2nd team to win a super bowl in their own stadium. i work with. and as usual, it was the half time entertainment and stole the show. this is each of some of the biggest names in hip hop, including don't to dray snoop dog and 50 cent. and at one point the rapper, eminem took a ne, during his solo says it was seen as a tribute to colon cape. nick and other footballers have made a gesture in protest against racial injustice. ah, i'm money inside. with the headlines on al jazeera, ukraine is demanding a meeting with russia and all the members of the european security group, the o. s. e. within 48 hours. he have wants direct answers from moscow about why more

than a 100000 russian soldiers all surrounding ukraine. from nearly every side. the kremlin insists it's not planning an invasion. meanwhile, you as president joe biden has been invited to ukraine bod slade of a law to me and, and ski the past bike on the phone on sunday. hottie. j. castro has more from washington dc. zalinski invited biden to go to keep in the coming days. quote unquote, because the u. s. presidents present there in the ukraine and capital would be crucial for de escalation again, there's no mention of this and the official read out that came from the white house and we are waiting for a response to that invitation. what we do know from the white house is that this call lasted about an hour, and that biden's said to zalinski that he affirmed that the you, as an allies are ready to respond. he said swiftly and decisively. if russia at further is it aggression against ukraine,

the russian fixed gaze at camilla valley ever has been cleared to continue competing at the winter olympics and beijing despite fighting a doping test. she was suspended last week after testing positive for a bound substance at an event before the games. the decision allows valley ever to compete in the women's event on tuesday. the busiest trade link connecting canada to the u. s. has reopened off to protest a stage to blockade on the bridge for almost a week. the shut down was paul to purchase the cross canada against coven. 19 vax mandates. verges in 3 indian states, accosting ballots and local elections. people in one region of india's most popular state it's a bash are among those voting area. witness major protests by farmers. angry with proposals to father, open up the sector to private plays. those are the headlines. ah

ah, yes. from the 1968 olympics, when to black athletes, tommy smith and john carlos raised their fist in the black power salute. during the national anthem. to mohammed, i leave risking his career in boxes by refusing to be drafted. fighting to vietnam war through billie jean king leading the fight for equal treatment of women. political statements have long been a part of us for more recently, we've seen at least protesting police brutality like no meals. dr. wearing face map bearing the names of people killed by the police in the united states. and in 2016, a seminal moment. holland cabinet, a player in the national football league or,

and began kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice. then last week, just after we reported the conversation that you're about to watch, another moment of reckoning, fired, miami to office coach brian flores is suing the nfl and 3 team, alleging systemic and structural racism in their hiring practice. flores's soup pumps just as the nfl is working to rehabilitate its image and curb cause for boycotts over its treatment of captioning with the super bowl, the annual championship game of the nfl coming up right around the corner. we take a look at the state of politics and sports today and examine just how far we've come. ah, you wanted me to discuss sports and activism. we have michael bennett junior, former nfl player with the seattle seahawks pro bowler activist and author of things that make white people uncomfortable. a book that he co wrote with dave's iron sports editor of the nation magazine and author of 11 books on the politics of

sports, including his latest the cap or nick effect, taking a ne, changing the world. good to see you both. oh my god, want to start with you back in 2017. you decided not to stand for the national anthem until you saw equality and freedom. why did you make that decision? and what can response? did you get? who's a hard decision? i think internally would team i think there was a lot of those a lot about it within organization just because a lot of people feel like you know, politicians, sports don't mix, but i think there's a sense of where we have to connect to humanity. see what's happening around us, and although you freedom isn't always expected in a lot of things, but being able to use our platform just to bring awareness to people who are experiencing a different life than we're experiencing, then trying to build us as an entity. so there was a lot of backlash from, like just you know, this is a white america who doesn't understand a black man who's ah,

it seems to have no material. would they only equate our humanity to material when it's like, it's not about the money. it's about when you don't have the money, just recognize your black being black. what can happen to you in case the police are you engage in the wrong area? how your life can be short? and just because a simpleton is just because of your skin, michael, do you think that there was an expectation that because you had a different class position because you were, are well paid athlete that you wouldn't care about what was happening to every day black people on the ground, i know, you know, this is interesting because, you know, and when mom nellies books, he was talking about the tare, one in a big metal, and he tried he, in a restaurant. although here were the elliptic metal and all these different things are happening. they still kind of get in the restaurant, i do it in a metal into, into the river. and it's like in a day doesn't really matter what kind of actually will come to work for you. calmly and america at the end of the day rich has a lot to do with what's happening to people around this country. they've. michael

was speaking to these powerful relationships between sports and politics. there are a lot of people who argue and who genuinely believe that sports are supposed to be the respite from politics as sports is where you go for entertainment. it's not where you go to find an arena for political change. you obviously made a career saying just the opposite. why? well honestly, because when i hear people say sports and politics shouldn't mix, i feel like what they really mean is that sports and a certain kind of politics shouldn't mix. you know, the politics of a, michael bennett, the politics of people who stand for social justice in human rights. that's what they don't want to see in sports. when it comes to nationalism when it comes to militarism when it comes to commercialism. when it comes to all those kinds of political issues, that's politics. and so just because we say we don't want to see politics or we don't think politics should be in sports. i mean, honestly,

that sort of like saying you don't believe in gravity when you're falling out of an airplane. mike or how do we get here? you know, there was a moment when mohammed ali is refusing to fight in the vietnam war. there's a moment in the ninety's though, where athletes stood suddenly less willing to share their opinions. ah, they don't want to take political statements. i think about when michael jordan famously said of republicans by sneakers, too, as a response to why he wouldn't endorse a particular political candidate. how do we get from the ali moment to that moment in the ninety's where athletes are doing less and speaking less about these issues? i think there's a sense of, right. i feel like it's not just, i actually think, i think we're lucian has always been brought to come in. and i think there's a historical evidence of the and also that they sometimes as assays. wow. and the title of athlete allows is not to be connected to the idea of what an entire year where he may experience and we kind of put ourselves in a bubble. and i've been ali burst your bubble. and then as we start to get more in

tune with capitalism, that bobo, starting to feel banker covers and consumers, again, you know, we got there was so much with money that was happening so much through the contracts got bigger, the television got bigger, the commercial has got bigger, they just became dis, disconnect what was happening on a daily basis to all kinds of communities. my the how conscious is that capitalist piece in the minds of athletes in your experience. in other words, like, do athletes just get caught up in the moment and they don't realize it or have you experience athletes who are like nora. i am not doing that protest. i am not making a statement because it's too much money on a line. yeah, because i think it is money. there's a lot athletes who like ma'am doing this for the money, which i can understand are some moment people are doing it for the moment and they really want to support their families. but also there's moments were there after that, i don't understand all the ones who are significantly compensated or that are also worley were known and don't take the opportunity to share the message which,

which makes capron very interesting. and also somebody like on the brand, james, who constantly is on the forefront of all that regardless of the money that he's made. he's also, he's saying things, i think there's a lot of athletes that are granted to like, i'm not sending thing. i don't want anything to happen to me and you know, there's people who, you know, one of my friends, he said he supported to some of us and in his family got for it's back in texas. so i think there is a sense of where a lot of people are affected by their communities and their families are still live in any certain area. so, so thomas about may, but also sometimes about the safety of the families. interestingly enough, like even i just in britain was telling the story about how he supported us and then back to make sure he travels the more can. and nobody wanted to come to serve him at a restaurant. or did they not want to support the law can be more wow, those are, i mean, those are high stakes and you mentioned colon capital gave you wrote a book called the catholic effect, taking in the changing the world. crappy knick isn't the only person who's ever

taken a stand. he's not even though the person is innovation or in the nfl who took a stand. but his stand did have a specific impact on the league and indeed on the country. and the national discourse around sports and politics. what was the effect of capron, nick? you say he changed the world? how? yeah. um, before i just want to say a quick edition in case some listeners don't know who the justin? brett is. who michael bennett was just referring to, that was a white see me of michael's ah, who is in solidarity with michael. so that's a white former player not being served in a restaurant and not having people at his can imagine what it's been like for black athletes. all over the last 10 years, as we've seen this return of politicized athlete. and it really has been like a 10 year period. ah, women athletes, male athletes, l, g, b, t, q, athletes. there's been an explosion of politics over the last decade. in capron. it is only just a part of that story, you know, but he came up, taking that knee in 2016, and we're talking about right now

a period that i think goes back to the murder of treyvon martin in the miami heat, lead by le bron ah, speaking out against that. so capron is just a part of the story, but i think he represented an incredible acceleration and elevation of the politics in the new athletic movement. and that's how he changed the world. he changed the world because he took this feeling of protests that was out there and he brought it to the point of, i think, the greatest contradiction of every sporting event. and that's the playing of the national anthem. and by taking that knee, he was issuing a direct challenge to this country, saying that there is a gap between what this country says it represents. and the lived experiences of black and brown communities, particularly around the issue of police violence. and by doing that, what he did was he forced white vans to confront the bigotry racism, and violence that exists in u. s. society forced them to confront it against their will. and i think that

something that the entire black lives matter movement has done. and it's generated both solidarity in white communities. we saw that in the protests in 2020. it's also generated. i horrific and violent backlash seen in everything from book burning to the patriot front, which is some clown right wing, a group that just marched in d. c by the re lincoln memorial. i mean, the confidence of the hard right in this country is one of the effects of polarization. and collin capron. it is a part of representing that polarization. now some people have said to me, o, collin capra, nick, you're celebrating someone who polarize this country. and my response to that is just to say, column capron, it didn't polarize this country, you know police brutality polarized this country racism polarized this country inequality has polarized this country. what con capron did was just point out for everybody to see that the emperor right now is not wearing clothes when

the response comes to current cabernet michael and believe start to make some changes. there are some people who argued that the leagues change is weren't real. that they were superficial, that they were performative that you know, the nfl, letting people have slogans on their helmets, like stop hater or black lives matter. you know, when you see stuff like that, or is there any real substance of change there? or is that just the league sort of playing into a narrative for its own benefit? and if that, if it is the latter, what is real change look like? and again, it's all tries to make positive, tries to lead issue, but i think there's just such a disconnect between either the nfl to really ever have the impact that it could have because color can predict never been into the becket. and fraud number one thing that could have really helped in a film really make his impact was in great color. temper need to have a seat at the table to help control the narrative to bring in the ideas and the

people to hear man ra activation. people truly are here. so the stories ahead the feet to the ground and really understand what's happening is communities, how they could have been and bring a great change. and i think the greatest thing i think then, to me that can be changed on top of police brutality is you know, investment and things such as education. ah, oh, hospital hospitals, in access to fair nutrition, libraries, parks just like the everyday necessities. the human beings need not just the victimization of it, but also the opportunity to actually have a real foot at the starting line and really have the opportunity to really run that race. that america says that everybody has the opportunity to be, you know, has a dream to be what they want to be. i think us opportunity to really allow people like us to go to our communities and really change them the way that we see fit. a

one of the ways that the nfl attempted to change those communities and to bring people in. because michael makes an important point. car capitan made the sacrifice a league made every shift except finding a way to get talent happening back in the mix. to have a seat at the table and to help is he said shift the narrative. one personally didn't bring in to help shift. the narrative was jay z and his company rock needs to those exact as he is he, that responses what the nfl for you thought of the rock? that's exactly what people say the nfl. i know that happened right. is that, you know, if you bring jersey and he's popular, he's beloved by the community. the streets love him. and if you bring him in to not just do the half time show the super bowl, but to do the community engagement piece that it will make black people stop complaining that it'll make protesters say, look, the nfl does care about what's happening in black communities. and jazzy can now run interference, pardon the metaphor, but jesse can now run an offense for the league as opposed to doing the substance

of work. when you see the nfl make moves like that, does it make you more skeptical? does it make you wary of the movie? does it make you say maybe, maybe to some positive opportunity here? i mean, it makes me realize that they're operating with a carrot and a stick. at the same time, the carrot is, look, we're bringing in j z. look, we're putting slogans on the helmets. look, we've got a special committee that's been a work on these issues, all carefully controlled by the league. look at the half time show this year. we're bringing out dray and snoop and amen. m. that's going to be the half time show this year. look at all these things and that's on one side. but we can't forget the stick part like look column capron. it's still unemployed. look at the executive class of believe the ownership class of the league. we're talking about counting on one and the people of color who truly have a seat at the power tables in the national football league and you know, a leading nfl rider name michael silver to even works for the nfl network. after

some of the recent round the firings of black coaches, michael silver said look, there is institutionalized racism in this league. and there are very real races in positions of power in this league. so they're trying to operate a very delicate dance right now. because at the same time, they can't just let their races freak flag fly and just polite, yet this is a basis for payton because the league is 70 percent black. so you need and that's why i think people like colony cabinet and michael bennett, ah, what their greatest sin in the eyes of, of nfl power is that they stepped outside this highly autocratic, very top down and structure. and they sit. they basically live the words of mohammed ali even said i don't have to be who you want me to be. once you have black athletes saying that it kind of upsets the whole apple cart of the structure of league, which is let's try to appease the players while at the same time closing the door

on real power migrant. you've spoken about before, but a fear of serious injury or, you know, brain damage due to repeated knocks on the head. in your book, in fact, you said, or i'm scared, every time i go out in the field that something possibly could go wrong. and i might leave my kids for good. how are leagues like the nfl structure to deal with series player injuries? you know, when it is so interesting because i mean, dave is working on the book. oh, there are some moments in a book where it was like this. ah vulnerability, an honesty that it graphs you for a moment and he hit you which all reality. i like. there's a moment, there's a moment that was a moment where i had the stockings i gave, i need a moment because tears don't come down my eyes because it's emotional because it's like looking, looking at you look at g, you say as you look at all these different people who have experience of brain trauma or experi, some type of pain like that. and you and you wonder sometimes am i looking at them when i look in a mirror arm looking at

a broken man. and i think this is very scary when you start to think about when you could be harmed or you could be injured. but you notice i could deal with the devil . can the nfl do something more to make sure that the players are protected? cuz you're right, i mean if, if it's a sport, it's a gladiator, sport, and you're running into each other. there's a level of violence that's inevitable in the sport. you can't play football and not get hurt. right? i cannot, i think i'm good if i could do, i think personally within a foot can doing where my view would be would be be bill bill treatment centers around america where athletes, all that, all the sport and things come together is where people can go and get treatment and find out what's going on with the bodies. it's been a certain amount of time there. and when you retire someone like you have to go on a and you have to spend a might do site training and go to bring your wife and they're bringing kids in there and just deal with injuries. so you can have the opportunity to keep going to these places when you feel pain. also give her, you know, health care and money fraud is different things was there doing. but i think

there's just a deeper, ah thing that we have to deal want to minnesota guys go through. and i think when you go to sports like this, you build up a sense of numbness and cows this to your body and your motion is that it's hard to even deal with things in life. because you all have been told to plates and pain. you even know the relationship with pain nor to you. the shit was low order issue which only motions. while david mike was talking about building structures in place to deal with the physical trauma, the mental anguish that comes with planning sports. but in the current moment, the nfl seems to be responding quite differently to player injuries in 2019 to form a black players filed a civil rights lawsuit against the nfl for what's called race norming. which assumes that black players have lower cabinet of function than white players. talked to me about this practice. ah, is it still happening and why was it happening in the 1st place? well, hopefully due to public pressure. ah, this will not be happening going forward. i mean,

a couple of things about it. first of all, as you well know, mark, i mean, race norming. this idea of judging ah, black bodies in white bodies differently. i. it is something that's been going on in this country since the trans atlantic slave trade. i mean, this is something that this kind of racism in medicine runs very, very deep in the american psyche and it pushed forward into this concussion lawsuit that was negotiated by the nfl by the nfl players association together. you know, it was this idea that said that if you were a black player, then your cognitive ability, your baseline cognitive ability is inherently lower than your white teammates. therefore, you don't need to be paid as much in the concussion loss and fall out because for lack of a better way to put it because you're cognitively impaired. anyway, are you to lose my brain function cuz your brain and work? very good. anyway. yes. yet that, that, that's the ugliness of this. and it was so ugly,

a technician that we only know about this because of a b, c news because some technicians were whistleblowers. are these technicians were emailing each other like, wow, this is really racist. what we're dialing right now. this is wrong and then it came forward and then the players came forward and in the nfl did what the nfl does very effectively. they were, you know, it's like the famous scene in casablanca, like, were shocked that there's gambling going on here. here's your winning, sir, that, you know, it's like we're, we're, we're going to be on the front lines ending race norming. not only in concussion settlement, not only are we going to change that, but in all of medicine, we're going to play a leadership role in making sure this never happens again. and you know, immediately switching the narrative instead of saying, well, why was this practice seen as okay? and to me, very importantly, how does the fact that you exercise this practice? how does that connect with the fact that there are so few black people in positions of power and leadership in the national for polly?

and that's the point that i want to get to because michael, you played in the nfl. ah, your black 70 percent of your teammates were black. ah, there are almost no black coaches in the end of the head coaches in the nfl. why? actually, i don't know why this is. i think there's a way i think the black clears have to say more. i think black players have to say more. i think black players have been very silent on this and i think we is black players. even though the info is doing is the inner feels for an a bonus, but that is black players. we can really take a stance and work to support our fellow workers and because a lot of the cultures used to be players, right? so it's like what i've never heard of yet, but that's what i'm saying. i'm which you, my god is like, there's a way that players can certainly do more to, to leverage their power to get the nfl to do the right thing. i just want to started to please know that they're not doing the right thing. i mean coaches that you're doing right thing i'm agreement to get in there doing the right thing. but

i'm just saying just like common cabinet was able to step up and change the narrative. and what's happening outside of the, in a bill. how do we have that same narrative at austin percent of all players plan to we struggle more black cultures and position of power to we get more black cultures in this there's, we can take the victimization of it, take the power to control the st. we're not playing, we'd love our black coat. she should have the opportunity. maybe he may raise a raise, a good point about the nfl players responding to the kind of structural institutional racism as reflected in the, in the power dynamics right. between who owns the teams. ah, who coaches, the teams, et cetera. but how do we get to the space where it's just accepted that all these black and brown people on a field are going to be led by white men on the sidelines? oh, we've gotten to this place because the average career is only 3 and a half years and the contracts aren't guaranteed. and so everybody feels in a state of profound uncertainty all the time. and so this idea of speaking up,

it comes with a cost him in collin cap, the specter of someone like fallen capron, it haunts this new generation of players because it's like, hey, you want to speak out, you want to step out of line, go right ahead we can also take away your livelihood, and we have to remember this, now's thinking about this when we were talking about class earlier, like players overwhelmingly come from working class or poor backgrounds. and this 3 and a half year career, that's the average length. that's when they're gonna make over probably over 95 percent of the wealth that they're going to make over the course of their lives. and so the idea of keeping quiet in, not risking a year of that do a strike or a lockout or more of that becomes very important. so there's a lot of powerlessness in terms of being labor in the nfl. but there's also a lot of power because this is a multi $1000000000.00 operation, and it only works if the players are willing to be on board. i think one of the most powerful nfl political moments of the last several years was after the police

murder of george floyd. the nfl issued a very tepid statement. and a group of players put out their own video saying the nfl is not doing enough to stand up at this critical moment in history. and the person who helped organize that and who led the charge was patrick ma homes. now, why is that important? you're not going to get rid of a patrick. my home is patrick holmes could walk out naked on to madison avenue and, and do a little dance and the nfl would say, oh, that just shows he has character. and i think in the nfl in patrick mahoney did that, it sent at least a message to me that if the players wanted to, they could grab a piece of the string on the sweater that is the nfl. and give it a mighty mighty pull. we'll see what happens, but in the meantime arm, i'm excited that the energy on the ground is still there at the players are still resisting that. the analysis still happening and i'm glad that you, tourists were able to join us to that away in on it. michael benedict are in the zone. was

a german up front. that's our so upright. we'll be back. next . talk to al jazeera, we ask, do you believe that the threat of an invasion of ukraine is currently the biggest threat to international peace and security? we listen, we are focusing so much on the humanitarian crisis that we forget. the long term development we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on al jazeera ivy case is the world's leading co producer. but it's weak infrastructure makes traveling a challenge. we follow to dr. zoom as he grapples with repairs to his many bath and yahoo! one of the few women to drive to remote villages. rescan it all ivory coast on

algae there. ah, each and every one of us is about to responsibilities. to change our personal space for a form here, we could do this experiment, and if by diversity could increase just a little bit, that wouldn't be worth doing. anybody had any idea that it would become a magnet who is incredibly rare species. they are asking for women to get 50 percent representation in the constituent assembly here in getting these people to pick up to collect the signature that says the business extremely important service that they provide to the city i. we need to take america to trying to bring people together and trying to deal with people who can love beyond

ah ukraine demands amazing. but the kremlin, as diplomatic efforts and warnings intensify against a fade russian invasion. ah . and i again, i money by this is out as they are alive from day to coming up. look, what do i owe indians more in the killing of a teenager by israeli forces during demonstrations in the occupied west bank.