Spittin Chiclets - Spittin' Chiclets Episode 272: An Important Message

Episode Date: June 4, 2020

Episode 272 is a first for Spittin’ Chiclets. We will not be sticking to sports and it is the most important episode we've recorded. Below is a link to Gianna Floyd’s GoFundMe if you’d like to donate. https://www.gofundme.com/f/gianna-floyd-daughter-of-george-floyd-fund?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheetYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/schiclets

Hey, Spittin' Chicklets listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hey, gang, what's up? It's the Spittin' Chicklets gang here. We're not going to pretend that it's been a normal week here in the United States, so we're going to do things a little different than we usually do. We're not going to start off cheery and playful and fun because we can't. I know you guys come here and gals come here for an escape, for a release.

And that's what we love to do. But there's things that are much bigger right now that need to be talked about that have to be talked about. And this is an audience where frankly, there's probably some people that need to hear something. So we're going to acknowledge right off the hop. We're four white guys. We talked about this a lot.

We wrestled with how to handle this, how to approach it. Ultimately, we thought maybe bringing a black guest on was maybe not the best idea to have a black person yet again, explain to white people what the situation is. I might be generalizing, but I suspect a lot of black people are probably sick of that at this stage of the game. So we decided we'll just try to give our points of view and maybe bring some education, whatever, enlightenment, whatever you want to call it to our audience. We're not coming from any high horse or anything. Speaking for myself, I'm a guy who's changed his views over the years due to my life experience and what I've learned. I mean, you know, I grew up in basically a racial war in

Boston during Boston. It was a, you know, you came of age in that and you came out with certain attitudes. I did. And I didn't get them from home. I got them from the neighborhood, from the street, because we saw the other people, black people as our rivals. That's what we were raised into. And, you know, you get to a point like, well, I have tried to just get better, try to be better at things. Over the years, you know, the relationships I've had, the experiences I had, I mean, the relationships I've had, the experiences I had, I mean, my family 40 years ago was everybody was white, Irish, and Catholic. And my family's not anymore. I have Chinese, I have Latino, I have trans cousins, I have black cousins,

I have everybody under the rainbow. So how fucking stupid is it for me to be bigoted? You know, I had a job, a real eye opener for me was a job I had in my late 20s. It was a 98% black unit. And I'd go to work every day, and why does nobody talk to me? Why is nobody going to go to lunch with me? And I wasn't going home crying. But it was the first time I really ever felt that shoe on the other foot where I had that perspective. But the thing is, I could go home.

I could go home at night and forget about it and just go back to work again. You know, the people I work with couldn't. And that was the real first time I kind of learned empathy. You know, like you don't know a man's shoes until you watch them. That was kind of my first experience with that. And it was an eye opener for me. And, you know, you know, we're getting into obviously other harder issues, tougher issues. Just a couple of points here and then I'll throw it to one of these other guys. You know, I was 20 years old when the L.A. riots happened in 1992. I didn't understand what I was seeing.

I had a lot of questions I heard this weekend. Why do you burn your neighborhood down? Why do you do this? You know, in the ensuing 28 years, I do understand. I wasn't surprised by what happened after I saw the video of George Floyd being murdered in the street. You know, it just felt like off on Twitter the last few years, everyone is getting worse. It's just going to it's going to blow again at some point. And, you know, black people have been angry for a long time, righteously, righteously angry over

the way they've been treated historically. And, you know, when you watch these videos and it's just, they're abhorrent, they make you sick, they make you disgusted. And yes, fucking 100% black lives matter. Okay. That's not anti-police. That's not anti anything else. It's just that, you know, there's a burden on fucking black people in this country, frankly, that white people don't have. And that's my next point before I throw it over to one of the other guys. It's white privilege, okay? It's a term I bristled at. I fucking certainly, my life felt anything but privileged growing up. You know, the circumstances I dealt with, there was no way that I was privileged. But I realized, again, going back to that job I had, it's just something you have by dint of being born a white person in America. It's not seeing you bad, or you did

something wrong, or you're admitting fault, or even your ancestors did something wrong. It's just that the way this country is set up, and the systems are set up, that you're more likely to succeed if you're white than if you're black. That's what white privilege is. It's not a diss to you. It's not a bad thing. It's something that you accept it, and it actually, it's kind of freeing to say, yes, you know, I'm on a different page than these folks. All right. I mean, I've been going for a little bit now, biz, you know, let's throw it over to you for your take, what you might want to add here.

Yeah. All right. I'm going to try to communicate to everyone, some of the emotions and things I've been thinking about and reading and seeing not only on television, but social media over the past week since the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota at the hands of four police officers. And I don't know how many of you have watched the video. It's very intense. It's very graphic and it,

it shines light on the systemic racism that's plaguing this world. And specifically the country of the United States. The fact that the police officer had had 18 write-ups on him before he ended up murdering George Floyd tells you everything you need to know about the systemic racism and the fact that at no point was that police officer held accountable for any of his actions throughout his time as a police officer. And because of that, it became a ticking time bomb and it eventually led to what happened last week. And now the world has came together to say we're fed up.

I mean, Colin Kaepernick tried to do so silently a few years back and his NFL career was stripped from him. I think we all know that he was on the right side of history regarding that subject. And it's a shame that even Drew Brees commented on it today and very disappointed in what he said and just kind of amplified the discussion in a negative way. And, you know, moving away from football and getting into hockey,

we had an issue recently, well, at least at the beginning of the season with Bill Peters and Akeem Alou speaking out on that and even more recently wrote an article about his experience in junior hockey now I guess you mentioned the white privilege and I guess we can get into that now I when I was younger I always thought those words were trying to maybe diminish or take away from my accomplishments and succeeding and reaching my life goals. But that's not what that means at all. What that's trying to shed light on is the fact that I consider myself very privileged

and I would imagine everyone on this podcast does so, where we were given every possible tool in order to succeed in life, in order to follow our dreams and eventually achieve them. And black people don't even get that. And on top of that, they have barriers that they have to get over in order to even get to where we begin. And that's what white privilege in that term stems from. And as you get older, I think you start understanding what, what these, you know, phrases in the, in these words mean. And, you know, a lot of, a lot of guys have stepped up and released statements. Patrice Bergeron's was excellent. Holtby's was incredible.

Of course, Evander Kane has been extremely vocal regarding this entire subject he has for the last few years now on social media pk suban jt brown the list goes on and on and now more than ever ever we need to to get behind these guys and and put them on a pedestal so their voices can be heard. You know, we have a predominantly white following, and I think everyone's really aware of that. And I think that people need to start looking at the world through other people's lenses and listening and absorbing what they're trying to say. And I know some people weren't crazy about the Instagram

and social media situation with the blackout. And that was just, to me anyway, that was just to tell everyone, especially not going through what blacks are across the world, to just shut up and listen. Because they've been trying to tell us this for forever and and and people keep dismissing what they have to say and i think that now more than ever we need to listen and and it's just unfortunate that it had to come and it keeps having to come to issues like george floyd in order for us to recognize what the fuck is going on.

So I know I've rambled on a little bit. This is a very intense subject. I hope a lot of you who maybe didn't see the perspectives of other before listening to this segment and or other people speak over the last week, they can change their minds and really help to make a positive impact moving forward. Us as a podcast, we are inclusive. I don't know how many times I have to repeat that. And moving forward, we're going to continue to put not only black athletes, you know,

such as the PK Subans, the Vander Canes, the JT Browns, and the list of guys that we mentioned on a pedestal, but try to provide them the tools and take away those barriers that they've, you know, that they've been dealing with and dealing with in the past. If I guess the one favor I can ask our following is that moving forward, go out of your way to make people of color feel welcome um from across the world and let's let's figure this thing out way sooner than later and uh and and i'll throw it over to wit here and let's not let the message that's been trying to be sent over the last week get caught up and all the other bullshit that the media is trying to turn it into what a what disgusting video and just a horrific, horrific thing. I had a tough

time watching it, but I made myself watch it. And let's talk. That guy goes to prison the rest of his life, that scumbag. Give him the death penalty. I don't care. And the fucking three guys who stood there and watched him, the other cops, I don't know if it was three, excuse me if I'm incorrect, who stood there and watched him, the other cops, I don't know if it was three, excuse me if I'm incorrect, put them in prison too. Because what are you doing? Because he's your brother in blue, you can't help out a guy,

he's choking out with his knee, standing there watching, he might as well have been smoking a cigarette. It was disgusting. And it's been a really sad week personally for me because you look at our country right now and it's just it's as divided as ever and it's so disgusting and it's been so eye-opening to me because i grew up listen man i grew up uh in a white town i had white friends all my friends are white i've never had to deal with anything anything that black people never had to deal with anything, anything that black people have had to deal with.

And let me tell you, I don't even know what it's like to grow up in the city of Boston as a white kid, let alone as a black kid. I'm from a suburb that is well off and people have issues in every single town in the country. But for the most part, where I grew up, I feel so blessed and so lucky. And it goes into the point that you are better off being born in the United States as a white person. You're luckier to

be born as a white person. And so when I've never had any issues and had to deal with anything, and the thought of me seeing a police officer, and I'm going to get into that topic, and me seeing a police officer and feeling safe and feeling, oh my gosh, police officer, that's good. And the thought of there are black kids and all races out there who see police officers and think the exact opposite. It's just sad, right? That's what I think. I get sad thinking about what people have to endure and and seeing all this has really opened my eyes and and so you sit back and I get messages and I get tweets and why haven't you said anything are you gonna say anything and I'm not taking away

anything from what a lot of people have come out and released some awesome statements on Twitter, NHL players, athletes everywhere. But I needed to think and I needed to listen. And I knew we had our podcast and I was able to make my point there on how I feel. So I don't live in the social media world. I have Twitter. That's getting less and less. I haven't been on it in a couple of days now because it's not real life, right? I understand what's been going on there and everyone's looking for change, but it doesn't happen there. It happens in real life. It happens through what you're doing. And then I look at my life and I realize how lucky I am. I realize how blessed I am. And I think, what can I do? Right? Well, all I can do, I talked to my wife and it's, it's like you teach your children to treat others as they'd like to be treated. It's

the golden rule. Like you just got to live your life. You have to think about how, how do you want to be treated? And you have to teach your children about like love and empathy and just basically like what inclusion is, what diversity is, acceptance of others, social injustices. You have to understand that, that who are you to look at somebody and think you're better than them based on the color of your skin? It's like, and I don't even think some of these people believe it, but it's still treating others in a horrific way that they don't deserve to be treated that way. So like when you live your life, why aren't you just thinking, what can you do to help others?

Oh, that person's hurting. I wish I could help them. That person needs a shoulder to cry on. It's like, where has that gone in terms of how we all live right now? It seems like there's so much hatred out there. And that's why I say social media isn't real life because I truly believe there are way more good people in this world than bad, way more. The problem is now in social media and the media itself, it's, they show bad things. They show nasty things. They make you, they make you live

in fear. They, they don't show the good the world, and there still is good in the world. And this week, it's been really hard to find it, right? Now, going on, I'm sorry, I'm kind of all over the map. I don't write anything down because I just want to speak off the top of my head. I cannot be good conscious. I look at every single... I'm not a political person. I look at every single issue. I give my opinion. I think fucking the president's an idiot. I think the woman he ran against is an idiot. I think they're all frauds personally.

And I think that the government and politicians have really proven how people who mean so much to me being police officers, I cannot ever let somebody say, pigs, police suck, police are evil. I'm sorry because there are some awful ones. And I know the Chris Rock quote that everyone's been putting that you can't have bad – some jobs you can't have bad apples, right? Pilots. You can't have one pilot that just crashes into a mountain once in a while. That's his quote. He's a comedian, and I've seen it shared. But what the fuck do you do, guys?

What do you do? Because there are police officers out there who lay their life on the line every single day to help others. And there are some awful fucking dirtbags, rotten, rotten hell police officers, right? But there's more good. But what do you do? How do you fix it? The system's broken. And I don't know where you go, but I cannot listen to people say, pigs, police suck, police suck. I won't fucking listen to it. And here's the thing. If you do think that agree to disagree, right? I will tell you my opinion, but I will not hate you for yours. That's just how you, that's what you think. All right, go right ahead. There needs to be more of that. There needs to be more of people being able to disagree with someone, but not despise them. And, and listen, like the, the, the whole, the whole system of, of police, I don't even know how you fix it. Because when you say some jobs can't have bad apples, every single,

every single group of people, every single occupation, every, everywhere in the world, there are bad people. So I don't know. I do not know. I hope to God it gets fixed. I will say this. If you do want to make a difference, you can tweet and you can go out and you can protest. And these peaceful protests are great to watch. I am on the hand of ruining businesses that hardworking people have built for their entire lives. I think that's bullshit. Biz, you make a good point. What else are they going to do? Agree to disagree, right? But you need to get out, and if you want to make a change, you got in the United States of America,

you go out and make a change through voting. And I know this sounds crazy, but what else can you do? Local, local voting. Look at who you want and who you think can make changes in the communities you live in, and you go make a difference. Because do you know how few people actually go out and vote? It's an insane number of people who could be voting, aren't voting. So that's a way that you could possibly make some change. And I know I'm rambling here, but basically my whole thing is it's just a really sad time. I think because there, there seems,

it seems that like it is hopeless, right? Do you guys, do you guys ever see some of this and see, oh my God, in a week when everything quiet down and then we go on, will anything change? I don't know. Not in a week. No, that's what I'm saying. And change, true change takes a long fucking time. But if you're going to just forget about what's going on right now

and post your post and get the pats on the back on the internet and then forget about it, well, it's fucking worthless then. So if you want change, you got to go about doing it the right way. And I certainly know that we need change in this country. And I also know that there are evil people and there are more often than not great, good intention, good people looking to help others. And I truly believe it. So I know I've talked so long. It's just hard to even describe having all of us admit, and Grinnell included, we have no clue what it is like to walk as a black man or woman in this country. And I never will. And all I can hope is that it gets, that it does get easier for them. You mentioned Chris Rockwit and there was a clip. I think it was a professor or a woman in an auditorium, old white woman. She said, she asked the auditorium.

She's like, how many people raise your hand? If you would rather be a black person and not one person in the auditorium raises their hand. And it's like the, going back to Chris Rock, he's like, no people switch positions with me and I'm worth millions. You know, it's like, and he's not, he's a joke, but it's, there's truth. Like people won't, wouldn't opt for that change. And it's okay to acknowledge other folks don't have it as good as you through no fault of your own.

It's okay to say that. And I think that's a first step for a lot of people to, to acknowledge that. Cause you know, maybe you did a shit, a shit upbringing. There's a lot of white people who do have Because maybe you did a shit upbringing. There's a lot of white people who do have terrible upbringings. But again, it's no fault of your own. But you're having advantage just by being white. I had a couple other things. Biz, I'll go to you first and we can finish with me. And I know G wanted something to add too, but we can go back to you, Biz. I know you want to talk. And I guess I'll ask you guys one more thing.

I know you want to talk. And I guess I'll ask you guys one more thing. And it's a serious question. Do you think if that incident last week doesn't get caught on videotape that George Floyd and his family and African-Americans and blacks from across the world, do you think they get justice? Just ask yourself that question. Because I just gave you the example off the top that 18 times that that police officer had gotten away with things in the past. And that's one of the many issues that blacks are dealing with in America today and across the world.

Well said. Well said, Biz. I just had a few other points I thought were worthy of addressing. I know we're hearing a lot of white folks in that they're listening and they want to educate themselves. So here's a few pointers for you if you genuinely want to learn more and educate yourself. For current stuff, first off, stop using bullshit media outlets that are simply echoing your point of view and validating your thoughts.

That's not media. A lot of times it's propaganda. Whatever form it may come in, you know, there's tons of great media out there. It's not fake news just because you don't agree with it. I would advise you to read that stuff. Don't read what makes you feel good or what you agree with. Think critically a little bit. The true stories aren't that hard to find, okay? For a historical perspective, I know myself,

a lot of white Americans are just oblivious. We're ignorant about a lot of what happened in African-American black history, however you want to term it, because we learned, I mean, I could tell you every fucking European explorer from here to Vasco da Gama, but I didn't know about the Tulsa fucking race massacre until the movie come out in 1997, Rosewood. And I would say most white Americans didn't learn about it until Watchmen on HBO last year. You know, it's just stuff we didn't learn. So it's easy to find. I don't have a list of books. I haven't read much lately, but I do have a few documentaries I would recommend. And, you know, I would say watch these without being defensive. If they bump you out of your comfort zone, that's okay.

Just listen. Listen to different perspectives. You might not agree, but at least you're hearing it, and maybe you will. Maybe it will change your mind. It's changed my mind. And, again, it's okay to acknowledge wrongdoing in the past, whether it was your ancestors or not. It's okay to say this happened.

It helps you move past it. For a couple documentaries I recommend, there's one called Burn, Motherfucker, Burn. It's based on the 92 LA riots, the AK Rodney King riots, but it actually explains the history of the relationship between the LAPD and the black community in LA.

So it's much more than the Rodney King verdict. The Rodney King verdict was basically the strata broke the Campbell's back. And even though it's specifically about LAPD and the black community in LA, it can apply to basically any major city because they have the same dynamics at play. And even though it's specifically about LAPD and the black community in LA, it can apply to basically any major city because they have the same dynamics at play. So yeah, it's about LA, but it's really about America.

Another one you can watch is LA 92. It focuses more so on the riots, but I think it's not justifying. It's helping maybe to understand. You don't have to come away convinced that they're right or wrong, or you can be indifferent, but it's just, again, it's an explanation maybe.

And from a civil rights perspective, if you still have a lot of time in your hands, because this is a long one, Eyes on the Prize. It's probably the most well-renowned civil rights documentary out there. It's a 14-parter. It's a long one. But if you're genuinely, again, genuinely interested in the history of this and, you know, why things needed to change and why they still need to change eyes on the prize is great and the last one it's called 13th and this one's easy to find it's on netflix it was an oscar native oscar nominated documentary it's about the 13th amendment and the resulting repercussions for black america since then it was an eye-opener for me i thought i knew a lot i didn't uh this is

you know something i won't spoil the whole thing. It's about the 13th Amendment and how it basically kind of furthered slavery. People weren't necessarily out of slavery. And another thing I do, Black Twitter. It's a tremendous resource for getting opinions. People aren't telling lies on there. I clicked on a guy's, he talked about a traffic stop. I forget who the fellow was. He had a ton of followers. And his replies were all people, black folks who were stopped for a variety of reasons. Now, even if you say, okay, people tempt us on the line, which I don't think any of them are, you just shake your head at like the stuff that happens. It's like, this never happened to me. I mean, I fucking, every time I got pulled over, I think I got one ticket. So just like I said,

get different perspectives, you know, read different things. And, you know, at the end of the day, you know, ending police brutality and unjustified murders against black folks, it sure isn't on black people to fix. You know, it's going to take politicians, people on the streets protesting. I mean, I'm happy. It's not the looting and the breaking of stuff, but the protests, the people who go out there night after night. It's it's heartening to see that people, especially after what happened in washington the other night that more people went out last night almost as as if they were emboldened so uh yeah he protest protest and do what you need to do because things fucking need to change and we have a millennial of the group the young millennial

granelli i mean we want your perspective as well you're part of the crew yeah ra and it starts with us it starts with the younger generation and and where we start is by listening because when we start listening that's when we can start understanding and when we start understanding that's when we can start making the changes that need to be made in this world and more specifically this country and i mean you guys said everything that needs to be said so i'll just leave everyone with a jon Jonathan Tays quote that really sat with me from his Instagram that says, my message isn't for black people and what they should do going forward. My message is to white people to open our eyes and our hearts.

That's the only choice we have. Otherwise, this will continue. So listen to the guys like Evander Kane, P.K. Subban, Akeel Thomas, Akeem Alou, all these guys that have been saying this stuff for years because they know a lot more than we do. Well said, G. That's, like I said, a perspective we wanted to add.

You're the young guy here, so we wanted to hear that. But that's going to be a wrap for this week. We'll be back to our usual fun and games next week, but none of us felt like fun and games this week. We hope you listened. We hope you learned. And we hope you're going to help with the change. Have a great weekend, everybody.