Interview: Roundtable on the NBA and Vaccines

This episode is a roundtable discussion about memes, teams and vaccines. Dr. Amira Rose Davis is joined by Dr. Candis Smith, Dr. Courtney Cox and Dr. Brooklyne Gipson to chat about recent comments from some NBA players about vaccinations, while considering political education, athletes' platforms, disinformation in social media and the "surprising" plot-twist of "shut up and dribble."

This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.

Transcript

Amira: So, it's been a week. Another week of just a mess. Much ado about public comments made by a handful of NBA players. But the ensuing discussion about those comments also left me wanting more – and by more I meant amazing, brilliant Black women to really parse this out with. And so I am joined on this dope roundtable today by friend of the show, Courtney Cox. Always a pleasure to have Courtney here. Y’all know her from the many times we will have a conversation here. She's an assistant professor in the Indigenous, race and ethnic studies department over at University of Oregon.

But we also decided to spice things up and give you a little bit more today. So we are so thrilled to also be joined by Dr. Brooklyne Gipson, who’s an ACLS/DRIVE distinguished postdoctoral fellow in digital humanities at the University of Illinois. And that is amazing, because that fellowship life is where it's at. [Brooklyne laughs] Also, joined today by Dr. Candis Smith, who's an associate professor of political science at Duke University. 

So, we are suited and booted and ready to kind of put some stuff on the table and walk our way through it. I basically just want to start by saying, me, I know group chats were popping, for a number of reasons, but the one that I keep coming back to is when Courtney told me of some of the research that NBA players were saying they were doing, talking about the vaccination – including Trump speeches and Black history. And when I thought about this discussion, it was like the intersection of half-understanding of Black history and medical violence and hesitancy, some major disinformation, some language about “my body, my choice” – which feels, especially as somebody who can give birth in Texas, not something that should ever be out of the peoples mouths it’s coming out of.

And then also just about why there's so many people, especially white people, ready to again use Black athletes for their own kind of political conversations. Like, what happened to “shut up and dribble” now? And also just like, at the end of the day, if Ted Cruz's co-signing your tweets, like, what else do you do in your life then? Like, I think you should just log off. So, that's I know where I'm kind of entering it, where every day I was kind of just face-palming. But I just wanted to know, as the conversation was unfolding, what was your initial reaction, Court? I'll start with you to kick it off. 

Courtney: Yeah. So for me, one of the things that really stands out…I mean, NBA media day, there was so much there. And from someone that has worked with a team on the WNBA side, and someone that used to work in media and media day, knowing the kind of bonanza around that, I was just cringing all day. I was like, we cannot let anyone else speak on the mic, you know? And I think that there's an interesting dynamic that I thought about. It made me think about the locker room, right? How there's that dissension. We always talk about, you know, people that tell athletes to “stick to sports” are always worried about the locker room dynamic, right? Folks are always worried about if there are queer athletes, you know, what's going to happen to the locker room? There's all the ways that the locker room is weaponized.

But I don't think that we're talking enough about, like, I would feel a way as a professional athlete if I'm in the locker room with you, I'm showering with you, I'm traveling with you, and you have the audacity to be unvaccinated? And I have a kid at home, I have my partners there, maybe I'm taking care of an elder? Like, I think about how much I would be on the verge of fighting everyone all the time. If I'm an athlete for sure. The other thing that really stuck with me is Draymond Green, which…We can talk about all the things Draymond has said in the past that let me know he's not the person [laughs] I’m going to with any kind of authority. But the thing that Draymond said, he accused the vaccinated of just being quote-unquote “so pressed,” like, why are y'all so pressed? Why y'all trying to force your beliefs on me, right?

And so the idea of the fact that the folks that are vaccinated and advocating for folks getting vaccinated, the fact that we're “pressed,” right, as hundreds of thousands of people have died in this country, as a reason to not get the vaccine? Like, ooh, if people are pushing it, I don't want it. It's like, this is not like a food trend. [laughs] This is not a fashion trend. This is not something that is being pushed on you. It's like, the idea of calling folks pressed is a thing I've been really sitting with, because there's so many logics that are at play here, whether we're talking about religion, whether we're talking about research, right? There's so many things that have been weaponized, but the idea of calling people pressed when we have a global health crisis is the thing that keeps me up at night. I'm not going to lie to you.

Amira: Yeah, for real, I feel that. And Brooklyne, I'm gonna toss it to you as our resident digital space expert, because like, when Courtney's saying “research,” right? A lot of that is like, where are you…? What meme did you just read that you're now parroting on with this huge platform, right? Like, what role is disinformation playing here? 

Brooklyne: Right. And I was going to jump in anyway, because that is how I'm kind of relating to it. That's where I'm coming into this content, right? Like, I'm not in the sports space, but I'm seeing these headlines and I'm going, okay, here's another avenue where people are kind of making fun of Black men, pathologizing Black men for the most part. And that's kind of stressful for me, so I'm like tuning into it. But it's so infuriating on multiple levels for me, the way the COVID thing is playing out in the media, because there's always this conversation about these people are just dumb or not smart or not educated, and no one is paying attention to what is happening in the social media realm for everyone. This is not just athletes. This is not just Black folks. This is not just men. There's something happening, right? We can look to January 6th. We can also look to this Facebook whistleblower stuff which is happening right now, to say there's something bigger, right?

So if people are being this ridiculous on the internet…I mean, not even on the internet, just being this ridiculous in life, we need to go back a little bit and think about where are they getting this information from? Why do they all sound like they're saying the exact same thing in a different way, you know? So, I kind of leaned in on that, because I always want to acknowledge that the problem with mis- and disinformation is that there's always a little truth mixed in with it, right? That's what makes it believable. That's what makes people connect to it. But we have to acknowledge that, and also acknowledge that this isn't just simply a problem about education, about media literacy. It's about the digital ecosystem that we all live in, that is a privileging engagement, right?

The content that's the most controversial, the most…I love a good conspiracy theory, y’all, I'm not gonna lie, [laughs] but like, I kind of have a little bit more of a contextual background and knowledge to not get taken up by some of these conspiracy theories, you know? But we have to think about that. These platforms that everyone is on, these social media platforms are literally gamified to promote certain types of information: usually the most incendiary, wild, out there conspiracy theories. So it's not that these people are not smart, they're not educated, they just need media literacy. We actually need to look at these social media platforms, and that's what I kept coming back to.

Amira: Yeah, no, for real. And I think that that point about pathology is such a big deal, right? Because one of the things that me and Courtney talked about noticing – and NFL players were saying some of the same stuff – it was like, “Oh, they have CTE,” right? Or now it's like, “What do you expect? They never passed their classes in college,” and how quickly people slip into like anti-Blackness and reverberating tropes about perceptions of athletes. Or if you want to talk about medical harm, like, yeah, let's talk about CTE, but not in a way to be dismissive and render them disposable. But Candis, I want to turn to you to talk about politics for a second, because obviously this is coming on the heels of a period of time in which that platform that you're talking about, Brooklyne, is also amplified, because we're talking about athletes. And we know that Black entertainers have historically been on oversized platforms because that's one of the only lanes in which white people have interfaced, whether it's singing, dancing, athletics especially. And so they've already had this kind of spotlight on them.

And I saw a tweet, that I was thinking about yesterday, where people were like, yo, people don't realize that movements in the 60s and 70s, political education was core to that. Whether you're talking about activists in Detroit who were in union spaces with pamphlets, literally reading books, like, actually reading books, right? And learning things up if they were going to lead. It's something that I want to get to the WNBA in a second. But one of the things that has set the W apart is that when they got onto their platform, the first thing they did is get on a Zoom call with people like Kimberlé Crenshaw, right? And so one of the things I wanted to ask you, Candis, is how do we think about the intersection of sports and politics in the last few years? And then, you know, of course you have politicians who have long been saying “shut up and dribble,” who are all of a sudden like, “your body, your choice!” etc.

And it's like, I mean, that tweet is what really took me out, to be honest, from Ted Cruz. Because first of all, you spent a million years saying shut up and dribble, and now all of a sudden you stand with all of them? And on top of that, you have the audacity to put a hashtag #YourBodyYourChoice, when there's millions of women here, millions of childbearing people here in Texas, who would like a fucking word about choice and bodies. And so that was too much for me to bear. And I feel like in the intersection of that, Candis, a story about the way people are engaging politically and who have become seen as like the political actors who have this kind of platform and, like, where does political education fall into that? Like, how do we make sense of any of this?

Candis: Well, one thing that stands out to me – and you all, as experts in this area, will have to explain it more to me – is that my understanding is that like 90 to 95% of people in the NBA are vaccinated. And so, you know, there's something to the fact that we are making a whole lot…Granted, there is a whole lot to be said about the folks who aren't vaccinated, because they're just being so loud and there's a lot of attention put towards them. But, you know, I think there's something to be said about which people we use and which people politicians use to prop up their own messages, right? So, Ted Cruz is not saying, hey, turns out the overwhelming majority of NBA players – and I think 100% of WNBA athletes are vaccinated, right? They're picking off the few as like trophies, right? And they will use them as long as they are helpful.

I mean, but we see this all the time, and I will say, you know, politicians – and I feel safe to say conservative politicians – are expert at manipulating the narrative in a way that kind of just turn to thing that it wasn't into something that, you know…They will make a whole new truth out of a little sample, right? And so in this case, Kyrie Irving…Let me say this. Let me preface this for your audience, and also for this wonderful group here, is that I don't know anything about basketball, and I don't know anything about Kyrie Irving. And everything that I know about him I've learned unwillingly, [laughter] through things like this.

And so I think, you know, we just have to keep in mind, like, why is it that we are putting this small group of people on a pedestal? Who is giving them the space? Who is pointing to them as people that they, you know, are like patriots and examples of freedom? And when those people are going to be turned on as soon as they, you know, make a left turn on Black Lives Matter, or if they make a left turn on this abortion case, or if they make a left turn on transgender issues, so on and so forth.

Amira: Yeah, I think that's precisely it. And I'm glad you brought that up. The NBA is now approaching 96 and a half percent vaccination, right? And the W is I think at 99 point…Like, they are very close to a hundred percent. And they made that part of their commitment going into the season, that they were going to talk about medical disparities, really address COVID, and do drives to not only vaccinate the entire league but their communities that they also play and labor in. And but I think that the thing to me that's overwhelming about it is that feeling of disposability, is that feeling of symbol, which is not a surprise because obviously that's what I kind of look at. But how can you not feel objectified if the same people who are clowning on Kyrie Irving when he was talking about “the world is flat” are now like holding him up like, “he's a genius, he's speaking the truth.” Like, y'all don’t…And I'm like, what?

Candis: You can't have it both ways 

Amira: It’s like a paper doll. Like, if it fits you that day, it works. And then for me, of course, it is bothersome because you kind of cease to see humanity and you don't let people kind of muddle through it and struggle. And, you know, I'm glad there are people who have been publicly receptive to pushback on some of the things that they're saying. But it's frustrating, right? That this does become the conversation. We know the kernel of truth here is a long history of medical violence on marginalized communities. And we know that, but even that history is diluted and passed down in a way where people will cite Tuskegee…And I mean, every time you cite Tuskegee to talk about COVID, a historian somewhere just like lays down on the floor, right? Because it's literally the opposite. [laughter] Like, you were not getting inoculated. And so that's really frustrating. But I think that it's not just this kernel of truth in Black history, right?

It's also this way that they become, like you were saying, Candis, they become the people that are doing this. It's like when Prop 8 happened in California, it was like, “Black religious voters…” I was like, do you know math, though? That just can't be a thing. And I think of that, especially that in Texas. We know throughout all of this, despite the way that people want to make Black vaccination hesitancy the story, the biggest demographic is white Republicans chillin’. So I think that is also part of this conversation. Candis…Courtney! There’s a lot of C’s right now. 

Courtney: [laughs] Yeah. So, so one of the things I'm thinking about when I'm hearing you say that…And I really love what Candis is bringing in here. I also see on the other side…So, I'm seeing folks that say, hey, we knocked Laura for saying “shut up and dribble,” but maybe she had a point, right? [Amira laughs] So thinking about the flip side of that is folks that are like, oh, I loved when athletes were speaking out for Black Lives Matter, but now when they're anti-vax it’s, like you said, very much becoming this symbol where I'm seeing Black folks say, ooh, maybe Kyrie should shut up and dribble, right? And I'm thinking, so, we only want an athlete voice when it perfectly aligned with us? And yet we can critique that hypocrisy from the right. But even as we're doing it, we are making them symbols too. I'm seeing Black folks do that. I'm seeing folks that otherwise I would be really shocked…But there's a way that they become in a way this punching bag, right?

The question I saw from one media member – and I'm not going to say his name, because people raked him over the coals for this tweet – but he said, do y'all talk to y'all's family members who are unvaccinated the way that you're talking about these athletes? And everyone was like, yes, it's worse. Because we care that much, right? So there's a way that Black folks, we can find humor anywhere. But there's a way that there's a specific thing that I'm thinking about in terms of how these athletes are rendered so disposable. Like, we loved the BLM thing, but now you're not saying what's on brand for how I feel, right? And so now I have to throw you away. Disposability feels like a really big piece of that.

Candis: I hear where you're coming from and I had to think through this too, but I think the difference here is that Black Lives Matter is a movement for the dignity and full human rights and for citizenship of Black people. That is something that all of us can talk about. Voting. We are citizens. We are people who should be able to have access to rights. COVID and vaccines, that's not our area of expertise. So that's why they have to shut up, because it's not their area of expertise. LeBron James, apparently, one of the only other people that I know, is vaccinated. And it's fine. If he says something, great. If he doesn’t, fine. Because the fact of the matter is, is that all he needs to do is to say I listened to what Dr. Fauci said, or whomever, whoever your doctor is, your primary care person, your trusted expert who's a scientist, because the question at hand is about science, not about civil rights, not about civil liberties. So I think that's the difference here, is that their opinion matters little because they have no expertise. 

Amira: And I think that this is actually…And Brooklyne, I want to talk to you about this overall kind of thing about information and COVID. How do we think about even what expertise gets to be in how we all think through information these days? But before I throw that to you, the thing that I did want to say is that I want to shout out David Dennis Jr. who has a great piece for The Undefeated today about COVID being a social justice issue, mainly in response to LeBron saying, like, we're not talking about social justice here, we're talking about people's body and choice. But David's piece I really enjoyed. Shoutout to you, David. Because what he did in that piece is he said, no, actually this is social justice.

He breaks down in his piece the way that environmental racism, medical racism, all these things compound to think about access to the vaccine, areas hit hardest by COVID, who's still impacted. And he was like, actually, when you're talking about this, that, and the other thing, when you're talking about voting rights, and politicians are refusing mask mandates in schools, when you're talking about access to healthcare for various things…And this is really when I want to shout out the WNBA, because when they did their platform about medical disparities, they started in local communities to talk about access to healthcare.

And of course COVID was a part of that, but they started from a framework of this is an extension of what we mean by Say Her Name. This is an extension about the rights and dignities of Black people, because we're understanding what they need and was the jump that was articulated. And I think one of the things I hear you saying, Candis, too, is that the way that they're entering the conversation feels like a disruption to these other conversations that you're having. And I think what's interesting about David's piece or what the W did is they modeled how it doesn't have to be a disruption, but that it does rely on decentering your own experience about your body, and thinking more about public health.

And that's kind of why I want to turn to you now, Brooklyne, because I saw Howard had a tweet that he was like, the problem with public health is that we've been privatizing everything and there's not actually a public, right? I think about this with Candis's point about expertise, because I think 10 years ago, talking about expertise, it would've been easier to be like, yeah, that makes sense. I'm not an epidemiologist. I can barely say the word! But now it's like post-facts, post-truth, post-experts almost, you know? We all get called in to be talking heads at times, but we know it doesn't matter because there's still going to be Joe Schmo in the comments who watched History Channel and read 2.5 Wikipedia articles and therefore knows more than my four degrees. So, you know, Brooklyne, how do we deal with this question of knowledge, production and dissemination in this moment? 

Brooklyne: Oh, I wish I could…I’m literally thinking about this, like, what is the quickest way to answer this question? [laughs] Because this is literally the throughline of all of my research, right? I focus primarily on thinking about disinformation and misinformation in Black social media spaces. And one of the things that I'm grappling with in my work is like, since the beginning of…I can't say since the beginning of time, I'm not an undergrad! Okay. [laughs] Throughout a lot of Black history, going back as far as like Carter G. Woodson and the creation of Negro History Week, as soon as that became a program we got these…What do they call them? Intellectual charlatans, people who wanted to capitalize on the excitement and the interest in Black history and Black culture, who began to throw events –but they weren't actually doing the work, right?

Fast forward to today, we're in these social media spaces where we have those same people doing that, but now they have these social media platforms behind them, the blue checks and all these things that make them seem and feel more official than they actually are. It’s terrifying, right? Because when you are a part of a community that has less access to education – I'm not saying these people are not smart, they might just be less formally educated. But all they know is to be distrustful of certain systems. It makes it hard for you to go to an expert and understand expertise, right?

So we see a lot of people speaking about bodily autonomy and talking about this issue in terms of how it affects them personally and not the collective group, because they don't have the language or framework to think through these things. And that's so hard for me because I'm constantly wanting to jump through my screen and choke people, like, this is not how research is conducted, you know? Shoutout to Dr. Safiya Noble. Google is not a library.

Amira: The genius! 

Brooklyne: [laughs] The MacArthur genius. Google is just going to feed you what is most popular, and it's also biased by the words you put in. So if it's like, “Should I trust the vaccine?” you're going to get a certain set of results based off that. So, the problem is so compounded and impacted by these digital platforms and people having no understanding of what actual research looks like – but then also having real reasons to not trust institutions, right? Like, if someone is 86 and they don't go to the doctor, we know there's a reason why our 86 year old grandfather won't go to the doctor, you know?

Amira: Hell, we’re 33 and how many horror stories can we probably share? We could turn this into a whole new episode to talk about medical malpractice and navigating the healthcare system as Black women. Like, I think that that's absolutely a kernel. [laughs]

Brooklyne: Right. But the problem is, like, people are not sitting there and actually doing the work. And I think it's so important, what you said about 60s movements having a political education component, you know? I love Fred Hampton's quote about how, like, if you just bring people into the movement, they'll just be happy because you got things to give them.

Everybody's hungry. Everybody needs something. But if you don't educate them, they'll come around wanting more and more and just become, you know, “Negro imperialists.” This is the term that he used. And I think about that a lot, because what I'm seeing in the social media space is people saying they're studying Black history, and “I looked at these Trump speeches…” or whatever it is, but it's just like, that's not a reliable source, you know? That's one source, that's one internet artifact in a whole world of things that you should probably be looking at to think about the language.

And like, the sheer amount of work it takes to be educated on any topic – COVID, sports, whatever it is. It's a lot of work. And I think all of us in this room, we have PhDs, so we know what that looks like, but folks outside of that don't see it that way. They're more like, you know, I'm more into…We see a lot of people who are engaged with wellness spaces in social media coming over and being more like, “The vibes are wrong, I'm not really feeling it,” you know? And there's a lot to be said about experiential knowledge. You know, I never want to devalue people and their gut feelings or intuition and things like that. But we have to trust experts. We have to have an understanding of what expertise is.

I feel like throughout this whole entire COVID thing I've been so frustrated of just arguing with family members and friends through like old-school logical fallacies, right? Just because two things are happening at the same time don't mean that they're related, you know? And you get people saying, “The government and this vaccine…” and it's like, well, the scientists played a role! [laughs] You know, we can think about this more critically, but it's so hard when we're starting at social media. We can't start at social media. We can't start at influencer culture. We have to go a little bit further and educate ourselves critically, from books, scholars, experts. And that'll give us the language to really understand and see this stuff.

But I mean, that also is not something that can be acquired in two Google searches and an hour on YouTube. It can’t. It will never. And in fact, YouTube is going to likely feed you stuff that is going to anger you, because they make a lot of money when you're upset or when you're scared, and likely gonna take you into a dark path that's gonna lead you further away from actual information.

Amira: Courtney, I want to ask you about sports media, and part of the reason I convened this round table to have this conversation is very similar to the way that I return to these spaces that I cultivate with other Black women scholars to talk about many things that feels insufficient in other quarters. This is coming on yet another week of…Talk about conspiracies, right? Like, about R Kelly, or about Cosby or, you know, where it's frustrating. And yet there's something different about people sharing a clip from The Boondocks and saying, oh, Boondocks got it right. And then watching Black women be pathologized when they're working through…You know, like what does it mean to call somebody in, right? Instead of calling them out. And it feels hard to do that, especially in the sports media landscape, where you can see how…Candis, you asked before, why is this the focus? Well, it's ready-made for the sports media landscape that we have now. This can be scrolling on ESPN all day. And then if we're thinking, okay, well who's leading off The Jump that just got canceled because we know some shit went down, right?

Like, who is in that space to actually have the depth of the conversation to do it? It's all about soundbites, right? I mean, I was proud of Clinton Yates who got on Around The Horn and was like, this is foolish! Because it takes a lot to actually disrupt what you're supposed to stay in these spaces, especially in mixed company. And so, Courtney, one of the reasons we get these headlines and one of the reasons we get these snippets of conversation without being able to actually critique without pathologizing or put it in these larger contexts is because of who is in the control room, who are at the desks. This is a similar, obviously, in like what you look at in politics, Candis, in terms of who's in the room where it happens. And I think in sports media, this conversation, it’s so clearly lacking, right? From the ability to even have the depth of care in which it needs to. Court?

Courtney: Yeah. So, I think about this idea of working from the individual, right? And why that works for BLM, right? Because they weren't coming with expertise or research there either. But the difference, I think as Candis pointed out, is like, they came from, “This has been my personal experience with racism,” and these really powerful narratives, right? Same as if we shared our experience with the medical industry as non-medical experts. And so where it falls flat is whenever athletes are asked to speak on something that is outside that frame, right? And, like you said, that becomes a thing that circulates constantly. So when LeBron's statements about Hong Kong and China go viral, again, outside the lane of what he knows. And people are like, “I'm so disappointed in LeBron.

He talked about all this Black Lives Matter and fighting and protests, and he won't stand with Hong Kong?” It’s like, see, we stepped outside of his individual expertise, right? When, as you said, we've seen time and time again, women athletes, especially Black women athletes are like, okay, we don't have the answers, but we'll find someone that does, and they'll help us set up a public health drive. They'll help us set up a way to connect with the mothers of women that were killed by police, right? So this idea of being able to do it all, the way that masculinity is working across these spaces is something that we don't talk about nearly enough. And partially because the misinformation, disinformation and political education are to me really, really important. So, how this all gets picked up when, as you mentioned, so important, we're talking about a small percentage of the league at this point. But NBA media day becomes the thing where…When do we really care what Bradley Beal is talking about? Honestly! Honestly.

Amira: Yeah, what was that one tweet that was like, “NBA superstar…” – who did they say? [laughs]

Courtney: Yeah! Are we talking about stars!? 

Amira: And somebody was like, there's many things I object to here, but calling him a superstar is where I draw the line! [laughs] 

Courtney: It’s the equivalent…You know, Super Bowl media day is very similar. Like, the, you know, the ones you never hear from…Everyone gets to speak, right? And again, I think this is a thing. I feel like if you have a voice – good, bad, ugly – and you want to express it, but the difference is what we're really nailing down is a difference of expertise. So, to me it's reckless when ESPN or any other network allows these things to go unchecked, when journalists who are at media day do not push back when athletes say these kinds of things, right? And so I don't want to hear from journalists who were at media day and didn't have a follow up get on the internet and slam these athletes, because there's an opportunity. We're letting things go unchecked. We're letting these people get these tirades or make these binaries between religion and science and whatever else they're throwing out, right? And so here we are talking about Bradley Beal and Andrew Wiggins when we otherwise would not be, to be very, very honest. And so thinking about what it means when a Draymond and then LeBron jump in co-sign it, it does something very, very different, right?

And so I think that I'm most frustrated by, the way that I was trained as a journalist, I feel like I've been failed by so many journalists across the pandemic in general, right? In terms of what we allow to go unchecked. Our role as journalists in providing the levity, interviewing the experts, giving full perspective. Instead we're seeing these articles that are just about letting the flagrant takes fly, completely unchecked, when we could be going to…I don't know, all these other medical experts, media experts, folks that know what's going on within these web spaces. And so I think it's really, to me, irresponsible on the part of a lot of journalists that aren't checking these things or offering other perspectives or pushing back in a particular way. Instead it's just a flashy soundbite, which makes them no better than Google that's just bringing you in for either the outrage or the co-sign, right? It's exactly the same.

Candis: So, I would like to leverage the fact that I'm here with you three to ask, if it's okay, to ask a question. And, you know, my thought is…And I thought that your point earlier, Amira, about how the entry point here could also be a social justice entry point, entryway, and thinking, you know, historically about Black athletes, but also Black politics generally speaking, is rooted in and centers community and community wellbeing, and that everyone has to be doing well in order for me to say that I'm doing well too. And so I guess in some ways I am thrown off a little ways, as I think this is predictive. Like, everyone's not always going to do what you want them to do. But it seems like of all the people of all the groups where understanding the role of community and team…Like, the NBA has a union, right? So they have collective bargaining, like, they have all of these things that center community. And so just like, what is…I don't even know what my question is.

Amira: No, what your question is talking about though comes back to like one of my biggest things with this. You said before, Courtney, about that locker room, and like how you’d be mad as hell if somebody in the locker room were unvaccinated. I can't stop thinking about Karl-Anthony Towns, who in the same week where his colleagues across the league were saying this at media day, doing this, he had a SI profile about how he is managing and working through his grief. He lost eight family members. He got COVID himself. When he got COVID, he said to his niece and nephew, like, “You're not going to have to go to another funeral.” And I think that that, to me…You ask about community, I ask about empathy. Because what, he dropped 50 pounds? Like, it has been a long recovery and multiple forms of grief and loss, and it's not just him, right? And that's the thing about COVID that really kind of stings, is like that feeling – especially in the bubble and the wubble, right?

It was like, “We're all in this together.” When people broke protocol, not only where they fined, but people were like, you're jeopardizing all of our ability to eat, to earn money, to do this, and our safety. It's why people opted out if they had families and they couldn't trust people. But it's really remarkable to have him share that testimony that week and then have it literally spliced side by side with these other comments. And I think for me, part of that is it goes back to that feeling of disposability and how empty that makes me feel, because I've talked openly about watching Karl-Anthony Towns play, labor through this grief in real time. And I talked about how the camera would be up close on his face, marking his tear, commenting about his grief, how hard it is for him to play. And they shape it into a packaged narrative that we can all consume and dig our kind of claws into. And it's real life. He’s really dealing with that. Why do we have a camera in his face? What is essential about him laboring right now for us, for entertainment?

To me, that is what is really heartbreaking, is it's like, even when you are vaccinated, right? Or even when you've had COVID, even when we go back just a year, everything about this has been glib. And so it's hard because I understand a year later, like, these are the same players who risked their health because their entertainment for others was “essential.” And I think it's hard to then have them become like the face of the anti-vax movement, which is not it. It’s not. It’s really not! But one of the things about the bubble, when we go back to political education, right? They were sharing books, they were all together. They were having conversations. There was a way that that empathy, that camaraderie, that organization…You talk about the CBA, but like also we had a wildcat strike. That comes out of close proximity, that comes out of those labor conditions we saw last year. And it seems like one of the things we lost in the world kind of deciding that it was wide open and going again is we've lost some labor possibilities.

Because, I don't know…I would think it would be damn hard if they were in the bubble to say what they're saying and then ride an elevator with Karl-Anthony Towns and break bread with him. You know what I mean? And so that's my kind of thought on it, is that this kind of grind to restart, which is really to me an allegory for all of society, where it has become each one on their own, like, I'm going to send my kids masked to school and hope your kids don't cough on them, and know that their teachers kind of have their hands tied and their government's not going to protect them, all of this stuff. And it's just like, okay, our family can only do what we can. Like, I can't rely, I can't afford to do that. And so it kinda feels mirroring to me. And I mean, that brings us back to the symbol, I suppose. Court?

Courtney: To me, like from the media angle, if we think about the fact that all the quotes that Kyrie and Jonathan Isaac and Andrew Wiggins, all those folks versus the coverage or the elevation of Karl-Anthony Towns in that piece – which is heartbreaking, like, I literally teared up reading that piece, because you can tell how much he's still grappling, right? Rightfully so. And how much there's a collective grief we're all feeling. All the folks we couldn't have services for, right? And so for me, I though it that goes back to the same kind of thing with this algorithm, right? Why are we hearing those voices over Karl-Anthony Towns? Or why aren't we talking about long COVID? Instead it's Bradley Beal saying, “I had COVID, I just couldn't smell anything…”

Amira: That is a major thing, sir!

Courtney: That is a neurological condition. Oh, you were sick. You were sick. And so, instead I'm thinking about someone like Asia Durr who had COVID, has long COVID may never play basketball again. I'm praying for her and rooting for her. I want to see her back on the court. But you know, they did a Real Sports segment with her on HBO, and I didn't see that elevated the way that I think it should be talked about, right? Because long COVID, I think there's something in her story that's really important for people. If we're going from the centering of your personal experience, there’s something that's terrifying about what happened to her. And we can talk about that, but for me it would be hard to not be vaccinated and have to be around Asia Durr or to be around Karl-Anthony Towns, because to me, that community aspect is so important. When we talk about the W and we talk about what the WNBA represents, it's very different. I wonder now, if we had that same jersey option, right? What are the things that NBA players would put on their jerseys this year? Like, “MY BODY MY CHOICE,” or…?

Amira: I mean, they’d still say “FREEDOM,” it just means a different freedom. [laughs] 

Courtney: Yeah. 

Amira: That's the thing about those words. That can mean what you wants them mean.

Courtney: “EQUALITY!” Yeah. “ACCESS!” Whatever they're saying, right? Versus in the W, everyone came together. They reached out to Breonna Taylor's family. They asked if they could all collectively wear her name on their jerseys. So that's when I draw the line between the individual and the community. All of these are opportunities, right? What does it mean to build with each other? What does it mean to have tough conversations? What is the leadership like in the NBA? You know, I think a lot about leadership when we talk about these unions. We're talking about all of these leagues. We're talking about the NFL, NBA, WNBA all unionized, right? And so thinking about the strength of unions – or weaknesses – and then thinking about who's at the top of these spaces? Who has a voice? Who’s creating space, right?

So it's not about your officer position. It's about, let's open some space and create space for Karl-Anthony Towns. He's our brother, right? If we're brothers in labor and love and life, why would we not create those spaces? Why would we not have one unified voice on media day? And so to me there's such a missed opportunity to create space, to make change in some way. And even if it's just selfishly for the players that represent your league, even if you're not thinking about the millions of people that are listening and watching, just to show him care and love in this moment, right? That to me is what community would feel like, I think.

Brooklyne: I think there's also too a larger conversation that needs to be had. And whenever I finish thinking through it, I'll be ready to have it, about how this conversation around COVID is so gendered. Like, y'all are talking about some aspects of individualism and rugged individualism that I've observed as well. And I spend all day thinking about means. And I was telling Courtney offline the other day that my cousin posted something that said, oh, the people who folded and got a vaccine shot are likely to be snitches or something like that, you know? [laughter] Right right right. You see how that does not follow, right? But the joke is that you’re a follower or you're weak if you succumb to social pressure to get a vaccine. And like, it's really interesting to me to think about how this misinformation is couched in terms of masculinity and how we're seeing that play out in different groups. Like, I mean, I don't know what your kind of colloquial observations of social media spaces are, but I'm seeing a lot of men share content that is connected to masculinity related to COVID. And I don't know what that is, [laughs] but I'm still trying to think through it.

And I think we're watching that play out in these conversations, you know, even in the ties back to religion and thinking about bodily autonomy. Like, there there's nothing in religion – at least Christianity, which most of these folks that we're talking about are Christian – that is anti-vax, right? In fact, the way I learned it is, you know, faith without work is dead. So, you can't just have faith in not getting sick. You have to put some work behind that as well. But you can invoke religion to shut down a conversation. You can invoke masculinity to pressure others into not getting the vaccine and things like that. So I'm also just interested in this whole problem as kind of like a discursive exchange, because I feel like it has a hold on a certain subsection of the Black community and I'm just really trying to figure it out. I want us all to get free and be healthy. [laughs]

Candis: I think one of the ironic things about what you're saying, Brooklyne, is that the way that a lot of Black men in particular – and Americans generally speaking – learned that COVID was for real for real was when that NBA game got canceled So it was like, we come all the way back around.

Amira: Absolutey.

Candis: And this is the discussion that we're having, is about this 5%, which of course includes some superstars, who I know for a fact are superstars, and then everyone else. [laughter] And that we're having a conversation about questioning the authenticity, the realness, the virulence of this disease. To me, it just is mind blowing.

Brooklyne: Because my thoughts when y'all are talking about the Karl-Anthony Towns thing, I'm like, well, masculinity is going to say, “I can't have emotion and sympathy for my teammate in that way.” Then the rugged individualism is going to kick in. “I need to make sure my immune system is strong, and that's the way I…” You know, so, all these systems and all these ways that folks are thinking about COVID, that's throwing all the traditional ways of understanding things out of the window. Like, you would expect athletes to be more communal in particular ways, but the way the discourse is going in the social media spaces and also the offline public sphere is shaping that and changing it.

Amira: Well, I think that that full circle moment you brought us to, Candis, is such a poignant point to end on, because that was the symbol when basketball was disrupted that the world was really upside down. What I’ll kind of leave it with is we've now seen, you know, LeBron come out and say I am vaccinated and I had to go through that process. And again we’re asking, you know, it would be really great if you used that platform to talk about what that process was. And not just him. But the most informative threads have been about how you’ve gotten people in your life with vaccination hesitancy to that.

I know my cousin who’s very into Hood Healer and stuff like that, we had a lot of conversations and we talked about concerns and we talked about things and we read through things together. And, you know, that led to vaccination. And I think that one of the things, if you need like an actionable nugget to take from this conversation, is like, how do we make legible to folks in this disinformation/misinformation space, in these headlines produced by a very monotone, monochromatic media landscape, in this politically fraught moment, right? How can we take actionable steps? Well, I think one of them is to think about how do we reach out and figure out how to reach the people in our orbit, in the orbits next to us, and try to solve this global pandemic together and make it safe for everyone.

And I really appreciate y'all joining me for this conversation to work through some of the nuance and complexity that I felt was so sorely lacking in other conversations. I always love to be in conversation with y'all. So I appreciate you, Dr. Gipson, Dr. Smith, Dr. Cox. From me, Amira Rose Davis, this has been an interview roundtable for Burn It All Down. Flamethrowers, as always, burn on, not out. And we'll see you soon.