Joining me to discuss free speech and sport is Dr, Vernon Andrews.

He is a sport sociologist scholar, and a lecturer at San Jose State University.

Dr. Andrews thanks for joining us to talk about free speech and sport.

>> Sure Catherine, good to be here.

>> As you know, I'm sure being a sport sociologist scholar, there's so

much conversation and confusion and debate about whether or

not sport is a viable platform for political and social activism.

What is your though on this topic?

>> Well, my thought is that sport hasn't had much,

I would say, contestation since 1968.

Since the Olympics when Smith and Carlos and Lee Evans and others protested.

And that came right out of the San Jose State specifically.

And I think Michael Jordan sort of set a pattern of athletes not participating

in protests or in speaking out about politics because of sponsorship.

So many athletes followed his lead and pulled away.

Every now and then there was something that came up, but

very very small incidence up until I would say the Miami Heat and

their protest with Trevon Martin hoodies on.

>> So you talk about how vibrant the protests were in 1968.

Talk a little bit more about what has been the reason for us seeing this increased

activism among athletes at the highschool level, college level,

professional level, and there are even international teams who are protesting?

What has led to this ramped expression that we're seeing among athletes?

>> Sure, well.

I think I wanna answer two questions with that one question.

And that is first, I would wish if there wasn't any protest in sport.

I wish that we didn't have any protests in sport, but unfortunately due

to a lot our police actions against black youth and black adults people

have been forced to try to redress those grievances in a public sphere.

And athletes have a lot of family members and

they themselves have often gone through police harassment.

So, for them to sit idly by and watch and listen wasn't an appropriate response,

so they have protested and that's for them the number one case.

It's been around the criminal justice system due process,

it's been about a sort of uncontested police

brutality in black communities, it's going on for decades by the way.

This isn't a recent phenomenon, and people have just had enough and athletes'

war on public stage and I think they just said, it's time we get something.

I do think though that this was much like

they do at sports when they have their wave.

When everyone stands up and people stand up and follow up after that.

I think athletes saw themselves as starting the wave,

hoping that the rest of us professors, lecturers, students,

everyone else, would join them.

Though we haven't quite joined them in full numbers after that,

I think their protests may have had some effect cuz we've got few cases since then.

But I think it's primarily because of that one issue.

That singular issue of police brutality in and around African American communities.

>> Well since it's an off the field issue that's creating this activism.

There's a notion that athletes can do that off the field,

but during sports and on the playing filed is not the place for

what many perceive to be political, cultural, social expressions.

Why is sport okay?

Why is it okay?

>> Well, that's actually a very good point.

And again, I'd ask a broader question which is the underlying issue is,

is sport an okay arena to express political ideas?

And whatever they are.

And I think that we miss the point with that question that many things happen

on sporting fields that are political that we often

don't wanna see as political because they're USA.

But when you have a large flag the entire size of a football field,

on a football field, that's political.

When you have the military marching out, that's political.

When you have flybys by jets, that's political.

It's all built into the military complex and the military structure, but

we don't see that as political because we're American.

But if we watched a game in any other country, and

they did the same thing with military march, with flags, with tanks.

Or whatever else, we would gasp and say wow, this country is so

political they're brainwashing their people.

So before we accept that for ourselves,

let's just look at the fact that there's a lot of politics that happen in sport.

And if I was to say who would take the flag out of the game, or

the National Anthem or all those other things, people would get upset and

say no we need that.

So there is an argument by Emmett Gill, a peer of ours, who says that yeah okay,

we're gonna take athletes protesting out, let's take all of politics out.

Let's take pink ribbons and pink shoes for

breast cancer, because these were all political decisions by the NFL.

So, if we're gonna take it out, let's take it all out.

But if not, let's not pick and choose and cherry pick what we like and

what we dislike.

Because really, in terms of sports,

the politics we don't like on the field are the politics that we don't accept.

>> So when you talk about cherry pick, what we like and what we don't like.

Share with us some of the type of expressions that you think

athletes should have a right to demonstrate on the field.

>> Well, political aspirations and political comments aside, I think

that freedom of expression that I talked about at the beginning is very, very key.

And I say freedom of expression because for African Americans,

sometimes it's not just the freedom of speech because we speak with our bodies,

with our hair, with everything that we have.

Because quite often we weren't able to say things verbally in our culture

through Jim Crow and through slavery times.

So we use everything to express ourselves.

Especially if you go to an African American church,

very different from the traditional white church.

Because the ministry is expressing and the choirs are expressing and

it's a place that we find joy in expression.

I think now, given our Sundays are football fields and basketball courts,

a lot of what we express are those emotions from being a human being.

And I think it's okay.

I think the point of contention comes in here.

It's been traditionally that sports have been all white,

mainstream sports in America.

And if you have Whites deciding those rules for

other Whites who are playing the sport, I can accept that.

That actually makes a lot of sense.

But we're talking about a league like football in the early 50s was still 100%

white, and that's okay.

So now that you have the league at 68% African American,

when do other cultures get to factor into the making of rules about sports?

Now, I've been talking about this since 1989 when I first started my research.

And I'm happy to say that this year, for the first time, the NFL said Dr.

Andrews, I think you might be right about this.

So we're gonna allow people to express themselves, this is the first year.

Now, I don't wanna be cynical but I will say that I think part of the reasoning

was, is they were losing a lot of their African American base

because of protest against athletes protesting.

So while I do think it was a bit Machiavellian,

I've decided that I'm still okay with it.

The change happened anyway,

and my contingent though is that you have to take the rules off the books.

You can't ease it in and

then when A huge majority of whites start complaining and then pull it back.

Now, it's a freedom of expression, and you should allow it.

And athletes will monitor themselves, too.

And most athletes say it's okay to have a little fun on the field.

>> So, one of the ways that we see athlete expression is really

manifested in end zone celebrations, celebrations after a play,

and you have written extensively about end zone celebrations.

And there are many people who think that has no role in sport,

and they see it as defiant.

Talk about the whole notion of end zone celebrations and

why you think they are important in sport.

>> Right, well, they're outlawed completely in college football.

Completely. You can't spike the football, you can't

point to the crowd, you can't do anything that would draw attention to yourself.

You have to celebrate with your teammates, basically, so

it's out in college football.

The professional game has ebb and flow depending on the year.

Now, the first rules came in 1984 and ever since then,

they've been going back and forth.

Now, this year, they've allowed full expression and support.

Now, I should say personally, I don't like most end zone expression.

And not because I think it's out of line in football,

it's just that I don't think they've practiced enough.

I don't think they've really thought about it.

I don't think they're individual enough to kinda fall in line.

This year's been very different.

I been surprised by a lot of fun the players are having, so.

The owners want players to hate each other, and they want there to be war, and

they want it to be a nasty sport, but now the players are all in the same union.

So now players can have fun and feel like they're still friends off the field and

shake hands, do prayers when it rails.

So I think it's important for athletes to be able to express full emotions.

And I say this because when athletes have been shut down, told

don't express themselves, something inside them dies, and they've talked about that.

That it's not fun anymore.

And, so for home fans, they always enjoy expression,

it's the road fans that tend not to enjoy it, and I wrote about that.

But, if you tend to express yourself at home,

it's more acceptable than when you are on the road in front of the opposing crowd.

>> So, [COUGH] when you talk about the freedom of expression, and

you talk about the rules, there's a perception that this whole notion of

sportsmanship have been instituted as a way of controlling

the bodily expressions of many athletes and in many regards we see many of

those athletes who are doing the celebrations in the end zones and

all those other types of expressions, many of them are African American.

But I want you to talk about this concept of sportsmanship and

how that infringes on this notion of freedom of expression for athletes.

>> Right, in sportsmanship is one of those contentious phrases that has come along

and the idea is, and I found it in my research, in my own personal research.

When I ask people what good sportsmanship was.

Everybody, black and white, came up with the exact same answers.

The differences came up that they were the question, what is bad sportsmanship?

And many people varied.

And African-Americans and whites really varied on what bad sportsmanship was.

Because for some dancing or slam dunking or

a behind the back pass was bad expression.

But for lot of black athletes, violence was bad sportsmanship.

Throwing a pitch at a batter's head, trying to intentionally spike someone,

or trying to intentionally harm someone in the football field, or

seeing someone express themselves and inflicting harm.

Those things black athletes thought were bad sportsmanship and

traditionally in this country given that we're founded on violence.

Violence is accepted as a condoned way of behaving and not often it's considered

bad, it's considered appropriate redress of grievances shall we say.

So my experience, black athletes thought violence was a bad expression,

and white athletes thought any expressions of joy were bad sportsmanship.

>> Wow, [COUGH] so it's interesting to see.

The cultural contours of what constitutes sportsmanship and

what constitutes appropriate expression and inappropriate expression.

One of the things you alluded to earlier,

when we look at sports in the black community.

I mean, you're a sports sociology scholar so you're deep into the weeds of

the intersection of sport, race, culture, gender, etc.

I want you to talk a little bit about the cultural,

social symbolic significance of sport for black males.

Because many of the black males are the one who are out front

with the activism and the expression.

What is so symbolic about sport that they're really using that platform

as a way of establishing masculinity or otherwise?

>> My goodness that's a big one.

Let's see.

Well, very good question.

Because if we don't see why an athlete is doing it, we have to ask why.

And boy, so much, I'm gonna go do a deeper dive and

ask the the bigger question which is or make a statement about American society.

African-Americans have traditionally not had many paths for success.

Not as many as whites and not out of our own doing but because there are a lot

of road blocks through the years we were allowed to compete in.

Even sport up until the 50s, predominantly was said to be white because we

couldn't contribute on the same level or compete on the same level as whites.

And this is what with male and female athletes do, black male and female.

So I have a chapter in my book called Act Like You Been There Before.

It's based on the concept that whites are saying, why don't you pretend that you've

had wealth all along, pretend that you have kind of a job anyway.

Why can't you just pretend all these things and

not be happy when something good happens to you?

And I had to really break down that phrase,

because that phrase is intended, that phrase is a taunt,

it's telling us to pretend that we have something that you held back from us.

And so for African-Americans, when we do succeed somewhere like in sport,

one of those few avenues.

To a degree I would say Hollywood and maybe to a degree politics nowadays,

academia, we're having a lot of avenues for success.

There have been streams of people coming through, but my goodness,

tell me to just shut up and sit down because you've always had

those privileges and I should act like you, I should pretend.

For me that's just disgraceful.

And I don't think actually many whites realize when they make that phrase.

So sport has been so significant for African-Americans because it is one of

those avenues where we get as close as we possibly see to meritocracy.

And the myth of meritocracy.

And so what we achieve in this arena for African-American males who for

the most part, have had struggles with masculine with manhood,

with achieving with protecting the family with providing for the family.

Due to us being ripped apart, way back in slavery times, from the family.

So given that, I think this is the black male chance to be a warrior.

That's where he can become a warrior, that's where he can say you know what,

I've got strength, I've got power, I've got skill, I've got deception,

I've got all those things and I'm going to bring those things together and

practice and do well at that and I'm gonna achieve.

Now, as youth, as black youth, and especially black males,

that's a sign of masculinity.

And regrettably, that's the only path.

But now we're seeing other paths open up.

So I don't want us to focus just on that.

Because I think that even in recreation, black men can still get that joy.

But I see this as a contestation for

black men battling with masculinity, but now slowly creeping out and

saying you know what, maybe it's not just about masculinity Maybe it's about power.

And if we have the power what would we do with this power?

And I think the shift has happened they say we can use this power for

social good rather than for our own self aggrandizement.

>> So when you talk about power in the contestation that's going on,

we have owners and managers and even coaches to some extent,

trying to make sure that they are telling the expressions.

And yet you talk about the control significance of sport to black athlete.

So all athletes are also trying to push the boundaries of expression.

There's a concept that I know you have written about and you know about.

The cool pose phenomenon that provides an element of resistance through expression.

Explain to the audience what that concept is and how it applies to free expression.

The cool pose phenomenon.

>> So that's about African American males in primarily African American communities,

walking in a certain way, standing in a certain way,

using their bodies as a sort of personal shield, not only against aggression.

But also to show that they're in control, that they have power,

that they are men, that they could be attractive.

All those other embedded things cuz all we had control over was our own bodies.

Quite often, we didn't own a home, or we didn't have a great job.

So at least, if we could look the part, that may be a bit deceptive.

But if we can at least look the part and

feel like we were shielding ourselves from harm, then it gave us a sense of strength.

And so that gets carried into every arena that we're in.

And sometimes I have to tell my students, okay, you know what?

We're in class now.

You don't have to do all of that now.

Let's just focus.

Turn your hat around.

Pull your pants up, sit there.

Because sometimes, we take it from one area to the next, and

we're not conscious of still doing that.

That we could actually, I mean, and it's that double consciousness we have to have.

We have to kind of be in control, and we also have to learn that we have to let

people in to allow us that feminine side or whatever that we've been resisting.

So I think the can have some harm for black men also because we can get so

hardened and so used to defending ourself on our own personal turf that

we don't let in that feminine side or they don't become kind of gentle.

And I think that's slowly happening as teachers like you and

I start teaching from mindfulness,

and that you don't have to worry about protecting yourself anymore.

Now's the time to actually give back and grow.

>> Tell me your perception of where this movement is.

As we get ready to wind down this conversation,

how do you feel about what we're seeing, the impact it's having,

either on the athletes or the fans, on the institution of sport?

How would you evaluate this movement that we're seeing relative

to free speech in sport?

>> Well, I think there have been some successes.

And I'm tempted to say we've taken two steps forward and one step back.

But I just think we've taken two steps forward.

I think that we've fought for this freedom of expression I think we have it now.

Baseball's still far behind because baseball is 8% African American now.

So they're not as concerned as the NBA and

the NFL are with allowing athletes to speak up and move forward.

I think the main reason the NFL and the NBA have to come to the party

is that they see that the purpose of the movement was valid.

If athletes ask the question,

are you okay with black people being slaughtered without any police protection,

at times, without any police bringing about the charges?

Most people say, well, no, people should be accountable.

And those, excuse me, those things shouldn't have happened.

That came out wrong and we're sorry.

And, just like with school shootings, thoughts and prayers only go so far.

We need to be about preventing this from happening in the future and

doing everything we can.

So I think there's been progress.

And I think there's more progress to be made.

Because I think more people realize there will always be detractors and

say this is anti America or it's anti cops, or

it's anti the military, or it's anti first responders, but

I think those people are in some deep denial about what's going on.

And I can understand if you live in a community that has all police officers and

they protect you, and

they take your cats out of trees, and they're always there for you.

You could get a feeling of the false consensus hypothesis, which is, well,

the way I see police officers, and the way they see me, is the way everyone should

because this is how they treat me, and I'm sure they treat everyone else this way.

So why are you upset?

Because they treat you like this.

Well I think people, we just live in bubbles and very very different worlds.

And my hope is that the more and more black lives speaks out the more and

more white allies get on board and other cultures come to the party.

They say wow.

We can actually see this even though it has nothing to do with us.

It's important.

That's why I say to my students the reason why I promote Native Americans and

their fight for the elimination of names, of racist names in football and

sports is because even though that issue isn't my issue,

I'm still part of the problem unless I'm moving in the direction of solving it.

And that's a valid case they make and I try to fight for

that or women's issues as much as I can these days

because I think women should be in more leadership positions.

They should be running the country.

We should give them their due chance to run the show.

So I my female students really pushing themselves to be in leadership roles and

take leadership roles, as they often do in student groups.

And I think with this movement, and

I can understand white males feeling like their turf is being taken over.

But it never was their turf.

They were only holding people out illegally and now it's time to really

truly be meritocratic society where we can all participate and

help solving these problems because they have not solved the problems on their own.

>> Well, again, you have been providing us with so much insightful information.

I wanna give you a chance to make any call to action.

Or any closing remarks relative to this debate in this notion

of free speech in sport.

>> I'm happy to see that women and the WNBA expressed themselves.

High school athletes can now express themselves.

And primarily in line with the cause of social

justice and each movement I see is about social justice.

Whether it's women protesting about equal pay.

Whether it's again Native Americans protesting for those names being taken

away and Major League Baseball agreed about a month ago that yes,

that Cleveland should get away with Chief Wahoo as its mascot.

So we're hoping for the same thing with Washington and

its football team, its professional football team.

But I think my call to action with my students, that I usually say is,

I want people to look at why people protest, and key into it,

and listen to their own words about why they're doing what they do

because quite often if you go to some website or

hear your own social blah blah blah what they say, then it gets all distorted.

One man at a grocery store said to me,

he said, do you support the Black Lives Matter movement?

And I said yes.

And he said well for

me that's like me saying to you that I'm a member of the KKK.

And I said, how did you get that notion?

How did we get to mentioning people and what not?

And I realized that the news that he watches and

listens to continually say negative things about the other,

whether it's women, or blacks or Mexican Americans or immigrants or anything else.

And I think we have to be careful of the information we consume.

I would like everybody to look at issues and

get involved in issues apart from their own cultural, racial,

ethnic, sexual group also, because that brings us together.

And so for blacks to be involved in the Native American movement,

to be involved in women's issues, to be involved with gay and

lesbian, LGBT issues, all of these things cause power limits and

give us a bigger vision of what the society could be.

So my call back to the students is just, step out of your own world,

look at someone else's protest, understand.

There are students protesting now in Florida, and now around the country.

I mean, my goodness, tomorrow,

we're gonna have a big wave in this country on March 24th.

And I'm in full support of my students going and

participating at the collegiate level.

So I say to step outside yourself, look at what others are doing, join

in to a counter protest, and just like we like white allies who come involved in

African American movements, we need to be black allies with those movements.

Because, listen, I've lived in New Zealand for 14 years.

You would not believe how they look at us as role models, as African Americans.

Strong role models for them to get back all their rights.

People around the world look to African American culture for signs of protest.

So at some point, we acknowledge that and say,

yeah, let's keep doing what we're doing and let's spread the wealth.

So my call to action is just for people to look outside themselves,

look at our movements, study those movements, and talk to those people.

Listen to their words and why they do what they do.

>> Well, thank you so much for

giving us this interesting understanding of the juxtaposition of race and

culture and masculinity and sport and politics and culture.

I mean that's what makes this whole discipline and sport sociology so

fascinating.

Thank you so much.

Again, Dr. Vernon Andrews, a sports sociologist and

a lecturer at San Jose State University, giving is some very unique insight on

why expression is so important to sport in general, and

maybe notably for African-American males in particular.

Thank you so much, Dr. Andrews.

>> Well, thank you for your time, and I thank your students for listening in.

>> You, as well.

Speech as Expression: A Discussion with Vernon Andrews

Free Speech in Sport Teach-Out

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