00;00;11;13 - 00;00;37;01
Rev. Will Mebane
Welcome to the conversation and happy New Year. Delighted that you're with us. For what I think is going to be certainly the best show of this year and maybe one of the best shows we do this whole year. Glad that, my co-hosts, the honorable Onjalé Scott Price, is with us. Happy new year. And you didn't get a chance to do that?

00;00;37;04 - 00;00;37;10
Rev. Will Mebane
Yeah.

00;00;37;10 - 00;00;38;23
Onjalé Scott Price
Happy new year.

00;00;38;26 - 00;01;08;13
Rev. Will Mebane
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And, today's show is going to be on sport, particularly racism in sports. And we have, just two incredible panelists for you today. One is a legend, has been involved in addressing and dealing with, issues of race and racism in sports for most of his entire life, which is now almost eight decades.

00;01;08;15 - 00;01;40;11
Rev. Will Mebane
And the other is a young woman, who is a former NCAA athlete and has also taken up the cause, promoting a social justice, in sports. But before we do that, we introduce you to them. Let's do as we always do. Let's go to our person on the street. Someone you may be familiar with. And hear how she responds to the question of where is there racism in sports?

00;01;40;14 - 00;01;46;24
Rev. Will Mebane
Let's take a listen.

00;01;46;26 - 00;02;13;29
Colleen Coyne
You know, you have to kind of think that in in some way, it exists everywhere. And it's, you know, it's it's unfortunate. And obviously I'm speaking from a position of, you know, a white female and haven't had, you know, that, direct experience. At least, you know, being the target, I suppose, of, of racism or the, you know, it's not a target, at least a victim, I suppose.

00;02;14;02 - 00;02;43;19
Colleen Coyne
And so I think that first, I think that racism is a really difficult topic because I think that the definition sometimes is considered black and white, and I think it's not. I think that there's a there's a lot of racism that exists that, you know, people like myself, like anyone that, you know, wants to go through life as, you know, a good human.

00;02;43;22 - 00;03;24;28
Colleen Coyne
You know, the thought of even having racist behaviors or racist thoughts is jarring and, like, very, very uncomfortable. And so I think that a lot of it is just, you know, taking the time to really consider what, what it means, you know, what racism means. And I think that, you know, necessarily or not, you know, having a particular thought or lack of thought maybe, you know, and if that makes sense, you know, is is something that we have to consider and I think that, that it occurs it pretty much everywhere, I would imagine.

00;03;24;28 - 00;03;49;10
Colleen Coyne
I mean, my experience is obviously very limited in sport, too. You know, I grew up playing all sorts of different sports, but my career has been in ice hockey, which is probably a slow, slow sport in sort of, evolving, I suppose, and becoming more educated in this area. So, I think that we're seeing a lot of improvements.

00;03;49;13 - 00;04;10;16
Colleen Coyne
We're seeing more, diversity on the ice, in that way. And, you know, hopefully as, as we continue to, to grow, we'll see more diversity at all levels. But, I think that's just a very long winded way of saying that, unfortunately, you know, I think it probably exists everywhere in sports.

00;04;10;19 - 00;04;33;26
Rev. Will Mebane
Well, folks, well, first of all, thanks to Colleen for, getting it started with answering that question of, you know, where is there racism in sports? You know, sports are such a, some people might say a common denominator in our world. It's part of our social fabric. It certainly is big business. We all know about that.

00;04;33;26 - 00;05;11;18
Rev. Will Mebane
We hear about the multimillion dollar contracts that, some athletes of their professional get and, coaches and the like. And so race sports are not immune from, from racism. And so we've got two people who can help us, continue to answer that question of where do you find racism in sports? And, I want to welcome Jen Frye of Jen Fry Talks and, Professor Richard Lapchick, who has spent much of his, his adult life, working on this subject.

00;05;11;18 - 00;05;27;05
Rev. Will Mebane
And Jen is now doing the same thing. And so, Richard, if I can refer to you with that, I'd like you to offer your comments, to get us started on where does racism exist in sports?

00;05;27;07 - 00;05;50;20
Dr. Richard Lapchick
I think where we would say it has its biggest impact is on who leads the sports industry, both at the college level, on the professional level. We've been doing what we call racial and gender report cards since the 1980s on each of the major men's professional sports, as well as the and Austal and the WNBA and the sports media.

00;05;50;23 - 00;06;15;22
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And, there have been consistent increases in league offices in terms of hiring men. So people of color and women. But the the individual teams lag far behind behind them. And when you look at the, you know, musicians, everybody looks at head coach and general manager, and they're the most obvious public faces of a franchise.

00;06;15;25 - 00;06;43;23
Dr. Richard Lapchick
But there are, you know, presidents and C-suite people and everybody else who makes those other decisions on the on the business side of sport that are really important. And they're still overwhelmingly represented by white men. The worst of all the, groups that we cover is the sports media, which is overwhelmingly male and overwhelmingly white. We're talking about 90% of the top sports executives in the media are white men.

00;06;43;25 - 00;07;16;20
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Even in 2020, 22. Now, I think the changing factor and the what I hope will be the biggest dynamic to bring about change is the number right behind you. When Colin Kaepernick took took a knee in 2016, I think most of the American public opposed him. And when the Milwaukee Bucks refused to come out to play in the bubble in the NBA playoffs two years ago, a week after the shooting and, shortly after the shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, people didn't criticize them.

00;07;16;20 - 00;07;46;25
Dr. Richard Lapchick
The NBA joined them and other leagues joined them. Suddenly we had athletes, acting in unison with the power that they have in the influence they have and also the resources they have. These are overwhelmingly wealthy people who can contribute those resources to social justice issues. And they have been and they've also moved the leagues to put up significant amounts of money, for social justice issues, particularly the NBA, Major League Baseball and the NFL.

00;07;46;27 - 00;08;16;10
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Individual teams and other sports have done that. But I think we're at a time frame where since the murder of George Floyd, the public is much more focused on on these issues and systemic racism in general in all of its types of impacts that you've covered so well on your show up to now. And I think it's an opportunity that if we don't seize this opportunity, we're going to find ourselves back in the places where we were sliding backwards instead of forward.

00;08;16;12 - 00;08;40;28
Rev. Will Mebane
Yeah. Thank you for for that. You know, you remind me that when Kaepernick took the knee, I was actually, serving at a cathedral in Buffalo, New York. And, cap was in town the week after, taking that knee and all the hoopla, playing the Buffalo Bills. And I, you know, I tried to connect with him but was unable to do so.

00;08;40;28 - 00;09;03;20
Rev. Will Mebane
Everybody, I guess, wanted to get to him at that point. And I went out and I bought this jersey that, you see behind me is first and only NFL, merchandise I've ever purchased. Cost me a hundred bucks. No, but, you know, and I wore it that Sunday, and, my goodness, people wanted to run me out of town, and I.

00;09;03;23 - 00;09;27;01
Rev. Will Mebane
But I think there has been a change, that people are not as critical. People are more accepting of the activism of, of athletes and, you know, athlete activism goes back decades. And I'm going to come back to you, Professor Lapchick, in a moment and have you share some of your experiences with that. But I want to toss it now to to Jen.

00;09;27;01 - 00;10;05;29
Rev. Will Mebane
Jen Frye of Jen Fry Talks and, welcome you to the show. Jen, you know, I guess I would say you were the, the newer generation of doing the work that, Professor Lapchick has been involved in, through the Sports Institute. And I know your, your firm, you were involved in social justice, work using conversation like we're having today to, to educate and empower, those within athletics through an anti-racist lens on issues of race, inclusion, intersectionality, diversity and equity.

00;10;05;29 - 00;10;19;01
Rev. Will Mebane
So, give us your thoughts on that question. Where have you seen and as a former NCAA athlete yourself, where have you seen racism in sports?

00;10;19;03 - 00;10;40;18
Jen Fry
First of all, friends, I want to say I appreciate Onjalé will homies, thank you for having me here. I appreciate you taking the time to have me. Richard. I am citing you numerous times in my dissertation, so I want to thank you for all this baby on site. You left and right Richard. So thank you for all the gender report cards that you are giving me the information.

00;10;40;24 - 00;10;58;09
Jen Fry
It is appreciated. So I kind of come to you with two context. So my work with gender I talks is in the US context of race. My work with my dissertation is on the racial experiences of professional black volleyball players in Europe. So I also have a pulse on what's happening with black athletes in Europe across numerous sports.

00;10;58;09 - 00;11;21;20
Jen Fry
So that's kind of where, I situate myself. So when you ask that question of where is racism in sport? I'm like, where is it not? It is. Sport is a microcosm of society. Yes. We have black people making millions of dollars. Yes, we have black, white, Latinx people coexisting for a common goal. But literally sport is just a microcosm of everyday things that we see.

00;11;21;23 - 00;11;46;09
Jen Fry
So the reality is, is I ask, where do we not see it? I think what we've seen with sport is because these people are going towards a common goal. It's like, well then racism doesn't exist here. We see these people, these black people, they're making million dollar contracts. How can there be racism? And then, point the book of my committee member, the amazing doctor Billy Hawkins, talking about the new plantation.

00;11;46;12 - 00;12;07;21
Jen Fry
Right. And so I think that what we need to do is we need to actually look at, racism in a different mindset and say, where how is it manifesting in sport? Where is it manifesting in sport? If we look at the European context, people are still being called the N-word. Things are being said within the U.S context, things are still being said.

00;12;07;24 - 00;12;33;10
Jen Fry
You know, what we see now is that people are accepting of athletes protesting to a certain level or only to a certain level. If you start talking about white people and whiteness, we are we are seeing it immediately. Stop right there. Okay. In sport with talking to black people and brown people about race, they are not okay with talking to GM and presidents and white people about racism.

00;12;33;10 - 00;12;56;08
Jen Fry
They are not. And so that's why I think it's like, yes, we're we can talk about this, we can do these things. But to a certain point, if we remember the first the first football game with the Chiefs and someone else were both teams kneeled for racism. What happened? Everyone's booing. So they're they're okay with athletes protesting to a point to a comfortable point for them.

00;12;56;12 - 00;13;18;01
Jen Fry
Not where they have to turn the mirror back and reflect on themselves. Well, I think because you come from the church, right? It is okay for white preachers and pastors to talk about racism to black churches. It is not okay for them to talk to their own white churches. So you see reverends and pastors and preachers all getting the pushback when they talk to their white congregations about whiteness.

00;13;18;06 - 00;13;42;06
Jen Fry
So I think we really need to understand that racism is just a microcosm, how it shows up in sport. It's just a microcosm of society. We have to know that all these sports are being super reactive. They get hit by a bus and they're like, what do I do now? So the reactive we have to look my my great friend Jim Hunter, who worked for the trailblazers every two years there was a flashpoint George Floyd, me too movement.

00;13;42;09 - 00;14;09;21
Jen Fry
We we saw, the LGBT movement. So every two years is a flashpoint. And the last thing that I'll leave you with is that MLK, when he was preaching, he had a 33% approval rating, right when he was every everyone hated MLK. Newsflash the assassinate him. Everyone hated him, but he was whitewashed to be the thing, the figment of social justice.

00;14;09;24 - 00;14;34;12
Jen Fry
When Colin Kaepernick kneeled 33% approval rating everyone hated him. We had that flashpoint. Now he is the beacon of social justice. So I think it's just a very reactive movement. But like what Richard said, if we don't clasp on to this and use this flashpoint, this reactive movement to push things forward, we'll just come back to a halt.

00;14;34;14 - 00;15;09;11
Rev. Will Mebane
All I gotta say is Amen to that. Oh my goodness, thank you, thank you. Jen. Wow. So much going through me right now. But I want to I want to say that I'm feeling so. Thank you for that. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You know, I want to get Angie in on the conversation, but one of the things that was going through my mind was, you know, Eugene talking about using, Richard Lapchick, as a primary resource for your work on your dissertation.

00;15;09;13 - 00;15;35;24
Rev. Will Mebane
May you be blessed in that work and, it come to fruition. And you talk about the moments, the moments in history when there is a response, right? Like, yeah, I think he's like every two years as a flash point and there's a response. And then we go back to where we were. And, that reminds me again of the work that that you've done, Richard.

00;15;35;26 - 00;16;06;15
Rev. Will Mebane
For, almost eight decades now, I guess, or at least seven decades on this. And I know you've done a lot of work with a lot of different, athletes and organizations. I thought maybe we would share now with our with our audience. The video biography that, ESPN did on you, because I think that, set the story, sets the context for the work you've been involved in, so much of your life.

00;16;06;15 - 00;16;15;29
Rev. Will Mebane
So let's take a look now at that, that brief video on the biography of Richard Lapchick.

00;16;16;02 - 00;16;29;16
Voiceover
Richard grew up in a family where there was a strong tradition of doing the right thing. His father was an iconic figure. He signed Sweetwater Clifton to the Knicks, breaking the color barrier.

00;16;29;23 - 00;16;43;27
Voiceover
His recollections alone of being around his father growing up would fill a dinner table conversation with great tales and meaning. Jackie Robinson when he was a kid, seeing what his father went through for fielding the first black player in history.

00;16;44;00 - 00;16;56;00
Voiceover
Joe was someone who, as a coach, never let race get in the way of doing the right thing. And there's no question that that had a huge impact on Richard himself.

00;16;56;02 - 00;17;12;11
Dr. Richard Lapchick
When I was 14, I was at a basketball camp with five other white guys. One of the white guys was hurling the N-word at the black guy day in and day out, until I challenged him and this guy had knocked me out cold. Or the black guy was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, then Lew Alcindor. And a lifelong friendship grew out of that.

00;17;12;18 - 00;17;24;10
Onjalé Scott Price
Everything Richard has fought for has not been popular at the time, and he has been this courageous light that has said, this needs to be said, this needs to be heard. And I'm going to say.

00;17;24;10 - 00;17;41;03
Voiceover
It, there's a fine line sometimes between, being courageous and putting your life on the line. With progress comes pain. And that was a price that he he was willing to pay.

00;17;41;05 - 00;17;51;20
Dr. Richard Lapchick
When I was the American leader of the sports boycott of South Africa, I was actually attacked in my office in the college library by two masked men and had the N-word carved in my stomach.

00;17;51;23 - 00;18;27;18
Voiceover
Richard had very bravely spoken out against its apartheid. There were risks involved. There are just a lot of bigots who didn't like what he had to say. He was attacked for standing up and wanting to right or wrong, and to be brutally attacked as he was to have the N-word carved with scissors into his stomach. He had to have been frightened beyond words, and a lesser person would have said, okay, that's it, I'm done.

00;18;27;20 - 00;18;35;12
Voiceover
I'm not rich. They who did that, it's the wrong person.

00;18;35;15 - 00;19;01;00
Dr. Richard Lapchick
I've been involved in civil rights for the last 28 years of my life, but I can never, ever, ever know what it's like to be black. That's an instantaneous every minute sins that society has given to black communities and Hispanic communities in this country that discrimination can take place at any time. My dad taught me that a leader is somebody who stands up for justice and doesn't block its path.

00;19;01;03 - 00;19;09;26
Dr. Richard Lapchick
I've spent most of my adult life trying to help young people who live in crises that have become more profound as the generations have gone on.

00;19;09;28 - 00;19;13;00
Voiceover
And he's really been in the forefront, and the whole bridge.

00;19;13;00 - 00;19;13;13
Rev. Will Mebane
Between.

00;19;13;13 - 00;19;14;20
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Sports.

00;19;14;22 - 00;19;19;28
Rev. Will Mebane
And using that to achieve equality, not only here in the United States but.

00;19;19;28 - 00;19;26;24
Voiceover
Around the world. He's been involved in civil rights and race issues for his entire life.

00;19;26;26 - 00;19;57;26
Voiceover
I automatically smile when I think of Richard. Wow. I smile and also a tear comes to my eyes. Oh, he's a good man, I thank him. I'm appreciative of the work that he has done. Thank you. Thank you, Richard Lapchick. Thank you for being you. And thank you for wanting this world to be a better place. And because of you, it is.

00;19;57;28 - 00;20;24;03
Rev. Will Mebane
Wow. You know, folks, I have been a fan of Richard Lapchick for decades, as long as he has been doing this work. And, you know, I'm a former athlete. And so I appreciate the work that he's been doing. And, the social activism work in which he's been engaged. And, so I just want to say, Richard, to you.

00;20;24;05 - 00;20;39;24
Rev. Will Mebane
Thank you. Thank you for, for the work you're doing and for inspiring people like, like Jen Frye to continue the work that you're you're doing. So tell us what what you're thinking and feeling about this subject right now.

00;20;39;26 - 00;21;01;23
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Well, you know, just to comment on the video a little bit, because I think whenever. So I do a lot of speaking, maybe 75 or 80 presentations a year. And I know that there are people in the audience when they first see this older white guy going up there. How is this guy going to talk to us about diversity and inclusion or racism?

00;21;01;26 - 00;21;19;10
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And just to, you know, go back a little bit deeper into the video, literally. When I was a five year old boy, I looked outside my bedroom window in Yonkers, New York, where I was raised, and saw my father's image swinging from a tree with people under the tree picketing. And for several years after that, I'd pick up the extension phone in our house.

00;21;19;10 - 00;21;42;20
Dr. Richard Lapchick
My dad, not knowing I was listening in, was racial epithet after racial epithet being hurled at him as a five, six and seven year old kid. I had no idea what that meant, except a lot of people hated me and was my best friend, and I would only later understand that, as you saw in the video, as the coach of the Knicks, he signed the first black player in the history of the NBA league that's now 80% black.

00;21;42;22 - 00;22;04;21
Dr. Richard Lapchick
But when the first black players were signed, there was a ton of resistance to it. And my dad became the objective of that. So my dad is also a double inductee into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a as a player with the original Celtics and as a coach with the Nixon Saint John's. And he was, everybody told me I was going to play in the NBA was 12, 13, 14 year old kid.

00;22;04;21 - 00;22;22;07
Dr. Richard Lapchick
I like that idea. So I wanted to work on my game. I was recruited, I was six feet tall, eighth grade. So I was one of the tallest players in New York City. And, I was recruited by a school called Power Memorial. I didn't go there. I became friends with the coach as he saw in the video.

00;22;22;09 - 00;22;43;25
Dr. Richard Lapchick
I ended up at his summer camp the next year. And, you know, the net result is, I define, a leader as somebody who stands up for justice and doesn't block its path. The first time I actually stood up for it was in that summer camp, as you saw in the video, when I challenged this white guy dropping the N-word on who turned out to be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

00;22;43;27 - 00;23;06;22
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And a lifelong friendship began. And, you know, it's it's so enduring that when Kareem got the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the end of Barack Obama's administration, I was his guest with the one with Henry Louis Gates at that, he asked me to speak at the Staples Center when his statue was unveiled. He came and was a commencement speaker here at the University of Central Florida, where I work.

00;23;06;24 - 00;23;26;25
Dr. Richard Lapchick
But as a 15 year old white kid, the importance of that friendship was I suddenly had a young, urban African-American lens to see what racism was doing. Day's community and other communities of color, and decided at that moment that I was going to spend the rest of my life working on the area of civil rights. I didn't know what it meant as a 15 year old, but I knew that's what I wanted to do.

00;23;26;28 - 00;23;45;10
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Ended up getting my doctorate, in international race relations. I was the first one in the country and a newly emerging field. Then in the late 60s, and I did my dissertation on how South Africa used sport as part of its foreign policy and the international response compared it to how the Nazis had done that in the 1930s.

00;23;45;10 - 00;24;08;08
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And I started teaching at a college in Virginia in 1970. And as you saw in the video, the first South African team was coming to the United States, was a Davis Cup team in 1978. I went down to Nashville, where the matches were supposed to take place, to try to get them stopped. And the African governments with whom I was working closely asked me to announce they would boycott the 1984 Los Angeles.

00;24;08;08 - 00;24;26;28
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Some of the games that the team was allowed to come. So all three networks at the time, the networks were there to cover the press conference. And Dick sharp came up to me afterwards. He saw his son Jeremy in the video. Dick was the probably the top sports broadcaster of that era, and he said that the financial backers of the Davis Cup had pulled out.

00;24;26;28 - 00;24;46;10
Dr. Richard Lapchick
It looked like the matches were going to be canceled. I announced that to the crowd. It was an anti-apartheid crowd. They went crazy. And when I flew home to Virginia that night, I thought maybe for the first time in my life, I had done something worthwhile. The next night, as you heard in the video, I was working late in my college office offices in the school's library.

00;24;46;12 - 00;25;08;16
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Library closed at 1030. 1045 there's a knock on the door. I didn't hesitate to open it because normally the campus police would check if they saw a light on after the building was shut. So when I opened the door instead of the campus police, it was two men wearing stocking. Nasser proceeded to cause liver damage, kidney damage, a hernia, concussion, carved the N-word in my stomach with a pair of office scissors.

00;25;08;16 - 00;25;27;12
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And as I lay in the hospital bed that night, I thought that if people had gone to the length they did to try to stop my father 28 years before, in the length they tried to go to stop me that night, they must have thought that using the sports platform to address racism was an effective tool that they wanted to stop.

00;25;27;12 - 00;25;51;21
Dr. Richard Lapchick
So I decided that night that I was going to spend the rest of my life using that sports platform, to do that. And that's essentially what I've done on racial issues, on gender issues, on LGBTQ and other issues that have that have become important over time. And, you know, I usually don't tell this part of the story, but because of what's happened in the last two years, I'll we'll share it.

00;25;51;23 - 00;26;16;19
Dr. Richard Lapchick
So I was in the hospital for four days. And I came home on a Friday morning. About 25 friends and supporters had come in from around the country to, support me. And a friend from Nashville called in the afternoon and said that the Nashville Banner, which was the afternoon newspaper, had run a page one story across the the banner headline that said Lapchick Woman's ruled self-inflicted.

00;26;16;22 - 00;26;42;08
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And it was attributed to a local police, unnamed police reporter, that they thought that I had self-inflicted these wounds. One of the people in our living room was an attorney, was Mark, who was a neighbor, and he said, we better go down and talk to the police, which we did the next day, the detective in charge of the investigation said, listen, I believe the attack took place the way you said it did, but there are people on the force who think you did this to yourself.

00;26;42;08 - 00;27;03;10
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Why don't you, take a lie detector to prove that you had the attack took place the way you said it did? As a student of the civil rights movement, I knew how lie detectors were used against civil rights activists in the past by police. So I said it's unlikely, you know, do it. But I told them that I would speak to all the leaders in our coalition and all the major civil rights leaders were in it.

00;27;03;13 - 00;27;22;09
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And if they thought I should take it to get us back on track with South Africa, then I would agree. Spoke to them all that night. They all to a person said absolutely not to refuse. The detective had said, when my friend the attorney said, well, how are you going? What's going to happen with the information you've asked him to take?

00;27;22;09 - 00;27;37;22
Dr. Richard Lapchick
A lie detector said, nobody will know until he says yes or no, and we'll have to make it public. I thought that was probably a logical thing as a naive 33 year old or whatever I was at the time. And the next morning at 830, a local reporter called saying, we understand you've been asked to take a lie detector.

00;27;37;22 - 00;28;01;28
Dr. Richard Lapchick
What are you going to do? So I explained that to him. He wrote this story the next morning. You can imagine in a southern newspaper, an accusation like this resonated, very negatively in terms of me. And it was a pretty horrifying, several moments which were amplified by the fact that the story quoted a medical examiner, who had come to visit me in the hospital.

00;28;02;01 - 00;28;20;22
Dr. Richard Lapchick
The police told me that they were sending me their doctor. The term medical examiner never came up, to make sure I was okay. He came into the room. We happened to be from India, and he talked about his support for me and my work in the civil right, civil rights and anti-apartheid movements. He literally never looked at one inch of my body.

00;28;20;24 - 00;28;48;08
Dr. Richard Lapchick
But the next day, and as part of that story, he was saying, after a thorough examination of Lapchick, I believe that all the wounds I saw were consistent with self-inflicted. So, as I'm sure your your audience has seen in the wake of everything that's happened in the past two years, every family that was impacted since the murder of George Floyd, including the family of George Floyd, hired a private medical examiner to come in and examine the bodies of their loved one.

00;28;48;11 - 00;29;09;24
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Because a study came out during this period of time that 85% of medical examiners who were surveyed said that they had changed their opinion on the death of whoever it was they were examining to conform with the police's decision. And, you know, I ended up having to go to New York. I had a I took a lie detector privately.

00;29;09;24 - 00;29;31;18
Dr. Richard Lapchick
I had a civil rights medical examiner exam, and we released the results of those tests at a press conference at the United Nations. And as I flew back to Virginia after the press conference, the rumor was that I was going to be arrested. Upon arriving in Virginia, arriving back in Virginia. But I guess they had heard the news that I had taken the the lie detector and had the New York medical examiner civil rights.

00;29;31;18 - 00;29;59;21
Dr. Richard Lapchick
It medical examiner, say that the attack took place the way I said it did. So, you know, those things have all formed my, one opinions of racism in America and globally, but also my commitment to wanting to spend the rest of my life working on anti-racist issues and I just recently announced about a month and a half ago that I was stepping down as the chair of the Device Support Business Management program to work solely on anti-racist issues.

00;29;59;21 - 00;30;22;24
Dr. Richard Lapchick
In my remaining years, whatever they may be. I'm 76 now. I must admit that I was feeling somewhat old until somebody who was 78 became a first term president. Suddenly, 76 sounded a little bit. Okay. So anyway, that's a little bit of background to the video, and I appreciate you asking that question. I hope I didn't go too far on it.

00;30;22;27 - 00;30;26;13
Onjalé Scott Price
As heavy.

00;30;26;15 - 00;30;27;29
Onjalé Scott Price
Well,

00;30;28;01 - 00;30;50;20
Dr. Richard Lapchick
But, you know, I consider myself blessed that all that happened at this stage, I lived, I wasn't I didn't have any long term damage. And I think, it helped eventually to amplify my voice. And it was at a time in the movement that the black community, civil rights community was wanting to work strictly in the black community and wanted white people to work in the white community.

00;30;50;20 - 00;31;03;05
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And I became kind of a bridge in the late 70s and early 1980s for that, because of what happened to me. So, you know, I, I, as I said, accepted that as a as a blessing with hindsight.

00;31;03;08 - 00;31;21;20
Onjalé Scott Price
That's amazing. Quite often, Reverend Will will say, we don't need any more allies. We need accomplices in the work that we're doing. And I'm I'm going to say that, Professor Lapchick is an accomplice, and we need more accomplices like him in the work that we do. That's and that's incredible. And I really applaud you for saying that.

00;31;21;20 - 00;31;38;01
Onjalé Scott Price
You're going to continue this work for the rest of your life and not retire. One thing that the rest of us on the show don't have the pleasure of is never not being who we are. We never have the chance to not do anti-racist work because we're going to wake up black every day for the rest of our lives.

00;31;38;03 - 00;32;05;27
Onjalé Scott Price
And so it's really meaningful when we have accomplices who are willing to do the work right along with us. And never necessarily put the torch down. So I, I want to express my sincere gratitude because, as you said, sports aren't always, if ever looked at as being part of our microcosm of racism that we have. I know we first were discussing this idea for the show was okay, I'm sure there's some where we can find racism in sports to talk about.

00;32;05;29 - 00;32;25;15
Onjalé Scott Price
But then of course, as we started talking about, I was like, oh yeah, it's everywhere. It's it's it's in everything. And I can think of examples of growing up, all my black friends being pushed to go get sports scholarships instead of education scholarships. It's just a, you know, a small, a small idea compared to some of the bigger things we've been talking about.

00;32;25;18 - 00;32;37;09
Onjalé Scott Price
I'm really interested in hearing from Jen about the research that she's doing for her dissertation and how the work that Doctor Lapchick has done is informing what you're working on.

00;32;37;11 - 00;32;59;28
Jen Fry
Yeah, you know, I think athletics is all about data and stats. That's all it is. And the gender equity report cards are just that's all it is. It's full of data. So it's really hard sometimes when you know things are going on, you just don't have the data or it's really all data. And the one thing is that all the report cards come out every year.

00;32;59;28 - 00;33;29;24
Jen Fry
So you even see like this lineage of intense data. And so that's tremendously helped me out. Like I said, I have a European context. But so my research I'm in geography, I will probably be the first ever black female sport geographer in the world. Sport geography as a as a academic discipline doesn't really exist. There is no colleges, no universities that have it as a major, as a minor, as a graduate level.

00;33;29;29 - 00;33;51;03
Jen Fry
It just doesn't exist. Which is wild because sport is our whole lives. You would think there's more about sport geography. And so for me to be able to situate people for volleyball in a European context, I first have to situate them within a US context of giving them the data on coaches, on athletes, all of those type of things.

00;33;51;03 - 00;34;14;03
Jen Fry
So that's a part that's really helped me, is be able to have the data to situate people in sport, geography on a U.S context, to then be able to have the dotted line to a European context. It's always interesting, interesting in geography because people look at it as like plants and dirt and sand dunes, and geography is really about people and movements and place and space.

00;34;14;03 - 00;34;37;05
Jen Fry
And you know, my goal is to get people thinking more about place and space on a more intense level than they do now, because both of them, they coincide very well. But they're also they're separate entities. And the more we understand place in space from a geographical lens, the more we can understand the covert experiences of athletes, because everyone knows the overt experiences, right?

00;34;37;05 - 00;35;01;05
Jen Fry
Everyone knows you being yelled the N-word. Okay, we know that. But what people don't think about is a hostile space that, well, it's not overt black and brown, but we can feel that hostile hostility, a word does it have to be said to us? But we can feel it with the people who are around us, if we're welcome, if we're not welcome, and we're just talking about space in relation to people.

00;35;01;08 - 00;35;21;20
Jen Fry
If we talk about place. I had my dissertation proposal in December, and I used one of the parts from the Colin Kaepernick video where it's when he's at the hotel and the white guy, is coming out of the out of the elevator and is like, you okay talking to his parents? And Colin's like, yeah, I'm good.

00;35;21;22 - 00;35;53;27
Jen Fry
And that's an example of those hotels were hostile places his parents experienced on a very different level than him. And because they weren't aware of the hostility of place, they didn't even see it. It did not exist to them. That elevator scene they had, it was so far above their heads. It was on the ninth floor. And so really for me, when I look at race, especially from a European and also us, I look at place in space and how they're violent and hostile to black and brown athletes, regardless if they're millionaires.

00;35;53;27 - 00;36;08;05
Jen Fry
Right. We've seen LeBron's house being spray painted. We saw the basketball player held down by the police. Like regardless of you making millions, we see that place in space can still be very hostile to them regardless of their celebrity status.

00;36;08;07 - 00;36;35;02
Onjalé Scott Price
I am I might actually read your dissertation when you're done, so please send it to me, because that sounds really interesting. That that sounds really cool. I, I really like the idea of the geography piece to it, because that's not something that we often think about. Like, I'm from Southern California, just outside Los Angeles, and now I live in Falmouth, and they're very different places for different reasons demographics, type of city or town.

00;36;35;05 - 00;36;52;06
Onjalé Scott Price
And it's just interesting to think about how I feel in some of the spaces back home, not just because they're home, but because who's there? And the spaces that are created there versus some spaces here. So that sounds really cool. I didn't I didn't know that, like you said, that was a thing that you could work on.

00;36;52;06 - 00;36;53;11
Onjalé Scott Price
But I'm glad you're doing it.

00;36;53;13 - 00;37;10;14
Jen Fry
So I'll give you an example of of place in space that can maybe help you remember. So I coached in Illinois in thousand and 11. We played for a national championship against UCLA. I hate UCLA with every bone in my body. I will always be. When you beat me in a national championships, I hate you like, oh, like I can't.

00;37;10;14 - 00;37;15;06
Jen Fry
I have my my runner up trophy here, but I want it to be a national championship trophy. Right. Just just say.

00;37;15;09 - 00;37;15;15
Onjalé Scott Price
That's.

00;37;15;15 - 00;37;38;05
Jen Fry
Fair. And so the the game was at the Alamodome. Alamodome in San Antonio. And so if you're watching the game, say when we were playing USC, we played USA, we USC, we beat them in five. So you see it. The place can be very different for two people. The USC fans are sitting there like this. The Illinois fans.

00;37;38;07 - 00;38;01;20
Jen Fry
Right. So if you experience plays completely different from other people, we are literally sitting next to each other. I'm experience places cheering and my USC, my USC friend, is experience it as being pissed off because I'm losing. So thinking about if you just watch a game and you will be able to construct and understand the of place and how it's experienced differently by different people.

00;38;01;25 - 00;38;21;14
Jen Fry
Because so many times people don't understand, everyone experiences things differently and people don't like can't get their head around it. I could be standing right next to someone. I can be sitting right next to my white best friend, and we will drastically have different experiences because of where we're at, how she might be accepted, and how I might be excluded.

00;38;21;17 - 00;38;45;06
Rev. Will Mebane
Yeah, it's like, I've told this story on this show before. How I came home one night from a meeting at about 1030, and the, fire trucks were were in the driveway here at the, at the parish. And, so I, I obviously got concerned. I got out and, walked over to speak to, one of the firefighters and, said, you know, what's going on?

00;38;45;08 - 00;39;06;07
Rev. Will Mebane
And he's like, oh, I'm glad you're here. He says, you're the caretaker, right? And I like, I'm we I take care of the souls of the people here. That's what I do it. All right. So, I've got to shift this for for a moment. Because so much is coming to me. Can we do a two hour show?

00;39;06;07 - 00;39;24;23
Rev. Will Mebane
I mean, this is this is good stuff. So, as I said, I was an athlete. Not really good. I was average. That did have a chance for college football scholarship. And then I blew out my knee. And that was the end of that story. But I played soccer at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and, the freshman team.

00;39;24;23 - 00;39;49;10
Rev. Will Mebane
And, so I've been around sports, and I have sons that played sports and all. And so we've had all where we've all had experiences with racism. My son, older son, was trying to become a professional baseball umpire and ran into all kinds of problems, making it through the minor leagues and stuff because of race. And, and, you know, nobody cares about officials.

00;39;49;10 - 00;40;28;00
Rev. Will Mebane
But this is something that Jen and Richard, the I fought for many years. I'm also a former, I guess I should say retired, basketball and football official. I refereed, college and high school football and high school basketball and the racism that even exists in the ranks of the officials. You know, I wrote so many letters to the New York Times, the, the USA today, you know, several years ago when every time I turned on the TV, all the officials, all the referees on a basketball game, for instance, were white and all the players are black.

00;40;28;02 - 00;40;51;03
Rev. Will Mebane
And sometimes you might have two black coaches and coaches and all the players are black, but the three officials are all white. And I was like, doesn't anybody else see this? Why is that the case? And, you know, I remember trying to make it through the ranks, climb up the ranks through officiating and the racism that that I ran into there.

00;40;51;03 - 00;41;20;07
Rev. Will Mebane
So, yeah, it permeates, every aspect of, the sport. So let's do this. Let's take a listen to Colleen and she house, see how she responds to the second question, which I'm going to ask you to, to respond to as well. And that is, so what do we do about it? What what can we do?

00;41;20;08 - 00;41;41;01
Rev. Will Mebane
How do we go about eliminating racism in sports? So Colleen is going to give us some ideas. And then I want to come back and we'll start with you, Richard, to find out, how genuine you feel, what we can do to eliminate racism in sports.

00;41;41;03 - 00;42;01;23
Colleen Coyne
You know, so much of it is is representation. And in having conversations like this, you know, like we one thing that I always think about, there's this cool organization, called Black Girl Hockey Club, and they're obviously, trying to get more black girls involved in the sport of hockey. It's a great sport. It's a great school for everyone.

00;42;01;28 - 00;42;24;19
Colleen Coyne
And they're looking to increase representation. You know, and I, I love that organization. I love that initiative. And a lot of it, you know, boils down to, you know, how how do we eliminate sexism in sports like, you know, so that's something that I can more closely relate to. Right? And just putting taking my experience as a woman in a male dominated sport.

00;42;24;22 - 00;42;46;13
Colleen Coyne
And you know, what does that feel like and what does that look like from time to time? And what are the points of frustration and, you know, how do we get around that? And I think that, you know, again, we're making progress on that on that front. And I think that, you know, we need to have that same type of, movement in terms of, diversity and race.

00;42;46;15 - 00;43;06;23
Colleen Coyne
Started to say that one of the things that I remember, so when I played in 98, like, you know, we played pretty much in anonymity, like nobody really knew who we were until the Olympics. Right. Like, and then our team got, a ton of coverage and, you know, we won, and that helped. And then all of a sudden, you know, more girls were signing up to play hockey.

00;43;06;23 - 00;43;31;25
Colleen Coyne
And I remember I don't remember where it was, but I remember the feeling I had walking into a rink and there was like, a youth girls like, tournament happening and like, just seeing, like, so many young girls playing hockey, they all had their jackets in their matching sticks and they're hanging out with their teams. And I really kind of had an emotional response to that because I was like, wow, that's nothing.

00;43;31;29 - 00;43;58;28
Colleen Coyne
I ever had. And I probably didn't even know that I missed it until I saw all these little girls having that experience. And so when I think about organizations like, like our hockey club and others out there, that's just what I'm familiar with. You know, like, they deserve to have that feeling too, right? They deserve to be able to, like, walk into a rink somewhere in, in or any sports venue and have that feeling that says, wow, like, look at how how much better things are.

00;43;58;28 - 00;44;21;16
Colleen Coyne
And obviously it's never I shouldn't say never. It's not perfect. It's going to take a long time for it to be perfect. If we get there. But but just seeing that progress and seeing that representation, you know, the feeling that I had, I just feel like these other, you know, groups deserve to have that feeling as well.

00;44;21;19 - 00;44;51;17
Rev. Will Mebane
Hey, Colleen, thank you again for getting us started with answering that question. You know, how do we how do we eliminate racism in sports? And I guess it's probably a question how do we eliminate racism, period. But today our focus is on sports. And we're joined once again by, Richard Lapchick, who has devoted his life to to this work and continues to do anti-racist, racism work and, anti-trafficking work.

00;44;51;17 - 00;45;25;04
Rev. Will Mebane
And it's involved in so much. Make sure you go online and Google Richard Lapchick. All right. And, you'll be glad you did. And, so grateful to have Jen Frye with us. Jen is a fireball, who is also working on her doctorate dissertation. And, has been a NCAA athlete that is now committed to addressing social injustices.

00;45;25;07 - 00;45;35;18
Rev. Will Mebane
As they find themselves in sport. So, Richard, we'll start with you. How do we change? How do we get to get rid of racism in sports?

00;45;35;21 - 00;46;04;18
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Well, it's not going to change by itself. People like me who are in power, who look like me aren't going to see that power. It's going to take pressure. We've been applying pressure for a long time, and it's been effective to some degree. But I think the new element that we have that is going to increase the possibilities in sport specifically, but also to some degree in society is, the athlete activism.

00;46;04;20 - 00;46;25;03
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And when athletes turn their attention to front offices of teams and say, let me see who you're interviewing me, see who's hired in each of the significant positions. Athletic departments, coaching fraternities and sororities. Who's being interviewed and who's being hired? It's it I think it's at that point that we're going to start to see those numbers change.

00;46;25;03 - 00;46;53;28
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Finally, last year again, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and everything that's happened since more than half of the men's basketball coaches in college sport that were hired in Division one were black, a totally unprecedented situation. Same percentage of women, black women were hired as head coaches of women's basketball. You know, we were talking about a sport that had had its lowest number of college basketball.

00;46;53;28 - 00;47;21;27
Dr. Richard Lapchick
That is, lowest number of black head coaches at any time since 2006, going into last year. That's 16 years after 2006. We're going backward, not forward. But again, the focus is here. And I think when we get athletes to to shape that and form that, point of pressure to this issue, that those numbers are going to change, that they're not going to accept the type of treatment that they see in black communities.

00;47;21;27 - 00;47;46;18
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And brown communities around the country, beyond the arenas. So many of our arenas are in black neighborhoods, where, you know, those athletes have an even more amplified voice. And I, you know, for me, this this all started to change with the death of Muhammad Ali. I was lucky enough to be friends with Muhammad and Lonnie Fry from the late 70s on.

00;47;46;20 - 00;48;10;19
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Was in Louisville the day of the funeral. Those athletes around the country who I don't think really probably knew because very few people have a sense of history these days about the extent of his activism, about the, you know, all the things he did. But suddenly they're reading about it in, in the obituaries, and the story is being written in the broadcast on television about how consistent he was over his over decades.

00;48;10;21 - 00;48;35;19
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And to see that he had gone from what I would argue was probably the most unpopular person in the country in the late 1960s, I would argue, maybe the most popular person in the country at the time of his death, and athletes seeing that as a possibility for them to maybe I can speak up then those four great NBA players on the sports went on and talked about police brutality and systemic racism at the beginning of the sports and took on that courageous stand.

00;48;35;19 - 00;48;58;29
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And I think they saw the applause that they got. It was in that context that Pat Kaepernick took the knee and began what's now evolved into this, very powerful movement. And I think that, you know, I was I was thrilled last year when the NBA created the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion Award, named after Kareem, and gave it to Carmelo Anthony as the first recipient.

00;48;58;29 - 00;49;21;26
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And they're acknowledging not only, you know, stats from a ball game, but stats from the impact people are having in communities. And and I think this is this is, a hopeful sign, at a time that, you know, as, as, Jen reiterated, we've got to seize this moment, and not let the moment pass because we might not get this opportunity again.

00;49;21;29 - 00;49;46;22
Onjalé Scott Price
Can I ask a follow up question before we before I kind of want to ask a similar question to Jen. So, Doctor Lapchick, when when you're doing the the social justice work that you're doing and you're talking to people, I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about what you say to other white folks about this issue, and I, I ask that because the Falmouth community, who was most of the people who watch this show, where something like 94% white.

00;49;46;24 - 00;50;09;10
Onjalé Scott Price
And so we do have quite a few allies and accomplices and people who do know that there are issues, but there's there's definitely still people who think because we have millions athletes who make millions of dollars, like there's no racism or because we have black head coaches. So what's what do you say to those people and what kind of conversations do you have with other white folks that there really is an issue, and here's what you can do about it.

00;50;09;13 - 00;50;30;18
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Well, you kind of laid out this perspective earlier in your commentary, but I didn't say that back in 1978 when the attack happened and other things happened to me after that, that a lot of people came up to me and said, well, now you know what it's like to be black. And my response to them then, and my response to them today would be, I don't know what it's like to be black.

00;50;30;20 - 00;50;51;02
Dr. Richard Lapchick
I can walk away from this at any moment and live whatever a normal life would mean in a suburban white community and have a have a comfortable lifestyle. Never faced discrimination or violence again. If I'm black, I'm going to wake up black the next day and face that possibility every day of my life. Hopefully it'll never happen, but it's always possible that it could happen to you.

00;50;51;04 - 00;51;07;28
Dr. Richard Lapchick
I can understand as a white person, nor can you if I'm talking to that white audience what it's like to be black. And I think that, you know, I think we've all heard, commentary coming from black leaders this year that they the past couple of years that they think white people are listening more than they were in the past.

00;51;07;28 - 00;51;30;18
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And that's my experience. And, and the audiences I've been involved with over the past year and a half since the murder of George Floyd, that whereas white people might say, well, you know, racism is bad, but they could see what is actually doing to individual people and the toll that's taking on their daily and long term lives. That it's not something that that that can be passed over.

00;51;30;18 - 00;51;45;15
Dr. Richard Lapchick
I think white people are finally getting that enough. I'm talking to a wide audience. I would be saying we all have to get that. I would say that, you know, everybody can't be on the front lines, but everybody's got to get off the sidelines in this battle to fight against systemic racism.

00;51;45;17 - 00;52;03;02
Onjalé Scott Price
I really like that. Not everybody has to be on the front lines, and everybody's got to get off the sidelines. I'm gonna write that down somewhere. I like that a lot. So if I could, well, you know, I want to open it up for you to respond to the question in general, I'm also hoping you could talk a little bit about, especially with you, the work that you do.

00;52;03;09 - 00;52;21;24
Onjalé Scott Price
I would say overseas, because where in America and in Europe, in my experience, talking to, European people, they think that most racism is an American problem. So I'm kind of curious about what it's like for you to talk to, to people in Europe about this issue or in the European context.

00;52;21;26 - 00;52;24;28
Jen Fry
So do you want me to answer the first question that you asked? How would you like.

00;52;25;01 - 00;52;34;28
Onjalé Scott Price
Just any part of that in any context that you feel is, is appropriate or that that you'd like to answer it also in context, I guess, of what do we do in general.

00;52;34;28 - 00;52;52;19
Jen Fry
About. Yeah. So I think a few things that we have to do is, is the first thing is we have to acknowledge history and that history has many viewpoints right now. History is view that through a white lens of what happened. And as we see with the 1619 project with Nikole Hannah-Jones, that if you mention it from a black lens, it's not a real thing.

00;52;52;22 - 00;53;09;07
Jen Fry
So I think we have to peel off the layer that history is objective and there's no objective. Nothing in the world is objective. Everything is subjective and everything has a lens. So I think the first thing if we're going to eradicate this thing is we have to really be willing to take a look at all the ugly parts of history.

00;53;09;09 - 00;53;30;04
Jen Fry
You know, I think, the second part is we have to stop romanticizing sport. Sport is so romanticized as people come together. So there's no racism because a white person and black person are doing these things? No, we have to stop romanticizing and saying it's just a microcosm. It's a complete microcosm because who's in power? White people who are doing majority of the work, black and brown people.

00;53;30;07 - 00;53;52;00
Jen Fry
If we look at the NFL, the NFL, 69.7% black, you want to know how to stop racism in the NFL. Black athletes stop playing. If they say, we're not going to play until these things are done, baby. When we're talking about, might we start with Covid did to money if they said we are not we're not playing in the Super Bowl unless these things are done, guess what's going to start happening?

00;53;52;06 - 00;54;28;03
Jen Fry
So if when athletes really start to get together, say, we are not going to accept this, we're not going to play, then things will happen that the NBA is 80% white. Same thing. We saw it with the bucks. When they say they're going to stop playing, things will happen. So I think this whole thing of really coming together so that we can say this is what we're not going to accept, you know, I think the next thing that kind of what you were talking about, will about who is coaching, who is not coaching, I think we have to pay attention to how coaching funnels and officiating funnels happen.

00;54;28;06 - 00;54;46;22
Jen Fry
We just read an article on nepotism in the NFL. It's like 80% nepotism in the NFL. Like it's you're they're brothers. Just brothers. Brother in law, son in law. Those are who's getting the jobs. So we have to pay attention to these coaching funnels. Doctor Moore of Texas wrote this great article about who are the walk on athletes.

00;54;46;22 - 00;55;02;18
Jen Fry
The walk on athletes are white males, especially in basketball. And what are they doing as walk ons? They're not looking at their experience as I'm playing. No, they're they're looking at their experiences. This is going to help me get a coaching job. This is going to help me become an assistant. This is going to help me become a head coach.

00;55;02;24 - 00;55;23;15
Jen Fry
And so where are the black athletes who are taking advantage of those opportunities as well to get into coaching? I was a volleyball official for ten years, so I understand what you're talking about. What are the officiating funnels? We are not giving black athletes options. We are not saying, well, yeah, you might go to NFL or NBA, but what about coaching for you?

00;55;23;22 - 00;55;44;28
Jen Fry
What about officiating for you? What about what about what about. We don't give a multitude of opportunities like we do with white males. I think also second chances, black coaches do not get second chances. The second chance they get is to be the janitor. I have seen so many white males fired up. Can we talk about Klink?

00;55;44;29 - 00;56;10;16
Jen Fry
Was the name Kingsbury from Arizona Cardinals? How do you get fired from a college job and get a pro job? Richard, I need to see fired up data. How do you get fired from a college job and you get a head pro job? Second chances don't happen to black athletes. We saw, the head coach was that Indiana black female basketball coach.

00;56;10;19 - 00;56;29;03
Jen Fry
She got fired. She couldn't get an assistant job. She ends up at Buffalo, took him to the sweet 16. Black coaches don't get second jobs. They don't get they don't even really get to get a first job. As a black coach, you have to have a scroll of experience. They had basketball. The head football coach of the Texans had it.

00;56;29;03 - 00;56;48;19
Jen Fry
Black male has 30 years of experience. The head coach of the Rams, he got three five years of coaching experience as the head coach. So I think those are the small things that we have to look at. Where racism is showing up is who is in power, how are they able to stay in power, how are they able to get their friends and family to keep in power?

00;56;48;21 - 00;57;13;14
Jen Fry
Because there was an article that showed that, a white teen versus a historically black team, the officials called more fouls on historically black teams. So it's happening with fouls. It's happening in every aspect. And then the second question you had, on Janay about how do we like, talk to white people? I think we have to totally deconstruct our, our definition of racism right now.

00;57;13;14 - 00;57;43;00
Jen Fry
Racism is 1960s racism, you N-word and all that we're not looking at as a system. And so we have to talk about is a system in which one race maintains supremacy over another due to the attitudes, behaviors, social structure and institutional power. We have got to talk to them about racism in a totally different, disaggregated way. We can't talk about it is I don't like you because the color of your skin, the way we need to talk about it is I love you, but you have to straighten your hair.

00;57;43;00 - 00;58;02;04
Jen Fry
I'm going to call you a nickname. I'm not going to call you junior. I'm going to call you Sarah, because that's just too hard to say. So I'm just going to call you Sarah. And can you please straighten your hair? Because I really like curly hair, but it just looks a little unkempt and. Well, you know, I like talking to you, but you're a little aggressive with your tone, so it's kind of scaring me.

00;58;02;04 - 00;58;18;11
Jen Fry
And now we'll get fired. So we need to talk about the social structure and institutional power to white people. It ain't about you not liking me. I don't care if you got black friends, black sisters, black brothers. It is. How do you treat people of color and black people in all of these situations where you're not going to be seen?

00;58;18;13 - 00;58;37;12
Jen Fry
Who are you promoting? Who are you firing? Who are you disciplining, and what are the reasons you're doing that? That is what we need to do. And lastly, we need to talk about shame and guilt. People of Will and Richard, you're back. Your, your age bracket. If you talked about race, you're the racist. If you you can't talk about at the kitchen table.

00;58;37;15 - 00;58;56;27
Jen Fry
What is it? Sex, race and religion. What were the three things that you weren't allowed to. And so now we're growing up that we have shame or guilt if we're talking about these huge identity things. So we have got to acknowledge the shame and guilt and start talking about it and teaching kids, because y'all the student athletes, they know they get it.

00;58;57;00 - 00;59;10;07
Jen Fry
It's who is putting the stop on the conversations are older people. So how do we have conversations with the people putting the stop and allow the younger people to just keep going and elevate them?

00;59;10;10 - 00;59;20;06
Onjalé Scott Price
You're right. Well, this is definitely going to be the highlight of the year I am, I am excited, I am empowered, this is amazing. But I'm going to stop talking. I'll pass it to Europe.

00;59;20;08 - 00;59;38;23
Rev. Will Mebane
Well, we've been wanting to do this show for a while. We've been talking about doing this show for, I don't know, 4 or 5 months and that. So glad we have had a chance to do it. And here we are. We in bowl season, college football season and about to have the championship game. We're the Super Bowl is not far away.

00;59;38;25 - 01;00;07;11
Rev. Will Mebane
I will tell you that I boycotted the NFL for four seasons. I just this season started back watching NFL because of the way they treated cap. You know, I was like, yeah, I can't do anything else. Maybe. But I ain't watching that. I am not going to be a patron of that that league. Now, Jane, you gave you gave Richard the some homework to do, to get some, some data, on the coaches.

01;00;07;15 - 01;00;33;01
Rev. Will Mebane
I want somebody to do some homework on officials. You know, my eyes do not deceive me. I can't believe it. When I. Today, probably tonight, when I turn on an NBA basketball game, I'm going to see all black players on the floor are mostly black players, black head coaches. And every doggone official. It's going to be white.

01;00;33;03 - 01;01;06;02
Rev. Will Mebane
To me. Why is that? Well, officials are like the overseers. You know, they're overseeing the the guys on the plantation, right. Keeping them, you know, in check, making sure they following the rules. I have been in locker rooms where I've heard officials talk about how they're going to stick it to a player, usually black, because they just didn't like his attitude or, what have you.

01;01;06;04 - 01;01;28;12
Rev. Will Mebane
It recently just permeates so much of, of sports. So somebody please do some research on, on on officials because we got some folks out there who are really good who would be great for the game. I compliment the NBA. I don't know if it was because I wrote letter to them for about ten years saying, you guys need to get more black officials on the court.

01;01;28;14 - 01;01;46;26
Rev. Will Mebane
But we do see more and more black officials on the courts now. But we need to see. So, you know, I don't think we should ever turn on an NBA game or an NFL game and not see the majority of the officials be black folks. I mean, come on. I mean, you're right. We got to stop romanticizing that.

01;01;46;27 - 01;02;24;20
Rev. Will Mebane
You know, one of the things that upsets me the most every year is when the NFL draft comes on and, you know, to me, I got in trouble when I was on Facebook. I don't do social media anymore, but I used to say, okay, here comes the annual slave trade. Here's the annual slave trade. We put these black athletes, you know, through an examination, checking their teeth, checking their muscles, checking their weight, checking their hate, their hair, giving them a chance to see what their issues are and stuff.

01;02;24;23 - 01;02;49;00
Rev. Will Mebane
I mean, to me, it's just a modern day slave trade. And, I'm grateful for the ones that have a chance to, get drafted and to make the money to provide for their families at all. But man, that's just a perpetuation in my mind of, of racism. So, and, general, you're right about black coaches not getting second chances.

01;02;49;00 - 01;03;08;14
Rev. Will Mebane
I've been watching the games. There's Todd Bowles on the sidelines. Used to be head coach. In, New York. There's, as he. Frazier used to be head coach in Minnesota. On the sidelines. They can't they can't get a second chance. Can't get a second chance. Right. And in the meantime, coaches with no experience. Boom.

01;03;08;20 - 01;03;24;11
Rev. Will Mebane
Right to the top, you know. So I'll start preaching and, you know, the last few minutes of, of, of the show to, to our phenomenal guest today, Richard, any, closing comments you'd like to make?

01;03;24;13 - 01;03;50;13
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Well, just as a point of reference, we do have this data on the officials in each of our racial and gender report cards. It's one of the last two items with athletic trainers of doctors and officials. But the real overseers, of course, are the owners, and they are overwhelmingly white, wealthy men. And, you know, that's where, you know, you can put all the the rules in place to guide the hiring process.

01;03;50;13 - 01;04;11;17
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And I think the NFL is, you know, started to strengthen the Rooney Rule and put in ways. But the fact is that they have that white ownership group that the buck stops there because some of them are not willing to take that chance or whatever it would take to have them hire a black head coach. So the pressure really has to be on the owners.

01;04;11;17 - 01;04;29;27
Dr. Richard Lapchick
We, we are grading the owners and the report cards, and getting the access to the names. Really, for the first time in the past couple of years. And it's made a difference. And, and I think what we can do. But, you know, I, I appreciate everything. And, Tracy, I have to tell you that Billy Hawkins is, somebody I admire a lot.

01;04;29;27 - 01;04;36;29
Dr. Richard Lapchick
And he must be very proud if he if he's your mentor, he must be very proud of who is meant. Is.

01;04;37;02 - 01;04;38;00
Onjalé Scott Price
Thank you.

01;04;38;02 - 01;04;38;16
Dr. Richard Lapchick
Welcome.

01;04;38;23 - 01;04;43;21
Rev. Will Mebane
Then we, we want to hear final comments from you.

01;04;43;23 - 01;05;01;17
Jen Fry
I mean, this work sucks. You got to do it. You got to stay in it. White. Black. Like the work has been on black people. And we're tired of it. Right. The more white men talking to white people, like, that's the thing is, white people need to do the work pushing and talking to white people like that. That's where it's going to be doing the hard, uncomfortable stuff.

01;05;01;17 - 01;05;20;04
Jen Fry
Like I said, don't talk to me about the work you're doing unless you're saying something to your racist aunt or uncle or grandma. It has to be in the family. You have to be willing to take a loss, to toss a table, to start argument. Right? Many white women have been conditioned to not have arguments like, I don't want to be disagreeable, I don't want to argue, so I'm just not going to say them.

01;05;20;07 - 01;05;44;08
Jen Fry
And they're perpetuating. Right? The silence that hurts black and brown people. They have to be willing to take a stand when teaching their kids, when talking to their white spouses, their white grandparents. Like that's a big thing, is white folks doing the hard, really uncomfortable work. To push this on. That's going to be a cause that will take the weight off of black people having to consistently show up day in and day out, and we're exhausted.

01;05;44;10 - 01;05;46;03
Onjalé Scott Price
Amen.

01;05;46;05 - 01;05;51;25
Rev. Will Mebane
Yeah. Anything else I see on TV? Yeah. Amen.

01;05;51;27 - 01;05;53;11
Onjalé Scott Price
Amen. I just.

01;05;54;06 - 01;06;20;05
Onjalé Scott Price
A lot of what we've discussed here is just been so spot on. And while the focus today obviously has been on sports, there's so many takeaways from this that could be added to so many other aspects of our lives. And I think, when Doctor Lapchick mentioned how when he was attacked and I'm sure, as you said, there were there were more things that happened, it really makes you realize that actually, this isn't a real space where change can be made.

01;06;20;07 - 01;06;37;16
Onjalé Scott Price
If if we didn't think if the people didn't think that change could be made in these spaces and these avenues on these platforms, they wouldn't care, they would ignore you. And so I again, I want to commend Doctor Lapchick on the work that he's done and continuing to do. And Jen, I am really excited about the work that you are doing.

01;06;37;16 - 01;06;50;09
Onjalé Scott Price
And I am serious. I've never been a hold dissertation, but I feel like I would read yours. And so best of luck to you as you continue your education. And I'm just so glad that you both were able to join us today.

01;06;50;11 - 01;07;24;20
Rev. Will Mebane
Well, I will say, amen to that. Thank you. To, to Jen Frye, native of Arizona, division to athlete, veteran volleyball coach with over 50 years of experience at the collegiate level, and now a social justice educator and activist around the issue of sports. And, just couldn't be more grateful, Jennifer, for your being with us.

01;07;24;22 - 01;07;53;18
Rev. Will Mebane
And of course, Richard Lapchick, again, someone I've admired for a long time. I'm, honored, personally, to have a chance to be in your presence, even though it's the electronic league here. So grateful to you for making the time. Professor, founder of the device Sports business management program, director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, president of the Institute for Sport and Social Justice.

01;07;53;18 - 01;08;16;22
Rev. Will Mebane
Co-Founder of Hope for Family Alliance, and co-founder of Shut Out Trafficking. He doesn't have enough to do, but, we thank you. And we hope that you will continue to do the work in which you've been engaged. And, you know, think about passing the baton over to, to Jen. I know you've got great folks there at the institute working with you.

01;08;16;24 - 01;08;40;14
Rev. Will Mebane
But I think you might you you co you could have another partner here in Jen. Right? So, and thank you all home at home for making the time to be part of the conversation and to, listen and eavesdrop in on the conversation that is taking the taking place today about around race and racism in sports.

01;08;40;14 - 01;09;13;24
Rev. Will Mebane
And my to my, co-host, thank you, Angie, for your contributions and for always. Being attentive and contributing to the program and, very meaningful ways. Our thanks to our friends from Abc-Tv, Debbie Rogers, the executive director, CEO to, Alan Russell, production, person extraordinaire, and to all who make, Sctv and this show possible.

01;09;13;27 - 01;09;32;16
Rev. Will Mebane
So, that's it for now. Until the next time. And, remember, we might invite you to be part of the conversation on a subject at some point. Happy New year. Bye for now.