--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hello? Johnny, can you hear me?
--:-- Johnny: I can hear you just fine, yeah.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Your phone came up as "Today Explained." Isn't that cool? As if that's a person.
--:-- Johnny: Yeah, that's like really cool.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It didn't say anything about Quip electric toothbrushes, did it?
--:-- Johnny: No, that was kind of inferred, you know, with the whole thing.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I didn't even have to see it to know.
--:-- Johnny: Where are you right now?
--:-- Johnny: I'm on a ferry that is loaded with people coming back from a little island, from a little island here near Hong Kong.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Holy smokes. I want to hear all about what you're seeing, what you're hearing, what you're doing.
--:-- Johnny: Oh, man. I'll just tell you this. It has a lot to do with buns.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Buns?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Tyler Tynes, staff writer at SB Nation, the NFL announced today that it will fine teams if players kneel during the national anthem.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: So what exactly did the NFL say?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The NFL made it very clear they had a six-point stance for the 32-member clubs. Unanimously, all the owners voted this in.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: They said that all team and league personnel on the field shall stand and show respect for the anthem.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: We don't know what that means.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The game operations manual will be revised to show this.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: A person who chooses not to stand for the anthem can stay in the locker room or a similar location off the field.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: A club is going to be fined by the league if its personnel are on the field do not stand and show respect for the anthem.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Each club can develop its own work rules.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: So they're making their own workplace rules now.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: So it's like the league will impose a fine, but it's up to the team to then decide how they kind of want to go about this.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And then lastly, the commissioner is going to impose appropriate discipline as the league sees it on league personnel who also do not stand and show respect for the flag of the anthem.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: So is it already written in stone or do teams have to sign on to this or has that already happened?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: It's final. It'll be updated for the next season as soon as football starts.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: As soon as any organized NFL football starts, this rule is on the books.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: It is likely going to happen by preseason, so August.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Okay. And this just happened a couple hours ago.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: But have players said anything? Have the players' union come out and said anything about this?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The players' union has come out and basically said that the NFL didn't choose to consult the union with the development of the new policy.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so the representatives for players in the league, they weren't consulted for this at all.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so if the players don't have representation to see exactly what this alleged compromise is going to be that the NFL is positing, there's no actuality here, right?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Like it's what the league has decided. It's what the league has mandated.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: It's what the majority white owners in the league have said is okay.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And the black players now have to follow this rule of law.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Were other rules being considered too?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Where did this fall in with the other rules they announced?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: I mean these are completely different than all the other rules.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: What are the other ones like?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: All the other rules are football rules, right? Like about kickoffs, about tackling.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Okay. I mean, like very simple rules for the game.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Did this all start with Colin Kaepernick?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: This is certainly not new.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: But what has happened and what has specifically come about is definitely different than anything we have seen in sports.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: So could you take us through the timeline of how this happened in the NFL?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: In the summer of 2016, there were already a gaggle of 60 to 80 players who were on different text message chains who were consistently saying after Philando Castile was murdered, after Alton Sterling was murdered, what could they do?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: What could they actually do to either do something on field or create substantive change?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so at that moment, Colin Kaepernick then in August in a preseason game started sitting.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And he sat for about two games and no one noticed except a black reporter named Steve Weishe at the NFL Network.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Okay, so it starts with Colin Kaepernick for two weeks sitting down.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: How does it then start to grow into like a more league-wide movement?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Every single week you have Kaepernick in a new city.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: You're seeing how that city reacts, how that owner reacts, how those coaches react, how those players react.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And it's a 17-week tour.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Colin Kaepernick's protest against racial injustice seems to be gaining traction.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: San Francisco 49ers quarterback knelt during the national anthem at the Niners-LA Rams game on Monday night.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: More and more players now start to join in.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Teammate Eric Reid joined him, and players on both teams raised fists in solidarity.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Now you have Megan Rapinoe who was one of the first women after the WNBA and one of the first white people to actually take a knee during athletic play
--:-- Tyler Tynes: You have NBA players who are linking arms even though it this non kind of show of respect
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And you have more players who are being forced to link arms, not only by teams, but also people putting up black power salutes, Malcolm Jenkins and Marcus Peters.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: You also have people who are sitting for the anthem, Michael Bennett, and the entire black offensive line of the Raiders.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And it is starting to change and morph into this moment where the NFL no longer has control over what they thought was controllable.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Just to be clear, how many owners of football teams in the NFL are black?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: No black ones. Zero.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: One person of color, Sid Khan, who owns the Jaguars.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: But even he was a very staunch Trump supporter, almost sent a million dollars to his campaign.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Got it.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Owners originally were like, no, this is corny. We don't like this. We don't agree with this. This is my workplace.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Black people, y'all are going to sit down.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: I'll go, listen to the rule of the law that's in my workplace that I own and operate.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: There were some speak here from Jeffrey Lurie and from Arthur Blank and from Christopher Johnson who owns the Jets.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And that's all well and good.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: But no one was risking their money to stand with what black people had always been saying.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so that was the problem.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: So owners didn't have control.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And then it kind of broke out into the next year once Callan Kaepernick had been blackballed and he's no longer in the league.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: You still have Eric Reid.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: You still have Kenny Stills.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: You still have, you know, dozens of players who are willing to speak out.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And this is 2017.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: 2017, more or less.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Donald Trump is now president.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Donald Trump is now on a stage in September in Alabama using profane language to explain these black players and these kneelers and these black football players who are dissenting the status quo.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners when somebody disrespects our flag to say, get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out. He's fired.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And then just after that, the president sends the vice president to a game with sort of what feels like the intention to walk out of the game during this.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Exactly.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: It was a fraud.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so the NFL had what we at SB Nation have dubbed the Day of Reckoning.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The president went to the White House at the same week Vice President Pence went to the Colts game and actively saw the Pittsburgh Penguins who said they weren't going to do anything political.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And basically made the point of saying this is exactly how you're supposed to have a professional team.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: They're supposed to listen to the rule of law.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: They're not supposed to make political statements.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so it started really a six to nine week expanse of everybody kind of deciding how they were going to do this with Kaepernick removed from the league.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Eric Reid and others were still kneeling.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Owners were trying to link arms the weekend after the president said that to show that this day of reckoning was possible and that it was coming to a head in the NFL.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so at that point, we were seeing the continuation of what we always see with black protests, the teeth being pulled from the protest and basically it being play action to something completely different.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Talking about unity, talking about things that are not the actual ills that black people have been pointing out for decades at this point.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so how does this the 2017-2018 season end?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: I mean, I know Philly wins the Super Bowl and you're probably happy about that.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Excited.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: But what happens with the NFL? Where does this issue stand at the end of the season?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: So that's kind of almost in the middle of where we are now, whereas you still had five to ten people, players who were kneeling by the end of the regular season.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And the NFL came down with a $90 million resolution from the Players Coalition, Malcolm Jenkins and Anquan Bolden, that said, we are going to put money on the books as an organization to fight for the things that you want in social justice.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: I think you also have to put this in the context of looking at just over the last year or two what the league, the clubs and the players, how working together, some of the great, great progress we've made on the underlying issues that the players were protesting and really making a big difference in their communities on social justice issues.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: We don't really know what that means.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The ESPN reporters that have reported this out said it was not a quid pro quo, even though many people in the league believe it was.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so you have one part of the league, the Eric Reid's, the more radical part of the league, who are saying, we need more money than that if we're going to need your money.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And really we need this platform
--:-- Tyler Tynes: On the other side you have Malcolm Jenkins and Anquan Bolden who are saying at least we done something
--:-- Tyler Tynes: We don't need to keep kneeling
--:-- Tyler Tynes: We don't need to keep protesting
--:-- Tyler Tynes: It's created this division in the league where there's so many players caught in the in-between who don't know what to do or what faction to side with
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Which leads us now to May where we've been discussing what will come after the money.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: So the money's here and owners are now like, OK, how do we get them to stop kneeling?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Roger Goodell has said numerous times on record at Bloomberg, at press conferences, how do we get them to stop kneeling?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so that's where we're at now, where the assumption is that the gatekeepers believe that order has been restored.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Did President Trump just win then?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: I mean, yeah, like, you'd be foolish to think that Donald Trump didn't win.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Donald Trump said, this needs to stop.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And the NFL said, nope, you're right.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: After the break on Today Explained, why this could all only happen in the NFL.
--:-- Johnny: Johnny, you are in Hong Kong on a ferry, coming back from an island. There are lots of buns.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tell me more.
--:-- Johnny: So there is a festival here in Hong Kong it basically entails building towers of buns and I mean 9 000 buns and um these towers are then used as a sport for people to climb them and acquire as many buns as they can and put them in a bag that is on their back and some buns are worth more than others.
--:-- Johnny: The ones at the top are worth a ton.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Anyway, they all scrambled to do this, and it is quite the sight.
--:-- Johnny: Have you brushed your teeth in Hong Kong yet?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I haven't. No, I actually got right off the plane and then jumped on a ferry.
--:-- Johnny: So I have not even been able to brush my teeth.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But I'm jet-logged. I could easily just go back and fall asleep, but I'm probably going to pull up my Quip and give a little brushing to all four quadrants of my teeth.
--:-- Johnny: And that's with the Quip electric toothbrush that you got at getquip.com slash explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It starts at $25.
--:-- Johnny: You upgrade it to a chrome brush, and at some point in the future, we'll get a free refill or something.
--:-- Johnny: Yeah, apparently they're going to send me a free refill.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Hey, Sean. Ezra Klein, I thought you were on book leave.
--:-- Ezra Klein: What are you doing here?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What is this great music?
--:-- Ezra Klein: I am glad to be here.
--:-- Ezra Klein: I'm here just for a special one-day, two-day-only engagement.
--:-- Ezra Klein: And that great music, that is the theme music for Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Like today Explained?
--:-- Ezra Klein: No, no, no, no. No today. Just Explained.
--:-- Ezra Klein: It is our brand new, unreasonably good TV show on Netflix.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Netflix?
--:-- Ezra Klein: It launched today.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You have to watch it.
--:-- Ezra Klein: Okay. What can I expect?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: These are 15-minute episodes of Vox's amazing video team doing what they do best.
--:-- Ezra Klein: Like explaining the stuff that matters most?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Nailed it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Okay. What episodes can people expect first?
--:-- Ezra Klein: So we launched today with episodes on designer DNA, the racial wealth gap, and wait for it, monogamy.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Monogamy.
--:-- Ezra Klein: I'm in.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Explained. It is right now on Netflix.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You put in Explained. You will find it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: These are great. You will enjoy it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I promise.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today. Today Explained. Today Explained.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: What were the other iterations? What were the other solutions the NFL considered?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Completely getting rid of the anthem?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Really?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: That was on the table?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: There was a world where before 2009 The anthem wasn't playing before games and stadiums
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Before this $53 million pact with the Department of Defense
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And the planes flying over stadiums
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And the pageantry
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And all this crap that has come into our stadiums
--:-- Tyler Tynes: I mean, we weren't playing the anthem
--:-- Tyler Tynes: It now is
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so one option is just getting rid of it completely.
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Or playing it and making sure the players are in the locker room beforehand, that they not in the sidelines
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Did the owners ever explicitly say like look we have to fix this because the president talking about it
--:-- Tyler Tynes: They did right
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The New York Times said they obtained audio a few months ago and the owner of the Patriots Bobby Kraft pointed to the elephant in the room
--:-- Tyler Tynes: He said the kneeling
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And he said the problem we have is that we have a president who will use his fodder to do his mission that I don't feel as though we're in the best interest of America
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Like, yes, Donald Trump will continue to attack the NFL if they don't do his bidding
--:-- Tyler Tynes: That's absolutely true
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The difference is we're here because somebody black decided that something was wrong
--:-- Tyler Tynes: These missives have to be given to the entirety of the world
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so once he does that and once Trump strikes out against that, we can't forget that we are here because racism is a problem
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Like the too long don't read version of this is guys
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Hey, racism is a problem
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Has something like this ever happened before in American professional sports?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: So this is the thing that we kind of forget when we look at the NFL
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The assumption is that everything they're doing is revolutionary, and that's not the truth
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The NBA, after Mahmoud Abdurraouf, put a policy in the same place to say that, you know, it costs you $25,000 if you don't stand and respect
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The difference is that, obviously, the NBA has done a little bit more to kind of cater an environment where their athletes are able to speak up a little bit more
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And it's more player-driven than the NFL
--:-- Tyler Tynes: So this has happened before
--:-- Tyler Tynes: We just care more so now because of how the optics are and what's combined with how it's happening in the NFL
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Why did this happen in football?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Football is the sport where we're like all hitting each other and whatnot
--:-- Tyler Tynes: I mean, when did it become so sacred
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Football has always been sacred, right?
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Like football is one of the religions of the United States
--:-- Tyler Tynes: It is a part of the DNA of what Americans are since football has kind of begun since the 20th century
--:-- Tyler Tynes: This is America's true pastime, not baseball
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so if you're messing with the sanctity of a church, the zealots have something to say
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The NFL can't move on if it has a Kaepernick
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The NBA can't move on if it has a Kaepernick
--:-- Tyler Tynes: It happened in football because basketball has decided, in the macro sense, they're too progressive for something like this to happen
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Their players have said they're not going to kneel
--:-- Tyler Tynes: They don't need to kneel
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Our audience understands it
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The NHL is too traditionalist
--:-- Tyler Tynes: The MLB is much too white
--:-- Tyler Tynes: And so of the major four sports, this could only happen in the way that it happens in the NFL
--:-- Tyler Tynes: Because it's not only using a majority of black talent as being entertained to a majority of white audiences
--:-- Tyler Tynes: But no other league fills itself or has been so far down the hole where they actually have to reckon with something like this
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Tyler Tynes writes about the intersection of race, politics, and sports for SB Nation.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I'm Sean Ramos-Furham.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is Today Explained.
--:-- Johnny: Johnny, before we leave you in Hong Kong, and hopefully we can check in again tomorrow, but what's next apart from brushing your teeth probably at some point?
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Yes, of course.
--:-- Johnny: So tomorrow I'm going to go explore some of the housing in Hong Kong.
--:-- Johnny: I'm going to look at the big housing towers, and then I'm going to go into some of the smallest houses you've ever imagined.
--:-- Johnny: People literally live in houses the size of coffins.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And so I'm going to go talk to those people, talk about their lives, what they're facing, and I'll make sure to return and report.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Great.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I can't wait to hear all about it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So I guess we'll check in with you again.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Shoutouts to Quip Electric Toothbrushes for sponsoring the show.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Shoutouts to whatever ferry you're on right now and the Bun Festival.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You should go.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Do yourself a favor, listeners of the podcast, and go just type Bun Festival Hong Kong and feast your eyes on this spectacle.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: On Google.com, but also go to getquipped.com slash explained and check out the toothbrushes.
