It’s a new episode and we have some things to get off our chest! We discuss Sha’Carri Richardson’s suspension from team USA for failing a drug test. Do you think she should be able to compete (12:20)? Were people coddling her? This leads to a larger discussion on the Olympics and fairness in competition. We talk about Bill Cosby being freed from prison, the support he's received from fans, and how we got to this point. Why do people think he's innocent (34:04)? We didn’t forget to cover the fallout from the leaked Rachel Nichols audio. What should ESPN do with her? Is she a fake ally (50:00)? We talk about these things and a lot more this week. Let us know what you think. Interact with the show! SEND YOUR SPICY QUESTIONS BELOW! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebwcH-zavRYLwvOO6Gq3tv7CmrkkqRF9Cj5uRdqENiR42MVA/viewform Tell a friend to tell a friend! Be sure to leave a RATING/REVIEW on Apple Podcast! Thanks for listening! FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/justin_aiiz/ FOLLOW THE PODCAST PAGE: https://www.instagram.com/polaroppositespod/ FOLLOW DONTÉ https://www.instagram.com/_donnie_f/ LEAVE A REVIEW & SEND LETTERS! If you would like a question answered on air, email us! We want to hear your feedback and offer advice on your situation! Ask away! polaropposites.pod@gmail.com
It’s a new episode and we have some things to get off our chest! We discuss Sha’Carri Richardson’s suspension from team USA for failing a drug test. Do you think she should be able to compete? Were people coddling her? This leads to a larger discussion on the Olympics and fairness in competition. We talk about Bill Cosby being freed from prison, the support he's received from fans, and how we got to this point. Why do people think he's innocent? We didn’t forget to cover the fallout from the leaked Rachel Nichols audio. What should ESPN do with her? Is she a fake ally? We talk about these things and a lot more this week. Let us know what you think. Interact with the show!
SEND YOUR SPICY QUESTIONS BELOW!
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebwcH-zavRYLwvOO6Gq3tv7CmrkkqRF9Cj5uRdqENiR42MVA/viewform
Tell a friend to tell a friend! Be sure to leave a RATING/REVIEW on Apple Podcast! Thanks for listening!
FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM:
https://www.instagram.com/justin_aiiz/
FOLLOW THE PODCAST PAGE:
https://www.instagram.com/polaroppositespod/
FOLLOW DONTÉ
https://www.instagram.com/_donnie_f/
LEAVE A REVIEW & SEND LETTERS!
If you would like a question answered on air, email us! We want to hear your feedback and offer advice on your situation! Ask away! polaropposites.pod@gmail.com
i was rooting for you we were all rooting for you how dare you learn something from this when you go to bed at night you later and you take responsibility for yourself because nobody's going to take responsibility for you you roll in your eyes and you act like this because you've heard it all before you've heard it all before you don't know where the hell i come from you have no idea what i've been through but i'm not a victim i grow from it and i learn take responsibility for yourself
all right we are back we are back we are back new week new episode thank you guys for listening to the show if you guys are new to this show this show is hosted by myself and my co-host dante as we talk about pop culture entertainment politics everything everything in between we talk about it all hope you guys had a good weekend if you celebrate fourth of july if you celebrate juneteenth i hope you guys had fun enjoyed your sunday we had a good time actually let me stop lying i didn't do anything so um i hope you guys had fun on my behalf if you guys loved the show be sure to subscribe be sure to tell your memos and pea paws subscribe on apple podcast listen on spotify and hit the following button we love getting support from you guys we love hearing your feedback on each and every episode it means a lot continue to support the show tell a friend to tell a friend and speaking of telling a friend to tell a friend we have a link in the description of every single episode where you guys can send us a question so if you had a thought about a prior episode if you have a question that you want addressed on the actual show if you want to stir stuff up if you want to talk to us tell us we're doing a good job tell us we're doing a bad job we want to know it just makes it more interactive for us to read what you guys have to say about the show don't feel afraid to reach out and let us know and also follow us on instagram as well so if you want to follow us if you want to send us a letter there are links to that in the description so feel free to click that link dante dante dante how are you this week i'm okay you know happy fourth day everybody who poor took in festivities for this holiday um i mean that's the best way to say it right like i've always had a weird uh relationship with the fourth of july ever since i've read what frederick douglass had to say about it when he gave his speech on the fourth of july and said i have nothing to celebrate i have nothing to be happy about because in the eyes of this country i'm still not a citizen so you know that was interesting um so i always thought about that but you know i'm not a debbie downer so if you you know we're out there grilling firework and all that stuff good happy for you partake celebrate feel good about it i ain't never gonna hate on it right um i will say before i ask you how you're doing today is uh i feel old today i don't know what i did last night when i fell asleep i fell asleep like watching something or i just fell asleep in a weird way like a pretzel like justin said to me on the phone and i woke up and my lower back was like locked in position i don't know what it was i was like oh i can't move and then i felt like i separated my shoulder i was like yo i'm 28 going on 60 man i can't catch a little work invest you got to invest in life alert you need somebody to come to your rescue if you can't get up help dante's fallen and he can't get up i've fallen and i can't get up we're sending help immediately mrs fletcher hey life alert will be your best friend that's what it's for dante as he said he's getting up there in age so you all look out for our boy they are not a sponsor so we're not going to plug them how are you doing i'm doing good i'm happy honestly i can't complain i try not to complain um like you said earlier i am conflicted when it comes to fourth of july i wouldn't say that we ever like celebrate it because as you get older and as you are more aware of history when you learn the actual history of this country you kind of feel uncomfortable because it's like what exactly are we celebrating and i saw that people on twitter were like man i don't think fourth of july is for us it's for other people because it's freedom for them but oppression for us so it's something to think about so if you did celebrate i hope you had a good time i'm actually kind of bummed that it's on a sunday because most people don't work on sunday so had it been during the week i feel like people will get a day off from work even though you don't have to work regardless of whatever day it falls on do i make sense am i making any type of sense i mean i think most most companies operate like hey for holidays on a sunday you're off monday and then you know if it's on a saturday you're all friday so i think people still got their day off that's good so if y'all got your day off i hope you enjoyed it we can all use a break every now and then this week you guys there's a lot of stuff that we're covering i'm gonna try and be as quick as possible but this week has not been the best week for a lot of people we have people to hold accountable we have things to say so why don't we get into off my chest justin's
all right thank you julia this weekend off my chest i've been thinking you guys know i think a lot about a lot of things and i saw that in brooklyn they unveiled a statue of george floyd and initially i was like okay that's cool but as i started to let it marinate in my brain a little bit i was like hmm this is kind of weird i really don't think that he should be getting a statue because dante and i have talked at length about statues and what they represent and what they're for they're two immortalized people so we remember what they stood for but when i remember george floyd i remember a victim of police brutality and it's weird because i've noticed that a lot of the media is acting like he valiantly gave up his life willingly to sacrifice it for social justice and that's not true at the end of the day this guy lost his life his life was taken from him it's not like he sat there and said you know what kill me i'm gonna be on the cross for racial injustice or whatever that's just weird so when i'm thinking about the reason why he has a statue i feel like maybe it's not such a good idea that he has a statue because statues we look at it when we're in public what feelings come to mind whenever we look at george floyd for me it's not good feelings for me it's oppressive systems and systems that aren't held accountable that's what i see when i think of a statue of george floyd for me i feel like he shouldn't be getting a statue because we shouldn't be erecting statues for victims of police brutality there should never be even one statue because one statue being erected means that there are multiple people that have lost their lives unjustly that's nothing that we need to celebrate that's nothing that we need to immortalize it should challenge us to think about how we're going to change as a country instead of immortalizing something that shouldn't be immortalized i like it i respect it that's a that's a very interesting take on it memorializing an issue of pain yeah i can see how it would have you know negative effects on some people just like when we say you know having statues to and i'm not you know saying that george floyd's the same as these people before you know sensitive people out there that might listen to this try to come for whatever reason because people like being unhappy and attacking people but you know the same reaction somebody might have in the south seeing confederate statues you know somebody who let's say you had an encounter with the police you see this it's a statue to a man who got murdered by police it might create some reaction some feeling inside of you just like when i when i've gone to the south i don't like seeing these confederate statues like hey they fought to preserve a way of life that would have kept my ancestors enslaved and we wouldn't have been people you know so i understand where you're coming from did you have like any thoughts like do you think that there should be statues of george floyd or any other victim of police brutality statues you know honestly before you said it i haven't given it a lot of thought statues i'm not sure i've seen them do murals on the side of buildings and stuff like on places in in cities and you know buildings on the road where it's like a main attraction like you can see it like the wings in nashville or whatever like there's a whole neighborhood in philly that there's murals of people on these buildings i like the idea of that but it already got defaced once it was up you know so it's i feel like it's it's calling attention to the wrong thing and making it a lightning rod for good and bad i don't know i think statues are i have to get back to what i believe about statues because coming off the top of the head with it at this very moment i won't be able to do the thought justice but i understand what you're saying and i'm going to think about that when i next week i'll have a rebuttal for this and i want to think about this about how i feel about statues and what deserves a statue and everything like that but i completely understand where you're coming from and why people might have a negative reaction to seeing that it might create feelings inside of them you know that they don't want to see so i i get that so dante what do you need to get off your chest this week so this week what i wanted to get off my chest is you should take stock of who you keep around in your life what i want to go with my chest is about parasitic relationships i think everybody knows what a parasite is it's something that latches onto its host and sucks it of life and nutrients and everything good until there's nothing left to give and you should think about your life and think about people in and see if you have any people like that in your life that are just sucking the good vibes from you sucking money good feelings um think of your relationship as a bank right they're never making deposits they're just making withdrawals and there's an overdraft fee and your friendship might be time for you to cut that person out i've been talking to some of my friends and you know going through different issues with different people and i'm like hey do it because i know when i've done it i've never once in my life looked back and said damn i wish i didn't cut this person out my life like nah we good you know so i believe in addition by subtraction when it in in certain things sometimes you gain more from getting rid of something um so that's what i had to get off my chest oh so whoever that is directed towards i hope you heard that um i think it's something that everybody should take i'm being serious i don't know who that was towards i don't know who those bullets were fired at they weren't bullets for me one of my friends he listens to this he knows that we were talking about this and um he needs to do whatever he feels that he needs to do but you know we talked about it and i told him i was going to use this as my off my chest i hope that he gets through that situation the right way however he feels that he needs to do it but he knows i got his back hey i don't know you but i support you too so get rid of the dead weight do what you need to do and hopefully you'll be happy after whatever happens happens but i think that's a message that a lot of people can relate to maybe you have people in your life that you need to cut it and keep it moving and that's okay so you know off my chest my chest but um this week we have a lot to get to dante what are our first stories all right so i have some you know political news to give to you guys um this month the month of june the past month i'm sorry the u.s economy added 850 000 jobs far surpassing estimates uh that 700 000 jobs would be added more jobs were added in this month alone than the net total of 45's entire term just an fyi out there guys um when you're going to be voting in 2022 and 2024 and they talk about job creation and things of that nature i like to give you all facts and numbers what coincides with that is the national association of police officers pro police scores based on votes here are the top three republicans kevin mccarthy who is a house minority leader for the republicans has a 57 score elise stefanik who replaced liz cheney has a 57 score and good old ted cruz senator from the great state of texas has a 60 score as opposed to the boogeyman that they like to tell you about on the left uh aoc her score 71 percent nancy pelosi 81 ilhan omar 86 so for all people that like to talk about i do my own research and i'm a free thinker look at some numbers do your own research and see if that's really the party that's pro police and blue lives matter and all that stuff because you see that from police officers own uh scores they're not i digress justin let's get out of politics all right so to steer the ship in a different direction we have a big story to talk about so you guys have heard the news huge track star in women's track and field shikari richardson she you know made some ways because she failed a drug test she tested positive for marijuana and marijuana is a banned substance according to the international olympic committee so due to this she's been suspended the u.s team suspended her for 30 days and this means that she will not be able to race in the 100 meter which she qualified for that's how we knew about her because she i think broke a record or tied a record yeah i was going to say i think she set the record the world record oh wow see even bigger that's why it was such a big blow that she was suspended because she was expected to at least meddle in tokyo and you all know the tokyo olympics are coming up it's around the corner and now she's not going to be able to participate usa track and field announcing she will not run the 4x100 relay her last chance to make the team richardson earned a ticket to tokyo with that dramatic victory in the women's 100 meter at the u.s olympic trials i just want the world to know that i'm that girl but following that jubilation the 21 year old tested positive for marijuana a banned substance i know what i'm supposed to do i'm allowed not to do and i still made that decision richardson was suspended for a month and disqualified from running the 100 meter at the olympics her suspension ends before the relay more than half a million people signed an online petition to let shakiri run so it's a big deal she came out the next day and i think was interviewed by a morning show and she took full accountability for everything she said that her mother had passed away and to cope with her mother passing away she you know smoked some weed i don't know if she ingested or did edibles or smoked it i don't know which one she did but nevertheless she tested positive for marijuana so she took full accountability for it and said that she's aware of what she was doing so i applauded her for taking accountability like i tweeted and said yesterday i'm human we're human um my statement without staying my interviews i want to be as transparent as possible with you guys whether it's good whether it's bad but when it comes to shakira richardson it's never been a steroid it will never be a steroid attached to the name shakira richardson and it just sucks because when you are looking forward to something when you are rooting for somebody and then for them to have a hiccup like this that changes their life it's unfortunate i was rooting for you we were all rooting for you how dare you learn something from this i am sympathetic towards her i don't know what it's like to lose a parent i don't know what i would do to cope so if she said she used marijuana to cope you know that's her choice she said that she knew what she was doing and she knew that she would test positive so you know it is what it is rules are rules but just because there are rules in place doesn't mean that we can't question it marijuana to me is not a performance enhancing drug i don't even think it's classified as a performance enhancing drug i think that sometimes just because something is a rule it doesn't mean that we can't challenge it in life we're always supposed to improve different systems and make things better and i think that we need to take a look and see if weed is something that we need to ban but nevertheless it is a rule she violated the rule and she took full accountability for it a lot of people you know had things to say on social media they felt like she was targeted they felt like it wasn't fair that they're banning her they said that it's some kind of conspiracy to keep a black woman down a lot of opinions being said dante what did you think about the whole situation um i want to focus on the last part you said people say hey you know you saw people online saying hey this is conspiracy she was targeted um she wasn't targeted like justin said it's a rule it's a banned substance now people can if people want to have a conversation about rules that are stupid i'm here to have that conversation with you but at the end of the day it's still a rule if you broke the rule there's gonna be consequences to it so i'm not as outraged as everybody else is like she knew that drug testing would be a part of this to be in the olympics to compete in the olympics she partook in a banned substance so the consequence is you're suspended and you can't run that seems pretty straightforward to me and i know that people are you know trying to extend empathy and say oh well you know her mother passed away so she was doing what she had to do to cope i get it but it's the rules now if you want to say the rule stupid and we should look at what drugs shouldn't be illegal and things of that nature yeah that's a bigger discussion that we can have but as of this moment as of when she was drug tested she broke a rule it is what it is i do applaud somebody so young you know that worked their whole life for this opportunity to to go on there and take responsibility and hold herself accountable like she didn't say yes i did this and i understand the the consequences so i respect that tremendously i hate online seeing people doing what about ism i i saw one thing on twitter yesterday you know it might have been a russian bot because they had a lot of russian by energy when they were tweeting and they said you know when brett favre's dad died he played an nfl game and threw four touchdowns you know what else brett favre did uh he was addicted to painkillers brett favre sexually harassed a sports reporter and was sending her uh pictures while his wife uh was battling a disease allegedly thank you for throwing that in there allegedly because we don't want to get sued so let's not do what about ism not everything has to be what about us i'm not everything has to be compared it's an unfortunate event you know i feel bad for her dealing with the pain of losing a parent i haven't had to go through that yet because i don't know what i would do either so i feel bad for her i feel bad that you know she's gonna miss out on this opportunity but rules are rules until they're changed right yeah and we can call out rules that are silly but at the end of the day like they understand that being tested is a part of the game and i think that she was fully aware of that i just don't like people trying to make her a martyr or act like she was wronged in some way or that they deliberately did this to her to sabotage her it's not true especially when you run a race and you finish like in the top three it's expected that you're going to be tested you know i was listening to a podcast and a olympic gold medalist for team usa came on as a guest on that podcast and she said the same thing she said that if you finish first or if you have a good finish it's expected that you can expect to be drug tested so it's not some kind of conspiracy of people trying to make sure that she doesn't run i think that if shikari is able to be accountable we as fans should be accountable as well not everything is a conspiracy and i think that a lot of people's issue is the fact that people are just saying rules or rules and they lack empathy in analyzing her situation i think that people should put themselves in her shoes and understand that you know dealing with death is hard thankfully i have not had to experience that but people cope in different ways some people drink some people smoke like that was her thing and she took accountability for that so we shouldn't like make excuses for people so i didn't like like seeing all the social media creations of people like let her run and what do they want like i was confused because it's like do you want people to make an exception because that's not fair that means you have to make an exception for everybody because anybody i'm not saying that it was an excuse but anybody can come up with a reason as to why they failed the drug test oh i did this oh i did that so that'll open up a pandora's box where people are just coming up with excuses to not face consequences for their actions where do you draw the line on empathy right because that's what it would be you're talking about you know you open this pandora's box and people say hey well i did it because of this well she did it because of that and i think this had that you can't measure the amount of emotional stress that i was in based on compare it to her yeah you can't do that it'll get too messy and then you're gonna have to draw a line on morals and empathy and that's pretty much impossible i saw people you know bringing up michael phelps well you know what he did he's an avid weed smoker but you know what he did he never failed a test during the olympic trials and qualifying for the olympics so i don't think that you can do what about ism there either right and what bothers me with twitter or any other social media a lot of people speak without knowing the facts thankfully you know people sent me articles about the michael phelps situation that people were comparing it to and it's two different things like you said it wasn't right before the olympic trials so it's completely different so they're not targeting her but what i do hope happens from this is that the next olympics we analyze weed and we're like should we be banning this is this a performance enhancing drug because some rules don't make any sense and we're seeing in america that a lot of states are legalizing weed so as states continue to legalize it's like man if it's legal like what makes it wrong especially if it doesn't enhance my ability to win a race at all yeah that i agree with and you know i said that when you first asked my thoughts on the story yeah we can go and analyze and talk about you know laws that we think are silly and see you know what needs to be changed if anything or if all of it but right now like we said she knew what she did there was consequences for it and she accepted them and had accountability and i think that the people that are beating their chest so heavy for her and doing all this what about is them they should take her lead on it and say hey yeah i [ __ ] up if anything like people should be posting infographics saying that they support her and all this kind of stuff because nike they're still sticking with her they said that we heard about her failed drug test and we're sticking by her side so it was cool to see that a failed drug test doesn't mean that it's over for somebody and that's the fortunate thing because sometimes people get into trouble and then brands distance themselves and people don't get a second chance to prove themselves or show why they're a valued person that should be sponsored for sure and i'm glad that you brought that people are saying no it's a conspiracy to keep black people down in the olympics and everything i don't think this is necessarily but we have a story that ties into this that you know you might want to break out your tinfoil for a little bit so i'm serious so swimming caps for natural black hair are ruled out of the olympic games the international swing federation rejects the use of soul cap saying it does not fit the natural form of the head so black swimmers can't use swim caps that are meant for them and to you know protect their hair the way that it naturally grows what do you think justin is this a conspiracy do we have conspiracy music queued up smiles music you know what my tinfoil hat is out it's a conspiracy it's a conspiracy they're trying to keep us out they're trying to knock us down i don't like it i don't like it um but for real i think it's weird i think that if this swimming cap is not giving somebody a competitive advantage it really doesn't make sense to me rules are supposed to make sense like why are you banning something that doesn't make somebody else better than somebody else if anything i feel like it's a disadvantage because i feel like the more stuff that you have it slows you down a little bit maybe i'm wrong maybe i don't know swimming i don't but maybe that's the case i think it's weird i think that this shows a lack of diversity on the part of the people that came up with this rule the natural form of the head whose head like what metric are you using to judge everybody else by i'd like to know because not everybody's the same we know that black people aren't seen in aquatic sports the same way other people are represented and because of that you know we have different challenges and different things to adapt to and one of those things is our hair some people have locks some people have like huge afros that a regular cap cannot you know contain all their hair so sometimes a specialized cap will do the trick to make sure that they're able to swim regardless of how their hair looks so this rule or whatever is kind of restrictive and i don't know if it's intentional but it's not a good look nevertheless where i stand on it is that if it is not giving them a competitive advantage in any way they should be able to wear whatever they want on their head right if it doesn't enhance their ability to win then why are you worried about it um if you're going to do this and nobody should be able to wear a cab how about that make it that make the plan feel completely even you know i feel like that that is way more targeted than what you know the arguments people are trying to make about shikari richardson because it's it's you're pointing out a certain group of people saying hey we don't believe this is how your head shaped or your hair doesn't need to be protected any in any specific way when it that's not the case all of our hair grows different some of it has more texture than others like i don't know how to to describe it to you guys but this does seem pretty targeted at the end of the day if you want to be as fair as possible if it's not giving anybody a competitive advantage they should be able to wear it that's how i feel exactly yeah these olympics honestly they're under a lot of controversy dante was talking a couple weeks ago about how their covet cases are rising and that even the people in japan um don't even want the olympics to happen so they're going with it you know as planned and you know it's a lot of controversy it's not a good look with everything that's going on and speaking of that you know i don't know if you heard of these two african women that they said that their testosterone levels were too high so they're not able to compete because they said that for whatever sport they're competing in they have to keep their testosterone within a certain range i thought that this was interesting that they're not allowed to compete i don't know if you heard that i did this is the first time i'm hearing about it so i'm just going to go based off of what you just told me but it's like that and not even just for olympic sports but a lot of sports um they're going to be checking your levels right like basketball they checked us for certain things um wrestling they're definitely checking you for certain things and i'm talking about like high school and college level so if you're an athlete and let's say me i'm going to be an olympic power lifter and they're like your testosterone levels are off the chart you might be taking something that's a reasonable assumption for them to take so if they're testing athletes they're like your testosterone levels are coming back way too high that is more than normal for the average athlete that's competing here you know like for them to ban somebody there they had to peak very high for them to say hey that's not cool well this is this is what it says a little bit of what it says nambian sprinters christine uh moboba and beatrice masalingy hope i said that right have been ruled and eligible to compete in the women's 400 meter at the tokyo olympics due to naturally high testosterone levels the nambia national olympic committee and commonwealth games association said in a statement on friday maboma and masalingy have turned in four of the top five 400 meter times in this in the world this year according to the world athletics website the elevated testosterone levels were detected during medical assessments required by the world athletics the global governing body requires that female athletes blood testosterone levels be under 5 nanomoles per liter to compete and select women's events including the 400 meter the two 18 year old athletes were ruled ineligible the world athletics group banned athletes who have elevated blood testosterone levels from competing in women's races from the 400 meter to the one mile in distance international competitions when it produced when they introduced their new regulations in 2018. in order to compete those athletes must lower their testosterone levels with medication which world athletics says ensures fair competition hmm that's weird though because if it's natural if it's natural like why should you be penalized for that so that's what i was going to ask you because i thought that you said that but i didn't want to you know assume or put words in your mouth but you said they are naturally high testosterone levels um i don't know there should be some way that they can appeal this and you know have independent doctors verify like hey they're not taking anything that we're all humans right we're in perfect machines everybody's levels are not going to be the same across the board and they're 18 like their bodies are still going through changes you don't stop puberty at the age of 18 so who knows what's going on there um but if they can prove that hey we're not taking anything you should be able to let them uh compete i think so too um but it's crazy all the lengths that people go through to get a competitive advantage over somebody else doping and steroids and everything like i know these like anti-doping agencies are overwhelmed because of how much tests they have to do to ensure fair competition because it's tough you know everybody's trying to ensure fairness and people that get a competitive advantage it's not fair so that's why if we remember lance armstrong he was stripped of all his titles and stuff because he was doping like it's not fair if you can't win on your own merit just don't compete i feel like part of the fun with competing is that everybody's on a level playing field you let your athleticism speak for itself like i would feel like a fraud if i was doping and i won the race i would feel vague like yes i get all the praise and the hype and the accolades but at what cost my dignity and offer it to be a lie it wouldn't be worth it for me and i would be scared that i get caught you know you get all the accolades but then if it's found out that you cheated you're enemy number one you look like a fool and then you're always known for the guy or known as the guy that cheated the man or woman who cheated it's not worth it for me it's more so embarrassing that's why i guess lance armstrong is shamed in society but you know what he's still rich so maybe that's all that mattered to him you know what i mean like hey the good is going to be worth all the bad that comes with this that might be how he's looking at it that might be how people that cheat and these things are looking at like i know the beds won't be real bad but the but the times that it's good it's worth it i just want it to feel good and you're gonna have the money that's probably you know that could be how they're looking at it and that's just a you know a gamble and a risk they take with their morals and self-respect i guess so it wouldn't work for me because you have all the money but at the end of the day people don't respect you you know i think that respect is earned and respect is hard to get from a lot of people so if i can't even respect you respect your accomplishments money really doesn't matter or mean anything to me because a lot of people have money so you're no different than anybody else but you as a fellow human being i don't respect you so that's how i see it coming heavy you heard what you said we know where justin stands on cheating i don't respect it i don't i really don't um but yeah what do you all think about that is it fair that the olympics are not allowing these two women to race because of their naturally high testosterone levels i don't think that they should have to take supplements to repress what's natural in their body that's the kind of thing that bothered me about what we read that's weird so i'm taking supplements to reduce my nature that's the weird part about the what you read i think that's the strangest part about is okay so you want to put them on stuff to change their the chemistry of their body but the whole reason that you're testing them is because you think that they tried to change the chemistry of their body right make it make sense oh jinx
make it make sense come on it doesn't make any type of sense and we're not going to get into it but i think with powerlifting they allow a trans woman to power lift on the female team for powerlifting and people were like how is this fair and y'all are you know not letting these girls race so i think that's not the topic for this week i don't think i have the range to discuss that one day maybe we'll get like an expert on trans issues and stuff to talk about that and we can get the conversation started i don't know if you have anything to add dante i'ma keep my ass out of trouble and just say i don't got the range just like you said hey one thing about us if we don't have the range to talk about something we'll just kindly walk out and move on to something else yeah i'm not spongebob meme bro all right i'ma head out i'ma head out um that's the same way i am i'm a head out because i don't have the range and i'm not trying to get canceled i try and come on here in good faith and have good discussions but if i don't have the knowledge it's not going to be a smart conversation and we don't want that y'all know how we do on this show well here's the thing right i i truly i i believe that you do and i know that i do the same thing like i come on here in good faith and just have these conversations with you so somebody tries to cancel me when i'm coming out of a place of good faith like hey like it's cool i'm i'm good with it do whatever you got to do try and cancel me i keep it pushing i don't give a [ __ ] because i'm coming over here in good faith i'm not you know if we were coming on here attacking people or marginalizing people and yeah we deserve it but we're coming here in good faith and sharing information and opinions and thoughts i don't know how you can hate on it you know we're off if we miss the mark give me because we don't have enough knowledge or like things change and people grow and stuff changes every day so you know help educators don't come and try to attack us um yeah i don't mind being attacked if it's warranted but i think that if you want to have a healthy debate or conversation with somebody starting it with hostility is not the best way to have a healthy conversation and that's with anything not only a debate just regular conversation like if you want to reach somebody and have them understand where you're coming from talk calmly to them like speak like a regular person and they'll be more receptive to what you have to say i promise you i feel like a lot of the challenges that we face could be dealt with with our approach so if you approach something in a good way you're probably going to get good results from that conversation but you know nevertheless i don't have the range for this conversation but maybe one day we'll bring an expert on and they'll teach us because i don't know everything so uh we we could move on there justin yeah so free bill cosby free bill cosby that's what people on twitter were saying i didn't say that and that's not where you were you were going to get clipped and aggregated for that yo we about to get canceled they're going to just take that little clip right there the secret fans who don't like us that might have a little bit of editing skills might click that and be like this is what that show stands for oh yeah right yeah right and i'm not scared of that people listen to the episode in its entirety um i haven't said this yet but y'all leave us a review as well it's been a minute since we got a review leave us a review tell us what you think about the show we love seeing y'all's thoughts on the episode so if you are listening to this right now i'm talking to you yes you yes i know you're smiling a little bit i'm talking to you write in a review go ahead you listen every single week why don't you let me and dante know what you think of the show why don't you follow us on instagram on the podcast page we love to see it alright but um dante you can lead with this bill cosby story what's going on with bill it looks like he's free from prison yes so bill cosby was released from prison wednesday after pennsylvania's highest court overturned his sexual assault conviction saying that the disgraced actors due process rights were violated the philadelphia supreme court threw out the conviction saying cosby's due process rights were violated when he was charged with sexually assaulting and drugging andrea constand the alleged incident took place in 2004 but the district attorney at the time bruce castor decided there wasn't enough evidence to bring charges compelling cosby to give a deposition in constance civil case i can sit there do nothing and hope the case gets better like get a confession or i can try to find another way another solution and i chose that to find another way but cosby's deposition was then used to charge him a decade later the court says the da's office broke a promise not to prosecute so justin what's happening here you know let's start here because this is going to be a lot let's start here cosby is a free man his case was thrown out it's not because he was proven innocent it's not even because he's proven not guilty it's because his civil rights were violated the district attorney at the time promised bill cosby and his team that we will not prosecute you as long as you sit for a deposition uh for a civil suit but we won't bring any criminal charges against you well he did that and then the criminal charge was brought against him he was convicted and the supreme court pennsylvania stepped in and said you violated his rights this is such a complicated thing like in a sense right no i can't even say that the court did the right thing for a horrible person if your civil rights are violated and they review that and say hey this person shouldn't be in jail based off of their civil rights being violated that person should be freed however it's with a man who they did it for a man who admitted to doing these horrible things to women and should be behind bars so to me the the blame isn't even placed on the supreme court pennsylvania is placed on the [ __ ] district attorney you had you had your shot you shot your shot but you [ __ ] it up and you [ __ ] it up for those victims and those people that wanted closure and wanted justice you [ __ ] it up for them and you know i'm pretty sure we both have a lot more to say but i'll kick it to you um you know i agree for the most part i think that all the smoke all the hatred all the energy should be directed towards the prosecution you don't need to violate somebody's rights in order to prove that they are guilty if you have enough evidence if you have testimony you have more than enough to get a conviction you shouldn't have to violate somebody's rights in order to allow that to happen bill cosby is a terrible person bill cosby is not somebody that we should be defending if we have a process and a way of convicting people we should follow the process you shouldn't take shortcuts or even violate somebody's due process in order to receive justice for all of the people that he's victimized um bill cosby is not free i mean he's free but he's not innocent you know he still did these things and i think with anything a lot of people are either purposely not understanding or they really do think that bill cosby is innocent there's so many people that believe that why would somebody come forward after 30 years why they're lying like they're just trying to tear a black man down i've seen people say that bill cosby had enough money to buy one of the major networks and because they didn't want a black man to own one of the major networks this is their way of bringing him down so that he's you know brought down a peg or two and i've seen people say oh those victims want fame or notoriety and my thing is like personally what person do you know has accused somebody and got fame and glory and riches i think that it's almost like an embarrassing thing to put your name out there there's a lot of shame involved with people getting sexually abused i feel like that's why a lot of people don't come forward it's that fear of not being believed um especially against a powerful man let's all not fool ourselves here bill cosby is one of the most powerful men you know in the world and before we heard whispers of his sex crimes you know he was very revered especially within the black community people might agree or disagree with the stances especially when it comes to respectability politics but he was respected by a lot of people and especially in the black community and what i'm finding out is that a lot of black people have problems holding their fellow black people accountable we are your accountability kings we always tell you the real we don't try and fluff it up for y'all we try and tell y'all the truth and i can acknowledge you know how somebody you know with their show and with their success represented something good behind the scenes they can also do very terrible things terrible things that you might not want to believe and i think that we have to take off our emotion lenses because we've talked about this in prior episodes where people fear holding the people they love accountable whether that be michael jackson or whoever you know the famous person in question is we have to hold people accountable so i was very embarrassed i was very you know ashamed of the people that were defending bill cosby and saying he's free and he didn't do anything wrong he did do something wrong you know over a period of years he was putting stuff in women's drink you know raping them you know abusing them assaulting them it's wrong and he should be held accountable but he should be held accountable the right way i think the prosecution messed up and if we're going to be mad at anybody you know we should be mad at them you know ultimately a guilty man is going free because the prosecution decided that you know we know better than the system and it looks like that system backfired because they violated his due process and now he's walking free you know you brought up what takes victims so long to come forward and and we've talked about this on here before i don't know you know i can't answer that because i'm not a victim of sexual assault i can't belie i don't believe this news would be encouraging like hey when we do come forward when we do take it all the way the prosecution [ __ ] it up for us and now this monsters want to be free again so i can see how that could be discouraging but you know what i would say to anybody out there is don't be discouraged by somebody's [ __ ] up no matter how big the [ __ ] up was justice will be served to more people in the future coming forward i mean i hope that that's the case but it's just you gotta hope it's no it's not a good look like i said it's it's it's a lot to unpack with this because somebody's civil rights being violated in a court system making it right especially for a black person that should be called for us to be like hey it's great that somebody looked into that and they changed that but just not this one you don't feel good about this one or at least you shouldn't i don't why do you think that black people a lot of black people especially feel like bill cosby is not guilty parasocial relationships like you were saying um it's hard to hold people that you love accountable and to think that somebody who a lot of black people and not even just black people a lot of white people like when the college show was at its peak it was the most watched show in america a lot of people grew up with this man in their living rooms every week learning life lessons from this guy he was america's dad like that article said and to think that he could be capable of the things that he did for some people that just those lines don't connect in their brain you know it's short circuits it's like no this is dr huxtable this is the guy who raised these kids and was successful black man and you know taught us life lessons but you gotta be able to separate the art from the artist sometimes like bill cosby is not a good person he has he has confessed to what he has done to women and i think that people would benefit from believing it coming out of his own mouth um i don't know i feel like if bill cosby even said i did this there would still be people defending him i think that it's people not having enough knowledge i think it's people willfully not wanting to believe it i think it's a combination of both i think it's stupidity even i think that people not knowing how the system works and the fine details of our law and holding people accountable i think it's that as well i think that people think that because his case is thrown out that means that he was never you know guilty to begin with and that's not true and i saw something that was annoying the [ __ ] out of me on the interwebs because i'm an old person i told you my back was hurting so i say the interwebs in the net um their people were and that they could have been bots too but tweeting like oh they freed bill cosby or kelly gotta be next like why are you rooting for this man to not be in jail that's disgusting but um you talked about you know black people still supporting him and finding it hard to hold him accountable talk about uh his tv wife if you don't mind felicia rashad the legend so if y'all don't know who she is she is the or she played bill cosby's wife in the cosby show she's a revered actor especially within the black community she's very respected i think that she's also a dean for howard university as soon as that news came out she tweeted and she said a terrible wrong has been righted and a lot of people were jumping into her mentions and saying what are you talking about so it kind of shows that she in a way is complicit she believes bill cosby and it's very disheartening that somebody with her stature would you know believe bill cosby former cosby show star felicia rashad has apologized to howard university students and families the newly appointed dean of the college of fine arts came under fire this week when she tweeted in celebration after former co-star bill cosby's sexual assault conviction was overturned rashad wrote in the apology letter that her remarks were not directed towards survivors of sexual assault and that she finds no excuse for such behavior she also said she will participate in trainings to reinforce university protocol and learn how to become a stronger ally to sexual assault survivors so the university based in washington d.c they issued a statement that read survivors of sexual assault will always be our first priority while dean rashad has acknowledged in her follow-up tweet that victims must be heard and believed her initial tweet lacked sensitivity towards survivors of sexual assault personal positions of university leadership do not reflect howard university's policies so they came forward and you know kind of distanced themselves from her comments and i think rightfully so so with the controversial comments that she made do you think that she should step down should she be let go of being a dean for howard university i think that they won't do that i don't think that they should do that because it would we talked about earlier on this episode look at you full circle justin look at you always bringing up stuff that we talked about earlier open up a pandora's box they they said the typical pr statement like your personal opinions don't reflect what we stand for if you started doing that it would be like okay this person uh believes in abortion right so we're going to fire you at your company or you believe in xyz and that's not you know the thing that we believe in so we're going to fire you i think i i don't believe that that's equivalent at all because having a political stance about abortion is something that you can't fire somebody for but she's supporting somebody that raped women drugged and raped women and she's a dean for a university dealing with college students who get raped on college campuses like i don't think those are one and the same okay i don't think she will step down i don't think that she should have deleted her tweet either and here's why she tweeted what was on her heart in her mind the second tweet was her covering her ass it's like saying a sentence and saying hey justin i really like your shirt but nothing i said about your shirt before the word butt matters anymore this that the second tweet was her butt and not her you know what i mean right does that make sense um like say with your chest she said what she said you support him i said what i said okay well what you saying with some bulls um you love him like you as a friend or a colleague you spent all those years on tv with them you guys have a working relationship and i'm sure of friendship and yeah that you said what you what you meant the first time the follow-up was was taking cover in fairness the question that i did ask was do you think that she should be fired or do you think that she should step down i don't think they could fire her i think that leads to a lawsuit i think that she should step down on her own i don't think legally i don't think they can who knows i've seen things and i work in this business like i think she could have grounds to to sue them but i think that she should step down on her own because you made a good point right college campuses is where a lot of unreported and reported uh sexual assaults happen and if you're insensitive to the topic you shouldn't be a part of an organization like that well that's why i think that they have grounds to terminate her because if you're a dean for students and we're supposed to expect that you're gonna support all the victims of rape and sexual abuse no i don't think that you can you know sleep well at night knowing that she's there i feel like she wouldn't hold people accountable if you can't hold bill cosby a serial rapist accountable what makes us think that you're gonna hold people that abuse other people on your own college campus that's why i say that she should be terminated like and i don't think they're they're in any violation if they did terminate her i agree with your logic i'm saying there's probably nothing written in her contract or employer agreement saying something like oh we can release you because of the state statements that you made it has to be advised you don't know that though i don't know but i'm saying i'm i'm guessing it's a strong guess that it's not there she shouldn't be in that position because she's exposed to these people who would need her and she's probably going to overlook it so i don't think that she should be in her position i'm saying right if you're howard university you probably don't have the grounds to fire her that's why they came with the statement that they came with saying her positions and views and thoughts do not reflect us as a university right that's howard though i'm talking about you would you fire her i'm going to talk to her and convince her to step down a mutual parting of the ways you're going to deal with a lawsuit i'd like i said i don't think she should be there i'm going to ask her to step down if i was running that please i think that in this culture we need to hold people accountable and you know actions and words speak very loud and we heard her loud and clear she said it with her chest and deleted it this is the thing that people do and we'll get to that in a second where people apologize once they've been caught but they're only apologizing because they were caught you know she would never come out and apologize if people didn't scrutinize what she said well justin you talked about people apologizing because they were caught uh do we want to talk about the last story today talk about rachel nichols v maria taylor yes let's talk about it please all right rachel nichols a star anchor for espn who covers all things nba was caught on camera last year talking to lebron james publicist about how to prevent a fellow female anchor who was black from taking over her job during the finals and the fallout seems to be devastating
yes new york times published the bombshell report sunday detailing the drama at the sports network over the past year and the video of nichols talking to adam i don't know how to pronounce his last name so i'm not going to disrespect you by pronouncing it wrong was secretly recorded by espn employee an employee and leaked and it spread like wildfire
so if you need to give her more things to do because feeling pressure about you're like cracking one time record on diversity which by the way i myself like know personally from the female side of it like go for it just you know find it somewhere else there's a video up that is making the rounds on twitter on the interwebs you can go listen to it for yourself and nichols is talking about how maria taylor is being given more work to do and given a job that she wanted to do and she's saying hey i support diversity i know about diversity because i'm a female and you can you if you need to give her work give it to her but just don't take it off my plate and that pretty much sums it up so justin let's get your thoughts on this um well i have a lot to say i'm not surprised by this i know conversations like these happen all the time the only issue is that they're not always captured or recorded and i'm so happy that this conversation was captured because it shows what people who call themselves allies really think behind closed doors this conversation shows me that there's a lot of white people in positions of power who truly don't want equity or racial equality as long as their position is taken care of then black people can stay where they are and they'll fight for equality or whatever but as soon as a black person starts gaining more success they gain a position that's equal to a white person or even superior to a white person a lot of white people feel insecure and they feel like that's not fair that a black person is succeeding and i think that she really showed herself with what she said what she said was racist what she said was ignorant and i think that she showed her true colors she insinuated that because this maria girl who works for espn also because she is black and because espn has a bad you know record with diversity that's the only reason why they're giving her a raise or a promotion and that insinuation is racist and the fact that that man did not hold this white woman to account you know it says a lot because we always talk about oh not all bad police oh not all you know white people are bad but where are the good people where are the good ones that when people say stuff like this they hold them accountable instead they snickered i remember they even talked about black lives matter and how this me too and black lives matter is too much this is how these people really feel i'm not surprised i'm happy that it was recorded so people can see these people for what they truly are yeah you know we've talked on here about being an ally and talked about people doing things when it's convenient for them when it's not going to hurt them and that's exactly what this conversation with her sounded like it sounded like hey it's okay as long as it doesn't affect me like i'll post a black square but like if you're talking about oh i need to give up some of what i do so she can do more no because now it's hurting me and i don't believe in that type of equality that i'm glad that this was recorded and i'm glad people are going to see who she really is because more people like this need to be exposed and what i will say is a follow-up and i should have said some again but i didn't want to cut you off the only person that was disciplined for this was the employee who recorded it not rachel nichols as of this recording as of we're talking not rachel nichols the person that recorded this was demoted and put on a two-week unpaid leave and you know she was talking to a a guy who before his lebron james publicist was a political strategist so he's telling her hey maybe you can spend this as espn trying to pit two women against each other so you don't look bad in here and you're saving face like this this is diabolical there's always going to be people scheming against you scheming against you because one they might not want you to have success too hey it's fine if you have success just not more than me those are people you got to watch out for and those are what i was mentioning about the parasitic relationships earlier another full circle moment on here but um i don't see how she um survives this one you know they let paul pierce go the morning after when he posted a video of him smoking weed and had strippers around them she's actually actively plotting against another employee there talking disparagingly about the employer like how does she survive this and i don't know how they haven't issued a statement so at the time of this recording they have maybe they will you know by the time this episode comes out i'm actually going to record the jump tomorrow to see if she's on there and addresses any of this so the first thing they teach you in journalism school is don't be the story and i don't plan to break that rule today or distract from a fantastic finals but i also don't want to let this moment pass without saying how much i respect how much i value our colleagues here at espn how deeply deeply sorry i am for disappointing those i hurt particularly maria taylor and how grateful i am to be part of this outstanding team
yeah i mean i don't know why she hasn't been fired yet i would terminate her i really would it's not a good look for the brand and also maria taylor's contract is up coming up very soon so yeah this is probably a very it's not an opportune time for espn because they're gonna have to come off the bag if they want to keep her i hate when people diminish somebody's ability or their quality and they whittle it down to oh they're only getting it because of affirmative action or their race or whatever or diversity a lot of people feel that they're entitled to certain positions you're not entitled to anything you're expendable just like everybody else who are you to think that you own the network that certain things are owed to they owe you nothing you're just an employee at any point they can fire you and i hope they fire you for this it just annoys me because so many people need to get exposed there's so many people that post a black square or put blm and one of their highlights on instagram and they call themselves an ally and these are the conversations that they're having in private the white liberal differs from the white conservative only in one way the liberal is more deceitful more hypocritical than the conservative both want power but the white liberal is the one who has perfected the art of posing as the negro's friend and benefactor and by winning the friendship and support of the negro the white liberal is able to use the negro as a pawn or a weapon in this political football game that is constantly raging between the white liberals and the white conservatives you know this does not surprise me it really doesn't i'm tired of it i'm tired of the performative ally ship i'm tired of people faking the funk smiling in your face but then they have a knife behind your back one of the the worst parts about it is she's talking about oh yeah this is so exhausting talking about me too when black lives matter like no it's exhausting for us to [ __ ] live it that's what's exhausting so my bad that it offends your sensibility so much and you're so tired having to deal with it and talk about when we're the ones living it you can go [ __ ] yourself that's how i feel about it um i'm happy that this came out because a lot of people are seeing the type of conversations that happen behind closed doors so all of those people that you think are your friend all those people that you think you trust that oh these are good people oh these are the good white people oh she's not like the other ones give people a second look that's why i don't trust anybody this is why i continue to say i know we talk about all the time the cookout we just don't give anybody a play because i know that there's a lot of people on twitter that were like lusting after her and saying oh she's invited to the cookout for what these same people will be the ones that have these opinions behind closed doors there's no other community that loves you besides your own community like that's what i'll die on the hill of i believe that and her apology was even worse she gave a 20-second apology she never brought up what exactly she's apologizing for and she's only apologizing again full circle moment because this came out i think this clip has been around for a while and i think that if she was truly an ally she would come forward and say hey i said this there's something that might circulate in the future where i said some disparaging and racist things about one of my colleagues like something like that with suffice but her 20-second apology is bs to me and i hope she's fired i'm not quick to to jump out and say hey this this situation or this audio clip or whatever it may be is racist but you're right on the money here because she's actually complaining about maria getting these these opportunities because she's black like look how far we've come and all the [ __ ] it comes to when people talk about it's like oh now it's before you're not getting opportunities but now you're getting too many because you're black like make it make sense that's the theme of this episode make it make sense none of the things we're talking about making sense in this episode uh no it really doesn't but i i am also glad that she got exposed and like you said think about it this this has been around for over a year this was recorded last summer so i'm pretty sure everybody who's involved in this already knew about this maria tellers probably very fully aware of all this but this exploded twitter yesterday at the time of our recording it takes a lot for me to believe that somebody is an ally that's why i think that black people in general shouldn't be so quick to call any non-black person that supports black people or at least pretends to support black people calling them an ally no you have to do a lot more to be considered an ally it's not just something you can just claim and say oh i'm an ally you have to do the work i respect people that do the work they don't have to post the black square they don't have to put blm in their bio or in their highlights on instagram i respect people that actually live it in real life that's more powerful an example of somebody being a real ally jessica chastain is an actress you all might know her she played the silly woman in the help she was also the lead in the film zero dark 30. she's a white actress and she was doing a film with octavia spencer who was also in the help octavia spencer has an oscar so when jessica chastain looked at how much she was getting paid for this film that they were both working on together she saw that she with no oscars is getting paid more than octavia spencer who does have an oscar so she went behind the scenes and talked to the producers and said hey i don't think it's fair that i'm getting paid more than octavia when octavia has an oscar we make far less than white women so we're going to have that conversation about pay equity we got to bring the women of color to the table and i told her my story and we talked numbers and she was quiet and she had no idea that that's what it was like for women of color and so she said i'm probably
i don't know these are happy tears i love that woman because she's walking the walk and she's actually talking the talk she said octavia we're going to get you paid on this film i said i would love to do your film but here's the thing i'm going to have to get paid and then she said of course and you're not gonna be tied together we're gonna be favorite nations and we're gonna make the same thing and you're gonna make that amount and fast forward to last week we're making five times what
and the producers got together and they gave you know octavia spencer a higher salary as they should have done to begin with that is somebody that's an ally somebody that's willing to quote unquote lose something for fairness and for the betterment of somebody else you're going beyond yourself to do the right thing even if it might be seen as a loss for you sometimes people have to quote unquote lose something in order for fairness to happen and i think that that's what's going on in the world right now that's what i consider allyship because the truth is a lot of people feel like they are losing something when somebody else is gaining more equity or equality in society and a lot of people are not selfless that's why when we recorded with tiffany i made sure to ask her why be an ally the idea of doing away with white supremacy would mean that all of the advantages that come with being white you know go away if you're going to topple down the system and she said you know it doesn't matter like i don't really gain anything from this system we want a society in which you know everybody is fair and equal if the deck is stacked in my favor if we split the cards evenly and everybody's represented that's a good thing for not myself but for everybody else that's what allyship is we got the prayer club you were preaching i mean i've come on here and said before i think it was actually on that tiffany episode making other people whole does not take away from you as a person i mean that's really have to say about it you summed it up very well you know we said our piece on this episode i just want to know what you guys think so please write in subscribe tell a friend to tell a friend click that link in the bio follow us on the podcast page and you know get the conversation started it's always fun talking to you guys all right for justin um dante he said a lot of the things i was going to tell you to do but i will tell you again to leave an anonymous question but this has been another episode of polar opposites we hope you enjoyed it let us know how you feel about it talk back to the show get some things off your chest let us know weigh in on it we talked about a lot of uh interesting and heavy topics today but we hope you enjoyed it and we will catch you next week take care bye guys