Transcripts For CSPAN2 Etan Thomas We Matter 20240714 : vima

CSPAN2 Etan Thomas We Matter July 14, 2024

We are back. Welcome to the gaithersburg book festival. My name is syl sobel, im a reporter for gaithersburg. Proudly supports we are pleased to bring you this fabulous event. When you see them please say thanks. Please silence all your devices. Hope youre following gbs on facebook and instagram. If you post about the festival use the dbf hashtag. Your feedback is really valuable to us. Surveys are available on our website. By committing a survey you will be entered into a drawing for a 100 visa if card. Etan thomas will be signing in the siding areas, copies of the book are on sale in the politics and prose tend. A quick word about buying books. This is a free event but it helps the book festival if you buy a lot of books. The more books we sell at the event the more publishers send their authors here to speak with us. Purchasing books for politics and prose help support one of the greatest independent bookstores, benefiting the local economy and local jobs. And at first glance. It may not be obvious how much etan thomas and i have in common. Etan thomas spent 11 years in the nba including 9 with Washington Wizards as a 6foot 10 inch power forward. A 6foot 10 inch power forward. I of course did not. As a High School Sports writer for community newspaper, i spent a lot of time with and around High School Athletes and young fans. I appreciate how an athlete, especially a professional athlete can influence young people in ways that teachers, coaches, clergy and parents cannot. So does etan thomas. As he describes in his book etan thomas we matter athletes and activism, etan thomas realized in High School People would listen to him because he played basketball, quote, i can raise awareness. And so he has. Poet, author, activist, mentor and motivational speaker and i would add educated, etan thomas has committed himself to be more than an athlete, that is the title of his first book. In this, his fourth book, etan thomas continues to explore the power athletes have to influence youth. He shares with and speak about the experience of athlete activism like john carlos, alonzo mourning, kareem abduljabbar, describes positive impacts athletes can have on social change and encourages other athletes to do the same. For those of you who recall watching etan thomas play, remember he played with passion, energy, commitment. I can say he writes the same way he played basketball, with the same passion and commitment and never backing down from opponents, like racism and social injustice. Today etan thomas will be in conversation with Tony Massenburg. I can say to this audience, Tony Massenburg needs no introduction. He spoke about his first book two hours ago and most of you were in the audience and heard his introduction but if you didnt, tony, former university of maryland basketball star who played professionally. [applause] for 15 seasons in the nba as well as europe and puerto rico. He has been a gaithersburg restaurant tour, sportscaster and an author. I am getting out of their way and lets get the conversation going to lose hes joining in warm gaithersburg welcome for etan thomas. How is everybody doing . Thank you for coming out today. I want to start, everybody who knows me knows my passion for the spoken word. They called me a poet back when i played. I want to bring my son malcolm up. At the end of the book we matter athletes and activism, i not going to do the whole thing. It is called capital. [applause] he is carrying on his athletes. John carlos and tommy smith and kareem abduljabbar, craig hodges and many others. And criticized and hate it, to create negative association because they agree with our presentation of his message. During the National Anthem he took a knee, that represented the captivity of brown and black people in the socalled land of the free. Veterans thought we would have the right to be in or so they say. Oh say can you see. If they cared about their wellbeing, Homeless Veterans and medical treatment for posttraumatic state. We wouldnt have veteran sleeping on sidewalks and other bridges or put food on their familys plate or take off their hats to honor those who served in the military during the game. Fighting for the united states, they kick them to the curb, kicked them out my trash cans on garbage day. They had a lot on their plate, they attacked his character, ridiculed and mocked, chastised and criticized. Said he was antiamerican using the television to pin him down because he called out what wasnt right. They Say Something they dont like. I see them doing what they did to get him to put aside activism, the modern day mohammed ali is here today but as soon as Colin Kaepernick talks about racism and Police Brutality they tell him to shut up and play. I respect Colin Kaepernick. He talks about injustice everywhere as far as the eye can see. Refused to be forced to choose between one bad and one worse, he saw both choices, the lesser of two evils was a good enough option to work with. It was a uturn. And now the nfl is trying to block him, keep him from playing saying hes a negative influence and distraction from the rest of the team. They say he is a bad person and dan snyder is a model citizen. [laughter and applause] using a racist name he knows is offensive to native americans, rapists, murderers and wife beaters with no hesitation, repeated Domestic Violence got a standing ovation which had the nerve to let it come out of my mouth it Colin Kaepernick back the nfl organization, what a bunch of hypocrites. He donated 50 tons of food to somalia. He gave 50,000 to meals on wheels. He held know youre right caps for different cities. He gave money to stand the rock. To support a pipeline that would desecrate the sacred land, poison their water supply and destroy their lives. He stood outside a new York City Parole Office and donated custommade shoes. Hes getting ready for job interviews. He donated millions of dollars to black lives matter. Hes doing this out of the kindness of his heart and you question his character . All this hypocrisy is too much for me. Maybe my 13yearold mind doesnt understand that rationality but i do know a real revolutionary can never be stopped. Colin kaepernick is an inspiration to us all. His ability to stand for something even if it means giving up everything. That is why what he did will always mean a lot. Thank you. [cheers and applause] that is my man, malcolm. So thank you. The sort of thing i like to do is encourage young people to use their voices and develop their minds, their opinions. I do a lot of workshops, i have young people create their own spoken word on whatever topic, not just topics i agree with and that is the beauty of spoken word because you create your own everything. A quick promo of mine in my book we matter athletes and activism and we can start off. Everybody feel good . All right. For cats born without a form of silverware but got that innercity care. For jews who pursue red, white and blue promises from people who acknowledge that for some, life is a single crystal stair. For letdowns from juries who failed to purge, punish or hold those accountable who are sworn to protect and serve. For cats who keep hearing about these good times but only counter the bad. Folks who are tired of seeing victims on trial for their own murder when the trigger man has their backs. For folks who cant stand seeing things come out after the fact the when actually believe the cop was guilty but for some reason couldnt convict him. All i want to do is i am tired of seeing killers become victims. For every tiffany and elijah castile, eric garner and every other child who lost their loved one to triggerhappy cops will get paid leave and go fund me, dont believe for a minute your life doesnt matter. Now that of the chatter across nine indictment and not guilty verdicts no matter how much their injustice burns. I know you are perplexed because the earth gets worse as it turns and we are yearning for respect in a system that was built for us to fail. Telling us tales of freedom and justice for all. Gaming like an arcade and playing ourselves until our lives are over. Kicking in the air without the weed controller instead of wasting our energy but letting mobsters 3 like darren wilson, danielpantaleo and george newman, a bunch of cowards hiding behind their badges like Rudy Giuliani stopping at frisking all reality, trying to destroy our soul, diminish our spirit, investigate our mortality, so children no longer have a dad. They want to say the reason is all about black. [applause] that was awesome. Wasnt that awesome, ladies and gentlemen . Seeing this man go way back, we were 2 guys who like to play physical. I saw him when he first came into the league in 2000. By that point i was ten years in. He was a guy we had a lot of respect for each other and started working out together. I was still working out with him when i was well over 40 and he was in the nba and i was holding my own but i reached the point that i cant do this. Also, tony was instrumental, i had open heart surgery and on my comeback and my training i got with tony and he was pushing me, take it easy on me and i needed that. I thank him for that. He is an author of his fourth book. [applause] a big part of your life, everything you do. Tell us how you got so much. I was into poetry from a young age. I grew up with the last poets, langston hughes, playing around the house. When i got to high school i started writing my own poems and reading about malcolm x and wanted to talk about things like malcolm did. My high school, we were winning state championships in basketball and debate. It was a passion of mine. I remember during your playing days a report a you, quote, the big poet. Can you talk about how do you accept, when you are 6 foot 10, tell people you like to do the spoken word and poetry, what responses do people give you . They look at me kind of weird. I was kind of an aggressive player. The reporter you are talking about wrote for the Washington Times and was trying to mock me because i was a poet and i would use that when speaking to young people and dont care what anybody says and embrace other talent outside basketball. If i were to find my teammates and different places around dc and guys had appreciation for it but i didnt think a reporter would mock me. That is where you are comfortable with who you are. Anybody that knows you a little bit, you were an aggressive player, that is what the general population sees when they hear the name etan thomas, being physical. Can you talk a little bit about how you always spoke your mind and why . When the gentleman was introducing me i discovered my voice in high school. I was stopped by the police on my way to a big game. They thought they recognized me from a mug shot and that is why they kept me so long, trying to figure out where they recognized me from and 45 minutes later they found out realized i was playing basketball. So i wrote it and it became my original oratory. I started performing all over oklahoma and winning a lot and getting a lot of attention and wrote an article about it titled more than athlete. That is where i saw they were doing this because i play basketball as people come up to me and say i appreciate you saying this because it happens all the time but no one listened to us and so continued to use that platform to speak out on Different Things. You were young when that happened and there was no social media. When you think of the situation give us your thoughts on how that would play out today with a young man in the same position you were in, in high school are doing positive things, being mistaken for someone else or go through what you went through. Talk about how that would be handled now . Social media changes everything. I wrote about it in the book one time, leaving from practice and got stopped by the police. I put up my camera, you know what i mean . Turned the radio down, rolled the windows down, put it on the backboard. My hands were license and registration, i said i am going to reach on the dashboard for my license you just asked me for. Is that okay . He said yes. He shined a flashlight on my hand as i slowly reached over and came back. Turned out i had a taillight that was out. That was why they stopped me, nothing terrible happened but i use that as a teaching tool to my son malcolm as to what we have to do and has nothing to do with being fair or not. Malcolm was upset, you didnt do anything wrong. All that for a taillight that was out you not even necessary. We are talking about what should be, we are talking about where we are. When you are a black man stopped by the police, you have to work extra hard, you have to review the situation and the escalator situation you didnt escalate in the first place. The only thing that escalated is the color of your skin. That is the reality we are in. I was stopped by a policeman for Traffic Violation and in a split second we were surrounded by not one, not two but four police cars. I was nervous by the show of force. I asked the officer you told me you pulled me over for a violation. Is this necessary . He told me this wasnt a bad Police Officer. He was a white Police Officer but wasnt necessarily treating me like a criminal but this is what he told me. He said honestly your drivers license reads 6 foot 9, 260 pounds. He said when we see that we automatically tend to have a show of force in case things dont go well. I said okay. My question to you is if you had the opportunity to give Police Officers better training, how would you tell them to do that . They cant think we are all criminals, that is number one. Hearing the story, we have done this with a Different University and touring different places, i just did an ivy league, went to harvard and columbia and yale. The audience was mostly white. We dont know this world and you are teaching us about this world. What can we do to help and what can police due to not have the type of situation happen. It is a privilege not to be in that situation. One of the main feedbacks of my book was hearing different athletes talk about Different Things they of gone through, like hearing dwayne wade talk about how he was afraid for his son after trey von martin was killed by Carmelo Anthony came to baltimore and protested with people because they have a personal connection to it and to say how do you teach somebody to not fear you, it is a tough question to ask. What you have to do, i interviewed some of the family members of the victims of Police Brutality in my book. Terrence crutchers sister tiffany and eric gardners. Emerald and Trayvon Martins castillos sister. Tiffany crutcher, her answer to this question is we have to change the law. You cannot change peoples hearts. If they view you as a criminal and are afraid of you that is how they are going to seal. You have different people from the time they are young look at black people a certain way and it is hard to deprogram that. What you have to do, when he pulled out this weapon when there is no threat, clear things that are set where it is not allowed. Right now unfortunately, i feared for my life, that is it. No other details. We are looking at these different cases, i fear for my life, that is it. That is why i have respect for tiffany in particular because she is pushing for laws to be changed. For the language to be different. When betty shelby was on trial she cant say that is it. She has to show there was immediate threat, pushing for those laws to change what each Police Department is different. It is a tough battle because each one is completely different. The nypd is different. The fight has to continue because we dont want to keep having tragedies like that. In your book we matter athletes and activism you talk to a lot of influential people in sports, both young and old. Can you talk about the differences in their responses if you see differences between the Younger Generation and the older generation . The older generation, i interviewed kareem abduljabbar, john all the people i grew up admiring. Listening to them, the thing they are saying is they are happy to see this resurgence of activism in the Younger Generation. For a while it was quiet for a little while but now you have athletes, starting with lebron and Colin Kaepernick and the main athletes who are not hesitant to use their voice. The thing that is so incredible is they have social media where they dont have to go to the Washington Times to tell their story. They can use their own. Lebron has more twitter followers than trump. [applause] they are their own media. Imagine if mohammed ali had a twitter account back in the day. So much power there athletes have and i went can you continue to encourage them to use that power . That is collective. I interviewed john walsh for the book, he watched lebron and carmelo and chris paul when they made their statement and how powerful it was and how it inspired him. These are their peers but he is younger than them. I want to show these athletes of the Younger Generation, they are using their voices and hopefully continue to inspire. Very curious to know one guys opinion. Mark mood abdul raul, he took a stand in the 90s, would not acknowledge the flag and the warmups, did what Colin Kaepernick did before Colin Kaepernick and subsequently found himself out of the league, not in the manner Colin Kaepernick because it was clear that he deserved to be an nfl quarterback but was not given an opportunity. What do you think the difference is between the way he was portrayed in the 90s versus the what Colin Kaepernick is portrayed now given both protested the flag . As far as the nba there is a different administration. David stern was different from adam

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