Episode 102: Kyle Korver and white allyship, Steubenville rape documentary, and marketing female athletes
This week, Lindsay, Amira, and Shireen discuss the NHL (or maybe NBA?) playoffs (2:10), and dive into Kyle Korver's Players Tribune essay on white privilege and what it means to be an ally (6:53).
Jessica Luther interviews interviews Nancy Schwartzman, director of the film Roll, Red, Roll, a documentary about the 2012 sexual assault case in Steubenville, Ohio, that involved multiple members of the high school football team (25:29).
Then, the group reconvenes to discuss the WNBA draft, NWSL season launch, and the marketing of female athletes (39:48).
Finally, we have the Burn Pile (54:42), BAWOTW (101:54), and What's Good (105:48).
Links
“McGill dumps Redmen team name after calls from Indigenous community” https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/mcgill-redmen-name-1.5095289?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ckut-radio/changing-on-the-fly/e/58106048
Privileged: by Kyle Korver https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/kyle-korver-utah-jazz-nba
“NBA stars respond with gratitude and support for Kyle Korver's essay on white privilege and racism” https://www.nba.com/jazz/news/nba-stars-respond-gratitude-and-support-kyle-korvers-essay-white-privilege-and-racism
“Kyle Korver’s essay on racism provokes thought, but it needs to inspire action” https://www.thestar.com/sports/sports-prism/2019/04/10/kyle-korvers-essay-on-racism-provokes-thought-but-it-needs-to-inspire-action.html
“Women Of Color In Media: Progress Required” https://theshadowleague.com/women-of-color-in-media-progress-required/
“Serena Williams urges female athletes to channel their 'crazy' in Nike Oscars spot” https://www.thedrum.com/news/2019/02/25/serena-williams-urges-female-athletes-channel-their-crazy-nike-oscars-spot
“Under Armour and other brands' basketball shoes rarely, if ever, named for female athletes” https://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-womens-basketball-shoes-under-armour-20181130-story.html
Top WNBA Salaries vs NBA Salaries: https://www.blackenterprise.com/top-wnba-nba-salaries-2019/
“Sixers hire first female coach: Lindsey Harding” https://www.philly.com/sixers/sixers-coach-lindsey-harding-elton-brand-20190409.html
Transcript
Lindsay: Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Burn It All Down, the feminist sports podcast you need. My name is Lindsay Gibbs. I am the sports reporter at ThinkProgress. I will be your host today. Joining me are, oh well, two of my favorite four co-hosts, I have to say. Shireen Ahmed, the cat lover, my favorite optimist up in Toronto, Canada. Hi, Shireen.
Shireen: Good morning.
Lindsay: And joining me from Pennsylvania is Miss On the Ball herself, the Assistant Professor of History and Gender and Sexuality Studies at Penn State, Amira Rose Davis. Amira, how are you?
Amira: Good. How are you?
Lindsay: Good, good. Really on top of things, apparently, this morning, so that's great.
Amira: It's Game of Thrones day. Sorry, that's my what's good. I ruined it. Keep going.
Lindsay: Spoiler alert. Spoiler alert.
Amira: I can't contain my excitement.
Lindsay: I know. I am the loser who has literally never watched a single episode of Game of Thrones.
Amira: Oh, my God.
Lindsay: So I'm feeling very out of it today. But anyway, look, we have a really exciting show for you today. Whether or not you like Game of Thrones, you will enjoy this show, I promise. We are going to dive into white allyship and related to the Kyle Korver's Players Tribune essay that went viral this week.
We're also going to talk about marketing of female athletes in women's sports leagues. There's been some stuff in the National Women's Soccer League and the WNBA lately that have piqued our interest, and we want to dive into and have a broader discussion about how do we do this properly.
We also have a very exciting interview. Our own Jessica Luther interviews Nancy Schwartzman, director of the film Roll Red Roll, a documentary about the 2012 sexual assault case in Steubenville, Ohio. Definitely stay tuned for that. But, first of all, Shireen, I have a question for you.
Shireen: Yes, Lindsay?
Lindsay: What happened to Toronto yesterday in the playoffs?
Shireen: Oh, God. Nazem Kadri. I can't-
Amira: Beautiful things happened to them.
Shireen: Okay, relax, for one, okay? Let me just say this because I don't want people-
Amira: You say that like it's a bad score.
Shireen: I mean the first game. Here's the thing. I don't want people to misunderstand. The only Toronto team in hockey that I care about is the Furies on the CWHL. Let's just be really clear. I am not a Leafs fan.
Amira: She's a Habs fan, which is even worse.
Shireen: But if I'm a Habs, which is beautiful and glorious, and Amira's getting that jersey for her birthday. I think the thing is that we have to understand that because I'm Canadian, I want to root for the last Canadian team. But I'm very happy sitting back and watching these two teams just pummel each other. That's where I am. Also, Nazem Kadri cross-checking because he's frustrated is very typical Nazem Kadri. That's all I'm going to say about that.
Lindsay: Shireen, I love you, but I'm talking about the Raptors who lost to the Orlando Magic yesterday.
Shireen: Oh, my God.
Amira: Oh, we’re totally in hockey mode.
Shireen: Oh, my God. This is amazing. I thought you were talking about the Leafs. Oh, God.
Lindsay: I have no idea what's happening in the NHL playoffs. But I just want to ask you-
Amira: Yeah. I thought you were talking about the Leafs, too, because I was bragging about the Bruins beating them 4-1.
Lindsay: I know. I was like, "We're having completely different conversations here." I want to talk about-
Amira: It's playoffs season.
Shireen: It's playoffs season.
Lindsay: ... how did the Orlando Magic beat the Toronto Raptors.
Shireen: Oh, okay. I can just really quickly on that, my son, Kawhi Leonard, has to do all the work. Kyle Lowry just had a bad night. He didn't get a single shot. I really thought about it because it's a little bit embarrassing. I don't know. I'm lost for words.
Lindsay: It's the Orlando Magic.
Shireen: Okay, Lindsay. I understand, all right? They can't be perfect. They cannot be perfect, and they pretty much are. They're allowed to have one bad game in the playoffs, and they chose it to make their first.
Lindsay: All right, all right. Okay. That's fair. That's fair. Amira, how are you feeling... We will know the outcome of the Celtics-Pacers game by the time this airs. We do not know now the result of game one. How are you feeling?
Amira: Well, I would rather talk about hockey, thank you very much. Yeah, I've been ignoring the Celtics because they have been so frustrating, so insanely frustrating, to watch this season that I'm just telling myself I'm not invested. Whatever happens today in the first game happens. Whatever happens in this first round happens. I'm totally all in on the Bruins right now.
Lindsay: Well, I know how well it usually works out for you to be zen, so I'm excited.
Amira: I know. I'm trying. I'm trying. It's the time of year where like I love when we get both playoffs because NHL playoffs, they're the best, they're so intense, and NBA playoffs are full of fun and drama. It's a really fun time of year. But I have to be honest you all, coming off a World Series win and a Super Bowl win, everything else is just like cherry on top at this point, so it helps a little bit with my zen.
Lindsay: That didn't help me with my zen.
Shireen: I appreciate that. I appreciate Amira's coming off a World Series win. I get that. I'm also just waiting to see what... I'm not going to speak to quick about the Leafs winning the series because I'm not emotionally invested. I'm emotionally invested in the Bruins losing, yes.
But I think that in terms of basketball, it's a bit early, especially since my team choked last night than when we had a bit of a lead. I don't know, I don't want to draw attention to the negativity around the Raptors because Kawhi needs really, really solid energy. This is very important.
Lindsay: You're all about positivity, Shireen, so that makes sense.
Shireen: I am. I also want to mention that Serge Ibaka did release what's for dinner, his show that he brings people to his home and cooks for them, which is literally my dream to be on. I love you to Tim Duncan and I always will, but it focused a little bit on my energy of reaching out to Serge Ibaka now because I need to be on that show.
Lindsay: I think we should definitely start a Burn It All Down campaign. I would love to see Shireen on that.
Shireen: Yeah, I think so.
Lindsay: Well, we do have to say that the Spurs did win last night while we were sleeping, or while I was sleeping at least. The game starts at 10:30 PM, eastern, which is a crime, in my opinion anyways. All right, we'll keep you posted. We'll have to check in next week and see how our Boston and Toronto co-hosts are doing. For now, let's get this episode started.
Lindsay: All right. This week in The Players' Tribune, NBA player Kyle Korver wrote an essay that went pretty viral about his white privilege. Shireen, you want to get us started here?
Shireen: Thanks so much, Linds. If you haven't seen it, Utah Jazz player Kyle Korver actually wrote a beautiful piece, as Lindsay, in The Players' Tribune. Now I had a lot of feelings about this, and we're going to talk about it. I'm really glad as well that Amira is here so we can have this conversation from different perspectives.
The thing that I wanted to say was I just wanted to start with a quote from his piece; "I have to continue to educate myself on the history of racism in America. I have to listen. As a white man, I have to hold my fellow white men accountable. We all have to hold each other accountable."
Then to follow up with this, Kyle Korver actually was part of a roundtable on camera with three of his colleagues, Thabo Sefolosha, Ekpe Udoh, and Georges Niang. I think that it was really important and harrowing to watch as well after reading, because you can tell a lot from someone in terms of their body language, in terms of the way that they think. I saw Kyle Korver being silent a lot in this roundtable, which is really important. For me, that's very much the crux of what this piece was about, was listening and understanding.
He also starred in the follow-up, which is available via the Players' Tribune website, is that part of his privilege is being able to check in and check out of a conversation when he wants to. That was really harrowing for me to read. It's what hit me. I was like, "Wow! This is definitely privilege." You don't even have to talk about racism if you don't want to.
The entire scope of his piece was very specifically on privilege, but not just basic, "I'm privileged blah, blah, blah," it was very much about our allyship and what can I do. He started with the fact that he can actually listen, which was very, very important, because a lot of people, you all don't get that even, like pass the mic. I've heard people getting invited to panels where they shouldn't be, that they're profiting off of communities when they shouldn't be.
It's very simple to know what you should not do, in addition to what you should do, to be an ally to people of color, and athletes of color in this case. I mean it was very much about also the responses to him, like Lebron James, Jeremy Lin, D. Wade, Draymond Green, and then even Coach Steve Kerr had retweeted his peace and said, "We're very appreciative of this."
This is something that I think we need, too, is that the surprise and the delight and the joy of other players because they're not used to be hearing something like this. That's what struck me. I'm not being negative here, I'm being real. I look at the responses from people that are genuinely so moved. His was very much that, that he had put a lot of thought into it.
I don't think it could have come at a better time. I mean I know a little bit about the French, and we can get into this in a roundtable, but for me it wasn't only the piece that was the reaction that it emitted, and further to that, I want to see action emitted now. I'll leave it there for us to move on.
Amira: Yeah, it was interesting. When the piece came out, I think I started it like many black people, especially black people who come from sports did, with the kind of skeptical reading. It was like, "Well, we'll see what this gets into." At the beginning, you're like, "Okay."
Then it just was good. It was surprisingly good because you usually don't see this level of depth. What I mean by depth is that he's done introspection. What I mean by depth is he's done the reading. There's a point in the piece where he gives statistics to talk about what racism looks like institutionalized. He talks about incarceration, he talks about black unemployment rates, he talks about the kind of racial aspect of drug charges and the fact that black imprisonment rate for drug charges is six times higher. He talks about wealth inequality.
One of the things that happen as I read this piece is I was just more and more appreciative of the introspection and the depth and the time and the care in what I thought was a genuine sincerity behind it.
I also immediately thought of my friend Dave Leonard, DJ, shout out to your work. His latest book Playing While White talks a lot about white privilege in the world of sports. One of the things that DJ says a lot is that a lot of times league lacks this. They lack outspoken white players to come and stand up. It becomes a burden of black players constantly in these predominantly black leagues. But even in leagues like baseball, you don't have white players really speaking out like this on their own volition.
I can't understate the importance and the rarity of that, but the thing to me that really jumped out at me that pushed this piece over the edge for me was that he had a very keen awareness of the symbolic messages and stuff that are read on his body and what it means to be one of the few white players in a predominantly black league and how people, whether they're in Utah or fans generally, can seize upon that and try to use him to further their own narratives.
He says in the piece, "I know I'm in a strange position as one of the more recognized white players in the NBA. It's a position that comes with a lot of interesting undertones. It's a position that makes me a symbol for a lot of things for a lot of people, often people who don't know anything about me."
Then he goes on to basically say, "Let me tell you something about me," and he says, "I believe it's the responsibility of anyone on the privilege end of inequalities to make it right. Know that I believe that. If you're wearing my Jersey at a game, know that about me. If you're planning to buy my Jersey, know that about me. If you're following on social media, know that about me. If you're coming to Jazz games and rooting for me, know that about me. If you're claiming my name, my likeness for your own cause in any way, know that about me because I believe this matters."
I think that that, to me, is what really jumped out, is the ability to say, "Not only am I showing you my introspection, doing the reading, and all this stuff, but I'm also sending a message to people who want to use me in the same way they might use a Wes Welker when he was playing or Julian Edelman, like this crappy white receivers," like what happens to fans who sees on them to make them positive foils to black players in the league who want to hold them up as the standard or an example of calmness or whatever they want to project on to their bodies, who want to take people like Tom Brady and his intensity on the sideline and assign it positive values, when somebody like OBJ displaying the same things have negative values.
He's sending a message to everybody who would read into their own kind of racial insecurities onto him, and he's saying, "I will not be a stand in that. I will not be a symbol for that." "I won't be a symbol for white supremacy," is essentially what he's saying. That really, to me, was one of the biggest takeaways for me, one of the biggest moves I applauded him for.
Lindsay: I completely agree. That stuck out to me. It was later in the essay and it was, like you said, Amira, one of those moments where it just took the entire piece to the next level. Throughout the piece, it almost kept building on his own introspection. That's something that was... You just don't see that often.
I think it's tough because it's a fine line between speaking up and amplifying other voices and being an ally that is behind the cause versus being an ally who is taking up space and drowning out others and taking accolades that really aren't for you. I think that it's a fine line.
I think Kyle Korver deserves a lot of the praise that he got this week for the piece because it was a good piece, but I also think that it's just frustrating that his voice on this will carry so much further than other voices. At the same time, it is a reality. If he's not using his voice, then that is almost... I mean that's complicity. Silence in this age is complicity.
It can be a fine line, and I've been reminded this week because of the acknowledgement that I've given to white female athletes who have joined in the advocacy and the push-back I've gotten at times for highlighting their work, and the introspection that I've done there.
I remember when Lindsay Whalen retired, I pointed out that she was the first white player really to stand up. She stood on the stage alongside three of her black teammates wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts and with the Minnesota Lynx. One of the responses to those tweets was, "Why are you giving her this attention when it was the black players who were doing most of the work?" I agreed with that, at the same time I did say, "Well, this is just because she's retiring that I'm highlighting this."
But I think it's a really fine line. I definitely defer to you guys on where that line could be. I know, Shireen, you want to talk about how do we push this forward.
Shireen: I mean that's part of it, definitely. I think that we talked about the... We mentioned the franchise itself, and Gail Miller came out, owner of the Utah Jazz, and said that. She's shown a solidarity with the athletes before because she's actually recently been on Ekpe Udoh's What Book Did You Read? He has a show, an online show, called What Book Did You Read? He has his own book club. It's pretty amazing.
She was actually on his show talking about her book. It was really interesting because he didn't introduce her as the owner of the Utah Jazz. He just interviewed her as an author. It was this really cute moment.
Anyway, she had come out and said what kind of culture she wants and she doesn't think it's a racist culture. They're going to work towards... She said this as an owner, and I've never seen this before. I'm still coming back and reeling from shady owners in the past that used the N-word all over the place.
This is an NBA owner who is coming out and talking about this, the conversations that they're having in their locker room. You can tell that Kyle Korver and other players are listening, especially when he says the idea of what to do. He says, and I quote in his piece, "You would think that people say, 'I don't see color,' or don't see anything that would help, but, in fact, it's the opposite," and he's right.
Silence becomes complicity, and he touched on that. I know so many people, white people, who are just like, "If I don't say anything, if I don't say those racist things, I'm good." No, you're not good because that bar is too low. This is something that really I was reflecting on that he was saying.
Just to jump from that to my friend Morgan Campbell of the Toronto Star, who wrote a piece. He was inspired by what Bomani Jones said on his show, that said all these people retweeting it, are they going to actually just retweet it or are they actually going to try and live some of the stuff that Korver said?
For me, that is key. This is something that I want to emphasize. It's great that you retweeted it, it's great that you shouted him out, because I've learned from this show to give people chances to move forward and have their journey. I really have learned on this show, from you guys, particularly you, Amira, you talked about it, someone's journey, to give him that.
I'm not out for giving out unnecessary cookies, but this guy deserves a biscuit for sure. But what I'm saying is that there needs to be more. It's not good enough because I felt when I read this and when I watched that interview, this man was sincere about what he was saying and he understands that retweeting him is not enough. There's more that is required. He has an expectation of people now and wants to hold them accountable.
This is what I was going to say: what the fuck is next? You all, what is next? Do it. I'm talking to white people. What are you going to do now? You can't just read this and be like, "This was great. We need to change." You need to be the change. You need to facilitate the change.
Amira: Yeah. I think that the points that both of you are making about, a, how generally the bar is very low, you can basically step over it, and Lindsay's point about disproportionate fanfare, I think, is really valid. Just for my ending thoughts about action, it reminds me generally when we have conversations in this country about race and racism, whatever, I feel like our direction is misshapen.
A lot of times we get internal discussions that is, you know, let's help inner cities, let's help black people, whatever, da, da, da. It reminds me of Stokely Carmichael and a long history of people saying, "No, that's not the work that needs to be done. Go talk to other white people." There's a great quote Stokely has when he's talking about students coming from northern universities down to Mississippi to help solve racism.
He's saying don't come to Mississippi to try to solve our problems. Go to Berkeley. Solve your problems there. We're not the ones with the issues. You all have to go talk to each other, to other players in the league, to family members, whatever. Those are hard conversations, for sure, but I think that perhaps thinking about action, even subtle little steps, which is what does it look like if the burden of explaining racism is not on the black players? What does it look like if white players like Korver can get in front of it and be the people doing some of this emotional labor?
Me and Shireen talked about emotional labor in our Patreon Hot Take last month called Bitches Be Laboring. Check it out. But I think there's a great deal of labor that goes on to it.
I guess when I think about action, when I think about the points you raised, when I think about all that kind of emotional labor, so what does it look like if black players, black people in general, don't have to do this distraction of racism and explain themselves over and over? What does it look like if one of the action steps next is for white players like Korver to do some of that emotional labor to explain and to handle and to be the first shields of the work that comes with combating white supremacy?
Lindsay: I think that's so important. One of the best lessons I've ever gotten on allyship came from a high school. Well, I guess it was right after high school. But I went to profile a team in Seattle, a high school football team that it all taken a knee for an entire year after Colin Kaepernick.
I remember talking to one of the white players and he's going into that moment wherein they're all about to take a knee. He didn't really understand, he didn't know exactly what he was going to do. He was nervous about it. Then he said, "In that moment when the player in front of me, my teammate, my brother, the guy I played with for four years, when he took a knee, I knew that even though I didn't fully understand right this second everything, I knew that if it meant enough for him to take a knee that it meant enough for me to take a knee." That's why he took a knee. After he took a knee, he listened and he learned and he became an advocate and he became a voice. Shireen?
Shireen: Speaking of things, speaking of what people can do specifically, I wrote a piece with Shakeia Taylor, who's been on the show The Shadow League, talking about that specifically. This whole thing is not only for athletes. Everybody can learn from this. Yes, I'm looking at you mayonnaise factories, sports media industry. This has a lot to do... And it can be in any space, work space, personal space, academia, absolutely. It can be in the arts, it can be anywhere. We're talking about it goes beyond just the basketball court. It goes into life. That's something also that's really important.
Then in terms of... And white women I'm not letting off the hook here. You don't need to fall behind, you cannot fall behind, "I'm a woman, ergo I suffer." We all suffer. Women of color suffer doubly and triply, if the come from queer backgrounds, because there's those layers. You have to understand that.
One of the most important things that I've written is this piece with Shakeia because it literally is like it doesn't take much for you to look outside yourself. That's where it has to start.
Amira: There's this great quote by Toni Morrison that I think of often. It says, "The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing."
Lindsay: All right. For our interview this week, Jessica Luther interviews Nancy Schwartzman, director of the film Roll Red Roll, a documentary about the 2012 sexual assault case in Steubenville, Ohio, that involved multiple members of the high school football team. They talk about the wide range of community response to the case, how Schwartzman decided on the framing for the film, the reaction to it, and whether this is a football story.
Jessica: I'm happy to welcome Nancy Schwartzman to Burn It All Down today. Nancy is a film director, producer, and media strategist who uses storytelling and technology to create safer communities for women and girls. She is the director of a new documentary titled Roll Red Roll, which is an award-winning film about rape culture in a small Ohio town called Steubenville. Perhaps you've heard of it. Even if you have, even if you think you understand what happened there in 2012, this documentary is must-see viewing. Thanks for being on the show, Nancy.
Nancy: Thanks for having me.
Jessica: Can you start by giving us a brief explainer about the film, a little synopsis or a teaser for our listeners.
Nancy: Sure. Roll Red Roll, we call it a true crime thriller that goes beyond the headlines to investigate the "boys will be boys" culture that was fueled by social media that enabled this viral rape case to happen.
Jessica: There will be people listening who maybe they've heard of Steubenville, like they have a sense of it, but what happened in 2012?
Nancy: Essentially, Steubenville has a really, really strong football team. It's a small town in Eastern Ohio, but they have one of the top football teams in the state, and Ohio loves its football.
Jessica: Yeah.
Nancy: This town, it's an old steel town, really, really invests in its players. In some ways, there's nothing unusual, unfortunately, about sexual assaults with teenagers, but what happened here, it was documented on social media. It was right at the beginning of social media being everywhere and kids just using it, but without the awareness that it's actually public and not private.
What was horrifying about the case was there were so much documentation of the crime, of laughing about it, of sharing, of retweeting, of victim blaming, and a YouTube video was made that went viral, laughing about it.
What the story enabled me to do as a filmmaker was really look at the behavior of perpetrators, bystanders, and witnesses because it was all documented live on social media. The other piece that's amazing is there were all these factors that enabled this story to break wide open and go viral.
There was an amateur crime blogger, Alexandra Goddard, who happens to be an expert in social media. She read that two football players had been arrested and her first thought was like... She knows Steubenville. She used to live there. Her first thought was, "Oh, man. If they got arrested, it must be bad," because it had been such a culture where kids, especially a football team, to get away with anything.
She went to the roster, the high school roster's website and pulled up all the names of the players and started tracking their social media. What she saw there was horrifying. It was just so blatant, so public, and she archived and captured it all. Then later, as social media posts were disappearing, she had kept them. She went to the police to try to get them to pay attention.
What I found fascinating as a filmmaker was this was really looking at a cultural problem, so whether the social media is criminal evidence or not, it's evidence of this larger rape culture.
Jessica: That's so interesting. It's really interesting to hear you talk about this, because I wanted to ask you about how you made the film choices that you made and what you presented, because there's a point somewhere towards the middle of the film where you play along an edited clip of that video you just mentioned of these high school boys callously joking about rape that they themselves made.
The victim really isn't in this film outside of there are some blurred images of her and what people say about her. There's no real guiding narrator, no one telling us how to feel or think about a lot of this. I felt like it was simply presented and we're left to our own emotional response to that. How did you decide how you wanted to tell this story?
Nancy: Yeah. I mean there were so many elements to use. The other thing that happened in the middle of the story was the hacking group Anonymous got involved and decided to blow it wide open. They took that YouTube video and pushed it to media channels and to their own two million-plus followers and really created this viral sensation with that video. What you're just describing, the laughing, it's horrifying but it's not explicit.
Had it been actual documentation on the crime, had it been that the assault was happening in the room, which it absolutely was not, there's no way that clip could have played on CNN. There's no way that it could have played on every media outlet. But because it was laughter and it was so shocking, and we can even see Dr. Ford in her testimony against Kavanaugh talking about how she'll never forget the laughter-
Jessica: That's a really good point, yeah.
Nancy: Back to the filmmaking points, we have these elements that were public information. We had elements that we could start crafting an idea of the story from all the stuff that you could find on the internet. We found a lot of tweets, we have that video, we have the anonymous hacking video. We have these pieces that we could start to cut together in terms of things that were just out there.
I've always been fascinated by digital media and social media and how it's impacting and affecting our lives. Here we could crowdsource a bunch of stuff and start to lay it out in a narrative form. Also, it's a crime. But where I wanted to go deeper was show the whole community and the culture that enables these kinds of discussions.
There's a radio DJ whose voice just sounds so familiar and sounds like every other talk show guy who's just going to opinionate about stuff. I mean he literally has no facts and he's just spewing all these rape myths. He's talking about a 15, 16-year-old girl in these really horrible ways. When you listen to it in the context of the film, it's bristling, because you're like-
Jessica: It was very jarring.
Nancy: Yeah. When we were talking standard timeline, when I heard that laughter and when I had that YouTube video, I knew I wanted to start to film that way and I wanted you to hear that laughter over these really innocuous suburban houses. We think rape happens in back-alleys and "bad guys" are the ones who do it. These were all middle-class, primarily white kids who every parent would stand up and say, "Oh, my kid's a good kid. No, my kid's a good kid. He gets good grades and he's... ," and it's like here it is, these little suburban houses on a quiet street, and this is what was going on.
Jessica: I mean it's very powerful. I wanted to ask because, again, there's no real narration to the film. You just present us with a lot of stuff. At one point it's clear that you went to Steubenville with a camera and a crew, I assume, and you're just going in, it looks like, local businesses to just ask people about the case. There's a former football player who's working, I can't remember, a deli, something like that, and you're interviewing him while he's working. What was the reaction to you showing up in Steubenville to do this documentary?
Nancy: Yeah. I mean I love that you can see that there's no narrator. Also, what was really important for us, and for me, throughout is that there's no experts. Everybody is an expert of their own experience. I just wanted to show up and give people the opportunity to speak in a way that was true for them as they try to figure out what they thought happened and how they're parsing out this huge dialogue about rape.
It took some time to gain trust and get folks to talk, but I'm really thankful for everyone who speaks to me. But what was fascinating and disheartening really was, walking in Steubenville, you could tell and feel that everyone was impacted by the sexual assault.
It's really a small town. It rippled out, it divided the town. People who wanted to speak out felt like they couldn't because they would be disrupting the power structures in the town. People who have very little gender analysis were having to grapple with rape and rape culture. I just brought wanting to understand and understand more broadly how the crime affected everyone that I spoke to.
Jessica: Do you think this is a football story?
Nancy: Do I think it's a football story? I mean yesterday, I'm in Cleveland right now, people were asking me if I think it's a football problem.
Jessica: Okay. I get that question a lot, but as I was watching, I was like there isn't a ton of football in this. There is the coaches interviewed by the cops and there are definitely football players. I just had a moment as I was watching where I thought, "Huh. I always think of this as a football story because this is how I came to it." I was like, "Is this a football story?"
Nancy: I don't think so. I don't think it's a football story per se. I think people who played football have definitely told me they feel a lot of resonance with it. I think people that play hockey. I think it can work on any team where the team or the group has a lot of power and prestige.
Jessica: I guess then why did you title it Roll Red Roll? That's what they cheer at the football games, correct?
Nancy: Yeah.
Jessica: Is that right?
Nancy: Yeah.
Jessica: Okay.
Nancy: A couple of reasons. I mean the website that was hacked into by Anonymous is RollRedRoll.com.
Jessica: Oh, that's right. That's right. Okay.
Nancy: It has a galloping horse, winding at the bottom, the aesthetics of the site, but also Roll Red Roll is what Anonymous used to hack into the website as the password when they went into-
Jessica: Oh, wow!
Nancy: It's not even really hacking if you're just using the name of the website and that's the password the domain host chose. There's just a lot of reasons for that.
Jessica: Wow! What has the reaction to the film been since it premiered, both in general, but do you have a sense of what it's been like in Steubenville?
Nancy: I think there is a lot of... I'm here right now in Cleveland with some people from Steubenville-Weirton area, and they're really excited to be here with the film. Again, it is divided in the sense that there's a lot of voices that want this story to come out, who think it's important, who don't feel like there was enough accountability, who are glad that the story is being told.
Then there are folks who are really concerned that it's unfair. I mean the thing that I find most ridiculous about the negative response sight unseen of the film is a bunch of people that haven't seen it saying it's lies. Our film is going to kick off the PBS' POV season. It's also going to be on the BBC.
Jessica: Oh, congratulations.
Nancy: Thank you. Right. It's on probably the highest level of public television in the world, PBS and BBC, who do extensive fact-checking and vetting. We've done just extensive fact-checking. I've worked with top investigative journalists who were part of the story. We are going to obviously be on PBS in June. I've made it clear if folks want us to bring the film to town, we can, but I don't want to impose it on town if they don't want it.
I think there's trepidation and concern, but I also think there's curiosity and hope. I mean I wanted to make this film so that nobody, especially in town, walked out of it and said it's no big deal, because also the other negative comments on various platforms for us are people who are really invested in minimizing what happened.
Jessica: Wow!
Nancy: Really invested. Nobody's going to walk out of my movie saying, "Oh, that wasn't a big deal. What happened wasn't a big deal."
Jessica: That's very true. You had amazing response to the film from people who've seen it.
Nancy: Yeah, absolutely.
Jessica: I don't have it in front of me, but The New York Times gave it a really good review.
Nancy: The New York Times gave us a fantastic review, so did Variety and The New Yorker. What's been really exciting is how men are understanding this movie and actually seeing their own behavior, their own socialization.
We did really design this film so that men and boys would stay in their seats and would be gripped by the timeline and gripped by the story, and the visceral energy of it would be in their language because they're the ones who need to see this movie, because this is behavior that while women participate in this culture as well, this is really about a team. This is really about boys talking among themselves, these male-to-male alliance, this language, this casual way of talking about rape and abuse.
It's been incredible to see how male critics are just totally getting it, completely, completely understanding what we're trying to do, and having these real responses to it.
Jessica: Just mention that it'll be on PBS and BBC, but is there some other way that our listeners can see the film at this point?
Nancy: We're opening in Los Angeles. We'll be opening in a couple more cities, in movie theaters across the country. We're also doing a grassroots initiative for Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which is this month of April, where you can go to our site, RollRedRollFilm.com and book a screening in your community, have a conversation, do it in any kind of group or school that you have, or a house party, whatever you want. Then we get to PBS June 17th.
Jessica: Oh, wow!
Nancy: Then probably a month or two from there, they'll be wider released digitally. But we will be 100% accessible to everyone who wants to see it June 17th.
Jessica: Thank you so much for being on Burn It All Down, Nancy, and for putting a spotlight on this particular topic, which you know is one that is close to my heart.
Nancy: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Jess.
Lindsay: All right, to finish up today's discussions, we want to talk a little bit about the marketing of female athletes. Amira, you want to get us started here?
Amira: Yeah, I do. I think that when we talk about marketing female athletes, we generally know that it's an uphill battle. I think that how I want to set this up, however, is drawing a line between what it looks like to be a female athlete in international competition versus in national leagues we have in this country.
The reason why I want to draw that line is because, both historically and now, one of the things that we see is women who are competing against other countries, whether it's in the Olympics or Serena's playing at Wimbledon or whatever it is, in the World Cup, there's a way in which they can get eyeballs on their matches, they can get eyeballs on their game, they can get support. We've seen from '99, they can fill the Rose Bowl.
Part of the reason... And I see this historically, too, you see it with Althea, you see it with Wilma Rudolph, you see it historically in the Pan American Games, you see it in international competitions. The reason why I think that happens is because rooting for your country is actually this masculinist expression. You're rah-rahing the United States.
Within that space, you actually have a window of women who have been able to participate and get shine, get endorsement deals. As we know, endorsement deals are a really big thing for women athletes, given the fact that their salary are so low or amateurism rules prevent them from cashing in.
I think that one of the things that happens, however, one of the tricky things that we've seen, despite the success of the national women's soccer team, despite the success of a lot of our international competitors, when it comes to professional sports within the United States in particular, and, Shireen, you can speak to Canada as well, the national leagues really, really struggle.
We're right here at the dawn of both the new season for the WNBA as well as the NWSL, and we've seen yet another effort of rebranding for both those leagues. The WNBA released a new logo. They released their new cool video. I really do like their video, I have to say.
Lindsay: It's a really great video.
Amira: It is really compelling, coming off the heels of their draft. The NWSL, I don't know if you know that it started because there's been very, very, very little fanfare. You might remember that they broke ties A&E when they did that kind of like, whoop, women's soccer on Lifetime because women watch Lifetime thing. Yeah, that didn't work.
They broke with A&E and they tried to spin it as a good thing. Then they have hardly announced that Yahoo was now the streaming partner, which I actually think if they put support behind it, streaming numbers we've seen across multiple sports have actually allowed ratings to improve for women's sports. But you wouldn't know that it's there right. The season is starting, and it's very, very, very under the radar.
When I'm thinking of the struggles of national teams and what it takes to sell and market sports when they're outside particularly of this global competition, when they're outside rooting for the country, what does it look like to sustain national teams?
Shireen, I would love to get your input here on Canada, especially on the wake of the CWHL folding. What does it look like to market women athletes nationally and sustain these institutions when we've seen years and years of misstep or actually leagues failing and what not? It just seems like the people who are supposed to give a damn about it and come up with good marketing plans just what is happening? I don't know.
Lindsay: Shireen, talk to us about Canada.
Shireen: Well, in Canada, we don't have a WNBA team. I mean I really wish we would, but we don't. In terms of marketing here, we don't even have a professional women's soccer team. The best of the Canadian players go to the NWSL as Co-Prime Minister Christine Sinclair's in Portland.
But this is part of the problem. There's nothing that women can rely on financially here. One of the only professional women's league of Canadian women athletes and athletes from all over folded to CWHL. I can talk about how crappy it is up here, and I mean I know that in terms of marketing them, we're not just talking sponsorship, we're talking about even amplifying the athletes themselves how to do so much work.
In my interview with Liz Knox about the C-dub, we talked about this, how women had to go above and beyond just being athletes and do their own advocacy, do their own marketing. They were out there at kids' birthday parties. They're just having to do everything.
It's so reminiscent of everything Amira was talking about and I think it's something that takes time. Courtney Szto, who has also been on the show before, has talked about this, that in the wake of the CDAB, it's just that you have to invest to make money, and there's not that investment in these teams as there ought to be.
I want to see a perfect model of the WNBA. It's a league that I look to. The NWSL, I mean think they still don't have a commissioner, so I'm sort of like, "Eh, what's going on there?" But just the stability within those leagues and then we can talk about the marketing. I just still want stable leagues. Is that too much to ask?
Amira: Totally. Linds, you just did an awesome Hot Take on WNBA draft, and so I really wanted to ask you, they have a new logo with a bun and they have new video. Last year we had #WatchThemWork, or was that two years ago? Maybe it was last year. Are you buying it? Is this revamp going to work? What are your thoughts?
Lindsay: Yeah, it's so tough. The WNBA draft gave me a lot to think about. First of all, I think the logo is fine. I don't have that strong of opinions on it. Either way, I think usually logos grow on you. It wasn't offensive, which I always think is the first sign. There wasn't anything that was like, "Oh, this is accidentally a Nazi sign," or something. But like we said, bar on the ground.
But I think it's so interesting with the WNBA because, look, what you have is a lot... First of all, you have a sport that is coated masculine, that just kind of society has coated masculine. Then you have on top of that it's predominantly black and it has a lot of gay women in it. Nobody really gets a marketing degree on how to promote black gay women. That's not something that society is used to seeing.
I do think like new campaign, it's kind of like... What's it called? My way or video. I thought it was really great. First of all, it didn't just include the biggest stars in the league. It was Natasha Cloud for the Washington Mystics, Imani McGee-Stafford, our friend who we've had on the show, Essence Carson, another player we've had on the show. I just want to keep plugging our interviews.
But it was a lot of really good players, but this wasn't the Elena Delle Donne and Sylvia Fowles and Diana Taurasis of the league. It really focused on their individuality and their spirits and their uniqueness, which I thought was just like a really great way to do it.
I think women's teams and women's leagues and women athletes in general are often stuck as inspiration porn, as I like to call it. As much as I do find all these women inspirational and as much as I do... I was at the NWSL opener last night and, of course, almost teared up watching all the little girls watching the players. That moves me every time. But at the same time these are well-rounded athletes and there has to be space for them to be well-rounded people that are not perfect, that are not just bulletin board, inspo material. I think it's are we a cause or are we a business? Are we Madonnas? Are we whores? Women sports get caught-
Amira: We're boss ladies.
Lindsay: We're boss ladies. This is one of things, if you listen to Hot Take, you heard Natalie Weiner discussing this, which it was so hysterical. But the WNBA have this setup for photoshoots where it was these women who were being drafted all sitting behind a desk with the nameplate "boss lady", and I just didn't get it. I was like, "What is this?"
I guess it's not the worst idea, but what are we going for here? I guess we're trying to play to the Facebook boss lady kind of crew that we all see on our feeds. I don't know. That was tough. What did you think about that, Amira, the boss lady stuff?
Amira: Yeah. I mean I think you hit the nail on the head when you said people don't know how to market. They don't get degrees in this. I think that it shows you that as many steps forward as many of these leagues take, sometimes they fall into old tropes, which is how do we present femininity and understanding femininity to be somehow antithetical to sports. You have to really glomp femininity on in ways that are legible, because it's like before the Olympics, when they included boxing for the first time, and they were like, "But wait. Women boxes have to wear skirts or else how will we know that they're women?"
I think that it really shows you this dance that happens between what we think is marketable and what sells versus being true to the league itself. There's women in the league who certainly love to glam up, and that's definitely, definitely one representation. There's women who don't. So how do you create a product that leaves room first and leaves space for all of these ranges of expression?
Lindsay: We've seen a lot of this with the WTA over the years in their marketing plans. A few years ago, they had this marketing plan that involved glamming up all of these WTA players to the point where you couldn't even recognize them.
Amira: Oh, God. That commercial is so-
Lindsay: It was something like strong is beautiful or something. I don't know what it was. That might have actually been-
Amira: It goes with the commercial where they're hitting balls so slow... One of my students showed this in the class and did an analysis of it. It's so uncomfortable to watch. They're hitting balls slowly, completely going... When I say slowly, I mean it's so-
Lindsay: It's literally in slow motion, yeah.
Amira: It's the most uncomfortable thing.
Lindsay: Yeah, and it was just this weird thing, because if you are a woman... I get it. I like to dress up, too. I find that there is power in seeing a woman that can do both. But if that's not naturally who you are, that shouldn't be the... That's not the only way to show power. It's still like be a tomboy on the court and like a lady...
Shireen: But why do we have to subscribe to anything? This is getting back to what you said. Women can just be who they are as opposed to let's compartmentalize and you have to have thick eyelashes. Not everybody wants to be Sydney Leroux. Some people want to be someone who doesn't wear makeup. All the power to Sydney Leroux because she definitely empowered a lot of women. I think back to Louisa Nécib, also of the French national team, who did that.
You wouldn't say that, "I'm just going to be a tomboy," or, "I'm just going to be this." Just be who you are. There needs to be spaces for marketing people to understand that. Was that such a difficult concept? Market in the way that just be your own individual self. I don't know, maybe that people should pay me to consult business marketing.
Lindsay: But think about how we have trouble just marketing women who aren't professional athletes. Any image we see of women on our TV are like super coded. I think playing devil's advocate here for a second, there's no blueprint for this, and marketing likes blueprint. People with a lot of money like blueprints and they like things that are guaranteed to work. What has worked is women are pretty and we want to show that these women are still pretty, even though they are athletes. Of course, that's not working, though. Amira, wrap this up.
Amira: Yeah, yeah. Sometimes it's also the box that people have to perform and if they want endorsements. Given the ridiculousness of a lot of people's salaries, that endorsement money is their life source, is their livelihood. I think it takes a lot of awareness also to be saying like what is the box drawn now to those endorsement deals? Who do you have to be?
I think all the time of this clip from T-Rex about Claressa Shields, a former guest on the show as well, who, coming off her win at the Olympics, is looking for endorsement deals. She's not getting what Gabby's getting. She's not getting these kind of post-Olympic bumps. There's a clip in the film where she's meeting with a team who's supposed to help with her image, and they're like, "All right. Well, we can try to help you, but the first thing you need to do is to stop saying you like to hit people." She's just like, "But I'm a boxer." I think about that, I return to that a lot when thinking about the box.
Then, lastly, you brought up the WTA, Linds, and you also talked about inspiration. I think that's really great. When I think of that, obviously I think of Serena. I think of these Nike ads. Nike is so good at selling inspiration, but I think what happens when we talk about Sisters in Sweat? What happens when we tell girls to dream crazy and we think about it in the individual level? Dream crazy, you can be whatever you want to be.
What we've seen now is that girls can make it to professional ranks. They can go up through Title IX and VIII institutions, but it doesn't release to anything. There's not viable professional options for so many people that come with health insurance, that come with benefits, that come with all of this.
The NBA folks just got the NBA people alumni health insurance, and they're still kind of... Like I was just talking with some folks who said they're trying to work it out for the WNBA OGs and alumni. That hasn't happened yet.
What does actual structure look like to support these dreams that we're telling these girls to have? You can't dream crazy as an individual when it takes people working together, when it takes sometimes boycotts, sometimes losses, when it takes the unity really in the united labor force to push some of these dreams. Individual dreams are certainly one thing to have, but I also think we have to start thinking about structural ones as well.
Lindsay: All right. I've been waiting for this all week, actually two weeks because I was out last week. It is burn pile time. Shireen, want to get us started?
Shireen: Oh, do I ever? I had so many things to burn this week, like so many, but that's okay. But then I thank my colleagues for being patient with me, as it's like Tuesday and I have 15 things.
This one is really... It's personal because it's always personal. The Asian Football Confederation recently had elections. I know you're, "Well, that's really interesting. Another organization that's full of corrupt, greedy men that pretends to oversee women's football. That must've went really great." Yeah, well, it went so great that at least for the candidates that were elected to executive positions are not only questionable, they're clearly, clearly shady in so many ways.
First of all, reelected was the head of the Pakistan Football Federation. I think that that was really, really sad considering that the women's football team hasn't played a match in over two years. They've had no training camp and was not given money to go play in the only tournament in the region, the SAFF.
Secondly, Iranian executive member from the Iranian Football Federation, despite the fact that women are still banned from stadiums, was elected again. Then there is a Bahraini executive, where we're so much stressed about and focused on human rights abuses within Bahrain also stemming through the football federation. It's like a list that never ends of these men, and I think that if you go to even the criticism of that.
Then, lastly, and one of the most harrowing and disgusting was a member from the Afghanistan Football Federation, yes, the same one that's actually under investigation for crimes of sexual abuse against players, a member of that board was elected to the executive committee. There is still, by the attorney general of Afghanistan, an investigation ongoing into the Afghan Football Federation.
Why the AFC hasn't literally slammed down and said, "You know what? You people are off-limits because you've been investigated for, I don't know, crimes"? Why couldn't that happen? This just goes to show that the AFC, the Asian Football Confederation, literally continues of impunity.
Their members and the leaders of other national federations are not held accountable for anything. You've got women who don't play, women who don't have access to stadiums, women who are survivors of abuse, but it doesn't matter. I want to burn that metaphorically. The AFC continues to disappoint repeatedly, and it's not good enough. I don't expect anything from FIFA because, again, low bar. I just want to burn it all.
Lindsay: Burn. All right, I'm going to go quickly. I want to put Kim Mulkey on the burn pile. Congratulations, Kim and Baylor, for winning national championship. Obviously, we had a Hot Take on that. If you missed it, you should go back and listen. But what I'm burning is the fact that she had said that if President Donald Trump invites Baylor to the White House, that she "would go and be honored". That's her quote.
This is cringeworthy for many reasons. Number one being that Trump has never invited a single women's team to the White House. So the fact that you think that, well, first of all, I'm going to ignore the fact that he's ignored every single women's team that exist and say, "Oh, we would love to go," is just... I feel like it's just kind of spitting on women's sports as a whole and just kind of throwing them under the bus.
But obviously, also, Trump is racist and homophobic and misogynistic and his policies are evil and his administration is belittling and discriminating against people all over the world. Kim has black players on our team. She certainly has gay players on her team. I don't know of any that are out, but the fact that she would put them in this situation, to go to the White House, is just despicable to me. I just thought it was absolutely despicable that she said this and that she welcomes this.
The reality is now that Trump knows that they'll accept the invitation, he'll probably extend it. It just all makes me sick to my stomach. So burn.
Amira: Burn.
Shireen: Burn.
Amira: Yeah, I was planning on burning that ridiculous graphic that has been shown during the Men's Final Four about Minnesota, when they put up a list of professional sports teams, but somehow forgot both the Links and the Whitecaps, even though they had all this space left to put it on. It's a simple graphic where you're like, "Minnesota has three professional sports teams." It's not that hard, you all. But instead I'm not going to #SticktoSports. I am going to stick in Minnesota.
I literally couldn't think of anything else to burn except for the repugnant behavior being shown towards Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. I just in my core feel like I need to throw it on our burn pile at the very least. It's repugnant to see not only people who don't like her attacker, but people who purport to support her, but people who have tried to use her in other junior congresswomen of color, on magazine covers to rebrand the Democratic Party, who profit off of her visibility as a way to sell the idea of diversity with their party, and yet are completely silent when very real threats are made against her, allow themselves to be distracted by out-of-context quotes pulled and aimed at her, when propaganda videos are being tweeted out by the person who purports to be the president.
That very, very seriously can cause harm. We know this because she's had threats against her life. It's not just harm to Congresswoman Omar that we're worried about. This sets a tone, it sets a tone that puts the lives of American Muslims, black women, many people across this country in danger. It riles people up in and it an old and tired tropes. It plays on misogyny and racism and Islamophobia.
I'm out of words to say how disgusting I find it. Ilhan said, "Women, especially women of color, have been told to go slow, to not be seen and not be heard for many years, but we are not in Congress to be invisible." In the words of Congressman John Lewis, "We're here to make good trouble." Well, Congresswoman Omar, I personally stand with you as you do that and I will fight for your right to do your fucking job without people threatening your life and being absolutely awful. Burn. Just burn it down.
Lindsay: Burn.
Shireen: Burn.
Lindsay: All right, it is time now to lift up some bad asses of the week. I want to start out by giving a shout out to Hungary's women's hockey team. The Hungarian women won the 2019 Women's World Championship division 1A for the first time ever, which qualifies them to play in the World Elites. Congratulations.
Finland's women's hockey team, who will play in the IIHF Finals for the first time ever. They upset Canada, 4-2, to go forward and will play USA on Sunday. That game has not taken place yet as of recording this. This is really, I think, the first time in world championship history that it hasn't been a USA-Canada final, so it's a big deal that Shireen was even able to get out of bed and join us today, I think. Congratulations, Finland.
Hilary Knight, who now holds the record for the most games played by an American at the Women's World Championship, she has played 51 games. Also, I wanted to shout out a great week for women's basketball as a whole. The Arizona women's basketball team won the Women's NIT in front of 14,000-plus fans. ESPN reported an 11% year-over-year ratings increase for the NCAA title game. The Seattle Storm inked the largest professional sponsorship deal in franchise history. So go women's basketball.
Speaking of women's basketball, Philadelphia Sixers Basketball Organization, the men's organization, has hired Lindsey Harding as a player development coach. She had previously been a pro scout for the team. She's the first female coach in Sixers' franchise history. It's just so exciting that we're starting to see more and more women added to these NBA coaching staff. It's not nearly enough, but it's exciting that it's almost hard to keep up with them now. Congratulations, Lindsey.
Lorena Ramírez is a Mexican athlete, an indigenous woman of the Rarámuri Tribe, who came in third in ultramarathon in Spain. Congratulations. She also did this wearing huaraches, traditional sandals. That's just phenomenal.
There's history in Argentina. The first 15 professional female football players in the country have officially signed their contracts. Congratulations to them. San Lorenzo will fully finance eight of the contracts, and the rest will be paid for partially by the Argentinian FA.
Mercy Tagoe Quarcoo has been named by the Ghana Football Association as the new head coach of the female senior national team. A very special shout out to Ramesa Khan, who led the Loyola Warriors varsity team to a win for their first tournament of the season. She broke her finger during the semi-final and continued to play, which gave a lot of anxiety to one of our own. I won't say who. We're so proud. We wish her a speedy recovery.
Can I get a drum roll, please? Our badass woman of the week is Claressa Shields, the two-time Olympic gold medalist from Flint became the undisputed middleweight champion when she recorded a unanimous decision over Germany's Christina Hammer at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Shields entered the fight as the IBF, WBA, and WBC middleweight champion and captured the WBO belt belonging to Hammer by dominating the fight.
We have had Claressa on the show before talking with Shireen, so she is an official flamethrower. We want to end with this quote from her: "First of all, I'm going to say I'm the greatest woman of all time. Give me that. Give me that." Woo! Okay, friends. What is good this week, Amira?
Amira: Oh, my gosh, guys. Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones. You all, April is really, really messing with my life. I'm literally staring at all of the final projects and papers that I need to grade because there's two more weeks left in my semester. But Game of Thrones is back for its final season tonight.
Also, Guava Island with Rihanna and Letitia Wright and Donald Glover is streaming for free on Amazon for two days. It's a short film about imperialism and labor and exploitation and music and art, and heartbreaking and beautiful and all of the things.
Avengers: Endgame is a mere two weeks away. Killing Eve is back, On My Block season two is back. All of the things are back for me to watch. I just want to sit and watch and play The Sims and not grade. I am super excited for that. I have no idea how I'm going to get all my work done because April has just become a month of time to... Like I don't know. I don't know, winter is here.
Lindsay: All right. Shireen?
Shireen: I am off to Portugal with my family next week for two weeks. I'm really excited about that. I haven't even gotten there yet because I still have to get through a bunch of doctors' appointments. I have the kids, obviously. I have to get through a provincial volleyball final. One of my sons is already done and the next one is coming up. Good luck to Mustafa. Then I literally leave for Portugal. I haven't even thought about that yet, but I'm excited about it.
I'm also excited about the World Hockey Championships that will be played this afternoon between USA and Finland, even though Canada's not part of it. I'm still all about women's hockey and I want to support.
I just also wanted to shout out, when we talk about what's good, personal healthcare in Canada. I spent five hours with my kid. As you all heard, she broke her finger in a tournament, in a match. We were able to get there, get a specialist appointment all within five hours. There's not a day that goes by as a woman, as a parent, as just a member of society that I'm not grateful for that. I just wanted to put that out there.
Also, I'm really into the baked brownies and oatmeal bars with raspberry from Whole Foods. I happen to stumble into there, and I don't know if the cashier was just trying to be nice to me, but he gave them to me for $1.69 a piece instead of $2.99. He just was like, "Here. Have a good day," because I think he felt I needed that raspberry oat bar. I'm just really feeling those. Thank you, world, for healthcare and for those oat bars at Whole Foods.
Lindsay: I'm going to have to go get those immediately. It's so, so good. For me, I think it's been I fell while running on Wednesday, like splat onto the concrete, twisted my ankle, busted up my knee. But everything's fine. I couldn't walk at all on Thursday, but now it seems that it was just a sprain. That is what's good because I was definitely scared there for a minute.
Yeah, I think that I'm excited. The weather's turning. I was at the National Women's Soccer League game between the Spirit and Sky Blue last night, and it was just such a gorgeous night. It was so awesome to see some great soccer. I feel like I've gotten through the winter now. Now I really do feel like that. That is what's good.
Thank you all so much for joining us on episode 102 of Burn It All Down. We just love doing this every week so much. If you want to support us and make sure that we can keep doing this, because it takes a lot for us to do this every week, we really just encourage you to join our Patreon community, patreon.com/burnitalldown. Just $2 a month, $5 a month helps us so much and make sure that we can grow to the next level where we can really hire a producer that will really help us find new audiences.
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