's about racism.
51:06
SPEAKER_01: It's just the inflection.
51:07
And what about if David Attenborough does it with the Planet
51:10
Earth narration?
51:11
SPEAKER_03: Also very different ways.
51:14
SPEAKER_03: It sounds bad.
51:15
SPEAKER_03: It sounds like some old school colonialism.
51:19
So in 2003,
51:20
the NFL implemented what is known colloquially as the Rooney Rule.
51:24
SPEAKER_03: Named for Dan Rooney,
51:26
the since deceased owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and then
51:29
chairman of the NFL's
51:30
SPEAKER_03: Workplace Association.
51:32
SPEAKER_03: And I will admit that for years as a kid,
51:35
I just assumed that Rooney was black because they were always
51:38
talking about the
51:39
SPEAKER_03: need to hire black coaches in the Rooney rule.
51:42
SPEAKER_03: I didn't know that he was an old white owner.
51:44
It does feel like stealing valor,
51:47
Katie,
51:47
but that's I'll move along the story.
51:50
SPEAKER_01: It's very American.
52:11
Do they just have two people that everybody just recycles doing
52:14
the same interviews?
52:15
SPEAKER_03: It does feel like that sometimes.
52:18
SPEAKER_03: And for the front office position,
52:19
SPEAKER_03: so the people who hire the people,
52:21
SPEAKER_03: the people who hire the coaches,
52:22
SPEAKER_03: you got to interview at least one minority or female candidate.
52:27
SPEAKER_03: Those have been the tweaks.
52:28
SPEAKER_03: I feel so.
52:29
SPEAKER_03: This used to be really more about we need black coaches.
52:32
SPEAKER_03: We need black people.
52:34
SPEAKER_03: And then over time, more and more categories get added.
52:38
SPEAKER_03: But for the most part,
52:39
SPEAKER_03: it's just about the interviewing process,
52:41
SPEAKER_03: save for 2022,
52:43
where they finally said the NFL and NFL team must have at least
52:47
one minority or
52:48
SPEAKER_03: female member on its offensive coaching staff.
52:51
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
52:51
SPEAKER_03: Did defense get short shrift or what?
52:53
SPEAKER_03: But that was the rule.
52:55
SPEAKER_01: Can a female be a trans woman?
52:59
SPEAKER_03: I have not asked the NFL about that.
53:01
SPEAKER_03: I'm going to assume they offer a lot of latitude.
53:04
And I notice this sometimes where a coach will they'll say that
53:08
a coach is
53:09
SPEAKER_03: qualified for the Rudy rule and I'll go.
53:11
SPEAKER_03: really like him,
53:12
SPEAKER_03: you know,
53:12
SPEAKER_03: like,
53:13
SPEAKER_03: yeah,
53:14
SPEAKER_03: he's,
53:14
SPEAKER_03: uh,
53:14
SPEAKER_03: he's like half,
53:15
SPEAKER_03: he's half Mexican on his,
53:17
SPEAKER_03: uh,
53:17
SPEAKER_03: you know,
53:17
SPEAKER_03: on his mom's size.
53:18
SPEAKER_03: Like, Oh, okay.
53:19
SPEAKER_03: I didn't, didn't know that.
53:21
SPEAKER_03: Uh, it's, it's a bit of an absurdity sometimes.
53:24
SPEAKER_03: Uh, but it's, it's like college admissions, which, what can you do?
53:28
SPEAKER_03: And Katie, if you're paying attention, uh, women,
53:32
SPEAKER_03: are a minority in the system.
53:33
SPEAKER_03: So congratulations.
53:35
SPEAKER_03: You qualify under the Rooney rules minority.
53:38
SPEAKER_03: How do you feel about that?
53:40
SPEAKER_01: I feel great about that.
53:41
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't mind being a token.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: Are they paid well?
53:44
SPEAKER_01: I'll be a token offensive line coach, whatever they are.
53:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think I don't know.
53:49
SPEAKER_03: It's it's good.
53:51
SPEAKER_03: It's good prestige like academia.
53:53
SPEAKER_03: Oh, so the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, he was asked about.
53:58
SPEAKER_01: Wait, I got to interrupt you.
53:59
SPEAKER_01: Sorry to interrupt you for a second.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: OK, so I just thought of something.
54:02
SPEAKER_01: OK, so cheerleaders.
54:05
SPEAKER_01: mostly women,
54:06
notoriously underpaid in the NFL and have all of these bizarre
54:11
roles about what
54:13
SPEAKER_01: they can wear,
54:14
SPEAKER_01: who they can date,
54:15
SPEAKER_01: who they all like really draconian stuff.
54:17
SPEAKER_01: Their lives are controlled for very, very little money.
54:21
And it seems sort of ironic to me that a league that treats
54:24
cheerleaders like
54:25
SPEAKER_01: fucking chattel slaves.
54:27
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's a little bit.
54:28
SPEAKER_01: Chattel slaves in
54:29
SPEAKER_03: No,
54:30
SPEAKER_03: you actually don't even know the half of it,
54:32
SPEAKER_03: but that might be another conversation for another day.
54:34
But yeah,
54:36
they are basically would have been Me Too central if Me Too was logical.
54:41
SPEAKER_03: Instead,
54:42
SPEAKER_03: we told ourselves that the offices of NPR,
54:47
SPEAKER_03: that's where all the horrific workplace sexism and abuse was happening.
54:52
SPEAKER_03: It was there and in our publications, but not...
54:57
SPEAKER_03: Not what's going on behind the scenes in sports.
54:59
SPEAKER_03: But yes, you were saying.
55:00
SPEAKER_01: Right.
55:00
So instead of improving working conditions for the women who
55:04
are actually already
55:05
SPEAKER_01: on the field,
55:06
SPEAKER_01: they decide we're going to have a token women in this office.
55:09
SPEAKER_01: That makes a lot of sense.
55:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that was the decision in 2022.
55:14
SPEAKER_03: And hey, it's all about just putting a good face on things, I suppose.
55:20
SPEAKER_03: And I thought when Roger Goodell,
55:22
SPEAKER_03: the NFL commissioner,
55:23
SPEAKER_03: he was asked right before the Super Bowl as part of his media session,
55:27
I figured with the vibe shift that he would just do away with
55:31
this anachronism
55:32
SPEAKER_03: because I had regarded the rule as pretty ridiculous.
55:35
SPEAKER_03: I have former colleagues who don't.
55:37
I know reasonable,
55:38
intelligent people who think the Rooney rule is a good thing.
55:41
But over the years,
55:42
I've just noticed that the NBA has more black coaches than the NFL.
55:46
SPEAKER_03: They don't have this insane kabuki where people do fake interviews and
55:51
submit people to these indignities for jobs that they're never
55:54
getting because the
55:55
SPEAKER_03: jobs are actually,
55:56
SPEAKER_03: we live in a world where people communicate via text messaging.
55:59
SPEAKER_03: That's just not how hiring happens.
56:02
SPEAKER_03: But Goodell said, we're sticking with it and we like doing this.
56:07
SPEAKER_03: We're not doing this because we have to,
56:08
SPEAKER_03: I'm paraphrasing,
56:09
but because we think it's the best way to attract the best
56:13
possible talent.
56:15
SPEAKER_03: And so the kabuki is here for now.
56:18
It remains this residue from what feels like not just the past
56:25
era of The Great Awakening,
56:26
SPEAKER_03: but the past era of the early aughts.
56:31
SPEAKER_03: And,
56:31
SPEAKER_03: you know,
56:33
SPEAKER_03: when we look back on the provenance of the rule,
56:35
SPEAKER_03: and again,
56:36
SPEAKER_03: I just like it was a snapshot of 2003.
56:37
SPEAKER_03: Like, what a weird time 2003 was.
56:40
SPEAKER_03: Because on the one hand, you had Rush Limbaugh
56:44
getting on these national NFL games briefly before he flamed
56:49
out due to the whole race thing.
56:51
SPEAKER_03: But you also have the Rooney rule,
56:52
SPEAKER_03: which was pushed by Johnny Cochran of the OJ Simpson trial fame,
56:58
having the juice to pressure the NFL to adopt this rule along
57:03
with a civil rights attorney,
57:05
SPEAKER_03: Cyrus,
57:06
SPEAKER_03: Mary.
57:06
And it's just,
57:08
I don't know why he had the capital to do that since in my mind,
57:12
SPEAKER_03: Everybody knew that OJ did it or at least did by 2003.
57:17
SPEAKER_03: Maybe I was naive, but Johnny Cochran.
57:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he still had that sway.
57:22
SPEAKER_03: So the politics of 2003 were capacious enough to allow for Rush Limbaugh
57:28
dictating some norms and allow for johnny cochran dictating
57:32
some norms uh i guess
57:34
rush limbaugh might have lost the battle and johnny cochran he
57:37
won the war but
57:39
there's another guy who claims credit and is credited for the
57:43
rooney rule and he is
57:44
SPEAKER_03: our robin d'angelo of sport
57:47
SPEAKER_03: His name is Richard Lapchick,
57:51
who I believe he is described on his website as the racial
57:55
conscience of sport.
57:57
SPEAKER_03: That's what you're going to say, Katie.
58:01
SPEAKER_01: I assume that that is a self-described.
58:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
58:05
SPEAKER_03: A self-description, racial conscience of sport.
58:07
SPEAKER_03: But my God,
58:09
SPEAKER_03: a lot of you listening probably know nothing about this Lapchick,
58:12
SPEAKER_03: but he had a tremendous amount of influence on
58:16
SPEAKER_03: And had these leagues in terror,
58:18
SPEAKER_03: in fear,
58:20
SPEAKER_03: because he would come up with these report cards,
58:22
SPEAKER_03: these racial and gender report cards,
58:24
and he would publish them in ESPN.com of how good a job your
58:28
sport was doing on the
58:30
SPEAKER_03: diversity front.
58:32
SPEAKER_03: And he is...
58:34
not that it matters maybe,
58:35
or maybe it does,
58:36
a very old white man,
58:38
Katie.
58:38
SPEAKER_03: Of course, of course.
58:40
Sports deputized an old white man to sit atop the mountain and
58:45
piously judge
58:46
SPEAKER_03: whether they were diverse enough or not.
58:50
SPEAKER_03: Richard Lapchick,
58:50
SPEAKER_03: and get this,
58:51
SPEAKER_03: he has been doing it since 1988,
58:56
SPEAKER_03: which is one of the reasons he's credited in part for the Rooney Rule.
58:58
SPEAKER_03: This guy was in on it early, and-
59:02
SPEAKER_01: That is very, very Robin DiAngelo.
59:03
SPEAKER_01: And have, have sports, has this been effective?
59:07
SPEAKER_01: Have sports gotten more diverse?
59:09
SPEAKER_03: Uh, well, it depends on who you ask.
59:11
SPEAKER_03: I think,
59:12
SPEAKER_03: as I said,
59:12
I don't believe that the Rooney rule was effective when it came
59:18
to hiring more
59:19
SPEAKER_03: black coaches.
59:20
SPEAKER_03: And then Richard Lapchick in interviews would then complain about that.
59:23
SPEAKER_03: It would sound a little bit like the proponents of communism, uh,
59:26
SPEAKER_03: Real Rooney rule has never been tried.
59:29
SPEAKER_03: We need more.
59:30
He was even interviewed in 2025 about the recent Goodell
59:36
comments on how we have a
59:37
SPEAKER_03: long way to go.
59:38
SPEAKER_03: We always have a long way to go.
59:40
SPEAKER_03: He's always telling us.
59:42
SPEAKER_03: So he's telling us that we have a long way to go.
59:44
SPEAKER_03: But I think the presence of Lab Chick, there's an inherent mystery in it.
59:48
SPEAKER_03: Or there was to me until I investigated it, which is.
59:52
SPEAKER_03: how does an old white man become the arbiter of this?
59:56
SPEAKER_03: And how did he maintain it through the great awokening?
1:00:01
SPEAKER_03: And the answer to that question is biography.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_03: The guy has an incredible biographical tale of racial heroism, Katie.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_03: And yeah, yeah.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_03: A little suspicious, a little suspicious of,
1:00:18
SPEAKER_01: Red flag there.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_01: White flag.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_03: You might even say it's too good to be true.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_03: Uh-oh.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_03: You might even say,
1:00:28
SPEAKER_03: and this might be a spoiler alert,
1:00:31
SPEAKER_03: it might remind of a tale of,
1:00:37
SPEAKER_03: you know,
1:00:37
SPEAKER_03: what was it when Jussie Smollett was attacked?
1:00:39
SPEAKER_03: What year was that?
1:00:40
SPEAKER_03: It feels like it was 80 years ago it was.
1:00:42
SPEAKER_01: 2018 or 2019?
1:00:45
SPEAKER_03: I was trying to be coy about it.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_03: He sounds a little Jussie Smollett-ish, the tale of lap chick.
1:00:49
So was he in blackface walking around the streets of Chicago
1:00:52
and he got gaybashed
1:00:53
SPEAKER_01: by two Nigerians?
1:00:55
SPEAKER_01: Was he on Empire?
1:00:56
SPEAKER_01: Did they call him that Empire fucking faggot?
1:01:00
SPEAKER_03: Oh, man.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
1:01:01
SPEAKER_03: not quite in the specific,
1:01:03
but he did get called a slur in a way or at least have a slur
1:01:08
etched into his chest
1:01:10
SPEAKER_03: is what happened.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_00: Oh, OK.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_00: What happened?
1:01:13
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:01:14
SPEAKER_03: So to do a little bit of biography on old Lapchick,
1:01:18
SPEAKER_03: his father is Joe Lapchick,
1:01:20
SPEAKER_03: who is a Hall of Famer credited with racially integrating the NBA.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_03: So just a giant of a man.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_03: So you're already his father is black.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_03: No, his father is white.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_03: His father is white, but he was a coach.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_03: He was a coach and he was a former player himself.
1:01:36
And you're maybe understanding the psychology of what's
1:01:38
happened here because his
1:01:40
SPEAKER_03: father is this great man.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_03: Everybody respects.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_03: Everybody celebrates and he worships his father.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_03: He wants to do great things.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_03: And.
1:01:48
You know,
1:01:48
to my knowledge,
1:01:49
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has never disconfirmed this story.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_03: But a young lap chick,
1:01:56
SPEAKER_03: Richard Lapchick,
1:01:57
he was knocked out when defending Kareem from racist bullying
1:02:01
back in the day in
1:02:02
SPEAKER_03: New York where they both live.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_03: So that's that is one tale that perhaps did happen.
1:02:07
SPEAKER_01: So like some white supremacist, how tall is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?
1:02:11
SPEAKER_01: Like seven feet?
1:02:12
SPEAKER_03: Seven feet tall, yes.
1:02:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay,
1:02:14
so white supremacists are attacking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and
1:02:19
this young Richard Lapsack,
1:02:21
who I'm guessing is not seven feet tall and looks like a
1:02:23
basketball player.
1:02:24
SPEAKER_01: He what?
1:02:25
SPEAKER_01: He stands in front of him.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_01: He puts up his arms.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_01: No.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_01: No.
1:02:29
I'm more of an expert on the story that sounds fake and is fake
1:02:34
than the story that
1:02:34
SPEAKER_03: sounds kind of fake but might be real.
1:02:37
SPEAKER_03: So look, to my knowledge, Kareem is friends with Lapchick.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_03: For all I know, this happened and credit to him.
1:02:46
SPEAKER_03: Maybe he was chasing that dragon of his act of heroism.
1:02:49
SPEAKER_03: And that's how this whole thing happened.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_03: So.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:02:52
SPEAKER_01: We'll just assume that it's true.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_03: Quoting my article on the topic,
1:02:57
SPEAKER_03: by the 1970s,
1:02:58
Lapchick was organizing anti-partite protests while working as
1:03:01
an assistant
1:03:02
SPEAKER_03: professor of political science at Virginia Wesleyan College.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_03: In 1978,
1:03:07
while engaged in an effort to protest South Africa's inclusion
1:03:10
in the Davis Cup
1:03:11
SPEAKER_03: tennis tournament,
1:03:12
SPEAKER_03: then being held at Vanderbilt University,
1:03:15
SPEAKER_03: Lapchick's life changed.
1:03:16
He was,
1:03:17
by his own account,
1:03:18
assaulted in an attack so cartoonishly vile that
1:03:22
SPEAKER_03: that it would make international news and vault its victim to fame.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_03: So,
1:03:29
SPEAKER_03: 1978,
1:03:30
SPEAKER_03: Lapchick,
1:03:31
SPEAKER_03: he's working late at night in his Wesleyan College office,
1:03:35
SPEAKER_03: which is located within the school library.
1:03:37
SPEAKER_03: I assume that's probably because he didn't have his own office.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_03: He probably got a little office in the school library.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_03: The point I'm making, I'm just saying, he was not a well-known guy.
1:03:47
SPEAKER_03: He was just this kind of...
1:03:50
SPEAKER_03: You know, he's this little lower tier academic.
1:03:53
And it's at that point,
1:03:55
two men in stocking masks,
1:03:56
they barge in,
1:03:57
they physically assault him.
1:03:58
SPEAKER_03: Were they wearing MAGA hats?
1:04:02
SPEAKER_03: There were no MAGA hats at the time.
1:04:04
They were wearing stocking masks,
1:04:06
the MAGA hat of the era,
1:04:08
apparently,
1:04:08
in the late 70s.
1:04:10
SPEAKER_03: They knocked me across the room,
1:04:12
SPEAKER_03: he said,
1:04:12
SPEAKER_03: and I landed on a steel sculpture,
1:04:13
SPEAKER_03: which is made out of spikes.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_03: So I punctured my left shoulder.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_03: They picked me up and put me in a chair,
1:04:19
SPEAKER_03: hot,
1:04:19
SPEAKER_03: tied my hands and feet,
1:04:21
SPEAKER_03: stuck a glove in my mouth and tied that too.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_03: This is our most pornographic podcast.
1:04:27
SPEAKER_03: One of them said, are you going to continue doing what you're doing?
1:04:30
SPEAKER_03: Are you going to continue what you're doing?
1:04:32
SPEAKER_03: They knocked me across the room.
1:04:35
SPEAKER_01: Criminals do speak like that.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_03: They do.
1:04:37
SPEAKER_03: Well, the funny thing about it, skipping ahead a bit, in his retelling,
1:04:42
This is about his anti-partite protests and him trying to
1:04:47
boycott South Africa's
1:04:48
SPEAKER_03: inclusion of the Davis Cup,
1:04:49
which at the time is happening 700 miles away from where he is
1:04:53
at Wesleyan College.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_03: The men who do this to him have American accents.
1:04:59
SPEAKER_03: Which, okay.
1:05:02
SPEAKER_03: He later,
1:05:02
SPEAKER_03: I think,
1:05:03
SPEAKER_03: explained it as,
1:05:04
SPEAKER_03: well,
1:05:04
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
1:05:04
SPEAKER_03: in the Caribbean,
1:05:05
SPEAKER_03: South Africa was sending a hit out on me.
1:05:07
SPEAKER_03: They wouldn't hire South Africans.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_03: That would be too obvious.
1:05:10
SPEAKER_03: Too obvious.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_03: So just these American guys who know to do this.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_01: Huge tennis fans.
1:05:18
SPEAKER_03: Huge tennis fans.
1:05:19
And when he awoke from what his attackers did to him,
1:05:24
there was a carving on his stomach.
1:05:27
SPEAKER_03: N-I-G-E-R.
1:05:31
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_00: Niger.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_03: The landlocked.
1:05:35
african nation of niger was carved so he was branded these men
1:05:42
were for these these
1:05:43
were white men from niger yes he was branded and it's kind of a
1:05:49
crazy story this
1:05:50
story it is crazy yeah this story are notoriously bad spellers
1:05:54
it's true i think
1:05:55
SPEAKER_00: was it backwards too was it written like you've been looking in a mirror
1:05:59
SPEAKER_03: We're going to get to that,
1:06:00
SPEAKER_03: but it was actually very well written,
1:06:02
SPEAKER_03: and that's part of the problem.
1:06:03
SPEAKER_03: That was a little bit of a giveaway, how well written it was.
1:06:09
SPEAKER_03: The story,
1:06:09
SPEAKER_03: it vaulted Lapchick into being super famous,
1:06:14
SPEAKER_03: and more than 100 nationally prominent people looking at the list,
1:06:17
SPEAKER_03: including U.S.
1:06:19
SPEAKER_03: Attorney General Ramsey Clark,
1:06:20
SPEAKER_03: singer Harry Belafonte,
1:06:22
SPEAKER_03: author Kurt Vonnegut,
1:06:23
SPEAKER_03: NAACP Executive Director Benjamin Hooks,
1:06:26
SPEAKER_03: And comedian and activist Dick Gregory,
1:06:29
they formed the New York-based Committee for Justice for
1:06:32
Richard Lapchick.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_03: So similar to Jussie Smollett, this utterly unbelievable story happens.
1:06:38
And of course,
1:06:39
90% of famous people who hear about it go,
1:06:43
of course this happened.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_03: It's horrible.
1:06:45
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
1:06:45
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
1:06:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_03: So anyway,
1:06:50
there's just a few little issues with this beyond that it
1:06:53
sounds completely unbelievable.
1:06:56
The local police and the chief medical examiner of the area did
1:07:00
not believe this at all.
1:07:03
SPEAKER_03: And what's interesting about that to me...
1:07:07
SPEAKER_03: I wouldn't have known how unbelievable the story was,
1:07:10
SPEAKER_03: Katie,
1:07:11
SPEAKER_03: had Lapchick not written a book about himself,
1:07:14
a self-aggrandizing book called Broken Promises Racism in
1:07:18
American Sports,
1:07:20
SPEAKER_03: that for over half the book just defensively and bitterly details...
1:07:26
SPEAKER_03: the story and the reaction to the story.
1:07:29
SPEAKER_03: And every time he describes the disbelief of the people surrounding it,
1:07:34
SPEAKER_03: it convinces me further that it's just totally fake.
1:07:36
SPEAKER_01: It didn't happen.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_03: It's absolutely insane.
1:07:41
SPEAKER_03: So Tidewater,
1:07:42
which I guess is the local area that includes wherever this
1:07:46
Wesleyan location is,
1:07:47
SPEAKER_03: they've got a medical examiner.
1:07:49
Name was Farouk B.
1:07:51
Presswala,
1:07:52
a typical white supremacist name,
1:07:54
you know,
1:07:54
central casting.
1:07:57
And Preswalla,
1:07:58
he noted that the etching of Niger had what is termed
1:08:03
hesitation marks.
1:08:04
Thank God they spelled it wrong so that you don't have to say
1:08:08
the word on this podcast.
1:08:09
SPEAKER_03: I mean, yeah.
1:08:09
SPEAKER_03: It makes it easier to recapitulate what happened here, for sure.
1:08:14
SPEAKER_03: And the spelling,
1:08:16
SPEAKER_03: by the way,
1:08:16
SPEAKER_03: is going to factor into some of the questionable nature of the story.
1:08:20
So the hesitation marks typically happen when a wound is
1:08:24
self-inflicted because
1:08:25
SPEAKER_03: you're going,
1:08:26
SPEAKER_03: ow,
1:08:27
SPEAKER_03: ow,
1:08:27
SPEAKER_03: ow.
1:08:27
SPEAKER_02: It hurts.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_03: As you're doing it.
1:08:30
But apparently it's easily differentiated from when somebody
1:08:33
does it to you.
1:08:35
Unless they're a particularly empathetic,
1:08:37
brutal assaulter and they really feel it.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_01: Feeling your pain.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_03: I'm so sorry.
1:08:42
SPEAKER_03: I'm so racist.
1:08:43
I hate that I'm doing this to you,
1:08:45
but I just love South Africa and I love apartheid.
1:08:49
SPEAKER_03: As a person, this isn't cool, but look, we all do.
1:08:53
SPEAKER_03: It's the cost.
1:08:53
SPEAKER_03: You know, I have to do it.
1:08:56
SPEAKER_03: You got to break a few eggs to make an omelet.
1:08:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it looked basically like a self-done tattoo.
1:09:03
It looked like a classic self-done tattoo where the carving had
1:09:08
squared letters of
1:09:09
SPEAKER_03: equal size and equal distance apart in horizontal lines.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_03: And this is cute.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_03: This is cute.
1:09:16
SPEAKER_03: The eye in Niger was dotted, too, which is a nice little...
1:09:21
SPEAKER_00: Did I have a little heart in it?
1:09:23
SPEAKER_03: It's a nice little touch.
1:09:26
SPEAKER_03: Just an absolutely amazing story.
1:09:29
SPEAKER_03: And yes, the local police did not believe Lapchick.
1:09:33
SPEAKER_03: And funny enough,
1:09:35
the book is how I learned that Lapchick lied to the press that
1:09:40
it was the full slur.
1:09:41
SPEAKER_03: He told the press in interviews a lie that it was.
1:09:46
SPEAKER_00: And
1:09:48
He explains in the book that he did this because the police
1:09:51
told him to obscure
1:09:53
SPEAKER_03: certain aspects of the story in the immediate aftermath,
1:09:55
SPEAKER_03: which does not,
1:09:56
SPEAKER_03: it doesn't sound like something that the police would say.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_03: They pull you aside and go...
1:10:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
1:10:01
can you imagine doing this to yourself and then looking in the
1:10:05
mirror and realizing
1:10:06
SPEAKER_00: that you left off a G?
1:10:09
Well,
1:10:09
I think that he didn't have the courage of his convictions,
1:10:14
as it were.
1:10:15
SPEAKER_00: He didn't actually want to have a racial slur tattooed on his body.
1:10:18
SPEAKER_00: He's a good white man.
1:10:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_03: He really took, as they said in Breaking Bad, a half measure here.
1:10:24
SPEAKER_03: He didn't want to go the full way.
1:10:27
He didn't want to be at the pool and take his shirt off and
1:10:29
everybody looks.
1:10:30
SPEAKER_00: He should have just gone with the soft A.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_03: He should have come up with something else, or maybe he shouldn't have.
1:10:37
SPEAKER_03: This worked for him.
1:10:38
SPEAKER_03: This vaulted him to fame.
1:10:41
SPEAKER_03: We can't question him.
1:10:42
SPEAKER_03: This guy became rich and famous off this.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_03: So perhaps this was the right way to go about it.
1:10:48
But the problem is when you tell me in your book that you lied
1:10:51
to the press about
1:10:52
SPEAKER_03: this and you blame the police,
1:10:53
SPEAKER_03: I go,
1:10:54
SPEAKER_03: huh,
1:10:55
SPEAKER_03: so you lie.
1:10:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:10:58
SPEAKER_03: You lie, eh?
1:11:00
SPEAKER_03: You lie when you think that it's the thing to do.
1:11:03
SPEAKER_03: But hey, he ran with this in the late 1970s.
1:11:07
SPEAKER_03: Maybe the press was even more naive than it is today.
1:11:10
SPEAKER_03: And it just makes sense that some crazed anti-apartheid activists,
1:11:16
SPEAKER_03: not from South Africa,
1:11:18
SPEAKER_03: rousted a guy nobody had ever heard of.
1:11:21
SPEAKER_03: from a library office of a small college in the middle of the night,
1:11:26
SPEAKER_03: carved the wrong spelling of a racial slur into his chest.
1:11:32
And this all is just true because the South is racist and
1:11:36
that's the type of thing
1:11:37
SPEAKER_03: that happens in the South,
1:11:38
SPEAKER_03: as we all know.
1:11:38
SPEAKER_03: This sort of thing just, unfortunately, it's just that bad down there.
1:11:43
SPEAKER_01: As a Southerner, I can confirm that
1:11:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it happens all the time.
1:11:47
SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is par for the course.
1:11:50
It was part of the conservative backlash that would give rise
1:11:53
to Reaganism,
1:11:55
clearly.
1:11:55
SPEAKER_03: This was part of the substrate.
1:11:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's not remotely believable.
1:12:00
I like this quote from Preswalla because it reminds me a lot of
1:12:04
what happened
1:12:05
during the Great Awakening and the mentality a lot of liberals
1:12:07
had when things that
1:12:08
SPEAKER_03: weren't believable crossed their transom.
1:12:11
SPEAKER_03: He said,
1:12:11
I'm sure this is going to be ammo for the conservative redneck
1:12:14
types to say
1:12:15
SPEAKER_03: liberals are pinkos and liars,
1:12:17
SPEAKER_03: which includes me because I'm a liberal.
1:12:21
SPEAKER_03: So that was the preswalla take.
1:12:23
SPEAKER_03: And it never really broke through, Katie.
1:12:26
SPEAKER_03: This continued for years and years and years to be the lap chick story.
1:12:29
SPEAKER_03: It was one I was aware of.
1:12:31
SPEAKER_03: It was one that was retold to me.
1:12:32
SPEAKER_03: When you would read about him in the Orlando Sentinel,
1:12:35
SPEAKER_03: they would talk about this having happened to him.
1:12:37
SPEAKER_03: And
1:12:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:13:00
SPEAKER_03: to Nelson Mandela's inauguration.
1:13:03
And he continues to be a storied and respected figure who has
1:13:08
the cachet to tell
1:13:09
SPEAKER_03: everybody what to do as far as racial hiring is concerned.
1:13:13
So a guy who nearly carved a racial slur into his own chest was
1:13:21
invited to Nelson
1:13:22
SPEAKER_00: Mandela's inauguration.
1:13:23
SPEAKER_00: That is a white privilege.
1:13:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:13:26
SPEAKER_03: No, it is in a way.
1:13:27
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
1:13:27
SPEAKER_03: we joke about it,
1:13:28
but I do think there's something to the Lapchick story that
1:13:33
rhymes with that.
1:13:34
SPEAKER_03: I do think one of the reasons why he was so popular with these leagues,
1:13:38
SPEAKER_03: these sports commissioners typically are all older white men,
1:13:42
SPEAKER_03: and it really got going during the George Floyd moment.
1:13:45
SPEAKER_03: They look to Lapchick,
1:13:46
SPEAKER_03: I think,
1:13:47
in a way that they might not look to a black guy or even Robin
1:13:51
DiAngelo because
1:13:52
SPEAKER_03: there's this sense of,
1:13:54
SPEAKER_03: How do I do what you've done?
1:13:56
SPEAKER_03: How do I become a respected racial justice warrior?
1:14:01
SPEAKER_03: You're an old white man.
1:14:02
SPEAKER_03: I'm an old white man.
1:14:03
SPEAKER_03: How did you do it?
1:14:04
And obviously the answer is to carve part of a racial slur to
1:14:09
your stomach.
1:14:10
SPEAKER_03: I think I said chest at one point.
1:14:11
SPEAKER_03: Maybe it was a stomach.
1:14:12
SPEAKER_03: I should be clear.
1:14:13
SPEAKER_00: A chest is harder to reach.
1:14:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:14:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, stomach.
1:14:16
SPEAKER_03: It's so like a low-class tattoo.
1:14:18
It's so funny to picture him just lifting his shirt and,
1:14:23
you know,
1:14:23
baby head.
1:14:25
SPEAKER_03: A party.
1:14:27
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, that's that's the way you do it.
1:14:29
But I think that's one of the reasons he's the guy who
1:14:32
demonstrated how to walk
1:14:34
SPEAKER_03: among the landmines and how to do it.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_03: And he had more credibility with them to give these report cards.
1:14:41
SPEAKER_03: And it became very lucrative, Katie, insanely lucrative.
1:14:45
SPEAKER_03: And I.
1:14:46
When I talked to him in 2023,
1:14:48
he was almost giddy about just how much business they were doing.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_03: I guess the George Floyd moment was still ongoing.
1:14:57
SPEAKER_03: I talked to his agency.
1:14:58
They told me that for a 45 minute to one hour presentation,
1:15:02
his fee was $15,000.
1:15:05
SPEAKER_03: And that included,
1:15:06
SPEAKER_03: you'd have to be in addition to first class airfare,
1:15:09
SPEAKER_03: ground transportation and hotel.
1:15:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:15:11
Lapchick,
1:15:12
he fights for racial justice,
1:15:13
but he's not flying coach to do it.
1:15:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's not how he does it.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_01: It's the Camille Foster school of travel.
1:15:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no flying coach.
1:15:24
SPEAKER_03: And I asked him this question.
1:15:25
SPEAKER_03: I did not expect him to respond this way.
1:15:28
Maybe I should have considering how lucrative this business had
1:15:32
become for him.
1:15:33
SPEAKER_03: And he charges fees for all these report cards and everything else.
1:15:36
SPEAKER_03: And I asked him if diversity was more of a business or a moral mission.
1:15:43
SPEAKER_03: And his quote right here is,
1:15:45
SPEAKER_03: I think when we started out,
1:15:47
SPEAKER_03: it was more of a moral consideration,
1:15:49
SPEAKER_03: but it's clearly now a business.
1:15:51
SPEAKER_03: Diversity is a business.
1:15:53
SPEAKER_03: It's as simple as that.
1:15:55
And the leagues know that they're trying to build a larger fan
1:15:57
base and communities
1:15:58
SPEAKER_03: of color,
1:15:59
SPEAKER_03: and it's a business.
1:16:00
SPEAKER_03: I think the morality of it plays into it,
1:16:02
SPEAKER_03: but I think the business decision is what drives it now.
1:16:07
SPEAKER_03: He said, while swirling his 50-year-old wine and his golden goblet,
1:16:14
SPEAKER_03: The guy lives well.
1:16:15
He's got he had at the time two houses and classic and
1:16:19
communities that were over
1:16:20
SPEAKER_03: 90 percent white.
1:16:22
SPEAKER_03: I mean,
1:16:22
the man the man has lived well and maybe he thinks he's earned
1:16:25
it because racists
1:16:27
SPEAKER_03: attacked him and scarred him for life.
1:16:29
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, he can afford to rest easy.
1:16:32
SPEAKER_01: Did you ask him if this was a self-inflicted wound?
1:16:35
SPEAKER_03: So here's the thing.
1:16:36
SPEAKER_03: I wish that I had known about all this when I interviewed him.
1:16:40
I interviewed him about that question of whether diversity is a
1:16:44
business or if it's
1:16:46
SPEAKER_03: a moral consideration.
1:16:47
SPEAKER_03: And by the time I did more research and learned about all of this...
1:16:51
SPEAKER_03: he was already on to me as a skeptic.
1:16:53
SPEAKER_03: He,
1:16:54
SPEAKER_03: in fact,
1:16:54
SPEAKER_03: quickly ended the phone conversation when I,
1:16:57
SPEAKER_03: shitster that I am,
1:16:59
SPEAKER_03: asked,
1:17:00
SPEAKER_03: and we're bringing it full circle right now,
1:17:01
SPEAKER_03: I should note that I am Jewish.
1:17:04
SPEAKER_03: Is it a problem if we're talking about over-representation?
1:17:06
Because he kept saying the over-representation and ownership of
1:17:09
white men.
1:17:10
SPEAKER_03: And I said, well, half the owners are Jewish.
1:17:13
Why is it a problem if they're majority white,
1:17:16
but not a problem if they're majority Jewish?
1:17:20
SPEAKER_03: And he quickly ended the phone conversation from there.
1:17:24
SPEAKER_03: It was just a question, Richard.
1:17:26
SPEAKER_03: I just wanted to know.
1:17:27
SPEAKER_03: I'm a curious person.
1:17:29
SPEAKER_03: That's all I am.
1:17:30
But I found all this out later and I could not get a new
1:17:34
interview after that point.
1:17:36
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's so funny.
1:17:38
SPEAKER_01: It really,
1:17:38
SPEAKER_01: when you hear stories like this and the story of Robin DiAngelo,
1:17:41
SPEAKER_01: like I have thought a lot,
1:17:43
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:17:43
SPEAKER_01: Robin DiAngelo lives in Seattle and so does Chris Rufo.
1:17:46
I think the two biggest beneficiaries of BLM and the DEI
1:17:51
movement in the city of
1:17:52
SPEAKER_01: Seattle are Robin DiAngelo and Chris Rufo.
1:17:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:17:55
And polar opposites,
1:17:57
polar opposite sides,
1:17:58
but way more than any black people.
1:18:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:18:01
SPEAKER_01: maybe Patrice Cullors,
1:18:02
SPEAKER_01: who has,
1:18:03
SPEAKER_01: what,
1:18:04
SPEAKER_01: six houses bought with BLM money,
1:18:06
SPEAKER_01: is also a beneficiary.
1:18:08
SPEAKER_03: Maybe almost Kamala Harris, but couldn't get it done.
1:18:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:18:14
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
1:18:14
SPEAKER_01: She needed a white man to get her over the edge into the White House.
1:18:19
SPEAKER_03: Didn't work out.
1:18:21
SPEAKER_03: She should have consulted with Richard Lapchick.
1:18:23
Maybe he would have had the right advice on how to really mine
1:18:25
the moment.
1:18:26
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, carve a slur, a half of a slur into your stomach.
1:18:30
SPEAKER_01: All right, Ethan, thank you for that story.
1:18:34
SPEAKER_01: That is fascinating.
1:18:35
SPEAKER_01: I hope that his Wikipedia page gets updated with this information soon.
1:18:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I do as well.
1:18:43
SPEAKER_03: We deserve to know everything about his heroism.
1:18:46
Yes.
1:18:46
SPEAKER_01: All right.
1:18:47
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Ethan.
1:18:48
SPEAKER_01: Where can people find you?
1:18:49
SPEAKER_03: They can find me at House of Strauss dot com.
1:18:51
SPEAKER_03: That is my sub stack.
1:18:53
And also I have a House of Strauss YouTube where I put cool
1:18:56
clips up there for
1:18:57
SPEAKER_03: discoverability as we try to find inventive ways around link suppression.
1:19:02
SPEAKER_03: Boy, we're so oppressed, Katie.
1:19:04
SPEAKER_03: But I try.
1:19:04
SPEAKER_03: I try.
1:19:05
SPEAKER_01: We need to call it Link Oppression, not Link Suppression.
1:19:08
SPEAKER_03: Ooh, that's some good branding right there.
1:19:12
SPEAKER_03: Okay, I'm in it.
1:19:14
SPEAKER_03: Yes, I'm into it.
1:19:15
SPEAKER_03: I am Link Oppressed, so therefore click on my links.
1:19:18
SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much for having me, Katie.
1:19:19
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for coming on.
1:19:20
SPEAKER_01: This has been Blocked and Reported.
1:19:21
SPEAKER_01: We are produced, as always, with help from Jessica, the 80s baby.
1:19:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm Katie Herzog, and Jesse and I will be back next week together.
1:19:28
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
1:19:44
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