Episode 158: Title IX Regulations, Jogging While Black, and the USWNT Lawsuit
This week, Amira, Lindsay, and Jessica first react to an ESPN NFL schedule tweet about "hope" [2:23]. Then, they discuss the new Title IX regulations [5:33]. After that, Amira has a conversation with community organizer and athlete Alison Mariella Desir about Ahmaud Arbery and the whiteness of the running community [20:59]. Finally, an update about the USWNT lawsuit [44:44].
Of course, you’ll hear the Burn Pile [51:47], the Bad Ass Woman of the Week segment, starring Formiga [1:02:33], and what is good in our worlds [1:04:23].
Links
Betsy DeVos's new Title IX regulations are an abomination: https://www.powerplays.news/p/betsy-devoss-new-title-ix-regulations
Betsy DeVos' new Title IX rules will shake up how K-12 schools handle sexual harassment: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/betsy-devos-new-title-ix-rules-will-shake-how-k-n1201616
New Title IX regulations no longer require coaches to report sexual misconduct: https://sports.yahoo.com/new-title-ix-regulations-no-longer-require-coaches-to-report-sexual-misconduct-150637906.html
Did USMNT World Cup failure let U.S. Soccer win equal pay case vs. USWNT? https://sports.yahoo.com/did-usmnt-world-cup-failure-let-us-soccer-win-equal-pay-case-vs-uswnt-172845963.html
NHL condemns Brendan Leipsic, Jack Rodewald for social media comments: https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/29144194/capitals-f-brendan-leipsic-comments-social-media-unacceptable-team-says
Brett Favre to repay state $1.1 million for speeches he never gave in MS welfare scandal: https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2020/05/06/brett-favre-repay-1-1-m-welfare-money-auditor-says/5179600002/
Texas gives football coaches raises despite academic pay freeze, financial uncertainty: https://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-football/news/texas-gives-coaches-raises-academic-pay-freeze/1c05fjwfl08oc17cwg4b258v32
USA Fencing Announces Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Resource Team: https://www.usafencing.org/news_article/show/1104544?fbclid=IwAR2JeoBAu4zlNejum8BfGIOljzfv2MRmTPFynhezsYlnREIO23p6Kqbi70U
Alysia Montaño Creates Nonprofit for Professional Athlete Mothers: https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a32388733/alysia-montano-nonprofit-for-athlete-mothers/
Transcript
Lindsay: Hello everyone, welcome to Burn It All Down, the feminist sports podcast you need. My name is Lindsay Gibbs, I’m the author and founder of the Power Plays newsletter about sexism in sports. I’m thrilled to be joined today by two of my fabulous co-hosts: Jessica Luther, freelance spots reporter in Austin, Texas, and the author of the upcoming book Loving Sports When They Don’t Love You Back; and Dr. Amira Rose Davis, assistant professor of history and African American studies at Penn State University. Today we’re going to be discussing the new Title IX regulations, unfortunately. Amira is gonna talk with Alison Mariella Désir: endurance athlete, activist, and mental health advocate, about Ahmaud Arbery and the whiteness of the running community. Finally, we’re going to give a quick overview of the US women’s national team lawsuit and the latest news there. We’re of course gonna do badass women of the week who we’re gonna celebrate, we’re gonna throw some things on the burn pile, and we’re gonna end talking about what’s good in our lives. Thank you all for joining us as the lockdown continues for all of us. Jess, Amira, how are you?
Jessica: Still here…in my house.
Amira: Managing day by day.
Lindsay: [laughs] Of course, we wanna thank our patrons for keeping us going. If you go to patreon.com/burnitalldown, for as little as $2/month you can support us and make sure we keep this podcast going, and also – so, this week is our three year Burn It All Down anniversary, believe it or not!
Jessica: Three years!
Lindsay: Our very first Burn It All Down podcast was released three years ago today, I think.
Amira: Wow.
Lindsay: We haven’t missed a week, we love you all so much. It’s hard to believe. We will be having a Zoom chat amongst the five of us co-hosts, and that’s gonna be out on our Patreon page. So, for as little as $2/month you can get access to that, and we’re very excited to share some of our memories from what has been just a phenomenal three years.
Alright, we’ve got a lot of heavy stuff coming on the show today. I wanna start out though with this Adam Schefter tweet that I have not been able to stop thinking about all week long, just to kind of get us some lighter fare. On May 7th, Adam Schefter the ESPN reporter tweeted this: “ESPN will air a three-hour NFL schedule release show tonight at 8 pm Eastern,” – sorry, I can’t even say it without laughing! – “It will highlight key matchups, schedule flexibility and, ultimately, hope.” [laughter] Jess, how does that make you feel?
Jessica: What…What goes on in Adam Schefter’s mind? I just don’t understand him a lot of the time. I mean, he’s such a water-carrier for the NFL and ESPN and…I don’t know. “Hope”? I don’t know. [laughter] I still don’t understand how the NFL thinks it’s gonna play in the fall.
Amira: Right.
Jessica: This seems ridiculous. Three hours? I actually didn't read all the way to “hope” because I laughed when I got to “3 hour” [Lindsay laughing] I was just like, to reveal a schedule…? I don’t know. I’m sure Adam Schefter is very hopeful, is what I think.
Lindsay: Amira, did you have anything to…Did this make you hopeful?
Amira: It did not make me hopeful, it made me perplexed – the emotion face where you’re like “hmm” with the fingers 🤔 that’s me anytime I saw on Instagram, on Twitter…I was just confused. I was like, why are they hyping the schedule release for a season that’s not gonna happen? I don’t understand this. They’re just clinging desperately…Maybe that’s the hope he’s talking about. They’re so desperately clinging to this hope that football is happening in the way they think it’s gonna happen. I was just like, even a schedule release is the most…It’s asinine, because even if you’re gonna have a football season it’s not gonna start on time.
Jessica: Yeah.
Amira: Kickoff is not gonna be when you think it’s gonna be. Why are you telling primetime games like that’s gonna be a thing? Ay ay ay.
Lindsay: It’s not hope, it’s–
Lindsay and Amira: –delusion. [laughter]
Amira: OH MY GOD. Mind meld.
Lindsay: No, but my favorite response was our Twitter friend and friend in general, Kurtis Zimmerman, who said, “I’m gonna end every sentence from now on with ‘and, ultimately, hope’.” [laughter] Just gonna try it, like, “Here on Burn It All Down today we’re discussing Title IX. Lots of bad things going on in the world but, ultimately, hope.”
Amira: Ay ay ay.
Lindsay: “I’m gonna go do my laundry and, ultimately, hope.”
Jessica: That’s like the fortune cookie + in bed, a new one. This is the coronavirus version of that.
Lindsay: Oh my god, that’s so good. Unfortunately this week new Title IX regulations came out and we are going to have to discuss them, because we are responsible people who stay on top of the news. Jess, do you wanna get us started here?
Jessica: Yes…No. Yes. I will do it. So, almost from the very first moment that Betsy DeVos was confirmed as the secretary of education she set about rewriting the guidelines for how schools handle reports of gendered harassment and violence. I’m gonna do a short recap just in case anyone doesn’t know this already. The reason that schools and universities are tasked with handling reports of gendered violence is that under Title IX, a federal regulation, educational institutions that receive any federal funding cannot discriminate based on gender. To do so would deny people their civil right to access education equally. Gendered violence, because it often leads to all kind of issues that cause those who are harmed by harassment, stalking, domestic violence or sexual assault, it makes it that much harder for them to go to school, including the possibility that they will have to share space with the very person who has already harmed them. Schools have to have remedies for this under Title IX. This system runs alongside the criminal punishment system and it often mimics how the law handles it, but it is a civil system that has a different goal than the courts. It’s about maintaining civil rights to access education, I can’t say that enough. The Department of Education is in charge of creating the guidelines that instruct schools on how to properly meet the requirements of Title IX; those new guidelines are what we’re talking about today. I’m not gonna go over everything the Department of Education has changed because the document outlining this is over 2000 pages long, and it’s kind of exactly what we all thought it was gonna be.
So, here are some highlights: the new regulations allow colleges and universities to decide which employees, including members of the athletic department like coaches, which ones will be mandatory reporters. If any official with “authority to institute corrective measures on behalf of the school,” like a Title IX coordinator, hears of harassment or assault, they have to respond to it. Schools can now choose between using “preponderance of evidence” and “clear and convincing evidence” as the standard of proof in these cases. Before, “preponderance of evidence” which is the standard used in civil cases, that’s essentially like 51% of evidence on either side is enough to rule on that side’s favor, that was the standard. “Clear and convincing” is a very high bar to reach, especially if you’re thinking about these kind of investigations and just this kind of harm. A very high bar to reach. Also, live hearings and allowing for cross-examinations are now a part of the Title IX process. Survivors and victim advocates are particularly worried about the chilling effect on reporting and re-victimization for those who do report that this in particular will have. Schools only have to deal with reports of harassment and violence that take place on campus, during school-sanctioned events, or in specific off-campus places like fraternity houses. So even if one student harms another, if it took place in, say, a private off-campus apartment, Title IX doesn’t have to remedy any fallout from that.
Schools have until August 14th of this year to get everything in place to meet these guidelines. We know that there are issues with athletes at universities and in K through 12 schools. We know that athletes deal with all of this. You can basically Google any school and find athletes who’ve harmed another student, but also over the last few years we’ve seen a series of cases where staff have harmed athletes, including at Michigan State and Ohio State, among others. We know the NCAA has felt pressure to do something on this – last week my burn pile was about how slow they’ve actually been on this issue. They do now have a policy, but it’s still very unclear if they have any teeth, if the NCAA will ever do anything about athletic departments that fail to educate about and respond to reports of gendered violence. I’m just not feeling great about all of this at this moment in time. I don’t know. Where do you guys wanna start with this?
Lindsay: Yeah, there’s so much to torch about this. I think it's just important to point out, and this is something I hadn’t thought about that much until talking with a lot of advocates and experts this week, is the fact that a lot of the focus has been on the cross-examination, these live hearings, which, let's face it, we don’t even know if schools are capable of doing this, these live hearings. Most people are gonna have to drastically increase their capacity for these hearings, do a lot more training, and it’s very unlikely that all can be done, especially by August 14th, and in the middle of a global pandemic – we’ll talk a little bit about that later. But as much as there’s focus on these individual strings of this policy, the overall point is to reduce liability for schools. The whole point of this. And I firmly believe that, yes, they would have spent…Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump are very committed to making life very much better for rapists and making abuse much more tolerable in society at large, but I don’t think they would’ve gone through this, which – these are 2033 pages of regulations! – 2033 pages. They don’t go through all this unless it’s to reduce liability for schools and to save their friends money.
Ultimately these guidelines are expected to, via the department of education’s own calculations, reduce reports up to 50% and save universities up to $400 million. The ways they’re gonna do this by not only all these chilling effects throughout the laws, you know, less reporters, cross examination. But also these standards of proof – Jess mentioned this a little bit, but first of all sexual harassment now has to be considered “severe AND pervasive” where it used to be “severe OR pervasive,” so that standard is higher, and that substantially raises the bar. Also, schools can now choose to use the “clear and convincing” evidence standard instead of the “preponderance of evidence” standard, and also schools must now find that a school employee was deliberately indifferent to misconduct, which is a higher legal standard and forces you to prove the school’s complete state of mind. So, all of this is just to basically save money for Trump and Betsy DeVos’ rich friends. Jess?
Jessica: Yeah. God. Okay. So, I did want to talk really briefly about mandatory reportings because this has been a big thing. There’s a lot of good intentions behind the mandatory reporting – you force people to report no matter what, so they aren’t making judgement calls about which things to report, it removes ambivalence from a system that tends to favor those who harm, right? So I totally get the good intention. I worry in practice about what this actually means, specifically that the burden of mandatory reporting is gonna fall on women and LGBTQ faculty and staff and probably most likely staff and faculty of color. Because it’s students from those populations who are harmed more often, and because those particular staff members seem more trustworthy to the harmed students, right? And not all students want to report, and not all schools with mandatory reporting rules have good alternatives for those students. So I do worry about what this means in practice, especially for those staff and faculty members who are dealing with that.
At the same time, I’m not sure how this functions in athletics though, and this is what worries me. I mean, athletics, you have these tight-knit single-sex groups. I would guess, you know, like football coaches hear all kinds of things that, like, a male economics professor might not hear about. So I do feel a certain way about these new regulations removing mandatory reporting from athletic administrators and coaches. Schools can still make that mandatory reporters, but it’s a choice they have to actively make. The reason mandatory reporting is ever-necessary is because of the culture on a campus that has people sticking up for athletic departments or teams over and above the safety of other students. That’s not changing, that’s a massive cultural problem that’s gonna take way more than mandatory reporting to fix, but still, forcing reporting makes people safer in the interim. I worry for the students whose cases are, again, gonna be ignored or purposely forced into silence, and we know that that is exactly how these things happen, specifically in athletic departments.
Lindsay: Yeah, there’s some reporting that maybe due to NCAA guidelines and SafeSport guidelines that coaches will still have to be mandatory reporters, but excuse me if the NCAA and SafeSport as my backstops isn’t making me feel super warm and fuzzy right now. Amira?
Amira: Yeah, they inspire no confidence.
Lindsay: Yeah. [laughs]
Amira: Yeah, I just wanna take you guys on the ground to Penn State, where I think you can see a lot of the problems with these regulations. So, first of all, exactly what Jess was saying about mentoring and reporting. As a member of the departments of African American studies and women’s gender and sexuality studies, our rates of disclosure from students are way higher, disproportionately, based on the subject matter we teach, the accessibility of often hidden labor that underrepresented professors are already doing in this space. And these are spaces where even over the last few years you’ve seen department meeting after department meeting trying to sort through these old regulations and Title IX and mandated reporting. So there were already things on the ground that people were really struggling through. And then if you look at Penn State the other thing you can see is one of these shifts in policies and the way that the language of freedom and equality and whatnot around Title IX is being appropriated by the DeVos administration.
So, in 2014 the Obama administration opened up an investigation in Penn State over Title IX compliance stemming out of in the wake of Sandusky, and that has been ongoing, and that was taken over under this new administration. So this past March the Department of Education announced their final report that concluded this six year investigation. Pay very close attention here: they announced major violations, in terms of Penn State, major Title IX violations. On the one hand if you start reading them, a lot of them are stemming around Sandusky, but then there’s a shift in the document and then the rest of the things that they’re citing are from 2018-2020 and majority of that observation centers on “due process and the rights of the accused.” So within the report about Title IX violations aptly pointing out the many failures institutionally in the wake of Sandusky and the other things that they have seen, they clump in and bolster the report with all of these incidents or claims about the rights of the accused, and really what we’re seeing in terms of cross-examination, being able to question your accuser, etc, etc. Those are what make up the bulk of the report, and yet the headlines, you would just see that it’s one. So I think that’s one of the ways that we can see how complicated and appropriative this is.
The second thing is the concept of the fact that the schools are gonna have to implement this by August 14th is absolutely ridiculous. Ted Mitchell of the American Council on Education recently said, “It’s incomprehensible, it’s cruel as it is counter-productive.” It would be ridiculous anyways. They’ve had three years to go over these regulations – you’re giving universities three months at the height of a motherfucking pandemic when people don’t know if they’re gonna be open in the fall, people don’t know if they’re gonna survive this? Colleges are closing, people are furloughed and laid off. On top of that you’re gonna want everybody to restructure what they do with things that they don’t even understand, because nobody fucking understands Title IX. And that brings me to my last point: if you’re listening to this and our discussion of this and you’re confused, or if you’re reading a news story and you’re confused – if you read the report itself, if you slog through 2000 pages of it and you’re confused, know that that’s literally the story of Title IX. I mean, the law was passed in the 70s. Nobody knows what to do with it. By 1987 they literally had to pass a supplemental act to “restore the broad scope of coverage and clarify the application of Title IX.” Not even a decade later and people were like, we still don’t understand what’s going on.
And part of this is intentional. The messiness of the legislation is intentional because it allows for loopholes so people can fudge numbers on women’s teams and still look like they’re compliant, or they can fail to report or they can protect their money, right? The other part about it is about control, so that’s part of the reason this August 14th deadline is so terrible, because if you’re not in compliance for it that puts your funding in jeopardy, that gives the Department of Ed more control over your money, over what hoops you need to jump through to get it, and they’re setting up a hoop that’s gonna be almost impossible for many many schools to comply with. Title IX is intentionally confusing, and that's the thing that these 2000 pages…It’s right in line with that.
Lindsay: Yeah, and that’s really good. There are a little bit…We’ve been talking mainly about the universities’ points, some of these points are different for the K through 12 ranks. Tyler Kingkade wrote a great piece for NBC News focusing on the K through 12; we’ll include it in the show notes and I’ll also link to it in Power Plays, where I wrote about this for subscribers this week. But ultimately I think there’s two things that I’m gonna always remember, it’s that the Trump administration has been, when it comes to making policies and guidelines, they’ve been the least detail-oriented people in the universe, and it just really shows where their priorities are that they kept focusing on this, that this was the thing that they followed through on, 2033 pages worth of follow through. There’s a quote actually from a lawyer who represents a lot of the accused who has been very pro what DeVos and them are doing, but he still had a quote that I really thought was telling where he said, “If the Trump administration had put half the thought into the coronavirus as they did into the Title IX regulations, we’d all be going back to work now.” So once again, it just really shows you where the priorities are.
Going forward from all of this, a lot of advocates are…The National Women’s Law Center is already taking the federal government to court over these, so there’s gonna be a lot of legal action to follow. Additionally I talked with John Gabrieli who is an advocate with a student-focused and student-led organization Every Voice Coalition, and they are really focusing on making sure that state laws can come in and fill in the gaps. There’s gonna be a lot of pressure for states and individual universities to pick up where the federal government has now left off. We want to keep focusing on those things.
Next, we have Amira’s interview with Alison Mariella Désir.
Amira: Today I’m joined by Alison Mariella Désir, who’s the founder of Harlem Run, among many other things. She is a mental health advocate, an athlete, community organizer, and she might be one of the best people to talk about and try to process the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. She wrote a wonderful piece about the whiteness in the running world for Outside magazine, I recommend everyone run out and read that piece. Today we’re gonna chat about the inherent whiteness of running and the running community and the ripple effects and ramifications of the latest shooting of unarmed Black people. So, Alison, thank you so much. Welcome to Burn It All Down.
Alison: Thank you so much. I wanna say, we have an additional special guest, my son who’ll be chiming in, but it really is an honor to be speaking with you.
Amira: I wanna start first and foremost just saying, how are you? I know you celebrated your first Mother’s Day this weekend, and what a heavy weekend it is.
Alison: Yeah, so this weekend I made a point to not really be on my phone, not really be on social media. But the thing about it is it’s so emotional in and of itself, the murder of yet another unarmed Black man, and then there were two additional murders at least, on Friday, right? This is unending. Then on top of that now I’m so happy my piece is being read, but it puts this extra responsibility where I’m getting emails from well-meaning white folks telling me they bought the book and they’re so excited, and I’m like…Okay, welcome to step zero. You know?
Amira: Right.
Alison: I’m glad, like…People are thanking me, I’m like, you’re welcome. It’s just a lot of energy, and there’s this duality I feel where on the one hand I’m enraged, I’m angry, I’m emotional, but then there’s also very much the teacher side of me and the mental health advocate and the wanting to work on this, so that’s a duality that Black and brown folks, marginalized folks feel. So, feeling all the things.
Amira: Yeah, certainly. And that’s the thing, I’m really glad you brought this up. Me and Shireen talk about this a lot, we say bitches be laboring. [laughs] The amount of emotional labor that it takes to do this kind of work…And so when I read your piece I applauded it, I was happy to see it, I shared it widely of course, and I also was like, whew, what an undertaking. Because like you said, it immediately puts this burden, right, on you, or well-meaning white people and then also the sifting through the awfulness that comes with being a truth-teller in this capacity. So, I did want to return to this piece. The piece we’re talking about, Ahmaud Arbery and Whiteness in the Running World, this is so necessary. It’s so necessary. Can you talk a little bit about what compelled you…You write about it in the piece, but when we’re looking at that running community what compelled you to pen this?
Alison: It’s funny, I was talking to my partner, my husband, about how I wrote this piece and, not to be all grandiose, but I was thinking about Da Vinci talking about Michelangelo, how he made the piece…I can’t even remember…The statue of David. He talked about how he wasn’t building statues but he was sort of revealing the form. The form always existed, he was just inspired to reveal it. And that’s sort of how it felt like when I was penning this. I sat down and Molly from Outside magazine told me I had this opportunity, she said that if you need a week to do it, let me know. I sat down and it just sort of poured out all at once. It sort of just flowed out of me. I think it’s something that we are always, like, bitches be laboring.
Amira: Right.
Alison: It’s just always on our minds. From so many events where I find that I’m the token on the panel or I find that I look around and there’s very few people who look like me that there’s always conversations I’m having with Black and brown folks that we seem to be having experiences totally unknown to white folks. I just felt like I had to write something, and I wanted to do it in a way that…I’ve been in a lot of school, I have two masters degrees, all my schooling’s from Columbia, I was like, I know I need to write this in a way that can break through. So I knew that I had to humanize myself, I knew that I needed to tell the story in a way that wouldn’t be too agressive but would be poignant and move folks to action, and I’m really excited that that’s the case, but again, this is just the start.
Amira: Certainly. One of the things that you pick up on there is that one of the grand myths that cultivated this running community is that running is this great equalizer and that everybody can take to the pavement or the grass or the sprawling hills and together run, and kind of unify around that love for endurance running and community formation. Part of what you’re doing is exposing this for what many people already know and feel is a completely grand narrative that just doesn’t feel applicable for marginalized people within that community. What’s it like to be part of a running community as a Black woman, as a marginalized person, and how can this moment reveal some of those cracks in that foundation of that community?
Alison: Yeah, excellent question. I think it goes back to that duality, right? I had another conversation recently with one of the founders from FloTrack, which – I never thought that I would have the opportunity to be on that platform, because that is also a very white space. But he was asking me things like, generally runners say that it’s such a mental release and it’s a beautiful feeling to go running, does that mean you don’t feel that? And I was like, the thing is, I feel that, and I feel a sense of terror, right? This is the duality that we deal with, that we know that running is a beautiful thing and in fact I came to running for my mental health, but at the same time I know that when I’m on the run I’m subject to forces that are completely beyond my control and that the legal system isn’t even there to back me, right? I think this is not just true of my experience, this is true of trans folks, this is true of the LGBT community. I think because anti-racism is an active thing, like, it’s not enough to just say “I’m not racist” right?
Amira: Right.
Alison: It is an active every day thing that you have to participate in, and that kind of consciousness is really only in the minds of folks like us.
Amira: Right. Exactly. I think that you raise this point about how there’s been this kind of new movement around runner’s safety, and a lot of that we’ve seen kind of mobilization around safety for women runners and safety in terms of where you can run, but I think that you touch on the negotiations that people have to make who are marginalized in that space. COVID has really changed the game in a lot of ways, but people have still been able to run, but then it becomes a negotiation, like, does this face mask make me look more threatening?
Alison: Exactly.
Amira: I had a colleague who runs with a jogging stroller and he was like, so, if I wear a face mask I’m more threatening, but I have a stroller, so am I less threatening? What is that complex negotiation you have to do to constantly, you know–
Alison: That high-level math.
Amira: Exactly! The high-level mathematics of Blackness, like, what is that right calculation that will make sure you get home safely?
Alison: It’s so true. I think about me making that choice for myself, am I gonna go out and wear a mask? I think to myself, okay, well, my neighborhood is relatively “safe.” I do have privilege myself, right? I have an education, so maybe I can talk myself out of whatever the person would wanna do with me, you know? These are very real things that we think about and I've been disappointed in the coverage of running. Running very much had a boom people have been talking about, but people haven’t been talking about the way that intersectionalism plays into this and the way that folks are impacted differently.
Amira: You start the piece in a way that immediately resonated with me, because you narrate what it’s like to now think of these questions which I know you’ve been thinking about for some time. But the urgency perhaps, the way it resonates now with you having a son…I am the mom of two Black boys, and I have a Black girl as well who I’m equally as concerned about. But that immediately hit my heart, because I think one of the things that that also raised for me, and I wanna shout out soon-to-be-Dr. Sam White, who’s a part of the running community and she works on Black girlhood and physical culture. She always talks about youth culture in a way that really has put it on my radar more. I was thinking about this when, just reading that first paragraph of your piece, because I think about what does this mean not just for Black men and Black women but for Black girls and Black boys, especially when we know that Black childhood is very constrained because Black girls and Black boys are seen as adult far earlier than their white counterparts. Tamir Rice was constantly described as “a man” despite being 12 years old. So when we’re thinking about the running community and we’re thinking about how that trickles down to youth spaces as well, it struck a chord. I felt myself kind of gasping for air thinking about doing that calculation. My sons are adorable and really cute – when do they cross that line to be a threat?
Alison: Yeah. When I look at my son and I think about the ways that I want to set him up for success and the ways that I want to introduce him into the outdoors and the ways that I wanna give him access to things that I didn’t have until I was older. But there’s also in the back of my mind, to what extent am I setting him up to feel too comfortable, right? Because there’s the idea that…So, another young Black man was killed this weekend when he was speeding, right? He was doing something stupid, the police were pursing him. In the end he was shot multiple times and at the end of the video, apparently – I didn’t watch – you can hear one of the cops laughing and saying, “There’s not gonna be an open casket,” right?
Amira: Ugh.
Alison: Did this kid do something stupid? Yes. He was 20, 21, right? The amount of stupid things people do…But white people, white men have a boyhood that extends until their 40s and 50s, honestly.
Amira: Hell yeah, exactly.
Alison: Right? And so god forbid I make my son feel so confident that he’s in a trail and he doesn’t avert his eyes, or god forbid he wants to have a relationship with a white woman, or a white man, you know what I mean? I think about how I have to prepare him to be confident and owning spaces, and then also really understand that you’re shrinking yourself as a means of survival.
Amira: Right.
Alison: There are multiple moments when you can be an activist, but I need you alive, you know? It’s just…It’s terrifying.
Amira: It’s awful. I think about that Facebook group that popped up in support of the men who killed Ahmaud, and one of the lines says, “He didn’t comply with simple commands.” I think you just struck on something that resonates so deeply, how do we teach our children, our Black kids, to take up space? And to be full citizens and to be fully human, and recognize them as fully human knowing that there’s moments of life or death that depends on their ability to shrink themselves into a kind of second class citizenship?
Alison: Exactly.
Amira: The fact that if they’re confronted with two white men who roll up on them with rifles, that “complying” even though they have no authority is the difference between perhaps getting home at night or not…I don’t have words for what that makes you do as a parent, you know?
Alison: And you know, with this piece, what I was trying to convey also is that this is just our everyday reality on a simple run, right? Yet people wanna make this running seem as it’s not political, our identity doesn’t matter, when…I mean, look at the Olympics. The whole thing is political, right?
Amira: Right.
Alison: Look at Caster Semenya, she’s trying to compete and people wanna get in her pants, right? It’s just such a fallacy, and so I was trying to break it down, like, can’t you see that literally every day this is a fear and the way that my identities intersect – I have a fear because I’m a woman, I have a fear because I’m a Black woman, I have a fear because I’m a Black mother.
Amira: Yeah.
Alison: Yeah. It really is beyond comprehension to have to live like this.
Amira: Certainly. And you know, I think that what it does mentally, and this is something…I wanna go back to that point you made about releases you can get from running. On the one hand you have that anxiety over safety, you have the general anxiety of being a Black mother, you have postpartum, right? You have all these things that are weighing on your mental health, and then you have running that’s supposed to be a space that helps with that, and in many ways it does. Do you feel like…How do you negotiate a space that’s supposed to be a space of release that also comes with its own tugs on your mental health, and is there a way for people listening and people muddling through this themselves, do you have any kind of tips or techniques or suggestions for people protecting their mental health while managing these anxieties and still looking towards running as an outlet?
Alison: Yeah, wow. What a big question, right? But it’s definitely part of my everyday reality. I think that one thing for me personally, this is not the case for everybody, but for me personally this sort of double consciousness, if I can borrow that phrase, is always there for me, this sense of fear. But I will say what helps me is being present, and I also thank my son for this mindfulness that I’ve developed because…And even in this moment I’m talking to you as I’m watching my son tear up the floor. My son allows me, when I think all about the terrible possibilities and all the systems that I wanna bring down, then my son will poop or he’ll smile or he’ll tumble [laughs] and so I’m very much brought back to this present moment, and that’s really how I’m able to enjoy the run, right? Because I’m able to think about my breath in this moment, I’m able to focus on what I’m seeing, right? Many times connecting with your senses, like, what am I seeing, what am I feeling, feeling grounded, all of those things allow you to come back to the present. That’s really what I can offer in this moment, that’s really what’s helping me. Also knowing that we’re so confined to our apartments, and rightfully so because of the pandemic, and green spaces just getting outside really does have a positive effect. It’s back to those calculations, to what extent can I put myself out there today, and maybe it doesn’t work for you every day but I think mindfulness and staying present to the extent that you can is really what I can offer.
Amira: Yeah. And I think the other thing that you have demonstrated through your career is finding community within the community, and so I wanna big up Harlem Run, especially, I mean, I know it’s hard right now, I can’t imagine fostering this running community, particularly in Harlem in the time when New York has been so decimated by COVID, but you know, can you just speak for a second to carving out your own communal spaces within the running community?
Alison: Yeah, I’m glad you said carving out because the thing is I didn’t find it. I came into running, I found community and I found some folks who were really great and helped me through the first marathon, but I knew that I wanted to create my own space that was rooted in vulnerability and mental health acceptance and in Black and brown folks, and I think that…We haven’t been able to run together, we’ve got a lot of virtual stuff going on, but one thing in particular that has been so fun and so sweet to see is that some of us in leadership have started running to each other’s apartments and leaving signs outside for each other or waving from windows, and so it’s sort of like this novel way of being like, I see you, you’re important to me, you’re still my neighbor in the midst of this. But truly the text and the love, particularly around Mother’s Day, after this response…If it weren’t for Harlem Run and Run 4 All Women and these other communities I created, I would feel completely alone.
Amira: Yeah.
Alison: So it’s possible to find folks within this very white space who are likeminded and if the work…This is not our burden to teach white folks.
Amira: Right.
Alison: Some of us will choose to do that but my no means is that, like, we all should do this. We’re just trying to survive on top of it all, right? So find your people, and find safety.
Amira: Love that. The last thing I wanna talk to you about is that you certainly picked up the burden of teaching – you give book recommendations and everything. For people who did #RunWithMaud, who did their 2.23 miles, you know, I think for me I found it really cathartic, certainly, but I watched how it spread and it hit the running community. I’m part of the Peloton community and there’s a lot of support there. What is the next thing, right? It’s one thing to run 2.23 miles and make a hashtag, but if you’re a white person within this community that doesn’t replace actively being anti-racist.
Alison: Exactly, exactly. And that’s why I made these three recommendations because I was like, the thing that I don’t want to happen is exactly that. I did the hashtag, I did the run, like, okay, I feel good about myself until the next thing happens. So I think the next step is the really unsexy step of doing the work, and the work for me including reading the books that I mentioned but really the reading is in service of your own self-development work, your own racial identity development. I think this is critical that many people don't talk about, that it is possible to have a white racial identity that is not tied to white supremacy, right? White people don’t learn about whiteness, because whiteness is the default.
Amira: Yeah.
Alison: I can’t imagine what it is to be a white person, but it must be something like, “I’m white, everything is in service to me, whether you know it or not.”
Amira: Yeah.
Alison: You don’t think about where you’re really from, like, I’m white, I’m American, this is my space, I could go there, I could do this, right? And I don’t want to make this sound silly, I’m just trying to imagine. When you develop an identity…White racial identity development, which is actually something that I’m gonna talk about in my Meaning Thru Movement tour, is a process by which you look at yourself, look at your privilege, look at the ways that you’re benefiting unnecessarily, look at the ways you’re privileged in the media and in every single space, and how can you love yourself and love where you come from without having to be the standard, without having these entitlements. I think that requires active work. If you’re in the running industry and there’s a bunch of white CEOs all in a room together, maybe you look around and you wonder where are the other folks, like, if it’s all white people you should all be committed to anti-racism but certainly there must be other diverse voices that are missing in this room, and how can you make it so that those voices are in the room? How can you amplify those voices? The work is, like I said, it’s unsexy. You gotta read, you gotta start understanding what these words mean, because I have to say, even the least formally educated, the person that doesn’t have the degrees like I have, a person of color understands how race works in this country.
Amira: Right.
Alison: And the same cannot be said for white folks. So yeah, do the work. Do the reading. Ask yourself questions. People often say that they’re nervous to make mistakes, they don’t wanna say the wrong thing, but guess what, you’re already saying the wrong thing. At least say the wrong thing in service of progress, you know? And that’s really where I’m at. For right now I feel compelled to continue to have these conversations and offer resources, but when I don’t: don’t talk to me. [laughs] You know? There’s a lot of us out there and the burden is on the white folks.
Amira: Yeah. And I think that this is a slog fest, it’s a process, it’s not…Like you said, for the next time, because we know there will be one.
Alison: And it’s not gonna be like revelations right and left and you’re getting chills all the time, like, it’s really a slow process and it doesn’t feel good, because you’re questioning yourself. I always say this because I think it makes people feel more uncomfortable…I don’t know why, it’s just a thing that I do. I can be taken to task for my ableism, right, for my transphobia, which is also like white supremacy, transphobia is built into the fabric of the world, right? I can and should be taken to task for that, and that is work that I must do. So if I with my marginalized identities can do that work then white folks certainly can, and it’s not gonna be pleasant.
Amira: Right. And it shouldn’t be, right? Unlearning – if it feels good while you’re doing it then it’s probably not doing the work it needs to.
Alison: Yeah, exactly.
Amira: Well, I really appreciate the time and the effort that you’re putting in, and I so appreciate you taking up this space and creating and cultivating that space for others, and really charging the running community like so many other communities to figure that shit out, you know? I think of the words that Aja wrote about you, the last stanza of this poem, “I move,
I am a movement, focused and fierce, I smile. I laugh, I lift and carry sistersI am most free running for freedom.” And that at the end of the day I feel like is it. We’re trying to break free.
Alison: Yes.
Amira: We’re trying to be in a space where you can go running, you can take Kouri out for a run and not do such a complex math.
Alison: Exactly, exactly. 10pm, in a sports bra…
Amira: Right.
Alison: We will have made some progress.
Amira: Exactly. And so I’ve said this before, and I think of Sweet Honey in the Rock a lot, and Ella Baker, and “We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest,” and lucky you’re an endurance athlete, because the road is long. I thank you so much for the race you’re running and for those who you’re bringing along and elevating with you, and of course for taking your time and doing this work and sharing it with Burn It All Down.
Alison: And I wanna thank you for your platform because I often look to you all for what is relevant, what’s important, what should I be tuned into, and yeah, it takes all of us. So thank you very much.
Lindsay: Alright, so a couple of weeks ago we got some new news in the US women’s national team’s lawsuit against US Soccer. We wanted to give you all a quick update, a quick rundown of what’s going on there. Amira?
Amira: [laughs] A couple of weeks ago. It was last week. But what is time anymore!
Lindsay: Well, by the time this comes out it’ll be a couple of weeks ago, okay! [laughs]
Amira: Yes, so…It was not the update that many of us were hoping for. Where we are now: the judge in the US women’s soccer equal pay lawsuit has rejected part of the US women’s national team’s claims, just a part of them, but they are a significant part. Namely, they sided with the Federation, and said that the Federation has proved that the women were “equitably compensated.” In fact, they agreed with the Federation that women had actually earned more than the men’s team over the past few years that were included in the lawsuit. This decision will be appealed most certainly, it’s certainly not the end of the road. In fact there’s other parts of the case that are still going forward, namely around travel and accommodation, as well as team staffing. That trial is still set to begin on June 16th.
But what we have here is certainly a blow to the case, finding with the US Federation. Let’s be clear, this was always a case about data. This was a case where both sides employ their own experts to interpret that. We know the saying goes, “lies, damn lies, and statistics.” It’s really a court case where both sides are trying to make the numbers work in their favor. So one of the things that the women are certainly gonna take up on appeal is the way that the data was interpreted by both the Federation and the judge moving forward. Now, there used to be some hope that this proceeding to the 9th circuit, which is one of the more liberal circuits in the country, particularly when we’re looking at labor and civil rights issues, there was a chance of overturning it. However that, like many other places, has secretly been padded with a lot of conservative judges under the Trump administration, and so I don’t think that thinking about this being overturned on appeal is really something to bet on. What we have here, what we’re left with, is a part of the case certainly moving forward but legally equal pay in terms of actual pay that they receive from the federation is really being dealt a massive blow that leaves it a bit scrambling, even though everybody’s on record saying we’re fighters, we’re gonna keep going, we’re gonna appeal this. And so that’s really where we are. Jess, Linz, what are your thoughts on this where it stands at this point?
Jessica: Yeah, I think the chances were always high that the legal route was gonna let us down, like, the law tends to function very narrowly. So this suit in particular only covered a few specific years when what the women are really going after are historical and systemic issues, and the law is often not great at dealing with those things. I did wanna say, I mean, I felt demoralized when the summary judgement came out a week, two weeks ago, whatever we’re saying about that. But these women have not only won in the court of public opinion, I mean, US Soccer dug itself a massive hole when it comes to their reputation in order to win this thing legally, and I don’t think we should discount how important that’s gonna be moving forward. I mean, shoot, the president lost his job over this and was replaced, so I do hope that that part of it will help in the long run. Man, what a bummer though.
Lindsay: Yeah. One thing that is really frustrating about all of this is the fact that the men being bad, so bad, has ended up hurting the women. Essentially, in the summary judgement the judge, Gary Klausner, accepted the US’s argument, like we said, that the US women’s national team had been paid more than their male counterparts, not less. But the thing is, the only reason that was true within this time period is because the US men’s national team failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. If the men had qualified, even if they had done poorly there, even if they had just qualified, they likely would’ve won a lot more money than the women, and therefore that argument would’ve been completely moot. So if that’s just not a metaphor for fucking everything, I don’t know what is.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote from Molly Levinson who’s a spokesperson for the players, she sent this out this week, “Equal pay means paying women players the same rate for winning a game as men get paid. The argument that women are paid enough if they make close to the same amount as men while winning more than twice as often is not equal pay. The argument that maternity leave is some sort of substitute for paying women players the same rate for winning as men is not valid, nor fair, nor equal. The argument that women gave up a right to equal pay by accepting the best collective bargaining agreement possible in response to the federation’s refusal to put equal pay on the table is not a legitimate reason for continuing to discriminate against them.” So that gives you an idea of the mindset going forward, and to me when you boil the argument down to that you’re gonna get a lot of wins in the court of public opinion. Amira?
Amira: Yeah, certainly. I just really want to highlight, emphasize, underscore the point Jess made about the limits of the courts. Really that’s to me what this comes down to, is that the courts offer certain recourses, but when we think about labor disputes in this country and worker’s rights – and don’t get it twisted, this is what that is. The courts really haven’t been what pushes change. Workers’ rights have come from the streets, not the courts. There’s a long history of that in this country, from 1881 where Black women, washer women, went on strike in Atlanta, to 1909, an uprising of 20,000 textile shirtwaist women workers, the Pullman porters of the 20s, the postal workers in the 70s, the Fight For 15 happening right now. Women in other federations around the world who are taking action outside of legal parameters, whether it’s striking or protesting on the field, whatever it may be, these are the things that really have traditionally moved the labor needle, those are the things that are building blocks. I think that while it’s easy to be discouraged, those are the things to seize upon for mobilization moving forward, and the fight is certainly, certainly not over.
Lindsay: Alright. It is time for the most cathartic portion of our show: the burn pile. Amira, can you get us started?
Amira: Oh sure. I wanna talk about Mississippi. It’s where my parents are from, yeah – Natchez, Mississippi. Anyways, back in February I’m not sure if this was on anybody’s radar, but back in February there was an announcement of a massive welfare embezzlement fraudulent scheme that happened in Mississippi and this resulted in multiple arrests, and it basically accused 6 people of working together to embezzle millions of dollars from public money, from TNAF – Temporary Assistance for Needy Families – and they used the Mississippi Department of Human Services along with a non-profit called the Mississippi Community Education Center. I want to highlight a few of the things that I want to burn within this ridiculousness. The first and foremost: they’re taking this money from the state that is earmarked for the poorest of poor families in Mississippi and, of the 6 that are accused of this scheme, it includes the family that’s really well-known in professional wrestling: Hall of Fame wrestler Ted Dibiase, his son is implicated in this. So for instance, some of the money that was supposed to go towards drug education actually went to go to his cushy rehab stay in California.
Other things that happened was a massive amount of this money was given to Mississippi universities for athletic facilities, there was millions of dollars awarded to the University of Southern Mississippi – nobody really knows what was happening there, but they built a volleyball center that was used exactly once for any kind of community enrichment. In addition, they tracked that a lot of this money went to paying for football games or basketball games. It was funneled to multiple schools that also included paying salaries of academic counsellors for student athletes basically only, and while they’re doing all of that none of it’s going actually to the families who need it the most. The most egregious thing about this came out this week, where it was reported that Favre – yes, that quarterback – got $1.1 million for speaking engagements that he never attended. Again, $1.1 million from the Mississippi Department of Human Services for speaking engagements that he never attended. Now, he has since contested that and he says, well, I did ads for them for 3 years for them and I was paid for it, it’s endorsements like anything else I’ve done so I don't appreciate the auditor says that I just took a million dollars and didn't show up for things because I did do the ads.
I don’t really care if he did it or not. the fact that he received a million dollars from the state of Mississippi for the block grant that was supposed to go for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families is disgusting. And let me tell you why I’m particularly enraged about this, let me tell you about Mississippi, if you don’t know. Mississippi is one of the poorest states in our country, it ranks 48th for poverty across the board. Almost half of Mississippi’s Black children live in poverty. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program in Mississippi has been gutted compared to national averages. A report a few years ago demonstrated that in Mississippi, families receiving benefits from SNAP benefits received roughly $170 a month vs $432 which is the national average. What's almost worse is that about 23% of people nationally are receiving SNAP benefits; only 8% of Mississippi families in poverty are accessing this. Why? Because Mississippi continuously raises the bar for what qualifies you for these benefits. Currently the benefits are reserved for people who are making a monthly income of $680. $680.
So as gutted as this program is, you still have a large amount of Mississippians depending on these benefits. We’re talking about people who make less than $680/month. I’ve been there. I’ve been there where food stamps are they only thing standing between you and food for your kids, and this is the money you’re appropriating for a fucking volleyball wellness center or a cushy rehab stay? This is what you’re appropriating, to give a million dollars to Brett Favre, whether he made ads or not? People are out here struggling to eat and you're giving this motherfucker a million dollars to do an ad at a sporting event!? For fucking what! People are starving. This is disgusting. I’m so frustrated with everybody involved. I just want to burn it all down.
All: Burn.
Lindsay: Jess?
Jessica: Yeah. Favre went to Southern Miss too. I’m not saying there’s anything there, but…That’s interesting.
Amira: There probably is.
Jessica: Mm-hmm. Okay. So, this week Dan Bernstein at Sporting News reported that the University of Texas regents in a closed door vote on Wednesday gave three UT football coaches raises that totaled together $268,000. Each of these coaches will now make over half a million dollars annually. Honestly, that’s ridiculous all by itself. The bloat in college coaching salaries and men's football is just out of control. But it’s even worse in the larger context. Last month a local paper reported that, “there no longer will be a centrally funded pool for recurring merit raises for staff and faculty who have spent the last month scrambling to move more than 9,000 classes online.” The school justified no raises by saying it was necessary to not have to do layoffs. Also according to the local paper, “UT also is reviewing large expenditures and said only those that are essential to the core functions of the university will be approved.” That was about three weeks ago, and now these fucking assistant football coaches are getting substantial raises.
As I said before, each of these men coaching on a team that went 8 and 5 last season and lost to Iowa State will make over $500,000 per year at a university where the median salary is $60,000. While some schools have football and basketball coaches and athletic directors taking pay cuts, UT has gone the other direction. At a time when we don’t know when football will get back on the field and during which professors and other staff are working their asses off to keep the university going, actual essential staff, more money is going into the pockets of fucking football coaches! I’m so mad about this because I am a student at the University of Texas! I pay tuition there! It is my money that those regents are using to line these men’s pockets. It makes me so angry I don't even know where to put the emotion, I just want to burn all of that with all of the oil you can find in this state. So, burn.
All: Burn.
Lindsay: I wanna burn Brendan Leipsic, formerly of the Washington Capitals, an NHL player whose Instagram direct messages were leaked this week from a private Instagram chat he was having, and the comments in this Instagram chat were so vile, so misogynistic, so hateful that honestly it was stunning. He is in this chat with friends really talking aggressively about sex lives and what they’re gonna do to women, aggressively treating women as conquests, specifically calling about the weight of one of the wives of his teammate’s who recently gave birth, and talking about what this did to how they viewed her and…Really not gonna go into detail about the exact rhetoric, it’s just that appalling. There were at least a dozen screenshots tweeted. They include him insulting his teammates, insulting former teammates, and they just go on and on. A few things about this were disturbing. Number one, the comments themselves obviously, just the fact that this seems the way the worst trolls on the internet are speaking about women, and I guess there’s nothing saying that the worst trolls can’t also be NHL stars. We like to think of trolls as these nameless faceless unsuccessful not-powerful goons but that’s not the truth.
Another thing was the reaction, to first, well, there was a backlash over “well, what would happen if YOUR Instagram messages were shown?” or “this is just guy talk.” You know, it just underscores a great double standard. I felt someone on Twitter really put this well, which is how when you talk about how sexist and evil men can be at times, especially in sports, there's this great “NOT ALL MEN” chant, you know what I mean? That’s not really true. When something like this leaks, they say, “well, that’s just how men talk!” [laughs] You can’t have it both ways. This is inexcusable for any person to be talking about, let alone a grown adult. He was fired by the Washington Capitals, and that is the exact right move. You can’t bring him back into the locker room after this, you just simply can’t. Being an athlete does not give you the privilege to say stuff like this, even in private. Honestly, if we could weed out all the bad people by having their DMs released, I’m all for it! Let’s just do it, let’s do a cleanse. So I would like to put Brendan Leipsic on the burn pile, I’d like to put these comments on the burn pile, and I’d like to put anyone making any sort of excuse for these types of comments onto the burn pile. Burn.
All: Burn.
Lindsay: Alright, after that burning it’s time to lift up some badasses of the week. Let’s talk about Brenda Bowskill, a Canadian sailor and 2016 Olympian working on the front lines of healthcare as an ER nurse in Oshawa, Ontario.
Nizingha Prescord, a two-time Olympian and 2018 Senior World Team Champion, who was motivated to start this initiative after a recent racist incident to ensure that Black fencers had safe spaces and support in US Fencing.
Alysia Montaño and co-founder Molly Dickens announced the launch of &Mother on Wednesday, a non-profit helping mothers thrive at home and at work.
This week the University of Minnesota announced today that Piper Ritter was the head softball coach at the University of Minnesota. She’s been the assistant coach there since 2008 and has been a mainstay – she was a Minnesota softball player and a top pitcher from 2001-2004. We loving seeing female athletes getting head coaching positions.
We wanna give our congratulations to Alex Morgan, eternal flamethrower, who had an early Mother’s Day present when on May 7th she gave birth to Charlie Elena Carrasco – she calls her her super moon baby. On Instagram she’s shared beautiful pictures. Congratulations Alex, and of course all mothers.
Can I get a drumroll please?
[drumroll]
Our badass of the week is Formiga, who is still around! After finishing the Olympics last year there were thoughts that she might retire. Instead, she has re-signed with PSG 25 years into her professional soccer career! LEGEND.
Alright friends, what is good? I will…I can’t start. Jess! [laughter]
Jessica: Okay. So I’m gonna say Normal People, which is the show on Hulu, it’s been adapted from Sally Rooney’s book. Aaron and I sped-watched it, we watched it over 3 nights which for us is pretty good. It’s not uplifting, it’s not necessarily gonna make you feel good, but it will make you feel. I had never read the book so I actually went and spoiled it for myself to find out the ending before I started it, so I knew what emotion I was building towards. I will say, if the leads hadn’t been cast so perfectly it could’ve been total garbage, but the two leads are phenomenal. They make the whole thing. So I enjoyed that even though it’s not uplifting necessarily. The other thing is that my family is super into, well, I am super into…I’ve frozen a bunch of cookie dough, I scoop it out as individual cookies and then I freeze all of it. So tonight I popped some of that into the oven and we have warm cookies for dessert, it’s my quarantine thing. But the thing I specifically wanna mention is World Peace Cookies which I’d never heard of before. Someone on Twitter, I should’ve looked up who it was, very nicely sent me this recipe, the one by Smitten Kitchen, if you wanna make them. They’re chocolate on chocolate on chocolate, and they’re so good warm, I just adore them. They’re World Peace Cookies and I they’re definitely what's good in my world right now.
Lindsay: I would like some, please! Incredible. Not much of a baker here, but now I want to just be one of Jess’s children, that would be good. [laughs] Yeah, I would say this week was a little bit better than the week before which was a little bit better than the week before that, and you know, mental health-wise, life-wise, that’s going in the right direction. I’m gonna take it right now. I’m just gonna take it. What’s good is my dog, lots and lots of snuggles lately. Just so appreciative to have Mo, especially during this time. So appreciative to my co-hosts. Like we said, 3 years is just remarkable and to think about how much I’ve grown and learned in this 3 years just gives me chills. And to think of all of our supporters on Patreon and all of you who listen to us every single week, there’s no greater joy in my life than when someone tells me, “I listen to Burn It All Down.”
Jessica: Yes, yes.
Lindsay: There's just really not. I can’t wait until I can get back to hugging people who tell me this! [laughs] And I won’t if you don’t want me to. Consensual hugs only. But I really love love hearing that. Amira?
Amira: Yeah, so despite their terrible ads I got a Peloton and–
Lindsay: Yes!
Amira: –it’s my favorite thing in the world, I have to say. I’m in a Black Peloton community, a Black Girl Magic group, an academic moms group, I’m having so much fun. I’m working out twice a day, and I really like the instructors. I’ve cried during workouts because I’ve been so inspired, and then I was so…I’ve never seen fitness instructors own their Blackness or identity in this way, or know that their brand has so many people who have different politics and just not worry about walking on eggshells. So the Black instructors this week were very vocal about the killing of Ahmaud Arbery and there was many groups who coordinated group workouts on Peloton doing that 2.23 miles for his 26th birthday and I think one of the most stirring moments was this one Peloton instructor, Alex, in the middle of his ride talked about how he was sick of seeing people who look like him who talk like him who walk like him being killed, and he couldn’t imagine if his mom didn’t have him here this weekend for Mother’s Day. He led everybody through the end of the workout doing all-out intervals of 26 seconds for Ahmaud’s 26th birthday. It was just…I’ve never seen anything like that in this kind of setting. That was really impactful.
I wanna come back t that, but I did want to note that this would’ve been Penn State’s graduation weekend and I have wonderful honors thesis students – shoutout Erin and Lily who successfully defended their thesis. I wanted to shout out the students that I’ve been able to work with for four years, this is the graduating class that I’ve had for the first time, the last four years that I've been at Penn State, so there’s a lot of them who are graduating who are very dear to me while I’ve been here and are the best part of my job in many ways. I also wanted to give a shoutout to soon-to-be-Dr. Sam White. She has her dissertation defense at the end of this week. I’m very excited and I’m so sorry we’re not being able to do it in person, but I just wanted to give her an early shoutout for that.
And I wanted to circle back to Ahmaud, and it’s a simple burn, right? Stop killing us. Just stop killing us. I’m yet again so tired in this place. It’s exhausting. They say that to be Black in America is to be in a state of constant rage, and it’s also just to be in a state of exhaustion. I’m just sick of seeing the spectacle of Black death. This one was really hard. This happened a few months ago. One of the things that we saw of the case was that again we need video, people need to see the spectacle in order to move the needle. But I wanted to close the show thinking about that, and thinking about all the mothers, particularly Black mothers, from Sybrina Fulton, from the moms of Trayvon Martin, of Tamir Rice, of Akai Gurley, of Eric Garner, of Rekia Boyd, the mothers of the Black trans women who are being killed at absolutely alarming rates, Paris Cameron, Ashanti Carmon, Kiki Fantroy, all of you, all of you. And now Ahmaud Arbery. I’m holding you, I’m holding space for you, thinking about you. I wanna close out by taking the words of Ella Baker, that are sung so beautifully by Sweet Honey in the Rock, that is a song that I always play in these moments, that I’ve played far too often over the last few years. But it reminds me to keep going.
We cannot rest, flamethrowers. Press on. Keep going, and we’ll see you next week.