well that, that's exactly how i've always treated games, like it hasn't been a big sociable experience for me. it's all about the competition. and so it's going to be pretty routine. that sense of isolation is set to continue into the fan, las empty stadiums that will surround and olympics like, no other. and the richardson al jazeera, tokyo, ah, and now the top stories on al jazeera, at least 25 people have died in severe flooding in china's central hood and province after the heaviest rainfall in generations rescue. teams worked through the night to help subway passengers get to safety. in downtown john jo, when a subway line flooded. 200000 people have been evacuated in more range are forecast . authorities say a dime in the historic city of lou young has been severely damaged and could burst

that anytime more showers and rain are expected over the next 2 days at least. so the government emergency response level remains on red alert, which is the highest level. and currently in the region, a rescue teams have been sent to help rescue people in danger or help with the clean up process. and also this death toll has also tragically risen. we've had, we had 12 people die on tuesday as a result of flooding entering the underground subway system. in john jo city in the east part of the city which is low lying, hundreds of subway passengers were trapped the hours before rescue teams could get to them. when well, the aftermath of last week's deadly flooding in germany continues. the government has approved the $470000000.00 package of immediate aid for victims to help rebuilding efforts. but the eventual cost is expected to reach into billions of dollars. more than 170 people died and many are still missing in what is germany's

worse natural disaster in decades. finance minister all of shows says more funds can be made available if needed. for major drug companies have agreed to pay $26000000000.00 to settle thousands of lawsuits over their role in the us opioid epidemic. it will probe by state and local governments, which accused the companies of letting the painkillers reach attics through illegal channels and times and he is main opposition. party is demanding information after it's chairman freeman, my boy, and 10 other to the me, a party members that were arrested early on wednesday. they were planning a public meeting to demand the constitutional reforms, which police say would be unauthorized under corona. i was restriction. those are the top stories that stay with us, that the stream is coming up next that i'm going to have the latest on all our top stories here and half an hour. feeling bye bye. me. ah,

ah, ah ah, ah, the hi, i'm very okay. you're watching the stream on today's episode. we're looking at sport from the perspective of the side loving sports when they don't love you back modern di lemme as of a sports fan. that's today's topic inspired by this book, the office joining us. well. hello jessica. i like pizza. really good to see. tell the world you are what you do. jessica? yes, i'm jessica luther. i'm a freelance journalist. i live in austin, texas. i co host

a feminist sports podcast called brandt all down. and then of course, the co author of this book with the visa. hi, i am happy to davidson. i'm based in new york. i'm a sports writer and a podcast host. i host the athletic flagship, show the lead, and very proud to be the co author of this book as well. i love that we have 3 women talking about school or thought they say in america. our heads may well explode if they're exploding. i'm new to god ok. jump into the comics section. if you got questions with jessica, aka fisa, about being a sports fan and some that big the dynamics that go along with that. jump into that youtube comments and you can be part of the compensation. let's talk about these modern dynamics. what as a, as a sport, final sign of sports. what that actually means, why did you get together to write the book? jessica? well, i think especially as women in this space were constantly made to feel like we don't

belong, as sports fans let alone as sports writers and journalists and you know, i think that a lot of the frustrations that arise from that from being kind of labeled as the unicorn in the room is how i put it really led to, you know, to us wanting to write this book and you do a deeper examination of some of those dilemmas and still why we continue coming back to sports. why we love them so much, even when they might not always return the favor. jessica. yeah, i mean complete the really hit. i think the book is structured at 14 chapters i think we ended up with each chapter is a different theme or an issue within sport that a conscientious sports fan might have. so brain trauma, racism, sexism, l, g, b, t, q athletes, races, mascots like, all kinds of stuff. and these are the things i can visa and i as bandler. so things that re wrestle with every time that we turn on the tv or go to a match or a game. and we just really wanted to space or we could work that out for ourselves

and talk to a bunch of people who also feel that way. who are experts in these fields and, and put all of these different topics in conversation with each other. touch, good timing. i want to share with you a headline here, and we'll keep box set off a postponement of m b a, playoff games in protest. the shooting of jacob blake. so your book came out just around about covey, just around about some, a dream activity. for players who, up until that point, i've been told politics and sport activism, and i thought it was a really tricky area. and then cobit happened, and then the black lives matter movement became more prominent around the world. so this moment when there was these wildcat strikes feast, jessica, how did you break that down in the book? the book was just about covering out the how does that reflect what you've written, already, like your philosophy of the difficulty being assad and seeing athletes being

activists at the same time? well, i will say that it's very strange whenever someone says how good timing the book was coming out of the time. because when the coven hit, when rudy go bare, that'd be a player tested positive at the higher league shut down. we had a panic moment, just going i had a call with our publisher and we were like, is it going to be relevant? is it going to be insensitive? people are dying like do they want to hear about the problems that we have within sport? and it turns out, because of all of the dilemma is that the pandemic has kind of brought to the forefront. and then obviously the black lives matter movement really go and global . as you said, it's been very strange and very, very surreal to see the book be more relevant than we ever thought it could be. what we tried to unpack, we have a chapter in, in the book of specifically about athlete activism. and about why basically sticking to sports isn't an option for a lot of people, particularly for black men and women in america. and for athletes. finally

realizing how much power they have and how much voice they have. and being able to give, like speak truths about power and speak truth to, to what they've actually, what they have in their hands has been really something to see. yeah, and i'll just add that guides to the chapter about sports and politics is a lot about apple activists because there's a long history of that. and what we saw with milwaukee bucks and the w and b a and all kinds of activism around the world, really and sport that history is there, but politics and sport, they're always wings. and it's been very clear here in the united states as we went through a presidential election that i know last people were following college football. and it's returned to the field with part of a presidential debate. right? that sports often finds itself within politics as much as we see politics within sport, and those 2 things are always married. we think about the fact that we call them

political races, right? like even the language that we use with them, politics has a sports inflection too. and those 2 things are so similar within so many cultures . so yeah, what can you said that you can't stick to sports? right. so what we saw with the wildcat strikes it was an extreme version of something i could eat than i liked. it were on that side of i would say the political struck spectrum, but this is just part of a long history. tell us a story from the book i don't shit or if that, but that is just that he's people a little bit of an activist who he may not have heard of before. who is in the book. remembering your book, should we talk about in the book? i'm trying to clean temper nick, who turned hope back be fool taking a need, tony? yes, thank you so tony thompson,

she many years ago now. so we would think it was during the, i guess 1st where most that it would have been after 911. so it was, you know, almost 20 years ago. and she was playing in a very small school and basketball them in college basketball and had her own sort of political awakening and really started question whether or not the united states flag in the anthem represented her she. one of her parents was black and she identified that way. and with all the nationalism after 911, she'll really uncomfortable and started to turn her back during the national anthem . and it became a huge story. somewhat because the new york times was right down the road they, they called it, she had all this national press and it was, it was a kind of action that we've had a lot of conversation around some calling copper next, and f l player took me a few years ago, but we see people like tony who was doing it with even a tiny platform, right. there was a lot about the principal and what this meant to her and using sport as

a place to do that. i'm going to share with our audience a quote from the book. i want you to talk about why there's so much racism in the sport. one of the main reasons that devoted sport fans may not feel welcome is that so much of the coverage is created by specific subset of that population, namely white men, most of them straight. the vast majority says gender. in fact, the herbage, entity of sports media cannot be overstated. i have heard how many times he is running, like a net, but across the field, look at the build on that street and, and these are for athletes of color. and i'm wondering if a sports person sort of jealous of color, but even use that seems and not can casita. you start on this one, jessica, you pick up. yeah. i, it's, it really doesn't matter who is telling me stories and who is doing the coverage and i think that's why we do have a chapter about about sports media and diversity and sports media and the need for

that. and exactly what you said, because we would not as people of color frame the stories in the same way and it matters to have a lot more voices and a lot more perspective coming in, especially when the athletes that we cover are people of color and orange just says gender white men it. ringback also, it speaks to a broader problem that we have in media, particularly in the united states. but i think we probably have this problem in media throughout the world where the people in power looked like the people who are telling the stories in the people who are doing the journalism. and what we wanted to do in this chapter in our book was really highlight the fact that there are other people out there doing this work. i may need to be heard and i need to be read and we need to support them. and one of my favorite parts of the book, you just lift a holo to the female sports journalist was like a sports janet. and it was one after never, often, never often. that was if you didn't know that many, you definitely, you know,

by the end of that chapter. jessica, sorry, go ahead. yeah, no, and that chapter is different than all the other ones in the book. it has a different format, it's much more, almost like an oral history and what we did exactly what you said. there are a lot of females or analysts in that chapter, and we asked them to tell us something about their experience within the field. and we really left it open, but we also just asked men of color we asked non binary or a sports reporter people who voices, we don't normally get to here because it's really hard to overstate how white and male sports media is like. media in general has a diversity issue or it says, what's not the worst version of it? well, what description would you give us that way you've both been working and you just look around and describe what you see when you, when a work environment. i mean, can i just say that last year i went to the women's world cup and this is my story

. i don't often and impress boxes, so that's not my experience. i write a lot and the culture of. 7 of sports programs and i'm not in press boxes and i'll never forget last year going to the open or for the women's world cup and paris and walked in and was kind of taken aback about how many men there were. they were definitely women there, but we all kind of congregated together. and what hit me was that they're sending people to cover it who normally cover soccer or football. and so it's normally men, right. and so they've just shifted them over to cover the women for months of time . and you feel like there is a physical reaction you have going in there about you recognize your difference as sort of as soon as you step in that space. simply having, having been in quite a few press boxes, myself, you are very aware when you are the only woman in that space. you are very where,

when you're the only woman of color in particular. and i, you know, i, just as a quick story, i was covering me and b, a all star game at madison square garden and new york several years ago. and you know, the way that they have the proceeding setup is they have 2 rows basically in the arena where it's just press and everyone has their headphones on and they're out there. computer are typing away and are covering the game and all that. and i noticed the entire press ro lifts their heads and pay attention to what was happening on the court because the cheerleaders took the court. and it's things like that that make you very aware of when you are the only person who looks like you in the room. i want to segue into mascot's coffee. so because you've, you looked a lot at those and in 2020. why would there be any mascot of native american indians? any mascot that would make us go? that's not quite right. it's

a very good question. why we are still grappling with this is something that indigenous people, especially in this country, have been telling us that they are not okay with, for 5060 years. at this point. i think it has a lot to do with what our identities are and how they are wrapped up into our sports stand up. and that's something that we actually interviewed a sports psychologist about about why it's so difficult for us to separate these. these issues that we have with, with, with our own fandom and what she said basically was when you're a sports fan, them is formed attempts to be earlier in life. and it tends to be a part of your own identity formation. so if you are a fan of a team that has a racist native mascot, when someone comes along and criticizes that you feel like they're criticizing with or criticizing something very core to your identity, even though this is hurtful to people. and honestly we have, we saw the washington football team change their name and their logo this this

summer. not out of frankly, any goodness of their heart. but because investors had a problem with it. so what we can do is we can follow the money and we can put actual monetary financial pressure on people to ultimately do the right thing. but it is very frustrating that this is still a conversation we're having. and jessica will tell you that there are still, even though the washington football team and the nfl changed their name. there are still 80 some odd high schools that still have that name and still have some kind of a logo that is problematic. and it, especially here, especially in the united states, it runs deep into our core, also of our american identity and the foundation of this country based on that kind of violence. and it really is difficult for people to try to reconcile those things . ladies, can i play a video comment for you? this is from elizabeth holloway. she's a spokesperson for the exit to cheese for change in the x to cheese, a united kingdom rugby team. and just before we take a little bite from her,

she explains how when they are trying to talk about this, the way that you've been speaking about it, the way that your test technique, jessica, that the trans got really aggressive. they didn't want to hear about racism at all . and lisa had a little bit more. and here's a question for you. additionally, the hypocrisy that we're seeing from people like the premier ship, who run the competition in england and the are a few, there are to be football union who are the regulator for rugby in the k. they both launched roughly against racism type initiatives. yet when we raise the contradiction with them, the extra is allowed to carry on using races, chance rates as low goes races, imagery, they tell you, tell us say something completely different. it's not right to them. it's not related, it's completely different. so that hypocrisy or why people say they're against racism, say they're against causing offense, wants to have in creation and quality yet. don't think that this is

a problem. be really interested in your views on that. do we just have to be patient and keep trying to educate and share these experiences? are there anything more we can do? huh. that's so interesting to me because i'm so happy to have her here on this, the exit her chief as the example i always use of how this has breached the american borders, that you find these images and other parts of the world. and i think, wow, man, that's a good question is such a hard one. because here in the united states we've had indigenous native people for decade, half a century, telling people in power that these math gods are not honoring anyone that they are in fact bad. and they should be changed, and in the same time we've seen other team changed their logos change, their team mascot. is it possible? it's not like this is an impossible task. we've seen it in action, and yet still things don't change. and one thing i'll point out,

i did some research and part of the chapters we, someone did, i say ecologist, so theologists did a study about this and what they found is not just that needed that the native mascot make native people feel worse about themselves, which that should be enough alone, but they actually make white people feel better about themselves. and so you're really up against some big societal forces here and trying to get this change. and i think what elizabeth is talking about there, that the people that love the exit are chief feel and it's goes to it could be said to they feel implicated in that racism. when you tell them that there's something wrong with the mascot, and maybe what they need us to really sit with the fact that maybe they are implicated. and they couldn't really figure that out. i am looking at some questions on youtube for you later. hope you don't mind taking into them. so at the t poor the, the pool. thank you for, for watching tv. this topic that you're bringing up all these topics that you bring

out these modern di, lemme plans they talk about them. digital says, talking about the net negative aspects as a little bit of talk, but no one really see them as negative. yeah, i think that some fans do talk about these things to read. the whole reason that this book came about was because jessica and i am and friends like us and people that we work with have these conversations all the time. and one of the things that we really wanted to do with the book was allow, allow the space for these conversations to happen without someone questioning your own fandom. if that makes sense, we lead the book basically by saying we'd love sports. we love sports so much that we do with it for a living that we cover these things, but we believe that they can be better. we want them to be better because we think that they have the capacity to do so. so in having these conversations and we don't have all of the answers, we'd like very each decidedly say in the book we don't have solutions hosting

solutions here because none of these issues are actually black and white. right? and no individual fan is going to fix systemic racism. however, if you're at a bar, whenever we're allowed to go to the bar, is the guy that you're watching a game. and someone mentions that they might be uncomfortable with a player who is up there because of something they've been accused of, or that they're uncomfortable about the financial arrangement of the way the game is played. being able to have that conversation without policing, someone's fam, them, i think it's really important. casita, this is spooky. it's almost like you were watching the youtube comments go with inviting off a brief brief offices, a responses to these hands have been. allie told us, thank you, honda, our school because given too much importance by society, jackson, you pick that. what else? i've got one more. look at the oh, i don't know if they're given too much importance. they certainly are given a lot of important, and i think we just have to start like that's just a starting place. so they're going to be important and we should be having these conversations around them. mohammed colleen ne says,

and it is picking up on the money the money mentioned that you just like a visa, white billionaire clubs don't make more return to the communities in which those clubs ah, locate it. well, because they don't have to yeah, if you, if you said, are people with a lot of money, don't give away money for no reason. so unless government or official officials make them do that, they're not going to. all right. there is and i think sport or sports have always done this. they've actually has always connected with what is going on in the rest of the world. this question is from jennifer mccleary. and she's an assistant professor and she has a question for both of you. she is not about progressive circle of society. we also focusing on this idea that representation matters. if she can see it, she can be my research problem,

a type of this assumption and says the need to think about other issues that lie below the surface of what we can see in terms of representation. so for example, my forthcoming book looks at women and you see and while they've increased the level of exposure by best buy, adjust degree in the past couple years, there are issues of labor, exploitation, pain, and quality and sexism. the level of service that we need to pay more attention to . so my question for a visa, and jessica is, what do you wish spans, and the porters of women's sports would pay more attention to in terms of equity and social justice. jen brand, a good question. i think it was, she had something so perfect that one of the issues with women's sports is that we're still just trying to get it on television. a lot of the time we're just trying to get for me to cover it at all. and so i do feel that i don't want to be the person who's bad mouthing anything going on with women's sports because i don't want to give anyone who's ready to push it aside again,

a reason to do that. right. and so we're, i mean, i'm glad the gen is reading her book. i think that so great that we're going to have that, you know, text to turn to in order to dig into these issues more deeply. and so part of what we need is we need more coverage, better coverage. we need a more expensive sports media around this so that we have a space to ask all these difficult questions. but those don't displace just a general coverage that we get of women's board visa. yeah, i mean exactly what jessica said, we need more coverage. we need, we just need to normalize the idea that not only do women love sports, but wouldn't play sports and that women playing sports is something valuable is something that it's women's access to sport has been deemed by the united nations as a human. right. so there is a reason that we are pushing for this and in addition to, to better coverage and better video archives and better stats being cap. just being able to tell the story because again, these are human beings and they matter i am just looking at your twitter page.

cassie sir. so jessica and i may or may not be screaming right now. i think you screaming, abu with me, it is one of the new york times slash books to give this year hash tag loving sports that we reminded nothing sports when they don't love you back di. lemme is of the modern fine. we just looked at the very surface of the book, it's a g, c, the book, a few now for or both. it's so much in there now, but it's john now that you're talking about it. if you could sum up the experience in a sentence and complete the in a sentence, what would that sentence be? oh my gosh, in a sentence, i just think this has been such a rewarding experience. and one of the best things isn't meeting other fan to feel this way and feel seen by this book. thank you. yeah. rewarding. and i think also cathartic. i think it was cathartic to be able to write about these things and to

have people agree and receive it in the way that they've been. thank you. thank you so much. and also what, what, what struck me was that every day there is a new story that he could have put in your course. i knew that half of that. but anyway, yeah. relevant, so juicy, jessica, cuz he says, thank you so much. we are going to continue the conversation on instagram live, not with jessica casita, but with friend of the st. maxwell appears, he's an athlete, he's a humanitarian fan guy, never from the 22nd gmc platform, but for now i will wrap up and i will see you next much take the me news news, news.

news. something was going to change. anything really changed? this is the stomach virus that needs to be addressed at its core. we are in a race against the variance, know what to say. we are also looking at the world as it is right now, not the world. we like it to be. the devil is always going to be in the details. the bottom line on i'll just around when freedom of the press is under threat in, oh, you just con, thought genuinely about your thoughts towards the making government step outside the mainstream. there has been a implement here some of access points that shift the focus, the pandemic that's turned out to be a handy little prefect. the prime minister clamped down on the press covering the waves. the news is covered. so listening post on just one half score, fish and half lebanese. so diversity is really important to me and out of era is

the most diverse place i've ever worked. we have so many different nationalities and mrs. eas, brought together in this one organization. and this diversity of perspective is reflected in our coverage, giving a more accurate representation of the world we report on and that for key strengths of answers here. award winning programming from international. so make it one quick, so it's right on the back side of the global discussion. what guarantee deliveries the right to take the life, giving voice to the voice here in california. it's almost everybody's a paycheck away from being on house program, but open your eyes to turn it if you. well, today, this is what the picture looks like the the world from a different perspective on out to me,

the al jazeera, as a use all ah hello, sir. in london, these are the top stories on al jazeera, at least 25 people have died in severe flooding in china is a central who then province after the heaviest rainfall in generations. and as katrina, you reports from beijing more rain is forecast rescue teams worked through the night to help. so boy passengers get to safety in downtown john doe.