We Matter

by Etan Thomas

  Everybody who knows me or has heard me speak is aware of the influence that Malcolm X has had on my life. I remember the day I picked up The Autobiography of Malcolm X in the seventh grade—it literally changed my entire life. It was as if I was walking around with blinders on and then someone took them off. Anyone who knew me back then saw the change. I started talking differently, told everyone to never use the N-word around me, started challenging teachers about what we were being taught. I was ordered by teachers and the principal to stop doing the Black Power salute during school assemblies (and of course I didn’t stop). I could keep going, but my point is: at that moment I officially became WOKE, but I needed guidance and I needed mentoring, and I am just thankful that I had people at that time to help me through everything.

  Dr. Edwards talks about Muhammad Ali being mentored by Malcolm X, and I wanted to delve a little deeper into this subject. Who better to speak with than one of Malcolm X’s daughters? I have done several projects with Ilyasah Shabazz before, and she has participated in a few panel discussions I have organized. I wanted to ask her about the mentoring that her father provided for Muhammad Ali. Who knows what Ali’s legacy would have been had he never received that nurturing? He may have just been another great boxer, and not the ultimate symbol of the athlete-activist who doesn’t hesitate to stand firm on what he believes, even in the face of intense opposition.

  Me and Malcolm with Ilyasah Shabazz. After the conversation Malcolm said to me, "Daddy, can you believe you just interviewed Malcolm X's daughter?"

  Etan: How important do you think it is for athletes to link with activists the way that Muhammad Ali connected with Malcolm X?

  Ilyasah Shabazz: My father played a pivotal role providing Muhammad Ali with a more accurate understanding of his self-worth, contrary to what was systemically taught about people of color—specifically of African ancestry. Muhammad Ali said had he not met my father, his epitaph would have simply read, Here lies one of the greatest fighters. But because of my father, he was so much more, and Malcolm helped him develop into the man he became . . . They developed a friendship and brotherhood. He was right there with him when he became the heavyweight champion of the world at the age of twenty-two. My father recruited Muhammad Ali into the Nation of Islam. He was right beside him on the day a young Cassius Clay announced that his new name was Muhammad Ali, when he became the heavyweight champion of the world and he had all eyes on him.

  Etan: So without that nurturing from Malcolm X, Ali would have remained Cassius Clay—not only in name but in consciousness.

  Shabazz: Exactly! He wouldn’t have known his higher being, his potential and power as a man . . . Once you have an identity, understand your rich heritage, and you know your power and your capability, it’s like someone turns on the lights when most of your life you have been sitting in a dark room . . . If nobody points out that something is wrong, you won’t know that something is wrong. If nobody points out injustice, you’ll think that everything is just. All that has to be cultivated; you have to be taught and then you can go about making a change in the world, and that’s what we are all called to do . . . And so in history, we see why it is extremely important for scholars, activists, teachers—everyone who is in any position to mentor—to do so with the younger generation as a whole, and in speaking specifically about athletes, entertainers, musicians, actors who are able to move the needle and gain the attention of the masses because they have the eyes and ears of the world.

  When Ali became the champion of the world, and he had all eyes on him, his message reverberated throughout the entire world because of that celebrated platform. My father spoke to him regarding his responsibility to others. So if Muhammad Ali, like many others, never knew of the power or the will he possessed, that in itself would have been a tragedy. And there are so many athletes now who don’t know their potential and their power and responsibility, which is why I agreed to talk with you, Etan, and support your work.

  Etan: What are some other things your father taught Ali?

  Shabazz: Well, he taught him how not to be deterred by or fear the media, to use that attention to his advantage and make a stand for what he knew was right for all human beings . . . My father was fearless because he believed that God was the only judge, and he passed down that sentiment to Muhammad Ali.

  Etan: How important do you think that level of mentorship is in today’s world?

  Shabazz: Again, this speaks to the importance of mentoring, especially having intergenerational discussions—especially for young men without fathers . . . We are missing the intergenerational connection our ancestors once instilled in their young. I mean, they went through an entire process of preparation. Lots of athletes have an emptiness and don’t know that they are already an authentic jewel just as they are . . . Just think if some of our great athletes were told how great and powerful they really are as they are. If they were told of their potential and what they could really become. But they have to be taught . . . They also have to be forewarned of the many forces that will come to tear them down, which come in many, many forms.

  Etan: Why don’t we see more of an emphasis on mentoring?

  Shabazz: Well, there are a lot of reasons why many of us are reluctant to mentor . . . We still have divisions within our culture that have been plaguing our people since slavery . . . One thing I learned from my parents is: when you understand history in its accuracy and totality, you understand your self-worth and you understand that no one is going to fix your personal or societal challenges. We have to do these things ourselves. And many celebrities really have stepped up to the plate. They understand the African proverb that it takes a village to raise a child. It’s the only way.

  Interview with Shaun King

  When it comes to activism, social justice, and police brutality, one of the few reporters who I consider a fellow activist and who is making sure injustice is exposed is Shaun King.

  King has written a great deal about the Black Lives Matter movement. His coverage of the Mike Brown murder and the following rebellion in Ferguson was groundbreaking. His contributions to the liberal website the Daily Kos centered on civil rights issues and violence against Black people. In August 2015, he started Justice Together, an organization focused on reducing police brutality.

  King was a journalist for the New York Daily News until August 2017, producing an article just about every day that challenged injustice. He left the Daily News to become a writer-in-residence at Harvard University’s Fair Punishment Project. He has also mentored several athletes, which is something that I was eager to discuss with him. He gave great exposure and coverage to Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp, at a time when many were suggesting that Kaepernick was all talk and not actually doing things in the community. King is an ally who many athlete-activists today should connect with. Not only for mentoring, but for covering their stories, their work, and properly presenting their messages. As Malcolm X said, “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

  Etan: How important do you feel it is for athletes to connect with activists?

  Shaun King: It was in my role as a journalist that I first started really connecting with a lot of athletes. It was almost two years ago that Colin Kaepernick first reached out to me . . . I’d seen that he was posting what I thought was some conscious, awakened stuff, and I could tell that he was growing and changing and he just started asking me questions like, “Hey, explain this to me”; “Hey, what do you think about this case of police brutality?” He just wanted insight. That’s how our friendship started. He was playing in the league and he was disturbed about police brutality and was looking for somebody to give him some additional insight and perspective. I appreciated that. I had come to know many athletes and, as you know, a lot of guys are really isolated and insulated. Some of them, for a lot of different reasons, aren’t reading the
news on a daily basis . . .

  What I saw in Colin was somebody who was saying, “Hey, for most of my life, sports has dominated every decision I’ve made.” I saw somebody who was saying, “I’m trying to grow in wisdom and understanding about it.”

  Etan: He educated himself.

  King: Yeah, you could put a mic in front of his face at any given point in time. When I first started hearing him speak about it publicly, he wasn’t just parroting what I told him, he had developed these understandings of the issues . . . Everyone found out real quick that, not only was he a brilliant guy, but that he knew exactly what he was talking about and exactly what he was doing . . . I’ve had some of the top guys in the NBA, NFL call me and write me and . . . they’re trying to understand like many of the guys. There’s police brutality in the city that they’re living in . . . People are asking them to speak out about something, and because of my own visibility, athletes come to me and ask, “Can you help me understand this issue?” Or they’ll even run some of their own thoughts by me . . . A few times athletes speak out on issues before they are really ready, and they can really make a fool of themselves.

  Etan: Or the media makes fools of them because they are not prepared to defend their position.

  King: Right. I’ve seen a few guys do it and they meant well, completely, but they just didn’t know what they were talking about . . . You can tell the difference between the guys who spent the time thinking about it, talking to people, or even taking the next step, doing work . . . When those guys speak, it’s night-and-day difference. Some of it is just that the guys are twenty-two years old. Many have one year of really crappy formal education, where pretty much they are just there to play ball, and all of a sudden they are expected to speak on complex issues and they just struggle out of the gate doing it. Before Colin ever spoke up and said a word, he’d been in the league for a number of years. So we are talking about a guy who took a long time to understand, to come around, and it makes a big difference. Also, when you form these relationships with activists, they’ll have your back . . .

  Etan: Who are some of the other players you have written about and supported?

  King: Cam Newton is probably one of the best examples. Cam has a really huge heart and he’s a really good guy and he grew up in Atlanta, in the city. He and his dad both have been connected to people in life—not in sports, in everyday life—and experienced police brutality; they both have dealt with discrimination, but for some reason he has gotten the impression of the guy who doesn’t care about the issue . . . There was a terrible incident of police brutality right there in Charlotte where there was a brother who was shot and killed. It was during the season and what most everyday people don’t understand is, particularly during the NFL season, a lot of these guys are not looking at trending topics on Twitter. They’re not watching local news, national news. Some of these guys are living and breathing football, they’re dealing with injuries and struggles. They’re dealing with the pressure of the team.

  So people were asking him what he thought about this particular incident and he was trying his best to kind of articulate thoughts, and some activists saw it like, “Awww, man,” and calling him names and thought he was a sellout. I was like, listen, you know I was working with his team, working directly with him and people around him to try to help him understand the issue. Here was the struggle with Cam. Cam had made up in his mind that he had a limited amount of influence, but he was going to use his influence to work directly with kids in Charlotte and around the country . . . He made the decision: “You know what, I’m just going to directly work to impact and influence kids to make a difference in their lives and that’s going to be my thing.” I respect that. But a lot of people saw it and were like, “I don’t know why this guy isn’t doing anything.”

  But if his thing is going to be children’s education, children’s mentoring, in Charlotte and around the country, let that be his thing. If Colin’s thing is going to be police brutality, then let’s also not expect his thing to be, you know, childhood obesity . . .

  I saw the same thing with Damian Lillard. Damian wrote a couple of tweets basically saying, “There’s so many things that we can’t control, I wish we’d just focus on the things we could control in our own communities.” What he was trying to say was very similar to what Cam was saying . . . This is a brother who was born and raised in the Bay Area, who grew up in Oakland. What he was really saying is, “Damn it, I just want to know what I can do to help my community of people in Oakland.” It just didn’t come out that way.

  Etan: Did you ever talk to Richard Sherman after he criticized certain aspects of Black Lives Matter?

  King: I didn’t, man . . . I think most of what he said, I agree with. Some of it is how he said it. It’s the same thing that jammed up Damian Lillard, same thing that kind of jammed up Cam. I think their heart’s in the right place and I think they’re doing the right stuff. I love Richard Sherman. I think he’s one of the smartest, most brilliant guys in the league. He’s brilliant period. But because he doesn’t have deep relationships with activists, when he says something, it comes out in a way that I don’t think represents his heart very well. That’s what I tried to work with both Cam and Damian Lillard on: “I don’t think what you’re saying is a good representation of how you feel.” Because what Damian was telling me was some superconscious, pro-Black, procommunity stuff. What he didn’t know was, he was sounding like the talking points of some people who don’t have our best interest in mind.

  Etan: I want you to tell me what you did with Colin Kaepernick in covering the Know Your Rights Camp and how important that was, because people didn’t know about that actual work that he was doing. Everybody was just saying, “He’s talking about all of this, but where’s the actual work?” And you showed it.

  King: My ten-year-old son did the camp. He wanted to do it—my son is a huge fan—and so when I went out to cover it, it was a few things that I noticed right away. First was, this was something Colin had thought about and considered deeply . . . He brought experts to talk about Black history. He brought in financial experts to teach the kids about financial literacy. The kids showed up for Colin and they got Colin. He took pictures, he gave them wonderful gifts including membership to Ancestry.com. He shared with the kids how he was adopted and grew up with white parents, but that taking the ancestry test gave him deep roots to where he came from and who he was. There were so many things that touched me . . . He hadn’t hired some PR firm. As a matter of fact, he asked me to sign a confidentiality agreement because he didn’t even want any media there. He wanted it to just be for the kids. He was like, “Please don’t tell anybody that you’re coming. I don’t want cameras there. I don’t want the media there.”

  He went on to do that same thing in New York; he just did Chicago, and around the same time he also pledged to donate a million dollars from his endorsements and salary to charities all around the country. Colin wrote me and he said, “Listen, I want you to help us build a list of the best organizations all around the country,” and he gave me a list of twenty cities . . . “We want to know the people that are on the ground.” And like literally the next month he started giving away the money. In thinking about that in retrospect, Etan, this was a guy whose future was not even promised in the league. I think he understood that even then. We don’t know if he’s ever going to make millions of dollars playing professional sports again, and he’s continued month after month to give away hundreds of thousands of dollars and to keep his promise. I’ve interacted with him even over these last few weeks. He’s deeply fulfilled by it. He loves making a difference. He loves impacting the lives of these kids . . .

  Colin is saying, “Well, damn, I’m going to speak out on police brutality, but I’m just going to go straight to the kids, I’m going straight to the community, and I’m going to impact them directly.” And so Colin has an A-plus rating among every activist in America. And he’s going to keep that for the rest of his life . . . S
o you’re starting to see some other guys doing the same thing. You look at the Bennett brothers in the NFL. Those guys are doing the hard work behind the scenes, low-key. Activists love those guys because, behind the scenes, they are working with people, understanding it, and it makes all the difference.

  Chapter 10

  Having “the Talk” WITH Young Male Athletes Matters

  I coach my son’s AAU team, the Dynamic Disciples. We were coming back from the nationals tournament in Virginia Beach. Driving past the Confederate tributes still on display makes me sick to my stomach. Robert E. Lee Highway, the stretch of Jefferson Davis Highway through Alexandria, the Confederate memorial statue in Old Town. Monument Avenue in Richmond features monuments of five Confederate leaders. Leesburg is named after Robert E. Lee. Gallows Road in Fairfax, Virginia, which runs from Tysons Corner to Annandale, is rumored to be named after the execution device, and who exactly do you think they were executing? Needless to say, I’m not a very big fan of Virginia.

  We stopped at a convenience store so the guys could use the restroom and get some snacks. As soon as we walked in, I saw the clerks immediately perk up and they began to watch all of us very closely. I myself went to the restroom, then quickly came out and stood next to the front door facing the store. I said to all of the players, “Stop playing and joking, get what you need and let’s go. Make sure you get a receipt for whatever you purchase.” Their fun and laughing quickly disappeared when they heard my tone change. After they got what they needed, we walked out and saw the father of our center, Big Chris, speaking with a policeman near our van. I heard our team captain Riley literally gasp. I immediately grew concerned. As we approached the van, we saw Chris’s dad telling the policeman that we were an AAU team and that we were coming from nationals, etc.