A special message from The Big Story

Jordan: Hey, it’s Jordan. You might’ve thought that was the beginning of an ad, ’cause that’s how I introduced them. But there are no ads in today’s episode. We’re not making any money off this. There’s also no guests today, there’s just me. I didn’t want to not do a show because what’s happening in the world is a big story and this is what we do. But we can’t do business as usual either. And I also didn’t want to put the onus on another one of our guests to explain this unexplainable shit for us. So, you get me. I promise you, at least it’ll be short. Since George Floyd was killed by the police this spring, we’ve used this space to discuss police brutality and racism and the criminal justice system and everything else that perpetuates white supremacy. Do I think that’s made a difference? I hope so, but honestly, I doubt it. Here’s why. You chose to listen to this episode of The Big Story. And if you chose to do that after all the episodes we’ve done over the past few months, I’m going to guess you also agree white supremacy is a problem. And that’s great. That’s table stakes. But if you don’t agree, then you already tuned us out and you left us a bad review, you called me an SJW, and you know, God bless you. I don’t have a hope of changing your mind. I actually don’t think the media can change anyone’s mind anymore, because I don’t think that we can agree on a version of the truth to use as a starting point for a discussion. Obviously I wish that wasn’t the case. I got into this business as an idealistic young newspaper reporter, who just knew that if I presented the facts, if I just told the story, as it was on the ground, the truth would win. I’m not that dumb anymore. It won’t. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth telling true stories. That’s why I do this show, I love it. But it does mean that telling true stories alone isn’t enough. Which brings us to today’s Big Story. I’m recording this on Thursday afternoon. Last night, NBA teams led by the Milwaukee Bucks decided not to play their games. They were disgusted and depressed and enraged and just bereft at the shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, the Buck’s home state. Another unarmed Black man shot by the cops, just like the last one. And then a police supporter showed up with an AR-15 and gunned down two peaceful protesters, got a bottle of water from the cops for his trouble, and here we are. As I speak to you, I don’t know how many games and how many sports will be played tonight or this weekend. I know the NBA is sitting out again Thursday. They say they may resume the playoffs, but nobody knows when. I don’t know if the Attorney General of Wisconsin, who the bucks were trying to talk to from their locker room on Wednesday, will actually do anything in response to the players’ cries for justice. I don’t know if the owners will step up and actually put their money and power behind their players, who they say they stand with. I do know that Jacob Blake probably won’t be the last unarmed Black man shot by cops. So the Bucks decided they couldn’t play. So did the WNBA, the rest of the NBA followed suit, some major league baseball and major league soccer teams refused to take the field too. It was a sports strike, a Wildcat strike. If this was a normal episode of The Big Story, I know exactly what we do right now. One of our producers, Stef Phillips, would get in touch with Donnovan Bennett, and we’d have another discussion about politics in sports and refusing to shut up and dribble and what that means in the big picture. And I love Donnovan, I would take any excuse to chat with him. But I’m honestly tired of that conversation. I bet Donnovan is too. I’m also tired of asking Black journalists to speak on something that all of us should be speaking on every day. Donnovan has enough on his plate right now without having to walk us all down that road every time an athlete protests and a Black man is killed. Instead of that, I want to try to unpack the lesson that the sports industry is learning right now, and how we can all apply that to demand change. What I want to talk about is the power that every person with a job has, from LeBron James to us and our little podcast, to you, if you’re lucky enough to have a job in this economy. The reason that the Bucks made headlines, the reason that this is historic, is because if they don’t go out there and play, the NBA falls apart. And not just the NBA. If the NBA stops playing, there are a lot of other things that fall apart. There are multibillion dollar TV deals. There are cable companies, by the way, this podcast is owned by a cable company, who broadcast the games. There’s merchandise, there’s sponsored content arrangements, there are social media promos, and media outlets who write stories and columns and share highlights. And I could go on and on. They all rely on mostly Black NBA players swallowing their outrage again and taking to the court to give them the content that fuels everything else. And if those players sit down, all of that goes away. And a lot of people who really like making money, lose money. I’m not LeBron. You’re not either. But the same thing is true on a smaller scale for every one of us who works within a system that relies on our labour. I told you, there were no ads on this podcast. Here’s how that works. I asked our producer, Claire Brassard, not to put in the markers that serve the ads. It’s that simple. It was my decision. It’s one of the benefits of hosting the show and running the network, and look, I’ll own it if we get in trouble. Because when we don’t put ads in the podcast, we don’t make money. The company doesn’t make money. And so why are we here, exactly? No, our little podcast and us, we don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. We’ll probably be back Monday with a normal show. But it’s just an example of the tiny bit of power that every worker wields. If you don’t show up, if your colleagues don’t show up, if everyone walks off the court, the game’s over. That’s why the NBA strike matters. That’s why it matters when WNBA players and baseball players and soccer players do the same thing. The walls in the halls of power are sturdy and thick, but they still shake when the ground underneath them shifts. And when the most successful athletes in the world refuse to play for billionaire owners, costing them millions of dollars, oh those walls shake. So like I said, no interview today. I’m just here, in front of a mic in my basement, trying to grapple with the shit that I see every single day on social media, and figure out what I can do to make a difference. I don’t have the luxury of quitting my job and taking to the streets. I’m pretty sure most of you don’t either. But the point of not having an interview or ads today is a smaller version of what the Bucks and the rest of the NBA and the sports world have put on display. It’s an example of the fact that business is usual is not a given. It doesn’t have to happen this way. Talking is not enough. So this episode is what, 10 minutes shorter than your normal Big Story? So I gave you 10 minutes back. What are you going to do with that time? Remember, you have more power than you think. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings, and that was The Big Story. And I’ve got two more things for you really quickly. Tomorrow, I’ll be using our Twitter account to share the best stuff that I can find from Black voices speaking on how broken the system is and what kind of change is actually needed and what actions we can take to force it. If you have anything in that vein that you think we should amplify, please tell me. As you might know, we’re at @thebigstoryFPN and I am at @theGameSheet. And second, because obviously I am not the best voice on this subject, tomorrow in this podcast feed, we will have a special episode of Black Tea for you in which Mel and Dalton talked to Celina Caesar-Chavannes, a former Member of Parliament, about how a lack of political will directly harms Black communities. Please listen to that one. And that’s it. If you didn’t like this episode, I’m genuinely not sorry, but I’m also glad you made it to the end. And everyone who works on this show with me is amazing. And we’ll talk Monday. I promise then we’ll have a guest. Thank you for listening.

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