Ep 42: The Politics of Survivor’s Remorse - Featuring Amin Elhassan

On this week's filibuster, Jemele issues a strong rebuke of the clowns who have been throwing dildos on the court at WNBA games. Jemele is then joined by sports media personality Amin Elhassan, who transitioned from the NBA front office into an analyst and commentator. In the first of a two-part interview, Amin discusses what it was like growing up in both Sudan and the United States, how is family reacted when he told them he wanted to forgo an engineering career to get involved in the NBA, and what he misses about being in the NBA front office.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, what's up everybody. I'm Jamel Hill and welcome to politics.
And I heard podcasts and unbothered production. Time to get spolitical.
Let's talk about dix as in the plastic kind. While

(00:21):
this WNBA season has had a lot of twist and turns,
I never could have imagined that a conversation about dildo's
would be necessary. But over the last few weeks, multiple
WNBA games have been interrupted because someone threw a dildo
onto the court. Now, some people have dismissed these incidents
as just an attention grab, some have labbed, some have

(00:41):
cracked jokes. A representative for a mean coin called Green
Dildo claimed responsibility for these incidents. A spokesperson for the
group told USA Today that members of their communities started
throwing green sex toys at the games to coincide with
the launch of their meme coin. The spokespersons said it
wasn't about disrespecting women, but going viral to garner attention.

(01:05):
We didn't do this because we dislike women's sports or
like some of the narratives that are trending right now
are ridiculous, the anonymous spokesperson told USA Today. Creating disruption
at games is like it happens in every single sport, right.
We've seen it in the NFL, We've seen it in hockey,
you know, fans doing random.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Things to more or less create attention.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
We know that in order to get a voice in
this place, we had to go out and do some
viral stunts to save us from having to pay that
influencer cabal, sacrifice our souls and the fate of the project.
And that is why my daily prayer is for Shame
to make a Michael Jordan come back, the first Michael
Jordan come back, not.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
The second one, the one with the Wizards. Now.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Despite what the dildo dumbass told USA today, this is
about a lack of respect for women and more specifically,
the lack of respec say for a league that showcases
the best basketball talent in the world, there is a
long and unfortunate history of people in prominent positions using
the WNBA as a punching bag.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
After closing out a successful first season, the WNBA is
considering several changes to improve the level of play in
the league next year. Among the proposals extending the playoffs,
increasing salaries, bringing back the three point line, and replacing
all these feemale players with guys. The WNBA officials expanded

(02:35):
to ten teams this week, adding franchises in Detroit and Washington, DC.
But before you get too excited about the new additions
to the league, remember all of the players are still women.
They stink at basketball. That's the problem. Other than that'd
be a good, good game, but they're They're all horrible,

(02:56):
So I make for a boring.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
Game that was normal on Saturday Night Live. Now.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
I have a pretty good sense of humor, but there
is a rather dumb consistency to jokes about female athletes
and about the WNBA. These jokes usually aren't terribly creative.
They punched down rather than up. Comedian Shane Gillis, who
hosted Theastpiece this year, spent a chunk of his monologue
making jokes about female athletes, which might have been a

(03:23):
lot easier to take had he not mispronounced Diana Tarassi's
name wrong within the first forty five seconds of his monologue.

Speaker 4 (03:31):
WNBA legend Deanna Tarassi's here give it up her. My
bad on that.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
So, because laughing at women's sports has been so culturally accepted,
it's not surprising that people would have the audacity to
throw sex toys on the court, which isn't just about attention,
but reminding women that they deserve laughter more than respect.

Speaker 5 (03:53):
You guys know what the object is. And I just
want to comment on this has been going on for centuries,
the sexualization of women. This is the latest version.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Of that, and it's not funny.

Speaker 6 (04:10):
There should not be the bother of jokes on any
radio shows or in print or any comments. The sexualization
of women is what's used to hold women down and
this is no different.

Speaker 5 (04:22):
This is just its late export and we should write
about it in that way. And these people that are
doing this you hold accountable and not We're not the
butt of the joke.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
They're the problem. And what you take that.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Donald Trump Junior, who has nine point seven million followers,
posted a photoshop image on his Instagram account that showed
his father, you know, the President of the United States,
throwing a sex toy from the roof of the White
House onto a WNBA court. It was classless, embarrassing and
giving his unfortunate stature in his father's administration, it gave

(04:55):
this stupid trend undeserved legitimacy and providing yet another example
of how decency has gone out the.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Window with this current regime.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Now, if the White House finds it funny, then that
gives permission for everybody else to make fun of women
who just want to play basketball without sex toys on
the court. So far, two men have been arrested in
connection with these incidents, and neither of them were connected
to that mean coin nonsense. Their ages were eighteen and
twenty three, certainly old enough to know throwing a sex

(05:24):
toy on a basketball court is.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Not only stupid, it's dangerous.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
The twenty three year old quarterly told police that he
did it to go quote viral. Social media has allowed
us to construct the reality in which attention has become
our society's most valuable commodity. During a time where we
have unprecedented technology, unprecedented access to information, the low comprehension

(05:48):
and need for attention have given people unearned boldness. In
other words, it's too many of y'all out there who
never got your ass whoop and it shows.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
I'm Jamel Hill, and I approve this message.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
My conversation with today's podcast guest was so good, so
wide ranging, that I decided to break the episode into
two parts. So today's episode is Part one, and then
early next week I'll drop part two. Now I work
with my guests when I was at ESPN, and he
since become a good friend.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
His path into sports media was quite unusual.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
His original dream was just to be in the front
office for an NBA team, a goal he actually achieved,
But after leaving a NBA franchise, he found himself being
pulled into media because he offered thoughtful, introspective and bold opinions.
But while basketball is the expertise that got him put
on at ESPN, it turns out he has a multitude

(06:44):
of media talents, especially when it comes to spicy takes
about movies and entertainment. You could find him in the
Dan Lebertarre universe, and as a person he is as
solid as they come. Coming up next ons politics, A
mean el hasseg I mean, thank you so much for

(07:09):
taking the time out. It's like we always see each
other in passing. We have great conversations. But I'm like,
I need to have him on the pod, just because
it's so many things that are fascinating about you, your career,
how you grew up, and which we'll get to you later.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
You have some of the spiciest movie takes.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
I've remember heard you got a whole podcast on It's Cenophobe.
I mean, it's a great podcast. And so your movie,
your movie takes I often look forward to. So yeah,
so thanks for joining me. But before we get started,
I want to ask you a question I ask every
guest that appears on politics, and that is, name.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
A moment or an athlete that made you love sports.

Speaker 4 (07:51):
Oh wow, you know what I'm gonna be basic? I was,
I was thinking of all these I remember when I
was seven. I'm gonna keep it real simple. A spectacular
move by Michael Jordan. Like I knew I liked basketball,
but then when I saw that, I was like, oh yeah,

(08:14):
this is this is this is for me right here.
Just and it's funny. I don't even have to describe
what play or what everybody knows. Let's say a spectacular
move by Michael Jordan, and that tells you, like, that's
a moment, that's not some obscure hipster pick. That's something
everyone can relate to.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Okay, that's I assume you mean when he switched his hands, Yeah,
slagging in here, Okay, gotcha? All right?

Speaker 1 (08:37):
I mean that for a lot of people that is
one of the definitive, if not the definitive Michael Jordan's move.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
So is that is.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
That when you like really fell in love with basketball
or had it happened before then?

Speaker 4 (08:48):
Like I said, I liked basketball, I was interested in basketball,
Like I remember watching like the tail end of Celtics
Lakers as a kid, and I like being aware. I
knew obviously Magic and Bird and Kareem and all those guys,
but I like the you know what it probably now

(09:10):
i'm thinking about it. It might have been earlier one of
them Jordan tapes. I got a blutleg and like Michael
Jordan's Playground or come Fly with Me or one of those.
I don't remember. It's been so long, I don't remember
the order. For the younger kids, there used to be
these things called tapes, right, it would be so like
the NBA would put these things out like in the summer.

(09:31):
It would be like a best of players or of
like the league NBA. That's what I called entertainment or whatever.
And there was these Michael Jordan ones, these like Michael
Jordan mixtapes, but they were like officially made by the league,
and if you got your hands on one or if
you're like me, you got your hands on a copy
of one. You watch this thing over and over and

(09:53):
over again, and you learned all these great Michael Jordan moments.
It was YouTube for us, basically for our generation. And
so I think, I want to say it was probably
one of those tapes that really really got me into it.
But when you said moment, I thought of the one
moment in one moment I thought about was a spectacular
movement going up, He's about to dunk. No, he's not

(10:15):
change hands, just because not because anything happened, because I can't.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Now, you grew up in Sudan, I mean, so how
did being there and I know you grew up with
a lot of unrest that was there in your in
your country, So how did you balance that you have
this unrest happening in your country and you're developing sort
of this other passion as a sports fan, or particularly
a basketball fan.

Speaker 4 (10:40):
So yeah, I mean, you didn't know any better. Like
it's the crazy thing. I like, I listen, man, I
listen to you talk about your childhood and I'm like,
that's crazy, And they're like, you don't know any better.
You're like, this is just life because everyone you know,
is going through a similar thing, and you just think like,
all right, well this is how it is. And and
I really I think like when I watched movies as

(11:01):
a kid, I just thought like, oh, that's just movies.
Like I didn't realize there were actual places with picket
fences and front lawns and like people walking the dog
and then paperboy throw and a milk. I thought it
was just like, oh, this shit they made up for
the movies. I didn't realize people actually lived like that.
I grew up originally, like I first eight years of

(11:22):
my life. I grew up in New York City, so
you lived in the city in an apartment building, and
that's all I knew. And then I moved to Sudan
when I'm eight, and it's as as culture shock as
culture shock can get, like rolling blackouts at last weeks
if not months, sometimes lack of running water for weeks
if not months, sometimes you know, just all types of stuff.

(11:45):
And then maybe two years in there was a political
coup and what was a democracy got overthrown by a
religious dictatorship. So not only not too far fit right
now for most American citizens, but imagine a ruler who
basically said I'm in charge, and there's and if you

(12:06):
against me, that means you against God and so what
not only you're an infidel, you're gonna go to Hell
or whatever. So you know, it's against this backdrop. I'm
kind of growing up at eight, nine, ten years old,
and you begin to realize, like, you know, these things
are that's just life. And so you know, when I

(12:27):
talk about getting those tapes again, like I'm seriously thought about,
like people have to smuggle the tape. You have to
get a tape and copy it, and like, oh, I
got a copy of this thing. And it wasn't just
basketball games, it was it was movies, it was TV shows,
it was all every anything you could get your hands
on that was like from America was called music music videos.

(12:53):
You know. I remember the first time I saw the
Snoop video for What's My Name? It was on like grainy,
like someone got your MTV raps recorded and then they
copied that copy, and then they copied the copy, and
then you finally get it and it's like yo. And
this was on the heels of hearing the chronic I'm like,
this guy already has his own song. And I was

(13:14):
like they're turning into dogs, and like it was mind blowing.
But like again, this was all how everything was funneled.
There was no internet. There was satellite TV, but that
was only for wealthy people. We didn't have satellite TV,
so everything you got was kind of like someone's cousin
came home for the summer from you know, from New
York or from la or whatever, and they had this

(13:36):
gold on them and you just worked this black market
kind of sharing everything.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
But culturally, what was that like for you to go
from America to.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
Yeah, it was hard. Man. I didn't speak the language,
like I had to learn Arabic, Like I spoke a
little bit at home, more understanding than speaking. But you know,
you get dropped into an environment where nobody speaks English,
have to learn and so kind of marvel when I
think of my Like, I know when I got there
as an eight year old that didn't speak, I could
not have a conversation. And I know by the time

(14:11):
like a year and a half later, I was fluent.
And you know, it worked out in that way. But
even as you we're going to speak the language, and
obviously I'm Sudanese, so like I don't look any different
to people there. Obviously, culturally I'm very different, and there's
a lot of things I don't understand a lot of
things about me that they didn't understand. And to this day,

(14:37):
I think there's a lot of things, like, especially my parents' generation,
like they didn't understand. I tell my mom things and
it's like, no, that's not true. I'm like, no, it's true.
You guys just didn't understand that I really did not
enjoy this or I didn't like this. This cultural thing.
I'm not talking about obviously, any hardships with it. I'm
talking about like just the way people treat you or
the way that people do this or that whatever. And

(14:58):
then the crazy thing was move and back to New
York as a fourteen year old. Now, obviously I speak
English pretty much the way I've always spoken like this,
So the kids in that I'm going to school with
and I'm dealing with, they look at me and they
hear me. It's like he's from here. But there's cultural
things now that I don't that I almost got went

(15:19):
too far in the other way, and now I'm getting
a fight to school because of cultural misunderstandings rather than
you know, me actually trying to look for a fight,
and it was just, you know, it was it was tough.
I won't lie. It was it was like your shape
one way, and then you go somewhere completely different, fish
out of water. And by the time you finally kind

(15:40):
of at least get your bearings enough to blend in enough,
you get thrown backfishing out of water somewhere else, and
now you're having to struggle to figure out how to
blend in again.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
So that blending in process, I imagine that had to
be difficult because for somebody who maybe lived in Sudan
in their whole lives, because you were coming from America,
did they look at you as Sudanese or did they
look at you as American?

Speaker 4 (16:12):
They looked at me as America coming back here or
they're are here in Sudan when in Sudan, I went
to Amriki. That's the American kid. They call you the
American kid. I'm Sudanese. My parents and Sudanese. I'm born
in Sudan, like I'm full buttered Sudanese. But they call
you the American kid or Hawaijia. Hawaji means foreigner. You know,
It's kind of like you know in the in the

(16:32):
movies or like Kung Fu movies or a white guy
they called Gwi lo right, same ship, like hauaja is
the is the word they use in Sudan hawaji or
mriki whatever. And it's like it's one thing when it's
like kids at school or whatever. It's the only thing
when you got family members like uncles and that, and
they think it's like ha ha, like oh, he doesn't

(16:52):
like to eat that thing. And I'm just like it's old,
it's tired, man, like I get it, okay, all right,
Oh look at the way he does this everything and
it never wore off. And if there was any kind
of anything. So I'll give you a great example. Drinking
tea is big and Sudan people love tea, particularly red
tea like no milk and it just red hot like

(17:13):
tea or whatever, not really a tea drink. I'm just
I don't drink coffee. I don't drink I don't think
any hot drinks, to be honest with you, that's just me. Obviously,
there are millions of people here who drink coffee. You
drink tea or whatever, and all over the world, but
in Sudan, because I don't drink tea. It's like, I
look at the American kid, he's not even like, no,

(17:34):
that's not I'm not representing for a population over here
that doesn't know what tea is. I me, even if
I was born here and lived here my whole life,
don't like this. And not everything is tied to that,
but it's like that is constant everything that you do
that diverges even slightly from whatever the mainstream was. It's like,

(17:54):
it's the American boy. Like I said, it gets old
aft a while.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
So when you go back to America at fourteen, did
they look at how did they look at you?

Speaker 4 (18:05):
It was the same problem. So so so I come
back and like I said, because I don't, I don't,
I always say this. If I spoke with an accent,
I think I would have had a much easier time
because people would have just dismissed it as just a
kid from he's a kid from another country or whatever, like, yeah,

(18:25):
they might pick on your teaser or whatever, but at
the end of the day, they're not really gonna mess
with you in a you offend me kind of way.
For the most part, because I looked and sounded the
way I did. The assumption was you know better, right,
and so you're gonna say that, you're gonna, you're gonna,

(18:46):
you're gonna say this to me where I'm I'm just
I think I'm having a friendly conversation, but my word
selection is not appropriate for the moment, and so I'm
getting in the fights and arguments and things like that
because they didn't you know, there wasn't there wasn't enough
of a buffer of people to say, that's just a

(19:10):
foreign kid. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
M because you know how it is here in America,
we are constantly we often play the game of well
what are you?

Speaker 4 (19:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Right, you know, interesting to figure out like where do
you fit?

Speaker 1 (19:25):
Because the only reason sometimes that we're doing that because
we're trying to understand where do you fit in the
racial hierarchy, ie somebody that's below me or above me?
And yes, really that what the entire conversation is about.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
So growing up in New York. Living in New York
spares me one thing, and that there's so many person
of all, there's so many nationalities there. Right, you say,
like I grew up in New York, I didn't know
any black kids. I knew Jamaicans, I knew Haitians, I
knew you know, Nigerians, I knew you know, I knew
you know, Bahamians, Traineis. I didn't know any white people.

(19:58):
I knew Germans, I knew Italians, I knew like everybody
was something. And obviously, you know, you say Hispanic boom,
that's entire Latin America. Everyone's there. It's like, now, culturally
we might all act the same, at least at our
age group. But the idea that like you would see
someone because some of these nationalities are kind of like

(20:19):
you see Dominicans, a lot of them. I look like
a lot of Dominicans. As a matter of fact, I
got when I was in high school. I literally learned
Spanish because I got tired all as asking me directions
and I said, I don't speak Spanish. And then they say, oh,
you you come to this country and you forget your language,
and I'm like, it's not my language, and like, oh

(20:40):
my god, so you think you're American. Now you've just
forsaken all. Like, lady, I'm not Dominican. I'm from another
country where we don't speak Spanish. And it's just easier
just to learn Spanish and give her the directions and
have her go about her day. But as a result,
like I said, this kind of general look, wasn't that.
Rare went to college in Atlanta, and that's when I
found out that I had quote unquote good hair. The

(21:02):
first time I ever heard that in my life was
as a college freshman. Everyone kept saying you got good hair,
and then asking if I was mixed with Indians, and
I thought they meant like, no, man, my parents ain't
from no India. But I later learned like, oh no,
they meant like, because in the South, if you got
good hair, either Creole or your part Native American. And

(21:25):
so they're trying to figure that out, like you look black,
but what's up with the hair? And I was like, oh,
I get a nod from another place. Yeah, so, but yeah,
to kind of put a button on that, Like it's
just one of those things where I had a culture
shock going to see that, and I had a culture
shot coming back. But I came back to New York

(21:45):
and then I had another culture shot leaving New York
and discovering what America's really like.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
So what were your early observations about America that you
noticed is particularly after spent years in Sudan, were you
how did that maybe shape how differently you thought about
America as opposed to Americans other Americans.

Speaker 4 (22:09):
So this is so this is literally plane has landed
from Sudan at JFK back in New York whatever in
line at the passport thing, you know, the guys the
little windows or whatever, and the one dude at this
window is talking to his homie over there and he's
asking him, what are you going to do with your

(22:32):
tax refund? The other guy says, I didn't get one
and Uncle Billy held on to for me this year.
And then they started laughing, and I'm like, and then
it hit me that they're talking about Bill Clinton, the
President of the United States. And I was like, and
I swear to god I had I was overcome with
like shock and fear because these two government employees are

(22:57):
making jokes about the president in the airport, which is
notorious in shitty countries, the airports were all the spots
are at you never seen nothing. You never seen nothing
in general and public, but like especially the airport, that's
where the shit really goes down. And so I was like, Oh,
where's the secret police come? Dragging these people away. How
dare you make jokes about the president? Not because I

(23:19):
like I thought the president, but like just the idea
that the leader.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
I remember when I went to me and my husband
with the Hong Kong last year, and we were very
cognizant of the fact that you cannot openly discuss certain
things the way that you might if you're in America.
Even though, to be honest, I was really surprised when
I was there and one of the servers at a

(23:44):
restaurant we were at just asked me about Donald Trump.

Speaker 4 (23:46):
I was like, why why you asked me about?

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Because I was thinking, like, y'all are about to get
me over here. I was like, what do you think
about it?

Speaker 4 (23:57):
About me?

Speaker 2 (23:59):
He asked us? We thought, I was like, what do
you think? You show me your ID?

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Basically okay, so y'all are not about to get me
caught up. So your father was a diplomat, correct?

Speaker 4 (24:12):
Yeah, yes, my father worked in the Foreign Ministry, which
is basically the State Department first wud So.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
I mean he had a type of career where he
traveled extensively, and you know, there was you know, clearly
with I think from what I read and what I've
listened to with other interviews you've done, Like he had
to live in other parts of the world while you
and your family may have been somewhere else. There was
some separation. So how did that impact you, know, the
way that you grew up, the fact that your father

(24:42):
had this government position.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
Well, well, first of all, obviously my father you want
to talk about someone you want to interview. Last the
guy you want to interview, he lived a full life.
My father grew up in a village by the Nile,
uh literally barefoot. Neither one of his parents I think

(25:06):
were educated beyond like a primary school education, and he
went on to at a young age he went to
it was a boarding school. He didn't stay at the
boarding school, he stayed with family, but it was hundreds
of miles from the rest of the family. And then
from there he went to college. He was the first

(25:28):
one to go to college, and in the middle of
college decided he wanted to go to Europe with like
two dollars in his pocket, so he hitched hike from
Sudan to Europe. Yeah, like, so from Sudan to Port Sudan,
take a boat over to Saudi Arabia or whatever. It
was called Bay. I don't even know if it was

(25:48):
a country back then then up through Lebanon and then
up through Turkey and Greece, and it'll like, this is
a a college student who's broke, who does not speak
any of the languages other than English, and most of
those places nobody speaks English. Right. Once he talks about
going into restaurants in Turkey and like they just took

(26:08):
them to the back and show them, like what's what
they're cooking. He's like, hmmm, this right, that's how he
did it. So for him, he graduated and then he
gets a job in you know, the Foreign Ministry, and
it wasn't exactly what he was wanted to do, but
it's like it was a job. And then he gets
to travel the world, and you know, he starts a
family and for the most part, like we didn't travel

(26:34):
when we went went them to New York obviously, and
we stayed there, we came back. He'd gone so many
other different places, but like those were just places where
we hear stories and so a great example, I was
my uber driver the other day mess He's from Bulgaria
and I'm like, oh, Sophia, right, Like that's the capital,
and he's like, oh, yeah, how'd you know? Look at

(26:54):
my dad has been there, He's told me about it.
My dad's been a progue like that, there has been
a Moscow. My dad's been everywhere all over the Papua
New Guinea. But it's all kind of secondhand information, like
I haven't been to most of those places, but I
think it it definitely gives you an advantage in terms
of like having a more worldview about things, about why

(27:16):
things are the way. I remember Dad when I was
ten talking about globalization. It's like globalization I changed the world.
And I said, and he told me, and I said
that are you four or against globalization? And he said,
it's like saying are you for against gravity? It's happening,
Like you don't have to accept it, agree believe in it,
but it's happening. It's happening whether you like it or not.

(27:39):
And so I think kind of thinking of things in
those ways that definitely impacted how did you How.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Did it shape your political beliefs?

Speaker 4 (27:51):
I mean I had to write like I always think,
like no, no, I like my ideas and my opinions
are mine. But at some point, right, you don't just
grow up thinking certain thing. I mean I say this,
I think growing up as Sudan shape my political beliefs
a lot more than you know my parents did. And

(28:14):
I say that because I'm always so. I have a
very very very fine tune too. Whenever someone tells you
because that's what God wants, I don't trust you man
like you want to. If you want to be spiritual,
if you want to be religious in your home life, sure,
once you start using it as a method of governance

(28:37):
at best control at worst, automatically, my antenna is up
like you're full of shit, because I live somewhere where
they use religion to justify anything and everything, including genocide
and torture and kidnapping and assault and all these things.
So anytime someone because to me, the purpose of your

(28:58):
argument saying that's what God wants is so that we
don't have to argue about this no more. Hey, it's
a higher being that wants this. We're just doing the
Lord's will as opposed to is this the right thing
to do? It's just a fair thing to do. But
I would also say those opinions probably mirror very close
to those of my father, So maybe that is we're

(29:19):
shaped it but I'll tell you one thing I know
for sure shape kind of the way I look at
things overall, and and it applies to politics as well.
My dad said, I can't. It was something something some
kind of ritual or something we're doing, and I did
something a little bit off or whatever and my dad

(29:41):
and I was like, I was stressed about. My dad
was like, do you do you really think an omnipotent,
all knowing, all powerful, beneficent deity who rules and sees
everything would care so much about semantics. Oh, I did
this before that, or it's like you know what it's like.
It's like people who are like don't believe in premarital sex,

(30:04):
and so they get like just like a courthouse wedding
just to have sex, and then they have it in
all trust be their religious people of all religions who
actually go through these extra steps. And I always think
to us, you think God is like, damn, they got
me on the loophole where they got married, all right,
you in this time humans like no, man, It's like,

(30:25):
come on, man, like these rules are these you know
kind of things that we live by because we believe
in a higher power. It's not run by a bureaucrat, right,
it's not someone who's gonna get caught up and like,
well the legality checks out. I guess you're cool. So
I think that part my dad definitely instilled in me

(30:46):
of like be common sense about these things rather than
very stuck to kind of what the letter of the
law is.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Now as someone who's a Muslim, and you know, as
you mentioned that with any faith, you're going to have
your streamer is you're gonna have people.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
That maybe who are like you are more common sense.
But did you ever find yourself because you do have
fairly progressive views in conflict, you know, with your.

Speaker 4 (31:11):
Faith every day? I don't you know. There's a there's
an old joke right where it's like, man, I think
it was a YouTube video actually I saw, but it
was like it's a skit and a guy sitting on
the on the bench with his partner mentioned his buddy
and they're like, oh, Ramadan's about to start, Like yeah, man,
I don't know if I'm ready, and the guy says, yeah,

(31:33):
thirty thirty days without with that, you know, obviously you
don't eat or drink while the sun is up. But
then the guy says, also, thirty days without having to
drink alcohol and that's gonna be tough for me to
go thirty days And the other guy's like, wait, you
drink alcohol because alcohol is forbidden and the guy's like yeah, man,
and then he's like, also thirty days without like hitting

(31:54):
the blunt at least once, you know, to call my
nerves like you smoke weeds? Like yeah. So then the
guy says, wait, do you eat pork? And has stop
for a lot. How could you ask that of me?
I'm Muslim? Why would you ask me that? And so
that's like the universal tie among all terrible non practicing
or semi practicing Muslims like myself. It's like we'll break

(32:18):
every one of these rules and I'm like, that's life. But
then it's like there better not be no pork in
this because I'm devout when it comes to this.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
I mean, admittedly sometimes I do.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
As somebody who grew up Baptist and still identidvise as
a Christian.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
You pick the easy ones that are easy to stick to.

Speaker 4 (32:38):
Okay, you're like non negotiable.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Like sorry, I mean like sex, all right, God you
got me? What what you got me?

Speaker 4 (32:47):
On? That way? Lord forgives me.

Speaker 7 (32:49):
You're right, but I won't do this, and it's just like,
all right, okay, a bridge, a bridge too far, too far,
always hilarious, that's for sure, now clearly and now growing
up in Detroit.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
Detroit has the largest air population. So my name is Jamel.
It was supposed to be jam. You know, that's an
Arabic word.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Yes, my mother was a practice and Muslim at the
time where she where she had and you know, so
like my level of comfort, I've never been uncomfortable being
around Muslims, being anywhere near Muslim culture. But you know
how America is, and even though you were grew up
in you know, you.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Spent a lot of time in New York.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
I'm wondering what your experiences were, uh though people were
playing the what is he game? And especially once people
understood that you were a Muslim, and just seeing how
in general the level of Islamophobia here in this country,
what were your experiences.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
Like, Yeah, I'll tell you it was not so bad
up until specific data. I can't remember what day it was.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Yeah, I know it's hard for them to recall the
one that.

Speaker 4 (33:58):
Probably sometimes in two thousand on that time, but before then,
I mean, some of Whobi was still around, obviously, but
it felt like a far festing. So in the eighties,
I remember, I remember kids in school he'sing me, called
me Kadaffi or whatever, and this is right around like

(34:20):
when Kadaffi was going crazy and Liby and all that stuff,
and like you'd hear stories back in. I mean, it's
crazy kind of now and you think about it. In
the eighties, hostages on an airplane was kind of like, oh,
that's in the news all the time, and the hijacked
another airplane or whatever, but it wasn't It never felt here.
It was like something happened somewhere far away. Come back
in the nineties, you got the first World Trade Center bombing.

(34:43):
That's the one with the with the U haul trucks
and all that, and it's like and you got movies
like True Lives or whatever. True Lives was the first one.
That's of course it is, but it's also like cartoonish.
It's not even it doesn't feel real or rooted in
any sort of reality. The Siege was probably the first

(35:06):
movie I saw. It was like, oh, that's some shit
I could see happen. So The Siege came out nineteen
ninety eight, right, and it's the idea that like a
terrorist attack makes America respond with martial law and in
tournament camps and all that stuff and Muslim bands and
all this thing that I was like, this feels a
little too realistic. And then a couple of years later,
obviously nine to eleven happens and that's when boom, everything changed,

(35:31):
like having it a quote unquote funny name was was?
It used to be like, oh I can't boom boo whatever,
how'd your name is it? Now it's like, oh, yeah,
you're one of them. Where are you from? Da Da da?
And like and people asking you know, how this is Jamel?
When now you've become like a representative for so now

(35:51):
I'm a representative for black people, I'm represented for Africans,
I'm a representative for Muslims, right, And so the first
thing I want to know is, like, how you feel
about al Kada. I'm like, Doug, I live here, Well,
like why would I want? Well, why would I identify
what anything these people are about? Right? And so there's
a lot of that for sure. But then there's the

(36:13):
other thing, which is funny is friends who were like, oh,
but you're different na man, Like, it's a billion of us.
There's a lot of different types of people within this right,
and I shouldn't have to answer or for Ossam bi
Lad any more than a Christian person who have to

(36:35):
answer for David Koresh Right, Like, if we're going to
pick the crazies, y'all got them too. Everyone's got him,
everyone's got them, and everyone's doing in the name of
this faith or the other. So it was just kind
of seeing people not understand that even as they think
they're complementing me, it's still that's still a slamophobia. It's

(36:56):
just it's just like you're trying to be gentle about it.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
I guess, yeah, I mean it is.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
It's amazing sometimes how the casual bigotry that people kind of.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
Have in this country. It you know, as as black people,
we get it often all the time.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
I call it the Sal's Pizzeria theories right from doing
the right thing, where He's asking John Toturo, why do
you have all these black people in the wall and
still calling us niggas?

Speaker 2 (37:26):
All right?

Speaker 1 (37:27):
And I'm like, well, yeah, they especially if they feel
like you're talented or you're only different, because they're like, oh,
guys can be productive like yeah, like a lot of
us are kind of like that, and it winds up
being actually.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Far more insulting than calling you a slurber, right.

Speaker 4 (37:46):
And the interesting thing also a lot of times when
they don't realize who's Muslim who's not, like either one's black,
because it's like pretty obvious, like you know for the
most part, but like, oh, you didn't know Dave Chappelle
was Muslim? Okay, like you didn't know that, you know, Uh,
this athlete is Muslim. Or they're like this this actor,

(38:08):
this and this comedian and this, and it's like across
this musician, oh, you know, a most death was Muslim.
You you love all these people, but you hate Muslims.
That doesn't it doesn't seem to add up there. And
the worst version of it, obviously is like, hey, these
people exist for my entertainment and that's why. But I

(38:30):
think the reality for most people maybe this is me
being an optimist, it's just ignorance. It's when you say
the word Muslim, just like when you see the word
black in their mind, word association, scary, whatever, And they
don't ever think of like all the interactions that they have,
whether it's direct or indirect with people of this scary

(38:54):
type who don't scare them at all, who they're very
comfortable around. It's like, why is that? I was like,
well I know him, Well yeah, no shit, and by
that token, you should be scared of it. Crazy white
people and like there's no difference again, like there's it's everywhere.
So rather than have his knee jerk reaction and paint
the entire thing with this one brush, maybe take people

(39:17):
at their value, you know.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
If only they were that easy for some people. Well,
I have a lot more that I want to ask you.
I mean, we do have to take a very quick break,
and on the other side, I definitely want to get
some spicy NBA takes from you. As at the time
of this recording, just saw that Men's health cover that
Luca's on, like boy looking, I was reminded of the
Kloye Kardashian show Revenge Body.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
Luca got his revenge.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
Body right now, he's out here, So I want to
ask you about him and the Lakers and some other
fun stuff.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
But we're just going to take a quick break and
we'll be right back with a mean el hassen. I mean,
before we took a break.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
We were talking about such very you know, non complicated
light stuff as racism and Islamophobia. But you know, right now,
there's a complicated situation politically happening right now in America,
and there's also one in Sudan where there is an

(40:23):
ongoing genocide that has killed hundreds of thousands of people,
and it's not something that is even remotely in the
radar of American consciousness.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
I don't think that's an exaggeration.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
So as someone who is Pseudanese and then seeing how
Americans are blissfully unaware, how do you process that?

Speaker 4 (40:46):
So when it comes to overall general American ignorance, right,
because Europeans always like to say Americans don't know anything
that happens outside of America, I said, there's two really
really pivotal reasons. I'm not trying to give excuses, but
reasons why. Number one is the sheer size of America.
Europeans say that because you know, if you're from Luxembourg,

(41:09):
you know what's happening in Spain and German Italy. That's
because if you add up all of the European Union,
it's still smaller than America. So they can't fathom They
just like they can't fathom. La and Phoenix are pretty close. Yeah,
it's a five hour drive five hours and five hours
you can get from Spain or like Sweden or whatever
the hell you know. I know someone's going to factor

(41:29):
you go. Actually, but that's not the point. The point
is our distances. The size of our country. There's the
number of people, and the different cultures within the country
make it just for on all else being equal, it's
very difficult to keep up with everything happening here, let
alone things happening all across the world. Now that's not
saying things across the world aren't important, aren't worth attention.

(41:51):
I'm just highlighting the difficulty of the information processing. Number two,
and this is perhaps a lot more to blame now,
is because of the way the media is run and
things are depicted, and we're a country that exists on
archetypes and talking points, and so even if you had

(42:12):
the appetite and the ability to process information, your ability
to find that information is infinitely more difficult because they
are putting up all sorts of obstacles and roadblocks and
things to distract you so you don't get interested in
some of these things. Within that, you got Sudan, which
is a country at the best of times most people

(42:33):
can't point to on a map. They don't know where
it is. They don't know anything about it history wise.
It's not like Egypt. Oh I know Egypt, that's where
the pyramids are. But the oldest pyramids in Africa, perhaps
even the world, are in Sudan. Right, that's where the
pyramids are. And what's in Egypt are like the culture
that thousands of years ago the ancient Egyptians learn from

(42:54):
the Kushites, because oh, that's how they do it. We
should start doing that over here. But again, Egypt is
a great tourism hub, so people know about that. It's
it's it's more known than Sudan. There's there's that part
of it. So then you have this horrible genocide. This
conflict can't call a civil war because a civil war

(43:15):
would would would make it seem like one side is
for the people or some of the people, whereas this
is just a power struggle that has people caught in
the mix. But the other part of that power struggle
is a power struggle that is funded and operated by
outside actors, right in terms of equipment, in terms of training,
in some cases even in terms of personnelity. These are

(43:37):
people who are not Sudanese, but they have a vested
interest in one side over the other winning for their
own purposes. And that's the part that really overly complicates it,
because it's not an easy North Vietnam versus South Vietnam
type of thing where you can you can say, you know, oh,
these people want this kind of government. These people don't.

(43:59):
It's basically two sides struggling over who gets to be
the asshole in charge, under which everyone still struggles and
has to kind of make do. And so when you
add up all those factors, there's a lot going on
in America. Hey, even if you want to know, the

(44:20):
media is set up in a way where they're not
going to inform you without you being extra vigil and
finding that information. And then three, the conflict itself involves
outside actors who also have influence on point two. That's
where we end up. And then you time it with
other crises happening that are equally deserve attention, although I

(44:45):
wouldn't say deserve more attention or all the attention, not
because they're not worthy, but because my people deserve to
have attention as well.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
How much personal responsibility do you feel to be a
voice that that makes us more aware? I know it's
tricky because like obviously with you being in the Lebatary universe, yeah,
you know, you all don't spend hours talking about genesized
generally speaking, But do you feel a sense of responsibility, like, hey,

(45:14):
I got to let people know what's going on.

Speaker 4 (45:18):
I do, And also I am I don't think I
do a good job. Let me say that. Let me
start there. I don't think I do a good job
of it. I do some, but also I find myself
because it's you know, when you realize the scope of

(45:38):
how awful everything is. And I'm talking about my family
home destroyed, my family scattered across the world. People family
members have died in this, and it's like you build
a psychological walls within your head in order just to
get through it. So you're not if I thought about

(46:01):
it the extent I should think about it, I don't
know how many days I would make it without breaking
down and crying, on how many days I would not
be in a serious, deep depression. And you know, and
for me, I feel it doubly because I think my
sister does an incredible job of not only being a

(46:24):
voice but also being a source of information for people,
particularly people. Soon these people will spreadut across the world
trying to figure out what's really happening. And she's she's
kind of like this figure that people turn to, that
like kind of I don't call ambudsmen, but someone like
who verifies information and disseminates it and lets people know

(46:47):
and then externally explains what's happening to people who don't
know what's happening in Sudan. And so it's difficult for me,
you know, to not only not be good at it,
but to also be related to someone who's excellent at it.
It makes me feel the guilt. And it's a cyclical thing.
And then you know, I again, I do. It's not

(47:09):
that I don't do anything, but I don't think I
do enough.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
And you and your sister, your sister Sarah, correct, you
all worked on a project together that discussed maybe a
lot about like how you grew up, how did that
come together?

Speaker 4 (47:24):
So she didn't work on the project. She was a subject,
but she didn't know we me and my cousins, we
we're working on a bigger documentary. I'm not gonna I'll
tell you after we're off the air what the topic is.
But it's kind of like in our little incubator, trying

(47:44):
to get content made. We got funding from the African
Film Festival, the New York African Film Festival, and so
we did a short, like a thirty minute doc It
was about my sister Sarah, about a little bit about
our upbringing, but more so geared towards what she does,
what her life's work is, and her impact of so

(48:07):
many people. And she, again she didn't know. I was
just like, hey, we want to do this. Then I
asked you some questions and she went along with it.
She doesn't like these kind of things where it's focused
on her, so I know that wasn't a very comfortable
situation for her, but we did it because it was something.

(48:30):
I admire my sister greatly. I don't think I ever
told her that. I definitely didn't tell her that before
that video for that documentary. I admire her greatly. I
think she is smarter than I am. I definitely think
she's stronger than I am, but I never said that.
And because I'm her older brother and our relationship has

(48:52):
always been nah haha, like send her me and whatever,
make fun of her when we were little, and so
I've never really had opportunities then. So then in many
ways that was like my thank you to her and
my way of letting her know that was very proud of.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
Given everything that is happening here, there has certainly been
an increasingly strong religious right movement that is firmly entrenched
in our government, especially right now seeing how things are
unfolding here. How triggering is that for you as someone
who grew up in a political climate which religion, as

(49:27):
you said, because said a few moments ago, became the
justification to do some pretty awful things.

Speaker 4 (49:33):
Right, and the trampling of individual rights and the transfer
of power, the concentration of power with one person or
one office, all of these things, I mean, even the
way it's funny, it's like I've seen this all before,
even the idea of like I don't have to tell
the truth. Not only do I not have to tell
the truth, my lie doesn't even have to be clever.

(49:57):
I can tell an unclever clearly see through life and
the reason why I was like, what are you going
to do about it? And so I saw somewhere recently
the last couple of days, Trump was being asked again
about the epstcene stuff and he said, oh, well, you know,
I didn't really know him like that. And actually he

(50:17):
came to my thing and we had him kicked out
of mar A Lago because he was acting like a
creep or whatever. And it's like, okay, so you knew
this guy was up to no good all those years
back then, and you didn't do anything. But now that
he's dead, now you're saying I always need it. So
it's like your lies aren't even you know. It was
like when we asked him, hey, what's your favorite Bible

(50:39):
versus all of them?

Speaker 2 (50:42):
My favorite answer?

Speaker 1 (50:43):
When he did that, he was asked this is when
I think he was still campaigning. I think it might
have been his first, his first presidential run, when he
said two Corinthians and I was like, oh lord, I
just won.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
This is I was like, my man, don't even know
a second, but.

Speaker 4 (51:04):
Two Corinthians walk into a bar. But it's like, but
these are the things, like these very blatant lies, like no, dude,
we're not idiots, like we know. But that's why I
realized they don't even care for idiots or not. They
just want to get done what they want to do.
The only difference I see is, for the most part

(51:26):
what was happening in Sudan, there were supporters, but they
wanted that many, like the vast majority of the people
are like this is awful, but we were also afraid
for our safety and all that. And here there seems
to be people who have the pom poms out to
the death of them, and I'm like, this is kind
of wild. So for instance, ice raids that I.

Speaker 8 (51:45):
Did, and they can come and scoop you up and
take you out, like yeah, man, the secret police in
Sudan they dress like regular citizens. They hear you talking
about something whatever, they grab you and they take you away.

Speaker 4 (51:56):
And they used to take them to the places called
ghost houses, the ghost houses. That's why they torture you.
I lived across the street from a ghost house. So
the way suit in Theese houses are, it's like kind
of the house and then there's like a courtyard and
like like a low wall basically and at night because
again because of rolling blackouts and lot just sy expensive whatever.

(52:18):
For most when we sleep outside, you got beds that
stay outside. You bring the mattresses from indoors outside, lay
them out, and then you sleep under the stars. Right.
I could hear the screams of people getting tortured from
across the street at night. And again it's like it's
weird because I'm like, oh, yeah, I have vivid memories

(52:39):
of this, but I never remember like being traumatized in
a way like it was just like, oh shit, they're
at it again, you know, But also with the knowledge
that hey, man, you gotta watch that, you gotta watch
what you say around who because you don't know what
the consequences might be. And so when I turn on
the news and I see people particularly like things like

(53:03):
college students picking up the phone calling ice about other
legally in this country college too, but because they have
a difference of opinion on a certain issue, they're getting
dragged away without due process, taking the places where God
knows human treatment probably is not the norm. It's like, yeah,

(53:25):
I mean, I've seen all this before, and it's wild
to me. Like I said, the thing that's wild to
me is that the number of people have pom poms
out for any of this behavior, for any of these
trampling of civil liberties or human rights or whatever to
be like, yeah, man, that's cool, Like I just it's
it is weird to me that there isn't a kind

(53:46):
of a feeling of I'm not with this, even if
you're like, hey, I voted for Trump, I vote from
a third time. Even if you're one of those people,
isn't there a party that says, Okay, I didn't vote
for that. That ship though, like that's kind of weird.
That's not what I wanted or whatever. I guess we're
seeing a little bit of that now from some people,
but there's been a lot of stops along the way

(54:09):
to mail. I don't know if you feel the same way,
where it's like it's okay for you to still roop
for your team and say the coach sucks. You don't
mean you you don't mean you're you're a Red Sox
fan all of a sudden and you just abandoned the Yankees.
You could say like, yo, I'm a Yankee fan through
and two, But I don't like what's his name? What's
my man? It's a home run, I'm old. Oh what's

(54:31):
the manager of the Yankees currently? The one that Aaron Boone?

Speaker 2 (54:35):
I was like, you mean the current brand?

Speaker 4 (54:37):
Yeah, like, like, you know what I'm saying, Like it's
okay to be a Yankee fan and not like Aaron
Boone or not like that, you know, or to like, uh,
to be a Knicks fan and think TIBs might be
playing the guys a little too much, Like you don't
have to be like well, if TIBs did it, then
that means it must like you don't have to be
like that. They make mistakes too, It's all right to
admit it.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
The problem, though, is it's it's very appropriate you use
a sports example, because I do contend that part of
the reason why Americans are largely unfazed by the potential
consequences of what is happening is because we cover politics
like sports. Whereas this team versus this team, I was like, no, no, no, no,
there's real fucking people involved here whose lives will be

(55:18):
destroyed by this, and in the process, you are voting
against your self interest or you know whatever.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Like there's there's.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
A there's a lot of scenarios where we look back
on this time and feel woefully ashamed of what we
allow through apathy, through selfishness, through this rugged individualness individualism
that has been a part of the American identity, but

(55:45):
can be really toxic when you take a couple of
steps back. So it is it's sort of by design
that Americans are just like, oh shit, is some fascism
going on, all right?

Speaker 4 (55:59):
And the flip side of that is like when I see,
like what's happening in New York City with the mayoral race,
right and mom Donnie seems to have a lot of momentum.
And again it's like the things he's running on, it's
funny to me, like the platform that he's running on.

(56:23):
If I were a Republican, a conservative, small government Republican,
there is no shortage of policy that I would disagree
with him on. And yet they just go, he wants
to make us all Muslim. I'm like, that's what you
got out of this? This dude he's openly saying I'm

(56:44):
a socialist, and you're like this Muslim. I'm like, that's
what you got out of it. It's but again, it's telling.
It's telling that the lack of any sophistication really in
terms of whether it's the audience or the communicator of
what the argument should even be. I don't even mind
it thinking about it in a sports term, but again,

(57:05):
like I said, even in sports, there are cowboys fans
who think Jerry Jones is sucking up. They're like, it's not.
In Jerry, we trust every single day. And so the
idea that like anyone in this in this country, of
all countries, would blindly follow someone no matter what they said,
even if they said, hey, you're the enemy. Now look, hey,

(57:26):
you must be right, I must be the enemy. That's
just insane. Me.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
I want to pivot a little bit and talk about
your NBA career.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
I did not know, upon doing research for for our conversation,
I did not know that you were once an engineering student.
Oh yeah, you lived another life as an engineering student.
He went to Georgia Tech, of course, which is one
of the best schools in the country, and engineers.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Tend to go.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
So knowing, I guess I have enough friend who you
know who come from immigrant families. Yeah, I would love
to know how that conversation went.

Speaker 4 (58:07):
You know what, this is horribly when.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
You told your parents or maybe even specifically your father, Hey,
you know this engineering thing, leave that alone and going.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
To sports, it's you know, it's funny. You're absolutely right.
Every single child of immigrant has a story. I talked
to Janey Maka about this, and Jenny with the number
one overall pick, and her father's reaction was like, does
this mean you're not going to medical school? It was
something along those lines, like as the number one overall
pick in the WNBA draft, her dad was still like.

Speaker 9 (58:39):
Came out of Stanford, Yeah, like a factory, a basketball factory, right, yeah,
but like it's true, it's like we grow up and
because they come.

Speaker 4 (58:51):
From a place of scarcity, the idea is that you
got four options basically doctor, lawyer, engineer, architect, which when
you want, right, that's it, right, because because the idea
is that you're going to go to college and you're
going to get a degree that is going to guarantee
you employment and guarantee you income, like good income. And

(59:13):
so I never had any aspirations to work in sports
growing up. Sports was cool. I loved it, I played,
I followed, I did all those things. It didn't even
occur to me that this was an opportunity that regular people.
To me, everyone who worked in sports was either a
former athlete or my daddy's the owner, where I'm the

(59:36):
nephew of the star pulled the franchise player or my
uncle is one of the parts, like it's that's that's
who the people work in sports and the rest of
us we just watch right. And so I was good
at math, I was good at science. What do you
want to be? You want to be an architect or
an engineer. I didn't want to be a doctor. I
didn't like blood and all that stuff. I didn't want

(59:57):
to be a lawyer. Or I did, but my parents
stopped me out of it when I was younger. So
that's another story for another day. Either way, So engineer
or architecture, Like, well, I'm not good at drawing. I
swear to God, this is the sophistication decision tree of
amino acid. I'm not good at drawing, so baby, architecture
isn't for me. I'll do engineering, all right? Where do

(01:00:17):
you want to go to school? The year I was
a senior in high school, I think it was junior senior.
There's a massive blizzard in New York. It's like one
of the heaviest snow days of ever. And I'm still
kind of fresh from Africa. So this idea of it
being cold and snow and all this sudden like fuck
that I'm never going to do this again. Take me
somewhere where it's sonny all the time. Take me where

(01:00:39):
it's nice, where we don't have anything. And so I
applied to Miami, Okay, Florida A, and m Okay, Rice,
Georgia Tech, and then Mit because my mom made me.
And so I was like, all right, I'm gonna just

(01:01:00):
to just to throw my hat in that ring. And
so I think I got into I got into Florida
A and m I got into Miami. I got into
Georgia Tech. I got waitlisted at RICE and m I
T so I said, waitlist, I can't go down Boom,
that's off the list. I wanted to go to Miami.

(01:01:22):
My mom the only thing she knew about Miami was
the news from the nineteen eighties, and that's like scarface
shootouts and the street and stuff. She thought. She thought
I was got caught and crossfire. Now mind you, we
live in New York City, but in her mind, Miami
that's really really crazy. Never mind the University of Miami
is in Coral Gables, which is like, yeah, and it's so,

(01:01:44):
But Miami was off the list. Rice waitlisted off the list. Also,
I didn't want to live in Texas. I thought it
was gonna be nothing but racist there. And so by
came down to Florida and m and Georgia Tech, and
I said, I don't want to go to a small
small town Tella Haas, I'm going to Atlanta. And all
I knew all the black people in Atlanta. Jermaine dupraz

(01:02:06):
so so deaf was in Atlanta, Stephan Marbury, Georgia Tech. Basketball.
I had no idea. You said, Georgia Tech is a
great engineering school. You're absolutely right. You know who didn't know?
This asshole?

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
You didn't?

Speaker 4 (01:02:18):
I didn't know. Wow, I thought. I thought, okay, so
they're engineering focused. How good are they? Who knows? Right?
But like I said, basketball, really big, Georgia Tech, Marbury,
All that's cool. Number two in a big city. Didn't
want to live in a small town. Number three. And

(01:02:38):
this is key, Jamal. The weather is awesome all year round.
Did not know that it got cold in Georgia in
the winter. I thought I was gonna be like t
shirts and shorts every day.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
I thought you were going to say the women is
a point, like, oh.

Speaker 4 (01:02:53):
No, I mean, look, that's that's true. I thought about
that for Atlanta, and then I got to Tech, and
I realized, oh, this is a bubble inside of Atlanta.
Inside this bubble, this very inside, this very black city
is a very not black bubble right where it's not
an exaggeration. If you went to Georgia Tech, like in

(01:03:15):
the nineties and the early two thousands, you may not
know every black person by name, but you knew every
black person. There wasn't gonna be a black person walked by,
like who's that you knew? Kind of oh even if
you man, we had names for people like, oh, that's
that's the running man we helped do the running You
knew who he was. You didn't know him, but like you,
I know that dude or whatever. So like I got

(01:03:38):
there and there's a culture shock of again, moving in
Atlanta from New York. It's like, oh, everyone here is
either black or white, and they don't play none of
that you Haitian or whatever, none of that shit. Right
Number two, there's zero intermingling. So again, in New York City,
I had all types of friends and it was like
it was commonplace you would see these multicultural groups of people, right,

(01:04:02):
None of that in Atlanta. Number three, very white, Georgia Tech,
very white, like it shocked me. And these were white
people had never seen minorities before. These weren't like white
people from New York. These are like, whoa, here's a
black guy here, like that that kind of white person.

(01:04:23):
And then number four, which probably the number one. It
was two thirds male, which is like the opposite of
every college in America. Every university of America is more
women than men, except like Georgia Tech. And it's like
it's a sausage factory at all times. But because it's Atlanta,
all you have to do is step off campus, go
to auc and now it's like and balance is restored.

(01:04:44):
So like it was just it was a lot to
kind of process. And I went to school. I was young.
I was seventeen years old. As a college freshman. I
was not mature enough emotionally and was not mature enough
and know what I wanted or even mature enough to
keep my options open. So I was an engineering student,

(01:05:05):
and I was predictably a terrible engineering student because I
didn't know how to be a good student. And what
I and I did learn this was that everyone here
they came to do this shit for real. Like so
my freshman roommate, I remember, he took a part in
the clock radio and now kids at home, we used
to have these clocks that would also have like an

(01:05:27):
AMFM station and you can listen to the radio and
it sadden they wake you up with music. So but
he took it apart and I said, why are you
doing that? He said, I just want to see how
it works. And then you put it back together. And
I realized, oh, this nigga really want to do this shit. Man,
Like I'm just here because they told me there's a
paycheck at the end. He's really interested and started meeting

(01:05:47):
people and like all of these people really or they like,
there's been my dream to go to Georgia Tech, are
your dream? Like I just found out he was a
good school and I got man, so all of these things,
I'm like, I don't think I'm gonna be good at
this engineering thing. And then like all the usual stuff,
I was oversleeping, I was playing video games, I was

(01:06:10):
out with my buddies, and like I didn't take it
seriously enough. And then I got a part time job
working for the Hawks, and that was when everything changed,
because I realized, oh, there are people doing this shit
full time. This is your life is your career. But
who are you related. You're not related to anybody. You
just you went to school for this and now you
do this for I'm like, this is what I want

(01:06:32):
to do, and so I told my parents I want
to do this, and it's like coming home and say, Mom, Dad,
I'm joining the circus, like I could. They almost died
man hearing me kind of give the sales pitch and
you're like, you're ruining your life. You're throwing away your life,
and da da dah. I'm like, and that's the only
time I think my dad ever gave me the They

(01:06:55):
like I'm paraphrasing here, I ain't trying to hire no
niggas Like He's like, you're black man, ain't nobody hire you?
Like that's basically your In his way, he was saying, like,
if you do something technical like engineering, it's undeniable. It's
a technical thing. It's an undeniable thing. And also there's
always a need. The beggars can't be choosers. They have

(01:07:17):
to hire you, right Versus sports, everyone wants to do
it like they're a lotment of diversity comes from those
who play and the regular people get to do this.
But you ain't one on the regular people. And so
the only way I kind of sold them on it
was my brother was going to Arizona State at the time,

(01:07:38):
and I said, I want to transfer to Arizona State
and I'm gonna live with my brother and my parents.
That was the one thing. They were like, well, they'll
be together, brothers living in the same house. They wanted that.
And I was gonna go to a ASU business because
ASU had a top twenty five business school, but they
want to Like at first, my dad was like no,
and then like it took people convincing him that oh,

(01:07:59):
there's really good careers in finance and marketing and all that,
and it's like okay. But all the while, my my
real goal was to get into the sports business program.

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
So h and well, and you would have been in
Atlanta where late nineties, early two thousands. Okay, yep, you
go to Freaknick.

Speaker 4 (01:08:16):
Of course I saw. I witness I witnessed the slow demise.
I went from Freaknick is awesome to it's cool, it's
not as good as us last year though, to oh man,
it's really falling off this year, to I remember the
last time I went. The last time I won't say went.
I was out with my buddies and one of our

(01:08:36):
younger friends I never a buddy named Vaughan. We used
to call him Presto. I don't know why they call
we called him Presto. I think he was just impatient
or whatever. But Presto was like at one point, I
was like, man, where are the hole's at? And I'm like,
what are you talking about? And my buddy Ben was like,
he thinks it's Freaknick because it's supposed to be this
weekning weekend. And I'm like, oh, dog, that she is
dead man. It's never it's never coming back. But like

(01:08:59):
to to, I'm happy to say I seen it. I
saw what it was, and it was. It was glorious.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
Yeah, I'm embarrassed by the fact since I went to
college be more toward that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
Like, my first year of college was nineteen ninety three, and.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
So when the heyday of Freaknick was like during that
time right.

Speaker 4 (01:09:19):
Then the next ninety four was the peak, right, it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
Was the peak right, And so there was a caravan.
I went to Michigan State. There was a caravan of
folks because Freaknick was not during our spring break.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
But people just said, fuck it, we're going.

Speaker 4 (01:09:31):
Okay, we're going down there.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
We're going down there, you know, classes attendance be damned
or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
And I could have gone. It didn't go.

Speaker 4 (01:09:40):
You can go.

Speaker 2 (01:09:41):
It's one of the regrets of my life.

Speaker 1 (01:09:43):
I did not go because I could have definitely gone
to ninety four because they literally had like these posters
that they put up like yo, we all going to freaknik.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
Yeah pay this, like we mobbed up this and that.
I was like, am I dumb ass? Didn't go?

Speaker 4 (01:09:56):
So yeah this that time obviously fre being in Atlanta,
it was just you just go outside and it was easy.
It was right there. But we did Daytona one year
and I'm gonna tell you like it. It's the road
trip part of it. I think makes it a more
memorable experience, Like just just being on the road and
remember all the dumb stuff and what hotel we stayed at,

(01:10:18):
some terrible hotel that was miles from the streep. Yeah, well,
I mean, and then getting separated. That's that's once you
hit the strip. And I know this happened in Atlanta
all the time. Once you get into the thick of it,
people disperse and this is before cell phones were really
a thing. So it's like we lost track of you,
We lost track of you, and we ran into you again,

(01:10:41):
and so that was it was a great It was
a great experience.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
Will never know anything nothing about that. They will they
will not know.

Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
So once you you know, you get on with the
Hawks and in general, as you said, you would tell
your Arizona STATEIU and you know you started making your way.
What would you say was your first big break in
the NBA? Was it the Hawks or did you feel
like it came a little later.

Speaker 4 (01:11:04):
The Hawks is always going to be the biggest break
because I've told the story before, but it's very important
to me to always tell the story because my roommate
Kendrick Cummings was the one that woke me up on
a Saturday morning and said, hey, man, the Hawks are
having a job fair. Let's go down there. And because
it was Saturday morning, I told him to go fuck
himself because I'm sleeping. Man. We was out last night. Dad.

(01:11:26):
He's like, come on, man, da dada, and I'm like,
they're not going to hire us, and he kept saying
come on, da da da. And I'll never forget the
thing that made me say okay was He said, who knows,
we might be able to go to some games for free.
And I remember thinking that I'll be cool, and so
I got up, I washed my face, da da da,
and we went down there. It was like five hundred
people showed up and they hired six, and me and

(01:11:48):
my roommate were two of a six and at the
and we were it was the most entry level position.
It was street team like we were going from the Yeah,
so you go on the on the weekends to the mall.
You would set up all this like this traveling caravan
of shit, like hey, put your hand up against the
ken Bam Tumbo's hand, and put your shoe up against

(01:12:08):
Alan Henderson's shoe size, and Steve Smith's the wingspan and
all that, and then there's a basket like a like
not a popa shot, but like a regulation size thing.
And if you made two out of three feet throws
that gave you free tickets. That gained good ass seats too,
and did that, and then midway through, like the dope
boys would be like, man, how much for just for

(01:12:29):
the tickets? And then I started my very lucrative scalping
operation where I was like, oh, another winner and I'm
just making money, right, And then they had the foot locker.
Employees are like, Yo, what can we do here as
a quick procal So now I'm getting shoes and stuff.
But at the end of that year, got promoted to

(01:12:50):
Innerna and so then when I was in Erna, that's
when I started like finding out that people do this
for real and getting to know people. And I always
tell people NBA people I knew first Rick Mahorn, Jimmy Jackson,
and Jason Terry, and by God's grace, all three of
those dudes even like remember me from them. I've like

(01:13:15):
I remember at various times in my career in the
media running into each one of those guys and then
being like, man, I thought it was so crazy. I
saw you on TV and which is which is super cool?
And then the weirdest thing about that is one of
the ball kids who's working back then is now an
exec with the Warriors, and I saw him for the

(01:13:36):
first time at one of the Warriors championship parties and
I'm like, Ryan, what are you doing here? He's like,
I work here. I'm like what, And so in his
mind he's like, how does he remember me? When I
was twelve years old. I'm like, it's weird, but that's
the NBA. It's such a small place. But to me,
Atlanta is what started. It made me believe this is
something I could pursue. It made me meet people who

(01:13:56):
were very instrumental and influential, and then everything from there.
Everything is a big break. Obvious, anytime you get a job,
anytime you get promoted within a job, it's a big break.
But the first one I got to shout out my homie,
Kindrick Coomings. So when you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
First got into the NBA, in your mind, what was
your ceiling, what was the position you were going for?

Speaker 4 (01:14:19):
Director of player Personnel? And I thought there was an
outside chance I could be an assistant general manager. I
knew I would never be a GM because again, funny name, right,
I was like, okay, so not only going to hire
a black guy who didn't play in the league, Okay, whatever,
and then he's got like a foreign name. And this
foreign name also is like post nine to eleven is

(01:14:40):
like a nine to eleven name as they call that.
There's like, there's no point in trying to do that.
What my mission was was to be well, actually my
mission was to have an influential voice in the front office.
I didn't want to make decisions. I wanted to be
part of the decision making, and I got to be that.
My highest thing I got to was assistant director by Swaps.

(01:15:01):
If things hadn't changed in Phoenix the way it did,
I believe I would have eventually been director of Basketball Ops,
which was pretty much where I wanted to end up,
and I would have done that position for the rest
of my career with like nominal raises and stuff like that.
I didn't need titles. I just wanted to be somewhere
where my work was valued. And I was there until
he had some changes and then everything kind of shit hit.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
The fan final question to me and I called this
the messy question. This is the one where we will
make the blogs. This is where the Shade Room will
write negatively about you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:31):
And here's the question. You have a great movie.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
Podcast, Cenophobe that people can check out on YouTube or
wherever you get your podcasts. Give me a popular black
movie that everybody loves but you think is just okay
or maybe even bad.

Speaker 2 (01:15:51):
What is your spiciest take?

Speaker 4 (01:15:53):
This is the one. Look. I said a lot of
controversial things on this podcast, I said, I've been apparently,
I've been a part of two sexual harassment lawsuits. This
is going to be the worst thing I'm going to say.
And I hate that you asked me this, and I
hate that when you asked me, you asked me I
actually asked me earlier full disclosure. You asked me at
the beginning so they have time to think it over,

(01:16:14):
and I had the answer immediately. This is a movie
that when I first saw it back in the day,
loved it, thought it was great, thought it was awesome.
And then I hadn't watched it for a while. Maybe
it's some clips here and there, but you know, like
oh yeah, yeah. And then we did it on Cinophobe
and I watched it and all star cast, all time greats,

(01:16:40):
funny people. Every one of these people I love individually.
I love the movies they've been in. I love their
stand up for the stand up comedians. I watched this
movie again, like maybe a year or two ago, and
I was just like, Harlem Nights. Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

(01:17:02):
It's like ladies and gentleman.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
I may never speak to him.

Speaker 10 (01:17:05):
I'm just saying, look, if you you have Eddie Murphy
and Richard Pryor and and Red Fox and and and
then and and it's just like and and and even
our seno in a cameo, and I'm.

Speaker 4 (01:17:20):
Like, that's the best you could do. I felt like
it was so low hanging fruit. I was like, oh, man, like,
I'm looking for these, like these really really really really
high end, like THESS comedy geniuses at work, and I'm
just sitting back and watching them cook. And instead it's like,

(01:17:41):
ha ha, look at Red Fox's glasses. He can't see.
I'm like, man, come on, we can do better.

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
I mean, whatever wrath you receive.

Speaker 4 (01:17:57):
He ain't even black. This is why we can't Africans
in our space. They don't understand our culture. Dot.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
You're about to break the diaspora right now.

Speaker 4 (01:18:07):
That is it?

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
Any I mean, has ruined any possibility of their being
piece across the diaspora.

Speaker 4 (01:18:14):
Bar that BT Awards invite is rescinded.

Speaker 2 (01:18:19):
We do don't show up. You're not welcome there. That
I have to say. I thought of a thousand of
different movies you could pick. I never would have got.

Speaker 4 (01:18:32):
It was instantly because because you know why, because I
expect better. I expected better of like of them.

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):
So did you think that Life lived because that's another one,
a bunch of comedians.

Speaker 2 (01:18:44):
You got Bernie Mack, you got Martin.

Speaker 1 (01:18:46):
Did you think that actually lived up to the comedic
talent that was in this in that movie.

Speaker 4 (01:18:52):
No, but I thought they did a better job. And
because and this is what I know happened in Life,
and I'm not sure, I'm not sure happened. I can't
remember happening. But Life had a bunch of scenes where
they just let them go, just let them go. They're funny,
and let them I think, I'm I'm almost sure. I
heard guy Tori talk about this about yeah, them just

(01:19:13):
going and like cracking up and not being able to
breathe between takes too, they laughing so hard, and I
feel like Harlem Knights. I wonder if, like, if it
had been a different director. I think Eddie directed, and
it's like was that. I think Eddie even talked about
it being too much to direct and also be in
the movie was too much. I wonder if it had
been a different director who would have maybe given a

(01:19:36):
little bit more leeway there. I don't know, man, I
can't call it. I just think that Life delivered more
comedially than than Harlem Knights. Is based on the potential.

Speaker 2 (01:19:48):
But it sounds like you didn't think Life was a
good movie.

Speaker 4 (01:19:50):
No, I do. I like I like Life. I like
that I like but but I also felt like it
should have been better. It should be even better, I thought.
And also like there's a part where they just kind
of speed up the story, like like they could have
they could have been better told as a story. But
it definitely, it definitely lived up to a higher percentage

(01:20:11):
of its potential than Harlem Nights. There's no way I
can fix this. Everyone just.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
You know how they say we listen and we don't judge,
and I'm judging.

Speaker 4 (01:20:21):
What what's your answer?

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
So I would say, you know, it's funny because I
can't really it's hard for me to think of a
black movie that I had, like such a high expected
expectation for a got Lit now not know. In general,
my answer is Napoleon Dynamite, Like I.

Speaker 2 (01:20:41):
Just don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:20:41):
I need, I need a black movie, you know, giving
me no damn indie movie. It was for seven dollars
with Uncle Rico.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
You know, I used to think it was baby Boy,
and what I did, I did not love Baby boy,
the first probably five times I saw it, but it
go on me so I didn't come around.

Speaker 2 (01:21:05):
I was like this traumatic pseudo psychle.

Speaker 4 (01:21:08):
What the Ellice Snoop talking about? You put yourself a
little poor? Huh? You know?

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
I just I was so yeah, I was very very
traumatized by that one.

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
But and this is not to suggest that I love
every black movie that comes out, But when.

Speaker 2 (01:21:27):
You think about the expectators, these the.

Speaker 4 (01:21:30):
Ones that we're not talking about Tyler Perry is why
did my shoelaces get untied or whatever?

Speaker 1 (01:21:36):
We're talking about the ones something that is that is
near and dear to black culture.

Speaker 2 (01:21:42):
I'll give you. I didn't love Poetic Justice.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
No, I didn't love poetic I love it.

Speaker 4 (01:21:51):
Was like it's a flimsy premise. It's a flimsy premise,
very much so.

Speaker 2 (01:21:57):
And there's plenty parts, but it's like.

Speaker 4 (01:22:00):
I thought it was. I liked it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:01):
I like they should have done better.

Speaker 1 (01:22:03):
I mean they if you're going if we're going by
the barometer of a movie that you thought maybe going there,
like oh this ship not killed, it's like, you know
pak at that point in his career, No, Janet Jackson
has some acting jobs Regina King. That was really the
first time we saw her sort of break out in
the like well Boys in the Hood before the ND,
but like she was really breaking out different.

Speaker 4 (01:22:24):
She was no longer a more adult role like correct.

Speaker 1 (01:22:27):
Yeah, she was no longer Brenda from T two. So
like we're good on that, but like that movie just
just oh you know what, I know it, this is
the answer. I did love Poetic Justice, but I can
take Poet of Justice. The movie that black people love
that I cannot stand is Belly.

Speaker 2 (01:22:43):
That is the movie. Belly is bad people.

Speaker 1 (01:22:47):
I'm tied of y'all lions just because you love the cinematizes.

Speaker 4 (01:22:52):
Look, hey, it's a visual medium. It's a visual medium
person for anyone can tell as far I will.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
Never, I will never. They will pay for their crimes.
They will pay for their crimes. That old Malcolm X
plot in There Are You kidding Me? That movie was terrible.

Speaker 4 (01:23:12):
Yeah. One of my favorite lines is what he's like
Tommy or as we called him, Buns. I'm like, wait
a second, there's no exposition just like this, And why
did you just make his name like Benny or some
ship like that, so like Buns would be na Tommy
or as we called them, buns, Like am I sled

(01:23:33):
to see the connection here? No, man, it is that
movie's easy. I just want to see what we can do.
So that's how we found out method Man was a
good actor. Sometimes you got it. That's how we discovered
webe Hassan Johnson like, great act. There's a lot of
Tarrell Hicks. I know she was in the Bronxdale, but like, still.

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
She was great.

Speaker 4 (01:23:53):
She was great that movie.

Speaker 2 (01:23:54):
Because they failed all of it.

Speaker 4 (01:23:56):
We found out. This is what we found out. We
found out t bos No, maybe not so much like.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
Africa Far. Africa's far lives in my head, rinfree, That's
all it lives in there.

Speaker 4 (01:24:08):
He gave he gave Shorty his chain and then the
next scene he's walking and he's got the change back.
I'm like, damn, would you let him hold it for
a second. It's a great comedy, you gotta it's a
great I was like, but.

Speaker 2 (01:24:21):
It wasn't supposed to be. It's it's like they never
drew that up as a comedy.

Speaker 4 (01:24:26):
I was like, So, so we reviewed We reviewed it
on Cenophobe. The behind the scenes and that is crazy.
So any scene where they're smoking weed in movies. Typically
they're smoking like a regular relic, some like some incense,
something that burns and looks like weed, but it's not
real weed. That did not happen in Belly. He used
realhole and real weed. They were high and drunk hat

(01:24:47):
the whole time. The uh DMX's house I think was
actually his real house in Miami. It was all like
it was. It was terribly run as a business. As
far as let's make a movie, it was.

Speaker 2 (01:25:02):
Just me shocks.

Speaker 4 (01:25:04):
They blew the budget on alcohol, weed and shippers and
all that, and then that's why it's like the first
fifteen minutes are so pristine, and then it's like, yeah,
gotta get this in the can.

Speaker 2 (01:25:18):
Oh man, All right, well, I guess we both go
get canceled. But I feel like you're you.

Speaker 4 (01:25:22):
Mine's worse, no, yours way worse than Well.

Speaker 2 (01:25:25):
Listen, my friend, thank you so much for spending this
time out. I kept you a long time.

Speaker 1 (01:25:30):
I really enjoyed talking to you, as I always do
whenever we see each other off air in person. So
continue good luck and success in the day in Lebatary universe,
or as you're creating your own universe as well, and
so you all to make sure you check them out.
You got about seventy billion, fifty eleven podcasts.

Speaker 4 (01:25:47):
Yeah, I'm all workingmand immigrant immigrant you are.

Speaker 2 (01:25:52):
Look at your fitness type. So anyway, good luck of
mean and I will see you.

Speaker 4 (01:25:56):
Down the road. I want to say right now, real quick,
thank you, because you and Michael had me on His
and Hers way before anybody was really giving me like
proper TV tick, like I was doing Sports Center, and
you know, Sports Center's gone Da da da dah and
two minutes and then you're gone, and there's not a
whole lot of room for personality in those hits, and

(01:26:17):
His and Hers was the first place I got to
be on a show and show my personality and be
something other than just an expert talking about a trade
or whatever. So I always say thank you to you
and Michael for looking out for to this day. I
don't even know how y'all booked me, but y'all did.

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
So we are scared of you out of town. That's
what Mike used to say, all of that.

Speaker 1 (01:26:37):
So yeah, it was our pleasure and especially to see
just how you just continued to blossom.

Speaker 2 (01:26:43):
So thank you, my friend, and enjoy it one more
segment to go coming up next the Final Spin.

Speaker 1 (01:27:01):
Time now for the final spin, the topic what it
will cause NFL fans to watch games this season?

Speaker 2 (01:27:08):
The spin, There is no price a NFL fan won't
pay to watch a game. The truth. They're right.

Speaker 1 (01:27:15):
I saw an interesting stat recently. If an NFL fan
wanted to have access to every game this season, they
would have to pay eleven hundred dollars. That includes subscriptions
to Peacock, Amazon, YouTube, ESPN, among others. Is it absurd,
of course, But will NFL fans pay, Yes, and they
pay more than that. We keep waiting for the NFL

(01:27:36):
bubble to burst, and it's never going to happen, at
least not anytime soon. The NFL is the most valuable
and profitable sports league in America.

Speaker 2 (01:27:44):
It is the national obsession, and fans have shown.

Speaker 1 (01:27:47):
Time and again they are willing to pay the price,
no matter how much the price of the brick is
going up. Now, last year, the NFL wrick did twenty
three billion dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
The owners know they have the fans in their back pocket.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
There will predictably be a lot of complaining about the
staggering rise and what it costs to watch a game,
but they will complain and they will pay. This concludes
another episode of Politics. You can reach me across all
social media platforms or via email. I met Jamail Hill
on every social media platform, Twitter, Instagram, fan based, Blue

(01:28:20):
Style and threads.

Speaker 2 (01:28:21):
Please use the hashtags politics.

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
You also have the option of emailing me as Politics
twenty twenty four at gmail dot com. You can also
video me a question, but please make sure it's thirty
seconds or less. Don't forget to follow and subscribe to
Politics on iHeart, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your
podcasts and follows. Politics pod on Instagram and TikTok. Politics
is felled s po l I t I c s.

(01:28:46):
A new episode of Politics drops every Thursday on iHeart Podcasts.
This is politics where sports and politics don't just mix,
they matter. This is the production of iHeart podcast and
The Unbothered Network. I'm your host Jamel Hill. Executive producer

(01:29:07):
is Taylor Chakoigne. Lucas Hyman is head of audio and
executive producer. Original music first Politics provided by Kyle VISs
from wiz Fx