Knox Robinson on The Divided States of America

Against the backdrop of a global pandemic has emerged the most powerful civil rights movement of our lifetime -- an irrefutably historic moment that will indelibly shape the economic, political, and social fabric of our country for decades to come. To help us untangle the rhetoric behind our country's supercharged division, today Knox Robinson joins the podcast. Returning for his second appearance on the show (RRP #394 rests among my all time favorite episodes), Knox is a writer, athlete, national caliber runner, eponymous curator of running culture, and an astute student of black history, art, literature, music and poetry. Formally commencing under the tutelage Poet Laureate Maya Angelou at Wake Forest University, Knox's education has continued throughout the many chapters of his life. As a spoken word artist and music manager. As editor-in-chief of Fader magazine. And more recently as co-founder and captain of Black Roses NYC -- a diverse collective of running enthusiasts who routinely gather to hammer out intervals across Brooklyn & downtown Manhattan. Put plainly, urban culture is Knox's lifeblood. One of the most interesting and multi-faceted humans I have ever met, today Knox shares an important perspective on America's crossroads. This is an investigation into the culture shifts caused by the pandemic and protests alike. It's a conversation about the intersection of sport, politics and civil rights. Black American representation in athletics. And where we go from here. It's also about virtue signaling. Performative allyship. And why reading White Fragility simply isn’t enough. But more than anything, this is a conversation about the power and poetics of running. Running as metaphor. Running as an act of rebellion — and the disturbing symbolism behind Ahmaud Arbery’s murder. I left this exchange better for having had it. The visually inclined can watch our conversation on YouTube. And as always, the audio version streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. This is a special conversation. I'm better for having had it. I hope you will be similarly impacted. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  This is our chance to see beyond speeches that politicians are making. This is our chance to think a little bit beyond what our mainstream media is telling us, and what does it mean for us? And strangely, this opportunity has been a reset on so many levels, but it's been a reset on my mindfulness practice. And going back to the beginnings of that, and then just thinking about the ways in which a mindfulness practice helps us just think of things more clearly. Taking pause and thinking how other people might feel is not only one of the calls to action for this moment that hopefully will go forward, but I think that that's like

• 1:50Speaker 01

  the work we need to do now. So, you know, really think, how do I make space for other people? How do I make other people feel comfortable? Like, how do we create a more just space in our communities?

• 2:05Rich Roll?

  That's Knox Robinson, and this is the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 2:20Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. What is up, people? Rich Roll here. Welcome to the podcast. Okay, so as we find ourselves amidst a global pandemic and the most powerful civil rights movement of my lifetime, despite our differences, which concerningly seem to be expanding, I think we can nonetheless all agree that this moment, how we respond to it, how we navigate through it, how we grow from it, how we educate ourselves because of it, will indelibly shape the economic, the political, and the social fabric of our

• 3:03Rich Roll?

  country for many years to come, hopefully for the better. And so to help us untangle the rhetoric behind the supercharged division we are experiencing, I reached out to my friend Knox Robinson, who traveled all the way from Mexico, God bless him, to share his perspective with me and all of you guys today, which is pretty awesome. Returning for his second appearance on the show, his first was two years ago, episode 394, one of my all-time favorites, I should mention, I urge all of you to check it out if you missed it the first time around. Knox is a writer, he's an athlete, he's an accomplished national caliber runner, an

• 3:43Rich Roll?

  eponymous curator of said running culture, and an astute student of Black history, art, literature, music, and poetry. And it's an education that formally began for Knox with his tutelage under Maya Angelou at Wake Forest University, and has continued throughout the many chapters of his life, as a spoken word artist, as a music manager, as editor in chief of Fader Magazine, and more recently as co-founder and captain of Black Roses NYC, a diverse collective of running enthusiasts who routinely gather to hammer out intervals across Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan.

• 4:22Rich Roll?

  A moving emblem of New York City's running street culture. Knox is among the most interesting and multifaceted humans I've ever met, someone for whom urban culture is lifeblood, and I think an important voice in and perspective on this moment that America is currently experiencing. As usual, I've got a few more important things to mention about Knox and the conversation to come. But first.

• 4:54Rich Roll?

  Okay, we did it. Thanks for sticking with me. I'm super grateful to our sponsors. Their support makes this show possible, so I appreciate it. Today's exchange is not only a check in with Knox, who, as I mentioned, is currently residing in Mexico City. It's also an investigation into the culture shifts caused by the pandemic and protests alike. It's about virtue signaling and performative allyship, and why reading white fragility simply isn't enough. It's a deep dive into Black America representation in athletics. But more than anything, this is about the poetics of running, running as a metaphor, running as an act of rebellion,

• 5:38Rich Roll?

  and the disturbing symbolism behind Ahmaud Arbery's murder. I left this exchange better for having had it. I really appreciate Knox's perspective. This one is special. I think you guys are going to really dig it. So without further ado, Knox Robinson, everyone.

• 5:59Rich Roll?

  Knox, delighted to have you here. Thank you for traveling many miles to be with be with me today, Matt.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  For sure, of course.

• 6:07Rich Roll?

  So you've been holed up in Mexico City for what, like nine weeks or something like that at this point?

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it's felt like, obviously, considering everything, it's felt like a lifetime. So yeah, I've been out there for three months, maybe a little over three months. It's been wild.

• 6:21Rich Roll?

  I thought originally that you were down there for some kind of, you know, event or professional reason. But that's not the case, right? Like, you went there when things started to get hairy in New York and kind of escaped purposefully.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. No, I mean, I had been kind of watching the news since the end of last year. You're just kind of as a Vague conspiracy theories, you're always just kind of seeing, you know, or an engaged citizen, you're kind of just seeing the chatter and focus on things. And as it just started to spiral out of control, I was just thinking about on a couple of levels like the practicalities of my own personal life, you know, I have like a small daughter and if the school shut down, my son, he's 16, what was that going to be like? And then, you know, what would the social situation be like in New York on like an infrastructural level? So I was

• 7:16Speaker 01

  thinking about that. And then also, once you just started matching up the lack of cohesion from the national, state and local level in New York, the triumvirate of Trump, Cuomo and de Blasio, it was Time to fly.

• 7:35Rich Roll?

  Why Mexico City, though?

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Why not? I mean, Mexico City is such an incredible place. I've been spending so much time there more and more. And in addition to being like empirically great conditions, 8,000 feet altitude or 7,700 feet altitude, rich culture and history, it just seemed livable, you know? And so I went down there with my partner and our daughter and have stayed.

• 8:06Rich Roll?

  Right. So she's like three, right? Your daughter?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:09Rich Roll?

  I've only been in Mexico City once. It was for a Runners World event and it was, it took place at a college campus that's in that newer part of town. I don't know what it's called, where there's like lots of fancy skyscrapers and things like that. And my only experience with like the older part of the city was just touring, you know, very quickly over the course of an afternoon. But that's kind of where you're living, right? Like you're living right in the center?

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I'm living in Cuayacan, which is, you know, an incredibly cultural rich neighborhood because that's where like Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera had lived and had their studio.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  It's interesting. There's a big, the Whitney Museum had a huge show about Mexican muralists right before the pandemic closed things. And one of Rivera's contemporaries, Jose Clemente Orozco was also included in the show. I'm staying at his place.

• 9:04Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  So, you know, my daughter's sleeping on this bed underneath like his sketches and it's

• 9:09Rich Roll?

  Ancient art and history.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, except she's three. So.

• 9:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but the osmosis of that.

• 9:15Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, but the result is she's been like devastating the historian building with crayons. Like I looked under the table the other day and there's a hole under his mural sketch is like a huge mural with her crayon ruining this like historic building. Like I haven't told the owner yet, but when I move out, like the bill is going to be insane.

• 9:34Rich Roll?

  You gotta respect like the young mind though, like with no, with no reverence for, you know, the, the, the legacy that precedes it.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I guess.

• 9:43Rich Roll?

  Time for her imprint.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  That sounds cool. But I mean, I wish she could have been an accountant and just like with an abbot because they're doing something less impactful.

• 9:50Rich Roll?

  When it comes to time to get the security deposit back.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  It's a wrap on that.

• 9:54Rich Roll?

  Right. What is Mexico City's response to the pandemic been? Like what, how does that compare to what's going on in America?

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's been, it's been, obviously it's been called out in, in major media as, as problematic. But again, our news sources, our mainstream media's news sources, you know, aren't necessarily trustworthy. And so the presidential, the, the head of state response from, from AMLO on down has, has been a little sketchy, but I was reading kind of some, some information when I went down there for the first time. And he was just kind of saying, and the response was saying like, we know that like humans aren't going to be able to social distance like ad infinitum. There's going to be like a capacity. And once bandwidth is exceeded, people are just going to rebel against whatever

• 10:45Speaker 01

  restrictions. So they were playing that heavy calculus of waiting for.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Things to peak and crest and then apply like heavy social distancing, whether whereas like another kind of method would be impose social distancing early on.

• 11:00Rich Roll?

  Yep, more prophylactically.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. But again, that comes with, you know, in cultures where they may not even have like the same concepts of social liberties.

• 11:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  On what or civil liberties, rather, in terms of Mexican of joy of living, the social liberties are are pretty chill. So I think he was just saying like, listen, this is Mexico. We have a huge sort of like day laborer force and, you know, public transport and, you know, mass populace moving around, but also people are chill. So they ain't really going for like, social distancing strictures. And now as you see, whether it's like New York or Arizona, once people kind of like were over it, they're over it. And I think that even today, you know, we may be on the wrong side of history with this conversation, but even in this moment, the kind of like, you know, understanding of

• 11:54Speaker 01

  those things has been has been shifting. I mean, for me personally, I've been in lockdown. My partner is definitely like by the book, social distancing. So we haven't been kind of like flaunting any conventions and stuff like that.

• 12:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Definitely been tortured with a three year old.

• 12:09Rich Roll?

  I think I think we're not going to be able to really be able to evaluate properly which protocol and strategy was was best, you know, for another 18 to 24 months. Like we're, this is just a huge experiment in progress and we're seeing different cities, you know, apply different measures. Now we're seeing the spikes as a result of the, you know, the all the protesting and all of that. You know, we're comparing that to the way things are being done in Sweden and the goalposts just continue to move and the information that we're getting from supposedly, you know, vetted sources continues to change. And I think it creates a lot of confusion.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:46Rich Roll?

  And you butt that up against people just getting fatigued of staying at home and they're like, fuck it, you know?

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:54Rich Roll?

  With the protests, it's sort of like the floodgates opened and now it's very hard to go back.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:00Rich Roll?

  We're like, well, we kind of did that.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:02Rich Roll?

  Like, we're out in the world now.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:03Rich Roll?

  You know, I've noticed in my own behavior, just, you know, I picked you up at the hotel, we hugged. You know, we went and did an antibody test just before the podcast, we're both negative. But, you know, my, I wouldn't have, I probably wouldn't have done that like two weeks ago.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Sure. We wouldn't be sitting here like two weeks ago, right?

• 13:19Rich Roll?

  And, and who knows what's right or wrong? Like, we're all just figuring out as we go, this is just like a huge Petri dish, you know, in motion at the moment. And it's interesting that he chose Mexico. It's like, I'm gonna leave New York and I'm gonna go to the most population dense city in the world for the pandemic.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:36Rich Roll?

  Interesting choice.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, that's, I mean, I guess, if anything, that just shows you how dire like my own right kind of prescription for New York was gonna be. I mean, like, you know, I definitely.

• 13:47Rich Roll?

  But you, I can't see you being able to exist anywhere for any long period of time without some significant urban culture. Cause that's your lifeblood.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  But yeah, you gotta, you gotta carry it around with you. So I'm definitely like, you know, trapping out a little bit. I mean, I, when I think about the things that I wish I would have brought with me when I like ran out with like a duffel bag, I did bring like the USB speaker. So it's just been, if anything, an incredible time to go back and like dig into so much culture, dig into so much music. And, uh, yeah, go back to like all the things that, you know, you weren't really able to, to unlock in the fast paced life that we were living up until very recently.

• 14:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You know, this is this moment of forced repose where we're all being given an opportunity to take inventory of our lives, what's working, what's not. And I myself have been trying to take advantage of that. Like, the idea that we're just gonna return to normal, I think would be tragic. Like, here is this moment where we can really think more deeply and more profoundly about what we want our lives and culture and society to look like. Layered on top of that with everything that we're gonna get into, you know, makes this all the more exigent in terms of, you know, evaluating our systems and our individual behavior.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 15:03Rich Roll?

  So, let's get into it. I mean, I think, you know, as I was thinking about having you on, um, I thought, man, you know. Everything that's happening across America right now is so

• 15:18Rich Roll?

  relevant to Knox's vortex of interest. It must be weird for you to be in Mexico City and be more of an observer of what's happening rather than a participant because you've been talking about this stuff your whole life, right? And now here we are in this unprecedented historic moment and you're in a completely different country.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, definitely

• 15:45Speaker 01

  that double consciousness of being a black American that happens all the time, as Michelle Obama said Barack Obama can get killed going to the gas station. So although I definitely have been thinking about all these ideas and living through these ideas my whole life and experiencing sort of these, you know, kind of cultural waves my whole life, at the same time, I was thinking about like what the actual social situation was going to be like in lockdown in New York as like a black man in America. And that's when I was like, I'm not here for that because I know me going down the street, that's just like, that's just too dicey.

• 16:26Rich Roll?

  If you got caught out and there's a curfew, you being a black man just puts you at a greater risk than.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  I'm just not, yeah, I'm just not like, I'm not a, I'm not a stay at home black man.

• 16:40Rich Roll?

  I already know I'm gonna break that rule.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, I just know that it's just not gonna, gonna be, gonna be that. So I was like, let me take myself out of that situation before I find myself in that situation. And again, none of us knew that the world was gonna like spiral in this way, but I just, it's been amazing to see it from a distance. And then also, when you think about the interaction with Mexican culture and black American culture over 500 years, it's super fascinating. So for me, I mean, I'm thinking about like John Carlos and Tommy Smith every day. I'm thinking about Mexico City, 1968 Olympics every day, you know, so if we're thinking about Colin Kaepernick, and if we're thinking about Minneapolis, then I'm also thinking about,

• 17:26Speaker 01

  you know, the events of 1968 in Mexico City.

• 17:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it is interesting how this has brought that into the forefront of consciousness again, and we're seeing those images of those guys, and we're having discussions about, you know, what happened to them in the wake of raising their fist on the podium

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 17:41Rich Roll?

  in 68, and how their lives really were never the same after that.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  Sure. What's also interesting, though, is how they got to that point, you know, and I've really been profoundly affected by this book called The Revolt of the Black Athlete by Dr. Harry Edwards.

• 17:59Rich Roll?

  I haven't heard of that.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  It's incredible, but he was the architect that worked with students organizing in the early, in the mid 60s, around San Jose State, I guess, and these are the athletes that ended up on the Olympic team. You know, this is the guy who has been in Kaepernick's ear and really kind of like, given him a lot of, a lot of the political support for his kneeling protests, and, and also, I guess it was the University of Minnesota football team that, you know, had a boycott and a protest just several years ago. So this one

• 18:34Speaker 01

  individual has been kind of like, situating, uh, black American athletics and athletes in the context of political realities for, since the mid 60s, since the early 60s.

• 18:51Rich Roll?

  When did he write that book?

• 18:52Speaker 01

  In the early 60s. And, uh, no, I think it might have been a reflection on the events of, of 68, and then he's needed to update it to, um, so then a new edition came out in the past year or so. That's super fascinating. It's kind of getting a second, um, buzz now because if you saw that Soderbergh film, High Flying Bird.

• 19:10Rich Roll?

  I did, yeah.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  So that's the, that's the- The thing that's going through in the manila envelope, it's that book. That's the book he's reading at the end, The Revolt of the Black Athlete.

• 19:20Rich Roll?

  That's interesting.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Saw that film. That was incredible. Soderbergh filmed that all on a phone, right?

• 19:25Rich Roll?

  On iPhone, shot the whole thing.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  He had been out of the game. He was not.

• 19:28Rich Roll?

  He didn't get enough cred for that movie. That was an incredible movie. If that movie came out right now.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:34Rich Roll?

  It would blow up.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah, and it just, just came out. I mean, so, yeah. Everybody goes to that film because it's super incredible. And then, yeah, the book that is revealed at the end is The Revolt of the Black Athlete by Dr. Harry Edwards.

• 19:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Meanwhile, How to Be an Anti-Racist, I think, is number one on the New York Times Bestseller list.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, the whole bestseller list is like white fragility books.

• 19:56Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Sea change for those writers.

• 19:58Rich Roll?

  Fueled in part by, you know, a genuine desire to learn and expand our awareness, I think. And also fueled in part by, you know, white guilt, I suppose.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  I'm glad you said it, because there's certain things that you could say that I can't. And that, because I was, I read that and I was like, man, white people sure love to buy books that they don't ever read. Yo, because I was like, that whole list was like white fragility. And I was like, it's, it's funny, like, you know, black folks, like, we, we have, we, we see white folks, right? We, I may be invisible. I may be the invisible man, but like, black folks have always had a purview.

• 20:35Rich Roll?

  You're not invisible, especially with that hair, dude. Come on.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  See this? No, but it's funny to like go on to, not message boards, those are scary. But like even in the comment section on social media, on Instagram, and see white people talking to each other is like real comedy. It's just like, get some popcorn.

• 20:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  And just to read like white comments with each other are real crazy. So the amount of performativity that's going with white people, when like a white person posts a fragility book, the comments are like, I got that book. I can't wait to start it this Saturday. And I'm like, wow, every white person is about to examine their fragility every future Saturday.

• 21:15Rich Roll?

  It's a weird thing that I think is new for a lot of white people that you guys have been living in forever. There's a lot of, you know, performance virtue signaling out there for sure. But also, a tremendous amount of, of white fragility. And I, you know, this is new to me. I posted, I did, I did a podcast, I put up a couple of days ago with my friend, Adam Skolnik, who's white Jewish guy. And it was more of just a discussion about what's going on right now. And I posted a clip from that on Instagram, and it has like, you know, 390 comments. And scrolling through that was, was an awakening, my friend, you know,

• 22:00Rich Roll?

  an awakening. All over the map. My friend, Dom Thompson, black dude, friend of mine, was like, he chimed in on, he's like, man, there's so much white fragility in this comment section. And then he got like 41 comments underneath that.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Right, just off that.

• 22:18Rich Roll?

  And, yeah, and

• 22:19Speaker 01

  He's just on the side like, man. And everyone's like,

• 22:21Rich Roll?

  A lot of like, repressed rage, a lot of cheerleading, like, all over the place. And it was very disorienting for me, as somebody who doesn't court controversy, and as somebody who feels like I'm, I'm talking common sense, to realize that we really are divided as a country. And there's a, there's a plethora of perspectives on this issue. And it's all so supercharged at the moment.

• 22:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:48Rich Roll?

  That makes me afraid of our ability to move forward. We can talk about optimism, you know, as we get into this. But, you know, that's been an education for me. And I think as a, as a white dude, like, trying to figure out how to communicate around this is, is tricky, too. We were talking about this on the, on the ride over here, like, you know, knowing, like, feeling strongly that I don't want to be silent, and I want to be part of positive change. Also, being sensitive, that it's really not my place to, to, you know, Lead the charge at all, you know, like I want to participate, but also being very conscious that this is not my movement, but also conscious that, that this is a problem

• 23:31Rich Roll?

  that whites need to solve. Like, black people are fine. You know, it's like, it's the white people that have to figure their shit out here. And that was what the clip was about. It's like, this is a white problem. And that was inflammatory for a lot of people. So like, how do you think about this? Like, help me out here, man.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I'm still like laughing about the, you know, I'm still laughing about the white fragility reading lists, you know, and I, and I maybe, maybe it's just that like, if you said like, black people have always known it. And I'm looking at all these authors who are writing the book. I was like, why are you telling people about white fragility? That's the one thing we had on and that was making it like tolerable. You know, but it's, man, it's disorienting all the way around in, in this moment. That's, that's for sure. I mean, on one hand, it's a white problem, but it's all, it's our common culture. Sure. So if we all in our country, so, you know, whether we're thinking about these divided

• 24:31Speaker 01

  states of America, or we're thinking about what our culture, our common culture means on a nominal way, you know, in the course of like, human history over the past, you know, 401 years, then, then yeah, we all do have a stake in it. Yeah. And what's, that's what's weird about the tension about we're so divided. It's like, it's weird how evenly we're divided, even though there's all these subcultures and there may be minorities or whatever. It's really electorally split, like 53, 47, 51, 49, on even given day, like

• 25:14Speaker 01

  on so many issues. Right. You know, and that. Kind of push me, pull you is is really what it feels like a battle for hearts and minds. And really, I think what we're seeing like play out in real time in the comments section. I mean, it's funny, right now on social media, it's not even the content you post. No offense to you. Good content's great, but like, it's really the works in the comments section.

• 25:36Rich Roll?

  Sure, yeah, that's where, yeah, that's where you break out the popcorn.

• 25:39Speaker 01

  That's where you monetize, like, brands are like.

• 25:42Rich Roll?

  What's going on in there, man?

• 25:42Speaker 01

  Can I sponsor, can I sponsor comments?

• 25:45Rich Roll?

  Well, just to be clear, so, so there's this false dichotomy, you know, you, you see this, this, this rift, like, people, you know, people say, black lives matter, and then you have a contingent of people who say, all lives matter.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:57Rich Roll?

  And I think we're getting better at understanding that, you know, that what that's all about.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:03Rich Roll?

  But to say, um, is it, is it, is it analogous or not to say, this is a white problem versus this is a human problem? You know, are those two things, like, black lives matter, all lives matter, white problem, problem of humanity? Like, how do those things line up?

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Well, these are all like tags, right? These are all like linguistic cues that kind of redirect the listener's attention. So if.

• 26:30Rich Roll?

  They're, they're dog whistles.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 26:32Rich Roll?

  In their respective ways.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Um, and not necessarily, you know, laden with the image, the, the, the energy of dog whistles that say the president uses. But in terms of the frequency that certain people pick up, it's, it's definitely a valid idea. So when you're thinking about what might constitute a white problem, I mean, you know, if white people got a problem, everybody got a problem. But redirecting the attention to white people to own it or to have ownership of it.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  And to, again, work at solving it, work on dismantling the problem, that's like an interesting redirect. That's a crucial redirect, you know?

• 27:16Speaker 01

  Like in an empathetic view, obviously, like black people's problem is everybody's problem.

• 27:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  But the way, the way it's set up, you know, if you, if you kind of like,

• 27:28Speaker 01

  personalize it just to black folks, then you're gonna like lose out on a lot of people feeling infested in, or having even any agency. I mean, that's, that's what's weird. I mean, whether like, whether there's like social justice warriors or people who are like recalcitrant and don't, you know, really wanna like, engage with these issues at all.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  There has been like a real, like neck snappingly swift realization, it feels like, on, on the part of a lot of white people to like, jump into this head on, you know what I mean? And it might be-

• 28:03Rich Roll?

  Is that wrong headed? Or even if it's well intentioned, or?

• 28:06Speaker 01

  No, I mean, no, I mean, well intentioned, like, at this point, we're taking it, you know what I mean? But like, how are we challenging? Sure. And channeling it in, in a way that's kind of like, you know, moving, moving forward, you know, like,

• 28:20Speaker 01

  everybody loves moonshots, you know? But moonshots don't really exist, right? It's really the progress of incremental gains, marginal gains,

• 28:33Speaker 01

  that really brings us progress. But this situation right here might be one of those once in a lifetime moonshots.

• 28:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  You know, where people are really being accelerated through so much, you know?

• 28:47Rich Roll?

  There is that sense-

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:49Rich Roll?

  That we have an opening now that we haven't seen in our lifetimes.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:53Rich Roll?

  And I think it would be tragic if we weren't able to figure out, you know, how to put that energy into, you know, the right avenue to make those changes.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:03Rich Roll?

  And I think part of it is, is, you know, my learning curve here has been really trying to understand the systemic aspect of this.

• 29:13Rich Roll?

  I went and rewatched 13th the other night with my family. And it's just so powerful, like it, it really- contextualizes and explains and analyzes the systemic nature of this in a way that makes it, you know, impossible to avert your glance.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:32Rich Roll?

  When you look at Alec and the CCA and the way that the prison infrastructure is set up and the lobbying efforts and our whole political system being geared towards, you know, these tectonic plates moving such that black people are disproportionately incarcerated and penalized, it's impossible to not understand that we need, you know, ground up change, like really fundamental systemic changes in how we're operating.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that has to, that has to be a conversation. I mean, like, there's, you know, it's great to have an electoral focus, but that process is fraught, obviously, as the last presidential, several presidential elections has shown. But also, you know, there needs to be a community conversation, you know, rather than these things are hot button issues that are going to get resolved at a city council Zoom meeting, you know, there needs to be sort of like a real simpatico energy where everybody is sort of conversing in these ideas for starters, you know?

• 30:38Rich Roll?

  But I feel like that's happening.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So then what's the next step? Like, how do we, so we're having the conversation.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so we're having the conversation and, you know, it's wild. I mean, it's already, things are so accelerated that right now, like downtown Seattle is like an autonomous zone.

• 30:59Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  And, you know, people are on flat bottom boats on Lake Havasu, just doing donuts.

• 31:07Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Living their life. So the next step is, remains to be seen. But I've really, kind of surprisingly, just going back to, to older models, and I'm finding those are really resonating. So, you know.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  It's interesting to think about.

• 31:27Rich Roll?

  By older, what do you mean by older models?

• 31:29Speaker 01

  It's interesting to see what like, what people are saying in the sixties and seventies, you know, and we've kind of glamorized these figures and made them into posters and T-shirts and, and, and biopics, but going back and what were the Panthers talking about, you know, going back and really looking like, what was the social flux of the sixties and seventies trying to push forward and, and those things, how did they get lost in the late seventies and eighties and what are all those forces? So, you know, there are some new models of, of being right now, but I think that there's also a lot to kind of uncover and rediscover in what was kind of set down a couple of generations ago.

• 32:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that was the other thing about thirteenth that made me, you know, made me realize that there's quite a bit of revisionist history when it comes to the Panthers and Angela Davis and Malcolm X and even Martin Luther King, like what we're taught in school or led to, led to believe and understand isn't quite the reality of how that all went down.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, and, and why not, right? I mean, if, if we were choosing between Barack Obama and a guy who in 1982 or 1983 voted against the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. As a holiday when he was Senator of Arizona, that was just, you know, a couple of decades ago, you know, and, and rest in peace, John, John McCain. But it, it, it really is interesting that like, we don't even have like a clear picture of King and he's like, got a statue in stamps, you know what I mean? So definitely, um, understanding King's legacy and Malcolm X's legacy and the legacy of the Panthers. I mean, it's

• 33:14Speaker 01

  amazing to see Angela Davis so active. I mean, I'm looking on Instagram and she's like, every other post is, she's everywhere. I was like, sis, hydrate. She's probably your two thirty.

• 33:26Rich Roll?

  I mean, that scene in thirteenth, when she comes into the courtroom with her big Afro and like, it's just, it's so powerful, you know?

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, really, and, and, and, you know, maybe I'll keep redirecting the convo to talk about people's reading lists, but you could just have like, a reading list of the women, you know, like. Women in the early 70s, black women in the early 70s, who were coming out of the Panther movement. You know what I mean? So, you know, we know Angela Davis, but I mean, Assata Shakur's autobiography is essential reading. Elaine Brown, you know, Erica Huggins, like all these, Kathleen Cleaver, all these incredibly storied women and had wildly rich lives, whether, you know, they were, you know, political actors or militants or, you know, freedom fighters, you know,

• 34:18Speaker 01

  who are still around today. Super fascinating. So, we could just reset the whole New York Times list right now and put like Assata's biography at the top.

• 34:27Rich Roll?

  Well, give me a reading list. I'll put it in the show notes.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Okay, okay, for sure.

• 34:39Rich Roll?

  When you were first on the podcast, that was like a couple of years ago, two years ago, we went through your, your whole story. And people who are newer to the show, I encourage you to go back and listen to that. I thought that was a really great conversation. But, you know, one of the, one of the seminal kind of moments in your life was being a student under Maya Angelou. And you told these beautiful stories about what that experience was like. I'm curious, I would suspect that, you know, her words and her kind of, I don't know if mentorship is too strong a word, but her presence in your life must, you know, be percolating to the surface right now.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  I think about it all the time. And she was such a heavy presence that I wish it was different, you know what I mean? I wish like, you know, you can't choose your mentors. You can't choose your mentors, you know?

• 35:31Rich Roll?

  You wish she'd shown up for that dinner at her house.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh. I mean, I just, you know, like, it's interesting to think that she gave the inaugural poem at the first Clinton inauguration. So like, whatever our feelings about the Clinton presidency, to think that Dr. Angela was this presence on the National Mall that cold morning in January of, I guess, 93.

• 36:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  I mean, I remember reading that poem on the pulse of morning as a high school student. And I guess at that time, I thought I was going to, you know, study at Wake Forest University.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  But I wasn't really putting the pieces together. And so now even that poem on the pulse of morning, I've kind of gone back and like started to unpack it. And it is very like 90s, identity, politics and diversity and bringing people together. And if you have any sort of like hand wringing ambivalence about that now, maybe it's just the result of how hardened we've become recently and how bitter and sour we've been, we've become, you know, if we're kind of reading these things and be like, what is she talking about? Maybe it's actually, you know, worthy of a second look.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  You know, because really, Dr. Angela was just a vessel of so many experiences and so many voices, you know, I was reflecting recently, talking to somebody about it. And they say John Milton was the last person to have ever read anything on the planet.

• 37:10Rich Roll?

  I mean, read, have read everything.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, everything that had been written. And, you know, I'm like, right, bro. Like, you weren't in the libraries at Timbuktu. But, you know, as far as a white guy, he had read what white people had put down. I dig it. That's what Dr. Angela was like, though. She was just like carried within her, I guess, as the phrasing goes, multitudes, you know, I guess, as Wordsworth would say, like, you know, she really had that. And it was just like spilling out of her, ideally, at every occasion. So, yeah, I'm definitely thinking about her and her legacy at this, at this time.

• 37:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Who are the poets right now that you think are speaking to culture in a profound way?

• 37:56Speaker 01

  You know, honestly, quarantine's been an amazing time to reflect on that. And, you know, there's this poet.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  I'm a writer, you know, so you're envious of other writers. But, uh, but I, uh, those are just my own appetites, you know? But there's this person, Dane Smith, who, um, has written this incredible book called Homie. I'd been, I, as I was leaving the house from Brooklyn to go to Mexico City, I took four or five books with me. And, you know, this writer is not only putting down some really lacerating poetry, um, early on in their career, but they're in Minneapolis, like they're from Minneapolis. And so Dane Smith is like walking around Minneapolis, kind of like document.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  On day one, I was like, wait, my favorite poet, like the most essential poet, you know, working right now is on the ground with a mask on, documenting and like getting resources out to people. And so that's the kind of, um, responsibility that I think if artists and writers do have any responsibility at all, I think that's sort of what my vein is when you're kind of looking at writers kind of coming out of a Latin American tradition or like a black American tradition. It's not just, I'm graduating from an MFA program and I'm like writing my carefully sculpted verses over here in my Garrett apartment at an artist colony.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  But, you know, I'm an omnivore and I'm working on poetry and essays and book reviews and, you know, I mean, we know Langson Hughes as a poet, but if you think about the buddy flick of Langson Hughes and Zornil Hurson, driving around the American South, writing stories of like regular people's lives and filing them as dispatches to gazettes back up in the North, that's kind of like, you know, that's, that's a, that's the work of a writer, you know? And so to think that, um, an incredible

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Poet is there, active on the ground, you know, kind of documenting the wildness in Minneapolis is incredible.

• 40:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah. As a writer yourself, have you been putting your thoughts down? Like, how are you approaching this as a creative person?

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's tough because you really want to open your aperture like as wide as you can and just record everything and remember everything, you know? I guess almost in the way that you think like the earliest cameras operated before, before it was like a microchip thing. If you kind of just think about the actual crude mechanics of a lightbox capturing an image and preserving it on film or paper, you know, is sort of like what the work of a writer is. But especially in the wake of the Ahmaud Arbery killing, it's rather poignantly reset

• 40:59Speaker 01

  for me, my own relationship with writing, my own responsibility with writing. And so, yeah, I've really been doing personal work, thinking about the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, specifically as a runner. That was so impactful to so many of us, obviously in running culture, but obviously around the world. But, yeah, it's something I can't shake. And so I've been doing a lot of writing, like poetry, actually, or just writing around that to think long-term, like what would I have to share and contribute that would

• 41:41Speaker 01

  sort of connect with that guy's life, you know?

• 41:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, let's talk about Ahmaud. I mean, that one is of particular, you know, pertinence because you're a runner, right? And you, I read this article that was in Runner's World recently where you were quoted and you said, "In some ways, I can't escape the sense that Ahmaud Arbery was killed because he was running, because he was that literal embodiment of our freedom that's obviously still so threatening to many people in this country."

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I'll love to be wrong. I'll love to kind of like meditate that idea away or like age that idea away or write that idea away. But I can't shake it. And, you know.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Sit back and watch this trial, these trials and, you know, see what happens over the course of due process. But I just can't stop thinking about the dramaturgy or the theatric, the staging of, of those last minutes, you know? And I think what it was when the video first came out, obviously it was, it's devastating to watch. But, uh, you know, the work is to expand your aperture. So like, how much can you take in? How much can you hold? You know, it's not just about Milton and Dr. Angela reading a bunch of

• 43:13Speaker 01

  books, but like, how much can you actually hold? And I've been, I've been black my whole life, right? So, and I, and I'm well familiar with extrajudicial killings of black American men in the United States. I was seeing a runner and I can't, I can't get over like the way his body moved as a runner on that film in the last moments. It's something that like, I think every runner relates to, right? If you have a body, you're a runner.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  And so if you're a runner, then you're relating to Ahmaud Arbery because it just looked like, it just looked like he was trying to like, continue running. You know, you know, when you're going down the sidewalk and like, someone's not paying attention, you know, with their dots in or, you know, or someone's veering and you're just kind of like, you're focused on completing your run, you're just like that. I just can't stop replaying that image of him just. At those last moments, when he just goes to the right, I just, the way his hips cut in the knees, and I was like, wow, that's my body, you know? And I'm kind of been exploring that and writing around that and then kind of thinking

• 44:37Speaker 01

  about starting there and then moving out to, to think about the messages that his, his life and his legacy kind of hold for us.

• 44:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I've said this before, but you know, as a runner myself, I've run in, you know, tons of cities all over the world. Never once has it ever occurred to me that I might be in jeopardy or that my life might be threatened by strapping on a pair of running shoes and leaving whatever hotel I'm in to go explore a city I've never been in before. But, you know, as a black American and as a runner and also as somebody who's incredibly well traveled, you've been all over the world, you get to, you have this incredible life where you get to spread the culture of running wherever you go. Like, I don't know how all that works, but like, you have a cool fucking life. You know, obviously you have a different relationship to that. Like, that is something that you have to think about.

• 45:31Rich Roll?

  So, you know, help me understand, you know, the psychology of that. Like, when you're going out to run, like, what goes through your mind? And, you know, what do you have to do to make sure that you're safe? Like, what is that, that experience that's relatable to, you know, every black American who wants to go run?

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's actually, it's, it's actually super complicated because, you know, we're in a running boom, and so a lot of people are getting into running now. And so, in addition to all the other challenges of, of getting into running, your body rebelling against you, where do you, like, how do you do it? Like, it's the most simple thing that we have in the human toolkit, but like, how do you get started? But I've been talking to like, a, a lot of brothers, a lot of brothers and sisters who have been doing it our whole lives, or like, who were school age athletes. And I think a lot of us actually have like, a different relationship with it than has been reported in the media. And I think that a lot of us are so proud to be runners, are so proud to do it, that

• 46:33Speaker 01

  it's such like, um, an inviolable piece of our identity, that when we go out to run, it's, it's like, uh...

• 46:45Speaker 01

  It's like such a symbol of pride, you know? It feels, you know, like an example of like a physical example of black excellence. I mean, the way you feel, you know, the way you feel when you have a good run, you know, I think for a lot of us is actually tied to feeling good to be black, you know, or like kind of residing in in these bodies that we're blessed with. So I don't, I don't have like a fraught relationship with going out for a run. I mean, are there sort of? I mean, obviously I can give you like a litany of racist experiences that I've had while running.

• 47:26Rich Roll?

  I'm sure you've had a ton of those. You read like, well, if you're gonna do that, then you should wear a T-shirt with a university name on it or something, some, some kind of signaling.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  I mean, if it comes down to.

• 47:35Rich Roll?

  I'm a safe black person.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Look, running is hard enough. Like you can line up excuses, but if like, I gotta put on an Ivy League shirt to go for a run, I might take up ceramics or like some other kind of.

• 47:46Rich Roll?

  You don't think about that.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no. I mean, I.

• 47:50Rich Roll?

  You put the Black Roses stuff on.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, if I, if I've really got a flash on it, but I, I honestly think that that in recent years, as I've thought more about why does I run or like what it means or what is the experience? I've, I've come to understand that like, you know, honestly, the, the black body moving through space is such a wild image to people. And when you're a kid trying not to get cut from the track team, if you're trying to like not finish last in the two mile, you ain't thinking about, you're, you're thinking about like, you don't want to let down John Carlos and Tommy Smith. Like, you know, like you're in the two mile, like, I can't finish last because then what

• 48:37Speaker 01

  would Edward Moses think? But, you know, now I'm thinking about it and I just see that like the reactions that people have when I run by, whether I'm in Brooklyn and Bed-Stuy, if I'm in a black neighborhood, or if I'm in a, in a, in a white neighborhood or, or in a different country, just, I feel that the image of like a black man running.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  Is one of the most sudden and visually arresting images that people might be confronted with. That's not my idea. That's just what I'm seeing and experiencing, you know? And I was like, why is that triggering? Why are like people almost hitting their car? I mean, this is like, if you're running, if you're training, if you run 100 miles a week, that's a lot of people you're passing.

• 49:25Rich Roll?

  You're gonna see a lot of people.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  You're seeing a lot of people. And so there's a constant sort of like stop and stare. And sometimes in your vanity, you know, if someone's checking you out, then you're feeling good.

• 49:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I wish I could look like that and run like that guy.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Right. You know, it's like, okay, cool. Take that.

• 49:40Rich Roll?

  Or I'm gonna cross the street.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, when you're fit, you're faster than them.

• 49:49Rich Roll?

  So what's weird, sorry to interrupt, but like, what's weird is that, you know, look, running is dominated by, by blacks and African Americans across the board from the 100 meters all the way up, right? Like at the highest level, at the elite level. And historically, it's rooted in black culture and African culture. But in America, it's sort of this white thing, right? Which is a strange, it's like, you know, we think of it, we don't think of it in terms of its ancestral roots.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:18Rich Roll?

  Or at its elite level.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think that, you know, lately I just sound embarrassing like an old, like, curmudgeonly Marxist or something like that. But I think in terms of like a late capitalist critique of what happened in, in the running boom coming out of the seventies and eighties, you know, it really was running, popular running was reduced down to this idea of like, this is something that rich white guys do. And so I have to keep resetting, because a lot of us don't even think that. Like, you talk to brothers around the way and we're like, this is like what I do. This is cool. So when we joked, you know, on our, on our first kind of conversation together, I just grew up that way. Not only do I think that

• 51:02Speaker 01

  that's quaint, but also I'm keep going back to bring something of that. Into the present day and reckon and suggest that, you know, far from these articles about like running has always been white or like jogging has always been a white sport. I don't, I don't really.

• 51:18Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, you grew up, your dad would go to the 10 Ks and like joke around with his buddies. And that was kind of the culture that you grew up in. But one of the things I love that you do on Instagram is you'll find old ads from like the seventies from running magazines and stuff like that. And you'll, you'll show them and you, you see the sort of historical, you know, chronicle of like how running was portrayed to the public. You know, with like the latest pair of shoes or running shorts and stuff like that. And it's super fascinating to see how it's being depicted.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Right. Well, of course, like, you know, America loves using black people and black culture as like marketing forces. So even in this, uh, the Michael Spino book, uh, Inner, Inner Running, right? Uh, or Beyond Jogging, like this super esoteric seventies kind of cult book about jogging. They had a brother on the cover. And so when I met Mike Spino, I was like, yeah, man, I mean, you were coming out of the Esalen Institute, you put a black dude on the cover of this mystical book about running. He's like, that's John Carlos. He wasn't happy about that.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's John Carlos, but, um, but yeah, so I, my understanding of it is that there's just always been that kind of representation all the way along until, you know, maybe eighties and nineties. Yeah. When I look back at my training logs or when you look back at, you know, the magazines of the day, there, there wasn't really kind of any representation or diversity. But it was happening, you know, the conversations were there.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  Again, it's weird to keep referring to Instagram, but I follow some of these high school heroes or these guys that I would follow. America's best in the nineties, Bob Kennedy, um, Todd Williams and, uh, on Instagram. And now it's kind of cool to see how your legends ended up. This dude Bob Kennedy, he's from Indiana. He's Indiana like born and bred. That was just like his thing. He posted this thing the other day talking about Steve Holman. Steve Holman was this black dude who was America's best miler, you know, more or less the best miler in the mid 90s when I was kind of coming up. And whatever happened with the Olympic schedule of every four, he never, never won a gold or anything like that,

• 53:33Speaker 01

  but definitely was that guy. Cover of Runner's World, whatever, handsome. And man, just last week, Bob Kennedy posted this anecdote about riding around with Steve Holman at a track meet in Los Angeles in the 90s. And like the discrimination that like Steve Holman was getting, coming out of the hotel and people checking IDs. And it was so crazy to hear about a story of my heroes in 1994, experiencing something that I was struggling with as a young runner at the same time. And to know that like Bob Holman and, and,

• 54:14Speaker 01

  and, you know, and these, these athletes were experiencing this, but that it was also that conversation, Steve Holman and Bob Kennedy were having this conversation and Holman saying to Kennedy, like, you know, yeah, this is like my reality. And if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. And that's-

• 54:33Rich Roll?

  And your sense was that somebody like that must, must, must have transcended that. Like, he can't be having to deal with the stuff that I'm having to deal with?

• 54:41Speaker 01

  Well, you know, it never even got that far. He's on the cover of the magazine and he's got like a, you know, winning smile and you're looking at his times, you know, you're not kind of looking at, to him for like lessons of like perseverance, you know, on a, on a cultural level, on a political level. So honestly, it kind of broke me a little bit to read this story of these guys who were young and pursuing their dreams, you know. And, and, and that's what I am personally sort of obsessed with, you know, like when we're thinking about black Americans representing the United States on an international level, or just walking down the street and representing America, you know? What does

• 55:24Speaker 01

  that mean? I mean, so we know, it's easy to think about John Carlos and Tommy Smith on the podium in 1968, winning gold medals in the 200.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  But what did it mean for Ted Corbett to represent the United States in the marathon as a black man in America at the 1956 Games in Helsinki? So what was his life like? If Brown versus Bordofed was early 50s, right? And then Emmett Till's ghastly murder and appearance on the cover of the magazine was 54, 55? And then Ted Corbett is like, wearing the USA singlet in the marathon in 1956 in Helsinki. What was his life like? I mean, PSA about Ted Corbett, it's tough to think about running being always a white

• 56:19Speaker 01

  man's sport. If this guy was the founding president of New York Roadrunners? If this man was the architect behind the five borough New York City Marathon course that's celebrating its 50th anniversary this year? I mean, a superlative American, Ted Corbett.

• 56:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but I really don't know his story. Like, that story isn't being told.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  We need that on the New York Times Best Seller list. But I mean, this guy had the longest streak of sub-three-hour performances at Boston. I mean, the guy's like, just whatever, and was active up into his 80s. Just an incredible ambassador for the sport. Clean eating, and, you know, like, he's one of those guys you read about, like, in sadly short Black History Month. This guy, in addition to all these other exploits, also invented the course measurement system that's used on bicycles to measure, you know, that USATF will use to like, measure courses empirically.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  So this is like, a wild American. Interesting note about Ted Corbett, he was also a member of the New York Pioneer Club. And the New York Pioneer Club was America's first integrated sports club that, yeah, integrated in the decade before Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball. So this kind of legacy of...

• 57:48Speaker 01

  Of multicultural participation, of black American representation in athletics is is something that is definitely up for revision, for sure.

• 57:58Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. One of your big mantras is, and we talked about this last time, is, you know, running is an act of rebellion, right? So now, in light of current events, like, how do you contextualize that statement? Like, how does that apply towards, you know, your perspective and the roles of advocacy around what we've seen unfold?

• 58:25Speaker 01

  You know, honestly, in a difficult way, in a quiet way, thinking about Ahmaud Arbery's last day, you know? He was 25. And what would John Mayer say? Quarter-life crisis? He's 25, you know? Think about what we were doing when we were 25, or what people are doing, figuring out your life, like, you're letting go of, you know, the ideals you had of who you were as a teenager in high school, and thinking about what it means to be an adult. And, man, instead of sitting around on the couch, like, smoking weed, you know what I

• 59:10Speaker 01

  mean? Being depressed, like, the dude put on his, you know, not to say he was sitting around being depressed or whatever, but I just think all of us, you hit that, those stages in your life where you need to figure it out, and we know that you can figure it out through running. And I can't get over the sense that, like, like all of us, like all runners, it's a vehicle for us to see goals in the future. It's a vehicle for us to, it's to see, you know, to imagine. And so I keep thinking that, well, that's rebellion, right? Because it's easier for us if we're just going to be like a digit. It's easy for us if our politicians are just going to want us to not show up to the polls,

• 59:55Speaker 01

  if, you know, companies just take us for granted that we're going to consume whatever food they put in a package on the shelf, you know? That we're not going to patronize our own establishment that have, like, been on this corner for 20 or 30 years, and a box store can come and replace it. So.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  Anytime we're not doing that, anytime we're reinvesting in like the human community and our own communities and we're circulating our dollars in our communities, that's rebellion in this kind of like late-stage capitalist death row that we're locked in right now, you know?

• 1:00:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  And Amart Arbery was doing that. And the idea that, yeah, black man triggering, freedom triggering, but also that's just a symbol of freedom and that I'm-

• 1:00:43Rich Roll?

  And agency.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, like I actually, I cannot, you know, can't get my car out of shop. I can't change this school loan bill today, you know, I can't kind of like, you know, change climate today, but like, what can I do today, you know? And a run might not even figure any of that stuff out, but a run might be literally and figuratively the first steps to figuring some of those things out, you know?

• 1:01:10Rich Roll?

  Well, there's running to something and then there's running from something.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:14Rich Roll?

  Right? So, running from the cops, that's its own form of rebellion, I guess, right?

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  It's own fitness.

• 1:01:20Rich Roll?

  Running to something implies, you know, sort of self-investment, positive change, like I'm looking for answers, I'm grappling with, you know, identity.

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, so when people say that, that, yeah, running is like a white thing, I mean, the idea of running is so deeply bound up in the story of black Americans that it's, it's such a, it's such a metaphor for us, which is why like preachers talk about it in the pulpit, which is why, you know, rappers kind of like reach for it as a metaphor in their verses. So it's interesting to kind of restore it and situate it to look at the ways in which it's a profoundly American thing, you know?

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  And I think, interestingly, we're also seeing a moment in which we're realizing that things that-

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  Again, like you brought up revision, you know, our own revisionist history. You know, there are certain things that fell outside of the canon of Euro-American cultural values, you know, like one of the things about white supremacy is that it's so predicated on this narrow idea. I mean, it's a totally concocted fabricated idea, right? Like, what's a white person like? That it also necessarily excluded all other forms of supremacy, all other forms of culture and existence. And so from the very beginning of this culture of this country's, you know,

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  birth, so many of these practices that Black Americans were engaged in were kind of excluded from the narrative. So fabric arts might be considered making clothes, you know, and African hair art, you know, hair braiding that we brought with us from Africa might just, you know, not only be considered hair braiding, but was so threatening on like, you know, the slave plantation system that even that was sort of forbidden, you know?

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  So the things that we were practicing during African enslavement and then, you know, in the decades since were sort of excluded from the narrative of what could be art and what could be creativity and what could be expression. And so this is a bit of a leap, but I think where I'm at right now is like looking at running as, as expression, you know, like along the lines of dance, you know, like the movement as expression and movement as an art, you know, it's, it's, it's okay to call it a sport. It's okay to celebrate at the Olympics and

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  put a label on it. But when you're calling it sport, it's able to kind of push it over to the side and be like, ah, that's something that those folks do. But what if we're like looking at the movement?

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  Arts next to the visual arts, next to sonic arts, you know? And so I kinda, I'm thinking about running now in the context of sculpture, in the context of like, you know, Miles Davis's work, in the context of meditation practice, rather than just kind of like, you know, doing quarters around the track, so.

• 1:04:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, there's a, there is a beauty and a poetry to that. And there are certainly performances that stand out as examples of that, like whether it's Edwin Moses, you know, hurdling, or Usain Bolt running the 100 meter dash, or Kipchoge, you know, breaking the two hour mark, like those, those are pieces of performance art, undoubtedly. And when you're, you know, kind of recounting these various art forms, you know, I can't help but think about how music is distinct from that. Like when, when certain art forms percolated up that did resonate with white culture, they were immediately appropriated and, and repackaged in a different way.

• 1:05:38Rich Roll?

  So anytime like something kind of, oh, like that, actually that might be something like, let me grab that and I'll take that and I'll present it to the public in a kind of mainstream way that's digestible for them.

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you, you kind of grow up knowing that as, as a black person, like a white man took everything.

• 1:05:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, it's the trope of Elvis and all that.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, but I'm seeing it like all over the place now.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  You know, not only in the work that, you know, maybe even I've been doing in running culture for the past 10 years, to see how, you know, that, along with the efforts of a small group of people working in urban running, has shifted marketing campaigns of multinational corporations.

• 1:06:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, 100%. That's your fault.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  My fault. Um, so yeah, definitely apologize to the ancestors.

• 1:06:34Rich Roll?

  Like it's cool to have like a bridge runners, you know, team now in your city and stuff like that.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  I mean,

• 1:06:40Rich Roll?

  It's like Black Roses, like last time you we did the pie, I thought like, I'm gonna ask him for a Black Roses jersey. And I was like, no, I can't, I can't, not unless I'm part of the team, because I know you don't give those out.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:06:51Rich Roll?

  You gotta be in the deal.

• 1:06:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm trying to hold on to that, you know, or and then, you know, like Jessica Simpson, just like sell it and like produce it in a sweatshop and like get rich or whatever. But yeah, for now, uh, it's, it's that kind of idea. But yeah, for it's wild to have watched brands. I mean, people just don't know, like, you know, nod to, to the, the articles about like running has been a white thing. There was just like no black people on the pages. And now you go through a page of or running ads and it's just like, you think it's only black people. If you, if you were to judge running, you know, by its ads, you would think only black people do it because that's how heavily marketed. They're using, using black

• 1:07:33Speaker 01

  folks now, you know, but I, I'm not even kind of like, yeah, it's, you gotta look outside of running for inspiration to kind of like figure out your way forward with running. And, and in this quarantine time, it's been wild to just kind of, again, I'm on so many different like IG lives, like it's like going back to school, you know? And so I've been seeing really fascinating conversations with, you know, black ceramicists and looking at the, the connections between, you know, pottery and, and running or, you know, I thought about coming and rapping to you about this, but even the, the tradition of barbecue in

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  black culture, you know, is super fascinating. And to look at the ways in which that's been gentrified, you know, I was watching this, there's a super fascinating barbecue expert named Howard Conyers, I think is his name. And he's from, South Carolina, lives in New Orleans now, and I'm so impacted by listening to this guy speak. First of all, he's literally a rocket scientist. He's gone and works in a jet propulsion engine lab or whatever, but he's also a master at barbecue. And the historical research that he's doing to show that Africans were introducing pit barbecue techniques in 16th century Mexico.

• 1:08:58Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Like Mexicans, they could be mad when I'm back in Mexico, like, you think black people invented barbecue? And you know, that's like, you know, you're pro-black. I know people be like, Knox is really pro-black, but like, you know, you're pro-black when you're walking around Mexico, like, we invented that, man. So shout out to all my peoples in Mexico, like, respect to the cuisine. But I'm really looking at the ways in which even our own practices that we've been doing here in the Americas has just been kind of like subsumed by the dominant culture. Hair braiding, for instance, obviously just a symbol of of of black elegance and communication that we brought with us from Africa.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  Bo Derek is like a classic example of cornrows kind of going crazy.

• 1:09:45Rich Roll?

  Iconic image.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  It's tough to be mad at Bo Derek, you know what I mean? Like, you know, if you want to like rail against white people and Bo Derek's up there with, you know, braids on, it's like.

• 1:09:55Rich Roll?

  You gotta be of a certain age, though. That movie, 10.

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, again, though, but it's just wild to see the ways in which, like, in running, white women have appropriated African hairstyles or African-American hairstyles. And and sometimes not even understanding, I've seen folks call it race braiding. And I was like, wow, you know, not only are you kind of like really co-opting these kind of super rich cultural expressions from black women in America who are paying the cost for that, who are, you know, suffering from unfair and discriminatory hiring practices and pay practices, you know, not just because of their hair, but because of who they are.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  But to kind of just like take wholesale black hairstyles and then just like use that as like your lucky hairdo for your marathon is offensive, you know, and is cultural appropriation. So even in running, which is simple, just lacing up and going down the road is rife with cultural appropriation that like that is worthy of investigation for sure.

• 1:11:18Rich Roll?

  Well, every art form, every trend is built upon the legacy of some pre-existing form, right? So, you know, if you extrapolate that argument, everything is appropriation. So at what point does the appropriation or the nod to the forbears, you know, become inappropriate? And like, what is the responsible ethical way to, you know, basically embrace multiculturalism? Like, I think that's a, that's like an area where a lot of people don't know where their ground is firm.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I think, oh, man, it's not sexy, but it really is a question of attribution and respect. And so now and these days, when people are talking about the phrase, you know, do the work, knowing sort of, you know, you don't want to be a nerd like me and kind of just be like making all these connections. But, you know, you really do have to understand, you brought up the example of Elvis, I mean, kind of taking in rhythm and blues music and stripping away all its labeling and then repackaging it for something that you want to market in a different kind of way. That's, I think, probably where the disconnect is, you know? So if we're understanding that Picasso and George Braque were getting

• 1:12:36Speaker 01

  so much influence from African sculpture, you know, when they were working at that time, then we're understanding Picasso a little bit more. And we're also problematizing our sense of what genius is, rather than thinking this is like the greatest artist of all time, looking at Picasso as a link in the chain and someone who you might put his work up, as museums are doing now, his work up next to the work of Faith Ringold, you know, like how artists can not only be Just contemporaries in the studio or at a moment in time, but also thematic

• 1:13:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  and cultural contemporaries and in cultural conversation.

• 1:13:14Rich Roll?

  Just opposing those against the influences.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. So I think it's, again, they always say it's a, it's a question of influences, you know, and so I think that when we're respecting, where we're, when we're respecting our inspirations, when we, when we're acknowledging where our inspirations from, from whence they came, then I think that that's a huge step towards kind of like, again, dismantling some of these white supremacist practices like cultural appropriation.

• 1:13:46Rich Roll?

  So in a very practical sense, if there's a woman who wants to, you know, cornrow her hair for her marathon.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:53Rich Roll?

  How is she supposed to provide that attribution in a respectful way?

• 1:14:00Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I mean, it might be economics, right? You might want to pay a black woman to do it, you know, rather than say like, you know, if this is how black women in our communities make their living with hair braiding salons, let's patronize those businesses and give credit to that. Like, the idea that like, this is how I braided my hair in high school, you know, and so this is what I'm gonna do, that, that's not exactly the same thing. Now, it should be said that, like, women around the world have always braided their hair in intricate fashion. And so some braiding techniques coming out of Scandinavia, culturally demonstrable. So I'm not trying to take it and legislate.

• 1:14:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  of this, but, you know, and also I think that taking pause and thinking how other people might feel, you know, is, is not only one of the calls to action for this moment. That that hopefully will go forward, but I think that that's like the work we need to do now. So, you know, really think, how do I make space for other people? How do I make other people feel comfortable, you know? Again, to say in running or something like that, like, how do we create a more just space in our in our communities?

• 1:15:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:29Rich Roll?

  I'm interested in in kind of what unity and allyship looks like to you. Like, I'm, you know, just sitting here thinking, I'm a white dude, you know, I'm privileged. I come from a certain background. We're in this moment and I really want to be as open as possible and as teachable as possible. I want to fully understand the breadth and the depth of what we're contending with right here. And I want to be an ally. And I'm very, you know, I find myself feeling cautious or somewhat paralytic around what to say and what to do

• 1:16:08Rich Roll?

  for fear of misstepping in a culture in which, you know, a slight misstep on Instagram or in public is met with, you know, what we were talking about before. And not that I really, you know, care that much about any of that. I really, what I want, what I do care about is like getting this right. I'm interested in, in, you know, what that looks like from somebody of your perspective.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  That's, that's an interesting thing, and I think that's something that a lot of us are thinking about.

• 1:16:41Speaker 01

  And

• 1:16:44Speaker 01

  one of the things about double consciousnesses is that I wasn't really thinking about

• 1:16:51Speaker 01

  that situation you just described, you know? Like, I don't think a lot of black Americans that I've been in conversation with over, over my life have been really talking about paralytic white guilt.

• 1:17:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  You know, so

• 1:17:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  So the, the, the, this, the wave of communications in the past several weeks has been really fascinating.

• 1:17:13Rich Roll?

  Let me make it about me.

• 1:17:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Like, I was like

• 1:17:16Rich Roll?

  Here's the thing, like, it's so funny because all the white dudes are freaking out right now, trying to figure out what to say and what not to say. And my black friends are like, relax, man. Like, we've been waiting for you. It's cool.

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  How do I get it right? I was like, we're not counting on you to get it right. Don't worry. Like, just chill out, you know? Join in. Um, yeah, the whole paralytic idea of getting it right. So I didn't even know, you know, like when, after the, the, um, George Floyd killing when, when, you know, black, when, before we were really aware, and it was happening daily, right? You know, like our experiences and our understanding of the moment was setting in. So when there was like so much like white silence, I was like, oh, okay, cool. White, white, white people don't have anything to say. Okay, cool. And it was actually a real vacuum, a real deafening silence.

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  It was actually really incredible because I was able to, I was able to just think about the life of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, without so much noise, you know? And I was able to reach out and connect to like other black people in that space and just have these emotional connections.

• 1:18:33Rich Roll?

  And what were those conversations like?

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  You know, they were uncomfortable because, you know, you really have to, I mean, like, everybody has divestment that they need to consider. So you really have to kind of like let go of machismo or you like these kind of like chauvinistic ideas of, of our own vulnerability and fragility. And so I had just reached out and just like, honestly, I think it was like the Tuesday after George Floyd, I just called and like texted like a lot of black men in my life. I wasn't like on Instagram. I wasn't, you know, doing much except that. And it wasn't that I was just like saying that to my friends or my family, you know?

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  It was that I was doing it to people that I respected from a distance. I was reaching out to people that I know didn't really like me too much. And I just wanted to like say, and it wasn't even cut and paste. I was actually going through and I was like, reaching out to someone and just saying like, hey, just want to let you know, for these qualities.

• 1:19:42Speaker 01

  I just want to let you know on today that I love you because I think that it was just like my instinct spiritually, emotionally, like black men needed to hear it. Black women need to hear it every day of their lives, but black men, you know, the day after watching or the day of watching video of this, this man getting killed, you know, over the course of eight minutes and 46 seconds, um, needed to know that they were loved. And so that was like a really emotionally exhausting process that I went through on that day. Um, so that was, and it took a few days to recover from that. So then by the time the weekend rolled around and I saw, you know, like white women yogis

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  were like hosting Zoom chats for people to examine fragility. Then I was cool. I was like, oh, white people got this. White people are just going to talk to each other. They're not going to bother me at all. So I'm good. I was like, it went from like white silence to like white people talking to each other. It was great. That Monday hit, that cat, that bell rang on Wall Street. Every, every black person's phone starts ringing. Knox, I need you to get on a plane and come talk to me on the podcast. I was like, oh, white people, white people are silent on this. That's terrible. I'm angry, but it's also like a nice little respite from white people. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. The phone was hot from like Monday 8:00 AM. Like white people needed their materials

• 1:21:07Speaker 01

  reviewed. You know what I mean? So, so, um, Or they need Knox to tell me that I'm okay. Yeah. And I'm like, damn, that's not, I'm like, I'm not that kind of guy. Like, I'm not, I'm not, that's not me. So, so that was like a, a process, um, that, you know, is kind of awkwardly and begrudgingly negotiating. And then the third week, white people had it figured out already. So then I was like, oh, now white people are like Blacks Core Tuesday and companies like, black people, we've got it figured out. Here's, 10K, here's 40 million, like, cool, like, you know what I mean? So it was really swift, the way the fumblings of people's responses or brands' responses to

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  kind of this tragedy that kind of we're all grappling with.

• 1:21:55Rich Roll?

  It is an awkward fumble, though, because, you know, I found, I'm finding myself doing the same thing. Like, like I said, like, I'm grappling with how to communicate around this. And, and also, you know, getting honest about diversity on my own platform. Like, I talked about this the other day. Like, I like to think that I've had a wide variety of diverse voices on my podcast, but when I'm objective about it, and I measure it up against the 520-plus podcasts that I've had, it's predominantly white. Like, I have a lot of growth there, right? So what do I do? Well, I get out, you know, my contact

• 1:22:35Rich Roll?

  list, and I scour Twitter, and I look for interesting voices. And then, you know, you're the one who gets the phone call among other people. And that's weird, too. Like, oh, now I'm gonna call Knox.

• 1:22:46Speaker 01

  You're gonna take a call?

• 1:22:48Rich Roll?

  There's like, I know. And it's cool. And I'm glad that you're here, and it's awesome. But like, does that feel like, when you got that call from me, were you feeling like, oh, this is, this is somewhat opportunistic also? You know what I mean? Like, you know what I'm getting at?

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I mean, you can't, you can't overlook it, you know what I mean? Like, as Richard Pryor once said-

• 1:23:08Rich Roll?

  I haven't, I haven't talked to Rich since we did that retreat, you know, like, now he's calling me, you know?

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  But, I mean, you know, we're, we're cool. Like, I feel like the bond that we have as, as dudes, and as, as runners, and as athletes, and writers, and, and kind of like engaged humans on the planet, eh, you're taking that call, you know? But, but I was thinking, like, that's one idea, to like, reach out, and like, us to connect, but-

• 1:23:33Speaker 01

  There's this movie Putney Swope. I don't know if you've ever seen it.

• 1:23:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's been a long time.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. So everybody go back and rewind this movie because I keep thinking about it all the time. You remember the opening scene is the kind of like Madison Avenue, all white boardroom of the advertising agency and the chairman of the board has a cardiac arrest and dies like on the table.

• 1:23:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:56Speaker 01

  And so they have to go around with the body on the table. They go around and do a vote for who's going to be the next chair. There's one black guy, it's the late 60s, and they all do anonymous vote. And when it comes time to read the votes, he wins unanimously to be the next chair. And all the white dudes are enraged, like, how did he do it? First of all, each white dude voted for him because none of them wanted another white dude to become the chair. And then he voted him for himself. So not only are they mad that they all like hoodwinked each other, then they say like, you voted for yourself. And he's like, of course, I was the best man for the job. He gets up, he says a speech and he's

• 1:24:38Speaker 01

  like, I just want to let you know, there's just going to be a few small changes. And then the next scene is the boardroom. It's all brothers and afros. You know, people are doing hair, braiding hair at the table. And, you know, watch the film and just because you swap out the boardroom and put all black people and doesn't make it great. They still, you know, do shitty marketing campaigns for black people. It's just black people doing the marketing. So there's a good, a good lesson there. But I was going to say, really,

• 1:25:09Speaker 01

  in the spirit of this moment, another model is turning over your podcast to me.

• 1:25:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  And I take over. So what is Knox Robinson's podcast at Rich Roll look like? So then I started kind of like thinking about what that was going to be. I was like, I would have to have a DJ, you know, kind of play, it would have like music break. And I was like, how would I, what would Knox Robinson do in the spirit of the revolution? Like, what would I do to totally flip your podcast? So that's the other.

• 1:25:39Rich Roll?

  I like that.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  That's the other proposition.

• 1:25:41Rich Roll?

  I'd let you do that. Yeah, you have seen people do that with Instagram. They're turning their Instagram accounts over to diversity of voices. And I think that's really cool.

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, you know, there'd be the.

• 1:25:50Rich Roll?

  Anytime you want to come and do that, man.

• 1:25:54Rich Roll?

  You might have to move out of Mexico City at some point. How long are you gonna be there, you think?

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  I'm working on something special. I mean, yeah, I'm working on something special. I'm bringing together, um, you know, I'm building a training camp with Herman Silva, the two-time New York City Marathon winner. And I'm, um, working with one of the greatest architects, Michelle Roachkind, who you know, uh, also in Mexico City. And so Michelle is gonna kind of create this amazing, brutal architecture structure next to Herman Silva's training camp. And so we're working on that like right now.

• 1:26:28Rich Roll?

  Like a permanent home as a retreat center. That's very cool.

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  So that should be, you know, ready, you know, at the end of this year.

• 1:26:35Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  So I'm really excited to, to share that. Obviously like

• 1:26:39Rich Roll?

  This is gonna be like a second home for you.

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  A second home, but I want it to be like a second home for like a lot of people. Cause I was thinking about, you know, as we were heading up to Tokyo Olympics and, and how some of our American elites, you know, I, I'm thinking about it when I was a kid looking up at elites, you know, Steve Holman and Bob Kennedy, and they're like titans to me. Now I'm older and I'm a dad and I'm thinking how these kids are living. And I was like, oh, these kids are starving. Like these kids are like the best runners in America and they're broke. Now we deal with brands. So we know how bad these deals are, you know, they're making like crazy little money. And so I was like, oh, I kind of want to have a training center where I can just like throw the keys to some of these great training

• 1:27:26Speaker 01

  groups that are out there, you know, you see them on Instagram and they're doing amazing workouts on a dirt road in Boulder, but you're like, are these guys living like eight in a condo in Boulder?

• 1:27:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:37Speaker 01

  Like, can I?

• 1:27:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, or Flagstaff.

• 1:27:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, Flagstaff. Like you want to glamorize it when we're stuck in our worlds, you know, in our, in our things. But I just want to throw the keys to like some folks and just have people come out and train for like six weeks and like, you know, see what, see what it's like. So yeah, I just wanted to be like a resource for For, for people kind of getting after their goals in that kind of way.

• 1:28:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I met Silva when I did that event in Mexico City.

• 1:28:05Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:28:05Rich Roll?

  Beautiful, humble guy.

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  Really an incredible person. And it's, he's so, still so engaged. And so it's, it's funny to have kind of like, ended up in this bizarre friendship with him over the past like eight or so years. So to kind of build this project with him along with Michelle is really kind of coming together of serendipitous energy.

• 1:28:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Have you seen this, have you seen Emmanuel Acho's Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man?

• 1:28:35Speaker 01

  No, what's that?

• 1:28:35Rich Roll?

  Oh my God. This is like blowing up the internet.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:39Rich Roll?

  So he, he played football at University of Texas and was in the NFL. And now he's doing this series, like Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man. And he did his first one with Matthew McConaughey.

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  Oh, okay.

• 1:28:50Rich Roll?

  And it just like exploded the internet. And it's, it's cool because, you know, Matthew is the foil to him. And it's like, is it, should I say black or African American? Like it's very, it's very basic. And he is so eloquent and like walking people through, like, let's just, you know, get a few things straight here. You know what I mean?

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  I need that. No, because a couple of people, a couple of listeners I know or viewers who are seeing this are gonna, he's talking about me. But yeah, folks have asked, been asking me like capital B or lowercase b. So.

• 1:29:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, I was writing a blog post the other day and it's like, and I thought about that. I was like, is it black or is it African American? Like which one is it? You know, there's like a lot of stuff that like, you know, the, the learning curve is high.

• 1:29:32Speaker 01

  For everybody. Cause that in and of itself is, is a great Google search, right? Because it's like, which newspapers and which media organizations in the 20th century decided to say, well, colored negro, but then black capital B, what does capital B indicate versus lowercase? So it's a question of syntax and grammar that, that editors can weigh in on, but it's also a question of identity for a lot of folks too. So, you know.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, language politics as much as personal politics.

• 1:30:03Rich Roll?

  Back on this thing about allyship. I'm not sure we ever got to the answer on that, but I'm interested. I want to explore that a little bit more and also kind of what the what the blind spots are that you're seeing out there.

• 1:30:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, because I'm thinking about it a lot and like, again, I'm not trying to be trying to like do white people's work and like, think about what a white ally should be. I mean, respect to other brothers and sisters who are like ally coaches right now, that that's valid, you know, it's just not not my thing. But having had incredible relationships with with with white folks, you know, for the course of my life, I keep thinking about, um, I keep thinking about this guy that I trained with when I left New York City and I moved up to the woods on the banks of the Hudson River. His name's Mike Slinski.

• 1:30:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we talked about that a little bit last time.

• 1:30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, he's never going to see this, so I can speak freely. Before he was on Instagram, I would write about him all the time. I called him the bus driver. He was driving a bus for for the local school district and I was just telling him all like the writing about his incredible wildlife and his stories and his insight. I mean, this guy like changed my life, but he was on Instagram, so it was like a gift for a writer. I could just be writing about this dude and he would never know. Now he's on Instagram and I'm like, what's up, man? Now he's on Strava. No, it's bad. Now he's on Strava.

• 1:31:26Rich Roll?

  Can't get away.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  It's bad. I was like, and I'll travel, you know, when Strava gives you the alerts when that your course little segment is, you know, you lost the course record or something.

• 1:31:35Rich Roll?

  I don't know what that's like because I haven't held any of those.

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  You gotta run some obscure course. I told you I was living in the Hudson Valley.

• 1:31:41Rich Roll?

  That's that's part of the the athletic experience that I'm not familiar with.

• 1:31:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, oh, yeah, you're because you're like in direct hits of that. No, I was living in the Hudson Valley. They they barely get an internet, so, um, yeah, I'll be traveling somewhere and I woke up and I was like, I just lost a course record to this dude. And I was like, you don't know. He's like, why? What's that? I was like, well, you get an email notification. He's like, what? I was like, yeah, you just never mind. So, but this guy, over the course of the time that I was living in this tiny town on the bacon banks of the Hudson.

• 1:32:13Speaker 01

  Was incredible. He was just the best training partner. Consistent, focused, and you would really have to work hard. I mean, if I've known this dude almost 10 years, the number of times we've kind of like veered out of like non-training talk have been few, you know, and I'm talking about like when we're running, sometimes we're running through these towns in upstate New York and we run through this town next to ours, Wapanger Falls, and I was like, Wapanger Falls isn't where this was the whole Tawana Brawley incident, Tawana Brawley incident. Al Sharpton was up here and there was like protests and stuff. He's like, yeah, bad times in town. And so you couldn't really

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  pull this guy into kind of any identity politics conversations, but he would come around and run. He's always going to be there with the workout. He's always ready for that, that Sunday long run. This guy would get up before our long run and he would go and like put water out on the course.

• 1:33:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  Over a 20 mile run and then come back and then meet us and then run for like three people, you know, that, that's kind of like my understanding of like serving others and serving a friend and being an ally. So even in running, you know, you're, an ally in running doesn't necessarily have to like be up on the New York Times bestseller list, but a person who's respecting you as an athlete and respecting you as another person and definitely making sure that you're afforded safe passage if you're like moving, moving through, through space, but someone who has your back in that way. But then I think on

• 1:34:00Speaker 01

  like a social level, the other thing that I can't get over is like, as white folks are trying to tell each other what an ally looks like and as like, you know.

• 1:34:10Rich Roll?

  Trying to out ally.

• 1:34:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, ally each other. And then like it's super binary, black and white. And so like, you know, Asians are trying to figure out how they participate in it and they're trying to like settle scores with white people and they haven't necessarily been historically the best allies with black people. So the whole thing is fraught. And I just think that like,

• 1:34:31Speaker 01

  Ah, this isn't an idea that's been vetted by the experts, but I think white allies gotta look at, or like aspirational allies, just gotta take a seat and like, look at how black people interact with each other. The mutuality, the exchange, the information exchange, the love exchange that occurs. Black people are hard on each other, you know, for sure. But the bedrock of love and respect that has been key to the survival and the perseverance, but also like the flourishing of our culture is, is key. So, you know, no book is, is really gonna tell you how to do that. It's gonna provide some insight, but

• 1:35:16Speaker 01

  one thing I don't understand about these lists is like, there's very little fiction, you know? I mean, for me, a white ally has read Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. You know, like if, if, if black culture is part of the, of our American culture and Toni Morrison won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993, like, everybody here on Instagram talking about allyship and all that, if you don't have Toni Morrison on your bookshelf, if you're just not reading our Nobel laureate fiction, then like, what are you doing with like, all these self-help books on the shelf? You know what I mean? So, I really think, you know,

• 1:35:56Speaker 01

  yeah, I was like, I need a short answer for what a white ally looks like. And like,

• 1:36:02Rich Roll?

  No, I like that.

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  It's just like Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon on your bookshelf? Cool. That's like, an early, early step, you know?

• 1:36:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It is interesting that that may be a blind spot, and yet, black culture predominates pop culture, you know, from music to film, right? Like, it's, I mean,

• 1:36:23Rich Roll?

  Well, hip hop, I mean, hip hop is so dominant, you know, in terms of its cultural influence right now. And yet, that doesn't necessarily track to its antecedents.

• 1:36:35Speaker 01

  Well, no, it does sadly, right? Because the entire-

• 1:36:38Rich Roll?

  I mean, the art form does, but the popular interest doesn't.

• 1:36:41Speaker 01

  Oh, the popular interest. I was thinking in like a more macabre sense of the entire wealth of, you know, the Americas was predicated on black bodies.

• 1:36:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that, yeah, that for sure.

• 1:36:51Speaker 01

  So for us, like seeing hip hop and, and, and the legacy of like blacks in America, in the Americas is an essential link.

• 1:37:01Speaker 01

  But, uh, yeah, for real, you, by the time it becomes pop, popular, you sort of lose that original essence, right? Or, or you think you do right by the more bricolage you put on top of, of, of foment.

• 1:37:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah. So, your son's in New York, right?

• 1:37:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:21Rich Roll?

  What are the conversations that you're having with him right now about what's going on?

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's tough. He's 16, 16. And everyone's like, oh, it's gotta be terrible for him. But I can't underst- I, I, I don't know if it's like really hard to be 16 in a quarantine lockdown.

• 1:37:39Rich Roll?

  I got a 16 year old daughter.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's either bad, but it's like, it's rough being 16 no matter what, you know? So, like, if you're Baron Trump, it's rough being Baron Trump, no matter who your parents are. You know what I mean? If that's his parents, you know what I mean? So, um, so I can't tell, I can't tell if my son, how hard it is.

• 1:38:00Rich Roll?

  You can't, you can't, you can't separate the angst of 16 with the experience of a young black man growing up around a lot of chaos that's happening right now.

• 1:38:10Speaker 01

  And also with me as his dad, um, he's definitely more even tempered than I am too. So he's, he's telling me to chill, you know what I mean? So, he is on the precipice of like a huge time in his life, thinking about- College, but then what is that even going to look like? So I'm just kind of like, it's weird all the way around. He lives in Fort Greene and to think that folks were burning a New York City Police Department, police cruiser like a couple of blocks from his house. Like that was that block, I lived on that block when he was born. I mean, the day I got home from the hospital where that police van is, I walked to right on

• 1:38:54Speaker 01

  that block with my son in my arms and like, watched the sunrise, had coffee and like, told him, and you know, my ancestors that I was going to be a better man than I had been to that point, we'll see what, how that turns out. But, and I started running the next day. So to see that police van charred, you know, is, is actually like a weird kind of like touchstone. And my son still lives in the neighborhood with his mom, so that she's been holding it down. And yeah, it's, it's interesting to see what, what he's going to do with it.

• 1:39:26Rich Roll?

  What do you, like, what do you want him to take away? Like, how does that, from your perspective, inform, you know, how he matures into a man? Like, what do you want him to take away from this experience as a young black man growing up in America and in New York?

• 1:39:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I haven't really updated it since I thought about what I wanted for him as he was coming into this world. And I wanted, I expect, I demand that he be a good citizen. I mean, all these kind of like corny things that we came up with about like helping the elderly cross the street. Whether you believe in voting or not, but like civics, you know? I think that the best examples of, of our culture, no matter what your background is, I think that that's what I hope my son and my daughter embody.

• 1:40:23Speaker 01

  You know, I think I expect and demand that he's, has an engagement in the whole world and thinking about our global community. I, I expect and demand that he, you know, cares about others and is compassionate and conscientious, but at the same time, as a young man, he's got to make his own way. And so if I've sort of obfuscated or, or made fraught.

• 1:40:53Speaker 01

  My meandering progression, that in a way is, you know, kind of implying to him that it's incumbent on him as a young man to find his own way, you know? It's interesting to kind of think of how you raise your kids, you know? When we were living in Brooklyn, you know, taking him home from school one time, he's four or five, and somebody comes around the corner and like wanted to sell like a Playstation under his jacket, like, yo, and I was like, ah. And in that moment, like, how do you explain that to your kid? Because my son's like, oh, my God, yo, we could have had a Playstation, Dad.

• 1:41:38Speaker 01

  And I was like, well, do you explain? Do you assume that it was stolen? Do you explain, you know, what do you do? And then at that moment, he's four, and I was like, am I gonna be the kind of person who tells their four-year-old that there's good people in the world and bad people in the world, and that bad people steal and good people don't? And just in that moment, I was just like, ah, I gotta like be, I gotta be truthful, you know, and, and kind of talk about how complicated it is to, to live in Brooklyn, you know, where, you know, whatever you're doing to make a living is on a spectrum of, of, of morality in a way.

• 1:42:23Speaker 01

  And certainly, for instance, someone selling weed in Brooklyn 15 years ago in California in 2020 could be, you know, living in a baller's crib. An entrepreneur, you know what I mean? So even our morality spectrum is so ill-informed by sort of arbitrary or self-advantageous or convenient factors.

• 1:42:49Rich Roll?

  Well, the morality spectrum has to be contextualized by the social, you know, forces that compel a restriction of opportunity.

• 1:42:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, so we have to change those social forces, right? Like, we can't affect the spectrum. You can't, can't even participate in the spectrum if the sources are suspect, right? We gotta really dismantle those forces that you're describing, and that's the work we're doing when we're talking about, you know?

• 1:43:18Speaker 01

  Dismantling white supremacy. I mean, white supremacy is such a wild idea. It's such a wild phrase. And I keep referring back to this police van that was, you know, torched in Brooklyn. And I saw the photo. I'm in Mexico City, thousands of miles away. And I see these young, two young black women, fresh clothes style, and they're posing in front of the police van. And one of the sisters is holding up a sign that says fuck white supremacy. And I swear, it's like one of the most inspiring images I've ever seen in my life. You know what I mean? I had a couple friends, black friends, who were like, ah, that's chasing

• 1:44:02Speaker 01

  clout. Oh, kids these days, they'll say anything. And I was like, no, it's crazy that these girls, these young women could have done anything. They could have like, done any pose. You know, I mean, sisters got poses for days. And when it came time for them to like, take a photo in front of this burning police car, they held up a sign that said, white, fuck white supremacy. That's crazy. Like, you couldn't say fuck white supremacy six months ago. People don't even know what that means. Like, white supremacy wasn't even like, a discussed concept. And so if, if understanding white supremacy as a concept is, has entered our national dialogue,

• 1:44:46Speaker 01

  and we're able to work on that, that, that just wasn't even happening just a short time ago. I mean, the fact that Merriam, you know, Webster changed the definition of racism this week. Oh, they did? I don't even know that. That's crazy. How did it change? It's too crazy. It was like a sister just woke up one day. Oh, I guess she had been emailing them, you know? And I think the definition that they had was, the belief, racism is the belief that characteristics and all this kind of stuff determine who you are as a people, race, or these concepts. And she's like, this definition is off, you know? And she kept emailing

• 1:45:28Speaker 01

  them and emailing them. And then after all the events that we've seen around the world recently, they emailed her back. And they're like, you know, we took a second look at this definition. And, you know, it's not just this errant belief in like, race-based characteristics. Like even the, the situating of that definition.

• 1:45:46Speaker 01

  Is problematic. You gotta think about what this sister was doing because she must have just been sitting around with white coworkers. Like it's happening in every coffee break room around the country where white people are like, I'm not racist.

• 1:45:59Rich Roll?

  And then I, yeah, let me pull up the definition and read it to you.

• 1:46:01Speaker 01

  Remember that, remember when people used to, well, look it up in the dictionary. The belief that, you know, that, that's not me.

• 1:46:10Rich Roll?

  So they changed it to, to, how did, what was the change?

• 1:46:14Speaker 01

  The change is like, it's, it's more complex. Like it's like brings in again, sort of what we were just talking about in terms of like the nuanced, um, the nuanced forces that affect a person's view of, of seeing race in that way, rather than just like some erroneous view that if it didn't apply to you, you know, it's almost like, um, it's almost like Buddhism, right? Like Buddhism doesn't care if you believe in it or not. It's just the way the world is put together, you know, four noble truths and, and all that kind of stuff. So I think updating the definition of racism and taking it away from this idea that like, it's an idea that exists out there that a person can subscribe to or not.

• 1:46:57Speaker 01

  And if it doesn't, if they think it doesn't apply to them, then they're absolved of being a racist. It's like recognizing that racism is a social force that is affecting people rather than a belief that you can.

• 1:47:10Rich Roll?

  Irrespective of your individual perspective on it.

• 1:47:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just couldn't think about like the practicalities of how this woman.

• 1:47:16Rich Roll?

  That's huge.

• 1:47:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it was just this one sister who just was like, to whom I make a start.

• 1:47:21Rich Roll?

  I'm not taking this anymore.

• 1:47:22Speaker 01

  Info at Merriam Webster like, and yeah, it was crazy. So that's wild. Like, well, look it up in the dictionary, you know, like for every. No, then I was realized, I was like, oh, that's what was going on. She was like sick of like working at Radio, not Radio Shack, but like sick of probably working on these dudes who was just like, I'm not racist. Look it up.

• 1:47:43Rich Roll?

  Wow. The imagery and the filmmaking that's going on right now is so extraordinary. You know, and it's almost like a day doesn't go by where there's a new clip of this person doing that, whether it's behaving badly or behaving courageously. And, you know, it's so impactful and powerful and indelible, the power of, you know, these phones that we have in our pocket to chronicle this moment so comprehensively and the impact of that on our kind of national and individual psyche. And I'm interested in, I think I already know the answer to this, but, you know, how

• 1:48:24Rich Roll?

  that leaves you, like on some level, this is not new, like this has been going on for a long time, but for whatever reason, it's entered our consciousness because of the rapid fire nature of these recent tragic events that were depicted in a way that made them, you know, irrefutable, like they demanded that we pay attention to what's happening. And when you hear about, you know, whether it's the definition of racism in the dictionary getting changed, or people taking to the streets, like change is happening and there is this sense that we are living in a very historic moment of promise and opportunity. And personally, that gives me hope.

• 1:49:09Rich Roll?

  And I know there's people out there like Ta-Nehisi Coates, who are expressing hopefulness around this. I listened to a podcast with him recently with Ezra Klein, in which he expressed that. I mean, do you share that? Or how do you kind of project into the near and far future about how this is gonna unfold?

• 1:49:26Speaker 01

  Well, Coates is an interesting example, because he actually sees his own work as a pivot from the Obama era optimism, where Obama says, Obama said that the moral arc of the universe bent towards justice.

• 1:49:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. The moral, I think the moral arc of the universe is long, but it-

• 1:49:47Speaker 01

  Bent towards justice, right?

• 1:49:48Rich Roll?

  Or eventually, or something like that, yeah.

• 1:49:50Speaker 01

  Coates is like, it bends towards confusion, you know what I mean? And that's a scary concept, but I think that what we see in his work, and what I think we see in this moment now is- A falling of the scales from our eyes. And I think that this is an opportunity for us to really see things as they are, you know, and really grasp hold of that and not what, you know, mainstream media is telling us by the time it gets it, but what we're actually like, what we know to be true. And that's, that's, that is a leap of faith, right? You

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  know, but I think that this is our chance to see beyond the speeches that politicians are making. This is our chance to think a little bit beyond what our mainstream media is telling us. And what does it mean for us? And strangely, this opportunity has been a reset on so many levels, but it's been a reset on like my mindfulness practice. And going back to the beginnings of that, and then just thinking about the ways in which a mindfulness practice helps us just think of things more clearly, you know? It's interesting,

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  you know, you kind of think that meditation is like about, hey, come a guru on a mountaintop or something like that. But I've been reading and hearing some things lately that it's like, it's not even about this nirvana state of an empty mind. It's actually about more practical than that in some ways. And it's about like, being able to navigate thoughts and like, see things clearly. And I think that, that's a tremendous gift that, that is at our disposal right now to, to, to work through. And I think that kind of work on a personal level is what's gonna equip all of us to, to kind of work our way through.

• 1:51:50Speaker 01

  And that's what we're seeing in the comment section, right? To take it from like, a spiritual idea down to like, a super- You know, absurd example, but before you might see all comments sort of unified. But now, if you're seeing all these kind of disparate voices, you're seeing like the fragmentation of people thinking their way through it in the past few weeks, you know? In 1992, rioting was bad, or why would these people burn their own neighborhood? Well, in Los Angeles, it was an update of 92, they weren't burning their own neighborhood, right? It was like a strategic move to burn non-black neighborhoods.

• 1:52:31Speaker 01

  The conversation that's happening with white people about like the difference between protesting, peaceful protesting, looting, and rioting, that's an interesting conversation to have instead of just kind of like watching your TV screen glow in the night and like, kind of like making assumptions.

• 1:52:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:52:50Speaker 01

  On what you think it is.

• 1:52:51Rich Roll?

  Right. Without understanding that that choices are being made about which images you're being presented and they're being contextualized in a certain way.

• 1:52:59Speaker 01

  And that that happened to me, though, you know, like the day, the day after Minneapolis first started to burn, I got on Instagram and I saw this really wild footage of someone just driving down the road, holding their phone out, and it was just like block after block of devastation. Like on a cultural level, a pop cultural level, I couldn't, couldn't, I couldn't, it was just like blocks and blocks. And then it was posted with like no commentary. But it was posted by this amazing shop called Repair Lair. I followed him on Instagram because I think I must have read an article about him in Outside Magazine.

• 1:53:39Speaker 01

  And it was this cool, I think a cool, young couple, cool, young people who are, have a business that repairs outdoors gear. You know what I mean? So there's a sustainability mission, there's an access mission and all that kind of stuff. At the time, I wasn't really thinking about the providence and the handle. So I was just like, hey, I'm a follow, fan of this account. I think it's problematic that you're posting this, you know, or I'm disappointed that you would post it without any context, you know? Because their followers were outdoor supporters. And so there was so much condemnation of why would these people burn their own stores? And are you safe? And I was like, oh, man, you're on the wrong side of history with this. Little judgmental on my part, but reacting in the moment. And.

• 1:54:26Speaker 01

  Man, the owner really like got at me in the comments, you know, like it was really antagonistic and some of the other people and I don't engage in social media in terms of like going back and forth with people. I just one cup of coffee, you know, and kind of reacted.

• 1:54:41Speaker 01

  And so since then, I've like opened up a dialogue with the owner, with this woman and just try to like figure that out and, you know,

• 1:54:51Speaker 01

  thinking about how I could connect or we could connect and the outdoors world could connect with the rebuilding of urban devastation in Minneapolis, you know, like where the destruction of her shop is, is just a few blocks from where Brogan Graham lives, you know? And so,

• 1:55:13Speaker 01

  how can we kind of think about supporting small businesses as we build back our cities? And still continue our, our mission of like sustainability and access to the outdoors and all that kind of stuff. So I really think that, you know, important conversations, bridging that gap and, and, and reaching across that impasse, you know? Not only me acknowledging that maybe I was kind of like applying too much heavy pressure to someone who was like fearful of losing their business, but also being able to double back outside the chatter and make a connection. And then I'm just kind of like, among a lot of other things I'm thinking about is how I can connect with this woman and her business that like has a, has a great mission, you know?

• 1:55:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, it's that second piece, I think that's impactful that ties into the mindfulness. So you, you saw this, you got activated and despite your mindfulness practice, you found yourself reactive, but at least you were able to understand that you were being reactive and realize that there was actually an opportunity here and to reach across and, and to try to, you know, develop a little bit of brotherhood or unity, you know, where can we see eye to eye here, even though we may, may be perceiving this situation completely differently?

• 1:56:32Speaker 01

  Sure. Yeah. I mean, because like you gotta dance with a girl that brung you, you know what I mean? So I was thinking, how did I even get up there in the, in the first place? How was I following? I ended up unfollowing. I was like, I'm not even here for this convo, like, and I only got pulled back in when she kind of kept talking at me and I had to, had to come back and be like, you still talking? Thought about it again. Empathetically, and then I was just calling Brogan. I was like, yo, this business is right around the corner from you. You're the founder of November Project. Like, let's-

• 1:57:00Rich Roll?

  Has he, has he, that's cool. I've been, I've been, I've been talking to him a little bit, too.

• 1:57:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:05Rich Roll?

  You know, just getting his boots on the ground perspective on what's happening.

• 1:57:09Speaker 01

  It's amazing because, um, yeah. Again, I'm not doing any, any white dudes work for him. Black ally, all allies aren't created, like, all allies are equal, but some are more equal than others.

• 1:57:20Rich Roll?

  I am not here, this is the title of this podcast, is gonna be, I am not here to be your white knight, savior.

• 1:57:28Speaker 01

  A black, a black ally for a white guy is different from how a white guy gotta be an ally to a black dude. So for Brogan, it's been a little light. I've been just kinda like, hey, um-

• 1:57:39Rich Roll?

  He sent you those videos?

• 1:57:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's how he communicates. It's absurd. So you see one pop up and you're like, gotta like-

• 1:57:44Rich Roll?

  You're like, now I gotta make a video back.

• 1:57:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can't be around your lady, like, it's a weird love affair with this guy who's like, wearing some wild clothes. Um, but yeah, he was getting a little pressure. There was like, a, a, a real strong brother, a real strong voice in New Orleans, who was just like, going ham on November Project for co-opting an Ahmaud Arbery run.

• 1:58:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I know they found theirs, themselves in a little bit of a crosshairs with that.

• 1:58:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I was like, hey, Brogan, like, I didn't even wade in over there. I didn't just kinda like, yeah, light him up, brother. Like, cool. Double back to Brogan, like, hey, you good on it? That's kinda intense. And he's like, kinda gradually there. Or like, even if I'm not helping him, I'm like, listening, or even just tapping him on the shoulder, that like, hey, you're the founder, you've moved on in your life, and you're raising the kid, I'm raising a kid, but like, this is like, just dig on this conversation. He's like, yeah, cool. And then, three weeks later, his entire neighborhood is burning. Like, that was a wild kinda thing. I was like, hey, let's catch up sometime and like, talk about represent, black representation in November Project.

• 1:58:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:53Speaker 01

  And then like, three weeks later, he's like, we should have had that call.

• 1:59:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:01Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 1:59:03Rich Roll?

  Better late than never.

• 1:59:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know.

• 1:59:05Rich Roll?

  And nothing but love for Brogan.

• 1:59:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:07Rich Roll?

  He just sent me a T-shirt that he made. Well, I cajoled him into sending, making me one and sending it to me because he was doing it on Instagram, but it says, it's those hand spray painted T-shirts that he makes now, but it says Zoom Call Summer Camp.

• 1:59:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:59:23Rich Roll?

  I was like, I gotta rock that.

• 1:59:24Speaker 01

  Just as painful as the November Project session, I'm sure. That's, that's crazy. I don't understand why people want to be in November Project anyway. Like, black people complained and I was like, your arms are sore. Like, why? If it's not representative, like, that's cool. Like, just, that's fine. November Project is hard.

• 1:59:42Rich Roll?

  It is hard.

• 1:59:43Speaker 01

  It's like.

• 1:59:44Rich Roll?

  I've only done one.

• 1:59:45Speaker 01

  Not every, right, same. That's what I'm saying. I was like, Brogan, let's just be friends because I ain't never come into your thing. So, when black people are mad about it, I want to pull them to the side, like, let it.

• 1:59:54Rich Roll?

  You don't want to do that anyway?

• 1:59:55Speaker 01

  We gonna dig a fish to fry.

• 1:59:59Rich Roll?

  All right, man. Well, let's, uh, let's land this plane.

• 2:00:05Rich Roll?

  How do we end this? I mean, you know, I think it would be good to just recap, maybe just share, you know, some final parting thoughts about, you know, how we move forward in the best way. And, you know, not, not to harp on this allyship thing, but I really do want to, you know, use this platform, you know, for good and to, you know, be part of the solution to this problem. And I just, I want to explore every possible way that I can do that. And having you here to speak to that has been super helpful to me. So, thank you for that. And, you know, maybe just share a couple of quick, quick thoughts to round it out.

• 2:00:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I know I'm wildly discursive all over the place, but I just, I keep, I keep coming back to this idea of love. So, I know that's super obvious and basic and people have talked about it from time, but, um, Ahmaud Arbery's best friends say that it was weird. Every time he would like leave from hanging out, he would say like, I love you, man. And he wouldn't leave until they said it. And these are like, young brothers sitting around in rural Georgia at the car wash leaving work, you know, and like. That's like a really insane and rigorous practice to do.

• 2:01:21Speaker 01

  So when I called up all these brothers and told them I loved them, it was like rigorous from my end. It was, it was tough, you know, to reach out. And man, for all the mistakes that I've made, and then I'm going to continue to make as soon as I walk out this door,

• 2:01:45Speaker 01

  I just want to keep thinking about love. And, and I, and I, and I wish that, I would hope that this would be a moment for people to reset and reflect on what that is, you know? And for all the little microaggressions that we engage in, or all the times that we take around chit chat, and anytime we just, you know, serve as a detractor to someone else for no reason,

• 2:02:19Speaker 01

  all these things are adding up to this giant feeling of, of psychic pain that you can just feel, whether you're feeling it in America's cities or you're feeling it in Amon Arbery's killers. Like, how abject were these guys that they went into like seek and destroy mode? You know what I mean? Like, it's not too early to kind of think about the spiritual poverty, the imaginative poverty that racists feel. You know what I mean?

• 2:02:59Speaker 01

  So if, if we can kind of at least consider what an ethic of love looks and feels like, if we can just kind of like reset and refer back to those basic civics that maybe we thought we were going to pursue as we got older, that's really what I'm thinking about. And I, and I'm thinking about that honestly, in like a really corny kind of social media way. Like, it's okay to be.

• 2:03:29Speaker 01

  Like a white ally with, you know, 1,047 followers and like, here's the list and you're like banging on at white people. But if then you're like going and getting in the DMs and like detracting from someone else. If you're the purveyor of suspicion or innuendo or, you know, kind of things like, you gotta think if our own white supremacy is uninvestigated until very recently, and that's black people, like, black people have a social sickness that we've inherited from 400 years of experience in this country. So, everybody is, is on the docket right now to investigate our own internalized white supremacy.

• 2:04:13Speaker 01

  Every time you drag in somebody and everyone, you're engaged in a little bit of chit chat. Every time you're sort of, kind of like appropriating and every time you're doing all the little things, you know, it's not just racist jokes that you're kind of telling, you know, they're in the break room. It's like all the little, small things that are up for investigation. Like, the world doesn't become any less boring because you're not like the funny person telling racist jokes. And your world doesn't become any less interesting when you kind of like fall back from engaging in gossip and innuendo, you know? So, I just think that for me, that's what I've been trying to consider.

• 2:04:58Speaker 01

  And that's individual work. You're not gonna get a pat on the back for that. If you stop that, no one's gonna know. You know what I mean? Like, if you stop being a racist, the only people who are gonna know are your racist friends. So, I'm sorry to tell all the allies, the aspirational allies out there, it ain't no medals. You know what I mean? It ain't no podium kind of thing. You see, even the white dude was on there with the podium and with Giancarlo's and he just, they didn't even give him a glove, whatever. He's like, "It's two gloves, bro." You know what I mean? Everything, you know, it's funny thinking about white people. Every time you post a photo of John Carlos or and Tommy Smith, there's always a white guy from New Zealand who got to jump in and like, unless we forget.

• 2:05:45Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I guess I, I guess I just would have kind of think about that with like a namaste type of vibe of things, you know?

• 2:05:55Rich Roll?

  Well, that's beautiful.

• 2:05:56Speaker 01

  Speaking of appropriation, shout out to the brothers and sisters.

• 2:06:01Rich Roll?

  All those Hindus out there are very upset with you. Right. I love you, man. Thank you so much.

• 2:06:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:09Rich Roll?

  I appreciate your openness and honesty and vulnerability today. It meant a lot to me that you came all the way out here to share with me. So I appreciate you and I look forward to spending more time with you, man.

• 2:06:21Speaker 01

  I love you very much as well, yo.

• 2:06:22Rich Roll?

  Get some running done too. So, thank you.

• 2:06:24Speaker 01

  Thank you very much for this opportunity, just to kind of like share in that, the energy.

• 2:06:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it was good, man. It was good. You feel all right?

• 2:06:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel excellent.

• 2:06:31Rich Roll?

  Good.

• 2:06:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:06:33Rich Roll?

  If people are digging on Knox, easiest, best way to find them at First Run on Instagram? Is that where you want to direct people? Anything else going on you want to let people know about?

• 2:06:41Speaker 01

  No, man, it's just, uh, big things are kind of coming up as, you know, kind of, uh, building this place in Mexico.

• 2:06:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, keep me posted on that.

• 2:06:49Speaker 01

  Kind of moving to some, some new projects to, to share with folks to kind of participate in these ideas that we've shared too. So I've definitely been using this time to kind of go back to my own drawing board. So I'm really looking forward to things from here on out to, to share.

• 2:07:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool, man. Thank you.

• 2:07:05Speaker 01

  All right, thank you.

• 2:07:06Rich Roll?

  Peace. Blance.

• 2:07:08Speaker 01

  Namaste.

• 2:07:13Rich Roll?

  That man is a gem. I love Knox, probably one of the coolest people I know, hands down. Be sure to hit him up on Instagram. You can find him at First Run. Please check out the show notes for copious resources on all matters discussed today. And if you would like to support our work, subscribe, rate and comment on it on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify and on YouTube. If you'd like to support our work here on the show, subscribe, rate and comment on it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. It's also very helpful when you share the show or your favorite episodes with friends or on social media. And you can support us on Patreon at ritual.com/donate. I appreciate my team who works very hard every week to put on the show. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production,

• 2:07:56Rich Roll?

  show notes and interstitial music. Blake Curtis for videoing today's show. Jessica Morana for graphics. Georgia Whaley for copywriting. Ally Rogers for portraits. DK for advertising, relationships and theme music by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt and Hari Mathis. Thanks a lot. Love you guys. See you back here in a couple of days with another, what's next? I think we're gonna do an AMA Ask Me Anything. I'm back with Adam midweek this week, continuing in the series that we started just like two weeks ago, I think. I'm excited about that. So until then, be well. Peace. Plants. Namaste.