Episode 166: Cohost Questions and Rebecca Nagle on the Washington Football Team
This week, Amira, Shireen, Jessica, and Lindsay do a speed round of cohost questions about what they're working on outside of the podcast [6:00]. After that, we're re-airing a conversation with Indigenous writer Rebecca Nagle and Lindsay about Native activism and changing the name of the Washington football team [36:50].
Of course, you’ll hear the Burn Pile [50:30], the Bad Ass Woman of the Week segment, starring Maya Moore [1:03:55], and what is good in our worlds [1:07:45].
Links
Father-son duo from Blackfeet Reservation urges Darby football boycott: https://406mtsports.com/high-school/football/father-son-duo-from-blackfeet-reservation-urge-darby-football-boycott/article_ec2d3d21-a794-542e-a887-bcb907952191.html
Death of South Korean athlete Choi Sook-hyun amid allegations of violence and abuse sparks uproar: https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3091462/death-south-korean-athlete-choi-sook-hyun-amid-allegations
Melody Davidson may be leaving Hockey Canada, but her quarter century of work has left women’s hockey stronger than ever: https://hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/news/2019-20-nwt-mel-davidson-says-goodbye
Maya Moore for the Win: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/maya-moore-jonathan-irons-free/
Transcript
Amira: Welcome to Burn It All Down. I’m Amira Rose Davis, assistant professor of history and African American studies at Penn State. I’m joined today by three of my illustrious co-hosts, including Shireen Ahmed, freelance writer and sports activist in Toronto, Canada; also joining us is Jessica Luther, author of the forthcoming book Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back, she’s in Austin, Texas; and lastly, Lindsay Gibbs, freelance sports reporter and creator of the Power Plays newsletter – you can sign up at powerplays.news. She’s in Washington, DC. Before we start, flamethrowers, I wanna send a big thank you to our patrons for their continued and generous support and we all at Burn It All Down wanna give a special shoutout to all of those who remain on the frontlines of this global pandemic and everybody in the streets as activists who are doing their part, feet to the ground, to make this world a better place.
On the show today we are gonna be doing a speed round of co-host questions. And I say speed, but you know me and you know my co-hosts. But you will have co-host questions, where we all are gonna ask each other a little bit about what the work is we’re doing right now outside of the podcast and how our expertise might weigh in on certain issues that are happening right now. Then we’re gonna re-air an interview that Lindsay did with Rebecca Nagle back in episode 33 about the Redhawks campaign to change the name of the Washington football team. The interview is just as relevant now, and so we are going to re-air it for you. Of course we’re going to be burning some things and shouting out some badass women of the week.
So before we get into that, I wanna talk about…I’ve seen some extremely bad ideas for renaming the Washington football team, and some, I guess, okay ones. If you were dying to know what betting odds are, they have the Presidents at +300, the Generals at +400. They have the Washington Memorials at +500 [laughter] which sounds like the worst idea. And then they have specific names like Jeffersons +700, Roosevelts +700, yeah. Then they have the Washington Monuments [laughs] at +800 which also seems like a terrible idea. So I guess I just wanted to start by asking you, what would your go-to name be, because it does seem like we’re perhaps getting closer to that mountaintop where this finally might budge a little bit. Jessica?
Jessica: Well, because it’s much easier to criticize than create, I’m gonna say: please don’t do ‘Warriors.’ Can I just put that into the universe?
Amira: Yes.
Jessica: I just feel like that would be really destructive and would allow people to still show up with all their racist shit.
Amira: Exactly.
Jessica: So definitely not the Warriors. When you said the Washington Monuments I just…kind of love it. [laughter] There’s a part of me that thinks they deserve to not have a great name, and then have to live with it so that they remember all the time the shame of why they have this new name.
Amira: It’s so phallic! Like–
Jessica: It is.
Amira: It’s so phallic.
Jessica: I really don’t want, like, the Generals. I really don’t want the military stuff either. I mean, ‘Presidents’…It all just sounds really bad. I really do like the sound of Redtails and Redhawks, that kind of thing sounds good. But man, if they have to live with the Monuments that would be pretty great.
Amira: Linz, you have any great ideas?
Lindsay: I do have to say, so, I’m coming up on five years in DC, and I think the thing that frustrates me the most is how people only associate it with being the federal government and, you know, the presidents and all that stuff when there’s really so much more to DC and DC culture at large. I would like them to do something a little bit away from federal government symbolism. But I don't know. I mean, my favorite that I think people were talking about was, like, the Washington States [laughs] as far as let’s get us some state’s rights.
Amira: Right.
Lindsay: So that’s kind of where I am. But I’ve seen something like the Redtails or the Redhawks; I know that there’s problems with both. I see a lot of people loving them, I see a lot of people hating them. I don’t know, let’s just go with something simple. Let’s not overcomplicate it.
Amira: Shireen.
Shireen: The first thing I thought of was ‘Monuments’ and I’m like, why am I thinking that!? But I’ve come up with the winner: the Washington Delle Donne. I think that would be amazing. It’s never gonna happen, but let’s do a nod to the best thing in Washington, which is the WNBA team. So this is what…I realize…Okay, your silence, is deafening right now, all of you! But I think that that’s what I came up with because I just have an emotional investment in an NFL team out of Washington. I don’t know. I would love it to be frivolous, but they take themselves way too seriously, the Washington team, to do that. But I would love frivolity as well.
Amira: Well there you have it, folks. We’ll update you with the odds. Maybe one of those choices will stick. I can already hear the ‘taxation without representation’ chants for Washington statehood. Anywho, onto the next. For the last four months we have been bringing you updates and news week to week that usually are centered around that are centered around COVID, around people that are bungling their response to it, people excelling at it, sports coming back or coming back before they should. There’s been a lot to talk about, and it was cute, I think, Jess said at the beginning of March, “How are we gonna do a sports podcast with no sports?” HA HA HA. Yeah, that was funny.
Jessica: You’re welcome.
Amira: Yeah. [laughs] But one of the things that often gets lost, you know…We do Burn It All Down and obviously have our conversations, but all of us actually have jobs [laughs] here on the podcast, and expertise of course we bring to the pod, projects that we’re working on outside of it. We just wanted to take a moment and pause and reset and do a speed round of co-host questions where we’re gonna ask each other questions that we have about their work. So, this is designed for us to answer some questions that we have of each other, and also to just have a larger discussion and kind of flex a little bit and demonstrate what complete badasses my co-hosts are because, let me tell you, they’re up to some really really dope things. So I’m gonna start by putting somebody on the hot seat…Hmm…Jessica!
Jessica: Okay. I’m ready.
Amira: You get to go first. Alright Jess, you’re on the hot seat. Let’s see…Shireen, can you kick off the questions?
Shireen: Hello, Jessica Luther!
Jessica: Hello, Shireen Ahmed.
Shireen: First question: how is the process of collaborating with another writer for your upcoming book, Kavitha Davidson? If you have a particular vision for the book – is it similar to the way we do the podcast where it’s the process of the Google document and you figure it out? How is it specifically with another writer?
Jessica: Yeah, thanks. So, Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back, coming out September 1st, has been years in the making, like, actual years in the making. It’s very different than what we do here. This is easily one of the most collaborative things I’ve ever done in my life, Burn It All Down, and the book lends itself because every chapter is topical, so every chapter is about a different thing. We were really able to divide it down the middle and each take on a different chapter, so we didn’t have to split the writing of a topic. So one of us would write a chapter and send it to the other to edit and read through. There was a point where we had to figure out the order of chapters to make it flow and make it make sense as more of a conversation rather than just individual chapters. But yeah, it was very different collaborative process than what we do here on the show which is…I don’t know, I’m trying to think of the right word, like, hands-on – everybody is deeply involved in all the decision-making here, whereas when I was, like, writing a chapter on brain trauma, I just decided who I wanted to interview and I would ask Kavitha if she had connections or any of that kind of thing, but it was really my chapter to craft. So it definitely worked differently.
Amira: Yeah, I wanna piggyback off Shireen’s question and also ask you about the book, which I cannot wait for. So, I wanna know: how do you write a book? Asking for a friend.
Lindsay: Yeah. [laughs]
Amira: But also, especially with a topic that is so resonant. I know for instance you have a chapter about the battles over the name change with the Washington football team. How do you, when you’re doing final page proofs or everything’s already bound, resist the urge to be like, wait – there’s more! I mean, to update that chapter. How do you write a book when everything’s still changing in real time?
Jessica: Yeah, it’s actually really difficult to sort of sit back at this point and just know that the book has been printed, or it’s at the printer at this point, so we literally can’t do anything with it. I do wanna say while we’re talking about the book, that it’s really fun to be with the three of you right now talking about this because you all appear in the book. I interview each one of you for it at different points in there. How do you write a book? You do it literally piece by piece. You just break it up into the tiniest chunks you can get and then you just keep going. I’m a big list person, so I made long lists and then I would just check them off as I went to feel accomplished. But it is really difficult right now; I did write the chapter on Native mascots which is of course framed around the Washington NFL team, but there’s also a big chunk in there about the FSU team, which is my alma mater, and it is just about Native mascots in general. One thing I’ve had to do is just be okay with the fact that we might be late…It would be wonderful to be late, or old, on the Washington NFL team’s name. Like, if it changes and the chapter’s old, that would be phenomenal, because the name needs to change.
I do think…You know, there’s that little selfish part of you that’s like, man, I worked on that for years! The three interviews for that chapter, I interviewed three Native women; they’re from 2017, so it is hard to sit back and watch everything changing. The very final thing, the big add that we did at the very end was a paragraph about COVID, because we had already totally drafted the book before everything shut down, and then it was like oh, shit, we don’t know what the other side’s gonna look like. But I do remind myself that the book is really about big systemic things in sports just like this podcast is, so stuff we talked about three years ago on this podcast is still relevant today because those big systemic things aren’t really going away, right? There’ll all here. So even if Native mascots, even if the Washington NFL team changes its name before the book comes out, the fact that it stuck around for that long is really something that we as a society have to keep interrogating, the fact that people are still using the fucking slur in order to talk about how racist it is, like, people participating in the racism as it’s happening – that’s something that’s still with us, whether or not the name changes.
Amira: Totally. Alright, last question. Lindsay.
Lindsay: Yeah, so Jess, you do so much and I’m always in awe and I often actually forget that you’re, on top of everything, in a PhD program as well, working on your PhD! So I wanted to ask: how is that going and why at this point in your career, you’re already established, why decide to go back and take the academia route?
Jessica: Yeah, I forget too. Don’t tell anyone in my department that! [laughter] I also sometimes forget that that’s a thing I’m doing. I decided to go back…I missed it. There are things about academia that – not a ton, but the kind of stuff that I did miss from academia was really the work and the research. I really do love the archive, I love reading old newspaper articles and people’s letters and trying to figure out how to take all these little pieces of this puzzle and put them together and say something about the past. That’s the kind of stuff that I really enjoy and I have been sitting on this project for years now. I’m writing about the 1970s, the UT women’s basketball team, the moment when it becomes professionalized in the sense of it goes from a club team to an actual team. UT was an incredibly racist place in the 1970s, there’s a lot of good evidence, and the team is all white and they hire a Black man to be the coach and then they end up firing him to hire Jody Conradt.
There’s a lot here about Title IX, about the move towards that, but also I just can’t wrap my mind around them putting a Black man in charge of a team of white women in 1974. That doesn’t make any sense based on anything we know about race and gender at the time. I’ve known about this for years, and when they hired Shaka Smart to be the head basketball coach at UT – he was the first Black man to have that job – I pitched to, I wanna say, Sports Illustrated. I was like, I have a story about the actual first Black man to head a basketball team at UT. It just wasn’t what they wanted, right? So in order to tell this story and to do it the justice that it deserves I feel like you kind of do need the time and space that academia gives you, the kind of conversations. So it made sense to go back to do it. And you know, there was always a lingering thing about not finishing that. It would be nice to get those three letters and to complete that work. So that’s part of it, too.
Amira: That’s very cool. I can’t wait. I’m so excited. I’m such a geek. [laughs] Great, thank you for taking your turn in the hot seat. Next up, Shireen. Come on down. Bam!
Shireen: Hello! Shireen sashays down the aisle! [laughter]
Amira: To kick us off on questioning Shireen, Jess will kick us off. Can you start off?
Jessica: Yeah, I’d love to. First I would like to know what color hijab you’re wearing as you sashay down. But then second: I’m really excited about your new job at TSN. I was thinking about what it is that you’re going to cover. Are there particular people in Canada in sport or sports media – of course including Prime Minister Sinclair – that you’re hoping to highlight or include in your work that you’re doing for TSN?
Shireen: Thanks, Jess. My hijab is maroon.
Jessica: Okay, good.
Shireen: It’s the one that you mentioned that you liked, so I’m gonna do that one. I am really excited about TSN, I had my first story there. It went really well and it was really interesting because it was the first time that they had the term BIPOC – Black, Indigenous, people of color – embedded into a story. Ever. I know, it’s small steps, but sometimes to me they feel like leaps, and the support and love from practically everybody I know and I’m friends with in journalism retweeted it. So I was very grateful for that. And people who are at different outlets also retweeted it, even though they work for the other guy, so it was really nice.
Now, TSN is super open to things, and in addition to that it’s not just the stories. It’s very much like what we sought to do with Burn It All Down – it may have been unintentional at the time, but to change the face of what experts look like and I’m very proud we’ve done that. We’re doing that constantly. But I had somebody tweet to me that they were so excited and I’m gonna tear up but she said that “I could never imagine an 11 year old child seeing somebody that dresses like them and looks like me write for TSN about hockey.” And that really meant a lot to me, really pointing to it’s so cavernous, that hole that we’re missing for people and for what our community looks like generally.
Lindsay: I’m so excited for you, I’m so excited for everybody to read what you’re working on. I wanted to ask you a question, so one of the things that we saw this week was Jamad’s video of her handles, celebrating Somalian Independence Day, it seemingly hit that viral nerve of the internet and all of a sudden I looked up and it had 275,000 likes; ESPN was retweeting it, Kehlani was retweeting it, and I remember you saying this is what she does all the time! But I wanted to ask you and draw on the expertise that you have. Why do you think these random videos of hijabi players playing ball go viral, what does it tell us about in what ways it subverts or defies people’s expectations? In other words, when people get really hype sharing something that is seemingly an everyday occurrence, is it not more revealing about them than it is, you know, whatever they’re sharing?
Shireen: I love this question, Dr. Davis. I love it, because it seeks to sort of look at something beyond the surface. Absolutely, what it is is that media is still obsessed with the juxtaposition of what they think tropes of Muslim women are still in place. The idea that Jamad – who is phenomenal, she's an absolute doll, and people are like, “You have to have her on the show!” – people, I know, it's coming, relax. But the thing is is that she actually ended up becoming viral because of a video that House of Highlights shared of her, because she’s playing in in abaya, and an abaya’s a long gown that can be buttoned down in the front, and what it is meant to do is cover the shape of your physique for women that choose to wear it. I love it, because you can wear whatever you want underneath and just not worry about it. But she's playing in that, and the one that she has is buttoned down as opposed to one that you slip over your head without buttons. So she's wearing that with trackies underneath and her runners and whatnot. Her handles are tight, there’s no question, but she is a basketball player. I think I find it fascinating that people are so surprised that her handles are so good.
People aren’t surprised that her handles are so good if it wasn’t for what she looked like. She’s a Black, hijab-wearing woman. So we don’t think that Black hijab-wearing women are supposed to do that. But man, do your research, a lot of them look like that. Again, it goes back to who’s sharing these stories that we don’t see enough of them. But she's setting a standard here, opening up the idea of what we think basketball looks like. Now, she’s ready for it, we’re ready for it, but the rest of sports media is still like, “Whaaaat?!” You see the comments in that video, people are like, “Whoa, that’s so good.” The comments are funny, like, “Her handles are better than mine,” and “She’s breaking my ankles,” this and that. But she's a basketball player! That’s inherently what they do. You need to get over yourself and how much in disbelief you are. So you’re right, Amira, it’s more about who’s asking the question. This comes with no disrespect at all to her because I think she’s amazing generally and what she’s done to amplify that place for Muslim women in sport, and hijab-wearing women in particular is a big thing, I don’t wanna dismiss that. But I do wanna look at why the fixation, because it matters. Because it matters.
Amira: Lindsay, can you wrap up Shireen on the hot seat?
Lindsay: Yeah. I guess you’re the expert when it comes to Muslim women in sport and always have your eye on stories that I need to know more about, I think the world needs to know more about. So I just wanted to ask, what stories about Muslim women in sport – obviously I know they’re not a monolith, but are there any stories you think right now should be getting more attention, or big moments on the horizon that the world should be paying more attention to?
Shireen: Yeah, this is a great question because I can actually piggyback off the last one. Women’s squash in Egypt is phenomenal, and there’s Muslim women at the top of the table in the world all the time. I had a conversation with Reem Abulleil about this actually recently, and she had written an article that I retweeted and the Burn It All Down account also retweeted on Muslim women in sports and predominantly hijab-wearing ones, but not exclusive too. But the thing is, those Egyptian squash players don’t wear hijab – they wear shorts and a t-shirt. So the idea that media still likes to fixate on the hijab-wearing Muslim athletes when the majority of Muslim women in the world do not wear hijab, they don’t. It’s still a focus on that, and I’ve written about this for Muslimah Media Watch from a critical perspective of why is the media’s fixation on that specifically.
The story about Iranian women not being able to go to stadiums is something that will stay with me forever, something that I wish I could commit my life to advocating for. We know that football is political, we know that there needs to be political pressure, and now that the spotlight's off the story I fear that that political pressure has stopped. So like many people that are advocating for change and campaigning for something, they want constant pressure. It’s not like that movement has stopped, it’s not like women are now allowed into stadiums all the time, that’s not true. So I would like too see that emphasis stay there and, like I said, I would if I could. I wish I could absolutely commit my whole life to just this one thing because for some reason that story…When you find something that affects you so deeply, for me this was it.
Amira: Thank you so much for sharing. Alright, Lindsay, it’s your turn. [Lindsay gasps] I’m actually gonna kick off the questions. I’ve been so enjoying all the things you’re doing over at Power Plays and if you guys haven’t yet subscribed go do that now, what are you waiting for? But I wanted to ask you, you wrote a good piece a few weeks ago saying that when sports start back, let the women go first. It’s sort of happening, and I’m finding myself really like…It’s awkward! They’re too close, they’re still too close. I saw that this week you kind of resisted that piece as well and I just wanted to ask you a bit about what it’s like watching the NWSL right now and also what it’s like for you to have Power Plays as a site that you can have great nuance and revisit earlier things that you talked about as things are updating in real time?
Lindsay: Yeah, thank you. I did start saying early on in the pandemic and this is an idea that kind of caught on – I’m not sure it was because of me but that ‘what if women’s sports come back first?’ and all of our energy and all of the media’s attention and all of the sports star people get to focus on women’s sports for just a few weeks, even a couple of weeks, and that way it keeps women’s sports from getting lost in the trample back from coronavirus. Now, when I wrote that I did not envision that [laughs] like I said in my piece – it’s 2020, I need to be a little bit more specific. I did not envision that return would happen while the pandemic is still raging and cases are going up and ICUs are still being filled. I assumed there would be a much safer environment, nor did I envision we would be in the middle of this national moment of reckoning over police brutality and systemic racism, which of course is long overdue.
So it’s been all of a sudden within this you’ve had, you know, women’s softball was actually the first women’s team sport to return in the United States, and if you haven’t yet listened to Amira’s special episode, you must press pause right now and go listen to that from last week because Kiki Stokes and AJ Andrews get caught up on what’s been going on between these two teams in women’s softball. But we’ve had them start and then a few days later the National Women’s Soccer League began and it’s what I think has been one of the ten most pivotal days kind of in the history of women’s sports. I really dug deep into that in Power Plays, which is great – it gives me an opportunity, nobody else is gonna want 4000 words on those ten days in women’s sports, right? Where I could grapple with the complications and the nuance and all of my feelings and all of these pivotal moments all together. So luckily I can give myself that own space, so that’s been really special.
Amira: Great. Shireen, do you have the next question for Linz?
Shireen: I do. Linz, as a really well-recognized sports writer, you always provide context in your reporting which I find incredibly helpful. How do you incorporate work from sports historians in your work, what’s that process? And is this a practice you always did?
Lindsay: It’s hard for me to say anything always because I just so backed into my sportswriting career, that there wasn’t much purposeful about it. So I’m sure early on there’s a lot of work that could’ve used more perspective, but certainly when I got to ThinkProgress and was focused full time on the intersection of sports and politics and culture, I wanted to make sure to put everything in the proper context. This show has helped me so much with that, these regular conversations with Brenda and Amira, doctors, has helped me with that. Reaching out to experts, I mean, I think that’s how we first met, Shireen, because I was writing a piece and I wanted real context for the piece I was writing on, I believe, it was an Iranian woman. So I think that I have to dive in and out of subjects that are really deep and really heavy all the time, and I’m not an expert on them but I wanna treat them carefully. So I think it’s just crucial to have these conversations and there’s no way I could be the definitive voice on every single piece that I need to write, so I need to bring those voices that are the experts up to the forefront or I’m not doing my job.
Amira: Awesome. Last question for Lindsay, Jessica?
Jessica: Yeah, so Lindsay, I remember back there was a what’s good at some point where you announced that you are writing a book, so I know you’re in the middle of that. First I’d love for you to remind us what it’s about and tell us where you are in the process, but then I imagine this is a particular moment in time that’s giving you a lot of new material; are you just taking copious notes? What are you doing right now?
Lindsay: Whew, what AM I doing right now? So I’m writing a book about female athlete activism and I pitched this book last year, I got the book deal with Beacon Press – a way to kid of connect these threads, from the fights for equal pay to the fights for LGBTQ rights to the fights for Me Too to, of course, the Black Lives Matter, and to kind of connect these threads of activism that I’ve seen throughout women’s sports and write what I want to be kind of the definitive piece about this moment in female athlete activism. Now as I’m really getting into writing it and reporting it there’s this whole new wave coming up, so it’s been overwhelming and it’s been thrilling. There’s a frustration I think that I’m sure everyone feels, that my book’s not done, that it’s not already out there, that I can’t already point to this and be like, here’s context for all of this, everybody!
But I think more than anything it just kind of helps fuel myself to get this reporting done. It is a little bit difficult because it's easier to track down players who are coming to your city to play games and you can just kind of corner them, so it’s really difficult to try and track down everyone on the phone and going through PR reps. COVID has made reporting it very frustrating, I do have to say. So I’m behind – shocker. But ultimately this moment just galvanizes me to want to…You know, I’m going back and re-reporting a lot of what we saw in 2017 and 2016 from a hindsight vision, and I think that that’s very very valuable, especially in this moment.
Amira: It’s all so exciting, you guys are doing such exciting things. Okay, I guess we’re moving on…No, I’m kidding.
Jessica: Yay! [chanting] Amira! Amira!
Amira: Linz, what you got for me?
Lindsay: One of the things I’m always fascinated with is you’re not only this expert on all of your subjects, but you work and you teach athletes today. Obviously Penn State is full of phenomenal athletics programs. I just wanted to ask, there’s this big narrative right now that I even perpetuate at times about how student athletes – college athletes, I don’t want to use the NCAA’s word – college athletes are really finding their voices and kind of recognizing their power, especially Black college athletes. I wanted to see as someone who works on a one-on-one basis with a lot of these college athletes, is that something…Have you noticed a shift over the past few years as a teacher, and do you think this narrative is correct, or is there more to it?
Amira: Yeah no that’s a great question. I would say that what I find the shift to be is that they feel like they have more cover to say things they’ve already been saying. And so the kind of ‘finding their voice’ aspect, no, well, they’ve found their voice! They’ve been had that. It’s more finding the microphone. I have any number of athletes from any number of sports in my classes and I have deep connected relationships with many of them that go beyond the classroom as the semester ends and they kind of move on. They are always talking and critiquing the kind of systems they’re in, they’re talking about social justice issues. I think the hardest thing when you are a college athlete and kind of unpaid labor in that regard is constantly balancing your place within the system, your future career aspirations, literally the fact that your time is so structured that the most you can do on some weeks is just to go through all the motions, you know?
When I was talking to Anna Cockrell last week at USC, the thing that really stuck with me that she was was COVID has given her time to even stop and think. So I think that one of the things we’re seeing is that under the cover of these corporate and institutional kind of Black Lives Matter statements and the cover that it’s given student athletes to vocalize what they’ve been already saying, right, is that we’re hearing their voices more, but they’ve always been talking about this. It’s a very precarious place that they speak out from but I couldn’t be prouder of the student athletes I know that are pushing, that you might not even hear about, that are pushing their coaching staff, they’re pushing their institutions in ways that are profound and I think will yield results as we’re moving forward.
Lindsay: Whew. “They’ve had their voice, they just needed to find a microphone.” I wrote that down. [laughter] This is some good stuff.
Shireen: Yeah. I’m next! Dr. Davis, you’re very busy nowadays and that is important because you’re brilliant. My initial question was going to be how do you manage being beautiful and simultaneously gorgeous [Amira groans] but you said I wasn’t allowed to ask that. So the question I have specifically is you are very very busy, but do you ever feel a sense of frustration, that you’ve been writing and studying for years and have people who have done similar work to you before you – Black academics, these are not new – but suddenly people in sports media are seemingly giving a shit and paying attention. Is there a sense of frustration that comes up, like, “I told you, we’ve been saying this.” Does that ever happen?
Amira: It’s a great question. I think that we all have been there, we all are constantly there now. When you are working on something and when you’re working on something that people don’t care about, so you’re just kind of hammering, hammering, hammering away at a nail, you’re painting one piece of a picture over and over and over again, and it seems like nobody cares. And all of a sudden the national spotlight kind of stops on the work you’re doing and all of a sudden it’s like all these people are next to you and you’re like, hold on! Where did you come from!? I think that the frustration comes not necessarily in that people are now focusing on it because for so many of us we want that, but one of the things that happens is that that focus doesn’t come with a removal of, like, how power works. So all of a sudden you have somebody who just thought about something you’ve been thinking about for years but has more resources and bigger platforms, and I think those are the things that can be frustrating because it’s like that gif where it’s like, sis, we been knew! We been here. [Shireen laughs]
I think all of us have felt that for a variety of things that we study which is part and parcel of the work we do, so I would say that that is not my frustration…Yeah, of course a little bit, but I think the thing that really bothers me more is that feeling like, okay, when it leaves is your interest leaving with it? I think it’s kind of also resisting simplistic narratives, one of the things that can happen when people get a microphone to amplify a story they just discovered is that they’re asking questions that have already been answered but don’t know that. They don’t know what they don’t know, so that’s fine that they’re operating from that, but you’re at a place where you’re like, no, but I’m ready for the next chapter. of this discussion, I’m ready for part two, because we're already there.
Next up, we have a re-air of the interview that Lindsay did with Rebecca Nagle back in episode 33. We’ve had so many more people come onboard since then, so if you haven’t heard this interview I’m so glad to hear it again. And for those who had, I think that you’ll all agree that the relevance of this interview is so important. Part of why we wanted to re-air this is to push back on the stupid ass statement that Dan Snyder put out which basically is like, “Now we’ll consider–” put out with the word written fifteen times, to Jess’s earlier point. This complete erasure of all of the Native activism and voices that have constantly been pushing this issue for 50, 60 years at this point. So part of the effort of re-airing this is to spotlight not only those voices but also highlight a very real campaign that was just a few years ago, that should’ve gotten the traction that we’re having now, and that contains brilliant nuggets that are still applicable today. So check out the interview.
Lindsay: Hello everyone. I am here with Rebecca Nagle, she’s an organizer with the Redhawks campaign and a citizen of Cherokee Nation. If you’ve been online at all this past week you might have seen a news story that the Washington NFL team was changing its name to the Washington Redhawks. That announcement spread mid-week and very quickly was picked up by some very viral sources. It came out of course that that was not the actual case unfortunately, that Dan Snyder did not change his heart overnight, but Rebecca was one of the people who helped create this campaign because it was actually a group of activists who were trying to spread the word about, I believe, how easy a name change would be and how it could be actually not as complicated as we’re making it. Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us.
Rebecca: Yeah, thank you for having me.
Lindsay: So, let’s just start. Where in the world did this idea come from?
Rebecca: I had been thinking about spoofing the Washington football team for a while. I had done a couple of other internet-based culture jams before and I thought that the team would make a really good target. So, I approached a woman named Jordan Daniel who’s the co-founder of the Rising Hearts Coalition, which is a group of Native advocates that do grassroots organizing in DC. And yeah, I wanted to see if they would be interested in doing it and they said yes. And then, we started working on it in about August, so it’s been in the works for a few months now.
Lindsay: That’s so exciting. I mean, it was so realistic and it wasn’t one of those moments for me where it was just…Of course, because I cover politics and sports, so everyone keeps sending me the articles over and over again, and of course, I realized pretty quickly that it had to be a very well done spoof. But it was amazing how quickly it caught on. Were you expecting that? What do you attribute that too?
Rebecca: I was expecting it to get some media play. That was our goal, but as far and as wide as it went, we definitely weren’t expecting. And so, it exceeded our expectations. And I think that the response really proves the point that we’re trying to put forth with the culture jam is that changing the name would be easy, popular, and powerful. I mean, people were really excited about it. People were really moved, and so, at this point, there’s really no reason other than stubborn racism why at this point the team’s not changing the team.
Lindsay: You called a couple of rallies this week. I believe one was today, this is Sunday, before the Washington game at FedEx Field. And there was also one at RFK Stadium. What was the point of those rallies? I guess, what was the atmosphere? Did you encounter any…Was there anyone against you? Did you have any feedback, any resistance?
Rebecca: Yeah. So, we were at…I just got home actually at the stadium today. So, we had a Go Redhawks pep rally. We had banners, we had t-shirts, we had speakers and a drum group. So, it was a really good day. And we had some hecklers. We had some people who yelled different things at us. I would say, especially for folks who have been doing these demonstrations at the stadium over the years, it was actually a less hostile environment than usual. And also, there were a lot of fans who came up and were like, “What is this? What is this about?” And we were able to have a lot of conversations with people who said, “I would get behind the name change. I see what you’re saying.” And so, yeah, I think a lot of people are really ready for it. I think that there will always be those die-hard fans who will be mad if there is any change. And I think that if you look social justice issues, particularly racial justice issues, there are some people who will always protest racial progress in this country, which isn’t a good reason to not do it.
Lindsay: Right. Yeah. We don’t have to get to a 100% consensus here to move-
Rebecca: On with people’s basic human dignity.
Lindsay: Right. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen, so we just got to keep moving forward anyways. What are those conversations like? Take me through it – and I think that this is something that a lot of people who agree, “Yes, the name can be changed. It should be changed. Yes, I see why this is racist.” But when they are caught in those conversations with people who are ardent fans, ardently against it, they kind of don’t know exactly what to say. How do you handle those conversations?
Rebecca: Yeah, it was interesting. We were talking with somebody who was selling merch. At first, he’s really mad that we were there because we were setting up close to where he was selling merch. And by the end of it, we actually gave him a Redhawks tee shirt and we’re talking. Yeah. Another person came over and brought his family over. There was some educating about the origin of the word, which a lot of times people don’t know the full origin. So, it actually comes from…While the US army did a lot of the wholesale slaughter of Indigenous people, a lot of the murderers were actually settlers. And so, just individual settlers that would go out and kill Native women and children. And the colonial governments would incentivize that by giving people money for scalps and they’re actually different prices for male scalps and women scalps and the scalps of children. And so, settlers would go out and would murder Native people, and then, bring the scalps back to the government in exchange for cash. And so, that’s literally where the term comes from.
Lindsay: I’ve heard that description so many times. It never ceases to make me go, “How are we still having this conversation then?” Do you know what I mean? How is just you saying that, those two sentences, how is that not the end of all of this?
Rebecca: Yeah. This week we spent a lot of time being mentored and talking to a longtime activist on this issue, Suzan Harjo who’s been fighting racist mascots since the ’60s. One thing she said in our conversation this week was, “I haven’t heard the new argument in defense of racist mascots since 1962.” And I don’t think that there are good reasons to keep the name and a lot of reasons for it to change.
Lindsay: It can feel these days like we’re moving backwards as a country for pretty obvious reasons, but overall, there are some positive changes still happening thanks to grassroots activism and thanks to people. Lately, we’ve seen that coincide with athletics a lot. We’ve seen the Black Lives Matter movement really take off and things to Colin Kaepernick. We’ve seen athletes really find their voice and speak up on a bigger stage. Do you think that that current political movement within sports is going to help the racist mascot’s cause to become more mainstream again?
Rebecca: I hope so. I mean, I think that when people were kneeling during the football games, it wasn’t brought up a lot in the media I watched. But I also think that the media lost the point of the original protest of the players, which was to talk about police brutality. A lot of the media that I saw was talking about Trump and Trump’s backlash. What does the Star Spangled Banner mean and what does our national anthem? So, I think even the initial issue that players were putting forward around police were killing unarmed Black people got lost in the media frenzy. And so, I think, yeah, I didn’t see that issue come up. But I think in general, and in a broader way, I think our country is having an identity crisis right now. And so, there’s this huge backlash from white people who feel threatened by the advances that people of color have had.
At the same time, we’re seeing a lot of racist symbols, like confederate monuments, starting to fall and people really starting to question that history. And so, while there’s been this awakening of white supremacy, I think there has, at the same time, been a counterbalance of a reckoning with what some of these symbols mean. And so, we’re in an interesting moment. And I think that the mascot debate is really relevant to that of how are we teaching our kids about these issues, how are we talking to them about the history of this country. And for better or worse, a lot of people get their information from pop culture and mascots is a huge way that people learn about who Native people are. Whether or not they would say that out loud, I think, it’s a definitely a really big part of people’s subconscious.
Lindsay: Yeah. And there was recently an article…I can’t even remember the exact situation why it was, but there was a racial slur. The n-word had been used by, I think, an NFL player on the Washington team. And the headlines about it would not bleep out the Washington’s team name, wouldn’t bleep out the n-word. And it was like, how are we doing this? Why do you think that it’s become so okay to continue to use these racist mascots? Lots of time you’ll have the Indians where the logo itself is very racist, but the names aren’t in itself a racial slur, like with the Washington NFL team. How has that just gone overlooked? Why isn’t that reckoning come?
Rebecca: I mean, I think that one of the biggest hurdles that we face as Native people in terms of gaining equality in the United States is invisibility. And I think a lot of people in the US think that either Native people don’t really exist anymore or they’re just so few of us, and there’s a handful of us that live on a reservation somewhere in a really rural area, we’re not seen as contemporary, vibrant people. We’re not seen as living in the DMV. People don’t realize that the tribe whose land the stadium is on is still an active tribe and they’re still practicing their ceremonies and their own self-governance. I think it’s the self-reinforcing thing because it’s like, well, if people aren’t around and they don’t exist and they are not real, then why would you need to stand up for their rights? And I think the maroon cartoon of a disembodied head on the side of a football helmet really reinforces those ideas that we’re not real people. You’re not going to stand up for the rights of a cartoon.
Lindsay: Right. There’s so much great grassroots activism going on within the Native community. How can those outside of the community help and help amplify that work? And are there any specific works that you would like to draw attention to that maybe people aren’t aware of?
Rebecca: Yeah. I think that getting involved with whatever organizations in your area. And so, looking up, it might be a tribal organization, it might be an urban Indian house center, but really starting by trying to build relationships with whatever Native community is where you’re at. And then, I think also it’s really important for folks to include us in their issues. So, when people are talking about the environment, Indigenous communities are at the frontline. When people are talking about global warming, our communities are at the frontline of resource instruction. A lot, almost every issue in the US. So, a lot of times, we’re just completely left out.
I was watching the news and I was watching this episode about police shootings. It was talking about how we talk a lot of times police fatalities, but there hasn’t been a lot of statistics on people who have been shot by the police and survived. And so, they showed statistics by race and they completely left out Native Americans when we have really high rates of police violence. And so, I think that visibility issue is key. And so, yeah, I think non-Native people building relationships. And then, also self-educating. I think most people in the US, what you know, is what you learned in your high school history class. And what you’ve learned through the media, which is not only not enough information, but also incorrect information. And so, there’s just a lot of reeducating that people need to do in this country to be able to understand Native identity and Native rights to be able to effectively advocate for it.
Lindsay: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining us, and congratulations on the success of the campaign, which even solicited a response from the Washington NFL team itself. Of course, the response was, “How dare you think we might be decent people? We are never changing this name.” [laughter] But it was a response nonetheless. Where can people follow the work you’re doing going forward?
Rebecca: Yeah. So, people can follow the Rising Hearts Coalition on Facebook and Twitter. People can also root for the updated Washington Redhawks team. Also, under that name on Facebook and Twitter.
Lindsay: Love that. Thank you so much.
Rebecca: Thank you.
Amira: Alright, it’s time for everybody’s favorite segment, the burn pile. Let us start with…Lindsay.
Lindsay: So this is, I guess, not as high-stakes of a burn as usual but…I don’t know, actually it might be. So the WNBA is supposed to be starting back; July 24th is the hopeful date in Bradenton, Florida, IMG Academy. They’re actually supposed to start back playing a week before the NBA is supposed to start, and yet we know so so so much more about what is going on in the NBA. The transparency has been night and day. I know the WNBA is in a precarious position, I know it doesn’t have million dollar contracts to give out to its players for playing as leverage, I know that things are scary. But the lack of transparency regarding what the health and safety protocols are, regarding even what players are opting in and opting out, regarding rosters, regarding sizes, regarding every single part of the process. We don’t know what tests have been done so far or whether there have been any positives, whereas we get that data from the NBA on a regular basis.
It’s been extremely frustrating, as a reporter, as a fan, as someone who cares about the league. I think actually that the WNBA itself and the players association are to blame in this case – the players association, which has done phenomenal things and I understand why, but it pulls things ridiculously close to the vest at times that I think disadvantages the league as a whole. I just wanna say, this is a case where fans and media need to know. There needs to be some sunlight shone on these processes, that will help everyone, I truly believe. So I just kind of want to…It feels like everyone is hiding something and that is not a good place to be headed into this 22-game season in which players are gonna be putting themselves at high risk.
We need sunlight, we need transparency. There’s gonna be a lot of leeway because everyone knows things aren’t perfect right now, this is unprecedented. But women’s sports leagues need to be held accountable for their decision-making and their processes and what’s going on behind the scenes just as much if not more than men’s sports leagues. So I’d like to burn this veil of silence, this cloak that has been put up and these question marks. Hopefully by the time you’re all hearing this we’ll know more things because tomorrow people are supposed to get on a plane on Monday, but it’s been infuriating. So I’d just like to burn the cloak of darkness. Burn.
All: Burn.
Amira: I’ll go next. I’m gonna talk about Barstool. We try not to talk about them on this show, and I will keep it brief because I don’t want them to have any more space than they do. But it has to be mentioned. I’m not even gonna talk about Dave Portnoy’s bullshit, like, I’m not going to revisit his racism. Again, these are things that we’ve known. We’ve known about the toxicity there, we didn’t need to get him on tape saying the n-word in order to know that, or the things that he’s said about Colin. But what I do wanna talk about is in the wake of that, the company announced a new episode of its 2Biggs podcasts, which they describe as “the BET of Barstool sports” – which you could probably just stop there and burn that and it would be just as flammable. They put it out under the title “Barstool N****R” – yes, spelled out in capital letters. And that was an acronym standing for “Now It’s Gonna Get Extremely Real.”
So for anybody opening their podcast or sharing it on Twitter it was just constantly putting the full hard -er n-word in front of everybody. It didn’t even match up with the discussion they were having, in which they also talk about being uncomfortable with it and coming forward and essentially their response from their boss was, “Well, I sign your checks, so.” There’s so much here that’s really bad from the way that you treat Black labor but then also they wanna come later, the Black talent that was involved with this, and it was a conversation between Black people and two non-Black people of color about the use of the n-word and other kinds of racism in the company. They should not be put in a position in order to do this, and then also I just…Agh. Is the check that good? Please. Like, what? Why? [sighs]
There’s so many questions here and I doubt that we’ll get answers that are satisfying. Later they were like, “Oh, we didn’t know that was the name.” That’s probably a bigger problem. Either way, the entire thing is just so…There’s hardly words for how disgusting it is and it’s sickening that everywhere I go I see “Saturdays are for the boys”…I teach classes, half the guys in my class always have a Barstool sticker on their computer. Even if they’re like oh, it’s toxic, but we like this one show within it. But I can never see that without thinking of this type of thing, and that’s true for so many. I think this is just another thing that is so disgusting about how they run that company and the people who are over there. But once you think they can’t go lower they do. How do you…You’re the “BET of Barstool Sports” and you title it BARSTOOL HARD “R”!? I just… [laughs] Burn it.
All: Burn.
Amira: Alrighty. Jess?
Jessica: Okay. So this is a content warning for violent racist language that’s gonna appear very early on in my burn. Here we go. In late May a high school football coach in Darby, Montana, about an hour south of Missoula, made racist comments on a Facebook post about Black Lives Matter protests in Salt Lake City. Jeff Snavely – which is quite a name for this – Jeff Snavely wrote, “they should all be strung up and hang in the public like the old days. Lot less of that shit would go on.” In response to people being upset at this, Snavely told the school board, “I am truly sorry for my words. I can see how they can be construed into racism. I truly am not racist. I've played football in this valley with other races. I am sorry for the words I typed. I understand how they could be seen as racist.” He also said, “It could have been worded differently and none of this would have been an issue. That is my problem to bear.” I don’t even know what to do with that, honestly.
If you’ve ever put forward the idea that white people being around Black and brown people will cure white people of their racism, you’ve gotta let that idea go. Integrated football teams have not and will not make people not racist, clearly. Snavely is a prime example. The school board, of course, of course, decided not to fire him, only to discipline him despite the fact that most citizens who participated in the school board meeting asked for him to be fired. At their subsequent meeting the school board determined that his punishment will be a one-year suspension without pay. If the season’s cancelled because of COVID his suspension will carry over to the next year. He also has to attend and complete board-approved one on one training and counseling on social and racial justice at his own expense. The reason I know about this is because there was a story going around earlier this week on the Twitter about a father and son team who live in East Glacier Park in northern Montana. They’ve launched a campaign for everyone to boycott Darby football games.
I like how 406mtsports.com describes the father and son, so, quote, “Brandon Berthelson, an elementary school teacher and former high school wrestler who lives in East Glacier Park on the Blackfeet Reservation, and his son Noah, the valedictorian of the 2020 graduating class at Browning High School,” – there's also this great image of Noah at the top of the piece holding a sign reading BLM and MMIW, “defund the police,” – BLM for Black Lives Matter, MMIW for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. In their letter explaining why boycotting Darby football is necessary, Brandon and Noah wrote – and please indulge me here, it’s a little bit of a long one – “Montana has a dark history with vigilante justice, and the flippant comment made by the Darby football coach on social media serve only to stoke further fear in an already anxious and vocal radical minority that craves mob justice and any excuse to turn ownership of a gun into a monopoly on violence. His words are more than just his opinion.
Whether or not he wanted to, he injected race into the discussion of high school sports in Montana, and by failing to take the correct action and terminate his employment, Darby High School is insisting that this remain a topic of conversation well into the next school year. They are a dog whistle to racism and brutality against peaceful individuals working to correct the systemic racial discrimination running rampant today. Instead of romanticizing the past, those involved in education in Montana should be dedicated to teaching it.” Of Montana’s K through 12 students, 11.4% are Native. 80.5% are white and 0.5% are Black – compared to the national averages of 51% white and 15.7% Black. Noah told The Missoulian, “If Darby Schools does not fire the coach, their message will be clear that they want that number (of Black students) to be even smaller than that. I don’t think that they should stand by someone who calls for violence and vigilante quote-unquote justice against peaceful protesters.”
So Brandon and Noah would like to see a boycott of games leading to cancellations. Noah says, “The legitimacy of their football program will come into question every week until the school takes the appropriate action and fires Jeff Snavely permanently.” It’s utterly disgusting that this man gets to keep his job. I hope other people in Montana are listening to the Berthelsons and show their disdain for the school board keeping Snavely on the pay roll and in a position to coach children, especially any child of color. I hope there is a boycott as long as he’s a coach there. All of this just makes me so angry. So, burn.
All: Burn.
Amira: Alright Shireen, take us home.
Shireen: Very heavy trigger warning for this one, for mental health and for death by suicide. Last week a 22-year-old South Korean triathlete named Choi Sook-hyun died by suicide after filing complaints of abuse and assault against a former coach, team doctor and high ranking official. She was extremely frustrated and angry with how slow the process was going in order to “investigate” the allegations that she had made. The proof that she had was including audio tapes, and they corroborated everything that she and her parents had said. She was subject to beatings, verbal harassment by a coach, and it’s been really bad. In one particular instance she was made to buy $160 of bread and eat it all because she had put on some weight. This type of torture obviously took a toll and she died. I would like to burn specifically that federation for being reckless and hateful and incredibly misogynistic.
This is not the first we’ve talked about issues in South Korea with athletes; you might recall we spoke of, I can’t remember who it was, who burned a case of abuse against Shim Suk-hee, who’s a double Olympic gold medalist in short track speed skating who was one of the first people to go public with allegations against her coaches, of mental and physical and sexualized violence, and this was in 2018. We’ll put a link in the show notes but the wording is that it sent shockwaves through South Korea’s sports world. The problem is is that it wasn’t, it shouldn’t be. We know this type of behavior happens all over the world, this type of violence exists in these spaces. It’s very much about power and control.
What I specifically wanna burn is twofold, is one: the process, because there is no process that’s meant to serve justice in these types of pseudo-legal systems, and two: I wanna actually burn the impunity with which these actions are carried out. I hate it. It makes me really angry. The injustice and the pain that is suffered by her and her family…I’m furious. May she rest in power and may those culpable be held accountable. Burn.
All: Burn.
Amira: After all that burning it’s now time to recognize some badass women of the week. Honorable mentions: Bestine Kazadi has been elected as the new AS Vita club president. She is the first female head since the creation of the Congolese club back in 1935.
Congratulations to Maya Hayes, she's the newest assistant coach for Minnesota Gophers women's soccer team. Congrats to you, Maya.
Melody Davidson, a legendary figure in women's hockey is retiring. As one Hockey Canada piece noted, “Her résumé is unparalleled in the women’s game – four gold medals at the Olympic Winter Games, five more at the IIHF Women’s World Championship and 10 at the 4 Nations Cup. Her career has included 36 events with Team Canada – as head coach, assistant coach, general manager and head scout – and every one of them ended with a medal.” Happy trails, Melody.
Congrats to the NWSL for having the highest ratings in NWSL history with the first match in the Challenge Cup – 572,000 viewers!
Keeping on the NWSL, I wanna give a special shoutout to Tziarra King who made her debut with the Utah Royals and scored in the 89th minute. If you haven’t seen the Instagram of her brother celebrating her goal, go find it, it will give you such joy. I also wanna shout out; she decided to become a Riveters fan and noted that the image they were using, the silhouette with the ponytail, she said, “ I really want this shirt, but can we get some texture in that pony for the black girls? I’m thinking something like @saroyatinker71? Maybe one for the short haired girls too?”
She followed that up with a tweet that said, “I’ve always felt some type of way about straight ponytails being the symbol for “women,” especially in sports. I’ve got x amount of soccer trophies in my basement with ponytails and every time I saw that as a kid I thought this was not made for me.” Continue speaking up. Lindsay interviews both Saroya and Tziarra for our special episode at the beginning of the month Black Women Athletes Speak Out. Check them out, cheer them on. Congrats on your debut and your goal. And now, can I get a drumroll please?
[drumroll]
It’s no secret. Yet again our badass woman of the week is Maya Moore – and how could it not be? We have followed Maya Moore’s commitment to racial justice and Jonathan Irons’ case over the last year, and this week the long-awaited moment had come. The conviction was vacated, the trial was denied, and Irons took his first steps outside of the prison. Maya Moore was on hand, it’s a very emotional video if you haven’t seen it. Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve had noted before, “This is the epitome of using your platform. She’s not dribbling up the court, not making a move, but the way she’s given of herself is the same way she gave as a teammate, as a professional to her craft, that is really just who Maya is. If Maya is doing it, it’s going to be excellent. Doesn’t matter which team she plays on, she gives that team a chance to win.”
In this case, win they did. Congratulations to Maya Moore, to the entire legal team, to everybody that contributed and was working on this case. Its truly extraordinary, I’m so happy for Irons to have his well-deserved freedom. May we all continue in the blueprint Maya has laid down about being committed to making this world a better place. Congrats Maya, you are our badass woman of the week. And now, what’s good in your worlds? Lindsay.
Lindsay: Umm…You know what, what’s good for me and my dog right now is that July 4th is over and I know that the fireworks will not completely stop in my neighborhood but I do hope that they will not go until 3am like they did last night anymore, because we cannot sleep well during all that. So I would say that, and I think July…Talking about the book, I think July’s gonna be a big month for me as far as book writing and book reporting. I’m excited about that because I think I’ll be able to exhale a little bit when I get some words on pages.
Amira: Yes, happy writing. Let’s write together, maybe.
Lindsay: Yes. [laughter]
Amira: We’ll motivate each other. Shireen, what’s good with you?
Shireen: Basil! Basil is good with me. My plant is thriving, mashAllah. I don’t wanna give it the evil eye but I’m so excited. I have a zucchini plant that’s blooming. Did you know that zucchini comes from within the flowers of the zucchini plant? I don’t know if you did, but it’s fascinating. I share mint with my neighbor and he gives me lettuce so basically I’ve started a food co-op from my balcony. Anyway, also, football is back y’all and Man City beat Liverpool and I was so happy – sorry Liverpudlians, you think you're all that. Arsenal won this week and I think it’ll be the only time it will happen, so I was happy. I’m loving the NWSL, it’s basically my nightlife.
Lastly, two new Netflix series: Say I Do, I love it, I watch all of it and cry in the introduction. I’m so happy because I finished Queer Eye which I also love. Season five I loved and then I was like, what am I gonna watch? But Say I Do is amazing. Then another one called Home Game but more on that later. Lastly, my beloved third child Sallahuddin is turning 16 next week. I’m gonna be off recording because celebrating his birthday. I love him dearly. He’s the quietest of my children and the most introverted; he’s also 6’5” and I wanna do something to embarrass him fully for his 16th. I offered to have a sweet sixteenth ball, and he said NO and was furious at the suggestion, but I will come up with something and out-do myself again. You only turn 16 once and I want it to be memorable and fun, so we’ll see what happens.
Amira: That’s awesome. I’ll go next. This week I got to the Century Club for Peloton which is 100 rides – it’s something they make a really big deal out of, you’ll see people celebrating with balloons, I’ve seen people get cakes made, it’s wild. They send you a shirt. For me it was extra sweet because I’ve reached this point in just under 2 months and I was kind of taking it easy and I didn’t know what I wanted to do my hundredth ride with or whatnot, and then they announced the Whitney Houston ride. I was still like 20 rides away from that, so I paced myself and I did 20 rides over 2 days [Jessica laughing] so that I could do my hundredth ride with Ally Love to Whitney Houston’s music, and it was amazing.
Jessica: That’s a wild sentence, Amira. That’s a wild sentence.
Amira: It was great and I was really proud of myself. Yeah, so I’m just really happy. I’ve had great joy in that community and that bike, particularly Black Girl Magic’s Peloton, which is 7000 Black women deep at this point. So that was really exciting for me this week. Also, right now one of my very best friends has been in labor for 24 hours so I’ve been up texting and I’m hoping that next week my what’s good will be her healthy arrival of her new baby boy. But childbirth in COVID is a bitch, y’all, listen. But I’m bubbling over about that. Jessica, what's good with you?
Jessica: Yeah, so once we’re done recording I’m going to finish packing up my family. We are headed up to Dallas which is like the one Airbnb in Texas I could find that would allow me to bring my dog and has a pool. So we’re gonna go hang out in the pool over the next three days, and we’re all very excited about that. It’ll be nice to just be somewhere else for a second. But I did end up cooking all day yesterday to take all of the food with us when we go, so we don’t have to leave once we get there. I recently read a romance novel that took place in Rome and it made me really want to go visit Italy. I took four years of Italian when I was in college and I’ve always been horrible at languages–
Shireen: Really!?
Jessica: Yeah, yeah.
Shireen: I didn’t know this.
Jessica: I can read pretty well but speaking has always been really hard. I signed up for Rosetta Stone and I’m learning Italian, that’s my new thing and it makes me very happy. So one day maybe I’ll actually be able to speak and I’ll go to Italy and make our way through. I just want to say that…Amira talked about it last week, I know there’s issues with it, but the Hamilton movie made me incredibly happy over this weekend.
Amira: Indeed.
Jessica: I really enjoyed watching it. I also just wanna do a little plug for the…It’s nothing like the Hamilton movie, but the Eurovision movie on Netflix is a ridiculous, silly silly thing, and I enjoyed every second of it.
Amira: That’s it for this week of Burn It All Down. Burn It All Down is produced by Kinsey Clarke, and also shoutout to our social media guru, Shelby Weldon. Although we’re done for this episode of course you can check out our website, burnitalldown.com for show notes, for all the other episodes, for transcripts. Also check out our link on the website to our Teespring store or go there directly, teespring.com/burnitalldown. There you’ll find really any merch you want – we’ll have exciting updates hopefully soon on Burn It All Down face masks, but until then on Teespring you can still use that code STAYHOME20 for 20% off of your merch purchase. A reminder, Burn It All Down lives on Soundcloud but can also be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play – anywhere you get your podcasts. We always appreciate your reviews and feedback, so subscribe, rate, share. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram @burnitalldownpod and on Twitter @burnitdownpod. Of course you can email us; I already gave you the website. I hope you check it out. Until then, flamethrowers, as Brenda says: burn on, not out. We’ll see you next week.