as a public service by america's table -- cable-television companies and today we bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. ♪ announcer: this week on "q&a," former professional ballplayer and author etan thomas. etan thomas discusses his book "we matter: athletes and activism." ♪ brian: etan thomas, tell us the story of a guy named bill bland and the impact he had on your life. etan: he had a big impact on my

life. this is really where i found my voice. i was 15-years-old or 16-years-old in tulsa, oklahoma. i was on my way to a basketball game. i was stopped by the police. i was made to get out of my car and lay on the ground. three or four different policeman came up and they were searching my car. when i heard one of them say, we know him from somewhere. we have seen him somewhere before. they kept searching. they kept detaining me. i remember being really embarrassed. all of these people passing by , looking at me. anger that i was being treated like a criminal and i had done nothing wrong. one of them held up a booker t. washington bag and said, oh he

plays high school basketball. so they said, ok. you are free to go. stay out of trouble. what? nothing else? i went to the game. i was late. i played very angry and very aggressively. i got my stuff and left. the very next day, i was still upset about the whole thing, talking about it. my speech teacher, mr. bland, said let me talk to you for a little while. he listened to me vent. he listened to me talk about how unfair it was because i was up black man. there was nothing i did wrong. they did not even apologize or anything like that. he said, take everything you are feeling and put it into a speech. i was like, a speech? i'm not thinking about writing a speech right now. i'm upset. he said, use it for your original oratory. talk about everything you are feeling. talk about the injustice. talk about what happens in society. me as a white male, i don't know this world.

i have a whole different experience when i am pulled over by the police. tell my world what happens in your world. so i kind of want like, i said, ok. i did it and started performing the speeches in a lot of places. i started winning a lot. a newspaper wrote an article about it. this basketball player is doing the speeches and talking about playing basketball and the police profiling them. i said, wait a minute, i got attention from it just because i played basketball, when there are all these people i know for who this happens all the time. that's when i found my voice. i just continued on from there. brian: that was about 23 years ago. etan: that was a little while ago. brian: what happened next? etan: i went on to syracuse university where i continued to use my voice. when i was younger, i was always taught about the athletes that use their voice and use their positions and their platforms,

my mother taught me about kareem abdul-jabbar and muhammad ali and bill russell and jim brown. those were the athletes i learned about. as i was getting older, a light went off and i made the connection of how i can follow in their footsteps. i can bring attention to these different causes just because i am an athlete. so i continue to do it. i continued to do it through college. i continued to do it in the pros, right here in washington, d.c., with the wizards. and it just became a part of me. brian: you met your wife in syracuse. there is a story about her here. etan: right. in syracuse, if you get hurt, if you can't play, they can take away your scholarship. that is what almost happened to my wife. in her junior year, her doctor said she should not play anymore because she had three surgeries on her knee and it would not be a good idea to play anymore. then her coaches went on a

crusade to try to take away her scholarship. she had to hire a lawyer with her mother, threatened to meet with the ab, things like that so they would not take her scholarship away. it just went to show me how the ncaa is really a business. it's a business. you are not a student athlete and they are worried about your education. it of that sounds nice, but is a billion dollar business with a b. what they are concerned with is how to continuously generate those billions. and if you can't, you are of no use to them. athletes who have gone through the college experience and playing ball, they know that feeling. it is something that you start seeing once you get there. you are looking around and you are looking at all the money they are making you and then you reach into your pocket and you don't feel anything but lint. but you see your jersey being sold and video games and people

in the stands and they are making a lot of money. economically, it does not add up. brian: what happened to her scholarship? etan: she got to keep it. but she had to fight for it. a lot of people do not even know that that is a possibility, that they can take away their scholarship. brian: what was the reason they gave other than the injury? etan: that was the reason. they don't really need a reason. the reason is because you can't play anymore. it's a tough business. brian: when you are at syracuse, what position did you play? why did you pick syracuse? etan: i played center. syracuse -- first of all, i was born in new york.

i love the tradition of the biggies, the georgetown, syracuse, st. john -- i always wanted to play in the biggies. i went to the school and saw the campus and talk to the players and the professors and things of that nature. i felt it was a place i could thrive and a place i wanted to take on and i had a great experience. but that doesn't mean i can't still call out the hypocrisy of the ncaa. who i know they make billions and billions of dollars and say they don't have enough money to pay the players anything. i see the hypocrisy in that. brian: how tall are you and how tall is your wife? etan: i'm 6'9". my wife is six feet. we have tall children. brian: what is the advantage of that and what is the disadvantage of being that tall? etan: the advantage is that you are blessed to have tall children. it helps a little bit with basketball. some of the disadvantages, i would say that -- i learned from an early age and my son has learned at an early

age that you are viewed as older than you are. he is 12 years old, but he is viewed as a 16-year-old young man. when he was eight, he was viewed as a 12-year-old. i had to have a talk with him much earlier than i probably should have had and i had to expose him to the way society would see him and view him a lot earlier than i wanted to. brian: what did you tell him? etan: a lot. i remember to this day. it was around the trayvon martin murder. he was six years old. i had to tell him there were people who would view you as a criminal. he is six years old. he heard about trayvon martin. the news was on and he was listening to it. he was asking what happened and i had to tell him. you are not always going to be this cute, little kid with

dreadlocks like your dad that is tall for his age and a smile. that is not how people will look at you. they will look at you as a threat. there are things i need to teach you now. for instance, i told him, when he gets older, when he goes to a store, he has to always ask for a receipt so no one can accuse you of stealing. those little things that black parents teach black children. i just did not think i would have to teach him that young, talk about how the police look at you, how you have to deescalate a situation that you did not escalate in the first place. i have to have regular conversations with him like that and he was six or seven years old. brian: you also say in your book that you had the talk with your daughters. how old are they? etan: my daughter armani is 10 and my baby sierra is seven. they are both tall for their ages. i participate on panel

discussions and things of that nature so they heard others speak about how women are viewed, especially taller women, as a threat -- the same way that young men are. a lot of times, women are lost in this conversation. but you have sandra bland and the justification that happened for her death, that she was mouthy or talking back or had an attitude, and that was interpreted as a threat. this is something that definitely caught the attention of my daughters. and i had to have the conversation with them. you have to be aware of your surroundings and how people are viewing you when they are in positions of power. of course, it is not fair. we are not talking about what is fair. we are talking about what's reality. as a parent, the main thing you want for your children is to get home safely.

brian: after syracuse, then what? etan: after syracuse, i came to d.c. d.c. was a place rich with political energy. i remember, i was playing with the wizards, and the invasion of iraq happened. i was looking at it and it was after 9/11 and george w was making the connection or trying to make the connection to iraq. and i was like -- wait, what is the connection here? i don't see where the dots go here. the weapons of mass destruction were never found. wait a minute, i don't understand why we are going to war here. i don't get it. my younger brother had friends who were enlisted. i remember them going off to war. i remember how much it hit me. i was, like, wait a minute, little ed is going to war? how is he going? he's terrified.

how do you think he's doing? youngwas like, all these sent to wareing for something that did not even happen. i was in d.c. and speaking in different rallies and i was playing for the washington wizards. one of the things that happened, and i talk about it in the book, that the ceo of the wizards at the time, his son was at one of the rallies. he commended me for standing up and speaking my mind and things of that nature. so a lot of the experiences that i had from high school to college to even professional was not as much resistance from the management perspective of me speaking out. i get that question a lot. they were very supportive of my right to be able to speak out. that is the thing that is up for debate right now. a lot of times, when people do

speak out and they disagree with you, then they don't want you to speak out. then you hear "shut up and dribble." then you hear, why don't you stick to your sport? i didn't really experience that from management. i experienced it in the media. and maybe some fans. but not from the management. brian: how long did you play for the wizards and when did you decide to quit basketball? etan: i retired after 11 years playing in the nba. i had a great experience. it was definitely a blessing to play 11 years. nine seasons. two years.ed for i learned a lot. brian: what happened when you had to step away for a year? etan: i had a leaky valve. i had open heart surgery. it had to be replaced. it is something i had when i was little. at some point, it would have to be replaced.

i just did not know when. toid not think it was going 29-years-old. brian: what led to the need to have it done when you were 29? etan: just testing. things come up in testing. that's why testing was so important. they did not have a lot of these testings 20 years ago. just a regular ekg, echoes, checking your numbers. my numbers dipped. they said, now was the time and we don't want to take any chances and i don't either. it was right before training camp. i was, oh, really, right now? now is the time. brian: i want you to pronounce your first name so the audience doesn't get a mispronunciation. etan: you were doing a good job with it. a lot of times, people say ee-ton. but i say that it's like a baton that you twirl, but without the "b." that's what i've been using

since like, kindergarten, to explain. brian: i want you to explain your book cover. we see you with a coat and tie. on.e even with a vest then when we see you sitting here, this is another look that you have. explain this look and why, the dreadlocks and the -- did you have dreadlocks in that picture? etan: yeah. they were just pulled back. brian: you have had it for a long time. that is your look. that is your trademark. etan: that's my trademark? well, i grew up admiring malcolm x. i wanted to re-create the cover and the pose of malcolm x.. when i read the autobiography of malcolm x, it changed my entire life. brian: i want to show some video of malcolm x and we can continue this discussion of who he was.

[video clip] >> the power structure was such that it successfully created the negro asthe american someone with no confidence. i giving them images of someone with no confidence. if people started identifying cassius, they would have trouble with negroes because then you would have negroes walking around saying "i'm the greatest." [end video clip] brian: when did you first learn about malcolm x? etan: seventh grade. i was in the darkness before and then somebody opened the shed and turned on the lights. brian: what did he tell you? etan: there were so many things going on around me to start questioning. it was right after the rodney king verdicts happened. why was he treated that way?

why did the policemen get off? why do i not learn about my history in school? you know what i mean? why is the only time i learned about my history at home with my mother teaches me? just questioning things. seeing yourself and having pride in yourself and learning about different members of your race. the things they have done and accomplished in the past. that is when i started learning about muhammad ali. i learned about the courage it took him for take the stance he took and how america turned on him when he did. he was a champion of the world. they loved him for a second and then he started talking about racism and how he was not going to go let into the war and then he joined islam and everything changed. having the courage to send up for what you believe in, even

though you know the majority will do this i shoot for. it takes a lot of courage to do that. i started learning want. -- more. brian: when did malcolm x die and why? etan: there was so much that happened. when you stand up for what you believe in and you are a seeker of truth, especially in the 1960's, your life was on the line. do you talk about mager everson, dr. martin luther king, and you go down the list of people who sacrificed their lives to be able to stand up for what they believed in, especially in that time period, that is what makes them even more courageous. put them up on an even higher pedestal. right now, we are blessed to be able to say what we say and have a certain level of criticism. but our lives are not threatened the same way. even though you are dealing with a situation like colin kaepernick or lebron james. you see the level of criticism they received once they speak out on something.

it is completely different they and the way that some of the pioneers of the 1960's had to deal with. brian: how did he die? etan: he was assassinated. brian: by? etan: there is a lot of haziness around. if you say that martin luther was killed by -- that is one thing. brian: what i am leading up to is -- what do you think is the reason would be for someone wanting to assassinate him? etan: the reason to assassinate somebody at that time is you kill the messenger because you want to stop the message.

but you cannot really kill a revolutionary. you can kill -- stop a revolutionary, but not the revolution. malcolm x's message lived on. same with dr. martin luther king. same as huey p newton. that is what makes them so great. and that is why everybody knows their name and learns about them. that's why i picked up the book in seventh grade to learn the autobiography of malcolm x and learned everything about him. people will be learning about malcolm x for centuries to come. brian: here is video of you in 2016 at the first baptist church. let's watch. [video clip] >> he's about 10 feet tall. [laughter] >> he is a huge dude. married to nicole. where is she? stand up. the family is all here today.

his mom is here from tulsa, oklahoma, is here. [end video clip] brian: tell us what that forum was about and why you do these things. etan: i do a lot of panel discussions and speaking in different places, speaking on different issues that a lot of times don't get necessarily the amount of coverage that they should. but, people hear when athletes say it, whatever the issue is. i think the issue there was dealing with fatherhood. my previous book was on fatherhood. i do panels all over the country. i use different celebrities and utilize their voices and their platform and speak on different things. i have been doing it for a while. it is a powerful platform to

have, especially collectively. you are able to encourage young people in a way that sometimes they may not hear from other people. you are able to encourage them and tell them things they may not hear from society or by every guilty verdict or not indictment or police shooting where the victim was unarmed and didn't really do anything wrong or deserve to die. we are telling them their lives matter despite all of that. it is a really powerful platform to have. brian: how much are you worried about being in the public spotlight? we talk about malcolm x was assassinated and martin luther king and all that. you are out there talking about some very controversial things and you've got your family there. do you worry about it?

etan: you worry about your family, but it is a blessing. one of the things i talk about the book is the fearlessness of athletes using their platform. you see dwayne wade, after trayvon martin was killed, taking a picture with his son and say, i look at my sons and i want to say that this is not ok. this is not the norm. this is not what should happen. i should not be viewed as a criminal and my son should not be viewed as a criminal because we have a hoodie on. and he posed with his son. athletes are not right now interjecting themselves in the conversation for any reason. that they just want to be a part of the every day discussion. because these are personal things. there are personal reasons for it. we want our children to have a better place. we want our children to be able to live and breathe and not be feared. and not go into a situation where they are profiled.

so, while we are fighting for different changes and different was to happen, where also telling our children the world they live in. people think athletes are not affected by these things, are not affected by police brutality the same way. in a fleetyou are and you are in a protective bubble, but no. on the police stop you, they do not look at you as such and such the athlete. they look at you as a black man who could potentially be dangerous to them. brian: your son malcolm, i assume you named him after malcolm x. etan: yes. brian: we have a video of him doing a recitation. [video clip] >> my daddy tells me, when i get older, there will always be somebody who looks at me as a threat. i have to work twice as hard and be twice as good. just to earn a little bit of societies respect. there are good white people and bad white people, just like there are good black people and

dad black people. and just because people look like me, it does not mean that he's my brother. devil's comment in all shapes, all sizes, all races, religions, and colors. [[end video clip] brian: did he write that himself? etan: yes. brian: where did he get that talent? etan: i have been taking him to different things with me for a long time. right now, he is in the waiting room and he is watching this. so he is watching and observing and learning and formulating his own opinion and formulating his own thoughts. and he is a thinker. that is what i am proudest of him. he thinks and he asks questions. he has always asked questions. he sees things and says, ok, i see it is this way, but can it be this way as well? and sometimes, with young people, with the type of education that they are getting, they are almost taught to regurgitate answers, but not to think and form their own opinion. one thing that he does and has

always done, without me having to tell him to is he is a thinker, forming his own opinion and his own thoughts. and i encourage him to write them down. brian: you see him in the seventh grade. is there any difference in the atmosphere when you were growing up in tulsa and his atmosphere in the d.c. area? etan: oh, yeah. so much has changed, especially with internet and social media. young people are aware of so much more. and every generation says that, that young people are exposed to more than they were. but it is just true. i was just learning a lot of the stuff that he has been learning for the past three or four years when i was his age. right now, young people are organizing in a way that is beautiful to see, after the parkland incident. you see the march for our lives,

all put on by young people. you see young people come down to d.c. there will be thousands of them. they are talking about gun reform, talking about what they specifically want to change. it is interesting because people say young people are not engaged into the current society as far as what is going on. they are only worried about video games or some type of technology or social media. but you hear these people talk now and it is encouraging to see. that is what the book is all about. it is not only for athletes, but for everybody to use their collective voices. i interviewed kareem abdul-jabbar, he said it's asked him about athletes and using their voice said it's wonderful.

he always encouraged athletes to continue to use their voice on the platform. but then he said he wants everyone to use their platform. everybody can use their platform and really push for young people. because they are the ones who will take over. they are the ones who will be in positions of power. we all will be gone. we want young people to really be encouraged to have the freedom and to be able to withstand criticism. you see that the way the young people are being criticized who are speaking about on reform. it is amazing to see the parallel. that is the way athletes are criticized. you see the cabinet come out and speaking. michael bennet and torrey smith all these people, when they speak about these things, they are told to shut up and dribble. you don't know what you're talking about. you see the same thing happening to the young people. you are too young to even know the nuances of gun reform. they say, no, we can break it down for you. it is really encouraging to see that energy from them. brian: book on fatherhood. what was your own father like?

how big a family did you grow up in? etan: me and my brother. my parents got divorced when i was younger. so my father wasn't actually in the home, but i had a relationship with him on my life. but it's different than action being in the home. visitations twice maybe a month, it's just different. my main purpose to write that book was to encourage young people growing up in single parent homes no that they can still be successful in life and still make the right choices. and if they don't believe me, they can hear all these different voices that told their stories. i interviewed a lot of different people in that book as well, kevin durant, chris paul, kareem again and rappers, people that young people would recognize and be inspired by. so the book is about inspiration for me. for "we matter," i want to have

young people read it and to continue to use their voice. i went them to read about michael bennet using his voice and using his platform. you hear about robert reed and colin kaepernick. and the other nba players and how they use their voices. how they collectively did it as an entire league, the entire nba, which was something phenomenal that we have not seen. i want people to be inspired. that is my reasons for writing. brian: you cite film and you cite books in your book that have had an impact on you. here is coach carter, starring samuel l. jackson. that's what's this. [video clip] >> i know you all like stats, so let me give you some. richmond high only graduates 55% of the students. of those who graduate, only 6% go to college. which tells me, when i walked down these halls and i look in

your classrooms, may be only one student is going to go to college. but, damn, coach carter, if i ain't going to college, where i'm going to go? that is a great question. the answer for young african-american men is this. probably to prison. [end video clip] brian: that is 2005. why did that get your attention? etan: i speak to a lot of schools. i have been since i was in college. my mother is a teacher. she would have me come and talk at her school. when i was in college. i said, what do i know. and she said to speak honestly to them. i tell young people, as far as what they have, what road they have to climb, and how the chips are stacked against them and how -- to look at their school, the

brand-newthey have oldl detectors, the books. there are 40 people in the class. they look in the suburbs and there are 15 people in the class and they have a teacher's aide and they have an ipad and they close when it's too cold because the heater didn't work. they are not getting the same education. but you have to know that going in, that you will be judged by the same standardized test. if you can look at this and know that it is not equal and know you have to work twice as hard, the same thing as malcolm said that you saw in his poem. you have to work twice as hard because the chips are stacked up against you. and if you don't, you will be on the outside looking in and you will fall by the wayside and be part of those stats that were just read out. you have to be honest. sometimes, young people, you don't want them to go through

life thinking that everything is fair because it is not there. you have to tell them reality. you have to tell them that you will be judged like you i get in the same education as the people in the suburbs, but you are not. brian: let's watch this clip. [video clip] >> all the black people are concentrated in the two revenue-producing sports, basketball and football. when you go to the athletic department, field hockey, swimming, tennis, which they support, there is no black presence at all. maybe one swimmer here, one over there, but for the most part, these two revenue-producing sports, which is made up of 70% brothers are supporting all of these country club sports. it's the ultimate plantation. brian: why is that? etan: all players are set up for what generates money. and the top generating sports are football and basketball and they happened to be the sports with most african-americans in them.

brian: why is that? why are african-americans not more interested in country club sports? is it because they don't have parents in country clubs? etan: we have outliers of people that are dominating in tennis and golf and things of that nature. but as far as the predominant, we look at the ncaa, march madness right now or the nfl, they are predominantly black sports. so what he is referring to, his book, which is great, "the $40 million slave," we will be speaking at harvard. i love to debate with him. i think the category of the $40 billion slave is the category of not knowing where you are and not having a voice and being muted. it is a very good book. i definitely, i had a debate with him a couple of years ago here at georgetown. i have a lot of respect for him.

brian: when i was a freshman in high school, in indiana, our team played in the finals of a 1956 state championship in indianapolis. and the star of the indianapolis team was a man named oscar robertson. here he is. he is 79 years old. [video clip] >> we were just like anyone else. we went to school, played ball, and fortunately for us, we won basketball games. that put us in a category were they had to write about us. they had to say something good about us. because our coach would not let us do anything in all. our coach was great. an all-black high school in indianapolis. our coach was great because he had been around whites and he knew what it took. he knew you had to be a gentleman on the court at all times. brian: i did not live in indianapolis, lived north.

when i read your book am was reminded of what happened when they won the championship. i was surprised. we had nothing but respect for robertson, and their coach who was quite a gentleman. what happened after they won that state championship? etan: he saw how they were treated and how they were viewed and it opened his eyes to a lot of stuff. i had the chance to interview oscar robertson and bill russell. it was interesting hearing from them. now you hear oscar robertson is the all-time leading triple-double in the nba. bill russell has won 11 chairmanships for boston. but hearing them talk about how they were treated after that was eye-opening for me. i read about it, of course. brian: they couldn't have a parade the same place as the white team. etan: everything was segregated. bill russell is telling me in the book how he was winning

championships for boston, then he goes down to kentucky and they can't eat at the same restaurant. he speaks about how wrong that is. if we are not going to be able to eat here, we will not play here. and all the black players left. he talked about how everyone was upset. like, how dare you. why aren't you more grateful? and it was, wait a minute, you are ok for me not to be able to eat with my white teammates? it was one of those things where everything was ok until he started talking about segregation and racism and things that were wrong. it is just a matter, if you're going to be silent or point out what was wrong. that is why people talk about bill russell now. because he had the courage, and that dave. to be able to stand up and say what is right and what is wrong. and, oscar robertson as well.

brian: oscar robertson went on to play at the university of cincinnati and went on to play nba ball. what impact did he have on society when he was in the nba? what did he do? etan: what he changed was now we have free agency. brian: what does that mean? etan: i asked him about it in the book. he talked about, the way they had the system before, if a team drafted you, that was it until they didn't want you anymore. you had no rights, no time when you could interview for a different team. there was nothing. you were with that one team. and there was no free agency, period, where you could look as if you wanted to play with somebody else or somebody wanted to make you a better offer. or anything like that. so, we can't imagine a situation like that, but that was the norm for them. i asked oscar robertson about what kind of courage did it take for you to do that?

how upset were people? oh, he got death threats. like, how dare you? you should just be grateful. i wanted to make the connection of what it took for him to be able to change an entire system to the ncaa, where i am hoping, decades down -- hopefully not decades -- that they will be looking at the system we had with the ncaa and looking at it the way i was looking about how they had no free agency. how ridiculous that is. so, you had a system where they made a billion dollars every single year and did not pay the players at all, and that was ok? something you are actually a part of? this is something i want to happen later on. all it takes is something to challenge it to the level oscar robertson was able to challenge it too. and, you know, it's a hard road. it is a hard road. that is why oscar robertson is

putevered and why he is so on the pedestal that he is, because he had the kurds to be able to do that. brian: there is a basketball coach who is paid $10 million a year. what do you think of that? etan: in the nba or the ncaa? brian: ncaa, in college basketball. etan: when you say $10 million a year and they don't have enough to pay the players, that is sheer hypocrisy. you look at the numbers and you look at the fact that everybody associated is getting paid, everybody except for the players. brian: do the players ever confront a coach, why are you being paid all that money? etan: the players do not confront the coaches. the coaches can get endorsements. the players cannot get and/or smuts. nike, a deed is, they cannot make an endorsement with a player. for marketing or goods, they have to make it with a coach.

ncaa,hing you see in that anything with any kind of logo on it, they are getting paid for it. but the players are not. brian: when will this end or will it? etan: it will end. it will not happen when the ncaa finds it in their heart to change the system. that will not happen. but when it happens, i don't know. but i think it will happen. brian: here is a woman -- tell us who she is. etan: she played in the wnba. -- in the nba. she is somebody who uses her position and her platform to really talk about something that is not really talked about a lot, which is mental health. brian: why did you put her story in the book? etan: because, first of all, how inspiring she was to my daughters. i did a panel with her and i saw how she was inspiring to an

auditorium full of young girls who were hearing her story. brian: what is her story? etan: her story about how she had to deal with mental health and how she acted like it wasn't something that was an issue because it was a taboo subject in sports. especially with men, but even with women. brian: what impact did it have on her? etan: a tremendous impact. she had a breakdown at certain times and there were rumors flying and she talked about dealing with that and dealing with the stigma having mental health issues. i saw an entire auditorium of young girls completely relate to everything she was saying. i started looking at the numbers of people in america who have mental health issues and people who are going untreated. you would be surprised. just to have that courage to be able to stand up -- that is a thing about the book, to have the courage to be able

to stand up for something and use your position as a platform for other people who do not have the ability, for whatever reason, to be able to stand up for themselves. brian: here's 20 seconds of her talking. [video clip] >> a gold-medal winning basketball player accused of a crime here in metro atlanta. >> she appeared in a fulton county courtroom this morning. >> my life changed dramatically, legally socially, financially -- for once, it was not pushing through something or breaking through something. i realized i needed help. brian: did she ever go to prison? etan: no. brian: did she ever get convicted? etan: i don't know. ie think there is some kind of -- i'm not sure. brian: why is she known for mental health? etan: because she has taken it on head-on. she has used it as her platform. she has a documentary that is phenomenal.

she has written a book about it. she has been speaking on it and talking pretty much nonstop about it. she is really taking this seriously, as far as using this platform to this talk about mental health. something you have to understand is that mental health is you can have a bum knee and that is viewed as ok, or an ankle or a hip or something like that and they can work with that. but something wrong with you mentally, especially in professional sports, it is not even supposed to happen. that is not even supposed to be a subject. now you have different teams that have had psychiatrists that they have hired, different players that have had anxiety. now you see different players coming out. kevin love talked about his mental health. kevin with the wizards talked about his anxiety and how he learned to deal with it. that all kind of started with shaniqua.

royce white, it did not work out for him because they did not know how to deal with his mental health. he would get anxiety every time he had to fly or do certain things that would trigger him. he was a great player. a lottery pick. but they were so afraid of the term mental health that they did not want to touch it. and now shaniqua is starting a thing were athletes are not shunned because they have mental health challenges. they are learning to deal with it. so it is changing everything. brian: do you talk differently to a white audience than a black audience? whatever it is, what would be the difference? etan: for instance, i just spoke at penn state to an audience of about 400 students. maybe there were five black students. it's predominantly white.

we are talking about -- they asked, as far as how they don't know this world. it's an honest question. it's like, we don't know this world. so we hear black people talking about things with the police and we can't really relate because it is not our experience. so, of course, we have disbelief. it's like, he must be exaggerating. until the video comes out. they were being very honest. some of the things you are describing, that can't possibly be what happened. the black people all kind of smile. you have no idea. because this is the privilege that you have. when you have bill o'reilly always says come up when i get

stopped by the boys, i just listen to what they say and follow the rules and i have no problem. your experience with the police is completely different from mine. it is not -- you can't even compare. there are rules that we have when we get stopped by the police. i will tell you a story. i was with my son malcolm and his teammate. his coach. athletic union. we get stopped by the police. as soon as i get stopped, i roll down the window, turn the music off, take my wallet and put it on the dashboard, take my camera, put my phone on record, i am doing all this immediately and they are looking at me, let, what is all this you are doing? the officer comes up. how are you doing, officer? hello. it is de-escalating a situation that i did not escalate in the first place because i know that, depending on how this person is viewing the situation, who has all the power in this situation, it can be a matter of life or death.

it can be a matter of us getting home safely and not getting home safely. that is something that predominantly white america doesn't understand because they don't have to do all of that. that is just not the reality. so speaking to a white audience, telling them of the privilege they live in and understanding, trying to have empathy for the fact that there is a whole different world that you are not a part of and that you don't have to deal with, that is what these athletes are talking about. and being an athlete is not what will save you from being in that situation or being viewed as a threat. that is something that is hard for a lot of people to digest. the nypd athlete, broke his leg. they tackled him and brought daylight. he was a former tennis player.

he was at the u.s. open and they thought he was somebody else. they tackled him in front of his hotel. in broad daylight. stories kind of brings a whole different thing to mainstream america that, without video, they would it really believe it exists. brian: have you ever talked to cops about why they do this? or maybe they don't do it, but they have seen their colleagues do it. etan: we have had forums with policemen. we did great forums at my church where we talk to big groups of youth. after kaepernick took a knee, they had these forums with the police in different cities to have the police hear from the community and have the community hear from the police.

so, yes, i have had a lot of different experiences as far as having police that they forums. the thing about it is, there are good cops and there are bad cops. there's good police and there are bad police. everybody is not one way. everybody is not bad. everybody is not great. when you have a policeman, first of all, that recognizes that reality and recognizes that there are things that need to change, that is when you can have an honest conversation. if you can't start right there, then i don't know where you go from there.

because it is not a situation where the police are always right and do everything by the book and you just have to do this and obey the rules and everything will be fine. that can't be the conversation. it has to be an honest conversation. and there are bad apples out there. and there are different things that need to be changed. those are just facts. brian: how do black and white players get along in the nba? etan: black and white players get along just fine. one of the things that i wanted to encourage through the course of this book was for white athletes to use their voices. i was able to interview steve kerr and he uses his voice, and mark cuban. you need more white athletes to use their voices. a lot of white people will only hear from other white people. that is just a reality. so when popovich says all the things that he says right now in san antonio, there is a whole different segment that will

listen to popovich that will not listen to anything that kaepernick says or lebron says. no matter what they say. you know? even when my son and i and my daughters were watching "selma, " how everything changed once the white clergy joined them and the world started to see it differently, that is just the reality of what happened. so pushing for white athletes to not be in the comfort zone that they are in, but get involved in the different causes and use their voices, that is why we have so much respect for the young people of parkland with the march for our lives because we have the spotlight right now. now we will talk about how gun violence affects different communities where there's been no attention. they are using their privilege to bring light to a situation that does not directly affect them. brian: four years ago, anderson

cooper interviewed a man named don sterling. here is 30 seconds from that interview. [video clip] >> what has he done? can you tell me? big magic johnson, what has he done? >> he is a businessperson. >> he's got aids. >> did he do any business? did he help anybody in south l.a.? >> well, it's hiv. he does not have full-blown aids. >> what kind of a guy goes to every city, a with every girl, then he catches hiv. is that someone we want to respect and tell our kids about? [end video clip] brian: don sterling means what to people like you who play basketball? etan: here's an interesting character. someone who has been who he is for a long time. the way the nba handled his situation after the tape came

saying racist comments, talking about magic and a lot of different things, and they listened to the players, i think that was really something that was powerful, the way the players handled it. they banded together. they went to the head of the nba, the commissioner, and said we don't want this in our league. lebron was playing again somewhere else and used the time after the game and talked about it. that is not something we want in our league. one of the things you are seeing is how collective voices can really get things done. and collectively, the nba players got together and said they did not want this to represent their league. it was phenomenal how they use their voice and how the nba responded. donald sterling is who he is and it is not a matter of allowing something to just persist.

but when you have the collective voice of all the nba saying one thing, a lot can happen. brian: the picture on the screen, this happened before you were born or close to it. i want you to tell us about what impact this had on your? etan: i interviewed john carlos for the book. from the 1968 olympics. i interviewed john carlos in the book and i talked about this very picture and the courage it took for him to be up to use this platform at the olympics, you know what i mean? to be able to make the statement as far as the way that black people in brown people are treated in the country. and use that bad form to make --t statement and related to

relate it to what kaepernick did, you know what i'm saying, as far as taking a knee. and the fact that people told him that was not the right time, not the right place to make that statement. do that protest on your own time. he said, if i did it in my own time, nobody would see it. i wanted to do it where someone would see it. you have a topic that nobody wants to feel like it happens. i have so much respect for john carlos and others, they are the pioneers i look up to. brian: what, in your opinion has been the positive result of kaepernick taking a knee? etan: there is a lot of positive results. there is an awakening. -- especiallyat at the nfl. this past season was probably the most speaking out of nfl players that i can ever say that i have seen. even looking back in history, just as far as a collective whole, speaking about injustice. it's an invasion of a safe space where a lot of people don't want to be able to talk about anything that is going on or

anything that is wrong. it's kind of like a facade of just football and a retreat from everything going on in society. and the players were, well, no, we cannot retreat because this is every day life for us. kaepernick was talking about -- and of course, they wanted to switch it to be about the military and about the flag. but he said this is not about the military or the flag. this is about injustice. this is about the political process. we deserve better. and this is about police brutality and the killings of unarmed black men and black women. this is about systemic racism. he said, i can't take it anymore. i can't look at case after case of police killing unarmed men and nothing happens. i really commend him for taking that stand. of course, he had threats and people who turned on him.

now it seems like he is being blackballed out of nfl. but he could not take it anymore and that is what people will remember his name. brian: the name of this book is "we matter: athletes and activism." etan thomas, thank you for joining us. etan: thank you so much for having me. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] announcer: for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org.

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