Michael Eric Dyson

Published Nov 2, 2020, 11:00 AM

On Episode 7 of Club Shay Shay, Shannon welcomes in scholar, reverend, author and friend Michael Eric Dyson.

Dyson is a sociology professor at Georgetown University and an author of the books ‘Tears We Cannot Stop’ & the forthcoming ‘Long Time Coming,’ and a great friend of Shannon’s. 

In this enlightening and informative conversation, Shannon and Michael discuss pressing societal issues in America, including police brutality, the racial and economic divide, and the nationwide protests in support of racial justice. They also talk about the importance of voting in the all-important 2020 Presidential election.

A fellow sports fanatic, Prof. Dyson dives into a number of hot topics across the sports landscape: what LeBron James and the entire NBA have done to advance social causes, the impact of the late Georgetown coaching legend John Thompson, the importance of HBCUs, Colin Kaepernick’s legacy and the intersection of athletics and racial + social justice. 

Michael Eric Dyson brings a great deal of illuminating insight to a host of difficult topics throughout the conversation, detailing how U.S. history has led to this moment, and where we can go from here.

But Shannon doesn’t let Prof. Dyson off the hook, later asking him to reveal his NBA & NFL GOATs, his favorite musicians of all time, and much more.

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Hello, I'm Shannon Sharp, host of Club Sha Shay. I am the proprietor and the host of Club Sha Shay. And my guest really doesn't need any introduction. He's a sociology professor. He's a reverend. He's a friend. He can watch politically, about religion, about race, about the hip hop culture. And he's also the author of the book Tears. I cannot stop, Doctor Michael Eric Dyson. All my life, the grinding, all my life, sacrifice, hustle beck Price, one slice got the dice, swap all my life. I've been grinding all my life, rush all my life and grinning all my life. Sacrifice, hustle back Price, one slice got the dice, swap all my life. I've been grinding all my life. Hello, Welcome to Club Sha Shay. I am your host, Shannon Sharp, and today's guest is extraordinary. He's a sociology professor at Georgetown University. He's hippop culture, he's sports culture. He's a minister. He's a pastor. He's a reverend. Doc When you when I prefer when I refer to you, do you prefer to be called a minister, a pastor, or reverend. Cha's friends. Friend. That's good enough for me. Great friend, and I don't use the word I don't use that word friend lightly. Great friend. We have conversation, we pick up the phone and talk to each other. We're just not friends because we're doing this interview. We actually converse all the telephone frequently often, so people need to understand the depth of our relationship. Absolutely, I'm so honored. And that is telling the absolute truth. And we talk back and forth. I learned so much. I get it off for free. I ain't gotta pay for it. And look at I get it off for free. Like I said, Doc, thanks for coming on the day. And let's jump right into it. The current state of America. And I think the biggest thing that we see is the racial divide between the black minority community and our white counterparts. And we see the unarmed killing of black men and women in America. George Floyd tipped it off. And then we see the Blake situation. We see all my Brooks, we see Sandra Bland, we see Walter Scott dot We can go on and on. What do you think got us here? No, it's a great point, and you laid them out there. Richard Brooks I'm an our very George Floyd. I mean, and and unfortunately and tragically, I mean, when we add Sandra Blake or he of Boyd or Brianna Taylor, we can We're gonna add more names after this appears. That's part of the tragedy, right right. And what God is here is the persistence of white supremacy. What God is here is that from the slave plantation, when the slave patrols were sent out after black bodies, bring him back if they escape, bring them back if they're out late at night, because you know, black people could get a pass to go to visit their girlfriends or wives or husbands and the like from plantation to plantation, but if they were disobeying any rules, or if the slave owner didn't like what they were doing, they would send those darned slave patrols out. They were the predecessors to the police. So in early seventeen hundreds in Virginia and other places, the police have essentially been trying to arrest black mobility and to stop black freedom. And as bad as that sounds, we've been there from day one seventeen hundred to what's going on now in twenty to twenty. But doc then they didn't have rules and regulation, get them back by any means necessary, and if they disobeyed, you have the right to use forth, even if that fourth is deadly forth. Now, you would think that as we progressed as a society, at least I'd like to think we've progressed as a society, that the rules would not be in today's society like it was back But back then, why can't they see us as equal? Why can't they treat us it's equal? Why must they use deadly forth as a first option instead of a last resort? You and I, as you eloquently just put it there, you framed it. We should be able to have evolution and progress of the perception of white people of black people. But is it really any progress? Is there? I mean, they're still killing us in the same way. Yeah, as you said, back on the plantation, they had some ostensible rules, but not really. You know, now, if the slave master got mad you killed one of my best negroes, I'm gonna you better you owe me. Let me tell you what. The only time reparations has basically been paid is for that you cost me some labor with this negro that you messed up and you hurt his arm, you hurt his leg, or you killed him. I want reparations. Ain't that a trip? So the reality is is that we've been dealing with this from the get goal that you would think there would be rules, but qualified immunity means is back on slave plantation side. Qualified immunity means that the Constitution gives to local authorities, especially police people, an exemption from personally being liable for, say a murder or police brutality. So even when these cops do it, people keep asking, don't they know they're being recorded? What difference do it make if at the end of the day they know that there is no prosecutor that is really going to hold them to account, and that very few people in the government are willing to step up and to suggest that what they do is murder or manslaughter or the like. So we know we're living in a society where, yes, you're absolutely right, the rules, the conventions, the laws, what police are supposed to do and not do. We are supposed to be recognized as full citizens of the American polity. We are supposed to be recipients of the full benefits of American society. But it ain't so, as my man said, it ain't necessarily so. The things in the Bible, they just might be libel, and that's what he was saying. Play and the stuff in the law books might just be something you cooked up because it doesn't apply to black people. And even if it's on the books, if it doesn't get applied when you are a face to face to a police person, it's a piece of paper that has no meaning. Because when you mentioned qualified immunity and you laid it out, it means that the servant, a civil servant, can't be held libel unless you can prove that it was so egregious that he that he violated you in the most in the most heinous of terms. But they've made that burden so hot dog, there's no way on a consistent basis that you'll be able to clear that bar. I mean, you can't clear the bar, You can't clear the drinks, you can't clear the bartender, you claim't clear the darn establishment. Ain't none you gonna clear. To give you an example, tell us when it has been done. I mean, if it has been, it's extremely rare. The bottom line is, it's been very rare that cops have been held to account. When they fired those four cops that killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, that was a rare thing. A few of the cops have been fired here and there, but for the most part, qualified immunity has exempted them from the kind of stringent barriers that you and I would face and stringent penalties that we would confront if we had done something even looking like you heard a police person, boy, if you heard a copy in this society, and God bless them. I don't want anybody to be hurt. I don't want cops to be hurt. But at the same time, if they if you hurt their eyelashes, there is a hunt throughout the land. One of them hurts our children, our mothers, our fathers, our brothers, our sisters, our aunts, our uncles, our cousins, there is hardly anything to be done, and they go on with impunity and go back to work and continue to all their salaries. Doc. I remember when I was when I was a kid growing up, and I would hear about these because this was never and this was in Chicago. You hear about it in in la you hear it about it in Detroit. And I remember when my grandmother my grandfather would watch something like this on television. The first thing they would say is what did he do to cause the police to do that? And now that since we've had the advent of cell phone, we know now there are a lot of times they didn't do anything to justify dyeing. They didn't do anything to justify the treatment at the hands of the police industry. I so disagree with you. Let me tell you what they did. They breathe, They breathe, They existed. They were black and speaking. They were black and human. They were black and half the nerve to look at a cop. They were black and halth the nerve to inhale an exhale they were And my god, don't get to the point of I can't breathe, let me breathe. Oh my god, you're off limits. And I'm being facetious, brother Shannon, But you know, you're absolutely right. There is no provocation. There is no you know, thing that they've done to precipitate or warrant the kind of nastiness, the vicious reprisal, the hatred, the taser, the gun, the stun gun, the rubber bullet, the baton. Nothing you and I both have been subject to that. I know I have been. I know you have been. I mean for no good reason, stopping us, throwing me against the car, calling me the N word, putting the gun to my head, knocking me on the ground. And I'm a well behaved negro. I'm not one of these causing no trouble, you know. And what difference does it make though? The ones who quote cause trouble get treated the same way as those who don't. So you're absolutely right, no provocation and what these films show, you know. And I get so upset with some of my white brothers and sisters. I wish you would just obey. Let me show you the white people who didn't obey you, mother, yell and up. We saw that the other day, white boys getting in his getting in this trunk, and the man with the with the gun. If that would pa, Pa, Pa pa, that would have held his to white T shirt and then shot him in the back seven times. I know that would never happen, that a cop would hold a white T shirt and then shoot the guy seven times. And God bless him, he lives, but he's paralyzed. Members waist down, white boys, white men, white girls, white people, white women, white white folk with impunity. They have qualified immunity, it seems themselves that no matter how horribly they misbehaved, most cops are not going to over respond, shoot them, or engage in other nefarious and violent activities that would cost them their lives or make them more vulnerable. I've seen white boys with machetes, right, I mean literal white boys. I know I don't want white men to get upset his he called us a white boy, Mike all him. I'm talking white boys under seventeen. I've seen white men with machetes and knives come at police people and have no reprisal, no consequence. They try to talk to them, or they run. I've seen cops run. You saw that that's in the car and runs because he's so afraid because he doesn't want to hurt the person. And you got the gun. You could have shot that person. So we know that there's a different standard of perception. We are existing in different universes of perception, rotating on different act seas. And you know, we saw this in the O. J. Simpson case. Y'all saw one thing, we saw another thing. Y'all hear this, we hear that, and never the Twain show meet. And I'm afraid we haven't progressed too much more even since then in ninety five. Why is it is that they're able to show such great with strength at strength as you mentioned it, when dealing with our white comma parts as opposed to it's hard for the well. And the thing that it hearns me, it makes me seeth is that when they say I don't see color, stop lying, because if you don't see color, you don't need to be a policeman. You can't drive because that means you're color blife and you run stop size and you run red lights. So we know that you see color, knowledge that you see the color, and the stimuli black skin versus white skin trigger something different. It's a collective unconscious. It's muscle memory. I wasn't joking when I said this tracks back to seventeen hundreds. If you've been doing that stuff repetitively and repeatedly over a couple three centuries, you know it's deeply ingrained. And then you pass on those stories and you see what your grandfather did and your great grandfather did, and they tell you stories, and your great great great great grandfather told your great great great grandfather and your grandfather what the deal was, and they pass that on to you. It's a collective inheritance. It's like the Declaration of Independence. It's a document that articulates noble ideals, and in this case it articulates ignoble ideals, and people absorb that stuff. Man. And as you said, the stimuli of the skin, you know whether it's conscious or not. And at this point, what difference does it make whether you are unconsciously biased or consciously biased. The thing is, you still got the same results. Your intentionality doesn't exhaust consequence. What your intent was. My past used to tell me a mosquito don't want nothing but blood, but it can end up giving you malaria. It's intent, draw blood, it's consequence fill your body with malaria. So the reality is is that many of these cops don't even understand that when they say I don't see color. First of all, you lying, as you said. Secondly, if you don't see color, that means you don't see responsibility, because if you saw racial color and racial identity, you'd have to see the way in which white and black and brown and yellow have been mistreated in this country or treated differently, that white people have been treated differently than black, brown, red, and yellow people. So how convenient you know, I don't see color, Oh, when it comes time to taking care of your responsibility, I don't see color. So therefore I don't believe in a firm devection. I don't see color. Therefore I don't believe in reparations. I don't see color. Therefore I don't believe in compensating for historical forms of oppression that have been directed toward African American people. So how convenient. When you don't see color, you don't see responsibility, you don't see culpability, you don't see complicity, and you don't see how you've benefited from being a white guy or a white woman for four hundred and some odd years. So when you don't see color, it's a way of denying your responsibility as a citizen of these United States of America. But doc, how do we get them to see when you brought when you brought the slaves here in sixteen nineteen, and you told him he was less than, you treated him less than. You robbed him of his dignity, you robbed him of his humanity, You put him in Chaine. You said this is what you are, and then you told him, no matter what, you can never be equal. Two Roger twenty drest Scott said a slave can never be a citizen. That's what he said. Plessy versus Ferguson said, you can have separate, we can do, we do equal, but it's got to be separate. So it's like when I tell people a TV is only gonna be a TV because that's what we've been told for seventy five years. That's what it is. Well, if you tell someone they're less there, they're treated less there for four hundred years, how do you ever see that person as equal to You can't. That's the point. And people try to deny it. They try to put it away as a fallacy or a mythology. Is not true, it's not real, But it is how you gonna tell folk all of a sudden to treat people like equals who were never seen as equals, the people who were never seen as you know, regarded as your peer. And as you said the Supreme Court justice in the mid eighteen hundreds, he said in that Dress Scott case that black people have no rights, that white people are boundary respect and he said, this ain't for you. The Constitution wasn't written for you. Declaration of Independence wasn't written for you. You You don't he didn't lie. He didn't lie. The up wait wait line, Where where the lie? Thatt? I mean? Because first of all, the Folding Fathers they were all white. They all owned land, and the majority of them had slaves. So when they wrote the Constitution, they were writing the constitution for people that looked like Bill, that were like Bill slave had no land. They weren't, They weren't free for the most part. So how am I going to write a document for you when I'm not talking about you? You better believe it. And they and they promoted it. When they wrote that Declaration Independence, they put it on Plantation Graham. They didn't have Instagram back then. They had Plantation Graham on Plantation Graham and on Twitter. And they and they sent that darn thing out there with their quills and their pins and their documents, and they articulated their beliefs that black people were subserving. Read the Declaration of Independence where it talks about savages that are Indians and black people who are disloyal. This is in the document itself. So when you read the founding documents. As you said, three fourths of the signers of the Declaration of Independence owned enslaved people. And not only did they own the enslaved people, they denied black people and all women and people who are non property holders the ability to vote. So you you wrote the darned document all people are created equal, all men, but all women. All people create all except women, and except black people and except nonproperty holders. You were you were putting an asterisk on there to begin with. And whenever you read something with an asterist, you know your ass is at risk. So you know you're the one. If you're the one who is the victim of that asterisk, you are vulnerable and you will not be able to sustain an argument about the necessity for your equal treatment. So from the very beginning, it's been deeply entrenched and deeply rooted. So of course people are not going to just know overnight that hey, we're supposed to treat them equally. We're supposed to regard them with equal passion and equal observation and equal regard that they are our brothers and sisters, and what we have they should have naw, naw. And even when it formally ended with Jim Crow and the sixty four Voting sixty four Civil Rights Bill, sixty five Voting Rights Act, sixty eight Housing Act, all kind of informal stuff, all kinds of stuff. Even if you're denied the law, the Old Testament, the law, you still had the spiritual realities that were persistent. Although even up north people think, oh they had it better than those down south. They were doing horrible things up north as well. So to be black in America met you caught hell. White people didn't see you differently, And to this day look at that. I don't know if you saw that. I don't know if it was on Twitter or some social media where the two white guys are because you in word, you in word, you in don't come this far you in word, I mean use it about nineteen to twenty times. The cop is sitting right there. The cop doesn't say stop calling these people the in word. The cop doesn't intervene. This is one of them. I don't know if it was either Portland or maybe no. I was outside of Kenosha, I think where the bac of Blake happened, and there was no attempt to interrupt this. Why because the cop is part and parcel, woof and warp of the same system and structure that reinforces white supremacy. We see it from the White House with Stephen Miller and white nationalism down to the everyday level of the cop. We see it from Donald Trump who goes to Kenosha and doesn't meet with Jacob Blake, lies and said he met with their past to day, got one dog, they don't go. Jared's sorry, he got one and you're lied about that. And then you you justify a seventeen year old allegedly who who murdered who allegedly murdered two people and shot a third, and you defend him, but you call black protesters thugs. Yes, look at the inability of many white brothers and sisters to separate themselves from the vicious white supremacist ideology that permeates their unconscious. Can't even help it, do. You said something very interesting that people thought the North was different than a South. But what they failed to realize that it was America. In America treated everybody the same. And they tried to deny blacks, not try to, they did deny blacks the right for fair work, to vote, fair housing, civil rights, civil liberties. So this notion that, oh everybody, because I read where doctor King he really apartment in nineteen sixty six in Chicago, and he said the bitry all that he got in the North was worse than what he got in the South, and he didn't know if the non violent protests in the north would work like he did in the south. Come on head back. He got hit up head, hit up side the head with a rock. He was out there, and I'm trying to remember that, Cicero. I've never in my life seen such violence as I've seen in Chicago. I'm eating there. It was Doc. He had been in Mississippi, Alabama, George bull Connor done debt with all these and up south, because that's where he was up south, in the north, running an apartment on the west side of Chicago, trying to highlight the criminal levels of poverty that were in this particular area and showing that black people were not capable of enjoying the same freedoms as their white brothers and sisters up up north, in a way that was proclaimed even though we know down south they didn't get much, but they were honest about it. Up north, they led about it. Remember what they used to say that down south they love black people as individuals but not a group. But up north they love you as a group but not individuals to my wife. So it's very interesting how that played itself out in the physical geography, in the political geography of discrimination and racism in this country. You know what doctor I find very interesting is that we hear our white counterparts said, okay, as long as your peace were protesting, that's fine. What doctor King peacefully protests. He still had water cannons turned on him, he still had dogs unleashed on him. He's still got set upside his head. And then when black started riding about what happened in Harlem and what happened in Detroit and what happened in the la, well, we won't hear you because you're destroyed. So what is it that we can to get your attention, attention to help us advance, to give us equality, to see that we get justice when we've been wrong. That's what we can do. Just kill ourselves, because the point is they don't want us, they don't want to deal with us, They want to grapple with us. I'm not talking about all white brothers and sister, I'm talk about the ones with power. I'm tired of white people saying, well, it ain't all of us. It's enough for you to make our lives miserable. Though, it's enough of you who are in positions of power. The ones who love us don't seem never be the cops. The ones who love us don't ever seem to be the president you know in many instances, or the constable or the senator. I mean, the ones who seem to have a problem with us always seem to have the power, and the ones who seem to love us don't. So the reality is that when we talk about this country and making an argument about, oh my god, if you people would protest in the right way. Note to white brothers and sisters, if the protest is making you nervous, it is effective. If you're trying to tell us how to protest, that's not an effective protest. Right. Colin Kaepernick got on your nerves, and he was effective because he got your attention because he bowed down and he talked about something that was critical to him, and y'all got upset. They treated Colin Kaepernick whords, and they treated dudes who had been he was a rape and came back in the league, or violence in the in the league, or killed somebody in the league. I mean, it's amazing. And many of those white gms really felt that he was one of the most horrible people in the NFL. This is the consequence of white blindness, white privilege, not seeing color. And so when you say, oh, if y'all would be less violent, like you said, doctor King wasn't violent at all. He taught people how to take the nastiness, to take the blows. He taught people how to take the bows. Think about this. Normally we had what we call self present. If somebody is hitting on you, I'm gonna try and fight you back. I'm trying to get you off me by any means necessary. So if I'm close to a brick, i won't pick that brick up, and I'm gonna try to stop you from hitting me upside my head. I'm gonna try to get you to turn that water Canada. I'm going to try to get that dog to unleash me. I'm gonna do that. But that's not what he taught those That's not what they did. No, you're absolutely right. He taught them discipline, moral, and ethical self regard restraint they practice. White people would come and call them in words and all that and unleashed dogs. And they were practicing. So then when they really felt it, it's like y'all when you were out there Hall of Famer, out there on y'all were on the on the on the practice squad I had doing your thing, and every day on the gridird. You know, two days they were running, two days suicide seals. Basically, uh, to try to be able to deal with white folks who would come at them. So where is this notion that if you do it the right way it will be accepted. The white ministers of Birmingham, Alabama, one rabbi and seven I think Protestant ministers wrote a letter to King. You're going too fast, You're asking for too much. Don't don't, don't come into our neighborhood. This is non violent, so that proves your point. The letter to Birmingham Jail was written from King in a response to eight clergymen seven or eight clergymen who were upset with the non violent protests of the black folk in Birmingham. Son, no matter what you do, they gonna be upset. They gonna write letters, they're gonna say they ain't the right way. And the bottom line is that often white brothers and sisters didn't do anything about our suffering until there was looting in violence. That's the tragedy. And that's not on the backs of those who were so upset that they did that. That's on the backs who claim to be American, who claim to be citizens of conscience, but who can't hear Black people unless a building is burning. And then you try to pathologize them and say that they are ridiculous and that they have no morals. And yet every day you are sustaining a culture that disregards their humanity and that provokes them ultimately to engage in sometimes rather desperate activities because they've done a great job of portraying blacks by their worst, by want us, but want us to look at the cops by their best. I say, you can't have it like that. You can't say, because someone has done something, all blacks are like that. But you want us to take the cop that helps someone cross the road, or changes the tire, or buys diapers for a family that needs. That is the need. You can't expect us to judge you by your best. Why you judge us by worst? That's brilliant, and that's what they do. You see, the bad things that black people do under you know, are seen as representative of black people. Correct. The great stuff we do is seen as exceptional. Oh that's Shannon Sharp. He's a genius and you are. He's amazing and you are. But the thing is is that you know that that Barack Obama, he's great. There are a lot of Barack Obama's. There are a lot of black people who have been doing the kind of things that he did, and he's an extraordinary man. But there were people before him who were capable of being president. Jesse Jackson could have been president, Kara Mosley Broun could have been president, Charlot Chisholm could have been president. So that there are many other black people who are capable of doing great things, but they don't get the opportunity. So the great stuff we do is seen as exceptional. The bad stuff we do is seen as representative, whereas, as you said, is exactly opposite with white brothers and sisters. Hey, it's a bad apphole. It's not the tree. Nah, your tree is jacked up and you're gonna have to cut it down or get some different limbs to be sold off of there, and we're gonna have to plan in more fertile ground. Do help me understand this, doc, and your sociology professor. You've studied this a long time. Why is it that my black skin and I and I've said this. I said, if you look at my black skin as a threat, you will never see me as non threatening. If you see me as and that's true. If you think my black skin is it puts you at fear. But you're more fearful of me being black than a seventeen year old white kid walking down the streets with an a R fifteen. Now it's being reported that when they attacked him, he had already shot the individuals they were trying to get the gun from him. First of all, he's seventeen. He shouldn't have an AR fifteen. Second of all, how did he get there? Mama brought him right? I mean, here, here's the point. You're point is so well taken that Trump and him said, well, he's trying to trying to protect himself, trying to protect himself, trying to keep himself from hers away. And as you've already pointed out, he's already done the dastardly deed. The police let him walk right by. They got up to another black man right, look at it. Look at it. A representative Clay I can't think of his last name now who. Facebook had to remove his post because he said, you come here with your guns, and he put a picture of black men up the ones that the Black militia down in Kentucky that was defending those who were protesting for Brianna Taylor. He said, well, I'll have no conscience about laying you down. This is a sitting congressman. And wait a minute. You're in an open carry state, but they have guns, so now you're gonna kill them. You're going to advertise killing them. This lets you know your point was right. You are the threat, not what you do who you are. In an open carry state where black people should be able to hold guns like anybody else. Congressman is threatening black people by saying if you come here protect and particularly black men, if you come here armed to the teeth, we will lay you down. We will not have any conscience and we will not have any regard for you because you will not be able to carry what you are duly licensed, and we are sworn to uphold your ability to do so. That just lets you know it doesn't apply to us. Let me give another example, since people might think, well, that's a theory. How about in an open carry state of Ohio, you roll up on a twelve year old kid. You roll up on a twelve year old kids out right, Tami right, you are out playing and you have a right. So if you roll up on this kid and you see as a gun, first of all, it's an open carry state, so why are you shooting him immediately? Secondly, did you ask the question whether it was a toy gun or not? Thirdly, they said, I think when they called the reporting, I think it's a toy gun. I don't think it's real. And he's a twelve year old kid. But this lets us know that those studies that have been done to suggest that black kids are always seen as older. If they're twelve, they're seen as eighteen. And so treat him as an adult. The grown black men like Obama, they try to treat like a kid. The kids they try to treat like an adult. I want to sit there benefit and advantage, and this is part of the tragedy and we're dealing with in America. Doc helped me understand this. I'm trying to figure out what made a seventeen year old drive thirty minutes forty five minutes to protect buildings that work head for his family. Doc. I love whole Food, I love Target, but if they're burning it down, I ain't going down to the standing attention with my gun. They're not insurance. I let them have that unless you to walt my family, unless you vally, unless you're the Walden family. And name if my name is Shannon Bezos, I felt so right. Worth two hundred billion now first a billion man in America, So that's absolutely right. But see, this is the sense, this is the sense of elective enterprise, of whiteness. It's not about whether you own it or not. It's not about whether you own that store. What is really at stake is whiteness itself, the mythological property of white identity, and so he's there to protect it. In the same way that Dylan Ruth went to South Carolina and shot nine people in a church, saying that you people are taking over where prisons. Maybe we ain't taking over the presidency, we ain't taking over fortune five hundred companies. We ain't CEOs of those places. We don't run most colleges or universities. Where are we taking over being imprisoned in America? Disproportioned numbers of us. We might let I was gonna say, we might be in basketball, but Luke Anantius is trying to get y'all some conversation right now. Lucas said, Oh, I'm gonna hang with the brothers up in here exactly, although that Jamal were is killing the game. So so what's interesting is that is that it was this identification as a white person that under a song and listening to the President of the United States of America who is fomenting violence in this country by unleashing some of the worst, most intemperate racial beliefs, that we might be able to imagine that stuff together is a lethal cocktail. Doc what hold on? I thought that he said anytime he tweets something from his official official page, that's that's fact, that's an official statement. And then why is it that when he tweets things, when he says things, if people come out and says, well, that's not what he meant, Well, he didn't mean that, that's not true. I mean, he said, Okay, vote by in North Carolina yesterday he said, vote by mail and then go to the ballot box and vote again. Well, you can't vote twice. He was he was just playing, okay when he said when he told Sarah Sandus Huckabee that she needs to take one for the team, he was just joking. I said, I'll tell you what you do. If you're on a job, if you're the boss, go tell one of your employees or tell someone. Y'all need to take one for the team so we can close this deal and see what happens to you. Come on, brother, I don't know if they knew what take one for the team means, but you and I know what take one for the team means. That's right, that's exactly right. We know what the nuanced interpretation of that is. And the thing is again they just be lying. And then Attorney General Barr said, well, I don't know what the particular rules of that state are. You can't vote twice. Nowhere, Barr, what world are you living in? What country are you living in? There is no American state, city, or municipality where you can vote twice. This is the level of corruption and the willingness to defend Donald Trump. Well, well, we already knew what Barr when he gave his his seventeen page resume to get the job, because he believed that he believes President Trump should have absolute power, that he should be beyond reproach, and that no matter what he does, is that because he's in charge of the executive brand, he can do anything without without without persecution, without condemnation. And that's just absolutely not true. That's why they braced, that's why they got away from British rule. They didn't want the king. They hated that the king had all the power. And now this man is trying to replicate being the king. I know, Harry and Megan came over here, God bless him, but he he thinks that the king came over here and he's gonna be King George or whatever. He thinks he's gonna do what he's got to do and figure out how to do it, and that he has aught, you know, total power. But wasn't it the historian, the Lord Acton who said Howard tends to grow up absolute power corrupts absolutely at seeing this before our eyes, that this man is a neo fascist engaging in public policy as the prerogative of a personal predilection. He believes that he should be able to set the standards, do what he wants to do, and not be held to account by the law. He literally thinks he's above, beneath, beyond, and way way above the law that the rest of us have to abide by. Well, I think the thing is, this is why one of the reasons why he loved dictators. He loved President g of China, he loved Putin, he loved Ehran, he loved Bella sorrow because they have what he wants, and that is absolute power. He wants that. He craves that. Kim Jong North Korea, he that's what he wants. He wants to be that, and that's not gonna happen. No, we gotta make sure it doesn't happen. But he's trying to make it happen. Yeah, absolutely talks about a third term. Son, you gotta win the second one first, and we hope that is well. Let me speaking for myself, I think it would be a disaster for this country should this president get re elected. But we have to do our part to make certain that that doesn't occur. And even white Republicans who are conservative are going, my god, this is enough. What this man is doing is ridiculous and horrendous. So yeah, he is seeking to be a kind of dictatorial force, a fascist force, a monarchical force that will embody the aspirations of these dictators throughout the world who do what they want to do without legal compunction or moral redress. When we when I look at when I look at this, and we all know and I have I don't know if they're empirical data, but I believe we know why President Trump was elected. And this is what I don't understand. They said that we because of economic anxiety. But during President Obama's term, the average household income rolls greater than in any other president in US history, and he inherited. He entered the presidency and the second greatest recession behind the Great Depression, unemployment went down, everybody's income went up. And from where it went to where President Trump took it to, from where President Obama inherited, it's not even closed. So don't give me this about economic anxiety, because he didn't create the economic anxiety. He created. He inherited something from a Republican president and he took it the heights we didn't even think he could ascend to. I mean in the missle of that. He saved the economy, he saved the automobile industry, He gave the tart money. He figured out how the banks didn't fail. I know a lot of people critical, but imagine the headlines. If the first black president allows the banks to fail, you ain't gonna get no second term. You might not get a second day. It wasn't gonna happen. So he did nearly the impossible and still was not accorded the respect and to due recognition that white brothers and sisters want to give Donald Trump for inheriting. But born on third base thinks he hit a triple. Obama truly was trying to do something that was nearly impossible and saved this economy and dug it out in such a serious fashion, dug back to the Bibles, the art armed killing of unarmed black men and women being caught on tape. How do you think the cell phone has helped or create and become a lot of people like, well, it's not that bad. Well, it just seems to happen that we always catch the bad right, right, right, no, you're absolutely, but it is bad. And the reality is that the cell phone has revolutionized policing in this country. At least our arguments that what we said was true, that we don't have to do anything. We can just stop. Hello, officer, Hey, how are you look at raych Shard Brooks that you've mentioned in Atlanta? Forty minutes? Nice conversation talking back and forth. Supposed to go meet this girl, you know my wife, I don't want to, you know, was drunk here, I'm chilled out. Let me just just all man and man good stuff. Then you get into it, you end up, you know, shooting this man. Yes, he took your tasering, Randy, what he gonna do. He ain't gonna kill you with no taser. He fired a taser that you can't even it can't even go five six feet. And then you shot him in his back, so he was not a threat. He was running from you. And then what did you say? Got him? And then what did you do? Kicked him in his face. The level of disregard for black humanity is astonishing. But it is a law, it seems, it is practice, it is convention. It is the rule by which so many people regulate and governing black life in this country. And the tragedy and trauma is that black life does not matter, that we will not be respected, that no matter what we do, no matter what we say, no matter how well behaved we are, there doesn't seem to be a tolerance for us as human beings on this earth. And I wasn't joking. What many people would prefer for us to do was to not exist, not be just un exist, kill ourselves, lose ourselves, not present a problem through our breathing in this country. That's how many many people feel about us. You mentioned all my brooks, and although he offered, he says, look, I will leave the car here, I would walk home. I just saw a video that was shot on Tuesday of a guy that's so drunk he gets three part four part cars. He's falling down, he's so drunk. Doc he's laying on the sidewalk. Let him go. Not only does they do, they let him go with his life. And I'm not saying they should have killed him. They didn't even give him a ticket. So how are you so you hit four part cars? You're so drunk, you're stumbling, you're lying on the sidewalk. Let you go without a ticket? My god, I mean this is this is the living example. This is the very example of what we what we mean when we talk about white privilege. White privilege ain't about having a bunch of money alone. White privilege ain't about being able to send all your kids to school without bills. White privilege means that you're able to engage in activities that otherwise might be seen as rendering other people vulnerable, like talking to the cops, like engaging them in a stop. You know, when when only white people could go to Harvard, it didn't mean that every white person could go to Harvard. It meant that the only people going to Harvard were white. Right, So what we're saying about privileges. It doesn't mean every white person will be rich. It means the likelihood of those who will be rich will be white. It doesn't mean that every white guy who played in the NBA will become a coach. It means the likelihood is that even if black players who become coaches and win championships and then get released by one team have to catch on as an assistant coach in one place, whereas a white guy who never won a championship, gets a chance to sign a four year contract, and a coach two of the greatest players in the history of the league. These are the kinds of you know, contrasts that we have to speak about when we talk about white privilege in America. Let's talk about John Thompson. You're in DC, you know Gon and what he meant to Georgetown. What's his place in college basketball? I believe he's more than a coach. Oh, John Thompson is one of the greatest figures that American sport has ever produced. Number one, Number two. You're younger than me. But when I was coming up and Georgetown was playing, let me tell you what that was. That was Black America's team, just like if the Dallas Cowboys are America's team right, so to speak, Georgetown was a Black America's team. The way they played that Hoya paranoia, that any defense, that the way in which you know Alonzo Mourning or Patrick Ewing or Dicombe Mutumbo and the great Alan Iverson. You know, if he's six feet, I'm twenty five feet, he might be five eleven out here doing the thing. And he saved their lives and especially Allen Iverson, I mean, but a remarkable man and made them go to class, made them go get their degrees, made them study hard, made them right become productive members of the academic community. And then he was a mentor to so many more, a loving patriarch. Yeah, he gonna cut you out, now, make no mistake about that. Doc. I heard the story about rapher Edmund and they said he was responsible for sixty sixty percent of the narcotics being moved through DC. But he had befriended some of the Georgetown players. They said Big coach Thompson, Big John called him in and say, stayed the elp away from my players, and he did it. Brother. Let me tell you what, John Thompson wasn't no joke. Six of Thunder and Chocolate. You think chocolate Thunder was the first one, Darrel Dog, No, no, no, Doc. This backup center for Bill Russell with the Boston Celtics was a man of his word. He was to be feared and respected and people understood he was no joke and he wanted his players to be protected and not only from thugs in the street or other you know, big drug dealers. He also when he went to opposing teams, and they were disrespectful with their racist vitriol against the bodies of say and Alan Iverson or his other players, Colin Patrick ewing an Athan on that he held the team accountable. On the other side, see what none of this on you. That's horrible, that's that's that's just saying. That's kids being kids. You are gonna be I'm gonna forfeit the game if you don't kick their butts out. Now, John Thompson used his authority in a way that should have been used and that many others were afraid to do. But he did it with a plumb and discretion but also power. A great man and a great coach, a great inspirational figure, a great mentor, a man who was able to make sure his kids were going to be protected, and a man who saw promise where there was none. Remember, Allen Iverson had been in prison, and he shouldn't have been. First of all, he should have never been there. Maiming by chair was the literal, you know, accusation made against him for which he was in prison, which is nuts because he didn't even throw a chair. But you're in the vicinity, your guys and the white people and black people thought stuff. They ain't putt none of white people in jail, but they put the black superstar in jail. And if it were not for you know, Douglas Wilder, Jesse Jackson, and you know, maybe Spike Lee, but certainly John Thompson who saved him, who took him on, this man, would we would have never seen one of the greatest players ever? And was it? Kobe and other people said, if Allan Iverson was six six, ain't no conversation by who the greatest of all time would have been? Bro Because the man's heart was incredible, his will, his skill, his ability to score unbelievable, all of that because of the great John Thompson. I love what Coach Thompson said when they told him he when and I'm sure he knew this, that he was the first black coach to win a national championship in basketball. He said, I might have been the first black person who has provided the opportunity to compete with this prize, But you have discriminated against thousands of my ancestors and denied them this opportunity. That's what he said. He could have said, thank you, I really appreciate that. He was said, no, no, he said, I might have been the first that was afforded this opportunity. But don't forget you denied thousand people just like me. That was just its qualified as me, the opportunity, the same opportunity that I have. You denied them. See that that's beautiful, and look how gracious that is. He could have said, like you said, yeah, I'm the stuff. I'm the only brother he knows that where other brothers are gonna have won had they had the opportunity. That's what we meant when we said Barack Obama as great as he is, one of the greatest presidents ever top ten, but there are some other brothers and sisters could have been president. There are other black people who could have been first if we had permitted them the opportunity. Kamala Harris ain't the first black woman who is capable of having been, you know, nominated as a vice president. Barbara Jordan could have done this. I mean, there's so many others who could have been elected or nominated as great as Kamala Harris is. So yeah, I mean, I love that response because I put the burden back on the white folks who trying to congratulate him in a way, and he was saying, no, y'are messed up. Y'all would have had others. But oh look, look, Josh Gibson, Josh White, you celebrating Babe Ruth, Babe Ruth having the greatest ball player. He was the greatest white white ball player. Oh my god, what great he Because he didn't play against the brothers. Because he played against the brothers, that have been a different story. He wasn't playing against that black Chritch pitching. They said Josh was the Gibson or White was the greatest home run here to ever. Died very early, one of the greatest ever. Let's see him square off against a Babe Rute, right, It's not like it was open like with Tom Terrific who just died. One of the greatest pitchers ever top ten. Mister met himself. That was a bad man. And he was pitching against Ye Mayerson Bob Gibson, and we know and Bob Gibson won the cold has ever flame throwers. He was, I mean, man, that's that's that's my that he ten years old when I saw him out here beating my team in Detroit. Right, I was nine years old in Detroit and he's throwing that fire. I went down to the to the to my ghet old sandlight at the end of the block and started throwing that ball because Bob Gibson was inspiring me to do that. So, yes, there are many other black people. And John Thompson was as gracious as they come by saying many others could have been able to do this had they've been afforded the opportunity to do so. You talked about President Obama. I remember growing up and my grandfather told you. He would always tell me he's a son. You could be anything you want to, but you will never be president because they're not gonna let no black man in the White House. Wow, that's what I just remember him saying that so vividly. You can be anything. You can be a scientist, you could be a doctor, you can be a lawyer, you could be a professional athlete. But forget put president out of your mind. They are not letting that happen. I mean, this is what Tupac said way after you You know that that you know it seems have been said, but they ain't ready for a black president, right, We're saying that, and that was the that was the limit. That was the That was the ceiling that was placed on it. You can do anything. You can be Olympic champion, you can be baseball start, you can be a football star, wide receiver, Hall of Famer. Uh, what's your own show on Fox foot Skip, But you can't be the president of the United of America. And when that barrier got lowered, my god, that's why they back Obama so hard. That's why they attacked him so viciously because they understood that's a real barrier. Now, now you can't maintain other lies. If you maintain lines that black people can't do X when he's president, that then you can be a nuclear physicist. You can be a theoretical physicist. You can be a scientist. You can be an engineer, you can be a you know, a creator, an inventor. You can do whatever you want to do if you can do that. And that was the signal barrier that was dropped. And again John Thompson understood the necessity of speaking honestly about the barriers that were imposed upon black people in this country. Well, that's what they did with the schools. Man, you can't go to Harvard. Harvard's too hard yell, it's too hard. Once you get your own institution and go there. Well, if you let me go in there, let me see if I can do the school. Let me see if I can do the curriculum. I don't need you to tell me what. I'll give me an opportunity. It's easy for you to say I can't do the curriculum if you don't allow me access to it. But give me an opportunity, and let me see, no doubt. And Number one, some of them boys and girls at Howard are gonna kick the butts of those at Harvard. Number two, some of them brothers and sisters at Talladega and Spellman and Moorehouse are gonna whip the butts of those who are at Yale. How do we know? Look at the movie with Denzel the Great Debaters, and when we know that that actually occurred, that Harvard Debaters got beat by HBCUs. So we know, first of all y'all are denying our tremendous talent. I mean, Howard, Howard Thurman, the great Mystic was there at what Howard think about? Third Good Marshall, a Supreme Court justice, was at Howard University. Martin Luther King Junior, the greatest American whoever lived, as far as I'm concerned, out of Morehouse College. So first of all, stop hating on what we're producing out of our institutions. But secondly, you're absolutely right. Let us see what we can do. Let's see what we can compete with. And even when they let us go to the Harvard Dubois, Rayford Logan I think Carter G. Woodson and Stuffing, they wouldn't let us teach there. Oh we can go there and get the PhD. But then you ain't gonna let us teach to some of these schools. So they denied us opportunity at every level, blocking us, preventing us from flourishing when we have the capacity to exhibit the most profound irreudition and learning that could be possibly shown in this culture. Dog help me on this. Explain this to us. When you when we hear the term defund the police, what does that actually mean? Because I think people are confusing to choose. They think that it means we're gonna abolish the police. What does actually defund the police? What does that actually mean? Right? That's great. Now, there are some abolitionists who are out here saying, like get rid of at and who can let me start right there first of all, who could blame them even if we disagree, even if you think, oh my god, we need him. The point is, give the amount of black people who have died, of poor yellow, brown, red, and other people of color would die. Why why why would you be mad at black people and others of their allies saying and even some white people about ast the police. So don't even act like you don't understand what that's about. Well, secondly, defund the police. You're absolutely right. What they're saying is, let's reassign monies to other departments where we defund the police and refund that money to other organizations. For instance. Look at that tape and I'm sure you've seen it, and if not, you'll see it. So them where the black man who's clearly mentally ills and give me that gun, give me this, give me he's on the ground. Just watched the last name Daniel Prude, and I think it's Rochester, New York. Here's the thing, man, your treat is worse than animals. We can't even say treat us like animals because you treat animals so fine. Some of y'all will put your dogs in care in ways you will deny the black people. So you see this man who is clearly mentally ill, and you put a white bag, a spit bag over his face and essentially suffocate him. And you're asking us why we want to abolish the police or why we want to defund it, Because defunding police at that level means give the money to those who deal with mental health because a mental health person goes out there. Yes, maybe we have some safety insecurity. We'll grant that there are other ways to do it besides the police department. So we reassign the policeman to departments where they can exercise safety, but not with the concentrated power of the cops with the police department. With these police unions that undercut the ability of American democratic institutions to hold them to look count. They are ruthlessly out of order, they are well funded, and they seem to act against the best democratic interests of the state. So when we say defund the police, we're saying take the money from the police department, give a bunch of money to other social services that will serve the community. Because guess what, only about four percent of the duties of the police are what leads to the death of black people, the kind of violent interactions going out in homes. This no knock warrant that killed Brianna Taylor and her murderers still have not been arrested. The killers of Brianna Taylor need to be arrested, even though one of them has been fired. But it had nothing to do with his horrible behavior that night. So did you see what happened? Not the guy that her boyfriend that she was living with that they barked in all, but the ex boyfriend, right that is being reported. They for him a plea. If you lift, if you say she was a co conspirator, you get probation. If you don't, we're gonna give you ten years. So, in other words, this is why we bars then, this is why we killed her. Even if she even if she was slinging more dope than El Chapo Guzman and Pablo F. Cabar combined, she didn't deserve to die. That's not your role. Your role is to bring them in and then let the court system the d eight you let them handle it from there. That's not your role, right, And they ain't even arrest someone, that's right, that's right, but they were saying it was the present boyfriend, right, So they got the ex boyfriend and now the present one who was there with her. They arrested him the other day for drugs. So this is amazing. So you can get the quote drug dealers, but not to kill people who killed Brianna Taylor, whose things we know? So right? Why is it that black people have to be perfect? We don't have to be perfect because if we go killing every white person who's selling drugs and be a lot of dead white people. If we go around killing every white person who is wielding a gun and shouldn't be a lot of dead white people. If we go around killing every white person who offends the law, if that's going to be your standard, they will be dead. So the reality is is that as you say, let's not allow the police to be judge and jury. Let's allow the police to do what they're supposed to do. But this is why we should defund them. If we assign the responsibility of public safety to police people in different departments and don't concentrate it in those departments, then we could deal with qualified immunity because the department would be disassembled and we would be able to challenge it in a certain way. We'd be able to get different people onto the courts who see the value of holding public servants to account. In what other area of public service do they get qualified immunity where if they do some day imaging thing then will be automatically exempt. I mean people Richard Nixon had to get off the get out of the presidency because he was being threatened with some kind of potential legal action. So so, my friend, it is necessary for us to understand the police cannot be the judge and the jury defund them. I mean, LA gave up what one hundred and fifty million dollars of the budget, you know, I mean right San Francisco about one hundred and twenty five million. So yeah, let's reassign moneies to departments which can more effectively intervene in socially distressed situations that permit black and brown and red and yellow, and for that matter, white people to live without the lethal consequences of police people who exercise their authority with ravaging intensity. Dog was it that our passed? If you look at George Floyd, they talk about what he had gone to prison. If you look at allmar Brooke, and you talk about if I listen, if I commit a crime, I go pay my debt, just aside be going through the pedal penal system and maybe possibly paying a fine. What does that have to do with right then, I wasn't committing the crime that I went to privole for at that time which led you to kill me. So I don't get It's like our pass always live with us, but our counterparts they get to move beyond their past. I mean, you've laid it out there, and like you said, first of all, you ain't know it that minute, So why are you trying to imposthumously and retroactively kill me and justify by some stuff you ain't even know? So we know that's poppycock. And as we said, if we did this to white people, would be a lot more dead white people, white brothers and sisters who would be subjected. But you're right, we are held to a different standard, a different account that consistently are trying to viciously assault us, hold us to a dual and triple standard. And then, you know, try to justify after the fact our quote murder, our quote assault, our quote legal apprehension or being put to death because it was a justifiable homicide, whatever they do, using the facts of our existence because we weren't perfect, nobody is, and then trying to use and that imperfect pass as justification. As you said, when again, if we try to apply the same standard to white folk, that would be a lot more of them in prison or dead in their graves. Right now, what role does the athlete play? And I commend any athlete that's willing to use their platform and speak up, but that's not what they signed up for. Guys that went into civil service, the guys that went into to be a politician, the Chuck Schumer's, the Nassy Pelosis, the Lindsey Grail, Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, that's what you signed up for. But it seems to me it's always been the athlete that's normally been at the forefront of these movements, especially ours African American people. I mean, other athletes have been credible and on the front lines, but for black people, it's because when we didn't have black politicians, we had black musicians, and we had black athletes. Before we had William Dawson or Adam Clayton Powell, we had Duke Gallington, and Louis Armstrong, right, And so we were those athletes, right, we had Joe Louis. We didn't have no United States senator in the Senate when Joe Louis was fighting, Jackie Robinson was playing. But but Jackie Robinson was a senator and Joe Louis was an ambassador and a congress person, if you will, for our interests for the black community. So they were our mouthpieces. They were our vocal, articulate spokespeople to try to defend us, to try to stand up and speak for us. So when Sam or Aretha Franklin or you know, Ray Charles came along, even as we were gaining a burgeoning political power, they were the voice pieces because white people admired them, and they were able to seize the authority to articulate our viewpoints and represent our interests because white people loved and admired them. So that's why we've turned to them. Even after we've gotten political representation, we still depend upon conscientious you know, entertainers and athletes to articulate our noble ideals and aspirations. Do you know what I've noticed is that if a black man or woman becomes successful and they speak about, speak out against inequality or racial and social injustice and things of systemic racism. They like, you made it, why are you complaining? But when whites, our counterparts, try to help their community, they never say, well, why are you complaining? If Jeff Bevos were to give two billion dollars to help causse for his community, nobody would say a word. But if Lebron James speaks out, shut up and dribble stick the basketball, stick the sports why do you care trade places? What is that about? I mean, it's about white supremacists, about white privilege. It is about failing to understand why complicity. It's about refusing to acknowledge the double standard. And it's again it's failing to acknowledge that those athletes had to speak up and out in the past in order for any interests of black people to be expressed or articulated. And so, yeah, you're right, be grateful. Why is Michelle Obama man? This country gave you the ability to make a living. He gave you one too. He gave you ability to steal my stuff, and it gave you ability to loot and rob and be you know, thieves of black opportunity. And upward mobility. So yeah, you're right. They never asked them that question. If they help their neighborhoods. Oh, they're being looked despite the fact that they're rich. They're reaching back, despite the fact that they have tremendous money. They're speaking out. Look, when Donald Trump was speaking up and speaking out, nobody said he's a billionaire, why is he talking about the working class white people? They said, thank god, we finally got somebody speaking for us. So a white billionaire who really, in truth, doesn't give a darn a fly in flip about poor white people. It's seen as their hero. But Lebron James can't even speak up for his people and be and be seen as a person who identifies with his people. That's the double standard that continues to prevail in this country. So you believe the athlete is really important in this movement for equality and injustice. And you Lebron has his a referendum, like he's trying to register people to get to vote and get people to vote and understand your vote, is that your vote matter. Because for the longest time, doc I was one of those my vote doesn't matter. It does matter because when you get five six seven million people saying my boat matters. Well, that's just not one vote vote. That's five or six million people voting, and it does matter. It does matter big time. And God blessing, I'm glad you changed your mind. That's that's the kind of great man you are. You can admit that you were wrong, Yes, Sky for that vote. People ship blood for that vote. People got hit in the face for that vote. John and Lewis got beat down for that vote. So yeah, let's let's be real here. Who are the three guys probably in the conversation for the goat, Jordan Kobe, Lebron, Right, I know who your goat is, yep. But when you when you put social conscience on the platform, when you put out spokenness like that, And I love Jordan Kobe, that's my Kobe. You know my feeling about code. Yeah, Kobe, your guy like this, If you're gonna put it all together. Lebron had been the goat. Lebron the stallion, heat a horse, he depended the cow, the dog, he a farm, I mean dog. It ain't even no comparison for what that man has done. And so you know, the comparison to anybody when standing up against him is to me feeble, and so I mean Jabbar was great, Jim Brown was great. But to have that peak performers thirty five years old, seventeen years in the league, still playing like you five years in, still an incredible shape, Still should be the MVP. I don't care what nobody says, still playing the greatest, incredible, and you love black people without apology or excuse bruh. There's nobody near you, and so I think we need him. When Lebron sat down and said this, I don't know. Black people are scared, Black women, black men, black kids. He said, we're terrifying. We don't know if that guy got up on the right side of the bed, the wrong side of the bed at that cop. We don't know, if that cop had a horrible argument, was his kid and went out the house steaming, he said, or if the cop basically said this is the day I'm going in one of their lives. He said, this is this is how it feels now. Lebron ain't got no access to these people. He don't know. This point is this is what it feels like to us when the greatest athlete on the globe, right along with Serena when the greatest athlete on the globe says that and identifies what black people saying, we're terrified and scared. Do you know what that does to articulate our meaning? A politician can't say it that way. I don't care who, I don't care what politician you are. That Lebron James, who ain't got no office. Anybody put him in office. I'm gonna flip your argument. Ain't nobody he ain't went to the polls. The poles were in the people who love him because of what he did, the affirmation of him as an extraordinary figure. It's even purer right. He didn to run no campaign. He showed up and did what he did, and he's won the hearts of the masses. That's remarkable. So yeah, when you when Joe Lewis was fighting Max Schmelling in the ring in the forties, late thirties, early forties, he's fighting fascism. He's fighting Nazism, not Nazism, I'm sorry, not just another white guy who's from Germany. It's two different systems, democracy versus Nazism on display there. These black athletes have been representative not only of their people, but of their nation in a way that the nation didn't deserve because when we went to fight in foreign wars and came back in our uniforms, they launched us, they killed us, they murdered us. So yeah, a Lebron, James Carmelo, Anthony, Chris Paul, all of the w NBA. My got a Candice Parker, Diana Ross. When you think about all of them, as great as the men have been, I mean Lebron will standing up above anybody, but right under him Maya Moore and all those great black athletes in the w NBA. They've been ahead of this game. They got gunshot wounds where Blake was shot in the exact space in his name on the front of their They weighed beyond what the guys collectively are doing. But I'm loving what the guys are doing as well. So yes, to answer your question, we still need them out there. Do you believe that the NBA and the potential boycott of the season, and how do you think it's going to impact the NFL, because yes, they have bigger superstars in the NBA, but nobody but football is it in America. Football is the sport. So how do you think the carriers are gonna be from the NBA to the NFL. I think, you know, Jerry Jones might have to look at her, Dak Prescott. I don't know what up Dak as a company man. I signed my tender. I mean, you know, I took your you know, I got designated for this year, so they can give me for this year if you want to give me that thirty eight million, and you know, shut up and throw the pigskin. As might as well with Jerry Jones might as well have said, and but Dad came out. He was one of the ones who spoke out on the Black Lives Matter stuff when they sent the the videos to Roger Goodell. I think it might be a brewing, you know, if not an outright rebellion. There is certainly the desire of these football players to take it to the next level. Now. I don't think they'll be as necessarily explicit as the NFL NBA, but I think we've been surprised so far miss some of them have been. And I think they won't be as widespread even though what sixty nine percent of the players in the NFL are black, Yes, And yet at the same time, you know, uh, these white owners almost feel like they're running plantations out here, right. That's why the NBA has been able to get over because all you have to be is not Jerry Jones. You have to be great yourself, just not as bad as that dude. But with what the potential strike, that strike that one day of the NBA, what did I say to them, ain't good enough. Don't tell me who you Ain't tell me who you are, tell me what you represent, tell me the values you hup hold. You know when the Godfather when they come around the table and you know, they're arguing after both of the sons have been killed, and the Godfather, you know, is talking and I think it was, you know, is one of the other godfathers, and he was like Barzini. That's what it was. Barzini all along. Barzinia is sitting there. He says, we want you to share, Godfather, those those those politicians that you carry around in your pocket like so many coins. And he says, well, did I not accommodate anybody? Right, That's how it feels for the NFL owners, like they got so many trinkets, so many negroes in their pockets, like plantation syndrome. The NBA has been forced now with its owners, to do more. Show us those politicians you have relationships with, Let's get them in some of this public policy. Let's get them on some of these law rewriting. Let's get them in some of this you know, argument about how the police have to be held to account. It a different way. Let's let's use your influence, not just the money you've given us. We grateful, but we made that money you use splitting the pie because we all made the dough. We want you to use your influence to be far more significantly invested in trying to argue on behalf of racial and social justice for black people in America. I think those those those ballplayers, that women and the men are extraordinary and exemplary, and they did a great thing. Dog, how do you how do you think Colin Kaepernick will be remembered? I remember having this conversation in twenty seventeen, and I said, I believe in twenty thirty years he will be looked at as one of these one of these mythical one of these mythical human beings. I see what you have to understand. I say, we look at Rosa Parks, Miss Parks, we look at Muhammad Ali. We look at some of those guys in today's terms, but let's remember when they were doing what they're doing, they weren't thought of like they were thought of now being. And I believe it's going to be the same thing for Colin Kaepernick, no doubt. Yeah, and probably not even that long. Look look at the difference between four years ago now true, he's already been seen as even Roger Goodelle saying I'm sorry, we didn't listen to him. Didn't you know you didn't think four years later Roger Goodale would be forced to say, we did not listen to him, and I'm sorry. And even though they may never be able to get their individual thing together, I mean, between Colin and the league, he's already been validated, he's already been affirmed. He's already been, you know, seriously seen as the person doing the right thing. And again for all these white people, when I don't be violent, what was violent about putting your knee on the ground. Because Nate Bowyer, a veteran, told you, Colin Kaepernick, hey, don't take a seat. That's disrespectful. Why don't you sit down? And if Colin Kaepernick wasn't respectful. You know what he would have said later for you, Homie, I'm gonna do it the way I want. What did he say, I don't want to disrespect you. Let me do that. That showed you the man's heart. That showed you the man was willing to do the right thing. He didn't want to disrespect He want to distort his message. So he got on his knee as the veteran, the white veteran suggested, and still wasn't good enough. Because you know why, it's never good enough. You can never please the people you were trying to get off their plantation. You can't get a scholarship to Freedom School on fay Roe scholarship Favoroe ain't gonna get a Noose scholarship for you to go to Freedom School. It ain't gonna happen, homie. And so I think he will be respected as an ali kind of figure in the sense that he gave up everything to be able to make his argument. I think he's one of the greatest athletic performers to do that. But let me tell you about why lebron to me is even more effective, because you see, when you can't deny the talent, when if you thought, or we're gonna pull Lebron off if he's doing stuff. If that was Tom Brady as a black person, let me see who If that was Patrick Mahomes taking a knee, tell me you think that man would have been out of that league? Oh no, absolutely not. So part of it had to do with the talent level, right, we know Colin Kaepernick at his height. I was at that that game in New Orleans where Beyonce turned to power off because she was so hot, I mean doing her things, doing her things, Jay, I didn't mean hot like I met you know a second. Yeah. So I was there where he was one catch away from frigging being a Super Bowl champion. I was right there. That's where ye what Baltimore one, didn't they? I think with CBS at the time, absolutely yes. So so he was great and at his height he would have been undenied. But when he was declining a little bit, that just shows you Lebron is using his athletic genius and part of the reason he's able to stay on court. It's a different sport, but he's at his height still, he's still doing great things. And when you do great things, you can leverage that to your benefit. So I think nobody is going to be like Lebron. But I think what Calin Kaepernick is doing is remarkable. It is historic, it will be legendary, and rightfully so, because he gave up his career to do what he's got to do, and yet the Lord has blessed him because he's done called on to another career that's gonna last much longer than your football career would have lasted as a social activist. So you and if evil They said about Joseph with his coat of many colors, My brothers put me in a pit, but God raised me up and put me in a palace. So so so so he went from a pit to a palace, and he's able to extend his career and tell the truth about social injustice. I think well into his forties and fifties and sixties, should he decided to do so. Yeah, I think. I think cap ability has slipped just enough for them to use that against him because they didn't want to hear what he was saying. That's Lebron James, that's any of these prominent NBA players taking that knee. They're not gonna be white ball. I used to turn white ball, because the negative connotation that comes along with seems like everything that's bad is black black market, you know, black Monday. Every everything that's negative black magic, black sheet. So I said, used to turn white ball because it was it was those thirty two even though Commissioner Goodell it issued apologist say we should have listened. He works at the behest of the owners. No, he's thinking that he's getting forty fifty million dollars a year to those arrows that everybody's froy He gets to stand up, everybody booze while they applaud the owners. That's cashing three hundred million dollars checks every year. So that's what he's getting paid for. There's no question about it. The only good thing I guess would be uh Ken Chanot when he named it the black card. So the highest American Express is the black card. So we appreciate you got one. You've got one, doc, I know it where it take this out. Mine was green last night, but I painted that thing because I know I was gonna be talking to you, So I said, I might have a black card, but baby, I put some shoe polos on that, and that might be the only because that's the highest credit card that you could possibly get. It's a black card. Come on, bro, you know what that might be. The only good thing was a black man running a running American Express. Is the one who did it? Look at the subliminal effect of that brouh. Yes, I actually I know Ken. Now, I may or may not have a black card. That's not here, doc, Doc, you grew up. You grew up in the Midwest. You grew up in Detroit. What is your memory of Detroit? Because Detroit was a part of the Great Migration, and I remember my you know, my aunts and my uncle, my grandparents saying a lot of their relatives left the South. So I just can't deal with anymore. I cannot take the sharecropping, I can't take this picking cord, and I can't take the field, this manual labor. I'm going to Detroit. I'm going to Chicago. I'm going to New York. And with Detroit was a part of the Great Migration. What do you remember about your childhood growing up in Detroit? Oh, Man, I had a great time speaking about black as positive brother. I was born in nineteen fifty eight, Man, I'm born during Jim Crow right. My mom was from Alabama, Daddy from Georgia. We used to go down south. Why South, Why can't we stop at the at the darn you know restaurant like everybody else doing. We got we got brown pain for bag sandwiches, and I got to relieve myself. I can't even stop and go to the bathroom. I got to have a Mason jar under the darn seat of the car. And I didn't understand that we were victims of white supremacy and racial injustice. And Jim Crow as we went down beneath the Mason Dixon line, and so I remember that. I remember going, you know, saying, can we stopped? Cany stopped, Camy stopped, finally stopping, Tennessee, go up in there with my mama. Didn't take my daddy and he driving, you know why they wasn't gonna take the black man in there, went in there. I said, we don't serve niggas in there. And I asked my mama, what's in there? Right? She said, don't tell your father. That's what he said, because I knew my father was going there and go off. So, you know, having that experience was amazing. Going down to my grandfather's farm was amazing in Alabama, but growing up in the Troit was magical. Black magic and the beautiful sense of that word. I mean, we had incredible, you know, black society, the Black church. I went to an all black church, went to an all Black school High excellence. Now, they tried to start of us of resources. We were in the hood. We didn't have the resources of the white schools. But those teachers made us the lead. We could do anything. My first grade teacher, Missus Jefferson, third grade teacher, Missus Harvey, fourth grade teacher, Miss Read, fifth grade teacher, Missus James, who gave us a sense of history, Black history man taught us everything changed my life. Missus James did sixth grade teacher, Missus Mars, seventh grade, Mister Birdad, Miss Stewart, eighth grade, Miss click Man. I'm at miss Rade tenth grade. Those teachers were gods to us, right, They were demiurgies. They were tremendous superheroes who gave us a sense of who we were. And they told us that we could do anything. And I believed it, man, And so that was magical. Before Johnny Cochrane, the Great Johnny Cochrane, one of my friends, I loved him. But there was a guy there named Kenneth Cockroll who cussed out the white judge, called him a old faye and some other words. I'm just telling you and lived to tell about it and didn't get disbarred and use big old words. I remember when I heard him, and I had heard doctor King when I was nine years old when he got shot, and I was sitting in the living room watching television. You know, the news was on, and then they announced that doctor King was shot. They interrupted the regular program and to indicate that Doctor King was shot. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, weaves of people will get to the Promised Land. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. My eyes I see. Then he turns around and falls into the arms of Jesse Jackson on one side and Ralph Abernathy on the other. I mean, that's my childhood. Bob Gibson knocking out striking out seventeen batters in the first game of the nineteen sixty eight World Series, The Riots of Detroit. The Urban Rebellion nineteen sixty seven. Dark Trails of Smoke going up into the clouds. I'm asking my mama what is that? And she said it's a riot. I said, what is that? And then she said it's because of a you know, a blind pig. And I said, what does a sightless mammo have to do with the dark riot and a blind pig. Of course, after I was joint, you know, in Detroit, and then the police rated it, and it just then as now black people being hurt and abused and shot by the police, and we had had enough and it erupted. So I grew up in a black universe where the blackness was the norm, where black excellence was the expectation, where black genius was the normative expression of talent, and we believed that we could do anything. Now. I learned quickly in the riots about racism when Doctor King got killed, about racism. In fact, when doctor King got shot, we had an upstairs rooms the Five Boys three or so seven episode of the House Small Holes, But we worked it out. We had a little balcony off the upper you know, the upstairs bathroom, and I was scared to wash my face for two years in front of that window because I figured if they killed him and he didn't do nothing, and he died on a balcony. They killed me too. Now my brother was like, crazy man, anybody even know you? You ain't famous. I said, it made me vulnerable. So I had a great time, a great experience, and blackness is a norm. But then I faced the reality of whiteness and the white supremacy as well, well, Doc, so being born in fifty eight, so you remember the Harlem riots, I think in sixty four, the La ris in sixty five, Wise and sixty seven, Doctor King sixty eight. I knew what knew Jersey sixty seven. That's right, Oh yeah, And if Doc, what's the reoccurring theme of all the time, the blacks of riot in America? The lunderlife theme, Doc, Police after police after police, coming straight from the underground. A young brother got it bad, cousin brown and not the other color. So police think they have the authority, the killer minority. It's been a constant theme, the police mistreat and the black people. Watch nineteen sixty five, Detroit sixty seven, Brouh forty nine. I mean Tulsa, Oklahoma, they're dropping bombs on us right as since. But nineteen nineteen Chicago of the cops, I mean, when you think about what's going on. The mistreatment of black people has been extraordinary. That's why King in his nineteen sixty three I Have a Dream speech, talked about the marvelous new buildings inc and some of us have come straight where you know, and he talks about police brutality. He mentions it in his speech because it's so central to the experience of black people. So that is the common denominator of our experiences as black people in this country with the police. That has led often to urban rebellions and social uprisings and riots in this country. Doctor, let's get back. Let's talk about your education. You matriculated, you went to an Ivy League school, you went to Princeton. You a sociology professor at Georgetown University. What made you pursue academia? Well, you know, I was seen as a bright kid. I got a scholarship about to a suburban school. There's one of the top schools in the country, top ten prep schools, maybe top five. Cranbrook went out there, never going to school with white kids before got jacked up. Racism got jacked up, man. Racism was out there big time, even among the elite, the affluent. I mean on my door at night in the dorm room. This is when Roots was first coming out, and it was like blank word go home. Then they made a video audio tape, We're going cigar fishing today. Roops, No, we're not. We're going niggar fishing. What's debate? Hominy grits. So this is the nineteen sixties, nineteen seventy six, you know, seventy seven, I mean Roofs came out seventy seven. Yeah, so nineteen seventy seven, when it's coming out, I think I went. You know, I went there, had that experience. It was horrible, got kicked out, came back, went to night school. Uh you know, got a girl pregnant. I ain't saying it was a shotgun wedding, but a revolver wasn't in the room. I was. I was, uh what eighteen, she was twenty six? What? Yeah, I ain't gonna speak on on on on what that was about. But anyway, you tried eight like the wall, people say you being a fast dog, you be a man of shot there? What's this? What's it? Yellow niggas got some surprises too, But anyway, so I had a son, I was a teen father get quickly got divorced. Woman said she didn't even loved me. I was like, dang, you could have told me this before we got married. But didn't go to college. So I was twenty one, I said, I was an emergency substitute janitor. I hustled on the street. I picked up still with my father so we could wait downtown. I painted houses, I shovel snow. I did whatever it took to support my family. To twenty one, I said, I got to go back to college to support my son. Went to Knoxville College, historically black college down in Knoxville, and then you know, became I was an ordained minister at the same time, and I thought I was going to be a preacher. I am a preacher, but I thought I was gonna be an ordained minister. I've be an ordained minister forty one years. But I thought I was gonna pass her. I passed the three different churches in Tennessee. But when the third one put me out because I was trying to ordain black women, I was way ahead of the game. I wasn't just talking to talk. That was in nineteen eighty two, eighty three, Yeah, that was that was that was That was really a no no back then, doctor, they didn't really allow women in the pulpit, let alone, not not at all. But I wasn't stupid, so I said, well, I'm gonna go here first, and I'm a teacher for a year and and teach them how to just so they could become deacons. So I wasn't trying to ordain women as ministers. I was just trying to ordain them as deacons. That was still a no no. Two. But I think I started right there now. I already got kicked out of school for not going. I got kicked out of school. I was straight as in philosophy because I was protesting the fact they only had one speaker year, And I said why, they said, giving your number, son, that's all you deserve. That's the percentage of black people here. You only deserve one speaker a year. I was like, man later for all that, So I protested, you have to go to a chapel every Tuesday. And I got kicked out of school. So then I went to pastor. Then they got kicked out of pastor, and I got it. One Sunday morning, I went to church because keys wouldn't fit the door I was like, oh, okay, they give me some new new keys. Okay, I went to my office. Keys didn't fit. I said, oh okay, they're gonna look me able to new office. Man, these people are good. When I did when I did a preach, I said, man, it's a lot of people out here I ain't never seen before. I said, I must be getting good. Dog. The members of the church, they called there to try to put my black bud out of there, and they voted. They got up after I priested. They said, Pastor, there's a problem in the church. I said, well, let's deal with a deacon. He said, the problem is you and man. They voted that day putting my black bud out, gave me one month severance pay, and told me to hit the road. Brother, and I had a wife and a child, So you know, I know that it ain't just black and white. It's right and wrong. Bro, that's what the bottom line is. Right. So I got kicked out of school, went to pastor, got kicked out of church, went back to school. I said, well I might as well finished went the wife folk. I'm thinking my degree, and while doing that, I said, I don't think I want a pastor I think I want to teach. The Lord has revealed to me that might be my strength. Right, So you know, I got into Vanderbilt, tremendous school, got into Brown, tremendous school, got into Princeton. So I ended up going to Princeton, ut of those three schools. And as they say, the rest is history, man. And I, you know, I and I didn't go to college house of twenty one. So I made it for lost time and try to do a lot of things, and you know, sail through school, you know, become a full professor. I got my I got my PhD. One year. The next year, I had tenure and a full professorship at University of North Carolina Chapel. I left Brown, where I was already teaching. They were gonna give me tenure there, but I got overnight in one year. What it takes people eighteen twenty years due I got a tenure and full professorship. So I said, let me make up for the last time I had out there and do what I gotta do. And I said, I'm gonna write books, I'm gonna teach young people. I'm gonna try to use my platform to tell the truth and to fight for justice, and that's what I've tried to do. God is, what do you think is HBC's role in this? Obviously they do not have the financial backing. They don't have. I mean, they have some alumni, but the alumni is not like a Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, one of these guys that's gonna give a billion and two billion dollars to the endowment fund. So what role does HBCU play in educating, educating the the black America. Well, that's a great that's a great point and a great question. I mean, they're they're critical, they're they're they're serious. I mean, you're gonnad No, Roberts Smith going to Morehouse for giving forty three million dollars a debt. It just ain't gonna happen. That's a drop in the book, it right, because what you're thinking about, I mean, as incredible as that gesture was, but you know, think about the endowment of Harvard is what, I don't know, seven eight billion dollars maybe more's maybe up to twenty billion by now, you know, so Princeton where I went to twenty twenty three billion, I mean, come on, man, So but a high percentage of black people who graduate from college still graduate from HBCUs. And I'm you know, people say, why is that you go to these white schools p wis that didn't mean that's not PWT with Michael Jackson, pretty young things predominantly white institution. Sometimes black people and brown people and red and yellow people are so tired after four years. They don't beat my bus so bad. I want to seeing those schools. I'm done. Where As you go to Howard more House, Palladay, Spellman, you go, I'm the stuff, I can do anything, I'm smart to anybody. And then they go on to graduate schools. They go on to get graduate degrees and terminal degrees. So they've been supported and stood up for four years. I mean, you know, treat it in a way where they become upstanding citizens. I mean, and they are backed and undergirded by the belief that they are doing something extraordinary, whereas they're beat down at the white schools. So those black schools serve a critical function. All three of my kids went there, Son more House, other Son Hampton, and my daughter Spellman. I started a nice school house. Those schools are extremely important in valuing black life, supporting black knowledge in supporting black people who will do tremendous things and giving them a sense that what their value and goal and struggle is is worthy of support, and that those institutions continue to play a key role in the education and the support of black people in this nation. I myself went to HBCUs, says you the Tigers, And like you said, Doc, I really believe that was the best thing for me, because I believe my professors sincerely cared about me. I don't really know how many of them knew I played football, because I don't remember seeing any of them at the game. But they educated me. They saw something in me. They wanted me to do well, even if the football aspect, because they're on my resume. They're professors, they're doctors at Savannah State. They're on my resume. So if I go out into the world and I don't do well well where you graduate from son SSU. So they needed to prepare me to make sure I made them look good. And I like to think I've done a great job of that. You've done a hell of a job. You've made them so proud. I mean Hall of Fame, but more than that, A better man than the Hall of fame, a deep and insightful thinker, a man who's desire for self improvement has driven you to the heights of yet another profession. That's remarkable, that's an incredible and that's a testimony not onto your own internal drive and desire, but to the kind of pedigree of those teachers who took you underwing and mentored you in a fundamental fashion. Do you like I said when I introduced you, you're obviously you're a sociology professor. You got all these degrees, you taught all of your classes. You can watch politically about sports, you can watch politically about religion, the hip hop culture. Jay Z. You taught a class on jay Z. Your clue, you wrote a book on jay Z. You're close to jay Z. Give us some insight, give the people some insight into jay Z and what makes them great. I mean, just like you. He's a humble and self possessed brother. Now, when he's got to talk about his greatness on record, he's gonna do that because he can hang with the best of him. But as an individual and a human being, this is not an arrogant dude, This is a He's a confident man. Beautiful spirit. People think, you know, he's very reserved in the sense that you know he does. He's cool, he's got passion, but he's able to articulate his ideas with eloquence, with intelligence. You know, anybody who sits down when jay Z will discover within one minute of how smart he is, how well read he is, how he understands the complicated, nuanced perspectives of a variety of fields, including business and entrepreneurship, but also committed deeply to social justice. I can't tell you how many meetings I've been in with him where he's trying to leverage his authority as a billionaire in this country and Tyler or just joined him. What up, Tyler? What's up? Media is not so when you think about that, all that he possesses, he can still keep it read, it can still spit with the best of him. He's like Lebron fifty years old and he's still you know, he's still out there doing it on the internet. They're like, you should spit it. I'm like, you should buy it, brother, that's good business. So he's still out there doing his thing. Just dropped the song with Farrell fifty years old making relevant rap music understanding his place and position of authority in this culture. Married to Beyonce and as partners they have, you know, produced three beautiful children. They are magnificent parents. He's a remarkable human being and people don't understand. I know they got mad at the NFL deal. Look, it's star Ski and Hutch, it's inside outside, It's three point shot is baseline. We need both and not either or. And what he has done to encourage Roger Goodell in the NFL to do some stuff they would have never done. Where do you think though that campaign for all those commercials came from and indeed, even though it didn't work out, there was pressure from him in this you know, within the house of the NFL to grant you know, Colin Knick a trial, So a lot of stuff people don't understand. Jay Z has been behind and is an extraordinary figure. And he's got a woman running his company, Desiree Perez, the CEO. He's never given. People don't even mentioned that kind of credit to jay Z. For credit in the sense that he understands that regardless of your gender or your sexual orientation. Look how he spoke about that his mother coming out the closet and embracing the full beauty of her identity as a lesbian. So so, this man has been through a lot, has written about it, has talked about it, has made great music about it, and continues to be an inspiration musically, but also has evolved to an epic businessman, a global entrepreneur, and a kind of advocate for justice. Who's strong and who's consistent? Who to go? I didn't even know who to go? I'll be calling your golden basketball. I don't know who you gold in football? You go back and forth. I mean, one minute is Tom Brady and then you like Jared Rice, And so I don't know. I know if basketball, but I need to know who the golden hip hop right in his rap ban as a as a football player, I'd still say Jerry Rice. But I don't know, but but, but but I don't know Tom Brady. Is Tom Brady greatest quarterback ever? Ain't no doubt about that. I mean the goat. It's like what Jordan says about different genres and eras. Right, You think about think about standing by the speaker. Suddenly I heard of fever. It wasn't me or either summer madness. You think about rock him Rocky. You think about rock him doing his thing, but then the game changed up. But look, it'd be hard to put anybody above Jay and Nas. Who's going Who's above Jay? And who's above Jay and Nas? Bro? Who's above Jay and Nas? I just and I love, I love Bidget Tupac, I love Biggie and Tupac, But I'm talking about skill, longevity, the ability to produce over space and time, to even be seen as having not a hit record and then coming back. I mean, man, Jay and Nas, those guys there, to me are unparalleled in terms of what they're able to do. So jay Z is in a class by himself and as an entrepreneur who's become a billionaire and an artist. And look at what Nas has done by leveraging his own artistic New Year and his genius as a rhetorician not only to great businesses, but also as a socially conscientious, you know, above ground, uh, you know, positive conscious rapper. So both of I mean, Jay and Nahs are just incredible. It would be hard, it would be hard to outrank them. And then there are a lot of other great people like you said, Biggie Cock. I mean, look, scarface, common you know black thought is I mean, there's so many of Lauren Hill krs one Okay, doc Light, I mean, you know, come on, you watch you watch this versus battle. We saw Ludicrous and Nelly, We saw Erica Badou and Jill Scott, we saw Snoop and Da Mex. We just saw Monica and Brandy. So okay, it's so if it's gonna be jay versus not, who's the next versus battle you'd like to see? Oh man, the jay Nas would be off the chain really because they're friends. Because those things, those verses are not really versus against anybody else. It's just really sharing your catalog people, even though peoplere gonna make judgments. Uh. But yeah, I mean the Monica and Brandy was dope. I mean both of them are amazing. Uh. I would love to see Queen Latifa MC like that would because they're both of them are so dope. Yes, they are so dope. That would be amazing. If you think about a scarface who's one of the greatest slept one of all time versus maybe a Beanie Seguel, you know, I think that would be off the chain too, because the density or a black thought, you know, versus a Royster to five nine. I mean, you know, these are geniuses. Everybody I've mentioned to you are rhetorical masters of their art form. I got one if they were both alive. Prince Michael Jackson, Oh my god, yeah who you got? I mean Prince is Duke Ellington and Michael Jackson is Louis Armstrong. So so you know, Duke Ellington played instrument, yes, you know, could compose, yes, play, he could do the whole thing right, and I mean he didn't sing, but he might have, you know, did a couple of things. But then Louis Armstrong, Yeah, but that Sashmo, but he played that harm right, he composed him, but he was you know, so they had different and I remember once I think it was you know, uh went Marcellis who made that comparison between Jordan and Magic Johnson. Or wasn't Magic Johnson and Bird I don't know, but he was talking about the difference between Armstrong and between uh Louis Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. So both I mean, and I look, I knew Prince better. I met him a few times. He brought me to his compound. A genius. One time I met Michael Jackson in the bathroom at the funeral of Johnny Cochrane and he's getting his washing his hands. This is before COVID. Clearly, I like how you talk on TV. I said, uh, I like how you sang on stage. I mean Michael Jackson as a as a as a performer is until Beyonce. I know, people gonna get mad out there. I don't care what y'all say. Ain't nobody doing what Beyonce do it for two hours? Stop Michael Jackson, take a break. I ain't mad. You know, you do your little thing, you do the moonwalk and all that other stuff, and he was great. Then you take a little break and do some other stuff. This woman is singing straight for two hours, at the height of her vocal capacity and performing. Greatest entertainer of all time. But before her it was Michael Jackson. And Michael still number two, you know to me, But I mean greatest entertainer at his point. I mean, Prince is a phenomenal entertainer. But I'm gonna take Prince. Doc you get all that run around, I'm taking Prince. He gonna play the guitar, he gonna sing, he gonna dance. I mean, if you want to on man, concert is gonna be him, no question about it. So I can't be mad at that. But they're both geniuses. Okay, well my body of work, I don't know it. If you say, you said Beyonce is the great? So who you want to see Beyonce go against? Or I think anybody worth you're going against Beyonce? I mean, who could Beyonce? Really? I guess Taylor Swift? I don't know. I mean maybe maybe, but none of them. Ain't nobody got her catalog? I mean, ain'tybody fooling would be anybody fooling would be like that? How about this if she was alive, Whitneys Houston Mariah carry, Oh, that would be a hell of a one. Yeah, that'd be a hell of a one. You know, you hey, Because both of them had unbelievable range, Oh, no doubt. I'm talking about from here to here, but no doubt. Now Mariah's range was greater in terms of those notes. But passion and color of what Whitney did is so powerful. I mean, and they loved each other and their boys. You know, people try to compare them, but there's you know, no comparison in terms who did in his or her I mean her own length, but both of them. Yeah, that would that would be doper than dope man, Doc bro, I really appreciate your time. You laid it down for us today. I know, I know you're a busy man. You got a busy schedule. You're in the process of writing enough finishing up another book, and you gave me a few hours of your time today, Doc, I really appreciate it. You're Shannon Sharp. You're sharper than most people. You you you cast a broad shadow of your humanity. I love your ability to talk, you and skip you know, inspire me a black man, a white man on television every day, telling the truth about race in ways that we don't get in most arenas. So I honor you. I celebrate you, your desire to get better and the extraordinary talent you have exhibited. You're just the best, brother. So it's always an honor to hang out with you and with you Sharp and to do this program. Thank you, brother, Thank you. I appreciate it. I see you down the road, Doc. Word to it all my life and running all my life. Sacrifice, Hustle Bay, the Price, Wanna Slice, Got the Broller Dice to swap all my life. I've been running all my life, all my life, then running all my life. Sacrifice, hustle, bade the price. Wanna slice, got the brother of Dice to swap all my life. I've been running all my life.

Club Shay Shay

NFL legend Shannon Sharpe—3x Super Bowl champion and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame—sits do 
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