Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome. Call It Like I See it, presented by Disruption. Now, I'm James Keys. And in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to take a look at two stories that have been discussed a lot recently.
And we're going to take a look, or we're going to consider what they say about the problems America seems to have in dealing with matters of race as it relates to things like access and opportunity.
And later on, we're going to take a look at the science behind why it's harder for people to build muscle as they age.
And the age, the particular age when this phenomenon really seems to kick in.
Joining me today is a man who's got a feeling that tonight is going to be a good pod. Tunde. Ogon. Lana Tunde, are you ready to kick it off?
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: All right. All right.
Now we're recording this on February 7, 2022.
And there are two stories that have gotten a lot of coverage lately, and they touch in different ways on the struggle that America's largest institutions, and really American society in general, continue to have in dealing with racial discrepancies in access, opportunity and outcomes.
So we're gonna take a look at Joe Biden's pledge to nominate a black woman for the U.S. supreme Court. And also the lawsuit filed by the former head coach of the Miami Dolphins, Brian Flores, against the National Football League and several pro football teams based on allegations of race, racist hiring and firing practices. And we're gonna consider what these situations may illustrate about the difficulty America seems to have in operating in its pluralistic society.
But before we get into that, I wanna ask you, Tunde, do you think that we spend too much time focusing on race or looking at the race of this and the racial impact of that and all that? Like, race certainly seems to come up in discussions about so many issues. But is that necessary or helpful? Like, for example, you know, we just started Black History Month. Is that something. Or could that be something that may focus our attention too much on the race of the history, so to speak?
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Where do I take that one?
So I tried to give you a.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Broad space to operate in.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so broad that I'm going to explode here. I don't. I don't know which direction to go. No, it's.
Look, I think to start off, do we pay too much attention on race? Do we focus too much? I'll say this, probably yes, more than most of us say that we like.
But it's interesting, we all say that collectively as a society, but Then we don't stop focusing on it. So I think there's also different reasons why the issue of race becomes discussions for people right now.
I'll even go a little bit higher level on this conversation. You and I have had plenty of talks with speaking to the idea that race is really a human construct. Let's start there.
The idea of classifying people under racial hierarchies or silos, let's say, is something that's really a cultural nuance.
And how many times have we heard people that come to the United States for the first time? I've heard this a lot, living in South Florida from people from the Caribbean. They say, I didn't know I was black till I got to America.
Or someone that has African ancestry of two or three generations ago. In most parts of the world, they're not considered black the same way as, let's say, a current African would be.
But in America they are, because we have the old quadroons, octoroons, all that kind of history in our country as it dealt with specifically race and the African slave trade and our cultural history from all that time. So do we focus on it a lot? Yes, but it's part of our culture and it's something that we haven't addressed.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah, that's actually where I would go with that. Is that like, considering the history of America in the abstract, then? Yeah, we definitely focus on race too much. Like, if you take away all context, but if you could look at it in the context of the history of America. I mean, America's history focuses so much, and America as a nation focus so much on race. And so it ultimately is something that, as you pointed out, is something that we've defined our culture by, in a sense that we've taken this construct, this artificial construction, and made it the backbone of so many things that happen in our society, Whether it's your chattel, whether. Whether you're property or not, or whether you have certain opportunities, whether you can vote, whether you. All of these different things have been segmented by race. And so it ends up being that we have to. And so it almost ends up being like, in a sense that I look at something like Black History Month, and it's like, well, in order for us to even operate in modern America, we have to understand some of this context. And I look at Black History Month as a big part of that. We have to understand some of this context. Okay, well, here's why some of this stuff is in place, or here's why we're doing this, or doing that because without understanding how America has historically focused so much on race and dealt so much with race, then if you look at what's happening now, then you'll be like, well, why are we doing all this? What's going on here? Because in just the instant, in just the abstract, it's like, oh, this is too much. But in context, it actually is needed for you to even operate in such a complex, with. With. With such. In such a complex cultural setup.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: And I mean, that's where the importance of history comes into play. And, you know, as. As we get older, I think we understand these kind of terms that, you know, those who don't understand their history are doomed to repeat it.
You know, when I was 20, that didn't resonate as much as it does now in my 40s.
And so.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: Yeah, because you've seen some history repeat itself in various things.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: Exactly. That's my point. Like, you kind of get it that. And that human beings in large societies and, you know, that's kind of tribalism. People can get swayed at different points in time for different reasons, but the patterns seem to kind of be similar, right? That people are pitted against each other.
The pattern of, you know, let's say rough economic times can lead to populism. You know, those all seem to play out very similarly throughout history. So again, like you're saying, if we don't understand the history of our country or we're not allowed to really go back and digest it, then of course we're going to be frustrated and not understanding as to why certain things are in place that are there today. So let's get started with, let's say, Black History Month.
Why do we have this month that is supposed to focus on black history?
Which then kind of the first contrarian thing in my mind is, okay, what about the other 11 months? Are we not supposed to talk about it then?
But my point is that's a serious question to ask because it comes back to, like you said that some people in today's conversation say that, oh, let's say black people spend too much time talking about race. How come you can't just let it go? Let things water under the bridge and all that. And you said something very interesting that reminded me. This country was founded on racial identity.
There was a three fifths clause in the Constitution that said that slaves represented 3/5 of a human being when it came for representation and votes, not their.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Own representation, but representation of their state basically relative to other states. And so.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: And, but, but the law said that black Africans were the ones classified as property.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: So the idea is that you can't divorce the United States. History and race, they just are intertwined. And so I think it's disingenuous for a lot of people today to say, oh, you know, black people keep talking about race, or, you know, everyone always wants to talk about race. Well, it's because there has been a historical set of facts that have kept one group excluded from participating in this country up until about 50, 60 years ago, legally.
So you'd say the majority of this country's history.
And then that has caused an imbalance in everywhere from socioeconomics to education to you name.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Goes as deep as you want it to go, really, as far as you look, I want to say one thing because I want to keep us moving. One of the interesting things about the what about the other 11 months?
And if you look like there's, there's a lot that you can learn about, you know, kind of the starting of Black History Month or why it's in February and we'll, we'll put something in the show notes about that. But what always jumped out to me about it was that Black History Month, the emphasis that you have in the one month is supposed to actually almost remedy or try to address the fact that oftentimes in American history, when people were learning about history, they didn't learn about anything that that was that related to, to blacks, at least, that was positive.
And so ultimately, this kind of point of emphasis, you can think of it in a way, was created in order to try to fill that gap. It wasn't that it was like, oh, you're not supposed to talk about it here, not supposed to. It's just that we don't, we kind of by default, kind of just the setup didn't talk about it at all. And so it was like, okay, well, let's create a point of emphasis. And so ultimately, though, like, we are in the present day now, you know, and we're dealing with present day stuff.
And like I said, these two stories, and you and I have been talking about this offline for about a week now, just kind of kicking it around because it's on the surface they don't really relate to anything or to the same thing. There's not a direct correlation. But what I saw, what we kind of talked about and what we've seen is just that they both deal with access and opportunity in the sense that just briefly, Brian Flores, the former coach of the Miami Dolphins, is suing the NFL saying that blacks, African Americans in general aren't given legitimate opportunities in, by and large to get head coaching positions or get higher up positions that they're given that there's a rule in the NFL that requires teams to interview when they have an opening at higher positions to interview a minority candidate. But a lot of times what Flores points to is that the decision who to hire has already been made by them. And so they're just doing these interviews as tokens, essentially. And so they're getting tokens opportunities, but not real opportunities to get in. And then there's also questions of once people get in that, you know, they, they, they push them out much quicker on. If you look at the numbers and so forth, as far as wins and losses, they get pushed out much quicker than you would see from a white person. So like there's this lawsuit, like a full blown, he filed it as a class action lawsuits going after the NFL and you see that as one of again, the token participation.
Whereas on the other hand, Biden saying, I'm going to pledge to do a Supreme Court justice, but I'm sure a lot more people have probably heard of and gotten involved in arguments about that and so forth. That's almost like the opposite in a sense, where it's like, all right, well, we're not just giving you, we're not just going to interview you for it. We'll just set aside this spot for you. And that rubs a lot of people the wrong way as well. And so again, both illustrating the struggles we have here. Take either one, man. What kind of. Is your take on how these things illustrate the space we're trying to operate in and trying to navigate?
[00:11:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, great question. I mean, look, both represent something very interesting because it goes back to culture, not even just race. The culture of America has been that everything's okay as long as whites are in control of the important stuff. Right. And important stuff used to be stuff like baseball. That's why it was a big deal when Jackie Robinson was the first black guy and he got, you know, assaulted and there was a lot of pushback against him. And then when people got comfortable with that, it was like, okay, we can accept blacks in baseball. The military used to be one of the things that was kind of like, oh, you know, that's, that's too important. Blacks aren't smart enough for that. But the Tuskegee Airmen blew that stereotype out of the water. And two years later, this country was forced to integrate its military.
And so what we have now is a continued progression of the change in that culture.
And it's kind of hit it now at the real high levels that I'd say a lot of Americans, both white and black, maybe just a generation or two ago, never thought that they would see it hit. So one is of course the symbolism of the first Black president in 2008.
That was the first time a non white person entered that club of the leadership of America.
And for some people it was to be celebrated and some people it wasn't. And it was to be seen as a disaster and more of an example of this country going the wrong direction.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: Or there is a middle ground there though some people were uncomfortable with it but didn't. Didn't necessarily like it wasn't necessary. It's not that they wanted to be uncomfortable about it, but it just. It was something they were.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: And I'm going to get into that in a second.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Look deep inside each of us, we got to look inside ourselves and see how do we react to these changes. And so that's why just then I'll throw it back to you just to finish off this week why they're important to me like that is one is the NFL, the second being the Supreme Court. And like you said, a lot of people have talked about and we all know that there's never been a black woman on the court.
So I think that these two topics specifically just again prick that scab of the American culture. I think the way that they're power imbalances that we've seen in the past.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: Well, I think the way that it's being approached also by the institutions themselves. I mean the Supreme Court, obviously nobody would argue that that's a huge institution, you know, in the United States, the executive branch of the government presidency, who appoints people and so forth. But also the NFL from an economic standpoint, from a cultural influence standpoint, super bowl, every year's most watched television program there is. These are huge institutions. And so with the NFL as identified that this is something they want to do better on, you know, years ago, you know, this is something decades ago that they've tried to do better on. And what they've done is set up again that it's called the Rooney Rule, where you have interviews that people can. It requires the teams who make their own decisions, but it requires the teams to interview at least one minority candidate. I think it was beefed up recently. Now they have to interview at least two minority candidates when they have these jobs.
I would think from an intention standpoint it's a good. Well intended just to get people in front of people, ideally to get them to before they make up their mind, consider alternatives and not get locked in on what they want. And so from an intent standpoint, seems like it's trying to do something that would increase availability of opportunity for everyone, open it up so that to almost save owners from themselves, from their own biases they may have with that, with the Supreme Court, it's the opposite almost in a sense where it's like, look, we're going to just set it with a set aside almost. Which from a personal standpoint, I don't think that's a good approach. I think if Biden wants to nominate a black woman, just nominate a black woman. Actually the idea of saying it's going to be a black woman, it almost undermines the nominee.
But it kind of goes the other way. It's a tension in the other way. Whereas on one hand the NFL's well intended action did not, apparently has not been able to have a substantial influence on the process in order to get to open it up for more opportunity, more availability of opportunity for everyone. Whereas you know, the other side is almost again, it's like almost slanting to the other way where that'd be akin to the NFL saying okay, we gotta have at least seven black coaches in the NFL at all times. And that again would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't know if we. That's not really the goal of what we're trying to do here. It's just to make sure that when there are openings, you're considering people. Which again doesn't seem to be happening based on the current setup. So to me, I think the way that if you kind of juxtapose the two, because I don't think Biden is saying that out of nine, we got to have at least this many of this and this many of that and this many of that. I don't know that that's his approach and I think he's well intentioned as far as what he's doing. But definitely, I don't think the direction we should be moving in is trying to partition things out in advance because of our own inability to just look at and find the best candidates whenever they come up, whenever we're about to do something. And I say we, our own inability to do that as Americans in general, cuz we do, we've demonstrated that we have a difficult time finding the best available people and not falling victim. I don't think this is all active racism. I think a lot of this is these Biases in our head that we just, that we may not even know are operating.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure there's all that. Look, of course we can't pick within this country between the best of anything. Look at the last presidential election. The two guys were fricking. Both of them senile, over 75 years old. We got 330 million. If we can't do better than those two. Seriously, don't get me started.
That's our own biases.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Right?
[00:17:16] Speaker B: Everyone biased that they gotta pick. You know, just be limited to our own vision of who can lead us.
And I say that to both Democrats and Republicans alike. I'm going after everybody. So.
But no but, but, but on a serious note to this conversation, I mean it's, it's interesting because this is where it is messy and it's just difficult is. You're right. The, the Joe Biden example. Number one, let's separate out the fact that Democrats are horrible at politics and the political party.
But it's funny because then I see Democrats crying on all these TV show. How come everybody's saying something? Because President Trump vowed that he'd pick a woman or this and that.
And you're right.
So that's called hypocrisy. Live with it. Right. You should have seen this one coming that there would have been a backlash. And I think it's like both are true. Right. The Democrats suck at politics. They should have just nominated the lady and not made this whole announcement and probably no one would have said anything.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: And number two is something. But you would have put them on an island where they look like they're just coming up with a reason to attack somebody as opposed to attacking your process. Yeah, but is a different thing.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: And you're right. And the process does deserve to be scrutinized and in a negative way. Just like you're saying. But, but, but then the other thing is I find it interesting in this moment because the knee jerk reaction to so many of the detractors of this idea also is telling. And it's clear that they make a big deal over this particular announcement much more so than they have against others. And it's, it all goes back to like we're talking about because I saw this one senator who made a comment that basically he said we're retiring. He's a Republican senator. And he said we're retiring a liberal.
Like a conscientious liberal judge for a left wing radical who will be akin to Sonia Sotomayor.
But I was like okay, well first of all Biden hasn't even. Correct. Announced who he's choosing. So this guy is telling us that the fact it's a black woman means it's defaulted. That he believes either. And look, and I'm tired of trying to figure out what people think. Either he believes it personally or he thinks it's gonna help his cause politically. One or the other. Or both. That to announce that because it's a black woman, it's gonna be a radical left person akin to Sonia Sotomayor. And that's what I thought. Okay, so he gets to throw in a jab at Hispanic crowd, too. And it's. So it's again, because we're talking about putting someone who's a black woman in a position. The Supreme Court, which has been dominated historically in this country by white males. And so it's uncomfortable for a lot of people in this country to continue to see the demographic changes in the true positions of power.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I think that's, I would say this.
You said you don't know what exactly is in someone's head. What we do know, though, is that that's something that people believe to be. And probably, if you look at focus groups and so forth, is TR. Triggering.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: It's triggering.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: He wouldn't have said that if he knew he was going to lose a lot of support in the state for his next election.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: And so, yeah, he knew that. That's something this topic or what people think about the topic or what they can be made to think about the topic is something that will.
We've talked plenty of times about how right now our media and our politicians seem to just want to make everybody upset all the time, upset at the other, at the other side all the time. And so he knew this was something that he's going to use this and he's going to try to trigger people, make them upset about it. And so where ultimately, like I said, even if I think, I think it's a good intent, I think it's a clumsy approach to do that. You know, I got things like, all right, you know, like, I get what you're doing. It's. I'm sure there are going to be qualified people to pick from. But, you know, again, if you're going to do that, you know, do that and you don't need to out here promising it because you should for any time you're, you're pointing someone to something important, you should consider all available candidates and then also consider, you know, like all the other factors that you want to consider, you know, with that. So with this one, you know, with the NFL one, though, and how they're dealing with it, I mean, ultimately, now it's in. It's in court, you know, open court at that, you know, so this is something that Brian Flores has decided from a functional standpoint, at least from my view, to throw away his career essentially to go after NFL. And he said, you know, he's doing this for the future generations and so forth. And so with these large institutions, though, what you. Another juxtaposition that you see here is where Flores is doing is trying to change from the outside.
He's. There are black guys that work at high levels in the NFL, you know, like Troy Vincent is. When there's. There's. And so it's not like there's not representation in there. Those people are, you know, part of the system, so to speak, but they're not the ones agitating for change. Brian Flores is from the outside trying to agitate for change, whereas Biden is actually trying to change what he sees as something. An opportunity to change or something that needs to be changed from the inside. And so that's another kind of place where these things are opposite, but they're still about trying to wrestle with this same issue. You know, how do we operate in this society where you have our human creation, race, all these different races, but ultimately it's pluralistic regardless. There's all different types of people, all different types of background, and that's difficult. And I think the biggest thing I would want to say here, and I'll kick it back to you after this, is just that what I think the problem we end up with or the reason we end up with these problems a lot of times is because we human beings, we're wired to seek simplicity. And with the context of our history and what has gone on in America and the attitudes that here now, the biases, the way cognitive bias works. You sent me something the other day about affinity bias, which makes people. Is a bias that people who remind you of you, you're kind of nicer to. And you want to see nice things for that's going to play a role in a pluralistic society. You know, there's all types of different biases that play. When you've seen some. Some. A certain person that looks like something, do something before you're more inclined to think that somebody else that looks like that could do it again. All these types of things. This is all difficult. We should stop thinking that this. That we're gonna find an easy solution or that this shouldn't be complex. It's going to be complex. What we're trying to do in the United States is difficult.
To bring a bunch of different people together and have a society based on reason, based on law, and not just based on whoever's gonna be the meanest is very difficult. It's not something that happens in human society pretty much ever. And so at least for an extended period of time. So if we're gonna. That's what makes America. That's American exceptionalism. We're trying to do something that is the exception. And so as long as we can understand that this stuff isn't gonna be easy, that context and understanding is necessary, which is why you may have something like a Black History Month, then we can better equip ourselves to deal with this stuff.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because just on the NFL part real quick, and then I'll come back to what you're talking about now is I think part of this too. The NFL gets a lot of spotlight and it's a big kind of organization, has a lot of money, a lot of people.
Americans love football, so it takes up a lot of oxygen. But the reality is you've got 25, 26 teams that have 25, 26 individual owners. So 32. So 32. Sorry, 32 teams. So the 32 teams have 32 individual owners or ownership groups. And the reality is that a lot of this just comes down to the nature of the industry itself. The owners don't care.
They don't seem to care that much to make this big on their agenda.
Either they're apathetic or that is a good old boys club and they want to exclude others.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: Well, but you shouldn't even put all. Like some of them do and some of them don't. It's 32, 31. Really. But they're, they're individuals. They have different priorities and different things they're doing. And some of them could care less. And some of them are trying to, you know, like to give people opportunities.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: But what I'm saying is the majority, clearly this isn't a huge.
If it was a bigger deal for them, something would have been done some time ago because we always hear this. Things pop up a few years in the NFL, you know, kind of the PRF machine out of the NFL. Oh, we're going to try and be better in diversity and all that.
So.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: They had end racism in the end zones this year, you know, I guess.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: No, but, but, but it's no but I think of that as opposed to like a national, like like sorry, a publicly traded company that is dealing with the public from a different angle. They've got shareholders, they might have, you know, pensions like the state of Florida, the state of California that are large shareholders that are saying, you know, I got unionized employees that are hear about you guys, you guys needed. So what I'm saying is that they don't have the same pressures coming up from really like they might have pressures from commercials and kind of the outside stuff, but they don't have pressures on their finances about this stuff. And that's what usually creates movement. So because of the way our country is, which I'm not complaining about here, meaning do we want the government to come and tell the NFL to that they got to play nice and give all these black people coaching jobs and all that? Probably not.
So this Flores move is the way, like you're saying, kind of the messy, uncomfortable way this normally does happen is someone has to bring this up in a serious way. Someone who from the inside and has credibility. A guy like him who's a 40 year old coach who's had two winning seasons, who's had like everything about him especially, I mean it was the first back to back winning seasons for the Miami Dolphins since the 0203 period 20 years ago. I mean we live in South Florida, so it's kind of funny because I'm not into football that much, but because I live here, I know the Dolphins and it's amazing to see this guy get fired after the seasons he just had and all the buzz that was coming back about Dolphins football in the South Florida. So you say, okay, well if we don't want the government coming in here and kind of telling our private enterprise what to do like that, then yeah, this is the only recourse is the law. Right. Let's see, were they doing something unfair legally? And then the other thing is the court of public opinion and maybe the shaming of the NFL as one of the last institutions at a major level with a bunch of black employees that still is not making a big effort to diversify the top. Because you and I talked about it, if 70% of the players are black, one can assume that some of them may want to stay in the league and continue to work and they enjoy coaching and all that. So then one must say, okay, how come the numbers don't reflect in the corporate office and the leadership?
[00:27:45] Speaker A: How come they're not coming up the chain and there's. Because there's one black coach right now out of 32.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: So, one. So then you have to like have some real conversations, right? Okay. Are blacks not intelligent enough to coach? Are we still believing all that?
Or is that they're getting excluded one or the other? Like it can't be a combination. And, and it's interesting because remember, I think it was last year, the NFL got reprimanded, or I don't know if they were fined or anything, but for the kind of race norming as relates to the concussion settlements. So which was basically. I'll let you explain that.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: What that was basically they, the NFL did a settlement with past players about, with essentially about them covering up how damaging concussions were to the players and not telling them not, you know, that they were at risk, keep getting all these concussions. So they put a lot of money aside. And what they did basically was for scientifically dubious reasons, which is why once they got called out on it, they backtracked immediately. They tried to say, or they tried to set it up so that the black players that would apply, they would say, they would start them at a lower intelligence threshold so it would be harder for them to prove a drop.
Which is what, you know, the cte, all the concussion stuff is you prove that you had a drop in intelligence or that your intelligence was compromised by all these concussions that you had. And so by starting the black players at a lower level because they were black, they ended up, I mean, basically they were denying black players that otherwise would have been or should have been deserving. And again, that's one of those things I look at like people are like, well, why did he make everything about race? And I'm like, well, that's why.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Well, that's my point. That wasn't the black guy's idea to do that.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Correct. And that's what I was just gonna say is that somebody in a room at the NFL, right, in the executive capacity, made a decision of either we're gonna do it and no one will notice, cuz no one's gonna care. Right. Which is one form of kind of apathetic racism, I guess. Right. Just assuming that cause it's being done to blacks, no one's gonna really notice it.
Or B, I mean, that would be the softer option. The more harder option is someone in there said, these blacks are just stupid, they're not as smart as whites, so we can't give them the same kind of threshold. And my point is that so like you're saying, so how can you not talk about race when if I'm a black player, like If I was an NFL veteran who had played 10, 11 years and gave my body to the sport, and now I'm having some issues, how's that fair to say that that's normal, Right?
And so on. The fact that we want to discuss it doesn't make us racist or try and make someone feel bad. You're just trying to have a factual discussion about what happened in the past.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: So do you think, though, that this is something that Americans ultimately will be able to solve or that, you know, the progression that we've seen as far as an increase in equality and increase in opportunity and in leveling out opportunity and so forth will be something that Americans can accept, all Americans can accept and move forward with. Because ultimately, what we see a lot of times is it seems like there's always pushback about this. Like there's in the human mind in general, you know, like, there's always going to be people and there's going to be a thought process or mindsets that view everything as zero sum.
And so anytime there is progression on one front, particularly progression from an advantageous situation or a situation that one may feel is advantageous to them to one that is more balanced, there's going to be resistance. And so ultimately, that's kind of what we're doing right now. And again, I can't emphasize enough. It's clumsy, it's complex. It's not supposed to be smooth sailing or anything like that. But what do you think the end looks like? Or what do you think, what are we. Or should we be working to. And whether you want to discuss that in general or in light of the NFL or the Supreme Court.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: No, it's interesting. I mean, I think that we're a long way away from that.
I would hope that we can get over this in our nation. I think it'll still be several generations. I think right now what we're having is in this era of the early 2000s and this, you know, resurgence of some of these tensions in our country, I think is actually the last kind of gasp of the baby boom generation. I think we're seeing a lot of people that grew up and were born during a time of segregation, and when they felt, you know, things were better in the old days type of thing, things were simpler. Yeah, that. They were. They were.
They're. They're kind of, you know, they're having their last, last hurrah type of thing. And so when that generation is out in the next 20 years, you know, it's not going away because, you know, we all have kids and grandkids and all that.
But I think, remember, as, as, as we move further away from kind of the true Jim Crow and the legal separation of people in this country, I think that some of these tensions may fade a bit. The problem is, will we be able to get there? And I think that's what the concern is with some of the stuff we're seeing now at the national level, like the January 6th insurrection and the feeling that some people feel that this country is really under assault. And the sad part is, or the.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Idea that the democratic institutions, if they're no longer gonna serve particular interests, that they then are rightfully being attacked. And that's a big concern because really what unites us all is the Constitution and the democratic institutions, not anything else as far as America and being American and so forth.
[00:33:22] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and that's what I wanted to say. I mean, the senator who I referenced before is Senator Roger Wicker, who's a U.S. senator today. He's from the great state of Mississippi. And that's my point. Like people like him, well, they continue to push these kind of emotions.
And like you're saying, he's basically saying that because the nominee for the Supreme Court is a black woman that she is by default going to be a far left extremist. And my point is, is that leadership's important.
He could not say that and just tell everybody in his state to chill out and say, hey, look, let's see who it is. Let's not.
[00:34:04] Speaker A: Or even if he wanted to raise an issue with the process, again, that's different than attacking this unknown nominee at this point based on just the classification.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: Well, that's why it's so key. Right. Because like we said, right now there's no nominee. So what he's basically doing is saying blank is a far leftist only because I, what I know of her is a woman who's black. Yeah, fill in the blank.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: And black woman equals like that. Like, yeah.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: And so until we have leaders that aren't gonna just knee jerk like that reaction when it comes to any racial kind of topic, then, then I don't know how we get out of this, this mess. Because I think you said it right that there's still enough people in this country that if they have to share this democracy, if it doesn't work only in their mind for them. As, as much as I would argue that the more pluralistic and the more diversity you get into the system, the more it works for everybody. But I recognize that's, that's my own view. And not everybody wants this to work for everybody.
So that's why I think it's just going to be painful for the next generation or two as relates to these topics, because like I said, integration, work. People like you and I aren't going back to the back of the bus, which is not happening. So it's just going to be painful as others are, I guess, need time to get on the bus with us.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: To become comfortable with the new status quo, so to speak.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: And you know, like, that's going to be a big part of it. And you gotta prevent backsliding as that. You kinda got a temper tantrum going on from that standpoint. And to me, I think that the most important thing is that the people that are pushing for equality, for just for society to better reflect the stated ideals of the country, all men are created equal and so forth, they gotta keep their eye on the ball. Because I think that, for example, Biden's intent in wanting to increase or have the Supreme Court, what it looks like better represent America, I think that is a great aim. But his process should be about equality, about giving everyone an opportunity. And where he lands, he can have a lot of considerations in that. But. And so I think if he going about it this way is not necessarily advancing the overall goal of trying to get people to judge people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.
You know, when, when you, when you're narrowing your field in advance, so, so to speak. And I don't look at it as, oh, well, the other side did this so we can do this. You have to govern yourself by your own standard. And if you're trying to move society in a certain way, you have to be the change that you want to see. And so you can't then, oh, because I'm going to remedy this or that. Approach it in a way that undermines kind of the, the mantra or the, the, the thought process that you want to promote. In the same way that while I support what Brian Flores is doing, I wouldn't want the outcome of this to be some type of reservation system where at all times you have to have this number of black coaches or something like that. Like, that's not what, what the opportunity. What he's complaining about, legitimate complaint is that people aren't keeping an open mind with this. And you know what, that's very difficult to deal with because, you know, like you pointed out, Dr. King said before, like, you can't, you can't legislate what's in People's hearts and minds, you know, like, so this is something people are going to have to want to be, to be a part of, you know, being more open minded or whatever, giving more people opportunities. And the way you do that isn't by saying, okay, well I'm just going to reserve this or reserve that. It's about you have to demonstrate that type of approach and show that it can work and show that you can vet this and do that and still end up in a place that accounts for the pluralistic society and how we can move forward in a positive way in that. And so I would say what it looks like ultimately is what you have when you have people being judged on their character, where we have institutions that can not just because I've always seen and a this type of person in this role, then that type of person always has to be in that role. But no, you can open your mind up and see talent, where talent is. That's what we want to get to. And ultimately I think that we're on the, on the way to there. I think you're right that it's, it's not going to just be some easy thing. It's not smooth sailing there and it's going to what I always say, it's going to keep being complicated. It's going to keep being, it's going to push us into spaces a lot of times where we're uncomfortable and we just have to be able to deal with that and rest assured in the fact that that is exceptionalism. Being able to deal with a society or a situation, a corporate department or whatever where everyone doesn't have an analogous or very similar life experience or coming from the same background and so forth. Being able to deal with that is something that can, that is exceptional.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Yeah, well, like you said, that's not simple though.
[00:39:01] Speaker A: It's not.
We're wired to seek simplicity. We did a show on that not too long ago like it's we're wired simplicity.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: I want to just check in there because a couple of things you said resonated. I mean, you know, in the. Harry Truman integrated the US military in 1948 and in 1947 there was a poll conducted and the amount of military people that entered a poll, 75% of white, white military folks, which is the majority of the military at the time, did not want to integrate. They opposed it. Yeah, we already talked about, you know, quickly about the reaction of, of the majority of baseball fans when Jackie Robinson showed up and I don't remember who the first gentleman to Play black gentleman to play in the NBA. But I remember the year was 1955. I'm sure he wasn't well received either. The point I'm making is that this is the concern that some people have when you open these doors, it actually works.
So what I would say is in the history of the United states in the 20th century, especially both the US military and the sports environment and entertainment maybe to a lesser extent, like acting and singing were great examples of when blacks were given an opportunity, when the door was open for them and they were allowed to compete and people were looking at them based on merit that they excelled. I don't remember anyone talking about people like Colin Powell, that they were given handouts, the guys like that in the military. When you saw black guys at the level of general and leadership officers and all that, people generally gave them the benefit of the doubt that they must have done something in combat or in action that got them there. Same with sports, that Michael Jordan got a handout or Muhammad Ali got a handout. And so again we're seeing now that transformation from those things that are more entertainment or you know, not military is not entertainment, but the things that are kind of on the outskirts of society to now people having to look at CEOs and politicians that are not, they.
[00:40:59] Speaker A: Are, they're transparently more merit based. I mean like it's just like sports, you got scoring average, you got, you know, batting average or you got like, or in the military, like your, your performance is tracked and there are objective factors that they're like. So all of those things are places where you have objective merit based type of tracking and where. Whereas like in corporate or in legal, you know, like a lot of these areas where it's not. And it's more about who you know and who you're friends with and all that. And so that's where at least more opening.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: But Flores and, and whoever this Supreme Court nominee will be represents that, you know, blacks are now crowding on the door and knocking on other doors and saying, hold on, we're going to be seen and heard here too. We've worked hard, we deserve to be in these rooms. And you know, and that's why I say that the knee jerk reaction to the SCOTUS pick and a certain other things that happen from time to time, like teaching of history just shows you not so much about the black people in this country. It shows you about the uncomfortableness that many others have when blacks are just trying to say, hey, we're here and.
[00:42:07] Speaker A: Recognize, I mean, well, I think your point is a very good one in the sense that if you took the same poll in the military, now, you wouldn't have 75% of the whites in the military saying that it shouldn't be integrated. And so what we're seeing now is a part of the process, baby. And this is, again, how our brain. Yeah, this is how our brains work. When we see something a certain way, we believe that is the way it's supposed to be. And so by opening the door and increasing representation, basically, then future generations understand that to just be the way it is. And they don't come in unless they're taught it, which happens less and progressively is not something that is kept at the same high level. Unless they're taught it, though, they don't come in with the same bias in their head that, oh, it has to be this way or it has to be that way. It can't be integrated because it would all fall apart if it was integrated and so forth. So, I mean, I think that, you know, we can move on from there. But I thought that was a really good point and a good place to end in the sense that, you know, because that's pretty shocking to sell somebody now. You know, the 75% were like, oh, no, this is terrible idea. You know, like in the military.
[00:43:14] Speaker B: So the second topic, that's why interracial marriage had to be outlawed, right? You couldn't give people funny ideas, man.
So seriously.
[00:43:22] Speaker A: Right, yeah, it's.
[00:43:23] Speaker B: It's. You got to keep people separated to keep, you know.
[00:43:25] Speaker A: Well, yeah, because people get come together, then people start saying, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: Like two or three generations later, it's like, well, what. You know, so.
[00:43:32] Speaker A: So. But I want to get to the second topic, man. You know, like we took a look at now, you and I both, you know, like to exercise and, you know, take fitness and so forth. Very, you know, it's something that's important to us and, you know, part of our routines and so forth. And so I sent this to you. I wasn't even really sending it to you for the show as much as just kind of saying, oh, this is. This is something we might want to pay attention to. And so basically it talks about the science behind, as you get older, it's harder to build muscle, which, duh, everybody's seen young people and seeing older people, why that happens. But it also identifies the age of 50 as being kind of when a lot of the things that make it really hard to build muscle, and this was building Muscle. As you get older, when you're exercising, a lot of these things kick in. And so I see this and I'm like, oh man, I got about eight years to build as much muscle as I possibly can. And I was sending it to you. It was the same kind of warning, basically like, hey man, you better stay, stay in the, you know, in the gym real hard because about, you got a few more years and then it's going to be, it's all, it's either all downhill or basically, I guess you just got to keep what you have at that point because nothing new is coming. So. But what was your reaction to this?
[00:44:36] Speaker B: That was fun. I mean, I'm two years older than you, so I got six years.
Hey man, you know, it's, it's, it's all the stuff that I guess at middle age we realize is already happening, right? Um, but it's, it's just another reminder that we can't fight the decline and that every day, every day you wake up, you're dying a little bit. Right?
[00:45:04] Speaker A: You know that, that actually was the initial thing I pulled from this in that because a lot of times we think about or you know, like just, we're kind of trained to just in our society, the way we look at fitness and so forth, we're like, oh, older people probably look like that or get like that because of hormones or oh, and I can do replacement or things like that. And this actually was discussing how just physiologically, forget testosterone or anything like that, physiologically the action that needs to happen when you're doing the exercise, when you're putting overload on the muscle and so forth. But the chemical reaction that needs to happen in order to build muscle after that just doesn't grind to a halt, but it slows down so much. And so that's not hormone related. That's not like, oh, you correct this and that, that's like something that's happening in your muscles that just really just goes offline.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: And not as they cited here.
When younger men exercises, there are changes in the expression of more than 150 genes. When we looked at older men, we found changes in the expression of only 42 genes. So you're right, there's, there's something at a genetic level that differs as you age. And it's interesting too, because this brought me more, not so much surprised about this because it's kind of common sense. I mean, like you said, I mean, I just look at older people, right? I mean, people in my neighborhood walking their dogs that are in their 70s and they're skinny or they're, you know, you could tell there's not a lot of muscle there anymore. And it's just, you know, and we all recognize that, right. And so, but it's more like you said, reading this made me more reflect back on us in our society and how we deal with ourselves as we age and how we deal with the idea of aging and goes back to certain things like when we did the show about the book the Power now and some of these other conversations about being present and that the perception of time is what gives the ability for anxiety to creep in. So thinking about the future and I was kind of joking about, you know, I used to stress out about retiring and how much is going to be my 401k and all that. But think about how much, how many people stress about aging and about what that's going to do. I mean, unfortunately, because of again, the way our society is and how we're conditioned, women tend to stress a lot.
Like getting into their 30s, they're already stressed out about everything. If they're not married, they don't have kids and they stress about that and then.
[00:47:26] Speaker A: And men too, in different ways.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's what I'm saying. Mental. We might take a little longer to start stressing. But you're right, it's, it's about when are we losing our hair or we're getting a little bit like you're saying we're losing our testosterone so it's harder to put on muscle or you're getting a belly or whatever the case is that guys find when, when they're changing. And so, you know, because of the way we have been conditioned through advertising and all that, that younger and fitter means better and more beautiful. It's kind of natural that it would cause stress as people age if, you know, looking good is something that's important to you, right. As a person.
[00:48:02] Speaker A: And so that's also, I mean, you age one way, so you, you are accustomed to being a certain way. And then as you age, you kind of lose some of the things. And if you, if you've assigned some of your identity or a lot of your identity to a lot of those things as you lose them, that of course would be something a lot of people do.
[00:48:18] Speaker B: A lot of people. Look, how many people take selfies, right?
On a serious note though, right? Like that means somebody who's taking a selfie somewhere in a subconscious must be thinking that they're good looking. Right. I mean, I'm just saying because I don't take selfies, so I don't know what that says about me.
[00:48:35] Speaker A: But you know, clearly that you don't think that you. You're saying that you're not good looking.
[00:48:41] Speaker B: I guess I just don't have visions of grandiosity about this face over here. But that's why I got a face for podcasts, right?
But. No, it's just. But the. But the idea is that, like, because I'm thinking, like, if I want to take a picture of something, what the hell, I need my face in the way, you know, like, I never thought to always take selfies.
[00:48:58] Speaker A: I'm joking with you. I'm not a selfie person either.
[00:49:00] Speaker B: No, but I know, but I'm just thinking. So to take a selfie, you must be really enamored with how you look. And you're right. If you start aging over time or your face changes, I mean, of course that can cause stress. So that's where I just thought it was interesting that. As long as.
[00:49:14] Speaker A: Let me throw something else at you real quick because the other thing I thought about this because we a lot of times look at things from a holistic point of view and when we do the podcast and so forth and things have a reason or whatever, if you tinker with this, then what else, what unintended consequences might you have or things like that? Like, things don't happen in a vacuum, basically. And so I started to wonder, and I don't know, I mean, this is kind of just a mental exercise, but does this have a reason, Is there a reason for this that, you know, is it about. Does that increase, for example, longevity because it lowers the caloric requirement every day muscle, you know, requires a lot to maintain every day. And so as you get older, maybe there you might be, for whatever reason you'll running around chasing tigers might, you know, make you more prone to injury as you get older or something like that? Like, for. I don't know what the reason would be, but I just wonder, like, let's say science comes up with a way to reverse this and you know, like, oh, you inject this and that, all those genetic reactions start kicking back up again and does that, like, would that put you at risk for other things at that point? Like, because it's just these things over a long time.
[00:50:20] Speaker B: If the injection involves nanobots and 5G technology, then yes, there'll be problems and there'll be people arguing against it that won't take it. But that's a whole nother conversation.
[00:50:32] Speaker A: No, no, they would take it Remember, all people inject anything. Just don't tell them it's medicine or don't tell them it's for Covid.
[00:50:38] Speaker B: They're like, oh, yeah, don't have Dr. Fauci selling it. That's it.
[00:50:42] Speaker A: If it was, it was some UFC selling it. So a USC fighter. So they take it, just not Dr. Fauci.
[00:50:49] Speaker B: Maybe a reality show entertainer. How about that?
[00:50:51] Speaker A: Yeah, there you go.
[00:50:52] Speaker B: But anyway, no but, but, but I don't know, man. I think that. I mean, what would happen if there was some way to inject people, that this all would be reversed or stop? I mean, then we'd have 50 billion people in the world and have other problems, right? I mean, at some point, this is the natural order that we. That we have evolved and live in, which is the Earth, and that things, even mountains, change, right? Like, you know, the concept of time is limited for us because of our perception of it.
But, you know, I was reading something recently that they're still estimating that in 5 billion years, the sun's going to explode. And so, you know, at some point, this all ends, right? If you really want to get esoteric about it.
[00:51:34] Speaker A: So really, when you really went big.
[00:51:35] Speaker B: There, I'm just saying, like. And so. So I think it's just this again, this goes back to. I got to bring in that Star wars now, the Jedi and the fact that Yoda taught us to not have attachments, right?
And I think that's the problem is right now, most of us are wired like the Sith. We want these absolutes. We want to be, you know, I want to live forever. I want to be, you know, like Darth Plagueis, right? Palpatine's master, trying to find the secret of everlasting life. And so. And so we all want to be like Palpatine showing up in the last Skywalker. And people want to like, wow, how's he still here? And the reality is it doesn't work like that. Is that. And I think that's my joke about the Jedi, is we. We all need to practice not being attached to ourselves so much. And I think that's where I get it with the Power now, that book. Like, if we can be present and not be so stressed and anxious about the future and our aging and all that, because at the end of the day, we are going to die of something. Because you're right. What if you could inject me with that thing? Maybe I still die of COVID though. Maybe I still die in a plane crash. You know what I'm saying is that you might be able to stop me from aging, but other things could happen that still are negative impacts or other things.
[00:52:49] Speaker A: Other. Or if aging has a purpose and you subvert that purpose, then other bad stuff that we don't know about.
[00:52:55] Speaker B: We got 50 billion humans on the Earth, and then, you know, it also happened to you.
[00:52:59] Speaker A: But I think, I mean, I think we got a wrap here, man. Once you start going Star wars deep, I think that that's usually the signal for us to wrap the pod, because otherwise we'll be here for two more hours. As you take us through volume 17 of something or the other, I might.
[00:53:14] Speaker B: Take you back to the Old Republic and that'll be bad news.
[00:53:17] Speaker A: All right.
[00:53:17] Speaker B: Well, that's when Yoda was only, like, 120 years old, man. That's like the early days.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: We'd be here all day. But we appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call. Like I see it, you can get us wherever you get your podcasts.
Subscribe to the podcast, Rate us, review us, tell us what you think. Till next time. I'm James Keys.
[00:53:34] Speaker B: I'm tuned to everyone. Lana.
[00:53:36] Speaker A: All right, and we'll talk to you next time.
