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