Episode 129: Head trauma in boxing, Indigenous roller derby, and sportspeople saving the world!
This week Amira, Brenda, and Shireen discuss Canada’s recent victory over the USMNT (spoiler – Shireen happy, Amira sad, Brenda shrugs shoulders) [9:10]. In light of the tragic death of boxer Patrick Day, they talk about boxing and head trauma , including its effect on women athletes[21:50]. Shireen interviews Raven Cameron, a skater from Team Indigenous Rising about how the team transcends borders and unites through the sport [35:01]. Finally, who's using sport to do some awesome social work?
Of course, you’ll hear the Burn Pile, [43:10] our Bad Ass Woman of the Week, starring Kenyan marathoner, mother, and now world record holder, Brigid Kosgei, [1:08:48] and what is good in our worlds. [52:37]
Links
Patrick Day death: You can say 'it's boxing' but it is so hard to justify, says Eddie Hearn: https://www.bbc.com/sport/boxing/50080719
Patrick Day’s death is another cruel reminder making weight correctly is essential in professional boxing: https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/boxing/patrick-days-death-another-cruel-20650450?12
Celtics’ Enes Kanter on his criticism of Turkey: ‘How can I stay silent?’: https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/celtics-enes-kanter-on-his-criticism-of-turkey-how-can-i-stay-silent/lzbemjrnsges18gbtnqaa22iw
While the NBA kowtows to China, Celtics star Enes Kanter delivers powerful message about sacrificing to stand for freedom: https://www.theblaze.com/news/nba-kowtows-to-china-enes-kanter-stands-for-freedom
Follow Team Indigenous Rising: https://www.facebook.com/teamindigenousrollerderby/
Team Indigenous Rising Gofundme: https://www.gofundme.com/f/nzw37-team-indigenous-rising-fundraiser
Harrison Barnes, Malik Jackson paying for funeral of Texas woman killed in home by police officer: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27868115/harrison-barnes-malik-jackson-paying-funeral-texas-woman-killed-home-police-officer
Mo Salah criticized over GQ photoshoot: https://www.arabnews.com/node/1570791/offbeat
Kenya's Brigid Kosgei: School dropout, mother of twins and world record-holder: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-50096039#
Parental policy a ‘game changer’ in cricket: https://www.cricket.com.au/news/cricket-australia-parental-policy-maternity-leave-birth-alyssa-healy-aca-drew-ginn/2019-10-11
Red Sox’s Raquel Ferreira breaks through baseball’s glass ceiling: https://theundefeated.com/features/red-soxs-raquel-ferreira-breaks-through-baseball-glass-ceiling/
Transcript
Brenda: Welcome to this week's episode of Burn It All Down. It's the feminist sports podcast you need. I'm Brenda Elsey, Associate Professor of History at Hofstra University in New York. And this week, I'm joined by my fellow historian, the brilliant Dr. Amira Rose Davis. She's Assistant Professor of History and African American Studies at Penn State. And we're with the fierce Shireen Ahmed, freelancer, activist, and soon to be TED Talker, you should definitely go in Toronto, Canada.
Before we start, I would like to thank our patrons for their generous support, and to remind people about our Patreon campaign. You pledge a certain amount monthly as low as $2 to become an official patron of the podcast. In exchange for your monthly contribution, you get access to special rewards, and our undying gratitude.
This week, we're going to discuss concussions, boxing. Shireen interviews Raven, a roller derby skater from Team Indigenous Rising about the team's goals, and how they transcend borders, how they connect and unite through the sport.
And finally, we'll talk about athletes that we admire who are doing amazing work. But before all that, I did want to talk a little bit about the US Men's National Soccer team.
Shireen: Yes!
Amira: If we have to.
Brenda: Or maybe I should say, maybe it's better to say, I want to discuss the Canadian men's soccer team, and their surprising victory over the US Men's National team 2-0 this week. How are you all feeling about that?
Shireen: Yes!!! Okay. Amira, may I go first?
Amira: Yeah, yeah.
Shireen: I just was going to say I don't follow men's in soccer in this country admittedly. I see the updates, I subscribe to Canada Soccer, et, cetera, et, cetera. If there's a game, I'm not going to go out of my way to watch it. But this is really interesting, and I got highlights, I didn't even watch. I was really surprised. Like I said, I don't follow it and I haven't watched John Herdman carry the team and take them forward. I was very sad when he left, John Herdman, the coach of the Canadian men's team, was coach of the Canadian women's team and his departure was a bit of a shock.
So, that is that, but let me just tell you about Alphonso Davies. Alphonso Davies is amazing and a Canadian kid, and I always make this joke that my kids thought that the only player for the men's team, his name is Jozy Altidore, who's actually an American. But the point is, is that Alphonso Davies is fantastic. I'm so excited about this, because actually, I think in CONCACAF, America has been dominant in some ways.
And so, we just looked down at ourselves. This was just a lot of fun. Also, Sloane Stephens was there, so I just think that that's fabulous. I know her partner's American, Jozy Altidore, but the point is, is that, she's in Toronto a lot, and I think her magicalness helps this country, always.
Brenda: And you Amira, how are you feeling about the game?
Amira: Well, yeah, it's the first time in 35 years that that result has happened. I think that there's an interesting thing that happens in this country because of the US women's national team success, but also their strive for equity on the pitch and from the US Soccer Federation. A lot of times people make US men's national team the foil. So, it's like that's who's getting paid more, and a lot of tweets that will snark at the loss. And personally, I actually don't find much utility in that, because I think that there's guys like Jozy, who I absolutely adore on that team, and I would prefer if they got their shit together.
I would like that for them, and it's just a young team. It's just not working. So, I don't know. I don't really know. I think a lot of this is Gregg Berhalter.
Brenda: I was going ask him if he thought he was going to have much longer of a tenure here.
Amira: Well, I feel like he shouldn't. But who the hell knows? Because, Carlos Cordero does whatever the hell he wants to do. I don't think there's a lot of competency happening around the top. And in particular, I just think that there's so much investment that goes into the men's national team with so little to show for it. That's frustrating. It's frustrating, of course, if you want to juxtapose it to the women, but then, this is frustrating on its own right, especially at a time where soccer fans in the United States, it's growing.
Go to an Atlanta United game. MLS is growing. The number of people who wake up on a Saturday morning to watch Premier League off their phones or computers is growing. So, the fact that you can't seize on that, seize on these development tracks, seize on this excitement, and also invest in a way that makes the national team, the tip of this football iceberg in the country on the men's side, a viable competitor. It's just frustrating. I don't really have anything else to say about that. But, it's just another disappointment.
Brenda: Well, something that grates on me about the social media reaction to US men's national team losing at any point, is this assumption that it's embarrassing to lose to other countries. I get really upset about that. It's like when they lost to Mexico recently. And I walked in and I was teaching a sport class and a lot of my students who were big fans were like, "I can't believe it. It was so terrible." And I'm like, "Can you really not believe it?"
Mexico is not embarrassing to lose to. So, to a certain extent, I feel you, and I think it is a shame that right now MLS is in a good dynamic moment, and I wish that there was a little bit more of the same crossover for NWSL, but I do get upset when I hear people that are just like, "This is so embarrassing. How can we lose to the Hondurans?" I heard that last year, and it was like, "Because, they're better than you and they have a longer soccer tradition and that's okay." I'm like, "Analyze, but don't disrespect the country."
Amira: Yeah, well, it's especially because of CONCACAF, and because of their play losing to Mexico, but then they barely beat Carriacou or they lost to Jamaica and Venezuela absolutely fucked them up. And so it is also these mostly Latin American, Caribbean countries who are, like you said, drawing the ire of this and it's just unnecessary. I think the last point, part of it is, we shouldn't detach this from the corruption at the top of US Soccer.
The fact that you have Berhalter in here after a year-long search, and he is, I think, his brother is a ranking member of the USSF, what is it? Is he the COO? Something like that. It just to me, it's fishy. It's fishy. And then when you're not good, and it's fishy. It makes me like, inquiring emoji, a bit nepotistic.
Shireen: I think that one of the really important things here, and I appreciate this point very much is the imperialistic nationalistic sense that comes in, and I do appreciate that. And you know what? Losing to Canada in men's soccer? Yes, I can see how you would grimace as opposed to Mexico. If I lost to Chicharito, all would be well. You know what I'm saying? But the thing is, is that losing to Canada when Canada is very steadily building, and Canada was pushed to its men's teams, because of the embarrassing fact that men's team had only made to World Cup once.
And this was the fact that I brought up in media, a lot of people brought up in media. The men's team in Canada was like, "No, we've got to get somewhere closer to the women." Our women did not do well at the World Cup, but the thing is, is that, using that as a base to say, "We need to develop the program more." And they didn't say that publicly, but you could clearly know the pressure was on the men's program to do a hell of a lot better, because of the lack of performance.
I just think the whole thing is very interesting. And respect to the smaller countries. I would love to see a day when Jamaica is smashing everyone on both sides of the game. I would love that. And I love the tradition piece you talk about. Just because American and Canadian fans might not know that soccer is more stronger in other places, doesn't mean it negates their win.
Brenda: Okay, this past week, unfortunately, the boxing community has been in mourning by the passing of Patrick Day, who died from head trauma that he suffered in a fight with Charles Conwell. Amira, do you want to get us started on this conversation?
Amira: Yes, I would. This was tough. It was tough to follow the story of Patrick Day. He was 27, and he sustained injuries in the ring, and then there was a few days that were touch and go, and I saw it when it first happened, and I followed the story, and I don't know. It really was unsettling. I wanted to have this conversation. We talk about CTE and concussions and a lot within the realm of football, but I wanted to turn to boxing, and think about its continuation as a sport, when we know more and more about head trauma, when we know more and more about critical brain injuries. And I don't know, what do you guys think? The more and more that we see traumatic brain injuries and severe injuries, but even death in the ring, is this going to lead to boxing seeing a diminishing as a sport people do?
And my follow-up to that is, do we see a similar trend in boxing that some people have talked about in football, which is when Andrew Luck retired, which is the fact that the game is getting faster, it's getting stronger, people are hitting harder both on the field and in the ring, and it's a gladiator sport, both of them are. And are we seeing it more and more being left to people who come from less resourced backgrounds, who stay in the fight, stay in the ring, stay on the pitch, stay on the field longer because this is one way to have social mobility, to gain resources, and are literally putting their lives at risk because of what we know of traumatic brain injuries. Is that boxing's future?
Brenda: I write about boxing, sometimes. Usually a soccer person, but I write about boxing, and Afro-Argentine boxers in the 1930s. I've thought a lot about vulnerability, and the question of vulnerability, and it's so interesting that exactly the way you frame it Amira, about who it is that ends up in these particular kinds of sports is almost never really a discussion, unless it's a happy story of upward mobility. And it's very rarely analyzed, though it's such an obvious and right point, who it is that's willing to take those kinds of risks.
You think about someone like Mike Tyson, or I do, anyway, and you just look at his life, which is just in shambles, even if it's the best one that you can do. And there's no way that there's not CTE playing a part in his struggle. And I also feel like what happens when also people are consuming sports through video gaming, and objectifying the people more and more. I feel like the future of sports consumption is also a further objectification, whether it's through video gaming, or esports, whatever it is. Shireen?
Shireen: I just wanted to remind our listeners that I have interviewed Dr. Linda Dahl for the podcast in Episode 79, and she wrote a book, which is called... She's known as The Fight Doctor. And she actually wrote a book called Tooth and Nail. And I think either the only first ringside physician who is a woman, or one of the first, very, very first. And it was just very interesting because her perspective, and I remember in this interview, I said to her, "What are the most violent sports," with her experience in this, and she told me boxing and hockey for sure.
And I was really surprised by that. And she says, "From the point of somebody who's in this field of practice, these things are very, very dangerous." I just think that her memoir talked about a lot of that. You're both talking about the socioeconomic context of these things, and she spoke about that too. And these are all factors that you don't hear enough of. And as far as the loss of the community, boxing has a lot of money.
There's a lot of promoters, there's just a lot of money about it. There's a lot of betting. There's so much money in it, and I always feel like this is one sport that gets glorified in some ways because of the history of Muhammad Ali. And people will look at with respect and with love because it’s his legacy, but don't actually do anything to help athletes in those situations who might need the support. Does that makes sense what I'm saying?
Brenda: Yeah. One of the interesting things in the wake of Patrick Day's death is, this is one of a series of fighters who has died this year. There are, I think four or five, anyway, that have gone through some similar death. And I was reading when I was prepping for this, some of the people who are either doctors or in other ways the promoters and when they're asked what can be done, the answer is almost unilaterally nothing.
So there's all this money, but the people who I'm reading who have been interviewed, and maybe they're just justified, maybe they just want to keep it going, but maybe they're too invested to think differently, but when I'm reading... The BBC had a really good article, which we'll put in the show notes, when they're interviewing people, basically, the doctors and the promoters are saying like, "We've thought of what we can do, and there's just simply no way to make it safe." And so, I don't really know going forward how there's necessarily any solution.
Amira: Yeah, I think about that, but I wanted to think about these risks that athletes take. There are sports that are scary, and there's sports that come with these risks. And if you go look up Patrick Day, you'll see he comes from a Haitian American family. His mom was very worried about these risks. And there's a lot of through lens that he didn't need to box, he wanted to box. And I think about this quote from Patrick Day, and he said, "People look at me, they look at my demeanor and say 'You're such a nice guy, well spoken. Why do you choose to box?' It's about what's in your heart. I have a fighter soul, a fighter spirit and I love the sport. Boxing makes me happy, that's why I choose to do it."
And I was thinking about that. Here in State College, over the summer, a young girl, a 13-year-old from the community tragically lost her life. She was an equestrian and she was one of the top Junior equestrians in the country. She was on her way to their championships, and her and her horse were doing a jump that I have been told is so easy, it's like one of us walking over a curb. And they missed the jump and she fell and their horse fell on top of her, killing her.
Shireen: Oh, God.
Amira: And some of the particularly close with one family of a girl who was there, but also rides with her, there was discussion about are they done with the sport? And she said, "No, this is what makes me happy and I know the risks." And I'm thinking about that because so much of our conversation I think we see teen traumatic brain injury, and the kind of risk that's gotten into sports centers in football that we miss these dangers in sports like equestrian sports, in boxing.
I'm thinking about all the women in sports are 50% more likely to sustain traumatic brain injury, and more likely to have concussions at a higher rate, and that the impact of their concussions are more long-term effects and the symptoms linger longer. And thinking about what that means, and so, the same way that we make a call to action and we pour resources into looking at CTE and football, making football safer, and the technology we use, and the equipment we use in that sport, we have to remain committed to do that in boxing, equestrian sports, in soccer.
We have to make sure that we, as sporting communities are equally incessant about making other sports safer because they all carry risk. There are people performing this at high levels, and it shouldn't take tragedies to make it a call to action.
Brenda: Shireen?
Shireen: I just wanted to bring up something we've talked about on the show before about Rowan's Law. Now Rowan's Law was enacted in Canada after named after Rowan Stringer, who was a 17-year-old rugby player and died. She lived in Ottawa area, and she died after having two concussions in one week. And the history on her phone... Actually, this is a very harrowing story that was published in the National Post, she had googled concussions, but she didn't really understand.
I think her mother said that she thought she might have one, but she didn't tell her family because she also really wanted to play. And some of the effects of concussions cannot be felt immediately. And so, players are like... I've seen this before, when my daughter Jihad got her first mild concussion, she's only had one, knock on wood. She was like, "No, I'm fine." I'm like, "No." I'm that mom that's like, "Lights off. No screen, not doing anything. You need to get 100% better," because when you suffer from a concussion, you're susceptible to suffer more.
And the way that my physician had explained it to me was that like when you get a ligament injury, it's a rough comparison. You are susceptible to having more ligament injuries more frequently when you roll your ankle, or ATL ligament in your ankle, for example. And I've done this many times that's why I know. And she said to me, "It's almost the same thing with a concussion because nothing's actually holding your brain there. It's floating." And she explained it in a way that made me understand, you're shaking it around in this way that it's not meant to be done. It's not meant to be handled in that way. And it can be very dangerous. And I think one of the things that needs to happen in terms of sport is not only educating, because a lot of the coaches can be volunteers and I know that in Ontario, the province in which I live, if you are a coach, you have to take a mandatory... For any league, whether it's volleyball or hockey or soccer, you have to take a concussion protocol test.
But in addition to the coaches doing it, I think the athletes need to be aware. And that's one of the things that razed me was how little…and maybe 12 years and up would do good because you're not going to sit down with an eight-year-old and explain concussion protocol, but you can explain things like if you feel dizzy, if you feel like you can’t stand up, that kind of stuff. And people make fun of that, but I think also empowering and giving athletes as young as they can be an opportunity to learn about this, is a very good thing. And that hasn't happened. I haven't seen that happen.
And with Rowan's Law, there was actually, it's incumbent, now getting back to that, to put in concussion law. And I know that in the United States, they do have this in a lot of states, but it hadn't been here. In Canada, it was the first time this was done in 2018. And Rowan died in 2016. So it took a while for it to pass, but I just think that, that's really important now that it's on the books and stuff like this, that we see it, and this is for high school sports.
And there was, at one point, the Ontario school board, sorry, the Ottawa school board was going to ban rugby, because they were so upset about what happened. That's also not a solution. There needs to be ways for people to work together and understand, because rugby brings a lot of people joy. It can be dangerous, and like Amira said, people knowing the risks is important that being really educated on the risks is important too.
Brenda: Now Shireen interviews Raven, an indigenous roller derby athlete.
Shireen: Hello Flamethrowers. It's Shireen here. Today, I'm so, so excited to have Raven Cameron on the show. Raven Cameron is a Two-Spirit artist who currently lives in Toronto, Ontario. They are Cree and Metis from Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Alberta, Canada. Raven has always had an appreciation for sports, but roller derby was the one thing that got them moving. They've been doing roller derby for nine years, and joined a team Indigenous Rising in 2019. Welcome, Raven.
Raven: Hi, thank you for having me.
Shireen: Can you tell me a little bit first, of all, of how you got into roller derby?
Raven: I got into roller derby because it was actually my first week of high school in 2010. There was a flyer outside in my high school for the junior league in Saskatoon. I was like, "Oh, this is interesting." I watched the movie with it. I know what roller derby is, which is definitely not the case. So yeah, I joined it through them, and I just kept going. I just didn't stop.
Shireen: So what was it about roller derby that drew you in? Because there's camaraderie, but there's also different skill levels. It's one of the sports that I've seen in my life that you want to crush your teammates, but you also want to help them up and help them. So, it's so fascinating that way to me.
Raven: Yeah, it's definitely meeting new people was really important for me. It's really funny because I couldn't tie my skates the first time I was on them. I think I had to ask my dad for help. He was like, "Look, I'm not doing this for you next week. You have to learn." It's cool. But yeah, I feel like it was a big social thing for me at first. Yeah, I don't want to say I was a super sporty kid, but this was the first thing that I was like, oh, wow, yeah, I really enjoy this. Sports are fun. Sports are fun when I play them. I like to be competitive.
Shireen: That's awesome. Tell me a little bit about Team Indigenous Rising.
Raven: Team Indigenous Rising, I don't remember the year it was started by Mick Swagger and Jumpy McGee, who are two very amazing skaters. I believe they debuted at the Blood and Thunder World Cup a couple of years ago.
Shireen: So, the team that you're on, the Team Indigenous Rising, I'm assuming there's everybody who identifies as an Indigenous person on the team. Are you trying to get to a tournament specifically or a game? Tell me a little bit about that?
Raven: I think we're still trying to figure that out more or less, but I think what I'm going to say is we are working toward the World Cup, which I do not know when that officially is, but usually, it's teams from all over the world. They meet, they play. Otherwise, we've been doing a lot of... We just recently played at RollerCon, which is a big roller derby convention in Las Vegas. We played a mini tournament there with Team Japan, Team Korea, Team Jewish and Team Canada.
Shireen: What are your hopes for what Team Indigenous Rising does is to actually be part of that unit, which is really important, anyway, but do you get an opportunity to talk about issues in these events? Because I know that roller derby are actually one of the few sports where people are open to talking about issues that are of utmost importance in different communities.
Raven: Yeah, I feel like our team identifies as borderless, like we are more or less like one. We definitely discuss a lot of issues. If you go to our Facebook page, I believe it's Team Indigenous Rising, there's a lot of dialogue, especially around issues surrounding racism, and a lot of things like that.
Shireen: Which is really important. So your team, because it's borderless and I absolutely love that, so do you take people from all over the world, or is it predominantly Canada and the United States?
Raven: I believe it's over Turtle Island is our team, so I believe it is Canada, US and South America.
Shireen: That's amazing. So how do you practice together if you're all located in different places?
Raven: We don't. We practice usually once before we end up playing. In Las Vegas, we practiced Thursday night, and then we played four half hour games on Friday, and a full length game on Saturday.
Shireen: Wow.
Raven: So it's a trial by fire.
Shireen: Right. And that seems to be working out well?
Raven: Yeah. It worked out really great.
Shireen: That's awesome. It's so wonderful to hear, especially in an age where this is possible, we've had some guests on the show before, Team Afghanistan doesn't actually have players in the same continents. So they do a lot of training on WhatsApp, or do videos and then follow that, and then meet together like you said. So it is very, very possible. If people wanted to get involved with Team Indigenous Rising, either to play or to support financially, because you have a campaign, a fundraising campaign happening, don't you?
Raven: Yeah. We currently have a GoFundMe because we are playing a game in Montreal against Team Jewish, who is also a borderless team. Yeah, we have a GoFundMe page for Team Indigenous Rising. I do not know when there's going to be another tryout, but there will be anything on our social media, which is mainly Facebook or Instagram that will have the instructions.
Shireen: Okay, that's awesome. It's good to know. Tell me a little bit about being an Indigenous team, and being an Indigenous person in that world of roller derby, is it predominantly white? Do you see a lot of diversity? Do you see a lot of attempts for people to broaden that spectrum?
Raven: Yeah. I feel like teams like that, Team Indigenous Rising and Team Jewish, having a team that's really similar to that is just, I don’t know. I think it's really important and very beautiful, because I know when I first joined roller derby it was, and frankly, roller derby is still very white. But I feel like the more that we're out there, there's more visibility, and it's more like, oh, yeah, I can also do that. They look like me. They might have similar experiences. This is very important.
Shireen: Yeah, for sure. Is there a particular skater or jammer that you've looked up to like role model-ish?
Raven: Many a skater. I would say one of the first skaters that really caught my eye was... She is definitely retired by now, but her name was Karlene Harvey. She was from Terminal City. And she skated under Buffy Sainte Fury, but she was like one of the first Indigenous skaters that I saw it and I was like, "Oh," she's Native." And she skated on Team Canada for, I believe it was like for their 2014 team, which is just amazing to see.
Shireen: That's excellent. I also wanted to let our listeners know in case you're not familiar, roller derby skaters and jammers actually have names…I don't want to call them stage names. What do you refer to them as? What do you say alter ego names? What do you refer to them as?
Raven: You know what? I never thought about it. I guess moniker is apt. Yeah, it's just my other name, I guess.
Shireen: For those of our listeners that have been listening to the show since we first started our first pride episode, we actually had Dr. Alex Hannah on who goes by Kate Silver. So, I first learned about this from knowing Alex because everybody referred to as Kate Silver and I'm like, "What's happening right now?" I didn't know what was going on. So you were telling me, Raven that your name for roller derby is actually Raven. That's your actual name.
Raven: Yeah. Yeah, for Team Indigenous, I just skate under Raven. I feel like it's easiest. I thought about using my last name, but I don't know. I just didn't feel great. I just didn't want that. And also, yeah, it's my name. It's easiest.
Shireen: Yeah, it's actually a beautiful name. Do you play on another team in addition to Team Indigenous Rising?
Raven: Yeah. I play with the team in Toronto. We're called the Smoke City Bandits. I'm actually co-captain of that team. I don't skate under Raven on that team. I skate under Fight of the Conchords, and that's a play off of a Flight of the Conchords, the New Zealand folk duo.
Shireen: So you have a lot of derby happening in your life.
Raven: Yeah, I sure do.
Shireen: How often do you train and practice and compete?
Raven: I think it depends on how busy it is, because roller derby seasons are really usually a couple of months out of the year. When I was training for the season, I was training usually once on skates and usually once or twice off skates. And usually our practices would be on Saturdays, and if we had a game would be like, "All right. Practice is canceled. We have a game."
Shireen: When is roller derby season? And are they similar in most leagues around Turtle Island? Are they similar?
Raven: Honestly, I don't really know. I feel like it depends on your local league. I would say that it mostly revolves around a hockey rink season and when the ice is gone.
Shireen: Okay, right, that makes sense.
Raven: So, I would have a broad estimate of April to maybe July.
Shireen: I know you don't know exactly when it is, but does the World Cup happen every year?
Raven: No. The World Cup happens, I want to say, every four years.
Shireen: Okay, so it's like a World Cup, and other major events like once every four years kind of thing.
Raven: Yeah.
Shireen: We're gearing up to that. Can you tell me a little bit where our listeners can find out and support Team Indigenous Rising. You said there's a GoFundMe.
Raven: Yeah, there is a GoFundMe that is Team Indigenous Rising, and is to get us to Montreal. We also have, I believe we have an Instagram, the URL is also just Team Indigenous Rising. And we also have a Facebook page, that's Team Indigenous Rising Roller Derby.
Shireen: Awesome. So I just wanted to thank you very, very much, and for being on Burn It All Down. I also think that for all of our listeners that have been asking for more roller derby content, because we definitely get that. We just wanted to let you know that we hear you, and we're so happy to have Raven on the show. And Raven, is there anything else you wanted to add about either the campaign or anything else, or if you just wanted to sing a little song. Because I feel like one of your secret talents could be singing, I feel this way.
Raven: Actually, one of my secret talents is playing the banjo. I feel like that's my actual hidden talent. People usually just don't ask about it.
Shireen: That's amazing. Do you have a particular... I wish I knew because I would have been like, "Can you whip out your banjo and play us something?" Do you have a particular repertoire or a particular song that you're amazing at?
Raven: Oh, no. I'm very out of practice.
Shireen: But next time we meet in person, and I was really happy to meet you last weekend at our friend Cricket's auf wiedersehen party, I would have requested banjo, but next time we meet I would love to see you. I'm such a big fan. I'm not familiar with banjo music, but I will try to become in your honor. That's super cool. Wow, I never would have-
Raven: Yeah, it's usually very fun and happy music. It is really fun to play.
Shireen: Have you ever played the banjo while skating?
Raven: No, that sounds terrifying. I worry not necessarily for myself, I just worry about my beautiful banjo.
Shireen: Of course, of course, definitely. But anyways, thank you so much. You wowed me, totally.
Raven: Thank you.
Shireen: And, especially the banjo, you just slayed. So thank you again for being on Burn It All Down, and we wish you and Team Indigenous Rising the best of luck.
Raven: Yeah, thank you. Our game is being shown on wftda.tv on Saturday, November 16th at 11:30am Eastern Standard Time. Our game is going to be against Team Jewish and it's going to be the first borderless roller derby game that's being played.
Shireen: That's amazing. So November, everybody, please pay attention. What's the date again?
Raven: November 16th.
Shireen: November 16th, which is a Saturday?
Raven: Yeah, it is a Saturday morning at 11:30.
Shireen: 11:30. That's awesome. Thank you so much for those details, and it will be available online for free. So please check that out. Please support Raven and the team and again, we wish you all the luck in the world from Burn It All Down. And thank you for being on the show.
Raven: Yeah, thank you for having me.
Brenda: So for a peppy topic, I would like us to discuss a little bit about athletes that we're excited, inspired by who are doing socio-political work that we know gets them in a lot of hot water a lot of times, and isn't the easiest thing to be doing. Shireen, you want to start with somebody?
Shireen: Sure. This segment, it was fun. I was like, "Should I talk about Allyson Felix because she's been doing amazing stuff? Should I talk about Sonny Bill Williams, who I love and stan with the New Zealand All Blacks?" I'm actually going with Enes Kanter. Now, for those of you that don't know this NBA player, he plays with Boston, and he moved this year. And I think that one of the things about Enes Kanter, who is Turkish, he's a Swiss-born Turkish national, he's somebody who dissents very publicly and openly, and it got to a point where, when he was with Portland, I believe, he wouldn't travel overseas because there was a warrant issued for his arrest.
Now, for those of you that are not very familiar on the politics of Turkey, I am not going to get into that, specifically. What I'm going to say is Kanter is not a fan of Edorğan who is the President of Turkey, and because he speaks out publicly, there have been actual warrants for his arrest. Kanter didn't travel because he was afraid Interpol would actually arrest him at certain point. And he was detained a couple years ago, I believe it was in Romania en route. He stayed in the airport. He was almost detained. He was questioned by the authorities there, and then he was allowed to come home to the United States.
His family has felt the ramifications of his speaking out. His sister is a physician, and she can't get a job because of her last name, his father's a professor of genetics. And this takes a lot, I don't know if a lot of people know this, but in the world, the country with the most amount of journalists who are detained without proof is Turkey. And it's really scary, because it wants to come across as this beautiful combination of secularism and Islam. And don't get me wrong, I'm very much for women being able to wear hijab if they want to, which was not possible in Turkey for a very long time. They can do that now, but at the same time, we have to be fair and look at many of the problems that are happening there. And that's what Kanter does. He talks about it.
And this is a hard thing to do, because he's been maligned at his mosque. He goes to his Islamic Center in Boston and has had people shouting at him, and he's had death threats. This is not an easy thing to do. And for those that are removed from that type of understanding, the politics there, it's very fiery. People get very, very riled up. There's a sense of nationalism, and there's a lack of understanding that you can still love where you're from, but be critical in it, which we still haven't learned this.
And there's all types of complications on top of that, because people think when you're critical of the Muslim majority country, in a place like the United States, it's already got so much anti-Islamic rhetoric, it's just bad. So people are like, "Well, don't say that in the greater community because you make Islam look bad." This is not about Islam. This is about power. It's about control. It's about men. It's about abuse of power. And it's about... Kanter went before the House of Representatives in the Massachusetts and talked about this. He also had a really, really powerful letter in the Boston Globe, and we'll attach it to the show notes talking about it.
And it was just published on this past Thursday, we recorded it on Sunday. And he's like, "I will not be silenced." And he said, "This is a price I'm ready to pay if this is what it takes to stand up for what I believe in. It's worth it." And I think this is just something that I appreciated of him. I know how difficult it is, and there's one more thing I want to add quickly because I think it's super important when we talk about doing the work.
Kanter has also explained how important Turkish donairs are to the world. And he's shared that publicly, and I'm all here for that. And he has literally wherever he's gone, whether it's been OKC, whether it's been Portland, he's talked about Turkish food and Turkish kebabs and donairs, so I appreciate him in many, many ways.
Brenda: Thanks, Shireen. Amira?
Amira: Yeah, mine's really short. I don't know how uplifting it is, but I did really want to shout out Harrison Barnes who plays down for the Sacramento Kings, and his wife Brittany Barnes, as well as Malik Jackson, who's DT from the Philadelphia Eagles. Both of whom stepped up to pay for the funeral of Atatiana Jefferson this past week. For those who don't recall or don't know, Atatiana Jefferson is a black woman who was taking care of her eight year old nephew last Saturday when a neighbor saw the door ajar pretty late into the night, and made a wellness check, asked for a wellness check, and police officer arriving to perform the check saw Atatiana Jefferson in the window of her own home, and in less than a minute shot and killed her in the chest.
Don't call police on black people. It's not safe. And you shouldn't be shot in your own home when you're playing video games with your nephew. And it's a tragedy. I don't have words for it actually, it's too painful. But in the wake of that, Barnes and his wife Brittany said they want to do something for that family.
Now, Barnes used to play on the Dallas Mavericks, and he said, "When you play in a community, anytime you're in that community, you have piece of that community with you and you want to give back." So even though now he's playing out with the Kings, he saw this moment, contacted the family to take care of 90% of the funeral costs. He said, "It was a tragic situation that happened. No one should be killed during a wellness check. But the biggest time is anytime someone has to go through that, the last thing you want them to have to worry about is trying to come up with the money for a funeral."
Malik Jackson pitched in to cover the other 10%. And I just think it's really commendable. It shouldn't be necessary, but I just wanted to give space both to say the name of Atatiana Jefferson, and to lift up her memory, but also to just give space to acknowledge the fact that Harrison and Malik and Brittany are pitching in and doing this work that shouldn't be necessary, but I'm really glad for their generosity.
Brenda: Thanks Amira. So, mine is also really short and it doesn't have to do with anyone famous. This week at the Fare Network, some people know that I'm working with them, it's Football People weeks, and there's a ton of projects that have been done, but one in particular that I was super excited about comes from Orgullo Deportivo, and on October 12, last week, they had a wonderful tournament, the first trans tournament, I think in Mexico that at least that I knew of. And in that tournament, they not only had empowerment sessions, but they also had some point of service with HIV testing and condom distribution.
I know Zorros LGBT is one of the football clubs that participated. And it's just really amazing, sometimes what sports can do, and just sometimes what people can do that are into sports, that just decide to make it happen. It's a really scrappy club in Mexico City. What we know in Mexico with the p— chant, which is the homophobic chant that happens every time a keeper touches the ball for the Mexican men's team, and also in the domestic league. We know homophobia has been really normalized in Mexican football, soccer, so it's just really wonderful and heartening to see all the projects. And if you want a warm fuzzy feeling, you can go to the Fare Net’s web page, and look at football people and you see the pictures that are coming in around the world, and it's just, it's really inspiring.
Now it's time for everybody's favorite segment where we take all the trash that's happened in sports this week, put it on a proverbial heap and burn it. Shireen, what have you got this week?
Shireen: I'm so mad at Mo Salah. I am mad about a lot of things. For a lot of people that don't know, Mo Salah got the GQ Man of the Year award 2019, and he was on the cover of Arab GQ. So I believe this is the Arab GQ, because every GQ has its own region as well. So he was on the cover with a photo shoot with Alessandra Ambrosio who's the former model, and the thing is, is that one, I was irritated because their photo shoot actually totally copied the photo shoot that she had with Cristiano Ronaldo. It was the same poses. I don't know why photographers are not... Apparently, there's only one pose you can have, this model draped over you, which is one of the poses anyways, and anything remotely resembling something to do with Ronaldo always irritates me. So, that's the first thing.
Secondly, Mohamed Salah has been championed in Muslim communities for being the stellar, upstanding, practicing Muslim who has changed the hearts and minds and has single handedly combatted Islamophobia in a place like Liverpool where he plays. But the thing is, I'm out here to say, I'm not judging this man's level of spirituality or faith, that's not happening. I don't do that. What I do do, is critique the fact that he's been upheld to a standard, whereas, you've got people that are, in my opinion, equally as pious, like Sadio Mané who I love, N’Golo Kanté who I also love. Mané is Mo Salah's teammate at Liverpool and Kanté plays with Chelsea. He is a French national and they're both amazing. They're wonderful players, and they're both Muslim, but the problem is that they don't get the attention and love that they deserve because they're Black.
And there is a tremendous amount of anti-blackness in Muslim communities, and people have come at me and said, "No, that's not fair. You're just judging Mohamed Salah, you can do that." I'm not doing that. I'm saying there's reasons why he is upheld in the global community, and the other two aren't. You want to talk about having integrity, and one of the things that upsets me the most is Mohamed Salah's manager, his name is Ramy Issa. He is a Trump-supporting, transphobic, homophobic, absolute misogynist, he's a terrible human being, he's terrible.
And have people come, and I have this little treatise on Twitter about it. This is how I felt. And I just think that, that's unacceptable to overlook that. You just can't do that. If you want to be someone with integrity and want to be someone who is looked to... Because I'm sorry, having integrity and having strong principles is yes, a part of practicing Islam. Don't be an asshole is very much a part of being a good Muslim, right? It's not hard to understand.
So having someone who's a Trump supporter doesn't meet that criteria! And people are like, "Oh, it's business. It's not spiritual." What are you saying? You can't put these things and compartmentalize them, it doesn't work like that. Other thing is, if an Arab woman, or a Muslim woman had been on that cover, with a man draped over her, the level of misogyny and the level of sexism she would have faced in Egypt, where Mohamed Salah is from. There was a woman who was almost arrested and charged for wearing a red dress on the red carpet, a premiere. This happened a couple of months ago and we'll link this actually in the show notes.
This was actually something that happened, and there's a lot of conversation about this, the double standards. So I want to burn that. I'm tired of Mo Salah getting all this stuff. Good luck to you, but I can't stand your manager. I do not want you to get hurt by Sergio Ramos ever, But seriously, fix yourself. Fix yourself! And in the meantime, football world, I don't want to hear about him anymore. Give me Sadio Mané or give me nothing!
Brenda: Burn.
Amira: Burn.
Brenda: I am putting on the burn pile, and I want to be really brief because I'm literally so tired of talking about the NCAA. I'm just so done with it. I don't even need to put them on our burn pile, because they are permanently on Burn It All Down's burn pile. But the NCAA and their "case" against North Carolina State University. And this involves the former basketball player, Dennis Smith, Jr, and it has gone to the FBI. This is at FBI levels! Supposedly, there was an improper $40,000 payment. There was also some tickets that were given to him in exchange, and they are valued at $6,000. I don't know how. I don't know how you value that, but I guess it's $6,000 worth of free tickets.
And basically, who they're after, is the former men's assistant basketball coach Orlando Early. And what you find from the FBI and we'll link to the show notes, the North Carolina News Observer piece on this, but basically, it's just the same thing as always. It's a bunch of soft money flowing in different directions. And basically, if the NCAA was just abolished, and they paid players what they were worth, or even anything at all, we wouldn't be in this situation where we're spending tons of university resources, when they're cutting faculty, when they are under-paying adjuncts, when they are raising tuition, and yet these programs, which I'm sorry, but there's absolutely no evidence except outside of the very, very top ones, that they make anything for the university, is an abomination.
The details are so silly that I won't even bore you with them, but I'm going to link it to the show notes. Basically, North Carolina State is not cooperating with the NCAA. The NCAA does not cooperate with the FBI. And it's like, how do these institutions educate students and get away with this garbage? I just want to put it on the burn pile once again. Burn.
Amira: Burn.
Shireen: Burn.
Brenda: Amira?
Amira: Yeah, I want to talk about the New York Jets, specifically... I hate the Jets, but I want to talk about them. Specifically Jets offensive lineman, Kelechi Osemele, who is dealing with a shoulder injury. He has a torn labrum in his shoulder. Not one, but two doctors have told him that he needs surgery to repair this labrum, but the Jets believe that he can play through the injury. And they want him to postpone the surgery until the end of the season. For the last few weeks, he hasn't practiced. But for the few games that he did play in, last three games, they've given him a painkiller Toradol. And basically said, like, "Take Toradol, go out there, play football."
Osemele has basically said, "Listen, you're giving me a bunch of Toradol, and it's not actually relieving my pain. And these doctors told me I need surgery, and I want to do it now." And the Jets have basically taken a route that says, "If you don't show up to practice, and if you don't play through the pain, then we're going to fine or suspend you."
And here's the thing, as a veteran, and they measure this by if you've been in the league for more than four years, who's never before filed for termination pay or anything like that, even though his contract has no more guaranteed money on it, this is really a dispute over about $5 million. If he was to have season ending surgery, then he would be eligible to get his entire salary. The Jets don't want to pay him the $5 million, and therefore, if they fine him or if they slap him with the disciplinary action, ‘conduct detrimental to the health of the team,’ it means they don't actually have to pay him this money. And so they're setting up a situation in which they're either telling him, "Play through the pain, or we're going to say that you're engaging in conduct detrimental to the team and not paying you your salary that you're rightfully entitled to."
And this is a showdown that's not settled. It's still going. Let me just tell you, I've had not one but two shoulder surgeries for a labrum tear, and obviously I'm not an NFL player, but that shit is painful. And if two doctors are saying this needs surgery and somebody is telling you, "I can't play through this. It hurts," you don't drug them up and send them onto the field under threat of saying that they're having ‘conduct detrimental to the team.’ You know what's detrimental to your team? Your fucking o-line. Work on that. This seems to be the most toxic part of sports that per our last conversation, and the gladiator part of this. If somebody's saying they're hurt, fucking believe them. It's dumb. Burn it down.
Brenda: Burn.
Shireen: Burn.
Brenda: Now it's time to celebrate the accomplishments of wonderful women in sports this week in our badass women of the week segment. Honorable mentions go to Raquel Ferreira, who was named last month as Senior Vice President of the Boston Red Sox. She's now the highest ranking woman in baseball. Fatma Ramadan, and the A Women's Run group who participated in the Toronto Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon. This running crew is powered by Hijabi Ballers, and is creating spaces for women of color to run.
Also, all of us who watched and participated in the World Cup. The World Cup of 2019 in France broke a record 1.12 billion viewers! Whaaaat? And finally, the badass woman of the week goes to, can I get a drum roll?
Sad drum roll. Brigid Kosgei of Kenya, who is now the fastest woman in history! The mother-of-two marathoner completed a race in Chicago in two hours, 14 minutes and four seconds. Amazing, amazing job.
Amira: Amazing.
Brenda: So, what are you all doing? What's good in your world to keep going? Amira?
Amira: Yeah, I am new shout out some folks here at Penn State who have made me happy this past week. And I'll start with some of the football players I'm close to, who endured a week of bullshit, and then wore shirts that the school then made them take off. The shirts had some of the quotes from the racist letter they received. And then College GameDay came to town and HBO had cameras here, and they still have to go to class in the midst of all this chaos. They showed out, and had a phenomenal game under the lights last night. One of my students Jesse saved the game, broke up a pass that saved the game. Micah had an amazing game, but also Cam, Donovan, Fred. I just want to give all of you a shout out for the labor that you've done over the last two weeks, especially amid what's been going on around here.
I also wanted to give a shout out to coach Erica Dambach who's the women's soccer coach here. Last week, she won her 250th game, and so, this past Thursday, Ali Krieger was in town and came to the game and presented her with the game ball for her 250th win. It was a really special moment, and also shouting out Sam Coffey, obviously, but I really wanted to end by giving a special shout out to Ellie Jean, who is captain of the women's soccer team, and today is her senior day. This could be the last game that she plays at the infamous Jeffrey Field. It's been such a pleasure watching you play here at Penn State, Ellie, and having you in the classroom and continuing to work with you. I can't wait to see what's next.
Brenda: Shireen?
Shireen: I love fall. It's a bit rainy these days, but I love fall. I've been doing a bit of little road trips with my daughter, showcasing at various universities, that's been a thing. Just went to University of Western Ontario and they have a homecoming, which I always associate with Americans, but they're the Mustangs and they actually had a horse on the field. And every time there's a touchdown, they parade the horse around, which I just find fascinating. So I think that's really interesting. It's Canadian football, so it's not American rules, it was Canadian rules. So anyways, I find that really interesting.
And I'm just really busy with my daughter. She's applying to universities, and I'm not trying to make this about myself, but totally making it about myself. I need her to go to school in which I look great in the colors. I think this is a fair thing. I'm rooting for my color preferences. Anyways, I just wanted to also shout out my co-hosts at Burn It All Down, because I think you're phenomenal. When I don't get to be on the show for whatever reason, I listen to it, and I love it so much, and I appreciate y'all so much.
Last thing is my TEDx Toronto Talk is next week. I did an expo at the Toronto Scotiabank Marathon Expo on Friday and had an opportunity to be on the stage with Kate Van Buskirk, who's amazing, Corey Erdman and Susan Gapka, and they were wonderful. It was so great to be included in a conversation about diversifying places like running and it's really great. The energy is really positive. I was representing TEDx Toronto doing that, and just again, very, very excited about this coming week. I'm a little nervous, but I'm excited. It will be live-streamed, so for those of you who are not in Toronto, if you want to see me speak, it will be on Saturday October 26th. It's, I think, pretty much sold out now the event or very close to it. So it's a big thing, and don't worry everybody, I have my outfit. I have my outfit ready, so we're good.
Brenda: Everyone, you want to hear Shireen speak. It is a great thing. What's good in my week is no surprise to anybody, it's Halloween, basically. I've been dressing up, and doing ridiculousness, and I feel totally justified, because it is the greatest holiday that there is. Free candy, free candy! You get to go up to stranger's houses and ask for things. You get to dress up. It's dark and sexy and the greatest thing ever. I think, I don't know, everyone should be happy on Halloween. It's beautiful and colorful and it makes me glad.
Shireen: I have a question, Brenda. Is there a specific candy that you like to give out? Is there like-
Brenda: You know what's so funny? You know what's so funny? I don't really like candy that much. But I like the process of getting it and sorting it with the kids and putting a hierarchy to it. What I do is, I go trick-or-treating for as long as I possibly can, so I leave out a ton of candy at the very end of my driveway so everyone can just come on the honor system. And it's so funny, people never take advantage of that. I always have candy left.
Shireen: Oh, they don't just... That's really nice, yeah.
Brenda: Yeah, it restores one's faith in humanity. But it's usually Kit Kat, Snickers and Reese's Pieces. I'm that peanut butter chocolate person.
Shireen: Okay, cool. I'm a chips girl 100%.
Brenda: That's it for this week in Burn It All Down. Burn It All Down lives on SoundCloud, and can be found on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play and TuneIn. We do appreciate your reviews and feedback. So please subscribe, rate, let us know what we do well, what we don't, how we can improve. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Burn It All Down pod, and on Twitter @burnitdownpod.
You can email us at burnitalldownpod@gmail.com, and check out our website www.burnitalldownpod.com where you can find previous episodes, transcripts and a link to our Patreon. Once again, we really appreciate all of our current Patreon subscribers, and hope that some of you will consider becoming one. I'm Brenda Elsey, on behalf of Dr. Amira Rose Davis and Shireen Ahmed, keep burning on and not out.