Episode 33: Sexual harassment in sports media, and the Washington Redhawks; Ana Marie Cox co-hosts

On this week’s episode, Brenda Elsey and Lindsay Gibbs are joined by special guest co-host Ana Marie Cox (host of the Crooked Media podcast, “With Friends Like These”) to discuss the horrific sexual harassment allegations against employees at ESPN and the NFL Network. Then they talk about their personal connection to sports, and how they hold onto their love for these games despite all of the problems.

Lindsay follows that up by interviewing Rebecca Nagle, citizen of Cherokee Nation and one of the creators of the Washington RedHawks campaign that went viral last week.

As always, you’ll hear the Burn Pile, Bad Ass Woman of the Week, and what’s good in our worlds.

Intro (4:59) #MeToo in sports media (21:26) Our personal connection to sports (37:22) Interview with Rebecca Nagle about the Washington Redhawks (50:23) Burn Pile (55:45) BAWOTW (58:02) What’s good in our world (1:00:24) Outro

For links and a transcript of the episode…

Links

“Ottawa Senators hockey announcers discuss Grindr for some reason” https://www.outsports.com/2017/12/18/16789550/ottawa-senators-radio-grindr-gay

“At ESPN, the problems for women run deep” https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2017/12/14/women-who-worked-espn-say-its-problems-far-beyond-barstool-sports/L1v9HJIvtnHuBPiMru6yGM/story.html

“NFL Network Suspends Marshall Faulk, Ike Taylor, Heath Evans After Sexual Harassment Lawsuit [UPDATE]” https://deadspin.com/nfl-network-suspends-marshall-faulk-ike-taylor-heath-1821206708

“Reporter Says NFL Network Job Interviewer Asked If She “Planned On Getting Knocked Up”” https://deadspin.com/reporter-says-nfl-network-job-interviewer-asked-if-she-1821257447

“Warren Sapp Defends Himself Against Sexual Harassment Allegations By Posting Photo Of Vibrator” https://deadspin.com/warren-sapp-defends-himself-against-sexual-harassment-a-1821268086

“Panthers owner Jerry Richardson under investigation for alleged workplace misconduct” http://www.espn.com/espnw/sports/article/21779125/carolina-panthers-owner-jerry-richardson-investigation-workplace-misconduct

“This Moment Isn’t (Just) About Sex. It’s Really About Work.” https://www.thecut.com/2017/12/rebecca-traister-this-moment-isnt-just-about-sex.html

Messi highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X7ItXKFOlA&t=166s

“Dipshit Saints Fan Sues Team Over Anthem Protests” https://deadspin.com/dipshit-saints-fan-sues-team-over-anthem-protests-1821252964

“Today in the system, an 11 year old committed to UNC.” https://twitter.com/DiCiccoMethod/status/942087766002753536

“Charles Barkley on Doug Jones’ senate victory in Alabama: ‘This is a wake-up call'” http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/12/alabama-senate-election-doug-jones-charles-barkley-message-president-donald-trump-cnn-jake-tapper-video

“Jesse Shofner, the first woman to play pro ultimate frisbee, now hopes to be a voice for change” http://www.espn.com/espnw/life-style/article/21770188/jesse-shofner-first-woman-play-pro-ultimate-frisbee-now-hopes-voice-change

“Lynbrook’s Ally Fitzgerald first LI girl to win wrestling tournament” https://www.newsday.com/sports/high-school/wrestling/lynbrook-ally-fitzgerald-wrestling-1.15485702

“Maame Biney becomes first black woman to qualify for U.S. Olympic speedskating team” http://www.espn.com/espnw/sports/article/21786666/maame-biney-becomes-first-black-woman-qualify-us-olympic-speedskating-team

Transcript

Lindsay: Hey friends, it’s Lindsay here. I just want to take a second before this episode begins and thank you all on behalf of the entire Burn It All Down team for your support this week as we launch our Patreon campaign. As Jess, Shireen, Brendan, and Amira can vouch for, I was incredibly anxious about launching this campaign and asking for your help. But the fact that we are already two-thirds the way to our first goal in less than a week is beyond remarkable.

For those of you who don’t know, Patreon is a platform that allows you, our listeners, to donate a small amount of money each month so that we can keep the podcast going. For as low as $2 a month, you can become an official flame-throwing patron of Burn It All Down, which will give you access to a special Patreon-only segment of the podcast. This week, we released one for our patron focused solely on the NFL’s mistaken priorities and punishments. Later this week, we’re going to be unveiling a newsletter curated by the Burn It All Down team that will be just for those who contribute $5 or more a month. Really exciting things are in the works. Still, we have a long way to go and every little bit helps get us closer to where we want to be. Remember, when you support Burn It All down, you’re quite literally helping to change the face and the voice of sports media. All right. That’s enough of this. On to today’s show.

[Intro song]

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Burn It All down. It might not be the feminist sports podcast that you want, but it’s the one that you need. I’m Lindsay Gibbs, sports reporter, Think Progress, and I’m thrilled to be your pilot for today’s flight. On today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about the horrific revelations this week about sexual harassment in the NFL network and ESPN. We’re also going to be sharing our personal journeys with sports fandom. I will be interviewing Rebecca Nagle, a citizen of Cherokee nation and one of the organizers of this week’s viral Washington Redhawks campaign, aiming to get that Washington NFL team to change its name.

Unfortunately, Amira, Jess and Shireen are all off this week, but joining me for this episode is Brenda Elsey, Associate Professor of History at Hofstra University and we have a special guest, the host of one of my favorite podcast, With Friends Like These, from the Crooked Media network. We have political columnist and culture critic, Ana Marie Cox. In the past few years, Ana has become a big sports fan and she actually has an article coming out this week in Sports Illustrated talking about that journey, which I cannot wait to read.

Ana, thank you so much for joining us.

Ana: It is good to be here. I’m still on my first cup of coffee. That is my excuse.

Lindsay: Yeah, we always tell people, “Look, we’re recording this Sunday morning, so go easy on us. Go easy on us.”

Okay, guys, first I want to shout out one of my favorite things in the sporting world this week, which was … I don’t know, if you saw this post last night, but it was hockey announcers casually discussing Grindr at the end of a segment about … So, it was the Ottawa Senators. They are at this game against, this outdoor game actually. At the end of it, they were just kind of shouting out ways to follow them on social media and this guy randomly was like, “Well, why don’t you try all these other social media apps? Tinder and Grindr.” He just had no clue, and then, they just went on this long aside about, “What even is Grindr? We don’t know.” It was just so innocent but ridiculous and so … I don’t know. I just loved it.

Ana: I know we’re get into what we love about sports later, but I will add that one of the things that endeared me to sports when I was kind of becoming a fan, which was not too long ago, was the interstitial chatter of announcers. Especially, the Cubs announcers. The hometown Cubs announcers. I can’t now remember their names, but they talk about hot sauce a lot.

Lindsay: Because of course. Why not? I love hot sauce.

Ana: Well, sure. Also, because baseball is an incredibly boring game. Still, to me, sorry, but you have time to chat. That’s what’s good about it.

Brenda: So much lag time. So much lag time.

Ana: I think that takes a lot of skill. I’m not sure if I could do it, just to come up with something not too [crosstalk 00:04:38].

Lindsay: There’s only so much you can prep for those times when your mind just starts to wander and whatever is on the tip of … It’s very revealing. All right. Well, we will try not to let our minds wander too much today. Although, if you’ve listened to this show before you know that’s probably you’re going to get some asides.

Okay. So, a few weeks ago, we were on this very podcast talking about how this #metoo movement of this reckoning with sexual harassment and sexual assault hadn’t really come to the sports world. We’d seen in politics, we’d seen in of course in Hollywood. But we hadn’t yet seen it in the sports world and I think we all knew that it was coming. And this week, here it goes. We had stories in the Boston Globe and we also had another story on Bloomberg. The Boston Globe story focused on harassment at ESPN. And over at Bloomberg, it was about harassment at the NFL network. Brenda, take us through what we learned this week about our lovely sports media world.

Brenda: Yeah. So, these sexual harassment cases that surfaced, they really need to jumpstart a conversation about women’s working lives in sports. So, as you mentioned, Linds, one important case is Adrienne Lawrence. We should say she’s a former guest and friend of the show who filed a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint. And she filed it this summer against ESPN in the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. And off stage, we’ve seen an important case by wardrobe stylist, Jamie Cantor, against the NFL network. Her allegation shows she received relentless sexually explicit texts, unsolicited nude photos, and was requested to touch the producer’s penis while she was trying to work. While she was trying to work.

Lindsay: That’s Jodi Cantor, right?

Brenda: I just want to … Yeah. That’s Jamie Cantor.

Lindsay: That’s Jamie. Sorry. I keep trying to say Jodi. I keep doing that.

Brenda: No, it’s Jamie Cantor. It’s one thing when you just read this, and then you’re like, “This person is at her job.”

Ana: God.

Brenda: I mean, this is such … Anyway. We should expect to continue to see this deluge. There is no way to diminish sexual harassment that some men have suffered. But I’m not lying when I say there’s not one woman I know who’s not experienced sexual harassment. Not one. Whether it’s education, and in schools, in universities that they’ve been to, in jobs, as customers, et cetera.

So, just a little background on sexual harassment, and maybe this is too basic for some people, but I like to just remind people that it’s regulated by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Very generally, sexual harassment describes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors or other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. And women haven’t been suing their employers very long. It’s actually not … It was in the late 1970s that these cases … ’77 that the first cases were filed. And we need to recognize, I think, the leading role of Black women in that process whose harassment was compounded by racist violence directed toward them. In fact, the Supreme Court didn’t even enter into this until 1986 and they supported a woman named Michelle Vincent, who was African-American and whose boss threatened her job in exchange for sex up to 50 times. So, working class women who have no recourse, who just need that job, African-American women who face racism in addition, I mean, all of this needs to be part of the conversation. And their work is so important.

I’m sure you remember Anita Hill’s sexual harassment case against Clarence Thomas. And, you know, after that case, even though she failed, the number of sexual harassment complaints nationwide doubled.

Lindsay: Wow.

Brenda: So, it’s so important. Linds, what do you think?

Lindsay: Yeah. I just want to … So, Adrienne, we’re talking about the role that Black women have played spearheading this. And Adrienne Lawrence, it’s important to know, was actually at ESPN on a diversity fellowship. She was a high-powered lawyer and then was brought in as part of their diversity program to try and bring in more diverse voices to the mix.

In her complaint, she talks about how she was getting really great performance reviews and everything seemed to be leading to the fact that she was, after this two-year fellowship, she was going to get a permanent position at ESPN. She had completely upended her life from Los Angeles to Bristol, which we’ll get into that a little bit more, but part of this ESPN thing is that they’re in Bristol, Connecticut, which is in the middle of nowhere and it really creates this private, guarded community that it really cultivates the horrible atmosphere even more.

But I just keep thinking that she was there on a diversity fellowship and all of a sudden, she has the most powerful anchors, one of them, at ESPN texting her #longlegs and #dreamgirl and all of these things. And that the whole excuse that he gets away with it, and this is John Buccigross that we’re talking about, that he gets away with it because he’s saying, “I was just mentoring her.” When is that part of a mentoring relationship?

Ana: I think it’s really important to note that she was a diversity hire and also the history that Black women have played in this. In part, because I think that helps draw attention to the fact that harassment is a discrimination issue. It is not just about sexual predation. That’s a part of it, but that sexual predation is hinged on the fact of making you feel less than. Exactly what you said.

Rebecca Traister did a really great piece about this last week. I think that a lot of us probably read it. But it was about remembering that, not to get too wrapped up in the salaciousness of this, in the gross, sexual nature of it, and try to remember that this is about keeping women from economically advancing. This is about making women unequal. It’s not just about the horrible, gross dick pics, which I’m sure you guys have already just gone, “I will never understand. I will never …”

Lindsay: When has that ever worked out? Like, “This girl isn’t paying any attention to me. Oh, I know what will help.”

Ana: They’re ugly. They’re ugly.

Lindsay: They’re not good looking.

Ana: You know what? And also, just random people’s dicks. It’s one thing, I guess, if maybe you already love the guy, but if it’s just [crosstalk 00:11:02]-

Lindsay: Even then, you want to have that conversation before you send …

Ana: Exactly. Exactly.

Brenda: You need good filters. You need real good filters.

Ana: Yeah. Oh boy.

Brenda: inaudible 00:11:13]. I’m tagging you [inaudible 00:11:14].

Ana: It needs a perspective shifting. You need some forced perspective. That really helps. Anyway, this is all really gross. I was glad to see that the gentleman who is now at The Ringer who’s been put on leave.

Lindsay: Yes. Yeah, because he was one of the people in the NFL Network who literally …

Ana: That’s right.

Lindsay: What was it? That he would send her just these horrific texts and tell her she made him horny while she was just walking down the hallway. He would send her a text. Like, she’s just walking down the hallway doing her job. Ugh.

Ana: And also, it should be noted that ESPN tried to spin this as consensual relationships by releasing only partial transcripts of the texts.

Lindsay: Yeah. So, let’s go back to that for a second. So, ESPN …

Ana: This was  with Jamie Cantor.

Lindsay: Oh, this is for Adrienne Lawrence. So …

Ana: Oh, right, right, right. Sorry, sorry.

Lindsay: The ESPN was with Adrienne Lawrence, so they essentially … She had accused John Buccigross. I’m always really bad at his name. I’m not going to stress over that for right now. I usually stress over name pronunciations, but like I said, he had sent her all these texts with a #longlegs. He had sent her #shortlistpicks. All of these things. And ESPN just defiantly saying she’s making all of this up and released on their PR website, which is just bizarre, a very selectively edited portion of these text messages to try and just say, “This was just a casual flirty thing between them and there’s nothing bad about this. And she was being nice too. And that this was just a professional mentor relationship.”

But if you go to the Boston Globe who then said, “Wait, wait, wait. We’re just going to just release the whole text conversation because we have it.” I try and just read through that, and every time think, she’s there on a fellowship. She is a Black woman in sports media, so already someone who is at a disadvantage and already put in these horrible boxes. And she’s getting these inappropriate text messages from one of those powerful people in the company. How is that mentorship?

Ana: Well, actually, it does perhaps unfortunately bear a lot of … What I was going to say, so unfortunately it probably actually has a lot of bearing on one’s future in sports, for what it’s worth. I mean, putting up sexual harassment. You could almost say, “No, we’re just preparing you for the future by harassing you so terribly like this.”

Brenda: Right.

Ana: Not that that makes it okay.

Lindsay: Well, women are told, right? Women in sports are told, and in other parts of the media as well, that your looks are so important to your success. So, you have to be ready to have your looks be commented on because that just goes with the territory. Part of the reason you’re there, sure, maybe you’re an okay reporter. But part of the reason they want you to think you’re there … This is them saying, not me. The patriarchy is saying this. Is because you’re hot, because you’re good to look at. And that’s part of your achievement to get you this job. And that, oh, so disgusting. Bren?

Brenda: Yeah. I just think that we should also not forget, in terms of talking about ESPN, Jemele Hill and ESPN trying to take credit for diversifying sports media and doing absolutely nothing to support the people of color and the women who are drawing in that new audience and who are providing fresh talent. And I just think it’s utter bullshit that they want to market themselves that way, and then, they come out with Adrienne Lawrence.

And their note was nasty. That PR note was nasty. It was disrespectful. Even if they think she doesn’t have a case, which by the way, it’s not a super good idea, look at Eni Aluko, to take on women in sports who are lawyers, okay? So, you know what? Thanks to those women for fighting the good fight and we need to give them all the support. But it does relate to Jemele Hill in a way because it is a culture that’s perfectly willing to suck the talent out of these people and provide them with zero support. So, I think we need to just keep that in mind as well.

Lindsay: Absolutely. And there’s also this other aspect to this, which is the Boston Globe reported that the environment at ESPN can be so hostile and plum positions for female sports journalists so precarious, that the women hid pregnancies and felt pressure to take short maternity leaves in order to protect their positions. One anchor even did her schedule broadcast while she was having a miscarriage to prove her commitment to the job. Ana? [crosstalk 00:15:51] on that.

Ana: God. It literally gives me chills. I just can’t even imagine what the emotional impact of having to do that must be. The other thing is that there’s this horrible irony, which is that they’re hired to look like sex receptacles, but they’re not allowed to be pregnant. “We want you to look like someone we want to have sex with, but you’re not allowed to do the thing that sex leads to.” Which is just this fantasy land that sports is actually hinges on for a lot of men. That there is nothing but play time. There’s play time and all play and no responsibility.

Of course, one of the reasons I think I can generally say maybe that we love sports, actually what I appreciate sports is it’s not all play. It’s not a fantasy. It’s not something that I hide my every day responsibilities when I enjoy sports. I mean, there’s some escapism involved, but it’s not the thing that ESPN is selling. ESPN is selling all play no responsibilities.

And then, I also just wanted to point out something that I only literally now just noticed, but it’s also horribly funny, which is that the headline on the Boston Globe story about all of this, or at least the URL, and I think the subhead says something like, “It’s not just Barstool Sports.” Which is to say like, oh no. But it’s funny like, “You thought Barstool Sports was bad. Wait till I tell you about the women that’s having a miscarriage.”

Lindsay: [crosstalk 00:17:14] the framing of this was though I felt … And we’ve talked about this before when all this Barstool stuff was going down with ESPN, was how when Jenn Sterger who is also included in this piece because she came out and talked about sexual harassment from Matthew Berry who is another high profile talent at ESPN. So, when all this stuff about sexism at Barstool is talked about, she talked about her experience at ESPN. And everyone at Barstool spun that as, “See, we’re not so bad.” And I was kind of frustrated that the Boston Globe bought into that framing a little bit. And I just don’t think this needs to be a competition. Guess what? There’s room for all of you guys in the trashcan. All of it. So, that was frustrating.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this Warren Sapp in here, who was at the NFL Network. He was one of the people who was named in Jami Cantor’s suit. I got it right that time. And he’s actually not at the NFL Network anymore because he was let go because he solicited a prostitute during the 2015 Super Bowl, which he was working for the NFL network. In addition to inappropriate text messages and comments and everything, he would give women vibrators and dildos and sex toys as Christmas presents. And his excuse on social media, he came forward with this, by posting these photos of these vibrators that look like lipsticks and being like, “Aren’t these cute? These don’t make you think of sex. I gave them to these women because I thought they were a cute present.” I don’t know what to do with that.

Brenda: And the insane thing … Well, what do you with it, I think, is say, “Look, this whole movement and this stuff about movies and Hollywood, they are not exceptional. This happens everywhere in less glamorous jobs, in less glamorous spaces where people don’t have a million Twitter followers to tell it to.”

Ana: Can you imagine actually the women that work in the sports world who aren’t on camera? What they must have to put up with. I mean, one of these women that we talked about was a wardrobe mistress, but the women that work in sports medicine, the women that work in cleaning in sports stadiums. I mean, any kind of service position is going to be an incredibly precarious job no matter what. And you probably have to put up with the harassment on a non stop level.

I’m hoping that one of the things the #metoo movement leads to is that we get more of a life-sized map of the world and the discussion. Right now, I feel like we’re mainly getting the shades that go immediately from black and dark gray to just jump to light gray. And we’re not filling in all the levels of gray in between. And also, we’re not filling in how constant it is.

Lindsay: Yes, yes, yeah. And it’s just in sports we’re … Just to take this because we are a sports podcast, so while we do want to always acknowledge here that this is much bigger than sports, I think it’s important to note that a lot of this comes in sports world of this last stand of these boys’ world. Whereas the excuses were often given for why you don’t see females in high positions of talent or because women aren’t interested in sports or because they are not as successful on the field athletes, so they’re not brought into the broadcasting booth because so many of our commentators and broadcasters are former star athletes on the male side as well.

What this really helps show that it’s the culture. It’s not that women aren’t interested in. This whole culture can be so unwelcoming and so demeaning, and you have to put up with so much bullshit, that that’s why you still don’t see as many women in there despite the fact that as we say in this show, 40% of sports athletes are women and I think it’s about 40-45% of sports fans are women. Anyways, it’s just ridiculous. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that Jerry Richardson, the owner of my team, the Carolina Panthers, is being investigated for sexual harassment as well. So, yeah.

Okay. So, we want to switch gears a little bit and talk a little bit about how sports actually helps us sometimes in how we’re able to still find inspiration and joy from the sporting world despite the fact that we are all too well aware on the show of the corruption behind the scenes, the discrimination and everything. Ana, I’m particularly interested in your story because I know you just recently, I think, became a big sports fan. Is that fair to say?

Ana: Yes. It is. Actually, right now I realized this. This is totally not planned, but I’m wearing my TCU sweatpants and a TCU t-shirt.

Lindsay: I love it. Perfect.

Ana: As I speak to you. So, yeah, TCU football is my team. Basketball is coming up because actually they’re starting to be really good. Although, that just makes it easier to be a fan obviously. One of the reasons one is a fan is because you stick with a team through thick and thin. And my story is a pretty … It actually revolves around personal investment, I guess, would be the way to put it.

So, I got sober about six years ago and one of the things that you discover when you stop drinking and using drugs is you have a lot of free time. All this time that I had spent, not just drinking and using, but hiding it and lying about it. And to some extent, literally, that was it, is that I had all this time on my hands. My dad is a huge sports fan and the guy that I started dating was also a big sports fan. And so, I just started to take it in with them. So, I actually started asking around psychologists and neuroscientists about this just because I had a hunch. It turns out it’s true that sports, even just watching sports, fulfills the same dopamine receptors as drugs.

Lindsay: Oh. Fascinating. I did not know that, but that makes perfect sense, yeah.

Ana: Yeah. The highs that you experience if you’re invested in a team is the same kind of pleasure loop system. And I think that I started getting invested in teams, I started experiencing the joy that you have when you’re invested and they do well. And actually, yes, TCU was my first sort of team. The year that I became a fan … I think this is actually kind of important, they didn’t have a great year. They went 7 and 5, but they had two games that went to multiple overtimes. And then, two other games that went right down to the wire. It was also the first year that Trevone Boykin played.

Lindsay: Oh, wow.

Ana: And he is such a magical player, which I kind of didn’t realize at the time that he was sort of already doing these fourth down scrambles and these incredible last minute bombs to the end zone. And that just was so exciting, right? To be transported by that and also, again, I think that particular year, to have it be that exciting but not dominant was just enthralling to me.

I did ask the psychologist … or actually, yeah, the psychologist I talked to about this, if it’s true, that as much as the same way with drugs, if you keep on getting your high dose a lot, do you develop a tolerance. And he said, yes. And I was like, “So, you’re telling me, Alabama fans don’t get the same high I do?”

Lindsay: It’s a very important …

Ana: And he said, “That is true. That is correct.” For what it’s worth.

Lindsay: Ha ha ha, Patriots fans.

Ana: Exactly. Exactly. And I have to say, I feel like I intuited this a long time ago. I always didn’t like teams more than I like teams, even when I wasn’t a fan. And I didn’t like the Lakers and I didn’t like the Yankees and I didn’t like the Patriots. But I think that maybe that has to do with that.

And then, there’s just the connections you make with other people. I can say for sure that I have made friends being a fan that I wouldn’t have made otherwise. People who come from different backgrounds and different points of view than me. And because we sometimes have this underlying connection, it makes it easier to listen to each other.

I will also say, I became friends with Joel Anderson. You guys know Joel?

Lindsay: Oh yeah. He’s great. Yeah.

Ana: Right. So, he went to TCU. And this is a small school, so actually, fans are especially clinging to each other once you find another TCU fan. So, Joel went to TCU. We became friends. We were friends through the emergence of Black Lives Matter and the emergence of a lot of revelations about police brutality. This sounds so corny. I hope you won’t mind me saying this, but having somebody I was talking to, who is Black, who is just a friend of mine, and this stuff would come up in conversation, and I was like, “Oh wow.” It was revelation to me that we could just talk about stuff. That as a White liberal, I didn’t have to avoid the topics that would make me uncomfortable. And it seems weird to relate back to sports, but I think that’s true for a lot of relationships that are grounded in fandom.

Lindsay: It’s a common language, right? That really helps open doors to other languages and other conversations and other avenues.

Ana: It’s true.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Ana: It’s true. I would say, again, as a good White liberal, I thought I was pretty sufficiently woke. But being able to look at news, even sports news too, through the lens of my friends is something that I don’t think I’d ever had been challenged to do. I’d never had the occasion to try to do that.

Brenda: Yeah.

Lindsay: Yeah. I love that story. And I think it’s so … I don’t hear many good things about college football these days. To hear some sort of … I like to hear the sentimental [crosstalk 00:27:17]. It’s important.

Ana: Yeah, the NCAA is evil.

Lindsay: Oh yeah. All the caveats, yeah.

Ana: All the caveats. Actually, so that same psychologist that I called for insight, when I told him I was a 45 year old woman who became a sports fan at 40 … I was a college football fan at 40 and I was looking to figure out why, he started laughing at me. Not unkindly, but he was like, “Oh great. You chose this? Why would you do this to yourself?”

Brenda: “[crosstalk 00:27:48] pick up now?”

Lindsay: “Don’t you know better?” Oh, that’s great.

Ana: And he’s like, “I’m not making fun of you. I’m a fan too.” Turns out he’s a UCLA fan. But he was like, “I’m a fan too, but man, wow.”

Lindsay: Yeah, totally. Brenda, I’m going to steer this question to you. I know, obviously for you, it’s football soccer that is your big love. Obviously, I think we can all agree that this is then for, I would say life reasons, et cetera reasons, and personal reasons, a tough year, a real shitter. Just real bad.

Brenda: Yeah.

Lindsay: Are you still able to find some sort of solace and comfort in sports during years like this?

Brenda: So, my thing is going to be about a person and not a team and you know who it is. It’s Lionel Messi. And when I’m depressed and sad, I watch highlights of a particular game and it’s important to understand two things for people who aren’t into soccer. One, there’s no comparison with any GOAT that I can think of because more people want to play soccer than any other sport. In everywhere in the world they do. So, to be the greatest of all time at soccer is a different thing, I’m sorry. I love LeBron James, I love all your GOAT conversations, but I’m going to kill them right here. They don’t exist. Like, US sports-

Lindsay: Serena Williams. Serena Williams. Sorry.

Brenda: No, no, I disagree. I will continue. As much as I love her, tennis is hard for billion people to play. And soccer just isn’t. So, this is my argument. You can hate me, but this is my thinking of it. And I just finished writing my book on the history of Latin-American women athletes, so it’s pretty weird that I pick a guy that still connects me and soothes me in some way. But it’s important that I never wanted to study sports. I hated them. I went down to do my dissertation on politics in Latin America, and it was so obvious. No one was doing this, no one was looking at the politics of this trillion dollar industry that moves the masses. So, I started to study it.

For me, watching Messi, especially in 2007-2008, he was the first person that made me realize the difference between being exceptional and being unbelievable. That it was just sort of … If you had to look at magazines all in black and white, and then, you had a page in color, you know? It could have been with a lot of players.

Lindsay: That’s [crosstalk 00:30:20].

Brenda: But it was with that player, where I was like, “Wow. I get it.” And I think it’s his hat trick against Real Madrid in the Classico of 2007. He’s not 10 yet. He’s number 19. If I think there’s no hope in things, I watch the highlights of those games, which are about 12 minutes. I can link them to the show because maybe someone else will share my views.

Lindsay: I want to see it, yeah.

Ana: I know, yeah.

Brenda: I love it because he’s not explicitly political, but he doesn’t perform masculinity in any traditional way. He gets nervous enough to vomit on the field. He can’t complete an interview. He’s not a womanizer. He really challenges those traditional gender roles. So, there is something political in it, but there’s also just something about watching a person that defies reason for you. And you’re like, “Wow. If this can happen, then all the other things that I think can’t happen maybe can happen.”

Lindsay: Yeah. I love that and I love what both of you hinted at, which is that there’s so many outcries that we hear, the stick to sports crowd, and the keep politics and all social issues completely out of sports and keep it pure escapism, but I find, and it sounds like you both do too, that at times that context just really enhances my love of the game because you have such a better understanding of who these athletes are as human beings, what they’re going through on and off the field, the battles they are choosing to fight or the things they’re running from, and how big their stories are. I love having that context and I love being able to push the boundaries.

I mean, look, sports … I came in to writing about politics through writing about sports literally. I was a big tennis fan and I started, after film school when there were no jobs because it was 2008 and that is not a year you should graduate, and especially not a year you should graduate from film school, and I would not recommend it. So, I was odd jobbing my way around New York City and I was doing some production stuff here and there.

I’d always loved tennis, so really the day to day stuff of tennis really kept me going. I started really writing about how we view women through tennis and how the gender dynamics that are at play in the sport, and that are at play at how these announcers talk about women’s games versus the game’s men. And I thought it was always so fascinating that you could see the women and the men on the exact same stage, you could see them earning the same amount of money and you could see them playing on the exact same courts and you could see the exact same announcers and the exact same media people covering them. And then, you could see the differences in the way they were talked about, right? And so, just became so explicit and I began exploring gender dynamics through sports through that. And that was a lens that came to me from my media background.

But for me, all that stuff just makes it richer. I’ve loved this explosion of the combination of sports and politics this past year, not only because it’s good for business because it’s literally my job because it’s exciting to watch.

I want to little bit before we move on quickly, what do we see that connection between politics and sports going in 2018? Where does that go, going forward, Ana?

Ana: Well, I mean, that’s a good question. I mean, there’s obviously for football, which is my main love and my most problematic fave, Americans are both … Their interest is waning. But I feel like you’re fooled to bet against America’s preoccupation with violence.

Brenda: Probably.

Ana: I kind of feel like football’s not going to go away anytime soon. I think the players have elbowed their way into the conversation, thank you, Donald Trump. I think his attempt to politicize this worked and backfired at the same time because it forced a lot of owners and to a certain extent some fans to decide whether or not they were okay with players having opinions. And it turns out, you have to be. If you really love the sport, you have to be okay with them having opinions.

I love it. Like, Nick Saban said something typically non-committal, but basically positive about players expressing their opinions. I think he even framed it as opinions. He didn’t say kneeling or anything. And people kind of rolled their eyes, but it’s true. You want to try to recruit people to come to Alabama if you say you can’t express yourself if you’re a Black person? I don’t think that’s going to work. I am actually genuinely shocked that he didn’t say anything about Ron Moore because I think that probably would have hurt recruiting in Alabama too.

But I think that some players have come to the forefront in talking about this, have shown the range of their interest. And the NFL being NFL will try to co-opt it and milk it for all the promotional value that they can. But I don’t think that players wanting to get their message out is going to go away. And the fact that they are their own brands, #brands now, means that they can do that. And I think you’re seeing it. I mean, I think in basketball as well. Steve Kerr went on Pod Save America.

Lindsay: I love that interview. That was a great interview.

Ana: I’m really glad that Dan did it, Dan Pfeiffer did it, because he’s probably the legit most biggest fan and also probably the nerdiest. And I think it was a really substantive interview and one that both sides that wanted to have.

So, I think that we’re not going to see any end to fandom. We’re not going to see any end to the mixing of politics and sports. And I just want to point out, again, that for the people actually playing, there’s never been a separation. I was talking to Matt Taibbi about this and he said something about, “Well, of course I’m for all these things, but I kind of miss football just being football.” And I’m like, “When was football ever just football?” For the people on the …

Lindsay: For straight, White men occasionally who just have their blinders on.

Ana: Yeah.

Lindsay: All right. Brenda, any closing thoughts here?

Brenda: I hopefully continue to see all the women fighting for equal pay. I mean, Norway just got it. The US Women Soccer has been … But not only that. We saw on this pod, women’s hockey. A lot of sports. So, I would love to see … And, okay, backtracking on how much we love Serena, her work and the women in tennis’ work for blazing that trail, I would expect and hope to see, especially women’s national teams, getting equal pay this year. That’s one of my New Year’s wishes.

Lindsay: Oh, fingers crossed. I think it’s going to be especially interesting to see women’s hockey because we have the Olympics coming up, which is such a big showcase for women’s hockey and it’s going to be as big of a showcase for men’s hockey this year because the NHL players aren’t there. And for women’s hockey, it’s going to be the first time ever that we have a women’s pro league, or paid pro league I should say, in North America after the Olympics, right? So, I’m hoping that’s going to be the way to carry on that momentum.

And yeah, look, we’re going to keep loving sports and we’re going to keep pushing sports to hopefully a better standard year.

Last Wednesday, Twitter and Facebook quickly became flushed with articles. It seemed to be sites like Sports Illustrated, ESPN and Bleacher Report announcing that Washington’s NFL team would be changing its name to the Washington Redhawks. This campaign, which was launched by Native activist went so viral so quickly that it solicited a response within hours from the Washington NFL team itself assuring everyone that it was not actually changing its racist name. I spoke with Rebecca Nagle, a citizen of Cherokee nation and one of the organizers of this campaign about how this all started. Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us.

Rebecca: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Lindsay: So, let’s just start. Where in the world did this idea come from?

Rebecca: I had been thinking about spoofing the Washington football team for a while. I had done a couple of other internet-based culture jams before and I thought that the team would make a really good target. So, I approached a woman named Jordan Daniel who’s the co-founder of the Rising Hearts Coalition, which is a group of Native advocates that do grassroots organizing in DC. And yeah, I wanted to see if they would be interested in doing it and they said yes. And then, we started working on it in about August, so it’s been in the works for a few months now.

Lindsay: That’s so exciting. I mean, it was so realistic and it wasn’t one of those moments for me where it was just … Of course, because I cover politics and sports, so everyone keeps sending me the articles over and over again, and of course, I realized pretty quickly that it had to be a very well done spoof. But it was amazing how quickly it caught on. Were you expecting that? What do you attribute that too?

Rebecca: I was expecting it to get some media play. That was our goal, but as far and as wide as it went, we definitely weren’t expecting. And so, it exceeded our expectations. And I think that the response really proves the point that we’re trying to put forth with the culture jam is that changing the name would be easy, popular, and powerful. I mean, people were really excited about it. People were really moved, and so, at this point, there’s really no reason other than stubborn racism why at this point the team’s not changing the team.

Lindsay: You called a couple of rallies this week. I believe one was today, this is Sunday, before the Washington game at FedEx Field. And there was also one at RFK Stadium. What was the point of those rallies? I guess, what was the atmosphere? Did you encounter any … Was there anyone against you? Did you have any feedback, any resistance?

Rebecca: Yeah. So, we were at … I just got home actually … at the stadium today. So, we had a Go Redhawks pep rally. We had banners, we had tee shirts, we had speakers and a drum group. So, it was a really good day. And we had some hecklers. We had some people who yelled different things at us. I would say, especially for folks who have been doing these demonstrations at the stadium over the years, it was actually a less hostile environment than usual. And also, there were a lot of fans who came up and were like, “What is this? What is this about?” And we were able to have a lot of conversations with people who said, “I would get behind the name change. I see what you’re saying.” And so, yeah, I think a lot of people are really ready for it.

I think that there will always be those die-hard fans who will be mad if there is any change. And I think that if you look social justice issues, particularly racial justice issues, there are some people who will always protest racial progress in this country, which isn’t a good reason to not do it.

Lindsay: Right. Yeah. We don’t have to get to a 100% consensus here to move-

Rebecca: On with people’s basic human dignity.

Lindsay: Right. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen, so we just got to keep moving forward anyways. What are those conversations like? Take me through it and I think that this is something that a lot of people who agree, “Yes, the name can be changed. It should be changed. Yes, I see why this is racist.” But when they are caught in those conversations with people who are ardent fans, ardently against it, they kind of don’t know exactly what to say. How do you handle those conversations?

Rebecca: Yeah, it was interesting. We were talking with somebody who was selling merch. At first, he’s really mad that we were there because we were setting up close to where he was selling merch. And by the end of it, we actually gave him a Redhawks tee shirt and we’re talking.

Yeah. Another person came over and brought his family over. There was some educating about the origin of the word, which a lot of times people don’t know the full origin. So, it actually comes from … While the US army did a lot of the wholesale slaughter of indigenous people, a lot of the murderers were actually settlers. And so, just individual settlers that would go out and kill Native women and children. And the colonial governments would incentivize that by giving people money for scalps and they’re actually different prices for male scalps and women scalps and the scalps of children. And so, settlers would go out and would murder Native people, and then, bring the scalps back to the government in exchange for cash. And so, that’s literally where the term comes from.

Lindsay: I’ve heard that description so many times. It never ceases to make me go, “How are we still having this conversation then?” Do you know what I mean? How is just you saying that, those two sentences, how is that not the end of all of this?

Rebecca: Yeah. This week we spent a lot of time being mentored and talking to a longtime activist on this issue, Suzan Harjo who’s been fighting racist mascots since the ’60s. One thing she said in our conversation this week was, “I haven’t heard the new argument in defense of racist mascots since 1962.” And I don’t think that there are good reasons to keep the name and a lot of reasons for it to change.

Lindsay: It can feel these days like we’re moving backwards as a country for pretty obvious reasons, but overall, there are some positive changes still happening thanks to grassroots activism and thanks to people. Lately, we’ve seen that coincide with athletics a lot. We’ve seen the Black Lives Matter movement really take off and things to Colin Kaepernick. We’ve seen athletes really find their voice and speak up on a bigger stage. Do you think that that current political movement within sports is going to help the racist mascot’s cause to become more mainstream again?

Rebecca: I hope so. I mean, I think that when people were kneeling during the football games, it wasn’t brought up a lot in the media I watched. But I also think that the media lost the point of the original protest of the players, which was to talk about police brutality. A lot of the media that I saw was talking about Trump and Trump’s backlash. What does the Star Spangled Banner mean and what does our national anthem? So, I think even the initial issue that players were putting forward around police were killing unarmed Black people got lost in the media frenzy.And so, I think, yeah, I didn’t see that issue come up.

But I think in general, and in a broader way, I think our country is having an identity crisis right now. And so, there’s this huge backlash from White people who feel threatened by the advances that people of color have had. At the same time, we’re seeing a lot of racist symbols, like confederate monuments, starting to fall and people really starting to question that history. And so, while there’s been this awakening of White supremacy, I think there has, at the same time, been a counterbalance of a reckoning with what some of these symbols mean. And so, we’re in an interesting moment.

And I think that the mascot debate is really relevant to that of how are we teaching our kids about these issues, how are we talking to them about the history of this country. And for better or worse, a lot of people get their information from pop culture and mascots is a huge way that people learn about who Native people are. Whether or not they would say that out loud, I think, it’s a definitely a really big part of people’s subconscious.

Lindsay: Yeah. And there was recently an article … I can’t even remember the exact situation why it was, but there was a racial slur. The N-word had been used by, I think, an NFL player on the Washington team. And the headlines about it would not bleep out the Washington’s team name, wouldn’t bleep out the N-word. And it was like, how are we doing this? Why do you think that it’s become so okay to continue to use these racist mascots? Lots of time you’ll have the Indians where the logo itself is very racist, but the names aren’t in itself a racial slur, like with the Washington NFL team. How is that just gone overlooked? Why isn’t that reckoning come?

Rebecca: I mean, I think that one of the biggest hurdles that we face as Native people in terms of gaining equality in the United States is invisibility. And I think a lot of people in the US think that either Native people don’t really exist anymore or they’re just so few of us, and there’s a handful of us that live on a reservation somewhere in a really rural area, we’re not seen as contemporary, vibrant people. We’re not seen as living in the DMV. People don’t realize that the tribe whose land the stadium is on is still an active tribe and they’re still practicing their ceremonies and their own self-governance. I think it’s the self-reinforcing thing because it’s like, well, if people aren’t around and they don’t exist and they are not real, then why would you need to stand up for their rights? And I think the maroon cartoon of a disembodied head on the side of a football helmet really reinforces those ideas that we’re not real people. You’re not going to stand up for the rights of a cartoon.

Lindsay: Right. There’s so much great grassroots activism going on within the Native community. How can those outside of the community help and help amplify that work? And are there any specific works that you would like to draw attention to that maybe people aren’t aware of?

Rebecca: Yeah. I think that getting involved with whatever organizations in your area. And so, looking up, it might be a tribal organization, it might be an urban Indian house center, but really starting by trying to build relationships with whatever Native community is where you’re at.

And then, I think also it’s really important for folks to include us in their issues. So, when people are talking about the environment, indigenous communities are at the frontline. When people are talking about global warming, our communities are at the frontline of resource instruction. A lot, almost every issue in the US. So, a lot of times, we’re just completely left out. Like, I was watching the news and I was watching this episode about police shootings. It was talking about how we talk a lot of times police fatalities, but there hasn’t been a lot of statistics on people who have been shot by the police and survived. And so, they showed statistics by race and they completely left out Native Americans when we have really high rates of police violence. And so, I think that visibility issue is key. And so, yeah, I think non-Native people building relationships.

And then, also self-educating. I think most people in the US, what you know, is what you learned in your high school history class. And what you’ve learned through the media, which is not only not enough information, but also incorrect information. And so, there’s just a lot of reeducating that people need to do in this country to be able to understand Native identity and Native rights to be able to effectively advocate for it.

Lindsay: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for joining us, and congratulations on the success of the campaign, which even solicited a response from the Washington NFL team itself. Of course, the response was, “How dare you think we might be decent people? We are never changing this name.” But it was a response nonetheless. Where can people follow the work you’re doing going forward?

Rebecca: Yeah. So, people can follow the Rising Hearts Coalition on Facebook and Twitter. People can also root for the updated Washington Redhawks team. Also, under that name on Facebook and Twitter.

Lindsay: Love that. Thank you so much.

Rebecca: Thank you.

Lindsay: All right. Moving on to the Burn Pile, our favorite segment. Brenda, you want to kick us off?

Brenda:Sure. So, this week there is an uber talented young soccer player. A girl named Olivia Moultrie. She’s 11 years old. She’s from California. And she’s adorable. So, absolutely want to make sure that it’s clear that I’m not burning anything about this charming and talented and smart 11 year old.

Lindsay: We don’t burn 11 year old girls on our show.

Brenda: I do not. I do not burn 11 year olds or anything about them. I have one. And so, I have an 11 year old, an 11 year old girl, one of my girls. And so, it’s sort of jolted me to read her Instagram post where she announces that she is quote, “I have accepted a scholarship offer to play soccer at the University of North Carolina.”

Lindsay: What?

Brenda: End of quote.

Lindsay: Okay.

Brenda: What the fuck? I mean, she hasn’t taken algebra. This is a child. What are you doing, Anson Dorrance? What are you doing? And of course, I get … I mean, how am I not happy for her if she’s happy? She’s 11. But I mean, this is the most legendary women’s soccer program and what are they doing signing 11 year olds? How is this possible that you can get a university scholarship at 11? And I think it’s just a slap in the face to professors like me who expect that the primary function of the university is to educate young adults. And it’s just an insult to my profession, to my work, to my colleagues that you’re going to sign an 11 year old for a scholarship. Oh no, you don’t. Oh no, you don’t. No, you don’t. You don’t get to do that before they graduate, before they show any indication. So, burning that practice.

Burn.

Lindsay: Burn. All right, Ana.

Ana: Well, I guess, I can also caveat my burn a little bit, which is to say that Jake Tapper, old friend of mine, I think he’s one of the hardest working men in show business. But on the night of Doug Jones’ victory, which Charles Barkley getting a ton of attention for his support of Doug Jones, Tapper did an interview with him where he was just grilling him. First of all, about his basketball career. He made several references to it. And also, kept asking him what message he wanted to send to Trump. Barkley, to his credit, so this is like half burn half props, said, “I have a message for Democrats.”

Lindsay: Ooh. Yay Charles.

Ana: And basically, he said, “You need to stop ignoring Black people and poor people. We keep voting for you and you don’t do anything for them.” For Democrats, as long as Black people and poor people are voting for you, you need to put their needs at the top of your list, which is kind of revolutionary to hear on cable news, to hear it framed so starkly.

And then, also I have to give credit to Sir Charles for saying poor people as well as Black people, which actually shows the generosity of spirit, that maybe not everyone would have.

And also just the truth. And he also could have said in Alabama at least, not said poor people because most poor people in Alabama are Black. But anyway, good for him. But stop asking sports people if they’re doing politics, don’t ask them about sports. That’s one of my pet peeves. If they’re there to talk about politics, just go ahead. That means they know something.

Lindsay: So, burn that, Jake Tapper, but we love you in general.

Brenda: Burn the moment.

Lindsay: Okay. Yeah. All right, I want to throw Lee Dragna, a fan of the New Orleans Saints, on the burn pile. Lee has filed a lawsuit against the Saints seeking a full refund of his season tickets. Why? Well, because of the protest during the national anthem of course. So, Dragna’s suit cites a week two home game against the Patriots where he says a few Saints players didn’t come out onto the field until after the national anthem. And apparently, this was traumatizing to him. And so, he hasn’t been back to a home game since. Dragna says he wouldn’t have purchased the season tickets if he had known about the protests and that he is entitled to a full refund because he purchased a season tickets for quote, “entertainment and intellectual enjoyment and the protest got in the way of that.”

All right, so I have a feeling, just kind of a feeling, that Lee is one of those people who likes to rail and rant about outrage culture and libtards snowflakes and the need for safe spaces. And he probably sees absolutely no irony in any of those rants in this lawsuit.

Well, look, just to cap off how ridiculous this is, the Saints didn’t even protest during that game. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I will leave you with a quote by Saints running back, Mark Ingram, who tweeted about this lawsuit saying, “The one time we protest an them was at an away game. After team meeting, we decided to kneel as one before the anthem was played and to stand united during the anthem. Good luck, dude.” That was Mark’s message. And so, Lee, we are just burning this lawsuit.

Brenda: Stay home, Lee. Burn.

Lindsay: We don’t need you.

All right. Time for the badass women of the week section. This week, we have a lot of exciting honorable mentions. Starting with Ally Fitzgerald of Lynbrook who is the first girl to win a sanctioned high school wrestling tournament on Long Island. Go Ally. We also have Maame Biney who became the first Black woman to qualify for US Olympics speedskating team. We cannot wait to root you on in Pyeongchang. This week also Pauline Navarro became the first female head coach in professional men’s football in Chile and I believe possibly all of South America, Brenda?

Brenda: Yeah. I don’t know of another case in Latin America, really.

Lindsay: In the Americas.

Brenda: In the Americas because I can’t think of a woman in the US who’s done it either.

Lindsay: That’s fantastic. We also want to give a shoutout to some of our ultimate Frisbee listeners. Jesse Shofner and a bunch of other great ultimate Frisbee players are leading a boycott of the AUDL, which is a pro league for ultimate Frisbee. And they’re boycotting because quote, “The AUDL does not ensure that women and men have equal representation in 2018.” So, we’re really excited for the ultimate Frisbee community for pushing forward for gender equality.

And, okay, Brenda and Ana if you want to join, would you like to do our fake drumroll before I give us our winner?

All right. Okay. Good good good. So, our badass woman of the week award goes to the Nebraska Huskies Women’s volleyball team, which saved a match point to defeat our Amira’s beloved Penn State in the semi-finals, and then, beat Florida in four sets in the final to capture the 2017 national championship. The championship match was played in front of a record 18,516 fans at the Sprint Center and we had Mikaela Foecke and Kelly Hunter were the final fours so-most outstanding players, both from Nebraska. So, this is the Huskies, I believe. Second championship.

Ana: Huskers. Huskers.

Lindsay: Huskers. Whew, excuse me, in the last five years.

Ana: Corn.

Lindsay: Corn.

Brenda: Not dogs.

Lindsay: Huskers, not dogs. The dogs would be good. That’s a very important correction, so thank you, Ana. So, congratulations.

All right. Let’s finish up with some positive thinking. This is actually our final, I should mention, our final new episode or completely new episode of the 2017 year. Our next two episodes, we recorded some intros for you all with some new stuff, but they’re mainly going to be highlighting some of the segments and interviews of the year we enjoyed the most. So, I’m looking forward to that. But what’s good in your life, Brenda? What are you looking forward to?

Brenda: Lindsey Vonn’s good in my life right now. I was excited. 78th World Cup victory yesterday. Second oldest skier competing and she elegantly explained that she doesn’t represent the President when she competes in the Olympics. So, I’m enjoying. I want to watch how this all unfolds and I’m just enjoying watching her compete again and being in the mix.

Lindsay: Awesome. Love that. Ana?

Ana: I’m just going to go back to Sir Charles because this is a nice coda to the other statement, which is that in addition to his appeal to the Democrats to pay attention to Black people and poor people, he personally is putting a million dollars into a fund for female Black tech entrepreneurs in Alabama.

Lindsay: Oh wow.

Ana: Yeah.

Brenda: Nice.

Ana: So, I think that’s really cool and I think that he didn’t just thank Black women for voting. He actually doing a thing, which anyone who thanked Black women for voting … First of all, listen to my podcast this week because it’s about how that’s a little bit problematic. And the next thing, if you really feel that way, do something. There’s tons of Black women running for office right now. I think there’s over a 100. You can go to ActBlue and find some people to give money to. Be like Charles.

Lindsay: We don’t say that often on this podcast.

Ana: No.

Lindsay: I should say …

Brenda: Maybe the first time.

Lindsay: And Charles Barkley, caveat, there’s some problems there.

Ana: I know, I know.

Lindsay: In this instance, we like Charles.

Ana: In this very, very, very specific instance. Or maybe we could frame it as if Charles can do it …

Brenda: Oh, there you go.

Ana: You can do it.

Brenda: There you go.

Lindsay: I like that. I like that. All right. And I will just second that. I really did enjoy your interview with Rebecca Carroll this week on that intersectional aspects of #metoo and how that’s often lost in the conversation.

Ana: Yes.

Lindsay:  For me, I’m just going to be pretty blunt about it. This is my last full work week of 2017 and I’m ready for a few days off and I’m ready for the holidays. And I will be excited to rejoin you all back here in 2018.

Thank you all for listening to Burn It All down. We’re on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher, everywhere, you all know. Those iTunes rating reviews really help us because for some reason, despite the fact that we have hundreds of great reviews, iTunes still shows the troll one-star reviews that we got the first day we launched from men’s rights activists. So, we’re trying to get rid of those, friends. If you could help us, that will be a great holiday present. You can find us on our website, burnitalldownpod.com, on Facebook and Twitter as well. We’ll have all those linked in the show notes and support our Patreon campaign, which we just launched this week as well. Patreon.com/burnitalldown.

Thank you all so much for joining us. Ana, thank you so much for being here. We loved having you this week. And happy holidays everyone.