The Steve Dangle Podcast - Black Lives Matter | June 1, 2020

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

On this episode, Steve, Adam, and Jesse discuss the murder of George Floyd, the protests that took place this weekend, the response from athletes and sports teams, and the long history of racial inequalities across North America. If you are looking for resources on how to help the black community, here are some useful links: https://www.obama.org/anguish-and-action/ https://blacklivesmatter.ca https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet https://minnesotafreedomfund.org https://twitter.com/JesseBlake/status/1267269227913842696 https://medium.com/@BarackObama/how-to-make-this-moment-the-turning-point-for-real-change-9fa209806067 Originally aired: June 1, 2020 Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/TOGaJ43-6nw Merch: https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/fancydangleshirts Follow us on Twitter: @Steve_Dangle, @AdamWylde, & @JesseBlake Follow us on Instagram: @SteveDangle, @AdamWylde, & @Jesse.Blake Subscribe to us on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/steve-dangle-podcast/id669828195?mt=2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

panago pizza presents s d p the steve dangle podcast with your host steve dangle adam wild and jesse blake let's go hi hi hi everyone everybody's here uh everybody is uh i to call it a stressful weekend i think would be a bit of an understatement and um i i think that everybody in their own way is is feeling a bit off to put it lightly um it's been an unbelievable um yet another unbelievable moment uh in and potentially the worst and i think some of the best ways that that any of us have ever seen i don't believe that in our life our lifetimes that We've seen civil strife the way we're seeing it right now. And it's the type that goes across borders.

So the whole stick to sports thing is just such utter crap because sports fall off in the times when you actually see changes. When you look at the Olympics and the two sprinters who held their hands up, you look at Jesse Owens, you look at some of those incidences where sports became, you know, breaking the color barrier, Jackie Robinson, those became moments that mainstreamed an idea. and moments that they were criticized for at the time and we now look back at it historically significant and correct exactly exactly and so what we're in right now is

obviously not that but the response to it from sports is still important and the response to racism specifically in hockey uh which has been a hot button issue for i don't know i mean really come to the forefront over the last year or so but especially since the Akeem uh Akeem Aliu and Bill Peters incident came to light um and obviously the uh article which we discussed last week that Akeem Aliu wrote uh was that was that two weeks ago I can't even tell anymore honestly I think it's now it was two weeks ago now yeah today's Monday right yes it is yeah so like you You know, there's no delicate way to put this. This is an extremely tense and stressful time.

And the reality is it's this way because this stuff that we're dealing with or having to face right now was always sort of there. It's just that many of us, especially the segment of us that are not people of color, never had to deal with it in our normal day-to-day lives. and so it didn't really factor in because we just you know it's either you're ignorant and you just don't know or you're a part of the problem and i mean for sure growing up i was for sure the ignorant one right i didn't i just don't and i would still never know what it's like um but you see you saw the video uh with george floyd and you saw the reaction from it and i don't know how

you watch a video like that and i mean i honestly it was it took me several times to get through it the whole thing um because it is such a heartbreaking heart-wrenching thing and i guess it's a video of a murder yes right yeah that's why and you're watching someone die and uh regardless of whatever proposed crime could have been committed the reality is both the united states and canada and many other countries around the world uh believe in your right to a fair trial and not only was he robbed of that he was robbed of his life and that's where um that's where we where i'd like to start is is you know your reactions directly to that when you first saw it because for me and i'll tell you and i know i've done a lot of talking here so i'm sorry guys

uh for me it was like i couldn't i couldn't fathom that it happened and then i couldn't have fathomed that it happened again do you know what i'm saying it's like it's it's it's almost so unbelievable it's believable does that make sense i get it i get it man no my my first feeling was not again so i i know what you're saying yeah see yeah i don't know there's so many there's so many layers to it is where we're starting we're talking about the reaction to the video and i don't know my i don't i don't remember my initial reaction but to a point i wasn't surprised because this had happened a few a month earlier with ahmaud arbery who was killed in february when he was shot down by two men in a pickup truck who thought he was a robber and he was

just jogging down the street and i i didn't forget that story when i saw george floyd or i didn't forget brianna taylor who was murdered in march when she was sleeping in her bed and police broke down her door and shot into her apartment 20 times and hit her eight times like so when i see when i see george floyd it's just they i'm i'm happy we have the video because the video seemed to what sparked the conversation is what made people realize that this is going on because those stories of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and you go back to Trayvon Martin Eric Garner Trayvon Martin Michael Brown the names are countless and I'm glad that George Floyd died on video because it gave people proof of what's going on it it brought people's

attention to the situation so that's kind of all those feelings so many of us a rush of emotions when you see something like that and when it's been living with you all your life and it's kind of come to a head right now amongst our generation because we've we've been here we've had these conversations but it's never been really like this for for us in these times for those of us growing up right now the last time was probably like this sorry steve i'll just give me a second last for context is probably the late 60s during the civil rights movement this is really and then everybody said oh okay we're done laws are in that'll undo everything this this is i've had a lot of similar conversations with people our age of um like basically i thought this was over

and it's it's out of ignorance obviously um but it's really i think sometimes when you look back at history you stand in the present and think you're better than it you know what i mean the moment you're in is better than the moment your parents were in uh or something like that and maybe it is but we obviously have so so so much work to do and this anger didn't drop out of the air right this this this frustration with the system and uh you know people are they're fighting back in a different way because you force them to you know we tried the kneeling thing we tried this we tried that we tried that you know the why can't you uh protest peacefully no not this way no not this way no not this way no not this way i'm nothing will fit that box right yeah i'm sure

you've all seen the meme why don't you tell me exactly what you want me to do okay and until until then we're just going to do this right so i i mean i don't have the words to say i'm some freaking white guy like who who cares what i have to say and all this but i sorry adam what no no well along those those lines because i think this is important yeah you are some white guy as am i but i think it's important that we as two white dudes and jesse you you tell me if i'm off on this one um it's important that you do have a voice on this one not to describe how people feel but describe what you're going to do about it and how you're going to help end this because we can't we can no longer be just not racist we have to be we talked about this we talked about

this a couple weeks ago in a completely different context it's it's it's on us it's on us before the show steve you asked me something interesting because you uh do you remember specifically what you asked me it was about posting a lot now and my response was uh oh yes so well jesse as you know is a very quiet private person generally and cool but um you have been posting a lot um over the past two three days and i've noticed it as your friend and loyal follower um i've noticed it as abnormal and i know this is obviously something that you're very passionate about and i'm dying to hear what you have to say i think that i think and because i was thinking about that question a little bit after you'd asked me it and i wanted to just say while we're

recording that I think it's it's to help erase that ignorance because you said just minutes before that you were kind of ignorant to the situation you thought it had kind of passed so I feel like since everybody's listening now since that video came out and there are these movements and there's these protests across North America that maybe people will finally start listening to people of color and start learning about the things that are going on in their society so i don't know if i if i can tweet out a book and i get one people to one person to read this book about the racial injustices that are going on in the criminal justice system in america i feel like that's an effective way to make change because there are people listening right now like i all

i often um i don't know if you guys know the story of emmett till and here's here's the other messed up part about all this jesse i've honestly forgotten which name is which right right i'm ashamed of that but i've honestly forgotten which name is which okay so many which one is emmett till long sounds like an awful question long story here but uh emmett till is someone who uh died in the 50s he was a 14 year old boy um kanye on through the wire he wrapped um he's wrapped a line about his because he had gone to a car accident and he wrapped a line about his face ending up looking like Emmett Till and then Emmett Till died in the 50s he was lynched I'll get to that part of the story

but I remember being it would have been I would have been like 11 then like 2004 and Connie used to use this example in interviews about whenever you talk about racial injustices you always tell this story about how this kid he was 14 years old he walked into a grocery store he flirted with a 21-year-old white woman. The white woman went to her husband. She told them what happened in that grocery store that day. The husband and I believe their son ended up kidnapping Emmett Till. They lynched him, murdered him, and then a month later, they go on trial. They are acquitted of all charges. A month later, they admit that they did everything. That's in the middle of segregation 1950s. From that point on, America, it kind of transitioned to a point where those racial

injustices kept perpetuating themselves through the criminal justice system so that whites can enact these racist acts against Black people through a court system that won't persecute them for their actions. So you see it enacted nowadays through the acts of police officers and the justice system that won't charge white people when they commit racist acts and that's been going on for it's that was 1950 it's 70 years later and none of that's changed like that story of emmet till dying and not and his his um the criminals who murdered him not being charged could have happened in 2020 when we see someone like um i forget um i forget the man who murdered uh Trayvon Martin, I forgot his name, but George Zimmerman, George Zimmerman, getting off on

murdering a kid who was walking down the street, eating a bag of candy. It's the same story. And that's 70 years later. So none of this has changed. And I think it's important to tell these stories right now, because people are listening. I don't remember, I don't remember when I'd ever get to tell that story in my entire life on this pot on this hockey podcast. But I've been i've been holding on to that story since i was 11 and i learned it and now we're here we're here in a moment where people are listening so it's it's just important to speak out and hopefully now that people are protesting people are willing to share these stories that it some change comes of it because i don't want i don't want my kids and my kids kids to be fighting the same fight

that they fought for in the 1950s when segregation existed that they fought for in the 90s when they had the la riots that they fought for in ferguson four years ago when michael brown was murdered like now hopefully this video george floyd's death brings about even more change and it acts just people to act on this situation and there has to be there has to be reaction to this uh i feel like it as sad as it is it's sort of like the Trayvon Martin situation specifically happened outrage no action and you can you can take that formula and you can apply that to many other people unfortunately but obviously what we've seen in the last six days is a tremendous amount of civil unrest in some cases looting

um and and but mostly people just protesting and um and then curfews put in i read it i was on cnn.com last night and it just gave there was one of the articles was just a list of the cities that have a 9 p.m curfew and the list i had to you know double scroll with my fingers like several times to get to the bottom of it um jesse you said something interesting there because this is so important when we talk about grievance. And I know one of the issues I have in my personal life is that if someone accuses me of something that I don't believe that I've done, before I'll even listen to them, I'll put up a defense. And what that does is it invalidates that person right off the bat, which puts them on a back foot, which puts them in a stance of this person isn't

listen to me. In this case, it's me. And I'm seeing that in society with people who are like, well, I'm not racist. And so what happens often is that you put your armor up before you actually listen. And it's not that you're necessarily personally racist. It's that we are in a system that is inherently racist. And that we collectively need to do something about it. And it exists here in Canada, we have an awful history with racism. Awful, awful, awful, awful. There are so many cases of it and not small ones either. I think the only reason that ours is maybe perhaps better hidden is because we have less media and less people, but it's no less severe. And so I think when we talk about listening, Jesse, when we talk about what you say, you feel like people

are listening do you feel that way do you feel like the message is getting through right now because for me it's sort of like as an out as somebody on the outside and admittedly i haven't said much on social media and i'll get to that in a second i hope they are but i don't and i and i love seeing the protests i love that but are are we that's i think that's that's the thing will only time tells like i don't see it this being the i have doubts that this is the change like this is the moment that everything turns because i'm i'm old enough i know enough of these stories to know that society just doesn't work that way we've seen we've seen racist acts before we've been through situations where people of color are persecuted and change happens and it doesn't

happen fully. This is an overhaul, like you said, of an entire system, of an entire country that's run this way. The prison system is basically a for-profit organization. That's not something that changes with one conviction. If George Floyd's murderer ends up in jail for the rest of his life, that doesn't change the rest of society. This is something that takes time and it's like when you're uh when you're starting a new diet they tell you you can't just you can't do it for a day you can't do it for a month it has to be a complete overhaul of how you live your life and what we need here is a complete overhaul of the system because the system right now is created to persecute people of color so unless but i'm hopeful that this leads

down the line of an everyday struggle of change coming about. You need, I think this is a half quote of Obama, but he said, you need a consensus to enact change. So you got to create the consensus among society that this system is racist and that it needs to be changed. So once that consensus is created, then you start getting the majority of people to enact a new life for everyone, for humans and and the issue that comes up and this is something that i alluded to before is that people who are non-racist don't consider themselves racist don't act like racist aren't racist go but it's not racist i'm not racist and that again is got to be the part that for you if you're listening to this and you're going i i wait a second that's i'm not raised it's not about

being a non-racist, because that is obviously not enough. There has to be an anti-racist in you. There has to be a, I'm going to do something about this, however big or small. And it doesn't have to be like, listen, you know, we lean on you, Jesse, heavily on this one because your perspective matters on this. But one of the things that we discussed this morning when we were doing the morning show is you can't lean on people of color to just explain their problems to you. You said something so important. You said black people aren't an encyclopedia for racism. Right. Yeah. I want to continue. Like you said that and it just, it clicked, you know, it's, it's true.

You need educate yourself. Like I, if, if you're a person, you're sitting there and you're saying, I'm not racist. So what's the problem? No. Well, so the society around you is, has problems. And I hope that this event, you see that and that you see these racial injustices and that, and that that helps you to create change. Now, Jesse, on that point, and Steve, I know you want to jump in, just give me one sec. Jesse had last night, and I retweeted this, a great thread on some books, including the new Jim Crow, which I highly recommend anybody read. You had great books that people can read. And a lot of those are available if you're like me, and I'm a little dyslexic. So I flip sentences, it takes me forever to read a book. That's why I listen to all my

books, um, like audio book, this stuff. Um, and it's, it's like, you're listening to a podcast, basically just a podcast with great information. And you will slowly be able to, as that book, that one, especially as you go through chapter by chapter, it unwraps like an onion, the layers and layers and layers and the history and the context. And I think, you know, if you go to Jesse's Twitter page, it's up there right now, check out some of the books that you posted yesterday. But for me specifically, that one is probably one of the biggest reads I've ever had in my life and biggest game changers personally. And it's important that if we want to participate in this and be allies, we have got to do the education on our own. We can't expect every

person in our life who's a person of color to just explain every little nuance in this. It is on us as well and it is on the athletes and the people that we look up to the people that we follow um and steve you were going to say something before i keep going go ahead uh oh i think i think the reason some people maybe feel attacked you know when you say you know like you were a byproduct of a racist system or you're not doing enough uh to you know denounce racism or whatever is in a lot of our media that we grew up with and especially like a lot of the stuff we watched in school we see um we see like a far end of the spectrum level of racism in the movies and television shows we watch like super outward guy super outward tattoo on the forehead wearing hood

screaming foaming at the mouth um but i thought what was so masterful about especially the first half of uh get out is just the subtlety the subtlety in the things the white people were saying that were designed to make you feel uncomfortable in the movie but are actual things said in real life that make black people uncomfortable every day and i don't think it's a coincidence that that movie happened to be created by a black director and writer right so there was a tweet last night how old were you and and this i think illustrates the full system how old were you when you had your first black teacher and adam's thinking about it right now and we grew up in the same neighborhood but went to different schools for most of our childhood

i was thinking about it was a grade five no no uh grade nine is my answer grade nine high school and we grew up in scarborough man like art and like i grew up with all sorts of friends of color and the schools we went to the teachers that taught us did not represent the neighborhood that we grew up in you know what i mean and part of that was changing demographics right We grew up in Scarborough at a time when there was an enormous influx of different cultures all at the same time, which, you know, Toronto, just for anybody that doesn't know, was a very, very white city up until about the 1970s. And then you had massive immigration, especially from East Asia and from India and from Iran and the Middle East. um so part of that is the the older generation aging out but it's still it remains a point of a big gigantic hole in our I mean my first I had a um Mrs. Gopi uh she was our uh she's from India

and she was the teacher that put me in reading recovery uh so I was in grade one and I couldn't read properly because the school that I had gone to in inner Scarborough didn't teach reading in kindergarten. And the school that I went to when I moved to, you know, to Stephen, I's old neighborhood did. So I had to catch up and she was the first person of color to ever teach me. But, you know, it was, it's after that, it's like white, white, white, white, white, white, right up until high school too. And, um, you know, beyond that, I think there has to be at a certain point in your life, you have to take a step back and go, what am I going to stand for? And I'm going to make mistakes along the way. Um, everybody is, there's no perfection in this.

Um, but I've been looking to, um, the people that genuinely matter and their reactions on these sorts of things and what i mean by genuinely matter is when you look at athletes and i'm not asking for perfection here but you look at athletes we have the nhl that is extremely quiet on or has been extremely quiet on matters such as these um obviously they've had their discussions with Akeem Aliu um and and Akeem to his uh you know to his credit you know he he has somehow found a way to go yeah I'll work with you right like I you know I don't know how um I don't I don't know how you're not angry all the time based on what he went through I just don't know I don't know um personally you mean yeah yeah like you read a story you're like how

are you not just fucking mad and he holds them to account like this isn't this isn't a uh you know skip down the streets holding hands relationship uh between him and the nhl and a lot of people dismissed him and all you're just some bitter guy who didn't make it and now evander kane has fully thrown his hat into the ring um i saw him on with uh i saw him on with max kellerman vander kate yeah that was surreal that was surreal it was getting a hockey player on esbf yeah yeah yes it was uh yeah it was surreal i'm like man i really do cheer for a pissant sport whatever but um you know he he got in there um and he took it upon himself and i just want to know every you know everyone who had something to say about a key value uh what do you got to say

know and what what is it this time and then when the next person steps up what is it going to be then and then what is it going to be then and then what is it going to be then i think on this show we're mostly not talking to those people though mostly mostly mostly i we do so i think i think what i think 99.9 percent of the people that are listening to this are thoughtful well-meaning people and you know maybe and as i have maybe have some things to learn as i do um and some and some actions that could change but that's the thing is that you're open to doing it and listening again is the key and so when we talk about though i want to get into this because this is important we've heard from evander kane uh logan couture came out and backed up evander

came we've heard from austin matthews we've heard from um who else we heard from there's like a whole list anzi kopitar well and then and then another thing we were talking about before the show is there's degrees of messages right so there's someone who you know the islanders had a really piss poor message i maybe we'll get to that later that a lot of people really didn't like um and then their captain anders lee comes out and he'll just talk about it now read the islander statement you have it uh no i don't i have i have anders lee's okay well i'll pull the islanders can you pull it up and read it yeah of course okay cool let me get i haven't read this fully uh okay so let me hear it um so the islanders retweeted anders lee which is good

so here's and let me let me i want i want to know your reaction to this guys so uh the islanders said we condemn racism and injustice and stand with all affected by senseless violence we must come together treating each other with empathy dignity and respect the new york islanders endorsed the nhl statement which includes in our sport we will continue to do better and work diligently toward a culture change throughout hockey and endeavor to be mindful of our own shortcomings in this process to the brave officers who go to work every day seeing the human being and not the color of one's skin we thank you for protecting us i think that just to highlight the last line it's i think that's a hey islanders read the room

kind of line you know it's just time and place probably probably could have left it out like i understand the sentiment but it's kind of not what it's about right now about what you said about that oh that's it right there i'll say something yes i'll say something that i've been battling with over the past few days and you know a couple of my best friends are cops you know it's and i've been thinking about you know like i like i contributed money to the the brooklyn bail fund and and i was like you know what i wonder what they would say to me after that or maybe seeing some of the things i said and i'm like you know what they can take it up with me um but you know one of my best friends uh you know is with the toronto police

and and one of my oldest friends uh is also with the toronto police and he's black and he's the child of immigrants you know what i mean so he's i don't even know what he's thinking right now and he's probably getting it from both ends and getting screamed at by god knows how many people so it's it's been really conflicting knowing exactly how to feel and what to say in all this i think on that end i think everybody knows that not all police are bad like i think we know that i think that's abundantly clear and that's that's the the issue that i have with the islander statement is we fucking know man of course but listen that's their job they signed up for that we're talking about the incidences where this gets out of

control and it's happening time and time and time again we're not talking about the good cops we're talking about the ones that have multiple issues on record did you see that that should never have been police in the first place that have aggression issues this guy Derek Chauvin had 18 complaints a wild amount of complaints 18 complaints you know three or four over the course of a of a cop's life i i bet i bet you get three or four complaints minimum but are you kidding 18 complaints the guy's not an old man this isn't a guy who's been on the force for 40 years so he has he's basically getting more than averaging one or more complaints a year and this is the issue that we're we're talking about so so for for me when i read the

islander statement it's it's yeah man duh but the point here is not that it's and and that's the problem is that the the nhl so often tries to well we don't want to we don't want to offend anyone so we're not going to help anyone and it's that's really is the nhl mandated to do freaking nothing Well, that's that one particular team. And the problem that I had with that statement as well, and Jesse, you can tell me if I'm crazy here, is you condemn racism. Well, fucking good for you. You know what I have to say? MLSC came out and said, what happened with George Floyd, I don't have the actual statement in front of me, but what happened with George Floyd, they said it with TFC, with the Raptors, and with the Leafs. And then you had Masai Ujiri write a beautiful letter about this. they address the issue specifically at what point can we just say i know you're all a bunch of corporate entities and your brands or whatever but just fucking say it like it is and they called it a murder too it's a murder it is a murder to it it's the bare minimum oh you condemn racism good for you you just you want to shake the islanders and tell them hey the conversation

isn't about that right now we're talking about one specific issue because of one specific incident we're talking about injustices to the black community because of this george floyd video that went viral that's this is what we're talking about here and we understand that there is good in the world you don't you don't need to highlight the cops here it's not it's not what we're talking about so for them to throw that in there it's just it's tone deaf now can i read you andrew's lease statement yeah uh sure unless you want me to do it i gotta hear whatever sure go ahead last week i've been trying to find the right words to say what to say and how to say it but it's time to say how i feel the best way i can i will never fully understand because i'm because

of the color of my skin but i have the opportunity to make a difference i stand for anti-racism i stand for the rights of black people in america so we can all be equal i stand alongside the black community through this difficult time and in the future i stand for justice uh stand for the justice of george floyd and the countless others who have been killed by racism black lives matter addressed it specifically it's beautiful yeah they have a leader on the ice at least you can't ask for anything more at a statement you know now now take this statement off offline and contribute to the rest of the contribute to the community at large you know but yeah as a statement that's Perfect from Anders Lee.

Did you see, as long as we're reading statements, how about, did you get in Weeks? No, I didn't see it. So Kevin Weeks, you know, unfortunately he's a guy we've referenced specifically on this show. You know, I've talked to him about it before. And here's another guy from Scarborough. And every time something bad happens to a black hockey player,

he gets a phone call and then he's got to do this. And it's a, it's a miserable way to be. So someone, I don't, I don't know exactly the context of what he said, but someone basically told him be better or whatever. So Kevin just decided to go off. He said, you barked up the wrong tree. Let me start by highlighting both your ignorance and arrogance. The day you have bananas thrown at you on the ice, the day your family and loved ones have to hear people scream racial epithets while watching you play. The day you have to worry about some media intentionally calling you a wrong name when they know your legal name. The day you have to answer to why do you just not play basketball. The day you have to

worry about you and your family being legally harassed. The day you have to feel fearful of a police officer in either Canada or the U.S. The day you have to explain and prove to officers that you didn't steal your car, the day you and your parents are belittled by authorities at the airport, the day your mom gets belittled at the grocery store, the day crooked legal systems exploit you financially, the day you finance hockey camps at Malvern and Ice Sports Scarborough that help produce 12 NHL players and give countless others access to the great sport of hockey the day you are a fellow nhl ambassador the day you support numerous initiatives in barbados canada and the united states the day someone you feels arrogant enough and uh privileged

enough to tell you how to feel in response to an attack with your racial community then and only then can you tell me how to be better until then commit to being part of the solution as opposed to perpetuating the problem i don't know i just i can't imagine the just the frustration in kevin weeks man just the he's not a young man you know and i hope kevin wouldn't get offended by me saying that but he's seen some shit yeah he's seen some shit and i think it takes some real balls some real arrogance to say that to him of all people and i don't know it's refreshing to hear him go off you know why does he have to be nice about this i think he's definitely earned

the right not to be well it was a lot nicer than the guy deserved probably probably i don't know and for anyone and i don't know i'm always i don't know why i cater to the 0.5 percent of people who listen but um you know this isn't your escape today um what do you want us to talk about the games last night shut up like there's i don't need don't justify it no i know it's an extremely it's an extremely significant moment in our life um and you will look back on this and you will feel bad that you you will either feel bad that you didn't spend the time to learn anything about it to listen to anything regarding it uh or you'll grow or you won't and you'll be as irrelevant as your opinion is now right those opinions are just not relevant anymore and you can you can um i i'm

gonna drop this in about 30 seconds um your opinion is dated irrelevant and frankly doesn't make any sense so uh the reality is get on board because this is what's happening if you have enough people speaking out on this maybe you should listen and again it comes back to listening and if you can't do that now you'll never do that and you will be in your regressive state the rest of your life and there's nobody that can help you so and i'm not going to try to start here so that's that's where we leave that point you know one percent of the people listening to this i'm leaving them there i have no interest i'm not going to engage i don't care let's not distract from yeah exactly so find the voices that you're right so the nhl put out a statement

and i know that the islanders referenced it but let me just pull it up anyway because i think it's important to start or at least get to that statement because you know they are the league they are the brand um now they've uh retweeted a bunch since but the nhl statement seemed to be the most powerful one they've done yet and i don't know if i mean i don't know how to how to process it only because sometimes you feel like we should have had this already do you know what i'm saying and i can't find the statement to save my life right now i thought you read part of it with the islanders there i did i did um now i guess in some senses it's better late than never and it seemed to me they're most pointed and direct um i have the leaf statement here

um and what i can tell you about that is and here's here's what the um here's what the uh the shark said uh there's no room for racism in society we applaud evander for his rational and thoughtful response to the recent terrible tragedy events like this occur way too often we must find a way to do better that's from the owner of the sharks um i have the nhl statement here if you read it yeah yeah awesome protests in both the united states and canada in recent days have focused attention upon racial justice for the black community the nhl stands with all those who are working to achieve a racially just society and against all those who perpetuate and uphold racism, hatred, bigotry, and violence. We share the sentiments expressed by our players

and clubs in their calls for justice, and we encourage everyone to use their platforms and privilege for systemic change. In our own sport, we will continue to do better and work diligently toward culture change throughout hockey and endeavor to be mindful of our own shortcomings in this process. The NHL stands with all those who are working to achieve a racially just society against all those who perpetuate household racism hatred bigotry and violence there you go thoughts they said it it's perfect you can't you can't ask for anything more out of a statement i think a lot of these these statements that are coming out from the nhl players and players across sports are

very poignant and then now it's time for action now it's time to enact the change let me read you one that I'm really disappointed with. The Minnesota Wild. The Minnesota Wild are deeply saddened. Sorry, they wrote the Minnesota Wild is deeply saddened. So that's already a little effort would be good. The Minnesota Wild is deeply saddened by the death of George Floyd on Monday night. Everyone in our community deserves the right to feel safe and protected. These times call for our community to come together and not be divisive. Our hearts and prayers go out to the family and friends of George Floyd. Now, I have to tell you, I don't know if there's a divide on this. He was killed on camera. What's there to be divided about? That's where the left and the

right can come together. Law and order. Everybody wants law and order. Well, that was breached, man and so i i don't know this call for unity i mean really this i don't know how you could be and i know there is disunity but are we kidding this is a man who like again we just there is the the nhl and this is where i think the nhl really loses me on the pr how is league front office, not calling every team and going, guys, we need to discuss this and how this is going to be talked about and how each statement from every team really matters here. It matters on a social level and it matters on a branding perspective, frankly. Like if you get down to the nuts and bolts, this matters to the brand of hockey, specifically the NHL. And these disjointed

weak statements from a lot of teams are sort of and here's where here's a good one la the la kings are united against racism and all acts of hatred towards others our voice is here to support the black community and condemn these injustices now is the time to raise the volume peacefully enough racism enough senseless violence enough now i would have liked them to address the issue specifically on that but at least they're like enough they're not saying don't be divisive yeah When you contrast that with statements where they acknowledge that someone was murdered, that they acknowledge that, Hey, we need to enact change here. And you,

then you read something like that from the Islanders or the Minnesota wild it you all you're left with is disappointment and anger, you know, cause you want, you want these big corporations, these big teams, these billion dollar industries to, to help. That's all, that's all these communities are asking for is just the, Hey, listen to us, Help us enact this change here And they're not doing that And it's so disappointing to see that from

A game we love Here's another really disappointing one The following is a statement From the Boston Bruins They didn't make a statement? They didn't put anything! They haven't tweeted in 21 hours At the time that I'm doing this

The last thing was they advertised A Zdeno Chara at 1000 Documentary on And Nesson, contrast that with Enes Kanter actually, you know, making a speech in front of people at a protest. Like, holy shit, the NHL is so far behind. And a lot of people have called on Crosby and McDavid to make statements as well, which they haven't done as of this recording.

Should we talk about that? Because we've talked about that in the past when the Penguins went to the White House. I don't remember if it was 16 or 17. We talked about that with Ron McClain. We had that conversation. Yeah, that was a long time ago. Yeah. That was a long time ago.

That was in the backup fan studios. That's right. And people get – Jesse, that used to be the fan main studio. I brought Bob McCallum his coffee there. Teeny tiny. Yeah, it's very small. And Mike Toth is chocolate muffins. But that – people got mad about that.

I got a picture with him right there. Sidney Crosby a lot of people are very protective of him by all accounts off the ice generous with his time kind etc etc etc but he is Sidney Crosby and it sounds like he's being signal singled out and he is because of who he is he's Sidney Crosby his words especially after having such a generally silent career you know what i mean hey man some guys are just quiet some guys are just private i know so imagine the impact his words would have if he has trouble coming up with the words himself he could easily have someone have a group of people help him out he could hire an entire focus group right yeah he's sydney crosby he could easily do it mcdavid's

in that group too um i'm glad david's at the forefront of that group yep not just in the group he's at the forefront ovechkin too and this is talking about a complicated figure in the nhl uh yeah yeah absolutely and i and i understand that he just had a baby and i i get it however and listen i don't want to be a hypocrite here but i i'm listen i'm not a generational hockey player not a generational broadcaster i'm just a guy have some following and so i want to present a different perspective and not necessarily that it applies to crosby and mcdavid and novechkin but i haven't said anything personally i wanted to wait for this show um that was number one because i don't feel like you can properly um even with virgin radio you have to be very

bite-sized right twitter facebook you know where i work at virgin you have to be very bite-sized here we can go deep at least you had you had a date right yeah and and for me and i was trying to explain this to you guys before the show and i'm not sure if i did a good job and i don't even know if this is the right or the wrong thing i felt like i had nothing to say that was going to push this conversation forward i felt like i had nothing to say that you didn't already know and so what i've done is tweeted people who i thought had great things to say and i've sat back and i've watched read i've listened and i want to know because i don't know the answer to this question is it does it behoove me with my tiny following to put something out

there anyway is that should i be doing that am i um am i doing my own statements a disservice by not doing that um and or you know here's the thing i've i haven't i've tried to come up with things but then i felt uncomfortable with them not because i don't believe the statement but i felt like i i just felt like it was just going to be more noise and i didn't want to come across as inauthentic that's why because i've seen a lot of people feel like i've got to say something because everybody else is saying something and it's like well wait a second hold on it's come out really why not just say the best why not retweet the best the opinions that you like and that you see and amplify those that's how i've used my platform rather than coming out with a statement like

saying see i can say it too because i don't think anything i would have to say is going to further this conversation i do think i follow people that do what do you think i think there are many different ways you can act in this situation it's about acting and in in the best ways that you can i feel like even if let's say you want to put out a statement it's like okay you can put out this statement or you can or your statement can get lost in this whole sea of statements right maybe your efforts are better spent learning and then acting on your knowledge This isn't about just putting out these statements and then, okay, I tweeted this thing and then it's all good. It's more about enacting real change in society, which is a lot harder than putting out a statement. So I feel like your feelings are justified in that so much more can be done because actions speak louder than words or a notes app on your phone. If actions are being taken, if you're sitting there just as a person being like, okay, how do I help? You can help in many different ways.

it's if you want to help in supporting the black community that's how you that's how you can help if you want to help by going out to a protest and protesting peacefully that's how you can help if you want to help by just throwing money at the problem hey that helps too there are so many different ways and i don't want i don't want people to feel pressure to to do one specific thing but just do something so when we apply that to sydney crosby conor mcdavid alexander Ovechkin those are just the three names but you can the list goes on and I know you know Matthews has made a statement and we said you know many other stars have is it different it a hundred percent okay those are tell me why those are people who can change with their words the average

person most like the average person if they're like hey I want to tweet out something and I think that's that's my role in this thing I'm going to tweet nobody's listening to your 20 followers I'm sorry if if if you're not affecting anyone in real life then that doesn't then acting on the same as doing nothing tweeting to no one is the same as doing nothing and sitting on your couch so but if Sidney Crosby stands up and he makes a stance as no hockey player in his position has ever really done that's significant that's historic based on in like a hockey level like an nba player saying something okay that means something they they take it to the next level where they're at the where they're at the protests themselves where they're always churning out this

information they're wearing the t-shirts they're supporting everything in every way because they come from these communities but sydney crosby who comes from outside of it needs to help from that outside view he's a person who who's on the other side of this the other side of people who aren't oppressed so his his words mean something in that respect and and you'd like to see somebody with that with the amount of resources he has just based on what he's achieved in life help marginalized people especially in this time where it seems like okay the people who have been marginalized have a voice right now people are listening to their voices hey maybe you can reach out and help there are um

like there are stories i've heard of like crosby actually helping marginalized communities like putting his money where his mouth is but it's like he said the the words would mean a lot at this point and it would catch a lot of people off guard and it would also cause a lot of people to stand up it would cause a lot of people to once he says it it gets everyone's attention and then And even if we only see a smattering of a few players from each team around the NHL, it would be a lot more. They carry influence. If someone's got a poster of you in their room, you have influence.

Well, and there's players who are now in the league that grew up with posters of Crosby on their wall. Yeah, that guy's been in the league since 2005. If you see, and this is more him than McDavid because he's been around for such a long time now by NHL standards. If you see Sidney Crosby come up with a statement like that, My expectation is that you get a windfall of others following suit because he is a leader in the league.

And leaders in the league in the past have remained silent. And I have to say, people talk about how Sidney Crosby, you know, may not have experience with this, may not know what to say. I'm sorry. If you know anything about Coal Harbor, Nova Scotia, you know that there's significant racial tension there. Coal Harbor High is known for. it's known for having marginalized communities in the past and and and halifax has a very

sordid history with how it's treated its black community awful removed an entire neighborhood to just put a highway through just because you guys know that story no i've never i've never yeah so there was a significant black population there still is this is in coal harbor specifically not cool harbor so so here's so cold harbors like yeah so so and i believe and and forgive me my history's a bit spotted but basically there was a neighborhood in halifax and it's near where one of the bridges is now i think it's the mcdonald and they wanted to build a highway underneath that so you could get out to clayton park and bedford which are two neighborhoods i lived in clayton park my friends grew up in bedford um uh and uh basically they uprooted in i think the 50s

um an entire neighborhood of like thousands of people predominantly black neighborhood of course and said well we're building the highway get out and that's what they did they just moved them and with cole harbor no real connection there but halifax has its own issues with that and Coal Harbor, when I was there, and it still is the case to this day, there are many, many lingering issues there that have to deal with just this. So it's not as though, listen, you can grow up and be somewhat oblivious, but to say that Sidney Crosby wouldn't know that it existed, I'm sorry, based on, just based on where he grew up, that's just patently not true. And he may have been shielded from it. He may be ignorant to it. I grew up in Scarborough in a mixed race community.

I was ignorant to things. Absolutely. So I get that. But there is, at a certain point, if you want to be a leader, a great leader, you need to acknowledge things that are hard. LeBron James has never backed down from this. And you can say what you want about LeBron James being the greatest of all time or whatever. This guy's the best basketball player in the league and has been for 15 years but he's used that i mean he i where i really respect lebron james is he's gone above and beyond where michael jordan ever did you know people talk about michael being the greatest player of all time and that might be true and michael did what he wanted to do and he he has his own ways of dealing with these things but i would say in this era you

need a lebron james to come out and say the things that he's saying and be a part of this and he has I mean, you see, you remember those shirts that they wore on the pregame that said, I can't breathe. And then he reposted that picture again from warmup and said, I can't breathe again. It's the same shit. And there's no compunction from him. There's no hold back.

It's just, I'm going to do this because it's the right thing. The NHL players now need to, it can't just be an NHLPA statement. it can't be a brand that's like a cat or a leaf or a flaming sea or whatever it is that your brand is the players peoples who who who have jerseys with their names on the back have to come out and say these things and i'm not expecting perfection you know that's for the pr departments of the nhl teams that's where you're supposed to get it right but an acknowledgement would be fantastic. And it's got to be more than just Sidney Crosby or Ovechkin or McDavid standing at their locker or sitting at their locker with their baseball cap going on. Yeah, you know,

it sucks. It's got to be more than that. It's got to be. It should be. It needs to be. And I sincerely hope that although there is no perfect way to say how this may have affected any of them, i sincerely hope we see something anything from them and i think we will i believe i personally have hope that we will i think that this is a water a watershed moment whether or not this creates the change instantly which i don't think it will because change doesn't come instantly there's more of that consensus that you were talking about earlier jesse building that barack obama was talking about and something anything to me feels like better than whatever the heck they've gotten they've had six days what do we say now what do we do about this i think i

think people would lose their minds in a in a positive way if like any of the players we just mentioned literally literally tweeted three words black lives matter yeah that's it that's it and like we we can't even get that so again we're not we're not saying anyone's a bad person but when you have influence has anyone on the wall behind me tweeted anything or said a statement you know what i mean but like imagine wayne gretzky just randomly comes out and says something or who we got brave wayne gretzky came out and said this is bullshit yeah yeah you know phil esposito will hold my breath we got jordan eberly we got steve eisman you know sydney crosby patrice Bergeron, Chris Pronger,

Brent Burns, Aaron Ekblad, P.K. Subban has said something, so there's one. Brian Giotta, Mark Shifley. Can you guys see any others? Stop bragging about your dolls, Steve. Listen, I like my dolls. We get it. You interview NHL players. Hey, I

worked for Nike one time. Went to the Olympics. Stole a couch. Hey, it was our couch! It was our couch! Gosh darn it. no like yeah you understand what i'm saying so these voices matter because yes if if you don't realize the enormity of what's going on then you're ignorant to the issues and these these

voices matter because every voice matters in this point and they're they're such large figures they they can help that's the thing we're asking people who can help just to help so if your dolls don't want to talk steve then it's very disappointing no and and like another uh you know we we keep bringing up the guy crosby you know well like what can sydney crosby unless he does something illegal get in trouble that is a fabulously rich fabulously talented grown adult in trouble for standing up for black people yes exactly correct for that what is like what's the there's nothing to lose yeah imagine again i'm telling you three words three words and none of us is suggesting amazing

that these people as people if we knew them as human beings rather than just the guy on tv that they wouldn't agree with everything we say we just don't know it'd be nice if they said something i mean we've spent years on this podcast talking about this stuff and we'll continue to um this is a part of life right now and this is a part of life every day for some segments of our listenership and it's important and it goes into sports it gets into sports as we've talked about many times before but the the reality is until you speak up in some manner be it a podcast a tweet a notes app anything it's hard for people to know and it's and it's i can understand how people feel when the best players in the game just will not stand up for anything other than you know i just

want to play hockey i can understand there's there can be a detachment there i can understand that people feel a little on the outside yep there's no more sticks to sports anymore like and they're never fucking one shit all the way through you don't know anything about sports if you say that you just don't You don't understand. I am lazy. It's the same number of words. Just say, I am lazy.

I'm lazy, and I don't want to learn. I am lazy. Sorry, Jesse, what were you going to say? Oh, sorry. I was just saying, sports has been culture. Culture has been sports for 60 years now. Like, get over it. Since Muhammad Ali set up for racial injustice.

I saw a tweet. It was, here's a picture from the protest last night. Just kidding. This is when the Eagles won the Super Bowl. Yeah. You know what I mean? No one was like, hey, stick to sports. The other thing is the – I saw a tweet about all the pictures of –

and more than just the Eagles. Like there was pictures – this one featured several riots, and it wasn't – it was like a couple football games. Montreal was involved in one of them because they've had riots over like Metallica and Guns N' Roses concerts. uh vancouver had a ride obviously after they lost the stanley cup um there was one from an ncaa regular season game where upset the other team they lit a bunch of cars on fire

i saw this thread too and then they're like wait but but don't protest violently at the raptors parade last year i was outside on young street and people were jumping on the the street signs and destroying a bus that was put there to block people like and on saturday everything was very peaceful and no buses were destroyed like it's been worse people you can you can buy a new target you can buy a new bus you can't you can't buy back the life of george floyd were you out the other day i was not on saturday no no i saw fazel was at christy pitts was it christy pitts i didn't know uh yeah that's

where it started um you know the uh um the long and short of it is the it was nice to see certain teams jump out and and and make the statements that they made the nba always does a better job with this uh than anybody else because i think it inordinately affects its superstars and i think the superstars in the in the nba have a significant hold on where that brand goes and what they do and they also think they i think adam silver is a forward-thinking person you know i think if we get into football where they have non-guaranteed guaranteed contracts people are freaked out because they might lose money if they do this look at what happened to colin kaepernick right and they have sort of a regressive management group and ownership um the nhl has guaranteed

contracts man no one's cutting you for giving your opinion so where are you on this and um it's nice to see some but to say that i've been overwhelmed by uh the response to this from the players specifically is is this is not this is not there and i'm happy that i have to tell you i'm I'm certainly happy that MLSC has the people in charge that it does right now with the Raptors, with the Leafs, with TFC, because I don't believe previous regimes, shall we say, would have handled this as well as they have. And I know it's a corporate entity,

but it's a representation of the values of the company that, you know, a bunch of people work at. It's nice. At the end of the day, corporations are ran by people. yeah people are in it are what are the identity of the corporation yes someone like the culture and someone like messiah being at the top of that is so pleasing to see yeah god i hope he never leaves please uh messiah might be president one day man like you won't like but like you know what i mean like if he leaves it's it'll be because he's like gone to the un like it's just

he's one of those people he's just i've met messiah a couple times have you yes i met him i interviewed him uh breakfast television fantastic interview and i was at his he had a film um and i was at the release of that um and was at the after party for that and uh not only as a gentleman but one of the you know you know you're in the presence of someone special you just adam we get where's my messiah doll i don't know if they sold the side dolls i would get you one just just him with like with like a suit and tie on and a basketball thing fuck brooklyn you would have to have batteries that say fuck brooklyn on it oh my god oh my god anyway uh we say all that to say this um all of this is happening because people are

asking to be treated decently they're just asking you to treat them the same way you want to be treated and it's crazy that we have to take it to this level for it to happen yeah it's not even uh please be polite to me it's please do not murder me right yeah and then yeah you know what i mean Yeah, you're absolutely right. We're asking for the black community to be treated equally. Bingo. Yes. So I highly encourage you to read some of the books that Jesse put out there.

Read as much literature as you can. Educate yourself and listen with compassion. In radio, we call it active listening. It's one of the things that our consultants teach us to do because human beings are so used to thinking about what they're going to say next rather than absorbing the information that's being presented to them. So, you know, on this show, we often talk over each other, but I still pretty much hear everything everybody says, right?

We're just very fast. In your life, I'm going to ask you to, with an open heart, listen and not react. Just listen and then think about And brood on and I don't know about you, but I do my best thinking in the shower So oftentimes these things go in my head in the shower It's either show ideas or it's this stuff The deepest darkest things and wherever it is you go to think about things and meditate on things

This is one that's worth it And it's worth it again and again and again And you're not going to solve all the problems in one day um but this is a problem that we must face in our time it is not going away so let's go and let's face it let's attack it and let's create an environment where people are just treated the same is that hard shouldn't be it is though it is the thing it is yeah yeah listen listen twice listen three

times listen four times there's a crazy amount of misinformation out there make sure you get it right and feel free to call out your parents for sharing memes on facebook that are factually incorrect that's the other part of this okay i get some uh i i my parents are actually pretty great um for that stuff uh very progressive people one has a tv show where she calls other people yeah her segment's called fuck you no i uh i cannot tell you how many times i've had to call my mom about her tv show yeah but it's exhausting there are members of my family that do not share my attitude and i have no problem telling them that it's an issue and i don't care how awkward it is we've talked about we talked about this

years ago if it's if someone says something and it makes you uncomfortable tell them that it made you uncomfortable and tell them why and tell them why that sort of attitude isn't even okay to joke about anymore well and and these groups though are so sneaky they're so they're so sneaky because what they they love exploiting the troops they love exploiting the military and they'll do something like about world war ii for example and hey don't you support the troops or whatever and you know your parents or aunts or whatever will retweet it and go yes of course i do but there's a little there's a little stink on the post and you're like what is that and then you click it and you're like whoa no no no no no no like this is one post that they use to suck you in and the

rest of it is crazy racist anti-immigrant stuff yes so you got to really pay attention to where people are getting their information and remember older people are not as good at facebook as you are right and no and don't think uh speaking out online can enact change because we saw an election in 2016 affected by facebook and the things that were going on there so just and everything matters especially on platforms where people take those things they those memes and they they read them and they take them as gospel are we gonna do a press conference today or do we wrap it here i think we wrap okay uh we'll be back wednesday um uh thank you everybody for uh allowing me to spend uh my sunday with my daughter uh it was her first birthday yesterday so um big moment for us

and i really really appreciate it and we will be back in 48 hours um until then stay safe stay healthy, take care of each other, and listen.