Ep 37: The Politics of DNA - Featuring Sarah Spain - Spolitics

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, what's up everybody.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm Jameel Hill and welcome to politics and I heard
podcast and unbothered production.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Time to get spolitical.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Picture.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
South Africa twenty.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Ten, a youngest girl from Detroit is spending over a
month in South Africa covering the World Cup. On top
of covering one of the world's biggest sporting events, she
is drinking amazing wine and even playing with and prison
posing with lions.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Now, black folks already know which y'all I think, and
I get it.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
But as I was living my best life overseas, the
biggest move of free agency history is happening in America.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
The answer to the question everybody wants to know, Lebron,
what's your decision.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
In this fall?

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Man?

Speaker 4 (00:51):
Very tough and this farm will take my talents to
South Beach and joining Miamileague.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Fifteen years ago this week, Lebron James shocked a lot
of people with his decision to go to Miami, which
subsequently kickstarted an unforeseen player empowerment movement and also represented
one of the rare times in Lebron's career where he
made a major misstep. The decision, in hindsight, is no
less crazy than it was fifteen years ago there was

(01:18):
Lebron at this boys and girls club in Greenwich, Connecticut,
which didn't really make a whole lot of sense. Sure,
the decision raised approximately two million for that boys and
girls club, but it feels like it's worth pointing out
that the median yearly household income for Greenwich is one
hundred and thirty six thousand dollars a year, as it
is one of the wealthiest cities in America. Now I'm

(01:39):
saying that every kid there is growing up like old
boy in Silver Spoons. Google if you don't get that reference.
But let's just say you couldn't exactly call Greenwich and
underserved community. If you think I'm being a hater. Even
Lebron eventually admitted that his turning his free agency destination
into a made for television drama probably wasn't the best.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Did you know?

Speaker 4 (02:00):
If I could look back on it, I would probably
change a lot of it. You know, the fact that
having the whole TV special and people getting opportunity to
watch me make a decision on where I want to play,
I would probably change that, you know, you know, because
I can now look and see if I if the
shoe was on the other foot, and I was a fan,
and I was very passionate about one player and he

(02:23):
decided to leave, you know, I would be upset to,
you know, by the way that he handled it.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
That aside, Lebron leaving Cleveland looks even better through today's lens.
Lebron was a mere twenty five years old then, and
at that stage of his career, Lebron was fighting for
his life in the Eastern Conference against the Celtics and
also the Orlando Magic. Despite winning the MVP consecutive season,
that playoff series against the Celtics in twenty ten was jarring.

(02:50):
In Game five against the Celtics in the playoffs, Lebron
had fifteen points and missed eleven of fourteen shots from
the field. In Game six, Lebron had twenty seven, but
he missed thirteen of his twenty one shots, and Boston
took the series convincingly, But they also sent the message
that the pathway to.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
The finals went through Boston.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Now, there was no way that Lebron was going to
get past the Celtics without some major help. And let's
be honest, that major help wasn't coming to Cleveland. Lebron
created a sweepstakes for his services. Unlike any we've ever
seen in NBA history. Lebron interviewed multiple teams that summer
of twenty ten. Teams were clearing cap space, selling fish

(03:27):
dinners in the church basement, doing whatever they had to
do to get it right for the king. One of
Lebron's most notable suitors was the New York Knicks. After
nine straight losing seasons, they decided to go all in
on landing Lebron. They tanked, they cleared cap space, and
according to reports, they even went so far as to
solicit the services of Carmela and Tony soprano Tony.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
I'm so glad we moved to New York.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Life.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
It's so much better now. Yeah. Here if you have
a witness protection program. Now, we just got to find
a place for your friend Lebron to live. What's he like?
Who is a modern guy? What he respects tradition?

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Do something classy on the East Side.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Was it big enough gonna be entertaining a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
In New York?

Speaker 1 (04:18):
It's very expensive. Oh, that's not going to be a problem.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
You gotta find something magnificent.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Something There's nothing in the world like in one of
a kind like he is. Well, here's a place, he says,
it gets really loud. Then take a look. Oh yeah, yeah,
that's you.

Speaker 5 (04:39):
That's gonna be perfect for Allow me to reintroduce myself.

Speaker 6 (04:43):
My name is.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
I.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Shout out to my friend Pablo Torre for unearthing this
video of James Gandelfeti and Edie Falco trying to recruit
Lebron on behalf of James Dolan and the Knicks, who
supposedly presented this to Lebron during his interview with the team.
Yet this is how the Knicks wound up with Amars
Stotttermeier instead. The last thing legacy of the decision is
that it gave other star players a blueprint for how

(05:07):
to best use their leverage. Now, granted, not every star
has Lebron's power, but his decision seemed to give many
of them who did have some leverage the courage to
orchestrate which teams they wanted to play for and most importantly,
who they wanted to play with. Now, this is something
that the owners never wanted to see. Cleveland owner Dan
Gilbert gave us one of the great sports crashouts of

(05:30):
all time when he penned a letter in comic says
vowing to win a championship before Lebron did, which didn't happen,
by the way, and he essentially channeled his inner Sealy
from the color Purple and Maximus Decimus Meridius old two
finger pointing until you do right by me, I shall
have vengeance in this life or the next.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Head asked.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
The NBA's most recent collective bargaining agreement shows the owners
never forgot nor forgave Lebron's power move. Now it is
it's harder for superstars to link up like the Avengers,
and on the off chance that they do, it's now
difficult for them to keep superstar heavy teams together without
a significant financial penalty. The decision, though, should be remembered
as a shape shifter. After Lebron went to Miami, Carmelo

(06:15):
Anthony maneuvered his way to the Knicks. Kevin Durant left
ok See for Gonda State and has since pulled similar
moves to get to Brooklyn, Phoenix and now Houston. Kyrie
Irving asked for a trade and went to the Celtics.
Kawhi left San Antonio for the Clippers and put the
pressure on the Clippers, who also signed Paul George. Lebron's
decision gave every superstar in the league something very powerful,

(06:36):
the audacity.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
I'm Jamel Hill and I approved this message.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
I'm very excited for my guest today as she is
a friend and someone I can say that from the
first time I saw her, I knew she was going
to be a star. We worked together at ESPN and
she's probably one of the leading voices when it comes
to women's sports. When she was at ESPN and she
uncovered one of the most heartwarming, gut wrenching and vulnerable
stories ever in sports. She has since turned it into

(07:02):
a book and there are rumblings it could be a movie.
She's smart, ferocious, and one of the funniest people that
I know. Coming up on politics, the incredible and wonderful
Sarah's thang, Sarah, I really appreciate you joining me here

(07:25):
on Spolitics. Going to start the podcast with a question
I ask every guest that appears on politics and that
is named an athlete or a moment that made you
love sports.

Speaker 6 (07:35):
I knew this was coming, and even if I didn't
know what was coming, I would already have my answer
ready because it's of course Michael Jordan.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
I grew up in the Bulls.

Speaker 6 (07:42):
I grew up in Chicago in the nineties when the
Bulls were literally everything, and I talk about it a lot, actually,
because my parents aren't really into sports, and that's surprising
for a lot of people. They always assumed that I
had a dad or a grand bookcause everyone sexist about it.
And my mom definitely likes sports more than my dad does,
but neither of them watch much of anything except for tennis.
We were a big tennis family. My sister I both

(08:05):
played Usta. We all read Tennis magazine, so we would
watch tennis at home and other than that nothing. And
so if not from my obsession with basketball and Jordan
and then the Bulls taking over Chicago back then when
I was just a kid, I don't think I would
have this job.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
I really don't.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
So how did you get the sports bug if it
wasn't really a family project?

Speaker 6 (08:27):
Being an athlete, being six feet tall when I was twelve,
and being awkward in every way except for when it
came to sports. Yeah, my sister and I just started
playing in the backyard from a very young age any
sport possible. And the nice thing is my parents are
really into playing sports and being active.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
They just didn't care about watching it.

Speaker 6 (08:47):
So we played tennis, we played golf, we played softball,
baseball in the backyard, whatever.

Speaker 7 (08:52):
We could do.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
And I mean it was a lot easier back then, Jameel.

Speaker 6 (08:55):
They couldn't just, you know, put us in front of
a TV or a phone and assume that we would
keep ourselves busy video gaming or something. We actually had
to go outside and make something of ourselves, find adventure.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yes, and look at you. Let me guess you had
to walk ten miles of the mill in the snow.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
No, not so much.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
You can grow up in Chicago, so snow.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, I'm sure a part of some of your escapades
outside at some point. You know, obviously this has all
lved you to have this wonderful career in sports. I
don't know if you ever saw author on the table
for you, but you are an author. I'm going to
hold up your book, your new book which is called
Runs in the Family. You and Delon McCullough have collaborated

(09:36):
to do this book and this is based off a
story that you worked on at ESPN. I have read
the book. It's really phenomenal and just very touching, you know,
get you get plenty of feels and so many ups
and downs that you take us through through the journey
through this family and the search for identity.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
But you know, this is actually going to be a
really tricky interview for.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Me because there is such a great plot twist in
this book that I'm going to try not to talk
about it, because.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
Most people do talk about it.

Speaker 6 (10:08):
And so we're kind of okay with that because it
did come out, yeah, like during the E sixty and
the story a couple of years ago. It was out
there enough that we're not trying to be too precious
about it. And in part because I think there's so
much to the book beyond just the twist that if
it's out, I'm like, there's still a million reasons to
read it. Even but like if you do, you know,
want to warn your listeners about spoilers, there's certainly some

(10:31):
people that want to protect themselves from knowing the twists
before they read it.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Well, I mean the plot twist that You're right, it
is so much larger than that, as I mentioned, family, identity,
chosen family, like all these other themes that are part
of this book. But it's such a great plot twist
because it gives you even more of the feels that
you already have. So that I'm going to try, even
though it is I don't care. I'm going to try
not to totally spoil it, even though I have so
many questions about that. But we're just gonna start really

(10:56):
at the genesis of this. How did you come across
this story and what was it about it that made
you say that's the one.

Speaker 6 (11:05):
Yeah, my friend Skip Tremontana actually played football with Dylan
at MIAMIV, Ohio, and a handful of years ago, we
were having a beer and he was like, man, I
just heard from this old teammate of mine with the
craziest story. And Skip told me the story in less
than five minutes and I already had chills and was
like on the verge of tears, and I was like WHOA.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Like, first of all, is this real? Are we sure
that this is real?

Speaker 6 (11:28):
And brought it to ESPN and it was like an
instant Yes, they did want proof that it was real.
We did have to make sure that there was actual
tests and what not to make sure that the twist
was real.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
But yeah, I mean it was a no brainer for me.

Speaker 6 (11:43):
It really does sound like a made up story, and
telling it the first time for the E sixty and
the written piece was such a joy. I had so
many nerves about whether I was going to screw it
up because it is such a good story.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
I was like, if it doesn't do well, it's my fault,
it's not the story's ball.

Speaker 6 (12:00):
And then it went viral and it had such a
great response that it gave me a more confidence to
take on the book.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
Because to your point about being an.

Speaker 6 (12:07):
Author, I actually would have believed you way more if
you said that when I was a kid than sports reporter,
because I didn't decide to get into sports until my twenties.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
I went to Cornell as an English major.

Speaker 6 (12:16):
I always wanted to be an actress or comedian or writer,
and so I grew up always writing. I have like
stacks of these little fake white books at home where
you could draw your own cover and then write a
story inside, and so I've been writing since I was
a kid. It's the sports stuff that was the real
twist in my early twenties.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
So yeah, I have always wanted.

Speaker 6 (12:37):
To write a book, and when the opportunity to write
this one came up, I had to sort of put
aside the imposter syndrome of like, am I an author
and get after it and I'm so glad I did.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
And to give people the bare bones of the story,
the shell of it, it is that Dylan McCullough, as
you said, he was a standout at Miami of Ohio,
grew up. You know, he had a bit of a
loving childhood, but a rough one, you know, let's be
honest about that.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
And he was adopted.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
And even though his mother kind of drops this bombshell,
don't have to tell him he's adopted when he was
what six seven years old? Yeah, he was seven years old,
and she tells him that he's adopted, and because of
the kind of family they come.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
From, this is not something that they openly discussed.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
And years and years later, like thirty years later, you know,
the subject kind of arises again of him trying to
find out who his birth mother is. And so there
is a considerable portion of this book about him finding
his birth mother. He does, and one of the surprises
is who his father is because he finally is able

(13:41):
to fill in that gap. Now, because this story is involving,
you know, adoption and these emotional issues, how did you
go about winning Delan's trust.

Speaker 6 (13:53):
Yeah, I think I had to win it the first
time around, But there was a big leap between the
research and the conversations I had for the first story,
which was only about five thousand words, and then the
second time around, which is ninety five thousand words or
whatever it is, right, the depth of conversation that we
have to have to really tell a complete story was
way different. And then talking to all of his family members.

(14:15):
We spoke to a few for the first story, but
really getting more of his friends and family to speak
to me and kind of be able to have enough
of the anecdotes and stories and timeline to tell his
whole life. I think the first time around, I proved
to them that I wanted to write the story with
the intention of bringing out the joy in it, while

(14:36):
also acknowledging that there were challenges along the way, And
I think in the writing of the book and over
the course of the process, I made it clear that
it wasn't about sensationalizing their lives. It was about humanizing
every person in the story, even folks that might come
across a little bit villainous. They're multi dimensional. There are

(14:57):
reasons for their decision making. There are reasons how they
got to be who they are. And that's the big
theme of the book is what a tremendous opportunity deal
and affords us to look hard at nature versus nurture,
DNA and blood versus emotional DNA, the lessons and messages
that our family passes on by choice, because we don't

(15:19):
get to choose our DNA and our blood, but we
certainly can decide if we want to carry on things
that our family has perpetuated for generations, or if we
think something should end with us, whether that's generational trauma
or that's the kind of thing you mentioned, which is
we don't talk about that sort of thing.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
If you decide to be a.

Speaker 6 (15:33):
Family that doesn't talk about tough things, what does that
mean for the next generation and the generations after that?

Speaker 3 (15:39):
Or can you be someone who says, I think it.

Speaker 6 (15:41):
Ends with me, and I want to be open with
my kids, and I want to talk about things and
process things and deal with trauma in a different way.
And so having that opportunity to look at someone that
so clearly illustrates to us what he got from blood
and DNA and what he got from the people who
raised him and the family who chose him for me
meant that I wanted to do a lot of research.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
So I read a lot of books about adoption.

Speaker 6 (16:04):
Generational trauma, psychology, epigenetics, emotional DNA, all these things, and
I think it became clear to them in our conversations
that I wanted to truly understand every one of them
and how they got to be who they are and
what made them Because Javell, I'm sure you remember this
from writing your book, and I thought about you a
lot as I was working on this, because I finally

(16:26):
really better understood because I had you on my show
back to talk about your book, and I remember asking
you about what it felt like to write about your
family and the tough stuff and both getting permission and
getting grace from them, and wanting to share your life
in a way that might be hard for some of
them to receive. And I had to have those same
conversations with some of Dylan's family members, and I needed
to make it clear to them I'm doing the work

(16:48):
to really understand how the things that came before you
and around you made you who you are and affected
the decisions that you made in the choices that you
made and to reflect them without judgment and to tell
the story about them with grace. And that was really
important to me, because it's not as interesting of a
story and it's not as useful of a story for
people reading it if it's very.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
Black and white. This is good, this is bad. Judge
this judge that I wanted to tell his story while
allowing everyone else to read it and ask themselves how
am I handling what I've been handed both genetically and otherwise,
and how am I deciding what ends with me and
what goes forward.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
So that's a very difficult thing to pull off as
a writer, is that each character that you write about, you,
I think successfully wrote them without judgment, which allows the
audience even though at times you are frustrated with some
of the decisions they might make and say.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
Like, oh, why did you do this? And I found.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Myself coming back to that, particularly with Delan's mother, Adele,
who is a fascinating character, fascinating person I won't call
our character because she's a human being, right yeah, he
said his mom is very complex and fascinating, And as.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
A black woman, I have to be honest.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
You don't really get to see black way, and sometimes
presented in that way is see they're fitting some kind
of trope. But she has all the complexities because she
dealt with a lot of abuse. You know, she also
kind of had that sort of emotional stoicism that is
not conducive to when you're dealing with tough things. So
when it came to speaking and understanding and writing her,

(18:21):
what went into that especially, I'm assuming that you had
a lot of conversations with her.

Speaker 6 (18:27):
Yeah, she's a tough nut to crack. She's very proud
and especially very proud of her sons and how they
turned out. And her desire to sometimes rewrite the past
because the future turned out okay is something I understand.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
But isn't what the book needs to be.

Speaker 6 (18:49):
And Delan had a lot of conversations with her about like,
hey Ma, like if I was telling you this story
from cell block C, that'd be a very different thing.
But we can talk about the hard times because it
worked out still, you know, emphasized education. You still loved
me and raised me and cared for me in a
way that made me feel safe enough to put myself
out in the world and become as successful as I have.

Speaker 3 (19:10):
And I think.

Speaker 6 (19:12):
Adele probably does have the hardest time reconciling some of
the choices she's made with the intentions she had. You know,
she did have the best intentions at all time, but
she never gave herself any sort of moment to grieve
the things that had happened to her, the ways she
had been mistreated, the choices that the men around her

(19:33):
made that left her always hold in the bag. She
never really had any empathy for herself, and as a result,
some of the choices she made in some of the
ways that she raised the boys kept them from processing things.
And I think for Dylan, writing the book became therapeutic.
And we've done a couple interviews while they'll ask him like, oh, like,
how did you process this or what kind of work

(19:55):
have you done? And he's like, the book like basically,
Sarah's my therapist. She read like nine books and did
all the work of like understanding all this, And in
the process of writing, he's had to think about the
questions I've asked him and sometimes.

Speaker 3 (20:08):
Say, oh, I never thought about that. Oh I didn't
know that.

Speaker 6 (20:11):
And especially the stuff in the book, the science stuff,
and I really wanted that in there because again, I
wanted it to be his story, and I wanted to
be so much more For everyone reading it, they really
understood a lot of the reasons why people might choose
trauma again, or why they might, you know, bring something
to a family and find it almost fact like and

(20:31):
irrefutable until they take a moment to say, hold on,
just because my family's always said this, does that mean
it's true? Or can I decide to approach things differently?
And so in bringing that science, he learned a lot
from it and he gets to be someone who both
heals backwards and forwards. He doesn't carry on the abuse
that was in his household, and he can go back

(20:53):
toward his mom and say, you did a great job.
It's okay that not everything was perfect all the time.
It's okay that people didn't give you the tools that
you needed, but now I'm going to help you get them,
which is hard for a lot of people, I think,
going backwards in their family trying to do that.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
That was interesting, the sort of scientific background that you provided,
As you mentioned a moment ago that nature versus nurture
thing like what you know, especially if you come from
these kinds of circumstances, you know, poverty, abused, you know,
all the fun subjects to deal with. What did you
learn about your own nature in writing this book and

(21:34):
studying so much about this?

Speaker 6 (21:36):
Well, I will say not just this book, but the
last five or ten years, I've just gotten really interested
in like psychology and sociology and why people are the
way they are. I think it's always been a curiosity
for me, but I sort of started to pursue it
more just in the podcast I read, in the books
I read, and so that combined with writing the book,

(21:57):
has led to a lot of texts to my parents
just thanking them over and over for.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Just not just doing such a good job.

Speaker 6 (22:07):
And I think for me, part of it is I
was a lot more judgmental in my late twenties early
thirties about my decision making as the best choices and
why do people choose to do X or do why
it's so self sabotaging, it's dangerous. It's you know, judgmental

(22:28):
about the way people self soothe, the way people decided
to numb things. And that's because I had it so good,
Like I didn't get it right. I thought that people
were making these quote unquote bad decisions because they just
didn't have the right approach to life, or they were dumb,
or they were you know. And the more I read

(22:49):
about the way our childhoods can impact our decision making,
our impulse control, our attitudes, our gratitude, all of that,
the less judgmental I'm about everybody because I understand that
I was not saddled with a million things that other
people were. And for me, it's very easy to wake
up every day and be like, Wow, life's amazing. We

(23:09):
get dolphins and rainbows and ice cream and sunshine, and
why would you ever want to take drugs?

Speaker 3 (23:13):
Why would you ever numb it out?

Speaker 6 (23:14):
And then I know that there are other people that
wake up and every day it's how can I be
expected to do.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
Another day of this?

Speaker 6 (23:20):
And I used to judge them for that as a choice,
And what I understand now is that's not a choice.
That is mental health privilege that I have as a
result of having a great family, a great upbringing, parents
who really hit it out of the park. And so
that turned me into someone who was much more understanding
of other people's struggles and also then much more generous

(23:41):
and graceful with the folks that I was writing about
and talking to in this book, And I think and
hope that when people read it, they will also read
it with that mindset of wow, I don't know what
I would do in that situation.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
It's very different from mine. So instead of judging it,
I'm going to read with this open heart and open mind.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, I don't know. I can't think of off the
top of my head. I don't know of anyone. Oh,
actually I do. I thought about it. I was like,
do I know anybody who's adopted? But there were some
issues that you surfaced with adoption that frankly I had
never thought about. And it may be you know, especially
I know friends I know at this point more friends

(24:19):
who have adopted than people I know that actually are adopted,
and just talking to them about sort of you really
take us inside the insecurity that being adopted left dealing with.
And I thought that was really transformative to see that, like, Wow,
he was insecure in environments because he wondered if people

(24:40):
were judging him or looking down on him because he
did not come from a traditional family, you know model,
And just in your extensive conversations and working with him,
what for him has been kind of the key to
unlocking and sort of being able to to see that

(25:00):
the problem was never him, it was you know, it
was these other things that you're dealing with.

Speaker 6 (25:06):
I think it's a lifelong struggle because I don't think
it's an easy fix.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
I think it goes back to the.

Speaker 6 (25:13):
Science about attachment theory, and essentially, as a kid, the
relationship you have with your primary caregiver can indicate over
the rest of your life your reaction to things. You
can have avoidant attachment, you can have secure attachment, and
all of those things can be about how often and
regularly your caregiver reaches out when you are struggling or

(25:35):
crying or need something, how often they're not available.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
And what I.

Speaker 6 (25:40):
Learned in this book, which was really informative, is you
can have a child of adoption who the day after
they're born, is immediately placed in someone else's care and
is cared for as lovingly as anyone else, but there
is still an inherent detachment from the body of the
mother to whom they were born. They were in that
body for nine months and we know now, of course,

(26:01):
you know, they tell you, they can tell what music
you're listening to, They can tell what food you're eating.
They can hear you if you're yelling, they feel your stress.
Like we love to separate our brains from our bodies.
And what I learned over the course of research for
this book, particularly from this amazing book, The Body Keeps
the Score, is how connected our bodies and nervous systems
and brains and emotions and feelings are. And so when

(26:25):
you think you're burying trauma or not acknowledging something, that
doesn't mean your body isn't still holding onto it. And
so for a child of adoption, that doesn't mean that
they won't ever be happy or secure. It just means
you have to work harder because that detachment from that
original mother and body that they were in feels like

(26:46):
a chasm, even if they can't put that in words.
And so for Dylan, his success in life, finding his
wife and having his sons and feeling like he's, you know,
accomplished all these things that he never could have imagined
and certainly helps with his confidence. But that deep down
feeling of doubt that other people have in him or

(27:07):
insecurity is still a part of who he is. It's
still a part of his shyness and the way he interacts,
and I don't know if he even would know how
to put it into words.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
It's just a feeling.

Speaker 6 (27:20):
And that comes from presumably that detachment, where for the
month or so that he was in the orphanage he
didn't have a regular caregiver attending to every single need,
and then had to sort of process that. Now that's subconscious.
Then he becomes a child and his adoptive dad leaves,

(27:42):
and now it's reinforced by the actions of others. So
now you're consciously also wondering about whether you're enough and
whether you're wanted, And so he then has processed a
lot of those feelings better, But it's all a jumble.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
Like Jelle is like.

Speaker 6 (27:57):
Really fascinating for me to really read about all this stuff,
and particularly to learn about the things that are very
clearly decided early in our lives. And it doesn't mean
we're you know, at the behest of those things or
that were incapable of moving past them. It just means
we have to be intentional about it. It's probably not

(28:18):
going to happen naturally. It's probably going to come by
deciding to look at the things that you struggle with
or look at the things that you're caring from your
parents and your youth, and be thoughtful about how you
want to change them.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah, there was.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
You read my memoir, so there was a lot in
this book I could personally relate to, especially making those
choices of like.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
What you don't want to be.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
And you know, my mother, much like his mother, used
to say that same thing is that you can learn
I can teach you what not to be too. And
I certainly learned that seeing my mother go through substance
abuse and just us sort of growing up in poverty, Like,
I don't want that instability for my life. I don't
want these substance abuse issues for my life. I have

(28:58):
to make some conscious choices. I don't want to be
at the mercy of other people all the time, because
those situations leave you so vulnerable. Now, of course, inevitably,
when you write a book, especially one that is giving
us this range of emotion, this much detail being revealed,
very personal traumas.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Not everybody likes it. All right, Yeah, that has.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Been the response from his family about this book.

Speaker 6 (29:25):
Thankfully, it has been really good. And I will tell
you Dylan was very worried. Worried to the point of
like year plus into the process.

Speaker 3 (29:34):
Do you think we should just not do the book?
And I'm like, I'm going to kill you. We're doing it.
We've been working on it. It's gonna be okay. But
let's talk about why you're worried. Let's talk about what
you're nervous about.

Speaker 6 (29:43):
Let's figure out if we can take things out or
edit things or add things that'll make you feel better.
And what's been really great to hear both directly from
his family members to me, who have been so wonderful
throughout but sent me the kindest messages when they got
the final draft and read the book, but also in
talking to him, he sent it to a handful of
cousins and other family members, and he was just waiting

(30:06):
for what he thought was going to be the inevitable Oh,
chapter fifteen, Oh that's going to be a mess or
chapter five on.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
Like he said, he didn't hear it at all. All
he heard was the bigger picture of what this book
might do for a lot of people, and particularly for
their family, the conversations it was going to start among
them and their families and the larger family of which
he exists.

Speaker 6 (30:27):
And that's what I was reassuring him throughout was I
really think this book is going to make a difference
for people. I really think people are going to get
to see you as this multi dimensional person. And when
you make a mistake, like you'd steal a Gi Joe
or whatever else, like, that's not because he was most
worried about those moments that showed him struggling or taking

(30:49):
a faltering in a way that you know, and that's
life writing a like I'm not going to name a name,
but I had a real famous athlete on my show
who pitched me her book and I read it and
had her and then I thought, this, ain't it? Like
this book is missing the parts where I believe you
that this is your story. This book is missing the

(31:10):
challenges and the struggles and your mistakes, not just things
that happened to us that aren't ideal, but the choices
we make that we later learned from. And I told Dylan,
we need those moments to fully appreciate just how much
you got through and passed to become who you are.
And so I'm really glad that that's how everyone seems
to be responding to it. Adele did say at one

(31:30):
but I'm gonna write my own book. I was like, okay,
but she also, you know, she said to him she
wanted to explain to him why she did things, and
he said, listen, I get that, but like when I
was a kid, I didn't know that. So the book
has to be what I thought and felt and saw
when it happened, not what I learned forty five years

(31:51):
later about why you did that. And that's hard, I
think for people. And I imagine when you wrote your book,
you felt the same. It's like everybody remembers things differently,
and everybody wants to process them differently. But the real
magic is in telling it honestly and truthfully, so that
when other people read it, they see themselves and their
own mistakes and their own families.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
Well, I can say this is my mother was amazing
and me talking to her about the book because I
was revealing all this stuff, you know, the really the
the very hard parts about her substance abuse, and she
told me a bunch of stories I'd never heard before,
and I was like, oh my god, I might need

(32:32):
a moment because I saw that it certainly was very
difficult asking her about you know, what was the worst
moment of her life when she was you know, raped
and assaulted.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
So it's just that that was very, very hard.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
But that fallout part, as I said about people not
always being happy, is that it you know, I probably
never say this publicly, but it basically put a huge
wedge between.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
Me and my father.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
And so that's why I asked you about, like, was
how did everybody receive this?

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Because you know, people, it's hard. One thing, I'm sorry
to hear that. Well, I appreciate you saying that, and
you know, I'm I'll be honest, I'm.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Not sure if our relationship will ever recover from it,
but I will say that, like I do understand for people,
when you read it in print.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
They see it there feels different. It feels a lot different.

Speaker 6 (33:30):
And also sometimes it might be the first time you
really hear that that's how someone felt. Yeah, And they
might say I told you that, but like maybe you didn't.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
Probably get it that way, maybe you never really said it.

Speaker 6 (33:41):
Yeah. I mean, I will say a couple of the
people in the book who are the most poorly probably
received are no longer with us, okay, okay, which does
make it a little bit easier to not have to
wonder maybe their family members won't like seeing some things.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
But yeah, I mean, I think.

Speaker 6 (34:06):
One of the most remarkable things about this story is
the incredible grace shown by all the people in it.
And that's part of why it feels the way it
does to read it, because it's not just like whoa serendipitous,
that's wild, but it's like, wow, look at how this
person chose to receive this news. Look at how this
person chose to embrace the people around them after receiving

(34:27):
this news, And that's not how it always works. I'm
just really amazed by the people in Delan's life. He
really looked out on both his birth family and his
chosen family and even all those guardian angels that I
mentioned around him. And you know, I'm sorry to hear
that about your dad. I know it's really tough to read,
but I wonder if eventually he'll find the grace too

(34:51):
to want to have the right conversations to figure out
why it was meaningful you for you and necessary for
you to write it.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
And well, Sarah, that's that's to be unpacked for another episode.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
Because the issue wasn't what I wrote. The issue was
that I didn't write about him enough.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
So that's to be that's something that we will have
to unpack maybe maybe a.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
Book, book book. Maybe this is a perfect way.

Speaker 6 (35:21):
It's a perfect way to get that second book book advance,
unpack it then but until start a bigger fight and
then you'll have more to write about and then tie.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
Up at the end with a nice ball, you know,
maybe sont b.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
Uh. You know, I'm glad that everybody received it in
which the spirit and in which you and which you
meant it. But it uh, this apparently will be bigger
than just a book, because you will have a movie
about this, hopefully hopefully what's what's holding on with the
potential of Runs in the Family maybe being a movie.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (36:00):
So when we first did the story for E sixty
and the written story for ESPN, it really went viral.
It was pretty wild, some of the people posting about it,
writing about it. Allegedly. I was told both Denzel and
Jamie Fox went to their agents and we're like, if
this is a movie like I wanted and so yeah,
so when in the aftermath we did get some calls

(36:21):
about potential movie rights and book. At the time, I
had fifty eleven jobs, as you would say, at ESPN.
So I wasn't ready for the book side, but the
movie was of interest, and it wasn't my story yet.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
It's just a five thousand word piece.

Speaker 6 (36:36):
It was Delan's life story that they were really optioning,
but Dylan wanted to bring me along as an executive
producer and a script supervisor, having worked with the family
to tell the story.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
So CIA is my agency.

Speaker 6 (36:47):
They ended up working with a company called Macro. They've
done a lot of African American folks.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
Yeah, Yeah, Charles and Poppy and everyone was there.

Speaker 6 (36:55):
Yeah, And they've done Fences and Sorry to Bother You
and mud Bound, all these really great award nominated African
American driven stories that felt like the kind of story
we wanted to tell, And so they ended up kind
of winning the rights, and then Russell Wilson and Sierra's
company was among the other folks trying to get it,
and when they didn't get it, they came back and said,

(37:15):
can we still be involved?

Speaker 3 (37:16):
So they came on as executive producers.

Speaker 6 (37:18):
Now, up until literally last week, I thought that deal
was really still in place because we had pitched primarily
during COVID and then during the writers strike, so it
was like I guess we'll take a pause and a hiatus.
We'll wait for now the book to come out, and
we'll revisit. But as it turns out, there was a
deadline on that that expired, so a new deal would

(37:38):
have to be negotiated. So those two will come back,
and anybody else who's pitching right now will come to us,
and perhaps we'll work with the same people, maybe we'll
work with someone else, but that's all yet to be seen.
The cool thing about it now is it is my
story and the book that Dylan and I wrote more
than just his life. There is enough of source material
now that it would be a movie with the book
at the center, which is great for me in terms of,

(38:01):
you know, being involved, and also great for having proof
of the larger, bigger story to tell beyond just the
original short one that we did. And I think that's
driving even more interest in it. So I told Pablo
they were still in That was incorrect information.

Speaker 3 (38:16):
They might still be in the future though, and they
do seem interested.

Speaker 6 (38:18):
So you know, first we'll have hopefully like a I
don't think it's a bidding war because you don't really
pay for the rights. It's more like you have the
opportunity to shepherd it towards studios and then and then
the stuff happens.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
But well, I would not be surprised.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
I'm sure that we will see this on the big
screen one day because it's like such a rich story.
And yeah, like you know, I mean I love to
see you mentioned Jamie and Gazil, like.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
Is there a role for one of them?

Speaker 3 (38:47):
It's like right, right, Well.

Speaker 6 (38:49):
It's like what age and what part of the story, right,
And also it was like Gazel would have to be
people have to biological Dan, Yeah, exactly exactly at this age, at.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
This age, so it might might be a little different.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
And just to give people an idea about where Dylan
is now, he's an assistant with the Las Vegas Raiders.
He's running backs, coming backs coach, and you know he's
been around the league Seattle. And in fact, that was
one of the treats for me in reading the book
and him talking some of those coaches I covered that
he talked about, like Dodtreill, like I covered dodtree Will

(39:23):
when he.

Speaker 6 (39:23):
I loved that, So, like, well, what was cool for
me as like a couple of the coaches that came
to visit him in high school when he was getting recruited,
were up and comers like Bob Stoops and Jim Dressel. Right, yeah,
So he was at Notre Dame just before this, helped
them to a national title game. He won a Super
Bowl with the Chiefs. He was at USC Indiana, Miami
of Ohio, and he did do a coaching internship at

(39:46):
Seattle too.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
You mentioned that.

Speaker 6 (39:47):
But yeah, he's been a bunch of places, and it's
always fun. And when I read a book that's a
true story, I love when they pepper in some stuff
about the time and place. I knew I wanted to
make Youngstown essentially a character. It felt like Youngstown was
almost another parent, and so that needed to be really rich.
But I also wanted to throw in stuff about the
things that were happening in pop culture.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Oh yeah, time growing in the public enemy reference, the
public enemy references.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
You know.

Speaker 6 (40:13):
So I at the beginning, I remember sending a long
list of stuff to Dylan and his brother Damon, of
like did you watch this?

Speaker 3 (40:18):
Did you play with this? Did you read this? Have
you ever heard of this?

Speaker 6 (40:21):
And it'd be funny the things where he'd be like, nah,
I don't know what that is and then oh, yeah,
we watch this all the time, or we did this
because I wanted it to be really authentic, and I
wanted to spur some memories that they could tell me,
like you know, he was in class when the Challenger
exploded and things like that. But also I just love
being reminded that the story is in real life by

(40:43):
having things like the car is, sir, mix a lots
and you know those little links to this story. Yeah,
and those little stories like that, and then the moments
when players and coaches intersect with him where you're like, oh, yeah,
that was the draft where this player went first, and
things like that.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
No, the references were all good. They made me feel
two thousand years old, but they were good.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
Well, Dealing's older than both of us, so at least
at least he is.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
I mean, I'm a little close to do them than
you are, but I feel you all right. Well, Sarah's
a lot more I want to ask you about, not
just with this book, but also some other things, especially
your experience now as a owner. So I want to
ask you about that and some other things. But we're
going to take a quick break and we'll be back
with more of a Sarah Spain. You know, I was thinking, Sarah, like,

(41:43):
was there a person in the book I didn't like?

Speaker 1 (41:45):
And then I was like, because I think you did
a really good job of humanizing everybody. But then I remembered.
I was like, it was the first real girlfriend.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
Wasn't a fan, wasn't feeling it. She was young, So
I like, you've given her all the grace of being.

Speaker 3 (42:01):
Hopefully she grew out of it.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
Hopefully she grew out of it she needs to be.
Was not a fan of hers at all.

Speaker 6 (42:10):
I feel like Dylan was like very worried about the
different girlfriends in the book. I'm like, you've been married forever,
you have four kids, everybody dated someone before. There's she's
gonna be okay Darnelle' school, She's gonna be okay with it.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
Yeah, So that was like that that was probably it.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
But I get that that one very early in the process.
You know, you had made this joke about you having
fifty eleven jobs, because you know that is kind of
what happens when you essentially you are the product and
you basically become the business. So you know, with this
book out with a lot of the other stuff that

(42:46):
you're doing. You have your own podcasts, your award winning
podcast Thank You. So, how would you describe this season
of your career.

Speaker 6 (42:55):
It's interesting, you know, I am a person who seems
sort of fearless, except usually when I'm in control, if
that makes sense. I get settled and I like a place,
and then I like to work within the construct of

(43:16):
that place. So it was really jarring for me when
just working at ESPN and having all those jobs ended
and I became part time there. I'm still doing work
for espnW, but ESPN's the top of the ladder, and
so when you aren't there anymore, you look around and
you're like, what's the goal?

Speaker 3 (43:34):
Where do I want to be?

Speaker 6 (43:35):
And also, I think unfortunately in the sports space, you
and I are both you know, thoughtful, progressive voices.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
There are just places that I'm not going to work.

Speaker 6 (43:44):
There's just a lot of places I'm not going to
work and they're not going to want me and I'm
not going to want.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
To be there.

Speaker 6 (43:49):
And so looking around at that time and figuring out
what else I wanted to do was both really useful
for me because I had to actually think about it
for the first time in thirteen years' you know, like
I went from starting at ESPN when I was like can.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
I even do this business? Will I ever make any money?

Speaker 6 (44:06):
Will anyone ever want to listen to me, to like, Oh,
I'm never leaving here, this is great, And then all
of a sudden, it's like, oh, I got to like
figure something out at a completely different stage in my
life with completely different expectations for the money I want
to make in the place I'm going to live versus
when I started in my twenties, and so that was.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
Really hard for me.

Speaker 6 (44:24):
But I got the really incredible gift of having started
a podcast at ESPN that I kind of carved out
some space to talk to anyone I wanted about anything
I wanted. I had started to feel really one note
at ESPN doing radio for thirteen years, where it was
like every day I needed to know everything about everything
all the time, and that was fine, except for I

(44:45):
have so many interests outside of sports and so on
my podcast, I started having a lot of guests from
a lot of backgrounds, and oftentimes what they'd talk about
or something would come up would be a real challenge
that they faced, whether that was surprise, medical diagnosis and accident,
a firing, a life change, and as I would listen,
I would think, man, I've had it real good, Like

(45:06):
what would I do if I was in that position?
And that included talking to some folks that had left
ESPN by choice or had been let go and were
surprised by the decision and hearing them talk about life
after he has been you know that I called you
like the week that he who shall not be named
tried to get my ass out of there and then
was thwarted in his efforts because I'm.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
Still in there.

Speaker 6 (45:29):
But he did have some effect that really minimizing the
work I was doing. And I was like, all right,
you're making it look good. You're showing us how to
do it, Like tell me everything, you know, Calm me down,
because this is like a scary thing. And having had
those conversations with folks like you and others, I had
prepared myself for the moment that my life would take
a turn. I didn't know that it would be that,

(45:51):
but I had asked myself questions when people had talked
about these challenges, how would I have handled that? And
I thought to myself, pretty shitty, pretty shitty. You've had
it real good. You've never had knock on wood, any
like major tragedies or traumas, and you're just riding along
feeling good. And if something comes and knox you opside
the head, whether it's disease or actually or otherwise, like,

(46:12):
you're going to be bad at handling it. So start
thinking about it now, Start giving yourself the tools now,
start listening to and reading the things that are going
to help you be better.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
And that was a real gift.

Speaker 6 (46:23):
So that when it did happen, I gave myself a
couple of days to be angry and sad, and then
I was like, all right, well, this is an opportunity.
How can I use this to like calibrate what I
want to do and what's next? And I was really
thoughtful about it. I got offered a couple jobs that
were things that I just really didn't want, and they
paid well and they were high profile, and I was like, wait,
this is an opportunity to be thoughtful about what I want,

(46:44):
not just be scared and jump into the next thing.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
And so.

Speaker 6 (46:49):
I love my show that I'm doing. It's a lot
of work you'd be shocked to hear. But the year
and a half or so that I mostly wrote the
book and had a couple other jobs. Writing a book
is but it was like the first time in thirteen
years that I could just be like, oh, someone invited
me to the Cubs game, all right, I'll go to
that and I'll write more tomorrow. Meanwhile, every other day
for fifteen years now, I've had a show every day.

(47:13):
And you know that that's great and it's good stability,
but that means every day the light turns on and
that's it. That's where you are, and that's what you're
doing and that's what you're thinking about. And so I'm
back to the daily schedule, but a daily podcast, so
then you can always be working on it. There isn't
even a light that turns out and then goes off.
It's like at any moment, you could be doing an interview,
writing a script, adding something, editing something. So it's been

(47:33):
a lot of work, but it doesn't exist. There's no
other daily women's sports show of any kind on TV
radio podcast, so being something that people want and new
is missing.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
Is awesome.

Speaker 6 (47:43):
Writing a book, which is something I've always wanted to do,
and actually having the time and the gift of the
editor who wanted it years ago, coming back around literally
right when I was like what am I going to
do with my life and being like I'm back with
the book, but now I'm in Simon and Schuster. Would
you'd be interested? I was like, yeah, great timing, let's
do that. And then being in spaces I want to
be in. You know, Jabelle, I think you and I

(48:05):
both are built to swim upstream.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
We can do it. We have the spine for it,
but that doesn't mean we always want to.

Speaker 6 (48:12):
And so going from many years of arguing with people
about the value of women, arguing people.

Speaker 3 (48:20):
About the product being.

Speaker 6 (48:22):
Good, but needing to fix the infrastructure around it, the marketing,
the advertising, the storytelling, and getting into the space now
where predominantly I'm surrounded by other people who agree, and
by women and badass women and successful women and a
lot fewer creepy men.

Speaker 3 (48:37):
I'm like, oh, this is nice, So I think it's
a good season.

Speaker 6 (48:44):
It feels tenuous because I'm not on the same kind
of four or five year contracts and that was a
nice feeling to know. But I'm trying to teach myself
to be more comfortable with not knowing. It's part of
my lessons I'm learning about myself and my control issues.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
Well, I don't know many successful people who are not
also control freaks.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
And it's really control has kind of a negative connotation, right,
It's not really control. It's just that there is a
vision and a purpose you have for yourself and you're
thinking about how am I going to best execute that?
And yes, it is much easier to execute that when
you have a four or five year teal, like a
lot easier, you know, And.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
So I hear you, it's like I think you probably have.

Speaker 2 (49:37):
You unfortunately are cursed with the with the thing where
you make it look easier than it is because I
know how much.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
It's nice, thank you.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Yeah, because it's people assume just because you used to
battling that that's what you want to do. It's like, no,
I would love for every two weeks there to be
a patcheock that's quite large. Just setting about bank account
that I don't have to work two hours in the
day to get.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
That would be yeah, my life. But that's okay.

Speaker 6 (50:07):
Yeah, it's like hard to decide. Am I am I
someone who loves working hard? Or am I someone who
will only accept the results of working hard if I
could get those results.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
Without working hard.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
I would.

Speaker 6 (50:19):
I would damn sure figure out how to relax more
would Oh you know what, Jamal, You know how people
think my husband's a billionairecause they're fucking morons. So the
internet says my husband is a billionaire. Do you think
I would be here no offense? Because I love you
so much? Do you think I would be here and
working a daily podcast and busting my ass as much
as I have if I was a billionaire. Yeah, you

(50:39):
would never see or hear for me, especially right now
in this country.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
How would it be here?

Speaker 3 (50:45):
Why are you kidding me?

Speaker 6 (50:46):
I would live in the sickest house in New Zealand,
maybe Australia, because there's more animals there and my real
goal in life, especially now, is to get off the
grid and just hang out with animals all day. I
would live in a sick house somewhere with animals everywhere
and the occasional human stopping.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
But that's the dream right now.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
I I overstand this dream. I do the animal part.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
You know.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
I might pick someplace a little bit, you know.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
Okay, Yeah, you like you like a bougie beach.

Speaker 6 (51:13):
I like I like a lake in mountains, and like
just animals, like I'm truly I am starting the mapping
out of like.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
A small little farm.

Speaker 6 (51:21):
I need this book to do well so I can
become a writer, get off the grid, not have to
be on the internet, not have to interact with everyone,
and just like hang out with my animals and write
all day.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
So yeah, that is I.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
Think most people who love writing, that is your dream
is to find a secluded place and just be there.
And just for me, it's just it's just beach and water.
That's it was the same.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
We can visit each other totally.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
I was like, I'll get some animal timing.

Speaker 6 (51:45):
Yeah, give you a couple of weeks, like a time shirt.
It's like that movie The Holiday. You can be camera Diaz.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
We can't.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
Well, we have our own jew laws, so we don't
have to perfect. Yeah, so it'd be perfect.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
So you know, as you mentioned, you think that you're
in a good season in your career now, but given
the climate of the country, does it feel more tenuous?
Because that is what I'm struggling with to some degree now,
is like where do I fit in explimit that looks
like this?

Speaker 6 (52:17):
So first of all, I have to hope that it
can't last forever. First I have to hope that term
limits and the Constitution have any meaning anymore, and that
at the very worst, we have a couple more years.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
I have to hope that.

Speaker 6 (52:37):
All the smartest people in the world and the best
intentioned people in the world still believe that. You know,
I'm going to mess up the quote, but in the
long arc of history, justice bending.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
Yeah, like that.

Speaker 6 (52:49):
It can't like we can't all be watching this and
understanding how awful it is and then just have it
stay that way. But I just sat down with aspiring
journalist for about two hours yesterday, and I really struggled
to tell her where the industry would be, how people
would be digesting content. I'm deeply troubled by AI. I'm

(53:13):
deeply troubled by people, young people, especially not training their
brains correctly to be able to see when something is
very clearly chat GBT, not being able to use critical
thinking and digital literacy to understand the truth versus very
clear lies, not being able to vet and source content
and information to know if it's real or not. We've
already seen the impact that's had on democracy and decision

(53:36):
making before the real onslaught of fake videos, fake you know,
voice fake everything, and I think the ways that will
impact the industry are I don't even think we can
understand or know all of them yet, and so I
think that uncertainty is really scary. I think it will

(53:57):
never be complete, letely useless to be who we are.
And unfortunately, sometimes when things are at their very worst,
that's when voices of opposition are most needed.

Speaker 5 (54:10):
You know.

Speaker 6 (54:10):
They talk about that sometimes during times of like good
progressive activism, like people get a little quieter and a
little more comfortable because they're like, yeah, things are pretty good,
but I do worry about places making enough money to
keep employing people that care about the truth and want

(54:31):
to do good work. I look around and see how
few places are spending on real journalism, and also how
few people understand and get that you need.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
To pay for it.

Speaker 6 (54:41):
You know, the Internet is just convinced people that everything
can be free. But what they don't understand is that
quality content that's accurate and well sourced and reported costs something.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
So instead they just settle.

Speaker 6 (54:53):
For trash that's not true, or is poorly done or
is written by a robot. And that I I think,
I hope there's a tipping point on that I'd like
to believe there is, but we do feel like we're
getting really progressively dumber, and the studies actually show that
for the first time in history in hundreds of years,
we are getting dumber as a country. And I don't

(55:16):
think that's going to be helped by everyone using chat
GPT to write all their sentences.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
That's for Yeah, well as you know how offensive that
he is to writers, and we can tell.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
And that's the problem.

Speaker 6 (55:28):
I'm like, some of y'all are too stupid to even
know that this damn world's word salad over here is
very clearly written by a computer.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
But we know, and we're like, I get a lot
of emails from people where I'm like, oh, you think
you got me on that? Huh? You think you real slick?
That is the most dumb the chat gp looking set
of paragraphs. Oh, this is what we're going to send
over jeveny fixes. Yeah, a lot of them, because this
isn't written by a human and I'm not sending this
over as my work. God damn.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
And I'm trying not to be oh woman yelling at
cloud though, So you know that's how I feel like,
way to embrace some of it. So I have recently
started using at GPT, but very limited scope. Okay, like
good for recipes, good for recipes, Like if you're like
you just use Google and then it doesn't just use
as much.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Get familiar with.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
Bad for the environment. It uses so much water to
train it. It's bad energy. I just I don't want
to run fight the urge. Use it when you really
need it.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
Well, you bring up a great point, especially about the environment,
which is crucial you know, to it to its success. Unfortunately,
ruining the environment, much like.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
A lot of things are.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
I guess it's scared me. I saw a video of
like someone far older than me. They were trying to
like learn how to do something that is very basic
to us, and they just are so horrible trying to
do this.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
I was like, Oh my god, that's gonna be me.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
That's gonna be yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
Can I tell you that after this?

Speaker 6 (56:49):
I have a TikTok session with a Cornell student who
called me for advice on her career and on her resume.
Was talking about being a social media superstar, and I'm like,
can I pay you to teach me some more tricks
on the TikTok? I'm never good at tiktoks here, I've
only made like four and I like.

Speaker 3 (57:08):
Basically made a video and then just moved it over there.

Speaker 6 (57:10):
But like so much of the content on my show
would be good on TikTok, but I don't know how
to like make my little floaty face above something at.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
This point to it when you find out, let me teach,
you teach.

Speaker 3 (57:21):
Okay, just you know my rate is going to be
way higher than this college kids, but you can afford it.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
You're good, not the way these beals cover.

Speaker 6 (57:29):
Girl. You know that don't stop going to those beach vacations.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
So you know obviously you're you're still working part time
with ESPN. ESPN w T be very specific like a
lot of us, you cut your teeth on around the horn.
What did it feel like for you seeing that show?

Speaker 6 (57:49):
And it was sad and frustrating and ultimately, in some ways,
I think, really beautiful and validating. There are a lot
of shows that don't get that kind of ending. And
as painful as it was for some of the people
involved to have this sort of long slow walk toward
the funeral, it meant that there were so many folks

(58:12):
expressing really just how much it meant to them. And
I think by the time all the thing pieces were
written and Tony had done eight bajillion podcasts podcasts podcasts
and all of the podcasts and all of us had
done our appearances and everyone it made their return. I
think it's not that they felt good, because I think

(58:33):
there's still so many unanswered questions about why they're canceling it.
They don't have a replacement. That's you know, pushing it out.
It wasn't getting old and stale. The ratings were still good,
blah blah blah. But I do think they had this
recognition of like, wow, most shows don't get twenty three years,
you know, and then recognizing how many people really got

(58:54):
something out of it, both in terms of their careers
being made by it like some of us and viewers.
And I think that was really cool at least that
it went out in style. It went out with so
many people expressing what it meant to them. But yeah,
I mean, I don't want to again, don't want to
be old woman yelling at a cloud. But to me
it felt almost too on the nose to have a

(59:16):
show that's rooted in the value of journalism and of
being there in person to tell the story and of
using the words of the people who are there to
form opinions and talk about something, saying goodbye to that
in favor of what's.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
Really prevalent now, which is just who can be.

Speaker 6 (59:37):
The most salacious, who's got the most followers, influencers, former athletes,
all those that have a place.

Speaker 3 (59:44):
But they can't be the only thing.

Speaker 6 (59:46):
And if we're pushing out all the journalists in favor
of folks like that, it's just again dumbing down the
product and making.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
The truth less important and less central.

Speaker 6 (59:57):
And I think with aggregation already on the Internet, it's
so hard to give the credit to the person who
does the work in the first place. But now with
fewer people even doing that work, we really just end
up with so much garbage content that's rooted in Like
I watched a video and she rolled her eyes and
now I think they're fighting. Or I watched a video

(01:00:19):
and I think he did this, so that guy farted
on the bench next to him. That's our top story today,
Like it's you know, and I'm not an old school
journalism with a Jay person. I you know, Tony and
I would go back and forth quoting white snake and
animal house, like we made it really fun, but it
was also rooted in the truth. And I think that's
the main thing. When I go talk to young people
now about journalism, I'm like, more than anything, you have

(01:00:41):
to be fair and you have to be honest, because
the idea of like I'm going to get more TikTok
views or my video is going to go around the
world twice. If it's as loud and salacious as possible, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
Not that's not it.

Speaker 6 (01:00:54):
Like you might be popular first around of time. But
if what you said is untrue, if what you said
is damaging, if what you said is unfair to the
people you're covering, that's not the job you're signing up for.

Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
And don't get caught doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
I don't even know what to tell them now.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
I'll be honest because my career path does not mirror
anything out and.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
You and I had to borrow cameras.

Speaker 6 (01:01:15):
I mean I had to burn DVDs and mail them
list places to try to get an interview.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Listen.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
I still because again I'm ancient. I really remember going
to truck stops and having to send my stories in
to what I was covering high schools, getting paid thirty
bucks a story, and I had to go to a
truck stop and use a suction cup on a pay
phone to send a story because I had the tent.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
It was literally caught the t one thousand. It was
a common door. You never want to see this machine
it is.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
You are ancient.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
I am. I was like seven thousand, like seriously, And so.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
I did use microfiche in high school.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
I used microfish.

Speaker 6 (01:01:49):
I was talking to the girl that I was chatting
about the journalism freshman, and I was trying to explain
to her. I'm like, just the amount of time you
say home with the Internet, I had to walk to
a library, look up where something is, go to like
a microfiche, or go to a shelf, find the book,
find the page, go to the copy machine, copy the pages.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Bring them home.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
I look at them.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
You just Google.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Yeah, I mean these kids will never know that Dewey
decimal system.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
No, they will never know this. No, No, it's amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
We got anything accomplished, like just sending your resumes out
like before I went to a job there. Oh my god,
it's like happening to floppy disk and yulting it and
getting something from Kiko's that we are so old, I
know so, but it builds character there though, you have
gone beyond just supporting women's sports with your commentary and coverage,

(01:02:44):
and also as a former athlete, you are investing in
women's sports with your money, not just you, but also
the community that you have built around your podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
So tell me how that came about.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
Well, you may recall it a couple of years ago.

Speaker 6 (01:02:59):
I now so that I was part of the ownership
group for the Chicago then Red Stars now Neutral Colored Stars,
just the Chicago Stars now of the NWSL, and I
learned a ton from that. I wouldn't say it was
necessarily a positive experience, unfortunately, because ultimately our majority owner
was forced to sell, our coaches banned from the league.
There was a lot of internal fighting about how to

(01:03:19):
handle reports about the coach, and unfortunately it played out
the way a lot of things do, where a whole
bunch of marginalized folk, women, people of color, LGBTQ plus
people in the ownership group wanted to center the players
and act accordingly from the start, and a lot of
others wanted to cover their asses and see if they
could make it go away, and ultimately it didn't and
we were all forced out, and I didn't get what

(01:03:42):
I wanted out of that ownership, but it taught me
a lot about understanding the gaps in communication between the
people at the highest levels of sport and the rich
owners and the athletes themselves, and particularly in women's sports.
Meryrett Matthias was on my show Good Game. She's a
former NWSL player who recently retired, and said very specific
that if you look at the pyramid of sports, in
the men's side, the players are at the top and

(01:04:04):
it trickles down from there, and in the women's side,
the players are probably in the middle, if not near
the bottom. They are not valued, they are not heard,
they're not prioritized, they're considered more interchangeable because they're not
paid enough for them to have the leverage that the
men do in their sports. And so in order to

(01:04:26):
fix that, there needs to be better communication from the
players to the ownership side. And having learned that, I
wanted to find a way to get back in somehow
and continue to give my expertise. Having covered women's sports
for as long as I have and feeling like this
connector between these super rich ownership people that I was
in a lot of rooms with, and then the players

(01:04:46):
that I was in a lot of rooms with. And
so the Minnesota Aurora FC is a community owned soccer team.
It's Egan Minnesota, which is right outside Minneapolis, and they
just rush it for a pre professional team they eventually
would like to be in the NWSL. The team puts
together sort of the product with the hopes of eventually

(01:05:08):
getting afforded a bid for expansion and becoming a part
of the NWSL, but for now they're pre profession professional.
A lot of the players end up going on to
play professionally, or it's in a place for them to
play post collegiately as they work to get to a
pro league. And they've got sick merch, they've got a
sick fan base. They've been undefeated for three plus years
and in the regular season, and so when they reached

(01:05:31):
out to me, I thought, this is a way to
get my community of people who listened to a good game.
We call them the slices, our listeners to understand and
invest beyond just listening and watching, and if they wanted
to feel like they were part of something, they could
buy a little piece. And so it's not like the
Packers where you get a little piece of paper on
your wall. It is an actual investment where you're going

(01:05:52):
through the full tax proceedings and everything else. But yeah,
within the two weeks or so of us telling our
listeners this is going to be our show side, get
on board if you want, and the closing of their
most recent campaign raise, we raised over two hundred thousand
dollars and it wasn't just slices, but a lot of
it was our listeners. And so I'm actually going to

(01:06:16):
get out to my first ORFC game in person and
bewaring the merch that we made. And yeah, just I
think it's really important, particularly for women's sports. Now that
it's getting popular, a lot of people are trying to
attach themselves to it. Great, I love you know, I'm
not going to be a hipster. I'm not going to
be someone who's you know, guarding against joining the fun.

(01:06:38):
But put your money where your mouth is, buy the merch,
go to the games.

Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
Don't call the.

Speaker 6 (01:06:42):
People and ask them to put your front row for free.
My fellow media people who are always sitting front row
and I'm like, did you pay for that? Because they're
trying to make money. So I'm spending my money there.
I'm not asking for favors. I'll ask for favors on
the men's teams. Those guys can afford it. I want
the ladies to make money. But yeah, so it's important
to me to always have some skin in the game,

(01:07:04):
not just talk about it, you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
Know now, I mean listen.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
It's especially doubly important because as women's sports gets more popular.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
You know, what tends to happen is.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
That the women that were there building the product get
pushed out because now these cool people have come along.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
It's like a.

Speaker 3 (01:07:21):
Rich, light, middle aged dude with all the money.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
That gentrification of money starts to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
And so you you certainly I love that, not just you,
but like so many women I've seen across different women's sports,
are you know, from Serena to like Cocoa GoF are
getting invested in this? Before I get to the final
messy question, what is happening with the Chicago Sky.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
What is that? I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:07:48):
If you saw that Kennedy Carter, I don't know if
it was sure seemed like she was sending some side
eye from Afar was one of the Sky's leading scores
last year. Obviously has a checkered past in the league
in a couple different stops, is no longer in the league.

Speaker 3 (01:08:05):
But after they lost again.

Speaker 6 (01:08:07):
By a record I think close to a record margin,
Courtney Vanderslot went down with the n ACL tear. She's
done for the year. Kennedy had some words on threads
about you know, it all comes back to bite you
and karme's a bitch and whatever. I'm like, all right,
let's not let's not celebrate other people's injuries and losses.
But yeah, it's not looking good, Jamel. And you know
what's really frustrating is I've been telling everyone to watch

(01:08:29):
women's sports for years and now everyone's finally arrived, and
my teams are sucking. The Chicago Stars suck, Chicago Sky suck.
I'm like, guys, this is the time we need you
to be showing up and people can bandwagon because you're
winning and it's fun.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
I don't know what to tell you.

Speaker 6 (01:08:45):
I think I'm really I'm really bummed about Slute because
I thought a facilitator to help them really use their
inside presence with Camilla cardos So and Angel Reese was
going to be a big game changer this season and
now it's like they have pieces, but they can't make
them work together.

Speaker 1 (01:09:02):
Yeah. I'm trying to remember what game of Theirs I
watched in full.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
It was in the in the last week, and I
was struck by the fact that everybody just looked out
of place.

Speaker 6 (01:09:11):
Their decision making is terrible. And I don't want to
judge their coach. I don't know him at all, and
he has a good background in a really places reputation. Yeah,
but I'm like, like just basic stuff where I'm like
got to call time out there, or like why are
you putting the ball on the floor, like, and you
know with Angel Reach, she can be so effective and

(01:09:31):
then she makes mistakes that you feel like at this
point she needs to have learned, including bringing the ball
down inside. It feels like including she's regress. Yeah, and
I expected more out of Camilla, to be honest with you,
But also, she's not going to make her own shots,
so you have to have the right offense set up.
They needed three point shooting last year to be able
to take advantage of their inside presence, and it doesn't

(01:09:53):
seem like they've really fixed it in a meaningful way.
So Yeah, to your point, what I've watched this year.
They have just not ready or in sync at all,
and that's frustrating.

Speaker 3 (01:10:06):
It's frustrating.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
Man.

Speaker 6 (01:10:07):
I'm like, we're getting all these people to show up,
and we got nineteen thousand plus of the United States
are getting the breaks, beat off and pull it together.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
You're gonna be retiring Candae Parker's jersey soon. Do some exciting,
show some respect. That was like, oh, you know, listen,
always always tell dejective sports fans. It's like, you remember
these moments because when it turns around me.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
Yeah, you could be like listen, you're talking to a
Cubs fan.

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
Yeah, so you already.

Speaker 3 (01:10:32):
No one felt it better than us. When it finally happened.
We were like one hundred and eight years.

Speaker 2 (01:10:37):
So you should have in patients that infinite, infinite pas,
that's for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
But I deserve better to mel Yeah, I deserve I
deserve It builds character. Notice I can't tell someone from
Detroit you know how it is?

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Right, exactly exactly, all right, the messy question. That is
how we did every interview here on politics. This is
where we make some blogs, This is where we make
some cock.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
Okay, yeah, because we.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
Haven't done enough of that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:03):
Yeah, all right, So Sarah, I know you have a
comedy background.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
You love improv.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
This is you know, something that you have experienced with,
So I will ask you this.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
This is start bench cut.

Speaker 2 (01:11:17):
Oh yeah, Bill Murray, Jim Belushi, Kathy Griffin, start bench cut.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Those are three very famous Chicago comedians.

Speaker 3 (01:11:28):
Kathy Griffin's from Chicago.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
She is from Chicago, that is what I read.

Speaker 3 (01:11:32):
We never claim her. I don't know if I believe that.
Are you sure?

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
I am pretty sure she is from.

Speaker 3 (01:11:38):
She might have just like come up in like Second
City or something.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
But she's give you another word just in case this
turns out not to be.

Speaker 3 (01:11:46):
True Old Park, Illinois.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
Yes, well, yes, she is from Chicago though, but weirdly
that we don't claim her.

Speaker 3 (01:11:53):
I wonder if she doesn't come around much and doesn't
feel us connected.

Speaker 1 (01:11:55):
Would you prefer I put Bob Newhart in there, because I.

Speaker 3 (01:11:58):
Know, yeah, I mean that's before my time.

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
That fucked a little dating. Yeah, what about Bernie Meck Gosh?

Speaker 6 (01:12:05):
Yeah, these are all either deceased or I I'll.

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
Stick with your original.

Speaker 6 (01:12:13):
Okay, And we're talking about their careers and comedy, correct,
not who they are as human.

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
Beings or anything.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
Not who they are as human beings.

Speaker 6 (01:12:22):
That's very important, because I know it's hard and I
don't know all the answers for all the people. So
I don't want to get myself canceled for supporting someone
who I didn't realize.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
Some people have some mixed families about Bill Murray, but
this is hardly.

Speaker 6 (01:12:34):
And I have met him a handful of times and
I've experienced every personality.

Speaker 3 (01:12:38):
Okay, some of them are great. I'm starting Bill Murray.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
Okay.

Speaker 6 (01:12:42):
Caddyshack is one of my all time favorite movies. I
have a Caddyshack themed party in the past. I there
are infinite spaces of Bill Murray that have brought me joy,
including the entire best of Bill Murray, Saturday.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
Live, all that stuff. So Bill Murray is a start.

Speaker 6 (01:12:59):
I'm in a bench Belushi because again, SNL is just
my dream job.

Speaker 3 (01:13:07):
It brought me up.

Speaker 6 (01:13:09):
I did make a name for myself on Around the Horn,
repeatedly saying.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
Yep, over was it over?

Speaker 6 (01:13:14):
When the Germans bumbling, and then all the young folks
would get momenties and'd be like, it wasn't the Germans.
I'm like, get some culture, watch a movie, YadA, YadA,
repeat Prince repeat.

Speaker 3 (01:13:24):
I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 6 (01:13:25):
I messaged the whole around the Horn crew after my
final appearance, and I was like, God, damn.

Speaker 3 (01:13:30):
How did I forget to say one last time it's
not over? Was it over? On the last time I
was on?

Speaker 1 (01:13:35):
What it really was over?

Speaker 3 (01:13:37):
I missed opportunity.

Speaker 6 (01:13:38):
And then I gotta I gotta cut Kathy. Like Kathy
has done some great work. Kathy has been an outspoken
comedian on the right side of history. But Kathy wasn't
on SNL and yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
Oh, poor poor Bob Newhart couldn't.

Speaker 3 (01:13:55):
And now I'm just gonna go down as women aren't funny.

Speaker 1 (01:13:58):
Look at me.

Speaker 3 (01:13:58):
Just pick the two men. See this Strea elevating the men?

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
Yeah, sure, you're a woman's sports again.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
Or that's right? And I don't know, don't get me
started on trans inclusion. I'm a real There you go.
Now you got your aggregated content.

Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
And I will piss you off this way before I
say goodbye. I think the two most overrated comedies.

Speaker 3 (01:14:20):
Of all time don't take Caddy Sheck.

Speaker 2 (01:14:23):
Slapshot Okay and Caddy Sheck the two most overrated.

Speaker 6 (01:14:30):
Slap Shot is Okay, It's got some moments, but it's
not my favorite.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
But Caddy Sho and I love Stupid.

Speaker 6 (01:14:38):
You know, how could there's endless avable moments from that?

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
That literally the number of times I have tried to
watch Caddy check and like like it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:48):
So let me ask you an important question. What age
were you when you first watched it?

Speaker 1 (01:14:51):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
I was an adult, but I wasn't a deep adult,
a deep adult, so like, okay, because I.

Speaker 6 (01:14:56):
Do think, for instance, like the first time I watched
Spaceballs early twenties, and I was like, it's fine, people
like what I'm like. I think some of them you
have to have the nostalgia of watching it for the
first time during its time.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
But it's other movies, Like I didn't watch Airplane during
its time.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Yeah, airplanes classic icking love airplanes.

Speaker 6 (01:15:17):
That's so weird because I feel like Airplane and Caddyshack
are very so sympatico.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
Like they've got a vibe. You would think, what do
you hate gophers?

Speaker 2 (01:15:25):
And I've taken up golf, so I can't even blame
That's so weird. Yeah, it's very bizarre. I don't know
what like the two the probably the two comedies I've
been unable to get are that when in Napoleon Dynamite.
I just don't think Dynamite is funny.

Speaker 6 (01:15:39):
Napoleon Dynamite's funny, but it's not on the level of Caddyshack.
I mean, Caddy Shak is literally one of my all
time favorite movies.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
That's so weird. I'm gonna give such bad taste.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
I'm gonna give it a go. I've gotta like this movie.

Speaker 6 (01:15:49):
It's how do you not like the chocolate bar in
the pool? How do you not like Rodney Dangerfield's little
set of golf clubs plays music and pours some madrin
and I love that you get a free bowl of
soup with that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
There's just like, so many good lines. I know it
is the one.

Speaker 6 (01:16:10):
And Chevy Chase reportedly problematic human but perfection in that film.

Speaker 1 (01:16:17):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:16:18):
I love The National like I just it has people
in it that I love, Okay, And is that the
problem there's not any black people. It's not that because
there's where there's no black people and I like them.

Speaker 6 (01:16:34):
I gotta get to the root of this. It's just
it's so good. We got to pull in a pond.
Pond's good for you. There's so many good lines. It's
so good.

Speaker 2 (01:16:41):
I'm gonna get to the root of this era and
hopefully one day I will report back I finally like
it after the fifteenth time, it finally fought.

Speaker 6 (01:16:48):
So you know what'll I'll make you feel better by
saying something that's gonna piss you off.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
I don't like donuts. I think donuts are bad. You
know what, Oh you're good.

Speaker 8 (01:16:57):
Okay, sorry with that one. Like I'm donuts, but I don't.
I don't crave them like I'm special, all right, And
I live in the most donut eating ass city and
like LA is a donut place?

Speaker 6 (01:17:08):
That didn't sound good? Yeah, you're right crazing, all right. See,
they probably do do that in La.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
That's all I'm saying that Randy's. They got donut places
in like every quarter. It's a thing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
But I don't really partake. It's not it's not my jam.
So I'm fine with that food take.

Speaker 1 (01:17:29):
Good, all right. So we won't try to piss any
more people off. If going to brustas.

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):
Process just existing. Yes, does the job just fine?

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):
Yes, exactly, Well, thank you Sarah and everybody else. Go
buy it Runs in the Family. Yes, it is a
great book. I'm sure it'll be a fantastic movie. I
wish you all the best, all the success to you both.
You really should be proud of this when you put
something in here that is going to stay with people
a long time.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
So good luck with everything. Good luck and appreciate you.

Speaker 3 (01:18:00):
Thanks Frian.

Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
One more segment to go coming up next, the Final Spin.
Time now for the Final Spin.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
The headline this year's Essence Festival was a dumpster fire.
The spin yet another example of black people daring one
another down and holding black organizations to a standard that
they never hold other organizations to. The truth, some of
the criticisms of Essence are deserved, and I had a
feeling that people were going to go into Essence Fest

(01:18:39):
being less forgiving because Target is the presenting sponsor for Essence.
Though Essence has a multi year partnership with Target, Essence
was in an impossible spot because a lot of Black folks,
especially their core demographic of Black women, are boycotting Target.

Speaker 1 (01:18:53):
Over their DEI rollbacks, their.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
Capitulation of Donald Trump and deprioritizing black business. While Essence
likely would have been in breach of contract had they
terminated their contract with Target, I kind of raised my
eyebrow a bit at sn CEO Caroline Winga's recent comments
about Target.

Speaker 5 (01:19:09):
Yeah, well I have you here, Caroline, let me ask
you about a Target. You were there at Target for
I'm not mistaken about fifteen years. At one point I'm
Chief Diversity Officer. Target has become one of several companies
in this country that's decided to roll back DEI initiatives.
What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 7 (01:19:28):
So this is going to feel funny because it's going
to sound like a book plug, but it actually is
the answer, which is there's a chapter in the book
called this Ain't Scrabble, and that chapter is tied to
my perspective as a DEI practitioner. Yes, I did some
work at Target, but just it became an extension of
who I was, and the point that I made there
was too. The first one was it doesn't matter what
or you order. You put the letters in id D

(01:19:49):
and IDP whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):
The work is.

Speaker 7 (01:19:51):
The work Number one, do the work, leave the letters.
Number two. If you do this thing right, you create
a way that gives goals that can be measured to
incent people into the behavior. Eventually the goal goes away
because the behavior is embedded and you pick the next thing. Sure,
Target embedded and took away the goal. They didn't walk

(01:20:12):
away from Dei. They trained it right. And so for
me as a practitioner, getting this ain't scrabble if you
want to know more. But my point is this, I
think we get caught up in the mechanics, like the
letters of DEI. Now you want to be belonging. The
work is still the same, right like, and so I
think we allow ourselves.

Speaker 3 (01:20:29):
To be distracted.

Speaker 7 (01:20:30):
And the things that are easy to argue about, it's
not because the work is harder.

Speaker 6 (01:20:34):
It's the goal.

Speaker 3 (01:20:35):
It's the goal and the.

Speaker 7 (01:20:36):
Expectation that you do the goal. Well, you don't need.

Speaker 3 (01:20:38):
The goal for that anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:20:39):
I didn't expect her or anyone else at Essence to
just take off on Target or its cowardly capitulation, But
putting a cape over the puddle for them was ton that.
The reason Target partnered with Essence is because they have
the same demo. The Aunties love them some Target, but
this year a lot of the Aunties weren't feeling Essence
or targeted, and they have let it be known. Across
social media were widespread complaints about costs the concerts lasted

(01:21:03):
until damn near sunrise because of poor planning and too
many performers, the decrease in vendors, and just a general
lack of organization and professionalism. Now, I've been to Essence
multiple times and some of these things are just things
that happen every year. But I think because of the
polarizing partnership with Target and the unwillingness to at least
indicate a displeasure with how Target was moving, that led

(01:21:25):
people to be far less forgiving of Essence than they
normally are. This concludes another episode of Politics. Get at
me on social media or email. I'm at Jamail Hill
across all social media platforms, Twitter, Instagram, fan Base, Blue
Scott Athris, Please use the hashtags politics. You also have
the option of emailing me as Politics twenty twenty four

(01:21:45):
at gmail dot com. You can also video me your question,
but please make sure it's thirty seconds or less. Don't
forget to follow and subscribe to Politics on iHeart and follows,
Politics Pod on Instagram and TikTok. Politics is spelled sbo Rits.
A new episode of Politics drops every Thursday on iHeart Podcasts,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is politics,

(01:22:09):
where sports and politics don't just mix, they matter. Politics
is the production of iHeart Podcasts and the Unbothered Network.
I'm Your Host Jamel Hill. Executive producer is Taylor Chakoigne.
Lucas Hymen is Head of Audio and executive producer. Original

(01:22:30):
music for Spolitics provided by Kyle VISs from wiz FX

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Ep 37: The Politics of DNA - Featuring Sarah Spain

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep 37: The Politics of DNA - Featuring Sarah Spain