The MeidasTouch Podcast - Ben Meiselas Discusses new Book Project from Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf on Kaepernick Publishing, a company founded by Colin Kaepernick

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

On this edition of The Mighty, MeidasTouch co-founder Ben Meiselas interviews world-renowned basketball player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, who first caught the nation’s attention in 1988 as a Louisiana State University freshman sensation. Abdul-Rauf was drafted 3rd overall by the Denver Nuggets and quickly became one of the NBA’s top scorers. Despite topping the leaderboards, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf’s NBA career came to a sudden halt after he decided he would no longer stand for the national anthem to protest systemic oppression and racism. Abdul-Rauf soon found himself shunned by the league and effectively forced out of the NBA. Abdul-Rauf tells his compelling story in his new autobiography, In the Blink of an Eye, published by Kaepernick Publishing, which is available to order right now. Buy In the Blink of an Eye: An Autobiography by Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf here: https://www.kaepernickpublishing.com/in-the-blink-of-an-eye Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning. You can bet your bottom dollar that you'll always need air to breathe and water to drink. And, of course, you can rest assured that with Public Mobile's 5G subscription phone plans, you'll pay the same thing every month. With all of the mysteries that life has to offer, a few certainties can really go a long way. Subscribe today for the peace of mind you've been searching for. Public Mobile doesn't stop there. With over 3,000

games to choose from, including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, and more, make deposits instantly to jump in on the fun, and make same-day withdrawals if you win. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. And welcome to this edition of The Mighty. I'm Ben Mycelis from the Midas Touch podcast, and normally we pretty much cover the political issues of the day, but I'm going to focus

a little bit different on this one. And many of you may know that I'm Colin Kaepernick's business partner when I'm not doing Midas Touch work. And one of the endeavors that I'm most proud about that Colin launched that I'm so happy to be a part of is the launch of Kaepernick Publishing, a book publishing company that's done a number of incredible works. And I am so proud to share with you all the newest work that we have coming out on Kaepernick Publishing. An author, it's an autobiography, but this one also has a very special place in my heart because it's someone who was a childhood hero to me, someone who I grew up with watching, who had and has to this day, by the way,

because if you see him play b-ball right now, he's taken on some of the youngsters like no other, but someone with some of the greatest basketball skills in the history, but just an incredible person on and off the court, an incredible leader, a former player for the Denver Nuggets in the NBA before being blackballed from the NBA, which is covered in this story for taking a principled position, a position based on religion, engaging in prayer during the national anthem. And people like to think of the NBA as, oh, it's this incredibly

progressive organization. But we can never forget what they did and what they still have done to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. And so just incredible to share this autobiography that comes out October 18th. The book is called In the Blink of an Eye, an autobiography written by Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, co-authored by Nick Childs, published on Kaepernick Publishing. Mahmoud Abdul-Raouf, welcome to The Mighty. How are you? Hey, I won't complain. Thank you for having me. So I want to talk a little bit about, I want to geek out a little bit on the process of this book as helping through the process, but your decision to work with Kaepernick on this book,

to publish this through Kaepernick Publishing, what's that been like? How's the experience been working with Colin? Can you talk to that a little bit? Yeah, well, I think it was a great marriage, so to speak. I mean, looking at what he was able to not just accomplish in the game of football, but the position that he took social and politically. And then you reach back and you look at my history, and I think it was a connection that made sense. And it's been wonderful working with him.

Just the way that he has organized the whole business with authors, the authors of the book and the publishing company is wonderful. Working with Nick Childs was was beautiful at the same time. It was a strenuous process, for sure. Having to just remember as much as you can about your life and putting that on putting that on paper. A very strenuous process, but a beautiful process nonetheless. Let's talk a little bit about your childhood and let's get into it because one of the things that I thought was remarkable in the book is that you discovered that you could play the sport, basketball, at the highest level kind of by accident. And right.

You were just kind of goofing around and everyone's like, do you realize that you may be like the greatest at this ever? And you kind of just leaned into it in high school and started setting records right away. But right. Like it wasn't like you were playing basketball as some kids are taught, like as like a toddler. You kind of discovered it. What? Late middle school, almost going into high school. No, actually, I was on a basketball court. I was 10 years old. I was on elementary at Central Elementary School playing with my brothers because I flirted with a lot of different sports, obviously.

I was pretty fast, so I enjoyed watching track. I loved football. But basketball was something that just I felt naturally that I wanted to do when I woke up in the morning. But I can't say at that time that I knew I wanted to be an NBA player. Well, while on the basketball court, my brother and his friend, a lady named Miss Cookie, came by.

And I didn't even see her pull up, but I heard her. And she said, come here, boy. So I came over, and little did I know that the basketball court that we were on at the time, right next to it, because I didn't see any cars in the parking lot, the fourth grade team was practicing and so when I walked up to her she said go and practice I said

well Miss Cookie with all due respect you're gonna have to ask my mother first she said don't worry about that you you just go in there practice I'll talk to your mama later and when I went in I remember it was a great day that I had, but I didn't know anything about organized basketball. I was just playing. I was just trying to score every shot. And I did well afterwards. Well, during the process, the coach had told me, he said, look, son, you got to learn how to pass. Right. If you're going to play this game, that's OK. And I made the team. The first game we had, I remember vividly I was nervous, like out of this world. Didn't know truly what to expect because we was just practicing more so.

And we didn't go through how games start and all of this stuff. But he said, follow me. So, OK. So when the game started, I just I just started to feel comfortable. The coach ended up saying, move out of his way and just let him play. I ended up my first game scoring 21 points. And after that, it's like, man, this is what I want to do. Because the crowd, the reaction, I'd never seen before as it related to me. And I enjoyed it, everything about it. One of the things the book also explores is an undiagnosed diagnosis, the later discovered of Tourette's.

And can you walk us through kind of living with it, but not fully realizing what was going on and then kind of grappling with that and then, and then learning what it was and when did you learn about it and how that impact your childhood? From a very early age, and actually, you know, living with Tourette's syndrome, I wasn't diagnosed, obviously, until the 11th grade. So all of that time, I had a name that I didn't feel comfortable with. My mother took me to the doctor and one doctor in my younger years that ended up saying that I have habits. They come and they go. So I would literally the diagnosis was what's wrong with you?

Well, I have habits. They come and they go. This was my explanation. But early on, it started off with blackouts. I would just, whether it's reading, washing dishes, even a boxing match that I had with a friend of mine named Biddy McGee. We were actually hands up, and we were going at each other, and there was a period when we were bouncing. And I would know after I came out that that's what was happening. And when I came out, all I heard was, and I looked at him

and i started going you know going off uh and he just kind of curled up benny's a tough dude one of the toughest dudes in the neighborhood but he was like man i no no no no no he said man they said he just like literally said man you blacked out he out. He caught back so far, punched you in your face. And all I remember was just snapping to and looking. He didn't knock me out of anything. So it startled him. And I remember walking on my hands and blacking out and then landing on my head. And there was this huge hickey on my head.

So that's how it started. And then it would just I mean, it's it's, it's torturous, man, because from the moment you wake up, you can't sit still. You try, you try to control your breathing. You try to control your body movements, but it's, it's like nearly almost impossible to, and so you're trying to navigate going through school, you know, and learning. You're trying to navigate, you know, even playing basketball. And it takes a lot to try to control, but you never fully control it. And from the moment you wake up, it's like even touching this book and, you know, twitching and tensing up and holding your breath.

I don't want to do it now, but snapping your arm so hard and popping your neck to where it would feel like, you know, your skull, your brain is hitting your skull. Like you're about to have an aneurysm. And this is day in and day out trying to live with that. And, you know, you just try to control it the best way you can. And that was undiagnosed, you say, and you talk about in the book until 11th grade, right? And so as you're going through middle school and you start setting records pretty quickly, you realize you're pretty good at this basketball thing. You go into high school, start setting records there right away. Did growing up with Tourette's being undiagnosed, did that in any way impact you think

the way you played the game or how you played the game or even after the diagnosis? Man, that's a great question. I definitely believe living with Tourette's syndrome enhanced, not just basketball, but just enhanced the way I would begin to look at the world, the way I would begin to look at people. When you have a noticeable disorder, right, a noticeable challenge, even if you want it to be, I'm not saying people can't be, but even if you want it to be arrogant, right, it's hard to be because you're an easy target to be picked on. Like, man, you got, you can't even control your body and you want to run your mouth. You can't. But on the flip side of that, man, I wouldn't be the

basketball player. I've been saying this for years, that I became without Tourette's syndrome. Just even the struggles, man. So when you hear about people, whether it's dyslexia, whether it's Down syndrome or whatever, you know, challenge that they may have, you sympathize and empathize with them more because you know what it feels like to go through these struggles. And just the act of having Tourette's, it's like being a perfectionist. Everything you do is like things that you're attracted to, right? It's like you want to make it perfect. And if it doesn't feel perfect, you have to continue. So being on a basketball court, if the ball didn't feel right, if it didn't feel right going through the hoop, I'd have to repeat that over and over again. And then at the

end of it, I would have this drill that I would have to do, that I would have to repeat that may last another hour and a half or so. And so I'm often asked, well, if you didn't have it, would you choose not to? I said, man, I said, that's a tough question. I said, I would love to see what it feels like, but because I've noticed all of the benefits, yes, a headache. Right. From the moment you wake up. But I've noticed so many of the benefits. And I do believe that God doesn't give us a burden that we can't bear. And he gave this to me for a reason. I said I would choose to keep it because. And this is a statement that I almost always use that concerning Tourette's syndrome. When I was training and what have you, I wanted to quit in

about an hour and a half, but it would make me go further. So Tourette's pushed me where I myself would not have gone without it. And this is why I would choose to keep it. So yeah. And then, so growing up, one of the things that we should mention too is at that time, you went by your government birth name, Chris Jackson at that time, right? Yes. You're a superstar in high school, setting a ton of records, playing on the basketball team. You decide to go to LSU. Why'd you decide to go to LSU? Well, I decided to go to LSU simply because one, I was, I wanted to go to a place, man,

that I just felt in my soul, they had my best interest at heart. During that whole recruitment process, people are telling you things because they want you. And it's hard to decipher who's telling you the truth and who's lying. And you know that they're recruiting other players. And even though I was number one in the number one guard in the nation, it was just hard for me to distinguish that, like who was being honest with me and who had my best interest. And, of course, people offering it. And the problem that I had at that age was when people would say,

hey, when you come here, you're going to do this, you're going to do this, you're going to do this. Well, look, I don't even know what the next minute is going to bring. None of us do. How can you promise me something about a year ahead, you know, just a matter of factly? So that bothered me but when LSU came in literally Dale Brown and I believe it was uh Johnny Jones and and uh Ron

Abernathy and they sat with me not once did they say that you're going to come in and this is going to happen they said listen we have Fess Irving that was just a McDonald's All-American. He was a first team freshman last year. We want you guys to play with each other. If you have what it takes, you're going to play. And it wasn't arrogant. It wasn't any of that. And I'm like, man, I, you know, I just want a fast shot.

You know, don't sell me something that you can't deliver on. So for me, I just felt comfortable with him. I just felt that it was going to be a place that they were going to be fair with me. And that's why I chose to go. That's why I chose to go and ended up being a great choice. Great choice. What position did you play there for those who don't know your story? I played point guard.

Once I got there, the story that happened that Dale ended up telling me, I was looking forward to playing with Feds. And I was told that his father came in to the office saying, I heard that, you know, Chris Jackson is coming to town. We just want to know if, and this is the story I was told, so if I'm lying, I'm lying on somebody else. But saying that we just wanted to know since he's coming to town, is my son going to still start?

If he's not, then we're going to leave. And, of course, I was told that Dale doesn't like to be strong on. He's not that type of guy. And so they said Dale looked at him and said well then you might as well pack your bags and they left and they transferred so it kind of left me there you know all alone and so after that first game I'm trying to I don't want to do too much I don't want to do too little I'm trying to develop chemistry with the team. But my vision is like, man, I want to dominate.

And my first game, I had like 13 points, you know, about six, seven assists. And it's okay. Second game, I had 21. Okay. And it felt easy. And that's when Dale stopped me at the locker room. He said, listen, listen, Chris, we need you to score more. I said, Coach, I'll try.

And the third game, I had 48, and they just went 30-something and 53, and they just start just going from there. So definitely a great choice. The White Chocolate Macadamia Cream Cold Brew from Starbucks is made just the way you like it. Handcrafted cold foam topped with toasted cookie crumble. It's a sweet summer twist on iced coffee. Your cold brew is ready at Starbucks.

What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Yeah, and when you say 53, I mean, for those knowing, like college games for like overall

scoring, like sometimes you watch a college game, you may score, the whole team may score 60 points in a game. I mean, just to have, so at 53 points, I mean, you set numerous yourself, you set numerous scoring records at LSU, right? I mean, I mean, just to put it in context, and then you were there for two years, had two incredible years there. You go 53 very casually, but having multiple, right? You had multiple 50 point games at LSU, which is just, and it's like scoring a hundred points in the NBA over and over again. And then you go into the NBA draft and you're drafted number three, right? Out of the whole draft that year. 1990, you go into the draft, you're number three and Denver Nuggets. Yes.

Third pick overall to the Denver Nuggets. I was drafted. And then so your experience in the NBA, you're dominating. At some point, you convert to Islam. Can you take us through when that took place in your career? And then we'll get into a little bit of kind of what happened next. Yeah, when I got to LSU, going into my second year, Adele Brown handed me a book that changed my life. And that was the autobiography of Malcolm and I never heard of

I can't remember hearing of Malcolm up to that point that's how I guess distant I was from information and how attached I was to the game but when he gave it to me immediately I became fascinated with a story I'm that type of person that when I see something, I mean, of course, not everything, but things that I'm attracted to, when I see something and I like what I'm seeing, I analyze it. Do I have some of that? And if I don't have some of that, do I want it? You know what I mean? And of course, I'm like, you know, I want some of what he has. And so it began to change the way I began to think and to navigate throughout my college career. But I ended up going to the, being drafted the third pick first round. And at that

time, I was still professing to be a Christian publicly, but I was searching. I didn't know really what I wanted to follow, but I knew I believed in God. And I was in contact with, and I wasn't even a Catholic, a pastor, Catholic church. And he had a protege named Mark James out of New York. And Mark and I became very close. And one day in the process of conversation without the pastor being there, we were at my house. Islam came up in conversation. And I was like, whoa, I'm interested in Islam also. He said, man, I met this brother. You can go to the masjid and get the Quran. I went and got it, came back two, three pages later, literally.

I mean, I can't remember what I read, but I remember like yesterday what it felt like. And I just looked across the table. I said, man, I don't know about you, but my search is over. I'm going to be a Muslim. And so that's when it happened for me, the change. It was that process at LSU, giving me that book, reading it, meeting people, going to get the Quran and then reading it and just falling in love with it. And so I have to have this in my life. And so by that to, I have to have this in my life. And so by that point, when you officially made the conversion, you were in the NBA though? Yes.

When I, when I reverted back, it was going in, it was after my first year in the league. So it was somewhere around August, I believe. I think it was after this, this Salt Lake review they used to have in Salt Lake City where the rookies would go after their first year in the league and they'd play games. So it was right after that. And did you find, I mean, you get into the NBA, third pick overall, crushing it, you know, the same way you were crushing it in college, you're crushing it there. You know, setting records, leading the there, you know, setting records, leading the team, you know, in each season. Did you find, though, at some point, whether it was the coaches or other teams or even fans were treating you differently, though, after you converted? Did you notice any difference? I noticed more so initially from the team when I became a Muslim.

And it wasn't right away. At first, I think they look. But more so, let's just see how he's going to go about it, because there are a lot of most of the players in the NBA are Christians. They're part of a religion. Right. But not every not everyone wear their religion on their sleeve. Not everyone is seeking to truly practice what the book says. So they're probably thinking, well, he's just going to be a run of the mill Muslim, just like a lot of run of the mill Christians. I see not really practicing and still doing crazy stuff or whatever. But I think it shifted for me when they saw that, okay, he's actually serious. He's reading a lot. He's having dialogue on the plane, on the buses. He's having all of

these people that look different sometimes, meeting him at hotels and they're staying up all night sometimes until the next morning. I don't know what they're doing in those rooms. And also, man, he's looking to pray, like, before the game. We're having meetings, and he's in the locker room, you know, in the equipment room, praying. What is this? This is different. I think that's when it began to shift, more so than anything. But I didn't notice so much a difference with the fans at all. You know, look, I'm a people's person.

I engage people. No one that I can remember. And then the book is called In the Blink of an Eye because one of the reasons it's called The Blink of an Eye, and there's a number of meanings that people could delve into it. Throughout that point, you're succeeding on merits. You've got the book up. Hold on. Let's hold the book up one more time. In the blink of an eye, Mahmoud Abdul-Raouf. That's a great looking cover too, right there. And in the blink of an eye though, everything we've talked about, all the hard work you put in, the meritocracy, you put in the work, you're scoring, you're winning, you're doing, and you are following your own religion. You are living your life.

But at some point in the blink of an eye, that was taken from you, from a corporation, from a team, from people. And they, and I don't want you to give too much of it away because now's the point where I tell everybody to make sure you buy the book. But if you can, at the highest level, maybe just give a general, you know, generally what happened when you say the flag incident? I chose not to stand for the flag. And I'd been doing it the previous season for, I don't know, it could be four or five, six months. Nobody was making a big deal of it until one reporter caught wind of it,

wanted to interview through the help of Assistant General Manager Todd Ely of the Demo Nuggets. So without giving too much information, the media came to shoot around. After that, I'm getting ready for the game that night. Bernie calls me to his office. People on the NBA get on the phone. We have a dialogue. After the dialogue, I'm told that I'm not welcomed, not even on the premises. I had to leave. I go home before the next day, or it seemed, if not the next day, it was global news all over the world. And my career, as a result, began to fade away.

And statistically, empirically, what would happen next is impossible. But for the fact that corporations, people who I thought were supposed to be for free speech and tolerance and accepting of other ideas, and you were doing it peacefully, you're not doing insurrections. You're not running up and attacking people. You are doing it privately and people tried to take it away from you and did take it away from you. And so I'll leave it there. But in terms of what you're doing now, the work you're doing now, you're on the big three, the basketball league. And as I said, you were, you know, because I was there and I'd watch you play for the big three, you were, you would crush it. You would still be, you would still be running circles around some of the younger guys in the league, but maybe talk to some of the other

work you're doing though, as an activist and just trying to reach to communities and speak to people about their rights. You know, outside of that, some of the things that I'm engaged with, I do a lot of speaking engagements, but also I try to connect with, not try to, I've connected with a lot of humanitarian organizations and I've gone to Kenya and I've gone to Somaliland and different places to do the groundwork, you know, to do work on the ground, trying to help as many people as I can. So those things have never stopped. So pretty much wherever I'm needed, wherever there's a cause that I feel attached to, my motto is that if there's something I'm capable of doing, I'm at your service. So I try not to limit myself to one particular cause because there's so many out there that need

voices, that need attention given to them. So if I'm needed, if I'm capable, I'm there. The parallels between your story and Colin's story, even how you were doing what you were doing, a reporter just kind of comes in and writes about it before you know it. I mean, the parallels are so there. It's incredible that you and Colin joined forces for this book. The book comes out October 18th. Everybody get a copy of in the blink of an eye. Pre-sales are already out now. So you can go and buy that book right now. Search in the blink of an eye back by Mahmoud Abdul Raouf and Mahmoud. In addition to the book, we're also excited as well.

You're doing a Showtime documentary, which is going to be coming out early next year, date to be determined. But I'm just, I'm really, really, really so happy and so glad that a light is being shined on your story. I mean, look, you're heads down. You're doing the hard work every day. You travel in the country and travel in the world. But I'm so glad to see people outside of just the speaking engagements and people who know what you do are going to get to read about you in this book,

are going to get to see you on the dock. And I think the timing right now, too, what really freedom of speech means, what really, you know, our freedoms mean compared to kind of the gaslighting and other stuff that we see is more important now than ever. Any final words, Michael? No, I'm just look, it's I'm grateful that Cap Publishing believe in the story enough to want to support it. And everybody that was involved, including yourself, Tone, Nick Childs. It's something that I've been wanting to do for a long time. So it's finally here.

So we're going to see how it goes. I'm very grateful for that. And I want to thank you. Mahmoud Abdul-Raouf, thank you for joining us on this edition of The Mighty. Again, everybody check out the book. Pre-sales are available now in the blink of an eye. Book officially comes out October 18th, 2022. Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. Thank you.